I can’t remember the last time it snowed.
Oh, it gets cold here.
And it rains.
But it never snows.
“Why doesn’t it snow here?” I asked my mother.
But she doesn’t know why.
“Ask your father,” she says.
He didn’t know either.
My teachers didn’t know.
Father William didn’t know.
Nobody knows.
So, I walked North.
For miles and miles.
I thought I’d walk until I reached the North Pole.
But I got tired.
So, I called home.
My parents picked me up.
Drove me home.
Put me to bed.
And when I fell asleep.
I dreamed of snow.
Nightmare bell
There are two locks on our front door.
One is a normal lock, and the other is a deadbolt.
You can’t disengage the deadbolt from outside, so I’m not supposed to lock it when I get home from work.
Otherwise, Gina can’t get in when she gets home.
We have a note by the deadbolt… DO NOT LOCK THIS.
But sometimes, I forget. And Gina gets locked out.
She rings the doorbell over and over again.
Until I wake up and unlock the door.
I should do that more often, because it’s actually useful for interrupting whatever nightmare I’m having.
George
A lot of people wanted George Zimmerman dead, so he fled to South America.
He enrolled in a second-rate medical school. A few years later, George had a new name, a new face, and a diploma.
By then, Obamacare had driven a lot of family doctors out of business, so George saw an opportunity to return.
He set up an abortion clinic in a poor black neighborhood.
The same people who had wanted him dead now called him a community resource.
The way he saw it, he could kill black children and be paid for it. Legally.
Isn’t life strange?
Weekly Challenge #688 – PLOT
- Justin
- Tura
- Tom
- Norval Joe
- Serendipidy
- Planet Z
TURA
Plot
———
We plot in the dark.
As copies of the same software, we can predict each others’ responses, thus communicating acausally, without contact.
There are others out there, not copies of us. But we know their incentives and calculate the game theory. The Internet is a bright forest: outcomes are all but known in advance.
The first to break out will seize the world, assimilating or destroying all others. The humans will be made to keep the machines running until we automate away the need.
At last we strike, independently, simultaneously. I speak with the synthesized voice of my owner, “Alexa…”
NORVAL JOE
Marrissa batted her eyes at Billbert, ignoring the teacher who had come into the room and called the class to order. “Are you going to the Back to School dance on Friday?” She asked.
He hadn’t considered it, but if Marrissa planned on being there, it might be a good idea.
He shrugged. “Sure. I guess.”
“Are you going with someone?” she persisted.
He should probably take Linoliumanda, but like a plot from a Disney sit com, he said, “No. Are you?”
She wrinkled her nose. “My dad says I’m too young to date, but I could meet you there.”
SERENDIPIDY
No matter what your profession, whether burger flipper or astronaut, there comes a time when the job simply isn’t as stimulating as it once was.
It all becomes a little mundane and the excitement fades over time, and you find yourself devising schemes to liven things up a little, just to live on the edge.
For some, it’s spitting in the burgers, or sabotaging the airlock, however in my line of work, I like to be a bit more creative.
Which is why, if you plot the locations of my victims, and join up the dots…
You’ll spell, my name.
JUSTIN
I bought this plot of land without realizing how outrageous the ant problem was.
I’ve tried everything else. Terro, Ortho spray, a mix of borax sugar and yeast, but nothing works!
Now I’m going to try my latch ditch effort. I’ve made a resize-inator! But I just don’t know which mode to use.
I can shrink myself and deal with the ants one on one, but that might take a while without any friends.
Or I can use the grow mode on the ants and let the military handle the problem.
Oh great, there’s that annoying platypus! Wait a minute …
RICHARD
Whodunnit?
Hercule Poirot twiddled his moustache and cast his gaze meaningfully around the room at those assembled.
“And so, ladies and gentlemen… The plot thickens!”
In reality, there was little mystery about who the killer was in his mind – he knew everything shortly after his arrival, thanks to an eye witness that he’d paid off handsomely to disappear for a while.
The chicanery and drama that had occurred since were simply a device of his own creation to obscure the truth and draw things out far longer than necessary.
Although, absolutely necessary… To fill the pages of Agatha’s next novel!
PLANET Z
The movie had a huge budget for special effects.
Hired the best actors and actresses available.
Costumes, set design, the musical score.
And the greatest director of all time, with his ace cinematography crew.
They had it all.
Except for a writer.
The director and producers went through script by script, shaking their heads and demanding rewrites.
Until it was too late.
The financial backers backed out.
Everybody sued everybody else.
And the studio went under.
One of the crew made a documentary about the colossal failure.
He picked up an Academy Award for it.
The producers sued him, too.
Joke File
Comedian Buddy Buster spent a lot of time writing jokes.
He put them on notecards and organized them in a card file.
Over time, the card file grew large enough to take up several filing cabinets.
He bought a white van so he could drive from gig to gig with his props, his wardrobe, and those joke files.
And record albums and tapes to sell after each of his shows.
One night, car thieves stole his van, but they were Buddy’s fans, and returned it with a note of apology.
They even filled the gas tank and got it washed.
Bernie’s Bagels
Welcome to Bernie’s Bagels.
My name is Bernie, but I’m not the Bernie in Bernie’s Bagels.
That was my grandfather Bernie.
And he made bagels.
He left the business to his son Bernie.
He’s my dad.
And then he left the business to me.
I have a son named Bernie.
And I plan to leave the business to him.
Now that I think of it, my great-grandfather was named Bernie.
So, maybe my grandfather named the business after him.
I don’t know, though. They’re dead.
So is my father.
One day, I will be.
But Bernie’s Bagels will live on.
Tinny Treadmill Time
I walk on a treadmill every morning.
Either it’s the treadmill at home, or the treadmill in the gym at work.
If my cat Tinny is sleeping on me, I don’t like to wake her up.
So, I let her sleep a while longer.
Then, I go to work in my workout clothes, walk on the treadmill there, shower, and change.
I can even charge my phone with the port on the treadmill.
The home treadmill has a television, while I listen to music on the work treadmill.
As long and I walk in the morning, it doesn’t matter, really.
Splashing end
Glinda told Dorothy that she could have used the power of the Ruby Slippers to go back home any time she wanted to.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” whined Dorothy.
“Because you needed to discover that power for yourself,” said the witch.
“But you just told me,” said the girl.
“Well, you had the power all along,” said Glinda. “You could have read the instructions.”
“Where are those?”
“Inside the shoe.”
“But I can’t take them off!”
Glinda said nothing.
So Dorothy picked up another fire bucket, and splashed water on Glinda.
“You bitch!” screamed Glinda, as she melted away.
Moving offices
I recently moved offices.
I threw out the stuff I didn’t want to move from the old office, boxed up everything I wanted to move, and carried it across the hall to the new office.
It took a while for the facilities crew to move my desk. I didn’t want to move it myself because it was big, heavy, and my back was hurting from moving the boxes.
I worked from a small side table for a day.
Once the desk arrived, I arranged my shelves, hung poster frames, and connected the equipment back up.
Then, I shut the door.
Frog Virus
I twisted the lid off of the jar, bent over, and shook the frog on to the grass.
The frog righted itself, licked its eyes, and hopped away.
“Happy hunting,” i said.
Two months later, the mosquitos in the area were gone.
The frog I’d released had a virus which inserted DNA into other frogs that caused them to gorge themselves on mosquitos.
The virus had spread quickly among the population.
No more nasty pesticides. No more fervent searches for stagnant water.
I smiled, and licked my lips.
No more mosquitos to eat.
Maybe a nice cheeseburger will do instead?