Author: R.

Treadmill

I used to walk a lot. But the heat and weather got to me, and I stopped walking as much.
Then, I drove to work and back. No walking at all.
Got heavy. Got sick.
So, I bought a treadmill. One with a desktop for a computer or a book. Or a fan.
The boxes were huge. I had to drag them in, open them up, and unpack the parts.
Assembling it was a bitch. Then hauling the packaging to the dumpster left me a sweaty mess.
Forget walking on it. Just keep shipping me treadmills. They’re a workout alright.

Arian Foster

Arian Foster was a good running back for the Houston Texans for a few years, but a series of injuries cut into his playing time and value as a player.
He’d work with rehabilitation trainers and strength coaches in the off-season to recover, then come out for training camp, and get a season-ending injury in the preseason or the first few games.
So, the Texans let him go.
He bounced around the league a bit, until he ended up on a team, on their Injured Reserve list.
“We’ll train our medical staff on him like a cadaver,” said the owner.

Best Enemy

Marilyn Monroe sang that diamonds are a girl’s best friend, but she never sang about a girl’s worst enemy.
So many enemies to choose from, really.
Booze, Pills. A bad childhood.
And no children of her own.
Endless fame without true love.
Everybody knew her name, but nobody really knew her.
Wanting, always wanting.
And getting, getting so much, but never getting what she wanted.
Or needed.
So, she had her diamonds. Diamonds all around.
But diamonds are hard and sharp, and they cut deep.
They call her immortal, a Hollywood legend, but she’s just as dead as everyone else.

Weekly Challenge #721 – LAPSE

Cat butt

NORVAL JOE

Billbert’s mother pulled out of the McDonald’s drive through. The Ferarri pulled behind them from the curb and followed. As they got close to their home, Billbert said, “I think someone’s following us. Can you take a couple laps around the block?”
Continueing past their driveway, his mother asked, “Why would someone be following us?”
“Well, Marissa saw me fly away from the school, and she said she wants me to take her for a flight.”
“You flew away from the school? Did you have a lapse of reason?” she asked.
Billbert sighed. “It’s girls, mom. They make me crazy.”

DAVID

I was lonelier than a heavy metal tuba player. I had to get out of the friend zone and to the erogenous zone and quick. I scooted closer as we Netflixed. Then a fillatio scene developed on the screen. S0, I stole a play from the Clinton playbook and I gave a playful nudge and a knowing head nod to the tv. My two hands jestering to my crotch. My simple daring stunt could only pay copious amounts of dividends, right? It didn’t. It was a lapse in judgement. I figured, what have I to lose? Apparently, just my dignity.

SERENDIPIDY

Nobody can maintain an illusion permanently. Sometime they’re bound to lapse back into their true character, revealing themselves as they really are.

Happens to us all.

This is why you find me, skipping gaily through a spring meadow, stopping to smell the blossoms, laughing at the new born lambs as they gambol and frolic, full of the joys of life.

And later? I’ll join some friends for an impromptu picnic, by a babbling brook…

Yeah right!

I shudder at the thought, and attend to sharpening my knives; whilst you hang, bloody and whimpering in the corner, awaiting your sordid fate.

TOM

From the Doctor’s point of view Maureen lapsed into a coma. From Maureen’s point of view she suddenly appeared in the happiest place she had ever known. A deep sense of rightness directed her to a brightly bobbling sphere in the center of her vision. As she approached the sphere receded. Braking into a full-out ran the sphere suddenly appeared directly in back of her. This went on for some time. This cat and mouse didn’t bother Maureen, it was more a game of tag. “What if I just stand still,” she mused. The sphere approached, surrounded. Then everything went black.

RICHARD

Lapse

Sitting amongst the smouldering wreckage of my restaurant, I experienced a sudden moment of clarity.

This was not, as the insurers had concluded, the result of a lapse in following fire precautions – and therefore the only excuse they needed not to pay out.

Neither was it an unfortunate memory lapse in testing for flat batteries in the smoke detectors.

This was totally my fault.

It was me who thought I could outsmart the Mob; me, who purposely let the protection money payments lapse; me, that had brought this appalling retribution upon myself.

A tiny lapse of judgment. That’s all.

LIZZIE

Who was that man, everyone wondered.
He wore a long coat and pulled around a big box with wheels. The box had a small window and the kids tried to look inside. That made him mad.
Who was that man, everyone thought.
One day, he walked into the water, small waves splashing on his ankles. He stood there for a long time, the box left unattended on the sand.
Then, something happened. The lid of the box opened but no one saw anything.
However, when she reached the water, she appeared. She smiled and swam away.
Who was that man…

PLANET Z

It took thirty years for Dan Fisk to get his movie made.
The locations were all gone, bulldozed and turned into malls, parking lots, and condos.
All of the actors he’d cast were now either dead or too old to play their parts.
And de-aging technology can only do so much.
The female lead couldn’t perform gymnastics like she did in her prime at the Tokyo Games, let alone coach someone from that wheelchair.
So, he wrote a book about his agonizing, frustrating wait.
It was a best-seller.
Dan sold the movie rights.
Let someone else wait thirty years, right?

Growing Through Cobblestones

Blades of grass
Growing through cobblestones.
We pull up the stones
And then the grass.
We find the wet side of the stone
And press it back into place
How can it be
That the stones fit before
But they resist their return?
Does the street breathe?
Do the stones
Freed of their bonds
Stretch and expand?
We press each stone back into place
By hand
Or pressing rod
Never with a hammer’s blow
Because we do not want
To shatter a stone
And have to find a replacement
Which fits
Better than the stone
Which fit just fine before

Ted Cruz

What’s the difference between a sore loser and someone who stands by principles, no matter what?
I’ve got to agree with Ted Cruz on refusing to endorse the man who mocked his wife and his faith.
The concept of “party unity” after a modern mudslinging primary process is inherently dishonest.
On the same hand, Bernie Sanders claiming to be principled is a joke, too.
He is an Independent in the Senate, but ran as a Democrat.
That’s not principle. That’s opportunism.
I hold my nose, and instead of voting, I kick over the booth.
May they all burn in Hell.

You can’t always

The Rolling Stones say that you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get what you need.
This is coming from a band that has always gotten what it wants for over fifty years.
Pussy. Booze. Drugs. Midget clowns on fire.
Whatever the hell they want, they get it.
If it doesn’t exist, someone invents it on the spot.
Even the drummer, Charlie Watts, gets whatever the hell he wants.
The fucking drummer!
No other drummer in any other band gets what they want.
Such arrogance. What they need is a smack in the mouth.

The Dancer Dances

Whenever the Moscow Ballet performed in New York, security services told the dancers that if they defected, they would never see their families again.
This didn’t bother Irina. She’d be escaping her wicked Uncle Vanya.
So, she didn’t mind that threat at all, and she escaped through a bathroom window at the theater.
“I defect!” she shouted at the cameras.
The Russians raised a stink, but Irina got her way.
She joined the New York City Ballet, and settled in with a foster family.
Until one day, The Russians sent a gift:
“Hello, pretty,” said Uncle Vanya. “Dance for me.”

If he had

If Mohamed Bouhlel had run over Jews in Jerusalem, Mahmoud Abbas would call him a martyr.
If Mohamed Bouhlel had run over Jews in Jerusalem, Mahmoud Abbas would dedicate a monument to him.
If Mohamed Bouhlel had run over Jews in Jerusalem, Mahmoud Abbas would paying his family a thousand dollars, your tax dollars, to his family as a reward. Every month.
If Mohamed Bouhlel had run over Jews in Jerusalem, Mahmoud Abbas would encourage children to follow his example.
But Mohamed Bouhlel ran over people in Nice, so Mahmoud Abbas condemned him.
How noble of that terrorist bastard, right?

The City of Hate

They call Dallas the City of Hate.
After Kennedy was shot and killed there.
Is that the metric for hate?
Shooting presidents?
Well, in that case, a president was murdered in Buffalo.
McKinley, right?
Why is that not the City of Hate?
McKinley was shot just as dead as Kennedy, right?
And what about Washington DC?
Two presidents were shot and killed there.
Lincoln and Garfield.
Several more shot at.
Jackson, Reagan, and Ford.
Anybody else? Am I missing someone?
Washington DC, by far, earns the City of Hate title.
Not that the others are all that loving, mind you.