Category: My stories

Captain Ahab wasn’t always a captain, you know.
He started as a simple deckhand, swabbing the deck, and chasing a white mouse around with his mop.
They promoted him to the galley, where he spent most of his time chasing white rats around with a carving knife.
Eventually, he made first mate, where he excelled in saying “Aye aye, Captain!” a lot.
He wasn’t so good at passing along orders, though.
“Turn away from that big white whale!” shouted the captain.
“Aye aye, Captain!” said Ahab, leaning on a rail.
And that’s how he lost his captain.
And his leg.

Instead of asking whether chickens or eggs came first, people should ask whether tomato soup or grilled cheese sandwiches came first.
I think it was the grilled cheese sandwich. And for centuries, people would go around, dipping their sandwiches in things, searching for the perfect combination.
Perhaps that was what Marco Polo did, seeking out the perfect dip for sandwiches.
Or Christopher Columbus. Or Sir Francis Drake.
On second thought, people going around with pots of soup, looking for things to dip in it makes more sense.
Thomas Edison claimed that he invented both, but Edison was a total dick.

Marionettes hate puppets.
Dolls hate marionettes.
Action figures hate dolls.
Toys hate action figures.
Robots hate toys.
Drones hate robots.
Androids hate drones.
And I hate them all.

What am I?
I’m human. The last human.
Before, life was good.
I watched it all from my puppet-boy shelf, the shelf my father put me on.
But one night, I made a wish.
To be real. And the damned Blue Fairy granted my wish.
Just as she granted every inanimate object’s wish: dolls, toys, robots…
Oh, the chaos.
“See what you did, Pinocchio, you naughty boy!” were my father’s last words.

Ted runs the coffee shop.
Every Thursday is Coffee Adventure Day, when he brews coffee from all around the world.
You can get a flight of coffee, and as you sip them, he’ll tell you the story of each coffee.
Mary runs the tea shop.
Every Tuesday is Tea Adventure Day, when she brews tea from all around the world.
You can get a flight of tea, and as you sip them, she’ll tell you the story of each tea.
Me, I run the bar.
I pour whatever the people want.
And I don’t bore anybody with any fucking stories.

When I booked my last vacation flight, there was a checkbox for buying carbon offsets.
It was only a few bucks, so I checked it.
The next thing I knew, FedEx was dropping weird black bricks off at my door.
“Here’s your carbon!” the deliveryman said. And he made me sign for them.
At first, I didn’t know what to do. I put them in the closet, then the garage, and every available place.
Then, I built a deck. And then repaved my sidewalk and driveway.
Maybe I’ll fly around the world and build a new room on the house.

I’ve seen whole milk, skim milk, buttermilk, condensed milk, 2% milk, and 1% milk.
But what about other percentages?
Is 0% milk air?
And what about 100% milk? Condensed as condensed can be? Is it the most milk possible?
What about 101% milk? Is it more milk than milk? Is it supermilk? Or hypermilk? A collapsed milk, just like a collapsed star turning into a black hole, from which nothing escapes.
I poured cereal into a bowl, and then poured the hypermilk in.
Snap…
Crackle…
Kaboom!
The cereal exploded into waves of sound and light.
I think it needs strawberries.

I lay on the sofa, and Tinny the cat lays on my shoulder.
She does this a lot. She likes to sleep there. Or she will get up and turn, stretching out, or preening, and go back to sleep.
Sometimes, I pet her. But usually, I let her sleep.
She makes little squeaks, tiny little peeps. I can barely hear her, but they are the most important thing I’ve heard all day.
I haven’t eaten. I’m thirsty.
But I won’t get up.
Because this is important. To lie here, perfectly still.
And listen for the sound of total, unmitigated bliss.

They say that Crazy Andy doesn’t play with a full deck, but I’ve counted his cards, and sure enough, there are fifty-two cards in his deck.
Lots of people have counted them.
He’ll hand you his greasy, torn and tattered deck of cards, and he’ll demand that you count them.
When you get to fifty-two, he’ll say that you must have miscounted, and demand that you count them again.
You can lay them out on the table in rows, or you can order the cards to show none are missing, but he’ll never believe you.
He cries.
He screams.
Pathetic.

At the debate, the moderator asked the candidates:
“Is a hot dog a sandwich?”
Well, what is a sandwich?
A hamburger is a sandwich.
And open-faced sandwiches are sandwiches.
Are calzones sandwiches? Or rolls?
A po boy is a roll with meat in it, and if you could call that a sandwich, then a hot dog in a bun is a sandwich.
Social media erupted with all kinds of rants and charts and Photoshops of sandwiches in the candidates’ hands.
As the pointless debate continued, the world kept turning, problems went unsolved, opportunities were missed, and nobody was the wiser.

The truth is, God told Abraham to kill a baby goat, not his kid.
But Abraham, being almost a hundred, didn’t hear God too well, so he headed up the mountain for the sacrifice.
God left a few signs along the path that said I SAID KILL A BABY GOAT, NOT YOUR KID, but Abraham was illiterate.
God tried a few signs with simple pictograms, but Abraham’s eyesight wasn’t too good, either.
Which is a good thing, because he mistook a small goat for his son.
“That’ll do,” said God.
No wonder why Moroni gave magic spectacles to John Smith.