2652. Fabulous new car

Darren thought his brand new car was absolutely fantastic. All the other cars he had owned in the past were really old-fashioned compared to the features his new car had. For example, it had a little screen on the dashboard that showed a video of what was behind the car as he back-backed.

The first thing he did after buying the car was to drive to the centre of town and park right outside the busiest shop. Hopefully his girlfriend would spot the car and go all gooey with admiration.

She never showed up, so Darren backed out of his angle-parking space using his wonderful screen on the dashboard. Being on an angle he didn’t see the big logging truck roaring down the road because it was roaring down the road not behind him but on the side.

Dear Reader, you might well feel bad for Darren losing his fabulous car so soon after purchasing it. Fret not. He was killed.

2560. Election Day

(I’m posting this story well ahead of Election Day in the States least people mistakenly think I’m talking about that).

It was Election Day. It was basically a two-party system. Castle Cliff was one of the smallest voting stations in the country. There were only twelve voters. Of course they took several days to count the votes but eventually the results were published:

Conservatives: 1
Liberals: 75

2533. The treble voice

Samuel was eleven years old and sang with the most crystal clear treble voice. In fact he was in the cathedral choir. Last Christmas they sang Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols and Samuel was a soloist.

His was a single parent family. His mother was industrious – she cleaned motels – but life was still hard and they always had just enough to make ends meet. For example, all the kids at school had mobile phones and Samuel didn’t. When you can’t afford something the desire increases.

Locally, Naomi and Levi were getting married. It was a society wedding. Anyone who was anyone was invited. Last Christmas after they had attended Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols Naomi had said to Levi, “We’ve got to have that boy sing at our wedding!”

Samuel wasn’t very keen to do it, and at first said “No”. Naomi saw Samuel’s mother and asked if there would be anything that would persuade him to sing at their wedding. His mother said, promise him a cell phone.

Samsung.

2521. Ezra’s lily plot

Ezra Connell had a lily garden. It was quite big. Lilies were his hobby. And what a picture it was when they were in flower!

When his wife was alive she had an allergy to lily pollen so certain varieties of lilies were banned. But now that she had passed on he could cultivate whatever variety of lily he wanted.

He had Asiatic lilies in one section of the garden and Oriental lilies in another. He had even tried to cross an Asiatic with an Oriental but the result looked a bit like someone had dragged the bloom through the mud. Another area was for Martagon lilies, and these were probably his favourite. Another area was for Tiger lilies, and yet another for Trumpet lilies. He even had quite a range of Patio lilies growing in pots and placed against the garden wall.

Thank goodness he had all this because Ezra Connell’s lily plot is the only plot you’ll find in this story.

2519. An experience of a lifetime

Some cynical readers will no doubt question the veracity of this story. To each their own – such people are entitled to believe what they like, but I know this story to be true.

Grayson was out in his substantial backyard planting seed potatoes in his garden when an alien space craft landed on the lawn. It was slightly larger than a city bus and shaped like one of those elongated medicine pills except it was a thousand times bigger! There were no doors or windows. The texture of the thing looked a bit like asbestos except it was faint blue.

An opening appeared in the side and two men ventured out. They looked remarkably the same as humans. They approached Grayson.

“Excuse us,” said one, “we’re sorry to have perhaps given you a fright. What you see is not our normal bodily form but we didn’t want to scare you. We wondered if you could help us. The skin of our space craft is pale blue. That means it is extremely low on fuel. Could we – this sounds so silly to you perhaps – could we borrow a cup of sugar? That’s all we need.”

“Goodness!” said Grayson. “I’ve got a whole bag of sugar you can have so you’ll have a backup supply.”

Grayson went in his house and returned with the sugar. The two men were extremely grateful.

“We’re not meant to associate with humans,” said one, “but desperate times call for desperate measures. We would like to thank you by giving you a special gift. You’re 68 and live alone. We investigated you before we landed. You have no living relatives. If you wish we could place you in our machine – the process takes about an hour – and it scans your body and corrects every imperfection. When done you’ll look about 30 and your body will never age.”

How exciting! Grayson leapt at the offer. And it did! The process took a whole Earth hour. When he looked in the mirror he couldn’t believe his reformed youthfulness. He’d forgotten he used to have auburn hair!

The bus-sized medicine-looking pill went whish and disappeared into the sky. Its skin had a healthy glow of pale pink.

What an experience! It took several years but Grayson gradually realized there was some extra-terrestrial being living in his body.

2487. Password change

Hugh had so many passwords for this that and the other that he decided to simplify it. He made a list of all his passwords (there were about twenty) and next to it he typed what program or institution they were for. For example, his online banking was violet3549 which was the name of an aunt and the street number when he was a kid. The password to his online medical records was sicksicksick. And so on.

He decided his password for everything was going to be honolulu71; Honolulu being where he met his wife and 71 being the year he was born. He would spend all of Sunday afternoon changing all his passwords to that. The first password change went well. The password to his favourite computer game was now honolulu71. It was going to be a lot easier than he thought.

The second password change prompted him with a message: Your password must have at least one capital letter. No worries! He changed the password to Honolulu71.

The third password change prompted the message: you must use at least twelve characters and one must be a punctuation mark. Hugh changed the password to Honolulu71$#.

The fourth password change came with the message: You have already used honolulu71 previously on this site. Here are some similar suggestions to choose from… Hugh changed the password to hawaii72.

This went on all afternoon. In the end he consulted an online password creating program. He copied and pasted it into every password change. Every program accepted it. It was kjfb47fngkskHowenwlvk9309009().

He forgot to write it down.

2476. Hospital emergency

Doctor: Hold still. I’ve got some of it out with the tweezers.

Cynthia: Ouch, doctor. It hurts.

Doctor: There! That’s quite a big piece. Have you just been to a fancy dress party?

Cynthia: No. I am a real princess. Be more careful. Don’t forget that I’m a princess.

Doctor: You and your parents might think so, but in truth you’re a spoiled little brat. Now hold still. This would be a lot easier if there wasn’t blood all over the place.

Cynthia: But I am a real princess.

Doctor: Yeah right. Anyway, so how did you get all these shards of glass embedded in your right foot?

2475. Am I a debauched sleazebag?

Only very rarely do I receive a complaint about these stories. Someone has pointed out that there’s very little sex going on in any of the tales. They wondered if I was a prude or merely inadequate. I explained that such a thing was occurring in these romances by insinuation, and not by bold, in-your-face descriptions of you-know-what.

However, to counteract this horrific accusation today’s story is riddled with sex. Sex sex non-stop sex. If you think you might be offended by this fair enough, but don’t read on. You might end up thinking that I’ve got sex on the brain – that I am an out-and-out sex maniac, a dirty old man, a degenerate lecher, a debauched sleazebag, an insatiable nookie machine. Anyway, here is today’s story:

Have you seen what all these summer flies have been doing on the ceiling?

2439. It’s a clown’s life

When José joined the circus as a clown three years ago it was the last thing he wanted to do. He found it humiliating walking round in oversized shoes squirting water through a fake rose on his lapel and distributing balloons to children. Ha! Ha! Ha! He knew he wasn’t very good at it, but a job is a job.

It was almost inevitable that something calamitous could happen, and it did. He was giving out balloons to little kiddies and squirting water on the rude ones.

Sitting there slap-bang in the front was a widow with her three children. José couldn’t avoid giving the children a balloon each. But would the widow see through his clown disguise? Would she recognize him as the guy who three years earlier had murdered her husband?

2431. A hearty speech

Tara used to joke about her age quite a bit. She was nearing eighty and the retirement home was planning a delightful afternoon tea to celebrate the occasion. Tara knew she would be presented with a bunch of expensive flowers and a card signed by most people in the retirement home. She had better plan her speech of thanks.

Of course it would be self-deprecating. She would say how overjoyed she was with their generosity and even crack a little joke about growing old.

The day arrived. The afternoon tea began. Tara was presented with a card and a bunch of lovely flowers. She stood to speak.

Dear friends – Thank you so much for these gorgeous flowers and your hearty good wishes. It seems that it hasn’t taken long for me to get to eighty. I still think of myself as a sprightly forty! I can’t believe how quickly life passes by. As I joked to Yvette just this morning: Goodness! I’ve only got another thirty years left! And so we are having… aaaaahhh…

Footnote: Unlike the sudden death in the story above (!) For those who don’t know it this is a link to a video of a delightful grace before meals:

Funny Prayer about Getting Old – Home Instead – YouTube