Sweet MYTH-tery of Life by Robert Asprin

“You do? That’s terrific,” I said, and meant it. “I’ve been meaning to ask your opinion, but wasn’t sure how to bring it up.”

“I believe you just have, actually,” Chumley grinned. “Pull up a chair.”

I followed his instructions as he continued.

“Advice on marriage, particularly when it comes to the selection of the partner to be, is usually best kept to oneself. The recipients usually already have their minds made up, and voicing any opinion contradictory to their decision can be hazardous to one’s health. Since you’ve actually gotten around to asking, however, I think you might find my thoughts on the matter to be a tad surprising.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, most blokes who know me . . . the real me, that is, rather than Big Crunch . . . think of me as a bit of a romantic.”

I blinked, but kept a straight face.

While I have the utmost respect for Chumley, I had never thought of him as a romantic figure . . . possibly something to do with his green matted hair and huge eyes of different sizes. While I suppose that trolls have love lives (otherwise, how does one get little trolls?) I’d have to rate their attractiveness in relation to dwellers of other dimensions to be way down near the bottom. Their female counterparts, the trollops, such as his sister Tananda, were a whole different story, of course, but for the trolls themselves . . . on a scale of one to ten, I’d generously score them around negative eighteen.

This particular troll, however, old friend though he might be, was currently sitting within an arm’s length of me . . . his arm, not mine . . . and as that arm was substantially stronger than two arms of the strongest human . . . which I’m not … I decided not to argue the point with him. Heck, if he wanted to say he was the Queen of May I’d probably agree with him.