I have lifetime passes to Disney parks.
My elderly parents want me to use them to take them to Disney World.
But my dad requires a walker and my mother has the bitchy and feisty form of Dementia.
Along with gastrointestinal issues which randomly park her on the toilet for hours.
I would have an absolutely miserable time there, more miserable than they usually make me.
So… I did what any good son would do.
I took them to Disney World.
Flew First Class, got the best suite at the resort.
And I spread their ashes at the Haunted Mansion.
Lazarus
After his Reggie’s wife died, LazarusTech picked up the body and brought it back to their lab.
Nobody’s quite sure what they do there.
Camera crews aren’t allowed in, and employees never talk.
Bodies go in, deliveries go out.
Three days later, LazarusTech delivered the clone of Reggie’s wife to Reggie.
“She has all of your wife’s memories,” said the technician.
And she opened her eyes.
“You fucking poisoned me!” she yelled, grabbing Reggie by the throat.
Reggie fought back and killed her.
“That violates the warranty,” said the technician.
He carried the body to the van and drove off.
Beggar’s Night
Ever notice those people standing at intersections, with their cardboard signs, begging for money?
Where do they go at night?
There’s a homeless camp by the freeway.
It started with carboard boxes and makeshift tents from duct-taped trash bags.
Eventually, actual camping tents showed up.
It’s cheaper to toss trash from construction and refurbs in the weeds than to pay the dump, so leftover materials led to a small village of shacks.
I drove by there and saw Halloween decorations going up.
Do they dress up for Trick or Treat?
Imagine that, kids going door to door, begging from beggars.
Trick and Robbery
Usually, on Halloween, it’s kids going around the neighborhood, begging for candy.
But with the pandemic and businesses closing and people losing their jobs, they’re going around begging for money and food.
And they have their parents with them.
So, we turned the porch light off, closed the garage, and turned off the doorbell.
Which, on second thought, was a bad idea, making people think we weren’t at home.
Yeah, they tried to kick in the door to rob our house.
So, we treated them to two rounds of buckshot.
They got their candy and backsides x-rayed all at once.
Syndromes
Every now and then, a visitor to the Holy Land will lose their mind, act like they’re Jesus or some other holy figure, and cause a ruckus.
Experts call this Jerusalem Syndrome, and it’s usually just some other condition like schizophrenia or paranoia manifesting itself.
And then, there’s the times when a visitor to Graceland will lose their mind, act like they’re Elvis or Priscilla or The Colonel, and cause a ruckus.
Experts call this Nashville Syndrome.
Well, publicly.
Amongst themselves, they stick out their tongue, roll their eyes, and wiggle their finger next to their ear.
Experts are pricks.
Morley’s House
Old Man Morley built himself one of those underground houses.
They say that’s better cooling, but it’s not good for lighting.
He put in a skylight in the living room. and there were solar panels and fiber optics to carry in sunlight.
And he had some plasma televisions here and there for scenery.
The energy savings he had from building underground was more than offset by the energy costs of the televisions and lights.
And a security system to deal with the tourists, of course.
Trick or treaters would bang on the skylight, demanding Snickers.
Morley turned out the lights.
Weekly Challenge #858: PICK TWO Clemency, Millions, Arrow, January, Code, Offroad
LISA
An Evening at the Fair
I’d begged since January to go then shat myself the whole time I was there. Bright lights randomly pierced the darkness. Crowds jostled against the backdrop of laughter and shouting. We shot arrows, missed targets, yearned for those big bags of candyfloss, the oversized cuddly toys.
Susan Sanders walked by clutching a toy bear a whole head higher than herself. Her grin as she looked at us will stay with me forever. Pride mixed with disdain. The rumour at school the week after was that her Dad had spent millions trying to win it for her.
I started that rumour.
RICHARD
Geek
When I was in school, they told me computers were the way forward. So, I signed up for computer club, becoming one of the geeks that the bullies loved to pick on, and – of course – none of the girls wanted anything to do with me.
Throughout my miserable teens, I learned to code, becoming successful and making millions from developing software and business applications.
So now, I have the last laugh.
Now the girls fall over themselves, when I roll up to the club in my Ferrari.
As for the bullies?
I write viruses to clean out their bank accounts!
LIZZIE
Millions in the bank. She laughed, the fire pit crackling.
The safe. She had cracked it open so easily.
And the code. It was right there for her to grab.
She just walked out of the office and no one noticed.
Doing that boring secretary job for six months was worth it.
The new generation bought the code from her for a fortune. Smart kids. Nothing like their mobster fathers.
It was much better to be in the cottage than in that horrible office.
They were looking for her, of course. But money buys a lot of things, including silence.
SERENDIPIDY
Follow the high street as far as the convenience store, and park up when you get there. You’re not going to need the car from there because you’ll be going off-road.
Look for a gap in the fence, and go through, then follow the mud track for about half a mile. Eventually, the path will come to an end: Look for the arrow carved into the old oak, which will show you the way forward.
You’ll come to an old tin shack.
And that’s where you’ll find me. Waiting in the darkness.
But only, if I don’t find you, first.
NORVAL JOE
Linoliamanda held up the printout of her schedule. “My next class is in room 248.” She looked at Sabrina. “Can you tell me how to get there?”
Without batting an eye, Sabrina said, “Oh yeah. That’s in a portable building in the forest, north of the cafeteria. You kind of go offroad, following the arrow that points across the soccer field. You know you’re there after you wade through a swamp with millions of mosquitoes hovering over it.”
Linoliamanda smiled and headed toward the cafeteria.
“Wait,” Chuck called after her. “Don’t listen to her. Follow us. That’s our classroom, too.”
PLANET Z
The January Code consists of a series of arrows in the eight cardinal directions.
Dots, circles, and bars on the stems allow for multiple ranks of characters.
At first, it was a simple substitution cipher, but it was easy to decode and break.
Then came a new variant, where it was the difference in angle between adjoining arrows that represented the intended character.
The dots and bars spelled out another message in Morse Code.
By the time the enemy had figured out the message, we’d already have attacked.
If we could decipher the damned thing in a timely manner, too.
Where do you get your ideas from?
Where does Victor get his ideas from?
He gets his ideas from the well in the woods.
Armed with a sword, he goes there every morning with a bucket.
Along the way, he dumps out any bad ideas left in the bucket.
Then, when he gets to the well, he sends the bucket down and pulls it back up with fresh ideas.
The problem is, those bad ideas find root in the darkness of the woods.
And they grow… and grow…
One day, a bad idea whispered in Victor’s ear…
“You don’t need that sword.”
We haven’t seen Victor since.
Sodastream
I bought a sodastream a few years ago for the office.
A coworker and I made Italian sodas every few days.
Then, the coworker left, and the pandemic hit.
And I didn’t pick up the sodastream until I left that job two years later.
The bottles were missing. The canister was out of gas.
So, I swapped the canister for a fresh one, got some flavorings, and picked up replacement bottles.
The bottles didn’t fit in the machine.
They were shaped for a newer version.
I had to order the old style bottles.
All this to save money on sodas.
Pillowcase
There are so many different pillows on the market.
Feather pillows, cotton pillows, foam pillows, and so on.
Some are hypoallergenic. Others draw heat and moisture.
They’re stuffed to varying degrees of firmness, too.
The same variation goes for pillowcases.
Cotton, silk, special fabrics.
They all serve their purposes.
And each has their special laundering instructions.
Would you combine a memory foam pillow with a silk pillowcase?
Hell no.
So, forgive me, warden, if I continue to complain about the pillow and pillowcase quality here.
And the laundry.
But this kind of shit got me here in the first place.