Impromptu Audit

I'd slipped out of the office and toddled orff to Officeworks to get some photos printed one afternoon and who should I find waiting in line when I got there, but old Bam Bam. I haven't seen him in years but I'd heard bits of gossip here and there about his first marriage breaking up and then him remarrying and all that sort of thing.

Then there he was, in the flesh, looking how he always looks: kind of full of himself and still lacking in any real sense of humour.

We chatted for a bit. He was keen to tell me all about his life. "You know I'm married again?" was the second sentence out of his mouth after the tediously obligatory hello. He told me he had kids. One toddler and one imminent. I think. I'd been bludgeoned into a coma with all the superiority by that point.

His photo order arrived. "Wanna see a pic of my girl?" he asked. "Just the one," I agreed.

He took the photo packet and showed me one snap, which I clucked over, perhaps a little too convincingly because he then proceeded to shake out a fat wad of pictures, clearly ready to take me through them all.

"What are you doing?" 

"I'm showing you these photos."

"Are they all of your kid?"

"Yeah!"

"Um, no, I said just one. Cute little girl and everything, but one picture's enough."

He laughed that uneasy laugh of his: like he's never sure if the joke's on him and, anyway, what is this 'joke' thing?

I didn't want him to walk away all hurt so I asked, "Hey, you haven't told me your daughter's name - what is it?"

He perked up. "Amberley."

"Amberley?"

"Yes. What?"

"You mean like the wine?"

He laughed. "Haha! Yes!" Then he stopped and gurgled a bit. Then he looked blank. "I gotta go," he said.

I looked at my watch but he was already out the door so I couldn't tell him that Births, Deaths and Marriages would already be shut.