Weekly Challenge #680: PICK TWO: Hire, Heart attack, Strip, Weaponize, Fink, Nancy, Bumbling, Volt

Sleepy lap cat

TOM

A Cirus Life for Me

Nancy Volt was billed as the “Human Lighting Rod”. She performed, if one could call lighting up like a Christmas tree performing, for Gill Brother Circus during the 1920’s. The high point of the act was when a random member of the audience was picked to give Nancy a peck on the cheek. The sad rube would make contact a blue plasma arched across his lips follow by a 10 foot backward ride through the air. When the circus disbanded in down state Illinois. She married a farmer in Olney, IL. Had three kid with electric blues eyes.

LIZZIE

“Yes, I hired it.”
“You hired a heart attack?! How can we hire a heart attack?”
“Talk to it and settle for an amount. Easy.”
The prosecutor looked at the judge. The judge shrugged.
“When did you talk to this heart attack then?”
“Two months ago.”
“And it said it would kill your boss?”
The defendant nodded.
“Are there many heart attacks around doing hit jobs?”
“No, there’s only one.”
“And what’s its name?”
“Cock-eyed Paulie.”
“Ah, that’s why your boss is still alive.”
The room burst into laughter.
A few weeks later, the prosecutor died of a heart attack.

RICHARD

Strip

“Strip!” was the stern command.

I gulped. Offering personal services for hire on Craigslist, you never know what your customers may be like, and this was probably the most intimidating one so far.

Dressed head to toe in latex, she stood before me, invading my personal space, giving the distinct impression that she was very much in complete control of whatever happened next.

However, I’m made of stern stuff, and a domineering customer wasn’t going to faze me.

“I’ll get right on it “, I said, climbing my stepladder.

“And once I’ve stripped this wall, I’ll start painting the hallway”

SERENDIPIDY

Shock humour is all the rage these days – YouTube has thousands of ‘prank’ videos, where unsuspecting victims are subjected to terrifying ordeals in the name of entertainment.

It’s only a matter of time before somebody dies from the shock.

Which is how I came up with my business – ‘Hire a Heart Attack’.

It’s simple: You pick a victim, send me their details, and I surprise them with a scenario so shocking they have a coronary!

It’s a fantastic birthday surprise! I’m also available for other occasions; and if they don’t pop their clogs, you get your money back!

NORVAL JOE

Wanda rolled her eyes. “Don’t have a heart attack. It’s not like I had to hire a private eye to figure out that Billbert has super powers.”

The bell rang telling the students lunch would be ending in ten minutes. Billbert scratched his head. “How did you figure it out?”

“Simple. I live down the street from Linoliumanda. I saw the two of you fly by my house on Friday night.” Wanda shook her head. “You don’t need to worry. I’m not a rat fink. I won’t tell anyone else. Be careful, though. Some would like to weaponize your ability.”

PLANET Z

Nancy hired the strippers for the bachelorette party.
They were dressed as first responders.
A paramedic, a fireman, and a policeman.
“We heard there was a party emergency here,” said the doctor.
And he pulled a Bluetooth speaker out of his bag and started the music.
The bride-to-be had so much fun, she forgot to take her pills.
The heart attack dropped her like a stone.
Nancy dialed 911, while the paramedic stripper said he’d taken first aid classes.
“I know CPR!”
Well, not really. With the first compression, the sweaty hunk crushed the patient’s ribcage and finished her off.

Don’t want to deal

I don’t want to deal with anything today.
I didn’t want to deal with anything yesterday.
Or the day before.
But, for some whatever reason, I’m getting up.
I’m going through the motions.
I’m making this cup of coffee.
And drinking it.
Wash up, get dressed, go out to the truck.
Drive to work and go in the building.
Push the elevator button.
Walk out and down the hall.
Into my office.
Slide the door shut.
Dock the laptop and sign in.
This voice track won’t record itself.
So, I put on Ambient Sleeping Pill.
And close my eyes.
Whatever.

Town Square

Old Gertie liked to sit by the old wishing well in the town square.
She liked to imagine her great-grandfather digging the well and building the frame and cover.
But the truth is, her great-grandfather never left Sweden. It was her grandfather who came to this country.
And her didn’t dig the well or do anything to help build it.
He was in jail for drunken and lewd behavior while Chinese laborers finished it.
He knocked up a hooker, who had fraternal twins: a boy and a girl.
Her parents.
I guess its better she didn’t know the awful truth.

Bitterness

It’s hard not to be bitter about the horrible failures and stress during my time at the TV station.
Eighteen years later, I still feel so much anger and resentment, it clouds any good memories.
Even the rare, few good people trigger the bitterness and rage.
So, I’ve tried to keep my distance, and I keep the TV off, or close the browser windows.
I keep to myself, or escape into places where nothing matters.
But like any poison, it never truly goes away.
Imagining myself surrounded by vipers, they offer to suck it out, digging their fangs in deeper.

Tickle Toes

Ted doesn’t like it when you tickle his toes.
So, he wears thick socks. And boots.
Even when he’s in the shower.
Not that he’s ever in the shower with other people, but he’s not taking any chances.
He locks his bathroom door. And his front door.
All of his windows are barred.
He put up a fence, topped with barbed wire.
The paper boy died trying to deliver Ted’s paper.
Ted was found guilty of manslaughter and went to jail for it.
And he got raped in the shower. Repeatedly.
But, thank goodness, nobody tried to tickle his toes.

The Burning Bushes

Word got around that Yahweh spoke to Moses through a burning bush.
Shops dumped their golden calf inventory and stocked up on bushes.
Pretty soon, everyone was carrying around a bush, waiting for God to call them.
Some people carried around two, three, even four bushes.
The High Priests looked like walking shrubbery.
Practical jokers would wait until the High Priests were asleep, then they’d light their bushes on fire.
The screaming priests looked and sounded like some kind of strange divine intervention, but the holy mood was broken when they stopped, dropped, and rolled to put the flames out.

Cults

Joe likes to listen to the religious cultists at the airport.
He’d get to the airport hours before his flight.
He’d watch all kinds of brainwashing movies, get hooked to a variety of weird pseudoscientific devices, and read all sorts of pamphlets and books.
Then he’d promise his eternal life and soul to them.
Just as they brought papers for him to sign, he’d get up and run for the exit.
Then he’d go to the employee locker room and put on his pilot’s uniform.
Maybe there will be some new cults to fuck with when he lands in Chicago.

Weekly Challenge #679: POTATO CHIPS

Tinny

TOM

My Favorite Potato Chip

I grew up in Chicago home of Jay’s potato chips. A chips of such superiority its lingers to this day in my best memories of youth. Oddly the chip started out life as Mrs. Japp’s Chips after the founder Leonard Japp. The 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent anti-Japanese sentiment, however, led to a negative connotation towards the word “Jap” in the United States. The chips were consequently rebranded to “Jays Potato Chips” to avoid the sound-alike name, and the company became Jays Foods, Inc. This was years before I was born. Company died in October 2007.

RICHARD

Chips

Our casino fell on hard times – poorly trained staff and lax security meant they were paying out well over the odds, and were well on the way to bankruptcy.

Then someone hit on the idea of replacing the poker chips with potato chips: Different flavours for different values, and although the punters were dubious to begin with, they soon came around to the new thinking.

The casino was soon back on track, and it really didn’t matter how much they were cashing out – the punters never walked out with full pockets…

They just couldn’t resist eating their profits.

SERENDIPIDY

Someone started putting razor blades in the potato chips.

Then it was needles in the noodles, splinters in the breakfast cereals and glass shards in the sanitary products.

Local businesses suffered badly. Even those where foreign articles hadn’t been found in the foodstuffs lost most of their customers almost overnight.

The police targeted the usual suspects – anarchists; those holding grudges; competing businesses, and eco-warriors.

However, they drew a complete blank, because of course, they were looking entirely in the wrong place, and I simply didn’t fit into their criminal profile.

Because, I was doing it just for kicks!

TURA

Potato chips
———
Workers are already hired, monitored, and fired by algorithm. But they still aren’t reliable. So we’re automating people, not jobs. Welcome to Parallel Organic Transmission and Autonomous TeleOperation. With the POTATO chip installed in the workers’ brains, a construction team can be directed by one manager, like the workers are his eyes and hands, and do the job faster and better. It doesn’t feel like taking orders. It feels like the purpose injected into your brain was your own idea. You’ll just do it.

The military are interested, but I think the big money will be in the sex industry.

NORVAL JOE

“What High school does Rhineheart go to?” Billbert asked as if it was a reasonable question.

Linoliumanda took her bag of potato chips and threw it at him. “What are you thinking? She said she thought you were Rhineheart. He’s in high school. This is junior high. Either Wanda, here, is out of her mind, or she has unstated intentions.”

“That’s okay, Lindeelooo. You believe what you want. Billbert and I have bigger fish to fry. Or should I say, ‘fly’.” Wanda winked knowingly at Billbert.

Billbert swollowed uncomfortably while Linoliumanda leaned to Wanda and hissed, “What do you know?”

PLANET Z

Potato chips are bad for you.
Really bad.
So many carbohydrates. So many calories.
It doesn’t matter what oil they’re fried in, or even if they’re baked.
They’re still bad.
Same with the kind of potato.
Any good that comes from a sweet potato is ruined by the oil.
And salt. That’s bad for you, too.
Same with those chemical flavorings and seasonings.
Just a bunch of chemicals some mad food scientist cooked up in a lab.
The only good thing to do to a potato is to stick arms and legs and eyes on it and play with it.

Singularity

After years of research, Doctor Odd invented The Singularity.
“You can upload your mind into this computer, and you’ll live forever,” he said.
The rich and famous gave him trillions of dollars as he hooked them to The Singularity and uploaded their minds.
Then, he turned off the machines, and sold their catatonic bodies on the organ transplant black market.
Some collectors asked about other uses for their bodies. The indecent proposals were shocking.
“That’s disgusting,” said Doctor Odd. “I may be a crook, but I’m not a sicko.”
Besides, he’d seen “Kill Bill.” God forbid Uma Thurman woke up.

Lord of The Pee

I liked The Lord of The Rings movies. And I liked The Hobbit trilogy, but not as much.
I saw all six movies in the neighborhood theater, but they were so long, I had to rush to the bathroom at some point during each one.
There’s websites out there that say when the best time to go is, but I never have to go right at that point.
So, as much as a large soda causes the problem, it’s also a part of the solution.
As long as I remember to wash it out before I get the free refill.