Every company, junk food and fast food, sends out their mascots to schools.
Today, it’s the clown in yellow, red, and white. the one from the burger place.
He’s at the school to teach the kids about nutrition and exercise.
Leading them through games and songs and dances.
The pudgy kids stumbling, falling, and wheezing.
Tomorrow, it’ll be the old man in the white suit, the one from the chicken place.
With more games and songs and dances.
And when the fun is over, the kids go home, and they scream for the unhealthy stuff.
Coming back fatter and clumsier.
Neutral
The Swiss claim to be neutral.
A permanent mountainous buffer between France and Austria.
They refuse to join any defense pacts.
They refuse to join any economic treaties.
Or allow attacks to be launched from their territory in their conflict.
However, they’re more than happy to lecture others from on high on how to conduct war and human rights.
While manufacturing and selling weapons to everyone. (Until war breaks out)
Filling their banks with the gold and assets of the world’s leaders.
Expensive chalets for the losers of those conflicts.
Oh, and to sell body bags.
And watches. And chocolates.
Ingrown
If you use a razor, you’ll give yourself nicks and cuts.
But if you use an electric shaver or trimmer, you’ll end up causing more than a few ingrown hairs.
The closer you shave, the more ingrown hairs happen.
Some become inflamed and messy.
Squeezing them out, cleaning them up, patting on the astringent.
Again. And again. And again.
I don’t know which is messier, the razor or the shaver.
As I get older and my hands shakier, I cut myself more.
Before I wash the blood from my face, the cat jumps on the counter to lick it off.
Tracking medicine
Everything was clipboards and paper and charts, and it was so easy to lose information.
Patients would get the wrong food or medications, and it was more paperwork for us.
We switched to iPads, and the errors decreased a lot.
Putting barcodes on wristbands made it even easier to track patients and their needs.
We tried giving them a pill with an RFID tag in it so they’d automatically sync up with our pads, but the metal was enough to cause problems in the MRI machine.
The pill would come out like a bullet.
And those MRI machines are expensive.
Influencers
The company built a fancy resort hotel and then gave away rooms to dozens of social media influencers.
“Tell the world what you honestly think,” the company said.
So, they did.
They said it was fancy, an experience of a lifetime.
The food, the rooms, the service, the pool… everything was simply the best.
Their blog posts and instagrams and youtube videos gushed hyperbolic praise and joy.
Their posts filled up with nasty comments, wanting to know if they’d had gone and been so happy if they had to pay.
But the influencers were already at another resort.
Comped, naturally.
Bumperstickers
I don’t go for cause bumperstickers.
There’s only one on my car, which I rarely drive, and it’s a clearish Debauche sticker.
Right side of the rear bumper.
Nobody will get the joke, and I don’t care if they do.
You see those cars out there, plastered with stickers, and they look like crap.
As if the bumpsterstickers are holding the damn thing together.
I’d rather not be a lending library or road hazard with all that writing.
Provide your own damn entertainment.
The only thing I care about people driving behind me is that they use their brakes right.
An apple a day
In school, there was always that one kid who’d bring the teacher apples.
That kid was me.
“Thank you,” the teacher would say. And she’d eat the apple. “Delicious.”
I was a smart kid, and I got good grades on my own.
But I’m sure the apples helped.
Until one day I got a bad grade for something.
That’s when I mentioned that the first apple had poison in it.
“And the other apples have a temporary antidote.”
From then on, I got good grades.
And the teacher got the full antidote on the last day of class.
I think.
Weekly Challenge #932 – Across
The next topic is You’ll never believe
LISA
He brought us today’s newspaper! Finding out that it’s March makes my tummy lurch. It feels odd reading and finding out that life has just gone on without us. But, it seems it has. I’m almost disappointed that we’re not spoken about on every page.
There’s actually nothing about any of us.
The headlines are full of a missing boy. A boy: from across the river. I scour the article, the police cogs in my brain whirring, it makes three missing lads in the last month. It’s weirdly as if it’s written about us but they’re boys that have disappeared.
RICHARD
Never a cross word
I don’t know why I bother with the crossword, I rarely manage to complete it.
I had a vague idea it might keep my brain active, perhaps prevent the onset of future senility, but I have my doubts.
This morning’s effort wasn’t going well.
Nine across: seven letters, B, something, something, F, something, L, something, D; ‘Perplexed, the flow is obstructed’. What sort of a rubbish clue was that?
Perhaps dementia was already setting in?
Taking a slurp of coffee didn’t make things any clearer, and I put my pen down, defeated.
Yes, I’ve given up once again. Completely… Baffled.
LIZZIE
She sat down in the cabine across the aisle from me. She didn’t smile when I smiled. She looked down, her hands on her lap. It was pouring. I always worried about everything. In my mind, she worried too. So, I wanted to go over to her. A hug. Or perhaps I could hold her hand. As her husband-to-be, I heard someone say, closed the door, she took a quick glimpse at me and waved a shy wave. We never talked, but every year we would make the same trip. And I would wait a whole year for that wave.
SERENDIPIDY
How do I get the seriousness of your situation across to you?
All I’m asking you to do is confess your sins and recant your faith – just say the words – not exactly difficult, is it?
I simply need to hear you say it, and then you can go free. No need for any more torture, pain or tears. I can make it all go away, but first I need to hear you say it.
My impatience grows. Your refusal to speak is becoming irritating.
Although, coming to think of it, maybe I should have waited before cutting out your tongue?
NORVAL JOE
Billbert grabbed the rifle from the man’s fingertips and stepped back as the helicopter flew across the treetops and dropped down into the meadow by Sabrina. Swat team members spilled from the open doors.
A loudspeaker squelched. “Put the rifle down and put your hands in the air.”
Knowing that if he’d been Black, Billbert would already be dead, he threw the rifle to the ground.
The van driver ran for the trees and Billbert lowered a hand to point at him. “That’s the guy…”
The loudspeaker cut him off. “Put your hands in the air or we will shoot.”
TOM
It seemed like a good idea at the time
It took either an amazing amount of courage or galactic stupidity. Neither of these terms were available to Pa-Pi. He only had about 300 words in his head, half were getting food, food itself, what animals want him for food. When he put the lashed timber together and dropped it in the water, the locals laughed there asses off. Ass was pretty very useful for collective humor. They hadn’t really invented joke yet. Mostly rocks and fire. It was a rough ride across the water, but he made it. Pa-pi was the first human to leave Africa. The other followed.
849
She could me Boo
Jack entered fatherhood late, but with full on commitment. He even did messy dippers. When toys were purchased, they had been researched for maximum educations value. He also had clear idea of paternal names he truly dislike. Pops was an athame. Daddy was so prosaic. Father so formal. Dad so 1950s. Jack want to be Pa-Pa. A medieval patrona. He wanted a family that would fit in comfortability int a production of Fiddler on the Roof. He saw to himself as the paterfamilias. Of course, the girl, as children will disregarded his wishes. Somehow an early game of peek-a-boo took.
PLANET Z
Bobby started the Neuralink, and his bedroom turned into the classroom.
Bobby liked to log in early, because the good teachers filled up quickly.
Sure, teachers all looked the same, but the people driving the avatars varied.
The state kept offshoring more and more teachers, so you could end up with some Bangladesh contracto driving a thousand pupils and reading from a script, the translation engine spewing gibberish.
Even the AI were better than those geeks.
But Brooks was the best, so Bobby logged in early, took his seat, and went to the bathroom.
And forgot to pause the link.
CHATGPT
In tiny Woodbury, an oddly massive hospital looms, void of doctors, nurses, and beds. Locals, curious, venture to Mainhaven for medical care. Woodbury’s relic is boarded-up, with a forbidden basement that lures adventurous kids. They unearth eerie, rusted tools reminiscent of horror films. Legend whispers that a century ago, the colossal structure was the state asylum, harboring bizarre events. Patients, lost in time, vanished mysteriously. Rumor suggests one transformed into the town’s mayor, proving unexpectedly adept. In the shadows of Woodbury’s past, whispers of a sinister era persist, casting an ominous veil over the unsuspecting town.
Important day
Today is an important day.
I wrote IMPORTANT on the calendar.
But I don’t remember why it is important.
I looked through my mail and my notes, but there’s nothing telling me what’s so important today.
I haven’t gotten any phone calls or emails or other messages about today.
I’ve asked everybody I know, but they have nothing… they need nothing from me, so it’s not something important I have to do for them.
So, I’ll just stop worrying and go through my day.
And if anything comes up tomorrow, or someone asks, I’ll know what was so damn important.
100 pegs
One hundred pegs along the wall of the cliffside monastery.
A brown robe hanging from each.
The monks had hung their robes on the pegs, filed out of the dormitory, and out the front gate.
Lining up at the edge of the cliff, one by one, the naked men leapt to their deaths.
Later that evening, one hundred naked men arrived at the gate.
They walked into the dormitory, picked out a robe, and put it on.
The new monks of the monastery.
Saying prayers together, praising their creator.
Until it was time for them to leap from the cliff.