It’s been a while since I last had rum.
Usually, I drink Jack Daniels or amaretto. Or beer.
But rum? I mean, if I want to get messed up so I can go to sleep, I’ll do vodka. Or walk around the block to wear myself out.
Rum isn’t my go-to sleep potion.
Still, rum is rum, and my coworker brought me back a bottle from Puerto Rico.
How can I say no?
After mixing my third rum-and-Coke, I realized that it wasn’t going to help me get to sleep.
Regular Coke. With caffeine.
Not the gold-label uncaffeinated Coke.
Oops.
Category: My stories
Change The Names
Not only did we change the names to protect the innocent, but we’ve changed them to condemn the guilty.
So, instead of just keeping Monica Smith’s name out of the papers for writing bad checks, which was all just a big misunderstanding and a simple math error by the bank, we’ll put Christina Bloomgarden’s name in there for drinking up and gambling away all of her kids’ college funds.
What? Monica wrote those bad checks to Christina when she bought Christina’s old car? So the college fund thing all her fault, not Christina’s.
Stop the presses. Change the names again!
Ricky The Rat
Back in the day, Ricky The Rat would drop a dime and rat you out to the cops.
The Syndicate never managed to finger Ricky, so they muscled the phone company into raising the price of a call from ten cents to a quarter.
“Exact change, please,” said the operator to Ricky.
That kept Ricky quiet for a while… until 911 made it to the city. That was toll free.
Ricky would still drop a dime out of habit, and get it back.
Then, cell phones took over. Phone booths vanished.
The Syndicate tracked Ricky with GPS, and whacked him.
Sleepy Androids
Philip K. Dick wrote a book with the title “Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?”
He never answered the question. So, I built a bunch of sleepy androids.
Most of the androids didn’t dream at all. They just went into their power-saving modes. A few ran some core system apps in the background, but nothing that could be considered a dream.
Then there was Beepy Seven. And he dreamed of sheep.
“Were they electric?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” said Beepy Seven. “I was too busy fucking it.”
Beepy Seven turned out to be a janitor in a robot costume.
The Amazing Mystico
He billed himself as “The Amazing Mystico” but there wasn’t much amazing about him.
All he did was stand on stage, smoke cigarettes, and shout at anyone who interrupted his “act.”
No card tricks.
No white tigers.
No lady assistants.
Just Mystico, smoking his cigarette, shouting at anyone who complained.
“Is that all there is?” I yelled.
“Shut your pie hole!” shouted Mystico.
The theater replaced him the next week with an act that included card tricks, white tigers, and lady assistants.
Mystico wildly splashed gasoline around the lobby and dropped his cigarette.
“Gonna make this place disappear, he growled.
Reboot Spiderman
I saw all three Spiderman movies.
Then, I saw The Amazing Spiderman. It’s a reboot of the original.
The sequel just came out. So, I went to see it.
Pretty soon, there will be reboots of Spiderman movies that are still in the theater.
And reboots of Spiderman reboots.
Every movie will be a Spiderman reboot.
Hollywood will keep hitting the reboot button until the power supply burns out.
Do you smell smoke?
Yup. They burned out the movie-going public.
Too many Spiderman reboots.
Hollywood goes back to the drawing board.
“We need something original!” they shout.
And reboot Superman.
Sun in your eye
My friend got married in an outdoor chapel this weekend.
Everyone was worried about the weather. Would it be too hot? Would it rain?
It turned out to be a nice sunny day.
The problem was, the seats faced West, and it was an evening ceremony. So by the time the bride and groom were exchanging rings, everybody was staring right into the fucking sun.
When the preacher asked if there were any objections, I stood up and filibustered the ceremony until the sun was down and we all could see.
The families were pissed, but the photographer thanked me.
Village of Idiots
Sappy has been the village idiot of Martinsdale for over forty years.
He’s the best village idiot that Martinsdale ever had, and Martinsdale has had a lot of good village idiots. Especially since the factory was built and began dumping all those chemicals upriver.
Folks from the government tested the water supply, and they gave those chemicals long funny names that nobody understands.
Sappy must have gotten a double dose of the stuff. He drools and howls and poops his pants better than anybody else.
The government threatens to close the Martinsdale factory. But we need the jobs.
Especially Sappy.
Pass Inspection
Fred and Joey do car maintenance together. They just don’t do a good job of it.
Sure, they offer a money-back guarantee if you’re not satisfied with their work, but the odds are that you won’t collect on that.
The county’s got a lot of hills and ravines, and if your brakes fail, you’re pretty much a goner whether you’ve got your seatbelt on, or those fancy new airbags going off.
Joey thought Fred was stealing from him. And Fred thought the same as Joey.
Both ended up wrecked in the bottom of Smith’s Gulch, money burning in their pockets.
A touching story
Billy was always getting into trouble with the other kids.
Trouble, as in things you don’t talk about.
Inappropriate touches. Things you can’t chalk up to youthful curiosity.
Things you lock up in the basement or the attic, and you try to forget about.
His parents were always telling him to keep his hands to himself.
So, he did. And for a while, things calmed down to the point where they thought they could send him back to school.
But when you use a branding iron, nobody needs a doll to show where the bad man touched them.
Wanna see?