I tend to buy the same New Balance shoes every fall.
It’s a force of habit, the same shoes.
There’s the outline of an N on the sides. N. For New Balance.
But it looks like a Z.
Maybe it is a Z.
What does it stand for?
Zip? Zoom?
I don’t know.
It’s time to buy new shoes.
The treads are wearing out on my current pair.
One day, New Balance will stop making these shoes.
I’ll have to buy another kind of shoe.
But until then, I’ll wear these.
With the outline of an N on the sides.
Author: R.
Slug Bug
Ever play Slug Bug?
What about Punch Buggy.
Whenever you see a Volkswagen Beetle, you’re supposed to punch someone in the arm and announce the color of the Beetle you saw.
People play this game and others across the world.
Ever play Stab SAAB?
See a SAAB, stab the closest person.
It’s a really messy game. Not as messy as Vomit Volvo, but certainly less fun.
What? You and your friends play Murder Mercedes? Every time you see a Mercedes, you murder someone?
Oh? You murder the driver of Mercedes?
Well, that’s okay then. Fucking Mercedeses.
Can I play, too?
Weekly Challenge #521 – 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 Slow Nights
By Christopher Munroe
Sometimes a man needs to get drunk on rum and Cherry Coke whilst watching B-movies.
Whether Hammer Horror, New Line Cinema or something dumb by Nicolas Cage, I suspect you’ve had this impulse too, it’s a fun evening, though not one you can partake in every night.
Moderation, and whatnot.
I live-tweet the experience, myself, though I suspect nobody’s as amused by it as me. Hmm, now that I think about it, I ought to do that again sometime soon.
Something where 90s style computers are hacked, perhaps. Or the one where Liam Neeson fights wolves. I’ll figure something out…
JEFFREY
Gym Rat
by Jeffrey Fischer
One of the things that keeps me out of gyms is the presence of the annoying jock. You know the type: he’s not there to keep in shape, he’s there to show that he’s better than you. A solid week of rain kept me from my usual outdoor routine, so, reluctantly, I went to the office gym.
Sure enough, one guy was in there at the dumbbells, preening at the two women in the room as he curled one arm and then the other, each time grunting audibly. The women ignored him, but he kept trying.
That hacked me off. I was going to hate myself later, but I wanted to finish in peace. “What big muscles you have,” I said, with a leer that he couldn’t miss. He couldn’t leave quickly enough.
The Three Rs
by Jeffrey Fischer
Once upon a time, the school used a tracking system: smart kids in one set of classes, dumb kids in another. Somehow that was supposed to be bad for the self-esteem of the dumb kids, so the school ended tracking and the kids were thrown to the wolves. Parents complained, so the school instituted an Advanced Placement program so smart kids could opt in, and order was restored to the educational universe. Then the school overlords noticed racial disparities in participation. Administrators conjectured that the problem was that households where English was not spoken did not learn about the AP program – the program conducted entirely in English.
The moral of this story is: think twice before calling a child dumb, but don’t hesitate to apply the label to a school administrator.
RICHARD
#1 – Oops!
How could I have been so dumb? Hacked by a ransomware scammer, because I’d stupidly opened what I thought was an unpaid invoice.
Worse, I’d opened it in work: now the whole network was locked up with the clock ticking – If I didn’t come up with the demand in Bitcoins, we’d lose the lot…
Petabytes of sensitive data, wiped out thanks to my stupidity.
Fortunately, because of my work, I have contacts – a couple of phone calls, followed by a long tense wait, and then: Success!
And that’s how a lowly accounts clerk nearly brought down the CIA!
#2 – Dumb
How could I have been so dumb? Getting blind drunk on cherry kirsch is never a good idea… And the ‘good ideas’ I have when I’m in that state rarely turn out to be quite that impressive in the cold light of day.
Like the ransomware thing – I thought I was being clever. Disguised as a laundry bill, I thought it would be hilarious to send it to the CIA, never once thinking anyone there would be stupid enough to fall for it!
It’s not fun any more… I’m just waiting now for that fateful knock on the door…
#3 – One of the good guys
How could I have been so dumb?
My big chance to get even with my former employer: I blew it.
When the guy came on the line, panic stricken because he’d locked up the network, thanks to some second rate amateur hacker, I should have left him to face the music.
Better still, I could have got in on the action: Creamed off my own share of the ransom, and retired to some sunny beach somewhere… What a missed opportunity!
I stepped out of the Faraday cage, back to the real world… Guess I’m just one of the good guys.
#4 – Consequences
How could I have been so dumb?
The accounts guy was trouble – just too cocky for his own good – an accident waiting to happen. I should never have hired him.
Does he really think we don’t know about his little misadventure nearly closing us down?
People like that need to be taught a lesson – and trust me, the hammer is going to fall. The guys who’ll be conducting his disciplinary are not known for their charity, and by the time they’ve finished with him he’ll wish he’d never been born.
Time to feed him to the wolves!
SERENDIPITY
Cherry red – it’s my favourite colour.
But you do need an eye for detail – nick a vein by mistake and you get that gloopy, sticky, blue-tinged mess. It’s a horrible shade that ruins the scene.
I’m an artist, you see, and colour is everything.
But, executed properly, you’ll get a wonderful spray of bright arterial blood: Fresh and glorious. That’s what I crave.
It’s only painstaking, precision work that produces a masterpiece.
It’s rarely appreciated though. I read the headlines: ‘The victim was hacked to death’.
Hacked! How dare they? – I’m an artist!
Everyone’s a critic!
—
LIZZIE
When staring at a line of people, it’s often difficult to spot who the dumb ones are.
Sometimes, they just look dumb. Other times, they hide it under a layer of apparent effectiveness. Phones are now especially useful for that; people look like they have extremely busy lives, doing extremely important things.
When the newest computer game came out, hacker John X watched the line of people standing at the entrance of the store, waiting impatiently for the doors to open, and he was sure of one thing. They were all dumb, no exceptions. Their eagerness would be their downfall.
TOM
Which End of the Line Do You Stand?
Dumb ideas abound. When someone in the shop has one and it goes seriously wrong his dick is in the ringer. But let management do the same and they are seen as risk taker, bold, and given infinity corporate opportunities to fuck over. Seems there is no glass basement that you can break through. Take the smartest guy in the room Carly Fiorina damn near killed HP. And Frank Lorenzo, who was named one of Time’s 10 worst bosses of the century. Hacks in suits the lot of them. They’d uses a god damn hammer on a Philips head screw.
NORVAL JOE
When his shift ended, Mickey shot a bee line for the library. He knew he was dumb to think he might still find Polecat.
Dating back to the 1890’s, the building was dark like a cave with side passages which he was sure lead to dens inhabited by orcs, dragons and werewolves.
Manic clicking led Mickey to a corner where a girl hacked at a computer keyboard. She swayed as if drunk.
Her long, red-brown hair was familiar, then the hammer dropped. “Cherry Cola. What are you doing?”
“Monkey Boy,” she said. “Nice to see you out of your cage.”
TURA
Dumb wolves
———
They’re coming.
People thought that genetically modifying dogs for intelligence would just make them into better companions, better guide dogs, better at everything we have dogs for. It just made them better at everything, period.
Better at running away. Better at foraging in the wild. In wolf country, better at joining wolf packs. The bigger breeds can mate with wolves.
Natural selection is doing the rest. Intelligence is such an advantage that the number of smart dog-wolves is doubling with every generation.
They say their howls sound like language.
When will they get here? I lie awake every night, listening.
PLANET Z
They say that Bob Grundy is as dumb as a bag of hammers, but I don’t know how you measure the intelligence of a bag of hammers.
I tried to test them with the maze we use to test mice, but the bag doesn’t really fit into the maze. It was built for mice, not bags of hammers.
And I don’t think cheese has much appeal to bags of hammers.
Although I did notice that when I offered the bag of hammers a cigarette, it didn’t accept the cigarette.
Smarter than me, I suppose, as I hack and cough painfully.
Wickeder
What was the name of the Wicked Witch?
Which one?
The West one was the one played by Margaret Hamilton, right?
They dropped the house on her sister from the East.
Well, they never said the name of the one from the West.
But The Wicked Witch of the East was named Ding Dong.
All those midgets sang “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead” right?
The witch down the street is named Olivia.
She turns kids into frogs.
Especially those who throw buckets of water at her, or use the garden hose.
I once set off her lawn sprinklers.
Ribbit.
Par for the ruins of a course
My grandfather used to take us miniature golfing.
The course was near the Adler Planetarium. It was a decent enough place to play when we first went there, but each time we went, something else was broken, or a water basin drained, or they didn’t bother sweeping up the fallen leaves.
The last time we went, it was all in ruins. The paint on the rails was peeling. The turf carpet was worn. And the obstacles were all a wreck.
The railroad gate had to be held up to let the ball roll under it.
We never went back again.
Operation
Ever play the game Operation?
I love to play that game.
Take out the pieces.
Win money.
Don’t touch the sides.
Ever since I was a child.
But I am old now.
My hands tremble and shake.
And no matter what I do.
The buzzer buzzes.
The grandkids want to play.
I get out the pieces.
Load up the board.
And we play.
It is the best we have ever played.
Nobody gets buzzed.
Nobody loses.
Everybody wins.
When we’re finished
I put everything back in the box
Including the batteries for the board
That I’d put in my pocket
Funny Turnover
Things are a bit shaky where I work.
There’s been a lot of turnover recently.
When employees quit or get fired, management sends out a memo to the staff to let them know.
That way, you know who to go to for something.
But they never say why the person is leaving.
Some say it was sexual harassment
Other say it as a personality conflict with bosses.
Instead of participating in water-cooler gossip, I just assume that they were eaten by clowns.
So, when they hired a clown for my surprise birthday party, I stabbed him with the cake knife.
Festival
Every year, we go to the lavender festival.
You’d think there’s only so many things you can do with lavender, like grow it in a pot or dry it for a scented pillow, you’re wrong.
We cook with it.
We clean with it.
And we even bathe with it.
But most importantly, it keeps away the alien invaders.
No, not the retirees from California.
Real aliens. From outer space.
And they’re deathly allergic to lavender.
We offer pamphlets about them, but don’t beat anyone over the head with it.
Except for the aliens’ human agents, I suppose.
Are you one?
Dishwasher Safe
Tina was one of those “special” kids.
Looked totally normal from the outside. No limp or big forehead, or tubes sticking out of her. Okay, maybe going everywhere with her Betsy Wetsy was a bit off.
She was just kinda slow.
Her parents tried hard to “mainstream” her with routines and chores: clean her room, vacuum the floors, do the dishes. That kind of thing.
When her dolly got messy from being dragged in the mud, she could run her through the dishwasher herself.
As for the kids she was supposed to be babysitting, that’s for a jury to decide.
Weekly Challenge #520 – Debate
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 Slacktivism
By Christopher Munroe
A public service announcement: Nobody’s mind has ever been changed about any issue based on a political meme they saw on Facebook.
Everyone, on some level, understands this, yet we keep posting and reposting the damn things as though they helped illustrate any sort of point.
Actual news articles are okay.
And people who I DO agree with politically? This is directed at you too.
You think you’re making a difference, with your cartoons and re-captioned screen-grabs. You think you’re contributing to the debate.
I understand that, it’s just that you’re not.
You’re not contributing to anything.
You’re just Mass-debating.
Jeffrey
Math is Hard
by Jeffrey Fischer
Demographic change is a harsh mistress. She can be a bitch. Liberals will tell you the West has nothing to fear from a Muslim minority. Just a few generations will change the nature of the debate. In a native population that isn’t growing and an immigrant population that doubles in size every generation, a 20% minority today becomes half the population in two generations and two-thirds in only three. I’ll venture a guess that at that point gay and transgender rights won’t be at the top of the agenda.
Liberals insist that a two-degree temperature change a century from now is our greatest threat, but are blind to closer catastrophes. This what happens when one dozes through math class.
The Debate
by Jeffrey Fischer
Hillary Clinton squared off against Donald Trump in their only televised debate. The moderator implored the candidates to stay on topic and avoid personal attacks. First question: what are your strengths?
Hillary: “First, I want to thank the American people for tuning in tonight. Seeing a debate with a woman candidate is so important. Second, as a woman Secretary of State, I was a role model to women everywhere. Did I mention my gender? In conclusion, women: vote with your uterus!”
Trump responded, “Strengths? Oh, I have strengths. More strength than you can imagine. And I’ll use those strengths to make America great again! I have plans to use my strengths, and I’ll lay out those plans shortly. I tell you, it’ll be YUGE!”
Hillary interjected, “See, I’m a woman! Female! Vote me!”
The network cancelled the rest of the debate, showing a “Judge Judy” rerun instead.
Richard
Not alone
Boggins was roused from a fitful sleep by the uncomfortable and chilling realisation that he was no longer alone.
He sensed a presence in the darkness of the cave with him and called out nervously:
“Is there somebody else in here?”
A sibilant whisper came from the murky depths in response.
“I think the question is rather, why is you here? And, what has it got in its pockets?”
Now terrified, the hobbit babbled, “Let’s not get into a debate about it… How about I just slope off and leave you in peace?”
“I think not!”, came the chilling reply.
Serendipity
People will always debate the ethics of the death penalty.
Is it morally right to take a life to appease the taking of another?
Personally, I have no views either way – I simply do my job. Others can debate whether it’s right or wrong.
Thankfully, it’s a pretty one-sided argument as far as I’m concerned, because once they strap you into that chair and attach the electrodes, you know that it’s an argument I’m going to win.
The switch is thrown.
I course around your body, burning and sparking through your mortal flesh.
You die.
No debate.
Tom
Sound Reasoning
August Wagner was state debating champ four years running. I spend endless hour helping him build his card file. I was no debater, to this day I couldn’t win an argument to save my life, but August had the ability to slowly set the seeds of doubt in the most ironclad defense. The most frequent reply from his opponents was: we never saw it come. After college we drifted apart. I googled him last year. Seems he became a member of a select group of lawyers who brought case before the Supreme Court. There’s no debating the man had game.
Tura
Debate
———
As my candidate’s champion, I armed myself for the debate. Vambrace, rerebrace, pauldron. Pixane, cervelliere. Iron-framed goggles. Finally, my debating sabre.
The judges decide victory not by first blood, nor a scoring of hits, but by the duellists’ strength of character. Each must stand his ground, heedless of injury. To once lift a foot from the floor may lose the match. Even a too-quick parry is frowned on, and victory never goes to a “klugfechter”, one who evades every strike.
Of course the performance has nothing to do with who would be the best President, but what debate ever did?
Lizzie
The two sides presented their arguments in a very civilized manner. There were no interruptions. The audience clapped in unison after each speaker. The moderator smiled content with how everything was going. During the break, a man sitting at the back stood up and started yelling something about kiss and everyone thought he meant the band. He was rapidly removed by security much to the perplexity of those sitting on the right side of the isle. Those on the left side snickered. At the end, viewers voted. The numbers were clear. The vampires won and it was a bloody mess.
Norval Joe
“Mickey. What are you looking at?” Mandy called from the register.
Stepping back from the front window Mickey struggled with an internal debate. Should he make up a reason to run after Polecat and see what she’s doing in the library, or stay at work and hope she’s still there after his four hour shift?
He’d probably lose his job if he ran out now.
“What was so interesting out the window?” Mandy asked when he finally came back.
Another internal debate.
“Oh. Just a girl I know,” he said.
“A pretty girl?” Mandy teased.
“Pretty Smelly,” Monkey Boy said.
Zackmann
Sorry honey, I can’t do any chores right now because I will be watching a live debate. Not a Presidential debate, a Nutty Debate involving things that are cool mixed with nerd rage. I’m hoping the debate topic is ‘What’s Best Superhero Musical’ I am rooting for Filker Tom Smith’s The Last Hero On Earth, Team Starkid’s Holy Musical B@man, and Pete Townsend’s Iron Giant which I believe inspired the Iron Giant cartoon movie. I suppose I should check Nimlas dot org to see what tonight’s debate is and which steaming website it’s on before I get too excited.
Planet Z
After television networks tired of the name-calling and lies in political campaigns, they tasked IBM with creating virtual candidates based on the speeches and policies of historical figures.
These profiles were enhanced with mountains of data that honestly reflected their actual job performance, which eliminates the usual pandering and empty promises of most candidates.
The public loved them. In fact, they protested against the real candidates, and demanded the virtual ones.
Enough states voted to amend the Constitution to eventually eliminate human lawmakers, political executives, and judiciary.
Other countries joined the movement, as President Watson expanded the digital empire’s reach.
Background music by Bensound.