NyQuil is green and makes you drowsy.
DayQuil is orange and doesn’t make you drowsy.
So, what happens if you drink them both?
I don’t know.
So, I went outside to a picnic table, poured out a capful of each of the liquids, and waited patiently.
Slowly, the moon covered the sun, and the sky grew dark.
At the moment of total coverage, where night was day and day was night, I drank.
The taste was horrendous, but passed quickly.
Then, my stomach felt warm.
And the feeling passed.
The moon slowly moved away from the sun…
And it winked.
Tag: mystery
Tower
I love making towers out of soup crackers.
The trick is to mush up some crackers in the soup to make a mortar.
Not too dry, or they won’t stick and the tower won’t stand up.
And not too wet, or it will soak the crackers in the tower and threaten the structural stability.
You’ve got to get the mortar just right, and there’s such a small window in which you can use it before it dries up.
The type of soup’s important, too.
Tomato’s good.
So is French Onion, but I think that using the gooey cheese is cheating.
Evil Cloud
A hum, an evil cloud of acrid temptation spreads across the office floor, from desk to desk it is sucked in by its unwitting victims, smothering them with the irresistible hungry urge… hunger… want…
“Who the fuck made microwave popcorn, dammit?” growls my scruffy hipster cube-mate Sherman. “That shit’s worse than Tina’s perfume.”
Or Sherman’s aftershave, I don’t say. Smells like a sweaty gun range.
DING! The microwave is done. The sound of the door opening, a rip.
The air handlers will kick in and dissipate this horrid clou-
The microwave door closes. The hum returns.
Damn it! Another bag!
Kidnappers
Bobby was missing, and the kidnappers had left a note to stay by the phone.
The telephone rang, and Bobby’s mother picked up.
Bobby is safe.
Don’t call the police.
We want a hundred bucks.
“Only a hundred?” Bobby’s mother asked.
“We know the economy’s tough,” said the kidnappers. “If that’s too much, we’re okay with fifty. Or maybe twenty if you throw in a nice homecooked dinner.”
The kidnappers showed up later, gladly took the twenty, and squealed “Meatloaf! We love meatloaf!” when invited to dinner.
“Next time we’ll bring wine, okay?” the kidnappers said, and they all laughed.
Tesla
When Fiorello Laguardia said “But Tesla is not dead, not really dead… only his body lays still.” In his eulogy to the great inventor, he wasn’t lying.
Hours earlier, LaGuardia stared at a massive underground array of dynamos, cables, and engines bathed in lightning.
“GREETINGS, FRIEND,” boomed the voice of Tesla, whom LaGuardia had just seen in the funeral home that morning.
“Shouldn’t I tell the people of this miracle?” asked LaGuardia.
A large box with a shiny tube turned to point at him.
“Never mind,” said the mayor, recognizing the Death Ray. “We’ll just hold a funeral procession, okay?”
The Evolution Bazooka
Pastor Bailey doesn’t like evolution being taught in the local public schools, and he’s demanding that creationism be taught alongside it.
The faculty has refused to teach creationism, and the Science Department has put their heads together to prepare a formal response.
“BEHOLD!” shouts the wild-eyed Professor Jankins, brandishing a shiny silver tube. “THE EVOLUTION BAZOOKA!”
I tap my fingers on my desk. “Really, Stan?”
He laughs, points the bazooka at a potted plant, and pulls the trigger.
Nothing happens.
Later that afternoon, he realized the batteries had been put in backwards, and he turned a student into a chimpanzee.
Shovel Brothers
Fred is wearing the same shirt as I am today.
We are shirt-brothers.
Fred also drives the same car as I do. Same make, model, and color.
Which makes us car-brothers.
Toasters? Well, I don’t see how that’s important, but they’re also the same.
So we’re also toaster-brothers.
I’ve even gotten Fred’s signature down cold, too.
I show it to Fred.
His eyes get wide, and he tries to scream through the gag.
I toss two shovels into the trunk with him (we’re shovel-brothers, too!) and slam the lid.
Shallow grave brothers?
Nah. I’ll let Fred have that to himself.
The Fever
We don’t bother taking Ed’s temperature anymore.
You can tell by the sweat and the redness, he’s burning up.
Still, as the doctor told us to do, we’ve filled his pillow with ice, covered his forehead with damp towels, praying his fever will break.
It’s hard to get him to drink, because he’s constantly whispering nonsense and won’t sip from the glass, so we get him to suck on a damp towel when we can… it’s reflex.
When his temperature’s down again, the doctor will inject me, and it’ll be my turn for the fever.
I hope our vaccine works.
Robby
We trained Robby to never leave his teddy bear behind.
So, years later, every time we tried to throw the thing out, Robby would rescue it from the garbage.
We dumped the horrid thing in the neighbor’s trash can, but somehow Robby found it there and dug it out.
One block down… two blocks down…
He always found it.
I sent him to his room, and as I tore the thing apart, something fell out:
The waterproof GPS tracker, in case Robby ever got kidnapped or ran away.
Oh. Right.
I went to Robby’s room and…
He was gone.
ROBBY!
Poe
For decades, a stranger in a long coat, scarf and hat would leave three roses and a half-empty bottle of cognac at the grave of Edgar Allen Poe on the writer’s birthday.
But recently, the stranger has failed to show up, and people are starting to worry.
Has the stranger gone forever?
What happened to them?
I’m sad about the loss of another of life’s romantic mysteries.
There’s no more Bermuda Triangle.
Or Bigfoot.
Or Loch Ness Monster.
No miracles, no monsters.
All of the things we knew not to be true but still believed in are fading away.
Gone.