Gymnastics is a nasty, ugly sport.
So many injuries, so many child molesters among the trainers and coaches.
And yet, mothers allow their daughters to participate in this body and psyche wrecking sport.
All for what? Trophies? Medals? Ribbons?
A documentary or two, a book?
I know Mary Lou Retton had a television show. For PBS.
The black chick who quit at the Olympics scored a DoorDash commercial.
And another girl is in a GEICO commercial.
She jumps on the roof and grabs a frisbee for some dumbass stoners.
Forget gymnastics. Spend those free hours studying math, science, and engineering.
They are not
I’m not close to my family.
I don’t even think of them as my family or family anymore.
They’re just people.
So, every now and then, I get word somehow that something happens.
A wedding. A baby. A hospital stay. A funeral.
And then they ask “How are you?” out of habit.
I just say “Fine.”
Nothing about the job or cats or my health or my writing.
Sometimes, I’ll get a Kickstarter invite to fundraise funeral expenses or something.
‘Why should I pay for a show I won’t get to see?” I write back.
And close the browser tab.
Weekly Challenge #963 – Finding
The next topic is Banana split
RICHARD
Finding myself
I quit my job, sold up, bought a backpack, then disappeared for six years.
At the time, life was crap and – according to the self-help books I’d read – the key to finding direction in life was immersing oneself in other cultures, seeking meaning through self-discovery.
Among other things, I picked tomatoes in Spain, stayed in a Japanese monastery, bathed in the Ganges and went walkabout in the Australian outback.
I discovered I was susceptible to sunburn, got robbed in Manilla and contracted bilharzia from my river exploits… But, I learned one very valuable lesson.
Self-help books suck.
SERENDIPIDY
Good luck with finding this body!
I’ve given it special treatment… chopped up into bite-sized morsels, all strategically scattered in remote locations; little treats for bears, wolves and other scavengers.
As for the skull and the larger bones, those have all been shredded into splinters, and dumped in rivers, and the ocean.
It was surprisingly easy to do, and although a little messy, that was only to be expected.
You see, I used my shiny, new chainsaw to get the job done.
Quick, efficient, and extremely effective for the task at hand.
I knew it would come in handy!
TOM
Public Service
Yesterday, I was appointed to my Seventh Grand Jury. I do grand jury really well. I’m called up went thing inside the black box go somewhat off the rails. Bit like herding cats. You might not know but there are grand jury which are not criminal. My Jury looks into matters of county level governance. We interview county officers, locate procedure which need corrections. Basically, we file a final report with numbers of recommendations. All recommendations are supported by multiple findings. Hardest part of my job is explaining the different between facts and findings to jurors at larger. Not easy.
NORVAL JOE
Billbert carried a box of magical items to the car. Finding that he was alone, he went back to the cabin. Sabrina sat on the edge of the porch and his mother next to her, her arm around the girl’s shoulders.
Sabrina sobbed heavily.
Clueless, Billbert asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Oh, Son,” his mother said, shaking her head. “Think about it. This was Sabrina’s home. And this is where she was shot and her grandmother was killed. We probably shouldn’t have come here so soon.”
Billbert sat next to Sabrina. With a shuddering sigh, she lay her head on his shoulder.
LIZZIE
The man in the cave wanted to be left alone. However, when they spotted him wandering about, they thought it was a great finding. A real caveman. Alive. Yes! Interviews, a book, a TV series, a movie, the money stacking up in their bank accounts. Did they think about the man in the cave? Nope. So, the man in the cave decided to treat them as he would any other animal. No, he didn’t eat them. He just hung them upside down from a tree and watched. It was highly entertaining. Well, what a shame they didn’t last long.
PLANET Z
I was never any good with Rubiks Cubes.
Even with a book, I could never solve them.
Some people would peel off the stickers and rearrange them to solve the cube.
I used a flathead screwdriver to pry out the moving cube pieces and arrange them correctly.
But having all six sides solved was boring.
I twisted them up to make X patterns on each face.
That was more interesting looking.
Then I peeled off the stickers so every side was black.
Every turn was the right one.
Then I threw the dumb thing out.
Like so many people did.
The Snowman
It has been a long time since I last made a snowman.
Of course, people in tropics and deserts who have never made a snowman.
Or seen snow.
In Dubai, they’re so rich, there’s a park with snow machines and a ski slope.
People pay to build snowmen and have snowball fights.
One kid said that his snowman was the Prophet Mohammed.
The crowd tore him apart for the blasphemy.
The park was closed for an hour as a foreign labor crew gathered up the carnage and bloody snow.
Then, the winter wonderland was open for business again.
Such fun!
Electricity Provider
Every time I go to Walmart, some chick gets in my way and tries to sell me on a new phone plan or internet provider or electricity contract.
“Who is your electricity provider?” she asks.
“I make my own,” I say and walk past her.
“Solar?”
“Pig shit,” I say. “Just like Mad Max.”
“Does that midget get annoying with all the Embargo talk?” she responds.
I stop. “Yeah. Can you fix that?”
“Pay better than eight an hour?”
“With medical, dental, and 401k.”
I had to throw in a chainmail dress and a crossbow, but it was worth it.
Bozhe
I’m used to the window screens falling to the patio.
The kid that lives upstairs knocks those out all the time.
When I hear running and stomping and yelling, I know a window screen is about to drop.
But when a baby fell to the patio, that was odd.
“Bozhe bozhe bozhe!”
The mother came running down, I had a pen and paper and the phone set to translate from Russian.
She had me call her husband. They ran off to the clinic. Baby’s fine.
For now. Because, who knows, right?
Should I lay out pillows for the next time?
New feature
We’re building a new feature at work.
This is the third attempt to build something.
The first two were cut short by management and then finished by another company for us.
So why should I waste time caring about this feature?
It will get farmed out like the other two.
All the while, they’re paying me.
Roadblocks. Obstructions. Lack of input from customers.
“So let us talk to the customers,” we say.
“Can’t,” management says. “Privacy policy.”
So, we guess what the customer wants, and we work in a vacuum.
Until we’re cut short, and end up on another project.
John Madden
John Madden had three rules for his team:
Be on time, pay attention, and play like hell.
And his players were on time, paid attention, and they sure played like hell.
One of the Madden rules wasn’t “Wear a suit and tie on the plane.”
He said that kind of crap never won a damn game, so he didn’t care what they wore as long as they wore their pads and jerseys on the field.
As long as they were on time for the flight.
I wonder if Madden’s Raiders still alive will wear suits and ties for his funeral.
The Upstairs Neighbor
This apartment complex has gone downhill as of late, and the kind of people they’re bringing in are getting worse and worse.
We’ve had good luck with upstairs neighbors being quiet, but the latest is a single mother with kids that run and stomp around and scream and throw tantrums.
I filed complaints, but nobody’s done anything.
So I went upstairs, knocked on the door, and complained about the noise.
She said “Fuck you.”
Then I held out a hundred bucks.
“Fuck you,” repeated the bitch.
“No, this is for YOUR upstairs neighbors to stomp around,” I said. “Fuck YOU!”
Weekly Challenge #962 – PICK TWO Lost in translation, Incapable, Wish, Chainsaw, Too long, Full of
KINGLESTAT
Last Wish
It was a beautiful day. One of those days you wish you had nothing to do. Sunny, but with the right amount of clouds. Just take a walk on the beach. Perhaps with a beautiful babe on your arm. Or two. A nice bottle of wine. And spend it there watching the seagulls frolic. But he came, interrupting my reverie. “About this last wish?” he seemed harassed, as if he had something urgent to do. I told him. In detail. Trying to capture the images I had seen in my mind. “This is taking too long.” “Platoon?” “Take aim!” “Fire!”
NORVAL JOE
The locked cabinet was full of mysterious objects. There were no shrunken heads or pentagram amulets, but there were figurines of cryptic creatures and talismans with arcane symbols.
Knowing he was incapable of opening the curio, Billbert said, “I wish I knew someone with magic who could open this thing.”
Both Mrs.Wienerheimer and Sabrina stared at him blankly.
Sabrina put her hand on the cabinet and there was an audible click. “When I told you I’m a witch, was something lost in the translation?”
His mother smiled patiently. “Be a dear, Billbert, and get the cardboard boxes from the car.”
TOM
Incapable Wish With grateful thanks to Babylon Five
Victoria Van Beinghem Shushburge Ausstaylor Holezinvice was the 15th Matetron Supreme only six years old. One day she was wandering in the imperial gardens when she came upon a rose brush. “Why aren’t flowers,” she asked. The general accompanying her replied “They will bloom in a few days.” Victoria quipped, “Have a guarded posted to protect the blossoms.” The general clicked his heels “Your wish is law my queen.” A guard was posed. Soon the child lost interest, became old and died. The court remained incapable of countermanding that wish. So, a solider still stands guard a 1000 years later.
LIZZIE
The chainsaw hanging behind the door didn’t go too well with the sweet little quote on the wall. “After all this time. Always.” After all this time? Always? That could mean something completely different. He had to go. What are you doing, she asked. Nothing, nothing, just looking for my shoes. Leaving? Well, I… He tapped his watch. Where was the damn door, he thought. She turned around to grab something and to his horror… Is this what you’re looking for? He always thought the sound of church bells would be the last thing he would hear. Nope, it wasn’t.
SERENDIPIDY
Admit it, you knew I was going to pick ‘chainsaw’.
You’re thinking that a prompt like that is a gift to someone like me, obsessed with blood, guts and gore, and pretty much incapable of writing anything that doesn’t involve torture, decapitation, murder or cannibalism.
Well, sorry for being so predictable.
Not that I care: That’s how I write, and I can’t see it changing any time soon. If you don’t like it, then just move on to somebody else’s story.
However, nobody dies on this occasion.
But, trust me, I’ll be putting that chainsaw to use in the future!
RICHARD
Wishful thinking
I’ll admit I felt a bit foolish when I found the lamp, but I had to give it a quick rub, just to see.
Remarkably, it worked, and a huge genie suddenly appeared, bowed and spoke to me in a deep, rumbling voice.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t understand a word. I assumed he was speaking Arabic, offering me the usual obligatory wish.
But, no biggy. I fished out my phone, and typed ‘Make me a multi-millionaire’ into Google translate.
There was a poof of smoke.
And I found myself locked up in an asylum.
Guess something was lost in translation.
PLANET Z
Back in third grade, I knew this kid who asked Santa for a chainsaw.
That was back when it was okay for Santa Claus to show up in schools, before all this politically correct and woke nonsense took over.
Every year, the kid asked for a chainsaw, but he never got it.
First grade, second grade, third grade.
No chain saw.
I moved in the spring of third grade, so I have no idea if he ever got the chainsaw.
I read the newspaper from there now and then to see if his name pops up.
Perhaps he moved too?