Life Stories: the Odd Bits: “Melanie, Marry me. I Might…” and Other Stories

By Daftweejimmy

People say, “When life deals you lemons, make lemonade” as if they knew the recipe and of course could lay hands on the other ingredients. The people between the covers of this book tried to follow the initial advice, and this is the result: not exactly lemonade, not exactly soup, not exactly toxic but more or less what you might expect if you tried making lemonade from substitute ingredients such as cabbage stalks, bacon rind, honey, brewer’s yeast and fermented socks.

PLEASE NOTE: this is not an approved recipe. You can try it in the safety of your own home, but the author takes no responsibility for the results, he can make an educated guess...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Oct 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781398451841

Daftweejimmy

Daftweejimmy started writing when he learned to read. His teachers told him that if he did not like what he was reading, he should come up with something better. It took him a while, what with him having to live long enough and learn other things, but it shows just how dangerous teachers can be!

Book preview

About the Author

Daftweejimmy started writing when he learned to read. His teachers told him that if he did not like what he was reading, he should come up with something better. It took him a while, what with him having to live long enough and learn other things, but it shows just how dangerous teachers can be!

Dedication

To everyone who was daft enough to let me into their otherwise peaceful lives.

Copyright Information ©

Daftweejimmy 2022

The right of Daftweejimmy to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398451834 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398451841 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2022

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

This book would not have happened without the help of the publishers (obviously!) so my thanks to them. Nor would it have been possible without all the characters who now strut their stuff in print, you were warned this might happen!

Finally, to everyone daft enough to encourage me to publish; you know who you are.

Melanie, Marry Me. I Might…

As I put the phone down, the age-old question churned up the neurones. If God was so omniscient, why couldn’t He have seen all the trouble women were going to cause, and just made us hermaphrodites?

A bit late to wonder about that now, the design had been mass produced for millennia. Oh yes, Melanie was engaged to me (what a delightful, old-fashioned phrase that is, with all its connotations) but there are times when even the most gallant of men will want to reconsider their position.

I’d read some of these stories about fair damsels making unreasonable demands on chivalric knights. Slaying dragons seemed to figure prominently, along with winning at jousting tournaments and wearing the lady’s handkerchief as a pennon or pennant, or even possibly a penance. Thankfully, those days seemed to have gone, what with all the dragons turning into mothers-in-law and ladies making do with paper tissues. Of course, very few men take part in jousting either, well, you simply can’t get the swords and lances these days. Nor the horses, except as burgers.

The phone call had been the end of a bad day, so let me complain.

One of my colleagues had managed to crash his car, so his students were taking pot luck on instructors. By working four hours more than usual, I had brought two of his students that bit nearer to their driving test, and though the extra money would be handy, the extra concentration had left me in no mood for the third degree. Naturally enough, that’s what had come my way.

Where were you at six this evening? I tried to ring you, but you’d switched your mobile off!

I always do when I’ve got a student in the car…

You told me you’d be finished at 5.30, so what’s the idea of working late?

One of the other lads had…

I’m not interested in the other lads! Are you trying to avoid me?

"Look, Melanie,