Give a kid a marshmallow, and then tell them that if they don’t eat it while you’re out of the room, you’ll give them two marshmallows.
This is a famous test of delayed gratification.
I remember the studies. I remember the psychologist standing over me, holding out the marshmallow.
“I don’t like marshmallows,” I told him.
“Well, what do you like?” he asked me.
It took three orderlies to pry my hands from his throat.
Oh, how I love to strangle scientists.
I guess I didn’t want to wait for him to bring a second psychologist for me to strangle.
Category: Halloween
The Ugly Stick
When Grampa sees an ugly girl, he says “She must have been beaten with The Ugly Stick.”
Which, back in his day, was a real stick.
The City Uglifier would go from door to door, beating girls with The Ugly Stick until they were ugly.
These days, there is no more City Uglifier. The position was eliminated due to budget cuts.
The Ugly Stick is on display at City Hall, in a locked glass cabinet.
However, it’s not a very secure lock, because occasionally, you’ll see an ugly girl.
Grampa puts a finger to his lips, says SSSSSSSSSH!, and winks.
There’s only so much
There’s only so much blood a vampire can drink.
There’s only so much darkness a vampire can see.
There’s only so much forever a vampire can take.
They walk out to the beach, strip off their clothes, and lie down to wait for the sun.
Others hammer stakes into their own hearts. Or they ask their servants to do it for them.
“Make me immortal,” some will ask.
But the vampire knows better. The vampire knows that it’s not a gift, but an endless horror.
So, they kill their servants, walk to the beach, strip off their clothes, and wait.
Sleep is overrated
When people say sleep is overrated, who’s doing the rating?
Exactly what rating did sleep get?
And what rating should it get?
Are they saying that all sleep should be rated X?
Or NC-17, which is what X is now?
You can give a film X for sex, or for violence.
I hope they’re talking about sex, because nobody wants violence in the bed.
Because it’s a lot easier to wash sex stains out of the sheets than bloodstains.
Assuming that you survive the violence, of course.
Or you’ll end up wrapped in the sheets and buried in the woods.
Ali
Muhammad Ali said that he could float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.
Doctor Odd found this interesting, and went down to his lab to research the concept more.
Two days later, a horde of flying jellyfish swarmed across the countryside, stinging and paralyzing everything in its path.
People fled in terror.
On the other hand, the flying jellyfish were excellent pollinators, and there were record yields of crops that fall.
Agricultural conglomerates offered him a fortune for the licensing rights.
And he took it. Just like Ali took the white boxing promoters’ money to keep punching people.
Tie a yellow ribbon
Before you tie the yellow ribbon around the old oak tree, remember to soak it in the potion that the Enchantress made for the summoning ceremony.
We don’t want the spirits of our missing soldiers to come home with any demonic baggage this time.
Remember ten years ago, when we forgot to imbue the yellow ribbon with the protection and binding agent?
Of course you don’t. We had the Enchantress work up a forgetting spell for the children after we drove back the demon horde.
Sadly, it only works on children. We elders have to live with the horrible memory.
Your heart still beats
By the time we tie your hands behind your back and pull the black bag over your head, you’re already dead.
Oh, you’re still breathing. Your heart still beats.
But it doesn’t matter. We’ve scanned your ID chip, and your records are already canceled.
We already have your blood type, DNA, and tissue profiles.
Every organ in your body is up for auction. To pay for your crimes.
You feel the needle in the back of your neck.
Lie still. Don’t move.
Don’t damage state property.
We can make it worse. Much worse.
Do you want to feel the knives?
One Frankenstein
It’s not correct to call the creature Frankenstein.
Nor is it correct to call the creature Frankenstein’s Monster.
The truth is, the creature measured exactly one on The Frankenstein Scale.
Dr. Frankenstein created a unit of measurement.
With zero representing something completely harmless and one representing something that was as scary and dangerous as that creature.
Now, if you had two identical creatures, they would not necessarily measure two on The Frankenstein Scale.
There may be some inefficiencies and overlap, resulting in a score less than two.
Or, they may cleverly work together, resulting in a score greater than two.
Haunted Housemanship
Jeff and his friends built a haunted house every Halloween.
They challenged themselves to make it creepier and scarier every year.
One year, an evangelical Christian group built a “Christian” haunted house.
Instead of ghosts and goblins, they showed the evils of abortion, divorce, drug use, and gay marriage.
So, Jeff and his friends built a new haunted house that showed the evils of Christianity: child molestation, fringe cults, denial of women’s access to health care, and protesting the funerals of solders.
Across the street, Abdul Mohammed laughed and PayPalled another hundred bucks to his friends in ISIS and Hamas.
The boy who cried AESOP!
You know the tale of the boy who cried “Wolf!”
It was written by Aesop after he was found with the mutilated corpse of a shepherd boy.
“He was torn apart by wolves,” he told the police. “He’d jokingly cried wolf once too many times, nobody believed him, and so nobody came to his aid when he was beset by wolves for real.”
The police wrote this down, and sent Aesop on his way.
Aesop walked down the road, stomach full of the boy’s blood.
His story had worked.
And it would work again the next time he grew hungry.