I bought a pair of running shoes with built-in computer chips that track how far and fast you run.
Just wave the shoes over your laptop, and it uploads all the information to a website, complete with maps and calories.
One morning, I looked at the chart, and it said I had run all the way to bank and back overnight.
I don’t remember doing that.
Had I been sleepwalking? Or sleepjogging?
I got my shoes out of the closet, and a bag of money fell off a shelf.
Apparently, I’d been sleepbankrobbing.
At least the shoes paid for themselves.
Tag: crime
Masterpieces
Miyuki paints masterpieces.
She’s an art restorer. She touches up and fixes damaged paintings
She’s the best art restorer in the world, fixing everything: vandalism, neglect, smoke damage.
But it brings her no joy.
She wants to paint her own works. Instead of little bits of Renoir or Matisse, she wants to see a Miyuki in the gallery. A Miyuki exhibition.
Years of restoring others wore her down, and then… snap.
She painted over a Picasso, and…
It was beautiful. Magnificent. Her masterpiece.
And sent to another restorer to remove.
Someone stole a Rembrandt?
It’s Miyuki.
She needs more canvases.
Cords
I have no sympathy for people who forget their laptop power cords.
I plan ahead, so I’ve got a spare cord at work, and one at home.
Plus, there’s one in my laptop bag, so I’m never without a power cord for my laptop.
Then, there’s the four cords I keep in this van.
Those are the ones I tied you up with after you whined about forgetting your power cord.
Scream all you want. It has soundproofed walls.
Sure, I could strangle you with the power cord in my laptop bag, but I prefer to use my bare hands.
Tunnels
The Downtown Tunnel system under Houston is full of stores, restaurants, barber shops, and places to get your errands done during lunch without having to go out in the rain.
It’s also handy for getting to the garage you parked at without getting harassed by homeless people.
Most people walking around the tunnels are business people, wearing suits or casual, or security guards. But now and then, you spot a beggar or bum.
I sit down at a table outside a restaurant and count.
One.
Two.
Three.
A guard walks up, guides the bum to a stairwell.
A new record.
My Mother
My mom is not my mother.
My real mother died young.
I have no memory of her.
I only remember my stepmother.
Who I called mom.
Because I knew no other.
They hid her from me.
My real mother.
So when I learned the truth.
The new truth.
That my mom.
Was not my real mother.
I have no memory of her.
Just the memories.
That my imagination makes.
When I see photographs.
Newspaper clippings.
Kidnapped. And never found.
Kidnapped by my father.
Like every other mother I’ve had.
Well, the ones I remember.
I loved them all.
My mother.
Inside Information
Ted’s an Afterlife Coach, helping the recently departed deal with post traumatic death syndrome and other issues.
He likes to say he gets ghosts to believe in themselves.
You’d think it’s hard for him to get paid. Dead people don’t carry cash. Their assets are usually frozen or bequeathed to family or given to charity.
And so few people actually have wall safes full of cash or buried gold coins in the back yard.
But when you can talk to spirits, the dead have plenty of dirt on the living.
Blackmail’s such a dirty word.
Let’s call it “Inside information.”
Who watches?
Who watches the watchmen?
I do. I’m their supervisor.
I keep track of them with this computer. It tells me when they tap their badge against the checkpoints in the bank headquarters.
But it’s not like we do much good walking around. The cleaning crew steals stuff all the time, putting it in their carts.
And employees walk out with thumb drives full of sensitive data.
Oh, and those million-dollar bonuses executives paid themselves after the bailout? The biggest theft of all.
The biggest crimes happen in broad daylight, while my team just walks around an empty building at night.
The Voices In Sally’s Head
Sally hears voices in her head.
But instead of telling her to go wild, set fires and kill people, they tell her to go straight home and clean her room.
They even help her with her Chemistry homework.
“Boyle’s Law is pressure times volume equals a constant,” says a voice. “It’s Charles’ Law that involves temperature.”
Sally smiles, puts down the Chemistry book, and moves over to Physics.
Oh, sure… eventually they told her to burn down the school and kill her classmates.
Then they told her to go home and clean her room.
The cops didn’t find any evidence.
Blood Money Hostage
The kidnapper wanted to send a unique ransom note, so he sliced the message into the stomach of his hostage and pressed a sheet of paper against it.
He pulled the sheet off and…
Damn it. The words were backwards.
So, he flipped her over, and tried again on her back.
He still got a few letters reversed.
The third time, he tried to use her ass, but she was thrashing around a lot, making it hard to get a clean transfer.
Dipping a quill in the blood, he wrote the note by hand.
And she bled to death.
Oops.
Fishy Witness
They say that goldfish only have seven seconds of memory.
They swim by something, see it, and then forget.
Which is why you’ll rarely see a goldfish called as a witness in a murder trial.
Sure, some lesser-experienced and desperate district attorneys will try anyway, and they end up staring at a fish for an hour before the judge tosses their case out the window.
Still, when a Mafia boss says “Leave no witnesses” to his men, they take it seriously.
Flush it.
Cook it.
Feed it to the cat.
I just knock over the bowl.
Accidents can be caused.