What’s the wattage of that fire?

TOOWOOMBA woman perhaps not best known for her Bear Grylls impressions recently decided it would be a good idea to take a romantic retreat among the sights and sounds of nature.

The romantic couple was delighted to find a fireplace on their arrival, at least at first.

They got the fire lit without incident, but in the time-honoured tradition of romantic partners using each other for joke fodder, she soon began to think she would rather have gone cold.

As they sat down to toast their hands over the cheerful blaze, she innocently turned to her partner to ask, “Does a fireplace use less, or more, electricity?”

After her partner managed to stop whooping with laughter long enough to gasp a little air in and explain the concept of firewood being the primary source of fire fuel, as opposed to electricity (a process Whispers understands took about 10 minutes) she began to think the beach might be a safer option next time.

Playing possum

KINDLY Toowoomba woman was keen to help out when the neighbour dropped by to borrow a lawn mower.

“Come on, it’s out in the shed,” the obliging resident said.

They headed out to the old garage out the back and grabbed the mower in question before our neighbour-in-need pulled the roller door back down. Well, tried to anyway. As he reached up and began to yank the door down, his heart jumped up into his throat as the woman screamed “STOP!” while frantically gesturing above his head.

It turned out she had spied a furry foot up in the roller after hearing some funny hissing noises.

“It’s a possum! I hope I didn’t squash it!” the neighbour exclaimed.

At this point the furry foot beat a hasty retreat, so the neighbour gingerly reached up again to close the door.

This time the hissing noises returned with a vengeance, accompanied this time by an entire possum limb, swiping wildly.

The woman screamed and ran away, while the neighbour emitted a (slightly) more manly scream.

The woman retreated to the verandah to observe the rest of the process from a safe distance.

“He flinches and makes little squealing sounds every time he thinks he sees or hears anything and by this time I'm **** ing myself laughing (from the safety of my front landing),” the woman said.

“Needless to say when he returned the mower, we whacked the crap out of the roller door before he opened it.”

Desperate times

YOU might think having your grocery transaction being declined at the checkout would be the height of embarrassment when it comes to severe financial mismanagement, but a Toowoomba office worker proved that theory wrong recently.

The office vending machine, which had a top price of $2 per item, also accepted payment by card.

Having already emptied the piggy bank, she figured she could just swipe her key card to quench her thirst.

She was soon informed of exactly how dire her financial situation was when the ominous words “transaction declined: insufficient funds” appeared on the little LED display.

She went home feeling rather chastened to Google “how to budget”.