She said she wanted me to take her dancing, so we put on our dancing shoes and we danced all the way to the dance hall.
By the time we got to the dance hall, we were exhausted and sweaty.
“Want to dance all the way home?” I asked her, panting heavily.
“No,” she said, fanning herself with a dance card. “Call a cab.”
So, I called a cab, and we went back home.
“That’s a wrap,” I told the jazz quartet that follows us everywhere.
“Good gig,” they said. They put their instruments away and went out for coffee.
Category: My stories
Beater
Philosophers like to ask which came first, the chicken or the egg.
But Molly wants to know which came first, the chicken-beater or the egg-beater.
“There’s no such thing as a chicken-beater,” I say. “Who’d want liquefied chicken in a milk carton?”
“I guess that means the egg-beater came first,” says Molly, grinning.
After that, I spent thousands of dollars on chicken and blenders, trying to invent the chicken-beater.
Eventually, I came up with an odd, viscous slurry of chicken meat.
McDonalds bought the patent, which is why you’ll never see me eat their McNuggets.
(I prefer to drink them.)
Basement sleeper
If I fall asleep, I will fall asleep.
And I will stay asleep until the alarm wakes me.
I don’t wake up with the sun because I put my bed in the basement. And I have a backwards schedule. I work at night, and sleep during the day.
It’s cooler down in the basement. Darker.
And when I wake up, I can run my undies through the clothes dryer so they’re nice and warm.
I have to take them off again when I go upstairs and have shower and a coffee.
And again and again at work.
But stripping’s fun.
Home Invasion
The woman upstairs is doing her Jane Fonda tape again.
She stomps around, goes for water.
Then one two one two one two.
Half an hour of that, then moving furniture back.
Four in the fucking morning.
But you get used to it, right?
I baked her a cake.
Yeah, she needs to lose weight, her doctor says, but a little won’t hurt.
She’ll burn it off.
She starts her routine again.
One two one two one.
Thud.
Try burning off the poison, bitch.
The TV stays on.
Shit. Didn’t think of that.
Maybe I’ll stay in a hotel tonight.
The Phone Book
They say that Jackson Bart’s voice is so smooth and deep, people would pay to hear him read the phone book.
So, he did. He toured the country, reading the phone book.
He filled coffeehouses, bookstores, and Hard Rock Cafes. Pretty soon, he booked arenas and stadiums, and he sold those out, too.
That’s when the phone company stopped printing the book. Instead of recycling unused books, they didn’t print at all.
Jackson tried to read online listings and his iPhone contacts list, but it never was the same.
Now, he reads numbers in bathroom stalls as he cleans toilets.
Lemons
Dave planted a bunch of lemon trees a few years ago.
Now, he’s got more lemons than he knows what to do with.
He gives them away to his neighbors, but there’s still a lot left over.
He can’t sell them. Otherwise, he’d have to deal with all kinda of government paperwork and crap.
So, he held a contest. How many lemons can you shove up your ass.
A few crazies showed up. So did the local news station.
And an ambulance for Dave, who was declared the winner.
If life gives you lemons, wash them before you make lemonade.
Riding
I know a guy named Yankee Doodle, but instead of riding into town on a pony, he liked to put on a gag costume that made him look like he was riding on the back of an old Russian woman.
At least I thought it was a costume. Only when I got a closer look did I realize that it was a real old Russian woman that he was riding.
“Seriously?” I asked him.
He nodded.
I sighed. “No more driving drunk?”
He nodded again.
“Okay,” I said. “You can have your license and keys back.”
“Spaseba.” said the woman.
Replacement me
My bank told me that my credit card number was compromised, so they suspended the card and told me that they were sending another.
In the meantime, I used one of my other cards for automatic billing on my phone and other services. Then, I switched back when the replacement card finally arrived.
This isn’t the first time I’ve had a credit card number stolen. But the bank has taken care of me every time.
Then, one night, I heard a voice… it was the bank, calling my credit cards.
I’ve been compromised, and they were sending a replacement me.
Red Goes Green
Back in the day, Little Red Riding Hood would walk through the woods to visit her grandmother.
But now that Little Red Riding Hood is a grandmother, do her grandchildren come and visit her?
Hardly, and they don’t call, either. Or send letters.
Maybe they send a birthday card now and then. And they say they send emails, but Red doesn’t know how use email, or the Skype or any of those things.
The Big Bad Wolf was long dead, and he didn’t have any grandkids.
Same with the Woodsman.
Red sat on the porch, smoked joints, and read books.
Illegal Seafood
Back in the early Eighties, my family went to Legal Seafood to eat.
The place was noisy, and the seats couldn’t have been more uncomfortable if Torquemada had designed them.
The waiter came, and everybody ordered lobster.
Except for me. I ordered the swordfish.
“We’re at Legal Seafood,” my mother hissed. “They’re famous for lobster here.”
I was about to reply, but my grandfather was cursing out the waiter for bringing the bill before the food.
Everybody got sick on undercooked lobster.
Except for me.
“They famous for that too, Mom?” I asked her as she dry-heaved into the sink.