There’s a civilization of tiny people living in my scalp. They think I’m some sort of god.
An evil god.
I pick at them and scratch them out constantly. Then I flood and smother them every morning with shampoo in the shower.
Then I smother them in darkness when I put on my favorite ballcap. Which I never wash, so they are blanketed in the stench.
And yet, they still call me their god. And sing hymns and shout prayers and conduct rituals and sacrifice crops and livestock in my vaunted name.
Stupid noisy fuckers. Time to shave my head.
Category: My stories
Tamer
Ted is a lion-tamer with rage disorder.
So, every now and then, when he throws a tantrum, the ringmaster calls for the lion-tamer tamer.
No, he doesn’t come in with a chair and a whip. Nor is it some hot chick in a low-cut blouse.
It’s actually Gus, the security officer for the circus. He’s a good shot with a taser gun.
“You want to go get a coffee, Ted?” says Gus calmly.
Ted charges, and Gus is forced to zap him.
The crowd applauds and cheers, and then screams as the pack of lions tear Gus and Ted apart.
Clean Slate
If there are legal pads, are there illegal pads?
Yes. There are illegal pads.
Oh, they started off as legal pads, just like any other legal pad, but they were highly impressionable, and they got into ink. Bad ink. And bad contracts.
They say a prescription pad’s not to blame for a corrupt physician’s crimes, and I guess you could same for legal pads gone bad too, but given enough time, the evil rubs off on them.
No, there’s no hope for them, except put them into the recycling bin and maybe they’ll get another chance.
Or become toilet paper.
Misnaming Rights
The baseball team threatened to move to another city, so the city agreed to give the team more tax breaks and financed a new stadium.
A national insurance company headquartered in the city bought the naming rights of the stadium, but the team went with another insurance company.
Sure enough, the team cut corners when they constructed the new stadium, and a deck collapsed during a game.
Even though the insurance company on the stadium wasn’t involved, they got the bad publicity when the lawsuits piled up and victims complained about the settlement.
The team moved to another city anyway.
Live On
Everybody loves The Edna Copperpot Mysteries.
Except the author: Dame Lilith Wilmington.
Sure, Edna had made her fabulously wealthy and famous. Books, movies, and television series kept the royalties rolling in.
Despite the success, Lilith was tired of Edna. She wanted to try something new.
She wrote poetry, and the critics brutally savaged her.
Lilith blamed Edna. So, Edna needed to die.
Lilith finished the final chapter and smiled. And as she hit “Send” her heart gave out.
Lilith died.
After the funeral, the editor cleaned up the ending. The publisher loved it, and made the editor Edna’s new writer.
Trash Talk
Some players have a reputation in the league for trash talk. And the league is trying to clean things up.
So, instead of trash-talking, players are being encouraged to recycle-talk.
The greener the words, the better. Sustainability is key. Renewable is all the rage. Because nobody wants to waste words.
Especially when the game is on the line, and you’re running out of fouls to give, time outs, and words.
Nothing’s worse than a team that’s run out of words, left only with facial gestures and hand signals to finish out the game.
Choose your words wisely, guys.
Speak green.
Whip
An apple a day may keep the doctor away, but I’ve found that a leather bullwhip is just as effective.
Especially when it’s one of those doctors that tries to avoid patients as much as possible, packing in way too many appointments for the day and having the nurses do all those blood pressure and height and weight things.
“The doctor will be with you in a moment,” is such a lie, as same as “This won’t hurt a bit.” and “You don’t need that bullwhip.”
Oh hell yes I do! I say, and I crack the whip, grinning wide.
Jump
People said that after all these years of writing and podcasting stories, I’d jumped the shark.
No, not me. I’d never just jump the shark.
I’d jump a hundred of them. A hundred live sharks, all jumped at once.
And I’m not going to jump them Fonzie-style. Boats and waterski jumps are so yesterday.
I’m going to freakin’ bungee jump the sharks.
My awesome plan involves lots of rigging of cables and pulleys and safety harnesses. I’ll write and podcast a perfect story, sail gracefully over all the sharks, and make a perfect landing.
Um, where does this bolt go?
Mustache Crime
Before World War 2, bottlebrush mustaches were a popular form of facial hair.
After World War 2, they weren’t popular at all for the obvious reasons.
Just as Japanese-Americans were rounded up and sent to internment camps after Pearl Harbor, bottlebrush mustaches were rounded up and sent to barber shops.
Using the sharpest razors, the bottlebrush mustaches were quickly and systematically dispatched and eliminated, washed down the drains in a foamy and messy river of stubble.
Some tried to escape as disguised as eyebrows. Others fled as landing strips.
To this day, Simon Wiesenthal’s barber continues to hunt them down.
The Sparrow
He called himself usfur duri, the sparrow.
He tried to set off a bomb on a school bus.
It took six men to bring him down. He was still trying to trigger it.
To murder. To kill.
He sat in his cell and didn’t say a word.
FREE THE SPARROW, the Amnesty International posters said.
No mention of the bomb. The children.
He called us evil during the trial.
Guilty. Thirty life sentences.
Years later, he was on the prisoner exchange list. A “goodwill gesture.”
He laughed at us.
We wrapped him in a poster and beat him to death.