Ross

Ross was walking home from school one day when he saw some graffiti under a canal bridge about his mother. It said she was a turkey whore, who would give blow jobs for £5 a pop. Next to it was a crude scrawl of her face, complete with the baggy skin under her neck that prompted the turkey reference. She wasn't a turkey, she had just lost a lot of weight recently which made the skin saggy. Ross was disgusted and planned to return and paint over the graffiti to protect his mum’s honour and his own embarrassment

On the way home from school the next day Ross hung back until the other kids were well on their way and he stopped at the bridge to overspray the graffiti with some cans of paint he had found in the garage. Unfortunately he became too absorbed in covering the graffiti, attempting to create the outline of a narrowboat, in keeping with the surroundings. Ross failed to notice the approach of a local PCSO. Ross' justifications in covering the other graffiti fell on deaf ears and he was summoned before a magistrate’s court and sentenced to 16 hours community service, clearing up graffiti. Despite the injustice of it, his mother said she was proud that he had tried to defend her.

Those 16 hours were some of the worst of Ross' young life. He didn't fit in with the others serving their sentence and had to endure their taunting, all whilst being berated by a hateful shrivel of a man who got his kicks by ordering them around. After the 2 days were up Ross was stinking, covered in municipal grey paint and with the last insults still ringing in his ears was only too glad to return home to some peace and quiet.

Ross came unannounced through the front door and into his lounge, only to be confronted by the sight of his mum on her knees in front of the magistrate who had sentenced him only the week before. Sometimes you just can't win.

The Cat with the Marxist Beard

This all happened the day I first met my wife. We had our first date in the evening and the fact that she told me this story half way through the night was one of the first indications that I was going to fall for this girl. 

My wife was back living with her parents after a messy break up from her previous partner. As is typical she was finding it a little difficult having her parents watch over her every move when she had gotten used to doing her own thing. on this weekend they had friends of theirs staying in the house with them, the husband of whom was high up in the Church of England clergy and the wife a very proper lady seen as an authority in flower arranging circles. 

My wife had got up in the morning and was doing some preliminary preparations for the date later that day. We had been out as part of a group socially a few times, having met through friends who both worked for an insurance company. This was our first proper date but we were already getting on well as mates. She decided to go for the full preen ready for the date and got her scissors out to trim down her pubic hair, in case things progressed faster than planned (in the end they didn't but she wasn't to know that then). 

Once done she placed the clippings in the bathroom bin and after her bath she took the bin downstairs and emptied it into the main kitchen bin. To avoid anyone seeing the discarded pubes she then took the kitchen bin out into the garden to put in the black wheelie bin with the rest of the household waste. However being just a couple of days before the collection day and with the extra refuse generated by having the guest in the house the wheelie bin was full so she placed the bin bag on the ground next to it. 

She thought no more about this and went about her normal day, going out for a bit of shopping for a new top to wear in the evening and then returning late afternoon to get ready. Once she was all dolled up she headed downstairs for a quick chat with her parents and their guests, ready to get a lift into town with her dad. They were all stood chatting when their cat, Mr Winky (the lesson here is never let a 4 year old name your cat) came sauntering in through the cat flap in the back door. Mr Winky padded proudly into the middle of the kitchen floor and sat down in the centre of the group and began to lick his paws in a most satisfied manner. 

"Oh, what's happened to your cat, Margaret"  asked the flower arranger, the first to spot that Mr Winky, a ginger cat had a strange dark shadow across his chin. "He seems to have some rough fur on his face, perhaps he's had a fight" said the clergyman. "My, he looks almost to have a beard like Lenin" he added. 

The group turned to look at the cat and indeed he did seem to be sporting a thick, dark beard in the style of the Russian revolutionary. My wife's mum went over to the cat for a closer look. "It's very dark and wiry, this fur, I don't think it has come from another cat", she said. Her mum brushed the cats face and removed the errant fur. "whatever is it Karl?" talking to my wife's dad. He came over for a closer look. "How peculiar", he said "It sounds strange to say it, but they look almost like downstairs hair to me". "You're right", said my wife's mum "but where would they come from?".

With mounting horror my wife realised what must have happened. Having put the bin bag out earlier she hadn't realised at that time that the bin bag contained the leftover scraps of the salmon en croute enjoyed by her parents, the clergyman and the flower arranger the night before. Left out of the wheelie bin the piscine scents from the bin bag proved very attractive to Mr Winky. He must have ripped the bin bag open with his claws and buried his head into the bag to eat the salmon. His face now sticky with fish juice, the trimmed pubic hair must have got mixed up with the salmon and stuck to his face. 

"What do you think, Karen?" asked her Dad. As the group turned to look at her, the crimson blush across her face gave away her embarrassment and the rest of the party twigged what might have been going on. "Perhaps it's from a vole" my wife managed to stammer. 

"Perhaps", said her Dad "I think it's time I gave you that lift into town"

"I think it probably is", she said. 

First day on the job

Mary

Mary was marginalised
Mary was marginalised merely for being mild
Marginalised Mary, mild and meek.
Marginalisation made Mary mad
Mad marginalised Mary blew up to magnificent size
Magnificent and mad, Mary exploded from the margins
Mary was a margin monster, no longer meek and mild.
Mad margin monster Mary unleashed mayhem upon the men who had marginalised her

Tim

Tim always wanted his own personalised number plate on his car- T1M DR. He wasn’t a doctor, his full name was Tim David Roberts.

He saw it come up for sale once, £750 it was. His Peugeot 305 wasn’t even worth £600. Even with the trick rallysport alloys.

He considered selling his guitar, a 78 american strat, to fund it but his Dad wouldn’t let him. He even considered selling a kidney, but couldn’t work out how to do it and whilst googling it got distracted by a list of kidney bean recipes.

In the end it was too late, the plate was sold and his dream seemed more out of reach than ever. He sat at home eating wotsits, flicking through the free paper that came through the door on a Thursday, leaving sticky orange finger prints on the corners of the pages.

His eyes fell on an advert for a local solicitors. They were running an offer, reduced rates on legal undertakings. One of their services was name changes by deed poll. Tim had an idea.

For less than the cost of the car stereo Tim had now achieved his dream of a personalised number plate, he’d changed his name to M185 GRN, the same as the plate on his existing car. He said it was pronounced Mibs Gern, his Dad was furious. Even Mibs had a little pang of regret when he realised the costs involved in updating his driving licence and passport.

Still nothing could dim the excitement Mibs felt when he got behind the wheel of the car, that was now most definitely his. He raced down the A38 in the rain to visit his best mate to tell him the news in person. But he lost control on an off camber bend and ploughed the car into a wall, writing it off in the process. Mibs sat on a curb looking at the shards of number plate scattered across the road and wondered if you could transfer a number plate from a write off to a new vehicle, and just how much that would cost.