Category: My stories

My previous job would send employees on a two week trip to Hawaii after ten years of service.
When I got to nine and a half years of service, I quit.
You see, I hate long plane rides.
I also hate long vacations.
And I’m allergic to weird foods, such as poi.
They offered to fly me anywhere, but there really isn’t anywhere I’d want to go.
I asked if they’d pay for some tickets to Astros games, but they said they’d get back to me.
But shortly after that conversation, I quit.
They still haven’t gotten back to me.

Brittany was a wedding planner for dogs.
Crazy dog owners would get their dogs hitched with other dogs, and she’d plan out the party, get the guests invited (and their owners), and hired the caterers.
The flower girl would throw around flowers, the happy couple came in, and the preacher would say a bunch of stuff before asking if anyone had any objections…
That’s when I shout out “WHAT THE FUCK? IT’S A FUCKING WEDDING FOR DOGS!”
Brittany said I was a bigot, a hater. A goddamned Nazi.
How the hell was I to know they were two boy dogs?

In his will, Freddy hated to waste anything.
He said he didn’t want to waste a good suit and nice shoes.
Or any wood or metal for the coffin.
And all those chemicals they’d pump into him, didn’t they waste enough of them trying to save him in the hospital?
Wrapping him in a sheet and burying him, that would be a waste of land and the stone to mark it.
So they filled his body with explosives and dropped him on a mosque in Gaza.
That was preaching hate around the clock, and training gunmen, suicide bombers, and kidnappers.

I see advertisements for Cruella all over the place.
They’re fucking obnoxious and ugly.
I don’t know anyone who saw Cruella in the theatre.
I don’t know anyone who paid extra to see Cruella on Disney Plus.
I don’t know anyone who paid for the Cruella DVD.
I don’t know anyone who watched Cruella on Disney Plus for free.
Hell, I know people who will bite out their tongue and bleed to death if they tie them up and force them to watch it.
How the hell can these Disney assholes afford so many advertisements for something nobody wants to watch?

Books open people to new ideas and worlds.
I think back to the books that impacted my life.
The Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary that had so many words to learn and use.
The encyclopedias in the library that taught me so much about history and science.
The Bible, which taught me about faith and religion, but also of excuses to be hateful and fearful of others.
The one that impacted me the most?
I never actually caught the title.
Only the blows to my head and body when my mother couldn’t find her wooden spoon for the constant beatings and spankings.

Dan built a platform for the camera. Then he rigged it to a weather balloon.
Filling the balloon, until it was ready to release.
And that’s when Dan cut the tether.
The balloon rose, pulling the platform with it.
But the tether was lashed around Dan’s ankle and he was yanked up with the balloon.
Without a knife to cut the line, he was hauled into the sky.
Higher and higher, colder and colder, until the air was too thin to breathe.
Then, the balloon burst, and the platform fell.
Later, someone found the platform, camera, and Dan’s broken corpse.

I live in a golfing and tennis resort community, even though I don’t golf or play tennis. A lot of people drive around in golf carts. They drive in the bike lanes, which scares the crap out of joggers and walkers and cyclists who are wearing headphones. Even though teenagers can’t get drivers licenses, through a technicality, they can still drive golf carts around, electric bikes, and weird one wheeled scooter things. Every now and then you hear about some kid losing control and hitting someone or something. There’s a lot of white crosses on the side of the road.

Rita taught English in Dubai and lost her teaching job after she complained that half the kids in her class were named Mohammed. That’s all the administration heard and they fired her right on the spot. It had nothing to do with the fact that the kids all dressed alike, let alone while having the same name. And she couldn’t go by last name because they all had similar last names like Saladin. And the parents got mad when she would give them numbers calling on Mohammed one, Mohammed, two, Mohammed three. She was replaced by a teacher named Mohammed.

There were angry marches all over the world.
Earth is sexist.
Earth is racist.
Earth is bigoted.
The Baban Empire’s embassies offered free trips to their paradise worlds.
They recruited heavily at the marches.
And millions of the discontent boarded their ships to fly off and never be seen again.
The marches grew smaller and fewer, and eventually stopped.
And things were better. So much better.
Some videos came back, happy people on other worlds.
But the truth was, the Baban were flying the ships over Mercury and dumping their cargoes before returning back for more.
Good riddance to them.

We put together a band.
Played covers in our garage, played a few gigs.
Wrote a few songs, played a few more gigs.
Got on the radio.
Cut an album, and it went up the charts.
Went on tour, filled some music halls.
Wrote a few more songs, did a festival.
Went on tour again, and then we filled some stadiums.
Wrote a few more songs, made a film, cut another album, went on tour again.
Had a few fights, sued the record label, the record label sued us.
We sued each other.
And we all went our separate ways.