Willy and Max were a old-time comedy team.
Willy the straight man, Max was the clown.
Best friends from childhood, they put together an act, took it on the road.
Radio, movies, television.
Mansions next to each other, married a pair of best friends, and spent all their time together.
Max noticed that Willy took longer to remember the setup lines.
Alzheimer’s, said the doctor.
Willy looked forward to Max’s visit every day, even when he couldn’t speak.
Friends to the very end.
Willy’s wife said “Good morning, oh you just missed Max. But he kissed you on the forehead.”
Author: R.
Battery Anxiety
I have battery anxiety.
My car is a plug-in hybrid, and I worry about getting to the end of the electric range.
Sure, it has a gas engine, too, but I have that anxiety.
It’s why I didn’t get a Tesla.
When I go out, I keep spare batteries with me for my phone. And a charger cord.
Just in case I run low. Or get injured.
Same with my laptop, my flashlight, and all my other devices.
As for my smartwatch, I don’t have one.
I have a simple, dumb mechanical watch.
Which I constantly wind.
Just in case.
Room
For team-building exercises, we seek out activities and experiences.
Sometimes, we go to escape rooms, where the team is confronted by a series of puzzles to get out of a locked room.
Other times, we go to smash rooms, filled with outdated equipment, mirrors, and other breakable items to bash with hammers and metal pipes and baseball bats.
They’re great relievers of stress.
I mean, you go into a room and just smashing the crap out of everything.
And the owners of the place, running in, and yelling.
I guess we got confused and smashed up an escape room again.
A good bath
There is an art to having a good bath.
You need the best oils and salts.
Lay out the softest towels, washcloths, and a robe.
A candle or incense is good, but an essential oil diffuser works as well.
Turn off the lights and let the candle light the room.
Unless you have a diffuser with a light built in.
A bottle of wine, a glass, and a side table.
Maybe a favorite meditation track on your phone, fed to a portable speaker.
A good shower curtain to block out the world.
Oh, and clean the tub.
That thing’s filthy.
Vesuvius Moose
I was in the grocery store this weekend, and everyone’s phone alerts went off. except for mine.
I have those emergency alerts turned off.
When I hear everybody’s else’s phone go off, I make moose antlers with my hands on my ears.
Because if it’s like Vesuvius and Herculaneum, where a volcano buries everyone in ash and freezes them in time, there will be 8 billion people staring at their phones while I’m the only one making moose antlers.
And this will confound alien anthropologists digging through the ruins, making them wonder if my bizarre loony gesture caused the disaster.
The endless walk
I need to walk off some fat, but it’s either too hot outside or it’s raining.
And I’m too cheap to go to the gym.
So I bought a treadmill desk for home.
I could put a television on it to watch while walking.
The problem is, it’s old TV, and the picture quality on the Amazon Fire Stick sucks.
And I stopped using it.
So, I got a new smart TV with a network connection.
Great picture, reliable connection.
It works well. Too well.
Now, I can’t stop watching and walking.
And my knees are in bloody, gory agony.
Weekly Challenge #830: Slippery Slope
RICHARD
Slippery when wet
When people talk about being on the slippery slope, they’re generally only thinking that it’s a downward slope; but that’s just daft, because slopes – like stairs and spirals – go both ways, and it’s often the upward slope that’s the more treacherous!
Take the slope outside my house, for example: It’s just a short, grassy slope, and not particularly steep, but – lazy bugger that I am – it’s just too much trouble to walk the short distance to the steps.
But, after a couple of days of rain, it’s as slippery as hell: And it’s amazing how quickly, up suddenly, becomes down!
LIZZIE
I thought it was risky, but they said “this way”. And we all went “this way”. The problem with blindly following what others say is that we often end up in rather complicated situations. In my defense, there was a sign that clearly said “This Way”. And usually, signs are supposed to be reliable. This time, this particular sign wasn’t. And off we went, blissfully unaware. When we reached the end of the tunnel, they pushed us into the pit. And we had to decide whether to take the blue pill or the red… Wait a second… Alice?! Rewind. Rewind!
SERENDIPIDY
I started on the slippery slope to depravity when I was pretty young.
I was, what can be described as a ‘problem child’; then, they called me ‘disturbed’; ‘wicked’ and eventually, ‘an extremely dangerous individual’.
And all that, before I’d left my teens.
Since then, the slope has taken me ever deeper, slipping and sliding into the fetid mire of moral corruption. And I’ll be frank… I’ve loved every moment.
Eventually, I suppose, that slope will even out and, in time, maybe I’ll reach the bottom: The very depth of human corruptibility.
But, I’m not there yet.
I’m still sliding!
TURA
Slippery slope
———
My father’s heavy hand stopped me as I was going out, one December evening. “Gaein’ doon the big toun, laddie?” he said in his dour Calvinistic way. “That’s a gie slippery slope ye’re set on.”
“Come on, Dad,” I protested, “I’m just seein’ a few friends, ye’ve met most o’ them when we’ve had oor D’n’D sessions up here.”
“Aye, I reckon maybe they’re awright”— this was high praise from him— “but mind yon slippery slope, or Deil tak ye.”
I stepped outside and fell flat on my back on the packed snow.
“Like ah wiz tellin’ ye,” he said.
NORVAL JOE
Hovering near the ceiling, Sabrina opened her eyes and gasped. Billbert lowered them gently to the floor.
Gracilda was ecstatic, jumping up and down. “See? I said the two of you together would have special magical powers.”
Billbert rolled his eyes. “Yeah. This has never happened before.”
The old witch missed his sarcasm. “Yes. Now. You must be careful. Heading down the path of magic, unguided, one can easily slip out of control.”
Billbert shook his head. “I’m going home.”
Sabrina took his arm. “I’ll show you the way. You don’t want to get lost and slide into a ravine.”
PLANET Z
I used to work at a company with a double-deck parking lot.
And the ramps at either end of the upper parking lot were steep.
It was hard to drive up the slope, especially when it rained.
And on the rare days during the winter when it got below freezing, it was impossible to drive up at all.
I didn’t have a parking pass for the lower deck, and they never gave me the code.
So, I parked along the street.
Then I’d try to climb the steps.
Holding the rail and taking each step as slow as I could.
Going home
It’s been seventy years since I last went home.
So much has changed. I don’t recognize the place.
Back then, it was just one main street of a few brick stores, all surrounded by farms and houses.
Now it’s a freeway and offices and franchises of everything.
The farms stopped raising corn and wheat, pushing up one final crop of subdivisions and retirement homes.
It’s just like everywhere else these days.
If it weren’t for the Welcome sign, I wouldn’t know where I was.
Where did the spirit of home go?
Covered by concrete and lights and conformist modern life.
The whispering world
Carter soaked up languages like a sponge.
In a day, he was following along in a conversation.
In a week, you could hardly believe he wasn’t born there.
Pretty soon, Carter spoke every language.
There was nothing hidden from his ear.
But he couldn’t read a word.
Except for the wind.
He did his best to listen to the breathing of the world.
But it never spoke to him.
He swore he almost understood what it was saying.
Just barely out of his reach, almost there.
Not quite, but he knew it was saying something.
Like whispers from far away.
The boxers
One network showed the lightweight fights.
One network showed the middleweight fights.
One network showed the heavyweight fights.
Whatever the network, whatever the fight… the mob got their cut.
You punch. You get punched.
You move around a bit.
Put a guy on the ropes, get put on the ropes.
When it’s your round, you go down.
Because if you don’t go down, well, you’ve got family.
And you can’t watch them all the time.
The phone stops ringing. No more fights.
They tie you to cinderblocks and throw you in a lake.
From lightweight to heavyweight, the mobsters joke.