The Things We Do For Love

We snuggled up on the sofa together. It was a few minutes past midnight.

“Happy Anniversary” we said to each other.
“Thank you for marrying me” I continued.
“Thank you for marrying me” Mr Man replied.
“Well, thank you for having the courage to ask me! Or even the courage to tell me you liked me!” I argued.

We then recalled how our relationship began…

I’d known Mr Man since 1993. For him it was love at first sight. He used to meet me at work and walk me home sometimes, but it was a few years later when we really started to become friends. Mr Man was living with his mother at the time and they had been receiving silent calls at their home, which was more than a little unsettling for her.

A friend was visiting me one night when I decided to call Mr Man to invite him round for the evening. As I reached for my phone book my friend reeled off the number to me.
“How do you remember that?” I asked.
“I just have a head for numbers” she shrugged.

Hmm… very strange, I thought.

Later that evening when all my guests had left, including Mr Man, I could hardly wait to call him to tell him what had happened. I called him on his mobile phone. He hadn’t reached home yet so he pulled over into a side road.

“I think I know who your silent caller is” I blurted out, and I explained what had happened.
“Why would she keep calling our house?” he asked.
“It’s obvious; she likes you!” I exclaimed.
“Oh, that backfired a bit then” he mumbled.
“What do you mean?” I asked, confused.
“I was hoping for someone else to like me” he replied nervously.
“Who’s that?” I asked shyly.
“You” was his simple reply.
“Well, it didn’t backfire then did it?”

And so began our ridiculously high telephone bills romance on the 25th October 1996, as Mr Man sat freezing in his parked car and we chatted on the phone until the small hours. The things we do for love eh?

One year and two days later we were married, and the rest is history as they say. Today we celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary.

Incidentally, the silent calls stopped when I just happened to mention to my friend one day that the police were going to trace the calls.

What I love about Mr Man

Happy Days

Sunday, Monday, Happy Days! Tuesday, Wednesday, Happy Days! Thursday, Friday, Happy Days! Saturday, what a day! Rockin’ all week with you!


Yes, I’m back and full of beans! I’ve taken my Prozac*, had a bath, washed my hair, and even managed to get dressed before sun set.

Strangely… I’m really looking forward to my next opportunity of sitting in an unbearably uncomfortable chair and watching a ping pong ball fly around for three hours. And I’ve had the same incredibly irritating song going round in my head for over a week now, but I’m actually starting to enjoy it, which is a little worrying.

Today I have an unusual desire to go shopping. I know; I don’t understand it either. If I wasn’t so damn happy I’d be worried for two reasons:
1. It’s going to cost money, and
2. It’s unlikely that I will still be in a good mood by the time I return home.

But I’ll take my flexible friend with me and if anyone gets on my nerves I’ll just ping their nose with it. Or sing to them…

“I know a song that will get on your nerves, get on your nerves, get on your nerves, I know a song that will get on your nerves, get get get on your nerves…” Altogether now...


*I’m not actually taking Prozac, but you catch my drift.

Back So Soon?

I accompanied Mr Man to a Table Tennis match tonight. I didn’t have much choice; I’m his chauffer and the match was too far away for me to drop him off and pick him up again later. I don’t get any extra pay for waiting around though.

So faced with three hours of watching a ping pong ball flying to and fro before my eyes, what else could I do but get out my pen and note pad?

Being in a permanent bad mood, as I am at the moment, I had absolutely no desire to talk to anyone and took an instant disliking to everyone I met. Well, everyone in the opposing team anyway.

The middle aged woman was far too chirpy and chatty for my liking. Don’t you find that when you feel like you want everyone to die you always want the happy ones to die first?
“I hope she doesn’t speak to me” I said to Mr Man.
At least when she played she wasn’t afraid to give credit where it was due to the opposing player, which is more than I can say for the young lad who was in their team.

I suppose he must have been in his late teens or early twenties. Spraying his bat with a fancy solution and using a specialised cloth to wipe it with, he obviously fancied himself as a serious player. Do you know what Mr Man uses? Gob. Yep, he spits on his bat and wipes it on his trousers* and that’s enough to give his bat the sticky surface he requires for his spiny shots.

This young lad was so incredibly confident of his own abilities; he oozed arrogance. He first played against our Rastafarian player, who is so laid back that when I first saw him play last week he was actually whistling. I’m sure that’s all part of his hustler routine. Picture the scene; an old man with a grey beard, turns up to play wearing a jumper and a woolly hat over his mass of locks. During warm up he moves slowly around the table and you’re not quite sure if that’s because of his age, his Jamaican “soon come” attitude, or the weight of his hair. The young, athletic looking player was obviously confident of an easy win and even during the warm up he smirked as he smashed the ball across the table and past our old Rasta man. Now that's just not cricket.

The game started and our Rasta player allowed his opponent to win the first few points before deciding it was time to play. Even Mr Man was fooled.

“I bet he smokes Marijuana” Mr Man said.
“You can’t be so prejudiced and stereotype people like that these days” I replied.
“Yeah, but I bet he does”

Whatever he lights in his spare time, tonight he was on fire at the table. As he won point after point I could see the young lads’ frustration growing, and finally he retreated back to his chair with his tail between his legs, after being beaten 3 - 0**.

The only player from the opposing team who seemed inoffensive to me and least likely to irritate was the round bald man who spoke with an Irish accent. But when he got up to play I didn’t know where to look to stop myself from laughing.
“What the hell was that?” I asked Mr Man, referring to the bald mans serve.
He looked like he was juggling a hot hard boiled egg between his bat and his free hand, and when he finally decided to hit it across the table he cocked his leg at the same time. I didn’t know if he was playing or peeing. So that brightened up my evening somewhat.

When it was Mr Mans turn to play the cocky young lad I whispered in his ear:
“Annihilate”
Ok, I know I said annihilate but 11 – 3** in the first game? I almost felt sorry for the boy. Almost.

Mr Man played a killer shot, right across the table to his far right. The lad nearly did the splits trying to reach it.
“That was mean” he said to Mr Man.

No, that’s Table Tennis.



The final outcome of the evening for the team was 10 – 0**. Is this the silver lining you were referring to Aiders?

*He's not the only player to do this I have learnt. Some of the top players in the county lick their bats like lolly pops. Eurgh. Where's the mouthwash?

**There are 3 players in each team, and they all play each other. Finally two players from each team play in the doubles, which brings the total number of games played to 10. In each game, the players play the best of 5 (or the first to 3). In each individual game, or “end” as they call it, the winner is the first to win 11 points by 2 clear points.

World Domination – by Mice

Grannys.Myth.Peeler really is a myth peeler. He peels away the layers of falsehoods to reveal the truth to his readers. Many people may think of him as a paranoid, slightly delusional, conspiracy theorist – or a fruit cake in layman’s terms - but let me tell you, never has a man been so accurate in his explanations of the inexplicable.

Take his story The Giant Mouse That Saved the World for example. Ok, there was no giant mouse; he turned out to be a Ginger Tom, but the little guy (who was a mouse) had everything planned out and was ready to take on the whole world – until he got eaten by the Ginger Tom of course. What does this prove? Only that cats are bigger than mice, but who has the brains eh? Consider this true life account:

I was talking to my brother the other day, and he was telling me how he discovered that mice are taking over his garage. He said he noticed the first mouse when he reached up to get a bag of rabbit food from a shelf and the mouse fell out of a hole in the bag! Screaming like girl (as frightened men do) he ran to safety. “This is war” he decided, and promptly went out to buy a mouse trap.

He proceeded to tell me how he laid the trap, not with cheese (which is another myth) but with chocolate. He checked the next day, and sure enough, there was a dead mouse in his trap. Developing a lust for blood he set the trap again and could hardly wait until the next morning to see if he had caught another mouse. However, the mice had already wised up to this trick, and had removed the chocolate without getting caught.

“Oh, so you’re a wise guy eh? We’ll see about that!” he hissed, and this time he set the trap with sticky chocolate caramel. Sure enough, the next day he found another dead mouse. With an evil laugh he set the trap again and waited…

But nothing could have prepared him for what he found the next day, or more to the point, what he didn’t find. There was no sticky chocolate caramel… there was no dead mouse… but there was no mouse trap either.

Believing that the mouse must have ran away with his leg trapped in the mouse trap, he searched his entire garage, but found nothing. Slightly baffled, he took himself off to the shops to buy another trap.

Now if the missing trap didn’t unsettle him slightly, what he came back to completely filled him with horror. He went back into his garage to set another trap when he noticed, there in the middle of the garage floor… the missing mouse trap! The mice were playing games with him!
“They’re going to get me for killing their brothers!” he wailed, and ran inside his house and locked all the doors and windows.

Nervously he told me his tale over the telephone. While we were talking we heard a strange clicking noise, like when someone picks up the telephone extension.
“Was that you?” I asked.
“No, we don’t have an extension” he replied “wasn’t it you?” he asked.
“No, we don’t have an extension either…”

“It’s the mice! They’re taking over the world I tell you!”

Well, that will teach him to play with the big little but brainy boys.
Don’t mess with mice. You have been warned!



Coming next: World Domination – by Sat Navs

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