Category: My stories

Compass Rose

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My staff travels the globe, searching for plants to send back so I can add them to my garden.
Some years, they don’t find much. Other years, I can barely keep up with the acquisitions.
This past month, all I’ve received is a packet of seeds with the label “Compass Rose” on it.
No pH readings or sunlight profiles. Not even a soil sample.
My people know better. I can’t just plant blindly. Such fragile specimens they are, some don’t even survive shipping back to me.
I’ll plant them anyway. Neutral soil, light, and water. We’ll see what comes up.

A tribute to Don Knotts

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We have reached a stage of technological advancement that at any time, at least one television set on the planet is receiving signals in some way, shape or form that contain the image of Don Knotts. And from this moment forward, Don Knotts will appear on at least one screen or another somewhere, from now on until the end of civilization.
Every scientific achievement, every war and every armistice, every struggle against the impossible has led to this one monument to posterity: Don Knotts’ electronic immortality.
Perhaps we can learn something from this. Or, more likely, in spite of it.

It’s hard to be a pimp

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Sure, it’s hard these days to be a pimp, but not in the ways you’d think.
PETA keeps protesting my fur hats. Also, the fur hubcaps on my pimpmobile.
Ever since I pimped my ride, it gets lousy gas mileage. Gas ain’t cheap these days.
Every John wants to pay with PayPal. Or credit cards. My pimproll is just a bunch of receipts.
See these gold teeth? Do you know what it takes to keep them clean? Colgate doesn’t exactly make Grill Paste, you know.
On top of all this, I bet iTunes delists this pimpcast.
Shoulda been a doctor.

The Wacky Adventures Of Abraham Lincoln 54

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Lincoln and Abner Doubleday mixed like oil and water.
“I invented baseball!” shouted the Commander in Chief at the brigadier general as he pinned stars on his epaulets.
“It was I!” shouted Doubleday back at Lincoln. “You told the men to just swing a stick around. I told them to swing it at a leather ball.”
“Fine,” said Lincoln.
Two years later, Lincoln penned his Gettysburg Address on the back of an envelope.
“Did that bastard Doubleday survive?” he asked.
“Yes, Mister President,” said an assistant.
‘Damnation and hellfire!” shouted Lincoln. “What will it take to rid me of Abner?”

Fish Tale

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I design the costumes for a big movie studio’s theme park.
When a movie comes out, I turn the characters into live-action performers, walking around and posing for photos.
Pirates, cats, dogs, mice… I’ve made them all.
Ever since I heard a fish movie was in the works, I lost sleep.
How do you dress like a fish?
I finally came up with an idea: the performer’s head is in a fish-shaped mask. His body is a pedestal, holding up the fishbowl his head is in.
The guy put it on. It worked.
Until he filled the bowl with water.

Arby’s lies?

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So I’m watching television and this commercial comes on for Arby’s. It’s got Hulk Hogan’s voice, but some kind of pipsqueak as a body double.
Anyway, the commercial is for their chicken sandwiches, and the big thing they’re hyping is the fact that they are now 100% real chicken.
Well, if it’s 100% real chicken now, what the fuck was it made out of before? Beavers? Particle board? Yarn wrapped around tungsten ingots? WHAT????
Instead of selling me on their new product, they have me questioning their other products.
Is it real cheddar in the beef and cheddar?
We’ll see.

Autochef

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Do you like to eat? I do, and there’s nothing quite like the joy of having an Autochef.
Self-cleaning.
Adaptive hypermenu technologies.
Self-sharpening knives.
Automated inventory control and ingredients ordering.
What’s not to like? I’ve had mine for a month, and it’s been absolutely amazing. I eat like a king, and yet thanks to Portion Control and the Dietary Module, I haven’t gained a pound.
It’s not perfect, though. The other night, some joker put a “Kiss The Chef” apron on the Autochef. I was drunk enough to do it, and they had to restart my heart after the shock.

Hold On

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All you have to do is hold on for eight lousy seconds.
I, on the other hand, have to wear this crazy-assed crap and save your butt if you don’t.
Some bulls wear themselves out and stop. Not yours.
The chute opens, and seven hundred hamburgers wrapped in bull skin and horns tries to toss you into next week.
I might catch you. And then, I might not. I might just catch the horns instead.
My mother wanted me to be a doctor. Instead, I’m a lousy rodeo clown, and we’ll both need one soon if this bull doesn’t stop.

Zorro

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Every society has its zorro, a man who rises up and fights for the people.
In Zambia, he is known as Paktuku, Defender of the Wells, and he is armed with a golden spear.
In Estonia, he is Gabt, a mighty one-armed woodsman with a gnarled axehandle.
In Paraguay, the zorro has no name that is spoken aloud, but the people hint of “He who glides like a feather.”
But compared to all the other zorros of the world, I like the sissy in the black cloak and sword the best. Maybe it’s the big black horse he rides around.

Diamonds are not a girls’ best friend

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It was Tina’s first time.
The deal was simple: she’d swallow the bag of diamonds, fly to Rome, and then she’d crap them out.
It would have been the easiest ten thousand dollars she ever made. What could possibly go wrong?
When she landed, Customs waved her through.
They were waiting for her. Tossed her in a car and drove for a few hours until they got to the villa.
“Change of plans.”
They shot her, cut her open, pulled out the diamonds, and buried the rest.
They used to harvest and sell the organs. Too much of a hassle.