Category: My stories

They’re marketed as sex robots, but they’re really passive sexdolls with a robotic head on them.
You can download an app to your phone to program the head to respond to phrases and motions in various ways.
There’s a hacker in Ukraine who writes ransomware for these things.
The head will shriek constantly unless you pay him the ransom.
Most guys will pay, just to get their expensive toy back working again.
For some guys, this is a turn-on, and they won’t pay the ransom.
So, the hacker makes the head whisper stock quotes.
A ballgag soon fixes that problem.

Jack and Mary looked like the perfect couple, right?
Who would have thought that pots and pans would lead to this?
Mary spent a fortune on those pots and pans.
But when Jack tried to put them in the dishwasher, she freaked out.
They’re not dishwasher safe? said Jack. What a goddamned pain in the ass.
She said she cooked better with them. Jack said her cooking still tasted like shit.
They fought, and Jack ended up slamming the dishwasher’s door on Mary’s head a few times.
Now he’s washing dishes in prison.
And the food always tastes like shit.

After a few weeks of mild sunny weather and then a few days of hotter weather, it’ll be raining for a few days.
It’s a relaxing sound. The thunder. Lighting. The rain.
I didn’t slide the patio chairs under the umbrella in time to keep them dry, or I’d be reading under the big umbrella.
Oh well. Maybe I can fold up a bath towel, swap out a cushion, and sit on it under the cover.
The rain will stop in a few hours.
Maybe the streets will be fine tomorrow.
But if they aren’t, I can work at home.

I hate the telephones.
Every one of them.
They’re always ringing.
Angry customers calling us.
Angry at us.
When they should be angry at themselves.
For not reading the manual.
For not following the instructions.
For using our product wrong.
For being so stupid.
And cheap, too.
Because we’re cheap.
We buy cheap servers.
We hire cheap labor.
Especially to answer the phones.
The phones that I hate.
The phones that are always ringing.
What do we sell?
Telephones, of course.
The customers call us.
To complain that they are broken.
But yet, somehow, they work enough to call us.

A pack of young elephants will cause all kinds of trouble.
But if you introduce them to an adult elephant, the adult will whip them into shape pretty quickly, and the young elephants will behave.
They say the same thing is true with young people.
They can get into a lot of trouble on their own.
But if you let an adult elephant loose on them, the elephant will trample them to death.
Sure, they won’t get into any more trouble. You know, being dead and all.
But you’ll be in trouble for letting an elephant trample them to death.

When the circus comes to town, kids dream of running away from their boring, ordinary lives.
The clowns, the animals, the acrobats, the sights and smells…
Billy was sick of them all, the train coming to a stop, rolling off the equipment and carts, setting up the tents.
Then running the same show, over and over, before packing it all up and going to the next town.
Billy ran away and joined a town.
Houses… built on the ground!
A school! Teaching math and grammar! Such amazing things!
Left behind, his heartbroken mother, tears flowing into her luxurious black beard.

Winter doesn’t last long in Texas.
Neither does Spring.
Summer comes, and then, a blazing hell that drives us all indoors for months and months.
The flowers that bloomed so beautifully will dry, wither, rot, and fall.
Go ahead. Water them.
Maybe they’ll last another day or two.
Or maybe they’ll rot faster.
What the hell do you know about plants anyway?
Another powder. Another formula. Another device.
Another strain of that plant or grass.
They don’t do anything.
Well, okay… they just make the weeds grow thicker.
It’s okay. There’s always next year.
When Spring returns to Texas again.

A while back, some nutcase got in astronaut Buzz Aldrin’s face and yelled that the moon landing had been faked.
Buzz punched the guy in the face.
Maybe you’ve seen it?
Man, to be punched in the face by Buzz Aldrin. THE Buzz Aldrin.
I’d pay good money to get punched in the face by him.
People would probably pay to have him punch me in the face.
Fund a new moon mission with that money from all the people wanting me to get punched.
Unless they faked the face-punching, of course.
Then, I’m sure, Buzz would punch me anyway.

The war was over. Germany had lost.
And a lot of Berlin delicatessens who had named sandwiches after Hitler had to make some drastic menu changes in 1945.
“Hi, Franz.”
“Hi, Rolf. What’ll you have?”
“Oh, my usual. The Hitler.”
“Sorry, we call it the Hoagie now.”
“Is it still seven wheelbarrows of Reichmarks?”
“Yes, but cheese is one wheelbarrow extra.”
“So expensive!”
“No milk to make cheese. They had to shoot the cows.”
“Oh, so it is. Coleslaw comes with it?”
“That or potato salad.”
“Okay, fine.”
Instead of sandwich wraps and napkins, they used Reichmarks.
They were cheaper.

So, if you like asking your HR staff insane questions, try this one: “If I built a robot that beats the Turing test, can I declare it as a dependent?”
If they say that you cannot declare robots as dependents, reply with “How do you KNOW that it’s a robot I keep in this cardboard box, and it’s not my son?”
They might respond “Why would you keep your son in a box?”
And you could say “Maybe he’s really ugly?
Or he’s shy?
Or really sensitive to light?”
I bet there’s a special form for that kind of thing.