Category: My stories

Doctor Odd built a robot.
Amy loves the robot. So does Betty.
They fought over it.
So, Doctor Odd used telepods to duplicate the robot.
The duplicate is a perfect copy.
And he gave it to Amy… or did he give it to Betty?
Now, they’re fighting over who has the original robot and who has the copy.
Doctor Odd is sick of their fighting.
So, he used the telepods to merge Amy and Betty into one person.
The robots now fight over who gets Amybetty.
Robot fights are much cooler than girl fights.
Doctor Odd pops popcorn and watches.

Hopper Coopersmith ran the Five and Dime on Main Street for years.
When he first opened it, Five was a nickel.
When he retired, Five was a five dollar bill.
“I remember when a haircut was a quarter, the newspaper was a penny, and a steak and egg plate with coffee was thirty-five cents.”
Harper had a heart attack last month. All those steak and egg plates took their toll, I guess.
Doctor says Hopper needs a heart transplant.
“How much were those when you were growing up?” asked Hopper’s great-grandson.
The oxygen mask on Hopper’s face muffled his response.

Hospice Incorporated started as a nursing home operator which replaced nurses and staff with robots.
However, they got a reputation as being cold warehouses for the elderly and terminally ill.
So, they performed integrations in customer homes, providing robots that could navigate any environment and offer quality-of-life improvements without the need of a nursing home.
Eventually, they integrated the automation into the patients themselves, helping them to walk, eat, bathe, and monitor their vital statistics.
When the patient dies, the integrated system hails a car, goes back to the factory, gets cleaned off, and it’s recycled for the next installation.

The Elisa Museum and Research Center walks visitors through the history of The Elisa Robot Series, from her beginnings as a clockwork harpsichord-playing mechanism to the sophisticated better-than-human android, who frequently enjoys walking along with the visitors through the exhibits.
Sometimes, a visitor realizes that she’s Elisa, and she likes to give them a hug and tell them stories about the system in the exhibit, or the benefits to medical science that came from a particular advancement.
In a way, she’s conducting research on them, the visitors. How they stand there. How they move.
So they don’t notice her again.

I remember the first time I saw the word Chablis.
It was at a restaurant, and I was looking at the wine list.
I pronounced it chabliss.
My brother called me a dumb little asshole.
“It’s pronounced Chablis.”
I was only three. I didn’t know any better.
Or maybe two. Which would have made my brother… four? Or five?
Where did he get that language, anyway?
The waitress asks me if I’m okay.
I look up, realize I’m at a strip club.
“What was your name again?”
“Chabliss,” she says, smiling.
“Right,” I say. “Can I see the wine list?”

Every morning, I fill a big glass mug with ice.
Sometimes, I drink water.
Other times, I drink iced tea.
However, there’s days when I’m distracted or lazy, and I just let the mug full of ice sit.
The ice melts slowly, until there’s maybe a small iceberg on top of the water.
Or nothing at all.
So, I walk back to the kitchen, pour our the water, and fill the mug with ice again.
And then it’s five. Time to go home.
I pour the mug out again, wash it, and set it back on the shelf for tomorrow.

What’s so fancy about Fancy Feast?
That’s not chicken and beef and fish in those cans.
No, that’s mermaid and unicorn and dragon meat.
And not just mermaid and unicorn and dragon… only the finest cuts of the mermaid and unicorn and dragon.
Because nobody wants the gristle and sinew from those creatures.
Not even a cat.
Some cat food makers try to use troll and ogre filler, but that’s disgusting.
Sure, you save a few pennies per can, but isn’t your cat worth the best?
Certainly. Mine are. Even if they just vomit it all up on my shoes.

I like to listen to smooth jazz at work.
I start Amazon Prime Music and pick a station… Oscar Peterson, Dave Brubek, John Coltrane.
And then I hit Play.
That’s all.
No messing with a radio or listening to sponsorships and commercials.
Just random smooth jazz tracks, one after the other.
Sure, it costs money, but I already get Amazon Prime for the free shipping and the television streaming.
I’m sure there’s even more benefits I don’t use.
But I don’t need a baby registry, and I don’t have a Kindle.
I’m happy with my free shipping.
And smooth jazz.

We like to drive to the Shake Shack and watch the waitresses skate from car to car, taking orders and bringing out trays of shakes and fries and burgers.
“Push the call button,” says Pops. “Everybody smile.”
A waitress rolls out to our car, and Joey grabs a hold of her hand, clamps a steel handcuff over her wrist, and latches it on to the car’s frame.
“Let’s roll,” says Pops.
We start off slow, so we can hear the waitress scream, but Pops says “Floor it.”
Eventually the wheels break apart.
Fast food is bad for you, you know.

I was born in Chicago, and my grandfather used to take me and my brother to Cubs games.
All the National League teams came to Wrigley: The Mets, The Cardinals, The Phillies…
The Pirates wore their yellow and black.
Now, this was before Wrigley had lights, so every home game was a day game.
If the game went into extra innings, the umpires would call the game when it got too dark.
The station at Addison, full of angry drunk fans.
Take the Red Line South, then the Green Line West.
Back in Oak Park for a quiet family dinner.