Category: My stories

You never know which home run is the last home run you hit.
Or give up as a pitcher.
The last touchdown you catch. Or throw. Or run.
Or get called back because of your holding penalty.
Maybe it’s your call from the booth. Television. Radio.
The last dunk. The last free through.
The last foul, when you foul out of the game.
All your days on the field, the court are long gone.
Trade in your cleats for a suit.
The last time you get recognized on the street.
“Hey, didn’t you used to be…”
And sign an autograph.

Teddy Baskets leads the league in scoring.
Triple Double Teddy.
But he also leads the league in shots. And shots missed.
And fouls and turnovers and minutes.
If you average things out, you’ll see why Teddy’s team is in last.
Nobody else gets any shots because Teddy’s a ball hog.
He fights his own team for every rebound.
And hates coming out of the game, even if he’s on a cold streak or exhausted.
Laying in the jacuzzi after the game, bitching to his agent on his cell phone.
The team’s trainer casually knocks a plugged-in lamp into the tub.

It was fourth grade recess league softball, and I managed to avoid my name sticking to any roster.
The teachers didn’t know what to do, so they asked if I’d be an umpire.
“No,” I said.
But they made me do it anyway.
“Strike!” I shouted after every pitch, even ones that hit the plate.
The principal, who was pitching, had me move next to him.
“Strike!” I continued to shout.
A gang of other kids joined the chorus.
“Strike! Strike! Strike!” they shouted mockingly.
“Oh, good,” I said. “You can take over then.”
And I walked home from school.

Johnny started a TikTok account and posted all kinds of things, but he wasn’t getting any views.
So, he started posting videos of fires.
Burning cars. Burning buildings. Burning parks.
This got him a lot of views.
But the other people posting videos of those fires also got lots of views.
And some of them got more views than Johnny.
So, he burned down their houses.
Eventually, Johnny got caught.
As he sat in his cell, he smelled smoke. A fire alarm went off.
Johnny yelled for a guard… to bring him his phone so he could post a video.

So, you want to stop school shootings?
Metal detectors haven’t worked.
Guards haven’t worked.
Safe zones haven’t worked.
Lots of people are talking about taking away guns again.
As if you could take away the guns.
And even if you stop selling the big guns, there’s still the guns out there.
Background checks? Doesn’t work for stolen COVID funds, won’t work for guns.
Stop smuggling? Every border has a price.
So, I came up with another plan.
Homeschooled kids don’t bully their classmates.
Homeschooled kids don’t shoot their classmates.
Take away schools.
And you take away the classmates to kill.

It’s almost jasmine season again.
The jasmine vines took a beating last year because of the freeze.
I thought about chopping them down, but let’s see how they do this year.
If there’s no bloom at all on the ground, yeah, I’ll cut them off and plant anew.
Thing is, if we head out in a year or two, I won’t see any of it.
They’ll grow for the next tenant.
But life is about planting for the next generation to enjoy, right?
As long as they don’t chop them down and plant a bunch of daisies or other crap.

He stood there, a dark and shabby man, rotten teeth and wild hair.
Clothed in dirty rags, surrounded by dozens of shabby commoners.
Roman soldiers watched them all.
“That’s Jesus?” I said. “For real?”
“Kinda puts things in perspective, eh?” said Dr. Marks, holding his camera steady.
We were posing as merchants, and tracked the group for a few days.
And when it was over, we went back to our boat, threw the time circuits, and appeared back in the Institute.
We both took a big breath of fresh air.
“Man, I need a shower,” Dr. Marks said, and laughed.

Baby woke up cold, bound up and tied to a tree.
She looked around as best she could.
There were trees all around her, and all she heard were crickets.
She tried to scream, but there was a gag over her mouth.
The last thing she remembered was leaving Archie’s place and going home.
And her husband… he came back a day early.
“What do you think it will be?” a voice whispered in her ear. “Starve, dehydrate, or freeze?”
It wasn’t any of those.
It was a shovel to her skull.
And he used it to bury her deep.

Of all the childhood games out there, the one I hate the most is Simon Says.
Because I never got to play it as anything but Simon.
Sure, telling kids to step forward or raise their hands can be fun.
But it was never enough.
It led to my being a megalomaniac, ordering kids to rob banks, smite enemies, and far, far worse.
I tried it on my family, but they were also Simons, and my parents never relinquished their iron grip on power.
Oh, I also hate dodgeball.
Getting hit in the face with a rubber ball sucks, too.

I like to dip my cheese pizza in ranch dressing.
I also like Doritos.
So, I bought a bag of pizza-flavored Doritos and a bag of ranch-flavored Doritos and ate them together.
It was a dumb idea.
Because the flavor dust gets all over everything. And they don’t stack like Pringles.
So, I’ll dip pizza-flavored Doritos in ranch dressing.
But I won’t crumble up ranch-flavored Doritos and sprinkle them on cheese pizza.
That’s stupid and messy.
Some idiot came up with a bag that mixed pizza-flavored Doritos with ranch-flavored ones.
Just because you can think up an idea doesn’t make it good.