In Pursuit of Being Cool
By the time I set the book of stamps aside and ventured into Nat’s walk-in freezer for more ice cubes, I was only half surprised to find that one side of the freezer was full of clothes.
I dumped ice from the other side into both glasses and went back out the main room.
“Nat,” I asked with a sigh, “why are there clothes in your freezer?”
He grinned. “Easy! Those are my cool outfits!”
Pink Tires
Two men lounging in the zero g section of the station bar signalled the bartender for another round. One had his feet tucked under the foot hold and was floating more or less upright. The other had an arm looped through a higher hold and was lying along the bright pink wall.
The bartender tossed a pair of drinking bulbs in their direction and added the cost to their tab.
The upright man snagged the drinks out of the air and passed one over. “You were saying that the colour in here is in honour of the original owner? Is the name The Spare Tire a reflection on that too?”
“Nah, Lily was a clever lass, but the new owner wanted a new name.” The wall man gave a wry grin, and waved a hand languidly enough that the reaction didn't do much but make him undulate slightly. “My suggestion, actually. This space station is shaped like a wheel after all, and the bar is on the rim of it.”
The upright man smirked over his floating drink. “And is that the only spare tire you were thinking of, dear?” he asked, lacing his fingers over his paunch.
The wall man reddened, “You know very well how much I like yours.”
“I do know.” The upright man leaned forward and pecked the wall man's cheek lightly. “But I like to hear you say it.”
“Bastard,” he muttered fondly, and drained his bulb.
“Your bastard. And you know it, you incorrigible flirt.”
“Comes with the job. Just enjoy having the place named for you, and don't tell them. Not like you don't have other places like that, is it.”
“True, true.” The upright man sipped his own drink as a sound made them both look over at the bar. “Oh dear,” he said. “I do believe they're about to start bellowing the old anthem. Shall we...?”
“Yes, lets.” The wall man swiped a card over the nearest pay point to cover the tab, and they both pushed off towards the exit hatch, escaping through it just as the bar-wide rendition of Lily the Pink erupted behind them.
One of Those Days
I was only there to pick up a new set of pizza pans. Someone - naming no names - had managed to put a horn through my old set. (Such things are inevitable when one of your housemates is a minotaur)
See, the car park closest to the shop with the good, cheap, pizza pans also has the local landing area for folks with wings, or with flying transport of one kind and another, so it wasn't that uncommon to see low flying objects there. You learn to look out above you as well as around you, after a while.
What was not common or expected was for a vampire in bat form to crash land on my pizza pans.
Heigh ho. It was clearly going to be one of those days.
Gogglebox
It started when someone tossed the empty plastic box used for spare goggles into the pool. Some joker had drawn a rough outline of a tv set on it and added the label "gogglebox".
The problem was that they had used a water soluble ink, so the first person to push the box back towards the side ended up with bright blue fingers. And of course, with everyone being in high spirits over last week's win, everyone else wanted fingers to match and started jostling for access to slap the box.
It was inevitable that in the scrum, someone would miss the box and catch a person instead. Which (such is life) ended up with a dozen youngsters all finger painting each other's faces (or trying to) with crude blue mascots.
I would have liked to have seen their parents' faces, but, not my department. Mine just to dive in when they were gone, and bat the box out of the water with a (now blue) mermaid's tail.
Dog, Dog, Goose
I'm the top of a pile of books
Sitting on a stall.
Looking for a buyer.
Sitting very tall.
I'm fond of my first owner,
Who read me, through and through,
But now will pass me on,
If they can find-- Hey! Shoo!
A goose has grabbed my cover.
I'm trailing in the dust.
I'll make you let me go!
I'll do whatever I must!
I snap and clap my pages
Until the beak lets go.
And then I get a short reprieve.
It's quiet down-- Oh No!
A dog has caught me by the spine.
It's running through the Fair.
I really want my reader back.
Oh where, oh where, oh where?
A tether reels in the running dog.
I'm back in human hands.
I shudder all my pages
And wonder where I'll land.
Not to be Sniffed At
I opened the trunk of the clown's car and a large flower popped up asking me to smell it. I held my washcloth up at its smelling range instead, and the flower obligingly squirted water onto it. That gave me a headstart on washing the custard off the outside of the car and popping the expandable sides back into place.
Inside, they'd somehow managed to avoid getting actual custard on it for once, so I just hooked up the vacuum cleaner, hoovered up the pastry crumbs, and gave it a standard valet, catching the squirt of milk from the horn in a glass out of weekly habit and practice, and drinking it.
You get used to the pranks when you encounter them every week, and as for money...
Well, at least the pay isn't a joke.
