Business picked up at Dan’s neighborhood bike shop around the holidays.
He mostly sold assembled bikes, but some fathers insisted on doing it themselves from the boxes.
Those were the ones who called Dan on Christmas Eve, and Dan would charge them a lot more for a house call.
Kids would want to try their bikes Christmas morning, on the icy sidewalks and roads.
Dan would make a few more bucks from repairs.
And the restocking and scratch-and-dent fees for returns.
He’d get them fixed up for the next holiday season.
He also sold rollerskates and rollerblades.
And wheelchairs, too.
Why can’t we do both?
Hillary Clinton had the most votes, but lost the election.
Some people say she deserves to be in the White House.
Others say that she deserves to be locked up.
I say let her in.
The media can watch her walk the red carpet and cheer.
Waving to the cameras, smiling wide in her favorite pantsuit.
Bill at her side, with that shit-eating grin.
Then put her in chains, drag her into the basement, and lock her up.
As for Bill, he can visit, if he wants.
When he’s not collecting bribes… I mean charitable donations.
Or fucking his mistresses.
The Bonfire and The Pile
Jose Hernandez was a gardener here at the university.
He wasn’t a very good gardener.
He never trimmed the hedges. He never watered the grass. He never weeded the flowerbeds.
Fifty years, he couldn’t do a damned thing right.
When he died, he left all of his money to the university.
“Build a memorial garden for me,” his will said.
So, we did.
It’s over there, in the middle of the parking lot.
We toss all of our dead plants there.
Downed tree limbs and branches.
Every year, we hold a bonfire.
And we start the pile all over again.
The Nurse
They hauled in the school bomber last night.
Bloody and torn, barely recognizable as human.
“Fifteen minutes,” said the medic. “Twenty tops.”
The nurse whispers into the dying man’s ear.
“I’m with the Red Crescent. You’re not dying. Tell me who to warn off the attack.”
A head full of morphine, he mumbles names, places.
The nurse smiles, and injects the morphine blocker.
A moan, then screaming.
She lights the blowtorch, and slowly sears every inch of his skin.
Years later, she’ll take out a lighter, and singe the hair on her wrist.
The smell brings back such good memories.
Weekly Challenge #731 – SANITIZE
- Lizzie
- Richard
- Serendipidy
- Tom
- Norval Joe
- Tura
- Planet Z
LIZZIE
“Sanitize this, sanitize that, that’s all we hear these days. How about sanitizing at a larger scale?”
The staff sat around the oval table in the meeting room, motionless.
“We just have to have political courage, that’s all.”
No one uttered a word.
“We start small first and see if anyone complains.”
A few people shifted in their chairs, the discomfort growing.
“If the media don’t pick up on it, we go bigger. It’ll save money too.”
The silence was overwhelming.
“OK, then. It’s decided. We’ll start next week.”
They started with the old and the lonely. No one noticed.
RICHARD
OCD
I used to sanitise everything.
OCD is like that.
I’d wash my hands countless times a day until they were raw and red; wipe down door handles, avoid putting cutlery down on any surface, and wipe down anything I was likely to come into contact with.
Outside the home, I’d wear gloves, avoid public transport and never shake hands or hug friends.
But now, I don’t do any of that.
I’m not cured of OCD.
It’s just that, everybody else in the world is now doing the washing hands, wiping down and social distancing thing.
So, I don’t have to!
SERENDIPIDY
Maybe I should tone down my stories?
Make them less gory, steer away from the graphic depictions of blood and guts, and tone down the horror?
I know they’re not everybody’s cup of tea, and I don’t cover the sort of topics that crop up in polite conversation.
I know that sometimes, after reading one of mine, some will feel the need for a stiff drink, or find something pleasant and uplifting to sanitise the feelings of corruption I’ve sown.
Maybe, if I did, I could be a successful writer?
But perhaps not.
It never did Stephen King any harm!
TOM
I Long For A Hair Cut
Did you here this? I cannot believe this. Someone just santatize that merry old elf, Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, Kris Kringle. Saint Nick. Caught him from behind and gave him an injection of Christmas Winter Green Pinesol. Some born again nut-job in a maga hat. They rushed him to the local hospital, unfortunately he was vacationing in George at the time. The ICU treated him with a mega dose of UV light. You know how hard it is to get a lamp down someone esophagus? Just as he passed away. He said,” I was only a sniffle, didn’t have a fever.”
NORVAL JOE
Billbert’s phone rang. It was Linohliamanda’s number.
“What’s the problem, Billbert?” she asked when he answered the phone.
He explained what had happened with Marissa and her father. “If it gets out that I can fly, my dad says we’ll have to move away.”
“Right,” Linohliumanda said. “We need to go back and sanitize the crime scene.”
“Do what?” Billbert asked.
“You know. We need to go to the school and remove any evidence.”
Billbert couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “The only evidence was witnessed by Marissa. How are we going to sanitize that?”
“Rub her out?” Linohliamanda asked.
TURA
Sanitize
———
It’s such a bother having visitors. I feel it necessary to sanitize my place, by clearing away piles of clothes, washing the dishes, vacuuming the floors. Then hide the sex toys (unless it’s that sort of visit), clear the web browser history, turn off embarrassing notifications from eBay. The sigils warding my portal to the Dark Realms can’t be erased, of course, so I have to cast an invisibility spell over them, which is tricky because the demons still have to be able to see them.
At least social distancing means I won’t need to do that for the duration.
PLANET Z
When you make pancakes with chocolate chip smiley faces…
When you lay out his favorite clothes for the day…
When you wash his teddy bear separately so it doesn’t stink of fabric softener and fragrant detergent…
When you dump the water out of the tire swing so it doesn’t breed mosquitoes or get his pants wet…
When you take the ugly sweater out of the gift box from Aunt Myrtle and replace it with a video game console…
Hope that he remembers those days.
The good days. The special days.
And not the ones when you were drinking all day.
Relaxing in the tub
Soaking in the tub, breathing slowly.
Watching the blood leak from my arms into the water.
Red spirals and loops, it’s almost beautiful.
I barely notice the pain.
Drowsy, relaxed.
Is it the warm water in the tub, or the loss of blood?
Probably both. Or maybe it’s the pills.
I slide down, and my head goes under the water.
I don’t even try to lift it back up. I don’t know if I could.
My eyes open, looking up, cloudier and cloudier.
And darker. From the blood in the water, or the loss of blood?
It doesn’t really matter.
Pringle Farms
Every year, we go out to Pringle Farms.
No, that’s not where they grow Pringles chips.
That would be silly.
That’s where they grow the canisters in which they sell Pringles chips.
You thought that those were used tennis ball canisters, didn’t you?
Well, that’s not true.
They’re not used at all. They’re picked fresh from the vine.
Then, they’re dried and sent off to the Pringles chip factory.
After you eat the chips and throw away the canister, they recycle it into a tennis ball canister.
Well, they have to wash it first. Otherwise, the balls get all greasy.
On a stick
There’s so much to eat at the state fair.
As long as you want to eat something that’s been battered and fried on a stick.
Because fried things on a stick are easy to eat while you’re walking around the fair.
And you don’t need to carry around a plate or a paper tray.
It started with corn dogs on a stick.
Now, they’ve got fried Snickers bars, fried sticks of butter, fried chocolate-covered bananas, and fried peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
After that, you’ll need a fried Pepto Bismol or Gas-X lollipop. Possibly a stomach-pump.
And a coronary bypass.
Maurice
Some people call me Maurice.
My name isn’t Maurice, mind you.
But Maurice was the name of the guy I replaced at the store.
And they didn’t have any new company shirts in my size.
So, they gave me Maurice’s shirts, with his name on a patch, sewed on to the front.
“We’ll get you your own patches,” said the manager.
But after a day of getting called Maurice, it kinda grew on me.
The next day, Maurice came back for his paycheck.
It said “John” on it.
“Yeah, the same thing happened to me,” said Maurice… I mean John.
Condemned Houses
The first little pig built his mouse out of straw, but the building inspector came by and refused to issue a certificate of occupancy for it.
“A house made of straw?” said the building inspector. “That’s horribly unsafe. Not only will it blow over in a heavy wind, but all it takes is one spark, and you’ll be roasted alive in there.
The building inspector condemned it, and he began the process of issuing demolition orders.
“I can be there next Tuesday,” said The Big Bad Wolf. “And I can handle those wood and brick houses you want demolished, too.”