The nudist

Every time I do laundry, I forget something.
Maybe I leave out a shirt or some underwear.
Or a stray sock or two.
Sometimes, I forget to put the towels in.
The washer starts, its door latches, and I’m stuck waiting for the next load.
Once, I had everything ready. I checked everything twice.
Nothing left out, nothing missing.
But I was out of detergent.
So, I went out to get detergent and came back.
I loaded the clothes, poured in detergent, and pushed the start button.
That’s when the power went out.
And that’s why I became a nudist.

Weekly Challenge #767 – PICK TWO the hand that feeds you, scope, dresser, pit stop, quip, knave

Toes

LIZZIE

“This is the hand that feeds you!”
The boys’ silence screamed horrors of pain and misery.
There was only one way out of this. They knew it.
That evening, while the police scoped the house, all three boys, aged 5, 8 and 14, sat outside. None of them spoke, not even the 5 year old. They knew nothing. The father had walked into the woods and had never returned.
An aunt came over. The police left.
The dresser had to go. The hidden compartment, they had found long ago, came in handy after all.
The body would never be found.

RICHARD

Out with the old…

I grabbed my keys off the dresser, skipped breakfast, and jumped in the car.

It was a new year, a new job and a new opportunity, and I wasn’t going to make a bad impression by being late on my first day, I could always make a quick pit stop and grab a coffee and a sandwich at my desk, once I’d settled in.

I certainly made an impression, but not the one I’d hoped for.

That was last January, and ever since, my boss has insisted everyone follows my ‘good example’ by turning up super early every single day.

SERENDIPIDY

They say, don’t bite the hand that feeds you, which if you’re my position doesn’t leave much scope nutritionally.

After all, if I’m not permitted a nibble of a hand, it stands to reason that gorging myself on an arm, leg, or juicy liver is certainly going to be frowned upon. That’s a slippery slope that I’ve no wish to descend.

Because who ever heard of a vegan cannibal?

Just the thought of subsisting on vegetables, and plant matter products -whatever those are- makes me feel sick!

Now please, hold still, and don’t scream when I light up the barbecue!

TOM

Stupid People often Say Stupid Things

“Never smear peanut butter on the hand that feeds you,” quipped Lennie. The scope and limit of his wit fell short in every regard. It was like the two lobs in his head were fighting for some unseen bag of French fries. Damn near everything he ever said was a mash-up of disconnected thoughts hell bent on disconnected outcomes. Once it was out of this mouth he could not care less if anyone took notices or questioned the motivation. Of course his Pop had left him a cold half a billion. So people were subject to nodding thoughtfully. I certainly was.

Attachments area

NORVAL JOE

The remaining assortment of superheroes crowded around the federal agents harrassing them with witty quips and insults, allowing Billbert’s and Linoliamanda’s families to escape.

Billbert laughed as they drove away from the hospital. “That’s an odd group of superheroes, Mom. How do you get anything done?”

His mother scowled. “You have to understand the scope of our mission. We’re not flashy like Superman or the Avengers. We stay out of the spotlight and fight crime and inequality in a more local and individual way.”

Billbert raised an eyebrow. “Is that why Nuclear Fission came all the way to our town?”

TURA

Knave; dresser
———
I start awake to discover a playing card— the knave of swords— nailed to the dresser with a dagger. The message is clear.

I raise a steel-braced arm as I whirl to deflect the intruder’s crossbow bolt into the wall behind me. Snatching up a sword, we engage in a storm of flashing steel. I pour everything into a lunge, which he parries, but my momentum overbears him onto the bed. As we wrestle, I inexorably force my dagger to his throat. “Yield!” I demand, and he finally nods, not quite reluctantly.

My turn to be the top this time.

JARED

“Juliette didn’t want to stop driving; she was making too good time. Her bladder was uncooperative. She saw the next exit had services and found the tiniest outpost of human encroachment on the deserted wastes of — she didn’t know if she was still in Texas, or had made that imperceptible transition into New Mexico. She hated making these runs. They were too long, and she didn’t even know what they accomplished. But, she was again reminded that ‘the scope of [her] employment does not extend to the enterprise’s transactions’. But she also knew not to bit the hand that feeds.”

PLANET Z

You would think that the Truck Stop Preacher was the Truck Stop Killer.
I mean, everywhere the Preacher showed up, a waitress wound up dead.
A waitress that had served the Preacher.
Grilled cheese sandwich, black coffee, and a five dollar tip.
Every body found had a bloody five in her mouth.
But there was no evidence. No witnesses.
No fingerprints, DNA, nothing at all.
Just a coincidence, a solid pattern.
It wasn’t enough for the police to hold him.
Truck stops won’t serve the Preacher now.
“Go use the vending machine,” the waitresses say.
And nobody’s been killed since.

Never let

Professor Blaine liked to say “Never let a Tuesday go to waste.”
He died on a Sunday, right after church.
On Monday, the teaching assistant canceled class, and students from all over campus spent the hour remembering the professor.
“I have the professor’s notes,” said the assistant. “We’ll have class tomorrow.”
But it wasn’t the assistant who taught us.
It was Blaine himself.
“Never let a Tuesday go to waste,” mumbled his corpse.
Campus police showed up and evacuated us from the lecture hall.
Wednesday morning, Blaine was dead again.
Administration moved the class’s schedule to Mondays,Wednesdays, and Fridays.

Hold it

Looking back, losing seventy-five pounds was actually easy.
I walked a lot.
Stores that are less than a mile away, I walked to.
I ate less, and I only ate what was good for me.
I stopped buying bad stuff so it wouldn’t be around to tempt me.
Walking to the store means I can carry less, so I can’t carry heavy canned bad stuff.
Or bottles.
I no longer drank my calories. Only water and tea for me.
And the pounds vanished one after another.
The hard part is not losing, but knowing how to stop and hold it.

To The Shake Shack

I’ve never had a shake from Shake Shack.
I’ve had a Shake Shack burger. And Shake Shack fries.
But never a Shake Shack shake.
So, I went to the Shake Shack and asked for a Shake Shack shake.
Just a shake? Shake Shack asked, thinking it was a mistake.
Just a shake. I said. That’s all I can take.
The shake took Shake Shack seven minutes to make.
I don’t like to wait. But the shake was great.
But, sadly.
Seven hundred and fifty calories of shake.
I’m glad I walked to the Shake Shack, to walk off this shake.

Little Ricky

My name is Ricky these days.
People used to call me Rick. And Richard.
But now, they call me Ricky.
Some people still call me Rick. People who knew me back in school.
And the people who call me Richard, well, they’re reading my name from a form or a computer.
It’s the ones who call me Ricky that I listen to.
They used to call me Little Ricky.
But I got bigger, and I met another guy who called himself Little Ricky.
I was bigger than him, so I let him take the name Little Ricky, and I’m Ricky.

Lost breast

While Hugo was walking around the library, he came across a breast.
He picked it up and turned it over in his hands.
It was an ordinary ball of flesh, supple, yet firm.
About a C cup, he figured.
Maybe he should ask the librarian to make an announcement.
Or would that be too embarrassing?
Perhaps just drop it in the Lost and Found.
Its owner could pick it up when they realized it was gone.
But then, what if someone took it?
He put it back on the floor and walked away.
Let someone else deal with the thing.

The Healer

Aescepalus, father of all doctors.
They say he could cure any disease and heal any injury.
Including death.
Souls vanished from the underworld as Aescepalus revived them.
Cerberus, the guard dog of The Abyss, yelped and chased his tail. Hades screamed with rage.
“How dare he steal my subjects from me!”
Hades put a price on Aescepalus’ head, and bounty hunters were more than happy to hunt him down.
Until Aescepalus reminded them that many bounties were worth more alive than dead.
“I can fix your mistakes,” he told them.
But eventually, Hades won out.
Because Aescepalus couldn’t heal himself.

Weekly Challenge #766 – Fruitcake

Blep

Lizzie

The teenagers sat side by side. “What is it like to live with a dead person?” he asked. She looked down. Then she looked up again and stared at the horizon. He knew what she meant. He was living with a dead person too but had never admitted it to anyone else. He sat closer to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “I’m not crazy,” she said. “I know…” he whispered. “She’s just dead inside and she doesn’t know it.” He nodded. That’s when he knew he would be the one to take her away from it all.

Richard

Fruitcake

Uncle Sidney was, for all intents and purposes, a total fruitcake.

We’d frequently get calls from the police after he’d been arrested for parading around the park, naked, save for a pair of flippers and a turban.

He’d been banned from all the local stores for trying to sleep in the frozen food cabinets.

And he insisted on planting umbrellas and pogo sticks in the garden.

To say he was difficult to tolerate is an understatement, but we did nevertheless.

Not because he was family, or we were particularly kind, but because he was loaded.

A very, very, rich fruitcake!

Serendipidy

They call me a fruitcake, a few peas short of a pod -a bit loopy, but harmless enough.

It’s just a bit of dressing up and harmless fun, after all, and if it keeps me happy, why should it matter?

Of course, come the Festive Season, everybody is more than happy to play along, even encourage me. They love the red outfit, white beard and jolly disposition.

What they don’t know, is that every Christmas Eve, I sneak out from the secure accommodation, climb down the nearest chimney and massacre an unsuspecting family in their beds!

Compliments of the season!

Tom

Always Inedible

The New York Times reports that the Secret Service does not have a plan for a president who will not exit the White House when their term has expired. Nice play Secret Service guys, Oh Br’er Rabbit please don’t throw me into the briar patch” Right, want to hide what you be doing, dos that is plain sight. I heard a squaw on an Intel site over the Christmas. The term Fruitcake keep popping up. After a mess of cross filters chewed it up, it seems to be some operational code word. Yup Individual One is Fruitcake. Seem holiday fitting.

Norval Joe

Linoliamanda placed a hand on her father’s arm, helping to difuse her potentially explosive father. “Let’s go home, Daddy. As threatening as these gentlemen may appear, they haven’t produced a warrant for Billbert, us, or anyone else.”
Mr. Withybottom scowled around the room. “I guess it’s best we aren’t associated with any of these fruit cakes, anyway. If these agents have any issues with them, they can leave us out of it.” He took his daughter by the hand. “Let’s go, Linny.”
Taking advantage of the distraction, Billbert whispered to his mother, “Come on, Mom. Let’s get out of here.”

Planet Z

Most people joke about fruitcake being inedible, but when the pandemic shut down food processing plants, distribution systems, and grocery stores, yeah, that fruitcake your grandmother sent you looks awfully good.
You’ll go through every can of cream of mushroom soup, every can of lima beans, every box of pasta you have on the shelf first.
Might even stare at those cans of Alpo dog food.
Anything but that fruitcake.
Until, it happens.
You open the tin, peel back the plastic, and reach for the knife.
Which gets stuck in the sugary brick.
With enough ketchup, that Alpo tasted good.

The richest man

Croesus, King of Lydia, the richest man in ancient times.
He found joy with his wealth, and misery in parting with any.
The more he had, the less he gave.
Piles of riches, hidden away in the treasury of his crumbling palace.
And then, he died, and found himself on the shores of the River Styx.
The boatman holding out his hand, waiting.
Croesus felt under his tongue, and found not a coin, but a stone.
His family had repaid his lifetime of greed by dooming him an eternity of wandering the afterlife.
A shade forever yearning for peaceful oblivion.