This collection of short stories is from my notebook of incomplete work, stories that I just could not get perfect. As I took the time to work on each one, I soon discovered that they all were actually very good concepts and deserved further attention. I soon finished all of them except for one. I very seldom put a manuscript into the shredder, however, one of my stories so aggravated me that out a mixture of frustration and bipolar disorder, I finally did grind it into itty-bitty, itsy-bitsy, miniscule, shreds of paper. Then I emptied the shredder basket onto the basement floor and walked over the ground up manuscript for two days until my anger found a new place to focus, a jammed printer. The story is still in the back of my mind and I realized that someday I might find the words to finish the work. Who knows, it may turn out to be a very fine reading adventure.

I believe that you the readers will thoroughly enjoy these works. They are written around the concept that each of us humans will at sometime struggle with what our lives have to offer us. Some days, we all wonder if our Gods are testing us, or if we just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I hope you enjoy this short story collection as much as I have enjoyed creating it. The first story in this collection is very dear to my heart. I am willing to bet that every male reader has met a Jenny at one time or another in his life.

I wrote the final short story in this collection in two hours. The story outline formed after I heard the howl of a coyote while walking along a lonely lakeside trail in upper Michigan just before sunset. I put pen to paper the following morning, just as the story now appears in the collection. Sometimes an author struggles with a story concept, other times the stories just seem to float in the air, as happened with this story. I now wish I had had a slab of prime rib for that coyote that dark and lonely night.

Ronnie Coleinger