3511. Venus Fly Traps

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It wasn’t that much of an unusual hobby. Verna collected Venus Fly Traps! She liked to think that it deterred summer insects; maybe not big blowflies, but gnats like fruit flies and mosquitos. She had over fifty plants and kept them on her window ledges.

When she got married her husband fully supported her hobby. In fact Verna took such care of her plants that they were flourishing. At one stage she had to go outside with a butterfly net and catch some Venus Fly Trap food herself. Her husband claimed that now that Verna had had the baby, an at-home interest might be a good thing. In fact he built extra shelves in the baby’s nursery!

All went well until one night the baby disappeared and all that was left was a little woolly hat and half a knitted baby’s booty.

3510. Orange juice

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I am convinced my wife is trying to poison me. We have been married for forty-seven years and she always prepares breakfast. Don’t panic, I usually prepare the evening meal. Now that we are retired we stick to the old habits of a life time.

For breakfast I always have two scrambled eggs on a slice of toast, with a glass of orange juice, unless  we go out for breakfast which we sometimes do. The dining table is not in the kitchen. You have to go through the kitchen door to get to it.

I thought I saw my wife surreptitiously putting powder in my orange juice. I heard the stirring with a teaspoon in a glass vessel going tinkle tinkle tinkle. She then placed the glass of orange juice on the dining table. Well, of course I wasn’t going to say anything, and I wasn’t going to drink it. When she went to the bathroom I quickly took a puff of nitrolingual spray (heart you know), dashed out to the kitchen, and tipped the drink down the sink. I can’t be doing that all the time.

The next morning I heard the tinkle tinkle tinkle of the glass being stirred and I left it unsipped on the table. She said, “You haven’t touched your orange juice. You need Vitamin C to prevent winter ills.” So when she went out to the kitchen I tipped half the glass into the potted plant on the sideboard next to the table. The potted plant is an amaryllis. I didn’t want to tip the lot out at once because it would look suspicious. Then when the opportunity presented itself I poured the rest of it down the kitchen sink.

This has gone on for several weeks now, and I have been tipping the entire glass each morning into the pot of the large amaryllis that’s flowering on the sideboard. In fact my wife said that she thought the amaryllis was flowering spectacularly this year! I can’t keep tipping a glass of orange juice into the amaryllis like this forever. The stress is wearing me out. I have to empty the amaryllis saucer of orange juice when my wife goes out of the house.

Her birthday is coming up. I’m thinking of getting her a second amaryllis. She loves them. Maybe a couple.

3509. Safe driving

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Every time Louise got in her car to drive somewhere she would say a little prayer to keep her safe. This time however she had forgotten to bring her purse, so she had to get out of the car, pop inside, and get her purse.

 By the time she was backing out of the garage the little prayer had quite escaped her mind. That was when she backed slap-bang into her husband’s car.

3508. Feeling blue

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Things weren’t turning out well for Therese. Money before the next pension pay was fairly tight. She had been half way through mowing her front lawn when the lawnmower ran out of gas and she would have to wait until next Tuesday to purchase gasoline. The cost of the phone had risen dramatically and if she paid online she would still be seventeen cents short and the bank wasn’t going to give credit even for that small amount. She hoped the phone company wouldn’t cut her off for being a few days late.

But look on the bright side; the day was sunny and clear. The birds were singing. The flowers were blooming. Therese packed a basket of a couple of sandwiches and an orange juice. She would go to the park, have a little picnic, and feed the ducks. What better way to rid oneself of the blues?

The little picnic went perfectly. It was while tossing the bread crumbs and crust to the ducks that the weather changed dramatically. In a few moments the day went from sunny to a freezing wind. Brrr! Therese hurried home. By the time she arrived home she was frozen to the bone.

That evening she felt a sore throat coming on.

3507. If

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Vernon was a mess – to put it lightly. He was obsessed with obsessions. For example, if he managed to put the milk back in the fridge before the clock finished chiming then he would have a good day. If he didn’t reach the bridge at exactly 9:05 while driving to town then his day would be disastrous. If… if… if…

His life was a string of neurotic ifs.

On this particular morning he woke early, and in his half sleep he thought that when he got up the last two digits on the digital clock of the stove would indicate how many years he had left. If the clock said 6:35 then he would have 35 years of life left.

Vernon waited a little while. A wait would increase the number of minutes after the hour on the electric oven clock. Vernon eventually rose from bed.

He peeked tentatively at the oven clock. How many years would he have?

The electricity had briefly gone off during the night and the stove clock was waiting to be reset. It read 00:00.

3506. Face to face

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Your Honour

There was nothing particularly heinous in plunging a machete into Spencer Southgate’s back. If I was to do murder I would want to see the face – the fear, the horror, the anguish, the whatever. Anyone can stab a Ne’er-do-well in the back. I couldn’t think of anything more feeble. And it’s proof surely that I didn’t do the murder.

When Lorraine Rudge was murdered she was stabbed with a carving knife front on. It was quick and effective but most satisfying for the murderer who was some close relation with whom the murderer held a grudge. He could see the murderous dread conveyed in her physiognomy.

Then Veronica Hooper was a nasty bit of skulduggery. She died falling on her back on a rotating farm plough. Yes, I know, she was murdered from the back by being shoved backwards. But you could see her all-important face and the shock of the whole thing. In fact it was more dramatic than a simple constantly stabbing carving knife.

Finally, there was Michael Betson, who was shot close up with a handgun; not in the face, you understand. What’s the fun in that? But slap-bang in the chest. I have subsequently learnt that the heart is not located exactly on the left side of chest where the bullet was lodged, but it was effective nonetheless.

So you see from these three examples that murderers – especially if they seek revenge – are fairly particular about seeing the terror on the victim’s face.

The plunging of the machete into Spencer Southgate’s back is without doubt proof that even though I hated his guts, I don’t do murders that way – as my three aforementioned murders show.

3505. Follow suit

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Daflidiole, formally spelt J-a-n-e, has come up with an exciting way to name her children. She doesn’t exactly name them; she brands them. The idea stemmed from the wonderful way people can now choose their pronouns. Now they can not only choose their pronouns, they can choose how to spell their names. That is why Daflidiole is now Daflidiole pronounced as Jane.

The Irish have been doing it for centuries – with names such as Siobhán and Róisín (Shiv-awn and Roh-sheen). Of course, Daflidiole has taken it one step further. The spelling is not based upon any particular dialect or language. The spelling is totally the creative construction of the person who determines the spelling. It is called “freedom of speech”.

Who would ever have guessed that Mickdafrenalle was pronounced Jack? Or Knozlxiiozx was pronounced Jill? But it is so beautiful; so unique. Why do we have to be like everyone else? Why do we have to be little boxes on the hillside made of ticky-tacky (a musical reference for anyone born after 1964)?

Daflidiole’s neighbour, Clonduckious (pronounced Rachel) has taken the idea one step further. For her children she had taken conventional spellings of names but with another pronunciation. For example, her son Benjamin James is pronounced Harold Arnold. Her daughter, Daphne Rosalie is pronounced Naomi Madeline. Wonderful isn’t it? It became particularly exciting when Clonduckious named her child Studly Jock and it was pronounced Sweetie-pie Pansy.

Daphne Rosalie says she can’t wait to get married and she will start the process on family names. Rid yourself of the nomenclature shackles of speech, and revel in the freedom the founders of Western Civilization intended. I hope you follow suit. Kind regards, Oicurmt X. Cuzique

3504. A strange event

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When he bought the house Gareth thought the previous owners were a bit strange. It was the way they looked, the way they moved, the way they spoke. It’s hard to put a finger on why exactly they were different; they were just… different. It was almost as if they weren’t human. They were… well… I would explain if I could.

Anyway, they had left and Gareth moved his stuff into the house. They said they were moving overseas. They had left the house spotless. Don’t get me wrong; when I say they were different I don’t mean that Gareth found them offensive in any way. They couldn’t have been more obliging, more helpful. In fact they left a considerable amount of firewood for the oncoming winter.

Once settled and winter came, Gareth used the log burner. A log of wood would burn beautifully, but it would burn beautifully for several days before disintegrating into nothing – not even ashes. Gareth wondered what the wood was, so he took a piece to an arborist he knew. The arborist had no idea. He had never seen a wood like that. Nor had any other expert. Not to worry. The pile of wood was going to last all winter, and it kept the house cosy.

After several weeks Gareth noticed something else that was strange. The pile of wood seemed to be multiplying. It wasn’t getting bigger, but every piece of wood that went into the log burner seemed to get replaced overnight. This went on for several weeks. And then there was a knock at the door.

It was the previous owners. “This is very embarrassing,” they said. “Would you mind ever so much?”

Mind what?

“We inadvertently left someone behind. Would you mind ever so much if we took her?”

Took her? Took HER. Of course. You’re welcome, but…

They loaded the firewood onto a trailer and drove off. And that was it.

3503. Info storage

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Jillian and Barbara hated each other. They were both computer nerds and both were scrambling to be the first to solve the problem of search engines storing every skerrick of information that anyone ever typed out. They also wanted to be the first to stop monopolies from receiving and storing information and video from private, unregistered front porch cameras.

Barbara won the race! She solved the problem! The complex solution was stored on her computer.

Before she could reveal it, Jillian took a hammer to Barbara’s computer. Hopefully she was hammering away, hammering away, at the wrong machine.

3502. Reverie

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Maxine bought herself a lottery ticket. To win was to get seven million. A ticket had ten rows of numbers on it. All she needed was six numbers out of forty on a row and the seven million was hers. She would be able to buy the house of her dreams.

For the week leading up to the lottery draw, Maxine studied the real estate online. There were hundreds of properties to choose from. The perfect one was hard to find. Of course, with seven million she wouldn’t need to work, so she could live anywhere – in any part of the country. She would choose the location according to perfect weather.

She found the ideal house. It was on about a hectare of land which was mainly native trees, so there was no or little upkeep. And she could walk through her little forest and commune with Nature. The house itself was lovely too; not too big and not too small. In fact she thought she might call it Goldilocks’ Palace. She would have a sign with the name carved out of wood to place at the front gate!

The evening of the great lottery draw arrived! It was on television. Maxine got one number on one of the lines. With a chance of 1 in 134,490,400 it was bad luck to have missed out. Maybe next week…?