The underground bunker was filled with chips and candy.

 “No, it wasn’t!” I said rather dramatically. “That’s ridiculous! I’m amazed you actually wrote that in your book and neither your editor, nor your agent or your publisher for that matter, caught that stupid sentence.”
I was about to throw the book my friend David had written and which had, much to my amazement, climbed the charts of best sellers and was sitting at the top. “There’s no history in this, only garbage,” and this time after a moment of hesitation slammed the book down on his desk.

David for his part looked down at the book and then up at me. Then when he did, I noticed a big smile on his face. He shook his head and picked up the 500 page book titled, ‘History of the World as I know it,’ and shook it at me. “You’re just jealous.”

I was incensed. No, I wasn’t jealous. Ok, maybe I was just a tad, but only because I had sent out submissions for all the books I had written over the years, from my own autobiography to the biography of my dog Lassie Junior and nobody, not one single agent, had the decency to email me back with just one word ‘sorry.’ But he, David, writes this garbage and the very first agent he sends it to, calls him up to tell him he read his manuscript in under a day and offered him a ton of money.

But the stuff he wrote in the book was fiction, pure and simple fiction, and he had the audacity to say it was a history of the world. Gandhi didn’t have an army of 1 million and he didn’t defeat the Chinese in the Battle of Balaclava, nor did Napoleon win a gold medal for swimming the backstroke in the Greek Olympics in 16 AD. The man is quite mad, no not Napolean though I guess he was as well, but my friend David. And that’s as far as I had the patience to read. It was a bunch of junk.

I was about to begin another tirade when David put his book down and asked if I were hungry. “Starving, actually,” I replied.

“Where do you want to go?”
“Well, not MacDonalds,” I replied, “that place is horrible.”
“True. So, we can go Burger King if you like.”
“No, David!” I was losing my patience with him. “How about the Clockward Diner?”
“Ok,” he replied, “as long as you’re paying.”
And so, we got into his newly purchased Ferrari, after I locked my 10 year old prius. We screamed down the highway and screeched to a halt in the diner parking lot. I heard a police car’s siren and I realised that David must’ve been speeding and so he was getting pulled over. Or was it because he knocked an old woman off her bike. No, he didn’t hit her. Just the wind blast pushed up her dress and as she was trying to put it down she lost control of the bike and landed on a fire hydrant. Well, whatever it was, he was about to learn a lesson in reality.

We waited for the police officer to walk up to the car, which he did about a minute later. David put down his window. “Sir,” began the police officer and then stopped. “Oh, my goodness, are you David Pickle?” he asked.

“I am,” replied a smiling David, lowering his sunglasses.

“Oh, wow. Wait till I get home and tell Agnes I met you. Could you please give me your autograph? Damn!” He continued after a second of looking around to see if anyone was watching. “Damn. I wish I had my book on me. You could’ve autographed it.”
“Well, you can have this book. It’s my friend’s here. He hates it.”
The police officer bent down a little more and glared at me. “What’s the matter with you? This is the best history book I’ve ever read. In fact, yesterday, I was at the school board meeting and I suggested they use it in history class.”

I rolled my eyes, ‘why me,’ I thought while David gave him my copy which was fine and then signed it. “Thank you Mr Pickles,” he said, “now I can’t remember why I stopped you. So, ha, ha, off you go and thanks again.” He was about to walk off when he turned and bent down and looked at me. “Pity you weren’t driving because I would’ve given you a ticket for something or the other. Cheers Mr Pickle,” he left and then came back yet again. I was now getting really annoyed. Plus, I was hungry. “Do you mind?” he asked and David laughed.

“Of course not,” and he took a photograph of the two of them with his iPhone, but that was not before asking me to duck because he didn’t want me in the picture.

He finally left. David parked his car and we both walked in. I couldn’t believe it. There was a round of applause when we entered the diner. David took off his sunglasses and waved to everyone. We finally sat down after about 15 minutes of him being photographed, kissed and giving autographs. Our waitress who we knew for decades Rita, came over with a cup of coffee and put it down in front of David. I opened my mouth in disbelief.

“What about me Rita? I used to date you years ago. David never liked you.”
“Yea,” she replied chewing her gum as usual, “don’t remind me. You were the worst date I’ve ever had, while David here is a celebrity,” and then she changed her facial expression and looked at me. “And you, you, you,” it was as if she was lost for words. But you don’t know Rita the way I know Rita. She was never lost for words. But before finishing her sentence, she walked away.

Just then, a young girl of about 15 or so walked up with a napkin in her hand. “Mr Pickle do you mind signing this napkin? My history teacher Miss Harlow is a great fan of yours and she’ll want an autograph.”

I rolled my eyes. David signed the napkin and the young girl left skipping down the aisle. “That’s insane,” I said, “you’re married to Miss Harlow.”
“Yup, but she doesn’t know that.”
This had to come to a stop soon. I looked around for Rita. I saw her and whistled. She stuck her middle finger up at me and went back to talking to the cook who I knew very well. A few seconds later, probably at his insistence, she wandered over to us.

“Yea, what do you want?”
“A cup of coffee,” I asked.

“Oh yea, that’s right. Loser,” she said walking away, “I couldn’t think of the word.”
About an hour or so later, a very long hour or so later, we walked out of the diner and into the bright sunshine. As we walked towards his Ferrari, we noticed an old woman with a smashed up bike sitting on his car. “Can I help you?” David asked.

“Yes, you can. You knocked me over when you went by in this piece of crap,” and then she stopped. “Are you, are you, oh my goodness,” I thought to myself this is the limit.

“Yes, I am,” replied David not giving her a chance to answer.

“Oh good,” she replied, “I’ve wanted to talk to you. That book you wrote in which you said that during the battle of the Somme in World War I, the underground bunker was filled with chips and candy. Well, that was completely wrong. That was in the Battle of Okinawa in World War 2. The Japanese had their bunkers filled with chips and candy and that’s why they surrendered when they ran out of chips and candy. Get your facts straight!” and with that, she left pushing her smashed up bike while I collapsed on the ground.