The first house I remember had a kitchen with an oven and a toaster.
The same with the second house.
However, one day, the toaster shorted out, and it was taken away.
The next day, there was a toaster oven.
I asked what a toaster oven was.
“When an oven and a toaster love each other very much, they make a toaster oven together,” said my dad. “But sometimes, the toaster doesn’t survive the process.”
“Do a radio and an alarm clock make a radio alarm clock?” I asked.
My dad shrugged, and told me to get him another beer.
Category: My stories
The Collection
I keep my knife collection in my back and my stamp collection on all these envelopes I keep filling with money to keep you from adding to my knife collection.
You bitch. You evil bitch.
How much is enough? How long do I have to suffer?
You never answer me. you just send another envelope to fill, so I know the answer: as long as I live.
Or, as long as you live.
Now, I keep my knife collection in your chest… your throat.
My last two stamps are over your eyes.
I am free.
… and another envelope arrives.
The Architect
The architect was known for designing absurdly tall buildings, but he was secretly afraid of heights.
Ribbon-cutting ceremonies for his completed designs were always held in the lobby, but he would find a reason to duck out before the trip to the observation deck or sky lobby took place.
“It’s past my bedtime,” he’d say.
His final design was so tall, critics joked that you could throw someone from the roof and be tried and convicted for murder before the victim hit the ground.
The architect was horrified, and threw out his Tinkertoys.
His mother grounded him for a week.
The Pet That Sucked
My first furry pet was a guinea pig.
I don’t know if it was a boy or girl. And I don’t remember if it had a name.
It lived in a monkey cage in the room I shared with my brother.
I wasn’t allowed to open the cage to pet the thing. And I have no idea who fed it, filled the water, or cleaned the cage.
It got out of its cage, cut itself on a sharp edge, and bled to death in a closet.
I cried a lot. Too much.
I shouldn’t have. It was a sucky pet.
ER
Poor people couldn’t afford to go to their family doctor for minor issues, so they went to the Emergency Room at the county hospital.
Then, they ignored the bill from the hospital.
The county funded a set of neighborhood clinics to deal with this problem, but people kept going to the ER.
So, the county stationed a guy with a sledgehammer at the door, and he only let real emergencies in.
“Doesn’t the Hippocratic Oath say that doctors can’t do harm?” complained a social activist.
“I’m not a doctor,” the sledgehammer-guy said.
And he brained the activist with his hammer.
Sing to the fish
Sally runs an aquaculture business.
She loves to feed the fish. And she loves to sing to the fish while she feeds them.
The food floats on the surface of the pond, and the fish rush to the surface to feed.
She tosses them food until they don’t rush to the surface anymore.
Then she knows they’ve eaten enough.
She doesn’t expect the fish to say “Thank you” or to compliment the chef.
All she wants the fish to do is eat, and be happy.
Oh, and not flop out of the crates on the way to the processing plant.
Ghost
I listened to the ghost of David Rakoff read his latest, final book.
David Rakoff is a brilliant writer, but he’s also a brilliant performer, so his audiobooks are what I get.
Got.
I remembered that his book was available as I left the office, but iTunes wouldn’t load it because I wasn’t on WiFi, and it was a large file.
So, I walked to the bus stop, waited for the bus, got on, and squeezed my way to the back door where I stood in the stink and jabber…
And then, home. Wifi.
Loading… loading… loading…
Speak, ghost. Speak.
The Original Fake
Let me tell you about the greatest comedian in all of Second Life.
Her jokes aren’t original at all, if you can call them that.
It’s just funny shit she’s ripped off some site that’s ripped them off of Buzzfeed or Twitter or Reader’s Digest.
She reads them in her roadhouse comedy club, which is a copy of a place that this guitarist chick once ran, but with a bunch of posters and stuff plastered over it.
So, how is she the greatest?
Because she’s made a complete joke out of you who believe that, and I can’t stop laughing.
Unlucky
I got into the elevator with a banker.
He pushed the button for the fourteenth floor, and we started to go up.
“Why is there no thirteenth floor?” I asked him.
“It’s unlucky,” he said. “Thirteen is unlucky.”
I took out my wallet, pulled out thirteen singles, and offered them to the banker.
He took it without question and stuck it in his pocket.
“Why is that not unlucky, and a floor is?”
The banker grinned. “It’s unlucky for you. I think I’ll have a coffee.”
I didn’t tell him that they were counterfeit.
But I told the Starbucks manager.
The Angry Rug
I hate it when I get pulled over for total bullshit.
Especially when I’m not driving.
“PULL OVER!” yells the cop. “PULL OVER!”
I stop walking and stare at the cop.
He swerves to box me in. And then he takes his time before he gets out.
“Do you know how fast you were driving?” he asks me.
I’m not driving. I’m walking. On the sidewalk.
The cop pulls out his taser.
So, I fall on the ground and shout “I am a Persian Rug!”
The cop holsters his taser.
Whew.
I hope that the rug union doesn’t get angry.