Tag: cliche

The Pie Man – For Soupy Sales

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I never got the humor in someone getting hit in the face with a pie, but the old man on television got hit constantly with pies and people loved him for it.
Every show he was on, you knew from the moment he appeared on camera, he wasn’t going to leave without pie in his face.
Even at his funeral, it was an open casket ceremony, and he was smacked in the face by half a dozen mourners.
Two or three pies get smacked against his headstone every night.
Me, I’m stuck washing them off.
Still nothing funny about it.

The Gumbo

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Cletus won’t tell me what’s in his special gumbo.
He’s scared of people learning his recipe, so not only does he buy his own groceries from the market to make it, he buys extra ingredients to throw anyone off that’s looking through the trash.
He won’t let anyone in the kitchen while he makes it.
He cleans the dishes to keep anyone from using forensic science on them.
The more blue ribbons he earns, the crazier he gets.
“Where did you hide the cameras?” he shrieks, his tinfoil hat askew on his head.
“In the vent,” I think, and smile.

The Forgotten Birthday

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When a school is named after someone famous, the staff usually goads the students into some kind of birthday celebration to commemorate all the things that person did for society.
However, when that birthday falls on a holiday like Christmas or comes up during the summertime, it usually passes unobserved.
Not on my watch.
When I was named principal of this school, I took on a sacred oath.
Yes, he was born on the Fourth of July. Fireworks, right?
Wrong. The city hosts the fireworks display elsewhere.
I will do them here, at Yankee Doodle Dandy Elementary, do or die.

Dunk

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Ever since the Chicago Bears dumped a Gatorade jug over Mike Ditka’s head to celebrate their first championship since 1963, it’s been a tradition in football to upend your sports performance drink over your coach to celebrate a victory.
Every so often, a joker will fill the jug with ice so it’s a really cold shower for the winning coach.
It was a cold game in Green Bay that brought on a new twist: a trainer had provided an extra jug of hot chicken soup to warm players during the bone-chilling subzero chill.
The coach was not screaming in joy.

Poetry and Coffee

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She asks me which I would rather have: good poetry and bad coffee, or bad poetry and good coffee.
“Why not good poetry and good coffee?” I ask. “Can’t you do both?”
It turns out, not only is she the waitress but she’s also a poet. “I don’t have time for both,” she says. “I can either concentrate on the coffee or write really good poetry.”
“Coffee,” I say.
“But this coffee will last only an hour or so,” she says. “My poetry will last for generations, long after I’m dead.”
I shrug. “I guess they won’t tip you either.”

The Thief

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The thief breaks into your house and steals your dreams while you sleep.
He puts them in a burlap sack and tiptoes through the night.
The fence looks through the sack of dreams.
“Second-rate pipedreams here,” he says.
He always says they’re second-rate to get the price down.
“This one’s shattered,” he says, pointing out the pieces in the bottom of the sack.
They agree on fifty bucks.
The thief doesn’t know what the fence does with the dreams. He’s heard of some guy named Sandman.
The thief doesn’t care. He just steals and sells them.
And dreams of retiring.

Falling

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I miss falling leaves.
I used to make a cup of tea and watch the leaves fall from the trees at sunset.
From her days as a kitten to old age, the cat would pounce them the moment they hit the ground.
Here in the space station, everything’s falling together.
No leaves.
No trees.
No cats.
No cups or spoons for tea. Just a plastic bag and straw.
I close my eyes and try to remember the leaves. Sunsets. Tea.
I can’t.
The videos you send aren’t the same, either.
Eight months to go on this mission.
And then… falling.

Irish Bowling

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You hear that sound?
Dull thunder, passing every home on the lane.
Finnegan O’Hara’s out bowling the roads again.
Irish Bowling. Throw the lead shot along the road, fewest throws wins.
Champion of Cork County five years running.
I swear, the man can hook along any curve you throw his way, any road, any where.
But throwing at midnight? Alone? Nobody to shout clear the path?
Madness.
And then… I hear the honk of the horn, the screeching of tires, and the sickening thud.
They brought O’Hara into the clinic at dawn.
They never found his shot.
To Finnegan! Cheers!

The opposite of a muse

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What is the opposite of a muse?
What do you call someone who sucks all the inspiration and creativity out of your soul?
Or drains the soul right out of your body?
I need a word for what’s on my couch right now.
It’s been there for days, and I can’t rest. I can’t think. I can’t create.
I can’t write.
I keep trying, but the page is just as blank as when I pulled it out of my drawer.
I pour alphabet noodles across it. Scrabble tiles.
They slide off.
Without words, I have nothing to scream.
Only silence.

The Moral Compass

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I hold the compass flat in the palm of my hand, watching the needle spin madly.
The symbols glow a deep red.
“It’s broken,” I tell the salesman.
“No, it isn’t,” he says. “You are. Your moral compass is out of whack.”
The salesman snickers at me, his crooked smile wants me to punch it.
So I do. Many times.
As the salesman lays on the floor, I look at the compass.
The black end of the needle points at my heart.
“It’s working again.” I say, snap the lid shut, and step over the salesman out of the store.