Tag: commentary

Troll

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Every time I need to cross the river, I look forward to crossing the troll’s bridge.
He does a fine job of keeping the bridge maintained, and has recently strengthened it for heavier cart traffic.
Commerce and trade are booming now.
Today, I’m delivering kegs to his tavern.
“More ale!” cheers the troll.
Every patron stands up and raises their flagons in respect to the host.
Hungry? His wife bakes the most excellent pies. Sometimes I come here just for the pie.
We unload the kegs and unhitch three goat from the front of the cart.
Love those goat-meat pies.

Butt Dial

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Even though the experiment was a success, Bell and Watson needed to perfect the telephone device before heading to the patent office.
Some of their ideas were improvements on the original concept and others weren’t.
For instance, Watson rigged up a chair to the telephone that would call the other unit when someone sat down.
“Call someone else with your butt?” said Bell. “How brilliant and simple!”
After sitting down to think and calling each other over and over, they decided not to add the feature.
But today, it’s standard with cell phones.
Just put it in your back pocket.

Acronym

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You’ve heard of Zeus and Apollo, but have you heard of Acronym?
No?
He’s not the best-known of the Olympian gods, but where the others just putter about in the Old Gods Rest Home, Acronym is still active and involved in the affairs of man.
He whispers in the ears of the clever and the cunning, helping them find simple words into which to pack the cumbersome phrases that describe their political and social movements.
For good or evil, truth or lies – he is at their side, serving man’s desire for simplicity and catchiness.
Acronym laughs and winks, whispering more.

Lottery

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We entered the lottery, hoping for a big family.
It’s not likely though. The government reduced the prize pool again.
We’ll be lucky to get a dog.
As a pet. The Lottery Law says no eating pets without government approval.
What happened to us? Where did we go wrong?
Hope? Change?
How did we get from The American Dream to the government sterilizing and executing people for eating a stupid dog?
Madness.
Maybe, just maybe, we’ll win. We’ll get the big family.
The lottery agent whispers “No laws against eating children anymore, you know.”
And they taste better than dog.

You’ve Got To Know When To Fold ‘Em

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Because of a shortage of buglers, military funerals often use a recording of a bugler performing Taps.
However, there’s no shortage of flags, so there’s always flags available to drape over coffins for folding and presentation to the next-of-kin.
The flag is folded by the honor guard in a specific order so that it results in a small blue triangle with white stars.
Some potheads have been known to employ their knowledge of the Japanese art of Origami to come up with more interesting shapes.
The rifle party handles those jokers by beating them with the butts of their weapons.

The Good Place

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After days in the library and on the Internet, Bobby turned in his paper.
Time and time again, rich people have treated poor people like crap with the promise of eternity in a good place if they put up with that crap.
The threat of eternity in a bad place prevents the poor people from treating the rich people like crap.
Priests are paid by rich people to come up with a lot of crap about the good place and the bad place, then shovel it at the poor.
Miss Krabapel sighed, lit another cigarette, and gave it an A.

India

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Just as Christopher Columbus landed in the New World and thought he’d reached India, Arturo Gustavani sailed for India and thought he had reached the New World.
Looking around the marketplaces full of rare spices, Arturo threw down his voluminous hat and cursed.
“Where are the worthless flint arrowheads and corn?”
Merchants brought him the finest silk and woven carpets, but he dismissed these riches and inquired about crude fibrous mats interlaced with bird feathers.
Calling the expedition a failure, Arturo headed back to the ship and was clubbed to death by his crew.
They returned and retired wealthy men.

You only die twice. Or three times. (How about four?)

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Resurrection procedures have never been entirely reliable, but over time they’ve become more reliable than longshot treatments such as chemotherapy for advanced pancreatic cancer.
The insurance companies won’t cover the procedure.
And they’ll drop coverage for the revived patient, too.
“Our responsibility ends at death,” they say.
But they won’t pay off on life insurance claims, either.
Congress subpoenaed the heads of the insurance companies for a hearing, grilled them for several days, and passed a set of toothless legislation concerning the matter.
Since then, have you heard of a Senator or Representative dying in office?
Me either.
Strange, that.

Saints

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Last year, the Catholic Church performed an audit on all relics throughout the world.
Concerned, they sent out teams to authenticate as many as possible.
The report detailed forgeries and fakes, but there was a curious situation with Saint Miraculon, the Wonder Machine.
After the explosion at the power plant had fried his original processor, saving dozens of workers from death by electrocution, it was enshrined in San Jose.
But a backup processor had been installed in the rebuilt chassis, keeping Miraculon 2.0 running.
“Ignore that,” said the Pope. “Will someone explain exactly how St. Ignatius had five authentic femurs?”

The Great Deal

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Five billion Zimbabwean dollars sounds like a great deal of money, but it’s worthless.
Due to hyperinflation and three devaluations, what was once on parity with the American dollar became worth just one trillion trillionth of a cent.
Since printing and reprinting that money was impossible, the Zimbabweans went electronic with all payments.
Never mind that many Zimbabweans don’t have access to electricity. And by the time everybody’s pile of paper moved over to the e-banking system, the digit limit was reached and all accounts rolled over.
Now, they use American dollars.
(Which will one day do the same thing.)