Back in high school, we’d road-rally around Columbus.
We’d start at Northland Mall, drive to Eastland, Southland, and Westland Malls, and the first one back to Northland won.
To prove that we’d been to each mall, we’d buy a burger at the McDonalds or Wendy’s at each mall and get a receipt.
Once, I cheated by having friends buy burgers at the Eastland and Southland Malls at predetermined times,
while I drove to the Westland Mall, bought my burger, and met up with the others back at Northland to get the receipts.
I lost the cheap plastic trophy years ago.
Category: My stories
Doctor Odd’s Cure
Sometimes, it takes a while for a medicine to get federal approval.
So, people sign up for clinical trials.
When the clinical trials are full, the desperate go overseas for medical treatment.
When Doctor Odd came down with a terminal illness he couldn’t cure himself, he got desperate and went to an alternate dimension for medical treatment.
After several hops across the dimensions, Doctor Odd met Shaman Odd, who brewed a magical potion to cure Doctor Odd’s condition.
Doctor Odd brought the potion back with him, studied it carefully in his lab, and patented the cure.
The profits were astronomical.
The Pies
Some Irish bakers add a little to their dough before they make their pies.
If you bite into a ring, marriage is in your future.
But if you bite into the bean, no marriage for you.
The coin represents wealth, while the piece of cloth predicts the lack of it.
Vinny isn’t Irish. He’s Sicilian.
He sent out the pies in special tins.
C4 charges with miniature detanators.
By the time the cops figured out where the pies came from, Vinny was back home.
Baking pies for the family.
No C4. No detanators.
Just blackberries, the freshest he could find.
Rebel
Every now and then, I watch Warren Zevon’s final appearance on Letterman.
Just to remind me that this doesn’t last.
So, enjoy it while you can.
Even Caesar needed reminding once in a while.
“Caesar, thou art mortal.” whispered a servant into his ear.
The senators reminded him with daggers.
I don’t call this depression.
I call this realism, acceptance.
Sadness or not, there is peace.
A bruise is just life’s way of letting you know someone cared enough about what you say to take a swing at you.
And you cared enough to stand tall and refuse to duck.
The shallow end
I remember when I was five.
I didn’t know how to swim. Or want to learn.
“What if you fall in the water?” they’d ask.
“I drown,” I’d say. “And deserve it for going near water.”
At camp, they had races at the pool.
I won the running across the shallow end race every year.
It became an annual joke. And I laughed the loudest.
The water was only up to my knees.
In my final year, I tripped over one toddler, and hit my head.
Falling, my lungs full of water, resting on the bottom of the goddamned pool.
Kicked in the head
Fred trained horses at the circus.
One day, a horse kicked him in the head.
He woke up in the hospital, unable to speak.
“We’ve tried all we can,” said the doctor. “Sorry.”
Fred was unable to continue as a trainer.
He spent the rest of his days hauling horse feed and sweeping up horse crap.
When he died, his coffin was carried by a horse-drawn carriage.
His coffin fell from the carriage and broke open.
Another horse kicked his corpse’s head.
“Bastard can’t catch a break,” mumbled the ringmaster, as he and the clowns cleaned up the bloody mess.
Morning Routine
It’s good to have a morning routine.
Especially when you have trouble remembering things.
Make a list, put things in order.
Get up, and drink some water.
Stat the toaster, and spread on some butter or jam or something.
Vitamins, pills. And more water.
Make sure there’s enough food and water for the cats.
Put the laptop in the bag, along with the power cord.
Have a shower, get dressed.
Clothes all set out from the night before.
Sit on the chair and dangle shoelaces for the cat to play with.
Until I can remember how to tie my shoes.
IHOP
The International House of Pancakes gave up on pancakes.
They tried to make burgers, but they weren’t very good at it.
So, they tried fried chicken instead.
Seems that frying chicken takes some experience and skill.
They gave up on that too.
One food after another, they tried making it.
And gave up on it.
When they ran out of food to screw up, they tried all kinds of other jobs: home repair, tuxedo rentals, political assassinations.
Eventually, they went back to making pancakes.
A senator choked to death on one.
Maybe they didn’t quite give up on political assassinations.
Doctor Odd’s Fears
People fear a day when robots and computers will be more intelligent than humans.
But Doctor Odd knew that the true tipping point would come when humans are dumber than robots and computers.
“Just look at the education system,” said Doctor Odd. “Producing mindless sheep, deluded into believing that they are critical thinkers, and trained only to pass a standardized test.”
Minions and assistants were hard to come by, what, with the useless Sociology and Communications and Diversity Studies graduates overtaking the hard sciences.
Doctor Odd built his own assistant.and programmed it.
Just slightly dumber than himself for safety reasons.
The sting of tears
We do for them what they cannot do for themselves.
It is the Devil’s bargain we make for their love.
To end their suffering, we must also suffer.
What if, we ask ourselves.
What if we wait just one more day.
All love is torture, in the end.
We can only do so much.
And their tenth lives are our memories of them.
When others face the decision, we do not envy them.
Because we must face it ourselves again. And again.
All that remains is dust, boxes on shelves.
A collar, a beloved toy.
And the sting of tears.