And the Lord spoke to Noah and said, "In six months I am going to make it rain until the whole Earth is covered with water and all of the evil people are destroyed, but I want to save a few good people and two of every kind of living thing on the planet. I am ordering you to build me an ark." And in a flash of lightning, he delivered the specifications for the ark. "Are you sure," Noah said, confused and weak from the thought of the work indicated by the blueprints.

Six months later it starts to rain. Thundered the Lord, "You had better have my ark completed or learn to swim for a very long time." And six months passed. The skies begin to cloud up. Rain began to fall. The Lord saw that Noah was sitting in the front yard relaxing with a beer, an attractive woman, and with a large group of friends around the barbecue. There was a car, boat, and camper in the driveway, but no ark.

"Noah," shouted the Lord, "Where is my ark?" A lightning bolt crashed to the ground next to Noah. "Lord, please forgive me," begged Noah. "Has the time really gone so quickly?. First, my boss insisted that I work overtime. A lot of the extra time, I was too tired to call Beaver Lumber. Then my car wasn't working very well and I knew you would want me to drive in something decent, so I spent $30,000 on the new car. That didn't leave me anything for supplies so I had to wait awhile. By the time I was starting to get a few dollars aside, the price of lumber began to go up. So I thought you would want me to wait and buy when the price began coming down again. So, I have been watching the papers ever since.

I have had so much trouble with the fire department regulators as well. Three of my neighbors on the street created fire hazards and now I can't light the forge without a special permit. You see, Harry, down at the end of the block there, decided to burn his trash on his back lawn. The grass was so dry that day that when he came back home, his bonfire had spread out of control and been picked up by Your wind. It near burned 3 houses down, left acrid smoke over the neighborhood for 4 days and made the children sick, and 2 firemen were injured trying to put the blaze out. Well, you know how it is.

Last winter, Joanne, down at he other end of the block, got too cold one night. She built up the fire in her fireplace as big as she could and left the vents open so it would burn as fast as it could. Then she snuggled into bed and went to sleep. Well, of course, You know. The fire got so out-of-control that it set her chimney on fire and the sparks billowing out into the air drifted over and set her neighbor's garage on fire. Well, no one knew until the gasoline the neighbor was storing to save money when the gas went up on the weekends, blew up. It sure was a mess.

And then last month, Mr. Hendy, next door, was having trouble lighting his barbecue. It seems he never had one before. He was trying to start the charcoal with a match, and, of course it wouldn't take. So he used his propane torch to get the brickets to smoke. But he thought he should have flames and he didn't see any, so he poured lighter fluid on it. Well, did he get a quick haircut. Of course his family was a little anxious as to whether he might go blind. The papers got the story an, like the other two incidents, there were headlines galore. Then we got all these regulations, which is stupid. No one is going to follow them anyway. But now, it makes it hard to work on the ark.

"My neighbors objected, claiming I was violating zoning by building the ark in my front yard. You see, we got into all this zoning stuff when Mabel decided to paint her house pale violet and pea green. It made everyone sick just to look at it. And my neighbor started complaining about the number of old cars that I had in the back yard. Well, you know, I have the first car I got. I thought I would save some money and fix it up after I got drunk 4 years ago and ran it into a tree. I was really going to get to it. I didn't know that the oil was leaking out of it and running into my neighbor's garden.

And my son bought that old rusty classic so he could learn how to do bodywork and have a cheap car to run. Well, he did get at it a couple of times. But, You know how it is. He says he always needs more tools and it is just more fun to be down at the bar with his friends or over watching the baseball game. And you know there are some really good shows on the TV these days. And you know, that old truck that I bought that is sitting back there. It will be great for going back and forth to the cottage a few times each year. If I can just get the axle fixed.

"I know you said I could do all the work myself, but do You know how much those timbers weigh? And when I took delivery of the first few, the fellow from Smarts Marine came by and said I could save time, effort, and aggravation if I just used the money you allowed me to make to buy that new 4-seater speedboat. Well yes, it isn't quite as big as You wanted, but I was going to make a float to pull behind it. You say the open top won't help much with the 20 foot waves. I guess I didn't hear about those. Oh, you did tell me.

But now I must admit, when I said to my neighbors that I was going to start another project, they practically ran down to city hall to protest. I don't know why. I always buy them a bottle for Christmas. And I try to keep the bongo playing not too loud after 4:00 AM. They really shouldn't have got into a snit when we went on holidays last summer for 6 weeks and forgot about having the grass cut. Well. so it went to seed a bit and the weeds got a little out of control. What did they expect when we are away? After all, farmer Dave's cow wandered into yard and had a good feed. We had to complain to city hall after that. It is no fun trying to cut 30 inch high grass and keep slipping on cow pies, dung, that is. No, I didn't swear. I only swear on weekdays.

I couldn't tell them that Your Highness had directed me to build this whopping big boat. I tried. You should have seen the looks. My family threatened to put me in the hospital if I didn't get back on track. And, I kept missing bowling practice while learning how to read the blueprints. You know, the team members don't like that kind of behavior.

You know, I think you made your point, the water is getting a little high now and it has been rising a few inches every hour just now. Do you think you could give us a little more time. I know You were always available if I had any questions. But I just couldn't find enough time to speak to you. I know you are busy. So I didn't want to disturb you. Yes, I know you are true to Your Word. But don't you think you could just change the universe around a little this time. I'll try harder next time. I'm really sorry about this, glug, glug.