What have you got time for?

8 min read

The Last Word

She writes the obituaries in advance. There are four hundred in the drawer. One of them has started to worry her.

Moods: Funny Twist ending

8 min read

Neighbourhood Watch

The group chat has four hundred and eleven members and eleven years of evidence that nothing ever happens here.

Moods: Dark Funny

7 min read

Wrong Kind of Snow

She writes the announcements. She has eleven words and four thousand angry people.

Moods: Funny

7 min read

Overtime

Four hundred coats, one cloakroom, and a queue that will not be reasoned with.

Moods: Funny

7 min read

The Reading Group That Never Finished a Book

Eleven years. Ninety-four books chosen. Four finished. The group considers itself a success.

Moods: Cozy Funny

8 min read

Terms and Conditions

He reads them. All of them. In eleven years he has found four things worth finding.

Moods: Funny Twist ending

8 min read

The Balloon Release

The school wants to release two hundred balloons for the anniversary. The caretaker has been to a meeting about this before.

Moods: Dark Funny

8 min read

The Kindness of Strangers Is Taxable

A client has been given a boat. He has questions. His accountant has more.

Moods: Funny

7 min read

Allotment Committee: Minutes

Item 6 is the shed. Item 6 has been on the agenda since 2019.

Moods: Funny

7 min read

The Proofreader’s Revenge

Forty-one years of other people's mistakes. She has kept one of them back.

Moods: Funny

8 min read

The Last Man in the Phone Book

The 2024 residential directory for the district contains one entry. He gets about eleven calls a year.

Moods: Funny Heartfelt

8 min read

Quality Control

Her job is to taste four hundred biscuits a day and say what is wrong with them. She has been right every time for nineteen years.

Moods: Dark Funny

12 min read

The Weight Room

The average age in the Tuesday session is seventy-eight. The deadlift record is held by a woman of eighty-four.

Moods: Funny Heartfelt

7 min read

The Substitute Ingredient

The restaurant has one signature dish. The supplier has gone under. Service is in four hours.

Moods: Funny

8 min read

Hold Music

Forty seconds of synthesised strings, on a loop, for eleven years. One employee has been keeping notes.

Moods: Funny

7 min read

Three Minutes of Ari

The haircut takes eleven minutes. The conversation takes eleven minutes. Only one of them is why anyone books.

Moods: Cozy Funny

11 min read

Room for One More

The table seats eight. There have been between eleven and nineteen people at Sunday lunch every week since 2014.

Moods: Cozy Funny

11 min read

The Baker’s Dozen

The thirteenth item is free, has always been free, and is the subject of the longest-running dispute in the family business.

Moods: Cozy Funny

12 min read

Nobody’s Fool

The card school at the Anchor has run every Friday since 1991. Everyone agrees that Alf cheats. Nobody can catch him.

Moods: Funny Twist ending

12 min read

Correspondence Course

He enrolled in a beginners' Welsh course in 1998. The course closed in 2003. His tutor never told him.

Moods: Funny Heartfelt

7 min read

The Understanding

Two bakeries, forty metres apart, forty-one years of open warfare. And one arrangement neither will admit to.

Moods: Funny Heartfelt

6 min read

Every Wednesday, the Wrong Bin

Number 14 puts out the green bin on grey week. Number 16 has kept a log since 2021.

Moods: Funny

8 min read

Blue Plaque

The committee agrees the house deserves a plaque. What it cannot agree is which sentence goes on it.

Moods: Dark Funny

7 min read

The Woman Who Wins the Raffle

Eleven years. Eleven raffles. Eleven wins. The committee has investigated twice and found nothing.

Moods: Funny Twist ending

8 min read

Wrong Number, Right Person

For eleven months she has been getting updates on the recovery of a dog she has never met, from a stranger who has the wrong number.

Moods: Funny Heartfelt

7 min read

The Sourdough Custody Agreement

Clause 4 covers feeding schedules. Clause 9 covers what happens if either party names it.

Moods: Funny

8 min read

Closing Time at the Wax Museum

Forty-one figures, one night watchman, and a strict institutional policy of not talking about the Napoleon situation.

Moods: Dark Funny

7 min read

Room 12B, Ask for Denise

The form requires a document that no longer exists, issued by an office that closed in 2011. Denise has a workaround.

Moods: Cozy Funny

6 min read

How to Fold a Fitted Sheet

There is a correct method. My grandmother knew it. She refused, on principle, to write it down.

Moods: Funny Heartfelt

6 min read

Cold Open

Four hours of live radio, one guest who has not arrived, and a producer making increasingly desperate hand signals through the glass.

Moods: Funny

12 min read

The Queue

Nobody knows what the queue is for. It has been there since Tuesday. It is now the third largest employer in the district.

Moods: Dark Funny

7 min read

The Complaints Department

Desk 4 handles complaints about things the council does not administer. It is the busiest desk in the building.

Moods: Cozy Funny

6 min read

Weather for Ducks

Thirty-one years of forecasting. One catastrophic Tuesday. A nation that has never, ever let it go.

Moods: Funny

12 min read

Nine Lives of a Municipal Cat

The cat has no owner, four names, and an official parking bay. The council has stopped fighting it.

Moods: Cozy Funny

6 min read

My Neighbour Is Definitely a Wizard

Exhibit A: the parking space. Nobody gets that parking space. Nobody.

Moods: Funny