Paperboy

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Teddy’s mother abanoned him.
She stuffed him into a newspaper vending machine instead of leaving him on a doorstep.
Every time someone bought a paper, they’d take a newspaper, but leave him in the machine.
Teddy grew up in that machine, learning to read from the headlines and living on free samples in Sunday editions.
“Hi, people!” Teddy said to people buying papers.
“Hi, Teddy!” people said back. “Bye, Teddy!”
Other machines showed up for alternative newspapers, circulars, weekly rags. What an eyesore!
The city passed a law making newspaper vending machines illegal.
Teddy’s machine vanished. And so did Teddy.

Weekly Challenge #18 – Roosters & Hernias

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Welcome to the eighteenth 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 rooster and hernia.
Nine stories were submitted this week: one of them was a rookie. Oh, and there was one from Planet Z which… which…
I just can’t make myself say it.
Go ahead and listen to them by clicking on the grammophone thingy there in the left column and then vote for your favorite:

Who wrote the best story this week?
The Mystery Man from Planet Z
Libby from Last One Speaks
Lisa from Lemons and Lollipops
Caleb from Black Tie Martini Club Oddcast
Caroline
Andrew of Dodgeblogium
Elisson from blog d’Elisson
T.A. Marquette from Footnote Podcast
Kolek from The Kollektive
Houston Keys
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com


Thanks to everyone for sending in their stories, and I look forward to what you’ve got to write (and say) next week.
The theme will be posted shortly, and for God’s sake don’t blame me for it. You’re the ones who voted.

Sevens

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Back in Springfield, Raul and I would climb up the willow tree, lay back on the branches, and watch the moon through the leaves.
We pondered important things up there.
“Who’d win in a fight: The Magnificent Seven or the Seven Dwarves?” asked Raul.
“I have no idea,” I said. “Let’s find out.”
We looked down from the tree and watched a group of men in Wild West gear square off against brightly-colored little people.
The echoes of gunfire.
The clang of heavy mining equipment.
Blood everywhere.
The dwarves would have lost if the singing broad hadn’t have showed up.

Drag The River

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The last time anyone saw Nancy, she was down by the river.
With men. With guns.
“Drag the river,” I said.
Three days later, the divers had found a few cars, some guns, a lot of knives, and a pool table.
But no Nancy.
“Maybe they stuffed her into the pool table?” I asked.
“No,” said a diver. “We checked.”
“How about in the trunk of one of those cars?” I asked.
“No,” said another diver.
Nancy showed up three days later. She’d been on vacation.
I tried to refurbish the pool table, but it was a total loss.
Damn.

Baroque Bach Mountain

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Johann Sebastian Bach was known for his prowess with a pipe organ.
Johann Cristoph Bach was also a master organist.
Pretty much every Bach was an expert with an organ.
Especially Elton Johann Bach, but I think that’s a different kind of organ, okay?
Elton would frequently vanish to the Schwarzwald mountains with a rather dark friend for fishing trips.
He never did catch any fish, but he caught plenty of diseases.
On his final trip, his brothers showed up at the cabin.
They saw everything.
“Why?” they asked.
“Once you go Black Forest,” Elton wheezed, “you never go back.”

Unflappable

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Chef Jean Boudreaux was eager to be a part of the renaissance of New Orleans, and so he decided to open a restaurant in the French Quarter. But surprisingly, he opened a Chinese restaurant.
Precisely because it was such an unexpected choice of cuisine for its location, “Le Vieux Sécret Chinois” was a smashing success.
Another reason for its success: Chef Boudreaux’s legendary sangfroid. Nothing bothered him.
One time, some dumplings caught fire in the kitchen after having been left in the wok too long. Responding to the excited sous-chef’s shouts, Boudreaux was unflappable.
“Laissez les Won-Tons brûler,” he said.

Biggest Fan

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Hundreds of millions of people adore Guitarman’s music, and every one of them claim to be “Guitarman’s Biggest Fan.”
You see, that’s the title track of his number one album: “Guitarman’s Biggest Fan.”
Would they swallow a snake for him? Hell yes.
Would they jump off of cliff for him? Oh, hell yes.
Some of Guitarman’s fans take the title literally and eat themselves into a bodymass competition.
They keep score online, constantly updating their weight.
Wait… Two-Ton Tommy’s gone? Dead?
Heart attack. The funeral’s Sunday.
That puts me in second place, Mom. Second place!
Pass the mashed potatoes.
Please?

Good Humor

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The little white truck rolled slowly through the suburban neighborhood, its arrival heralded by the intermittent jingling of bells.
Excited customers poured from the houses, clutching shiny quarters. They queued up, jostling each other for position. The truck halted; the driver hopped out, looking jaunty in his starched white shirt. The chrome-plated money changer on his belt caught the sun.
Jimmy was first in line. “Gimme a tube of Astro-Glide, please.”
Mary was next. “I’ll take the Warming K-Y.”
The Lubes-On-Wheels driver smiled. Nothing put his customers in a Good Humor quite like the arrival of the Vice Cream Truck.

Dancester

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They called it Dancester – the place to download dances.
Just put in your credit card, sync up your iMind, and you’re ready to dance like the best dancers do.
Of course, not everyone wants to pay for their dances. That’s when the pirated dances started to appear.
The Lords Of The Dance didn’t like their dances getting ripped off, but Dancester couldn’t do anything to stop it.
So a series of pirated dances commanding dancers to slash their throats appeared on pirate sites.
Nobody could prove anything, but the piracy ended quickly.
The Lords danced for joy at the news.

Manny and the Pickle Factory

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Manny had worked at the Pickle Factory since he was a teenager.
As the years passed, he developed a sick obsession. Day after day, a single thought pounded inside his head: He wanted to stick his dick into the pickle slicer.
Too bashful to discuss his obsession with his wife, he sought psychiatric help. But the drugs the headshrinker prescribed were powerful, filling Manny’s head with an unpleasant metallic buzzing. He stopped taking them.
Eventually, Manny yielded to his impulses.
His supervisor caught him in the act. Horrified, he fired Manny on the spot.
He fired the pickle slicer, too.