Why is it that reporters always look for skeletons in the closet?
You’d think politicians would have figured out by now to put their skeletons in the attic or the basement, or stick them in a rented storage unit.
Why not donate the skeleton to a school to teach anatomy?
Or a haunted house to scare people?
And why is it a skeleton in the closet? Whatever happened to the wolfman?
Can’t be a vampire. Coffins take up too much space. Unless it’s a walk-in closet.
How about a mummy?
At least a mummy can be kept under wraps, right?
Category: My stories
Circus Ballet
Attendance for the ballet is down.
Way down.
Attendance for the circus is also way down.
So, the ballet and the circus were merged into productions like Circe du Soleil.
But it also produced abominations like Elephant Lake.
What’s Elephant Lake?
Take Swan Lake, remove the swan, and fill the stage with elephants.
The Mouse King from Nutcracker showed up, and the elephants stampeded.
But that’s not the worst of it.
The second act has Russian dancing bears dressed up in tutus.
Ever tried to put a tutu and slippers on to a bear?
I’d rather be stampeded by elephants.
Bounty
Of all the gangsters in town, Vinnie The Finger was the meanest.
He’d put the finger on anyone at the drop of a hat, and he had a very small head, so the fan in his office was always blowing his hat off.
And that meant a lot of people got the finger.
The craziest was a grocer who sold Vinnie a salad he didn’t like, so Vinnie put a bounty on every head of lettuce he owned.
Thugs trashed the grocer’s produce section, and cut off an ear of corn as a warning not to mess with Vinnie anymore.
Alone with your thoughts…
Even though I spend a lot of time alone, I don’t feel lonely at all.
I like to be alone with my thoughts.
I think up my best ideas when there’s nobody interrupting me or trying to tell me everything they’re thinking.
I barely have room for all my own thoughts, let alone theirs.
So, I thank them for their thoughts, walk away, and spit them out in the toilet.
I check before flushing, just to make sure it’s their thoughts I spit out, and not mine.
I hope the toilet doesn’t back up again. I just cleaned the floor.
Mummy’s Curse
Despite what they tell you at the tavern, there is no Mummy’s Curse.
Maybe there’s the risk of exposure to deadly mold, but you just wore a breathing mask to avoid that particular hazard.
Simple.
The bodies are long dead, and their spirits have moved on.
Your only concern should be the authorities. They look unkindly upon grave robbers and have been known to torture then to death.
Thank goodness I found you.
I’ll just steal it from you, but contrary to popular wisdom, I do have honor.
You can cut through your bonds in an hour with your knife.
Forget
You.
I didn’t want to know
your name.
But when you asked for help,
I helped.
And all it took was
Just
One
Click.
There it was.
Right. There.
I told myself
“I won’t search it.”
But I did.
And all it took was
Just
One
Click.
Click.
Click.
I can’t unsee that.
I don’t want to know.
So, I took out a forgetting pill.
The ones that
Nasty people use
To do nasty things
But I use it
For good.
To forget.
And I swallowed it.
Just
One
Little
Pill
I won’t even remember
That I swallowed
It
Click
Lanterns
The adventurers met at the cave entrance at dawn, and everyone was carrying a large lantern.
The thief. The fighter. The dwarf. The priest.
The whole party standing around, lanterns in hand.
The wizard scratched his chin. “Did anyone bring a weapon?”
The paladin and the dwarf looked at each other. “Well, we talked about it being dark in there last night, right?”
The wizard nodded. “I have a light spell, you know.”
The thief pointed at the wizard’s lantern. “So what’s with that?”
The wizard shrugged.
Back in town, the lantern salesman laughed all the way to the moneychanger.
Swan Lake
My girlfriend said we’re going to Swan Lake on Friday night.
Good. It’s been a while since I’ve been hunting.
She’s always chewing me out for killing animals, making me do all these high-falootin society ballets and symphonies
She’s finally come around and seen things my way.
I packed my shotguns, ammo, gear, and other essentials into the truck and drove to her place to pick her up.
She was made up and dressed up all gorgeous.
“Honey, you look wonderful, but that’s gonna get all messed up at the lake,” I said.
Thank God I didn’t load the shotguns.
Friendly
Most customers are not unpleasant. They tell us what problem they’re having, we solve it, and they thank us.
Then there’s the ones who scream over and over, but don’t tell us anything helpful to investigate the issue.
They shout insults. They threaten legal action.
They scream every obscenity they know.
So, while on the phone, I looked at a screamer’s account and grabbed their address and credit card.
And emailed them to a Russian whose pornography and gambling site we’d recently suspended.
Mafia.
“Burn their house down,” I said. “And charge it to their card.”
They don’t scream anymore.
Apprentice
The old wizard coughed… checked the handkerchief.
Blood.
He called for his apprentice.
“Yes, master?” said the apprentice.
His apprentice had mastered every spell he’d been taught and learned it quickly.
He’d make a fine wizard.
“One more lesson,” said the wizard, taking down a glass flask from the shelf. “Magic Jar. Relax, and feel your life’s essence flow into it.”
The apprentice closed his eyes and breathed out into the jar.
And was still.
The wizard patted him on the back. “Well done. You’ll make a fine vessel.”
He placed his bloody lips on his apprentice’s… and breathed out…