Every time I do laundry, I always find an extra sock or shirt in there.
Extra knives show up in my kitchen drawers. Strange keys and wallets on my nightstand.
It’s frustrating, but it happens to everyone, right?
My grandmother told me about a place where things disappeared all the time: socks from the laundry, keys from your pocket, and even pickles off of hamburgers you got from the drive-through window.
“And they show up here,” she said.
People called her crazy, and one day, she wasn’t in her room.
I wonder if she showed up in the other place.
Category: My stories
The Gates
Devils despise the rule of The Lord, but there are unwilling servants among the angels, too.
They sat on a park bench, a malcontent seraphim and one of the damned.
“Did you bring it?” growled the devil.
The angel took out a bundle and unwrapped it, revealing a shiny iron bar.
“From right under Peter’s nose.”
The devil pulled out another iron bar, rusty and pitted.
“Let’s make them sing,” he said.
The devil and angel picked up their iron bars and swung them at each other.
The Universal Bell rang louder than existence, and the stars began to fade.
The Women Who Dance With Frogs
Come with me to the docks
On the edge of the swamp
To see the women who dance with frogs.
Through the reeds, Through the weeds
Can you see?
Watch the women who dance with frogs.
Hear the music of the croaks
As the women get soaked
Why are there women who dance with frogs?
Gathered up in their sacks
Go the frogs, tasty snacks!
Feast the women who dance with frogs.
Here they come! Here they come!
Hop away! Hop away!
Do not stay!
And we shall live to dance another day.
With the women who dance with frogs.
Floodwaters
How do we make our coffee taste so good?
Sure, we spend a lot of time with the beans.
But the real secret is in the water.
You see, this water comes from The Fountain Of Youth.
Yes. The actual Fountain Of Youth.
Ponce DeLeon actually discovered it.
Then he sipped it… and died of young age.
It’s too powerful to be sipped untreated.
But if you dilute it a bit and boil it, well…
It still tastes somewhat pungent.
However, with the right beans, that pungency becomes a delicious aroma.
It brings us good health.
And healthy profits, too.
Bananas will protect you
Every morning, I grab a banana from the kitchen and head to work.
The banana is there to protect me.
From what?
I have no willpower. I cannot resist the breakfast shops along the way to work.
But the moment I catch the smell: donuts… kolaches… breakfast tacos…
I peel the banana and take a bite.
Instead of being tempted by the unhealthy fare, I eat my banana and make it into work.
As I toss the peel into the trash, I look up and see…
Someone brought in a box of donuts.
(That’s when I pull out my sledgehammer.)
The Jobs Report
We all wait outside The Department of Labor, waiting for The Jobs Report.
A small man in a suit walks outside, steps up to the podium, and removes a manilla folder from his briefcase.
He takes off his glasses, wipes them with a handkerchief, and puts them back on.
The crowd is silent as he opens the folder, looks through the documents inside, and selects a single sheet.
He cleans his glasses again, puts them back on, and reads The Jobs Report:
“One,” he says. “Mine.”
He breathes a sigh of relief, looks around, and runs back inside the building.
Don’t believe the frog
No, you’re not imagining things. That frog out by the castle gate can talk.
Let me guess: he says he’s a prince, and all you have to do is kiss him to change him back?
Yeah, that’s true. But he’s not telling you the whole story.
Sure, he’s a prince, but he was changed into a frog because he had been bitten by a werewolf.
Since the castle’s healer doesn’t have a cure for lycanthropy, he had the court magician turn the prince into a frog.
So go ahead. Kiss him. Be my guest.
Get your damn throat torn out.
Breaking hearts
She has a reputation for breaking hearts.
Which is why she got pulled off of the artificial heart assembly line and put in the product testing group.
“If you’re going to break these things, we’d rather you do it in a way that helps save lives, not kill people,” said the factory managers.
The curious thing is, when she breaks a heart, analysts look over the heart and can’t find the reason why it failed.
“She had such promise,” says a factory manager. “So much potential. It’s too painful to watch her fail like this.”
And another heart is broken.
Nervous reaction
As a nuclear scientist, I’m familiar with chain reactions and have made a career of harnessing and controlling them.
If not enough atoms get excited, the reaction dies out.
If too many get excited, the reaction gets out of control and…
Well, let’s just say the least of it is that I lose my job.
Not that I’m worried about that. I’m really good with chain reactions.
Well, usually good.
However, when it comes to nervous reactions, I’m completely hopeless.
One person in a crowd gets excited.
Then two.
Then ten.
Then twenty.
I guess shouting “RADIATION LEAK!” doesn’t help.
Snowglobe
I may look young, but I’m really over one hundred years old.
What’s my secret?
I drink nothing but the fluid from snowglobes.
You see, they fill those things with water from The Fountain Of Youth.
That’s where the sparkle comes from.
Ambrosia. Nectar of the Gods.
Oh, sure, it looks like ordinary water.
But it’s not. It’s powerful magic.
And it’s kept me alive for over one hundred years.
Crack it open… drink right from the snowglobe, don’t pour it into a glass.
Feel the tingle. Feel the burn.
Live forever.
Just try not to choke on the snowman.