After our daughter died, the neighbors came by to express their condolences.
And they brought a large number of covered dishes.
So many so, that I sketched up a few plans, converted the basement to an elaborate and functional mad scientist’s lab to bring all this tuna noodle casserole to life.
Sure enough, the moment my wife threw the switch, the noodle-creature rose up and moaned: “Mommy! Daddy!”
The neighbors heard about our experiment, and arrived at the door with torches and pitchforks.
“Please stop playing God,” they said. “And we want our Corningware back if you’re done with it.”
Category: My stories
You’ve Got Mail
It’s been 20 years since I‘ve had an AOL account, but wherever I go, I always set up that “You’ve got mail!” to my new mail sound.
Oh, sure… I’ve had fun sounds like “Message for you, sir!” from Monty Python and The Holy Grail, where the page gets hit with an arrow to the chest with a message on it, but it doesn’t take long for me to yearn for that classic AOL sound again.
It doesn’t really matter, though. These days, it’s all IMs and Tweets and Facebook Pokes.
E-mail’s as dead as the Post Office it killed.
Where The Wild Things Aren’t
The night Max wore his wolf suit
And made mischief of one kind or another
His mother called him WILD THING!
And Max said “I’ll eat you up!”
While sending Max to his room
His mother had a stroke and collapsed
Max stood there, confused
He tried to wake up his mother
But she didn’t move at all
So, Max picked up the telephone
And called the emergency number.
They arrived a few minutes later
Put his mother on a stretcher
Covered her with a sheet
And took her away.
Child Services picked up Max
He never wore costumes again
The Creation Of Kenny
I challenged art students to paint the ceiling of the college’s fieldhouse.
“Carefully, please!”
They replicated Michelangelo’s fresco in the Sistine Chapel, but substituted famous basketball players for the Biblical figures.
In the center was The Creation Of Adam, where Charles Barkley reached to touch the finger of Kenny Smith.
“Instead of a brain-like cloud, he’s perched on a giant meatloaf,” said the lead artist.
We laughed. Until a drip came down from the ceiling.
“It’s coming out of Kenny’s eye,” I said. “He’s… crying?”
Some of them called it a miracle.
I called it an expensive leak to repair.
Creepy Crawlers
When I was growing up, I remember having one of those creepy crawlers bug-making factories.
You poured a resin called Plastigoop into molds, put it in a hot plate to cook, then let it cool and set.
It was really fun trying to make the creatures look realistic with different colors of the Plastigoop.
They changed the formula around so that instead of heating the resin with the hot plate oven, you’d heat the resin, then pour it into the molds to cool and set.
These days, if I want creepy crawlers, I just leave the dishes out for weeks.
Lover Fighter
Hey, man. I’m a lover, not a fighter.
I don’t want to fight.
Unless you’re smaller and weaker than me. Then I’ll beat the crap out of you.
But if you’re bigger than me, yeah, I’m a lover. I’ll love you to keep from beating the crap out of me.
Until I can catch you off guard, that is. Then I’ll stop loving you, and stab you in the back or run you over with a car.
Of course, then I’ll go to prison, and knowing my luck, I’ll be stuck as a lover.
No matter how much I fight.
The Gift Bear
I went to the Build-a-Bear store in the mall.
Where you pick out an empty teddy bear
Or panda
Or kitty
Then you pick out clothes for it:
A baseball uniform
Ballet slippers. And a tutu
A wedding dress
You can record a message, too.
I like crazy messages:
“Help, I’m trapped in a bear factory!”
“I’m filled with heroin.”
At a red light, I squeeze it’s paw.
“I love you,” it says.
I feel the bruise on my face.
I remember you hitting me.
Again. And again.
Love you? The craziest message of all.
I throw the bear away.
I don’t have a cat!
“I don’t have a cat!” I said to the cat on my lawn.
“I don’t have a cat!” I said to the cat on my porch.
“I don’t have a cat!” I said to the cat on my chair.
“I don’t have a cat!” I said to the cat on my kitchen floor.
“I don’t have a cat!” I said to the cat on my bed.
“I don’t have a cat!” I said to the cat on my lap.
The cat didn’t say anything back.
Except for a gentle, dismissive purr.
Then she closed her eyes and went to sleep.
My Mother
My mom is not my mother.
My real mother died young.
I have no memory of her.
I only remember my stepmother.
Who I called mom.
Because I knew no other.
They hid her from me.
My real mother.
So when I learned the truth.
The new truth.
That my mom.
Was not my real mother.
I have no memory of her.
Just the memories.
That my imagination makes.
When I see photographs.
Newspaper clippings.
Kidnapped. And never found.
Kidnapped by my father.
Like every other mother I’ve had.
Well, the ones I remember.
I loved them all.
My mother.
Bashed Brains
Pro Football player Junior Seau killed himself today. He’d been having awful problems as a result of all the concussions he’d suffered by playing football for so many years.
Last year, Dave Duerson from the Superbowl-winning Chicago Bears put a bullet in his gut.
It’s a problem many players have been experiencing, and they want to raise awareness of the dangers of concussions, but some just can’t take the pain and the suffering, so they kill themselves.
It’s sad, but then when you bash yourself against other huge guys for twenty to thirty years, what the fuck do you expect?