Hard-Won Wisdom

When I was younger, before I’d discovered Wizard Water^©, I thought I’d seek my fortune by hunting gold. Panning in rivers was too cold and wet, though, and mining was too full of rocks. I settled on looking for buried treasure.

Rumor had it an old miner who’d died up in the hills had buried all his gold in a box somewhere near his cabin. Well I made my way up there, and noticed a big oak tree in a field within full view of his cabin, so that’s where I dug. Before long, my spade hit something hard. Just then I heard a loud snort, and felt hot breath on the back of my neck. I turned around to see a bull as big as a locomotive looking down at me.

I threw a spade-full of soil in his face, then lit up the tree. I reached safety, but that spade-full did nothing to improve the bull’s mood. He stood guard by that oak tree for the next three days and nights. I survived on bird’s eggs, acorns and rainwater. The bull pawed the ground around the tree so much that he exposed most of the buried box. Finally, a traveling preacher happened by. I promised him a hefty donation to his church if he’d help out. He ran to town, but the help he brought back also required payment. When I got back to town with the box, the sheriff reminded me of some fees I owed. So did the county judge. There was barely enough gold left to replace the pants I ripped when climbing up the tree.

So I learned a hard lesson: There is no quick way to riches – you always have to deal with some bull.

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Wizard Water as an Engine Additive

A warning for boiler operators: Wizard Water^© should be used with great caution in steam engines! I was travelling by train from Savannah to Atlanta a couple years ago when a woman who was in the family way began to go into labor. Knowing that the train was still a good six hours from Atlanta, the lady’s husband importuned me to assist in delivery. I agreed, for the price of one bottle of Wizard Water^©.

Upon payment, I immediately left the woman and took the bottle of Wizard Water^© to the engine car. I poured its contents into the boiler. The locomotive picked up speed and arrived in Atlanta within 30 minutes! The woman’s personal physician was waiting at the station, and he safely delivered to her a healthy baby girl. The parents expressed to me their extreme gratitude.

This so impressed the engineer that he bought my entire supply of Wizard Water^©. I warned him to use it sparingly.

Unfortunately, the engineer disregarded my advice. I later heard that the train broke the speed record for the Savannah-Atlanta run, but was unable to slow down at stations or for stray cattle. One stationmaster who had the wits to observe the secondhand on his pocketwatch estimated that the locomotive reached an unprecedented 91 miles per hour as it roared through town, just before it jumped the track. The United States Postal Service sued the train’s owner for misdelivery of mail, and several farmers also sued for the replacement of some prize bulls and a long stretch of fence. The engineer lost his job. I had to leave the state for a while.

Let this be a lesson to engineers and boiler operators alike! I deeply regret belated mail delivery and the loss of farm life through misuse of my product. (It's nice to know, however, that somewhere in Atlanta there is a little girl who bears the middle name of “Doc”.)

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