On the way to work, I walk through the park next to the courthouse.
Down the steps, into a maintenance area under a bridge where a small cat colony lives.
There’s a calico, a tortie, an orange and white.
And two black cats.
I call them the wild baby panthers.
I carry cat treats in my work bag, and I leave a pile or two when I walk by on the way to work.
And the way home.
I know they’ll never trust me, or rub against my leg, purring or meowing.
That’s fine by me. To give is enough.
Category: My stories
For Ants
When people say to spray for ants
I’d rather that they pray for ants
I think ants are really neat
So I kneel down and bless their feet
I tell the ants to bow their heads
And then my mom gives me my meds
They make the voices go away
Which tell me when I ought to pray
I sleep and dream of Lord Apshai
Who rules all ants from upon high
He then demands a sacrifice
I look around for something nice
And that’s why I burned all my pants
Burnt offerings to the god of the ants.
Amen.
Joe
Thank God Joe was wearing his safety helmet.
Some jackass at the site dropped a brick from ten stories up.
Instead of killing Joe, it just knocked him silly. Spent a week in the hospital.
He’s fine, except that he’s now got this imaginary friend he calls Luthor.
To Joe, Luthor’s real, and he gets really mad when you try to tell him otherwise.
Or point out that Luthor can’t hold a welding torch or the other end of a safety line.
Joe’s on permanent disability now.
But, we hired Luthor.
Guy never complains, and he never cashes his checks.
The Missing Site
When other people can’t reach their sites, they freak out and panic like it’s the end of the world. Me, I don’t worry so much. I figure that the server deserves a break every once in awhile. Let the poor thing get some rest now and then. Plus, I’ve got backups, so in a worst-case scenario, I can always start fresh and reload all of the site data. Here… let me show you… the backups are… they’re… wait a minute… and… The backups folder is empty? Maybe they got saved somewhere else… I mean… they were just here… Oh shit.
Too Ugly
Folks still ask me what it was like working with Marvin Zindler.
There was a piano in Studio B, and when things were slow and Marvin had checked his stocks enough, or he’d had his daily fight with the News Manager, he’d sit down and play.
I’d listen and enjoy.
“Simon,” he said, smiling Texas-wide, twinkling eyes behind blue lenses, never missing a key, “we’re bigger whores than the ones at the Chicken Ranch. They just got themselves prettier makeup.”
You know, early in his career, he got told he was too ugly for television.
These days, nothing’s too ugly.
Relax
Remembering what my therapist told me to do in times of stress, I close my eyes and try to relax.
“Think positively,” she’d say. “Count your blessings and that will put things into perspective.”
So, I think of my wonderful wife, my great kids, the beautiful house we’ve got paid off, the thriving business I’ve built from the ground up…
Ground?
Up?
I open my eyes, and I see the ground is still there, approaching just as rapidly as it was before I spaced out with the happy-sappy stuff.
I tug on the cord for the reserve chute again, harder.
The Four Best Words
It’s been a while since we talked.
So, we talked. Caught up.
It’s rough out there. I know.
And then you say: “He’s wonderful to me.”
I think of all the things going on in my life, all the bullshit and frustration and worries and… and…
It’s nothing. Just knowing there’s someone there, treating you so well, being so good to you.
Well, I can feel all that stuff just wash away.
I know it’s not really gone. It’s all still there.
But just hearing those four words, knowing that…
We’ll catch up again soon.
I look forward to it.
Stone
Remember the story of Stone Soup?
A traveling beggar puts a big stone in a cauldron, adds well water, and hoodwinks the whole village into bringing vegetables and meat for a communal soup feast.
The beggar kept this scam going until one day, he woke up to find the cauldron missing.
He managed to scrape up cauldrons for the soup in the next few villages, but his luck ran out eventually.
“Okay, you don’t have a cauldron for soup,” he said. “We can make a big stone sandwich instead.”
Three cracked teeth later, angry villagers brained him with the stone.
The Oldest Trick In The Book
Every time my neighbor Stan says “That’s the oldest trick in the book!” I ask him “Which book?”
“Well, it’s just an expression!” Stan says. “Don’t be so literal!”
As a collector of books, I own many volumes of tricks, and the oldest trick in the oldest book involves magically turning a person into a frog.
Sadly, the first page is missing from that oldest volume, so there may be an even earlier trick, but it’s lost to history.
I show the book to Stan. “See,” I say. “This is the oldest trick.”
“Ribbit,” says Stan, and he hops away.
Caesar
Caesar approaches The Roman Senate.
Cimber presents him with a petition, but he slaps it away.
Cimber growls and rips the dictator’s tunic.
Caesar stares, muscles rippling.
A mighty fist lashes out, Cimber goes sprawling.
Casca pulls a knife. The Senate gasps as he raises it.
Caesar kicks! The knife flies away. Then with a roundhouse kick, Casca follows.
“GET HIM!” shouts Brutus, and they all attack.
One by one, Caesar kicks, punches, and chops his way through the Senate, defeating them all.
“CUT!” shouts the director.
He calls the producer. “I think we made a mistake casting Chuck Norris.”