EIGHTEEN INCHES!!!

I once met an Australian sailor named "Eighteen Inches".

"What do they call you for short?" I asked him, curious.

"I don't go for "Eight", he barked and bragged. "That wouldn't be what I got, and it would be a LIE!"

"Do the women pay you extra attention because of your eighteen inches?"

"They did for a time. Sure! But I'm short a half a foot. That puts 'em out a wee bit."

"If you got eighteen inches, it sounds like you got yourself an extra foot."

He laughed. "Yes. It does sound like that. I see your point! But I'm tellin' ya, I'm short half a foot and that's why I 'm called "Eighteen Inches"..."

"If you got eighteen inches, then you got a foot most of us ain't got."

"Look mate. It's very simple. I lost half a foot in an accident involving a reef, a case of beer, and an anchor chain, and I've had the bloody nickname ever since."

"If you lost half a foot, that means you would have started with TWO feet! That's HUGE!"

"Of course I started with two feet! We're ALL born with two feet. Where the hell are YOU from?"

"I'm from the States, and I've never heard of anyone having two feet, not even in Texas. I thought a foot was as long as they ever get, and I've never even seen a guy with a foot before."

"What the hell are you talkin' about? You've got two feet tacked onto the end of your long legs, there. Tell me you don't, and I'll call you a liar!"

"If I've got two feet, than I'm not using about a foot and a half."

"OF COURSE you are, you ninny! You got half a foot more than I do!"

"No way, Jose! If I had two feet, I tell ya, I wouldn't be standing here talkin' to you, now would I?"

"Well how the hell WOULD you be standing, then, if you didn't have two stinkin' feet?"

He pointed at my stinkin' feet. I was wearing flip-flops, but you could sort of tell by lookin' at them that he was right. My feet looked stinkin'.

"Eighteen Inches" kicked off one of his worn and floppy deck shoes. There was a stub where most of a foot used to be, covered in a sock that had been stitched across and cut off to fit the truncated foot. There was, indeed, half a foot missing.

"Now do you see where I got my nickname?"

"Eighteen Inches?"

"Yes. What the hell other nickname were we talkin' about?"

"You got your nickname because your foot is missing?"

"HALF! I'm only missing HALF a foot!"

"I'm listening..."

"Look mate. I lost my foot one night while I was drinkin' on me boat out on the Great Barrier Reef and I got the bloody thing caught in the anchor chain when I tossed me anchor over the side and half a foot went over with me anchor whilst caught in the coils of the chain..."

"That's the half a foot you lost?"

"You don't see it anywhere around, do ya?"

"No. Looks gone to me."

"AND THAT'S WHY they call me "Eighteen Inches!"

"'Cause you lost half a foot?"

"NO! 'Cause I got me a foot and a half!"



"Oh, I see..."