Heather was busy, so she scheduled all her appointments at the same time.
One assistant took her hands out for a manicure, while another took her feet for a pedicure.
Her arms, legs, and thighs went out for electrolysis, along with her face.
Her torso got a mammogram, her pelvis a trip to the gynecologist for a pelvic.
The ophthalmologist checked her eyes, the dentist cleaned her teeth, and her hair went to the salon for a style.
Five minutes to six, they reassembled her at the restaurant for a dinner date.
But her clothes were back at the office.
Author: R.
Babawawa
They say that Barbara Walters had her finger on the pulse of America. But interviewing celebrities with soft-pitch questions is hardly having your finger on the pulse. Nor is an ignorant gab-fest with a panel of opinionated and ill-informed women.
Just a vapid, fawning hack, marketed as some kind of hard-hitting journalist, when all she really did was plumb the shallows of a prettyboy or fancygirl, or stroke the ego of a politician or flavor of the day.
She leaves the profession worse than she found it, her audience dumber than she found it, and we haven’t hit bottom yet.
Weekly Challenge #552 – Idiot
Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at oneadayuntilthedayidie.com.
This is the Weekly Challenge, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.
We’ve got stories by:
MUNSI
For the Bowie Fans
By Christopher Munroe
People forget that David Bowie’s “Berlin Trilogy” was actually five albums…
Bowie co-wrote/produced “The Idiot” and “Lust for Life” for Iggy Pop in Berlin, after all, and tonally they’re very much in line with Bowie’s own recordings of the time.
You know them, they contain every Iggy Pop song you remember. Lust for Life, The Passenger, Nightclubbing, Funtime, China Girl (which you probably didn’t know was Iggy Pop) they laid out one classic after another, and feature what’s easily Pop’s finest work.
My point? No point really, just pointing out that you really ought to listen to more Iggy Pop…
JEFFREY
Persuasion
by Jeffrey Fischer
You call me an idiot, a moron, an uneducated rube. You tell me that I’m misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, racist. You decry my “white privilege,” as though individuals think solely along racial lines. You know nothing about me, yet you presume to lecture me on the error of my ways.
Does this seem like a persuasive line of argument to you? I’ll hear this litany of charges and rue my vote, that next time will be different?… I didn’t think so. But go ahead and call me names, if that makes you feel better.
RICHARD
Some sort of idiot
“What are you?”, bellowed Mr Andrews, my chemistry teacher; “Some sort of idiot?”
It’s one of those questions to which there’s no possible answer – if I said ‘yes’, I’d only be confirming his accusations; ‘no’, and I’d only be inviting further ridicule.
I opted for silence, not that it did me any favours, and Andrews’ bullying tactics continued unchallenged.
But that was years ago, and now that I was a government inspector of schools, things had changed, in my favour.
He sat miserably in front of my desk.
“Andrews, your methods stink… What are you? Some sort of idiot!”
LISA
Online struggles….
There was a clue in how I danced in 1984. We missed it.
But now, online.
The CAPTCHA code gets me every time. I see different letters. Numbers. Start adding punctuation. Is it case sensitive?
Just a word with a line through it- honestly it throws me.
Those picture ones…. How many buildings can you see? I don’t know. Is that distant rectangle one? Why is this so hard? I’m not an idiot, I only want to comment on a blog.
The latest one has really got me stumped.
Are you a robot?
I just don’t know how to answer.
JON
Idiot
By Jon DeCles
“Idiot!” David yelled at his brother.
“No, you’re the idiot!” Daniel yelled back.
“I didn’t vote for him!” yelled David.
“Well, you should have,” responded Daniel.
“He’s going to make things a lot better.”
“Better for who?” asked David. “Surely not for us!”
“Better for the whole country. Better for everyone. You’ll see.”
“We’ll be the laughing stock of the whole world,” said David.
“He’s going to make our country great again!” shouted Daniel.
“Our money will be worth something again,
we’ll make our own goods again, our language will be respected again.”
“Idiot! Germany has always been great!”
TOM
sound and fury
I’m a full contact Idiot. An Idiot beyond the limits of the major arcana of the tarot. No matter the scope or precariousness of the position I will excel to galactic level of screw up. The ability to chain the simplest event into a major cluster-fuck is mine alone. I seem to be improving with age. Like an 80 year old fencing master who’s economy of action is distilled into a one fluid attack, my refined unconscious indifference to objects and surrounding turns on a single point. Avert your eyes, stand not to close, for chaos follows in my wake.
TURA
Idiot
———
Once upon a time there were three brothers. Harry, the ordinary one, Garry, the clever one, and Larry, who was so wise that people thought him an idiot.
When a dragon terrorised the village, Harry valiantly went to fight it. The dragon ate him.
Garry dug a clever trap, but the dragon was cleverer, and trapped him.
Larry went and stared the dragon straight in the eyes. So wise was he that he turned into a dragon. The dragon turned back into a man, and Larry ate him.
And if no-one wiser has challenged Larry yet, he’s a dragon still.
SERENDIPITY
I’m not an idiot – I never take chances… Always clean up after myself, always wear gloves, avoid security cameras, plan meticulously, and never underestimate the authorities.
It’s the sloppy ones who get caught: They think the cops are stupid and will never catch up with them. They’re careless, leaving evidence at the crime scene, taking risks and pushing their luck. They deserve to get caught.
Then there’s the complete idiots… The ones who think they’re terribly clever, but then go boasting about their exploits to complete strangers, by posting all about then on the Internet.
Idiots!
Nothing like me!
—
LIZZIE
Millie sat at The Tea Room, a beautiful picturesque café while a friendly waiter served a tea, his belly struggling inside a tight vest.
She watched the couple in the corner whispering, the elderly woman reading a book, the teenager checking his phone.
When the flash mob invaded the café singing The Sound of Music, the couple smiled and the elderly woman clapped enthusiastically.
Millie covered her ears in horror and waved to the waiter for the check.
The Tea Room had just become a nightmare and the resident idiot was still checking his phone, oblivious of everything around him.
NORVAL JOE
“Great. Let’s go,” Mickey said. “Do you have a blanket in the car?”
“No,” Cherry Cola said. “But I have some sweat pants in my backpack.”
They were neon pink with black letters across the butt that said, ‘Dance’. And though they were tight, it was better than sitting in the car, naked.
Ferret started the minivan and headed for the highway.
“I feel like an idiot in these sweat pants,” Mickey said.
“I’m the idiot for helping you get away,” Cherry said.
“We’ll all look like idiots if we get pulled over,” Ferret said. “This is a stolen car.”
PLANET Z
They say that if you cannot forgive someone and forget the past, you are allowing them to live rent-free in your head.
Which is fine by me, because despite the free rent, I charge a fortune for the electric and water.
Oh, and I don’t allow cable or satellite dishes. Or pets.
The schools are lousy in the neighborhood. Lots of crime.
Horrible traffic, lousy cell reception, and no WiFi anywhere.
It’s practically a prison cell, a pit in a dungeon.
No hope of escape at all.
The torment you will suffer in my head is nothing compared to mine.
Yellow corn
A day after you eat corn, you shit corn.
No matter how much you chew it up, a whole bunch of indigestible yellow kernels will show up floating in the bowl.
It’s a good way to see how quickly things are passing through you.
There are probably times when you eat corn and nothing appears in your poop. Maybe you chew your food up too well.
Then there’s the times you poop corn, but can’t remember when you last ate it.
A week? Two weeks? Three?
Me, I don’t care. As long as the condom full of diamonds comes out.
Mexu
Mexu, God of Iron, sleeps under the mountains.
“War,” he calls to us. “Bring me to war.”
We dig down to him, cut him from the rock, and haul him out in thousands of chunks.
Then, we melt him out of the ore in the furnace and release his white-hot rage into the molds.
The glowing bars and blanks go to the blacksmiths, who hammer and shape them into the swords and shields of Mexu’s bones and skin.
Hissing fury in barrels of water to cool.
Mexu comes together on the battlefield, flexes his followers’ muscles, and marches to victory.
Hang of it
Ted was a pretty good sheriff. He kept the peace, usually through talking to people and getting them to calmly work out their differences.
However, the one thing he never got the hang of was… well, hanging.
No matter how much he practiced, he never tied the knot properly, and the cattle rustler would fall to the ground like a sack of potatoes.
“Damn it,” grumbled Ted, dragging the outlaw back to the jail cell.
The jail filled up pretty quick, so Ted just started shooting the bastards.
Someone threatened to complain to the governor, but Ted shot them, too.
Just in time parking
I parked my time machine in the municipal courthouse lot.
Jury duty.
It took hours for everything to be explained, then my group went to a courtroom.
Voir Dire. Question time. They try to weed out the biased and smart aleks.
It wasn’t until they brought in the defendant that I asked to be excused.
“That’s me,” I said.
The judge didn’t believe me.
“Fine,” I grumbled.
As foreman, I made sure the jury found me not guilty.
Excused, I went back to the municipal lot, saw the parking ticket, and growled.
I’ll just pay the fine this time, okay?
Ice Cream Jury
The city pays six bucks for jury duty, but you can choose to donate it to one of several causes, such as victim’s rights groups or afterschool activities for poor kids.
Fuck them. I had to fight traffic, drag my ass Downtown, sit in a room full of other annoyed and miserable people for three hours, and then fight my way through traffic back to work.
Instead, I stop by Baskin Robins and get an ice cream come.
There’s a buck or two of change… I could give that to charity?
Fuck them. The change goes into the tip jar.
Bounty Roulette
I woke up, tied to a chair.
The bounty hunter loaded a bullet into the pistol, spun the chamber, and cocked the hammer.
He pointed the gun and me and pulled the trigger.
Click.
“How much do you lose if you bring me in dead instead of alive?” I said.
“Ten thousand,” he said.
Click.
“That’s a lot,” I said.
I felt a searing pain in my chest.
And then… the twisting and knotting of my flesh as it healed itself.
He loaded a silver bullet.
But by then, I had already torn the ropes and leapt for his throat.
Weekly Challenge #551- Pick Two
Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at oneadayuntilthedayidie.com.
This is the Weekly Challenge, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.
We’ve got stories by:
MUNSI
On Romance
By Christopher Munroe
If you love somebody, set them free. If they return to you, your love was meant to be…
If they don’t, set them on fire.
Seriously, burn the motherfucker.
You don’t need that kind of negative energy in your life, after all! You’re a good person, and you deserve love, and if the person you love can’t see that, they don’t deserve you anyway. And, moreover, they don’t deserve to live!
So burn them, it’ll be good for you. It’ll be cathartic. It will give you closure…
Living well is, after all, the best revenge.
And second best is arson…
LIZZIE
“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen! Step right up! Tramps, haters, free thinkers. Everyone is welcome to the Twiddle Zoo, the place to channel your deepest frustrations and experience the catharsis of those gruesome fears, burning you up inside. Step right up! Twiddle your thumbs and wiggle your toes. Sing a song of despair and join the fun. We have scary rides and dark labyrinths. We have sickening beings that will eat you alive. We have hunger and famine and many more exciting events for you. Step right up to the Zoo of Life where no one does anything but be horrified.”
RICHARD
Opposable
The opposable thumb distinguishes man from the rest of the animal kingdom.
Nothing to do with the ability to handle tools – many other animals, even those lacking digits entirely, manage to fashion tools from the environment around them.
What distinguishes man however, is his ability to twiddle those opposable thumbs.
For thumb twiddling is a universally understood sign of intelligence, for it demonstrates that the twiddler is capable of abstract thought.
You may see that glazed look, bored expression and slack jaw replicated by animals in any zoo.
But it’s the twiddlers who are daydreaming impossibilities in their minds.
JEFFREY
At the Zoo
by Jeffrey Fischer
Brian once read that only man had the capacity for hatred. Animals, it seemed, relied on instinct and opportunity but did not hold grudges. They had no capacity for catharsis. Deciding to test that proposition, Brian snuck into the zoo after hours and unlocked all of the cages, then waited until morning.
Sure, some of the animals snacked on their traditional prey overnight, just to keep the hunger at bay, but the real mayhem came when the zookeepers arrived in the morning. The big predators took out one after another. Even the herbivores got into the action. Yeah, Brian concluded, animals do hold grudges.
SERENDIPITY
My catharsis is your terror – you see, I may be the one holding the knife, but it’s your body, and I absolutely insist that you decide which piece I should carve off first.
It’s such a release not to have to make such decisions myself, and although you may find it hard to choose, at least you won’t lose some element of control over your fate.
We don’t have all day though, and the longer you take to decide, the more I want to intervene.
So go ahead and twiddle your thumbs…
Whilst you still have thumbs to twiddle!
TOM
Morning in America
“Mommy I wanta go to the Zoo,” declared Timmy. Mother put down her mixing bowl full of peanut butter goodness. “And what Zoo might that be? The Passive Aggressive Petting Zoo?” Timmy shook his head, no. “The Cognitive Dissonance Institution of Sentient Mammals? “NO,” he replied. “How about the Millennial Zeitgeist Safari?” “Nup, I want to go to the Catharsis Zoo.” “Pretty tall order little man. Remember when we discussed the mythoi- historic relationship of Santa to Black Friday?” “Y e s”
“Ok little trooper lets go check out the Cleveland Indians / Hillary Clinton exhibition.”
“Thanks mom, you’re the greatest.”
JON
It’s Never Too Late
By
Jon DeCles
“I hate to tell you, and you’re free to do whatever you want if it provides you some kind of catharsis, but you can’t escape this zoo that is the human condition. You can never tramp across enough borders to make that itch, that burn, go away. ¾And I don’t intend to stand here and twiddle my thumbs while I see you hurl yourself against another challenge just to prove yourself to yourself!”
“It’s only a couple of extra days out of our vacation, honey.”
“You’re too old to swim the bloody English Channel!”
“Too old?” he responded. “Just watch!”
A Lack of Clear Communication
By
Jon DeCles
“He was a Cathar, Sis,” said Zoot, whittling away at her conviction while they watched the holy man burn. “He believed in two gods, one good, one evil.”
“I cannot hate him just because he tramped in here to preach freedom to channel the divine,” his sister responded.
“He was also an idiot,” Zoot amplified. “He sat there praying, twiddling his fingers, when the church came to seize him.”
“Pretty much just like Jesus did,” his sister said quite passionately. “Oh, Zoo, can’t you see, by that man’s burning light, what we proudly once held to: that catharsis comes free?”
TURA
Zoo – Free – Catharsis
———
At most zoos, the animals are in cages and the people walk around them. I built a zoo the other way round. The animals roam free over the reservation, while the people watch them from inside wire mesh corridors.
By popular demand there are also actual cages that people can pay to be locked inside for 24 or 48 hours. They can’t take anything in with them, not even clothes. It’s surprisingly popular with couples as a honeymoon experience. I’m told it’s quite cathartic, especially since I got a fleet of drones to buzz them in the night with searchlights.
NORVAL JOE
Cherry and Ferret both turned to the sound of his voice.
“What are you doing here? I thought you got away free,” Cherry said.
“I did,” Mickey said. “But, I need your help to get me back to the zoo, where I can hide out for a while.”
Cherry stepped toward him in the dark, “Aren’t you afraid I would burn you again and turn you in for the bounty?”
“I would hate you for that, but I just have to trust you.” Mickey sighed. “You can drive, can’t you Ferret?”
The other girl nodded, taking keys from her pocket.
ZACKMANN
May I stay here a couple days? You see I bought frozen empanadas from the Asian grocery. I put them in the oven then forgot to set a timer so I checked on them since I would have hated to have them burn. I took out my Filipino pot pies just in time. Right after I put them on top of the stove, Poof a million pieces of crust floated all over the kitchen as a bird not seen in zoos flew out calling “tik tik”. After web searching that call, I really don’t want to go home right now.
zackmann
PLANET Z
She rode her bike to the protest, locked it to a parking meter, and found her way to the crowd.
“LOVE TRUMPS HATE!” they shouted.
When the cops arrived, she opened her backpack, pulled out a bottle, and lit the rag.
She tripped on the curb and fell, breaking the other bottles in her pack.
The fire spread quickly over her body, and no matter how much she rolled, it wouldn’t go out.
So many people screaming and running.
She was dead before anyone could put the fire out.
Hand me the bolt cutters,man, and let’s grab this bike.