After working from home for a few weeks, my eyes started to bother me.
I used to wear glasses, but don’t any more.
Maybe I need to wear glasses again?
So, I made an appointment to have my eyes checked.
The doctor told me to read the chart.
I said “Ooo eee, Ooo ah ah, ting tang Walla walla, bing bang.”
I’m beginning to think he isn’t a licensed ophthalmologist.
He may be, in fact, a witch doctor.
But at least he’s in my insurance network, I don’t have to wait weeks for an appointment, and the copay is reasonable.
Month: November 2021
Lost sock
When you find a sock in the middle of the floor, you know the dog has gotten into the laundry.
Or the cat. Or the kid.
At least you can yell at a kid and you might have a hope that they learn to clean up.
Dogs take a bit more effort to train. Spray bottles and shock collars.
For kids, too. Just don’t get caught.
And cats, well, good luck. Better put locks on everything.
I don’t wear socks.
Or have kids. Or dogs.
And cats, well, I fill all the unused socks with catnip and let them play.
AM Radio
FM radio is crap.
Crooners and Doo Whop and Bubblegum.
But at night, the atmosphere changes, and AM radio spreads far and wide.
Stations from all over, and over the border.
We went to bed, but we didn’t go to sleep.
We listened to the radio and the sweet sounds carried across the country.
Blues. And Jazz. And other things.
Wolfman Jack howling across the sky.
Luring us out of our shells, breaking out, and learning the true gospel of Rock.
All night long.
The sun breaks over the horizon, and the music fades to static.
Until the night returns.
Bleach is tasty
Okay, so the president said that maybe people should be drinking and injecting bleach to cure the virus.
But he said this mockingly after reporters kept asking stupid questions.
The odd thing is, some people actually did inject and drink bleach.
And they got horribly sick and died.
Are people that blisteringly stupid and gullible?
Maybe this should be taken as an opportunity to cull those genes out of the population?
Tell people that jumping off of buildings cures the virus. Setting themselves on fire.
Or, something more productive, like not watching these ranting and hyperbolic idiots on network television.
Doctor Odd’s Mother
You can have a past, or you can have a future.
You only get one, so choose wisely.
Doctor Odd’s mother was full of regrets, and she told her son these words of wisdom.
Or warning.
Doctor Odd dedicated his life to this question.
Using a wormhole and temporal stabilizers, he engineered a pocket universe.
And he bent time into a loop.
“Because time is a loop, the past is the future and the future is the past,” he told his mother.
And he put her in the pocket universe.
Which made where to send Mothers Day cards very confusing.
The drive in days
Long ago, there were so many drive-in theatres.
Drive up, tune in the radio to the special station, or take the speaker off of the post and put it in your car.
One by one, they shut down.
And then the virus came.
Wash your hands, wear masks, social distancing.
So, the drive-ins came back.
We hide in our cars, eating the bags of popcorn and drinking the sodas we brought with us.
Okay, fine. We brought beer and wine.
And we watch the old movies on the screen.
Because nobody’s making any new ones.
With the virus and all.
Weekly Challenge #812 – UNSURE
KELLY
She knew she loved him. Even though she knew from the beginning not to. He really did give her every reason to run, but the young woman wanted so badly to love him for who he was. After a long time, a child, lots of pets, oh…and that terrible time in the ICU, she still tried and tried. Giving all, but receiving nothing in return…she was left alone. Nearly 29 years of marriage and a real hit to her sanity…he left her…because he was unsure of who he was and now all is lost. Goodbye forever.
RICHARD
Unsure
Unsure: The new fragrance for men!
Do you struggle to impress women? Do you lack confidence? Do social situations make you feel awkward?
Unsure for men will change your life!
Spray it all over, and its long-lasting fragrance of despair and desperation, with subtle undertones of longing and wistfulness will make you irresistible to the fairer sex!
What woman could resist the urge to mother and smother you in the kind of affection that only pity can inspire?
How can she possibly withstand that sweet, sad, smell of helplessness?
Unsure: Because you’re not worth it, but she can’t help herself!
LIZZIE
He thought he had led a good life until someone from out of town whispered something in his ear. It wasn’t easy to upset him and yet here he was, panicking. He took the fish from the lines where it was drying and hid it in a bag. He looked at his hands and felt the need to wash them, frantically, obsessively. But he just stood there. And he wondered… He wondered if the stranger really knew what he had done, traveling through space but, above all, through time, that time he had so desperately tried to run away from.
SERENDIPIDY
I started a new business in unsurance sales.
No, you didn’t mishear that, I really did say unsurance.
You see, the problem with todays’ woke snowflake generation, is that there’s very little to worry about. There’s always an insurance policy to fall back on in case of loss, damage or theft.
There’s no risk, no sense of danger, and no element of fear.
And I’m out to change all that.
Buy one of my policies, and I can guarantee you’ll be pretty unsure about anything that might happen in the future.
Particularly, since I specialise in policies for life unsurance!
DUANE
I’m kind of unsure how I got here. I surely wasn’t smarter than anyone else. I hadn’t come from money or had any real advantages. So how did I get here? I guess it was the choices I made in life. I took years deciding what profession to pursue. Spent hours determining what wear to the interview. Choices of hair and eye color.
The receptionist hands me a form to fill out. Name? I’ll go with Martin. David. No, Joshua. Date of Birth? Should I be old or young? Thirty-five seems reasonable. Sex? “Excuse me, could we reschedule for tomorrow?”
TOM
What Could Go Possible Wrong 012
Rolling to the floor unsure of the direction of the shooter Parker tilted the table above him. To his left and right he could see his mate seeking safety. A volley again, some rattling the table top, other piecing wood impacting the floor around him. Weapon thought Parker, something, anything. All he had was the pint glass in his hand. Was the last thing he would see a blurred shadow on a glass. No, not a shadow a form. The form of a water fowl wrapped about the glass. He cocked an arm blindly and letting fly. Duck he yelled
NORVAL JOE
Not entirely clear on what a weather witch was, Billbert asked Sabrina. “Do you honestly believe you control what the weather does?”
Clearly not unsure of herself, Sabrina said, “Of course we do, among other things.”
“Other things? Like what?” Billbert asked, skeptically.
“We know things about people and we can affect them. Like you and your family. I know about you, your schedule at school, where you live. We brought you here.”
Billbert couldn’t accept this claim. “You brought us all the way from Fresno?”
She smiled and shook her head. “Don’t lie. I know you’re not from Fresno.”
PLANET Z
Most kids asked Santa for bikes or dolls or footballs.
That kind of thing.
For Christmas, Ellie wanted the truth.
“Are you sure you don’t want a puppy?” asked her parents.
Santa looked over the letter and sat back in his chair.
“You want the truth?” said Santa. “Okay. You’ll get the truth.”
So, while other kids were opening boxes with their bikes or dolls and footballs, Ellie opened a box and got the truth.
“It’s empty,” said Ellie, turning the box over and shaking it. “There’s nothing in it.”
Santa watched from the window, and vanished into the snow.
A billion miles away
We spend billions and billions of dollars to build the probe.
So many tests and fixes and re-tests.
Hauling it up to the rocket and fitting it.
Launching it, and slingshotting it from planet to planet.
Parking it in orbit with the gentlest and most cautious braking rocket thrusts.
Success! Success!
We all cheer!
Time to work.
It takes 90 minutes for commands to reach the probe.
And 90 minutes for confirmation to return.
A billion miles away, we wait for the images to appear.
Black. More black. Endless black.
Only then do we realize… nobody took the lenscap off.
The barbershop singers
They were a strange barbershop quartet.
All four men were bald.
And not clean-shaven bald, but patchy and scruffy bald.
With unkempt beards and mustaches, looking like savages and wildmen.
They couldn’t sing.
They screamed and hollered and shrieked.
There was no musical quality to what was coming out of their mouths.
They also varied in numbers.
Only rarely were there four of them.
Three, Five, Two, Twenty… who knew how many of these strange men would show up to yell and moan together.
The barber called the asylum to pick up their patients.
My how the butterfly nets flew!
Bad moose
My moose is a very bad moose.
I won’t just leave my moose at the pound.
So he ends up someone else’s bad moose.
A cycle of badness, not good for the moose.
Or let him loose.
A bad moose on the loose?
Very bad.
So, I took him to moose school.
To learn to be a better moose.
The best instructors teach at moose school.
Moose experts, each and every one.
They teach moose to be better moose.
They use the latest moose teaching techniques.
None of them are abusive.
Abused moose are bad moose.
And they never learn.