it wasn't my fault

Attribution Ronincmc 

I came home from work late one night and, without realising it, let the cat out of the door. My wife, Cynthia, yelled at me, but too late.

The cat strutted off next door and attacked the neighbour’s hamsters.

I changed and chased the cat, but by then it had carried off a baby hamster.

The neighbour heard the kerfuffle, came out and yelled abuse at me.

The next night, I was in bed and smelled smoke. My compost bin was on fire. The neighbour had sought revenge by setting fire to it. By the time I put my shoes on and got outside, the wooden fence next to the bin was in flames.

I turned the hose on, but damn it, the hose coupling was broken, and the hose was useless.

The foreign woman from Transakastan who lives on the other side of the fence came out of her house, screaming. By then, her shed had also caught fire. She hosed it out, but was convinced that this was a malicious attack on her for being an immigrant. She yelled inflammatory abuse at me.

The next day, she rallied her fellow immigrants and held a demonstration in front of the town hall. Their placards claim the people in my town suffer toxic immigration-phobia and demand equal rights.

The confrontation alerted the media, and my feisty neighbour held outraged interviews on the news.

It was not long before the government in Transakastan heard of the row. Headlines appeared in the Transakastan newspapers about how white trash had burnt down an immigrant’s house. Their government immediately banned all exports of butter beans to Australia and slapped a duty on imports of abalone from Australia.

The U S Department of Trade learned of this arbitrary change in tariffs and was horrified. They immediately advised President Trump. He was furious that independent countries had altered the international system of tariffs without his explicit consent. He immediately slapped triple duties on all exports from Transakastan and Australia and banned all exports of Linseed oil from both countries.

These developments deeply disturbed President Xi in China. China needed linseed oil to polish the furniture, and as President, Xi could not abide dull furniture in his country. He alerted the military, and soon all the military in all the nations from Transakstan to the USA were bracing for war.

My wife, Cynthia, sat on the sofa watching the news of the developing military hostilities. She was horrified. As soon as I returned home from work, she yelled at me.

‘We’re on the brink of war,’ she screamed, ‘and all because you let the cat out.’

The charge staggered me. I vigorously refuted it.

‘Someone should have held onto the cat,’ I declared. ‘It’s not my fault.’