Category: My stories

I don’t do it for the money.
I don’t do it for awards or rewards, or likes or faves, whatevers.
I don’t do it to belong or be accepted.
I don’t do it to be needed or wanted.
I do it because it’s what I do.
Whatever it happens to be at the moment.
I try to capture the moment, that one moment which I can never capture.
But I keep trying. I never stop trying.
Some moments last longer than others.
And when the moment ends, another begins.
Sparks and crackles from a fire.
Until the fire goes out.

These days, it’s rude to say that someone is fat or large, so the fashion industry calls them “plus sized.”
Which begs the question: Is there a “minus sized”? And what exactly is a size smaller than zero?
I’ve known some size zero models, and any thinner than that, they need to buy something to eat, not more clothes. Or heroin.
Do identical twins or triplets wear “multiplication sized” clothes?
What about a “divided sized”? Does that cover amputees?
Does your imaginary girlfriend wear “square root of minus one sized”?
It’s all a moot point. Most models suck at math.

Back in Freshman Chemistry Lab, every student was handed a vial of liquid and a packet of solids.
The final exam was to determine what these were.
Water is notoriously hard to determine through tests, so it was tradition that the student who got water would celebrate their efforts by drinking it.
The problem is, some students weren’t that good at Chemistry or lab work, and they’d jump the gun and drink a toluene or an acid, and end up in the hospital.
Or dead.
As for the students snorting their solids, well, that’s a whole different level of stupid.

My mother said that if I keep making this face, it will freeze this way.
But as many times as I’ve made this face, I’ve yet to have my face freeze this way.
Even when I poured liquid Nitrogen into a bowl and immersed my face in it while making this face, my face didn’t freeze this way.
Instead, my face was frozen solid, and then it shattered after I struck it with a hammer.
Although I’ll have to take your word for it. I lost my eyes, nose, and mouth from that stunt.
For God’s sake, please kill me.

Back when Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq, his sons Uday and Qusay would beat and torture under performing players on the national soccer team.
Also, when musicians in the Iraqi Symphony missed a note, they’d torture them.
When a ballerina stumbled during a performance of the Baghdad Ballet, the brothers were right there with a can of halal whup-ass.
Once, Saddam played Super Mario Brothers. When he was told that his princess was in another castle, Uday and Qusay stomped the cartridge and dragged the princess off to Abu Graib Prison.
All three Husseins are dead now. Have the beatings stopped?

Cabo’s was the perfect bar and grill.
Perfect fish tacos.
Perfect salads.
Perfect plantains and guacamole.
And the perfect margaritas.
It was perfect.
I went there a lot.
They opened a few more locations, and then, they all closed.
The last to go was the Downtown location.
I’d go there for lunch and after ballgames.
When it closed, I wept for days.
I begged The Devil to bring them back.
And he did. They reopened in a nearby mall.
But nobody told me they were there.
And they closed soon after.
It’s empty now.
Just like my wasted, empty soul.

They had their best years out in the ranch together.
John died in 1950.
Ethel joined him in 2130.
No, she didn’t outlive him by 180 years.
After John died, Ethel went out to the islands.
She died out there a few years later.
As the oceans rose, the islanders moved back to the mainland.
They took with them everything. Even their dead.
Someone had a Bible with her name and John’s in it.
John and Ethel Musgrove. Musgrove Ranch.
They sent her bones back home, dug a grave by John, and lowered her down as the preacher read verses.

Every year, the agricultural fair drew thousands.
The best corn. The best melons. The best sheep and cattle.
The best that the farmers of the state produced.
They competed for prizes.
First place to that calf, that bushel of corn, and that pig.
When the fair ended, the judges kept everything.
“Administrative costs,” said the judges.
Year after year, fair grew.
And so did the judges. Their arrogance. Their bellies. Their demands.
Then, one year, the exhibitors didn’t come.
The judges howled with rage, and demanded an explanation.
The answer was fire, sweeping across the fairgrounds, consuming the judges’ palace.

One of the good Astros pitchers has a huge beard, so when he pitches, they have a special section of seats where they give away special shirts and clip-on fake beards.
There’s a good player with the Rockets that has a huge beard, and that team has commercials where they tell people to fear the beard, but I don’t think they do ticket specials or fake beard giveaways.
As for the Texans, they have a quarterback who has a huge beard. But he’s really awful. JJ Watt is good, but he has no beard.
A championship would be nice, too.

She left Boston to teach in a one-room schoolhouse on the vast golden plains of Wyoming.
That’s when she met him, and he was forever smitten.
But she refused, and when the schoolyear was over, she went to her next assignment.
For years, he wrote her.
And she wrote him.
She rebuffed his advances, he kept pressing.
Until one day, she said yes.
She boarded the next train out West, and he waited for her.
And waited. And waited.
Finally, a coffin arrived.
She’d caught the fever, but her dying wish was to be buried out in the golden plains.