Tag: sick

Gray Hair

776736

I remember when I discovered my first gray hair.
I was looking in the mirror and I saw a flash of something.
So, I stopped and looked around for a minute, and I found it.
A gray hair, tempting me to remove it.
I plucked it out.
Pretty soon, there were too many to pluck out.
Eventually, the gray hairs outnumbered the black hairs.
Now, I search and search, and only find gray hairs.
Except for one.
I look at it, and it tempts me to remove it.
So, I get the tweezers, and pluck it out of my nose.

Shoulders

860119

Most people have an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, giving them advice as they go through their lives.
I have two angels on my shoulders. No devil.
All I get is good advice and admonishment when I don’t follow it.
If I have two angels on my shoulders, is someone out there with two devils on theirs?
Instead of getting a constant stream of goodness, they’re under the influence of evil.
That’s why I kidnapped you. You look like a two-devil person to me.
The angels are telling me not to shoot you.
I disagree.

How do you make a joke?

756270

The back doors to the ambulance flew open and a man covered with blood was rushed into the emergency room.
The paramedics said he was a comedian who had been beaten up by an angry mob.
After he was handed off to the doctors, the paramedics went out for a smoke with the desk clerk.
“Let me guess,” said the clerk. “He tried to tell 9/11 jokes and the crowd got really ugly.”
“No,” said the paramedic. “He was at a dinner party hosted by the Saudi Arabian consulate.”
“So why was he attacked?”
“He refused to make 9/11 jokes.”

The Mummy Train

803700

Mark Twain used to joke that the wrappings for mummies were used in pulp for newspapers and their bodies burned to run trains.
But neither was true.
Instead, mummies were employed by the newspapers in the printing presses, shambling around the massive rollers.
If one got caught up in the machinery and torn to bits, who cared, right? They were already dead, their families long gone.
Letting them don engineer caps and run trains, well, that was a lot more dangerous. Mummy brakemen tended to ignore warning signals, and only so many accidents were tolerated before they all were retired.

Your Shadow

860121

Sometimes
The world stinks
So much
That your shadow
Your goddamned shadow
Has to take
A long bath
To wash
It off
No matter
How much
It scrubs
And scrubs
The world’s stink
Sticks harder
And never
Washes off
Completely
Everything stinks
Around you
Cover it up
All you want
With soaps
And perfumes
It’s still there
And it never
Goes away
If your shadow
Can’t come clean,
What hope
Do you have?
None.
Pull the plug
The water
Drains out
You tried
But
That stink
Gets worse
So bad you gag
Close your eyes
And wish
It all
Away

The Ants

860118

All day long, Jimmy would burn ants with a magnifying glass, grinning madly.
He did this for weeks on end, until the ants all vanished.
Did he burn them all?
Hardly.
At night, the ants went into the tool shed, gathering up metal and lawn care chemicals.
With tiny ant hammers and anvils, they pounded and shaped until, at last, they were ready.
The sun woke Jimmy up, and he dressed quickly to go out to play.
As he stared at the anthill, it erupted into a deadly green cloud.
The ants on the roof wove their antenna with joy.

Do you believe in magic?

812478

How does that old song go? “Do you believe in magic in a young girl’s eye?”
I sure do. Which is why so many girls in this village have eyepatches and I’m still healthy after ninety years on the throne.
They make the most potent longevity potions.
I’ve warned the royal magician to be fair about his harvesting of eyes, though.
Visit each girl only once, and pay twenty gold coins. No sense in getting a reputation for miserliness and unnecessary cruelty.
And, despite my desire to live forever, I’d rather not be king in the valley of the blind.

Knots in my stomach

725533

I feel knots in my stomach.
So, I swallow a Boy Scout.
He crawls back out.
“I forgot my flashlight,” he says, and crawls back in.
He tries to untie it, but it turns out that his knots badge is a fake.
So, I go down to the docks and swallow a dockworker.
You’d think that a professional who works with knots all day could untie it, but he was stumped.
“I just do boat hitches,” he said, tipping his cap and going back to work.
So, you say you’re a backpacker?
Handy with bungee cord?
Mind taking a look?

My Spy

801183

An assassin is following me.
He’s an expert at this. Wouldn’t suspect a thing if you saw him there.
Friendly. Polite. Well-groomed.
But I know what he’s really doing:
Following me.
So, I turn the tables on him.
I put on a disguise, cover my tracks, and follow him.
He doesn’t suspect a thing. Doesn’t break cover. Maintains his routine.
Excellent.
I corner him in an alley, a knife to his throat.
He’s surprised and denies being my assassin.
Just like all the rest.
I bury him in the park with the others.
And wait for another to follow me.

The Kraken

860120

Off the coast of Port Byron, the seas boil with tentacles.
The Great Kraken has returned for its Solstice Sacrifice, part of the pact our ancestors made with the beast.
We load up a boat with murderers, thieves, and the feeble, lowering it into the water and sending its shabby crew to their doom.
Some townsfolk make a picnic out of the occasion.
They toast the ancestors with champagne, and feast on kraken tentacles, boiled in butter.
We give up our own, the Great Kraken reciprocates.
One taste, and you’ll agree that we got the better end of the deal.