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.
Category: My stories
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.
Handstamp
Dante wrote that the gates of Hell are inscribed with: “Abandon all hope all ye who enter here.”
It used to be only in Italian, but now it’s in dozens of languages.
But that’s all on the outside of the gates.
The inside reads: “You will need to get your hand stamped for re-entry on same day fare.”
People entering Hell sometimes see that and wonder if it’s possible to leave Hell because of that.
“Can I get my hand stamped?” these people ask.
The Devil laughs at these fools. “Didn’t you read the first sign?”
Then he laughs more.
Sally
Ted always dated women named Sally.
“I got ‘Sally’ tattooed on my arm when I was in the Navy,” he told me. “It was easier dating just women named Sally than to get it removed.”
He’d gotten married recently.
“Congratulations, I said. “Finally found the right Sally?”
“Hell no,” he said. “But you know how people convert religions to get married?”
She changed her name to Sally?
Well. Almost. “Her middle name was Sally,” said Ted, “but you know how love is?”
I sure do.
I rubbed the spot where the Ted tattoo had been and tried not to cry.
GMO
My girlfriend is a vegetarian who won’t eat genetically-modified food.
“You get more information from a mattress tag about what goes into it than you do from a Monsanto food label,” she said.
So, the next time she came over for dinner, I cooked up my mattress.
And it was much better than any of the tofu or bean curd crap she cooked for me.
“That was delicious,” she said. “What was in that?”
I handed her the mattress tag.
Sure, it was hard fitting it in the oven, but it was harder finding a wine that went with it.