Why did I just toss that dime on the sidewalk?
Well, everybody likes to find a dime or a quarter in the street, right?
I’m just trying to spread a little random joy.
It started back when I reached in my pocket and some change spilled out.
I picked up most of it, but decided to leave the rest.
Now, I just toss a dime or a quarter out every now and then.
What I don’t like is when bums ask me for a buck or two.
Then, I toss the money into a busy street.
“Go get it, jackass.”
Tag: commentary
nanowrimo
Every year, I sign up for National Novel Writing Month.
One year, I wrote eighty-seven words on the side of a church and spent the month in jail.
The next year, I got drunk and had the word “Bilious” tattooed across my ass. Oh, and a pelican in a top hat holding a shotgun.
Then, there was the year I used Dragon Dictation, a speech-to-Text program. Thought I could just talk and talk and talk up the novel.
Yeah, I lost my voice.
This year, I’m going to write.
I’m going to write this all off as a bad idea.
Easy Street
Some kids go to college and never come back.
Other kids never leave.
Me, I was emancipated at the age of 3.
But we agreed not to make a big deal of it.
So, I went to a boarding pre-school and kept up the act from year to year.
Sure, it wasn’t easy, paying for it all, but my parents lent me the cash now and then.
Maybe they charged a little too much interest, but the banks kept saying no.
Now, after years of hard work, I’m on Easy Street.
Well, the alley behind it.
Spare some change, mister?
Spectactle
The town hung criminals from a tree outside the courthouse.
People came from miles to watch.
Over time, it became an event.
Hawkers shouted LEMONADE and PRETZELS as they pushed their carts through the jubilant crowd.
The town decided this was in bad taste and ended the public hangings.
Instead, they made the hangings private.
The new county arboretum is a beautiful building, built around the old hanging tree.
Hangings are now private events. Invitation-only.
No people coming from miles to watch.
No pushcarts. No lemonade or pretzels.
Just the witnesses, the criminal, the hangman, and a bottle of champagne.
Creation
I stepped out of the time machine and tripped over a dead cougar.
A deep voice hissed “Who’s that?”
I got back up and rubbed my eyes, not quite sure I was seeing what I was seeing.
It was God, standing at a workbench, piled high with burnt and bloody animal parts.
Behind him, stacks of scorched trees and polluted rivers and other things.
“I went back in time to witness Creation?” I gasped.
“No, you went forward,” God growled. “After the nuclear war. I’m just trying to scrape something together.”
He pointed a lightning bolt at me. “Without humans.”
Sic Semper Tyrannis?
It starts with the rumors on Twitter.
“Ghadafi captured.”
Then come the rumors that he’s been killed.
Jokes that Ghadafi’s captured, Khadafi killed, and Qadafy’s denying it all.
A photo appears. People shout “Photoshop!”
Finally, confirmation. He’s dead.
Drudge Report posts a photo of Obama shaking hands with Ghadafi.
Ghadafi’s in one of his wacked-out robes, looking like Keith Richards gone mad in a bazaar.
I mutter “Why is he shaking hands with that asshole?”
“It’s diplomacy,” says my friend. “Even dictators like Ghadafi get basic respect.”
I laugh. “I mean why is Ghadafi shaking hands with that asshole Obama?”
Sockpuppet
Nobody paid Walter Drub any notice.
But his sockpuppet, Senator Fenton, was leading the polls in October. Practically a shoe-in for the presidency.
I can’t explain how this happened. It’s just as weird to me as it is to you, and I’m his chief of staff.
But somehow, Boston elected a sockpuppet mayor, then senator, and now the entire country was falling in love with him.
Sadly, it all came crashing down when Walter tried to wash Fenton, and he vanished in the dryer.
He tried using a right sock.
“Impostor!” people shouted, and poor Walter ran for his life.
Ghost Writer
When I was young, my guidance counselor asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up.
I said “I want to be a writer.”
The guidance counselor laughed. “Writer? Not a doctor? A lawyer?”
“No, I want to be a writer.”
“Nobody is a writer,” said the counselor.
I pointed at his bookshelf. “Then who wrote those?”
He picked one out. “Shakespeare. He’s dead.” He picked out another. “Freud. Dead.”
Every book chosen, it was by someone dead.
So, I got a typewriter, paper, and killed myself.
People assume I’m a ghostwriter.
But these days, I prefer editing.
Unoccupied
It’s Tuesday. Time to visit John’s money.
I insist on meeting my broker in person.
Traffic’s bad. There’s protestors.
They call themselves “Occupy Wall Street.”
So, I get out, and they cheer.
“YOKO!”
Looking around at these wannabe revolutionaries, I mumbled that these fools couldn’t topple a government, let alone a tower of Jenga blocks on a wobbly kitchen table.
Whatever.
“Fight the power!” I said, and they cheered.
How many of these people hating bankers and lawyers for “not making things” actually make things themselves besides FB updates and noise?
Pathetic.
I get back in my limo and leave.
The Closet
Like every other geek, my closet is stuffed full of old computer junk.
There’s all kinds of other junk in there.
Worn-out toaster.
Busted microwave.
A VCR.
And it’s all piled up, waiting to come crashing down on the next poor dumb sap who opens the door too quickly.
I could invite over an enemy, tell them there’s something for them in the closet, and they open it…
I’d tell the cops it was an accident. Or a suicide.
Hey, I’ve got some of their handwriting still… I can scan it in.
Now, where’s that scanner…
Ah, in the closet!