If I had a time machine, I’d go back in time to when I was 20 years old and slap myself silly for being such an asshole.
Of course, back then I was such an asshole, I’d shoot anybody that threatened me. So I’d have shot anyone slapping me around.
Right. Wear a bulletproof vest?
No. I’d shoot the dude in the face. A bulletproof vest doesn’t cover the face.
Wait… shooting the dude in the face?
The dude is me.
Well, future me.
Maybe I shouldn’t do the time machine thing.
And just leave that asshole in the past.
Category: My stories
Shut the fuck up, you’re rocking the boat
I dreamt last night I was on the boat to Heaven.
Some dude stood up and shook dice at me.
“What are you, some kind of D&D freak?” I said “Sit down.”
The guy then pulled a bottle of whiskey out of his jacket and offered it to me.
“Dude, this boat’s already got me seasick. Put that away and sit down.”
He frowned, and that’s when a great big wave hit.
I shoved him overboard, took the bottle, and drank it.
Someone told me to sit down.
I told them to shut the fuck up.
Sanctimonious little prick.
Pike’s Peak
For the life of me, I don’t remember where Pike’s Peak is.
I could Google it, but that takes effort. I’d have to close this window, open another, and then type it in.
Thank goodness for my iPhone. I can just hold the button down, ask Siri where Pike’s Peak is, and I’ll know the answer.
Siri shows me Pike’s Peak of Texas, a floral shop that’s up the Inner Loop, near the Northwest Freeway.
Shit.
Where is the mountain Pike’s Peak?
Siri responds with a vague map with a red dot in… Colorado? Nevada?
I’ll just fucking Google it.
Balancing Act
The flight to Portland is full, and all the overheads are full of cruelty-free carbon-neutral backpacks.
“You’ll need to check your roll-on,” says the gate attendant.
I walk to my seat, but a bearded hipster is already in it.
“Dude,” he growls.
The stewardess apologizes and guides me to another seat.
“We had to move passengers around to balance the sarcasm and irony.”
I sit down, stuck between two reeking natives too cool for deodorant.
Forget flotation device. Can a seat be used as a gas mask?
An alarm goes off.
The stewardess says I’ve set off the sarcasm alarm.
The Pea
Once upon a time, there was a prince that was seeking a bride.
But every prospect just wasn’t good enough for him, and he sent them away.
Until one rainy night, a woman showed up at the palace, seeking shelter from the storm.
The prince stacked up a dozen mattresses, and he slipped a single pea under them.
Then, the princess climbed up the mattress pile, got under the covers, and tried to go to sleep.
But as hard as she tried, she couldn’t.
“Do you feel that pea?” asked the prince.
“No,” said the princess. “I’m afraid of heights.”
A Shocker
Just as Mister Potato Head was once a box of parts that you’d use with a real potato, Billy thought that Operation was a kit to wire up to a real person.
Of course, there’s no way a small flashlight battery can power all the copper pickups, probes, and bulb.
So, he hooked up a spare car battery to the table.
He called his girlfriend Susie over to play, and she called the police.
The cops unhooked Billy’s little brother from the table, and then took Billy to the mental hospital.
Severe depression is their diagnosis
They’ve prescribed shock therapy.
The Claws Come Out
Just beneath the surface of that purring little ball of fur in your lap is a wild and vicious beast.
It doesn’t take much to coax the predator out from its hiding place.
A late meal.
An unclean litterbox.
A stepped-on tail.
Their ears fold back, and their eyes go wide.
Do they puff up their fur?
Do they arch their back?
Hissing. Howling. The claws come out.
This is why my phone has an alarm for dinnertime.
And I always clean the litterbox every morning.
The purring little ball of fur in your lap keeps purring happily.
For now.
Lucien Smith
A software glitch caused every birth certificate in the county to use the name Lucien Smith.
You’d think that people would balk.
Nope. The parents didn’t mind the error at all.
“It’s a good name,” said one couple. “Better than the one we picked out.”
“You’d think it would be confusing, having twin girls named Lucien,” said another couple. “But somehow, we manage.”
The first kindergarten class of Lucien Smiths was a challenge for school administrators, but they quickly got the hang of it.
It’s the public stoning of children not named Lucien Smith that you never get used to.
The Awful Search
When a cat goes missing, you put up posters and call shelters
And then you wait.
The waiting is the worst. The not knowing.
Every cat cry, every sound makes you think they’re back.
They’re not.
I walked around until my knee felt full of broken glass.
And walked around some more.
You look everywhere you’ve found them before, but they’re never there.
They’re everywhere but where you look.
So you keep looking.
I saw something. On the sidewalk.
No. It’s just a shirt someone had dropped on their way back from the laundry room.
And walked around some more.
Nancy’s Face
If you asked her out, Nancy would say “Sure. Let me go put on my face.”
And then she peels off the face she had on, wipes away the glue, and sticks on a fresh face.
She always makes sure she has at least two faces left in the pack.
You never want to run out of faces, and sometimes the last face in the pack ends up squished, like the last slice of a loaf of bread.
Satisfied, she smiles, and tosses the old face into a cage.
The rats chew the face to bits as it screams silently.