Bobby grew up in a place where there wasn’t enough of anything, so they had to make do what what they had.
Instead of sugar, they’d substitute honey.
Instead of milk, they substituted powered milk and water.
And chicken was a substitute for turkey on Thanksgiving.
The school was staffed entirely by substitute teachers. Not a single real teacher in the district.
Bobby raised his hand. “You’re not substitutes if you’re doing all the teaching for the year,” he said. “You’re the actual teacher.”
The teacher gave Bobby detention, and told him to be quiet and eat his turkey sandwich.
Category: My stories
Mixed Blessing
She’s always saying bad things happening, like lost keys or a chipped tooth, can turn out to be mixed blessings, but when you encounter the good and the bad so clearly, I don’t think the blessings have been mixed thoroughly.
She’s also bad with mixing oatmeal, and I hit dry patches of unmixed oats among the lumpy mush in my bowl.
If you chip a tooth on oatmeal and you’re told “Well, don’t think of it as a trip to the dentist, but think of it as a day off of work” that’s not a mixed blessing. That’s badly-mixed oatmeal.
Her Mother’s Eyes
She has her mother’s eyes.
Samsung Spectrals. A few generations old, sure, but they’re reliable. A classic.
Plus, the Zeiss optics are far superior for standard spectrum vision than the digital ones these days.
Too many artifacts. Too much smearing. Too many crashes. Too many new features to make up for poor design.
What good are polychromatic irises when you get headaches from the synchronization frequency?
The latest models use cheap structural resins warp and melt from elevated body heat.
If only her mother could see her today, achieving so much.
(Her eyes are in the shop again. Damn digitals.)
Marshmallow Town
Marshmallow Town is under martial law.
Campers with sticks, graham crackers, and chocolate bars are roaming the streets, abducting Marshmallowites and dragging them back to their campfires.
To impale them.
To hold them over the fire.
To stick them between the crackers with the chocolate and…
OH MY GOD! THE MARSHMALLOWITY!
Sadly, marshmallows can’t fight back, so they’re hired a brute squad from Butterville.
The butter brutes patrol the streets, looking for campers with sticks.
“Your sticks are no match for our unsaturated fats!” shout the butter brutes.
So the campers pull out their knives and warm them with lighters…
rhombus
once upon a time there was a rhombus named sam. he was a loud rhombus. He was a very loud rhombus. in fact, he was the loudest rhombus of all the rhombuses. but rhombuses don’t have any ears, so he didn’t know he was so loud. and all the other rhombuses didn’t know either. which is why nobody ever invites rhombuses to their parties because they’re so goddamned loud, and when you try to tell them to stop being so loud, they can’t hear you telling them to stop being so loud because they don’t have any ears. the end.
Rich
Some parents tell their children about the birds and the bees, but Richie Rich was taught about the bears and bulls.
This made for a troublesome learning curve when it came to dating.
Where others were making out in malt shops, movie theaters and Lookout Point, Richie had a hard time convincing any girls to play “Red Capes And Picnic Baskets.”
Until he started paying them to do it.
I mean, come on. The kid was loaded. He could by the finest ass available.
Instead of graduating from Wharton, Richie mastered Whoredom.
Cadbury the butler saw it all.
And wept.
Buffoon
I took my girl to the county fair
Winning games with such manly flair
She coveted a gigantic balloon
But instead, I got a big baboon
Despite all the ululation and wails
It picked out the bugs from her pigtails
A commotion resulted from all the fuss
Then it climbed up a pole and threw dung at us
I apologized, admitting defeat
We abandoned it out in the street
When I tried to play all the games again
They were rigged, there was no way I could win
I lost my girl at the county fair
As
If
You
Care
Triple
Vinnie Double Chin’s laid up in the hospital.
Another heart attack.
Which isn’t such a surprise, because he’s at least five hundred pounds and eats five times a day.
When they tried to sink him in the river, the cement truck ran out before they could make his shoes big enough to fit.
Doctor says he needs a triple bypass.
So what does he do?
He calls up Cousin Vito, tells them they can bury witnesses under the freeway they’re building in his chest!
I hope he makes it.
Because I don’t want to be a pallbearer lifting that coffin.
Ears
Our first four cats never cleaned each others ears.
They didn’t bond with each other.
Then, when Nardo was alone, the last cat standing, I found Bruwyn the kitten in the rain.
He bonded with Nardo, and tried to clean his ears.
Nardo freaked out, thinking it was an attack.
When we got Myst, she and Bruwyn cleaned each others ears.
And tried to groom Nardo’s.
Over time, he let them, and then would poke his head at them while they groomed themselves.
When he died, Bruwyn and Myst cleaned his ears, a final sign of respect to their mentor.
Whisper
“He’ll tell you when it’s time,” the vet had said.
After scrubbing so many sticky sprays of vomit out of the carpet and bedsheets, I kneel down and whisper into the old cat’s ear…
“Is it time?”
He gives no response. He doesn’t look up, ears back, eyes closed tighter, and I wait…
Slowly, he struggles to his feet.
Looking up, he meows. Twice.
Tail crookedly lifted high, he stumbles to the food bowl again.
Past the bottles of carpet stain remover.
The spat-out pills hidden in half-chewed treats.
I’m exhausted, and I feel guilty for wishing he’d say:
“Now.”