I used to like spicy and hot foods.
Adding a bit of Tabasco to the ranch dressing dip for carrots and celery kicked things up
The problem is, spicy foods don’t like me anymore.
It doesn’t take much for me to blast out half of my intestinal tract in a disgusting, bloody, and smelly mess.
So, I started a food diary, and measured my reactions to various things.
Tabasco…gone.
Picante… gone.
Vietnamese pepper sauce… gone.
The refrigerator got emptier and emptier.
Pretty soon, it was just romaine lettuce, yogurt and cottage cheese.
I think I’ll go drink drain cleaner now.
Category: My stories
Pampered
I had two cats.
She had two cats.
When we got married, that made four.
They all lived happy lives.
One died.
Then another.
And so did a third.
Their ashes are in nice velvet bags on the shelf.
When the fourth finally died, he came back in a nice box, with his name stamped on a shiny metal plate.
My wife asked the pet cemetery staff if we could get the others their own boxes and names stamped on shiny metal plates.
You know. Upgrades.
Even after they’re dead, we still pamper and spend money on these little guys.
Skates
I met an ogre named Wilson.
We became friends.
I introduced him to my other friends.
They welcomed him into our circle of friends.
We went to the movies.
We went out for pizza.
We watched a baseball game.
But when we went roller-skating, they didn’t have any shoes Wilson’s size.
We took turns sitting with Wilson as he watched the others skate.
We tried to make roller-skates his size, and they fit great.
Wilson took a few steps…. and he fell on his ass.
We laughed.
Wilson didn’t. And he attacked the village.
Go get your pitchforks and torches.
Moonbeams
I invented something.
It’s in my workshop.
Want to see it?
Okay, but you have to promise that you won’t tell anyone about it.
Here it is.
What?
No, it’s not under the cloth… it’s the cloth!
See it shimmer and glitter?
It’s made of moonbeams.
I caught them on a bright moonlit night, and wove them into a cloth.
Well, not at first. I spun them into yarn and knitted them, but it just far was too coarse.
This cloth is a tight weave.
Of moonbeams.
That shimmer and glimmer.
And I invented it.
Me.
On a moonlit night.
The Unknown
I put down my repair kit and I place my finger on the scanner next to the door.
UNKNOWN
I wipe it with a cloth and try again.
UNKNOWN
“Is there something wrong with the scanner?” I ask the guard standing by the door.
He shrugs. “I just work here, man.”
“Can I show you my ID?” I ask the guard.
“Yes, but it won’t do any good,” said the guard. “I don’t know who can enter. And I can’t open the door, either.”
I try again.
UNKNOWN
Then, I realized: It was the scanner I’d been called to repair.
Thanksgiving Meat
Nobody in our family likes turkey, so for Thanksgiving we’ll roast different animals.
One year, we had giraffe. Plenty of neck meat to go around.
Then there was elephant, but it didn’t fit in the oven. Had to roast it on a spit and rig up a generator and motor to rotate it over the fire.
We had plenty of rattlesnake to go around. And everybody got a belt for Christmas, too.
Nobody wanted the jellyfish or slugs. Those years, we ran out of sweet potatoes and stuffing early.
This year, we’ll get a jump on shopping and do kangaroo.
Baskets
Mom told me not to put all my eggs in one basket, so I put then in two baskets, one hanging from each hand.
As I walked to the market, The Evil Basket Thief jumped from the bushes and blocked my path.
Oh crap. Not again.
“Ohhhh, what lovely baskets!” he chirped, rubbing his hands together. “I think I’ll take them both and add them to my collection!”
I sighed, put down one of the baskets, and drew my pistol.
“Uh oh,” said The Evil Basket Thief.
Dad told me not to put all my shots into the target’s midsection.
What A World
Long ago, while I was walking in Hoboken, Frank Sinatra came down the other way.
He walked up to a lamp post and tied a string to it.
Tugging on that string, he muttered “What a world!” before untying it and moving to the next post.
He did this for 30 minutes before a limousine caught up to him, and some guys in tuxedos helped him into the back.
When he died, I wondered if they tied that string to the inside of his coffin.
I dug up his grave, but it was empty.
(Perhaps he’s sitting on a rainbow?)
Brain
If I suffer some horrific tragic accident that reduces me to becoming just a brain in a jar, I want that jar to be a cookie jar.
Because, let’s face it: the kids these days are fat.
And there’s nothing that puts a kid off of between-meal snacks like reaching for a Chips Ahoy and coming up with a handful of grey matter.
But then again, kids don’t wash their hands, either. Disgusting, nasty creatures!
Pawing around my lobes, their booger-covered fingers scrambling my neurons… ewwwwww!
They’d reduce me to a drooling, blithering idiot.
(Unlike how I am now, right?)
The Bowl
We use a large wide clear glass bowl as a water bowl for the cats.
If I lay on the floor next to it, I can watch them drink, their tongues curling and flicking water into their mouths. Stopping, glancing at me over the side, recognition, ear twitching, wary.
And starting again, drinking, not looking at me at all.
Then, finished, a drip of water still on their chin, licked away, a head shake, turn to me, staring, an ear tilted back, then both, confused, ears forward, tail up, and walking away down the hall away away away and gone.