2462. Pollyanna comes to stay

Ok – a story to give a break from a week of music! I trust everyone had a lovely June Solstice – and to those in the Northern Hemisphere, no doubt your days have started drawing in as you plummet your way towards winter. Whereas we in the South…

What a pain in the bottom Pollyanna has become. My wife says it is age. Squawk! Squawk! Squawk all day! Nothing satisfies her. And as for food? No, I won’t eat this. No, I won’t eat that. Honestly, she’s driving my wife and me up the wall.

She’s due to return home in just over a week. We can’t wait. We’ll drive her there the minute that day dawns. Our home is rather small. In fact, it’s only a one-bedroom place, so Pollyanna has to sleep in the living room. Of course the living room is where we have the television, and Pollyanna retires early.

It pays to be nice to elderly relatives; especially great aunts with more than a couple of dollars in their bank account! Aunt Constantia for example. Just kidding! We’d have Pollyanna stay anyway, but that doesn’t mean we have to enjoy every minute of it. And she comes to stay only for about a week a year when Aunt Constantia goes on vacation and has no one to look after Pollyanna her parrot.

2358. Worn to a frazzle

(Apologies if the following story appears under-researched).

It was a Federal Holiday, or a Bank Holiday, or a National Holiday, or a call-it-what-you-will, but Nigella still had to work because the client lived in another part of the world and that part of the world wasn’t celebrating a Federal Holiday, or a Bank Holiday, or a National Holiday, or a call-it-what-you-will. There was always a client somewhere not celebrating a holiday and that meant that Nigella never got a day off.

Of course Nigella couldn’t charge extra for having to work on a holiday because the client was operating on a work day as per usual – so it all added up to a great frustration to Nigella. She wouldn’t mind finding another job but this current “partly-self-employment” paid well enough. However, there were times when Nigella felt worn to a frazzle.

Couple all this with the fact that most of her clients operated under a different time zone so she was up all hours trying to fill customers’ “always urgent” requests.

To be fair, Nigella got the occasional hour off during work time but not much; just enough to go and make herself a cup of coffee and relax watching a bit of television or something. The hour off was never regular. It was only when the owner of the porn website said “Nigella, why don’t you take some time out while I organize the next client.”

1653. Why did I answer the phone that morning?

(Thanks to Yvonne for the opening sentence).

Why did I answer the phone that morning? I had been vacuuming the house. When the phone rang I had to turn the vacuum cleaner off, and step over the vacuum cleaner’s cords and tubes to reach the phone.

Was I interested in doing a survey? It would only take a few minutes and I would go into the draw to win a trip for two to Hawaii.

Since I’d gone to all that trouble of turning off the vacuum cleaner and stepping over it, I thought I might as well. So several questions later (the questions were all about what brand of soft drink is imbibed in the household, so I told them a lie; coca cola I said because it was the only brand I could think of) I was in the draw to win a trip for two to Hawaii.

And win it I did! Wow! I had never won a thing before and now hubby and I were off to Hawaii!

That’s when the trouble started. Our son drove us to the airport, and on the way home (unbeknown to us) he crashed into a wall, wrote off his car, and broke both legs. Not long after take-off we were diverted. For two days we were stuck in a foreign airport. The airline people were most unhelpful. We had to pay for accommodation and meals instead of being in Hawaii all expenses paid. When eventually we did arrive in Hawaii the hotel was booked out. Since we hadn’t arrived on the appropriate day the hotel had presumed we were not going to turn up and booked other visitors into what was meant to be our room. The hotel wouldn’t give a refund because it was part of a promotion and no money had changed hands. So we had to pay for a further three days accommodation and food elsewhere.

We’re back home now from our all-expenses paid vacation. I’ve never been so happy to be doing housework. At present I’m vacuuming and…

Excuse me. That’ll be the phone.

Music 61: Square dancing

This photo was taken from my once backdoor in Quebec.

I like to think the trees are square dancing to celebrate the wonder of the holiday season!

Listen to the music HERE.