They say a poor craftsman blames his tools, but Bob was a really good craftsman.
His neighbors were always borrowing his tools and not returning them, and they were always borrowing the good tools, so Bob was stuck with his worn-out bad tools.
One day, he got fed up with everyone not returning his tools, so he made a list and went door to door, smashing in skulls with a hammer and taking back his tools.
By the time the cops came, Bob had all his tools back.
In prison, he worked in the wood shop.
Building really crappy furniture.
The ship went down…
The ship went down, and Max was the sole survivor, washing ashore on an island, surrounded by the bodies of his shipmates.
He gathered up all the driftwood and vines he could.
And he made a raft.
A sail tied together from clothes of his dead shipmates.
Getting a sense of the currents and waves and winds.
Raising the sail and setting out, he vanished into the horizon.
That night, a ship found the island he’d been on and collected the bodies.
“I guess there were no survivors,” said a deckhand.
Maybe the heat stroke made Max dream that up?
Weekly Challenge #843: ANYWHERE
Also, Ed is inviting everyone to contribute to his site Edwardian Times, which is a great opportunity for more ways to express and create. Head on over there and check things out, and let’s all have some fun and challenge in crafting more imaginations.
TURA
Anywhere
———
“Where shall we go for dinner?” I asked.
“Oh, anywhere,” she said airily. But strolling through the restaurant district, she turned up her nose at every place we passed. “Anywhere” seemed to be a rather narrow category.
“It had red upholstery!” she shrilled. “It looked like a McDonalds!”
“And really, Turkish-Siberian-Japanese? The eclecticism is killing me!”
“‘Austrasian’? That means mediaeval Central Europe” (I didn’t know that) “so it’ll all be huge plates of Eisbein mit Sauerkraut and anachronistic potatoes.”
Eventually I just chose a place. But when the waiter came to take our order, she said, “Oh, anything.”
LIZZIE
Anywhere was a town in the middle of nowhere. Life was tough.
One day, a stranger came into town. They didn’t like strangers.
“Anywhere a man can sleep around here?” He asked.
No one answered.
The next day, he was gone and he never came back.
However, he left a thank you note and a stone.”Bury it.”
And they did.
A year later, they heard some noises, dug up the stone, but it had disappeared. Instead, they found a tunnel with thousands of precious stones.
The… stone… had hatched and people began to think that perhaps strangers weren’t always bad.
RICHARD
Anywhere
“Where to, guvnor?”
“Oh, I’m not really bothered, it’s my first time in London. Take me somewhere you’d like to go. Anywhere will do.”
The cabbie craned his head round to look at me, a quizzical look on his face.
“Well, if you’re sure?”
I nodded, “Yes, this is all a new experience for me”, I laughed, “I’m placing my fate in your hands!”
Half an hour later, we pulled into the driveway of a suburban house.
“That’ll be twenty quid, guv.”
“But, where exactly are we?”
“Somewhere I wanted to go mate – home!
You can get the bus back!”
ED
Anyone from Anywhere
Charlie’s mind was blank. Well, not completely. He knew how to walk and talk. But he couldn’t remember anything that mattered to him, or to the people around him. They all had answers they wanted, but those answers were not coming now.
Maybe they would; maybe they wouldn’t.
The doctors, nurses, and people who said they were family told him he had been in a motorcycle accident days ago while heading home from work. “Your body is suppressing the trauma,” he was told. “You have amnesia.”
As far as Charlie knew, he could be anyone from anywhere. It was unsettling.
SERENDIPIDY
The young man wound his window down and beckoned me over.
“Excuse me, we’re a little lost, can you tell me where we are, please?”
He passed me a folded map, and I leaned down to peer into the car.
I could tell they’d been arguing, the woman in the passenger seat wore a tight-lipped expression, and you could almost feel the tension between them.
I handed back the map.
“It doesn’t matter where you are” I said, “but, you really want to be anywhere, but here.”
Then, I pulled out my pistol, and shot him in the face.
NORVAL JOE
I guess I need to address the elephant in the room.
Has anyone seen Tom anywhere? I mean, what could possibly go wrong when you live in the dry hills around Clear Lake, California.
Did he take a trip to Planet Z?
Did Tom get sucked into a black hole, or maybe through a worm hole to a thicket in Yorkshire?
Maybe we can ask Cervantes or Ford. Maybe he’s sought refuge amongst the Canadians.
Regardless of the reason, Tom, I want you to know your absense has been noticed.
So, good night America, and all the ships at sea.
PLANET Z
With a laptop and a phone, they say I can work from anywhere, but there’s some limitations.
I’ll need to be able to recharge the laptop and phone, obviously.
Can’t work if the batteries are dead.
I also need to be able to access the Internet at a reasonable speed.
I can’t work from underwater. The laptop and phone would have severe issues.
Nor can I work while skydiving. It would keep meetings brief, but even with noise-canceling headphones, the roar of the wind would be too loud.
And there’s no way in Hell I’ll ever move to New Jersey.
Good fences
They say that good fences make good neighbors.
So, would the best fence make the best neighbor?
I bought the best fence on the market and had it professionally installed.
I was shocked that the neighbors complained.
Unlike their cheap wooden fences, I had spared no expense with my fence.
Twelve feet high, with sustainably-sourced electricity flowing through it.
And powering the motion-sensing spotlights.
Topped with the finest stainless steel razor wire.
There’s no pleasing some people.
I raised the drawbridge and ordered the household help to boil pitch and tar on the stove.
In case the ungrateful riff-raff returned.
A chore not to think
When I get stressed, I do chores.
It’s my mind’s way of trying to find order in the chaos.
To stave off the entropy, just to keep my hands busy.
Vacuuming the carpet, washing the dishes and putting them away.
Running a few loads of laundry, putting things in the drawers or hanging them up in the right order.
Tee shirts, overshirts… sorted by color, of course.
Pairing socks. Even though they are all the same.
But especially the bed, getting that top sheet and the pillow cases and the fitted sheets in place.
And the litterboxes, fresh and neat.
Dark ride
It used to be that the vehicles in a theme park’s dark ride were along a conveyor belt, and they ran continuously.
You walk on to a moving pathway, step in the vehicle, and ride along.
Then when the ride was over, step out to another moving pathway and exit.
Then came semi-independent vehicles running on an electric power rail on the track.
Finally, engineers designed and built fully independent vehicles that roamed around and recharged at stopping points.
People were amazed and thrilled at the innovation.
Then they left the park, got in their cars, and drove back home.
Grant you three wishes
If you rub a lamp, a genie will come out and grant you three wishes.
If you rub a vase, a demon will come out and grant you three wishes.
If you rub a top, a goblin will come out and grant you three wishes.
If you rub a wind chime, a ghost will come out and grant you three wishes.
If you rub a spring, a water nymph will come out and flop on the shore until it suffocates.
Or you can push it back into the water. So it can breathe again. And then grant you three wishes.
Beethoven’s chase
In 30 years, Beethoven lived in 35 different places.
Sometimes, it was the weather.
Other times, it was the neighbors.
It was always something:
The landlord didn’t let him hang things on the wall.
The lease required a pet deposit.
The bedroom had an east-facing window and he preferred to sleep in.
He was always breaking leases and losing deposits and driving realtors batty.
Not to mention the post office, which never knew where to forward his mail.
He’d send out compositions, and when the sponsor would send them back, they’d travel all around Germany, chasing their creator for months.
The bakers made
After the great war, when food was scarce, the bakers made the hungry full.
When the city was rebuilt and society thrived, the bakers had to make the full hungry again.
They tried fancier and fancier foods.
Enticing shoppers with colorful and amazing presentations.
Aromas that struck the nose and captured the imagination.
And when that wasn’t enough, well, the bakers started a riot… which led to a civil war.
And after that civil war, when food was scarce again, the bakers came out of their bunkers, loaded their ovens with scrapwood from the ruins, and made the hungry full.
Weekly Challenge #842: Scoreboard
Also, Ed is inviting everyone to contribute to his site Edwardian Times, which is a great opportunity for more ways to express and create. Head on over there and check things out, and let’s all have some fun and challenge in crafting more imaginations.
LISA
A crap Monday in June
It started badly I’d woken late then I couldn’t find my purse. So I was rushing to work then somehow was lying by the side of the road and seconds later I was in a hospital bed. As I was wondering if the day could get any worse I turned to the monitor – a flat line turned sideways into a ladder promptly climbed by an ape. The music from Donkey Kong rang in my ears.
“Pauline! Can you hear me?”
“I think we’re losing her.”
On the monitor the bonus counter flashed a zero and GAME OVER filled the screen.
RICHARD
Losing to win
The local team got one of those new-fangled digital scoreboards installed at the stadium. The trouble is, they blew the budget on the board and had nothing left over to pay to have it installed.
So, Buck did it for them as a favour.
Only, Buck knows nothing about anything, and he wired it all backwards.
We only discovered after our team lost by minus sixteen points, after sixteen goals!
We figured it out in the end though, and now we’re happy to let our opponents score as often as they can.
Because even zero beats a negative result!
ED
Walking Away
From the dugout, he watched as the grounds crew finished raking the divots and covered the infield.
He glanced up. Visitors 2. Home 1. As the scoreboard lights dimmed, he thought about the glorious ending that almost was. The shot that appeared to be a game-winning homer turned into the last out in a blink with a miraculous grab by the leftfielder.
He’d never had a walk-off hit. And wouldn’t. There was no pro contract waiting, just an office job in Hartford. His walk off was his walking away from the game he’d played since he was 5 years old.
LIZZIE
The scoreboard was off. The race was over.
She had taken her jet ski to the limit and broken it.
The scoreboard would be on again in a few weeks and she had no money.
That’s when her life of crime started. A few tools. A few parts. A whole jet ski, why not!
She painted it in her colors so no one would recognize it.
Now, she was sitting in jail. Not because of the jet ski but because she had messed with… the scoreboard.
She thought, what the heck, I’m not going to be dead in the water!
SERENDIPIDY
You might think it’s a funny sort of game: Two teams, both determined to win at all costs, a referee – that’s me – yet, no scoreboard.
So, how do you know who’s winning?
Well, it’s not that sort of a game.
You see, it’s not about scoring points, gaining territory, or being the best players.
It’s all about surviving, and the only way to win, is to outlive your opponent, until in the end, only one remains standing.
And that’s when I, the referee, step in to deliver the final blow.
Because, in this game, I’m afraid there are no winners!
TURA
Scoreboard
—-
Operating our village’s cricket scoreboard takes keen attention, and over the years I got used to anticipating the result of a ball well before the umpire’s signal.
One day we had a new player batting, unpleasant chap, I thought. I imagined the first ball smashing into the stumps, and then it happened, just like that. So I wondered, was I not anticipating things, but making them happen?
I experimented, visualising each ball in advance. I soon got the hang of it, and I could make the matches go any way I liked.
But as superpowers go, this one’s pretty useless.
NORVAL JOE
On Sunday morning, Billbert was awake, dressed and sitting on the front porch of their tilting three story Victorian home. He saw Sabrina approach and stood, thrust out his hand and shook hers before she could get close enough to lay her lips upon him.
“See you tomorrow,” he said before she could get closer.
Sabrina frowned at him. “Meet me behind the scoreboard on the baseball field before first period.”
Billbert sighed. “Why? Can’t we just high five when we passed each other in the hallway?”
“That is not how it works,” she snapped at him. “Meet me there.”
PLANET Z
I hate playing basketball.
I don’t mind watching it when it’s played well, but I hate playing it.
Shooting baskets for a game of HORSE is okay for one HORSE, but when there’s dribbling, passing, and running involved, no thanks.
In gym, I’d sit on the bench, and when forced to play, throw wild passes or chuck air balls.
“Do you want to referee?” the gym coach said.
“I don’t know any of the rules,” I said. “What’s a double dribble?”
Instead, I volunteered to run the scoreboard.
Dont call it math. It’s just pushing the right button once or twice.