Love At First Sight: A Tall Yarn

(Every line in this story is made up of idioms. Enjoy!)

A doubting Thomas was at the crossroads,

Wondering how to pop the question.

Should he run with it, or will the winds change?

He had miles to go before he could sleep,

Rat-races to run, ladders to climb.

Palms to grease, noses to brown,

Balls to hit out of the park.

So he didn’t want to jump the gun,

This was a bell that couldn’t be unrung.

Stuck between a rock and a hard place,

He killed time, waiting for the penny to drop.

But time and tide wait for no man,

So no longer did he sit on the fence,

He jumped from the frying pan into the fire.

“I can be your knight in shining armour,”

“I can be your friend in need indeed,”

“I can take you to seventh heaven,”

“Or cloud nine if that’s your cup of tea.”

The woman’s breath was taken away,

This twist of fate left her all at sea.

All hands to the pump, she steadied her ship.

“Oh, I’m but a black sheep and an ugly duckling.”

“But beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.”

“They say love makes you blind”

“By pulling the wool over your eyes.”

“So, before I fall, head over heels,”

“Let’s get down to brass tacks.”

“Can you do more than make ends meet?”

“Can you keep the wolves from the door?”

“You fit the bill, if you foot the bill.”

“Will you stick with me through thick or thin?”

“Hang on, come hell or high water?”

This googly gave him food for thought.

“I’ve burnt the candle at both ends”

“To keep my head above water.”

“But then I hit pay dirt and rode the gravy train,”

“Until I could laugh all the way to the bank.”

“However, no man is an island.”

“All work and no play made Jack a dull boy.”

“So I began to keep my eyes peeled,”

“Saw the apple of my eye, and fell in love.”

Still she was at sixes and sevens,

So he threw caution to the winds.

He would pull no punches,

Let the chips fall as they may.

“I am the best thing since sliced bread.”

“Because castles in the air and moonshots,”

“Pies in the sky and pipe dreams,”

“Will not just be figments of imagination,”

“But take shape and see the light of day.”

“So will you be my better half?”

Greenhorn she wasn’t, dollars to doughnuts;

She knew which side her bread was buttered.

“I promise to be your other half”

“Let us cut the cord, and tie the knot.”

“Learn the ropes on the fly.”

“As one, we jump into the deep end,”

“And swim with the sharks.”

“When familiarity begins to breed contempt,”

“We won’t break up, but kiss and make up.”

“When we go through a rough patch,”

“We’ll pause for breath, and take stock,”

“Count our blessings, and carry on.”

“For life’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

“But let’s not count our chickens before they hatch.”

“For now, we make hay while the sun shines.”

“Let me strike while my iron is hot.”

“I have eyes and hots only for you.”

So they sealed with a kiss, a life joined at the hip,

Until one or the other runs out of steam,

And is dead as a dodo, or a doornail if you prefer;

They will love each other to bits, and to death,

Which is the only thing that does them apart.

That Man Who Never Did Anything Twice

Once upon a time there lived a most remarkable man. He was tall, lean and muscular, with a barrel chest and rippling biceps, and thick, lustrous, wavy hair that danced sensuously with the passing breeze, and a smile that made even perfectly straight men go a little weak in the knees.

But that wasn't what made him remarkable; it was the fact that he was a man who never did anything twice.

It was a fine evening day when after a hard day's toil, our remarkable protagonist decided to put his feet up on his porch and ring in the sunset with a cold beer.

'Hey there, handsome guy. Aren't you feeling lonely there having a beer all by yourself?' At this, our hero, as befitted his otherwordly perfection, smiled, despite the fact that he had heard the same thing a million times before. He looked over at the speaker - a comely young lass she was - but, even though our polite young whippersnapper would never admit it, nowhere near the top  ten percentile of his prize collection of hitters-on.

'Hey! How's it going?'

'I'm great! But, surely you couldn't refuse some company?', the woman smiled in the most coquettish way she could.

At this seemingly innocuous statement, something within the man changed. His face began a rapid transformation through the colours of the spectrum, beginning with a virulent red and proceeding all the way to a poisonous puce. At same point, he got up, as if under a spell, walked over to the outer wall of his luxurious cottage and began to rub himself vigorously against it, eyes fierce with determination, as if trying to cut through brick with sheer will power.

Perplexed, but still hopelessly in love, the woman asked, 'Er, what are you doing?'

'I.. am.. trying.. to.. fuse with the wall, of course,' the answer comes back through gritted teeth.
'Go away!'

And so she did, the poor, comely, now very frightened lass.

On a different, perhaps even finer autumn day, with fire-red leaves falling their stately fall all around him, our remarkable hero began his daily jog uphill.

'Hey there, handsome man. Wouldn't something as dull as running be greatly improved with some company?'

'Sure, feel free to join me!', our Greek God replied without even a second glance at the questioner.

Momentarily, a vision of perfection drifted into view. With a figure wars could be waged over, hair dark and lustrous like black gold and a sinuous motion that demanded attention, if not complete hypnosis, our questioner jogged a little ahead, turning back and smiling expectanctly. Our spectacularly fair hero would never objectify women, but she was definitely an eleven on ten.

'Thanks, but are you sure you can keep up?'

'I'll try!', our impossibly perfect man responded humbly. He would never admit this, but he could probably lap the hill track four times before the seductive wench could do it once.

'What, aren't you going to retort?', the Cleopatra-esque beauty prompted flirtatiously.

To her utter shock though, at this statement, our man suddenly stopped and fell to the ground, as if struck by a sudden bout of cramp. With his face clenched in agony, he paused briefly, as if drawing strength from the heavens. He pulled out a packet of tortillas from his running shorts and proceeded to eat them slowly and carefully, completely oblivious to the world.

'Er, did I say something wrong? Aren't you going to jog anymore?'

'I cannot give you what you want. I am a man who never does anything twice! Do you understand? I can only do things, never do them again. Do you understand? I can never do what you want!', our normally unruffled hero thundered in rage.

Showing impressive self-control, perhaps driven only by lust, but impressive nonetheless, our resident Apsara mustered, 'Alright, but what does that have to do with tortillas?'

'Do you still not understand? I can only do. I can never re.. re.. redo!', the words trickled out unwillingly.
'So I can never re-tort, only tort. Tortillas are little torts, so that's all I can do.'
'I can never re-fuse, only fuse.'
'DO YOU UNDERSTAND NOW?'

Our fantastic heroine's charms weren't limited to the realm of the physical; she was possessed of a fine sense of sadism, like any good callipygian temptress.

'So I'm not going to get any re-spect from you then?'

If it were possible to tie up a face in knots, that was what happened to our hero. 'I don't have my spectre! I left it at home. I'm so sorry!'

'And I'm not going to get any re-spite from your whining, either.'

'I DON'T WHINE, YOU SADISTIC SPAWN OF A THREE LEGGED DONKEY THAT WAS RAPED BY A TOOTHLESS MADMAN BORN OUT OF WEDLOCK IN A SMELLY DITCH WHERE EVEN PLANTS DON'T GROW!'

'Ah, that's spite, is it?'

'Yes.', our remarkable protagonist averred, now suddenly calm again and possessed of a benign smile that could annoy saints.

'So what do you do at night? I'm sure you can't rest at all.'

'On Mondays and Wednesdays, I walk on half the street; on Tuesdays and Thursdays I am half a saint, and on weekends I'm a striker for my local football team half the time.

'Wait, are you saying you don't rest, but you St.?' Our hero nodded glumly at this.

'Man, you're remarkable you know that? You're remarkable!' the anthropomorphic jogging vision of perfection grinned a tinkly laugh that felt like being showered with diamonds and caressed by the softest velvet at the same time.

'I'm not what you say, I'm just..', at this point he paused to pull out a marker pen from his cavernous running shorts and perform what could only be described as a child's scrawl on his flawless visage.
'... Markable.'

Workation

Some photo mashing with an old pun. Spot the original!

Romance

(Yes, I stole the brotips template.)

I'm a classy Higgs-Boson

This one's partially inspired by a couple of Facebook statuses and/or comments by the venerable Chun Man, and the marauding Bin-it machine. Thank you guys! (Tip: follow the links. :) )

• Religion is opium for the masses.
• I’m not an addict, I’m a good person, I don’t do it.
• Besides, I don’t go for mass stuff, I’m classy.
• (No, that does not mean I do Class E drugs either. Didn’t I say I’m not an addict? I'm curious though: what're they? Do you get make them from fermented internets?)
• What? The school only has classes A-D? Right, I’ve passed out of school.
• No, I didn’t fake a faint to get a promotion to college. I...  never mind.
• Speaking of the classiness of mass, I don’t like those Higgs Boson fellows.
• They’re to blame for all the mass in the world, I hear. Ergo, Higgs and his overweight partner Boson were the primal stupid people, because the masses are stupid.
• But those religious people who do that Sunday thing, wait, they’re actually looking for Higgs Bosons?
• Religion is stupid, but I already knew that.
• Wait, wait, wait a darn minute. Scientists are addicts then, because you know, they worship Higgs Boson and do other such mass-y stuff, and that’s religion.
• Sigh, I don’t do science either then.
• Addicts are bad, and scientists are addicts, so science is bad. But so is religion, and religion is what says addicts are bad, so either science and religion are bad, or addicts are good.
• Addicts are good. Yay for rock n’ roll.
• (Yes, I know rocks can roll because they have mass. )
• But wait, does that mean I’m bad?
• I want to be good, and science says being mass-ive is bad, and science is bad, so to be good, I need to gain mass.
• No more exercise!

DeadLift

Only read this if you didn't get what the fuss was all about.

Sketching done by Devyani (do check out her sketches, this stuff is small change for her). I really hope that this is the start of a fruitful collaboration because you know, one can make only so many of those ants-on-the-floor comics.

SuperVeggie