1915. How to pick up guys

Bridgette was having none of it. This was the third time she had told her new boyfriend that she didn’t take sugar in her coffee and the third time he’d sugared it. Didn’t he listen?

He said it was no big deal. When he moved in he said he wanted to sleep on the side of the bed nearest the door – “Because guys end up going to the bathroom in the night more often” – but did she listen? No. She was in the bed and nearest the door before he could undo his shirt buttons.

Anyway, said Bridgette, it really annoyed her the way he drove the car – and it was her car. He drove along glancing at the rear vision mirror like it was an obsession. Glance glance glance. He said he was looking out for cops. There might be a cop following. So Bridgette asked what have you got to hide from cops? And he said the only thing hidden around here is your brains. He meant it as a joke, but Bridgette flung her sugared coffee (by now it was thankfully cold) all over her new boyfriend and he said things that shall go here unrecorded.

Everything grew into a momentous argument and Bridgette said she would show him around and said “I’ll start by showing you the door”. He told her to jump in the lake, he was going nowhere, but she was welcome to get in her car and go off to where he didn’t care. He repeated that he was going nowhere, and Bridgette said “It’s obvious you’re going nowhere and never will.”

Bridgette said she was sorry, and he said “Try telling that to someone who gives a shit.”

He’s gone now. Thankfully. Bridgette realized she had made a mistake with him initially. It was her fault for inviting him into her life in the first place. One day the right guy will come along. You never know from one minute to the next what exciting person Fate is going to throw in your path. Tonight she’s going down to the pub to see if Mister Right is in fact waiting just around the corner.

1814. So talented!

Charlotte didn’t have a single humdrum electron whizzing around in her brain. Her brain was on fire!

“You’re so creative, Charlotte,” people would say. “How do you come up with so many creative ideas?”

“I guess it’s a natural gift one is born with,” said Charlotte, and she would return to the painting she was painting, or the music for the Irish harp she was playing, or the sundial she was installing in the garden.

“Everything you touch turns to gold, Charlotte,” people would say. “You definitely have the Midas touch.”

“I don’t do anything to encourage it,” said Charlotte. “Things just come naturally to me,” and she went back to baking her Baked Alaska for she was have important friends over for dinner, or back to the rug she was weaving, or back to the dress for a niece’s doll she was sewing, or back to making homemade candles for a friend’s 30th birthday, or back to the lines she was learning for a dramatic production.

The extolling of Charlotte’s talents among her peers was like a mantra; it repeated itself over and over. “It’s sad you can’t find a job in this small town,” someone said. “Why don’t you move to the big city where your talents would be put to good use?”

So Charlotte moved to the big city in search of a job. What a relief! Quite frankly, Charlotte had driven everyone in the small town nuts.

1805. Motherly advice

Look, I told my son. Look, I said. I told you how to do it but you wouldn’t listen. And now you’re in deep trouble. You’re just like your father was, I said, always acting before thinking things through.

I tried to warn you, but oh no! Young people always know better these days. Well in this case I knew better, from personal experience. You didn’t listen, so now you’ll have to pay for the consequences on your own. I’ve achieved what you’ve achieved I suppose a dozen times or so, but without any of the hassle.

I’ve come across so many like you. They all thought they knew better. They just ignored common sense advice. And now look at them.

You know I’ve been wanting you to do what you did for a long time, but not in the way you went about it. If you’d asked me I could have given you names to help. From now on it’s nothing to do with me. Just don’t involve me.

If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you twice: if you were going to murder your father you didn’t have to do it yourself. You hire a professional. I could have helped with the cost. Now look at the mess you’re in.

1781. Cut off from the world

It was almost impossible to imagine. Stella was in shock. She never dreamt it could or would happen to her, but it had. She didn’t believe it. Would she ever get used to it?

For fourteen years Stella had got around in a wheelchair. Fourteen years ago they had amputated her left leg below the knee. She had asked again and again for an artificial leg. Too expensive. No insurance. And so the wheelchair became her sole means of travel. Once in a while, with the aid of a crutch she would stand on one leg. But taking a walk was out of the question as Stella found it too tiring. Her upper body was too weak.

And then the impossible happened. Who could ever have guessed? This is happening to me, muttered Stella. Happening to me?

Yes, it was true. This was no rich benefactor making a generous appearance. This was no sudden successful raffle drawn for a prosthetic leg. It was less spectacular than that, but shocking nonetheless. The doctor told Stella they were going to amputate the other leg.

1766. Do not take this…

How am I to know? (Excuse me a minute while I get my reading glasses; these days I can hardly read a thing without having to squint). The bottle of pills says on the label “Do not take this if you are pregnant”. How am I meant to know if I just got pregnant or not?

Doctors these days seem to proscribe medicine willy-nilly. This prescription is from the doctor attached to the Retirement Village. The pills are for my arthritis. The doctor doesn’t seem to care. He never asks if I’m trying to get pregnant or not. Goodness knows my husband and I have been trying for a few years; without much success I might add. But you never know. These pill things that I’m not meant to take if I’m pregnant could do their dirty work just at the very time I am at last going to have a baby.

The baby certainly won’t be named after the doctor by way of gratitude I can assure you. I would change my doctor here and now to someone more sympathetic, but every doctor’s visit costs money and I’ve just paid the earth to the regular Retirement Village doctor. I can ill afford to go see another.

I’ve been so inspired by that 66 year old Italian grandmother who had a baby. An inspiration! If she can do it, so can I. It keeps me going. But I hope these pills I’ve been given don’t stop any possibility. We try frequently, my husband and me, at the Retirement Village. We’ve been here for two years now.

No! No! We’re not residents at the Retirement Village. We work here. What on earth made you think otherwise?

1765. Thanks for the poetry

Hi Harvey

Just a quick note to thank you for sending me your book of poetry. Congratulations on getting it published. I was very keen to read your poems as I didn’t until today realize that you wrote poetry. It tells me a lot more about you than I ever imagined.

The book arrived in the mail just as I was about to go to the bathroom. As I was so excited to begin to read it I took it to the bathroom with me and began to peruse your poems while “enthroned”.

The first thing I noticed, and this is a little critical, is that the cover is excellent, as is the print, but why, oh why, did it have to be printed on cheap newsprint? I suppose it’s fashionable to use recycled things, but personally I was distracted by it thinking that your poetry would most certainly deserve better.

Well, I started reading your poems thoughtfully and I guess I carefully read the first half dozen. Look, I don’t want to be negative about things, but quite honestly, the poems did nothing for me. I thought they were banal and simplistic. I’m telling you this not to be cruel and offensive, but because honesty is always the best route to take. How can one improve if one already thinks that one is the cat’s whiskers?

Heave ho! upon the briny deep,
Oh sailor man.
Wither doth the waves caress the shore.
Who could wish for more
In days of yore?

I can see why you had to get it self-published.

Anyway, thanks again for thinking of me and sending a free copy.

Regards
Maurice

P.S. Don’t you just hate it – like once every eleven years or so – when you’re in the bathroom and realize you’re out of toilet paper?

1764. Giggling Gerties

The concept of spending a considerable amount of time with these people was driving Barney batty. They were a giggling bunch of pre-adolescent zombies. Giggle giggle giggle. Barney half thought he had wasted his life; he should’ve become a comedian instead of a chartered accountant.

Giggle giggle giggle. Would they never stop? In the end, they were taken away by an “Assistant” to somewhere else; one could hardly say they went away on their own accord.

But what’s this? Another gaggle of Giggling Gerties escorted into the waiting room. Giggle giggle giggle. Barney wanted to scream. Off they go now, to wherever! Giggle giggle giggle.

It took a while for Barney to realize where he was; he had died and was in the waiting room before entering an eternal dimension. The Giggling Gerties were being taken off to Heaven. As the assistant who seemed to be overseeing the whole affair said to Barney: “Things are a bit overcrowded at present, so we’re keeping you here in the waiting room until we manage to finish expanding the boundaries of Hell.”

1763. Here comes the bride

Vonda had spent her high school years (well, a good part of them) scribbling a combination of names in the back of her notebooks:

Vonda and Warren
Vonda and Doug
Vonda and Graeme
Vonda and Sylvester

She wondered which name combination would eventuate. Who would she marry? Vonda and…

Vonda and Kurt
Vonda and Damian
Vonda and Kent
Vonda and Iain

She would keep her family name of course. It was the word combination of first names that mattered:

Vonda and Lawrence are cordially invited to…
Vonda and Herbie made it into the finals of…
Vonda and Luke are proud to announce…
Vonda and Simon are just back from…

As it so happened, she fell in love with a gentleman called Trevor. At first Vonda thought that “Vonda and Trevor” had a nice ring to it. Both names shared the letter “V”. But in the weeks leading up to the wedding she decided that that was much too formal. She settled on “Vonnie and Trev”. So much more informal; so much more accessible; so much more likeable; loveable even.

You are cordially invited to the wedding of Vonnie and Trev.

Unfortunately what a banana skin was doing sitting on the floor just inside the church door was anyone’s guess. As Vonda entered the church she slipped on the banana skin, hit her head on the corner of a nearby pew, split open her skull, and all the name combinations in the world couldn’t revive her.

1757. You’re hired!

Congratulation, Elric, you have the job. We were delighted with the quality of your experience and expertise shown in both your interview and your CV.

Your ability to cut through nonsense and get straight to the core of the matter was the singular feature of your interview that stood out from all the other almost eight hundred applicants. Your Harvard degree certainly helps but it’s not everything. It’s how you use your degree that matters.

So we are delighted to welcome you to the team. You start tomorrow. Dad said to say “Well done”. I was wondering when you go home if you can tell Mum that I’ll be a bit late home for dinner this evening.

1756. Maureen’s birthday celebration

Hello everyone. I’ve called this little gathering for drinks and nibbles of all the workers here at the factory as a way of thanking you all for your sterling work. It’s been a pleasure and an honour co-operating with you over the years. So many of you have gone over and above the call of duty.

Just one little announcement! Today is Maureen’s birthday! So happy birthday, Maureen! You get younger by the year! I might add that Maureen next April will have been with the company for thirty years. Thirty years! Unfortunately we won’t be able to celebrate that together as the factory is closing down. From tomorrow we will no longer be in production and your services will no longer be required.

So enjoy your drinks and nibbles because it’s all you’re going to get.