When I was little, I had trouble with irregular words.
I thought someone who sewed was a sewer.
“It’s a seamstress,” said the teacher. “Sewer looks like sewer.”
Ever since then, I can’t get the image of a sewing machine under each sewer cover out of my head.
One day, I took an iron rod to a sewer cover, pried it open, and looked inside.
Nobody sewing down there. Just a bunch of rats and the worst smell I had ever smelled.
So, I tried to teach the rats to sew.
Instead of sewing needles, I get rabies needles.
Ouch.
Category: My stories
The Stars Vanished
One moment, we were surrounded by stars. And the next moment, they were gone.
The heavens had gone completely black.
Women and children screaming in the dark.
So, I turned on the microphone and said to the audience: “Please stay in your seats. This is just a temporary technical issue.”
And I got out my flashlight to look at the fusebox.
The planetarium had tripped a breaker.
I reset it, rebooted the systems, and the stars came back.
Why didn’t the emergency exit lights come on?
I brought up the house lights, ushered people out, and called Facilities for repairs.
Retired Number
Ted was one of the best second basemen in the game, so when he hung up his spikes for good, his team retired his number seven.
Not just the number seven jersey. They retired it from the batting averages and RBI counts and all that crap the geeks love to obsess about, too. If they scored seven runs, it was “a lot.” Drove the statisticians insane.
Oh, and the seventh inning? That was called “the inning between the sixth and eighth.”
The front office reversed their decision when the accountants couldn’t calculate revenues, and the staff bitched about messed-up paychecks.
Science Ball
Shattered bats are a common occurrence in baseball, but once, I was in a game where the ball shattered.
The pitcher was experimenting with substances to doctor the ball, and for one game he was trying liquid nitrogen.
How he managed to conceal the tank, let alone soak the ball in the misty hypercooled solution, nobody ever figured it out.
But he somehow got it cooled, threw it, and when the batter hit the ball, it shattered into tiny splinters and wispy smoke.
The umpire threw out the pitcher and called it a ground rule double.
I call it Science.
The Deepest Sleep
You know how some people need noise generators to help them sleep? Rain, or seashore sounds, or a rain storm?
A fan sometimes does the trick.
I need the sound of the stock market trading floor. That cacophony of phone calls and shouting traders and ringing bells lulls me into a pleasant slumber, and I wake as rested and fresh as a new person.
The more brutal the trading day, the better the sleep.
But I want more.
A friend says they can score me an old recording of Black Tuesday.
Will it take me so deep, I won’t return?
Everywhere Data
Wireless phone companies are always showing off their maps of high-speed data coverage.
They all have every major city covered. And most have the major freeways covered.
It’s the suburbs and smaller cities which make the difference, I guess.
The prices and family sharing plans don’t really matter to me. I’m on my own.
And I don’t talk to folks much, either.
Just the data matters.
Unlimited data.
Sweet data.
As for power, I charge up in restaurants and truck stops.
Or solar panels when I’m off the road.
Anywhere. Everywhere.
I’m crushing candy.
And nothing’s going to stop me.
PR Guy
The Lorax told The Onceler that he spoke for the trees.
A few months later, all the trees were gone, and The Lorax was out of a job.
He lifted himself into the sky, where he flew back to the PR firm he worked for in New York.
“Well, that ended badly,” said his boss. “And those trees haven’t paid any of our invoices, either.”
The Lorax was handed a “rehab” account to get him back on track, and he did well with it.
Then, a tobacco company.
“Shit,” said The Lorax.
“You again?” asked The Onceler, smoking a cigar.
Names Names – Eleventh Anniversary
Another cemetery walk, her and me.
The preacher said that it’s not the numbers on the stone that matter, but what we put into that dash.
I think he’s wrong about that dash. What matters is the name.
You get that name for only so long. As long as that dash, the preacher says.
But barring an incident or bad workmanship, the stone gets that name for longer than you do.
We walk along the path, reading names.
Getrude… Rosemary… Eunice…
“Betty?” I ask.
She thinks. “No,” she says.
We’ll take a different route tomorrow, unless her water breaks first.
The Christ Killer
Whenever someone throws the “Christ-Killer” insult at me, I snap their photograph and run their face through my databases.
Then, I go back in time and kill their mother before they are born.
When I return to the present time, the person is gone, because they never existed.
No, I didn’t kill Jesus this way. It would mess up too many things.
Nor did I shout with the rest of the crowd to call for Jesus’ death.
Instead, I waited for the guy after he “came back.”
Stuffed his body in the time machine engine.
The book says he’s “ascended.”
The Business Of Delivering
I ordered a bunch of books, then I ordered a car adapter kit for my phone.
It was sent in two boxes, both of them due Friday.
They made it to Houston Friday morning.
One was delivered before noon, but the other gave me a weather or natural disaster delay alert. Delivery Monday.
The weather was beautiful, and there were no natural disasters. So why the alert?
Okay, so the other package was delivered in the afternoon, and they apologized for the delay.
But I refused to accept the apology. Because they’re in the business of delivering packages, not lies.