Every year on 14 July, the French air force does a flypast down the Champs Elysées. This year the pilot of one of the Mirages arranged with his parents to “fly-by” their house, which was near Paris, on the way back to base after the fly-past. This he duly did and all went well until, just after passing over his parents’ house, he had a very close encounter with a microlight. Having performed an extreme evasive manoeuvre at very low altitude, he turned back to see if he could spot the microlight which he feared he might have “splashed”. To his relief it was still there, but bouncing around in the turbulence. He thought nothing more of it.
The following week he was on leave staying with his parents, who invited a friend around to dinner. Proud Mum mentioned that her son had flown in the 14 July flypast and was disconcerted when her guest erupted in anger and said he had been up in his microlight that morning and had almost been killed by some stupid “con” in a Mirage! Fighter pilots, the whole world knew, were a bunch of gung-ho cowboys and ought to be thrown into jail, or worse! He could not understand why his hostess was creasing herself laughing until our hero came clean and owned up. A good dinner seems to have smoothed things over and there were no repercussions.
A true story with names and locations omitted to keep our hero out of “le merde”.
"Con" - v. rude. Equivalent to "asshole" in US usage, but refers to a different orifice.
