Tag: history

The Good Place

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After days in the library and on the Internet, Bobby turned in his paper.
Time and time again, rich people have treated poor people like crap with the promise of eternity in a good place if they put up with that crap.
The threat of eternity in a bad place prevents the poor people from treating the rich people like crap.
Priests are paid by rich people to come up with a lot of crap about the good place and the bad place, then shovel it at the poor.
Miss Krabapel sighed, lit another cigarette, and gave it an A.

India

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Just as Christopher Columbus landed in the New World and thought he’d reached India, Arturo Gustavani sailed for India and thought he had reached the New World.
Looking around the marketplaces full of rare spices, Arturo threw down his voluminous hat and cursed.
“Where are the worthless flint arrowheads and corn?”
Merchants brought him the finest silk and woven carpets, but he dismissed these riches and inquired about crude fibrous mats interlaced with bird feathers.
Calling the expedition a failure, Arturo headed back to the ship and was clubbed to death by his crew.
They returned and retired wealthy men.

Johnny comes marching home…

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When Johnny comes marching home again, we won’t be singing Hurrah Hurrah.
No, we’ll be waiting behind the woodshed with knives.
Johnny may think he’s a big hot-shot war hero, but his brothers who went to the front with him sent back letters saying otherwise.
A lousy shot.
A worthless coward.
A loose-lipped traitor.
He may think he made the explosion look like an artillery shell accident, but Tomkins saw it. And he sent the letter before Johnny finished him off, too.
We hear his horse come up the path, draw our knives, and his whistling grows louder.
STAB HIM!

Gravy Boat

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“Why do they call it a gravy boat?” I asked.
“Because there’s tiny German submarines in it,” said Grampa. “I bagged my share of Nazis, but there’s always one around the corner.”
Grampa was never in the army or navy. He drove his Buick into one of their Supreme Court-upheld Free Speech marches, and it was a miracle nobody got killed.
Well, okay. Maybe not the right use of the word miracle.
Anyway, they took away his license, and we’re stuck with him now.
I watched a tiny periscope rise… and then sink.
Just butter for my mashed potatoes, please?

April showers

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“April showers bring May flowers, and May flowers bring pilgrims” says the sampler on my wall.
As I look through this telescope into April’s bathroom, yeah, now you know why I named my cock “Mayflower.”
It used to be named “Norman Goldberg.”
I’m not sure why I named it that.
I don’t know anyone named Norman Goldberg, but a long time ago when I was looking at it, the name just jumped into my head.
I’m glad I changed its name. Would have been embarrassing to meet Norman in the street and say “Hey, that’s what I named my cock!”

What do Mummies eat?

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What do Mummies eat?
Just because their guts have been dumped into canopic jars and their brains hooked out through their noses, it doesn’t mean they don’t eat.
According these pictures on the wall, mummies eat flightless birds.
Dodos, awks, and penguins are a delicacy on the buffet to the bandaged.
This explains why awks and dodos are extinct. Completely wiped out by mummies.
As for penguins, well, the mummies ate them all except for the furthest reaches of Patagonia and the Southern Pole.
Mummies don’t do so well in cold weather, even when smothered with globs of Icy Hot.

The Bull

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Most Vikings carry an axe or a sword, but I know one who likes to bend down and charge his opponents like a bull, using the horns on his helmet as weapons.
They call him “The Bull”, oddly enough.
After years of charging and bashing into things, his face looks like a mashed up wad of yak guts, so when his longboat lost its dragon figurehead on the prow, he told his crew to lash him up there.
Not only does he look horribly menacing, but I think it’s the best washing the stinky old barbarian has had in decades.

The Mermaid Feast

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Old Captain Jack was a friend to all creatures of the sea, so when he died, they took his boat out thirty miles from shore and cast him into the briny deep.
Six mermaids caught his shrouded body and escorted him over the horizon.
The crew set course for port, but winds blew them back out, and they came across the mermaids.
They were feasting on Jack’s corpse, hands drenched in gore and blood.
The crew wanted to fire their cannon to scatter the mermaids, but instead they just watched.
Watching half-naked cannibal women are better than nothing, I suppose.

Fooling Osiris

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Rameses knew he was a royal dick. His heart was heavy with guilt. So, he constructed a fake from red feathers.
“That way I pass Osiris’ Test of Balances and go into Paradise,” he said.
On the day of their master’s death, his assistants did as he wished. They tore out his heart, put it in a jar, and carefully implanted the feather construct.
Then, they were put to death and buried with him.
Osiris looked at the feather-heart.
“Light, isn’t it?” said Ramses.
“Yes,” he said. “Pretty.”
Then, he took out a jar. “But this one says you’re fucked.”

What wine goes with pterodactyl?

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I look up at the display on the wall to see that the time machine is back from the ancient past.
Just a few minutes to match atmospheres, and they’ll unload the goods.
The last time, they brought back statues from Atlantis, but this run was for me.
It’s a part of the contract. I fund the research and pay the electric bills, and they keep the kitchen stocked.
Tonight, we dine on roasted pterodactyl.
Not quite like snake, maybe a bit like alligator.
Perhaps we should fry it?
I select a deep red wine from the cellar and grin.