I haven’t bowled for years.
I can’t remember the last time I bowled.
I remember the first time I was at a bowling alley. I was in the day care room while my mom was bowling. They had coloring books and blocks and games and connect the dots.
But I don’t remember playing games with other kids. Just one connect the dots. It was of a cowboy. My mom may still have it.
The company is having a bowling night tonight.
Will I bowl?
No.
Put me in the day care room. With coloring book, blocks, and connect the dots.
Category: My stories
Pudding Pop
You know what I love more than anything?
Pudding.
And not just any pudding. It’s got to be chocolate pudding.
Plain chocolate. No Fudge. No Dutch. No Milk. No Dark or White or Double. Just plain chocolate.
Sometimes I like a dollop of whipped cream on top, and other times I just want it plain.
Pudding pops? Hell no. That’s just frozen ice crap. I want creamy chocolate pudding.
Bill Cosby once gave me a pudding pop. I took it, screamed, and tried to impale him with it.
Lucky for him, they’re blunt.
He gave me the dry cleaning bill.
Wait For Me
If you wait for me on the other side, I will join you eventually.
After all, time is an eternity. And it’s only a matter of time before my time comes.
Wait for me. I’ll be there soon. You won’t have to wait forever.
I’ll be older. Maybe much older. You might not even recognize me, but I will recognize you.
If I can remember. Sometimes, I forget things. Important things.
Nothing is as important to me as you are. But what if… what if I forget?
Then I suppose you’ll need to remember for us both.
See you soon?
Dream a little dream of school
My teacher is angry because I keep falling asleep in class.
But when I fall asleep, I dream of being in class. Asleep in class. And I dream of my teacher in the dream is angry with me for falling asleep in class.
Which wakes me up.
“What did you dream of?” my teacher asks.
So, I tell him.
He is angry with me for falling asleep in his dream-self’s class too.
His outrage jars me awake.
And I am in class. My teacher is angry at me for falling asleep in class.
I wait for the dream to end.
The Last Call
It’s the end of the night.
I haven’t written a story yet.
I ask the bartender if he knows any.
He says he does. He heard a good one this afternoon on the way to the bar.
And he tells it to me.
“Wasn’t that great?” he says.
“Yeah,” I say. “Thanks. I owe you one.”
And I pay my tab and leave him a twenty.
On the way home, I think about the story the bartender told me, and how I can add one of my twist endings to it.
Wait. The story he told.
It’s one of mine.
Breakfast To Death
One cereal box sports a manic bee offering honey-flavored oat holes.
Bees sting. If you’re allergic, that shit kills.
Another box displays a chocolate-crazed vampire.
Vampires bite and suck your blood. Disgusting and deadly!
Then there’s the deranged sun with two scoops of raisins cradled in his sunbeams.
The sun causes skin cancer. And heat-stroke. And retina damage.
Didn’t Wheaties feature OJ Simpson once?
Man, that guy was a bloodthirsty bastard.
What is it with cereal companies using murderous characters to sell their overpriced boxes full of sugar and corn byproducts?
Fuck that. I’m going to have yogurt and bacon.
Hyphenate, Aspirate
For the longest time I thought that lowercase was spelled with a hyphen, but it’s actually spelled without one. And the preferred spelling is without a space between lower and case at all.
My mind reels. How long have I been doing this? When did I think that a hyphen was needed? Why didn’t spellcheck and autocorrect fix it all these years?
I open my custom dictionary, add the entry, and click Save.
What else have I misspelled all these years like some country bumpkin?
I shut down the laptop and write down a reminder on my notepad. In upper-case.
Boys of Endless Summer
They used to call baseball players “The Boys Of Summer” but they’re playing year-round these days. The World Series is also known as The Fall Classic, Spring Training happens in the Spring, and rookies can work on their skills.
Because they’re starting younger and going at it without a break, the wear-and-tear on their bodies takes its toll quicker. Strained tendons and torn ligaments, and the always dreaded Tommy John surgery.
So few make it to the majors, they stop chasing the dream at twenty-six, broken-down and without an education… without a career… without a future.
Who cares? Play ball!
Best of the best
Who was the best basketball player in history?
You can quote statistics and run simulations, but Doctor Odd has a time machine and can organize games between the actual players.
But he won’t. Because that would change the course of history.
Well, that, and it’s not allowed in the collective bargaining agreement between the players union and the owners. The owners don’t want any players using time machines to jump ahead into their free agency. Or going back to agitate for better terms for the early days of the league.
It doesn’t stop Doctor Odd from gambling on games, though.
Keurig Tea
I bought a Keurig beverage maker for Christmas.
I mostly use fill-your-own coffee cups with it because Kona Hawaiian coffee is my favorite.
But I have other flavors like Caramel and Hazelnut that I like for when I’m too lazy to fill and wash the fill-your-own.
As for tea, well, tea bags are so much cheaper than K-cup tea. I’ve got boxes and boxes of tea on the shelf.
Unused. Because I’m too lazy to make a pot or pitcher of it. Or even put 2 in a cup and run the Keurig without anything in it for hot water.