Counting Sheep

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Oh, sure, you think those sheep you count to get to sleep are sweet and innocent, but I know better.
It’s a conspiracy. The counting sheep want to take over the world.
I was only pretending to sleep the other night when the sheep came by for me to count. I closed my eyes and made snoring sounds, so the sheep felt comfortable letting their guard down.
They used my bedroom as a staging area for their campaign of global domination, preparing signs that said “Eat Less Mutton” and “If You Eat Us, How Can Perverts Have Sex With Us?”

Fall again

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It’s Fall again. Sun comes up later, temperature doesn’t get up as high as in the Summer.
If its get warmer, you can always take off a jacket or a sweater.
Or a hat. Lots of heat comes out of your head. Makes sense to have a hat to take off.
If it gets cold, just put the jacket back on. Put the hat back on, too.
Don’t worry about your hair. It’s fine, really.
It’s not quite time for a scarf, but if you want one, sure, go ahead.
Just don’t get it caught in the elevator door again.

Tree Crime

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I wanted to arrest that Maple Tree. I really did.
Instead, we took it Downtown for questioning.
Trees aren’t so tough when you get them away from other trees.
Still, it’s hard to pick a tree out of a lineup.
We hadn’t gotten to that point yet, though. The tree’s lawyer showed up, asks if his client has been charged with anything.
No, we say, but we just want a few questions answered.
Lawyer says the interview is over, we can’t charge him with anything, so it’s back to the forest.
I really hate the legal system sometimes, you know?

Weekly Challenge #79 – Barbecue

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Welcome to the seventy-ninth 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 Tom.
It’s Barbecue
The excellent theme music is by Guy David
VOTING
Go ahead and listen to them by clicking on the grammophone thingy there in the left column and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):

Which stories were the best from Weekly Challenge #79
Paul
Tom from Footnote Podcast
Guy David of The Sixteenth
Houston Keys from Tater Tots For The Masses
Laieanna from HodgePodge Point
Planet Z
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com


WE GOTS PRIZES:
I will be sending the winner a prize… it’s refrigerator magnets for the podcast. Massive amounts of fridge magnets were mailed out in the past week… watch your mail, and let me know if I’ve missed you.
It is your voting that determines who wins. So listen, vote, and tune in next week to find out who won!


PAUL

The sound of the word makes my mouth water.
Smokey, greasy ribs, with the crusty burnt edges, brisket what falls apart when you look at it.
Spicy sausages so good they’re obscene.
A chunk of cheese.
Tearful slices of onion.
Wedges of pickles.
And Styrofoam bowls of BBQ beans, all washed down with a ice cold beer.
Sure, I know people what prefer BBQ Chicken.
I know a gal what orders BBQ Turkey.
But me? I am a purest.
I only eat the real stuff, slabs of meat smoked for hours, what drips in fat.
Except on Saturday. On Saturday, I’m vegetarian.

TOM

St Peter fired up the Weber outside the gates
Tennessee hickory gently glowing
pulled pork sizzled
bathed in Carolina ruby sauce.
“Nice barbecue” said Burroughs.
“What happened?” inquired Peter.
“A loaded banana” returned Burroughs.
As the hickory crackled a
melody rolled across the clouds.
“Rossini,” mused Peter.
“The Lone Ranger,” intoned Bill.
They both spun around yelling
“WILLIAM TELL!”
“Hi boys don’t forget to cook that slowly,” said
Joan Vollemer a Smith and Wesson pointed at Burroughs.
Her aim was no better than Bill’s
St Peter fell face first into the Weber.
“Hey Joan …” BLAM
Bill toppled over Peter.

HOUSTON KEYS

The things that had once been Frank and Jim waited. Even as zombies
they faced the question of, “What’s for dinner?”
A yuppie ran past. Frank looked at Jim. Jim tried to say white meat
was too dry, but all that came out was a garbled snarl.
A Chinese guy ran past but Frank didn’t bother, they would be hungry
again in an hour.
The Italian guy running past caused Jim to perk up but Frank hit him
on the arm. Italian food gave him gas.
Suddenly, Laurence Simon ran by. Frank and Jim looked at each other…
“Mazel Tov!”

LAIEANNA

“Dear chef,” said Ivan to the giant, “stew is very appetizing, but with a right blend of ingredients, a barbecue would make you eat like the king. I happen to have a mix in my bag. Let me lather myself in it’s delight. If I’m to be eaten, I wish to be eaten right.”
Compliant, the giant lifted Ivan, who went straight to work stripping and rubbing till he was bright red and slick. Grabbing and slipping, the giant gathered nothing but the tasty sauce. With sticky fingers, he couldn’t resist sitting and licking them while Immortal Ivan got away.

PLANET Z
“Come and get it!!”
“Dad?”
“Yes, son?”
“Why do we grill with mesquite?”
“Son, it’s something that goes back… way back to the days of the Bible.”
“Wow.”
“In fact, that burning bush that spoke to Moses… it was a mesquite bush.”
“Really?”
“After Moses got done talking to it and getting the ten commandments, the Bush was still burning, so Moses leaned those stone tablets together, gathered up some branches, made a smokeshack out of ’em, and made himself some mesquite camel jerky.”
“Dad?”
“Yes, son?”
“You’re so full of shit.”

Dragonhunters

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A team of dragonhunters came to town the other day.
They’d heard that we held a lottery every year to choose a human sacrifice for the dragon that lives in the forest.
Truth is, we do it to figure out who gets stuck giving the dragon his annual scrubdown.
If you think the dragon stinks, you should smell the soap we use. Only a wizard can understand how the two produce “clean dragon” instead of “deadly, toxic stench.”
We’ll let the dragon finish these clowns off.
I just hope I don’t get stuck washing their corpses out of his scales.

Book By Its Cover

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My master says not to judge a book by its cover, but it doesn’t take an archmage to realize that his spellbook’s a pretty nasty bit of business.
At first glance, you notice the silver needles along the binding dripping with poison while the dragonhide cover trails wisps of smoke, right?
But how many people would notice the howling bog-wraiths trapped as the bar code on the back?
I mean, who puts bar codes on the back of a spellbook? It’s not you’re going to want to list it on Amazon with an ISBN, right?
Archmages can be weird sometimes.

One Too Many Words

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One word makes all the difference in the world sometimes.
You can spend hours, even days writing something, trying to capture the moment and get it on the paper or the screen, but you know it’s just not quite right.
It’s missing something. Or, it’s got something in there that just needs snipping off.
That’s the hard part, making a change to something you’ve spent so much time on.
One slip, and the whole piece is ruined, and you have to start over.
You can’t just go back to an earlier draft. It’s just not the same.
Just one word.

Free Samples

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This woman in a chef’s apron was giving out free samples of little sausages in the grocery store.
They were delicious.
“Try the dipping sauce,” said the woman.
And, you know what? They were even better!
I wanted more, so I asked her what brand they were and she said “Oh, they’re toes I collect at the morgue.”
That’s when I noticed the blood on her apron… and on her hands… and in her hair.
I had hardly noticed the little toenails as I chewed the “sausages.”
She grinned, holding the platter up higher.
“So, what dipping sauce is this?”

Files

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I can’t tell you how many times I was told something would go in my permanent file.
I always wondered where they kept those files. And if they bothered to convert all the old records to computer files when hard drives and computers got cheap.
What do they do with those things when people die? Do they burn the paper records and delete the computer files, or do they burn them to a CD or write them to a tape, stacking all the dead records in a box and putting them in a storage room?
Can this be considered immortality?

Dangerous Catch

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We haul in the nets and dump out our catch.
As usual, it’s mostly guitars. Piles and piles of acoustics, with a few electrics here and there.
In the middle of the pile rests one shiny tuba.
Dead or alive, we throw it all back.
“No banjoes,” growls the captain. “Still no banjoes.”
He clomps back into the wheelhouse to light his pipe and scowl for the rest of the trip.
As we prepare the nets for another try, I hear the siren from the Coast Guard.
They’re going to harass us about not having tuba-excluding devices on our nets.