Category: My stories

Even though there’s dog waste bag dispensers and disposal kiosks, people still walk their dogs and rarely pick up after them.
It stinks, it’s unhealthy, the shit’s all over the sidewalk, and my laundry cart ends up rolling over the turds.
So, I go from door to door with an ultrasonic dog whistle and blow it.
If I hear a dog barking, I make a note and move on to the next door.
After getting an inventory of dog owners, I wait until night, and then I shit on their welcome mats.
“You’re welcome,” I shout, and run back home.

The chicken processing plant is a factory.
Chickens, hung by their legs along a track.
Their heads pulled off, their guts reamed out.
Their feet chopped off for soup.
Slashed and broken by workers with chain mesh gloves and the sharpest blades.
Breasts, tenders, wings, thighs, legs.
All tossed down chutes for packaging.
The rest, we send to the priests.
Who sacrifice the bloody mass to our Dark Lord.
With his nine thousand faces, we scream out his name.
He leaves a trail of blood and flame for us to follow.
As the chicken processing plant fades into the darkness.

Of all the antiquated terms people use, I find “hanging up” the phone to be the most amusing.
We used to hang the receiver on the phone to terminate the connection.
Now, it’s a button on a cell phone.
Although pushing a button to cut off a call, depending on the type of phone, that’s been around a while.
Picking up a phone to take a call isn’t always necessary.
When we have headsets and speakerphones and car phones, we don’t actually pick up the phone.
And illegal, when you’re driving.
But I guess hanging up is my biggest hangup.

I’ve been going to Ryan’s Bar for years, and it’s a tradition that the oldest guy drinking at the bar gets the television remote.
Whatever he chooses, everybody watches.
If you want to watch something else, buy him a drink.
Maybe he’ll change his mind.
The better the drink, the better your chances.
And the bigger the drink, the faster he’ll get drunk and pass out.
Leaving the remote to the next oldest guy.
One old fart kept wanting to watch cartoons.
Ryan took the remote’s batteries out.
“You get the remote,” said Ryan. “But you’re not ruining my bar.”

You never know which home run is the last home run you hit.
Or give up as a pitcher.
The last touchdown you catch. Or throw. Or run.
Or get called back because of your holding penalty.
Maybe it’s your call from the booth. Television. Radio.
The last dunk. The last free through.
The last foul, when you foul out of the game.
All your days on the field, the court are long gone.
Trade in your cleats for a suit.
The last time you get recognized on the street.
“Hey, didn’t you used to be…”
And sign an autograph.

Teddy Baskets leads the league in scoring.
Triple Double Teddy.
But he also leads the league in shots. And shots missed.
And fouls and turnovers and minutes.
If you average things out, you’ll see why Teddy’s team is in last.
Nobody else gets any shots because Teddy’s a ball hog.
He fights his own team for every rebound.
And hates coming out of the game, even if he’s on a cold streak or exhausted.
Laying in the jacuzzi after the game, bitching to his agent on his cell phone.
The team’s trainer casually knocks a plugged-in lamp into the tub.

It was fourth grade recess league softball, and I managed to avoid my name sticking to any roster.
The teachers didn’t know what to do, so they asked if I’d be an umpire.
“No,” I said.
But they made me do it anyway.
“Strike!” I shouted after every pitch, even ones that hit the plate.
The principal, who was pitching, had me move next to him.
“Strike!” I continued to shout.
A gang of other kids joined the chorus.
“Strike! Strike! Strike!” they shouted mockingly.
“Oh, good,” I said. “You can take over then.”
And I walked home from school.

Johnny started a TikTok account and posted all kinds of things, but he wasn’t getting any views.
So, he started posting videos of fires.
Burning cars. Burning buildings. Burning parks.
This got him a lot of views.
But the other people posting videos of those fires also got lots of views.
And some of them got more views than Johnny.
So, he burned down their houses.
Eventually, Johnny got caught.
As he sat in his cell, he smelled smoke. A fire alarm went off.
Johnny yelled for a guard… to bring him his phone so he could post a video.

So, you want to stop school shootings?
Metal detectors haven’t worked.
Guards haven’t worked.
Safe zones haven’t worked.
Lots of people are talking about taking away guns again.
As if you could take away the guns.
And even if you stop selling the big guns, there’s still the guns out there.
Background checks? Doesn’t work for stolen COVID funds, won’t work for guns.
Stop smuggling? Every border has a price.
So, I came up with another plan.
Homeschooled kids don’t bully their classmates.
Homeschooled kids don’t shoot their classmates.
Take away schools.
And you take away the classmates to kill.

It’s almost jasmine season again.
The jasmine vines took a beating last year because of the freeze.
I thought about chopping them down, but let’s see how they do this year.
If there’s no bloom at all on the ground, yeah, I’ll cut them off and plant anew.
Thing is, if we head out in a year or two, I won’t see any of it.
They’ll grow for the next tenant.
But life is about planting for the next generation to enjoy, right?
As long as they don’t chop them down and plant a bunch of daisies or other crap.