I never make New Year’s Resolutions.
Instead, I write up a list of my enemies, and swear to remove them from my enemies list by the end of the year.
It takes a lot of effort to track someone down and to set things right with them.
Especially the ones who are truly rotten pricks to the core. Those require a lot of hand-holding and a lot of deep introspection to get them into a position where they’ll acknowledge your presence, let alone forgive your mortal differences.
That’s why I prefer to have them killed. So much easier that way.
Category: My stories
Another Year
Another year is over.
Every year that passes, I remember less of you.
I forget things.
Your smile. Your touch.
Your name.
All that’s left is a picture that’s been washed out from the sun.
On the back is a mass of scribbles.
Like someone scratched something out.
A name? A date? A place?
Who were you?
What happened?
Where did you go?
And what did you mean to me?
“It’s a photo of you,” says the doctor.
I feel the scar along the side of my head.
Then who am I?
And who was I before you did this?
Match
Leslie was obsessed with spreading peanut butter on bread.
Her mother was worried about Leslie’s obsession. She thought Leslie ought to find a nice man to settle down with.
So, she searched for one, and found a man who was obsessed with spreading jelly on bread.
“He’s the perfect match!” Like peanut butter and jelly!
So, they went on a date.
Leslie would spread peanut butter on one side of the bread, and then the man would spread jelly on the other.
They argued, tempers flared, and things turned violent.
But they fought to a draw.
The perfect match indeed.
The Murderer
Yes, I’m a clone. But don’t ask me about souls and identity.
I just know that I’m alive and have the memories of Juan Parker, so I must be Juan Parker.
From how I see things, I am the original Juan Parker. It doesn’t matter what happened to the other one. I have no memory of what happened to him, so it doesn’t really matter to me.
Unless whoever did what happened to him comes after me.
But I highly doubt that.
What? You think I killed him?
That’s absurd. Why would someone create me to shoot hi-
Never mind.
Plymouth
While on a trip to New England, I asked my mother what the difference was between a stone and a rock.
“A rock is natural,” she said. “A stone’s been worked on.”
“So why is it Plymouth Rock instead of Plymouth Stone?” I asked.
“Because Plymouth Rock wasn’t really worked on,” she said. “Although, they did break it apart and moved it around a few times. And souvenir-seekers have been breaking off pieces of it for years. Oh, and they carved the year into it. So, technically, it should be Plymouth Stone.”
I think historians have rocks in their heads.
Whispering Trees
It all started back in the Sixties when an advertising executive was sitting on his back porch, listening to the wind whisper through the trees.
“I’m listening to trees,” he said.
And that’s when the idea hit him: Trees that whisper advertising when the wind blows through them.
He mastered botany, genetics, grafting, and meteorology.
Then, he raised generation after generation of trees to perfect a single strain that whispered advertising.
“Eeeeeeat Hossssstesssss Twinkeeeeeeees,” whispered the tree.
By then, of course, Hostess had gone bankrupt.
So, the ad man used the trees for firewood.
They screamed curses as they burned.
Santrum
The editorial board at the New English Dictionary had debated for weeks about their newest entries, and every conflict had been resolved.
Except for one: Santrum.
One group wanted it to mean the tantrum that children throw when they want to visit Santa at the mall.
Another group wanted it to mean the fit that frightened children throw when placed on Santa’s lap.
And a third group wanted it to represent a fit that a mall Santa throws after being pissed on.
“We should be a bit more specific about that last one,” said the editor-in-chief.
(He was into watersports.)
Black Santa
Whenever I go to the mall to sit on Santa’s lap and tell him what I want for Christmas, I ask for “The Black Santa.”
The mall added him to their Christmas Village a few years back, and he’s got better drugs than the regular Santa.
“What do you want for Christmas?” asks Black Santa.
“Just my two front teeth,” I reply.
He hands me 2 pills, and I hand back a twenty.
I swear, on these pills, I can fly higher than a reindeer.
They found his body on New Year’s.
Must have gotten on his supplier’s naughty list.
Crapmas
When I was very little, mom took me to the mall. Two strangers picked me up and stuck me in Santa’s lap.
I screamed.
Santa asked me “What do you want for Christmas?”
“DON’T TOUCH ME!!” I yelled.
“No, what do you want for Christmas as a gift?”
I said “I already got Hanukkah gifts. Sucky socks and sweaters. I had to write thank you notes. Mom made me write them again because I said they sucked.”
Santa waved his hands angrily.
The strangers picked me up again, I yelled even louder, and we were thrown out of the mall.
Menorah
The kids hate going to visit their Grandmother in the rest home.
I don’t blame them. She was a royal bitch before the stroke, not much better now.
But if I don’t teach them to respect their elders, how will they treat me and their mother if something happens to us when we get old?
“See that pretty menorah?” I tell them. “We wouldn’t have it if your grandmother hadn’t have smuggled it out of Poland. Shoved up her ass.”
Okay, so she bought it for a wedding gift. And it’s fucking ugly.
But it sure shuts the kids up.