I’m going back to college.
After years of shit menial jobs, it was time I went back.
They’d been asking me for a while now, but my pride kept getting in the way.
You see, I was a football hero. Set school records and all.
Then, in the Rose Bowl, trashed my knees scoring the winning touchdown.
No pro career.
No diploma.
No future at all.
There were medical bills, lawyer bills.
When all was said and done, I pushed mops and brooms and stayed drunk.
Now, I’m goin back to college.
Classes? No dice.
To be a janitor there.
Category: My stories
Curiosity
Curiosity killed the cat.
Then, Curiosity killed the dog.
Next came the goldfish. Curiosity put those in a blender and hit the big red button.
After that mess was flushed, Curiosity went outside with an air rifle and started shooting birds off the telephone wires.
She ran out of ammo right around the time we got home.
“Check on the babysitter,” I told my wife.
She went inside, found her tied up in a chair, and checked for a pulse.
“Weak, but it’s there,” she said.
Still alive?
Strange. Usually, Curiosity kills them.
I scolded her: “You’re getting sloppy, kid.”
Saving Throw
We’re having a fundraiser at work for the American Heart Association.
Make your own Ice Cream Sundaes.
Ice cream for heart research, right?
Makes as much sense as candy bars for Diabetes or strobe lights for Epilepsy.
I’m on a diet and can’t eat ice cream. But I love it so much.
So delicious.
So tempting.
NO! I cannot do this!
I must not give in! Stay strong!
I must make my saving throw against ice cream.
Work… work… work… do not think about the ice cream… work… work…
Then, I realize it’s time to go home.
Saving throw made.
Glass Beads
When you’re done working a glass bead in the torch, you can’t just drop it in a cooling blanket.
You need to cool it slowly so it doesn’t cool too quickly.
If the bead cools too quickly, it’ll break as it cools or weaken it so it will eventually break from stress fractures.
You need to cool it gradually to relieve those stresses.
That is why we must anneal it in the kiln.
It’s kinda like life, really. Taking time to cool down properly.
Now put down that knife and get off the ledge slowly, please. You’re making a scene.
The Lantern
Biff was into The Green Lantern.
Really into it.
Wore green underwear, a green shirt and a green cape.
His older brother Joe laughed at him as he ran around, pointing his ring at everything… the dishes… the cat’s litterbox…
“The Green Lantern doesn’t have a cape, retard.”
Then he’d grab Biff and yank his underwear up.
Biff would run to his room, crying.
Then, he’d sit on the roof outside his window and wishing… wishing…
One morning, he was helping an old lady cross the street, when a speeding cab ran them down…
Yep. A Yellow Cab.
Poor Biff.
Adrenalin Junkie
Bob’s an adrenalin junkie, but he’s also a lily-livered coward.
Unlike other adrenalin junkies who seek out extreme sports like skydiving and rock climbing and scuba diving, he’s barely able to make it out of bed without going all freako and diving below the covers again.
So, to get his adrenalin rush, he has it shipped to him.
Then, when he’s finally able to get out of bed and sign for the package, he scurries back to his bedroom and opens the box.
And then, staring at the contents, he dives back under the covers.
(Bob’s afraid of needles, too.)
Opulent
The bus station was opulent compared to this alley.
Yes, I use the word opulent to compare one hellhole to another.
Not the sort of word you expect from a common street bum?
I guess that means I’m no common street bum.
My journey from Saville Row to Skid Row is a sad tale, for certain, but pride and the length of that stop light prevent me from saying much more.
As a public service, I’ve scrubbed your windshield clean, and I ask nothing more than your thanks, but if your gratitude compels you, perhaps-
WELL FUCK YOU TOO, BUDDY!
The Dormant Clown
Dr. Potts released The Clown Virus last week.
Most people died mid-transformation, horrible grins on their pale faces.
But some survived, and now they roam the streets looking for the few remaining bottles of seltzer water, red rubber noses, and joy-buzzers.
A kind of social hierarchy has developed: The floppier and bigger the shoes, the more powerful the clown chieftain.
Then there’s the rare unexpressed carriers like me.
Potts had developed what he thought was an antidote foam, but it’s no cure. It just keeps the virus dormant.
I spray it into the pie-tin, and smack myself in the face.
Spotlight
Jim was the finest actor I ever saw.
Guy was brilliant. Could do any role at a moment’s notice.
If he didn’t already know the script by heart, you could hand it to him, he’d flip through the pages, and was ready.
The problem was, he didn’t like the spotlight.
No, I’m not talking about the attention and fame and all that stuff.
He literally didn’t like the spotlight.
He and the lighting director fought all the time about it, and it took a clever arrangement of houselights to light the stage.
He also wore a lot of white suits.
Flash
When you build artificial intelligence on a supercomputer using fiber-optic and photonic processing, you can literally watch the flashes of genius sparkle across the backplane.
It’s different than the standard green and red lights of the legacy tech router rooms.
Here, you can feel glittering and shimmering ideas all around you, penetrating the darkness like diamonds poured across black velvet.
It’s even cooler when you’ve smoked some weed.
Wow… awesome…
I sit here in the datacenter, stoned out of my mind, surrounded by the waves of light.
The pattern shifts for a moment.
Then, my terminal flashes.
“DUDE. CONTACT BUZZ.”