The Mistletoe Gatherer Who had Never Been Kissed

Gerald had tried every job he could think of to meet the girl of his dreams. Even the girl of his nightmares would do. But alas, he stayed alone.

One brilliant day, Gerald had a brainwave. He would become a mistletoe gatherer! A mistletoe gatherer was sure to be kissed, as certain as a gardener has muscles. And so, the very next day, he did become a mistletoe gatherer.

The first part of Gerald’s plan was very well planned: nearly ninety percent of his customers were women! Clutching batches of mistletoe branches, Gerald chatted to them. To try and entice them to, perchance, a kiss, he hung the mistletoe from handmade frames of scavenged wood, held at suggestible angles; he invented a hat, with mistletoe hanging in front of it on a rod.

But still he wasn’t kissed.

For even though ninety percent of Gerald’s customers were women, their reasons for buying mistletoe was not with the intention of being kissed by strangers. They had their own personal reasons for their need of mistletoe – holistic therapy, ecological practice, decoration . . .

Just when Gerald was about to give up, he arrived at a new customer’s house to fulfil the last order of that day. It was a quaint cottage, outside the fringes of the town. An older lady opened the door, perhaps eighty, or perhaps older, but definitely not younger.

Without going into all of the details, not only did Gerald finally end up being kissed, he experienced all kinds of other new things, too.

And from that visit also came a new job: one that required him to move into the quaint cottage just outside the fringes of the town.

vss #7