Category: My stories

A long time ago, bowl games were something special:
Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Cotton Bowl, and Orange Bowl.
As the conferences grew, the runners-up got resentful of the bowl snubs.
So, more bowl games were added.
Television coverage brought sponsorships, which brought even more bowl games.
FedEx sponsors the Orange Bowl.
Chik-fil-A sponsors the Peach Bowl.
What the hell do they have to do with peaches?
Now, all it takes is a non-losing record and enough players to smile for the cameras.
Eveybody’s playing in bowl games.
At what point do they go back to class and actually learn something.

Principal Smith clicked the Creative Thinking alert.
Billy Jones. Chemistry Lab.
His Imagination rating was currently at Overactive, but it was rising.
The Teacher’s Union’s contact called for removal when an imagination reached Wild.
Smith turned on the cameras.
The students were testing boiling points of various liquids.
Imagination, around all those chemicals and fragile glass?
Best to deal with it now.
Smith pinged the teacher, who walked over to Billy and checked his work.
The alert went away as Billy stopped wondering about the experiment. Just follow the steps.
Imagination. Wonder.
Worse than drugs, getting pregnant, and independent thinking.

Mindy was a difficult child.
She always ordered expensive things on the menu instead of the cheeseburgers and chicken fingers on the kid’s menu.
Then, she’d take one bite and hate it, and refuse to eat more.
“If you order something,” said her mother. “You’re going to finish it.”
One time, she ordered scallops, thinking they were like scalloped potatoes.
“Blech!” she tried to say, but she ended up choking on the scallop.
Her dad had to give her the Heimlich Maneuver to dislodge the scallop.
It landed back on her plate.
Her mother growled.
Mindy asked for a cheeseburger.

I collect Pez dispensers.
No, I don’t eat the candy bits.
Even though they taste good, refined sugar is bad for you, so I buy the dispensers and give away the candy.
My mother says that the dispensers should be left in the original packaging to maintain collector value.
But what value are they if you can’t see them in the packaging?
That’s why I buy two of each. One to put on the shelf to display, and one to put away.
They’re in the closet, stored in a locked trunk.
Clack… clack… clack… they angrily call out to me.

Have you ever heard the rhyme:
One potato, two potato, three potato, four.
Five potato, six potato, seven potato, more.
I have a calculator that counts potatoes.
It only goes to seven.
Anything above seven, it just says “more.”
Which is just shorthand for “more than seven.”
Just like “four” is shorthand for “four potatoes.”
The calculator only works with potatoes.
If you try to count anything else on it, it just sits there.
It only counts whole potatoes. No mashed potatoes, fried potatoes, or Mister Potato Heads.
I got it as a gift.
I should sell it on eBay.

Sancho wiped his brow with a rag and looked over the numbers again.
Life was too good in the village, so The Panza Insurance Company wasn’t doing so well.
He thought about stirring things up: a few barn fires, some rocks in the road to throw people from horses.
But that would certainly damn his soul.
“GIANTS!” shouted an old voice. “We must fight the giants!”
Sancho looked out his window to see Don Quixote on his horse, charging at his neighbor’s windmill.
Sancho grinned. He could use this.
He headed out the door and climbed up on his donkey.

Throndar wasn’t the best or bravest warrior.
He was weak, but smart.
He worked on the battle strategy for the chieftain, and the Vikings spread across the continent, pillaging and colonizing.
He also was good at community design, architecture, and agriculture.
When he died, he was surprised to see a Valkyrie standing over him.
“Valhalla awaits,” she said.
Instead of the boisterous feasting and drinking, Throndar spent his eternity planning expansions to Valhalla, coordinating serving schedules, and coming up with hangover and stomachache remedies.
He sipped his flagon, and spread out more diagrams.
“This is Heaven,” he said, and smiled.

I made a spreadsheet to track my walks and weight loss.
At a glance, I can see how far I’ve walked, my weight loss rate, and when I should reach my goal weight.
The projected date slides around constantly, based on my average daily loss.
Doctors say that measuring your weight daily is not good for you, because the variations will drive you mad.
But I’m already mad, so the variations make for pretty numbers and charts.
They dance and leap and twist in the air around me.
I try to dance with them.
And fall off of the treadmill.

Did something wrong? Feeling real dirty about it?
Well, no matter how hard you scrub, boy, you can’t just wash away your sins.
You’re going to need soap for that.
Plenty of soap, plenty of water. Nice hot water.
Be sure to get behind your ears. Don’t want to leave any sin back there.
It’ll grow on you, like mold.
Between your fingers and toes is another place people forget.
Under the fingernails, and up your buttcrack, too.
What? You ran out of hot water?
Didn’t leave any for the rest of us?
Son, that’s the worst sin of all.