I have been feeling really awful. In fact, I have been in bed trying to recuperate all week. It is a bad case of the flu, and it is so bad that I would not even want my worst enemies to suffer from it … I have been somewhat lucky, though.

After about two days in bed I started to feel a little better, so I decided to relax and use my time wisely – for example, by reading that book that has been on the night table for two years … so now take care of yourself – and see you soon!

Oh boy, are my nerves really shot! Martha has decided that we should take a vacation cruise. She has been dreaming about such a holiday for years. And, she says, the prices are now so affordable that it would be foolish not to book a cabin right away. Yeah, sure. But what am I supposed to do? Kinetosis, you know what I mean. Just thinking about that cruise ship makes me seasick. This is my worst nightmare – any kind of swaying results in headaches, dizziness and nausea. But that doesn’t bother Martha at all. She knows exactly how to solve the problem. Are you ready for this? She ordered a waterbed!

The perfect simulation device for the home! The thing measures 2 x 2 meters and will be delivered any day now. And then I can wear my swimming trunks at night instead of my pajamas – you know, it is like a practice drill to prepare for any emergency. If I tell Martha that I can’t swim, she will probably invite the local lifeguard to come to our house and stay overnight. No, no, she will have an even better idea. I can hear her now: “But darling, there is even a swimming pool on the ship, and they offer swimming courses, too.” Oh, well. Good night and sweet dreams!

Is it a crime to recycle trash on someone else’s property? What would make a person want to wander around in slippers at 5:15 in the morning, carrying a bunch of old newspapers through the dark streets? Is there something sinister about this? It had nothing to do with my job, but if I wanted answers to these questions, I needed to get up extra early. Normally I could have slept for two more hours. Well, that is what happens if you try to be a detective. For weeks I was obsessed with catching the person who was taking the morning newspaper out of the mailbox and replacing it with an old one. I interrogated the paperboy, but he was indeed innocent – no evidence of wrongdoing. So I decided that a stakeout was the only solution. Early one morning I hid in the tree house built by the Rosenfeld kids across the street. Of course I told their Dad, Jeremy Rosenfeld, about my plan. At exactly 5:00 a.m. I was on duty as the paperboy arrived on his bike and shoved the newspaper into the mailbox slot. He moved on and all was quiet. Not a soul in sight. Until 5:15.

Slowly a dark figure emerged from the shadows, past the neighbor’s house, and headed straight for my mailbox, looking right and left to make sure nobody was watching. Zick! Zack! That was it! Caught in the act, I thought. However, as I hurried down the rope ladder, my feet got all tangled up and I was soon upside down, swinging back and forth like a pendulum. Of course, the mysterious figure with the newspaper had vanished. Boy, I was sure glad that Jeremy Rosenfeld takes his dog for a walk every morning at 5:45 …. I just hate hanging around, you know.

I just can’t get used to how fast time flies by! Another week is over before you know it. Of course, one thing I do remember is my brilliant act of generosity. It was a very good deed. Yet it was also bad news for me. And that is the irony of it. I call it my own personal “Discounter Disaster”.

You see, it all happened last Saturday when I drove to the supermarket to do some shopping – as I always do every weekend. First I wanted to return a carload of empty bottles. I had collected them for a month, so it was high time to get rid of them. I hustled over to the reverse vending machine and just kept pushing in one bottle after the other. That took a full ten minutes. Then I pushed the button. Unfortunately, it was the wrong button, much to my surprise. Instead of getting the paper receipt for my deposit money, the words “thank you for your contribution” appeared on the display. My contribution? Yep, you heard that right. Many of these machines now have two buttons – very close and right next to each other. Pretty smart and clever. One button is for the receipt. The other button is for contributions to charity. Quite naturally I had selected the latter. However, I still do not know which charity will benefit from my 18.50 €. But one thing I do know – those beverages were mighty expensive indeed!

What can I say?! My heart was pounding like crazy. Not because I fell in love with another woman. I still love my wife Martha, for goodness sake! No, I just happened to catch something. And I do not mean I caught a cold or something like that. It was a bride’s bouquet. Yes, indeed. It just came flying through the air – right in my direction.

Of course I know that only women are supposed to catch the bouquet at weddings, but what could I do? It was a reflex … I just grabbed the thing. You see, it was Sunday, and my colleague Meryl from the controlling department invited us to her wedding with Matthew. The church was jam packed with guests. After the ceremony, the young couple headed out of the church. I had promised to take some pictures – which I did – but it was not easy with so many people jostling around. As I was trying to get a shot of the shiny black limousine, I took a few steps back and bumped into someone. It was Meryl’s sister. Before I could open my mouth to say “sorry”, the bouquet bounced off my head and into my arms. Bingo! Was that some kind of omen? Who knows. The guests thought the whole scene was hilarious, and suddenly I was the main focus of all the cameras…

Technical knock out in the first round of Karaoke. Did that ever happen to you? Well, that is just what I experienced recently at our department party. I had an inkling that trouble was waiting, and I really did not want to go, but the colleagues talked me into it. We headed to an Irish Pub downtown near our office. The place was in the cellar, the bar way in the back of the room, and there was a huge crowd there. And right up front was a big stage – yep, very suspicious!

On the left side was a guy in charge of all the electronics and amplifiers. I should have gotten out of there fast, but it was too late. Our table had been reserved, and after about four rounds of Guiness my colleague Wulnikovsky shoved a microphone under my nose and pushed me onto the stage. The spotlight was on and the text to Urgent from Foreigner rolled across the monitor in front of me. I did my best to keep up, everybody was roaring with laughter, the whole pub was going crazy. Suddenly BAAM! Blackout. I can’t see anything as I step forward, whack my head on the monitor and lose my footing. I fell pretty hard and it hurt, let me tell you. Then the lights and music came back on. And I am lying at the audience’s feet. Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?

I just don’t get it. Do you? Here’s the situation: My wife practices food-separation dieting (invented by Dr. Hay). She started two weeks ago. Of course, like a loving husband, I wanted to give her my full support. But that went all wrong: On the first evening of our diet program, as Martha was preparing supper in the kitchen, I stepped out of the house.

My plan was to go into town and order my favorite Thai meal (number 11, vegetarian, spicy, without MSG or additives). I did just that and got back without Martha noticing a thing. I headed straight upstairs to our balcony and began savoring my oriental dish. Mmmh, delicious! Suddenly Martha stormed up the stairs and glared menacingly at me. “I have been looking for you all evening!” she shouted. Our supper had been ready for hours, she claimed. I could not calm her down. She wanted to know if I had lost all my marbles – why was I hiding on the balcony and eating a take-out meal all by myself? “But darling,” I said, “you wanted to try the separation diet, and that means we each eat separately, right?” Martha just shook her head and walked away silently. Do you understand that?

Let me tell you, this week was really something! Trouble with the neighbors because of their apple tree, which majestically stretches its branches over the garden fence. But to be honest, that’s not so bad, because we get all the delicious apples we need at no charge. Unfortunately, some of the apples that fall from the tree do not land in the garden – they splash into our pond instead. And that’s the problem – my problem, of course.

First, I have to fetch the fruit out of the water. And then Martha gets hysterical because her goldfish could be injured. To this day not one fish has ever been knocked out by an apple. But that’s Martha for you. So I decided to draw my neighbor’s attention to the problem. I walked up to Hardy Miller, our long-time neighbor, as he was doing some work in his garage. “Hardy,” I said, “you have got to do something about that apple tree. Martha is afraid her fish will get hurt.” That was it! He just blew up and told me to shut up. A little goldfish is nothing compared to the hundreds of jars of apple jelly we get for free … to my surprise I stayed calm and walked slowly back to the house. I told Martha that Hardy promised to take care of the problem.

Billy, Benno, Ivar, Malm and so on … Have you ever enjoyed the experience of assembling furniture from that Swedish company whose name is spelled with four capital letters? Just the other day I was really proud of myself. Martha was obsessed with remodelling our guest room. She said that the old bed and the antique mattress were no longer good enough for our guests.

Well, I thought, hardly anybody visits us anyway, so what’s the big deal? OK, her mother turns up every year at Christmas. But otherwise not much really happens at our place. Nevertheless, Martha insisted on buying a new bed. The Swedish model was her preferred choice – and I had the honor of putting the thing together. In principle the furniture-in-a-box idea is quite good, because it lets anybody, regardless of skill, build their furniture with their own hands, just the way they want it. Idiot-proof – you can’t complain about that, right? The project was completed in a jiffy. I put the bed together, attached the slatted frame, unpacked the mattress and put it into place. But that is all that I remember. I only know that Martha was suddenly shouting and shaking me back and forth. Then I woke up. Yep, a nap can really be a pleasure…

Hi, this is Tom again. Last night I took part in a sushi cooking class for the first time. My colleagues booked the course for me as a birthday present. And I really like sushi! Our teacher’s name is Nomura. He comes from Japan and is an expert in filling and rolling raw fish. I want to be good at that, too, which is why I did my very best during the class. I was rolling that raw fish pretty well until the lady standing next to me started to panic and scream out loud. Her wedding ring was gone. She knew exactly where she had placed it on the counter – but it was no longer there. Nomura came over and tried to calm the lady down. Then he looked left and right until he noticed something odd. He picked up one of the rolled fish delicacies – it was my little masterpiece filled with salmon.

Nomura poked around at it with a chopstick until all of the filling fell out – along with the missing wedding ring. Nomura simply nodded and said that such things can happen, but expert fish rollers would never do such a thing. I replied: “Perhaps, but all women know that the best way to a man’s heart is through his stomach!” Nomura was not amused …