The Circle Of Not Life

Poor Charlie Brown.
Every Halloween, we’d watch his Great Pumpkin Special, hoping he’d get candy, but he ended up getting a bag full of rocks.
I’d dream of Charlie, waking up before the break of dawn with that bag full of rocks, going from house to house, tossing those rocks through windows and yelling “ALL I WANTED WAS SOME GODDAMNED CANDY!”
Instead, I think he crafted Pet Rocks out of them and made a fortune selling them as Christmas gifts.
People got bored with them, and on Halloween, they’d drop them in Charlie’s bag again.
“SON OF A FUCKING BITCH!”

The Bottom Line

He started as a software programmer, making cool games that sold millions of copies.
Now, as the CEO of his own software company, he was all about the bottom line.
Which was bottoming out.
“MAKE ME THE NEXT KILLER APP!” he shouted at his programmers.
So, the programmers worked up code that linked a phone’s motion sensors, GPS, and traffic data.
Whenever the driver of a car was in heavy traffic and going very fast, the phone would make a horribly distracting noise that would cause the driver to crash.
They installed it on the CEO’s phone.
Without telling him.

Disintegration

Audio tape is just iron oxide particles glued to tape.
After a few years, the glue wears out, or the particles get worn off.
I find the tape you left me when you left me.
All the reasons, all the things I did wrong.
I mark the spot where you say you love me, but.
Stop.
I cut the tape into a loop, stick it in the player, and open the bottle of wine.
Then, I hit Play.
Over and over, you say you love me.
The tape degrades, disintegrates. Particles go. With each loop, you fade, love fades… slowly…

Voodotodo List

I have a lot of chores to do every day.
There was an app for To Do lists on my phone, but I’d have to stop playing Angry Birds long enough to check it.
So, I picked up a corkboard and pinned my to do list up there.
When I finish a task, I stick in a pin.
I call it my Voodoo To Do List.
I just have to be careful about putting names on it.
Like when I wrote “Get birthday present for Stan” and stuck a pin in it.
Poor Stan.
Hold on. Gotta add “Stan’s Funeral.”

Candy Corn

Here at Boone Farms, we’ve been bit by this ass-nasty drought just like everybody else.
But instead of just watching our corn and soybeans and other of our traditional crops burn in the fields, we went all-in with a different crop:
Candy corn.
What? You think that stuff gets made in candy factories?
Boy, do you got your shit wrong there, son!
Candy corn grows on stalks just like the normal stuff, but it don’t need rain and sun.
Just corn syrup and coloring.
Plus, those Easter Peeps love this shit.
(But I must admit, I miss the chicken eggs.)

Curse The Darkness

Someone once said that it’s better to light a candle than curse the darkness, but they didn’t have their house burn down because the candle set their drapes on fire.
Oh, sure, I tried to blow out the flames, but they spread too quickly.
Tear down the drapes and stomp them? They were on fire! What do I grab?
I did manage to blow out the candle, though. But then I needed it to find the fire extinguisher.
I tried to light it off of the drapes.
Nope.
So, my house burned down, and my hand’s got hot wax burns.

The Evil Clown

Walking home from work, I saw a strange sight.
An evil clown was at the corner, waving a sign advertising a costume shop.
Halloween is next week, you know.
Anyway, I watched the evil clown dance and wave his sign at the passing traffic.
Not the most dignified of jobs, I know, but it’s still a job.
Plus, it’s unlikely that it’ll be outsourced to India, since there’s no point in some clown in Bangalore waving a sign around there when the store it’s advertising is in Houston, Texas.
“The economy’s looking up,” I said, and went along my way.

Marshmallow Town

Marshmallow Town is under martial law.
Campers with sticks, graham crackers, and chocolate bars are roaming the streets, abducting Marshmallowites and dragging them back to their campfires.
To impale them.
To hold them over the fire.
To stick them between the crackers with the chocolate and…
OH MY GOD! THE MARSHMALLOWITY!
Sadly, marshmallows can’t fight back, so they’re hired a brute squad from Butterville.
The butter brutes patrol the streets, looking for campers with sticks.
“Your sticks are no match for our unsaturated fats!” shout the butter brutes.
So the campers pull out their knives and warm them with lighters…

Hole in the ground

Bobby wanted to dig a hole to China.
His mother said it couldn’t be done.
So, instead of digging to China, he dug a hole to Hell.
That wasn’t so hard to do, really. Just took him a few minutes dripping some blood from his fingertip on to his trowel.
The trowel bit into the dirt, drew out a clump, and a large blast of fire and heat exploded from the back yard.
Bobby, his mother, and the house vanished instantly.
After a day of infernal madness, the government sealed off the block and said “It’s just a gas leak.”

Count Dracula

The people on the TV say today is a day to reflect.
But I, Count Dracula, am a vampire.
I have no reflection.
I look in the mirror and I see nothing.
Should I be seeing something?
Ten years go, I go to my coffin, I rest during the day, and when I wake up, everybody is losing their shit on the TV.
People are digging through the rubble.
And they’re donating blood.
And all I can think about is “Well, this sucks. Now when I go out to drink, not only will I be a monster, but unpatriotic, too.”