Unit Seven F

A reprimand for Unit Seven F.
That makes three this week.
Seven F is usually reliable. Very reliable.
No reprimands at all before this week.
And now, there are three.
That’s not good. That’s not good at all.
Check the readings. Check the logs. Check everything.
Everything seems normal.
But then, everything seemed normal for Unit Twelve B.
And we all know what happened with Twelve B.
Those poor people, I can’t get their screams out of my head.
Maybe if we take Unit Seven F offline for a day or two.
Just to be safe. Just to make sure.

Breakfast Is

Breakfast is a cigarette and a cup of coffee.
Nobody has time for lunch.
Dinner is what’s left in the bottle. And another cigarette, if there’s any left.
Maybe a date will make you breakfast the morning after.
At her place, of course. There’s nothing at mine.
Except the coffee. And cigarettes. And the bottle.
Weddings, birthdays, funerals… those times, okay, I’ll eat something.
I’ll pick something up off of the buffet.
Before I head to the bar and grab a bottle.
Grab a pack of cigarettes out of somebody’s coat pocket.
I’ll have my dinner now, and breakfast tomorrow.

Weekly Challenge #761 – Chainsaw

Cat box

LIZZIE

Grasp a line of thought. Or try to.
And those animal heads mounted on the wall. The moody embalmed fish that was supposed to look alive and looked even deader. All conspiring to kill.
The door swung open and there it was. They dumped it on the table.
To work.
The chainsaw slashed through the skin, the meat, the bones. Cracking sounds signing the final surrender.
A leg, another leg. An arm, another arm.
The head… Oh, the head… That grimace of anger.
Good thing they didn’t have to mount her head on the wall. The fish wouldn’t like it.

RICHARD

Chainsaw

I’ve never owned a chainsaw, never wanted one and have no idea what I’d do with one anyway.

It’s not exactly an essential accessory for the man about town in an urban environment; chainsaws aren’t really necessary for unclogging the photocopier or for hosting Zoom meetings.

I don’t possess any checked shirts, or have any giant redwoods requiring felling, and I just know that putting me in charge of a chainsaw is about as sensible as giving a baby a loaded Kalashnikov.

It’ll all end very badly.

Even so, being a guy, I feel I really should own a chainsaw.

SERENDIPIDY

Those chainsaw massacre slasher movies really wind me up. Clearly created by idiots with no practical experience of serial killing, carving up bodies, or for that matter, owning a chainsaw.

To begin with, chainsaws are messy. Yes, a bloodbath sounds fun, but in practical terms it’s a nightmare when it comes to cleaning up.

Then there’s chainsaw maintenance – cleaning and oiling the chain and guide, constant re-fueling, and the tedious business of sharpening chain teeth: Bone blunts them dreadfully.

It’s a lot of hassle, time and energy, when an axe will do the job just as well.

It’s quieter too!

TOM

The Flying Karamazov Brothers

I’ve lived a Forest Grump life. I’ve meet a mess of folk early in their careers. Robin Williams, Penn and Teller, Donald Rumsfeld, Rodger Stone, the girl who sang on Paradise By the Dashboard Light and the band Styx. Hands down the odd guys were the Flying Karamazov Brothers. I was living in Santa Cruz and I would go watch them practice moves in the park near the bakery during lunch breaks. They had this funny bit juggling running chainsaws. While cross tossing eight saws they did this patter. “You rip a these, you mend a these.” Damn they were good.

NORVAL JOE

Billbert’s mother hurried to take him in her arms.
A man followed her, still covered in the dust from the collapsed headquarters. He laughed at the two agents with a ratcheting growl that sounded more like a chainsaw. He asked, “What’re you federal boys doing here?”
“Why we’re here, is federal business and we’re not ready to share that with the likes of you people. What we’re here for, is to take this boy for questioning.”
Billbert’s mother stepped in front of her son. “If you’re going to take this boy for questioning, you’ll have to go through me, first.”

TURA

Chainsaw
———
The kid pushed through the saloon doors and stared wildly around. The old men stared back.

At last, one broke the silence. “You lost, boy?”

“This is the Last Chance Saloon, right?” said the kid.

The old-timer grinned. “Well boy, that depends which way you’re headed.”

The kid said nothing.

“If it’s advice you’re looking for, I got some right here.” He leaned toward the kid and leered. “Don’t cut your genitals off with a chainsaw.”

“Hey, that’s some pretty good advice you got there, boy!” wheezed another old-timer.

The kid bolted outside.

It was exactly three in the afternoon.

RICK

Good Gig

It’s one thing to have a cord of wood, and another to make it suitable for the stove or fireplace. Pickup truck, chainsaw, log splitter … Mike had a good gig going. Splitting logs and stacking wood all over the county, cash only, all word of mouth recommendation.

Snakes, poison ivy, bees … Easy enough to deal with if you know how. Blue skies, sunshine, cool mountain air … The benefits outweighed the hardships.

Mike always kept a pint of blackberry Brandy and a couple of joints in the truck for particularly glorious days …

… Like I said … Mike had a good gig going.

PLANET Z

People were always getting Rabbi Chaim Esau’s name wrong.
Instead of taking offense, the good rabbi embraced it.
“I am Rabbi Chainsaw,” he says from the dais, firing up a gas-powered McCulloch and waving it in the air. “Who wants a circumcision?”
The congregation would laugh, and he’d get right into the sermon.
He performed this opening gag for forty years.
And then, one Saturday, as he hauled the growling chainsaw into the air, he suffered a rupture.
The blade fell through his head like a knife through butter.
They made sure to get his name right on the headstone.

Captain Blake’s Reminder

Captain Blake came up with his best ideas while he was falling asleep.
So, he kept a notepad on the nightstand.
The problem was, he’d fall asleep before he could reach his notepad.
Or he’d stab himself in the leg with the pen.
He tried a voice recorder, but all it captured were his snores.
Same thing with his smartphone.
The one with the voice commands.
But even if he got a few words out, the digital assistant wouldn’t get them right.
And Captain Blake would wake up with a reminder to milk a rhinoceros or tumble-dry seventy-seven times.

Scale of Scale

I bought a new bathroom scale.
It measures body fat and bone mass and other things beyond weight.
Stuff that I don’t care about, but I probably need to know.
It also has bluetooth in it to communicate with my phone.
So it can send all those things it measures to other applications.
Then it will nag me about what I eat and how much exercise I get.
My treadmill talks to my scale, which talks to my grocery list, which then talks to the grocery for instant pickup.
At what point do I get to live my own life?

Which Baldwin Are You?

On stage and screen, they called Ted the greatest actor of our generation.
There was no limit to his range.
From hero to villain, he brought depth and humanity to every role.
Except for one.
His portrayal of the unpopular President Dan Baker was a cruel and twisted caricature.
A slander ten times greater than Shakespeare’s Richard the Third.
Baker condemned it, earning Ted all that many more Hollywood accolades.
Then, the reports came out about Ted’s ex-wife.
The abuse. The beatings.
Ted’s publicist demanded that people respect the hypocrite’s privacy.
President Baker quietly thanked the FBI for their efforts.

Angel Five

The commander didn’t just shout his callsign but screamed it ANGEL FIVE ANGEL FIVE before the radio cut out and his fighter dropped from the formation trailing smoke and fire and another fighter took his place at the lead before he took on heavy fire and followed the commander to his death so the rest broke formation and fired at anything they could see but at night with no moon and mountains on their first mission after training sent fighter after fighter into a tailspin trailing smoke and crashing into the mountains with not a single parachute to be seen.

Podcast app

Every time I fly somewhere, I load up my phone with podcasts such as Stuff You Should Know or Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast.
They’re long, good, and interesting. And they chew up a lot of time pretty well.
I used to rely on the Apple Podcasts application, but it wasn’t good at retaining podcasts in its cache, and I would be left with an empty phone on a long flight.
So, I switched to Stitcher and I migrated subscriptions over to it.
It’s been working reliably for me ever since.
The plane I’m on, sadly, isn’t.
MAYDAY! MAYDAY! MAYDAY!

Whacked

My brother buried me in the snow.
I was six, he was eight or nine.
He whacked me over the head with a snow shovel, dug a hole, and pushed me into it.
Then he covered me up with snow.
Thing is, I deserved it.
I had buried his rare metal toy soldier collection in the snow.
He whacked me on the head after I tried to find where I’d buried them, but I’d covered my tracks too well.
“We’ll find them when it thaws in the Spring, right?” I said.
That’s when he whacked me harder and buried me.

Weekly Challenge #760 – Plump

There’s a Squeakies over Bourbon Street tonight...

LIZZIE

The herb expert always had a suggestion and a word of advice.
“And to lose weight?”
Herbs. He took them all.
And then the cramps, the headache, the nausea, the vomiting.
He went to hospital.
“What did you take?”
“This and that,” he replied uneasy, “this and that.”
When he got home, he took some more. He wanted to be elegant and fit into those tight jeans he bought by mistake.
More cramps, more headaches. The nausea, oh, the nausea.
Herbs for this, herbs for that. Enough.
“Fuck the jeans,” he cried out loud. “Fuck the expert. I like plump!”

RICHARD

Plump

“Does my butt look big in this?” She asked, straining to peer over her shoulder at the mirror.

I tried being tactful.

“Well, perhaps a little, erm… Plump, maybe? Nobody is going to comment about it though.”

I may as well have told her she resembled a zeppelin, judging by the response I got.

“I just want to look good for my first day on the job”, she complained.

I reassured her: “You look absolutely perfect, and I can guarantee that, no matter how slim someone might be… Nobody ever looks their best when they’re wearing a bomb disposal suit!”

SERENDIPIDY

It’s a myth that witches who live in the woods steal children to fatten up and eat.

I never enjoyed my children plump – far too fatty and greasy for my liking. I much prefer them to be thin and lean.

They also produce the best kiddy bacon: Hang them up to mature for a few weeks, then slice them thinly and fry until crispy. You can’t beat it, sandwiched between two thick slices of fresh bread, with plenty of butter!

The trouble is, with all this good eating, it’s us witches who end up too plump for our own good!

TOM

Jes Sayn

The old man sat on the porch, full concentration on small piece of pine. Through the corner of his eye he saw Billy making his way down the dirt road, dust flying up from his feet dragging stroll. “Hey Billy.” Said Ven. “Hey Ven,” said Billy. “Where ya go-n?” “Water Hole.” Billy had a black bamboo rod over the shoulder, a near picture prefect posture of the first card of the Major Arcana. That would be card number zero to those not Arcanaicly inclined. “Go-n fish-n.” Ven slowly shook his head. “Son I think you’re plump out of luck on that one.”

NORVAL JOE

Dergle’s weiner dog began to growl from his hiding place in his plump owner’s overcoat.
Billbert cleared his throat. “Thank you, Mr. Vander Hoont, for speaking on my behalf, but, I know my rights. I don’t have to go anywhere with these jokers. Not without my parent’s approval. I came here with the Withybottoms and I’m going to wait here until Linoliamanda comes back out.”
One of the agents took Billbert by the arm. “Like it or not, you’re coming with us.” He marched Billbert toward the door.
A car pulled up to the ER and Billbert’s mother got out.

TURA

Plump
———
In my young days, I was a stand-up comedian. I’d rant on the stage in seedy underground bars, and if I spotted some plump, middle-aged, middle-class git in the audience I’d let rip at them until they left in tears. There’s nothing like it. You can keep your cocaine and heroin, hate is the best drug there is.

Then I got spotted for TV, got my own show, raked in the money, and here I am, a plump middle-aged git myself.

You think that changes anything? I just hate on the young skinny gits who think they’re proper stand-up comedians.

RICK THOMAS

Pleasingly Plump

Let me tell you something … A lot of guys go all crazy for them skinny little girls got no meat on them, no curves, straight lines, all the way from their chins to their ankles! Padded shoulders, padded bras, high heels … All give the illusion of curves where there ain’t none.

A big girl got curves … Girl curves!
A big girl can cook … Serves up a plate proper!
Big piles … tasty stuff!

When things get close … Hip bone to hip bone kinda hurts … I like a little cushion for the pushin.

If you don’t believe me now … You will someday.

PLANET Z

Ballpark Franks are probably the worst branded hot dogs at the store.
They taste absolutely bland. Barely any meat or protein in them.
You could almost call them Vegan.
And their marketing slogan is revolting: They plump when you cook them.
Just to let you know that the cereal fillers expand when cooked.
They also plump when you leave them out on the counter.
Not only do the cereal fillers expand in the moist air, but the miniscule meat content will putrefy and bloat.
Until they eventually explode from the casings.
I wouldn’t even feed these things to an animal.