The Fat Guy Up On The Roof Top

Ginny plans to take a few beautiful Spring days off work to dabble in our garden. As usual when she plans this, I tried to get all the yard donkey work done ahead of time so we can enjoy pleasure gardening.

Since our Before-Christmas cleanup, I have not climbed the ladder onto our roof to clean rain gutters and blow away the residue of oak pollen, leaves and twigs from the four oaks which overhang our home.

Friday was the day for that job.

I went up on the rooftop.

A thick mat of mast makes our roof look brown when actually the roof tiles are gray. Those oak trees sure know how to pollinate.. Pounds and pounds and pounds of mast cover the roof. I have not cleaned up here since before Christmas.

And now I, with my trusty leaf blower, plan to scour it all away…

What’s this?

Here beside the chimney I see a cigar butt.

How could a partially-burned cigar butt get up on our roof?

I occasionally read Sherlock Holmes mysteries so I put my acute powers of deduction to solving this problem. Three possibilities come to mind:

First, the only man I know who smokes cigars is my neighbor Warren. Could he at some time while visiting me, have flicked his burning cigar up onto our roof?

No! That would be out of character for him. Besides he smokes dinky thin girly cigars and the butt on my roof is a regular hefty stogie.

Second, could this cigar butt been left beside the chimney by one of the many bluejays which inundate our bird feeders? That’s a possibility. Maybe in collecting nest building materials…?

A picture springs to mind. ... When I was a kid there were movie cartoon characters called Heckle and Jeckle, two mischievous crows. As I recall, they smoked cigars.

But they are fictional characters, crows not bluejays.

Besides, how would a bluejay light his cigar? He holds the cigar in his beak with one claw, he strikes the match with the other claw, and he stands on his other claw…

But, that’s impossible.

Bluejays only have two claws.

The cigar by my chimney can not have been left by a bluejay.

In The Adventure of The Blanched Soldier, Sherlock Holmes said, “When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

Applying the Great Detective’s wisdom, I have concluded that Santa Clause stopped for a smoke break by my chimney and contrary to popular ledged, he does not hold “a stub of a pipe clinched tight in his teeth” — Santa smokes cigars!

See there.

We Christians can too apply objective reasoning to arrive at a logical conclusion.