Moments before Lily Mason burst into flames, she set her husband on fire.
Then her kitchen. And after that, her house. And her neighbor’s house.
There wasn’t much room between houses, so the fire jumped from house to house quickly.
The whole neighborhood was a raging inferno by the time the fire department arrived.
There was nothing they could do but watch and keep people back.
The fire burned for hours, until the whole neighborhood was nothing but embers and ashes.
“Should have paid her fire bill,” said the crew chief. “Too bad.”
They rolled up their hoses and left.
Tag: mystery
Seventh Day
On the seventh day, God rested.
And God’s idea of rest is Texas Hold’em. (God created Texas and Texas Hold’em long before the first day.)
He brought the cards. Gabriel brought the snacks.
Since nobody had any money to bet with, Michael gathered up some animals to bet with.
Things got out of hand after a while. Gorillas lost their tails, dinosaurs were all killed off with the unicorns, snakes lost all their legs, and all kinds of other messes got made.
God swept the wriggling, writhing leftovers under the rug.
A platypus crawled out and slipped into a stream.
Toilet Rings
The doorbell never rings.
I tore out the wire years ago.
Got sick of people ringing it.
The phone never rings.
I pulled the wire out of the wall years ago.
Got sick of people calling.
The toilet never rings.
Because toilets don’t ring.
Well, most toilets.
But after reading about some toilets that the Japanese make, with their fancy perfume sprays and seat warmers, I bet there’s a toilet out there that rings.
Why does it ring?
I don’t know.
But it does. And it’s probably horribly expensive.
No, my toilet doesn’t ring.
(I have it set to vibrate.)
Riding
I know a guy named Yankee Doodle, but instead of riding into town on a pony, he liked to put on a gag costume that made him look like he was riding on the back of an old Russian woman.
At least I thought it was a costume. Only when I got a closer look did I realize that it was a real old Russian woman that he was riding.
“Seriously?” I asked him.
He nodded.
I sighed. “No more driving drunk?”
He nodded again.
“Okay,” I said. “You can have your license and keys back.”
“Spaseba.” said the woman.
Starring: You
If you like offbeat theater, then Ambrose Phillip Glossky’s “The Funeral” at The Don Travis Orpheum on Main Street is the show for you.
It’s a one man show, starring you. In a casket. The audience is the cast, coming to your funeral.
Don’t get up for a bathroom break, though. The cast might shout ZOMBIE! and shoot you in the face with a shotgun.
It’s the hottest ticket in town. Literally. The ticket is made of Tungsten, and the blacksmith in the box office super-heats it to a mind-boggling two thousand degrees.
On second thought, let’s go see Wicked.
A little something extra
Every year, Mommy tells me to be good so Santa will come and leave me presents.
“And so I can make that son of a bitch take a paternity test,” she mutters.
Yep. Santa left a little something one year.
In Mommy:
Me.
The process servers say the North Pole is out of their jurisdiction.
So, Mommy left out a plate of cookies and a glass of milk.
Santa wears mittens, so you can’t get fingerprints, but you can get trace DNA from the glass.
“It’s a match,” says the analyst.
This year, forget the bike.
I’m getting Child Support.
What kind of world?
“What kind of world are we leaving to our children and grandchildren?” shouted the Green Party protestor.
I followed him home after the protest.
He lives in his mother’s basement.
If you’re going to get them to succeed, you’ve got to kick them out of the nest.
Which applies to space travel.
Humanity will never reach for the stars as long as it can play its XBoxes and Playstations in its mother’s basement.
If we ruin this planet faster, humanity has no choice but to reach for the stars.
Forget saving the nest, kid. Spread your wings and fly free.
Hero
Billy.
Joe.
Wes.
And Me.
Lost in the woods together.
Dumb.
Our phones couldn’t get signal. Even with GPS, there was no data stream for downloading maps.
My idea. Dumb.
Joe got out the straws. The one who drew the short straw would go for help.
When I drew the short straw, I wrote down the GPS coordinates on my arm with a pen, picked up my pack, and began my walk.
I found the road in an hour. Rangers found the others with my coordinates.
They called me a hero.
But I was the one who got us lost.
Toaster Oven
The first house I remember had a kitchen with an oven and a toaster.
The same with the second house.
However, one day, the toaster shorted out, and it was taken away.
The next day, there was a toaster oven.
I asked what a toaster oven was.
“When an oven and a toaster love each other very much, they make a toaster oven together,” said my dad. “But sometimes, the toaster doesn’t survive the process.”
“Do a radio and an alarm clock make a radio alarm clock?” I asked.
My dad shrugged, and told me to get him another beer.
Unlucky
I got into the elevator with a banker.
He pushed the button for the fourteenth floor, and we started to go up.
“Why is there no thirteenth floor?” I asked him.
“It’s unlucky,” he said. “Thirteen is unlucky.”
I took out my wallet, pulled out thirteen singles, and offered them to the banker.
He took it without question and stuck it in his pocket.
“Why is that not unlucky, and a floor is?”
The banker grinned. “It’s unlucky for you. I think I’ll have a coffee.”
I didn’t tell him that they were counterfeit.
But I told the Starbucks manager.