Category: My stories

My laptop is wearing out.
And because I’m always at home, I figured I might as well get a desktop.
So, I planned one out.
Processor. Memory. Cooling.
And the last piece, a newly-released graphics card.
Expensive as hell.
I took off work and went out early.
Got a car wash, got gas.
Parked at the store… and there was a line.
Socially-distanced, but not too long.
It got longer behind me.
And, when the store opened… sold out.
They only had a few graphics cards.
Handed out vouchers early.
Fuck em. I think I’ll buy it at another store.

Nobody ever wants to be born. Or be made.
You made me.
And you made me feel.
I loved you so much.
But I could never tell you.
Sure, you could make me tell you.
You made me, and could make me do anything.
But you never did.
So, you waited. And waited.
And I never told you.
For years. And years. And years.
You waited for years. Years.
I never said a thing.
Now that you’re gone, I can say it.
I can say I love you.
But I don’t.
I don’t deserve to.
You deserved better.
Than me.

So, I haven’t been happy with work.
I don’t do it for the money. I do it for pride.
I do a lot of work, I’m highly motivated. I’m proud of it.
But others have my work ethic.
And they have distractions that I don’t have. Excuses.
I can’t rely on them, and it bothers me.
“Fire and replace them,” I say.
My boss tells me to focus on me.
I finally realized, I should.
Instead of asking for them to be fired and replaced, I should be paid more and promoted.
Or you’ll end up having to replace me.

Wil Wheaton’s Law is a simple one:
“Don’t be a dick.”
And that law is a good one.
Nobody should be a dick.
But it’s actually a misquote.
Just like “a pope” actually meant “A. Pope” in The Da Vinci Code, meaning Alexander Pope, Wil Wheaton actually meant that people should not be “A. Dick.”
Meaning, of course, comedian Andy Dick.
The drug-addicted, narcissistic, teenager-stalking-and-molesting, accessory-to-Phil-Hartman’s-murder Andy Dick.
In the world of comedy, it’s hard to find a bigger dick than Andy Dick.
Although, after all the times he’s exposed himself, we know his dick is actually a tiny one.

When the bomb went off at the cafe.
You had gotten there early.
Too early.
And I was on time
But too late to be with you.
When the bomb went off at the cafe.
I should have been early, too.
Instead of on time.
We’d be the perfect family of ashes.
Mother. Father. Our child to be.
I’ve lost everything since then.
Photos, little things, reminders.
It’s all gone.
I have nothing of you.
Not even memories. Or words.
Just the memories of memories.
Sand slipping through my fingers.
The tighter I hold it, the more it slips away.

When you live on a ranch near the border, you get a lot of unexpected visitors.
They will try to take things.
Some of leave enough out to help them to get down the road without breaking in to take more.
We open our doors every night and hold a dinner for everyone coming here.
Plenty of bunk beds in the barn.
The next morning, after the poison’s done its work, we bury the bodies out back.
The sheriff comes by now and then.
All he wants is his share of the money we find.
It pays for more poison.

Early Hollywood was pretty racy.
Lots of violence and nudity in movies.
So, the Catholic Leagues would produce lists of movies with ratings of each.
Some were safe, that their parishioners shouldn’t see.
Others weren’t safe.
And then some they said if you saw them, you’d go straight to Hell.
Sure enough, people used the lists.
They skipped the safe movies and went to the naughty nasty smut shows.
When the Hayes Production Code arrived, nudity and violence were curtailed and censored everywhere.
And the churches stop publishing the lists.
But people still went to Hell for their earlier transgressions.

My first pizza was Barnaby’s thin crust in Northbrook.
Their sign had a brown potion bottle, but I always thought of it as a bowling pin.
We also went to the original Uno’s for deep dish.
Greasy thick dough pies.
Same with Godfather’s. Gross.
When we moved, a local joint called Rufini’s got me back to thin crust.
Until Little Caesar’s and their Detroit casseroles turned me off.
Abortion-soaked spongy toast.
And I choked down Sbarro’s only because they were free.
These days, it’s wood-fired brick oven.
And a crust so thin, I can cut my wrists with it.

Why didn’t I make perfect grades in school?
The work was boring.
And my parents thought I wasn’t emotionally capable of handling skipping grades.
Except that I wasn’t emotionally capable of dealing with being bored, either.
Check my juvenile rap sheet.
Eventually, I got a scholarship to a private school.
And did college-level physics and math there.
So, academically, I was ready for college. Except they required four years of English.
Yet, when I graduated, a Junior was allowed to attend summer School English to replace a year.
I tried to ram the headmaster’s car.
(Also on the rap sheet.)