Weekly Challenge #350 – Think

Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at oneadayuntilthedayidie.com. I’m your host, Laurence Simon.

This is Weekly Challenge, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.

The topic this week was Think.

And we’ve got stories by a lot of people:

• Helen
• Chris the Nuclear Kid
• Jeffrey
• Secret Rage
• Tom
• Lizzie
• Alan Adena Tan
• Munsi
• Zackmann
• Serendipidy Haven
• Tura
• Bonchance and Sevi
• Cliff – Uncle Monster
• Singh
• RedGoddess
• Norval Joe
• Justin
• Planet Z

The next 100 word stories weekly challenge is on the topic of Mustard.

And if you want to spam your social networks with this episode, use the Share buttons at the end of the post… this obligatory cat photo should help make the Internet go faster:

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HELEN

As a child, I was told to “Think” before I spoke and children speak first and think
later. Time elapsed, I am an adult, and I do “Think” before I speak. Let me share a
phrase about thinking before you speak
Before you utter words T H I N K.
T – is truths
H – is honesty
I – is important
N – is necessary
K – is knowing
Do you speak Truths, with an Honest heart, and is it Important, and is it Necessary,
and do you Know what your speaking about.
How many times have you spoken, and did not think.

CHRIS

The Hell Gate

I have spent an eternity searching for The Doomsday Sword, I had found Excalibur but it was only the shattered remains. In the arctic I have come across Northern Frost Giants, Ice Trolls, and Abominable Snowmen.
Thanks to my quick thinking and great survival training, I have survived. I only wish there weren’t monsters to begin with. But then again we would not fear and become our own monsters.
But that is beside the point! I am still searching for the sword and hopefully I’ll be in time to shut the gates of hell before the demon Diablo has escaped.

JEFFREY

Marital Relations
by Jeffrey Fischer

Larry had been married a long time, or at least long enough that he thought he understood how the marital game was played. He knew the traps, the pitfalls in a relationship. “Do these pants make my butt look big?” elicited a rapid “You look lovely, as always” in response.

Despite his expertise, or what he perceived to be his expertise, Larry was caught off guard when his wife said, “What do you think? Do these pants make my butt look bigger than usual?” Think, man, think! he thought, scrambling for the right answer.

While he was still floundering at that question, his wife fired a second round: “When you say I look like a million, why do you think it isn’t it more?”

“Uh…” Think! he exhorted himself, but nothing reasonable came to mind.

That was when Larry decided that the smartest course was to quietly pack a suitcase and leave.

DR. FRAN

Think

In Alcoholics Anonymous Meetings they have signs with aphorisms on the walls or tables in the room. One of the signs says THINK. Some say it stands for: The Happiness I Now Know thanks to being sober (which I think stands for: Son of a bitch, everything’s real). What gets me is that a lot of meetings place the signs upside down. What’s up with that? Is that supposed to make me think more? My sponsor tells me not to think ever. So what do I do…do I think or don’t I think? I really don’t know what to think.

TOM

HEY 19

When you reflect on the levels of product placement in the media it’s a wonder there is any room left for plot. Whether it’s an Aston Martin or an Azure Mustang, Coke or Cadbury, Reese’s Pieces or Rolex timepieces we the captive audience are severed up a banquet of purchase possibilities. Most placements have the subtly of a sledgehammer, but others lie under the psyche sub rosa of pop culture Take International Business Machine Corporation they wedged their presence into Billboard’s top ten in May 1968. Got the Queen of Soul to hammer it home in a pounding refrain.

LIZZIE

Ruminations

He had the irritating habit of never doing what he was told. Go right, he went left. Don’t eat with your mouth open and he made it a point of showing his ruminations, although that could be construed as something highly philosophical, especially after a few large bites, when he would gravely state “I ate Sunday for dessert” while spraying the table with bits of food. So, when someone jokingly told him to jump out of the window on the third floor, they never expected him to follow through. His psychiatrist even commented “I think he misunderstood what was said.”

Chopping work

“We’ll never make it, boss…”

“We must.”

So, they left to fulfill the task at hand.

Hours later, back in the freezing workshop, they emptied the bags on the tables.

“I got 9.”

“9? Where’s the tenth?”

“Damaged. The guy tried to punch me…”

“Didn’t I tell you not to grab live ones?”

“Yes, boss, but this is an emergency…”

It was. They still needed 21 to reach the quota. How did they ever manage to convince the chef of the local delicatessen restaurant that fried fingers would become fashionable? And to think of all the chopping work still ahead…

ALAN

HAMLET

They couldn’t persuade him to go out, so they left him behind with his books. They, in the meantime, had dinner and drinks at Gerry’s Grill. By nine in the evening, they were at Chef and Brewer’s dancing to the funk band, The Bedroom Boys. They wound up the night at a girlie bar carousing and singing karaoke. When they returned, they found him on the rocking chair dead. “He thought too much,” they remarked. The next day, they buried Hamlet.

MUNSI

The Worst Joke I Know

By Christopher Munroe

So Rene Descartes walks into a bar.

He’s finished an axiom a day ahead of schedule, and as such has a three-day weekend he hadn’t expected to have. Therefore, he plans to get schnozzled.

And schnozzled he becomes. Shots of Jagermeister, beer by the jug, by two in the morning he’s propped against the bar to keep from falling.

Still, he’s good folk and he works hard. Nobody begrudges him.

“One for the road?” the bartender asks, and Descartes scoffs.

“Are you kidding? I’m already so drunk I can’t even think!” He replies, then vanishes, never to be seen again…

ZACKMANN

“Does your new thinking cap work?”
“Not so well, I think I use the wrong Thinkgeek website because all I can think about is small headless animals.” replied Zack
“Now trying my thinking pants.” Joe sings “Ooh ahh, dance in smarty pants.”
“Stop that singing. Don’t try using those. My mother says whenever a guy thinks with his pants it can only end in tears.”
“Say Zack, Do you think we spending too much on useless gadgets?”
“I was told if I thought I would be dangerous.” .
“Well, someone should have told you, you’re more dangerous when you don’t think”

“What are you building up here?”
“Didn’t I tell you I am starting a think tank and tonight we are going to take over the world”
“Really?”
“Oh my yes, I am making It and It will solve all of our problems. People are unhappy because they think too much and It will do all our thinking for us. It for President. Vote It in 2016.”
“You’re teasing?”
“Actually it’s It, a prop for a stage performance of A Wrinkle in Time and I am making the Happiest Sadist. Do you like It? ”
“I hated It I reading the book”

TURA

It had taken years, and millions of dollars, but at last, the Artificial General Intelligence project was ready for its first demonstration.

The professor took the microphone in his hand, and spoke its first command: “Computer! Think!”

Billions of transistors performed billions of operations every second, while incomprehensible patterns flowed across the front panel, and retro magnetic tape drives twitched back and forth. At last, the screen displayed the computer’s response: “Computer! Think!”.

“Great, the speech recognition works. Do you think that will be enough to keep DARPA off our backs for another year?”

The programmer snorted. “Not a chance.”

SEVI and BONCHANCE

Salt

The distrust was tangible throughout the salt negotiations.
The Americans presented a sweet deal to the Soviets;
consequently they couldn’t understand why the Russians balked.

Soviet behaviour was explained by lead Air Force General.

“Sir they know that we know they are cheating.
They intend to continue cheating. We factored that in,
however they are oblivious to our cheating tactics.

“General we are not cheating! Sir,if they don’t find ours, they won’t sign.”
They laboured all night weaving sneaky cheats into the treaty.
The President promoted the General to a staff position saying,
“Son I like the way you think”.

Think About It

Carl sat at the table gazing down at his cup of coffee as his wife chattered.
This was their reality. His wife would talk; Carl meditated with his cup of coffee.
Diane finally noticed that Carl had not stirred for over 10 minutes.
By now he would have shuffled off to warm his coffee.

“Carl?”

He looked up blankly “Yes my love”?
“What are you thinking about? “Nothin honey”.
She smiled and nodded, pouring hot coffee into his cup.
Early on in their marriage, she didn’t believe that answer.
Overtime acceptance set in.
Men miraculously really could just “not think”.

CLIFF

The robot was supposed to respond to David’s thoughts. We had built the war machine and the sensors that connected it to David, the pilot. Today, we had the live test. David cleared his mind, put on the sensor helmet, and his face went blank. I held my breath and waited. The robot stepped onto the field, surveyed the surroundings, and promptly put a missile into the Toyota parked in David’s spot. David drove a Chevy. He apologized profusely. Apparently, his unconscious mind had more input than we thought. That’s when I decided to stop messing around with David’s wife.

SINGH

Welcome to Geekosity!

We are such stuff as dreams are made on.

Unlike Shakespeare we used to think the mind was enchained. Decades of research have shown this isn’t so. Brain plasticity can alter and with special training we can develop higher functioning abilities. Like a fitness centre where you exercise various muscle groups, we have designed an online brain-gym to grow cognitive know-how, spike memory ability, cultivate problem-solving, and balance right brain, left brain coherence — and increase attention span, duh! In other words — warp speed your thinking to the next level. This is the Age of the Nerd! Welcome to Geekosity.com.

*
“As a professional gambler, my eyes are constantly scanning every combination of clubs, spades, hearts and diamonds. I must memorize and discretely bet, or video surveillance will bring the casino goons down upon me. Through Geekosity I am playing games like Multiple Taskforce, Hypothalamus Hip Hop and Runaway Roulette. My percentile average is up from 58 to 99%. Now I can play high stake Black Jack in my transvestite disguise with total confidence. Yes, Geekosity has quadrupled my earnings in just seven days. Without it, I’d still be a scratch lottery jockey down at the local drug store. Cool huh?”

*
“Since coming from Slovenia, they were giving me bad name – Forgetful Franka. Business not good. Regular customer would come for ‘usual’, but I can not tell foot fetishist from simple hand job with mayonnaise customer. I am only thinking of dollar. This was until Geekosity super memory programmme. After just 12 days I can start tagging different sex toy to different name, different face. For example – riding crop for Freddy, dog muzzle for Carlo, bottle of mayo for Peter, plastic nappy for Cry-Baby Benny. Thank you, so much Geekosity! I am now serving customer good with open mind, open heart.”

*
“Whenever we do a job it must be blue-printed, rehearsed and executed to the letter. Not everyone can waltz in with a sawn-off shotgun and terrorize customers to the floor while your partner bags the cash. And you have to watch out for trigger-happy security guards and bank clerks blowing the whistle with a buzzer under the counter. Geekosity’s speed, agility and problem-solving games have taken all the stress out of bank-robbing. We knock over one a week now. Seeing the results, Joey my partner is signing up. Thanks to Geekosity the sky is the limit!”

*
These stories are from the ranks of our 30 million under-achievers. Each is opening his or her nerd eye, transforming daily from turkey consciousness to becoming high-flying eagles of aptitude. This is the golden age of the geek. Log on to our website and join the millions with self-esteem issues who are battling valiantly to get good at mind games. Why? To get good at mind games! Get in touch with your inner geek and become an ambassador of Geek chic. Sign up for a neuro-plastic self-assessment and trade in your old brain today!

REDGODDESS

Lola wakes up in a daze, blinded by scent of romance. She rolls over to realize he’s not there. She tries to trigger a memory from her New Year’s Eve date. “How could he leave her in his strange bed? She thinks it’s best to get out of here. Draped in a white satin sheet, she tiptoes through an open door, following the aroma of fresh brewed coffee. She is surprised to see “him” cooking shirtless.
Clearing her throat, she greets him. “You’re awake, my sleeping beauty,” Lola is exhausted but finds energy to soak in the view. The kitchen table adorned with decadent pastries. She drops the sheet and sat next to him. Lola sips her coffee, looking over at him, and firmly asks, “Where do we go from here?…

JUSTIN

Adam Jensen stood over the hacked console, finger hovering over the screen. One press of a button, and the security robot would rampage against the guards. Adam remembered the screams after he hacked that turret. Did those men have families? Were they just trying to feed them with a job like everyone else? Did he have a right to end their lives, even if they were bad men, when he could just take them down without killing with a little more effort? With one press of another button, he deactivated the security robots and went on his way, sneaking, non-lethal.

NORVAL JOE

The company followed Flindert back down the passage to an intersection, the sorceress lighting the way with a glowing silver ball. The tunnel curved slowly back to the right and Owen tried to picture in his mind where they had gone in relationship to the throne room.
“I think,” The second word was barely out of his mouth when Traveller clamped broad hand over Owen’s lips. The ranger motioned to the ground with his other hand.
A hole in the floor revealed the company had climbed over the throne room and now stood directly above the princess and her captors.

People say Dr. Seuss was a creative genius.
As a child I found his illustrations disconcerting and at times downright depressing.
And his text. My Daughter insisted I read her the book, “Oh the thinks you can think.”
Get this;
“If you try,
you can think up
a GUFF going by.
And you don’t have to stop.
You can think about SCHLOPP.
Schlopp. Schlopp. Beautiful schlopp.
Beautiful schlopp
with a cherry on top.”
That’s not creative. That’s lazy poetry. If he couldn’t come up with a rhyme, he just made up a word. And he never once mentions wiener dogs.

PLANET Z

Fred’s job was to think up amazing things.

He’d sit at his desk all day with a wistful look on his face, and every now and then he’d sigh.

His boss asked him if he’d thought up anything useful, and Fred would say “Yes.”

Then he’d sigh again.

When the CEO asked him to be more productive with his time, Fred said “Sure, I’ll think about it.”

And he did.

His quarterly report showed that he’d thought up three times as many amazing things than in the previous quarter.

He had plenty of time to think in the Unemployment Line.