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.
Category: My stories
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.”
Atlas
A pair of philosophers in shabby togas sat across from each other in the marketplace.
One claimed that Atlas the Titan held up the weight of the sky to keep it from crushing the world.
The other claimed that Atlas held on to the sky to keep it from floating away into oblivion.
“That’s just… weird,” said the first philosopher. “Everybody knows that Atlas holds up the sky.”
“Have you seen him?” said the second philosopher. “Have you seen him yourself?”
“Have you?” the first philosopher snapped back.
They lapsed back into silence, looked up, and watched clouds float overhead.
Harvest Moon
Looking at my calendar, I see that today is marked “Harvest Moon.”
So, we’ll build a fleet of gigantic rocketships, and we’ll fly to the moon.
Once we get there, we’ll set up a mining colony and extract all the minerals and isotopes from the moon.
Then, we’ll use the moon to build a spaceport from which we can launch a wave of missions to explore the solar system.
Fantastically rich, we’ll spent the rest of our days in zero-gravity luxury.
Sure, I take things too literally sometimes, but what’s Life without taking chances?
Now let’s go build those rocketships!
The Dog Days
The Ancients believed that the rise of Sirius, the dog star, would add to the summer’s heat, thus producing The Dog Days Of Summer.
Stars are too far away to influence the temperature of our world, but the flame-cannons The Crab People Of Canis Major sure raised the heat in cities their invasion forces burned to the ground.
Why they invaded and how we defeated them, I have no clue. That was many years ago, and the grandchildren of the grandchildren of those heroes tell the wildest tales as we sit around the pot, boiling blue crabs in their memory.
Fireworks
The kids found some leftover fireworks in the shed.
They’re leftover from July… or maybe New Year’s.
I guess you use white for New Year’s, red white and blue for July.
Both scare the crap out of the cows and horses and chickens.
The labels say “ADULT SUPERVISION REQUIRED” on them, so they got Billy Williams.
He’s the retarded farmhand from the Baker farm. Acts like he’s twelve, but he’s an adult, right?
The fields lit up quickly, the fires sweeping across houses and barns, leaping across roads.
The school, the church, the market: all gone.
They will inherit ashes.
Defending Soup
If you find yourself facing an opponent with nothing to defend yourself with but a can of soup:
Step one: Remove a sock
Step two: Place can of soup in sock
Step three: Swing sock at opponent
Step four: Repeat until your opponent surrenders or succumbs
If your opponent doesn’t surrender or succumb, you may be swinging the wrong end of the sock. Adjust your hold so the heavy soup-end is swinging.
Once your opponent surrenders or succumbs, you can celebrate your victory with a nice hot bowl of soup.
(Place sock on hand for dining companion, Socky The Sockpuppet.)
Trail
We lift our backpacks, feel the weight shift on our backs, and head out on the trail.
But instead of birdsong, we are greeted with stump-speeches.
Instead of slapping away mosquito, we slap away pollsters.
And where we once pushed back branches, we dodge the fliers thrust out at us by candidates.
Lobbyists rush past us, handing out wads of cash.
I check my GPS and realize we’ve wandered off the hiking trail and on to a campaign trail.
It begins to rain, so we run for shelter.
Lobbyists assume we’re running for office, and chase us with the money.
Wrestling with your conscience
From the look on your face, I can tell that you’re wrestling with your conscience, right?
Me, I wrestle with my conscience out in the open. Usually somewhere outdoors with plenty of room, nothing breakable around.
Once, I dated a woman who’d wrestle her conscience in a Jello Pit while wearing a bikini.
(She tried mud once. Things just got messy.)
She made a lot of money from doing that act at bars looking to bring in a crowd.
Then came a big television deal with ESPN, left me for some Hollywood dude.
And that’s when her conscience completely vanished.
The Radio
There’s something special about our song playing on the radio.
Sure, we have a record of it.
A tape of it.
A CD of it.
It’s on both of our iPods, iPhones and laptops.
But it’s not the same as it playing on the radio.
Chance. Serendipity.
It is luck or is it fate?
I don’t know, but I do know it means something.
I pick up the radio, go into the bathroom, and say “They’re playing our song.”
You look up from the tub. “What the hell do I care?”
I nod, and toss the radio into the tub.