A jailbird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

“There is no way,” I said to Amanda, my wife’s awful friend.

“Oh, please,” she begged. “Just pretend. I mean, really, you can pull it off.”

“And I’m not ‘pulling him off’, either!” I protested.

“Look,” she insisted, “all I’m asking is that you hang out with us. I promised!”

“You set him up on a date with some… some… some floozy, and she’s now dropped out. And you’re asking me to step in. And let’s face it, your brother isn’t exactly a catch. This is going to be the first time he’s visited you since he was in jail. That’s not what I think of as a good catch. Besides, I’m married,” I stammered. “You’re a friend of my wife’s. How can you even suggest this!”

I have been shocked by Amanda before. She’s done things that suggest to me she’s not exactly good with boundaries. Perhaps it’s that she was my wife’s lover in university. Or maybe it’s that now she’s in a squalid relationship with my neighbour here in Huckleberry Close, Marjorie. And that’s totally ignoring the puzzling fact that two Christmas’s ago she was making out with Sylvester, my mechanic, on the upstairs landing at my Christmas party. All of this is behaviour that’s quite unbecoming of the editor of Pig and Pig Farmer Weekly.