Some eggs are hard-boiled in their faith.
Those are easy to paint and put in the basket.
Then we can shuck them for later.
Others have no faith at all. They’ve been poked with holes, and everything blown out.
Those are just empty husks that we can glue shiny glitter to.
Then there’s the eggs in the middle. The ones that haven’t been hard-boiled or blown-out.
I call them the eggnostic eggs.
Can’t paint them, or they rot.
Can’t glue anything to them either.
I just crack them on the bowl, scramble them up, and pour ’em in the skillet.
Category: My stories
Popular places
I know a place that’s so popular, nobody goes there anymore.
No. Really. Nobody goes there anymore.
People make reservations years in advance and put down a deposit. Then they forget about the reservation and forfeit the deposit.
Everybody does this, and nobody ends up eating there.
The owner’s gotten rich off of this scam.
Then, the heath inspector came by. There was no food or knives or anything in the kitchen.
No tables, chairs, silverware, or plates in the dining room either.
They failed inspection.
Why? Because of the bathrooms. Totally unused, but nobody had cleaned them in years.
The Real
Her father bought her a new nose for her sweet sixteenth.
College money went to a few other “necessary” improvements. She changed her name and picked up a degree from a diploma mill.
That got her an internship with the Senator, and she eventually handled the press for him.
After every day, she’d touch up her roots, check on her nail extensions, fix her makeup, and head to her favorite bar to prowl the scene.
“Why can’t I catch a real man?” she sighed to the bartender.
“Must be using the wrong bait,” he said.
She didn’t leave a tip.
The Book
I like stories that begin “Once upon a time.”
And I like stories that end with “And they lived happily ever after.”
So when I go to the bookstore, I check the first page for “Once upon a time” and the last page for “And they lived happily ever after.”
If they’re there, I’ll buy the book.
Otherwise, I won’t.
The rest of the book doesn’t really matter. Because no matter what happens in the book, they’re going to live happily ever after.
Why bother reading the book at all, I suppose.
I skip to the end, and I smile.
Slowdown
It’s been a while since I last threw up.
Over time, you learn how much you can drink, how much you can eat, and what disagrees with you.
You also learn not to move too quickly. Take it slow and easy. No more two stairs at a time. No more one stair with each step. You’re hauling yourself up the handrail, taking each step as you can.
You miss the days you could do this without running out of breath halfway up. You wish to be young again.
Then you see it. The light.
Over the elevator.
Fuck the stairs.
Johnny
So, one day, it’s cold as shit out.
Snowing in Houston, right?
The place I worked had really shitty air conditioning in the summer, but even worse heating for the rare true winter days.
Johnny shows up to work, and he’s got sandals and no socks on.
And it doesn’t take long for the chill to hit.
So, I go on break, walk to Macy’s, buy socks, and bring them back for Johnny.
The guy lights up like Christmas. Which, I guess, it was.
I’d hoped he’d tell that story over my coffin instead of me telling it over his.
The Valley Of The Brave
When it is time for a boy to become a man, the tribe gives him a knife and sends him into The Valley Of The Brave.
He has to break into a soda machine and pull out as many quarters as he can fill his pockets with.
Most boys try to use the knife to jimmy the lock on a machine, but locks these days are too good for that.
No, you gotta find the owner of the machine and put that knife on his throat. Get his keys. Open the lock.
Oh, and get me a Pepsi, too.
Cold.
Jumbotron
You know those kiss cams at ballgames? And how sometimes some guy proposes to his girl at the ballpark?
My buddies thought it would be a funny prank to take a hooker to a ballgame and surprise her with a Jumbotron proposal.
But the surprise was on me. The hooker said yes, kissed me, and took the ring.
“We can do it in Vegas,” she whispered into my ear.
Shit. This is going to get really expensive.
I’d better call my wife and tell her than I’m going to need to take some cash out of our joint savings account.
The Cards
Back before the Internet and online services, you had to look things up in reference books for answers.
However, when you’re playing poker in the basement with a bunch of drunk teenagers, the idea of calling Information has appeal.
“Does a full house beat a straight or a flush?” I asked.
Information had no idea.
So, I called Information in Las Vegas.
No, they didn’t know the answer, either.
But they connected me to a casino, and they knew. And I won.
However, by then, someone had puked on the cards.
The money was clean, and I took it all.
Laptop
When I got a high-power laptop from work, it could produce my podcast and run Second Life, so I didn’t need my personal laptop anymore.
It’s still got a year left in it, I figure. I could have sold it on eBay or trade it in for Amazon credit, but I decided to give it to someone who needed it.
The problem is, whenever I see them log on and off a few times in a row, I worry that the laptop is having issues.
I don’t want to be nosy about it.
I’ll just budget for another. And wait.