Free Daft Wee Stories by Limmy

it would serve them bloody right.
    Anyway, it didn’t work. I don’t have a clue how they saw past that one. They must have gadgets to work it all out. Or maybe they’ve got somebody on the inside, in these shops, telling them how it all works in exchange for a share of the loot. However they did it, it was putting these burglars one step ahead, that was for sure. Always one step ahead.
    But not any more!
    No, I didn’t buy a real alarm or a real camera, I told you how much that cost. But neither did I buy fake ones. I didn’t buy a thing from that shop; no way I was going back there. So I built it myself.
    I built a fake house!
    I tore down the old one and built a new one right on top. You’d never know the difference. From the paintwork to the plumbing, the same in every way, inside and out. Except I don’t live there.
    I live in a tent!
    And I watch them. I watch them burgle my house. Or so they think.
    They take my telly, they take my computer, they lift out the furniture, my piano; anything that isn’t nailed down, they take. And all that’s real, that stuff is real, it’s important that they don’t suspect a thing. And so far, they haven’t. Three times they’ve burgled my house, except they’ve not. Because it isn’t my house.
    I live in a tent.
    It’s cost me just over quarter of a million so far, I think. Maybe double, I’m not sure. But who’s counting? Not me.
    Because it’s like the guy said.
    You can’t put a price on peace of mind!

VEGETARIANS
    This was a nice wee restaurant, thought Doug. A nice place, with nice people. The staff seemed nice and so did the customers; they looked gentle. He looked at the menu, and a few words jumped out at him that explained the niceness, words like ‘tofu’, ‘soya milk’ and ‘bean burger’. That’s right, the place was vegetarian. ‘Ah fuck,’ whispered Doug to himself. He wasn’t a vegetarian himself, and he fancied something with a bit of substance, something with a bit of meat, like pasta with some chicken, or maybe a steak pie. He knew it wasn’t right to think like that. At least, it didn’t feel right in here.
    He always felt a bit guilty in places like this, and no wonder. He paid people to put animals in machines that tore them to pieces, and these good folk in the restaurant didn’t. He could almost feel the guilt ooze out his pores like B.O. He looked around at them all, wondering if anybody had noticed his disappointment at the menu or heard him saying ‘Ah fuck’, but nobody had. He knew really that none of them would care anyway, he knew nobody really objected to being in the company of a meat eater – except for Morrissey or whoever – but he wouldn’t blame them if they did. After all, how was it acceptable for him to cut a slice of flesh off an animal’s arse and shove it in his mouth? How could he do such a thing? He loved animals, yet he had them killed, that was a bit Jekyll and Hyde, was it not? It didn’t make sense, and it was probably the conclusion these folk around him came to a long time ago, when they decided to become vegetarians. It was such a logical, enlightened and kind-hearted decision. The decision to never kill again. The decision to love all living things, and therefore not to kill any living thing.
    Except for lettuce, of course, haha.
    That was funny. It was funny in that it was interesting. Doug paused for thought. He looked at the guy eating salad at the table nearby, a salad containing lettuce and tomatoes and other vegetables that used to be alive but now weren’t. That was funny, now that he thought about it, because it’s not as if vegetarians don’t kill anything. They do kill, they just don’t kill animals. But they kill plants. And that’s all right, somehow. It’s because plants are alive, but they’re not alive like animals. Animals can think,