Category: My stories

If you think you’re a psychic, here’s a simple test:
Get a hundred boxes, and have someone put a loaded gun in 99 of them.
In the hundredth box, have them put an unloaded gun.
Then, use your psychic powers to find the box with the unloaded gun.
After you select that box, take out the gun, put it to your head, and pull the trigger.
If the gun doesn’t go off, you’re psychic.
If the gun goes off, you might still be psychic.
You can still prove that you are telekinetic. Bend the bullet’s trajectory away from your brain.

When I do my treadmill walks, I don’t start at full speed. I start slowly, but hit the Faster button over the course of the walk.
You know, like that frog in a pan of water on the stove. Drop the frog in boiling water, and it jumps out. But if you turn the heat on slowly, the frog gets boiled alive.
So, I hit the Faster button. Over and over.
I’m going faster than I would if I had started out going fast.
So fast, time and space begin to melt.
I hope this is covered by the warranty.

Why are you using a calculator for your Math homework?
Don’t you know that doesn’t exercise your brain at all?
Back in my day, we didn’t use calculators for Math problems.
We used sticks. To shake at things we counted.
Counting the first few things was easy.
But after a while your arm would get tired.
That’s when you knew when you had too many things to shake a stick at.
I knew a kid who could hold a stick in either hand for shaking at things.
He got sent to reform school for clubbing the Math teacher to death.

Some people like the jet-set crowd, and others want to be among the movers-and-shakers.
Not me.
Keep me away from the jet-set. I get airsick easily.
And those movers-and-shakers are real jerks.
Sure, they give you FRAGILE and GLASS stickers to put on the boxes, but do they read them?
No. They pick up the boxes, shake ’em really hard, and then put them on the truck.
Or, if they’re in a hurry, they’ll put them on the truck, and when they get to your new place, they’ll shake the boxes.
I’ll just rent a U-Haul and do it myself.

If I could throw a dinner party for ten, anyone in history, alive or dead, who would they be?
My cat Nardo. I loved to lay on the kitchen floor and watch him eat. I think I have a Youtube movie or two of him eating.
Oh, and my cat Piper. Sometimes, they’d eat off of the same plate, and she’d swat him.
And Bruwyn, the baby panther. I miss him so much.
And then there’s my grandmother.
Oh, she’s still alive.
But considering how all she eats these days is cat food, I wouldn’t have to change the menu.

Some people need creative latitude, but I find that terribly confining.
Especially when that latitude is 90 degrees North or South.
There you are, standing at the North Pole, freezing your ass off with a bunch of goddamned polar bears and Russian submarines.
Or at the South Pole, freezing your ass off with a pack of penguins.
Give me zero creative latitude. Let me the entire equator of creative latitude, and I can dance around the circumference of my imagination.
Well, maybe not the parts over the water. I can’t swim.
And some parts of Africa are seriously fucked-up hellholes.

There’s no getting around Dan in Accounting.
Not only because you need his approval for expense accounts, but the guy is so huge, there’s just no getting around him.
When he walks down the hall, he blocks everybody’s path.
And if you’re on the elevator and he gets on, you’re stuck in there until he gets off.
But the worst of it is when he’s leaving the parking lot.
He likes to chat with the parking lot attendant, and there’s only one outbound gate.
Don’t even try to drive through the inbound gate. The spikes will ruin your tires.

The patio and lounger have been great these past few days.
Something to read… something to drink…
Pop a few piggies in the Angry Birds game.
Or just close my eyes and think about nothing.
The weather couldn’t be better.
Even on the rainy days, I can open the umbrella and sit back or lay down and it’s relaxing.
But I know that the weather won’t last.
It’ll be hot… too hot.
Even after the sun goes down.
I’ll watch baseball inside.
And wait until October… or November.
When things cool off again.
You only get so many good days.

What’s that jangly sound I’m making?
I keep nickels in my pocket for when people say “If I had a nickel for every time that happened.”
When they say it, I reach into my pocket, take out a nickel and hand it to them.
“What about all those other times people say ‘If I had a nickel for every time that happened.’?” they say.
And I say “If I had a severed hand holding a nickel for every time someone said that…”
Then, I take the machete from my belt.
“Where do you think I got the nickels?” I say.