Category: My stories

I don’t travel much, but I do have to travel occasionally for my job.
So, I use the opportunity to get rid of anything that’s worn out or needs replacing.
I buy new shoes, or a new toothbrush. That kind of thing.
And if something worn out and needs to be pitched at the end of the trip, I just leave it in the trash bin in the hotel room or in the trash at the airport.
Well, not everything. Guns and knives, for instance.
But when I get out of jail, I’ll get a new toothbrush and new shoes.

The Waltons always ended with the family wishing each other good night.
But you never saw them waking up after partying hard the night before with a bad batch of moonshine.
“Who the fuck broke the coffee pot?”
“The goddamned toilet’s backed up!”
“What the hell are you doing in bed with your sister?”
You’d think they’d explore the dark side of country living to scare people out of moving out of television reception range, but back then the networks had standards.
These days, they’d never say goodnight. It would end with a shooting or an orgy.
Good night, standards!

Steve the barkeep shouts LAST CALL, and everybody laughs.
This is a cop bar. Who’s gonna tell Steve that he’s in violation for serving after… what is it now? Two? Three?
Shit, who cares, right?
City doesn’t need us anymore. There’s no more drug problem, no more gangs, no more littering and loitering.
Cameras, drones, robots, and that weird shit they play on tv and computers and phones that makes people good.
The union contracts, though, those keep us oldtimers going. So, we drink. We hold retirement parties. We hold wakes.
Robots play the bagpipes now.
Amazing Grace, my ass.

I can’t believe how fast time flies.
Things that were ten years ago are popping up as twenty years ago. And twenty years ago is the new thirty years ago.
Heck, I’m hearing a few forty years ago things I remember from when I was really little.
So when someone tells you that forty is the new twenty and fifty is the new thirty and all that crap, tell them yeah, okay. Then try to give them a twenty when the bill is fifty bucks.
You’ll get three to five for that, unless five is the new three these days.

Four hundred years ago, surgeons transplanted the first heart.
If they saw what people can do now with nanobots and universal tissue printing, their jaws would drop and never come back up.
And they don’t even need a surgical team. Just schedule some time in a bodymod tank, and your nanobots can pretty much work up anything you can imagine.
Just make sure you run morphology backups before you get fancy. My cousin Jake went centaur and he had to wait a week while Central Archives dug up his file.
I swear, his apartment still reeks of rancid horse poop.

There’s nothing quite like the feeling when you go out to the grocery store, come back with a trunk full of food, and after you put it all away, you don’t feel like eating anything you picked up.
So, you order a pizza, but when you put it on the counter and open the box, you don’t want it, either.
You get in your car and drive out to restaurant row in your town… fast food, sit-downs, diners… none of it jumps out at you.
You drive back home, crack open a beer, and watch the game.
Maybe tomorrow, okay?

When you christen a large ship, you use a bottle of champagne.
So, when you open a champagne bottling plant, do you use a ship?
Remy DeSanto’s new champagne bottling plant was almost ready to open. He’d hired workers and plant managers and scheduled the inspections and suppliers.
Just needed the formal opening ceremonies to get things started.
Because the plant was nowhere near the coast or a river or a canal, Remy bought a ship in a bottle, and he smashed it across the front doors to open them.
The workers swept up the broken glass, and production began.

If you ask for tea in England or in a Chinese restaurant, you’ll get a pot of hot tea.
On the other hand, if you ask for tea in Texas, you’ll get iced tea.
But if you’re in the South, such as Georgia or Florida, you’ll get sweet tea.
Here, you’re taking your life into your hands if you ask for a tea. Heck, outsiders like you shouldn’t be here in the first place.
Just get back on that horse and ride if you know what’s good for you.
Otherwise, stay a while.
So, care for a cup of tea?

A lightning talk is a fast-paced presentation at a conference that’s on a timer and it’s usually funny.
Fred does lightning talks about lightning. Well, how to manage lightning with such things as surge protectors, lightning rods, and circuit breakers.
His views are rather controversial, so people call his lightning talk about lightning a lighting rod.
He’s tried to lighten the mood for his lightning talk on lighting talks, but most people tighten up, if they’re not frightened by Fred.
That’s when the gong hits, and Fred’s talk is done.
Fred exhales, wipes his brow, and is struck by lightning.