Laughter, the Best Medicine
aside to allow him past. He had the same
idea, so I stepped briskly back, only for him
to copy my actions again.
Oh, dear, I thought, We’re going to bash
into… Smash!
What was most embarrassing? The fact
that I’d walked into a mirrored wall? No,
it was the fact that I’d failed to recognise
myself, not once, but twice.
C. Porter, Sale, Greater Manchester
â– Reader’sDigest recently entered spoof
art competition The Turnip Prize. It invites
entries that are as bad and lacking in effort
as possible. We didn’t win. But below, for
posterity, is our Sleeping Beauty-inspired
masterwork Once A
Prawn a Thyme. Ivor
Prance scooped the
title with Fleeced (left)
which, annoyingly,
was just a clump of
wool in a jar.
EDITED BY SIMON HEMELRYK. Send your
true stories, jokes and other funny material
to excerpts@readersdigest.co.uk
Inexplicable truths—No 4
It is physically impossible to
eat just one After Eight mint
“ J ust one.” That’s definitely the plan
when you flip the lid. “It’ll stop me
having a dessert.”
Sadly, you have pitched your greedy,
feckless brain against the powers of
British confectionary marketing. The
most ill-matched battle since bull
fighting on ice. Or did I dream that?
Inspired design has created a
wafer mint fractionally too small to
sate a palate. Your mortal willpower
will never stand a chance. Soon, a
second melts swiftly and sweetly down
your throat.
“OK, just two.” Pause.
“Mmm. All right, three.”
You’re flying now.
“If three, why not ten?”
The fingers go
to work, thumbing
through empty
black envelopes,
increasingly frantic,
until finally finished
and bloated, you’re
an insulin-sweating
figure of sickly
self-hatred.
Admittedly, with
lovely minty breath.
Jeff Green
R E A D E R ’ S D I G E S T . F E B R U A R Y ’ 0 9
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