The Battle of Glencoe

Sometimes in life its better to just forget stuff. Like maybe all the dumb things you ever did. Like that pile of etoll bills that keeps growing. Maybe even Forget to go to work every now and then.

But some people never forget anything.

Recently I was in “The Grumpy Goat” in Scotland . One beer lead to another. We did a Scottish Mazurka.  On the tables. The polish barman got upset, so we had to stop that. We decided to have a caber tossing contest instead. Now This is a traditional Scottish event, but its sad how cultural details get lost in the sands of time, because none of use know what a caber was. So we used a pole instead. The only pole we could find was the barman.

I am always a toastmaster, its in me. So my role for the evening was the toast. The toast was to the person who had tossed the barman the furthest.  So I did everything just right, and we all raised our glasses, and just then I realised I ddn’t know his name, so I said “whats your name?” he said “Angus McDonald”. And everyone drank heartily.

So angus  also decided to do a toas. he raises his glass and says, to the wee laddie from south Africa, whats your name?”

And I said, “Ian Campbell.” And I drank heartly.

It took me a while to realise I was the only one who had drunk. I also realised a deathly silence had fallen over the Grumpy Goat. The emphasis being on deathly.

Angus broke it. Did you say “Campbell?” Posisbly, I squeaked.

Clansmen, acampbellin our midst at last. Finally we can exact retribution the greatest wrong done  in Scottish history.

But let me fill you in on some background. On the ground round the back of the Grumpy Goat is a pile of rocks with a plaque on. Now if I had bothered, I would have read about the Massacre of Glencoe of 1750. And it was just my luck, Murphys Law, that the massacors happened to be the Campbell clan, and the Massacees the McDonalds.

It gets worse though. The victims in this so-called massacre were mostly women and children. who were sleeping at the time.

But, hey, these things should be viewed in context. These were highlanders. In those days even a sleeping Mcdonoald child was a formidable foe. You couldn’t be to careful. Anyway, the McDonalds felt it within their rights to call what was really a well matched battle which was won fair and square by the Campbells,  a massacre. Typical losers. I’m surprised they didn’t call it the holocaust.

Anyway, there I stood in the grumpy goat against 10 large battle scarred mcdonalds.

I decided to apply my toastmaster skills. My objectives were to motivate and persuade. I decided to appeal to their higher senses. I said, “ Come on now Angus, we only killed 38 of you. Big Deal. And those women weren’t the prettiest specimens anyway. We probably did you a favour.

But for some reason the mcdonalds got more angry. So much for toastmasters skills. In retrospect, it might have been that some of those McDonalds standing there might have been women, its hard to tell with the Scots.

Things were looking bleak for me. Then instinct took over. It seems that Thousands of years of battle of Campbells against  McDonalds had conditioned me genetically to deal with situations just  like this one.

I said to Angus, “Ok, lets do this. But as Scottish tradition dictates, I get to choose the weapons.” Fortunately the sands of time and a high acohol blood level seemed to have obscured Angus judgement, because he agreed.

So I reached for my weapon in my pocket and I pulled out .... a piece of A4 paper.

There was some confusion then, as all the McDonalds found they weren't properly equipped for the battle and  were now looking around for pieces of paper too. Things could have got interesting, but I wasn’t going to let them, I was going to finish this.

I handed the paper to Angus. He read “ancestral commission, scotland.  This is to certify that Ian Campbell is directly desceneded from Archibald Campbell, official Campbell CLan accountant in the year 1750.” Tasked with counting the loot. Not in any way involved in actually killing anyone.

Battle over.

But When I saw the look of disappointment that came over the mcdonalds  I almost regretted inflicting another resounding campbell victory. Or as they’ll no doubt say for the next 400 years, a massacre.

The lesson here is, do not be a Mcdonald in life. Do not be a loser. Forget the past and Take down that silly memorial. Forgive those who wronged you. And most importantly, no matter what evil things others did to you, Do not try to poison the world by starting a hamburger chain.

Click here to see Ian giving this speech at Greenside Toastmasters:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnbKH-sxtBU

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