Oscar

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When I hear the phrase “Busier than a cat in a room full of rocking chairs” I remember Oscar.
Used to stand up on his back feet and lean against the rocking chair until he tipped it over.
Then, he’d climb up on the chair, sitting there with the pride of a hunter posing with his trophy.
I ain’t seen Oscar for years. One night, he musta decided he had something better, never come back.
Sometimes, I go out on the porch, my rocking chair’s on it’s side, I wonder.
And as I put my chair back up, I smile.

The Cello Player

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Few things are certain in life.
Most of all, of the things you can count on, I’m most certain that you’ll never hear a chick say “Oh, yeah? Well, I’m fucking the cello player.”
Guitarists, singers, bass players.
Even drummers, if you can imagine that.
But when it comes to cello players, they’re the ones that haul their cellos up five flights of stairs into a lonely, cramped apartment.
Nobody knocks. Nobody calls.
More time for practice, right?
I guess so.
But no matter how good he gets, no chick will say “Oh, yeah? Well, I’m fucking the cello player.”

Dominos

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Jackie set up dominos to run from one end of the state to the other, and she’s ready to tip that first domino over.
How he got all these dominos set up without any falling over or getting stolen, well, let’s just say this state’s proud of Jackie and ain’t nobody’s gonna mess with her stuff.
And to tell the truth, it’s not too big a state the way she’s set these dominos up.
Nothing fancy. No ramps or pool balls or bells or little rockets.
Just dominos. A whole mess of them.
She flicks a finger, and they fall.

The Walls

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When she’s all alone, she talks to the walls.
The North wall is her favorite. She could talk to it for hours about anything. And she does.
The South wall has the window. When she and the North wall are on the outs, she talks to it, but loud enough for the North wall to hear her.
It gets jealous.
The East wall, she barely knows. There’s bookshelves covering it, but what little she sees of it, she doesn’t mind.
The West wall is another beast entirely.
She despises it. Painted it so many times, but it never really changes.

Exchange

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I’m a part of a teachers exchange program.
These poor kids, living under brutal military occupation, right?
Boy, was I wrong.
One day, a gunman ran into the classroom and yelled something.
The kids happily ran to the door and windows, making a human wall.
Soldiers just saw the kids and passed by.
Later, the gunman was telling stories of making bombs and blowing up schools.
The kids were cheering, saying when they grew up, they wanted to be a like him.
What horrifies me the most is: what is the teacher back at my old school teaching my class?

Banana In My Pocket

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There is always a banana in my right jacket pocket.
Every time I reach in there, I feel a banana is in there.
I know this, because when I pull it out, I have a banana in my hand.
And, sure enough, another banana appears in my pocket to replace it.
You’d think this endless supply of bananas would be a godsend, but I don’t like bananas.
You like bananas?
I think this jacket’s about your size.
What have you got in your pocket? A plum? An orange? Strawberries?
Oh, you always have a weasel in your pants?
Never mind.

Keyboard Shake

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Ever turn your keyboard over and shake it?
Usually, just hair and dust fall out.
However, it’s somewhat unusual for an living octopus to fall out.
I carried the odd creature to the sink and filled the sink up with water.
The octopus crawled around, exploring its new environment with its suckered tentacles.
How long had it been in my keyboard?
How did it get in my keyboard?
I don’t remember dropping an octopus in my keyboard.
I called the manufacturer… they had strict octopus-prevention procedures in place.
What will I do with it?
Hey, anybody need a pet octopus?

Shopping List

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My shopping list is on the New York Times Bestseller’s List.
I don’t know what happened, but I got a call from a reporter asking me questions about being an author, and I had no idea what was going on.
Oprah, Good Morning America, Regis… they all want to talk to me.
I don’t know what’s so compelling about my shopping list, but I guess it touched a whole bunch of people.
One critic claims that I plagiarized my list. Another says that it was ghostwritten.
All I know is that I really need milk, eggs, butter, and trash bags.

Bad Blocks

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I scan the memory, block by block, looking for segment errors.
The scan is clear, but I know that there’s a bad block in there somewhere.
I run it again. Still clear.
Then I shift the program to a different location. The exposed virus crawls block-by-block back underneath it like a cockroach scuttling back under a refrigerator that’s been moved.
Gotcha!
I run the scanner again, this time from an external address.
All clear on the memory space.
And that’s what my lawyer said when they found the virus running free, carried out of the blocks by my memory scanner.

Iris

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Just as some women light up a room, Iris scented up a room with her peculiar aroma.
For some reason, Iris liked to spray herself with water from a handheld mister and then dust herself from head to toe with powdered cinnamon.
She said that she learned this from her mother, although her mother used nutmeg.
Iris preferred cinnamon to nutmeg.
At parties, people would look around for the air freshener or the scented candle.
Iris would smile, knowing they’d eventually figure out it was her.
She’d dip her fingers in their coffee, and they’d sip her up with glee.