Miranda Rights

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If you want your Miranda rights, you’re going to need this fruit hat.
You’re also going to need a Brazilian band backing you.
These maracas might help.
Sure, you have the right to remain silent, but when you hear that Latin beat, you’re going to sing and dance.
Sure, call a lawyer. Just make sure he has a suit and shoes for dancing, and you can dance with him.
The cameras in the court room will be the paparazzi, and your trial will be in all the tabloids.
Anything you say will be used against you.
That’s why you’ll sing.

Birthday Gift

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I had no idea what to get Molly for her birthday.
She’s allergic to flowers and she hates chocolate.
I wandered around the gift shop until I came to the alligator isle.
Stacked up on the shelves were crocodiles of various sizes and colors.
I checked their price tags. Sure enough, they were marked as alligators.
Which are much less expensive that crocodiles.
Recognizing a bargain when I see one is my particular field of genius, so I bought out the lot.
So that’s what I got Molly for her birthday.
Please, quit screaming, and help me wrap them up.

Why do Mondays suck?

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Why do Mondays suck?
Well, in the old days, when there weren’t many people, God used to make everyone line up single-file every Sunday night.
Then, he’d walk along the line with his Sack Full of Mondays and make everyone pull their Monday out of the bag.
Some were bright and shiny, while others were squelchy and stank like a dead possum.
Over time, the line got too long, and the wait was longer than the rest of the week, so God gave up the practice. Made everyone’s Monday suck.
By the way, Joe, this coffee tastes like dead possum.

Weekly Challenge #204 – Gods

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Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number Two Hundred and Four, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.
The topic this week was… was…. um…
It’s Gods!
VOTING

Which were the best stories this year?
Zachmann
Keeme
Ross
Anima
Steven
TJ
JRadimus
Norval Joe
Planet Z
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Go ahead and listen to them and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):


Zachmann

You though the days of the gods at least gods with Small g were over but the internet has two of the strangest gods. There is this powerful god that is represented by a little blue bird. The nemesis god of the little blue bird is a giant falling whale who shows up when things don’t work. It may be Doug Adams’ falling whale but in this story is rescued by little orange birds with a big web net. They fight a god who was created to be helpful. The now evil Clippy. They also fight the evil Bonsai Buddy.

Keeme

Looking into her eyes from his side of the glass. His last words to her were “I am sorry”; She needed to believe he had changed. His back to her now, his smirk telling a different story. He whispered to the guard, “sorry I was caught”. As they strapped him to the table, everyone prayed the phone would not ring for this animal; it never did. When he rose up in his next life, he was surrounded by not just one, but by all the Gods. Each ready to take turns at removing that smirk for little Sara’s Mother.

Ross

“And why, Mr….”
“Loki”
“Yes, Mr. Loki. Why do you think you’d be suitable for the Demigod position?”
“Well, I have plenty of deity experience from my last place of employment.”
“Yes, about that – it says here in your letter of recommendation that you were… a bit of a troublemaker?”
“Well, I pulled a couple practical jokes, but I wouldn’t call that making trouble…”
“Yes, I see. And do you have anything that would prevent you from starting as early as next week?”
“Only Ragnarok.”
“Okay, thank you very much for your time, Mr. Loki. We’ll be in touch.”

Anima

The aboriginals say the gods must be crazy, giving man so much
technology. I say the gods must be delusional, to give man these soft
squishy bodies that need so much maintenance. I dream of upgrading to an
anodized steel skin, resistant to exposure and punctures; I pine for
precision gears meshing quietly instead of painful creaking popping
joints; One day, I will do wind downs instead of sit ups to stay in
shape. Oh, to raise a pint of WD40, that unctuous amber liquid, instead
of this wretched gin.
“Bartender, pour me another, and you can skip the
ice.”

Steven

We dream of immortality.
We lost it in a Garden, and sought it in a Fountain.
We look to find immortality in our children, hoping our children will
be as uncountable as the sand on a beach or the stars in the sky. We
seek immortality through art, music, books.
That will not happen. In three generations, our names will be
forgotten by our great-grandchildren, our works dust.
I teach my son my ideas. My thoughts become part of him. He will
share them throughout his life.
My ideas will spread through the world, and I will live forever.

TJ

We bring wood nymphs and sprites into our world with the fiscus in the lobby, and the banzai on the receptionist’s desk. The water nymphs bubble joyfully in the water cooler. Hermes keeps the Internet running, communicating at light speed via satellites. Thor admires the spark of his handiwork burning inside every car and truck on the road. Mars is gorging but hardly sated, while in the darkness Athena and Siva stir in Morphe’s slumber, ready to wake in a burst either of global awareness, or global destruction. Hey, monotheism may be easier, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s right.

JRadimus

“Thank the Gods,” sighed Marc, as he narrowly avoided a small hole.
“Give it a rest, will you?” pleaded Geoff.
“What?” asked Marc.
“All that ‘By the Gods’, ‘Thank the Gods’, ‘Gods be praised’ rubbish,” Geoff snapped. “It’s nonsense, and ridiculously pretentious. You only started it after that ‘Ancient Mythologies in Modern Times’ class. You sound like an utter knob.”
Marc scowled as Geoff finished ranting. They continued walking down the street, but silently now. Behind Geoff’s back, Marc mumbled a curse by the Gods under his breath, and Geoff fell down an open manhole.
“I hate you,” Geoff groaned.

Norval Joe

Dale scooped two large hand-fulls of clay from the reclaim barrel and slapped it down on the plaster wedging tabel. He kneaded the sloppy ooze until it was firm and consistent. He crafted a small creature with bulging eyes, pointed ears and long fangs. He carefully placed the soft clay figure with others atop the ceramic kiln.
“What’re those,” one of hte new freshmen asked?
“They’re kiln gods,” Dale said. “They protect the firing.”
“You believe that,” the kid asked?
Dale scratched his beard, smiled, and winked.
Inside the kiln, flaming twins of those above crept around the baking pottery.

Planet Z

There is a god for everything.
For a while, when man created something new, one of the existing gods would claim it.
Sun and fire.
Water and rain.
However, man created so many new things, the gods added to their numbers to govern it all.
Sometimes, man would abolish or destroy something completely, and a god would no longer need to watch over it.
Gods without responsibility lost their power, becoming vulnerable and mortal.
They’d beg to share the caseloads from overwhelmed gods, but man doesn’t work that way.
Cast out of Olympus, naked and cold.
And forever seeking revenge.

The Caves

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The hills are full of caverns.
We drew maps as we explored them.
Then, we put them in the computer and watched the image take shape.
Bobby pointed at a blank spot.
“What’s there?” he asked.
We looked over the paper maps. Nothing.
Bobby made notes, and he made it our goal.
“I bet something’s there,” Bobby said.
The passages got tighter and more dangerous. Some underwater.
Then, we came to the iron door.
No writing on it, no marks at all.
It opened.
Two glowing eyes stared at us.
The door slammed shut.
We ran, and never went back.

Icons

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One of my favorite computer pranks is to capture a desktop screen, make a wallpaper out of it, and then delete all the icons.
When the user comes back to their workstation, they double-click on the icons on the wallpaper, but nothing happens because they’re not really there.
After a while, they start to panic, clicking and dragging and pounding the keyboard in frustration.
It’s funny to watch. I let them freak out for a while before revealing the prank.
One time, I wasn’t there to reveal the trick, and they slashed their wrists.
I don’t do that prank anymore.

The Tire Swing

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Back when I lived in Shermerville a long time ago, there was a huge willow tree in the yard.
My dad hung a tire swing from it, and we’d swing on that.
When the knot would come loose, the tire would fall and roll and bounce around.
If you were inside it, well, you got knocked around with it.
After a few times that happened, instead of making the knot safer, the rope and tire were removed
Sometimes, I think back to that tire swing.
Then I look around at the world, and I realize, the knot is coming loose.

To Hate A Pancake

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Every year, the robotics class faced a challenge.
Last year, they had to move tennis balls from one container to another.
The year before, their robot had to snuff out candles.
It’s announcement Day, and the teacher cheerfully shouts to the class:
“This year, you will construct machines that hate pancakes.”
The students formed teams, and each were handed an identical basket full of spare parts.
Plus, a box of pancake mix.
Five weeks later, the confused students lined up their robots.
The first was turned on, and it attacked the janitor.
“Pancakes, not Mexicans!” shouted the teacher. “You fail!”

Patrick

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Patrick hated St. Patrick’s Day.
Every March, people would start calling him “Saint Patrick” and expect him to wear green.
They’d call him “Paddy” in a really bad Irish brogue, rub their hands through his red hair, and pinch his rosy cheeks.
This year, he caught wind that he was going to be paid in pennies in a pot.
“A pot of gold!” the payroll specialist chirped.
“Pennies are zinc and copper, you idiot!” Patrick shouted.
That’s when he snapped.
That night, carrying a thick sack into the office, Patrick loosened the rope around the end and released the snakes.

Jacketless Day

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Today is my first Jacketless Day of the year.
It’s nice enough out for me not to wear my leather jacket.
I figure I’ll leave it on the back of a chair for a few days, then it will go back up in the closet, waiting for the next Jacket Day of the year.
I should go through my jacket pockets and get everything out of them that I need, but leave a few things in there to surprise me when Jacket Day comes again.
Nothing sharp, though. Just something weird, like a slinky or a green glowing golf ball.