Stuck On You

She’d been following him around all day, and it was getting beyond a joke.

            Mick had first noticed her in the bar as he had breakfast. Had she been on his tail all night? And, more to the point, why him? It wasn’t as if he had the most exciting of lives, spending as he did most of his waking day running up and down corridors and stairs, nipping out for the occasional coffee between classes. Couldn’t she have picked on Dick rather than Mick? To Mick’s knowledge, Darkhorse Dick spent his life roaming down back alleys, nipping in for the occasional class between coffees and goodness knows what else. How Dick spent his working day was a complete mystery, and surely deserving of further investigation.

            Mick had hoped to shake off his stalker at lunch-time, so he was rather peeved to find her waiting patiently for him as he parked his car. Sooner or later Mick was going to have to confront her; it would be later rather than sooner, however, as he was running late for his next class.

            I don’t know about you, but I’m with Mick on this one: they should have called it shoeing gum.

I Want It All

It was an agonising decision. White coffee and croissant? Or red wine and tapa? The green tea didn’t stand a chance. Alas, Mick’s British upbringing hadn’t prepared him for choices like these; well, not at 11.30 in the morning. But this was sunny Spain, where anything was possible with a little imagination.

            As the barmaid approached, Mick started to panic. That was when the police arrived.

            ‘Dos con leche.’

            Two white coffees. No need to say ‘please’ or ‘thankyou’. Especially if you were carrying a gun.

            As the barmaid tended to the policemen, Mick felt a flash of inspiration.

            ‘Coffee and croissant, please.’

            Yes, I know I said you don’t have to say ‘please’, but old habits die hard.

            ‘Gracias. How much is that?’

            Another great thing about Spanish bars is it’s up to the customer to decide when, or indeed whether, to pay.

Mick sat out on the terrace, slurping his coffee and scoffing his croissant in the scorching sun. He jotted down a few lines, glanced at his watch – Midday already? – and ambled back into the bar.

            ‘Red wine, please. Oh, they look nice!’

            So, who was it who said, “You can’t have your cake and eat it”?

Oh Darling

‘This aftershave you got me doesn’t half sting!’

             ‘Well, I think you smell very nice.’

            ‘Sting.’

            ‘You’ll live, don’t worry. You’re not going to wear that shirt, are you?’

            ‘Why not?’

            ‘It makes you look like a grandfather. Here, put this on.’

            ‘But I—’

            ‘And you’d better change those trousers while you’re at it.’

            ‘I thought you liked them?’

            ‘I do. But they don’t go with that shirt.’

            ‘Er, I’m in a bit of a rush, darling.’

            ‘Aren’t we all! That spot’s not getting any better, is it? Did you put any cream on it?’

            ‘Yes.’

            ‘When?’

            ‘Last night.’

            ‘Come here. It won’t take a moment. When are you going to get your hair cut?’

            ‘Next week.’

            ‘You said that last week. Now, don’t forget the meeting.’

            ‘What meeting?’

            ‘With Joe’s teachers!’

            ‘Ah, yes, I might not be able to make it. I’m doing interviews again—’

            ‘What’s more important? Your teachers or Joe’s teachers?’

            ‘Er—’

            ‘Don’t answer that. Come on! I thought you said you were in a hurry?’

‘Forget something?’

            ‘Pendrive.’

            ‘What about your briefcase?’

            ‘Oh, I suppose I’d better take that as well. Just in case. Ha! Just in case. Get it?’

            ‘Bye, darling.’

            ‘Bye.’

Stop And Stare

It wasn’t the easiest manoeuvre in the world, but he had started, so he would finish. After all, just how hard could it be to reverse his tiny little Toyota into that great big space?

            Mick wound his window down to get a better view of the kerb, only to be greeted by five pairs of beige flannel trousers that had appeared out of nowhere.

            ‘He’ll never do it.’

            ‘Too close.’

            ‘Angle’s not right.’

            ‘What’s he doing?’

            ‘Told you.’

            And so on.

            Haven’t you got anything better to do? Mick asked himself, though he knew the answer: No, they hadn’t. Besides, “providing a no-cost parking advisory service” was in The Old Men’s Brigade’s remit, the full contents of which would take far too long to reproduce here. Suffice to say, “overseeing public works and sundry botch jobs” was number one.

Mick parked perfectly, of course. First time, too. We perform far better under pressure, don’t we?

He had been hoping for a round of applause, or at the very least an approving nod or two. So, on getting out, Mick was somewhat disappointed to see that his tormentors were now over the road, helping a young workman with his crane.

What’s The Matter Here?

‘Have you got a minute, Mick?’

            ‘Yes, of course, Ana,’ Mick said, lying through his teeth. Basically, he divided people into two groups: those with time for anything – people like Ana – and those with time for nothing – people like you, me and Mick, right?

            Mick put down his seven bags of shopping, wiped the sweat from his eyes, straightened his back up, and gave Ana his full undivided attention. Little did it matter that he had left the dinner on, that the ice cream was melting or that Joe was waiting for him to do his history homework. It served him right for trying to make a home run before nightfall.

            So, what would it be this time? A loose wall tile? A fused light bulb? A dirty door knob? For his sins, Mick’s neighbours had voted him Administrador for the year; “for the year”, not “of the year”.

‘Don’t move,’ said Ana, darting back into her flat, then reemerging with a plastic shopping bag. ‘I found it on my balcony.’

            ‘Oh, thanks. Sorry,’ Mick said, suitably humbled as he inspected the offending sock and clothes peg.

            ‘No problem. Oh, by the way, about those pot plants . . .’

Make Me Smile

Once upon a time there was a lovely girl called Isa. When Isa smiled, she was also a beautiful girl but, more importantly, everybody around her smiled too. In fact, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the entire happiness of the world depended on Isa’s smiling.

            Mick was worried, therefore, when Isa walked into class and sat down without so much as a ‘Hello’. He soon saw what the problem was: a great big spot on Isa’s chin. Wishing Isa’s spot a short-lived life, Mick proceeded to tell Roald Dahl’s delightful tale about a very special girl called Matilda. Today, however, nobody seemed to be laughing.

Mick woke up the next morning with a throbbing pain at the end of his nose. Needless to say, the kids thought this was hilarious; especially Isa, whose spot had disappeared miraculously overnight. This reversal of fortunes inspired Mick’s Universal Spots Theory, which states that “the total number of spots in the world at any given moment is a constant”.

            So next time you wake up with an ugly spot on your hooter or wherever, remember that some poor soul elsewhere is celebrating that they have just lost theirs. And smile .

We Can Work It Out

‘Er, Menu A, please. I’ll have the spring roll, special fried rice and sweet ’n’ sour pork.’

            Except Mick ordered in Spanish, of course, because the menu was in Spanish. ‘Gracias.’ This particular restaurant was nearly always empty, and he had never understood how they could stay in business. Perhaps they couldn’t. Whatever, the service was fast and friendly, the food was pretty damned good, and Menu A was the cheapest set menu in town. In fact, the only drawback was that here was a Chinese family trying to make a living in the Basque Country. It was an unlikely marriage.

            The waitress reappeared shortly with the spring roll.

            ‘Rollo de primavera.’

            ‘Thank you,’ Mick said, this time in English. His defences were down – you should have seen the spring roll – and his brain had gone into autocruise.

            ‘Bu ke qi,’ she said, smiling mishievously, then taking her leave.

In retrospect, it was one of life’s beautiful moments. So beautiful, Mick just had to rewind:

            ‘Rollo de primavera.’

            ‘Thank you.’ It’s no good pretending I’m Spanish. I’m not fooling anyone, am I?

            ‘Bu ke qi.’ Hey, don’t worry. I’m not Spanish, either. But we can still be friends, can’t we?

This Is How It Always Starts

‘Just write down the first thing that comes into your head.’

            ‘Like what?’

            ‘Well, like that, for example.’

            ‘What? “Like what?” ’

            ‘Yeah.’

            ‘Not exactly Shakespeare, is it, Reggie?’

            ‘What do you want to write like Shakespeare for?’

            ‘I don’t. I want to write like David Foster Wallace.’

            ‘Well, there you go, then.’

            Writing a story wasn’t nearly as easy as it was cracked up to be. Mick must have written the equivalent of War and Peace ten times over in his head, but the moment he sat down to put his thoughts to paper, he invariably drew a blank.

            ‘Just write down the first thing that comes into your head,’ Reg had told him.

            OK, here goes . . .

            ‘Once upon a t—’

            Gosh, this was pathetic!

            I’ve started, so I’ll finish . . .

            ‘Once upon a time, there was a would-be writer who didn’t know where to start. Nor did he know where to finish. All he really knew for certain was that he wanted to write. So write he would.’

            So help me God.           

No one will read this rubbish!

            Rule number one of writing: don’t write for no one; write for number one.

The Masterplan

It was a perfect plan; it couldn’t fail:

a) He would write non-stop, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year, plus

b) Everything he posted would take a well-known song for its title, so

c) Sooner or later, 10% of all internet users would stumble across mikiatures.com

ABC. A Brilliant Conceit! Just think of all that advertising revenue! For it is a well-documented fact that one in ten internet searches is music-related. Of course, only a small fraction of those users would click on the link to Mick’s blog. At first, the visits would trickle in but, given time, there was bound to be a snowball effect. Besides, they say any plan is better than no plan, in much the same way that any visits are better than no visits.

            Naturally, there would have to be some kind of quality control. There was no way, for example, that Mick would be putting his name to any of that electronic-disco-funk crap or whatever they called it.

For starters, Mick decided to go for some classic Oasis. He was feeling pretty pleased with himself. For the first time in his life, he was on the right track.