[prompt: 'stop' 5/4/2019]

It was all going to end in tears... or so it seemed.

No matter what Joe Bloggs tried in his valiant attempts to earn a crust, he ended up being shown the door. Ankle-deep in unreal estate - even his sales pitches turned out the worst ever written. 'Blogs by Bloggs' just didn't cut it. Then, after a dazzling Eureka moment, Joe tried his hand at inventions, but his Fireproof Matches were a failure; Waterproof Teabags totally lacked flavour; and the Inflatable Dartboard didn't go off with quite the bang he'd anticipated.

Reluctantly, Joe returned to a life of crime. Sadly, he had no more success here either, and all too soon he was being hotly pursued by the long arm of the Law. As he told his old mate Baz on Visitors' Day, "At least this gig earned me bed and full board for the foreseeable future."

"C'mon. Spill the beans. How'd you do it THIS time?" Baz was impatient to get down to his local boozer, good deed for the day done and dusted. He shook his head sadly and didn't realise he said out loud, "Tell me about it..."

Though surprised at Baz wanting to linger longer on his way to that first drink, Joe continued...

"Well, you see, me old matey... incredibly, it was all due to a terrible accident caused by a... well-ll you just wait. You're not going to believe this-" and Joe held up his hand in an unmistakably STOP gesture as he saw Baz's huge intake of breath. Hurrying along, Joe said, "When the big burly cop caught up with me as I scarpered away from the scene, it all went down like this -"

"Good afternoon, Officer," I said bravely between rasping gasps. "You don't understand. It's a migraine that did it." And I rubbed my head in a most piteous fashion, indicating my supreme pain. "I was just on my way home to get my toughest pain-killers and take a long lie-down." The cop paused. He obviously wasn't too keen to try to pour this large-ish body of mine into the paddy wagon if he could avoid it. And he clearly was a nice guy under all the guns and radios and batons and general 'stuff' he had to lug around - a man clearly in need of distraction. I was supremely confident I could fulfill that need. The words poured out of me like they'd been dammed up a decade or so.

"When I felt the first rumblings of this monster, I Googled it - I mean, why not? Tried everything else!" The cop nodded in a surprisingly understanding fashion. Obviously a fellow-sufferer. "A-n-d... found the suggestion vigorous exercise sometimes worked by diverting the body's concentration onto something totally different." The cop was nodding thoughtfully now (definitely a fellow-sufferer. I could tell by how close he could pull his brows together).

"My skateboard, I thought. I L-O-V-E those wheels more than any others I own. And I rolled away with gusto, ever hopeful." The Officer nodded in sympathy (obviously a 'boardie afficionado', as well).

"But your goal was to avoid a migraine, wasn't it? So how-"

"... did I end up in the neighbour's swimming pool?" I shook my head . "You know how the 'wheels of the bus go round and round'? Well, there was this bus coming round the corner, and the choice was an up close and personal encounter - or the pool. Subtraction of self from equation seemed the better part of valour... huh?"

"And the migraine?"

"Gone!" And as he marched me off to the paddy wagon anyway, I couldn't stop smiling. Just found my next scheme - legal-like, of course - Water Therapy as Instant Cure of Migraine BEFORE the sucker even begins! And full accommodation and meals and even paper and pencil to write on. Maybe even a computer if I played my goodie-two-shoes cards right!

Author's Note: Call the Word-count Cops - this one's 160 words over the limit.

But STOP! Deep remorse may follow [snigger, snort].