Mr Bogmare

This month’s story was inspired by the technique of Nominative determinism: that people gravitate towards jobs that are suited to their name.

I realised, at some point after having the girls over, that I’d forgotten to warn Ann about the toilet seat. It has a habit of sliding off at an angle without warning when one is trying to do one’s business.

That’s thanks to our plumber. A man with a name I’d rather forget. The name Bogmare should have been a dead giveaway. when deciding who to hire we should have run a mile. Mr Bogmare was persuasive. Told us he’d handle the job “sensitively”. At first glance one could mistake him for a milkman, all clinking tools on his belt. Most of which didn’t look like plumbers tools. One was definitely a bottle opener.

On day one, of a quick switching out of the existing fixtures, we discovered that he liked his coffee strong. With a double shot of whisky. When I’d questioned the noise, he’d given a hiccup and waved a can opener at me. I slowly backed away. We were in the thick of a bathroom renovation now, and had to stick to it like a Gorilla Glue project gone wrong. He’d be gone in a day.

Day two, we left him to his work after he demanded an extra-large coffee. When Martin popped his head in to see if he’d like another coffee — an offer I’d warned against — he reported back that one of the walls seemed to be…