Author: R.

Weekly Challenge #958 – Unsafe

The next topic is Package

LIZZIE

It was dark. The swamp was weird. It bubbled, for some mysterious reason. And she had to step into it to prove herself, they said, to be part of the gang. The whole thing was pathetic, of course. But you’ll only be cool at school if the cool kids accept you. So, the swamp it was. Good thing she had a flashlight. She pointed at the others just to make sure they were still there. And it took exactly 0.4 seconds for the thing to snack on them. They were gone. Well, guess I’m the coolest kid now, she thought.It was dark. The swamp was weird. It bubbled, for some mysterious reason. And she had to step into it to prove herself, they said, to be part of the gang. The whole thing was pathetic, of course. But you’ll only be cool at school if the cool kids accept you. So, the swamp it was. Good thing she had a flashlight. She pointed at the others just to make sure they were still there. And it took exactly 0.4 seconds for the thing to snack on them. They were gone. Well, guess I’m the coolest kid now, she thought.

RICHARD

– ​NSFW –
The email was sent by a vague acquaintance, ‘Thought you might like to see these’ was the subject line.
I had my doubts. It was full of links to dubiously named websites, and the slightly ominous preface, ‘Warning: Not safe for work’.
Since he’d sent it to my work email, and there was no way I was going to forward it to my personal address, I reckoned I’d take a chance.
I waited for a quiet moment, then clicked a few – they all seemed broken.
Like work’s IT system.
Wrecked, by a virus, from stupidly clicking an email link.

TOM

Bottle Red Bottle White

Lenny took a sit at the back of the bar. As his saintly mother would say “with your back to the wall.” He had clear sight of the door as he ate his linguine. When the waiter moved on his right side he keep him in his peripheral vision. In the world Lenny lived being unsafe meant being un-alive. He kept sufficient fire power under his regular table. The one with hinged steel plate. He might have been a wise guy but as the bullets from the bathroom behind him hit in the back the linguine turned a bit redder.

SERENDIPIDY

My lawyer maintained my conviction was unsafe.
The villagers disagreed.
The evidence was crystal clear, they argued. I owned a black cat, I had a weird birthmark, and a third nipple… Probably.
Nobody was willing to actually check that out.
Then there were the failing crops that had blighted the village since my arrival, and the fact that I never went to church.
Mostly circumstantial evidence, protested my lawyer, and he did his job well. My conviction was overturned, and I was free.
Unfortunately for him, the villagers were right. And they knew it.
Now he’s the one who’s unsafe!

NORVAL JOE

Billbert woke in the dark. He lay on his back and his arm hung off the side of the bed. His hand rested on something soft and warm that rose and fell in a slow steady rhythm. When he poked it with his finger, it was squishy.
“Sabrina!” Billbert shouted as he sat up. “What are you doing in here? Did you feel unsafe?”
“I couldn’t sleep.” She looked up at him. “I thought if I held your hand, I could relax. I guess I fell asleep.”
“I guess you did,” Billbert mumbled. “That wasn’t your hand I was holding.”

PLANET Z

Ikea says you should bolt the dresser to the wall to keep it from tipping over.
Otherwise, a kid could open the top drawers and have the thing crush them.
So, I did.
And the dresser has yet to tip over.
Even when a tornado struck the neighborhood and everything was destroyed, the dresser was still standing.
“It’s a miracle,” said my wife.
I took a photo of the thing and sent it to Ikea.
“Here, take one of me,” I said, handing my phone to my wife.
That’s when the damned thing tipped over and crushed me to death.

Someone may have run a background check on you

It amuses me when I get Spam that says someone may have run a background check on me.
Go ahead. Run a background check.
You’ll find the usual stuff: a decent education, a car note, and a good credit rating.
And a rap sheet as long as your arm.
Every line on it, a vicious assault on a spammer.
No jury would convict me, because everyone’s sick of spam.
It’s not hard to find the source of spam.
I track it down, run my own check, and get an address.
Then I get out my baseball bat and car keys.

Helter Skelter

I knew a girl named Helter Skelter.
I shit you not, it was her legal name.
And not a joke name, picked out as an adult.
And it certainly wasn’t a stage name, like actors pick out when their legal name is already registered with the union.
Or their birth name is something boring or strange, like John Wayne being Marion and Norma Jean becoming Marilyn Monroe.
Was it her birth name?
No. She was born Helter Smith.
When her parents died in a car wreck, she was adopted by the Skelter family.
And that’s when she became Helter Skelter.

The stones speak

Eighty years ago, the Germans exterminated my village.
Today, we dig up the streets and pull out the underpavement.
It is made from the gravestones of my ancestors.
The Germans had ordered the cemeteries to be destroyed.
But now, we are reclaiming the stones.
Buried under the streets.
Pavestones for paths through the farms.
Grinding stones for plows and knives.
They all have writing on them.
We wash the stones, and rub shaving cream on them.
The white foam makes it easier to read the letters.
Their names are slowly revealed, and we kneel, and we pray for their souls.

Scammers

Almost twenty years ago, I got a support job at a webhosting company.
We packed hundreds of online scammer accounts on cheap servers.
Load averages were astronomical.
The only true solution was to stop overloading the servers.
But instead, we’d tell the caller that we were resetting the queue. Which did nothing.
If they wanted to stay on the line, we’d thank them, put them on hold, and forget about them as we picked up the next call complaining about overloaded servers.
I spent my time in between calls learning how to run my own servers.
And my own scams.

Baptism bungles

Dear Loyal Customer,
We regret to inform you that the licensed mumbo-jumbo provider at your local eternal life exchange performed improper service maintenance for the past 20 years.
New equipment and training have been dispatched. Please make an appointment with your nearest jiffy-prayer center to have the correct voodoo performed on your child, self, or parent.
Sadly, should the recipient of incorrect service maintenance have expired, they’re now in eternal damnation. Fill out the attached Form RMA-666 to escalate this issue with our upper management.
Thank you, The Church.
PS: At least the dude didn’t molest the kids… we think.

When people get old

When people get old and everyone around them has died, and even the ghosts stop coming around to haunt them, they get lonely, and they talk to the mailman or the gas meter reader or the guy at the meat counter.
Or 911.
“What’s your emergency?”
“Everyone I know is dead.”
If it’s not a busy day, the operator talks to them.
And if it is, they take down their number, call them back.
Some say they drank something. Others burn things in the kitchen.
So we hire them to take calls.
The hard part is keeping the conversations brief.

Weekly Challenge #957 – PICK TWO Role model, Beep, Curious, No annual contract, Conference, Ballet

The next topic is Unsafe

TOM

Commissar’s Choice

It was the heady days after the revolution. All traditional preforming arts were deemed counter-revolutionary. No more Swan Lake. No more Nutcracker. Into that vacuum strove Yuri Petrova. His first offering was the blindly a vanguard work Beep Ballet. It opened in Moscow to less then glowing approval from the Commissar of Arts, all the same he deemed it a superior work for the working people of the motherland. The company along with Petrova were sent to Siberia the next week. No account remains of the Ballet. Petrova was rumored to have made his way to Warsaw before the war.

NORVAL JOE

Billbert walked into the bedroom and sat next to Sabrina. “They make fun of you at school?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’ve never admitted to being a witch. But with Buhmilda being my only real role model, I act as much like a witch as anyonee. They ask me embarassing questions.”
“Maybe they’re just curious,” Billbert suggested.
“Do you do ballet under the full moon, naked?” She said. “That’s not curiousity. That’s degrading.”
“Do you?” Billbert asked, then saw her angry glare. “Sorry, you made me curious.”
Sabrina pushed him off the bed, and lay down. “I’m going to sleep.”

SERENDIPIDY

I first came across him at a motivational conference.
Slick, persuasive, charismatic and a natural people person.
His inspirational message pretty much changed my life, and from that moment I decided he would be my role model.
Some years later, when the news broke about how he scammed his followers, his shady gangland activities, the prostitutes, drugs, violence and rumours of torture and murder, he lost all credibility.
But not for me.
In fact he grew in my estimation, and I saw no reason why he shouldn’t continue to be my role model.
Some might say, that’s a bad thing.

RICHARD

Buy now!
I can tell you’re curious, and believe me this is the deal of a lifetime.
Easy monthly instalments, free maintenance and upgrades, guaranteed performance and, best of all, no annual contract.
If you’re not entirely satisfied after the first twelve months, just give us a call, and return it in the original packaging, and that’s it. No obligation, no questions!
So, what are you waiting for? Just sign on the dotted line, pay a deposit, and we’ll deliver in seven working days.
And, once we have your first payment, we’ll tell you what you’ve actually bought.
Terms and conditions apply.

PLANET Z

Before video conferences, we held phone conferences.
The meeting started with a lot of beeps and people introducing themselves as they joined.
When everyone was on the conference, we’d start the discussion.
At the end of the conference, we’d all hang up, and the director would send out an email with a summary of the discussion and any action items.
Someone had the bright idea to suggest that we not do the conferences and just discuss over email or a private forum thread.
But that’s when video conferences got cheap, and we switched over, all keeping our cameras turned off.

Ghost guns

When Bob saw the gun buyback program, Bob saw an opportunity.
He priced out a room full of cheap used 3D printers and buckets of manufacturing resin.
Then he bought plans for a simple “ghost gun” and set the printers to rendering them around the clock.
On the last day of the buyback program, Bob showed up with a van full of the cheap printed guns.
The chief of police said “No way. Ghost guns don’t count.”
So, Bob pulled out a ghost gun from his pocket and shot the guy.
“Does that feel like it doesn’t count?” said Bob.

Packing the court

After years of contention, Congress passed legislation to expand the size of the Supreme Court and the president signed it.
The Court immediately tried to review the law and declare it unconstitutional.
But the House filled the airwaves with meaningless impeachment hearings, and Senate and President ignored the Supreme Court, nominating Associate Justices and holding confirmation hearings.
The opposition party protested the move, doing all they could to disrupt the meetings and votes.
When the new Associate Justices descended on the Supreme Court, the Chief Justice refused to administer their Constitutional Oaths.
Which party was which?
Does it really matter?