COMPANY' S COMING!

by

GAIL GARDNER

"Guess who's coming to dinner? His wife said with the false brightness he' d come to dread.

"Some down-and-out flounder you just happened to run into while out shopping,"he grunted. His wife was well-meaning, but so darned soft-hearted. She was always bringing home some derelict or flotsam and jetsam she had found. Their home reflected her proclivities in her hobby with all the mis-matched junk lying around. He referred to it as Early Bad Taste, but for her sake lived with it. She was still a fine figure of a woman, even after all the kids they had. The children were all gone now, spread across the seven seas, only the youngest girl was still at home. And they way she had been behaving lately...he stopped his thought in the middle.

"She's bringing home another guy, isn't she? He growled.

"Now dear, she is going through that stage of life when all males are attractive." His wife tried to soothe him. "They've all been ..um..rather nice boys."

"By Davy Jone' s Locker, woman, the last one was ...was...a shark!" He bellowed and looked around for some trinket or ornament to throw.

"The boy couldn't help how he was brought up or his background, he did try to be polite..."

"He ate with his mouth open." He muttered. Why couldn't his little girl, his spratling, stay small, be his little pearl in the oyster like she had always been.

Sensing his inner conflict, his wife put her arms around him and gave him a warm hug. "Now dear, I want you to try and be nice. You make the poor boys so nervous with that growling and that awful smile of yours."

"What awful smile?" He said smiling awfully at his beautiful wife. She giggled and flitted her eyes at him tossing her wonderful long hair off her shoulders that had fascinated him for years. He began to get other ideas about what he would like to do instead of entertain his daughter's boyfriend for dinner.

"Hmmm. Maybe later dear." She flirted shamelessly with him her backside undulating provocatively. "Go see if you can see them coming..."

He reluctantly tore his eyes away from her and peered out past the growth in the front yard Needs cutting again, he thought to himself.

"Oh my sardines and squids.." he moaned as he caught sight of his daughter and her latest catch. The gorgeous young mermaid was swimming towards them holding the hand of a man in a yellow wetsuit.