I used to have a rolling laundry hamper, but it wore out and broke.
So, I bought a beach wagon.
The kind that people use to cart beer to the beach
I put two laundry baskets in it: One for whites, one for darks.
It’s easy to separate things as I put them in the baskets.
But it’s also easy to make things hard for myself.
After a few days, I throw everything in one basket.
And I sort them out on laundry day. Badly.
Invariably, a sock ends up with the colored stuff.
I should just buy colored socks.
For all the marbles
The virus came, and hasn’t left yet.
So, we stay apart, we keep our distance.
There’s no sports going on right now, so the sports stations are showing documentaries and repeats of classic games and matches.
And, of course, panel shows and interview shows… where the panelists and interviewers are in their homes, of course.
They’re even showing marble racing.
That’s where people set up elaborate tracks and challenges, with ramps and loops and other features, and they race and collide and roll along.
You could say that in finding marble racing, the sports stations have completely lost their marbles.
His Rick
Whenever Peter Lorre would leave an actress’ dressing room, he’d make like he was zipping up his fly.
The crew and costars would see him do this and laugh.
The jolly prankster went from the heavy to the Hollywood outcast, comeback after comeback.
Off to Germany. And then radio serials and television horror comedies.
He did it all for his daughter, to leave her with something.
Sick and tired, he suffered Jerry Lewis and The Patsy.
The shame of that role, he said he wouldn’t see it when it came out.
Did he die before its release out of spite?
Camelot
So, where was Camelot and The Round Table?
Well, you know how any airplane that the President is on gets the designation of Air Force One?
That’s the same with King Arthur and any building he’s in or the name of any table he’s sitting at.
He could be sitting in an outhouse taking a dump, and he’d be in Camelot.
(It’s why we call the toilet a throne, you know.)
Or he could be at a table in Olive Garden and that’s The Round Table.
Oh, did I call it Olive Garden?
Sorry, I meant to call it Camelot.
Steinbeck
Steinbeck used to get people to tell him their stories.
He’d pay them a buck, and they’d talk to him.
That’s where he got his material.
Me, I go up to homeless people at the corner and offer them a buck.
They thank me, and tell me to get out of their way so they can collect more from the people in their cars stopped at the light.
So, I follow them home, and it’s a home, not some camp or flophouse.
A home with a basement, where I tie them up.
And ask them to tell me their story.
Weekly Challenge #818 – LEFT
LIZZIE
I am a good mother. The kitty this, the kitty that. Let nature be nature. We need to take him to the vet, and you whined and whined and I took the kitty to the vet. I’m a good mother. It just annoys me to have to change my plans. I had stuff to do. If the kitty had lived till then, I am sure he’d survive a few more hours. And you turned your back on me and left to your room and then you left for good. Now we don’t talk. And it’s all your fault… your fault.
RICHARD
One more sleep
“So, how many sleeps left?”
John looked at me strangely.
“Until the big day?”
“Only one now”, he replied quietly.
“And the guvnor, what’ll he be doing?”
“He’s making a list, and checking it twice. Nothing left to chance.”
“And the meal?”
“Turkey, with all the trimmings, just like you wanted.”
I smiled happily, as John made his way out, and I crossed out today’s date on my calendar. Just one more sleep left.
And tomorrow, I’d feast on turkey before being taken to the special room.
Where they’d strap me to the chair.
And light me up, for Christmas!
SERENDIPIDY
There’s only me left now, as for the rest of the colony: Dead, every last one of them.
It’s 2032, and Covid has ravaged the earth, those few of us surviving became the Regenesis Project: Humanity’s last ditch attempt to save the species by establishing a colony in space.
But now, they’re all dead.
Except me.
So, I did a test, and it seems I have it too, but I’m immune.
I’m just a carrier, a vector, a Typhoid Mary.
Although, I knew that before we left earth.
But there’s no way I’d miss a chance to be an astronaut!
TOM
What Could GO Possible Wrong 018
It was the center of all things. A pint glass with a duck on it. Pretty nondescript. Not your average temporal time vortex. But what real is ATTV? I could not give you an exact definition, and I am the narrator here. Best I can offer up is can said object a line multi D-s. So it was in three different time-space planes three sets of left hands held the duck shot glass a vector 0 0 0 0. All that was needed was a bit of Time Lords Joo-joo. When all the liquid blue disappeared, everyone was in place.
NORVAL JOE
“Come on,” Sabrina said and waved Billbert to follow her across the street. He had nothing else to do that afternoon so Billbert followed her into the corner store. It was small but they seemed to have some of everything.
Billbert followed her down aisle after aisle until they found the snack food section. Sabrina reached for a bag of popping corn. “Oh good. They have one left.”
Billbert scratched his head. “The thing you need for the ceremony tonight is popcorn?”
She rolled her eyes. “We want snacks afterwards, of course. I thought we could make some caramel corn.”
PLANET Z
Delivery drivers have computers on their dashboards, and the computers give them an optimized route to all of their deliveries.
More often than not, taking three right turns is faster than waiting to take a left turn.
When I see an Amazon or UPS or FedEx truck taking a left turn at a busy intersection, I know something weird is going on.
And when I see a delivery person wandering around the apartment complex, I know they’re completely clueless as to where any particular unit is.
The apartment complex hasn’t bothered making a map.
They’re too busy raising the rent.
Go to the store
When I order something from Amazon, I pray that they deliver it themselves.
My instructions for Amazon’s deliveries tell them to leave the packages inside the back gate.
Things don’t get stolen from there.
If they leave it at the front door, people might steal it.
UPS and Fedex always leave things at the front door. And don’t always ring the doorbell.
And when it’s handed to the Post Office for the last mile, well, they steal it themselves.
Especially when the delivery is over a holiday weekend.
In the end, it’s just easier to go to a goddamned store.
The worst gift
There’s no worse gift than socks.
They’re worse than sweaters and underwear.
When I got socks as a gift, I made sock puppets.
And I would put on plays where the puppets lamented about how crappy they were as gifts.
With practice, I got really good at sock puppetry.
Even if it was all on the street corner.
Still, I earned quite a bit of money from these puppet plays.
I saved up my coins and put them in the socks to use as a sap on the asshole aunts and grandparents who gave me these socks as a gift.
Scan copy upload
The job is simple.
Scan the brain, copy the brain, and upload it in the database.
Then we dump the body down the chute.
That’s all we do. Nothing else.
It doesn’t matter who it is.
No selfies, no writing things on the body.
Nothing funny.
Scan, copy, upload, and dump.
Under no circumstances are you to lay on the table and scan yourself.
No copies, no uploads.
And, for God’s sake, don’t go down the chute.
Last year, after the Christmas Party, a guy did that.
Instead of downloading him, the company just deleted his file from the database.
Advent everything
I don’t have much willpower when it comes to food.
Moderation, the secret to good living, is completely foreign to me.
There’s no point to a ziploc seal on any snack.
I’m going to eat the whole bag.
So, when it comes to chocolate, I really like advent calendars.
A tiny portion once a day. Only in moderation, right?
Sure, I could rip open every compartment and eat them all, but that’s not right.
If only they made advent calendars for other things…
Jack Daniels, Cocaine, and other sinful things.
Only in moderation, of course.
And the secret is revealed.