Fairy tales are escapes into wondrous worlds. It is only our inflexible adult reasoning that tells us that they are just for children. Fables, too, are disdainfully disregarded by grown-ups, in spite of the valuable life lessons that they often provide. It is only yarns and tall tales that are permitted to dwell in the structured world of the adult. I have compiled this collection of silly, inconsequential stories and poems to satisfy the child in any of us that has been handicapped by active imagination, and has been unable to fully embrace the responsible, pedantic adult world. A few of...

It was mere "mommy porn." All the critics agreed, so why did their wives find "Fifty Shades of Grey" so enthralling? Three middle-aged husbands feel that it is their duty to conduct "research" into the power of this book, and what better place to start than with the women in their ballroom dance club? Or so the male bravado suggested. But who has the courage, or the foolhardiness to take the first step? Will it be methodical Frank, man-child Rod, or leap-before-you-look Dave? Like school kids on the playground, once each has been dared to delve into the world of Ana and Christian, and their...

For ten years, he laboured to construct his ultralight airplane, then, on a whim, he doused it with gasoline and set fire to it. When the rat invades his home, Gerry goes to drastic lengths to rid himself of the vermin, but ... Dying of mesothelioma, but living with zest. A bachelor shoots himself in the back with a shotgun. A meal of moose testicles. More than forty true, but unbelievable stories of the bizarre lives of an endangered species: the bachelor. No single man worth his salt is married. The thought could have come straight from Yogi Berra's vault of butchered expressions. However,...

When the hen lays her eggs, the shells are soft and pliable, forming their durable armour as they experience the outside world. Each of us enters the world, with similar flawed and weak shells. Our shells are not broken and cracked by life, but are formed of the fragments that we encounter, piece by piece, growing more complete with each experience. What We Have Lost is a series of disconnected anecdotes in the lives of a family shaped by extreme poverty. These individual narratives chronicle the slow sculpting of the characters, as they fuse with their world, enveloped in mental illness....