It used to be that apples were grown locally on small farms, and when the fall came, you’d go out and pick them into a basket, ripe right off the tree, the farmer weighing the deliciousness at the gate, a handshake, a smile. He knew your name, you knew his, hey, Farmer Jackson, how’s the wife? Kids doing alright?
Or you had your own tree, you watched it grow from blossoms to apples to falling leaves and winter’s frost and back again.
Now, in the store, apples shipped from around the world, the whole year long.
I taste one.
Gross.
Tag: cliche
Lickable
Wonka stopped the tour and pointed to a wall with bright strips depicting fruits and vines.
“It’s lickable wallpaper,” he said. “Go ahead. Try it.”
So, the kids and adults stepped to the wall and licked it.
The cherries tasted like cherries.
The strawberries tasted like strawberries.
The snozzberries tasted like snozzberries.
And the blueberries tasted like… blood?
“I guess they got Violet down to the juicing room,” said Wonka.
Charlie waved his arms wildly, stuck to the wall by his tongue.
“Dith wum tafff diffgufftih!” he shouted.
“Oh, that’s flypaper,” said Wonka. “Lemme give you a hand, dear boy…”
Buffalo
Long ago, I sang “Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam!”
Well, I fell behind on my payments and lost the place.
Yeah, I thought a home where the buffalo roamed would be great, but it turned out to be a real stinker.
There’s no phone lines out here. Can’t even make a lousy cell call.
No power, either, although with the skies not cloudy all day, I have solar panels and batteries that work pretty well.
Water? Nope. And the skies aren’t cloudy, so no rain.
And then there’s all the buffalo shit.
They can have it!
Seven Brides For Seven Monsters
It all started when Victor Frankenstein made his monster.
The monster got lonely, so he made a bride for the monster.
But the bride was way too hot for the monster, so he kept her for himself.
This pissed off the monster, so he made another hottie just for him.
But this new hottie was even hotter than the bride, so he kept her as a mistress.
“So, about the monster…”
No way, said the bride.
“Threesome?”
No.
All this time, the villagers sat around with their pitchforks and torches, far too amused at Victor’s shenanigans to storm the castle.
Queen
For the longest time, people wondered what The Queen kept in her little purse.
With all the assistants and bodyguards around her, offering her things when she needed them, there really wasn’t anything she needed to carry herself.
There wasn’t anything private in her life, either. Everybody knew everything in her life down to the color of the underwear she was wearing. (If she was wearing underwear.)
So, wild speculation went about with people betting on what was in her purse.
Breath mints?
Gum?
A phone?
A dildo?
It contained, in fact, nothing.
She just liked to fuck with people.
Magi
Doctor Odd put down “Gift Of The Magi” and smiled.
O Henry’s tale reminded him of when he sold his invincible army of robots to buy his true love a crown of diamonds, while his true love gave him an Orvis gift certificate.
Orvis?
What the hell?
He didn’t own anything from there.
They fought and broke up.
She kept the crown, and it really pissed him off.
So, he activated the homing beacon, recalled his robots from the pawn shop, and conquered earth.
He put the crown in his trophy case, mounted on his former true love’s severed head.
Yard Sale
I bought a ghost.
At a yard sale.
Although, it was technically an estate sale, considering it was all the ghost’s stuff being sold off.
And I didn’t mean to buy the ghost. I wanted to buy a sweater, some coffee mugs, and a really slick blender.
The ghost apparently came with all that stuff.
I asked for my money back, but they had a big NO REFUNDS sign.
And ALL SALES FINAL, so I couldn’t just give the stuff back.
It’s a nice sweater. And the blender’s nice and loud. Covers the ghost’s moaning and rattling chains.
More coffee?
So Many Candles
On every girl’s birthday, they name each of the candles on their cake after a boy, and if only one is left burning when they make their wish and blow them out, then that’s the boy they’ll marry.
The more candles, the harder it is to blow them all out, but Mary did, no matter how big Mother baked the cake and how wide she set the candles apart.
Then, one year, surrounded by her college friends, she blew out the candles, and one remained flickering.
“Sam,” Mary said.
Next to her, Mary’s girlfriend grinned. “You know I prefer Samantha.”
Always a Jammer, Never a Blocker
Most women think of their wedding dress as the dress they’ll be married in.
Others think of it as the dress they’ll be buried in.
But Tracy’s thinking “How will this perform on the track?”
She joined the Bridezillas team as a jammer, fast and light, with a minimum of lace to reduce wind resistance and material for opponents to grab. But after years of working out and hitting the bars after matches, she switched to blocker, and she wanted more flashy and style.
She checked a sleeve. Shiny… glittering…
Pretty as a picture.
Plus, rhinestones always leave a mark.
The Dragon’s Tail
Isaac sat beneath an apple tree and watched a mob of farmers charge up the hill, pitchforks waving, heading to the dragon’s cave.
He closed his eyes and waited for the roar to come.
RRRRROOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRR!
A pack of screaming singed farmers carrying scorched pitchforks ran down the hill, half-heartedly pursued by a massive scaly green lizard with wings.
Until it stopped, walked up to Isaac, and grumbled “What’s up with those clowns?”
Isaac shrugged. “I can calculate the motions of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of men.”
The dragon sighed, grumbled and walked away, his tail jostling the tree.