2474. Life is not always a bed of roses

Apparently beyond all this overgrown scrub and wasteland lies a house with a veranda. On that veranda sleeps a princess on a bed of roses. According to what I read, one kiss and the princess shall awake and the princess and the kisser shall live happily ever after.

That is why I have always brought my machete with me on every foray into the forest. One day, in hunting for the wild boar of the forest, I may come across impenetrable undergrowth. And here now seems to be such a thing. I have been hacking away at the prolific forestation for a good half hour.

There! I can see the house with a veranda. Another five minutes and I should be able to climb the steps to the bed of roses.

And here it is; the most beautiful princess asleep on a bed of roses! I bend down with puckered lips. I kiss. She wakes! She sits up! WOW! I have never seen anyone so beautiful. I am in love! I am bewitched!

Oh! But now I see the kiss has turned me into a frog. Truth is stranger than fiction. Life is never straightforward.

1018. Mistletoe

It was New Year’s Eve somewhere in France. In France in New Year the mistletoe is even more kiss-inducing than at Christmas.

Jacques was seventeen years old. He rather fancied Chloe. She was sixteen and went to the same school.

Chloe’s parents were having a New Year’s Eve party. They hung mistletoe at the door. Chloe invited Jacques to the party (along with others of course). Chloe wasn’t sure if Jacques liked her or not.

Jacques arrived and Chloe greeted him at the door, under the mistletoe naturally.

Jacques climbed out the back window of Chloe’s house, went around to the front of the house, and knocked on the front door. He did that seventeen times.

Chloe was starting to suspect (she hoped, she hoped) that Jacques liked her a bit.