Tag: cliche

The Wreathmaker

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I work for a place that makes wreaths.
Year-round, we make memorial wreaths.
But during the holidays, we get a lot of orders for Christmas wreaths.
Sure, they’re just fancy flowers and branches and twists of wire, but each one gets a serial number and a chip in them that lets us double-check and triple-check they’re going to the right place.
Nobody wants to hang a memorial wreath on their front door. And the one time we sent a Christmas wreath to a funeral, well, this is why we now keep one or two extra wreaths in the delivery vans.

Baby Jane D’oh

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Usually, we find any abandoned babies at the back door of the hospital.
Once or twice, they been left in a dumpster. The mother’s afraid of being caught on tape, and they call from a pay phone to let us know.
And then hang up.
This was the first one we’d found in the parking garage, happily sleeping in her carrier, in the middle of an empty parking space.
The carrier was rather expensive.
Too expensive.
While we waited, a Lexus drove up and screeched to a halt.
“I must have put her on the roof, reached for my keys…”

Utah

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Wyoming is a rectangle. So is Colorado.
Nobody knows what the hell Oklahoma is shaped like. Rivers and valleys will make that kind of contoured mess on a map.
But Utah… it’s not quite a rectangle, but not quite a squiggle, either.
It’s a regular hexagram, all ninety degree angles, but uneven sides.
It’s got to have a name. Besides Utah-shaped. Or “Big Thick L.”
I ask the local math professor what that’s called.
He takes one look at the map.
“A polygamygon,” he says.
I thank him, and write this down for my report.
Yeah, I got an F.

Disinformation Society

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Sunrise. Sunset.
We know that the earth goes around the sun, right?
Dialing a number. Setting sail.
Anachronisms. Terminology based on old technology.
Prostitutes know that the term “making love” has nothing to do with their profession.
The language has become polluted. We have twisted it into the opposite of communicating thoughts and ideas.
It is a tool of miscommunication.
So, we now skip the whole concept of language and communicate directly.
It started with brain-to-brain wires, but it’s all wireless now.
No language. Just pure, honest thoughts and ideas.
The person who invents the oxymoron will become disgustingly rich.

Fourth Pig

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You’ve heard about the Three Little Pigs, right?
They made their houses out of straw, wood, and brick.
There was another pig. A cousin, who was in The Big House, made of stone and iron bars.
When he heard what happened to his cousins, he broke out.
“What the fuck is going on here?” he asked the cowering pigs. “Did you spend all of my money on these stupid houses?”
The three pigs nodded.
The fourth pig made his house out of bacon, ham, and pork chops.
Nobody, not even the Big Bad Wolf dares to fuck with that psycho.

2000

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My grandfather owned a wholesale grocery warehouse.
In his office, there was an antique cash register and an adding machine you had to pull the crank to get the numbers out of.
I calculated how old I’d be in the year 2000.
Then I did it for my brother.
And my dad.
And my mother.
When I wanted to do it for my grandfather, he chuckled and said he didn’t think he’d be around for that.
“But, Grampa.”
He was right. Ten years short, seven kinds of cancer ganged up on him.
Nobody knows where that adding machine ended up.

Seasick

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I don’t like boats.
I get horribly seasick.
I’ve tried drugs, but those seasickness drugs make me even sicker.
So, I stay off of boats.
Recently, I was diagnosed with cancer.
The chemotherapy made me really sick.
So they gave me anti-nausea drugs.
When the treatment was over and the doctors told me they couldn’t do anything else, I didn’t know what to do.
So I got on a boat.
And I felt fine.
“Give me more of those pills,” I said. “Enough to last me.”
So they did. Thirty yellow pills.
And I’ve been on the water ever since.

Breaking A Leg

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She broke my heart, so I broke her fucking legs.
Well, I didn’t break her legs. There’s this guy who does that stuff for me.
I tell him what she did, and the guy said “Yeah, I’d break her fucking legs for cheating on me like that.”
Turns out that it was him. He was the one.
So, after he broke her legs, I told him to break his own legs.
That, he couldn’t do.
“I could outsource it to this guy I know…”
Never mind. Just don’t do her… it again.
He breaks legs, not promises.
Loyalty is everything.

Ten Foot Pole

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There’s some things people wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole.
Which means there’s other things that they will touch with one.
Do you have a ten foot pole?
Well, then come on in. Look around. I have a mighty fine selection of ten foot poles to choose from.
If you don’t have room for one, then maybe you’ll consider a pair of five foot poles that you can connect into a ten foot pole?
Or one of these handy extending poles… folds down into a single foot. Fits in a purse.
You know you need one. Come on in.

Heaven and Hell

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John Lennon was half-right.
There is no Hell below us. That’s actually where Heaven is.
But above us, there isn’t only sky. In the void between the stars, that’s where condemned souls wander for all eternity.
Heaven is right under our feet, safe in the dirt. That is why we bury our dead, you know. To send them to their Heavenly reward.
It doesn’t quite work out for those who have led wicked lives. Their souls rise up, up through the clouds and into the cold vastness of space.
They never return, they never arrive anywhere.
Scattered, cast away forever.