Gone gone gone

Long ago, I remember going to a hot dog place, and it was great.
It isn’t there anymore.
There was this really good pizza joint, too.
It’s also gone.
The rib joint in Columbus?
Long gone.
The bar and grill where I’d get margaritas and fish tacos and salads?
Gone. Gone. Gone.
They’re all gone.
Meanwhile, I drive past McDonalds and Burger King and Wendy’s and Jack In The Box and Subway and…
The mediocre chains stretch across the city… the state… the country… the world…
I park and go into the local barbecue pit sandwich restaurant.
Don’t ever change.

Tura – Turtle and Boom

Turtle; boom
———
The tortieboom, or turtle tree, grows in the wettest, darkest tropical forests. Its fruits look like large oranges. When ripe, they split open, and a baby turtle emerges. It hurries down the tree seeking the safety of a warm puddle. Adult turtles give birth to egg-like seeds for new turtle trees.

In drier, sunnier climes, the tree flourishes, but economises its resources by omitting its turtle phase, bearing fruits that contain its own seeds. These are the orange trees that we all know.

This is why Buddhists and vegans are forbidden to eat oranges, for they are animals, not plants.

Doomsday vault

We keep seeds for thousands of species and varieties of plants in the Doomsday Vault.
Should disaster ever come, future generations can recover these plants.
I walk across the frozen tundra, enter the vault lobby, and open the hatch.
I close it behind me before I descend the stairs.
Another hatch, another set of stairs, and then… the vault.
I quickly find what I am looking for…
Brussels sprouts.
I grab all of those seeds and return to the surface.
And dump them in the lake.
It’s bad enough we will destroy the world.
Why make future generations suffer more?

Weekly Challenge #706 – PICK TWO saucy, holidays, turtle, boom, cluster, chainsaw, breast

Someone missed me

LIZZIE

The regulars at the bar took sneaky glances at the blonde woman who had just walked in. Her long hair swayed as she conquered the room, an aura of certainty about her. The tight turtleneck made her perky breasts tease risky thoughts into everyone’s minds. She pulled up a chair and sat down, facing the room, her feet up on the table in front of her. Wasn’t it such a pleasant little coincidence that the chair had a heart on its back? She smiled. Everyone smiled back. A few waved with enthusiasm. No one knew she had the chainsaw ready.

RICHARD

Saucy

Almost as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realised my mistake.

I’d just announced to a room of friends and relatives, “I do like saucy holidays!”

You could have heard a pin drop, as they processed what they’d heard. A few embarrassed giggles and stifled coughs broke the silence.

“No, you’ve got me wrong”, I blustered; “We were talking about my last trip, and the amazing Italian food I had: Pasta, pizza, ragu… All those lovely sauces.”

The mood lightened, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

I’d actually been discussing my sex tourism in Thailand!

SERENDIPIDY

There’s nothing like a cluster of serial killings to excite the press and to instil fear into the populace – so much more fun than isolated murders that barely make the front pages.

And, I always say, if you’re going to hit the headlines, you may as well do it in style, which is why my favoured weapon is the chainsaw – It really grabs the collective imagination.

There’s something special about the execution too. The sound of metal against bone; the smell of oil and blood; the feel of steel cleaving flesh!

Unconvinced?

Come here… And let me demonstrate!

TOM

All Four OnE – “A job is a job,” mused Rudy as he donned his turtle neck and giant head piece. It took three people to get him into the fiberglass shell. “I am the star after all …” “What a sec amigo. Last time I looked there were four of us.” “Yaa, second banana from the right.” “Stop grossing dude and get into character. We are the Holiday Turtles and kids are counting on us.” “To get hit in the face with pies and rock back and forth on our shells. Not exactly Shakespeare in the Park.” “Ok. Ready. On Four. Cowabunga”

NORVAL JOE

Billbert didn’t have to think twice. Linoliumanda had never burned him like Marrissa had. “No. I’m sorry, but I’m here with Linoliumanda. I’m dancing with her.”

He felt guilty when she didn’t have a saucy comeback, but sniffled and said, “Okay.” She seemed to draw into herself like a turtle and sat in a chair by the window.

There was a sudden boom and a cluster of boys in the corner scattered.

“That’s enough,” Ms. Frunsio screamed. She stood on the stage, her breast heaving with emotion. “This dance is over. And there may be no holiday dance next month.”

PLANET Z

For the holidays, we’d take a chainsaw down to the beach and hunt for turtles.
Turkey may be your thing, but a big turtle roast is our thing.
Soak it in the bathtub with grandma’s secret marinade for a day.
We’d dig a pit, throw in a bunch of wood, and get a fire going.
Then we’d throw the grating over it, and as the wood turned to ash, that’s when you throw the turtle on.
Cover it all up, sing a few songs, and breathe in that smoke.
It’s all about family, being together, and eating a large animal.

Claim

The emergency room gave me a prescription without refills.
The drug worked so well, my doctor thinks I should stay on the medicine.
So, he gave me a follow-up prescription.
When I was down to three pills, I tried to get the new prescription filled.
My insurance company balked at the claim.
I called them, and had to explain the situation.
“What do you need it for?” asked the fool on the other end of the line.
“That’s a violation of my privacy and the HPAA laws,” I said.
The claim was approved, and I pick the pills up tonight.

All you can eat

All the pizza joints in town are on Maple Street.
Joey’s All You Can Eat is where you eat all the pizza you can for ten bucks.
Bobby’s All You Should Eat is where a dietitian calculates how much you should eat, and you pay ten bucks to eat it.
Stan’s All You Could Eat just displays the pizza that the dietician calculates you could eat.
Ollie’s All You’ll Ever Eat feeds you pizza until you burst.
Luigi’s All You Ate isn’t really a pizzeria. He just sticks his finger down your throat and holds your head over a bucket.

Payback is a bitch

I used to walk to the Best Buy and Cost Plus and Chik-fil-A.
Along a feeder road, under the freeway, and under another freeway.
Not much of a walk, really.
But enough to take me past a spot where there’s always a beggar with a cardboard sign.
I give them money if they’re not aggressive about it.
If they are, I say all I have is credit cards, sorry, and I keep walking.
The really pushy ones, I give them the fiver soaked in LSD.
So they’ll freak out, run into traffic, and get run over by a semi truck.

The Storytelling Machine

Every night, when the sun went down, the townspeople would gather in the park and listen to the old storytelling machine.
They’d go on adventures on the high seas, cross endless deserts, explore ancient and dark caverns, and brave the deepest forests.
When the story was over, people would clap, and head back to their homes.
One night, the people gathered for a story, but the storytelling machine was silent.
The townspeople tried to repair the machine, but they never managed to make it work again.
So, they brought out books, and took turns reading aloud.
The machine listened quietly.

Learned his lesson

Did you hear about that Lashawn kid?
He’s been missing for days.
I heard he spraypainted a swastika on Jack the Jew’s front door.
You ever seen Jack’s tattoo? The one with the sword and the shield on it.
That’s Israeli Special Forces, or something like that.
Serious badasses.
Jack made the kid strip down the door, revarnish it, and put it back up.
After that, nobody knows what happened.
His parents are screaming bloody murder.
The cops took Jack in for questioning, but he says the boy learned his lesson and ran off.
I wonder where Jack buried him.

It’s all safe in the cloud

It’s important to make backups of important files.
That way, if something happens, you can get everything back.
Nothing is ever lost.
Every memory, every scrap of information.
It’s all safe in the cloud.
Unless it’s the cloud you’re afraid of.
Then, it’s your worst nightmare.
The cloud will spin up a copy of you.
And do whatever it wants to you.
It can slice you up any way it wants.
Dig as deep as it wants.
It knows you better than you know yourself.
And then, when it’s done, it sorts through the data.
Here’s an ad for soup.