My first missionary companion in the field used to share this "joke" with me every time he'd see an airplane in the sky. Since he was a couple of inches taller than me and weighed several dozen pounds more than me, my response was nothing like Elder Van Dyke's.
With my last companion (since our mission ended the same time) we burned about a dozen CDs with about a dozen different arrangements of the song "I'm leaving on a jetplane" on it and then we handed them out to all the greenies :)
ReplyDeleteSince this was finally a bit different than the "how far is that airplane?" question which they already heard about a million times by that time, most of them had a pretty good laugh about our little gift :) I have to admit though that since my comp was about 6'4" and I was 6'6" and we both weighed about 300lbs at the time, I suspect that their smile was probably a little fake :)
G-Dog, I love your story. Although, I suspect I wouldn't have liked it so much had I been one of those greenies.
DeleteMy first companion used to do this kind of stuff as well. I think he was a relatively unhappy missionary and his few months left must have seemed like an eternity. I was just as happy to see him get on that airplane as he was.
ReplyDeleteYour explanation of this gag makes me wonder how many of your companions you've recreated as smaller, nerdier versions of themselves.
ReplyDeleteLet that be a lesson to the rest of you: never pick a fight with a cartoonist--he can always draw a loser version of you 20 years later.
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