DIARY OF A TEENAGE MILKMAN

I knew I wasn’t going to get any peace to do my homework and count the money from my route if I didn’t think up some story to get him off my back. Harder than you’d think, he had me cold, dead to rights, I couldn’t deny that anything had happened while I was out, besides, he had obviously just come from a bar, taking advantage of the fact he was now eighteen and could legally drink alcohol. I told him I would give him the story if he helped me by counting the money I’d collected and tally up the books while I did my homework , I could trust him to do this as he’d had the same job himself when he was still in school. We passed the next hour in silence, finishing around midnight, by which time I was pretty bushed and in need of the six hours sl**p I could get before I had to be out of bed to make my morning deliveries. Jake was not the type of b*****r who would take pity on his younger b*****r and allow him to go to bed, leaving the story till the next day. “I’ve counted this money twice, checked it off against your collection sheet and unless I am sadly mistaken you have £22.50 in tips, what did you get up to when you were out, did you let some old dear suck you off for a £20 tip ?” I’d remembered the customers who had tipped me that night and nobody had given me more than 50p as a tip, I couldn’t recall how many but it was no more than four or five ? “Let me see that sheet” I told him, taking the sheet and bag of money from him. I quickly scanned through the list on the sheet and noticed that Linda’s name had a tic next to it, I had no recollection of her paying her weekly amount ? I rifled through the pile of notes, taking particular interest in the ten pound notes, I noticed something Jake hadn’t seen, on one note there was a handwritten message which said “Happy Birthday”, I quickly found another with the same message, Linda must have not only put the money owed in my bag and ticked her name on the list, she had also stuck the two notes in my bag, an extra present. I blushed as memories of the night flooded my brain and without thinking raised the note to my face and sniffed my fingers.