Jersey Girl

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Shirley the Mermaid had been around. She’d seen everything.
She and the girls were getting their nails done when they talked about their first times.
The first time Shirley saw a human, she swam after it for a closer examination.
It looked like a mermaid, but instead of fins, it had two limbs coming out of its hips leading into a solid stone-like block.
“Mob informant,” she thought. “Should have kept his goddamed trap shut.”
She took his wallet, emptied out the cash, and swam away.
Whether you’re over or under the Boardwalk, a Jersey Girl is a Jersey Girl.

My Bloody Valentine

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Five hours ago, this bum was using his pen knife to cut aluminum cans into hearts to give away on Valentine’s Day.
Now, he’s a bloody pulp under a bench. Some other bums beat him up for the aluminum cans, cashed them in for beer money.
He could have defended himself with the knife, but to him, it was a tool and not a weapon. Just as Cupid”s bow and arrow are for love, not war.
A mother tells her son not to worry. He’s up in Heaven now.
I hope they clean him up before they let him in.

Assembly

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I like to walk through the drive through lane at the bank and ask for a loan for a car.
Usually, I get a laugh, but one day – that pneumatic tube machine wheezes and PLOMP! It lands on the hopper.
I open it up, and there”s a set of car keys.
I pull the keys out and hit the Call button – “Very funny,” I said. “What should I do with these?”
PLOMP! Another tube shows up. There”s an instruction booklet in there for assembling a car.
PLOMP! Some spark plugs.
PLOMP! A fanbelt.
PLOMP! PLOMP! PLOMP!
This could get messy.

The Wacky Adventures of Abraham Lincoln #83

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Trapped in the kitchen with Mary Todd, Abe decided to make a souffle.
After many failed attempts, he focused his chi and went back to the mixing bowl.
Pour.
Spread.
Lift.
Close.
Wait.
Then, just at the right moment, he reached into the oven to pull it out.
Gently as the dews of heaven, not rending or wrecking anything, he carried the crockery to the table to display his achievement to Mary Todd.
“It looks great,” she said. “What did you do different this time?”
Abe scowled. “It helps not to trip over the loose floorboards and Tad”s scattered toys.”

The Wacky Adventures of Abraham Lincoln #82

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Abraham imagined himself a swashbuckler, hurling insults at Jefferson Davis as they slashed their cutlasses at each other.
All around them, pirates cheering and shouting, fighting amongst themselves.
Lincoln found himself caught up in the moment and yelled something he”d later regret.
“Take back that comment about my mother,” shouted Davis.
“Never!” laughed Lincoln. “I would rather die than take back a word.”
Davis parried Lincoln”s sword aside and ran him through the chest.
“Okay, what if I said it about your aunt and not your mother?” wheezed Lincoln.
(This is about when Lincoln felt that “regret” I referenced earlier.)

Wilton

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Where El Dorado was paved with gold, the town of Wilton is paved with cake.
Gingerbread houses and frosting flowers line Angel Food Lane, their gumdrop mailboxes overflowing with letters written on coconut.
In between classes, Wilton Elementary serves sugary snacks to the peanut-brittle children.
The Department of Works rolls around in a cake-pan truck, patching holes in the streets, mending the breaks in the peppermint sewers, and planting spun-sugar trees when the old ones dry up and flake away.
The explorers look at each other, mumble “El Dorado?”
One shakes the compass, and they walk back into the woods.

Weekly Challenge #95 – Worst Job and Storage

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Welcome to the Ninety-Fifth Weekly Challenge, 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 selected by Laieanna and Tom.
It’s Worst Job and Storage
The excellent theme music is by Guy David
VOTING

What were the best stories of Weekly Challenge #95?
Elisson from blog d’Elisson
John from A Work In Progress
Guy David from Guy David.com
Terry from Quiet Time
Storm Thunders from Eye of the Storm
Tom from Footnote
Caleb from Black Tie Martini Club
JD White
Planet Z
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com


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

ELISSON

The worst job I ever had was manager of the U-Store-It unit out on the
Wharton Freeway.
It wasn”t the pay (which sucked), or Corporate (which really sucked).
It wasn”t even the clientele, although most of our customers weren”t
what you”d call Model Citizens.
No, it was the astonishing number of dead bodies that would appear in
the unrented units. Every couple days, we”d find another, chewed up
pretty bad. The cops were mystified, and it got to where I wasn”t
sleeping too well.
Then one night I saw them, and I understood. “Tekeli-li,” they moaned.
I never came back.

JOSH

Bologna again. Rick stared at the sandwich and its round edge of meat between the crusts before he took a grudging bite. A hero sub would be nice once in awhile. This tastes horrible and it’s so small, he thought as he stuffed the remainder of it into his mouth.
Rick grabbed the shovel leaning against the Cadillac’s bumper and dug a few more loads from the long shallow pit. His stomach growled. What he wouldn’t give for roast beef. He pulled the stained lumpy burlap sack from the trunk and dragged it into the hole.
Pastrami would be best.

TERRY

I have just returned from exploring parts of the wreckage after crash landing on Mars.
I have discovered that I am the lone survivor and have found several usable items in the closest part of the wreckage, along with solving a couple of problems.
My first problem being that the oxygen level in the atmosphere is about half the amount of Earth’s. The fix for this is an extraction pump that that was in the cargo bay, now all I need is a large tank for storage of the oxygen.
The second problem I found is that the living area of the craft is a total loss, burning up on impact; all that is left is a metal caucus along with the charred remains of my fellow crew members, may they rest in peace.
Without the living area section, the only toilet facilities are now in my command module. After the 2 month journey here, these have become completely filled and must be emptied, which maybe the worst job I have ever had to do.
This is Captain Josh Jones, Earth Space Command, signing off.

GUY DAVID

I must have the worst job in the world. I store broken dreams. I do this because that is my job. Not because I want to. I receive the dreams, confine then so they wouldn’t hurt anyone, so that people would be able to get on with their lives.
Last night, I run out of storage space, and all the broken dreams spilled out. Dreams of disappointments, of forgotten real life dreams, half forgotten memory dreams, all spilled over me. I had to inspect them one by one, put them back in place. Now I’m never going to dream again.

STORM THUNDERS

There’s always that awkward moment when you’re aware but before the shell’s done uploading. Then the shock as data starts pouring through the senses. The reassuring feel of filtering algorithms learning and adjusting – I’ve had those fail before, and lemmie tell you that’s a nightmare! Then the quick mental inventory of available tools and sensory inputs, and ransacking what’s stored in memory to determine the job that you’re here to do. It isn’t always obvious; part of why we’re sent is our ability to come up with creative solutions.
Even the worst job is better than being in storage

TOM

Worst Shmrst who”s to said one act is any less fitting in the services of the lord then another, but working shipping and receiving is that technically working in the field of the lord. I remember the August the antifreeze trucks arrived. The stuff was so dense it had to be perfectly loaded within the vehicle. We twowheelerd stacks of 6 cases down the aluminum ramp directly into back storage. Here by hand we stacked walls of antifreeze 8 cases high, deadlifting the last above our heads. Sweat dirt raw hands and backs all work is the work of the lord.

CALEB

They said it would be the job of a lifetime; go to sleep on earth and wake up some time later as the first ambassador to an as yet undiscovered alien world. But no alien world ever found me and cryogenic suspension doesn”t really stop the brain so much as slow it. A normal dream reflects upon the previous day”s activity but my last day was billions of years ago, long since forgotten in time. So now I float through space unable to move unable to wake, dreaming of nothing for eternity. I should”ve stayed in school” This job sucks.

JD WHITE

George’s job filled him with angst and anxiety.
Not really the job, you know, but the consequences of the job.
Each day of his existence George was tasked to move souls from the cold storage vault into the bodies of people that had lost, or just misplaced their soul.
This, if you have the right temperament, could be most fulfilling.
George did not have that temperament.
George was always stressed.
George always developed ulcers.
George always committed suicide.
And then Krishna or Vishnu or whoever would reincarnate him.
It was the best of jobs, it was the worst of jobs.

PLANET Z

The boys down in the warehouse always did the worst job of keeping things organized and secured.
You didn’t know what you’d find when you’d pry open a battered crate hauled out of storage. The manifests were hastily scribbled notes that had nothing to do with what was tossed willy-nilly into the box.
“Something Expensive Damaged Beyond Repair” was a good guess, I’d say.
The CEO got fed up with the damage and stormed into the warehouse office.
The boys down there didn’t take too kindly to getting fired, and they chopped him up.
We’re still finding bits and pieces of him.
Something expensive, indeed.

Oscar

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When I hear the phrase “Busier than a cat in a room full of rocking chairs” I remember Oscar.
Used to stand up on his back feet and lean against the rocking chair until he tipped it over.
Then, he’d climb up on the chair, sitting there with the pride of a hunter posing with his trophy.
I ain’t seen Oscar for years. One night, he musta decided he had something better, never come back.
Sometimes, I go out on the porch, my rocking chair’s on it’s side, I wonder.
And as I put my chair back up, I smile.

The Cello Player

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Few things are certain in life.
Most of all, of the things you can count on, I’m most certain that you’ll never hear a chick say “Oh, yeah? Well, I’m fucking the cello player.”
Guitarists, singers, bass players.
Even drummers, if you can imagine that.
But when it comes to cello players, they’re the ones that haul their cellos up five flights of stairs into a lonely, cramped apartment.
Nobody knocks. Nobody calls.
More time for practice, right?
I guess so.
But no matter how good he gets, no chick will say “Oh, yeah? Well, I’m fucking the cello player.”

Dominos

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Jackie set up dominos to run from one end of the state to the other, and she’s ready to tip that first domino over.
How he got all these dominos set up without any falling over or getting stolen, well, let’s just say this state’s proud of Jackie and ain’t nobody’s gonna mess with her stuff.
And to tell the truth, it’s not too big a state the way she’s set these dominos up.
Nothing fancy. No ramps or pool balls or bells or little rockets.
Just dominos. A whole mess of them.
She flicks a finger, and they fall.