This is not a contest entry.
I possibly could have worked in a New Year resolution but there is NO way I could fluff up this fluff to 2500 words. (Let’s see if I can make that stick THIS time.)

Last week I met my old friend Larry. He was in love. I suppressed an inner sigh. Larry often fell in love and then out again just as quickly. Always very chaste. He really was a 40-year-old virgin. He had very fixed ideas about the object of his love(s). One was that he never wanted to see them nude. And then he had this tendency to fall for the wrong ones.

As soon as I heard the name of the latest, Lärchen Tannenbaum, I knew that the relationship was doomed. I didn’t say anything. I knew from experience that it’d be both futile and put a strain on our friendship. So I just let him find out for himself. He kept on and on about Lärchen’s style, the glamour and glitter, tinder and all that. And the accessories ….

It took only a week, I think when leaving the restaurant where I had treated him to solacing lunch. At first he had been utterly crushed. He started telling me how he had been deceived by this crossdresser. At that point I interceded
“And now for something completely different.”

At which Larry laughed and responded
“The larch!”

Fortunately Larry has a great sense of very twisted humour. After that he perked up and started to see the humour in how he had been deceived by a crossdressed larch. Someone had spruced up this larch into an out-of-season Christmas tree and Larry had been completely fooled.

You see, Larry is an objectophiliac with a fixation on evergreens, hence the aversion to full frontal nudity. Larry usually prefers spruces with abundant needles but I have seen him pine for a pine as well (unrequited). Unfortunately the larch is a DECIDIUOUS conifer.

After that we had a very enjoyable lunch and when we parted Larry was smiling again. It’s really too bad he has this fixation and swings from tree to tree. I have hesitated but I know just the right one for him. Yes, I think I have to introduce him to Eglė. Eglė is very down to earth and extremely stable. Eglė would be just the right one to finally make Larry put down roots.

Vocabulary:
Lärchen (German)– Larch
Tannenbaum (German) – Christmas tree
Eglė (Lithuanian) – A common name for girls/women. Also the word for spruce.