Of all the childhood games out there, the one I hate the most is Simon Says.
Because I never got to play it as anything but Simon.
Sure, telling kids to step forward or raise their hands can be fun.
But it was never enough.
It led to my being a megalomaniac, ordering kids to rob banks, smite enemies, and far, far worse.
I tried it on my family, but they were also Simons, and my parents never relinquished their iron grip on power.
Oh, I also hate dodgeball.
Getting hit in the face with a rubber ball sucks, too.
The pizza ranch
I like to dip my cheese pizza in ranch dressing.
I also like Doritos.
So, I bought a bag of pizza-flavored Doritos and a bag of ranch-flavored Doritos and ate them together.
It was a dumb idea.
Because the flavor dust gets all over everything. And they don’t stack like Pringles.
So, I’ll dip pizza-flavored Doritos in ranch dressing.
But I won’t crumble up ranch-flavored Doritos and sprinkle them on cheese pizza.
That’s stupid and messy.
Some idiot came up with a bag that mixed pizza-flavored Doritos with ranch-flavored ones.
Just because you can think up an idea doesn’t make it good.
Ding Dong
You probably only know of the two Wicked Witches and the one Good Witch from the classic film, and maybe you know Mombee from the later sequel, but the books are full of spellcasters, sorcerers, and other practitioners of magic.
Ding Dong was especially proud, powerful, and dangerous.
The few who knew of her existence knew not to mention her, let alone insult her.
Munchkins are as ignorant as they are small, so they didn’t realize their mistake of singing “Ding Dong, the witch is dead!”
“No,” a voice muttered. “You’re dead.”
A massive firestorm wiped Munchkinland from the map.
Washing off the blood
Can you hear the mortars? They’re silent again.
After the bodies were piled into trucks and hauled off, we brought the stretchers to the creek.
Washing the blood and guts off of the canvas, getting them cleaned up for the next wave to come in.
We’d wash ourselves, wash the blood and guts off of ourselves, trying to wash out the memories and noise and smell away.
Wondering when we’d end up on the stretchers, taken down the hill down to the trucks, piled up, our blood and washed off and… and…
Can you hear the mortars? Hear them again?
Weekly Challenge #937: Values
The next topic is Total Security
NORVAL JOE
A shocked expression flashed onto Officer Sheepdip’s face. Before she could close the door, Billbert shouted, “Mom, Dad. I’m in here.”
The door slammed shut.
Having been led through the office to the interrogation room, Billbert knew his parents must have heard him.
His parents burst into the room and seeing him handcuffed to the table, his mother turned on Vattash. “What are you doing to my son?”
Vattash stood, an embarrassed smile on his face. “Ma’am we were only having a friendly chat. I assure you, our agency values citizens’ rights and would never think to infringe upon them.”
LIZZIE
Comfort and quality. The true values of a traditional railroad company. And then there was Herbert, the old man who was the new employee. He made everyone’s lives as difficult as possible. When he kicked a passenger’s… backside… out of the train for complaining about everything, everyone was horrified. Why wasn’t he fired immediately? And then, they received a letter. He owned the company and gave all employees a share of it. And he did so, because he realized that dealing with the public was a pain in the… Comfort and quality, yes. But also respect for the staff. There!
SERENDIPIDY
Let’s play a game.
You’re on a crowded lifeboat, and some of you need to be thrown overboard, or none will survive.
Your task is deciding who lives and who dies, based on the perceived values, skills and benefits they bring to the group.
It’s not an exact science, but I’m sure there’s plenty of fun and interesting discussion to be had, and – at the end of the day – it’s the greater good that matters, not the needs of the individual.
Except for my needs.
Which is why you’re all in the lifeboat, and I’m still on board the ship!
LISA
He’s Back
He’s back, he looks like he’s really pleased to see us.
“Morning! Sorry I’ve been away, so long, I hope you’ve been well looked after? It’s time I explained things properly. I think it takes a near death experience to make you reassess your values, and appreciate what you’ve got and what you, perhaps, could have.
“Please. Come upstairs and get comfortable. I wasn’t planning on having that car accident so this explanation and apology is long overdue.” He’s exuding charm and care. We’ve spent months in his basement but he’s acting as if we’ve just popped over for tea.
TOM
A man’s reach should exceed his grasp.
What Timmy valued was last square of property in the worst street in London. Which had the worst meat-pies in London, but you could get a close shave upstairs. The value of that tiny plot of filth was small but the owner of same plot was adamite in retaining it. Timmy had exhausted all reasonable courses of action. Driven to a dark metaphysical opinion, Timmy summoned the likes of the companies founding father and his 16 feet of chains and chests. This should have done the trick, but Marley took a liking to the owner. They had tea regularly. Damn.
853
We think In Centuries
For centuries phosphors tied themselves in knots trying to find the evidentiary underpinning for a Supreme Being. Investigation into origins of this question often lead into speculation about the nature of a power much greater than ourselves. This lead to speculations about God; more specifically, arguments designed to establish the existence of God with the use of “unaided reason”. Example: “First Cause” argues there are events that occur now, and these must have been caused; however, for there to be events now, there must have been a first cause; that is God. In the end Evidence just wasn’t there. Bupkis.
RICHARD
Welcome to the real world
All day long, every day, I stare at spreadsheets, tracking the values of assets and projecting profits and gains based on historical performance?
Sounds really boring, right?
Believe me, it is!
It’s a job and the pay is OK. I guess that’s how it goes for most of us. We can’t all be brain surgeons and astronauts, right?
It’s just a case of ‘grin and bear it’ and pretend it’s better than it is.
So, when I tell people I work in a chocolate factory, and they say ‘Wow! Awesome! A real life Willy Wonka!”
I just smile, and agree.
PLANET Z
She held true to her values.
Buried in her white gown, flowers in her hair.
Untouched, unloved.
Found surrounded by books.
Poetry in so many languages.
Could she understand a word of it?
Paintbrush in her hand, a canvas on the easel.
Where was the paint? they asked.
Some say she painted with her tears.
Dabbing the brush to her cheek, the canvas.
Over and over.
Invisible skies, invisible flowers.
Invisible wind.
Paintbrush in her hand, head down, as if she were asleep.
A wisp of hair across her face, a gentle smile.
As if she’d just told a joke.
CHATGPT
In the heart of a bustling city, where skyscrapers pierced the sky, lived a humble old man named Isaac. Every morning, he sat on a worn-out bench, feeding pigeons with crumbs of his sandwich. One day, a young executive passing by tossed a coin at him, sneering. Isaac caught it, but instead of pocketing it, he returned it, saying, “Kindness is worth more than silver.” The executive paused, pondering. Weeks later, he returned, this time with lunch for Isaac, apologizing for his ignorance. From that day on, the bench became a place where values of empathy and respect intertwined, forging an unexpected bond.
Sugar, Sugar
A government survey found a dozen indigenous tribes living in the rainforest we’d marked for farming development.
It doesn’t take much of a bribe to get the numbers and GPS coordinates.
The army doesn’t patrol out here, so it’s easy to fly in one of our own survey teams.
Handing out blankets and tools and other goods.
They’re most interested in the sugar cubes.
The poison in them acts quickly.
It’s painless, and they die with smiles on their faces.
The next survey will show this area as uninhabited, and after we make the claim, we’ll roll out the machinery.
Virtual visit
Fifteen minutes with an epsom salt warm compress, the bump on my cheek comes to a head.
“Wash your hands again and squeeze it gently,” says the virtual nurse.
Yellow and white flow down my cheek, and I wash it out with deionized water and squeeze again until only blood comes out.
Swab it out with a cotton swab, then hydrogen peroxide.
The buzz of the pharmacy drone, it drops off the antibiotics.
“Take two tonight, one tomorrow morning, and use a clean bandage,” the nurse says. “I’ll check in tomorrow.”
And I thank her, and head for the door.
One tire
Working from home and walking to stores, I don’t drive my car much.
After three and a half years, less than ten thousand miles.
As little as I drive, I still ran over a nail and had to get a new tire.
I figured I might as well buy 4 new tires, but the store owner insisted I just needed the one.
Okay, fine. Thanks.
A week later, I hit a pothole too quickly and tore up another tire.
And I needed a tow to the tire shop.
He’s still only selling me one tire.
At a time, I worry.
National lemon day
It’s National Lemon Day.
I go through a bag of lemons a week.
They help prevent kidney stones.
Well, the standard ones.
The uric acid ones, you also need to do potassium, keep your pH in check, and avoid foods with purine, and so on.
Every morning, I put 2 lemons on the cutting board.
Ream a half lemon out with every glass of iced tea.
Oh, I drink a lot of iced tea and water.
Because I don’t want to wait 10 hours in the emergency room for a dose of Demerol and a cat-scan.
You know… the stones.
Flugelheimer
The Flugelheimer Circus Train took the curve too fast and went off the rails outside of Morgantown.
Right out by the ravine, half the cars rolling down the hill into the rocks.
The others like scattered crushed boxes, spilling out broken animals and people.
The few survivors, limping and crawling and carrying each other to the lights of Morgantown.
Ambulances and nurses rushing out, the Boy Scout Troop giving first aid, no comfort to the mangled.
And where was Flugelheimer?
Not in his private car.
He was in Rio with the formerly-bearded lady, living it up with the insurance payout.