All Comments on 'Bob, Carol and Harlina'

Yay!! A new Bob story! Very cool. Randi.

A little rushed at the end, Carol was a stone cold bitch and even if he married Harlina I would have been teminally worried about her sexual attitudes. Nice little ditty . Always fun when you're around.

Another winner!

5

Decent story, but the abrupt ending with nothing about how Carol even had the time to meet someone else, never mind how she formed a meaningful relationship with someone, let's this down a bit. She called Lina a slut but isn't that what she must have been to seek around behind Bob's back? 3 stars

Excellent story. 5stars

Like a well-aimed boomerang... if there is such a thing! Loved the ending.

.

One minor quibble. The Pusan Perimeter was defended in the summer of 1950, with the cobbled-together 1st Provisional Marine Brigade under Lt/Gen Eddie Craig making the difference. The 187th jumped into the Munsan-ni area early the next year to cut-off the PLA and NKPA as they were driven out of Seoul for the second time. Their aim was the jump into the rear of the retreating enemy between the Han and Imjin Rivers.

.

5/5 as usual.

The ending is one of JPB’s little tricks he’s done a few times before. He leaves the story at a certain point, we’re all assuming HEA is in the offing. He then skips a number of years and low and behold he’s married with kids to…shock horror, a different woman.

Once was clever, every time after that is just predictable.

stupid stpry based on oft tried premise...

I know it's fiction but every time it's in my backyard I get persnicketty. Ypsi and Ann Arbor pretty much abut each other with US 23 as the dividing line. Oh and the only movies on Michigan were drive ins.

Other than that a good story(especially if you are not anal about your home town, lol)

Así se hace realidad el proverbio; "No hay mal que por bien no venga". Como coño podemos estar seguro de lo que nos depara el futuro? Caer con la persona correcta, alma gemela...

No hay que obsesionarse, porque las opciones nunca vienen con un manual de instrucciones o con una garantía de devolución. El dicho "te lo dije" no ha lugar cuando se trata de estas relaciones. Y no, no nos equivocamos, no cometemos errores porque casi nunca es una elección lógica sino intuitiva. Por eso hay tantos divorcios, y aunque encontremos a la pareja correcta, puede ser por un tiempo porque aunque tu no seas el que cambie, puede serlo tu pareja. En fin, no creo que me halla explicado una mierda pero es lo que hay. jojojo y jo

I wouldn't mess with a married woman regardless of what she says and how could you trust a woman like that? She was screwing you BEFORE she told you she was married. Not the morals I want in a wife.

Baffled!

That was a good JPB story. 5*.

82nd Abn 68-71.

I've been reading your stories for years. Thanks for your no nonsense style.

I like your story twists...Keep them coming!

Story about a stupid guy. No STD's from Lina slutting around while hubby's gone?

Short, workmanlike JPB story. You keep deprecating yourself by saying “more of the usual,” but your usual is pretty good.

5* on this one for getting the historical details right. I spent a few years leaping from aircraft in fright myself.

Not exactly a One Trick Pony, but you pull this prank way too often to surprise anyone but a newbie. I'm just so glad Lina'a husband got blown up on an oil rig so some gimp could give her the family she wanted. Seems like your MC benefits from the women of dead friends. What a way to become special. Guess Carol figured it out and Lina is too shallow and selfish to care. He better hope HE never gets disabled and becomes surplus to Lina's needs. We all know how that's going to end. Keep on keeping on. And thanks for the effort..

Nice story. Carol is a piece of work. Right before the wedding she meets someone? How does that happen?

Thanks Bob, glad to see another one from you.

one of your better stories dude.

My head is still spinning over the ending. Fun read - 4*

Well written, felt like it let me hanging. 4****

Didn’t like it. Decently written, but it was both boring and dumb.

.

#1: When he went to the VFW with Harlina, everyone there would have known who she was and that she was married. Everyone. Yet he heard not a peep until weeks after openly dating her, and from Carol of all people. Not possible.

.

#2: Harlina tells him she’s married. Yet when Carol tells him she’s married, he says “no she isn’t”. WTF?

.

#3: So he gets back with Carol, and they get engaged, and then days before the wedding, she dumps him. “Met someone else”. No further explanation. Disappointing plot device.

.

#4: Then he gets back with, and MARRIES the woman who was serially cheating on her husband? And it’s happy ever after? Dumb.

.

Sorry Bob….very weak effort.

.

2 **

I generally like JPB stories but this one was kind of lame to be honest. Okay the misdirect was cute, but the ending was just too wham! For me Carol makes no sense..she couldn't tell him why she broke it off the first time? And the second one, was that Carol was just always looking for someone better? Needed a little more depth. Like if Carol ended up divorced 4 times or something, would make sense, or she never married bc she never forgot her husband.

Why should he thank Carol? He should kick her ass, she deserves it! 4*!

Pretty good, but I would have liked it better if you hadn't ended it so abruptly. You should have made it a few pages longer and added some plot twists. But thanks for posting.

3*. Just not much there this time.

Beggin’ for trouble

boy what a twist at the end great

You must be getting mellow in your old age. I miss the old burn 'em at the stake Bob.

Hang it up, Bob. The well done run dry.

I'm ok with him telling Carol he thought Harlina wasn't married but agree with the other 3 points raised by Anonymous about 4 hours ago. Carol dumping him just before the wedding was as Anon said a plot device, a cheap unrealistic one at that. I could see the ending (being married to Harlina) coming as JPB likes to throw in plot twists, but didn't know how JPB would contrive to have it happen.

Carol was just not the one, 2 weeks before the wedding?!! Damn, he was lucky

Bit quick. D

This story had zero tension. All the characters were polite and accommodating with each other. This feels like the plot of a blizzard Hallmark movie.

Thanks Bob a 5 from me

@anon:

#1. Nobody cared enough to tell him

#2. He's deliberately lying to Carol because on one hand he doesn't want to spill Lina's personal dirty laundry to a raondom woman, on the other hand he doesn't want Carol accusing him of helping a married woman cheat.

#3. It happens in life, you know. Shitty behavior on Carol's part, but not entirely unexpected. She wasn't THAT much into him, clearly, just first convenient target. Would I have liked more meat on that part of the story? Maybe. Was it truly necessary? No, the relationship with Lina was the main storyline.

#4. Harlina was NOT cheating on her husband. It's not cheating if both sides agree to it. He SPECIFICALLY chose between 3 choices: (a) don't take a job 2 months away from wife, (b) divorce her or (c) Allow her to fuck when he's gone. Notice that he chose NOT to excercise options (b) or (c). And definition of cheating is, when it is without consent by the spouse/partner - in this case, she had his consent. So, she's not a risk to marry, unless Bob decides to take a job on oil rigs against her wishes (hint hint)

I thought you might work in some inspiration from the Ypsilanti water tank.

That was like a load of dog shit. No stars for you!

Glad it worked out, but that Carol chic is a total bitch.

Tanks BoB. You make the reed intestin. You have voids here n tear.

I enjoy the reed.

LOVE slap-hapy-papy #9

( ifin you been to the land of the morning calm yous now’s what #10 is)

Average, plain and simple

Confused….when he called on the widow Carol, he had apparently phoned to arrange the visit; she invited him in and told him she wasn’t expecting company! Didn’t really improve after that.

Different stroke and all that I guess, I myself have always enjoyed your tales Bob. Thanks Bob.

somewhere east of Omaha

What njlauren said. The ending was really rushed, didn't feel right...

No Pauline French? Brings a tear to my eye, gotta love that busty gal

I always like your stories, especially because my wife and I lived in Ann Arbor for 9 years while struggling to raise our two daughters and gain two Degrees. While working full time to pay for our education, we lived midway between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti on Packard Road. Back then, it was only 11 miles between the two cities and I never realized that they had moved apart. Re: your references to the Landing Strip; I knew of it and when I was customer relations manager for one of the car companies, I had a lemon-law arbitration where the owner was a stripper at the Landing Strip. Her income, back in 1989 was over $200,000 (that appeared on her Income statement. Her boyfriend was a drug dealer and was pursuing the lemon-law claim that was completely bogus. I was easiest to just buy the car back, but due to some funny stuff with him buying it new, giving it to her, and titling it to her monther, the amount that I would buy it for was less than 25% of its' value, so they declined my offer and kept the car (they had also rolled back the speedometer -- at one of our dealerships, so I often figured he had to be partaking of too much of his product, thinking he could try for a warranty claim with nearly 100,000 miles on a high end auto. Your stories bring back so many memories of the Ann Arbor area (my oldest daughter has lived their 59 years), that I have to read and appreciate your work.

Thank you

852 stories. I've read them all. This is well short of the best.

I'll carry on as long as he does. Nobody wins them all.

(I once emailed JPB. Asked if he was a syndicate? Didn't get a reply).

A twist on the venerable ‘boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy finds girl again’ genre. I wish it was longer. Fou stars.

I thought it was a good story. The only thing I wish was that he saw Carol and she was a wreck that was having a terrible life. In real life not really but in story life, you bet you.

Well played did not think that would be the twist!

I was entertained and read the whole short story so definitely 5 stars.

Interesting ending. I actually enjoyed that ending. And you actually had an ending. Great job!

Great twist at the end, loved it!

...but I'm giving it a "5" to offset the silly commenters that deride the story but clearly didn't actually READ it. As always, JPB writes and edits so well his stories flow very smoothly as you read. Thanks for the effort, sir.

Keep 'em comin'!