Tag: cliche

Sacrifice That

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He commanded me to go up the mountain with my son and a knife.
“Prove your loyalty to me,” said The Lord. “Go kill him.”
God’s a prick. He’s always fucking with us like that.
Sacrifice this, recite that.
I’m tired of it.
So I let Him guide me up the mountain, His hand showing the way.
I lay my son on a flat rock, draw the knife, and ask if He’s sure about this.
“Just kidding,” He says. “Go sacrifice that goat.”
He points to a mountain goat.
I grab his Hand, cut off a finger, and swallow it.

Witness

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I’m a professional witness.
The wilder the thing you want me to witness, the more it’ll cost you.
Same goes with how far I need to go back into history to witness it.
Some scientists did the math and figured out that building superconducting supercolliders was far too expensive for particle research.
So, they’re paying me to witness the Big Bang.
I go back tomorrow and come back Friday.
They paid me only half in advance, just in case I’d be tempted to stay.
Of course I’ll come back. My cat and plants won’t feed themselves.
Sitters? Too damn expensive.

The Dog Still

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Boy, there comes a time in every kid’s life when he’s got to say goodbye to a pet. Do it without crying and whining and raising a fuss.
It’s your dog. I kinda used him to make a whiskey still.
Oh, sure, there was some leftover bits and pieces, but I went ahead and buried them in the back yard.
The rest is just chuggin away in the shed, makin that moonshine your grampaw sells in town.
So, don’t go cryin, and don’t go pettin’ my still or playin fetch with it.
Here. Have a sip. Hair of the dog.

Executioner

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When the queen called for my head, I knew I was doomed.
But when she called for my head to be brought to her on a paper plate, well, thatreally bothered me.
“Shouldn’t that be on a silver platter?” I asked.
The executioner shrugged. “Sorry, man. I’m only following orders.”
He took me down to the dungeon, tied my hands behind my back, and knelt me before the chopping block.
“Maybe it has to do with the fact that it’s hard to wash blood off of silver?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. He just raised the axe and swung.

Boxcars

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The commercials called Boxcar Willie the king of the hobo musicians, but old Willie never spent a day riding the rails.
He was a gambler. Craps was his game. Guy owned a pair of dice, loaded for sixes: Boxcars.
“Boxcars Willie” didn’t sound quite right, so they called him Boxcar.
The same went with his bandmates Snake Eyes Sam and Acey Duecey. They were in his band as well as at the craps table as much as Willie.
Get Drunk And Hole Up With A Transvestite Hooker Howard, well, he didn’t gamble. So we called him Howie. He played drums.

Weekends

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When I was young, time crawled.
Now that I’m older, and the schoolweek is now the workweek, things feel a whole lot faster.
And it’s a good thing that the workweek goes by so fast. So much crap I just want to just get through.
It’s the weekends that matter to me. I live for the moment I can walk out that door and I’m free until Monday morning.
The problem is, if the week goes by fast, then the weekends go by even faster.
Sadly, Friday to Monday is a lot shorter than Monday to Friday.
When’s retirement again?

Helpful

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All our company’s technical support is moving to India.
It’s not because they are cheap workers.
It’s because they really like to help others.
Boatloads of them show up at our ports, asking if they can help with anything.
We send them back, and they offer to help with that, too.
“We’ll call you if we need any help,” we say.
They waited for the call, but we never did.
So, they started to help themselves.
These days, they’re the ones turning back boatloads of our people.
“We offered to help,” they say. “But we think you’re beyond help now.”

The Talking Kid

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We love our kid.
How can we not? He’s our kid.
One disappointment with him, though. Our boy didn’t start talking until he was four.
But when he started, he just couldn’t shut up.
He talks all the time.
During meals.
In the bath.
In the preschool.
And even in his sleep.
Some of it makes sense, but the vast majority of what comes from his mouth is nonsensical babble.
So, we give him gum to chew. When he chews gum, he can’t talk.
He blows bubbles now. Popping all the time.
But it’s not as annoying as the babble.

Predetermined

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You can’t change fate. Everything is predetermined.
From the beginning of time to the end of time, everything has been planned for.
Even the roll of the dice has a set outcome.
Don’t bother trying to escape from your fate.
This doesn’t means you should just sit there and let things happen.
Because the times you make happen, well, those were fated to happen, too.
The fact that everything happens according to a plan means you are completely absolved from the results of your actions.
This is what I’ll be telling the judge about those seventy-eight murders you committed.
Psycho.

The Sleeper

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My little girl couldn’t fall asleep.
So I told her to close her eyes, think of clouds, and count slowly to ten.
She always fell asleep at five or six.
But one night, she got to ten.
And she was by the bed, shaking me.
Wake up, Daddy, she said.
She does it to her classmates, at their desks.
She doesn’t even have to count out loud.
She just thinks of clouds and counts to ten.
What happens when you count backwards? I ask her.
She shakes her head. No, she says.
I feel tired, so I don’t ask again.