Category: My stories

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.

Breaking Glass

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Moishe was always breaking glass.
Schlomo was always gluing glass pieces together to make beautiful art.
Moishe and Schlomo were the perfect team.
Sure, Schlomo needed Moishe, but Moishe needed Schlomo because Schlomo amazing glass artworks were beautiful enough to convince someone that it was okay that their window got smashed.
When Moishe got married, Schlomo glued the crushed wineglass into a beautiful swan and presented it to the bride.
He kept one piece for himself, which later that evening, he used to cut his own throat.
Oy gevalt, what a mess! Hierschel, what gets blood out of a carpet?

Secretaries

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When I have a choice, I’ll always pick the ugly secretary.
It’s been my lifelong experience that pretty secretaries can get by on their wonderful looks, but ugly secretaries have to be good at what they do.
It has also been my experience that pretty receptionists are utterly useless. Nobody wants them as a secretary, so they stick them up front to greet people.
There are no ugly receptionists. Well, in a way, there are.
In those cases, they’re meant to be security guards. Not exactly a friendly reception, but very useful, as my experience and two broken legs suggest.

Katy Can

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If something’s broken, Katy can fix it.
Katy can fix anything.
Bicycles. Lawnmowers. Machine guns.
Just give it to her and leave her alone.
At the last possible moment, when you’re about ready to give up, she’ll tap you on the shoulder and say it’s done.
She never fails.
Now, you can’t ask her to build something from scratch. That, she can’t do.
Or, more precisely, she won’t do.
But fixing things that are broken, that’s what she does.
And does well.
So would you still like us to bring you a doctor, or shall we ask Katy?
Thought so.

Fiddle

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If hillbillies call a violin a fiddle, what do they call themselves a cello?
Truth is, hillbilly ain’t seen no cellos never. But they always a first time.
First time a hillbilly seen himself a cello, he thought it warn’t nothin’ but a big ol fiddle for a big ol giant.
So the hillbilly think himself a big man, all hillbilly do, put the cello up at his fool neck and he try to play the thing fiddle-like.
Yeah, he break his neck, fall down dead right there, cello fallin on him.
They says a giant kilt him dead, sir.

The Burning

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The townspeople burnt the old witch at the stake.
She went up like a pile of kindling.
They tossed her spellbooks on the flames. Spellbooks are just paper, so they burned quickly.
Then they tossed her broom on the pyre.
Big mistake. Brooms have a hell of a lot of magic in them, so what they did was just like throwing a box of dynamite on a bonfire.
That was the last witch that town burnt. There was nobody left to burn the witches.

Carried Away

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I was doing a math problem the other night when I had to carry the seven.
So, I did. Up the stairs and into the bedroom.
I performed horrible, unspeakable acts upon that seven, things that would be illegal if I had done them in fourteen states.
Then, I carried the seven to the hospital, because it wasn’t breathing.
The doctors said that I was an idiot – sevens don’t breathe.
So, I carried the seven home and finished the math problem.
I’m working on another math problem. This time, I have to carry a one.
A thick, strong, sexy one.