Weekly Challenge #959 – Package

The next topic is Icing on the cake

SERENDIPIDY

I offer a range of services, from the basic ‘catch and despatch’, right through to my ‘Executive Gold’ package.
I know you might be tempted to take the cheaper options but, trust me, gold is definitely the way to go.
It’s fully inclusive: The initial execution of the subject, disposal of the body, and clean-up of the scene. Nothing to worry about; no loose ends for you to tie-up, and complete peace of mind.
Not forgetting the optional extras! But, we can discuss those once you’ve paid your deposit.
Half in cash, up front. The balance on completion.

TOM

Something New under the sun.

Historians label epoch of human development by the central material that advanced them from the previous one. Stone age Iron age Bronze age Steel age Silicon age through the Diamond age. But sometime progress ends up in the ditch. In 2337 all the fossil fuels were gone and I mean the tree to. A thick layer in the atmosphere made Solar less then optimal. People power held everything together. To get goods and products any where in the world. It was done with feet and hands, many feet and many hands. We romantically refer to this time as the Pack-age.

NORVAL JOE

Billbert got out of bed, helped Sabrina up and dragged her downstairs. In the family room he cleared some pillows, blankets, and an unopened Amazon package off the couch.
He pointed.”You can sit here.”
When she did, he sat next to her, pushed a button and raised their feet.
“Now, you can hold my hand, if you want, and there won’t be any accidents.”
“Accidents?” She asked, taking his hand and cuddling up to him, one of her squishy bits pressing against his ribs.
Billbert Froze. He thought Sabrina was only going to hold his hand. What would Linoliamanda think?

RICHARD

On its way
It’s on its way… apparently.
The tracker said, my package would arrive by Wednesday. That was two days ago, and still no delivery.
Now the website says it’ll arrive today, between ten forty-two AM and ten forty-two PM. Great, that’s only potentially twelve hours I’ll have to hang around indoors, scared to take trips to the bathroom in case I miss the damn thing arriving.
Why on earth can’t they be more precise?
I mean, they can land a probe on a comet with pinpoint accuracy, within a tiny time frame.
Why so hard, for a simple parcel?

LIZZIE

What do you do? I fight demons.
Whose? Mine and hers.
Why? Because her demons feed off of mine. Her demons eat me alive and become stronger.
Silence.
When did this start? Since the beginning, but I only noticed it a few years ago. I didn’t know I had demons. I didn’t know she had demons. I certainly didn’t know I would have to fight.
Silence.
Is that from a film? No.
Because I sent you a package with a bunch of films. It’s not from a film.
Have you been sleeping? No.
Silence.
Are you winning the fight? No.

PLANET Z

I like birds and bird feeders, so I bought a bird feeder and a freestanding hook to hang it from.
Squirrels kept spilling the bird seed all over the ground.
So I bought a squirrel-proof bird feeder, and the squirrels still spilled the seed everywhere.
I kept buying different bird feeders, and squirrels kept making messes.
Package after package arrived, all disappointing.
A friend suggested I get a baffle for the hook to keep squirrels off of the pole, and it worked.
No more squirrels making a mess.
And no more birds, because it’s winter, and they’ve all flown south.

George in the life boat

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
The other pirates were okay with this, and they picked up the slack.
“We don’t succeed or fail as individuals,” said the captain. “We do everything as a team.”
So, when George accidentally fired a cannon into the hull and sank the ship, his crewmates didn’t mind at all.
“This is why we have the lifeboat,” they said as they piled in.
But when George tried to get in, they threw him overboard.
“Not that we want to take chances,” they said.
He watched them as they rowed away.

George and jury duty

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Pirate ships don’t get regular mail service, but somehow George got a letter.
“Jury duty,” George growled.
Three weeks later, George was taking off his boots and hat, and setting his swords into a plastic tub.
“Are these real?” said the security guard.
“The letter said business casual,” said George, smiling. “Otherwise I’d have brought all my daggers and flintlocks.”
The guard looked at George’s letter, entered a code in his terminal, and said “Not of sound mind, exempted.”
George gathered his stuff and went back to the ship.

Fearsome George

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Why? Because he had a lot of fear, and his therapist told him that he needed to face his fear.
Joseph Campbell said that “In the deepest caves, we find our darkest fear.”
So, George looked for the deepest caves, and he found his darkest fear.
He came across a massive underground auditorium.
And he was asked to give a public speech.
In only his underwear.
“Oh my God,” said George. “My darkest fear!”
Oh, and there were spiders. Lots of spiders.
Because George was afraid of spiders, too.

George and the painting

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
After looking at a Paul Gauguin painting of naked Tahiti women doing various things, George took the title to heart and asked himself…
“Where do we come from?” The ship. George came from the ship.
“What are we?” We are pirates. We loot and steal and stuff.
“Where are we going?” To a fence to sell this painting I’m about to steal.
George took the painting off of the wall, rolled it up, and ran for the exit.
The fence George found turned out to be an undercover cop.

George and the X

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He walked along the beach, listening to the waves roll in.
Where did he bury that treasure chest?
Of course he’d marked the spot with an X. Every good pirate knows that.
But every good pirate marks the spot with an X on a map.
George had marked the spot with an X in the sand.
Which, with the first high tide, the waves had washed away.
George sat down and sighed. “This really sucks.”
He thought about eating lunch, but he’d left his lunch in the treasure chest.

Scrum Master George

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
At first, the other pirates thought it was George, but the overall performance of the crew was declining.
So the captain divided the crew up into Scrum-Agile teams.
“Break up your weekly duties into tasks,” said the captain. “Then determine the effort they will take to accomplish.”
Simple tasks were easy to score, but complex tasks were harder.
“I can’t throw more than a five because of my hook,” complained Lefty.
Scrummaster George divided the tasks into smaller sub-tasks.
“Forget it,” said Lefty, drawing his cutlass. “Back to Kanban!”

Weekly Challenge #958 – Unsafe

The next topic is Package

LIZZIE

It was dark. The swamp was weird. It bubbled, for some mysterious reason. And she had to step into it to prove herself, they said, to be part of the gang. The whole thing was pathetic, of course. But you’ll only be cool at school if the cool kids accept you. So, the swamp it was. Good thing she had a flashlight. She pointed at the others just to make sure they were still there. And it took exactly 0.4 seconds for the thing to snack on them. They were gone. Well, guess I’m the coolest kid now, she thought.It was dark. The swamp was weird. It bubbled, for some mysterious reason. And she had to step into it to prove herself, they said, to be part of the gang. The whole thing was pathetic, of course. But you’ll only be cool at school if the cool kids accept you. So, the swamp it was. Good thing she had a flashlight. She pointed at the others just to make sure they were still there. And it took exactly 0.4 seconds for the thing to snack on them. They were gone. Well, guess I’m the coolest kid now, she thought.

RICHARD

– ​NSFW –
The email was sent by a vague acquaintance, ‘Thought you might like to see these’ was the subject line.
I had my doubts. It was full of links to dubiously named websites, and the slightly ominous preface, ‘Warning: Not safe for work’.
Since he’d sent it to my work email, and there was no way I was going to forward it to my personal address, I reckoned I’d take a chance.
I waited for a quiet moment, then clicked a few – they all seemed broken.
Like work’s IT system.
Wrecked, by a virus, from stupidly clicking an email link.

TOM

Bottle Red Bottle White

Lenny took a sit at the back of the bar. As his saintly mother would say “with your back to the wall.” He had clear sight of the door as he ate his linguine. When the waiter moved on his right side he keep him in his peripheral vision. In the world Lenny lived being unsafe meant being un-alive. He kept sufficient fire power under his regular table. The one with hinged steel plate. He might have been a wise guy but as the bullets from the bathroom behind him hit in the back the linguine turned a bit redder.

SERENDIPIDY

My lawyer maintained my conviction was unsafe.
The villagers disagreed.
The evidence was crystal clear, they argued. I owned a black cat, I had a weird birthmark, and a third nipple… Probably.
Nobody was willing to actually check that out.
Then there were the failing crops that had blighted the village since my arrival, and the fact that I never went to church.
Mostly circumstantial evidence, protested my lawyer, and he did his job well. My conviction was overturned, and I was free.
Unfortunately for him, the villagers were right. And they knew it.
Now he’s the one who’s unsafe!

NORVAL JOE

Billbert woke in the dark. He lay on his back and his arm hung off the side of the bed. His hand rested on something soft and warm that rose and fell in a slow steady rhythm. When he poked it with his finger, it was squishy.
“Sabrina!” Billbert shouted as he sat up. “What are you doing in here? Did you feel unsafe?”
“I couldn’t sleep.” She looked up at him. “I thought if I held your hand, I could relax. I guess I fell asleep.”
“I guess you did,” Billbert mumbled. “That wasn’t your hand I was holding.”

PLANET Z

Ikea says you should bolt the dresser to the wall to keep it from tipping over.
Otherwise, a kid could open the top drawers and have the thing crush them.
So, I did.
And the dresser has yet to tip over.
Even when a tornado struck the neighborhood and everything was destroyed, the dresser was still standing.
“It’s a miracle,” said my wife.
I took a photo of the thing and sent it to Ikea.
“Here, take one of me,” I said, handing my phone to my wife.
That’s when the damned thing tipped over and crushed me to death.

Someone may have run a background check on you

It amuses me when I get Spam that says someone may have run a background check on me.
Go ahead. Run a background check.
You’ll find the usual stuff: a decent education, a car note, and a good credit rating.
And a rap sheet as long as your arm.
Every line on it, a vicious assault on a spammer.
No jury would convict me, because everyone’s sick of spam.
It’s not hard to find the source of spam.
I track it down, run my own check, and get an address.
Then I get out my baseball bat and car keys.

Helter Skelter

I knew a girl named Helter Skelter.
I shit you not, it was her legal name.
And not a joke name, picked out as an adult.
And it certainly wasn’t a stage name, like actors pick out when their legal name is already registered with the union.
Or their birth name is something boring or strange, like John Wayne being Marion and Norma Jean becoming Marilyn Monroe.
Was it her birth name?
No. She was born Helter Smith.
When her parents died in a car wreck, she was adopted by the Skelter family.
And that’s when she became Helter Skelter.