Gray Hair

776736

I remember when I discovered my first gray hair.
I was looking in the mirror and I saw a flash of something.
So, I stopped and looked around for a minute, and I found it.
A gray hair, tempting me to remove it.
I plucked it out.
Pretty soon, there were too many to pluck out.
Eventually, the gray hairs outnumbered the black hairs.
Now, I search and search, and only find gray hairs.
Except for one.
I look at it, and it tempts me to remove it.
So, I get the tweezers, and pluck it out of my nose.

Every 20 minutes

775907

Every 20 minutes, the timer goes off and I do 20 situps.
Sure, diet and walking can shed the pounds, but I carry my weight in my gut, so I needed to get better about targeting my trouble areas.
Situps are easy to do, and setting a kitchen timer to force myself to do reps over and over has been great about keeping the pace.
However, after a while, you can overdo it.
Hernias can be repaired, but lethal strokes can’t.
The timer goes off, and I feel a poke from the demon sitting on a stool.
“Do another twenty!”

Weekly Challenge #230 – Drabble Like A Pirate Day

11941286

Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number Two Hundred and Twenty-Thirty, 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… was…. um…
It’s DRABBLE LIKE A PIRATE DAY!
VOTING

Which were the best stories this week?
TJ
Freereed
Tom
Zackmann
Steven
Abigail
Norval Joe
The Dread Pirate of Planet Z
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Go ahead and listen to them and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):

TJ

My investigation into the financial disaster of 2008 had turned up a lot
of dead ends. Wreckage doesn’t begin to describe it. Forensic
accounting is just words when entire trading floors lie smoldering in
ruins. Hostile takeovers left smaller investors at sea, desperate to
stay afloat. I caught a lead in a darkened boardroom, where the
hollow-eyed shell of a CFO cowered under a table. “Hats,” he
breathed. “We’re not wearing enough hats.” That and an unexploded
portfolio, I knew my quarry. Such is the reign of terror left in the
wake of the Crimson Permanent Assurance. Yo. Ho. Ho.

Freereed

CaptainSqueakSears was missing half his right-middle-finger. He’d sneak behind a sailor, jab the stump hard-between-their-ribs and growl, “Arrggg, there’s no swimmin back!”
Every six months TheOnyx would put-sail-to-home. From deck Squeak could see his four-storey-clapboard-monstrosity looming over NewBedfordHarbor.
He’d stomp into the sitting-room shouting “Abigail@!Abby@” And out would run the FulsomeAbby and her ScrawnySisterFern.
After supping-drinking-smoking-slobbering-snoring-swearing, he’d steer to the vast-billowy-ocean of their marriage-bed and plough-through-the-waves of his plump wife’s flesh.
Then in the wee-hours, he’d sneak up the-old-stairway to enjoy the ScrawnySister. While teetering back down to his wife… “Damn@! That stair@!” and that’s how Squeak got his name.

Tom

Welcome to Pirate as a second language. I’m your instructor R L Stevenson. I known many of yee r new to Belize and hope immersing yourself in r colorful and reductive language will speed your assimilation into r hyper profiteering culture. Remember: Rome wasn’t sacked in day. Little pirate humor.
Let’s begin with pirate Epistemology
Y-I-R?
C-I-R.
B-I-R!
Y-U-R?
R-U-B?
We-B-R!
Now for a bit of rancorous, but common pirate exchange
I-C-T.
We-C-U-P.
Remember R can be used as a verb, possessive, and agreement

Zackmann

Welcome to our ship “The Wobegon.” Have some of that there hot dish and lefsa. We are here
to make the bug bucks, ya sure you bet ya. If ya live, becoming rich as a troll is pretty much a
dun deal then.
Say that captain doesn’t really talk like a pirate? He sounds more Keillor than Keelhaul.
Sure the captain comes from a long line of pirates who have been raiding these waters since Leaf
Erickson discover the new world. The captain and most of the crew are from Minnesota don’t
you know. That is except TJ

Steven

The first defendant wore a “home taping is killing the music industry”
shirt. “Plea?” I asked.
“Not guilty! Information wants to be free! ”
“Innocent by reason of insanity.” I said. “Ideological idiots. Next!”
The man had candles in his black beard. “Yarrr, me letter of mark
from the Queen here says – ”
“Dry him out in the drunk tank. He reeks of rum. Next!”
The third defendant wore a suit and tie. “I don’t understand. I just
ran the subprime CDO desk at an investment bank.”
I leapt up. “Hang him. Hang him by the neck until he’s dead, dead, dead!”

Abigail

When I first started playing tennis with him I wasn’t so bad. The trick they say is to get out of your head. I did. He had beautiful tan calves and his socks were pristine white. I plotted.
Later we played in earnest never actually keeping score but sometimes we’d paste a bullet, or body shot. I liked playing rough with him. But then he sliced. The back spin and warp on the ball pissed me off. I hit it.”Arg!” “Arg? Pirate Tennis?” he laughed slicing again. I tried to slice back, hard, The bruise lasted for weeks.
Love hurts.

Norval Joe

“Welcome to Mc Donalds, may I take yer order”
“Yes. I would like a ten peice, number ten, with a medium sprite.”
“Would ye like a Coke and barbeque sauce with those nuggets?”
“No. I would like a sprite and hot mustard sauce. Can I have three?”
“We only give two suaces with a ten peice. A third will cost ye two bits.”
“Fine.”
“Would ye like two hot apple pies for a dollar?”
“No, that’s all, thanks, and by the way, where’s the regular staff that works here?”
“Harr. They be sleepin in Davy Jones locker, the scurvy dogs.”

Planet Z

Susie brought her pet rabbit to Show And Tell.
Abdul brought a beautifully-painted flowerpot.
Billy brought a pirate.
Sure, it was just a homeless drunk in a pirate costume, but he growled and slurred and waved his plastic cutlass like a real pirate.
Later, the principal asked the teacher why she let the bum into the room in the first place.
She thought it was his grandfather or an actor he hired. and tried to laugh about it: “Taking off his eyepatch was somewhat educational about disabilities, right?”
“Yes, but taking off his pants and crapping in the flowerpot wasn’t.”

Typing

860116

I’m tired, and I’m out of ideas for stories.
So, I head to the writer’s group and sit at a typewriter.
Other writers are there, typing away.
The sound of the typewriters, humming and clacking, makes me relax, and I feel a little drowsy.
So I fold my arms on the desk and rest my head for a bit.
Sleep takes me, and I dream of The Woman With Typewriter Keys For Eyes.
I pull the ribbons from her hair, my hands come away stained with ink.
And…
I wake up, and my tongue is caught in the typewriter’s strikers.

Retraining

690637

I’ve tried to diet before, but it never worked.
I’d get back into the habit of eating junk food and it would all fall apart.
So, I trained myself to dislike junk food.
Now, instead of craving potato chips, I hate them.
When I see someone with a bag, I grab it out of their hands, throw it to the ground, and stomp them to bits.
This is rather violent and destructive, but it’s better than people who train themselves to fear foods.
After all, how do you think vampires got that way about garlic?
Stink-breath is bad for neck-biters.

Cave Paintings

864094

I am sitting in a cave, scared.
It is cold, damp and dark.
Every Winter solstice, the sun’s rays illuminate the wall so that the figures appear to dance.
I’ve tried it with flashlights, spotlights- but it has to be sunlight on this specific day.
I say it’s a magic spell, cast by a long-dead shaman.
Light peeks in through the cave’s entrance… and then it gets darker.
I hear thunder.
Damn. Awful time for a rainstorm.
Except… there’s no rain.
It gets darker, the figures dance, and I hear chanting.
Raising my spear, recognizing faces- I rejoin my tribe.

Organized

860119

I refuse to be a part of any organized religion.
So, I’ve joined a highly-disorganized church.
I’m not sure of the name of it. The signs all say different things.
One sign suggests that it’s a military research facility. Perhaps at one time it was, but I have yet to have someone from the military research me during a service.
Pews are scattered about, there’s no telling what kind of book you’ll read from.
I’ve got a phonebook this week.
There is no choir. People sing when they want to, what they want to.
I said “asylum,” right?
Church?
Oops.

Shoulders

860119

Most people have an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, giving them advice as they go through their lives.
I have two angels on my shoulders. No devil.
All I get is good advice and admonishment when I don’t follow it.
If I have two angels on my shoulders, is someone out there with two devils on theirs?
Instead of getting a constant stream of goodness, they’re under the influence of evil.
That’s why I kidnapped you. You look like a two-devil person to me.
The angels are telling me not to shoot you.
I disagree.

Weird

763357

Mrs Jones knocked on her neighbor’s door and asked for a cup of weird.
“I’m having some trouble keeping up with the weird bill,” she said. “You know, with the rates going up recently and Henry and I being on a fixed income after he was laid off before he could retire early and get his pension-”
The neighbor made a hand gesture suggesting One moment, please and went down into their dungeon.
A minute later, they came back with a glowing, steaming mug of weird.
“Oh, thank you,” said Mrs. Jones, and went back to her upside-down pyramid home.

Weekly Challenge #229 – Books

12962152

Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number Two Hundred and Twenty-Nine, 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… was…. um…
It’s Books!
VOTING

Which were the best stories this week?
Freereed
Zackmann
Tom
Steven
TJ
Almo
Norval Joe
Justin
Planet Z
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Go ahead and listen to them and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):

Freereed

Double Books
1986) hide that the company was siphoning off funds to pay for the boss’ girlfriend and illegitimate son. hide the tens of thousands going to the fair haired brother’s cocaine habit.
1990) finance holidays for the homophobic marian brother and his ex-cop boyfriend. that came from the Mother Theresa fund.
Triple Books
2004) the sister’s foundation owing £27,000 end of year, I stood apopleptic in the office…
who’s gonna pay this bill? the blessed mother?? Sister Agnes smiled.
the money appeared in a check Christmas eve morning signed by the alcholic gambling addict passed out in the kitchen.

Zackmann

Are you tired of people telling you about well written books you must read. Since Steven
King’s “On Writing” recommends you should read well written books but also poorly written
books, I recommend “Moon People” by Dale M Courtney at least read the first page. Maybe
only the first page. This is a book better to own than read. I love loaning people my copy to see
the look on their face like that of a toddler eating a lemon wedge. I know only one other person
who finished reading Moon People. Best of all there are sequels.

I’m a NaNoWriMo failure and I really need some help.
I’m in love books and writing but i can’t write myself.
I’ve tried listening to I Should Be Writing, Irreverent Muse, Litopia, and DRS
But how to write past chapter two is something I can’t guess.
I’ve tried reading the classic right before bed
I can’t concentrate on them so I’m still not well read.
I’m a NaNoWriMo failure and I really need some help.
Almost November. Quiting might be a sin.
Soon will be November and time to try again.

Tom

“here is the books.”
“No” calmly said Arnesto
“Here are the books.”
“R?”
“No”
“A-R-E”
“ever!”
“That’s Whatever.”
“This sucks.
Why can’t I just Fram the skeen?”
Marie flicked a forefinger
Across the desk. A cloud of Oxygen
electrons pulled rigid into a glowing square
tiny animated glyphs danced in a row
“Better.” Said Marie
“If you’re going to be a scholar
you have to master non – ani – alphs”
Marie raised a finger, at least that usage
hadn’t changed in 600 years. The book
said Marie was the one who would keep
the language alive.
Cervantes had his doubts.

Steven

“So, you’ve had some stories published?” I hate the old, quavering
sound of my voice.
“Yes, grandpa.” I still think of him as the boy, though he’s older
than me when I’d married Martha. He’s holding his book behind his
back. “I’ve got a chapbook of short stories.”
“Oh,” I say, and nod. “Good job. Can I read them?”
“They’re… not really your speed.” I see the knife and blood on the
cover. “Thanks, though. Gotta go, grandpa.”
I shake my head as he leaves, and try to decide between the Poppy Z.
Brite novel or the Clive Barker one.

TJ

Book burnings were almost quaint by the 2030s. Most books were eBooks by
then, and no one wanted to burn their otherwise appropriately named
Kindles. People would gather in cirles and download a Bible or a Quran,
or Dianetics, or Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, and then with a
flourish, the payment still processing in some cases, they would delete
the book. Followed by awkward reassurances that they’re sure they wish
to delete the file. This proved disappointing, somehow, so at the same
time, they also burned the books in question in effigy. Naturally,
whatever the book, Amazon made a killing.

Almo

The last rays of sun bounced off the wrecked cars, the burned out buildings, the flecks of falling snow.
Gilbert bent into the bitter wind and walked. He spotted a building with a light in the window. Warmth.
He was pleased to discover a library.
He moved along the shelves and picked out several books. A thin Hemingway. A legal tome. Birds of North America.
He cuddled in one of the overstuffed chairs.
Then Gilbert carefully arranged the books near his feet on the marble floor. He lit them, and rubbed his hands in the glow of the building fire.

Norval Joe

Jake ran from sixth period english, his notebooks tucked under his arm; science was on the other side of the school. He rounded a corner to a narrow hallway, straight into Mark.
Mark laughed and pushed him back.
Silently, Doug had slipped behind Jake and slapped the books out of his grip. They splattered to the ground, loose pages scattering.
At the end of the hall, Janice appeared. “Do it, Jake,” she said.
Tears of embarasment burned Jake’s eyes as he gathered his notes.
“Do it, Jake,” Mark mimicked.
“Ok,” Jake whispered. “Pest, be gone.”
In a flash, Mark disappeared.

Justin

In my hands is the last paper book.
All paper and trees are gone. Giant air cyclers dot the landscape, converting CO2 into oxygen, along with the ocean plants.
The cyclers were built when the trees died.
The trees died when an overzealous ebook reader manufacturer released nanobots into the world to destroy the paper books. Ironically, he did it to save the trees, but of course, something went wrong.
The nanobots were eventually destroyed.
I tear a page from the book and wipe.
They’ve made a substitute for trees, but they’ve yet to make a good toilet paper replacement.

Planet Z

I have no idea how some of these celebrity chefs make ends meet.
I mean, there’s several that have endorsement deals in the millions, but the B-listers look like they’re bright in the spotlight, but their restaurants aren’t filling tables anymore.
After a wide undercover investigation, we found the reason why: they cheated.
Cheap ingredients.
Tax dodges.
Paying illegal aliens to work in the kitchens.
Now, there’s a new show on the Food Network about bad accounting practices in the restaurant business called “Cooking The Books.”
These B-lister criminal chefs all agreed to star in it.
Fame’s such a bitch.