What a week

 

It's been quite a week. My wife has joined the church choir. She spends a lot of time practicing at home. When she starts singing I quickly run and sit outside where my neighbours can see me. I don't want them to think I'm hitting her.

To distract her, I took her to the restaurant last night. The manager said, "Do you mind waiting for a bit?" I relied, "No!"So he asked to take the drinks to table 9 and ask them what they'd like to eat.

Whilst I was serving, a man rushed in from the street and asked me, "Quick ... how tall is a penguin?" I replied, "About three feet!" He said, "Oh dear me ... I have run over a nun!"  

I had a few drinks too many with our meal. So on the way home my wife drove the car. She crashed it and told the policeman who arrived on the scene that the man she collided with was speaking on his cell-phone and was drinking a can of beer at the time. The policeman said that the man can do what he likes in his living room.

After all the paperwork and formalities the policeman suggested I register for a donor card. He's a man after my own heart!

By the way, did I ever tell you that we named our two children War and Peace ... it's a long story!

I was really embarrassed the other day. My wife nearly caught me playing with my son's train set. So I quickly threw the bed sheet all over it. I think I managed to cover my tracks.

Do you know the quickest way to turn a sofa into a bed? Forget your wife's birthday. I did so last week and she said she'll make sure I never forget it again.

Typing my memoirs

 

I have joined an on-line keep fit class. You link to this website and you see other people in their homes and also the "instructor". He does the exercises and you copy him. We can all see each other through our laptop cameras.

Before we started I bent, twisted, gyrated, jumped up and down, trying to put my leotard on. Then I heard the whole class applauding. They told me I was very entertaining. I did not know the camera was switched on!!!

You should have seen the comments I received by text and e-mails from my "audience". The ladies in particular were the most embarrassing. Perhaps I should not have borrowed my wife's leotard and exercised in T shirt and jeans instead. 

 

When she saw me in her leotard she was livid. She said I looked like a flamingo standing in that pose in her pink bodysuit. So I put my foot down; which was a little difficult in that hugging outfit which left little to the imagination.

She gets all upset at my attempts to keep fit. The previous day I had swapped our bed for a trampoline and she hit the roof.

I usually have a good night's sleep. On some mornings I wake up grumpy ... on others I let her sleep and go down for breakfast. I usually bring her tea in my pyjamas. Is she grateful? No ... she says she prefers it in a cup.

This morning I discovered our new puppy had eaten all the Scrabble tiles and left little messages around the house.

We like to go out  for a meal at least once a week. We used to go to our favourite Italian restaurant in town. We've stopped now because their cook has pasta away!

There's a new restaurant in town called Karma. They have no menus. You get what you deserve!

Anyway, today I put some corn flakes in a bowl and watched the news on TV. They said that a midget fortune-teller had escaped from a prison van. The headline was, "Small medium at large". This happened when the prison van had collided with a lorry full of mixed concrete. The police are looking for some hardened criminals.

In another crime related story, it was reported that a hole had been found in the local nudist-camp wall. The police are looking into it. They then entered the premises and interviewed a number of people airing their differences. The police believed that the members were withholding evidence, but the nudists insisted they had nothing to hide.

Our local papers are reporting that a driver was stopped by the police for ignoring a red light. The driver started swearing aggressively and calling the policeman all sorts of names. The policeman explained the offence and gave the driver a ticket. The driver asked, "What's this AH in the corner of the ticket?"

"Oh ... it's to remind me that you're an a... hole!" said the policeman.

In Court the driver hired a clever lawyer who asked the policeman, "Is this your writing on this ticket?"

The policeman confirmed that it is. So the lawyer tried to trap him by asking, "What does AH mean?"

"It means aggressive and hostile," replied the policeman.

"Are you sure it does not mean a... hole?" asked the lawyer.

"You probably know your client better than I do," said the policeman calmly.

Another story in the papers is about a man who had pick-pocketed a dwarf. How could he stoop so low?

A friend of mine divorced after 25 years of marriage because his wife is violent and  keeps throwing things at him when angry: plates, cups, saucers, whatever is at hand she throws.

The judge asked him, "What took you so long to decide on divorce?"

He replied, "Her aim is getting better!"

There was an Automobile Rescue van parked outside our house yesterday. You know those rescue vans that come out to help you when your car won't go? The driver was sobbing uncontrollably and looked very miserable. I thought to myself, "that guy’s heading for a breakdown".

At this point the door bell rang. It was our friend Mavis, she was distraught and sobbing bitterly. I can't handle women crying. I mean ... what are you supposed to do? Is it OK these days to hug crying women to comfort them? What if they misunderstand your hug for something else?

I tried to cheer her up by telling her about our problems. I told her that the other day my wife asked me to pass her her lipstick; but I accidentally passed her a glue stick instead. She still isn't talking to me.

Mavis cried some more. I poured her a cup of tea and asked her what's wrong. Apparently, she had put on her most revealing negligent and asked her husband, "What do you like most about me, my pretty face or my sexy body?" He looked her up and down and replied, "I like your sense of humour!"   

You might like my other humourous memoirs in my book:

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This and that ...

 

Not much to report today. I thought I might as well touch base and say hello to my (few) readers. Did you know ... if each reader here invites another reader we'd have more readers here. It's simple mathematics.

I'm good at mathematics. I rang our radio station recently. They ran a competition to attract new listeners; just like me trying to attract new readers. They said "on air" - Congratulations. You are our first caller today. Just answer a simple question and you win our grand prize!

I was overwhelmed and beside myself at the same time. I asked, "What's the prize?"

They said, "It's a simple mathematics question. Get it right and you win two VIP tickets to a Justin Bieber concert and you get to meet him backstage afterwards. What is 2+2?"

I replied, "7".

Anyway, back to more mundane matters. We went to the zoo last week. We had visitors from overseas and as a treat we went to an open-air zoo. The animals are not in cages but they are left to roam free in large enclosures and the public gets to see them as if they're in the wild.

I don't particularly like zoos. I think zoos should only contain a few animals - the lion, tiger, monkey, elephant and giraffe. No need for any more. That's all that people are interested in. Who cares about the horned toad or the lesser spotted butterfly? Just put the few animals I mentioned in a zoo and that's all you need.

As I was saying, we went to the zoo. Whilst there my mother-in-law got bitten by a snake. What a tragedy that was. We all panicked. We called the zoo keepers, they called the medics, who called an ambulance ... sadly, after a couple of hours of horrible writhing agony the snake died.

On the way out we called at the gift shop. They had the usual selection of toys. Cuddly bears, lions, tigers and all sorts of animals which you can cuddle and take with you to bed if you are that way inclined. I asked the shop assistant, "Have you got a toy mosquito?"

She looked puzzled. I explained, "I'm not interested in a toy lion or tiger ... I want a mosquito, or perhaps a fly ... they are animals too you know. I saw one on a rotting apple in the monkey's enclosure. Why do you have toy monkeys but not toy flies?"

She called security so we left hurriedly.

Ironically, as we were leaving I got bitten by an insect at the back of the neck. It got inflamed and very sore. We drove to the nearest medical centre. As a precaution they gave me several injections in my bottom ... just in case ... not Justin Bieber.

Which goes to prove: Always wear clean underwear because you never know when you'll show your backside to perfect strangers.

Diary entries to remind me

 

It's been a hectic week so far. Why does the phone ring when I'm up a ladder pruning a tree? By the time I get down the ladder, rush indoors, get to the phone, the answering machine has taken over. I listen to the message and it is one of those advertising salesmen wondering if I would be interested in buying a portable answering machine I can take with me anywhere? 

Whilst indoors, I switched on the TV to listen to the News.

BREAKING NEWS

Little Red Riding Hood found in a critical condition. Paramedics have stabilised her condition, but she's not out of the woods yet.

The phone rang again. Mom-in-law is coming to visit. I tolerate her. She's like a fine wine. Gets more expensive with age.

It's our wedding anniversary soon. We've been happily married for two years ... 1999 and 2009.

When we got married, she insisted on decluttering the house. I put an advert on eBay: "FOR SALE BY OWNER. Complete set of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Forty-five volumes. Excellent condition, £200 or best offer. No longer needed, got married, wife knows everything."

We're preparing a large cake with icing for our anniversary. Years ago  I used to get heartburn when I ate birthday cake until a doctor advised me to take the candles off first.

We went to a restaurant as a pre-celebration celebration. We had pelican soup. Tasted OK but you should have seen the size of the bill.

We didn't feel like cooking today. I rang a restaurant and asked, "Do you do take-aways?"

They said, "Yes!"

So I asked, "What is 23452 take away 345?"

I have a picture with a saying, "A day without laughter is a day wasted!" So for a laugh I put on YouTube a video of me sneezing. Now the whole street is doing the same. It went viral.

Anyway, enough for now. I have to go up the ladder again. The cell-phone I left up the tree is ringing.

Now, why would anyone leave a cell-phone up a tree?

Who reads my diary?

 

Dear Diary,

Here I am banished to the cellar for a while until my wife cools off a bit. It all started when she said she wanted some peace and quiet whilst she does the cooking. So I took the batteries off the smoke alarms. No sense of humour, I guess! 

We live in an old Victorian house, hence the cellar. The house is supposed to be haunted but we've never seen a ghost. I guess he's afraid of my wife.

Funny thing cooking ... some would say that cooking is preparing raw food, cleaning it, putting it in a pan or oven with other ingredients and actually check it every so often until it is ready to eat. Others see cooking as opening a can of beans on some toast. Or heating a tin of soup. I wonder, do illiterate people get the full benefit of alphabet soup? I used to love alphabet pasta with tomato sauce when I was a child. When my parents discovered I was dyslexic they gave me spaghetti instead.

One of my favourite memories as a kid was when my brothers used to put me inside a tire and roll me down a hill. They were Goodyears!

Life was different back then. I grew up in a religious household. I used to pray and ask God for a bicycle. But none came. So I stole one and asked God to forgive me instead! 

Ha ... glad to see I haven't lost my sense of humour. Unlike her in the kitchen practising cremation. 

Life is different these days and it is difficult raising children. I've spent a fortune child-proofing our house. But the kids still get in somehow. I've got to be kind to them though. They'll be the ones to choose a senior home for me some day.

Life isn't that bad really. My wife and I are happy. We were trapeze artists in a circus. We met on the net. 

She likes going to parties. Me ... not so much. In parties there are usually two kinds of people. Those who want to go home and those who don't. The trouble is we are married to each other! So I stay under sufferance and make small talk with the ladies. I usually compliment them on their lovely shoes ... that's because I'm lying on the floor drunk!

Looking around here ... I really need to tidy up this cellar. I can see in that corner my step ladder. I never knew my real ladder. I wonder where it is. Reaching some heights no doubt.

I wish I was clever and could invent things and be famous. My grand-dad invented the cold air balloon but it did not really take off. My other grand-dad was a biologist. He tried to cross a shark with a cow. He got killed when he tried to milk it. 

My first job was as a photographer. My career was a bit of a blur.     

Better go upstairs now. Dinner's ready. I bet the dog will enjoy it.

Thinking with my mind

For some reason I sometimes think. I don't know how it happens. It just does. I just think.

I was thinking the other day. I remember when I worked in London my office was on the third floor. There was a ledge outside my window. For some reason best known to itself a duck from the park opposite built a nest on the ledge. I did not know ducks build nests so high. Maybe this one was stupid.

Anyway, eventually the eggs hatched and there were five little ducklings in the nest. I could see them out the window. At first they hardly moved in the nest, but slowly they grew a little at a time and became more mobile. One day they started getting out of the nest and walk on the ledge. I guess they wanted to fly. But ducklings don't fly, do they?

I did not know what to do. I hid behind the curtain watching them walk on the edge of the ledge. The phone rang. I ignored it. I kept watching wondering whether to open the window and try to catch them.

Suddenly, one of the stupid creatures jumped. I was horrified. Three storeys up and this idiot jumped. It was quickly followed by the four others.

I opened the window and leant right out to look what happened. To my surprise all five landed safely in the car park below and were happily walking together.

Then a car ran them over!

HA ... HA ... HA ... I'm so glad this is not a true story. But it made me laugh anyway. I had to write it quickly before I forgot it.

I often think something and then forget it. Like going upstairs for instance. I go up and forget why I went up in the first place. So I get down again. And I remember, so I get up once more and get distracted by something else; like a window is open which needs shutting, and I forget again why I got up a second time.

Now before I get upstairs I write on a piece of paper why I am going upstairs. Sometimes I forget to take the piece of paper up with me and go down again to look for it; but can't remember where I put it.

One day I will publish all these pieces of paper as a book. It will help people remember reasons to go upstairs.

Go to the toilet, take folded laundry upstairs, bring dirty clothing to be washed, take a shower, go to sleep, go to the toilet again ... and so on.

The problem is we live in a one-storey bungalow. So going upstairs takes me to the attic, or loft. No wonder I can't find the toilet there!

I'm on a roll here. That's the second funny story I just thought. I wonder what I'll think of next.

It was very hot the other day. We had the windows open and it attracted mosquitoes in the house. I could not find a newspaper to beat them senseless so I used the modern version - my wife's Kindle.

When she came in she asked, "What are you **** doing with my Kindle?"

"Swatting mosquitoes," I replied, "I killed three males and two females!"

Somehow, this distracted her from my using her Kindle, she asked, "How do you know their sex?"

"Easy," I said, "the three males were on my beer, the two females were on the phone!"

Oh come on ... that was a good one. I bet all my lady readers are upset with me now.

I visit an old peoples' home every now and then and keep the elderly entertained with a chat and a few jokes. The other day one of the visiting doctors was testing their acuity.

He asked Eddie, "what is five times five?"

Eddie replied "132!"

The doctor smiled and asked Peter, "what is five times five?"

"Thursday," replies Peter.

The doctor writes his notes and asks Martin, "what is five times five?"

Martin replies, "25!"

The doctor is encouraged and asked, "how did you get your answer, Martin?"

"Easy ..." says Martin, "just subtract 132 from Thursday!"

Keep smiling folks. God bless you all.

What's happening to me?

Remember the 1969 song by Harry Nilsson Everybody's Talkin' At Me? It goes like this:

Everybody's talking at me
I don't hear a word they're saying
Only the echoes of my mind

I'll play the song for you later at the end of this post.

It seems everyone these days is giving advice, whether it is asked for, warranted or, (in my case), welcomed.

We should all examine our lives, I'm told. Re-assess what we're doing. Re-prioritise our priorities. Prepare for a new beginning. Do things differently. Take time to sit down calmly and consider what we've been doing wrong thus far. Do it differently. Better. Or not at all.

To be honest, I don't have much time for all that. I haven't been doing anything wrong all my life. Besides, I am too lazy for all this thinking, examining, re-prioritising and all that. My favourite pass-time and hobby is to sit down. Or lie down. I can do it all day.

In front of the TV, on the couch, on the floor, in the garden, in bed or even lying in a warm bath. There is nothing better than lying in a warm bath watching and contemplating ...

Have you ever wondered why the soap bubbles congregate around one particular place on your body? I wonder why? But I digress ...

There's advice everywhere these daysd about what we've been doing wrong and how we should do it better and differently.

For the past few months I have been told, time and again, what I have done wrong in all these years of marriage. I have apologised many times for things I did, or did not do, which I can hardly remember doing them or not. Why do women have such long memories? I can't even remember what I had for breakfast.

It seems it was my fault on that occasion, long ago, when I lost the car keys and we were late for her mother's birthday party. In all honesty, the keys were not lost at all. They were in my pocket the whole time. Is it worth admitting it now? Better apologise I suppose!

Everywhere I turn there is advice that we should minimise. Use less of everything. I think they call it minimalism. If that is the case, then why have they used so many letters to say the word minimalism? Couldn't they have thought of a shorter word?

There are even books on minimalism. Teaching you how to do with less. In the true spirit of the philosophy they are teaching, I have decided not to buy any of these books. Voila ... doing with less!

I also no longer use ice cubes in my whisky. I drink it neat ... using less!

I remember years ago we tried this using less fashion trend. We were well before our time. Remember the mini-skirt? And the hot pants? Very tiny skirts and shorts using less material. And women doing away with their bras and wearing flowers in their hair instead?

Also, years later, when I got married I tried to revive the trend and throw away all the useless presents her mother gave us. She wouldn't let me. I mean ... ... ... who needs a spoon rest? What is a spoon rest anyway? Who invented this useless crap piece of equipment which now has to be washed as well as the spoon? What is wrong with wiping the spoon on the back of your trousers and putting it on the table whilst cooking?

At the time, we moved from our rented home in London to a town up North. In order to minimise, or down-size, we bought an apartment in an apartment complex. I decided to put a couple of skylights in the ceiling of our apartments. The woman living above us got very irate because they looked straight into her bedroom and bathroom.

Minimalism did not work for us anyway; because there was no room in that apartment for a spoon rest.

The doctor rang me the other day. He said he hadn't seen me for a while. I told him I was not felling well. When I get better I'll go and see him.

The last time I was there he said I was a little weak. He gave me a bottle of vitamin pills. When I got home I was so weak I could not open the bottle. I had to drive back to his Insulting Room and ask him to open the bottle for me.

I was told that if I drink a pint of Guinness a day it will do me good. I rang the pub and asked them to deliver a barrel in my kitchen. Every day for the last two weeks I've been having a pint a day. It really works. When they brought in the barrel it was so heavy two men had to carry it. Now I can carry it round the kitchen by myself.

The priest rang me too. He said he hadn't seen me in church for a while. I told him that I had stopped sinning. Minimalism!

I told him would it not be better if people e-mailed him their sins for absolution? He said he already knew peoples' sins by reading Facebook.

I never understood Facebook. Too complicated. I once did not like something I said there and un-friended myself. I discovered I'd locked myself out of my own account! Myself did not like me!!!

I told the priest how sad it was that the whole world is in such a state these days. To cheer me up he said it could be worse. We could all be in a deep hole in the ground filled with water. He means well.

By the way ... as an aside ... let me warn you ... do not let supermarket staff take your temperature by scanning your head. Especially if they do it with the payment check-out machine. It erases your memory. I went to the supermarket for some salad, fruits and vegetables and bought wine and chocolates instead.

Anyway ... the priest said to me on the phone that we should pray as Jesus taught us. I did not know He had a tortoise; did you?

Here's the song I promised you: