Category: My stories

Judge

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The judge’s instructions started off simple, but after three hours the jury was utterly confused.
Some of the things the judge asked for them to do weren’t just illegal but downright impossible.
The foreman stood up and tried to interrupt the judge, but the judge didn’t pay him any heed and kept rambling on, getting weirder by the minute.
The foreman looked to the bailiff. The bailiff, having heard this for the better part of a decade, just shrugged and went back to staring blankly.
The stump of his left wrist was a constant, painful reminder not to get involved.

Fail

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Doctor Odd watched the mice scurry around the maze, trying to find the source of the scent of cheese.
Unlike other mazes, there was no “center” or “goal” to this one. It was just a series of loops.
And as for the cheese, well, he had smeared the walls and floors of the maze with a cloth containing a cheese scent an hour before.
The mice kept going in circles, and Doctor Odd waited for one to just give up.
Sure enough, the mice were poking their noses through the mesh on top of the maze.
They’d learned to fail.

Blacksmith

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Son, I know you want to be a blacksmith, but come over here and take a look at these swords in the display case.
Each and every one of them has a history:
Forged in hellfire.
Slew twenty dragons.
Once owned by a king.
Enchanted by the Grand Mage of the Mountain
The truth is, they’re just ordinary swords.
But the human mind is a strange thing. Give a man a sword, and it’s just a sword. But give him a sword with a history and he fights better.
And he’ll pay for that, too.
Forget blacksmithing. Go into sales.

Platform

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We were standing on the platform, waiting for the subway.
A lot of people were.
She fell on the tracks right before the train came.
“Oh my God!” someone shouted.
But God didn’t save her.
An off-duty cop came forward. He said he’d been bumped from behind, and he knocked her on to the tracks.
They never found the guy who bumped him from behind.
Because there wasn’t anyone to find.
The cop went on extended leave. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
He didn’t spend the money all at once.
“Don’t be conspicuous,” I said. “And we’ll get away with murder.”

Flowers For A Stranger

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I don’t know why I was in the cemetery at midnight, wandering around with flowers in my hand.
I don’t know any dead people.
None I’d bring flowers for, anyway.
So, I put the flowers on a headstone, said a quick prayer, and went home.
Next day, I read in the paper that there were two murders at the graveyard.
Two old men shot each other after seeing flowers on the grave. Each suspected the other of having an affair with the woman they agreed never to steal from the other.
Even in death.
Isn’t jealousy and petty rivalry wonderful?

Tickler

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Little Jimmy liked to tickle people. He loved to hear laughter.
He got so good at it, he could find the ticklish spots on all people who claimed not to be ticklish at all.
Folks got to know him well. So much so, all he had to do was wiggle his fingers and you’d feel them on your body, tickling you. Five, six, ten feet away – you could feel it.
Maybe he could too?
Jimmy’s last tickle victim was a toaster. He used a metal fork to do the deed.
I wonder… right before he was electrocuted, did it tickle?

Snow Shovel

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I haven’t touched a snow shovel in 18 years.
Sure, I’ve seen snow since then, but I haven’t touched a snow shovel.
They don’t have any snow shovels in the hardware store down the street. I guess there’s more people out there just like me that haven’t touched a snow shovel in a long time.
I looked in a catalog and saw that Restoration Hardware sells snowman kits. So does their local brick and mortar store. Might be worth it as a gag gift, making a snowman out of Crisco or something white and stackable.
Ho ho ho… Merry Criscomas?

You Are What

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As I was growing up, I was always being told that I am what I eat.
So, I would tell all my food that they are what eats them.
There’s not much point to telling a salad that, nor is there a reason to announce this fact to a steak.
One time, I went out for seafood and I chose my own lobster from the tank.
I picked my lobster and then told it that I was going to eat it, I am what I eat, so it was about to be me.
It pinched my nose in its claw.

Making A War

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There’s always that one person at a party, off in the corner, all by themselves.
Fred was holding the string to a red balloon, mumbling “All I need are ninety-eight more and I can start a nuclear war.”
So, we gathered up all the red balloons, but still came up short.
The party store was closed. We couldn’t buy more.
“Maybe if we paint the other ones red? I said.
But nobody had red paint, and the paint store was closed, too.
The next morning, I was drinking my coffee, when I heard the sirens.
Should have gotten a pinata.

The Deadly Girl

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When I was a kid, there was this girl. She liked to read Tarot cards for the other kids.
She couldn’t really read them, though. She just made things up.
Still, all her predictions came true.
When one kid caught the girl making things up, the girl told him he would die.
And he did. A dodgeball got him.
The teachers took her cards away, so she used dice. Although she called them bones.
Palmistry, phrenology, tealeaves – you name it. She thinned out her classmates quickly with her malicious, deadly predictions.
She works for the government now.
So, behave yourself.