Paddle or cheese board?

My friend Eliane gave me an olive-wood paddle for my birthday. Well, she insists that it was a cheese board, but it looked like a paddle to me. I did leave it in the kitchen, just in case I was mistaken all along, and it was a kitchen tool.

I suppose, the opinion that matters where implements are concerned, is Abel’s. It took a while for him to notice our new toy, but when he did, his eyes sparkled with delight. “What a beautiful paddle!” he said.

That decided matters. It was, in fact, a paddle, not a cheese board.

“We’ve got to try it,” said Abel. “Trousers down, bend over.”

I obeyed at once: elbows on the kitchen counter, bottom pushed out. Abel swung the paddle, cracked it against my bum – and, even as I admired its sting, I became aware of his giggling. “Well, that’s that, then,” he said, showing me the pieces of the paddle, which had split in two.

Later Abel wrote to Eliane to say how sorry he was for breaking her present.

“You are such a pervert!” came the response. “It was for use in the kitchen!”

“But it *was* used in the kitchen!” said Abel.

And that made him right, of course.