Stinky Robinson

Dear diary,
Stinky Robinson beat me up today. I think it was because he was upset about being so stinky. All I did was offer him some deodorant. It's not my fault all the kids in class started laughing when I did it. It’s them he should have beaten up!

Dear diary,
Stinky Robinson stole my diary and got mad when he saw I called him stinky again, this time on paper. I'm writing this from the cupboard he locked me in. I think I can smell him from here.

Dear diary,
Stinky Robinson didn't come to school on Friday. Today was Monday and when he did turn up, he didn't smell anymore. Maybe his mum made him put on some deodorant, just like I had suggested. I'm owed an apology after that. But I won’t ask him. That cupboard smells worse than he used to.

Dear diary,
Stinky Robinson doesn't understand that just because he doesn't stink anymore doesn't mean his nickname will change. I don't know why he blames me — all I did was invent the nickname. All the other kids started calling him it too. It's his fault for not discovering deodorant until last week anyway.

Dear diary,
Stinky Robinson is changing schools. Mrs. Ryan told us today. She also said we'd be getting a new kid to replace him next week. I just hope it's not another smelly kid. They'll have to get him a new chair too. Stinky Robinson's stink will have stuck to his seat.

Dear diary,
A new kid joined our class today. His name is Michael. He's quiet and he looks a little bit familiar, but I can't put my finger on why. Maybe I'm seeing things, but I think the new kid, Michael, and Stinky Robinson are the exact same height. I can tell because I only come up to Michael's chest too, which Stinky rammed my head into regularly.

Dear diary,
I snuck a look at the new kid's surname on the roll, and guess what? His last name is Robinson. Just like Stinky! But I guess it's a common name. Anyway, this new kid isn’t anything like Stinky. He's too nice for that. Even though they're about the same size, Michael always combs his hair back and he even smiles. Stinky never did that. He always had a scowl on his face and his hair over his eyes. Another nickname I had for him was the Stinky Spider. But I only called him that in my head.

Dear diary,
I have a new friend. Michael, the new kid. He came over to play at my house this afternoon. When he showed up, guess who was driving him? Stinky Robinson's mum! I think they are family friends or something. I hope Michael never invites Stinky around when I'm with him though. I can't stand that guy.

Affair

Because I worked at the cosmetics testing plant, my wife was never worried when I came home with lipstick on my collar. Little did she know I was having an affair with one of the bunny rabbits.

Self-Determination

When people ask me why my life turned out the way it has, I like to tell them a story. 'Can't you just give us a one sentence answer?' they say. 'No,' I reply. 'It's more complicated than that.' Besides, nobody's gonna pay me for just one sentence.

There are lots of people I've learnt from in my life, but the person I've learnt the most from is myself. I taught myself everything I know, except the very basics like eating and toilet training, which I think were written on the back of a Cornflakes box I found once.

The reason I had to learn everything myself was because from a very young age I was thrust out into the Big Bad World. I was thrust out by my Big Bad Uncle, who sat me down in the grass on my fifth birthday and said, 'Well, you're on your own, kid'. Right there, in the middle of the median strip! Imagine my embarrassment. I didn't even know how to hitchhike.

This early trauma taught me an important lesson about surviving: you need to do it, especially if you're to have any happiness in this world. So I continued to survive, and before long I was having normal childhood encounters, like experiencing my first love.

At the age of 14, I was in love with a girl; and we had chemistry together, I'll tell you that. I didn't get to see her very much because she didn't teach any other subjects. But one day, without warning, she just disappeared. I phoned her fifteen times a day, like I usually did, but she never answered. And when I went for my morning crawl through her front garden, from what I could see through her bedroom window, her stuff had been packed up and taken away. My guess? Alien abduction.

But I didn't let this get me down. After I realised how precious and tenuous our grasp on this planet is, I again resolved myself to forge my own path through life, at least until I found some nice coattails to sit on.

My main problem was that I had no talent. People thought I was a bit slow on the uptake. They did have a point, I'll admit. I once had a conversation for ten minutes before I realised I was standing in an echo chamber. But I vowed to work for change.

So I became an entrepreneur, which is French for 'drifter'. I'd drift in and out of lucrative businesses, until someone would ask me who I'm there to see and could I please leave the foyer, I'm causing a scene. But it also means I'm a self-made man, like Frankenstein, if he had made himself instead of that monster. Basically, it just means I did things for myself.

Here are some things I did for myself:

I worked as a con man. I'd go around asking people to give money to help fund diabetes research. Fooled them. It was really to help AIDS in Africa.

I manufactured shoelaces that were made of spaghetti, for hiking boots. If you ever get lost in the desert, no need to worry about starving. For our up-market customers, I even sold an edible tour guide. His name was Jim.

At one point I sold exploding chewing gum. That venture didn't last very long. There's a limited market for that kind of thing, once people find out what it does. After that, I sold dentures. They were top of the line because they were made from real teeth. Sometimes I could even sell a person's own teeth back to them, if they'd already bought the exploding chewing gum.

I even had a short lived career as a comedian. This was one of my jokes: 'Why don't cows eat at the dinner table? Because they can't chew with their mouths shut.' Get it? No manners. I think I was just ahead of my time. Unfortunately, the booking agents thought I was just ahead of Happy Hour.

So you'll notice I've had some strange jobs in my time, but you'll also notice there's something that they have in common: they all were born out of self-determination, hard work and one too many tequila sunrises. Seriously, those things will knock days off your calendar. Sometimes I forgot that Mondays even existed, which is one reason why my brand of calendars never sold well.

But when I think about the future, I'm optimistic. Although I'm not crazy about flying cars, they are sure to bring in plenty of business opportunities for a drifter like me. Remember, the only things that stopped my ventures from growing indefinitely were complacency, neglect and a couple of criminal investigations.

I have always made my own path through life. I'm like a pioneer, in some ways. In other ways, not so much. But I am something, and there's something to be said for that. Now, where's that pay cheque?

Bobby

Some people say the British police aren't respected because they don't carry guns. I think it's because of the silly hats.

Lost in the Desert

I once sold a man a camel that didn't have any humps. I was miles away with his money before he realised it was a donkey.

I sold tour guides at the Great Pyramid, and gave out maps with directions to the Crap Pyramid. I was safely down by the Red Sea before any of the tourists realised there was no Crap Pyramid. I'm not sure why anyone tried to find it. The name says it all.

At first, nobody came looking for me when I got lost in the desert. Or maybe they did. The maps I had sold them had the desert wrong too.

It's not fun being stuck in the desert. Anyone who says it is probably can live without water for extended periods of time. My camel is writing a book about it, for instance.

Of course, finally someone came to find me. It was a man riding a donkey. He wanted his money back because his donkey had a hump.

'I didn't sell you that,' I said.
'Yes, you did,' he said.

Then we just stared at each other for a while.

'You did!' he said again, after the while was up.
'Now don't start that again, ' I said. 'I sell donkeys and say they are camels. You've got a camel that someone told you was a donkey. That's a whole other thing going on.'

We argued about this for a while. Eventually I took pity on the poor fellow. I gave him a good price on an invisible stallion and he rode off into the sunset, thinking he had a horse under him. So he was happy.

And that's all well and good, but I'm still stuck in the desert. At least I have something to read, though. If we ever get out of here, my camel's going to be a bestseller.

Bad Joke

Why is a good book like a healthy dog?
You can’t put it down!

Bones

I'll never forget the time I found dinosaur bones while digging in my backyard. They were small, but Mum said it was from a little dinosaur, like the ones that turned into chickens. I only wish my dog Billy had been there to see it, but he had gone to visit my Auntie Bev at her farm a few months back and liked it to so much he decided to stay. I never got to say goodbye because I was at school when he left. Oh boy, he would have loved all those bones!