Take Your Rocket To Work Day

Today is Take Your Daughter To Work Day.
Jameson came in with a rocket launcher over his shoulder.
It seems he didn’t read his email and heard things wrong. Thought it was “Take Your Rocket To Work Day.”
Which seems weird, sure, but if you know Jameson, it’s not all that weird.
Rocket sounds an awful lot like daughter. Especially when you launch a lot of rockets over the weekend and have considerable hearing damage.
The one thing that has me worried is that Jameson may have misheard “Take” and think we said “Launch.”
I wish he’d read his email.

The Divorce of Figaro

Did you know that Mozart wrote a sequel to The Marriage Of Figaro?
It’s called The Divorce Of Figaro.
A year after the chaotic wedding day, Figaro is lamenting his crazy.
Seductions and singing.
Feasts and fancy.
Subterfuge and plots.
The Count and The Countess are on the rocks, too. The entire mansion is a wreck, every treasure having been smashed against walls in endless fighting.
The four take their fighting to the street, and they bump into each other.
They end up divorcing, The Count marries Figaro, and the curtain comes down.
A good story, but the music sucked.

Weekly Challenge #273 – PICK TWO #2

Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at podcasting.isfullofcrap.com. I’m your host, Laurence Simon.

This is Weekly Challenge Number Two Hundred and Seventy-Three, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.

The topic this week was PICK TWO

Finish line
A cardboard cutout of a movie alien
W.T.F.
Swivel
… on the tip of his/her tongue
Daytime television
Double barrel
Pocket
She’s a straight arrow
Failure

How about voting for your favorites?

And if you want to spam your social networks with this episode, use the Share buttons at the end of the post.

Gideon McMillan

Christmas was always the same. She delivered a list of gifts she wanted. I acquired, wrapped and presented them.

One Christmas I decided to inovate; my gift ideas, my own theme.

So proud, I presented the peripherals I knew (knew!) she could use with her new laptop.

Failure.

Nonplussed, the next day I retrieved her list, acquired, wrapped and placed the gifts under the tree.

Santa even left a note telling her what a bad boy I had been.

I waited. And waited. And waited.

Abject Failure!

Until three weeks later, while taking down the tree, she found the gifts.

TJ

Teen spy Martin sent what he’d discovered in his surveillance at the
mall to Richard. They weren’t friends, exactly, but he’d teamed with
Richard on different science projects in the past and noticed where his
mild Asperger’s gave him crazy focus when it came to computer code. A
progress report of sorts came that afternoon, a text from a restricted
number: “Shut down NOW.” WTF? His provider couldn’t tell him
anything. Richard could. By the next morning, he’d pocketed an IP
address, breadcrumbs, backdoors and the data necessary to either turn
Skylar over to the Feds… or to flip him.

Tom

Gary loved to compete in the Special Olympics. His brother Bob loved to cause Gary grief. Gary was afraid of any type of monster, supernatural and other worldly. His brother knew he was particularly frightened of the Predator. Bob had placed a cardboard cutout of the movie alien at the finish line of Gary’s 440 finishing heat. As Gray rounded the track a tractor beam locked on to Bob’s foot and a laser beam vaporized the cardboard prop on the field. Gary won his gold metal and Bob discover the true meaning of that old alien book: To Server Man.

This week’s story topic was going to be What The Fuck, but it seems WTF is part of the South Park canon. Well what’s an author to do when you get hijacked my Mat and Trey … well fly to New York and do damage to Book of Mormon. I had 4000 swivel desk chairs delivered to the theater, with a note signed Love Mom. Have you ever had to escape a blood thirsty mob of gay musical fans, not a pretty sight? Decided time to hide out in Uruguay. George W lent me his writing shack, what a guy.

Bruce was recovering from a ruptured appendix. He didn’t have the strength to change the channel on the set so he was forced to watch 10 hours of daytime television. Soaps, info commercials, game shows, Dr Oz, (who the fuck it that). Finally on third shift rotation a nurse asked Bruce if he need anything. The puzzled look on his face telegraphed to Nurse Betty it was just on the tip of his tongue. Bruce mouthed: T V “Oh you want the channel changed. She clicked on Oprah and left the room. Bruce yanked the IV line. Time to go.

I’m not a very good shot. That is why I use the Double barrel Henry when I’m out on the Edge. This jacket has 49 pockets and every pocket is filled with shells. I tolerated the first zombie wave. When they start singing show tunes I got pretty darn irate. When the walking dead started doing Color Me Barbra I knew I had to end this. Got a 5000 watt preamp in the trees, play Funny Girl to draw them out. On the first note of People I turn and pepper the field. “C’est Si Bon “C’est Si Bon Fuckers.

“She’s a straight arrow” whisper Jeff. “No way dude, woman looking like that, got to be gay.” “You just got a Failure to Lift Off.” Smirked Jeff. “My rocket is fully functional the docking rings on that station are not operation. “Watch the Master and learn” Jeff floated over to Cosmonaut Lena Popolowvich. When he returned his spacesuit was full of floating gobbles of Tang. “Teachable moment?” “Shut UP. Hook up the suction tube.” As Jeff was de-tanging, Cosmonaut Olga Grogorin sat down across Lena. I don’t understand a word of Russian, but my gaydar tell me I was spot on.

Zackmann

” I hope the race is broadcast live since it will be better than anything else on daytime
television.” said Tom.
“WTF, Why do you have double barrelled tail pipes on an electric car?” asked Jerald.
“They are ironic since my local electricity comes from a coal plant therefore having more
emissions than a gas car. ” Tom Replied.
“Do you think you will be first across the finish line?” Jerald asked
“I think the swivel drivers seat may prove a failure .” Responded Tom
“What do you think of the judge?” asked Jerald
“She is a straights arrow.” answered Tom
“Good Luck”

Daniel

“Scott! Wake up! I heard a noise downstairs!”

Muttering to myself, I grabbed the double-barreled shotgun next to the bed and headed downstairs.

Creeping into the living room, I saw a monstrous form standing by the window. Startled and half-asleep, I fired both barrels without even a warning shout. The blast ripped through its chest and shattered the window behind it. Turning on a light, I saw the cardboard cutout of a movie alien that my son had won in a raffle.

Sighing, I started back upstairs. I’d clean up the mess tomorrow.

That’s when the real alien intruder struck.

Ross

Arms pumping, legs churning, he sprinted toward the finish line. The broken pavement beneath his running shoes tried to trip him up, and only sheer luck kept him vertical, and in the lead.

He flipped a glance over his shoulder, gauging how far back the others were. Could he make it before they caught up to him? Lungs and body burning, he prayed silently that it would be so.

He crossed over the line barely ahead of the pack, and collapsed…under their weight.

For the zombies, you see, it was never about the race, but only about the finish.

Norval Joe

Double barrel insults; imprisoned, and in a cell with Vinyl Man; It made the boy feel like a failure.
“Fly Paper Boy.”
He swiveled on his bunk at the sound of the warden’s voice. A familiar woman was him, her name on the tip of his tongue.
“I represent the Women’s Trade Federation,” she said, taking a paper from her pocket. “The W.T.F. is floating your bail.”
“Seriously?”
You could’ve knocked him over like a cardboard cutout of a movie alien.
“Believe her,” The warden said, “This isn’t daytime television. She’s a straight arrow. Your finish line is in sight.”

Planet Z

I see a woman sitting across the table from me, and she’s smiling.

My head hurts. I put my hand to it… bloody…

I look again at her.

I know that I should know who she is, but I just can’t remember.

It’s on the tip of my tongue. It’s… it’s… it’s…

I know I should know, but I just can’t remember it.

I put my hand in my pocket, and I pull out… a photograph…

It’s her. It says “This woman has been paid to kill you.”

I look up, and see her swinging a bloody hammer at m-

Making The Grade

Years ago, back when I was in college, I was better at hauling kegs than carrying a courseload.
My GPA was horrifying.
However, I was making good cash running parties, so I figured I could buy my way out of the mess I’ve made.
I caught the professor at one of the parties, a Wheel Of Fortune-themed party, and I told him “I know I’m getting an F, but I’d like to buy a vowel, please.”
Five hundred bucks, it cost me.
That night, the professor shacked up with a Freshman and got fired. His TA turned in the F.

Which came first?

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Does it matter? Do we need to go over this again?
Fine. It was neither.
That’s right. Neither the chicken nor the egg came first.
It was the flying saucers.
They landed, aliens came out, and then looked around for a while.
The flying saucers took off, but they left a bunch of stuff, like crystal skulls, eggs, and chickens.
The crystal skulls mutated the eggs so they hatched all the different forms of life, like horses and monkeys and people.
There’s your answer.
Oh, and I’ll take my horse eggs scrambled.

The World Is My Gym

The world is my gym.
The sidewalk is my treadmill.
And the membership is free.
Sometimes, it’s raining.
Sometimes, it’s hot.
Sometimes, it’s cold.
Sometimes, it’s windy.
But, usually, it’s nice out.
The birds are singing.
I can’t hear them.
I have my headphones on.
A bird swoops past my head, flapping.
Defending its nest.
This happens every day.
I think about bringing a club.
Or a weighted sock.
To stun the aggressive avian.
What if I kill it?
Who would feed the baby birds?
I imagine myself, perched over featherless chicks.
Then vomiting into the nest
Where’s my ladder?

The Statue

We dug up the statue and cleaned it off.
It was a golden angel, and it was perfect in every way.
When was it made?
Who made it?
Why?
It didn’t weigh like it was solid gold. We thumped it and it sounded hollow, but filled with something.
Did we dare open it?
We had it shipped back to the university, and after careful examination, we found an unobtrusive spot to drill.
The hole grew deeper, deeper…
That’s when the poison gas leaked out, and as we choked, we realized it was the artist’s final statement:
Don’t fuck with perfection.

Sense Of Home

The difference between house and home.
Home is where you feel safe. Home is where you belong.
The moment you no longer feel safe or feel you belong, it no longer feels like home.
Afraid. Hurt. Breathing quickly.
Violated.
Add locks, add alarms.
There’s nothing you can add to bring back that sense of home.
So, you go somewhere else. You search for some place safe.
Where you feel like you belong.
It takes time.
Cuts scar over. Bruises vanish.
You stop jumping at every noise.
Eventually, you forget to be afraid, and the worry slowly goes away.
Welcome home.

Get your own ghost!

What are you doing, wrapping your rage in a ghost?
If you’re going to be an asshole, do it on your own terms!
Don’t go dragging their good name through the mud as you bloody your fists on someone face.
It’s disgusting when you wrap yourself in the flag and act all patriotic for profit, but it’s utterly revolting how you exploit the memory of someone who trusted you.
How could you?
What’s even worse is that you didn’t even wait for them to die.
I wish you were dead, because I can’t wait to do the same to you.

Weekly Challenge #272 – “Even in the quietest moments…”

Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at podcasting.isfullofcrap.com. I’m your host, Laurence Simon.

This is Weekly Challenge Number Two Hundred and Seventy-Two, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.

The topic this week was “Even in the quietest moments…”

How about voting for your favorites?

Well, it looks like WordPress 3.2 and the poll system are not happy with each other:

Error: An error has occurred; Poll not created.

Oh well.

And if you want to spam your social networks with this episode, use the Share buttons at the end of the post.

TJ

High school junior Skylar wished to know all that could be known. In his
quietest moments, he wished to command the sum total of human
experience. But he had to start somewhere. He’d programmed a string or
two of code to resemble benign background garble that attached, he hoped
discreetly, to social networking log-ins. He found the wifi hotspot at
the mall to be fertile hunting ground. He tripped a few error messages
along the way, but he was already able to view dozens of pages of people
he didn’t know and who’d never friended him. Next stop, cell phones.

EccentriceRant

***Still***

Sometimes, it isn’t in the bright light of day that everything becomes clear. The truth lurks in the shadows and it comes out at night.

He has been fast asleep beside me, peaceful and serene, for the last hour. I almost didn’t hear it, had it not been for the stillness surrounding us.

“Stella.”

Almost a whisper, barely audible even in the quietest moments like this.

“Stella. Stella.”

“Stella?” A question and a name, but to which I don’t, and can’t, answer.

He turns in his sleep.

Throughout the night, my lips remain sealed. And my eyes, wide open.

Guard 13007

Tick-tock, tick-tock, all day long. The clock went on and on. Slowly, driving me insane, though it seemed quite inane. They asked what were wrong, it could not be too long. Alone with that clock, it was quite a shock.

Words meaningless, I tried to write. Try as I might, the words stayed dull. This I must mull. Even in the quietest moments, the clock still ticked, still talked. It whispers of things to do.

The clock, the clock. Talk, talk. It tells me many things, tells me who to kill. Don’t worry, it hasn’t said your name yet today.

Zackmann

None of us knew what would happen with the computer implants. I wish I had stayed reluctant
to become a first adapter. Everyone thought the company was aboveboard, until the tower sent
a signal that made everyone with an implant walk to the nearest manufacturing plant of Future
Now Robotics Company making them become zombielike workmen, unknowingly making
weapons for the Robot Wars. Thank God the air force blew up the transmission tower.
Now, even in the quietest moments, I can still hear the call, the call of evil, calling me into the
dark, the call of The Computer King.

Tom

I suffer from ringing in the ears. Even in the quietest moments it rumbles on like a distance school bell. Never stopping. Never dropping below a whisper. When people call for a moment of silence they experience a pool of empty calm. A meditative state that somehow triggers an incoming flow of ethereal bliss. What I get is effectively the volume turned up to nine. All I can do is tuff if out fill 60+ seconds with a blinding rotation of random thoughts, happy for the returning flood of world noise that masks the ringing. My world has no silence.

TerrazaByte

I have found that even in the quietest moments, when all that surrounds us has been silenced, there are so many other things still clamoring for our attention.

It’s those noisy little things that we tend to push to the back of our thoughts, thinking that we can deal with them at another time.

They never go away; they just sit there making their presence known… even in our quietest of moments.

So put down that cell phone, close that lid on the laptop and go take care of the little things and your next quiet time will be truly quiet.

Norval Joe

Fly Paper Boy lay on his bunk, fully dressed, still unwilling to believe he was in prison. Vinyl man, just a few feet below on the bottom bunk, wheezed and rasped in the depths of sleep.
“He’s asleep,” he muttered. Even in the quitest moments, when the other criminals snoozed soundlessly, the boy couldn’t stop his racing thoughts.
“This can’t be happening,” he thought for the thousandth time. “I’m one of the good guys.”
“It’s under the porch,” Vinyl man said between snores. “I buried the money under the old woman’s house.”
Suddenly the situation seemed brighter to the boy.

Planet Z

Even in the quietest moments, you have to keep your guard up.

The mad mathematicianess Lisa Common-Denominator is always scheming… plotting…

We allow no paper in her cell.
No writing implements.
Not even chalk. We cannot risk it.

However, she still manages to swipe materials. And use her blood.

A check, on which she’s added zero. “And zero cents.” No change there.

A timer, on which she’s added zero. From thirty seconds to three minutes. Six times longer, not ten.

A calendar, on which she’s added zero.

July… fortieth?

The prison walls rumble, and then I hear the sirens.

Escape!