"Did most of what you write about on the Mingle2 Community forum, actually happen to you? For instance, the cemetery?" This from a lady [""no names please!""], writing to me on my own website.

My answer was that, in my case, I'd have to be pretty brave to invent all that sort of thing from scratch!! Most of what I've included in my "tales" either did happen, was about to do so, or might very well have done, but for.......

For example, I was, ('til now), on the actual, and inescapable, point of death three times. I did have, ('til now), 114 jobs in many countries.....from a list drawn up for what what one could call 'tax-related' purposes.

So I've got lots of stuff handy to offer around that was certainly entertaining for me at the time, in case it can entertain in turn: (with the help of a smidgen of touching-up and highlighting, to be sure; but no falsehoods.)
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With some foreboding, George arrived at the cemetery. This was where he was to do some pick-and-shovel work; his first job since his sixteenth birthday.

“That tent over there,” one of the crew explained, “is mighty handy. Rains a lot around here, so we get plenty of time off for cuppas and smokes. The only rule to follow is, ‘don’t work too hard or some of us will lose our jobs’.” (Some advice to give to a teenager, eh! Still, now that he thought about it, he had heard it a couple of times before.)

In the days that followed, in spite of swinging his pick with a certain restraint, he was gently reproached with, “easy mate; you’ll break something”, and “if you keep that up lad, the dead’uns might turn over!” Fortunately though there were plenty of ‘rain breaks’, when they would squat in the tent, make tea, and….well…..gab.

Reflecting on his grave-digging experience later, he wondered what on earth they could have found to talk about during the many intervals. He ‘gabbed’ just as much as anyone else but what, he asked himself, could he possibly have said?! Perhaps his contribution to the conversations was inspired more by the notion that when seated for long periods within arms’ length of someone, it would seem impossible to just say nothing at all. Come to think of it, that may well have been the main idea behind most of what he said, rather than having anything particular to talk about. (What a pile of ZEROITS, he must have come out with!)

He mused on the matter of communicating with others, and idly wondered how many words he had spouted in his life so far! He jotted down some numbers. Let’s see, at least a hundred words per minute…...no; he gave up trying to work it out because he couldn’t possibly calculate what portion of anyone’s day would actually involve speaking. However, it did mean that there were TRILLIONS of words being spoken in this our world, ALL THE TIME.

Watch yourself! You know how those zeros easily go bezerk - or is ‘viral’ the right word to use? Maybe their ancestors, (words), go the same way, he considered: enough to make the dead’uns turn in their graves, one might say.
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