The moment Joe stepped into the shower, he felt like all his troubles were melting away.
And from the puddle of bloody goo the police found clogging the drain of Joe’s tub, it appeared that Joe melted along with them.
How this happened, the coroner never quite figured out.
They looked over everything… the half-empty bottle of tequila, his prescriptions…
“It says DO NOT TAKE WITH ALCOHOL,” said the coroner. “But that just causes liver damage, not this.”
The Army was interested for a while and did some experiments on prisoners, but all it did was get them really drunk.
Category: My stories
The Ball
It’s quiet out on the ranch.
I bounce an old, ragged tennis ball on the porch.
Thump.
Thump.
It’s Jake’s ball. For seventeen years, since he was a puppy.
I’d throw it.
He’d chase it and bring it back.
He never chased sticks or other things.
Just this ball.
Thump.
Thump.
Maybe he didn’t chase it as fast as he once did. Everybody slows down.
He slept a lot.
Here on the porch.
On the driveway.
I never saw him that night.
Thump.
Buried him out back.
I should have buried this ball with him.
But it’s mine, too.
Thump.
Morning Routine
Every morning, as I gather up my stuff and get ready to head to work, my cats like to play with my shoelaces and the cord on my iPhone earbuds.
So, I dangle my shoes and the cord so they can bat them around.
They really love it.
“I gotta go to work,” I tell the cats, putting on my shoes and my headphones.
They look up at me with sad kitty eyes.
“I’ve got time saved up,” I decide, and I call in sick.
Just as I’m hanging up, I reach for the headphones and…
The cats have vanished.
Chicken Soup
My mother always said that chicken soup cures all ills.
When I got older, I had the temerity to question this.
“Yes. Every one of them,” she said.
“What about crazy people?” I asked.
“Hit them in the head with the can until they shut up,” she said.
That night on the news, the Supreme Court was debating legality of chemical castration of a rapist.
“I bet chicken soup couldn’t cure him,” I said.
“Mine would,” said my mother.
And she poured the hot soup in my lap.
She handed me the phone. “Feel like calling your shiksa girlfriend now?”
Free Sandwiches
Instead of giving us raises, the bosses bring in lunch once a week.
It’s usually pizza. Which I can’t eat because of ulcers.
“Can you order a salad for me?” I ask.
They never do. They just apologize. As usual.
One time, they brought sandwiches.
Pizza sandwiches.
“Hey, it’s free,” they say. “Quit complaining.”
And I did. I quit complaining.
I stacked up the trays of sandwiches and shouted “YOU ARE FREE!” and took them to the park to feed the homeless.
They fired me.
I lost my house. I sleep in the park.
Where’s my free fuckin’ sandwiches now?
Formation
Sitting in my living room, sipping a cup of tea, I heard the most unusual noise.
It was either a security airship passing, or three dozen lawnmowers flying overhead.
An airship was the likely source of the noise, since the most lawnmowers I’ve seen flying in formation was seven.
And it wasn’t so much as a flying formation of them, but a delivery truck striking a lamp post and its contents being strewn throughout the roadway.
So, it’s probably an airship.
Or the man next door, who makes odd noises like that.
His imitation of a cow is impressive, though.
Tilda
Bubba and Billy Bob had never been to New York.
So when they won a Broadway Weekend in the church raffle, they were in for the shock of their lives.
The buildings… traffic… lights… noise…
And…
“That’s the alien who busted up my truck and anal probed me!” hissed Bubba.
“You sure?” whispered Billy Bob.
Bubba nodded, and the men followed the pale gangly figure down the street until they managed to catch and drag it off.
They’d never been to the movies, or heard of Tilda Swinton.
And she wouldn’t anal probe Bubba, no matter how much he begged.
Truck Day
Truck Day is when a truck full of servers arrives at the datacenter loading dock.
We pull the crates off of the truck, uncrate the servers, stack them on to carts, roll them into the staging area, remove the hot swappable drive holders, unscrew spacers from them and screw the drives into place.
Meanwhile, other crews bolt on rail glides to the chassis, slide out the blades, fill them with memory, pop in the drives, and get them into the racks.
Finally, everything is cabled and scanned into inventory so it’ll be ready to host shit like this stupid story.
Little Bird
While walking home from the drug store, extra-strength laxatives in a bag, a bird shit on my head.
So, I pulled out my gun and flicked off the safeties.
But I didn’t shoot it.
Instead, I put the gun away and walked to the pet store.
I bought a bird.
When I got home, I thought about taking the laxatives and shitting on the bird.
Instead, I told the bird I love it for as long as it lived.
Which turned about to be five minutes.
My cats caught it and tore it to pieces.
Then I shat on it.
DNA
The DNA test results came back, and my father is not my father.
“Who is my father?” I asked.
“We have no idea,” said the lab technician. “But if you get us a DNA sample, we can run tests on it.”
So, I’ve been gathering up DNA from every man in the world.
Living or dead.
Well, except for the man who I thought was my father.
“I raised you, son!” I heard him say. “Come take a sample from me! It’s the least you can do!”
So, I took a scraping from his cheek.
And closed the coffin lid.