Burritos need to be wrapped like they’re about to be loaded into the back of a coroner’s wagon.
The rice needs to be so Spanish, when I walk into the restaurant, it puts me on the rack and makes me confess and convert.
The onions grilled to the point where they make themselves cry.
The refried beans need to be cooking for a decade in a pot that’s never been cleaned.
The kitchen needs to be an animal carcass horror show designed by Toby Hooper.
And when you stick in your fork, it bursts like the chef facehugged John Hurt.
Category: My stories
Blanketing
It’s 49 out.
So the heat is on.
I wear a blanket… I’ve got lots of blankets.
But none of the fucking things is Goldilocks JUST RIGHT.
Some too light.
Some too heavy.
Some too thick and warm.
Some have bad memories associated with them, but I can’t bring myself to donate them or give them away or throw them out.
So, I put on a thick warm blanket, and I’m too hot.
I turn on the fan, and it’s now blowing too hard on my face.
I’m cold. I’m hot. I’m tired.
I curl in a ball and cry.
Walk for exercise
I walk for exercise.
My Apple Watch tracks my distance and pace, and lets me know when I’ve walked for 45 minutes for the day.
I try for more than 60.
Then, I sprained my knee.
Siri kept pestering me about closing my activity rings.
In spite of my being crippled.
So, I turned off the notifications and got rid of the activity watchface.
Now, I have a timer watchface.
Fifteen minutes for putting on ice.
30 minutes to take off the ice and put the pack in the freezer.
Repeat those steps until I can do my walks again.
Boil water notice
There was a power outage at the water treatment plant.
The redundant transformers worked brilliantly… they both failed at the same time.
The pumps stopped, and the water pressure dropped for a few minutes.
It took a few hours for the city to issue a boil water warning text messages.
So, I boiled water and filled up some pitchers.
Drinking. Cooking. Brushing my teeth.
And I didn’t shower for two days.
When the notice finally came out to stop boiling water, I was boiling water for tea.
I stopped. I looked at my phone and sighed.
And took a shower.
The next locker over
Danny can’t write poetry.
It’s just words that rhyme. Like a six year-old would write.
So he asked one of those machines on the internet.
And it wrote poetry for him.
Good poetry. Not great, just good.
Good enough, because when he wrote it in the card he gave to the girl with the next locker over, she smiled, and she kissed his cheek.
He kept the internet machine on his phone.
And it told him the things to say, to write, and to do.
The cheerleader had the same thing on her phone.
To tell her how to respond.
George builds a fence
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He didn’t get along with the ship’s crew.
He thought them to be violent and uncultured, while they considered him a worthless bookworm.
George admitted that he liked books, but he didn’t think he was worthless.
After all, he’d learned a lot from all the books he’d read.
For instance, he learned that good fences make good neighbors from Robert Frost’s poetry.
So, he build a fence around his bunk.
Unfortunately, the only building material was the wood from the ship.
“George, why are we sinking?” asked the captain.
George jury duty
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He’d escaped from so many hopeless situations, but there was one he couldn’t get out of.
“Jury duty?” said George, reading the court summons.
George was pretty sure that he could get out of it, considering that piracy was felony enough to strip him of his voting rights.
So, George went down to the courthouse, read a magazine while waiting for the selection process, and stated clearly for the record that he was a pirate.
The prosecution, defense, and judge laughed.
George sighed, and wished he’d brought more magazines.
George the Brad
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
So, he changed his name to Brad.
“I’m Brad now,” said George… I mean Brad.
Brad was a pirate, but…
Well, does everything George did as George apply to Brad?
Can you wipe the slate and start again?
The captain decided to put this to the test.
“Brad, swab the deck,” he said.
Brad just stood there.
“SWAB THE DECK, BRAD!” shouted the captain. “BRAD! BRAD!”
“Why are you shouting at me?” asked Brad. “Oh. Wait. Right.”
George changed his name back to George, and he swabbed the deck.
George’s laser
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
After watching a movie where the hero had a laser on his gun to help him aim, George mounted a laser to his cutlass.
“It will help me aim,” said George.
“Why not mount it on your flintlock pistol?” asked the captain.
“I can fire it once, and then I have to reload,” said George. “In the time it takes me to reload, I can use my cutlass five or six times.”
George then wiggled the laser’s red dot on the deck, and the ship’s cat chased it around.
George goes to the dogs
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He’d shot sailors. He’s shot women and children.
He’d shot fellow pirates in the back.
(Although, if you shoot someone in the back, it’s kinda hard to call them “fellow.”)
But he could never shoot a dog.
He’d get this strange, faraway look on his face, almost sad, and he’d lower his gun arm.
Or he’d drop to a knee, pull some dog biscuits out of his pocket, and offer them to the dog.
The first mate thought this was peculiar, and he asked George why.
George shot him.