Son, Give Me Back My Trousers

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Who Knew Tasmanian Tigers Eat Apples!

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Watch for more at John Martin’s site.

SON, GIVE ME BACK MY TROUSERS

FUNNY COLUMNS

BY

JOHN MARTIN

Copyright © 2016 by John Martin

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Front cover image: AI generated

CONTENTS

There's gold in them thar fish

Son, give me back my trousers

A glove letter on the fridge to my homecoming wife

Rebel with a Pause

Turn that funky music down, boy

Why my Elvis dream ends badly

There's gold in them thar urinals too

The mother of all kerfuffles

Things that go arghhh in the night

Rats, we're not alone

Getting crabby with a claw hammer

Have electric guitar, will torture

Taking a leaf out for a good cook

Whole Lotto shaking going on

Why the three wise men bared their soles

There’s a Pollywaffle in my plonk

Can you keep a little secret?

Just a matter of common scents

Are you feeling clucky, punk?

Colour and kitchen movement

A Dear John letter to the coach

Don’t hobnob with doorknobs

Why I have an ironing deficiency

Erasing eyebrows and departing hair

A bedtime story for losing weight

Fiend rises from the Ashes

Hey puss, did you get fries with that?

Holy donkey Eddie Murphy gets the last laugh

A blast of Monty Python at my job interview

The day the magic left my underpants

Following in my religiously experienced footy boots

Sitting the big test

Itching for the right Christmas tree

Redefining the childcare bottom line

Help, someone has sewn up my hole

The man in orange is always right too

Um, that ain't our cat!

Wimping out overground, underground

Crying over spilled milk, cowpats and lettuce

Fixing it next week, with yesterday’s skills and tomorrow's prices

Skippy, the ambushed kangaroo

Fame and fortune finds me at last

Public liability issue cuts deep for us chess players

Why I am a mellow yellow fellow who is glad to read the fine print

Preparing for the second-coming of Bob

Raiding the fridge is all relative

Take me to your footy leader

The Iceman cometh to a sticky end

Reminiscing about my school song *hit parade

Santa goes offshore and beyond

My sceptical carpet ride

Message in a bottle from a washed-up nervous flyer

How answering machines can drive you bananas

One small step for man, one giant leap for Slowhand

What a curable romantic I am

All stressed up, no way to mow

There's no business like showbags business

miSNAKEn identity

On the cutting edge with the Swiss Army

Tie a yellow necktie 'round the old snakey

More funny than you can poke a stick at

Are the wings still there yet?

Merry Fishmas, my final letter for the year on the fridge

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About the Author

Author's note

My novels

THERE'S GOLD IN THEM THAR FISH

Ihad to tell my friend Orville today to go get a haircut, so I could test my fish theory.

But I don't need a haircut, he protested.

Sheesh, he sounded a lot like I did when I was a teenager and my father used to say: Why don't you go and get a haircut, you long-haired lout?

I don't need a haircut, I would say.

And it was true. My hair was rarely all that much longer than dad's.

My father could never see that.

I do see Orville's point, however. My guess is that he has not really needed a trim since the last of his hair follicles fell out about five years ago and he became completely bald.

You can wear a wig if it worries you, I told Orville. Just make sure that Guiseppe is the one who cuts your hair and let me know if he says anything about making money from breeding fish.

Fish? said Orville

Yes, Guiseppe cut my hair this morning and it came up in our conversation, right after he enquired about how I filled in my spare time.

If I were you, he said, merrily snipping away, I'd get into breeding pets.

Pets? I said.

Yeah, lotsa money to be made breeding pets, said Guiseppe.

I know a fella who breeds fish and sells them for $5 a centimetre. Five centimetre fish, $25 dollars. Easy money. He breeds millions of fish at a time.

No kidding? I said as he picked up the cut-throat razor. Does he sell millions at a time, too?

Hundreds, anyway, said Guiseppe, as he lathered the back of my neck. I tell you: it's easy money.

It was at this point two thoughts flashed through my mind.

• If the money is so easy to make, why doesn't Guiseppe make a fish-breeding career change; and

• Maybe this is just how barbers get their kicks on slow days. They have bets with the other barbers to see who can string along the most customers. Before they know it all their customers have chucked in their jobs and are breeding fish. Or other pets.

Not that I have ever thought of fish as pets.

When I think of pets, I usually think of critters that drink from a bowl, not live in one.

Creatures that you bury in the garden when they die rather than flush down the dunny. I just hate large family funeral processions in the usual tranquility of little room.

I certainly do not generally think of things with fins when I think of pets.

I know another fellow who breeds birds, Guiseppe went on. Or he used to. He had to let them all go during the January bushfires. I don't know what kind of birds they were but he used to sell chicks for thousands of dollars a breeding pair.

No kidding, I said. I did not say it but I thought it: they were probably geese who laid golden eggs.

Orville was less diplomatic with me.

You don't really believe all that? he said.

No, but you can't be too sure, I said. That's why I want you to go in there, undercover, and see if they tell you the same story.

But I think they'll see through my disguise, said Orville.

If they do, just tell them you forgot you're bald. You just want to look your best for your fish's funeral.

SON, GIVE ME BACK MY TROUSERS

Ihave no idea why I have never been head-hunted for a position as a fashion consultant.

Possibly it is because I think fashion crazes are confidence tricks.

Call me cynical, but I think they are designed to make money for the movers and shakers and con people in the fashion industry.

Boss: ''We seem to have 100,000 excess pink and yellow teapot cosies in our storeroom. What are we going to do with them?"

Fashion designer: No worries. We can market them as hats and tell the customers that they're all the rage in Paris right now.

Thankfully, I have not seen too many human teapots in my neighbourhood lately.

I have, however, seen countless male teenagers dressed in oversized trousers, sloppy sports jumpers, boots and beanies.

What's wrong with that?

Well, it would be perfectly OK if we were in depths of winter and they were simply trying to keep warm.

But it has been swelteringly hot here in Canberra and I have to feel sorry for anyone whose head is encased in a woollen beanie and whose feet are encased in big, heavy boots just because some fashion guru has decreed them to be fashionable.

I stop short of calling the young men Stupid! Gullible! Sheep-like!

I guess they just want to look hot.

Mission accomplished. They look very bloody hot.

I can understand where they are coming from, I guess.

I was a teenager once so I know something about the generation gap and a teenager's desire to be different.

My father had short hair. I had long hair.

My father wore sombre grey suits. I had a loud purple suit.

He had thin, dark ties. I had wide ties adorned with pictures of coconut trees and naked ladies.

But never, ever, ever did I borrow any of his clothes.

So what is it with the oversized trousers I see so often?

They must be three to four sizes too big.

Hey, kid, I feel like saying. Why don't you give your father back his trousers? He needs them more than you right now. But don't worry. One day he will die, and you will inherit them. Legally. And I promise you will grow into them by middle-age.

I have to stress, I never actually say this.

Mostly, the young men are on skateboards and are simply too fast to get away.

Funny that. You'd think they'd covet my trousers now that I have a middle-aged girth.

I guess they are just wary of me because I wear a very fashionable pink and yellow teapot cosy on my head nowadays.

A GLOVE LETTER ON THE FRIDGE TO MY HOMECOMING WIFE

Welcome back Katherine,

Before you ask, I can explain why the fridge is now full of stubbies of beer when no doubt you half-expected it to be still full of all the healthy green things you left in it.

I know I promised to take good nutritional care of our six-year-old Jack while you were away this week. Once again.

But, well, something else came up that prevented this. Once again.

On the credit side, I did provide Jack with a varied diet for his main meals during your absence. We had takeaway pizza with pineapple and ham on Monday, takeaway pizza with tomato and onion on Tuesday, takeaway pizza with egg and ham on Wednesday and takeaway pizza with chicken and cheese on Thursday.

He seems to enjoy takeaway pizza which, I think, is a good thing. It expands his culinary experience and teaches him to be adaptable.

And I am sure you would agree that he learnt a nice lesson from what we did with all the healthy green stuff you left in the fridge for us.

We bunged it in a charity bin.

Gee, there was rather a lot of it, Katherine. Heavy too.

But we got it there by making two trips in the car, stacking it in the boot neatly and making good use of the roof rack.

I am glad now I insisted on all those extras, including the roof rack, when we bought the car.

I bet you are glad, too, that at Christmas, while we are stuffing our faces with turkey, ham, cake and mince pies, some folks less privileged than ourselves will be eating all that healthy green stuff. Another nice lesson for Jack.

Sorry I had to leave this rather impersonal note on the fridge, Katherine.

How was your conference?

It is good to have you home again.

I would have been here to greet you in person but I had to duck out to pick up another