Unfree Willy

The irony of the movie Free Willy is that the whale who played Willy, Keiko, wasn’t free at all.
Born and bred in captivity.
Sick a lot of the time, but still forced to perform tricks and act in television and movies.
People were outraged, and a campaign started to free Willy.
Eventually, after a few years, Keiko was freed.
And lonely.
The whale came back, playing with kids in the water.
Which scared the crap out of them.
Keiko eventually got sick again, was recaptured by veterinarians, and died.
Thankfully, Hollywood isn’t rebooting Free Willy movies anytime soon.

Teddy can’t be found

You won’t find Teddy in Housewares.
He’s usually sneaking a spray paint can or two back by the dumpster.
And when he comes back, yeah, he’s got that smile on his face, total blissing out.
It’s been happening for weeks, and when customers finally complained about broken seals on the cans, the manager fired Teddy.
Then he went in back and saw the wall… the mural… it was… gorgeous.
Teddy was an instant celebrity, invited to spray his masterpieces everywhere.
Then one morning, he was found dead in an alley.
That smile on his face? He’d also been shooting heroin.

Testing access

Long ago, I worked in the call center for a hosting company.
They offered dialup access, webhosting, a server farm, and domain registration.
Every call needed to be verified.
If the caller didn’t know the password, we’d send them to Customer Service to verify.
Some would say they didn’t have it with them, others would say their tech person quit.
Didn’t matter. Everyone had to be verified.
Sometimes, the CEO would call, trying to get into a customer’s account to test us.
He’d scream and yell and threaten.
I’d just say “Transferring to you to Customer Service…” and hang up.

Pigpen

In the comics, nobody knows Pigpen’s name.
My theory is that his last name is Thigpen, but people keep mishearing him because of a speech impediment.
You don’t hear it in the television specials because they didn’t do that kind of thing back in the Sixties and Seventies.
Maybe they’ll do it now and call it a diversity and inclusion effort?
While race-swapping half the characters, including Charlie Brown’s sister Sally.
Maybe Charlie Brown’s mom had a thing for Franklin’s dad or something.
Make Snoopy trans, self-identifying as a cat, and reboot Pigpen as gay.
(Which would explain the lisp.)

Book deal

Martin got himself another book deal.
It’s his fifth, and like the previous four, he’s dedicating it to vodka.
You see, Martin can only write when he’s drunk.
It’s doing a number on his liver, but there’s the numbers his publisher tells his agent, and the numbers in Martin’s bank account.
Those numbers are a factor, too.
Martin used to write in a nearby bar, but he got into way too many fights.
So he drinks alone, writes alone.
Wakes up on the floor and looks at what he’s scribbled up.
And sends it off to the publisher to decipher.

Weekly Challenge #925 – Pester

The next topic is Crack

TOM

Drive to distraction

My wife is a Family Nurse Practitioner. Damn good one imho. Early in all FNP careers’ is the lure of the prescription pad. The power to be a min drug cartel. The perks. In the old days lavish amounts of food delivered by perky drug rep-s. Enough Chinese takeout to chock a bull moose. And the industry itself in the veiled cover of a “lecture presentation” where samples are shelled out like gum balls. At some point the lure fades. This is driven by how most patients will pester them to death to get the goodies. Yes the lure fades.

The Big Board

There are few Scoreboards in the country that bring deeper reverence then the scoreboard in Wrigley Field. Watch the crowd after ever major play. All eyes inward and in a beat all eyes at the scoreboard. In Chicago it isn’t real until it’s on the scoreboard. The coolest part of the board is knowing ever change in a game near or far is shown on 35 pounds plates turned by hand. In the age of electronic, keeping score by hand gives considerable charm to the Wrigley experience. My dad was born in the shadow of that nearly century old scoreboard.

NORVAL JOE

They all followed Linoliumanda across the meadow. Sabrina alone, sneered. “That is so stupid. How can you be pestered by people using your given name?”
Linolimanda’s cheeks reddened. “It’s not stupid. Everyone should have the right to be called what they want.”
Just then, high pitched barking stole their attention. They all turned to see a little brown and beige dog that looked as much like an ewok, running toward them.
It was then that Billbert saw the Black Knights climbing from the sink hole.
Buhmilda clapped her hands and shouted, “Good dog, Mr. Trump! Everyone. Get the Black Knights.”

LIZZIE

Those YOU posters… YOU must apply. YOU must, YOU.
Wear something proper. Speak correctly. You don’t want to sound like a moron, do you?
No. But he didn’t want to be pestered all day long about a job he didn’t want either.
Look at that, the future of our nation, that poster says it all, aren’t you proud?
He was annoyed. Proud? No. So, he spent the whole night slashing them. The scandal! That’s how the I’m-Not-An-Asset movement started.
100 years later, employees were still an asset, in the worst possible way… He went from annoyed to angry, murderously angry.

SERENDIPIDY

I have one of those cards in my window, politely asking religious callers, salespeople, canvassers and politicians not to pester me.

It makes no difference of course. Either people can’t read, or choose to ignore my wishes.

That’s just rude.

So, I have no qualms about backing up my request with machine guns, machetes, and the pit of spikes beneath the welcome mat, should anyone choose to press their luck.

What’s more, nobody can say they weren’t warned.

It’s all covered in full: there, at the bottom, in the fine print.

Although, you probably didn’t bother to read that either?

LISA

A big ask

We realised shortly after asking for the pillows that he wasn’t the big bad wolf after all. We could just ask him for things. For many of us, used to pestering parents for bits, this was better than at home. Here we were seemingly getting every desire granted.

It was the natural next step really and this time I was nominated spokesperson, it was a wish we all shared. I thought long and hard about choosing my moment but then just blurted it out when he came down the next morning:

“Can we come out of the basement please? “

RICHARD

Leave me alone!

Internet ads don’t bother me, neither does spam email, mainly because I rarely see either. All taken care of, thanks to decent ad blocking software and spam filters.

Internet bliss!

The same can’t be said for my computer desktop. It seems that every app and programme feels the need to bombard me with nag screens on start-up, shutdown and random intervals during use.

If I want to upgrade, subscribe or trial new software, then I’ll do so – I don’t need you to pester me constantly.

In fact, the more you hassle me, the less inclined I am to do it!

PLANET Z

If I sit on the sofa for more than a minute, my cat runs to the sofa and jumps on me.
Claws out. Not good.
She will cling to my shoulder or circle a bit before laying in my lap.
It makes it hard to type or reach the remote or a beverage.
So I say GET DOWN and shove her aside.
She scampers off for a bit, then comes back.
This repeats until I put down treats or whipped cream on a plate.
She’ll eat, then find somewhere to nap.
Usually on my lap, repeating the cycle once again.

CHATGPT

In the desolate town, whispers of a cursed word, “pester,” echoed through the chilling winds. Locals spoke of a haunted book, its pages filled with unsettling tales. Curiosity consumed Tom as he uncovered the ominous volume in an ancient library. Ignoring warnings, he read aloud the forbidden passages, unknowingly inviting a malevolent force. From that moment, eerie shadows lurked, and unseen hands brushed his skin. The word “pester” etched itself on his nightmares. As Tom spiraled into madness, incessant whispers surrounded him. The town, now void of life, echoed with a sinister laughter—a haunting reminder of the relentless entity that pestered his very soul.

Old Hollywood

Harry was the last of Old Hollywood.
Back before television. When everyone had been in the war.
Big mansions, servants.
Parties every weekend.
The studio provided the publicists and the cars and everything else.
Harry provided the face and the box office.
And then, the studios stopped calling.
Harry’s agent told him that the times had changed.
Harry’s accountant said there was enough to last a lifetime.
So, Harry retired, fired his agent and accountant, and went traveling.
People would ask him for his autograph, and he gladly gave it and posed for photos.
And he lived happily ever after.

Row row row – Take 2

Billy got into a boat, pushed off from the dock, and tried to row it gently down the stream.
But the stream wasn’t deep enough, and the boat kept hitting the bottom, so Billy had to keep pushing off, and occasionally getting out and dragging the boat by a rope and then flopping back in.
After ten minutes, there was nothing merrily about Billy.
He was fuming mad, and he eventually abandoned the boat and walked to shore.
He swore that the next time he got drunk enough to steal a boat, he’d go to a river or a lake.

Passes over the years

It used to be that I’d pay my bus fare with quarters.
Then they added a dollar slot.
You could stick in a fiver, but it wouldn’t give change.
Monthly and yearly passes were cheap… then discontinued.
You can get overpriced paper daily passes from the tram stops and regional centers.
After that came the electronic cards.
They handled transfers great, but it cost fifty bucks to replace when you lost one.
Finally, they made an app for fare passes.
It shows an animated picture of a bus pass with a timestamp.
Which is really easy to fake in Gimp.

Minotaur and Cake

The kids liked to build mazes for the mice to run around in.
I would tell them how would you like to be dropped in a maze and forced to roam around for dinner.
So, I bought virtual headsets, plugged them into an immersion computer, and forced the kids to solve a maze.
Win and get dessert, or lose and get Brussels Sprouts.
Bobby and Danny were good at it, but Ricky always seemed to get eaten.
They feeding him to the minotaur to distract the beast.
Ricky got a slice of cake.
And I, the minotaur, got the rest.