After my wife’s death, I was cleaning the kitchen cabinets in my Chicago apartment, I came across a small container of bouillon cubes.
The label said they were 18 years old.
This means they’re old enough to get a driver’s license, even though they probably wouldn’t pass the driving or vision tests.
And, being eighteen, they could also serve in the military, but I don’t think the military is openly recruiting potentially toxic substances.
But they could register to vote, as long as they register as a Democrat.
Right after they register my dead wife to vote, too.
Ah, Chicago.
Category: My stories
Diction
September 19 is International Talk Like A Pirate Day.
All across the world, people say things like “Yarrrrr!” and “Avast, ye scurvy dogs!” and “Me hearties!” and silly pirate-speak phrases like that.
Especially to pirates they meet on that day.
Pirates don’t find this amusing.
It’s like walking up to someone from Australia and saying “Throw another shrimp on the Barbie!”
So when a pirate draws his cutlass and shouts “I’ll have ye guts fer garters!” the proper response is not to applaud at their impressive diction, but to run like hell.
Although, to be honest, pirates rarely wear garters.
Power of prayer
I knelt down by the bed and barely had said “Dear Lord” before I heard a loud booming voice shout:
WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT NOW?
“God?” I whispered.
I SAID WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT NOW?
“I just wanted to say thanks, and I look forward to tomorrow,” I said.
BULLSHIT.
“Seriously, I’m cool,” I said.
WELL, HERE’S A FUCKIN BICYCLE SOME KID KEEPS ASKING FOR, BUT THE KID’S AN ASSHOLE, SO FUCK HIM.
And a bicycle appeared on my bed.
“Amen?” I said.
DAMN STRAIGHT.
It was kid-sized. Useless to me.
I donated it to charity.
Three Strikes You’re Dead
I took you out to the ballgame and bought peanuts and Cracker Jack.
“Are you sure about this?” I asked. “You know what peanuts do to you.”
You didn’t even look up from your program. “I left the Epipen at home. I don’t care if I ever get back.”
So, I handed you the peanuts.
The announcer asked everyone to please rise for the national anthem, but I could tell from your blue skin and the foam at the corner of your mouth that the convulsions weren’t far off.
After the third, I felt your wrist. No pulse.
“PLAY BALL!”
The Lame Of Thrones
I hear a lot of hype regarding this Game Of Thrones television show, but I don’t have much interest in it.
I mean, how many games can you play with thrones, anyway?
The first one that comes to mind is Musical Thrones.
(It’s like Musical Chairs, but with thrones.)
I can’t see how much fun that would be.
I mean, the king sits in his throne, the queen sits in hers. They win.
And if anybody else tries to sit in their thrones, they get their head cut off.
If I want to watch people getting beheaded, I’ll watch Al-Jazeerah.
Meet the Neighbors
My wife and I tend to keep to ourselves when we’re not working, so we don’t really know the neighbors in our apartment complex all that well.
Sometimes, we hear them late at night, playing the guitar. Or shouting.
So, it was a relief when we saw some guys emptying out the apartment next door into a truck.
“Moving out?” I asked.
“Yup,” said a guy.
The next day, the doorbell rang.
It was the police.
“Moving out? Those were guys robbing the place. Don’t you know your neighbors?”
An angry couple stood behind them.
I waved. “Now I do.”
Irony Rocks
The arts and crafts store sells stones engraved with words:
Welcome
Hope
Love
They’re meant to be placed in gardens.
But I like to put them in a sack, wait until midnight, and hurl them through noisy and rude neighbors’ windows.
The house full of fratboys, cranking their speakers every goddamned night.
The paperboy who comes around every week trying to sell me a subscription that I don’t want.
The jerks who never mow their lawn.
The ones with the dog that shits in my yard.
And, of course, my own window.
(So they don’t think it’s me doing it.)
A Series Of Dogs
George Carlin once said that life is a series of dogs.
The dogs you owned, one after another.
For me, life has been a series of cats.
One, two… One time, four of them at once. Now just two.
They were all unique. Different. Special.
How they went, sudden or slow, each its own unique sadness.
Laying in bed, almost asleep, I hear the familiar sound of him leaping to the bed, walking along the blanket, laying down against my side.
Nothing. He is gone. And my mind thinks I still need him there.
Haunting myself for comfort’s sake.
False Witness
The Famous Reverend Blake is never seen in public without his twin bodyguards.
And his bodyguards are never seen without their white plastic masks.
Well, sometimes, they are. When they take their turn as Reverend Blake.
They’re actually identical triplets, changing roles when convenient.
This is useful for Blake’s “24 Hours Of Jesus” marathon sermons.
Or, during his weekly sermons at his sprawling megachurch, an alibi for his perverted obsessions in the day care center.
Twenty thousand loyal followers saw Blake up there preaching.
There’s no way he could have been down there.
Bearing false witness is a sin, child.
Fuss
It was another quiet day at the library, right?
Wrong.
An old couple burst in through the front door, fussing and arguing with each other loudly.
Then, the old woman grabbed the gigantic dictionary off of the reference desk, opened it to the last page, and RIPPPPPPPPPPPP! tore it out.
Sticking it in her purse, she repeated this with all the other dictionaries, and then stormed out of the building.
The old man stuck some cash into my hand.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Here’s some money for the damage.”
“Why?” I asked.
“She always insists on having the last word.”