Category: John Musico

John Musico
The Chuppy Plan

During my medical residency, the trainees from India tried to be cool; it was totally unnatural and irritating. My vengeance was planting a lie that to be “chuppy” means to be truly cool. Soon after, I’d hear the Pakies arguing in a group; “You only think that you are chuppy, but it is I who is chuppy!”
“The Chuppy Plan” lasted the full 3 years of my residency. Years later, I visited my old residency hospital sporting a 100 dollar hair cut and Armani suit. I passed a group of interns, all Indian, one glanced and said; “Now that’s chuppy.”

John
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Johnny was always a rebel. After some years, he found himself enduring a painfully straight laced life.
At work, staff must walk to a shared printer throughout the day. The secure PC’s did not permit personal software.
“Not permitted”- Johnny grimaced. That old evil smile returned and he plotted his defiance.
He set up a virtual desktop on his PC; they missed blocking that one, and purchased a plug and play printer.
He hid his forbidden printer in his filing cabinet. He mused as the others ran back and forth as he reached into his “filing cabinet”.
Johnny’s still smiling.

The old man stumbled out of the bar and plodded onward by foot. It rained heavily and was very dark. He slid down the roadside mud and tumbled into a trench. He flashed back to his army days in such trenches and drifted off to sleep.
At dawn, he awoke to multiple rounds of gunfire. Was he dreaming of the war? No, he was on the shooting range of an army base. A voiced called out; “Cease fire, man on the range!” The M.P.’s dragged him to the nearest clinic- mine. I asked; “Exposure?” They replied; “and also quite drunk”.

After the Plague
by John Musico

The plague was spread through sex, even homosexual sex, so every one was at risk. It spread across the globe. When it seemed there was no one left, the subgroup that did survive were the celibates; priests and nuns; that took a holy vow of chastity.
The Pope addressed them; “ Your chastity was for a nobler sublimation of your libido: to be applied to spirituality. Now there is a yet greater goal; to save mankind so there will be survivors at all to again worship the Lord. You must now instead fornicate. It is the decree of the church!”

Learning to Just Eat Shit
by John Musico

Young Bobby stared down between his legs at his poop floating in the toilet water below and wondered; “Why is it always brown regardless of the color of the food I ate?” He thought back to his kindergarten days and paint class. “The more colors you mix together the darker the color. Yes that must be it.” He was promised the things he learned in school would be of use later in life. “Damn straight!”
“Why should it always smell the same? Things taste like what they smell like…” He had a plan; could come in handy later in life.

South
By John Musico

I immigrated from Italy. I worked in a small grocery store in Brooklyn. The owner was a sullen Jewish man, Steiner, who didn’t talk much. There wasn’t a day that went by without Steiner reminding me of my Sicilian background. The Italians have a gesture for most any word and stomping your right foot meant; “Southerner”. It was an offensive gesture which really meant; “peasant”. Insult to injury, he stomped often.
One day in my broken English I demanded he stop that. He replied; “My leg is always falling asleep and it’s how I put a stop to the tingling”.

Eating
by John Musico

Eating is so routine that you never stop to think
about what eating really is. Molecules form any variety of tangible conglomerates, including eatable ones: food. Your body then breaks them down again into the food’s component parts, and then reassembles them into constructs of choice. A steak replaces a broken fingernail etc. Anything, not digestible: is food for the bacteria that live in harmony in your guts, and they do the same thing. Living creatures are transformation factories, using food as their substrate and reforming it into a useful form. Food itself in its unadulterated form is totally useless.