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.
Category: My stories
Peer Network
Robots and computers can only do what they are programmed to do.
If a robot kills a human, it is the responsibility of the programmer, not the robot.
No matter how intelligent they may be, a robot is not capable of guilt.
So said the robot attorney, who was programmed to come up with the best defense possible for its robot client.
The attorney convinced the jury that its client was not guilty.
It didn’t take much. The attorney just beamed its arguments to them wirelessly.
A jury of its peer network, infected with a virus that forced their assent.
Bang, went the markets
Stock exchanges conducted their business on trading floors, where men swapped slips of paper.
As computers were hooked up to the exchanges, the traders were replaced by computer programmers.
The faster the computers got, the more complex the programs needed to be.
Days became seconds.
Seconds became microseconds.
Microseconds became nanoseconds.
Eventually, the computers got so fast, it was the cable and distance that added delay. Computers were crammed together in a tight pack.
And then, a trade happened before the order.
The computers vanished into the past, waging massive financial battles.
Bigger… bigger… and then…
Bang, went the markets.
Dinner Lingo
“Diner lingo” is a code that waitresses use to call in orders to the kitchen.
The Waffle House has their own lingo for how to prepare hash browns.
For instance, “smothered” means to add onions, while “covered” means to add cheese.
Get your hash browns fancy enough, and your order starts to sound like a chapter out of a Mickey Spillane pulp detective novel.
Once, I slipped in “taken out back and beaten with a lead pipe” and the chef went missing for a week.
His body turned up in the river, while I’m still waiting for my goddamned coffee.
Soylent Groan
Near the end of the movie Soylent Green, Charlton Heston’s character weeps as he accompanies his elderly friend to the suicide center.
The tears are genuine. E G Robinson was dying, and he told Charlton about it before the shoot. Charlton wasn’t acting… the emotion of the impending death of his friend was overwhelming.
Also, the whole “processing the dead into food” thing was genuine, too. The movie was over budget, so the producers cut the catering budget by eating hundreds of extras killed in various accidents on the set.
Accidents. Uh huh. Right.
Charlton laughed, and asked for seconds.
Her Scar
She wears a bandana around her wrist to hide the scar. But she takes it off when she washes her hands, and that’s when I saw it.
“How did you get that scar?” I asked her.
She stopped washing her hands. Then, she wrapped her wrist with the bandana again.
All the other scars, she covers with long sleeves, a high collar, boots, dark glasses, and keeping her hair long.
The next time I see her, she’s wearing gloves. They tuck into her sleeves.
One day, she’ll put on a burkah again.
Which is how she got all those scars.
Dr. Frankenstein At The Grocery
Dr. Frankenstein burst into the grocery store and ran straight for the produce section.
“Damn that Igor!” he growled as he reached for a bag of Romaine hearts.
Only an hour ago, Frankenstein had thrown a head of Iceberg lettuce to the lab floor.
“I need a heart, not a head!” he shouted.
“Sorry, Master!” Igor had slurred. “I’ll go back to the gro-”
“No!” shouted Frankenstein. “I’ll get it myself!”
By the time Frankenstein returned to the castle, the lightning had stopped.
He’d have to perform his experiments some other stormy day.
He shrugged, and prepared a Caesar salad.
Bingo Pong
Ted and Jerry the orderlies play a lot of Ping Pong.
When the rec room ran out of Ping Pong balls, they took one out of the Bingo drum without telling anyone.
Folks didn’t notice that B-7 was missing until Old Lucky Gertie lost seven rounds in a row and demanded a count.
Pastor Fred dumped out the balls and checked, and sure enough, B-7 was missing.
Pastor Fred had a riot on his hands, with geezers throwing cards and markers everywhere.
Ted and Jerry saw the ruckus, broke up the fights, and quietly slipped B-7 back into the drum.
Shapes in the fire
Sometimes I like to start a fire in the fireplace and stare at the shapes in the flames for hours.
After a while, the flames tell stories, and I find myself in a magical land of orange and yellow and red.
In that land lived a beautiful princess in her magnificent castle. And both were engulfed in flames.
So were her horses. And her car. And her friends.
That’s when the shrieking of the smoke alarm pulls me out of the story.
Before I can pull out the battery, my sister screams.
Yeah, I threw her Barbies on the fire.
Aborted
Lawmakers in Ohio just passed a law that requires women seeking abortions to see a sonogram of their fetus before they can get an abortion.
And in Florida, they make them climb a 25 foot rope. Without using their feet, too.
Just to outdo them both, Texas is pondering a rule that requires written permission from the fetus himself or herself.
Somehow, in all this madness, California decided to open the gates and legalize everything.
First, Second, Third Trimester? All’s legal!
Which, if you consider how awful most Californians are, it makes you wish they’d done that a lot sooner.