Category: My stories

My washing machine makes a lot of noise.
The repair guy came by and said that it’s unbalanced.
He gave me an estimate of two hundred dollars, but I told him to go away.
I can fix it myself.
You see, my therapist said I was unbalanced.
And he prescribed some pills, yoga, and meditation.
They work for me, so they should work for the machine.
I put the machine on a yoga mat.
And toss in some of my anti-anxiety pills.
It didn’t work.
Why?
I didn’t take it to my therapist.
Sadly, he doesn’t make house calls.

Looking back at the talent and the box office returns, one can easily say that the wrong Belushi died.
John Belushi was a force of nature, producing cult classic after classic.
And his final two films, while not smash hits or cult classics, still brought in money.
James, on the other hand, started awful and took a nosedive from there, ending John Hughes directorial career along the way.
His sitcom was unwatchable, filling a timeslot until something better came along.
Jim retired to run a cannabis farm a few years ago.
For all our sakes, let’s hope he stays there.

The Build-a-Bear store in the Galleria is right across from the Cheesecake Factory.
But they won’t let you stuff the bear with cheesecake.
No matter how much of their overpriced wine you’ve had with your overpriced, unhealthy dinner.
The same goes with their overpriced Thanksgiving plate.
Made for people with too much money and not enough family or friends.
You can’t stuff the stuffing into a bear either.
Not that you’d have anyone to give it to, if you’re eating Thanksgiving at a restaurant.
Except yourself, hugging your pathetic stuffing-stuffed bear.
Cranberry sauce and gravy leaking out of the eyeholes.

I buy a lot of gadgets and crap.
It all ends up in the closet.
Lots of keyboards and headsets.
And cords and plugs to things I can’t remember.
They used to go into the trash.
But I got all green and put them in the e-waste bins at Best Buy.
Thing is, I wondered if they’d end up reselling the junk on eBay. Or the shelves.
So, I took it all to Goodwill for a writeoff.
To benefit all the homeless gamers needing keyboards and headsets and cords.
With 5G, they can get good ping times for deathmatches, right?

The team’s plane crashed two miles from the airport.
Among the dead: players, coaches, boosters, faculty, and the flight crew.
And six unknown passengers.
For years, investigators tried to figure out who those six were.
Checking missing persons reports, looking through paperwork.
Looking for any personal belongings.
But no family came forward for any of them, nobody came looking.
Later, as technology advanced, DNA evidence still didn’t solve the mystery.
The six dead hookers, hired by the boosters for the players, going seat to seat, blowing the players, would remain nameless.
The ultimate sacrifice, literally going down for the cause.

The Adams Family was a lot more like the Addams Family, the scandal of Braintree.
“It’s a miracle that the country voted you Vice President,” said General Washington, shaking a sheaf of papers at John Adams. “But you will ever become president with this hanging over your head.”
John drew up plans to split off his homestead from Braintree and name it Quincy.
“And then I can lose the police records in an accident,” he said, grabbing the papers from the General.
“What about the rumor-mongers?” said Washington.
Adams quieted them with a few troops borrowed during the Whiskey Rebellion.

Aaron was my brother’s friend, and he had a pet cat named Cleo.
Aaron came over a lot, and his cat would follow him,
My dog barked at the cat through the window or the fence.
Aaron’s house had thick shrubbery with spiders in it.
He called them his pets.
One day, Aaron came over, but Cleo didn’t.
Cleo had died from a spider bite.
His parents tore out the shrubbery. No more spiders.
Except for one that Aaron kept in a jar.
He said some night he’d release it in my room.
I kept my window closed. And locked.

Legend has it that the world was created by The Great Eagle.
Local tribes argue constantly about how exactly it created the world. Often with spears.
Some tribes say it laid an egg, from which the world hatched.
Others say that molted feathers landed in the ground to become trees, its mighty wings flapping to become the wind.
But eagles don’t flap all that much, they soar.
The most popular belief is that The Great Eagle took a large smelly crap, and that’s the world.
Based on how things are going these days, I can see how that’s become popular.

Those who were alive for it say the Olympic Stadium was the most magnificent sight in the world.
The lights, the athletes in their colors.
The music and sounds and cheers and the cannons roaring.
And the flags, so many flags from around the world.
The flag of the regime flew highest of all.
Over time, the athletes became soldiers. Then martyrs.
The stadium, a parade ground.
Then an execution ground.
Where I kneel now, our champion sprinter stood to receive his medal.
I hear the soldier cock his gun and feel the barrel against the back of my head.

I used to go to a summer camp.
Which was really just a community camp at a nearby grade school.
Swimming… field games… listening to old records.
Boring shit.
The end of the summer camp was a watermelon hunt, with clues all over the schoolgrounds.
Kids running from place to place, all ending up at the softball diamond or the flagpole.
Me, I didn’t give a crap, because I hated watermelon.
I’d shout out the dumbest and wrongest answers to the clues.
I ended up tied to the flagpole.
As long as I didn’t have to eat that rancid watermelon.