Category: My stories

The Happy Pie

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It was an ordinary pumpkin pie, fresh from the bakery.
We were finished with the roast beef, so it was time for dessert.
Victor grabbed the can of whipped cream and added two dots for eyes and a long curled smile.
That’s when it became the happy pie.
“Come on, Victor,” I said. “Let’s have the pie.”
We all wanted a slice, but Victor shouted “THE HAPPY PIE IS TOO HAPPY TO EAT!” and he ran off with it.
Victor wasn’t hard to chase down. He was sitting on the curb, the pie splattered against the sidewalk.
Happy, no more.

Calendars

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Okay, so you got a bunch of calendars for Christmas and you don’t know which to use when the New Year rolls around, right?
Well, you could use them all, but that would cover all your walls. And windows. And floors. And ceilings. And-
You get the point.
On the other hand, you could use just one,. But when someone comes over and sees you’re not using their calendar, they’ll say “You’re not using the calendar I gave you for Christmas? I thought you liked puppies!”
Well, I do, but hey – check out the puppies on Miss January. Oh, momma.

My First Midnight

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The first time I saw midnight, it was New Year’s Eve.
Well, sort of. It was really nine or nine thirty. Later than my bedtime, but still, not the real midnight time for New Year’s for Chicago.
My mom had moved the clock forward so it looked like eleven. My dad had popped popcorn for us all.
By the time it was fake midnight, we were out of popcorn except for two pieces.
Tossing those two pieces into the air, one after the other, yeah, it was silly. But if that’s all you’ve got, it’s the thought that counts, right?

The Windup Cupcake

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She knew I was coming, so she baked me a cake.
She’s baking me a windup cupcake, my favorite kind of cupcake.
Watchmaker and confectionist, lover and friend.
It’s in the oven, baking.
Can you smell it?
It’s good.
If you listen closely, you can hear the ticking of the gears, counting down the time.
It’s its own timer, it’s own oven timer.
When it goes off, it’s ready.
And then, light the candle, and make a wish.
Know what my wish is?
That I just lick the frosting, and I don’t break my teeth on this lovely windup cupcake.

Up A Tree

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I was walking home one evening when I saw a kid sitting by a tree and crying.
I stopped and knelt by the kid.
“Why are you crying?” I asked him.
“My cat is caught up the tree,” he whined.
I started to climb the tree, but he yelled for me to come back down.
So I did.
“What is it, kid?” I asked.
He handed me a pair of very sharp tin snips.
“What are these for?” I said.
“To cut the cat loose from the bailing wire I used to tie him to the tree branch,” he said.

Crawling

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Once, when I was having a weird day at work, I spent the whole day crawling.
I was crawling along the hall, meeting with people, making copies, and getting some filing done.
A lot of people asked if I was looking for something or if I needed help.
“No,” I said. “I just feel really weird today.”
Of course, I wasn’t just crawling on the floor. I mean, there’s lot of nice walls and ceilings to crawl on where I work.
As long as I don’t crawl on Janet from Accounting again, I don’t think it’s violating any policies, right?

Wrapping Paper

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When you’re done unwrapping your gifts, what do you do with the wrapping paper?
It’s going to end up as landfill, you know. Even if the paper was recycled, it’s going to end up in a landfill now.
All sorts of bright inks, shiny paper… it’s going to last a long time in those landfills.
I know someone who wraps their gifts in biodegradable newspaper. Another puts the gifts behind a closed door that gets opened to “unwrap” them.
But you giving me a blindfold and making me put it on, well, does this mean…
Wait?
Is that a gun?

First Christmas

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We were heading back to the office when we blew a temporal stabilizer and had to drop back into the time stream for repairs.
“It’ll take at least an hour,” said Murphy.
It’s been six.
While we’re waiting for the system to reboot, we broke out the emergency rations and had ourselves a Christmas Dinner right there on the prairie.
“I guess this is the first Christmas dinner,” said Jones.
“Yeah,” I said. “A million years before Christ was born.”
We toasted to our health with Tang, finished the meal, and bundled up the trash before checking on Murphy’s progress.

Dunstan The Unstable Existentialist

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As I sit by the fire, reading Sartre in my Kierkegaard Underoos, I ponder the meaning of life.
Then, I realize. Life exists, whether it has meaning or not. It is an end to itself, regardless if I am consciously observing it.
Anything else would be a lie, and we all know that the first person we lie to is ourselves.
Utterly absurd, this all is. There is no meaning to life except whatever meaning we impose upon it.
I, for one, shall believe I am a egg and cheese sandwich. I am part of a nutritious and complete breakfast.

Say It

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What is it?
I guess the best way to say something is just to say it.
The longer you think about it, the more likely you’ll try to come up with ways of saying something else, and then you eventually don’t say what you need to say at all.
And that’s not right.
The longer you take to tell someone something, you might forget some of it. Or you might feel rushed and it comes out wrong.
There’s no taking those things back. Especially things that need to get said.
What did I need to tell you?
Oh, never mind.