Poor people couldn’t afford to go to their family doctor for minor issues, so they went to the Emergency Room at the county hospital.
Then, they ignored the bill from the hospital.
The county funded a set of neighborhood clinics to deal with this problem, but people kept going to the ER.
So, the county stationed a guy with a sledgehammer at the door, and he only let real emergencies in.
“Doesn’t the Hippocratic Oath say that doctors can’t do harm?” complained a social activist.
“I’m not a doctor,” the sledgehammer-guy said.
And he brained the activist with his hammer.
Tag: dystopia
The Angry Rug
I hate it when I get pulled over for total bullshit.
Especially when I’m not driving.
“PULL OVER!” yells the cop. “PULL OVER!”
I stop walking and stare at the cop.
He swerves to box me in. And then he takes his time before he gets out.
“Do you know how fast you were driving?” he asks me.
I’m not driving. I’m walking. On the sidewalk.
The cop pulls out his taser.
So, I fall on the ground and shout “I am a Persian Rug!”
The cop holsters his taser.
Whew.
I hope that the rug union doesn’t get angry.
Bang, went the markets
Stock exchanges conducted their business on trading floors, where men swapped slips of paper.
As computers were hooked up to the exchanges, the traders were replaced by computer programmers.
The faster the computers got, the more complex the programs needed to be.
Days became seconds.
Seconds became microseconds.
Microseconds became nanoseconds.
Eventually, the computers got so fast, it was the cable and distance that added delay. Computers were crammed together in a tight pack.
And then, a trade happened before the order.
The computers vanished into the past, waging massive financial battles.
Bigger… bigger… and then…
Bang, went the markets.
Her Scar
She wears a bandana around her wrist to hide the scar. But she takes it off when she washes her hands, and that’s when I saw it.
“How did you get that scar?” I asked her.
She stopped washing her hands. Then, she wrapped her wrist with the bandana again.
All the other scars, she covers with long sleeves, a high collar, boots, dark glasses, and keeping her hair long.
The next time I see her, she’s wearing gloves. They tuck into her sleeves.
One day, she’ll put on a burkah again.
Which is how she got all those scars.
Aborted
Lawmakers in Ohio just passed a law that requires women seeking abortions to see a sonogram of their fetus before they can get an abortion.
And in Florida, they make them climb a 25 foot rope. Without using their feet, too.
Just to outdo them both, Texas is pondering a rule that requires written permission from the fetus himself or herself.
Somehow, in all this madness, California decided to open the gates and legalize everything.
First, Second, Third Trimester? All’s legal!
Which, if you consider how awful most Californians are, it makes you wish they’d done that a lot sooner.
Salt
My family makes the best pretzels in the world.
The secret is in how to add the salt. We have a patent on it.
However, a famous patent troll threatened to sue us because he had a general patent on how to salt pretzels.
“I have to preserve my rights,” he claimed. And he offered to license his patent to us.
So, we offered him a tour of our facility.
Five hours later, he was stuffed into a wooden barrel full of shit.
“That’ll preserve you well enough,” I told the barrel.
And we lost it deep in the warehouse.
Mr. Moneybags
I’d never want all the money in the world.
If I had all the money in the world, that would mean that nobody else would have any. And they’d constantly ask me for some.
“Hey, Mister Moneybags, can you spare a few bucks? I want to buy a sandwich.” And I’d say “Of course.” And I’d pull out a hundred. “Can you break a hundred?”
Of course not.
I guess the world’s economy would collapse. Or turn to barter.
So, instead of all of it, I just want as much of it as I can get.
Just like everybody else.
JJE
Ever hear the phrase “judge, jury, and executioner?”
Well, in Tangle Creek, Alaska, that’s their justice system.
If Old JJ Barleyfield catches you committing a crime in Tangle Creek, your ass is toast.
But then, there’s not much crime in that old mining town… Fred’s the only resident there these days.
Well, was.
Fred must have caught himself committing a crime, because the mail delivery service found him dead the other day.
The paperwork he left behind was just scribbles that nobody could understand.
At first, the state coroner ruled it Suicide, but he scratched that out and wrote Justice.
Foster’s Nurse
“Foster isn’t feeling very well” is one of the phrases that the Nursebot is programmed to use.
“Foster is unavailable at the moment” is another.
The Nursebot uses those a lot when people call to check on Foster.
One phrase that the Nursebot does not have available is “Foster doesn’t want to talk to you, so he bought a Nursebot to make people like you think that he’s sick.”
Or “Foster slipped and broke his neck in the shower this morning.”
Foster’s body is covering the drain in the shower. The water is overflowing.
And the Nursebot just watches… waiting…
Billy Billy
Billy’s last name is Billy.
Call him Billy Billy.
But don’t be surprised if he tells you that you have his name backwards.
“Yllib Yllib?” you ask.
He likes that joke. But don’t push it.
We don’t want to freak Billy out, because he knows where his father buried all the money.
We tried to beat the answer out of his father. Didn’t work.
Then we threatened to beat Billy with him watching.
That almost worked. Except that when we asked Billy where the money was, he knew.
We’ll dig up the money.
And bury Billy with his daddy there.