Back in the day, you had Sammy and Dean and Frank.
And Debbie and Elvis and all the headliners.
When they were done for the night, they went to see Don.
And Don would rip into all of them, and they laughed and laughed and laughed.
The manager would work the line, picking people out to fill front row seats.
Then, he’d tell Don: I got a fat guy, an ugly woman, a skinny Japanese guy.
“You got any Germans?” asked Don.
The manager nodded, and Don picked up his microphone and walked to the stage.
And the music began.
Author: R.
Tostitos
Tostitos ended their sponsorship of the Fiesta Bowl years ago.
I guess they didn’t want to be associated with exploiting amateur athletes working for millionaire head coaches or the serious injuries that the football industry produces.
Good for them. Nobody with integrity wants to be associated with such an unethical branch of academic institutions as gladiatorial athletics are.
Instead of the resulting concussions and CET and broken limbs that result from football, no matter what meaningless safety measures are imposed, Tostitos now focuses on promoting obesity, strokes, heart disease, diabetes, and all the other medical conditions that their products cause.
Rapture
The skies turned dark, the heavens rained fire, the oceans turned red, and a chorus of angelic voices spread over the world.
“It’s The Rapture!” said someone, and, knowing that only the devout would be taken up and saved, we all fell to our knees and prayed.
All of the sudden, the chorus stopped.
I looked around.
Everyone was still there.
Nobody was missing, no piles of empty clothes, no abandoned cars or anything.
Of course, this meant we were all doomed to Hell for our sins.
“What’s new about that?” I said, and waked to Starbucks for a latte.
Weekly Challenge #971 – Arrested
The next topic is Mister Right
LISA
A New Lead
“Come, look through the window. The curtains are pulled they won’t see you… just peep through the gap.”
A portable TV. Black and White. The picture is fuzzy and keeps rolling.
“Police in Wiltshire have today arrested a man in connection with the disappearance of Katy Creasy.” It’s so loud we hear it from outside.
A school photo appears on the screen.
“Come forward, can you see?” Katy is there at a table; she’s sobbing silently and a man leans forward to wipe away her tears and laughs. He laughs loud enough to drown out the sound of the TV.
LIZZIE
“He was arrested for playing awful music on the freaking harp.”
“What’s that?”
“Crappy music?”
“No. That word…”
“Harp?”
“Yes.”
“It’s that musical instrument!”
“Ah. What happened to the harp?”
“What do you mean?”
“He was arrested. And the harp?”
“How do I know what happened to the harp?!”
“Was it a big harp or a small harp?”
“It was an I-don’t-care-harp.” ”
“Testy, just asking.”
“I’ll have to bond him out.”
“Why?”
“OMG, have you been paying attention to anything at all? The gold is in the harp.”
“Now I’m confused, how can that be an I-don’t-care-harp then?”
“OK, bye.”
RICHARD
Innocent?
It was all a bit of a shock.
I was minding my own business, watching TV with a nice hot cup of tea when they kicked the door in.
Next thing I know, I’m in handcuffs, being bundled into the back of a police van, with all the neighbours looking on with interest.
Arrested.
And I had no idea why.
Of course, I protested my innocence, but they wouldn’t have it, not until the Superintendent turned up, to inform them they were supposed to raid the house at number one, The Avenue.
I’m number ten, but the zero fell off!
SERENDIPIDY
I don’t really like to think of it as ending a life.
Oh, I know that’s exactly what it is, whether you call it murder, assassination or plain and simple killing, but personally, I don’t think those words adequately express the fullness of what I do.
Snuffing out a life in its prime is more than just a simple ending: It’s denying someone of their future and their potential. Those things they might have done and achieved, will now never happen. The difference they could have made to the world is forever lost.
So, I prefer the term…
Arrested development.
NORVAL JOE
“Mother. I want to see Daddy,” Linoliamanda begged.
Her mother blinked back tears. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. These are their rules. I’m sure he’s in good hands and I’ll have him call you as soon as he wakes up.”
Billbert tipped his head toward the exit. “Come on, Mandy. I know the ICU staff from personal experience. If you step on the wrong nurse’s toes, they might try to have you arrested. It’s late. Let’s walk to my house and I can ask my mom to make us something to eat.”
Her chin quivering, Linoliamanda hugged her mother before following Billbert.
TOM
Kid have you rehabilitated yourself.
My first year in high school was in 1969. Lot of stuff was fraying at the edge of society. Into this mix came the Album Alice’s Restaurant. Central theme of the whole side of the record was wound about our hero getting arrested for dumping garbage. In terms of the narrative arch this landing point was theater of the absurd. It didn’t stop there. By the end of the song the question lay at: are you moral enough to kill mothers and babies after littering. Five years later the war was no less absurd and arrested was still a question.
PLANET Z
Rico wasn’t the only dealer in school, but he had the best stuff at great prices.
And he didn’t stab anyone, unlike Julio and Manuel.
We all knew his story about coming from LA was bullshit.
So, it wasn’t a surprise when he disappeared from school along with a dozen kids.
Jessie saw cops at Rico’s house and others.
And none of them came back that year, or the next.
Which was great for me, because I filled the void.
I had enough for State, but as long as the border’s closed, Yale and Princeton are in my budget now.
My mother’s plant
After my dad died, my mother came to live with us.
Under one condition:
The room she was moving into had a plant.
“You can stay as long as that plant’s healthy,” I said.
So, my mother watered that plant every day.
And it stayed green and the flowers were always in bloom.
It was perfectly fine for five years.
My mother was not. The dementia took a hold of her, and she ended up bedridden and confused.
Until she died.
When we were clearing out her things, I picked up the plastic plant.
Maybe we’ll bury her with it.
Little Freddy
Out in the grocery store, I saw a toddler running around in a “Don’t give up on your dreams” t-shirt.
With a picture of Freddy Kruger on it.
He was knocking down everything down the aisle.
No parent in sight.
The shirt, it didn’t bother me.
I mean, the kid can’t see himself in a mirror.
Doesn’t know what Freddy Kruger is… I hope.
And when he’s older, he’ll laugh at the baby photos.
The kid turned the corner and went into produce.
While the manager blamed me for the mess.
“Check the tape,” I said.
And grabbed some mustard.
No such thing as a free lunch
It’s weird that I don’t mind the free lunches for the few employees that actually go into the office.
I’ve never had that benefit from this company, and never expected it from them.
And they’re good about allowing time for lunch and breaks.
As for the old company, they prided themselves on the free lunches and lured people in with that benefit and would say it’s a part of compensation package.
And yet when the pandemic hit, and people worked from home, they’d attack anyone who’d whine about it.
I guess it’s all a matter of perspective.
What’s for lunch?
The old tools
He’s been gone for years, but she still keeps his tools in the basement.
The hammer. The wrenches. The circular saw and its blades.
The baby food jars with screws and nails and nuts and bolts.
She doesn’t use them. One of the neighbors comes by to take care of anything she needs.
And they have their own tools.
The kids come to visit with their kids, but they have their own tools. They don’t need them.
They’re all still in good condition.
They’ll probably end up in the shop class at the junior high school.
Or sold on ebay.
Comparisons
There are people comparing vaccination efforts to the Holocaust.
Other people comparing the 1/6 riots to 9/11 and Pearl Harbor.
And everyone’s calling each other Hitler and Nazis.
If given a pile of apples and oranges, they’ll compare them to Nazis.
This generation is too fucking stupid to make comparisons.
What do you expect from assholes who think a quarter of a pound is bigger than a third of a pound?
I’d compare this generation to previous generations, but they’d just call me Nazi.
Or Hitler.
(Because they’re also too stupid to know that Hitler was a Nazi.)
Grandmothers Headache pills
My grandmother was a ruthless and callous bitch.
She said that headaches were the result of feeling guilty about something, so she refused to give aspirin until I confessed to all the bad things they’ve done.
Oh, and she’d scream this at me to make it worse.
Sure, I’d done something bad. I was a rotten shit.
But this was child abuse.
My other grandmother gave out Life Savers saying they were headache pills.
She had Dementia. Probably thought this was true.
I knew what they were, so the placebo effect didn’t work.
Plus, they were watermelon-flavored, which are disgusting.