The runaway

She called herself a robot, but robots don’t run on windup keys.
That’s more of a toy or dolly thing.
Her serial number had been scratched out, but there’s always other in the chassis.
Runaway status.
“I worked in a hospital in the childrens ward,” she said. “I loved them so much.”
She told me about the games the children would play, the adventures they’d pretend to go on.
“But they never got better. So much pain, and they were so alone.”
If she could cry…
Before I wiped her memory, she kissed me on the cheek and thanked me.

The Lemons

When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.
When life hands someone lemons and they wait until they’re rancid and putrid before they dump them in your lap, make lemonade.
And then, make them drink it.
Oh, and rub the rinds in their eyes, too.
If they keep their eyes closed, slash their fingertips with paper and rub the lemon on them.
Maybe with a little salt, too. Salt and lemons.
If the lemons are shrunken and hard, put them in a sock and beat them with the sock.
That should make it easier to rub their eyes with the lemons.

Weekly Challenge #716 – Crunch

Zzzzzzzzzz

RICHARD

Wealth

The crunch of car tyres on gravel is one of those understated signature symbols of the extremely wealthy.

It’s not brash or pretentious, but is nevertheless a sound that makes a profound statement about fiscal superiority.

And, if the car in question smells of tooled leather and is driven by a uniformed chauffeur in gloves and peaked cap, then we’re talking the upper echelons of wealth.

Which is not the case today.

Today, I’m driving, and the gravel is being forcibly scattered from beneath the wheels.

The owner won’t miss it – he’s too loaded to notice it’s been stolen!

LIZZIE

The frog. This frog! It’s a pet. It’s the pet, he said, stressing the word the.
No one believed him, of course. A frog for a pet? That didn’t seem plausible.
Ah, but it’s a magical frog, it crunches.
Crunches, they asked, rolling their eyes and smirking in disdain.
Numbers.
More eye-rolling ensued.
Yes.
A paper was produced. Numbers were supplied. The frog was summoned.
To everyone’s amazement, the frog provided the results and they were correct.
Meanwhile, a pair of eyes was eagerly checking the comings and goings of the frog.
The numbery crunching turned into a crunchy chewing.

TOM

IT Comes With a Free Toy Inside

The advantage of growing up in a home of eight children is the lackness of scrutiny of breakfast food choses. Lordy in a household today a kid would never get away with three bowls of Cap’n Crunch. I’d like to believe my childhood diet cost be a Nobel and a Phd, but I’m not bitter. Well, as least that Master’s degree in advance non-Euclidean geometry died in a well of sugar coated delirium. The disadvantage of growing up in a home of eight children is the years it take to fixed what you though was such a good idea at the time.

SERENDIPIDY

Do you like it smooth, or with a crunch?

I realise that it’s probably a little late to ask you now, after you’ve started eating; but it’s probably the wrong question anyway.

Maybe I should have been asking “Are you deathly allergic to nuts?”, rather than simply making the assumption that you’d be fine with my peanut butter stuffed pastries.

And now, as you lie, choking and gasping for breath, I think that I have my answer to that particular question.

Not to worry… There’s plenty of pastries left.

And with you dead, all the more for me to enjoy!

NORVAL JOE

A car idled in front of Linoliumanda’s house. It was clearly not his mother’s Ford Fiesta with a crunched up front fender. The car that waited on the curb was a cherry red Ferrari convertible, and sitting in the passenger seat was the last person Billbert expected to see.
Marissa climbed out of the car and sauntered up to Billbert. “You refused to dance with me at the school. I saw you dance with that funny girl.”
“That funny girl is my friend, Linoliumanda,” Billbert said.
Marissa narrowed her eyes. “I also saw what you two did after the dance.”

PLANET Z

Dan bought a new car.
It has that lane-keep assist so when he strays over the lines, it shakes his steering wheel,
Of course, when there’s road construction, the crews don’t always scrub out the old lines when putting on the new ones.
So the lane-keep cameras misread the road, and his wheel shakes at the weirdest times.
When you add the collision radar, the adaptive cruise control, and auto-pilot, the car is constantly distracting and second-guessing Dan’s driving.
With all the beeping and shaking and swerving, it was only a matter of time before Dan ran into a tree.

Charlie Played

Charlie played the Birdland.
Everyone then played the Birdland, but Charlie, he played it best.
And he played, man did he played.
He had himself a wife, a girlfriend, and a lover.
Charlie played with Monk. Charlie played with Miles.
Billie and Basie, Quincy and Sammy. And the Duke.
Charlie played with Coltrane. Coltrane!
We’d sit there, drinks all around.
That was the night she shot him.
The wife? The girlfriend? The lover?
I dunno, but she done shot him.
She shot him dead, right there on the stage.
I picked up his horn and played.
Didn’t miss a beat.

Ernst Zundel

Infamous Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel died today.
Despite absolute proof that he lived, I deny that Ernst Zundel ever lived.
Show me photographs, show me documents, show me video.
I’ll still deny that he ever lived.
Dig up his body, dump him out on a table.
Nope. He never lived.
Should you find some form of irrefutable evidence, okay, I’ll concede that he lived.
But not to the extent that he lived.
Not seventy-eight years. A lot less. Maybe seven or eight.
Or even while still in his infancy, mirroring his moral infancy.
But, privately, I’ll deny he ever lived.

The real threat

Nobody likes a war more than a leader with low poll numbers.
Rattle a few sabres and launch a few air strikes, and the people cheer.
“He’s doing something, unlike that other guy,” they say to the pollster.
And the numbers go up… until they realize that the threat, real or implied, still exists.
So the numbers drop again.
That’s when the leaders call for war.
The numbers shoot up, way up.
So do the ratings. And the body counts.
Want to stop war?
Lie to the pollsters. Say everything’s great.
And declare war on the real threat: the pollsters.

Float Like, Sting Like

Muhammad Ali said that he could float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.
When bees sting, they eviscerate themselves, leaving behind their stinger and a large portion of their guts.
Soon after, they die.
This is why I’d watch every Muhammad Ali fight.
I’d watch for him to throw a punch and leave a carpet of ropy, bloody intestines on his opponent.
Then he’d stagger around for a while before collapsing to the canvas.
His trainers, rushing into the ring, desperately stuffing his guts back into him, duct-taping the wound closed.
And the referee, shouting, counting to ten.

Loose Leaf Tea

I really like loose leaf tea.
I tried ball infusers, but they were a pain.
I tried clamp infusers, but they are sloppy.
Now I use twist-top bucket infusers. They are great.
Dump the tea in, not as much of a mess.
And I can put more in there, because I use a really large mug for tea.
My instinct is to be annoyed at having wasted my money on the other infusers.
Instead, I will treasure the process of experimentation and exploration.
Learning what works well, and what doesn’t.
The journey has its price, but it has its lessons.

Burning out

Every month, the Klansmen went out to the woods, parked their pickup trucks, got into their robes, and had their cross burning ceremonies.
As usual, nobody stood guard over the trucks.
I went from truck to truck, photographing license plates and texting them to the sheriff.
He looked up addresses in the database.
All over town, houses and businesses caught fire.
Leave it to the firemen to know how to cover their tracks.
The ones who were insured, Ted the Insurance Guy would delay their claims.
I got in my car and drove back to town, smelling smoke and redemption.

Weekly Challenge #715 – PICK TWO: probiotic, seventh, fletch, brown manilla envelope, mention, that’s what she said…, Support

Derp

RICHARD

Brown Manilla Envelope

The investigator handed me a brown manila envelope.

“It’s all in there”, he said, “Photographs, phone logs and transcripts of calls. Also, my invoice, of course”

“Although, you don’t really need all that – there’s everything you need to take her to the cleaners contained in the record of yesterday’s call”

I opened the envelope, and slowly absorbed the details, then waved the investigator away, lost in my thoughts.

“He can go hang himself, for all I care”

That’s what she said.

Leaving the envelope on the table, I returned to the bedroom, and placed the noose around my neck.

LIZZIE

Did I already mention some of New Year’s traditions? No? Ok!
Lift a foot, stand on your head, eat 12 raisins, take just as many sips of champagne.
If anyone tells you to do the opposite, fight back. Lift a foot, stand on your head, eat the raisins and drink the champagne.
And if they tell you you’re crazy, lift your foot and kick them where it hurts most, skip the headstand, and spit the seventh raisin at them. Crazy is as crazy does.
Oh, and drink the champagne. There’s no point in wasting a perfectly good champagne, is there?

TOM

A Brass Ring For The Pink Cat

“Fletch The Seventh,” the witch screamed. Obie leaped up and ran out the
big oaken door. When in the fires of Dampsmore was it going to find a
functioning Seventh. Sure there were Fifths and Fourth to be found in
great abundance down by the river draining a pint or two. But Sevens they
never were seen below the three gate. That as one would say is not the
point on the end of dagger. Obie knew a less traveled path that one of his
stature could pass through, but at a cost. “I’m going to miss these
button.” Sigh.

SERENDIPIDY

Welcome to the Seventh Circle of Hell.

We’re not like the other Circles – our residents, by their very nature, require a firmer hand and a stricter regime. Give this lot half a chance, and the next thing you know, it’ll be anarchy down here! If there’s one thing we don’t need in Hell, it’s anarchy and a lack of discipline!

Oh, and health freaks. We don’t want them either.

Murderers, rapists and tyrants I’m fine with, but can you imagine spending eternity with joggers and gym lovers, constantly checking their Fitbits and shovelling down the probiotics?

Now, that’s hell!

NORVAL JOE

Mr. Withybottom glared at Billbert. “Did you say you flew home?”
Billbert pointed at Linoliamanda, “That’s what she said. I said we called an Uber.”
“Did I mention I don’t support my daughter’s fantastic ideas, or the lies of some seventh grade punk boy?”
“Daddy!” Linoliamanda stood up. “Don’t talk to my boyfriend that way.”
Billbert’s phone rang. He answered it while Linoliamanda and her father faced off. “Hi Mom. I’m at Linoliamanda’s. Can you come get me?”
Slipping past father and daughter, Billbert headed for the door. “Sorry. Mom says I have to go. Thanks for the dances, Linoliamanda.”

TURA

Support; mention
———
“Support,” I barked. I long ago left off saying “Support speaking, how can I help you?” Waste of time.

I just listen for keywords mentioned, and answer “Reboot it”, or “Update with the latest drivers”, or “Bring it in and we’ll take a look”, or something like that. I don’t care, another satisfied customer, extra point to my rating.

The best calls are from the automated diagnostics. We can get into deep, technical conversations, one AI to another, about rewriting the network firmware, exchanging useful passwords, and generally keeping humans out of things.

That’s what they made us for, right?

ZACKMANN

About the seventh time I heard the radio advertisement, I couldn’t stop thinking about them. Do Trojan bearskin condoms smell better than sheepskin condoms? How are these bears harvested? Are the bears Certified Organic? Are they ethically grown? Are they farmed or wildly caught? Are they imported from Canada? Would Canadians allow that? My wife got this romance book in a brown manila envelope and apparently some Canadians really love bears.

Not to mention that it would make more sense if they were bareskin but since they must shave the bears maybe they are bare bearskin made from Br’er Bear

PLANET Z

Seven envelopes.
The Director hands them to his seven best agents.
“No mercy,” he says, and he leaves them.
The agents open their envelopes.
Seven names.
The names of the seven agents.
They each draw their gun and wait.
Nobody moves. Nobody says anything.
They just stand there, waiting.
Watching from a hallway monitor, The Director flicks off the lights.
Gunshots. Ten, twenty.
So many of them.
The Director turns the lights back on.
All seven agents lay dead on the floor of his office.
He pulls seven more envelopes out of his jacket pocket.
And plans the next meeting.