When I was three years old, a scientist sat me down at a table and showed me a box of crackers.
“What’s inside the box?” he asked.
“Crackers,” I said.
The scientist opened the box, and poured out some rocks.
“There are rocks inside the box,” he said, and then he scooped up the rocks and put them back into the box.
“Your Mommy is about to walk into the room,” he said. “What will she think is inside the box?”
“She won’t care,” I said. “She’ll be more interested in drinking your blood.”
I bared my fangs and laughed.
Category: My stories
Second Grade
I love to teach.
I love teaching this class. And these kids.
Working so hard, and learning so much. They’re such great students.
So, I’m going to fail them all.
Yes, I’m going to give each one a big fat red F on their report cards.
And they’re going to have to repeat the second grade.
Which means I’ll get them for another year.
What? You think they won’t let me teach them again?
But they let me teach them again this year.
And the year before.
Maybe I’ll keep them forever, here in the second grade.
Pencils down, kids.
French Crime
Most professors get letters from former students thanking them for something they taught them.
Yeah, I get letters from my former students, too. But they all come from prisons and mental institutions.
And they curse me for turning them to a life of crime, madness, and suffering.
Look here, man: I teach Introductory French.
How exactly does Introductory French cause people to turn out so badly?
None of the students ever explain how I’m to blame for their predicament. They just blame me for their woes. And curse me.
The least they could do is write their letters in French.
Lost A Friend
When a friend dies, I never say I’ve lost a friend.
No, they’re still my friend. I just won’t hear from them quite as often as I used to.
And it’s even more unlikely that I’ll get back that five bucks they owed me.
As for friends you lose because they’re not your friends anymore, well, were they ever really your friend?
If that friendship was so weak that it took something less than death to end, then it wasn’t a true friendship.
So take my advice: if you want to keep your friends forever, kill them all right now.
Too Big
I’m too fat to use the stairs and you can’t always depend on elevators working, so I always live on the first floor.
“You should lose weight,” people tell me.
No shit. Really?
I can’t exercise because I’m too fat.
And I can’t diet because I’ve got other medical issues. I’ve spent days with the best nutritionists and doctors, but none could figure out how to reduce my intake without killing me.
So, I live down on the first floor.
And I haul myself from the van to my front door.
Soon, I’ll need a wheelchair.
A really big wheelchair.
Kill Bill
I know a couple who was so into Quentin Tarantino movies that they rented a small Texas church for their wedding and hired the actor who played the preacher in Kill Bill to officiate.
They tried to get Samuel L. Jackson to play organ, but he couldn’t actually play, and he didn’t want to work for scale.
The wedding was interrupted by armed actors playing assassins, and the church was awash in death.
Real blood. Real gore.
Someone got the blanks mixed up with real bullets.
The survivors tried to sue Quentin Tarantino, but the judge threw out the case.
Charity
I don’t give to charity anymore.
Once, I participated in a Fun Run to raise funds and awareness for some disease or another. Sure, it was fun, until I stopped running. That’s when the cattle prods came out, and I was aware… that I was in danger.
Then, I volunteered to be jailed so I could call my friends to “bail” me out with contributions to the Cancer Society. But the cops left me in jail. In Maximum Security.
So, I don’t care if there’s a tax deduction or a free t-shirt. It’s still too high a price to pay.
My Favorite Things
Sure, Maria sings that bright copper kettles are one of her favorite things, but she’s not the one who has to clean them.
I do. I’m the chef who works for the Von Trapp family.
I hate this job, but I’m a Jew. Captain Von Trapp says that if I don’t want to work for him, then I’m welcome to board the next train for the camps.
So, I stay. And cook. And clean those damn kettles until they’re bright and shiny.
If she and those kids don’t shut the hell up, I’m going to poison the next apple strudel.
Pray For Them
Sometimes, people ask for me to pray for them.
I don’t pray.
If the invisible man in the sky needs for me to put my hands together to tell him what shit in the world needs fixing, fuck him.
He’s an idiot for not knowing, a pathetic sack of shit for not being able to do anything about it, or an asshole for not wanting to do anything about it.
And I’m certainly not going to thank him for all the blessings, either. Because whatever he doesn’t take away through death or entropy, the government takes away through taxes.
Amen.
Captain Proton
I’m sorry, but there is no Captain Proton. I just made him up.
So, you can stop shouting for help. Oh, and please turn off the Proton Signal. You’re just wasting electricity.
I mean, it’s not that we don’t need a hero to save us every now and then, but for a while, we were doing okay when there was just the idea of one, right?
People treated each other nicer. Arch-criminals laid off the worst capers.
Things were going good.
Until people actually wanted Captain Proton to show up.
Now, things are worse than before.
Try to explain that.