{"id":118516,"date":"2014-01-17T00:50:46","date_gmt":"2014-01-16T19:20:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=118516"},"modified":"2014-01-24T13:47:17","modified_gmt":"2014-01-24T08:17:17","slug":"the-tourist-in-the-chicken-coop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-tourist-in-the-chicken-coop\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tourist In The Chicken Coop"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0B<\/b>y Gongalay Gotabanda<\/span><\/a> –<\/b><\/p>\n

\"Gongalay<\/a>

Gongalay Gotabanda<\/p><\/div>\n

Once upon a time, on a sunny morning in Sri Rogerpakistan, a man looked out of the window and saw a tourist inside his chicken coop. So the man went to the bedroom where his wife was still asleep and woke her.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a tourist in the chicken coop\u201d he said, \u201cand I think he is hatching an international conspiracy!\u201d<\/p>\n

His wife opened one angry eye and looked at him.<\/p>\n

\u201cTourism has been completely defeated\u201d she said. \u201cThere are no longer any tourists in Sri Rogerpakistan…not even the ones who went around waving white bed sheets!\u201d<\/p>\n

So the man walked out slowly into the garden and went towards the chicken coop. The tourist was still there.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you a tourist or a state tourist?\u201d the man asked. \u201cI\u2019m a tourist, and I\u2019m hatching an international conspiracy using NGO money to bring the government of Sri Rogerpakistan into disrepute!\u201d the tourist replied.<\/p>\n

So the man walked back into the house and roused his wife again. \u201cThe tourist is hatching an international conspiracy using NGO money to bring the government of Sri Rogerpakistan into disrepute!\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

His wife sat up in bed and looked at him coldly.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are an unpatriotic traitor who doesn\u2019t love his country or the beloved Royal family,\u201d she said, \u201cand I\u2019m going to have you arrested under the POT (Prevention of Tourism act).\u201d<\/p>\n

The man who was a patriot, who didn\u2019t boast about it to anyone, thought for a moment. \u201cWe shall see about that,\u201d he said. Then he walked back towards the chicken coop to watch the tourist. But the tourist had vanished! Maybe a \u2018White Unidentified Four-wheeled Object\u2019 (WUFO) would had made him vanish thought the man.<\/p>\n

The wife got up and dressed as fast as she could. She was very excited, thinking about the reward she would get for capturing a traitor. So she hung the national flag from the window (the correct way not upside down like Jeffrey Dobbs did), screamed \u2018maathrooboomeyata jayawaywaa\u2019 and telephoned the Peacekeepers and the Minister of POT and told them to hurry to her house as soon as possible!<\/p>\n

When the Peacekeepers and the Minister of POT arrived, they sat down and looked at her with great interest.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy husband,\u201d she said, \u201csaw a tourist inside our chicken coop this morning!\u201d<\/p>\n

The Peacekeepers looked at the Minister of POT, and the Minister of POT looked at the Peacekeepers.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe told me that the tourist was hatching an international conspiracy using NGO money!\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The Minister of POT looked at the Peacekeepers, and the Peacekeepers looked at the Minister of POT.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe told me the tourist was planning on bringing disrepute on the government of Sri Rogerpakistan!\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

At a signal from the Minister of POT, the Peacekeepers leapt into action and seized the wife. She put up a terrific struggle, but they finally got her under control, just as the husband came back from the chicken coop.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you tell your wife you saw a tourist in the chicken coop?\u201d asked the Minister of POT.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course not,\u201d said the husband. \u201cTourism has been completely defeated and there are no longer any tourists on Sri Rogerpakistan…not even the ones who went around waving white bed sheets!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s all I wanted to hear,\u201d said the Minister of POT. \u201cTake her away. I\u2019m sorry sir, but your wife is a threat to national security and we have to rehabilitate her!\u201d<\/p>\n

So they took her away, cursing and screaming and locked her up in a \u201cWelfare Holiday Camp\u201d under the POT act.\u2019<\/p>\n

And so the husband lived happily ever after.<\/p>\n

The Moral of the story:<\/b><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t count your international conspiracies before they are hatched.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":117892,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,46,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-constitutional-reforms","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Tourist In The Chicken Coop - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-tourist-in-the-chicken-coop\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Tourist In The Chicken Coop - Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[…]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-tourist-in-the-chicken-coop\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-01-16T19:20:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-01-24T08:17:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/GG.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"232\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"258\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-tourist-in-the-chicken-coop\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-tourist-in-the-chicken-coop\/\",\"name\":\"The Tourist In The Chicken Coop - 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