This cracked me up and I thought maybe some of you here would appreciate it. I wasn't directly involved, but I would have given a week's pay to have been there and seen the look on the faces of those concerned...

You see, a couple of teenage boys here in Auckland decided to steal some canoes and a dinghy from someone's property. The cunning plan was to paddle away on two of the canoes, towing the rest, out of one bay and around the corner into the next.

Unfortunately our young geniuses neglected to steal the paddles, so they set off paddling with some giant broken-up pieces of plastic which they found somewhere. Just to *really* avoid looking suspicious, they weren't wearing lifejackets, which everyone in Auckland knows are compulsory if you're in a canoe. Also, they wisely decided to stage this whole expedition in broad daylight.

It was just such a shame that, at the very moment their little flotilla got out of the bay, virtually the **entire** Police and Coastguard fleet of the greater Auckland district was going past on their way to an unrelated exercise.

The best part was the kids genuinely thought the whole thing was about them. And, needless to say, nobody disillusioned them.

Brunnen-"ROTFL for at least the next week"G