My phone sends all callers to voicemail.
The ringtone is an empty sound file. So, it’s silence.
The carrier transcribes all my voicemail automatically and sends me a text.
Why call it a phone at all?
And since I rarely leave home, I rarely use the cellular capabilities, so why call it a cellular device?
Considering all the dumb answers I get from Siri, I ‘m not calling it a smartphone.
It’s just a thing that I use. While in my car.
My car has no keys. Just a fob and a pushbutton engine.
I should invent some new nouns.
Memorial Gardens
A while back, I bought one of those tabletop gardens.
The one you can grow herbs in, such as lavender or flowers or basil.
A coworker had died, so I dedicated it as his memorial garden.
I wanted fresh herbs for my morning bagel at work, so I bought more gardens.
As coworkers died, I’d dedicate the gardens to them.
Eventually, I had enough gardens to maintain a supply of basil and chives for the bagels.
This Sunday, a coworker was murdered. But all the gardens were already dedicated.
So, I wiped off a name and replaced it with his.
Weekly Challenge #822 – Pick One
LIZZIE
“Pick one,” he said, looking at the box with small dividers. “They are seeds.”
Seeds always have this promise of a future in them, she thought.
“I choose these. Are they poisonous?”
“No! They are berries, I think.”
She smiled again. She could fall in love with him, she thought.
“I don’t know how long they’ll take to grow.”
She nodded.
Years later, the bush was still there. She had no idea what kind of berries they were but she never touched them.
He did. Needless is to say that he never saw the plant grow.
Temptation is a bitch.
RICHARD
Brains
We used to joke in school that when God handed out brains, Jim thought he said trains, and when asked to pick one, he went for old-fashioned and slow.
Whilst I forged ahead, achieving academic success and accolades, Jim plodded on at his own pace, almost certainly one of life’s losers.
Didn’t work out that way though.
He’s now a multi-millionaire and owns the company I slave away for to make a pittance.
And the secret to his success?
Focus on old-fashioned values, work the problems slowly, and methodically, and – ironically – always use your brain!
SERENDIPIDY
My sister’s a bitch!
You’d think identical twins would get along, but not us. If ever there was an evil twin, it was her, and I was always the nice one.
I could give you hundreds of examples when she stitched me up, but I’ll just pick one: The time she slept with the love of my life by pretending to be me.
I’ve barely spoken to her since.
Until today, when she turned up in tears because he’d dumped her.
Although those tears did nothing to stop me lacing her coffee with strychnine!
So, who’s the evil twin now?
NORVAL JOE
Sabrina’s eyes went wide. A silly smile crossed her face. “Sorry. I forgot to tell you to bring a ring.” She reached into her pocket, pulled out a handful of rings and held them out to Billbert. “Here. Pick one. They all fit me.”
The other boys were already slipping their rings onto their partners’ fingers.
Billbert shook his head. “I’m not going to marry you.”
Sabrina rolled her eyes. “Of course not. We’re just combining our magical strength. To make us complete. I have a ring for you. Now, pick one of these and put it on my finger.”
PLANET Z
Mindy wanted a puppy, so we went to the shelter to pick one out.
“Play with them all,” we said. “But you can only pick one.”
So, she picked a fluffy little mutt, she named it Cindy, and we brought it home.
A few months later, the puppy had grown.
“I said I want a puppy,” said Mindy. “I don’t want a dog.”
She bashed the dog’s head in with a frying pan.
We buried it in the back yard alongside the other dogs.
Eventually, we signed on to foster puppies.
And adopted them out before they incurred Mindy’s wrath.
On my radar…
Walter saw the good in everything.
Even in a horrible situation. Or in horrible people.
He wasn’t dumb. Just a little naive.
Always shocked and disappointed when the worst revealed itself.
He was gifted with perceptiveness. Good an anticipating things.
Maybe he wouldn’t be a leader, but he could find leaders and work through them.
That’s how he got by in the world.
Not like Rasputin and the Tsar, or Cassandra the ignored prescient, but more like an angel of a man’s better nature, whispering into his ear.
At the end of the day, clutching his teddy bear, falling asleep.
Beat The Market
The Market rose, The Market fell.
But The Corporation kept growing, no matter what.
They always beat The Market.
Literally. They sent out goons with clubs to beat The Market.
They beat The Market into submission.
Then, they crushed The Competition.
They sent out large bulldozers and steamrollers to crush The Competition.
After that, they gobbled The Competition up.
Going out to the crushed bits of The Competition, putting napkins in their collars, and gobbling it up.
They cornered The Market, pushing The Market into a corner.
Which was easy, since they’d beaten The Market into submission a while back.
Delegation
Diane was always busy.
She had her groceries delivered, a maid service to clean, and had pretty much else done for her.
She sent assistants out to go to art museums for her, and then report back how much they appreciated the art.
Her doctor said she needed more exercise, so assistants exercised and told her how much they felt the burn.
“That’s not how it works,” said her doctor. “You’re going to drive yourself to an early grave.”
Diane bought a plot at a cemetery and had an assistant buried in it.
And had another assistant give the eulogy.
Hollywood Accounting
It’s called Hollywood Accounting.
The studio makes a film, and then it finds ways to charge itself for various services to keep from making a profit.
Distribution, marketing, merchandising.
The movie ends up losing money for the studio.
The same studio that promised a share of the profits to the writers and the actors.
Not the director.
The director knows how the game is played.
They never fall for it.
“A share of the gross, not profit.”
These things always end up in the courts.
Of course, the studio gets charged for legal fees.
So they lose even more money.
Powering Down
Powering up in the Whole Foods parking lot.
They don’t charge for charging.
So, I got 5 miles worth of power for free.
It’s 5 miles to Whole Foods and back.
So, okay, so free trip to Whole Foods.
Never mind that I spent a hundred bucks on groceries there.
I’d planned on just getting Just Egg.
A hundred dollars worth of How’s that plan working out for you, idiot?
Not sure how much I’d have saved if I’d have gone to Kroger.
Probably more than what I saved in power in the car.
I’m not very smart, am I?
Betty Turns 100
Betty White would have been 100 today.
Aside from her hawking a chunk of hypertension and diabetes called Snickers to the public, she did a lot of good, too.
And she was very kind to animals.
So, in honor of her birthday, I’ll give something to the local animal shelter.
No, not Tinny or Myst.
People who give up their animals to shelters because they needed a temporary companion while working from home and now they’re too busy to care for a pet are assholes. They’re fucking selfish assholes.
Kind of makes you wish someone had sneezed on their Doordash.
Weekly Challenge #821 – Even
LIZZIE
She inhaled. Ah, coffee.
The nice librarian had suggested the book “Moving On”.
How appropriate. Her husband was having an affair.
When she returned the book, she found out that her husband was having an affair with none other than the nice librarian.
Good thing she had also picked up “How to Get Rid of Your Old Life”. Lots of interesting advice in it, including a few radical methods of… getting rid of your old life.
Books are extraordinary, and so are libraries.
Nice librarians… not as much. At least, not this one! But even that problem had been solved.
RICHARD
Against the odds
I’ve always liked even numbers. Nice, friendly characters that give you no trouble and never conspire to trip you up.
Not like those nasty, argumentative odd numbers! You know the sort… Those sevens and nines that always mess up the bill or throw out the calculation. The ones that cause arguments at restaurants and make you look an idiot when adding up the groceries.
And don’t tell me fives are friendly – I’m pretty certain they have a hidden agenda!
Give me even numbers any day.
Although, I suppose eights can be tricky, and don’t get me started about those sixes!
TURA
Even
———
“Even as Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as these; even as the great geographer Lao Shen did not himself traverse the entirety of the Yellow River; and even as Kant confessed that Hume awakened him from dogmatic slumber; even so”— the storyteller began— “I cannot entertain everyone every time.”
After the ritual of abasement, he entered on the ritual of exaltation. “This is the most marvellous story ever told! Worlds created and destroyed! Heights of passion, depths of despair! Cunning twists and sudden revelations!”
Finally, he began the story itself. “It was a dark and stormy night.”
SERENDIPIDY
Even I have feelings.
I grant you that they may not be the sort of feelings generally considered desirable, or appropriate, but they are, nevertheless valid, and without them the world would be a poorer place.
It would indeed be boring if lust, anger, greed and avarice didn’t exist, and how could we ever measure the more ‘virtuous’ qualities and experience their benefits, without their opposites?
The dark side has its place, and without it, we would all be the lesser.
So, thank me, and celebrate my depravity; tell me I’m important, and I matter.
Because, even I have feelings!
TOM
What Could GO Possible Wrong 021
The first time-frame to make contact with the Duck Pint was Park’s. The aspect of the blue was thick, but he could just make out the ghostly appearance of a hand. He tried to turn toward the man in cuffs but time was way too slow to allow that move. Also, Park was having major trouble forming thoughts. He could summon up thing-ness, but act-ness danced outside his ability. “D-a-m-n ,“ he thought. Damn what he thought. Even as the best of time, in spite of some Hidden skill with a pint glass, Park was slow on the up take.
NORVAL JOE
Sabrina grabbed Billbert by the collar of his jacket and pulled him back to the campfire. He hadn’t really paid attention to the route they had taken through the forest and didn’t know his way back out without Sabrina to guide him, so he submitted and went with her.
Adult men and women surrounded the fire while two evenly space lines, one of boys, the other girls faced each other.
Billbert and Sabrina joined their respective lines as an elderly woman said. “Alright. Boys take out your rings and place them on your partner’s finger.”
Billbert choked. “What the heck?”
PLANET Z
There’s a button on my remote that for some reason keeps bringing up water polo.
I have no goddamned idea why it does.
It’s some sort of shortcut to a streaming guide that LG runs that defaults to a sports channel that’s always showing water polo.
The button is right next to my Home button, so I hit it by mistake a lot.
I tried to pry it out of the remote, but the remote’s not having any of that.
We are in an age where one button… ONE BUTTON brings you water polo.
And yet we can’t cure cancer