Challenging Anneka

Last night I went outside and collected all the bottle caps lying on the pavement. Total number: 230,000. I sent half of them to Anneka Rice in over ten padded envelopes and got this LOVELY response:

Dear Jeremy,

Thank you for your sweet gift of 230,000 bottle caps. I will treasure them dearly and add them to my collection of barnacles, condoms and pigeon beaks. When all this is over, all this madness and strife, perhaps we can meet up for a panettone by the fountain? I know I’m a romantic fool Jeremy, but why can’t we go crazy once in a while, why can’t we unleash the love beasts from time to time, toss them a soggy biscuit?

Regards,

Anny

Well! What a charming response. Sadly, I had to decline her offer of a panettone, because I believe in the principle that panettone eating will lead to sense of alienation and despair, and I need some cheeriness in my life right now, having lost a KP nut down the sofa last week. Hard times, but the love of a good woman and a rousing speech from Chuck D got me through.

This is normally the point a reader’s interest drops off in surreal writing. See, they know nothing logical is coming. They’ve already absorbed the bottle caps, the letter to Anneka Rice, they know the whole post is riddled with stupidities. Good blog posts should be about here’s what I did on Monday in a bank with a rubber duck and a wrench. Here’s the fungal cream I’m using. It works wonders. People are very fickle, we don’t need them.

Speaking of fungal cream, there’s a new brand on the market (lie), it helps dissolve bacteria (lie) and cures those nasty verrucas (lie) and makes you generally feel better (lie.) Order now from wherever.

Here’s Anneka’s response:

Dear Joseph,

I’ve very disappointed in you! For weeks I have knitted and knitted clothing for you, lovely sweaters and trousers and cardigans, and then I discover you do not want to munch my panettones? Well, I certainly won’t be receiving anymore bottle caps from you! And if you try to send them, I will block them with my Anneka Power, and you will cry so hard your eyes will fall out and I won’t nurse you when you’re a blind man, oh no!

Yours,

Angela

Oh well. She seemed so friendly on Challenge Anneka.

P.S. My story The Little Book of Nothing (pdf link) is accessible in Glint Literary Journal #2.

And for some reason my last published story has been republished here, in The Ante Review.