Politicians are often described as sticking their finger into the wind, but then there’s Senator Hardcastle, who has ordered her staff to lug around an entire weather station.
You might think she’d read the paper or watch the news for the weather forecast, but the news hasn’t been kind to the senator.
They say horrible things about her personal spending.
So, she doesn’t read. Or watch.
And she’s ordered her staff not to read or watch, either.
Instead, they lug around the weather station.
What’s the humidity, she asks. Is it too damp? My hair must be perfect, you know.
Category: My stories
Horse
Growing up, I didn’t have a basketball hoop and backboard over the garage.
It wouldn’t have made sense. The driveway was at a 15 degree angle.
Instead, several of our neighbors had them, including one on a pole in the cul-de-sac our driveway connected to.
It didn’t matter, though. I sucked at basketball.
Even without the dribbling, I lost enough times at Horse to provide mounts for all of Genghis and Kublai Khan’s armies.
So, how did I get that varsity letter in basketball?
It’s for women’s basketball. My high school girlfriend.
She left it to me in her will.
Only So Much
There’s only so much red laser pointer games or ribbon on a stick teasing you can do with your cat.
Sometimes, when I’m really bored, I’ll slip my cell phone under a sleeping cat and then call it with another phone.
Most cats jump up startled, but we had this one cat who would just twitch his ear once and ignore the thing.
It didn’t matter what ringtone was set up, or if I’d set it on vibrate mode. He’d just twitch his ear and ignore it.
We figured he was smart enough to realize the call wasn’t for him.
The Justice Machines
Before the invention of the justice machines, people had to use lawyers, juries, and judges to determine guilt or innocence. It was messy and unreliable.
Now, all you have to do is stand in a booth and wait for the machine to turn on a light.
Green if you’re innocent, and the doors open.
Red if you’re guilty, and the doors remain shut and sealed so the poison gas won’t leak out.
This wasn’t perfect either, so newer models don’t have the lights.
Too many guilty criminals were damaging the machines trying to escape when they saw the red light.
What’s the deal with the Cookie Monster?
Sometimes, I wonder about the Cookie Monster.
Why does he talk that way?
And why is he obsessed with cookies?
I did a little research, and found out that he was a foreign exchange student, but the file didn’t say where he was from.
Only that he’d never left.
He keeps saying C is for Cookie, but his permanent record says he got caught sleeping with the home economics teacher in an attempt to get that upped to an A minus.
As for his English grades, there’s no amount of fur that blue furball could shag to keep from flunking.
The Uncharmed Life
The townsfolk spread rumors about Mercy Polk and her use of magic charms, potions, and wands in unusual rituals.
She was arrested and dragged before the town magistrate, and ordered to demonstrate her supposed magic powers.
She dipped her finger into a bowl of water, and turned it into wine.
“What is that in your other hand?” asked the magistrate.
“A stone!” shouted the bailiff. “The rumors are true! She has no powers whatsoever!”
The magistrate found her guilty and sentenced her to exile in Boston.
(And kept the stone for himself, since good wine is so hard to find.)
The Only Truly Innocent
Once a year, I get called up for jury duty, and I always get tossed because the defense and state agree I’m a whack-job who thinks for himself.
The judge calls it “Talk And Walk.”
And, boy, can I talk.
I used to celebrate my freedom by heading to Cabo’s bar and grill for a margarita and a fish taco, but Cabo’s closed down last year.
And sitting six hours on a hard bench really hurt my back.
I limp to the park, put down a pile of treats, and watch the feral cats eat.
The only truly innocent Downtown.
The Ghost Shouter
I don’t watch much television these days, but there’s this show I used to like called “The Ghost Whisperer.”
Some chick with big tits sees ghosts, talks to them, resolves their issues, and convinces them to head off into the light so they can move on.
If the producers were really serious about getting ghosts to move on, they could have gone with Gilbert Gottfried, though.
Anybody who talks to him for more than a minute, ghost or not, would be running for the light regardless of how fucked up their shit was or any leftover business here on earth.
Loathing
Every morning when I wake up, I look in the mirror and I don’t like what I see there.
So, to save time and effort, I just signed a contract to outsource all of my self-loathing to India. The entire city of Mumbai now despises me for me.
They send me a daily report through email, with the occasional critical updates via text message to my phone.
This frees me up to focus on loathing everybody and everything else.
I’d outsource my self-righteousness to them, too, but they can’t possibly do as good a job at it as I can!
When I’m dead
I can’t decide.
Do I want to be buried and get a tombstone with “THIS SIDE UP” engraved on the bottom?
Do I want to be cremated with dozens of firecrackers shoved up my ass?
Do I want my lifeless corpse tossed to the carnivorous animals at the zoo?
I came up with a list of all kinds of interesting things I’d want done to my corpse.
Then, I had myself cloned.
Not so I can live on, mind you. What’s the point of that?
It’s so I can have all of these things done to me after I’m dead!