In a few years, the drug companies will have mastered the art of medicating out of existence every condition that interferes with the competitive consumption our society and economy depends on.
Drug A treats Condition A, but causes Condition B.
Drug B treats Condition B, but causes Condition C.
And so on, in an endless circle of pills and ointments and drops and vapors, we will torment our chemistry into a constant state of not-quite-well-enough.
We will be so saturated with these drugs, our souls will sweat bizarre toxic compounds, and devils will get deliriously high with a single lick.
Category: My stories
The duel
Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln’s debates are legendary, but do you know of the time when Douglas demanded a duel?
Lincoln, considerably taller than Douglas, felt that the size difference afforded his opponent an unfair advantage.
“I’m a much bigger target than he,” said Lincoln.
The referee for the duel had the two men stand face-to-face. Then, he pulled out a piece of chalk, and drew a line on Lincoln’s chest at the top of Douglas’ head.
“Any shots which go over this line will not count,” he said.
Douglas laughed.
Lincoln grabbed both pistols and shot them both.
The Wobbly Wheel
The old homeless lady who’s always pushing a shopping cart around the neighborhood is stuck.
Her shopping cart has a broken wheel.
She can’t push it to the store it to move to another cart. And she can’t leave her stuff.
So, she’s stuck under the freeway, screaming.
I ponder bringing her a new cart to move her junk to.
But I remember when I helped her get the cart she has now.
She screamed and bit and scratched.
And she rammed the cart into my car a few times.
I won it in our divorce settlement, fair and square.
S as in Sam
Whenever some customer service representative asks me for my name, I spell it out and ask them to repeat it back to me.
When I tell them my middle initial, I always say “S as in Sam.”
“Oh, so your middle name is Sam?” asks the person on the other end of the line.
“No, it’s not,” I say.
After saying “S as in Sam” for all these years, I don’t remember what my middle name is. I just know it begins with S.
So, I looked it up on my birth certificate.
The document says “Sasinsam.”
My parents suck.
Name Calling
Oh, the nasty name-calling!
Everybody calls Denzel an Oreo because he’s black, but he acts white.
Sung gets called a Twinkie because he’s Japanese, but he acts white.
Then there’s Morito. She’s gets called a coconut because she’s Samoan, but she acts white.
As long as there’s food that’s white on the inside, there will be racism.
Heck, there’s a food lab in New Jersey that’s working on a green food that is white on the inside so we can insult Martians who act white.
All these food-based insults explain why people are so damn fat these days.
And racists.
Tornado Soup
At first, I thought my son had asked for tomato soup.
“No,” said Owen. “I want tornado soup.”
Tornado soup?
I looked in the pantry. “We don’t have any. How about vegetable?”
Owen shook his head.
“Clam chowder?”
“Yuck.”
“Chicken and stars?”
“I want Tornado!” he yelled.
Yelling is a no-no in our house, and Owen spent the rest of the day in his room, without supper.
Or, so I thought.
That night, I checked on him.
His room was a mess. Everything tossed around and knocked over.
Like a tornado had hit it.
“It was delicious,” mumbled Owen, half-asleep.
Superman’s Drunk
Superman’s drunk.
How can you tell?
His cape’s on backwards. And he’s got his boots on the wrong feet.
Plus, he’s wearing his glasses. Usually he remembers to take those off.
Then there’s the fact that he just killed Lex Luthor.
He ripped off the guy’s head and flew around Metropolis, shouting all kinds of crazy stuff.
Yeah, YouTube’s overloaded from people uploading and watching videos of all this.
Everybody’s out in the streets or hanging out of windows with their camera-phones, taking pictures and video.
Except Jimmy Ollsen.
He’s off somewhere, fucking Lois Lane.
And that’s why Superman’s drunk.
Policy
After his second heart attack, the insurance company threatened to drop Fred’s policy if he didn’t get a nurse.
Fred shopped around for new coverage, but nobody would offer him coverage without a nurse.
“Fine!” he said.
He blinked up the menu, grumbled “install nurse” and dragged the confirmation certificate to the policy renewal form.
The nurse chimed warning tones whenever he drank or smoked or ate too much.
Fred responded by hacking the program to disable the tones.
The nurse reported this to the insurance company, and the policy was terminated.
Fred’s resulting third heart attack finished him off.
Fat
There used to be only two certainties in life: death and taxes.
Sadly, despite the best efforts of a lot of people, neither of those have been resolved.
Now there’s a third certainty: Walter is fat.
He’s dieted.
He’s exercised.
He’s taken pills.
He’s even had surgery.
But no matter what he does, Walter is still fat.
Not that he minds being fat. He carries it well. And he’s in perfect health for someone his size.
So what if he has to buy two airplane tickets? Or take the freight elevator?
Walter is fat, and on that you can depend.
Big Girls
The Four Seasons sang that big girls don’t cry, but they were full of shit. The bigger the girl, the bigger the tears.
Hell, I’ve found out that big girls don’t just cry, but they tend to throw punches and occasionally pull a knife.
The biggest girl I knew was nine feet tall, and she carried a sledgehammer. Whenever she cried, she’d cry buckets, and then whallop the hell out of anything nearby: phone booths, Buicks. She was a vicious wrecking machine.
That’s why I stick to midgets.
Even if they do cry, at least the property damage is minimal.