Category: My stories

Missing Milk

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Someone stole a milk carton out of my refrigerator.
So, I glued a photo of it to a bunch of children in the neighborhood.
There was a caption, too:
HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MILK CARTON?
It took nine months and two million dollars, but I eventually tracked down my milk carton.
There was no milk left in it when the detectives found it.
Whether its captor had consumed the milk or they had tossed it out because the milk had gone bad, we’ll never know.
But, really, thank God it’s home.
I think I’ll make a boat out of it.

Cookie Crumbles

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“That’s the way the cookie crumbles,” said Doctor Odd’s mother.
“Why?” asked the Child Odd.
He was eight. Young, but still the sapling that would grow into the mad scientist the world would fear.
“I don’t know,” said his mother.
From that point on, Doctor Odd begged for cookies – demanded them.
Mother Odd gladly provided, watching her son meticulously test each batch, suggest adjustments to the recipe, and come up with various cookie-crumbling techniques.
On her deathbed, Mother Odd asked her son what he’d discovered from all this research.
Doctor Odd smiled and patted her hand. “I prefer brownies.”

Dancing in the Drunk

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Australians call it Waltzing Matilda.
Japanese call it Saki Hop Susie.
And the Jews call it Horah With Hierschel.
Let’s face it: you’re drunk, and you want to dance.
Feel the dance inside you. Let it rise through your pores and take control.
Good. Now you’re dancing.
If you feel your stomach gurgling, you can take a break. Just bend over and let it flow.
Until then, dance… dance like you’ve never done it before.
Just do me a favor, okay?
Dance over here in the parking lot. You’re holding up traffic out there in the middle of the road.

Cleveland

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When people ask me where the bad man touched me, I tell them: “Cleveland.”
He touched me in Cleveland.
It could have happened anywhere, really.
Dallas, Chicago, Denver… but there was a huge storm in Buffalo that night. So the airline diverted the flight in Cleveland and forgot about us.
No hotel rooms.
No food.
Nothing.
We dragged chairs together and slept in the terminal.
And that’s when the bad man touched me.
In Cleveland.
And I liked it.
In fact, I’m going back to Cleveland next week.
We’ll see if the bad man is there, too.
I hope so.

Floor-Thumper

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The Reverend was in his office, practicing his bible-thumping, when he felt an odd sensation in his chest.
Two seconds later, he hit the floor with a thump, dead.
Upon arrival in Heaven, Jerry was expecting a harp, halo, and wings.
Instead, St. Peter slid a piece of paper and a pen across the table.
“Please sign this,” he said.
“What is it?” said Jerry, adjusting his glasses.
“It’s a nondisclosure agreement,” said St. Peter. “Please sign it so we may proceed.”
Jerry signed it.
“Good,” said St. Peter, putting the paper in his briefcase. “Have a nice trip down.”

Asteroids

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We watched in horror as a series of artificial asteroids splashed into the ocean.
I looked over the document on my desk, compared the trajectories, and confirmed that this was no natural strike.
It had been planned.
Swamping a few oil tankers and cruise ships was purely by coincidence. This was really meant as a warning to… to…
Nobody’s sure who had the wherewithal to grab asteroids and huck them with such accuracy at the earth. Nobody was expecting this, and any guidance systems burned up in the atmosphere.
I lean over to my wastepaper basket and shred the document.

Strange Days

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Strange Days are here again.
Everybody’s been shopping for the Strange for weeks now, waiting for the days when the skies change and the world turns on end for what seems like forever.
The problem with the Strange Days is that you never know exactly how things will turn strange.
It makes it hard to shop, but folks don’t need much incentive to go nuts shopping these days.
Especially with Strange Days around the corner.
Are you ready for them?
You are?
Does this mean you know what the Strange Days will bring?
TELL ME! TELL ME!
TELL ME NOW!

Reunion

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I hate dealing with organizing the high school reunions, but as the last classmate corporeal in his original form, I’m stuck with the job.
Rachel’s reincarnated as a squirrel. You know what catching those is like.
Eddie’s a stockbroker now. Hates to get away from the city.
Arthur’s had a lot of bad luck spirit-wise. Lots and lots of mayflies.
One by one, I go down the checklist, and I eventually get a set of addresses for invitations and field teams to pick up specimens.
They’ll joke that I’ve lost weight since college.
Thankfully, disembodied brains in jars can’t blush.

Cruise Ship

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The cruise ship White Diamond has a severe engine misalignment, and it wobbles in timespace.
On its last voyage past Cuba, it wobbled slightly and smashed into its duplicate in a parallel dimension.
Counting survivors, casualties, and the missing isn’t easy when life rafts and bodies float between worlds.
Customs wants to make “twinned” survivors fill out Entry Forms.
Apparently, some nutball in Congress got taxing dimension-travelers attached to a bill a while back, and it got approved.
Problem is, we can’t tell who is a native and who is a twin.
“It’s government,” grumble the captains. “Tax them all.”

Calendar

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Every morning in the lobby of my building, there’s always the same crazy man wandering around, asking what day it is.
Sure, I could tell him, but instead of that, I hand him a cheap, giveaway pocket calendar.
I don’t remember where I got this one, but I don’t need it, so I’m giving it to the crazy man.
“Here you go,” I said. “Now you can look up what day it is whenever you want.”
He looks at it, flips through the pages, and scowls.
“Does it say what day it is?” he asks.
He’s right. It doesn’t.
Weird.