Repeater

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Billy The Repeater is in the neighborhood, repeating everything that everyone says.
It used to be cute how he did it, but it’s gotten really annoying.
I can tell Billy is exhausted, too. The strain on his face as he mimics everything I say shows his exhaustion.
We tried to cut his tongue out, but now he mumbles and slurs everything.
That’s not so great, especially when I really need Billy to repeat something I can’t remember saying, but Billy remembers.
“What did I say, Billy?” I ask.
“Whafff di Ah sehhhhh Buhhhhhheeeee,” he mumbles.
As I said, really annoying.

Please

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I looked at the note in the victim’s hand.
“Please…”
One word, three dots.
That’s all that was on the note.
Nothing else.
“Please… do what?” asked Sam.
“I have no idea,” I said. “The rest’s blank.”
“At least they’re polite,” said Sam. “Want a beer?”
“Yeah,” I said.
So we went to the bar.
The bartender asked me if I wanted the usual.
“Please,” I said, nodding.
Sam looked at me. And then…
“No, that’s not it,” he said.
We never did solve the mystery of who wrote the note or what it meant.
The victim’s just as dead.

With Everything

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I didn’t feel like cooking, so I called the local pizza joint and asked them to send me a large pizza with everything.
“Everything?” they ask.
“Yes, everything,” I reply.
They pause a moment, I hear… breathing.
“Everything???????”
“Yes! Everything!”
The voice on the other end of the line is crumbling with fear and rage. “Oh… my… God! You sick monster!”
And then, the sound of a heavy metal blade hitting wood and a piercing scream.
I hang up quickly.
What have I done? What exactly is everything?
I need to lock the door. I need to hide.
Stay…. away!

It comes with the territory

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It doesn’t matter where you go.
Right around the corner.
Paris.
The Moon.
There’s always drama.
You get two folks together, best of friends, and something’s going to happen between them
Heck, you could be the last person in the world, and you’ll pull off a sock, put it on your hand, and have drama with Mister Socky.
On the other hand, quite literally, that’s what Mrs. Socky is for. She’s there to keep Mister Socky in line.
See? Just the three of us, enjoying the end of the world.
My feet are cold. But that’s okay, because we’re together.

Shopper

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Susan held the can of peas in her hands and thought for a moment… how did she know that there were peas in there?
She grabbed a can of corn from the shelf and looked at it. Was she certain it contained corn?
She took a razor blade and peeled off the labels from the cans, switched them, and smoothed them over the dribble of glue on the can’s seal.
What was in each can now? Was there corn in the corn can and peas in the pea can?
She put them back on the shelf to maintain the mystery.

Weekly Challenge #69 – Yeshiva

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Welcome to the sixty-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 of the Footnote Podcast, and it was: Yeshiva.
The excellent theme music is by Guy David
SOMETHING NEW
Due to popular demand, I am going to include stories that were sent to me, but without a recording. However, since the midget has left for sunny Coral Gables, Florida, those stories will just be posted in the show notes. You’re more than welcome to vote for them, but they will be ineligible for prizes or topic selection.
I feel that this is a fair balance between the podcast and blog natures of this content.
Feel free to share your thoughts on this decision in the comments, and we might possibly come up with an even better and more fair policy for handling these kinds of situations.
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 were the best stories in Weekly Challenge #69?
Caleb from Black Tie Martini Club
Elisson of blog d’Elisson
Tom from Footnote
Guy David from Guy David dot com
J.D. White
Laieanna at Hodgepodge Point
Chris from Not Platypus Society
Zigmund Z. Zoworski
  
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!

CALEB

The Hindu God, Shiva
Went to the Yeshiva
To see what these Jewish dudes do
But he found that the torah
Is kind of a bore
And the baghavad gita is really much sweeter
Then came young Siddartha
Who spoke from the heart and
Said you are all just an illusion
From Hindus to Jews
You play and you loose
And create such a raucous confusion
Jesus and Allah
They fought in some wars
While the Taoists just planted a garden
But the Truth lies you see
Down in the valley
Twixt the rounded hills of Dolly Parton
Shes Big!

ELISSON

Yossel Yourish was one of the brightest minds in the yeshiva.
He was pondering an extremely scholarly matter, one that had been propounded to him by Professor Propis.
He spent days consulting various Learned Texts. The Shulchan Orekh, the Babylonian Talmud, the Torah commentaries of Rashi and the great Rambam: Maimonides himself. Despite all this, he struggled to find an answer.
The question: Was it permissible for a female student to use a bladed instrument to remove superfluous hair from her intimate personal region?
Of course not, decided Yossel at last. You could never shave a beaver at the yeshiva!

TOM

Little Timmy Martin’s parents were at wits end. The contrary child had chewed through every educational environment within a 200 mile radius. Montessori Military school, Court school, Catholic, Lutheran, Muslim.
The Martin’s had one option left Yeshiva. Surprisingly Timmy took to Talmud and Torah like a terrier with a towel in its teeth. His treatise on Cooking Milk in a Meat Pot was the Kobayashi Maru of Halakhah. Professor Zvi Sobolofsky asked Timmy if he might consider a Rabbinical career. And this is how it came to past that Temple Beth Bart Simpson is lead in pray by Rabbi Timmy.

GUY

Yantzel, Yantzel, Yantzel, what are we going to do with you?
You know, there’s a reason this is called a Yeshiva, you see… the word Yeshiva means sitting down… on your ass. You sit and study on the Torah. Quietly. You don’t go around flying paper airplanes on your Yeshiva mates, you don’t go around putting fake plastic members of the reptilian family on the floor and shout “the dinosaurs, they are coming alive”, You don’t put ice in my pants, you don’t go around handing notes to your fellow Yeshiva friends and you certainly don’t play with your yak.

JD WHITE

The muzzle of the steel blue .45 left a small round indention above my temple.
The blackness in my brain was clearing and my eyes again could focus on the stained, gray tile of the bathroom floor.
Blood trickled to the tile as the lump on the back of my head throbbed with each beat of my heart.
At least my heart was still beating, for now.
To my ears came the heavy click of the gun’s hammer, and that gave the answer to my unasked question.
I had come to the yeshiva to learn, and they were teaching me.

LAIEANNA

“See anything yet?”
“No.”
“I’m starving. We have to find something soon.”
“Well if you weren’t so scared to stop and ask, someone might be able to help.”
“I’m not scared! In fact, I’ll ask that guy right there. Excuse me sir, where’s a good place to eat around here?”
“There’s a lovely restaurant three blocks down. See Yeshiva? Just around the corner.”
“Thanks.”
“Did he just call me She-Ra? What was that about?”
“Probably a compliment. Relax.”
“I’m not even blonde!”
“Did you see his cool hat? Wonder if I can get one of those before we leave town.”

CHRIS

Hello Clarice, me again.
I heard you just got digital cable. Tell me, did you consider switching to satellite? Satellite providers offer many programming packages at prices much cheaper than cable. Or did you stay with cable because that was what you’ve always had, what you’re comfortable with, to afraid to consider change? We both know the answer to that one.
I hope you at least sprung for the DVR upgrade. The History Channel is running a documentary on Yeshiva at the same time as America’s Got Talent. You won’t be able to watch both.
Well, gotta run. Ta ta.

ZIGMUD Z. ZOROWSKI

It is my first day in yeshiva.
I come from a long line of Torah scholars of decreasing expertise, and the teachers wonder if I will continue that downward spiral into duncehood.
Sure enough, upon first interpretation, I’m chanting random nonsense that has the whole class laughing and accusing me of blasphemy.
The rabbi stomps to my desk, peers at my family’s cherished and valuable scroll, and gasps with horror.
Through the generations, tiny pinpricks of mold have grown in the writing, adding vowel-dots in random places.
The Pentateuch’s graceful and sagely wisdom, rendered into meaningless, illiterate Hebrew babble.

OTHER CRAP:
Lincoln Freak thinks Caleb’s Lincoln stories are better than mine. Heh. Indeed.
SL Woodstock begins in 6 days. Wow.
Carnal Knowledge is a book by one of my favorite daily podcasters, Charles Hodgson. I owe this podcast’s continues survival to his inspiration, since I often come up with my stories around the words he reviews and tales he spins about their odd origins.
There’s some kind of write-a-review podcast contest out there at Podcast Pickle going on.
Write reviews, win prizes. That sort of thing.
There’s also a way to write reviews for this podcast in iTunes and other directories.
Your Mostly Fearless Leader doesn’t command you to do so, but he is somewhat whinily cajoling and imploring you to do so.
Let a tiny slice of the world know how much you like or don’t like or could care less about this not-quite-so-bold endeavor.
Thank you.

Product Testing

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When I was growing up, we lived in Deerfield, which was next to Northbrook, and that’s where Underwriter’s Laboratories was.
We went on a tour, and I saw smart people in white lab coats, breaking things all day long.
When we got home, the first thing I did was break something.
“See!” I said, happily. “I’m smart!”
“You moron!” said my brother. “Why did you do that?”
“I’m testing products to see if they’re safe,” I said.
“I think Nana Ruth’s vase was safe,” said my brother, and he told Mom.
Soon afterwards, Dad tested his belt across my ass.

Tradition

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Hard to believe, but it was only two generations ago that his ancestors were scratching out meager livings in the /shtetls/ of Eastern Europe.
You say you didn’t know he was Jewish? That’s OK: Not many people do. It’s a well-guarded secret. Comes from a Hasidic sect famous for commercial real estate development.
But by 1915, it was no longer possible to make a living in the little village of Combov. That’s when Hyman Trumpowitz, the family patriarch, came to America.
The rest is history. Today, with shortened name, Donald Trump carries on the fine tradition of the Combover Hasidim.

Don Gone

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Last week, I was drinking Irish Mist and playing whist with Bill Frist. And he had his shorts in a twist.
What was on his mind? Here’s the gist:
Said Frist, “I miss Imus.”
Continued Frist, “Sure, Imus was remiss, laying down a gratuitous dis. A lotta people were pissed. Said it was heinous.
“But in spite of all this, I miss Imus.
“It’s not like Imus said ‘penis.’ Something like that’d never come between us.
“But he said ‘nappy’ and got the Bitch-Slappy, Pappy. Now, are you happy? Me, I think it’s crappy.
“What’s next? Will they burn Stern?”

The Hunt

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When the sun goes down, vampires wake up from their slumber and roam the countryside.
Here’s my question: do the vampire hunters come out and hunt them?
Back in the romantic days of vampire hunting, yes. They would face off with the vampires under the moonlight.
But then, vampire hunters started to use technology to seek out and hunt vampires during the day, rooting out their hiding places and destroying them while they were defenseless.
Now, it’s a mix of those daytime operations and some highly sophisticated tracking methods at night.
One day, all the vampires will be defeated.
Hallelujah.