On the seventh day, God rested.
And God’s idea of rest is Texas Hold’em. (God created Texas and Texas Hold’em long before the first day.)
He brought the cards. Gabriel brought the snacks.
Since nobody had any money to bet with, Michael gathered up some animals to bet with.
Things got out of hand after a while. Gorillas lost their tails, dinosaurs were all killed off with the unicorns, snakes lost all their legs, and all kinds of other messes got made.
God swept the wriggling, writhing leftovers under the rug.
A platypus crawled out and slipped into a stream.
Category: My stories
Super Bowl Party
I bought beer, sodas, chips, dips, and wings.
Cleaned the place up. Hired a maid service to do it right.
Even bought the biggest TV in the store. Wiring up the surround system took two engineering grad students.
Went so far as to rent some portapotties. Because three bathrooms might not be enough.
And nobody came. Not a single person.
I watched the game alone.
That’s okay. The Super Bowl was a blowout. And boring.
I took all the food to a local homeless shelter. Played some cards with those folks, too.
Next year, I’ll just go to the shelter.
Car alarm
I didn’t get much sleep.
A car alarm was going off in the parking garage.
I hate it when people let their alarms go.
Maybe someone’s out messing with people’s wheels again?
The alarm didn’t stop for ten minutes.
I’d better go see. Someone might be messing with my truck.
So, I put on some shorts and a shirt, and I picked up my shotgun.
Out in the parking garage,I looked for the source of the noise.
Yep. That truck over there. Blinking tail lights, too.
Wait. It’s my truck.
I clicked the remote and the alarm shut off.
Cook the books
We had a good deal going between me, Bill, Steve, and Ted.
Bill runs the front company.
Steve runs the back end.
Ted’s the numbers guy.
He cooks the books. The books.
Sometimes, he cooks them in a wok.
Other times, he cooks them in a crockpot.
Once, he cooked them in a pressure cooker.
Man, those books cooked up good.
What’s the front company?
A restaurant. A great restaurant.
Yep. The special is book.
(We tell them it’s veal.)
People eat the evidence. The fucking evidence. And they love it.
Two thumbs up, and Michelin stars on the way.
Toilet Rings
The doorbell never rings.
I tore out the wire years ago.
Got sick of people ringing it.
The phone never rings.
I pulled the wire out of the wall years ago.
Got sick of people calling.
The toilet never rings.
Because toilets don’t ring.
Well, most toilets.
But after reading about some toilets that the Japanese make, with their fancy perfume sprays and seat warmers, I bet there’s a toilet out there that rings.
Why does it ring?
I don’t know.
But it does. And it’s probably horribly expensive.
No, my toilet doesn’t ring.
(I have it set to vibrate.)
Digger
Ever go to the cemetery?
I go there a lot.
People talk to the headstones.
I like to switch the headstones around.
People lay flowers on the wrong graves. Or they pour out beer or wine into the wrong grave.
It’s not about the dead for them. It’s about the living.
The living mow the grass. The living blow the leaves off of the sidewalks.
I’m not here for the living. I’m here for the dead.
I’ve got a shovel, a burlap sack, and a dark witch down the street who buys finger bones.
Need anything while I’m down there?
Cat in pants
My cat likes to sleep in my pants.
I try to be mindful, so when I take off my pants, I put then on the floor with the waist open and up, like a bowl or nest.
She never climbs into my pants while I watch. Only when I leave the room to make tea. Or go to the bathroom. Or fetch the mail.
When I return, she is curled up, nose in tail, asleep.
Such a cute little critter she is.
As opposed to the vicious, angry beast she becomes when I need to put my pants on again.
Radish Flower
Jacob’s on Grant is my favorite restaurant.
What’s good there?
Well, it’s not on the menu. And it’s not on the off-menu menu, either.
But everybody ends up getting it.
It’s the radish that the chef cuts up like a flower and puts on every plate as garnish.
Seriously. I shit you not.
That radish is soaked in something special, because it tastes absolutely amazing.
Unlike anything I’ve ever tasted.
Whenever I go to Jacob’s and I see someone leaving a radish-flower on their plate, I ask them if I can have it.
Oh, and the salmon is okay, too.
Polished off
Sally won a lifetime supply of nail polish.
So, she uses it to the maximum. She’s always painting her nails. And she likes to paint her nails all different colors.
White and red stripes like candy canes for the holidays. Or red and green.
Rainbows after the rain. Or a double rainbow, I suppose. One on each hand.
She painted her dog’s nails. Her neighbors’ nails.
Everybody’s nails.
Which violated the terms of the contest.
The cosmetics company hired some goons to rough her up.
One waved a set of pliers in her face.
“Let’s count to twenty,” he grinned.
Drive
Saturday.
We like to drive around the neighborhood, looking at houses and making disparaging comments.
This one has a crooked roof.
That one has wretched landscaping.
The lawn’s dying, too.
Over there, the house with a cracked window. Cracks in the driveway.
And a rusty mailbox.
Empty lots, we just drive past. Nothing to see there. Anymore.
A strip mall. New paint and signs, but a lot of empty storefronts.
Then a few more houses, until we get to the worst of the worst.
The absolute, rock-bottom worst.
I click the garage door opener, and we turn into the driveway.