Weekly Challenge #771 – How does that grab you?

Kitchen pest

LIZZIE

“How does that grab you?”
Silence. Her friend shrugged, a hint of contempt dripping from his lips.
“Any other ideas?”
Her friend shrugged again.
She was on the verge of screaming and tossing all the brochures in the garbage.
“No cruise, too many germs. No camping, too many bugs. No flying, too many.. what was it again?”
Her friend sneered. She could see he was amused and that only made things worse.
“What about the show?”
He shrugged.
“Bloody hell. Just tell me what you want.”
He turned and walked away.
She nodded.
“Yep, not worth it. Glad it’s over.”

RICHARD

The PR Man Cometh…

Why were we paying these guys?

Seriously, they were the worst ad agency I’d ever encountered. Lame ideas, totally ineffective publicity campaigns, and so far, not a single new sale since engaging them. If anything, we’d started haemorrhaging cash, and most of it was going to these losers.

This latest stunt they’d pulled was by far the worst: A completely pointless exercise in flushing our reputation down the toilet.

Powerpoint presentation finished, the ad guy smiled: “So, how does that grab you?”

I thought grimly of the three years of the contract still yet to run…

By the balls, apparently!

TOM

How does that grab you?

At this moment the: “that” is the effect of the shot for this fuckn virus. The kind nurse asked what arm I would like to get it in. I said I have no idea, but after a beat … I said the left. Good call Tom. My arm feels like some crazed middle school punched it for a day and half. The last two day are dotted with, damn …. damn …. Damn damn damn. But wait today the other flu like symptoms arrived. I came so close to just skipping this week…. But grab this Cornona 20, fuck you.

NORVAL JOE

While the firefighters put out the blaze at Billbert’s house, he and his parents went and sat in his mother’s car.
Mr. Blanketmaker said, “While they’re putting out the house, I think we should get a quick bite to eat. How does that grab you?”
Mrs. Blanketmaker started the car. “Interesting choice of words, but yes. Let eat.”
She turned the car around. “Anyway. When Nuclear Fission and I were sophomores, we both had a crush of the captain of the chess team. I know. We were nerds. He chose me over her and it all went downhill from there.”

JARED

The Claw
A jostling, then she felt a falling. She landed with a soft bump. She blinked as her eyes adjusted to the light and her surroundings came into focus.
Beyond the bodies around her, she was surrounded clear glass walls and a solid ceiling above her. From the ceiling hung a shiny four-armed claw, connected to two tracks and a coiled cable.
Except for periods periods of darkness beyond her fluorescent prison, there was almost constant movement beyond the glass.
A figure approached, and the face of a giant peered in at her.
There were clicks and clunks.
The claw awoke.

RICK

High Maintenance

She was beautiful but she was a handful. Long blonde hair, blue eyes, that shape men, see like her clothing showed a real knack for style.

She saw my drink and said “don’t overdo it drunks turn me off.”
I offered her a beer she said “I only drink red wine.”

Hmmm …

I put on some country music she said “Really!?!? Can’t you find something more contemporary?

Hmmm

“Do you like fruit” I asked? “Oh yes … fruit is healthy and tasty” she replied.
“Well tonight” I said “we’re having ribs … how do you like them apples?”

SERENDIPITY

I’d invited the guys round for some fantasy roleplay games. We’d dressed up in costume and I’d spent hours decorating the place to look like a dungeon. This was no board game, we were acting it out for real.

Jimmy read from the card “You sneak carefully past the clutching hands in the hallway”, then laughed when he saw the clumsily modelled latex arms I’d glued to the wall.

“As if!” He snorted. “Those are crap, how are they going to grab me?”

“They don’t”, I snarled grabbing him by the throat and squeezing the life from him, “I do!”

PLANET Z

Over at Amazon, they’re automating everything they can.
Instead of people walking rows of shelves, the shelves come to the people to pick and bin.
Then the bins route to packers to pack.
Printers label the packages for routing.
Packages travel along miles and miles of conveyor belts.
They’re loaded on to trucks and sent out for further processing and transport.
Until they’re eventually delivered.
There’s still some humans involved, in picking and packing and delivering.
But more robots are coming.
Some are working side-by-side with their human counterparts.
Who often get too close, and end up grabbed and mangled.

Stars and superstars

The first performers in Hollywood were actors and actresses.
But some became stars.
And some of the stars became superstars.
Meanwhile, in the background, there were the extras.
Were there star extras? Superstar extras? Or superextras?
No.
Same with character actors. Nobody ever became a star character actor or superstar character extra.
Or, if you prefer, supercharacter.
The ultimate role being the cameo, of course.
Superstars so super, they can be themselves and not have to act or do anything.
Just be there and be themselves.
No more acting needed at all.
Show up, smile, and pick up a check.

The Bomber

The bomber arrived at the cafe before the scientist did.
He screamed his fiancee’s name into the fire.
Setting up a research foundation in her name wasn’t enough… he had to do something.
So, he went back to his lab, and completed his time machine.
He went back in time, and shot the bomber.
Pulling off his mask… revealing his own face.
“You’ll see,” he whispered before dying.
That didn’t matter. They were together again.
And yet, the research they did together… it was… well, truly, profoundly evil.
He sighed, and began work on a time machine.
And a bomb.

The Matrix

Neo walked into a dilapidated house and sat in a chair opposite his hero, Morpheus.
Morpheus offered Neo two pills… a red one and a blue one.
The red one represented code that would let Neo forget everything and go back to his life.
The blue one represented code that would free Neo from the illusionary world and let him escape.
Or was that the red one?
Neo got confused.
He shrugged, swallowed them both, and drank a glass of water.
The Matrix didn’t expect this, and it crashed.
“Goddamned validators,” growled Agent Smith, dissolving into a puddle of sparks.

Buford’s coffee

Buford saw on the news that there was a rare type of coffee that sold for hundreds of dollars a pound.
It came from beans eaten by a species of jungle cat that were then excreted and gathered up by farmers.
Buford went to the shelter, picked up a dozen tomcats, and brought them home.
Then he filled up some bowls with coffee beans and locked them all up in a room.
“Eat, you fuckers!” he shouted.
Needless to say, Buford’s bold new business venture went under rather quickly.
“Maybe I should have washed them turds off first?” he mumbled.

Jussie the witch who hunted

Okay, so this black actor shows up at the hospital all beaten up with a rope around his neck, and he says he was attacked by white supremacist Trump supporters.
Liberals go crazy on social media, screaming how white people and conservatives and Trump are evil, and the guy demands justice.
But during the police investigation, he refuses to hand over his phone to the police and it turns out that he’d hired a pair of Nigerian assistants to beat him up.
Liberals scrub their social media of all references to the fake martyr.
I guess that’s justice for you.

Dawson’s Creek

Bobby Dawson lived by the creek, so he called it Dawson Creek.
Ginger Blake lived in the house next door.
She hated Bobby Dawson, so she insisted on calling the waterway Blake Stream.
Brook Parson was on the other side of Bobby Dawson, and she hated both of the other kids.
He lived by Parson Brook.
Ginger would mock Brook by saying “Why don’t you call it Brook’s Parson?”
Ginger disappeared, and a pile of rocks appeared in the waterway.
“That’s Blake Island,” Brook told the police.
It took them an hour to dig Ginger’s body out from under it.

Weekly Challenge #770 – Get a life!

Tinny hoodie

LIZZIE

Trip, fall, get up, stand straight.
Trip, fall, get up, stand straight.
Trip, fall, get up, stand straight.
Drip, crawl, fed up, stand straight.
Drip, maul, fed up, stand.
Blip, tall, fed up, stand.
Trip, trip, drip, blip.
Sip.
Stand.
Straight.
Hate, hate, hate!
Hate…
Well, trip, stand, wait.
The tap sang this song. Drip, trip, blip. On and on.
Stand, wait, stand, wait.
The tap sang this song. On and on.
Skip, blip.
Skip, stand.
Skip, wait.
Skip, the tap sang this song, skip.
No.
Skip.
No.
Slip.
No.
Stand.
Life? What? Life?
What life?
Get a life.
Trip.

RICHARD

Ambition

I really need to get a life!

All day, every day, I spend my waking hours sat at this keyboard, staring at this screen.

My sleepless nights are filled with restless thoughts, mind churning constantly with ideas and plans, few of which ever come to fruition.

Then it’s back to the keyboard.

Coffee. Aspirin. Irritation.

I thought I was pursuing something noble and worthwhile; something rewarding and respectable, but what it all boils down to is…

Me, sat at this keyboard, staring at this screen.

My only achievement: A hundred words about how I really need to get a life!

SERENDIPIDY

Tonight I’m going out.

I’m going out to get a life, to take it from another and make it my own.

I will drink their blood, feast on their flesh and steal their soul, and when I am done, they will be no more and I will live once again.

Every night another life, another victim – their passing is my sustenance, one more day that I shall survive and live to kill again.

I consider it a fair trade: An eye for an eye, a life for my life; survival of the fittest.

And so far, it’s always been me!

TOM

A Retiring Position

I spend my waking days interviewing county officials. I would be cooler if the ceiling in the room had a field of stars in a deep sky blue. A visual cue which could only be enhanced by red robes and a fully functional rack in the corner. I joke: “Let me show you the instruments of the question.” Funny, no? Some might say, you really need to get a life. I return, If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged. Who’s next?

NORVAL JOE

Mr. Blanketmaker put his arm around his wife. “Honey. I know you’re upset. We all are. You can’t allow yourself to become consumed by a personal vendetta.”
Billbert’s mother looked at her husband crosseyed. “I think the one with a vendetta is Nuclear Fission. I’d like to tell her to get a life and move on, but you have to agree. She’s a little more invested in this battle than that.”
Billbert cleared his throat. “Um. Mom. What does Nuclear Fission have against you?”
She shook her head. “It goes way back. She and I used to be best friends.”

JARED

“If It Seems Too Good to Be True”
Warren couldn’t wait to get to school and show those jerks he wasn’t the loser they thought he was. He had ordered a new Life from the back of a comic book and it had finally arrived. He didn’t really know what it was, exactly, but he he packed it carefully into his backpack and walked with pride and purpose to the bus stop. His bubble was quickly and thoroughly burst.
“Dork!”
“Weirdo!”
“I didn’t think you could be more of a loser.”
He thought back to the ad. And the $1.99 price. And learned , you get what you pay for…

RICK

Get A Life

“Get a life” they said.
Problem is that’s kind of vague.
Life comes in all shapes and sizes …
Some people fill their life with family … friends, others … perhaps … with work, achievement, and material possessions.

Some spend their adult years cherishing memories of youth, while others are faced with the task of trying to drink away nightmares scenarios, or acts of horror that have played out before their eyes.

Frank’s life had been the latter type.
A failure of a son.
A failure as a parent.
… alienated everyone who had tried to befriend him.

Gun in his mouth
Frank pulled the trigger.

cPLANET Z

Laws are lies we tell ourselves and others to do better.
But, really, we can’t, or shouldn’t, or won’t actually do better.
Deficits are lies that we tell ourselves that we can afford whatever this is.
That we can’t, or shouldn’t, or won’t actually afford.
Debts are lies that we tell ourselves that we will pay this all back.
That we can’t, or shouldn’t, or won’t actually pay.
We can’t keep lying to ourselves.
We shouldn’t lie to ourselves.
But we keep lying to ourselves about the lies.
We say that we’ll stop the lies.
But we can’t. And won’t.

Knave James

The team’s owner said that the superstar would make them great.
To sign him, they had to trade away all of their other players and hire scrubs at the league minimum.
The superstar couldn’t do it all on his own, so the team came in last for the season.
The fans left in droves, the front office were all sacked, the owner declared bankruptcy, and the team was sold to new ownership.
They received premium draft picks as part of the sale, and the next year, they were great.
“Okay, so they’ll be great next year,” said the previous owner.

The P in ESPN stands for Parasite

A reporter was fired from ESPN for leaking company information.
He’d built his career off of gathering leaked information from sources, and the network gladly broadcasted it in between their commercials.
But when the network itself was the story, they fired him without hesitation.
Nobody surrounded the network, harassing the executives and staff for information.
They just read the statement on the air, and breathed a sigh of relief that they also weren’t fired.
Parasites never like to be picked from a nice juicy source of blood, and that’s why they hiss when you pierce them with a hot needle.