“Bonjour,” said the butler.
Casey clicked the Language button on his remote.
“Konichiwa,” said the butler.
“Fix the damn thing!” yelled Lisa.
Casey clicked it a few more times, and the butler said “Hello” in ten more languages.
But never “Hello.”
Casey clicked the red button on the remote.
The butler bowed and his eyes rolled up as he shut down.
“Scratched language disk,” said Casey. “Mind if I borrow yours?”
“What?” gasped Lisa.
Casey pointed the remote at her, clicking the red button.
Lisa’s eyes rolled up and she shut down.
You’ll shout much nicer in French, he thought.
Tag: romance
Ornaments
I’m Jewish, my wife’s a witch, and we put up a tree for the holidays.
I do it because it’s fun, pretty, and the cats like it.
Some cats sleep under the tree.
Others like to burrow into piles of gifts like mountain lions in caves.
And then there’s ones who bite off the plastic needles and barf them up.
Our littlest cat, Myst, likes to pick off the ornaments one by one.
My wife yells at her, but she keeps doing it anyway.
“Why does she keep doing that?”
(Don’t tell her I spray the ornaments in catnip, okay?)
Anchor
Back when gaslamps lit the streets of New Orleans, sailors would go to sea and their loves would wait for their return.
Most came back to port on schedule, or close to it.
Others were delayed by storms, pirates… so many dangers.
When a ship was due, their loves came to the docks and met them as they arrived, walking down the gangplank, that moment.
Or, if they didn’t arrive, waiting.
Late one day… two… a week… a month.
Sometimes, the harbormaster wrote that worst of all fates: “LOST.”
And their hearts would sink, down… sink below the waves forever.
Ice Queen
She was the most beautiful woman in all the land, but The Ice Queen’s heart was no man’s to own.
The Sun Prince, captivated by her beauty, asked Merlin The Wizard for advice.
“Take this potion,” he said. “It will melt the ice from her heart.”
The Prince set out at dawn, and made the queen’s castle in a week.
Slipping the potion into her wine, he watched as the Queen’s face turned to shock, then agony.
Merlin arrived the next day, not expecting two corpses.
“Her heart wasn’t covered with ice,” said the Prince’s suicide note. “It WAS ice.”
Painted Heart
She tears open your chest, dips a brush on to her palette, and paints her life upon your beating heart.
The first time you see her, who is that?
The first time apart, when will I see her again?
You hand in hers, as the ring goes on her finger till death do we part.
And as she pulls that ring off and tosses it in your face.
With one final jab, she is finished.
And you are left there, gasping, as the colors begin to run… and fade… and burn.
She is gone, she is gone, she is gone.
Sleep on the couch
Ever get in a fight and have to sleep on the couch?
Yeah, it happens all the time to me.
But it’s not my fault. Really.
There I am, in bed, minding my own business, and a fight breaks out.
It wasn’t me. I didn’t start it.
But I get dragged into it, and the next thing I know, I’m having to sleep on the couch.
Isn’t the bed big enough?
Did I snore or cut a really bad fart?
No.
I wish the damn cats would get along and stop fighting on the bed while I’m trying to sleep.
Dividing Things Up
Breaking up is hard to do.
Dividing up the furniture, all the stuff.
It used to be you could just sort out the book and record collections, but Amazon and iTunes make that a pain in the ass.
And then there’s the friends.
How do you divide up the friends?
Doctor Odd suggested cloning them, but that’s a hassle, too.
Who gets the clone? Who gets the original?
So he’s experimenting with quantum universes. A universe exactly the same.
But without you. And you’ll go to one without me.
Which solves the book and record collection issues, too, I guess.
The Sore
I don’t talk to you. You don’t talk to me.
What happened to us? We used to be so close.
Too close. All we did was annoy each other.
Forget the good times. Forget the laughs.
That was all bullshit, and we both know it.
You’re like an unexplained foul odor, left behind in a room.
A festering sore that I keep picking at?
Is that obsession? Or how deeply you annoyed me?
How long will this last?
Until the next one. The next person to get close.
Too close, and they leave without leaving.
Like an open, bleeding sore.
Soup
I never make my grandmother’s soup recipe for anyone anymore.
I used to make it all the time.
And every time I made it, people said they love it.
Really loved it.
But they carry their love too far.
When asked “If you love it so much, why don’t you marry it?” they often say “YES, I WILL!”
Every time, it’s the same thing:
Whirlwind romance, big wedding, crazy honeymoon, and then a nasty bitter divorce.
If there’s any bright side to all this, it’s that I’ve ended up with all the soup spoons, bowls, and stockpots I’ll ever need.
Shower Her Out
You washed her out of your hair and down the drain.
But she’s back.
And she’s wrapping herself around friend after friend, whispering in their ears.
Sweet nothings. Worth nothings.
Preying on their loneliness
and fear
and greed
and all the things in her that made you get out the wire brushes and the borax…
SCRUB SCRUB SCRUB!
Can’t they see the bullshit for themselves?
Can’t they hear the bullshit for themselves?
What the fuck is wrong with them?
No, it’s not you. It’s them. It’s all of them.
They’ll wake up.
They’ll figure her out.
They’ll see. Eventually. Eventually.