Category: My stories

Tevye and His Vertebrae

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Tevye lay in the mud, staring at the sky, silently cursing the people of Anatevka.
He had tried to explain how living was hard, with so many challenges and problems to balance.
Nobody understood.
So, he said “it’s like a fiddler on the roof.”
They still didn’t understand.
So, he got out his violin, climbed on the roof, and tried to play it to show them how shaky he was.
“Tradition keeps us balanced!” he shouted.
And fell.
He couldn’t move. His neck was broken.
His wife shrieked the traditional prayers of a grieving widow.
“Not yet, Golde!” Tevye thought.

Father and Son

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Dan taught his son how to ride a bike, how to shave, how to tie a tie, and all the little things that fathers teach sons.
Many years later, after the stroke, Dan’s son taught him to speak, how to shave, and how to tie a tie again.
But instead of teaching him how to ride a bike, he went ahead and tried to teach his dad how to drive again.
Big mistake.
As Dan was loaded into the ambulance, he watched another father teach his young boy how to tie a tourniquet.
They grow up so fast. He smiled.

Boiling Point

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Doctor Odd only received one F grade in his life.
His chemistry teacher asked “What’s the boiling point of mercury?”
So, he built an orbiting doomsday laser and performed experiments on the planet Mercury.
The next day, he presented his results.
“I meant the element, not planet,” she said.
She gave him an F. The class laughed.
Odd vowed revenge and transferred to a different high school.
He didn’t wait long to determine the boiling point of the old teacher, her class, and that entire damn school.
He never again got less than an A, or reason to boil again.

The folder is empty

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This folder is empty.
I don’t know if it had anything in it. I just know it’s empty now.
I have no log entries about this folder.
My log is empty, except for one entry: log file cleared.
The name of the folder is Important Files.
There are no files in the folder, important or not.
Maybe they were so important, someone took them away from me.
Why did they leave the folder? Did they want to see what I would do with it?
I should delete it. And then clear the log fi-
What was I talking about, again?

A Calendar Of Nobles

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It is the first of the month, and the Archduke of Junius is refusing to abdicate to his brother, Baron Von Quintilis.
Armies are dispatched, and in Quintillis’ defeat, a distant cousin steals the crown for himself.
Lord Julius laughs from his throne for thirty days, but when he wearies of power, hands the crown off to his uncle Augustus, not the rightful heir in the County of Sextilis.
The war rages on, and the nobility worries for the loss of life and riches.
An agreement is reached, and the Earl of September raises his scepter to forgive all involved.

Clown Pirates

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Long ago, I sailed the seven seas, and the winds flew through my hair.
I wasn’t much of a sailor and neither was my crew. We became shipwrecked on The Island Of The Clown Pirates.
It would have been paradise if it hadn’t have been for the balloon animal parrots, big floppy peglegs, and a crazy rowboat that almost a hundred of them climbed out of, one by one.
They had no swords, but every one of them could hurl a wicked custard pie.
So, we decided to join them.
The winds now fly through my gigantic red fright wig.

Did we deserve that, Gus?

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Gus is the Punishment Officer in our neighborhood.
Every neighborhood has a punishment officer. Ours is Gus.
Do something bad, and Gus will punish you.
He enjoys punishing people.
He has keys to every door in every house so you can’t keep him out.
He has night-vision goggles so you can’t hide from him.
His dog Wilbur can sniff you out from a block away.
But he can’t get to us here, in my treehouse fortress.
We’re sealed in from the outside world.
There’s nothing he can do but…
What’s that noise? Do you hear a chainsaw?
Damn that Gus!

Headache vs. Toothache

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So, you have a headache and I have a toothache.
Which one is worse?
I’m sure your headache is pretty bad, but headaches are better than toothaches, I think.
Toothaches often require weird people called dentists with some expertise in dentistry to resolve. They use large metal things with lots of sharp edges to stop the toothaches. Or they just poke and prod and jab for a while and then take a mold or two, saying you need to come back in tomorrow for more.
Then the bill arrives, your insurance company turns down the claim, and you get headaches.

With every lick

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How many licks does it take to get to the center of this lollipop?
Thanks to the replenishment spell on my tongue, the number is infinite.
With every lick, I restore what I have licked away.
Sure, it was painful to tattoo the sigils on my tongue, but I think it was well worth it.
The problem is, in casting the spell, my tongue has lost all sense of taste.
It’s like licking a marble on a stick now. Candy has lost all appeal.
I mean Candy, my apprentice.
She may enjoy it, but I’m left out in the cold.

The Ex

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The second-longest wait is from the time you issue a Reboot command to the time your bridebot opens her eyes and sees you for the first time as her husband.
The glint in her eye, the look on her face… it affects everything she says and does.
The longest wait is, of course, when you reverse the firmware flash for the divorce to take effect.
Usually, the glint and the look are long gone by then.
The memories remain, though, which is why it’s best to do a seven-pass erase procedure before recycling any bridebot.
Exes suck, especially metal ones.