Steve collected the tabs from soda cans.
He said it was for a school project for his daughter.
Anyway, everybody in the department got in the habit of giving their tabs to him.
Me, I sat at the desk behind him, so I’d throw my tabs over the cubicle wall in his direction.
Steve left for a new job a few weeks ago, but I’m still in the habit of throwing my soda can tabs at his desk.
Ali took over Steve’s desk this morning.
“What the fuck?” he shouts.
“Sorry,” I said, sipping my Coke Zero. “Force of habit.”
Category: My stories
Bloodmobile
The bloodmobile came by our office to collect blood.
“We’re running lower than normal this month,” said a volunteer.
Instead of laying down on the cots, we formed a mob and marched to the local blood bank.
“Oh crap!” shouted the staff there. “It’s a blood bank run!”
They barred the doors, took to the roof, and tried to drive us off by pelting us with bottles of orange juice and cookies.
But we’d come armed with trash can lids, and deflected the projectiles.
VROOM!
Oh no! I’d forgotten about the bloodmobile!
Bodies flew as it careened through our ranks.
Oh You Fools
Alexander Pope said that fools rush in where angels fear to tread, but I can’t come up with a single place that an angel would fear to tread.
I’ve lived in some really bad places, and I’ve seen plenty of fools rushing around them.
But angels are supernatural, powerful beings. They serve God as his messengers and soldiers.
There’s nothing here that an angel couldn’t handle.
Why they don’t, well, that’s one of those Free Will arguments I won’t get into.
Or perhaps it’s all the power lines. They don’t want to get their big white wings tangled in them.
Paint It
Long ago, comedian Steven Wright said “It’s a small world, but I wouldn’t want to paint it.” in his act.
It turns out he grabbed it from a comedian named Chic Murray
Whatever the source, I’m still confused: are they talking about painting the world with brushes and cans of paint? Because that could get expensive, especially if you need to buy primer, too.
Or perhaps paint it as in painting it on a canvas? Cheaper, certainly, but canvas and oils aren’t free.
This is what digital photography was invented to do.
Thank goodness for Google Maps and Street View.
Camp 60
Everything that can go wrong with a moon shelter has gone wrong with Camp 60.
Air leaks.
Radiation shielding.
Communications issues.
You name it, Camp 60 has it, and no matter how much we go over that place with a fine-toothed comb, it isn’t long before we get a distress signal from the radio guy… or lose signal entirely.
It doesn’t make sense.
We used the same tools, same blueprints, same construction materials, and it’s got the same geology as the other camps.
So, we made it our jail.
Play nice, recruits, or you’ll spend a night in Camp 60.
Sarcasm
We were watching the Super Bowl, and a television commercial for a bank came on.
I read the fine print:
SUBSTANTIAL PENALTY FOR EARLY WITHDRAWAL.
I made a joke: “What do they do, cut your head off?”
Everybody in the room went silent.
And the red alarm dot on the television began to flash.
“Oh, shit… the sarcasm detector,” said the host. “They heard him.”
“They? Who?” I asked.
The screen went black, and outside… the sound of an approaching helicopter.
Oh great. The Sarcasm Police. Just what I need.
The red dot on top of the television flashed brighter.
Typo
After years of failed negotiations, the Iranians suddenly agreed to comprehensive inspections in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions on their battered economy.
Diplomats patted themselves on the back and praised each other… until the press got a hold of the documents.
“This says IKEA, not IAEA!” shouted the Secretary General Of The United Nations. “Who the fuck screwed this one up?”
Everybody stared at the Swedish representative.
“Hey, those IKEA guys are smart,” he said. “Just look what they can do with some wood and Allen wrenches.”
“They can make coffins,” said the Israeli representative, dialing Tel Aviv.
Drugs Tomorrow
The more we learn about how the brain works, the better the drugs we’re making.
I’m not talking about curing mental illness or anxiety or brain tumors. I’m talking about the fun stuff.
Acid trips that never go bad.
Highs higher than the highest high.
Maybe it’ll be with pills. Or needles.
I’m betting on the direct route, using magnetic spin.
Quantum-level manipulation with room-temperature superconductors.
Put your head in the scanner, put your head in the cloud.
No more growing.
No more chemistry labs.
No more dealers.
No more gang wars.
Just make sure the outlet’s grounded this time.
Tunnels
The Downtown Tunnel system under Houston is full of stores, restaurants, barber shops, and places to get your errands done during lunch without having to go out in the rain.
It’s also handy for getting to the garage you parked at without getting harassed by homeless people.
Most people walking around the tunnels are business people, wearing suits or casual, or security guards. But now and then, you spot a beggar or bum.
I sit down at a table outside a restaurant and count.
One.
Two.
Three.
A guard walks up, guides the bum to a stairwell.
A new record.
Vicious Circle
Economists say that a feedback loop with detrimental results is a vicious circle, but all the circles I’ve ever known are nice circles.
Perhaps the economists are beating these circles as baby circles and making them grow up vicious?
You know, like how Pit Bulls are really friendly dogs that are great with kids, but got a bad reputation because they get raised to be vicious fighting dogs.
Rhombuses, on the other hand, are rotten little things no matter how you train them, but economists don’t like rhombuses, and circles are easier to deal with because you can roll them.