I made this from a friend’s social media. She posted a short video of her scaring her husband. Something about it tickled my funny bone.
Instead of obsessing over making the song in my head, I made something that would scratch the itch of wanting to do ‘something’ without spending 15 hours making a song I’d end up hating.
I laugh at this one!
X
A word of praise: The larger Kroger in Hot Springs was both amazing and depressing.
Old age has its pleasures.
It’s awesome to see the shores of the Pacific. But it’s epic to find new delicious foods to shove into one’s gullet.
The Kroger in question was a sight to behold, in part due to the wide selection of food, both healthy and otherwise. There were at least 30 items that I would gladly substitute as my entire diet if I could.
It was depressing, though, because I knew I’d leave and come back to NWA, where none of the competition has such a spectacular cross-section of items, price, and quality. It’s true that I can visit 3 different stores and probably approximate what I’d buy in one visit to Kroger.
I know that a “super” Kroger isn’t common. But if you’ll permit me to dream for a moment, I’ll ask for world peace, total nonviolence among nations, and that Kroger builds a replica of the Hot Springs store near my house. I wrote Kroger to let them know how much I look forward to them building a store near me.
P.S. You can remove all the Walmart Neighborhood markets and relocate them to Nebraska.
Thanks.
“Hate has no home here,” the sign said.
True. But it certainly pays its share of the rent.
“Stop a problem early.” That is why I kidnapped that SOB driving the ice cream truck around the neighborhood blaring that horrible music. #AprilSurprise
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I knew my doctor didn’t really like me. When I told him I was having breathing problems, he prescribed me an exhaler.
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Possible causes of anger:
1) Perceptive awareness
2) Underwear two sizes too small
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It turns out that the addition of a “Caution: crate contains 1 vampire” sign adds just the right amount of confused double-takes and laughter to the day…
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“He was so dangerous that the judge set the bond just for his booking photo at 1 million dollars.” – opening line from my next true-crime novel.
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Blank stare. That’s all I got when I told my co-worker that Neil Diamond’s classic song “Sweet Caroline” was actually a homage to cannibalism.
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To calculate the area of a circle, just multiply the radius squared by pi. To calculate the incoherence of the current president, just look at the face of his full-time sign language interpreter – the one with occupational Tourette Syndrome and arthritic middle finger.
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For everyone who is taking the time to early vote for me in Washington County, I’d like to take this opportunity to tell you that you’re probably high.
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“…it was a place where one simply knew that family trees weren’t fully-branched…” -X
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Early this morning as I exited the auxiliary building, I heard high-pitched screaming and shouts of pain and anguish. False alarm. Someone was sitting in their car listening to a Luke Bryan song with the windows down.
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I ain’t saying the officer was racist, but he did have an ACLFU bumper sticker on his patrol car.
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This joke was written specifically to irritate a friend of mine: “I don’t mind that Chik-fil-A is closed on Sundays. I just wish they’d take a good idea and make it great by closing the other 6 days of the week, too.”
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I took a long walk this morning on strange roads, before the sun arrived. Later, I opted to walk again, even though it was apparently 150 degrees here.
To the drivers on St. Loius St., my apologies. As I walked up the long, slow incline heading toward downtown Batesville, a vengeful bug flew into my left nostril. Not content with being stuck there in my nasal cavern, it struggled and burrowed. I immediately convulsed like I had just attended a Cook-Your-Own-Skunk competition. I’m not sure how long I attempted to expel the insect invader.
But it did choose to exit through the back of my nose and from my mouth. The result looked like a madman’s spilled petri dish.
My nose feels like my ears do when I listen to Luke Bryan attempt a series of high notes without causing the neighborhood dogs to bark and howl.
Bugs: 1. X: 0
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I knew the movie was going to be crappy. The standard warning had been modified to say, “…this feature is intended for manure audiences only.”
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I don’t agree with torture. On the other hand, Luke Bryan provides a positive example where it works.
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My latest effort, “The Smell of Music,” didn’t go over as well as I had hoped.
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The classic oldies song “In The Still Of The Night,” it turns out, is not a homage to nocturnal alcohol production.
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The professor was at first confused by the complete lack of spaces In all of his student’s final papers – until he saw the headline: ” Local Area Hit By Blank Robber.”
Assuming that everyone has the same frame of reference is a problematic concept. Some people, like me, measure speed in ‘furlongs per fortnight,’ which is an actual speed measurement. MPH might be more convenient, but not nearly as interesting or capable of inspiring fits of math, a condition shared by most school children and all rational adults.
The security guard ran past me as I stood near the main lobby. I use ‘ran’ in the loosest sense of the word. If he were a cheetah, he would be an arthritic three-legged one.
30 seconds later, he half-jogged to the main door and stopped, his love of donuts now severely impairing his ability to continue on whatever chase occupied him.
After a few heaving breaths, he asked me, “X, did you see a woman run by here before I came by the first time?”
“Yes, I sure did.” A woman had nervously and quickly passed by me a minute before the security guard. She seemed to be fidgety, like someone trying to light a short fuse on a stick of dynamite. I assumed she had eaten in the cafeteria, a mistake often preceding a very quick and unexpected tightly-wound walk to the nearest bathroom.
The security guard impatiently followed up with another question. “What did she look like, X?”
“Well, her hair looked like Tourette Syndrome would look if it were a visual thing instead of an auditory one.” It seemed like it was the most distinguishing thing about her.
I now realize that the security guard was unaccustomed to descriptions by allegory, however, as he rolled his eyes and waved his hand dismissively.
As he headed back around for another look, I shouted after him, “She also had on pants that reminded me of an LSD-inspired fractal!”
It seemed like the only thing I could do to help him.
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The Conroy-Parker Observation
When writing, you must choose between two geographies: either the sparse plains of terse action or the terrain of purple melody and beauty. Regardless of your choice, your efforts will be abhorred by half and ignored by the other half.
-X
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I made a quick trip to the store. As always, things go awry. In this case, though, the maelstrom didn’t involve me. I was just a witless witness.
I stood near the spices, admiring the universe of flavorful options. Not only was my mouth watering, but also so were my eyeballs. (Though the detail adds nothing to this story, I highly recommend both the chipotle bacon and garlic jalapeño seasoning.) I can eat cardboard with the right spices or sauces. My wife would testify that I, in fact, often do, given my irreverence for what constitutes ‘food.’
Voices rose, obviously in dissent, and probably emanating from a nearby and unseen aisle. In a few moments, an employee of the dubious retailer walked into my peripheral vision, taking small steps backward, yet still barking at someone I couldn’t yet see. As he stopped, an older woman approached from the other side of the endcap of the aisle. Her finger stabbed the air in irritation as she spoke. She was adamantly demanding that the employee go self-procreate and accompanied by his terrible attitude, even though her recommendation was couched in both vernacular and anatomically specific language.
It should have been awkward to witness, given the venom in the air. It wasn’t, though. It was more like Live TV and comparable to the scene which ensues when the three guys attempting to put the alligator in the SUV suddenly find themselves being violently schooled by an uncooperative lizard.
I laughed. Both the woman and the employee took a moment to throw quick glances of scorn my way and then turned on one another again.
Since neither of them had swords, daggers, nor jousting sticks, I assumed the scene was safe. At least for me.
Exactly .5 seconds later, a man wearing an industrial uniform approached and stepped in front of the woman. She stopped her malevolent incantations. His arms were hanging directly down, probably to signal a benign intervention.
He spoke to the retail employee. “Sir, did you bring a mop with you?”
“What? Why do I need a mop?” the employee asked. “No one told me there was a spill.”
“If you keep talking to people the way you were just talking to this lady, I’m going to mop the floor with you.” He didn’t even wait for the employee to reply. He turned to the woman and said, “I’m so sorry. I think I fixed your problem.” He walked away, perhaps to right another wrong. If he wore a cape, it was well concealed.
The employee continued to stand at the opposite end of the aisle. His face was becoming increasingly redder. It seemed like his head was expanding as it did so and I feared his glasses might burst from his face like shrapnel if it persisted.
When I went to check out, I could see the employee near the end of the register area, animatedly telling his story to another obviously disinterested co-worker. His arms waved and moved like a broken windmill as he spoke. I’m not sure what version of the truth he was telling but I was certain his eyes were keeping watch for the mysterious man in uniform as he did so.
Imagine the most exotic and beautiful bird your mind can conjure. You can picture its plumage, adorned with a prismatic array of colors, each a mystery to your curious eyes. As it moves, its feathers separate like a cloud of butterflies, producing a melodic and calming rustle. Its eyes shine with the brilliance of the promising universe which surrounds it.
That same bird now soars in the air and slowly descends upon on one of the outstretched limbs of a towering tree, it leaves a vivid green and the bulbous fruit hanging from the limbs make your mouth water with imagined anticipation and savor.
The bird stretches its elegant neck and takes one of the fruits and eats it, causing the scent of immense sweetness to burst into the air in a rainbow arc.
Now, imagine that fruit turning to what it inevitably must, passing through this beautiful bird and falling from its behind.
That’s what this peanut butter spread tastes like.
Because crap is crap.
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P.S. I wish you could have witnessed the look on my wife’s face when the flavor of this malevolent food touched her taste buds. She sat at the table, hunched over and smiling. Her face registered the hope of delight and the doubt of trying something new as the spoon touched her tongue. As the horrific flavor of this food invaded her taste buds, I could envision a dark sky filled with the corpses of plummeting angels, all decimated in flight from the unadulterated evil contained in the jar within Dawn’s reach.
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This morning, I walked a route I’d never taken before. The block behind me can’t be accessed directly, so I walked the circuitous path out of my neighborhood and around. Despite previously driving down the dead-end road behind me and seeing it on Streetview, I never noticed a spur sidestreet jutting from it, truncated as it points South. Unknown places are a treat, especially in the early morning before life startles everyone from their cocoons.
As I rounded the bushes on the entrance, I saw a man walking toward me. I could smell marijuana in the air as if someone with low self-esteem and a bad haircut had used it as a perfume by mistake. Keep in mind that it was still mostly dark and I was walking in a strange place. I felt like Donald Trump might if he were accidentally transported to a library.
By the time I was within a few feet of the approaching walker, he took a drag from what looked like a vape pen and exhaled. Marijuana wafted through the air. The man said, “Hey,” and kept walking.
Tempted to shout, “Police” and run for my life as a prank, I instead kept walking, the distance between us growing.
For the remainder of my walk, I pondered the question, “Who smokes marijuana at 5:00 in the morning, especially when no convenience store lurks nearby?”
Maybe the man in question is getting his exercise and buzz simultaneously, having just completed a ‘GTD’ seminar.
P.S. The photo isn’t the man in question. It’s what I picture in my mind when I think of how it should have looked.
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This story is true. All of us involved laughed at least 25 times during my visit. I’m beginning to question their sanity.
I was seated in a nondescript patient room, amusing myself with wordplay and possible shenanigans. I vainly tried to make the interactive patient information display do something unexpected, such as indicating “Stop Touching Me.” I remembered to add something to my to-do list: bring a few crazy magazine titles on my next visit and exchange them with the normal magazines on the wall racks. I pulled this prank a few times when I was younger and it never failed to bring the expected confusion and hilarity. The interactive computer confirmed that I needed to lose more weight and recommended a haircut, preferably one starting with my back hair. Computers these days are increasingly impertinent, a trend which I enjoy.
My doctor asked me to come back in after 3 months, allegedly to determine if the blood pressure medication worked well enough to suit him. Being a doctor, though, meant that any condition not generally characterized as “still not dead” was an acceptable one to him. In my opinion, though, my visit was probably due to his suspicion that I had resumed eating for two people. No, I’m not currently pregnant, despite the rumors being broadcast by the waistline of my pants. I simply tend to eat for more than one person – not to be confused with a cannibal, who would tend to eat more than one person.
Because I arrived early, I could hear the goings-on of the doctor’s office as staff bantered, medical reps bartered their wares, and patients attempted to conceal the horror presented by the specter of a medical office. For most patients, a medical office is indeed a Pandora’s box, one filled with a hypochondriac’s WebMD web search. From outside, I heard the medical assistant say my name. “X” sounds like a curse when spoken in a normal tone of voice. Once people get to know me, they also tend to add an inexplicable “hissss” sound after my name, something that renders me slightly suspicious. I had already entertained her by claiming that the Med Rep in the inner sanctum of the back offices had given me free medical marijuana samples while in the lobby and that imbibing this sample resulted in the very low blood pressure reading she had elicited from me.
Assuming that the doctor would be on the cusp of opening the door, I placed my purple cellphone screen side down on the exam sink counter. I then quickly stepped behind the door, jamming myself in the corner as tightly as possible.
I felt the door open more than halfway. I held my breath.
I knew that on the other side of the door that Dr. Brown was scanning the length of the room, probably noticing my purple cellphone while doing so, and wondering where I went.
“Did the patient escape?” the doctor asked the two medical staffers seated nearby at the administration counter.
As he asked this, I quietly stepped out and away from behind the door, directly behind him, in plain sight of the two staffers, both of whom were looking at the doctor as he turned to face them and inquire as to my whereabouts.
Because decorum demanded it, I made a terrible, crazy face. Both staffers burst out laughing. The doctor sensed something behind him and half-turned, freezing as he saw me in his peripheral vision.
He shook his head and also burst into laughter.
Once we all stopped laughing, he told me, “No one has ever hidden behind the door from me like that, X. Well played. Well played.”
P.S. I don’t know what the billing code for playing “Hide-And-Seek” at the doctor’s office might be.
P.S. Parenthetically Speaking 