By John McDonnell
“In my day Christmas was a time for taking sleigh rides,” Edna said. “We’d bundle up in big fur coats and father would hitch up the sleigh and take us for a ride through the countryside. We’d visit the neighbors and they’d have steaming mugs of hot chocolate waiting for us, with peppermint sticks in them.”
“Mom, you never did that,” Dolores said. She had driven Edna and Larry to the mall for some Christmas shopping, and she was already regretting it. “You grew up in an apartment in the city, remember? You never went to the country.”
“Nonsense,” Edna said. “How did I get this memory if it never happened?”
“It be a false memory,” Larry said, from the back seat. For some reason unknown to Dolores he was in the form of a pirate, complete with a straggly black beard, earrings made out of gold doubloons, an eyepatch, and a gold front tooth. “False memories these days are as thick as barnacles on a sperm whale’s belly.”
It was going to be a long afternoon, Dolores thought, pulling into a parking space.
In the mall Larry went straight to the Santa Claus village and eyed the setup. “By my stars, here’s a freebooter if ever I saw one,” he said, looking at the mall Santa. “Why, look at all the swag this matey has got in his duffle,” he said pointing to the big bag of trinkets that Santa had beside him, for distributing its contents to the children who sat on his lap.
“He looks like my uncle Frederick,” Edna said. “All round and red and jolly. I remember when uncle Frederick would dress up as Santa and come to our house and give us pennies. ‘A penny for your thoughts,’ he’d say. Of course, when I told him my thoughts he’d get a strange look on his face and tell me to run and get him an aspirin. I never did get my penny.”
“Why don’t we go shopping now?” Dolores said hopefully.
“Belay that,” Larry said. “I like this setup better. You just sit on his lap, and he gives you a bit of swag. Why, it’s better than hijacking a fat galleon filled with Spanish gold!”
“Why are you talking like that?” Dolores hissed, conscious that children were giggling at Larry and their parents had pulled out their cell phones and were dialing Mall Security. “Let’s get out of here before--”
But it was too late. Larry had pushed a host of small children out of the way, and he flopped down on Santa’s lap with such force that it momentarily took the poor fellow’s breath away.
“Avast, ye old sea dog!” Larry said.
“What?” Santa said, his glasses askew on his face from the force of the impact.
“Enough of this palaver,” Larry said. “Now, tell me, matey, what do I have to do to get some of that loot?”
“Ho, ho, you know the drill,” Santa said, recovering his composure. “You tell me if you’ve been a good boy, and then you recite your Christmas list.”
“Aye,” Larry said. “I be the roughest, toughest sea rat on the Spanish Main. If any man cross a friend of mine, I’ll cut his throat and feed him to the sharks for their supper, I will.”
Several children had started to cry, and Larry flashed his gold tooth in a smile, which unfortunately only made them cry louder. Santa looked alarmed, and his helper, a girl in a red and green elf costume, pushed a button under Santa’s chair, which caused several men in blue uniforms with “Security” on their backs to come running from all directions. They were talking into headsets and wearing sunglasses.
“My goodness,” Edna said. “Is the President here? I’ve never seen so many Secret Service agents. Maybe I can get his autograph. I have autographs of every President going back to Grover Cleveland. Did I ever tell you--”
“Not now!” Dolores hissed. She was trying to figure the odds on getting Larry and Edna out of the mall without collateral damage occurring. They were not favorable.
“Okay, me red-faced matey,” Larry said, reaching for Santa’s bag. “My part of the bargain is over. I’ll just be taking yer duffle now.” He reached over and grabbed the bag, then leaped off Santa’s lap and made his way through the throng of children, whose pitch raised considerably when they saw the gift bag retreating from view.
“Put the bag down and move away from it, sir!” a voice boomed, and Dolores saw to her horror that the cadre of mall cops had surrounded Larry, and all of them had guns trained on him.
Larry sized up the situation, muttered, “Arrrr,” and then the air shimmered and he had turned into a two-ton bull elephant seal that moved with surprising speed through the line of stunned security guards, down the mall corridor to the escalator, where he rode the escalator to the first floor and then proceeded out of the mall in the direction of the parking lot, with shoppers running in terror from him.
When Dolores and Edna caught up to him, he had turned back into the pirate, and was muttering, “Arrr, it’s a bad business stealing swag in this quarter. Best to trim the mainsail and make for a snug harbor.”
“Forget about the Christmas shopping,” Dolores said. “Let’s just go home before they throw us all in jail.”
“Father would make a Christmas goose with all the trimmings,” Edna said. “And then we’d sit around and sing ribald carols. Do you know any good ribald carols? My uncle Frederick knew quite a few of them. I remember one about Santa and the reindeer that--”
“That’s enough, mom!” Dolores said, pulling out of the parking lot with a squeal of tires.
THE END
Friday, December 17, 2010
Friday, December 10, 2010
Larry Goes To Therapy
By John McDonnell
The police arrested Larry after the bikini contest uproar. He was charged with unauthorized transporting of Neanderthal women across Time boundaries. The judge took pity on him because it was his first offense, and sentenced him to get therapy for his addiction to shape-shifting and shooting Time’s arrow in the wrong direction.
“My mother didn’t know me,” Larry said, in his first visit to the psychiatrist. He was in the form of a Belgian Silver rabbit, and he sat nervously on the couch twitching his nose.
“I see,” said the psychiatrist, whose name was Dr. Fritz. “You felt that she didn’t know the inner Larry, yes?”
“No,” Larry said. “She didn’t know the outer one. I had ten thousand siblings, so she didn’t really know any of us.”
“My mother was active in the protest movement,” Edna said. She had insisted on coming with Larry to his appointment with the psychiatrist, and although she had promised to sit quietly in a corner and do her knitting, it took all of two minutes for her to break her promise. “She was always off protesting something -- the mistreatment of circus animals, overcrowded prisons, the weather. . .”
Dr. Fritz was trying to ignore her, but he had to ask: “The weather? Why the weather?”
“Well, it’s disgraceful how you can plan down to the last detail for a picnic or a tea party and then have a rainstorm just ruin the whole day. You can’t tell me the government doesn’t have a hand in this. It’s a conspiracy, that’s what it is.”
Dr. Fritz stared at her open-mouthed for a moment, then cleared his throat and said: “Well. Getting back to you, Larry. What did your father do?”
“He was busy enslaving inferior civilizations. He wanted me to follow in his footsteps. He was very concerned with my career, until I flunked out of enslavement school because I kept randomly changing into alien life forms.”
“How did your father take it?”
Larry hopped to the floor and started nibbling on the wires leading to the psychiatrist’s computer, as a way of calming his nerves. “He was not happy, of course. We are a passive aggressive civilization, though, so he couldn’t express it openly. He’d say things like, ‘That’s okay, Larry. It’s not everyone who’s cut out for enslaving civilizations. You’ll make a good clerk, I’m sure.”
“You don’t find many good clerks these days,” Edna said. “Why, do you know that the young man at the driver’s license office refused to renew my license because I couldn’t see that silly chart on the wall? I complained to his superior, but he was just as incompetent. Telling me I could cause an accident. Why, it’s been five years since then and I haven’t had a single major accident.”
Dr. Fritz’s eyes widened and he said, “You’ve been driving for five years without a license?”
“Of course,” Edna said. “What’s the point of having a chart on the wall that people can’t see?
Dr. Fritz coughed and said, “Ahem. Getting back to Larry. How did it make you feel to let your father down?”
Larry’s nose began to twitch, and tremors ran through his whole body. “It was horrible. I was an outcast among my friends. Of course, nobody teased me in an overt way. It was all, “I envy you, Larry. Going against a family tradition of military leadership that goes back half a million years. Way to break out of the mold!”
“How did you deal with that?” Dr. Fritz said.
“Larry bounded over to a small refrigerator in the corner. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to have any carrots, would you?”
“Larry, I think you’re trying to change the subject,” the psychiatrist said. “Just when we’re starting to make some progress at getting to the root of your problem.”
“Problem?” Larry said, hopping over to a brass lamp and taking a nibble out of the wire leading to it. “I have no problem. In my culture, the only way to deal with a passive aggressive insult is to smile and say, ‘Thank you’, and then repress your desire to slaughter the person’s entire family, burn his house to the ground, and enslave his kinsmen for ten generations.”
“Amazing,” Dr. Fritz said. “A whole civilization with that level of repressed rage. It’s incredible.”
“It’s why we’ve conquered half the known universe,” Larry said. “In a passive aggressive way, of course. We use backhanded compliments, veiled insults, a bit of sarcasm, a raised eyebrow here and there. Most civilizations have no defense against it. I’ve seen whole armies reduced to quivering blobs of jelly after a few of my father’s choicest compliments. Are you sure you don’t have any carrots?” He was eyeing the psychiatrist’s bookshelves, which were filled with handsome, leatherbound volumes.
In the car on the way home, Edna said. “It’s terrible how people overreact to things. I mean, really, the way that doctor flew into a rage just because you nibbled a piece out of that signed first edition of Sigmund Freud’s “Studies On Hysteria”. You’d have thought you killed someone.”
“I was hungry,” Larry said, from the seat next to Edna. His nose was twitching nervously as he watched how close Edna came to dismembering an innocent pedestrian when she made a wide left turn.
“Well, people shouldn’t say such nasty things,” Edna said. “The world would be a much nicer place if people would hold happy thoughts in their mind.”
THE END
The police arrested Larry after the bikini contest uproar. He was charged with unauthorized transporting of Neanderthal women across Time boundaries. The judge took pity on him because it was his first offense, and sentenced him to get therapy for his addiction to shape-shifting and shooting Time’s arrow in the wrong direction.
“My mother didn’t know me,” Larry said, in his first visit to the psychiatrist. He was in the form of a Belgian Silver rabbit, and he sat nervously on the couch twitching his nose.
“I see,” said the psychiatrist, whose name was Dr. Fritz. “You felt that she didn’t know the inner Larry, yes?”
“No,” Larry said. “She didn’t know the outer one. I had ten thousand siblings, so she didn’t really know any of us.”
“My mother was active in the protest movement,” Edna said. She had insisted on coming with Larry to his appointment with the psychiatrist, and although she had promised to sit quietly in a corner and do her knitting, it took all of two minutes for her to break her promise. “She was always off protesting something -- the mistreatment of circus animals, overcrowded prisons, the weather. . .”
Dr. Fritz was trying to ignore her, but he had to ask: “The weather? Why the weather?”
“Well, it’s disgraceful how you can plan down to the last detail for a picnic or a tea party and then have a rainstorm just ruin the whole day. You can’t tell me the government doesn’t have a hand in this. It’s a conspiracy, that’s what it is.”
Dr. Fritz stared at her open-mouthed for a moment, then cleared his throat and said: “Well. Getting back to you, Larry. What did your father do?”
“He was busy enslaving inferior civilizations. He wanted me to follow in his footsteps. He was very concerned with my career, until I flunked out of enslavement school because I kept randomly changing into alien life forms.”
“How did your father take it?”
Larry hopped to the floor and started nibbling on the wires leading to the psychiatrist’s computer, as a way of calming his nerves. “He was not happy, of course. We are a passive aggressive civilization, though, so he couldn’t express it openly. He’d say things like, ‘That’s okay, Larry. It’s not everyone who’s cut out for enslaving civilizations. You’ll make a good clerk, I’m sure.”
“You don’t find many good clerks these days,” Edna said. “Why, do you know that the young man at the driver’s license office refused to renew my license because I couldn’t see that silly chart on the wall? I complained to his superior, but he was just as incompetent. Telling me I could cause an accident. Why, it’s been five years since then and I haven’t had a single major accident.”
Dr. Fritz’s eyes widened and he said, “You’ve been driving for five years without a license?”
“Of course,” Edna said. “What’s the point of having a chart on the wall that people can’t see?
Dr. Fritz coughed and said, “Ahem. Getting back to Larry. How did it make you feel to let your father down?”
Larry’s nose began to twitch, and tremors ran through his whole body. “It was horrible. I was an outcast among my friends. Of course, nobody teased me in an overt way. It was all, “I envy you, Larry. Going against a family tradition of military leadership that goes back half a million years. Way to break out of the mold!”
“How did you deal with that?” Dr. Fritz said.
“Larry bounded over to a small refrigerator in the corner. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to have any carrots, would you?”
“Larry, I think you’re trying to change the subject,” the psychiatrist said. “Just when we’re starting to make some progress at getting to the root of your problem.”
“Problem?” Larry said, hopping over to a brass lamp and taking a nibble out of the wire leading to it. “I have no problem. In my culture, the only way to deal with a passive aggressive insult is to smile and say, ‘Thank you’, and then repress your desire to slaughter the person’s entire family, burn his house to the ground, and enslave his kinsmen for ten generations.”
“Amazing,” Dr. Fritz said. “A whole civilization with that level of repressed rage. It’s incredible.”
“It’s why we’ve conquered half the known universe,” Larry said. “In a passive aggressive way, of course. We use backhanded compliments, veiled insults, a bit of sarcasm, a raised eyebrow here and there. Most civilizations have no defense against it. I’ve seen whole armies reduced to quivering blobs of jelly after a few of my father’s choicest compliments. Are you sure you don’t have any carrots?” He was eyeing the psychiatrist’s bookshelves, which were filled with handsome, leatherbound volumes.
* * *
In the car on the way home, Edna said. “It’s terrible how people overreact to things. I mean, really, the way that doctor flew into a rage just because you nibbled a piece out of that signed first edition of Sigmund Freud’s “Studies On Hysteria”. You’d have thought you killed someone.”
“I was hungry,” Larry said, from the seat next to Edna. His nose was twitching nervously as he watched how close Edna came to dismembering an innocent pedestrian when she made a wide left turn.
“Well, people shouldn’t say such nasty things,” Edna said. “The world would be a much nicer place if people would hold happy thoughts in their mind.”
THE END
Friday, December 3, 2010
Larry And The Bikini Contest
By John McDonnell
Larry had “blue” days every once in awhile (although he came from a clinically depressed civilization that recognized 47 different shades of melancholy, so it was complicated). On these days he’d stay in his room and either sob hysterically or turn into a howler monkey and commence a terrible screeching, interspersed with philosophical musings on the Meaning of Life.
During one of these bouts Dolores couldn’t stand it anymore and she told Murphy he had to find something for Larry to do so he’d forget about his spiritual crisis.
“Like what?” Murphy said. “He’s not good at anything.”
“Why don’t you have a contest at your bar? Then he could be a judge.”
“Contest? What kind of contest?”
“A bikini contest, like they have at Hooter’s.”
“Are you kidding? My clientele wouldn’t survive a bikini contest. They’d go into cardiac arrest, and I’d be passing out defibrillators like candy.”
“Oh, come on, everybody likes a bikini contest. It will bring in more business.”
“From who? A bunch of underage guys with raging hormones. Testosterone is a distant memory for my customers, and they like it that way.”
“You never think big, Murphy. It will bring more business to the bar. I’ll organize it. I’ll put an ad in the newspaper, and we’ll get tons of customers. We’ll sell tickets. It will be a big success. Plus, you can make Larry a judge, and it will get him out of the house.”
Murphy knew he was courting disaster by agreeing to this plan, but he also knew better than to argue with Dolores when she got one of her ideas for improving his business. It was better to be like one of the musicians on the Titanic, playing merrily while the ship goes down, than to disagree with her.
He went along with the plan, and Dolores went to work organizing it. As the weeks went by he had to admit that it was at least bringing Larry out of his funk. Larry liked the concept, and he decided to write a 1000 page thesis on changing ideals of female beauty, taking short jaunts back to the Stone Age to make notes. Dolores was not happy when he brought back a Neanderthal princess who tried to kill a deer in their backyard with her bare hands and used the dining room table to build a fire. “Look at those deltoids,” Larry said, watching her tear the legs off the table. “That was a sign of great beauty in her day. And she has an amazing brow ridge--”
At this point Dolores used words like blunt objects to make her point that she didn’t care how beautiful the creature was by Neanderthal standards, she wanted her out of the house immediately.
The day of the contest found Larry dressed in the long black robes and ceremonial wig of a Victorian jurist, and he sat near a runway that had been put in Murphy’s bar expressly for the event. The bar was filled with a collection of hooting half-drunk males in muscle shirts, and there was a suitably oily MC in a tux who announced the contestants.
The girls were of varying shapes and sizes, and as they paraded down the runway in their bikinis and heels the guys in the audience yelled out comments that would have brought a blush to the cheeks of a Viking raiding party. Larry took his job seriously, and was scribbling copious notes on his score sheet, but he didn’t give anyone more than a 5 rating on a scale of 10. When Dolores, who was sitting next to him, saw this, she said, “Larry, you’re being too picky. You’ll just embarrass us if you can’t choose a winner.”
“There’s something missing,” Larry said.
“Well, what are you gonna do? You can’t bring back that cavewoman. . . Larry? No, forget I said that. Larry!”
But it was too late. At the end of the runway stood the stocky, beetle-browed form of the Neanderthal princess, her face contorted in thought as she tried to size up what she saw. The scene looked to her like some strange group mating ceremony, although she was puzzled that no one had thought to slaughter a woolly mammoth for the occasion. She already had her eye on a male in a tight white t-shirt who was staring open-mouthed at her, and she particularly liked the collection of shiny jewelry he had draped around his neck.
She bolted toward him, declaring her love in a series of guttural growls, when the entire bar headed for the exit at the same time. There was general mayhem as the muscle-shirted guys shoved the bikini clad girls out of the way to get to the exit, and Murphy pleaded with them to stay and have another drink, while Dolores screamed at Larry to do something. Larry simply stared in admiration at the raw power of the Neanderthal princess as she flung people and furniture out of the way to get at her true love, who had locked himself in the Men’s Room and was sobbing hysterically.
In seconds she had torn down the door and grabbed the young man, but then the air shimmered and they disappeared.
“Thanks, Larry,” Dolores said, with a sigh of relief. “Although, what happened to the guy that was with her?”
“He’ll be fine,” Larry said. “He’s not dressed for the Ice Age, but he won’t notice how cold he is while he’s running from all those predators.”
THE END
Larry had “blue” days every once in awhile (although he came from a clinically depressed civilization that recognized 47 different shades of melancholy, so it was complicated). On these days he’d stay in his room and either sob hysterically or turn into a howler monkey and commence a terrible screeching, interspersed with philosophical musings on the Meaning of Life.
During one of these bouts Dolores couldn’t stand it anymore and she told Murphy he had to find something for Larry to do so he’d forget about his spiritual crisis.
“Like what?” Murphy said. “He’s not good at anything.”
“Why don’t you have a contest at your bar? Then he could be a judge.”
“Contest? What kind of contest?”
“A bikini contest, like they have at Hooter’s.”
“Are you kidding? My clientele wouldn’t survive a bikini contest. They’d go into cardiac arrest, and I’d be passing out defibrillators like candy.”
“Oh, come on, everybody likes a bikini contest. It will bring in more business.”
“From who? A bunch of underage guys with raging hormones. Testosterone is a distant memory for my customers, and they like it that way.”
“You never think big, Murphy. It will bring more business to the bar. I’ll organize it. I’ll put an ad in the newspaper, and we’ll get tons of customers. We’ll sell tickets. It will be a big success. Plus, you can make Larry a judge, and it will get him out of the house.”
Murphy knew he was courting disaster by agreeing to this plan, but he also knew better than to argue with Dolores when she got one of her ideas for improving his business. It was better to be like one of the musicians on the Titanic, playing merrily while the ship goes down, than to disagree with her.
He went along with the plan, and Dolores went to work organizing it. As the weeks went by he had to admit that it was at least bringing Larry out of his funk. Larry liked the concept, and he decided to write a 1000 page thesis on changing ideals of female beauty, taking short jaunts back to the Stone Age to make notes. Dolores was not happy when he brought back a Neanderthal princess who tried to kill a deer in their backyard with her bare hands and used the dining room table to build a fire. “Look at those deltoids,” Larry said, watching her tear the legs off the table. “That was a sign of great beauty in her day. And she has an amazing brow ridge--”
At this point Dolores used words like blunt objects to make her point that she didn’t care how beautiful the creature was by Neanderthal standards, she wanted her out of the house immediately.
The day of the contest found Larry dressed in the long black robes and ceremonial wig of a Victorian jurist, and he sat near a runway that had been put in Murphy’s bar expressly for the event. The bar was filled with a collection of hooting half-drunk males in muscle shirts, and there was a suitably oily MC in a tux who announced the contestants.
The girls were of varying shapes and sizes, and as they paraded down the runway in their bikinis and heels the guys in the audience yelled out comments that would have brought a blush to the cheeks of a Viking raiding party. Larry took his job seriously, and was scribbling copious notes on his score sheet, but he didn’t give anyone more than a 5 rating on a scale of 10. When Dolores, who was sitting next to him, saw this, she said, “Larry, you’re being too picky. You’ll just embarrass us if you can’t choose a winner.”
“There’s something missing,” Larry said.
“Well, what are you gonna do? You can’t bring back that cavewoman. . . Larry? No, forget I said that. Larry!”
But it was too late. At the end of the runway stood the stocky, beetle-browed form of the Neanderthal princess, her face contorted in thought as she tried to size up what she saw. The scene looked to her like some strange group mating ceremony, although she was puzzled that no one had thought to slaughter a woolly mammoth for the occasion. She already had her eye on a male in a tight white t-shirt who was staring open-mouthed at her, and she particularly liked the collection of shiny jewelry he had draped around his neck.
She bolted toward him, declaring her love in a series of guttural growls, when the entire bar headed for the exit at the same time. There was general mayhem as the muscle-shirted guys shoved the bikini clad girls out of the way to get to the exit, and Murphy pleaded with them to stay and have another drink, while Dolores screamed at Larry to do something. Larry simply stared in admiration at the raw power of the Neanderthal princess as she flung people and furniture out of the way to get at her true love, who had locked himself in the Men’s Room and was sobbing hysterically.
In seconds she had torn down the door and grabbed the young man, but then the air shimmered and they disappeared.
“Thanks, Larry,” Dolores said, with a sigh of relief. “Although, what happened to the guy that was with her?”
“He’ll be fine,” Larry said. “He’s not dressed for the Ice Age, but he won’t notice how cold he is while he’s running from all those predators.”
THE END
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Larry The Football Fixer
By John McDonnell
Blinky and Mushy were two of the patrons at Murphy’s bar. You may wonder why they had those nicknames. Well, Blinky was a man who tended to blink a lot whenever he got excited, and Mushy got his name because he could get misty-eyed at anything, including the sound of a clock ticking or the taste of buttered toast.
One day when Larry came to work in the form of Michelangelo, and he was up on a scaffold painting a replica of the Sistine Chapel ceiling in Murphy’s bar, Blinky and Mushy came to him with an idea.
“You’re an expert at time-traveling, right?” Blinky said.
“Si,” Larry said, putting the finishing touches on a cherub.
“The man’s a genius!” Mushy said. He was starting to tear up.
“Well, we were thinking,” Blinky said, “that it would be a small thing for you to influence the outcome of the Wagstaff State game this week. You could ah, travel forward in time and maybe do something that would allow our team to win.”
“Change the future?”
“That’s it,” Mushy said, tears brimming in his eyes. “Gosh, Larry, it would be the most beautiful thing. Wagstaff hasn’t beaten Crusher Tech in 30 years.”
“I dunno,” Larry said. “It’s not really permitted. It’s against the rules, like eating store bought pasta.”
“Aw, Larry, just this once,” Blinky said, blinking furiously. “One time, that’s all. You’d be making so many people happy, especially if you could arrange for Wagstaff to win by three.”
“Okay, maybe just once,” Larry said.
“I knew you’d do it!” Mushy said, sobbing with joy.
Larry got down from the scaffold, wiped off his paint spattered hands, and closed his eyes. The air shimmered and he disappeared. In a matter of seconds he was back.”
“The deed, she is done,” he said. “Now, I have to finish this ceiling. The Pope wants me to paint his bathroom next.”
The Saturday of the big game Murphy’s bar was packed. The word had gotten out, and there was a rumor that a lot of Murphy’s patrons had taken a financial interest in the outcome. As the game progressed the mood quickened, because Wagstaff State was actually holding its own. It seemed that Crusher Tech’s best players were coming down with a stomach virus that required them to spend a lot of time in the locker room, and the second stringers who replaced them were not doing as well. Larry intimated that he had placed a small colony of viruses in the team’s Gatorade.
By the fourth quarter the game was close, and the excitement was palpable. Mushy had had several crying jags by now, and Blinky was blinking so much he could hardly see the TV set. The game came down to one big play, with Wagstaff State lining up to kick a field goal that would win the game for them.
“This is a historic day,” Blinky said, blinking three times in succession.
“I can’t believe I’m here to witness it,” Mushy said, choking back tears.
You could hear a pin drop in the room when the players lined up. The ball was snapped, the kicker strode forward, swung his foot, and --
the ball disappeared.
There was a gasp from the crowd and then a shout, as a football appeared on the bar and the crowd realized it was the same ball that the kicker and his teammates were searching frantically for on the field.
“Larry!” Blinky said, jumping up and down, waving his arms, his eyelids moving like hummingbird wings. “What’s going on? Is that the game ball?”
“This is terrible,” Mushy said, tears streaming down his face. “Oh, this is horrible!”
There was pandemonium in the bar, with people yelling directions to the kicker, others cursing, Mushy crying, and Larry turning into an 8 foot ostrich and running about madly in search of a hole to stick his head in.
Then the ball disappeared from the bar and reappeared on the field 25 yards from the kicker. He ran after it as it bounced crazily down the field, followed by the other 21 players.
Then it reappeared on the bar, and the crowd screamed, groaned, cursed.
Then it disappeared and reappeared on the field, this time in the lap of a Mr. Charles H. Hungadunga, who was sitting at the 50 yard line, and the teams charged into the stands after it.
Then it was back on the bar.
Then it was back on the field.
“Folks, this is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen,” the TV announcer was saying. “In all my years of doing the Big Game, I’ve never seen a disappearing football.”
Finally it ended up on the bar again, and the gun sounded that ended the game. Crusher Tech fans rushed the field, the Wagstaff State fans sat in shock, and the mood in the bar was funereal. Mushy was sobbing, Blinky was staring into space (his eyelids seemed paralyzed) and Murphy watched in horror as his patrons lost their thirst and started filing out of the bar.
“You know, the first official football game was between Rutgers University and Princeton, in 1869,” Larry said, from the ice bucket where he’d stuck his head. “It was played under soccer style rules. Rutgers won, by a score of 6 runs to 4.”
“Interesting,” Murphy said, pouring himself a beer. “Do you think they had a disappearing ball in that one?”
THE END
Blinky and Mushy were two of the patrons at Murphy’s bar. You may wonder why they had those nicknames. Well, Blinky was a man who tended to blink a lot whenever he got excited, and Mushy got his name because he could get misty-eyed at anything, including the sound of a clock ticking or the taste of buttered toast.
One day when Larry came to work in the form of Michelangelo, and he was up on a scaffold painting a replica of the Sistine Chapel ceiling in Murphy’s bar, Blinky and Mushy came to him with an idea.
“You’re an expert at time-traveling, right?” Blinky said.
“Si,” Larry said, putting the finishing touches on a cherub.
“The man’s a genius!” Mushy said. He was starting to tear up.
“Well, we were thinking,” Blinky said, “that it would be a small thing for you to influence the outcome of the Wagstaff State game this week. You could ah, travel forward in time and maybe do something that would allow our team to win.”
“Change the future?”
“That’s it,” Mushy said, tears brimming in his eyes. “Gosh, Larry, it would be the most beautiful thing. Wagstaff hasn’t beaten Crusher Tech in 30 years.”
“I dunno,” Larry said. “It’s not really permitted. It’s against the rules, like eating store bought pasta.”
“Aw, Larry, just this once,” Blinky said, blinking furiously. “One time, that’s all. You’d be making so many people happy, especially if you could arrange for Wagstaff to win by three.”
“Okay, maybe just once,” Larry said.
“I knew you’d do it!” Mushy said, sobbing with joy.
Larry got down from the scaffold, wiped off his paint spattered hands, and closed his eyes. The air shimmered and he disappeared. In a matter of seconds he was back.”
“The deed, she is done,” he said. “Now, I have to finish this ceiling. The Pope wants me to paint his bathroom next.”
The Saturday of the big game Murphy’s bar was packed. The word had gotten out, and there was a rumor that a lot of Murphy’s patrons had taken a financial interest in the outcome. As the game progressed the mood quickened, because Wagstaff State was actually holding its own. It seemed that Crusher Tech’s best players were coming down with a stomach virus that required them to spend a lot of time in the locker room, and the second stringers who replaced them were not doing as well. Larry intimated that he had placed a small colony of viruses in the team’s Gatorade.
By the fourth quarter the game was close, and the excitement was palpable. Mushy had had several crying jags by now, and Blinky was blinking so much he could hardly see the TV set. The game came down to one big play, with Wagstaff State lining up to kick a field goal that would win the game for them.
“This is a historic day,” Blinky said, blinking three times in succession.
“I can’t believe I’m here to witness it,” Mushy said, choking back tears.
You could hear a pin drop in the room when the players lined up. The ball was snapped, the kicker strode forward, swung his foot, and --
the ball disappeared.
There was a gasp from the crowd and then a shout, as a football appeared on the bar and the crowd realized it was the same ball that the kicker and his teammates were searching frantically for on the field.
“Larry!” Blinky said, jumping up and down, waving his arms, his eyelids moving like hummingbird wings. “What’s going on? Is that the game ball?”
“This is terrible,” Mushy said, tears streaming down his face. “Oh, this is horrible!”
There was pandemonium in the bar, with people yelling directions to the kicker, others cursing, Mushy crying, and Larry turning into an 8 foot ostrich and running about madly in search of a hole to stick his head in.
Then the ball disappeared from the bar and reappeared on the field 25 yards from the kicker. He ran after it as it bounced crazily down the field, followed by the other 21 players.
Then it reappeared on the bar, and the crowd screamed, groaned, cursed.
Then it disappeared and reappeared on the field, this time in the lap of a Mr. Charles H. Hungadunga, who was sitting at the 50 yard line, and the teams charged into the stands after it.
Then it was back on the bar.
Then it was back on the field.
“Folks, this is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen,” the TV announcer was saying. “In all my years of doing the Big Game, I’ve never seen a disappearing football.”
Finally it ended up on the bar again, and the gun sounded that ended the game. Crusher Tech fans rushed the field, the Wagstaff State fans sat in shock, and the mood in the bar was funereal. Mushy was sobbing, Blinky was staring into space (his eyelids seemed paralyzed) and Murphy watched in horror as his patrons lost their thirst and started filing out of the bar.
“You know, the first official football game was between Rutgers University and Princeton, in 1869,” Larry said, from the ice bucket where he’d stuck his head. “It was played under soccer style rules. Rutgers won, by a score of 6 runs to 4.”
“Interesting,” Murphy said, pouring himself a beer. “Do you think they had a disappearing ball in that one?”
THE END
Friday, November 19, 2010
Turkey And Organza -- A Larry Thanksgiving
By John McDonnell
“I love Thanksgiving,” Edna said. “It’s important to be grateful for what we have. I mean, what would we do without game shows, talk radio, organza ball gowns and White Elephant sales?”
There was no answer to that, of course, so the rest of the people around Dolores’ dinner table went on with their Thanksgiving dinner.
“Horst says this is a stupid holiday,” Willow said, holding up her fork for emphasis. “He says the Indians were stupid to give the Pilgrims their food, because the Pilgrims were only here to take their land. It was a setup.”
Horst nodded his head while attempting to stuff a whole turkey leg in his mouth.
“I had a rooster as a pet when I was a girl,” Edna said. “Father bought it for me. I called him Herbert. Father let me keep him in my bedroom, although he caused a tremendous racket every morning with his crowing.”
Dolores was going to ask Murphy to comment on Willow’s statement but it was obvious from the way Murphy was gulping his food that he wanted to get the dinner finished so he could go watch a football game on TV.
“Larry,” she said instead, “what do you think of Thanksgiving?” Larry was in the form of a Ming Dynasty Chinese guardian lion, and he smiled toothily and said, “Actually, Thanksgiving as we know it was the invention of a 19th century writer named Sarah Hale, who did a lot of embroidery of the facts to make up the whole Pilgrims and Indians myth. We don’t know much about the first Thanksgiving.”
“Huh,” Horst said, through a mouthful of food. “Myth or no myth, the Indians got the wrong end of that deal. They should have wasted those dudes, instead of giving them corn.”
“Well, we could verify that,” Larry said. The air shimmered and all of a sudden there was a Native American chief sitting next to Larry at the table. He was naked from the waist up, and wearing a bead necklace, feathers in his hair, and white paint on his face.
He blinked, looked around at the table, and said, “I knew I shouldn’t have taken that last round of the pipe. That was a definite mistake.”
“Not to worry,” Larry said. “We’re all friends here. We just wanted your opinion of the American custom known as Thanksgiving. Is it true you started this custom when you offered the starving Pilgrims some corn and other food?”
The chief laughed. “I get it, this is a dream. Okay, I’ll play along. Thanksgiving? You mean that dinner we gave to that pitiable lot of Englishmen who tried to make it through a New England winter without basic skills in woodcraft, animal husbandry, and agriculture?”
“Yes.”
He laughed again. “They were so inept, we felt sorry for them. I still feel sorry for them.”
“Dude, you’re so wrong,” Horst said. “Those losers took your land, slaughtered your families, and herded you all onto reservations. Seems you don’t have much to be thankful for.”
The chief smiled. “Two words -- Black Friday. Oh, and how about shopper rewards cards? Or those stacks of catalogs that come in the mail? The return line at Macy’s? December layoffs? Mince pie?”
“I think he’s made his point,” Larry said.
“But I like mince pie,” Edna said. “My mother made the most delicious mince pie. Do you know the secret is to soak it in brandy and then keep it in a tin for a year? It will make your hair curl when you eat it.”
The whole table looked at her in silence.
“I’d like to wake up now,” the chief said.
“Certainly,” Larry said. The air shimmered and the chief disappeared.
“Well, I for one am thankful for organdy,” Edna said. “Such a lovely texture it has! I’m also thankful for olives, champagne, handsome doctors, and, oh, all of you lovely people, even if I don’t know all your names. I’m glad the Indians gave the Pilgrims corn, because, my goodness, if they hadn’t -- well, I don’t know where we’d be.”
“Amen to that,” Dolores said.
THE END
“I love Thanksgiving,” Edna said. “It’s important to be grateful for what we have. I mean, what would we do without game shows, talk radio, organza ball gowns and White Elephant sales?”
There was no answer to that, of course, so the rest of the people around Dolores’ dinner table went on with their Thanksgiving dinner.
“Horst says this is a stupid holiday,” Willow said, holding up her fork for emphasis. “He says the Indians were stupid to give the Pilgrims their food, because the Pilgrims were only here to take their land. It was a setup.”
Horst nodded his head while attempting to stuff a whole turkey leg in his mouth.
“I had a rooster as a pet when I was a girl,” Edna said. “Father bought it for me. I called him Herbert. Father let me keep him in my bedroom, although he caused a tremendous racket every morning with his crowing.”
Dolores was going to ask Murphy to comment on Willow’s statement but it was obvious from the way Murphy was gulping his food that he wanted to get the dinner finished so he could go watch a football game on TV.
“Larry,” she said instead, “what do you think of Thanksgiving?” Larry was in the form of a Ming Dynasty Chinese guardian lion, and he smiled toothily and said, “Actually, Thanksgiving as we know it was the invention of a 19th century writer named Sarah Hale, who did a lot of embroidery of the facts to make up the whole Pilgrims and Indians myth. We don’t know much about the first Thanksgiving.”
“Huh,” Horst said, through a mouthful of food. “Myth or no myth, the Indians got the wrong end of that deal. They should have wasted those dudes, instead of giving them corn.”
“Well, we could verify that,” Larry said. The air shimmered and all of a sudden there was a Native American chief sitting next to Larry at the table. He was naked from the waist up, and wearing a bead necklace, feathers in his hair, and white paint on his face.
He blinked, looked around at the table, and said, “I knew I shouldn’t have taken that last round of the pipe. That was a definite mistake.”
“Not to worry,” Larry said. “We’re all friends here. We just wanted your opinion of the American custom known as Thanksgiving. Is it true you started this custom when you offered the starving Pilgrims some corn and other food?”
The chief laughed. “I get it, this is a dream. Okay, I’ll play along. Thanksgiving? You mean that dinner we gave to that pitiable lot of Englishmen who tried to make it through a New England winter without basic skills in woodcraft, animal husbandry, and agriculture?”
“Yes.”
He laughed again. “They were so inept, we felt sorry for them. I still feel sorry for them.”
“Dude, you’re so wrong,” Horst said. “Those losers took your land, slaughtered your families, and herded you all onto reservations. Seems you don’t have much to be thankful for.”
The chief smiled. “Two words -- Black Friday. Oh, and how about shopper rewards cards? Or those stacks of catalogs that come in the mail? The return line at Macy’s? December layoffs? Mince pie?”
“I think he’s made his point,” Larry said.
“But I like mince pie,” Edna said. “My mother made the most delicious mince pie. Do you know the secret is to soak it in brandy and then keep it in a tin for a year? It will make your hair curl when you eat it.”
The whole table looked at her in silence.
“I’d like to wake up now,” the chief said.
“Certainly,” Larry said. The air shimmered and the chief disappeared.
“Well, I for one am thankful for organdy,” Edna said. “Such a lovely texture it has! I’m also thankful for olives, champagne, handsome doctors, and, oh, all of you lovely people, even if I don’t know all your names. I’m glad the Indians gave the Pilgrims corn, because, my goodness, if they hadn’t -- well, I don’t know where we’d be.”
“Amen to that,” Dolores said.
THE END
Friday, November 12, 2010
Larry And The Wombat
By John McDonnell
Things slowly settled into a pattern at the Murphy house. Larry watched a lot of TV with Edna, Murphy spent most of his time at the bar, and Willow explored the higher levels of body piercing and tattooing with her boyfriend Horst.
Dolores was the only one who didn’t seem happy with her life. She felt a restlessness, a discontent. The fizz had gone out of her days.
“You need a craft,” Edna said. “That’s what’s always kept me going. Learn how to make something pointless and tacky, and you’ll feel better.”
“But I don’t like crafts,” Dolores said.
“Neither do I, dear,” Edna said. “But they keep us from listening to the voices in our head.”
Dolores thought maybe she was right. Maybe a busy mind would keep her from thinking about how dissatisfied she was with, oh, the entire last 20 years of her life.
“What type of crafting should I take up?” she asked Larry one night.
“How about a miniature proton beam collider?” Larry said. “You could make one that would fit on a keychain. You never know when you’re going to need to smash a few protons together. I think people would love it.”
There was a prolonged silence while Dolores stared at him.
“What?” Larry said. “You don’t like that one? Okay, then how about a subatomic--”
“No.”
“Okay, let’s see,” Larry said, scratching his head. Which, by the way, was hairy. He had come down for breakfast this morning in the form of a chimpanzee, and he was scratching himself a lot today and pooching out his lips.
“How about stuffed animals?” Larry said, wrinkling up his face and scratching hard. “Everybody loves them. You could make them cute and cuddly, and give them names like ‘Smoochy’ and ‘Cutiepie’ and ‘Huggums’.
“That might work,” Dolores said. She went to work immediately, and in no time the house was filled with a collection of cute, cuddly animals stuffed almost to bursting, and all of them complete with full biographies of their lives, written by Edna. The biographies were very long and went on tangents to discuss 1950s TV trivia and recipes for stuffed olives and mince pie, and although Dolores didn’t know how that would appeal to 8 year old girls, she didn’t have the heart to tell Edna to edit them.
Dolores set up a Web site to sell the animals and it was a big success. Before long Dolores had a staff of illegal alien workers in her basement sewing stuffing into the animals, and the money was pouring in. The most popular stuffed animal was a wombat named Huggsie, and the kids just loved it.
Then one day there was a knock at the door. Dolores opened it to find an official looking man in a black suit, wearing sunglasses, who said, “Is this the headquarters of the Huggsie operation?”
“Who wants to know?” Dolores said, eyeing him suspiciously.
“My name is Edwin Kibosh, and I represent the Walt Frisby company,” the man said. “Your Huggsie the Wombat doll is a copy of our Cuddles the Sloth product, and this is a cease and desist order. You must stop production at once,” he said, handing a sheaf of papers to Dolores, “or we will be forced to burn your house to the ground and destroy your family down to the tenth generation.”
“This is outrageous,” Dolores spluttered.
“Quite true,” Larry said, coming downstairs in a tweed jacket, bifocals, and a pipe, looking very much the professor. “Wombats are completely unlike Sloths. For one thing, wombats are marsupials, crepuscular and nocturnal, found in southeast Australia and Tasmania, while Sloths are arboreal mammals who live in South America. They both have extraordinarily slow metabolisms, however. Did you know that it takes a wombat 14 days to digest its food? They also have distinctive cubic droppings. Now the sloth’s droppings--”
“That’s enough Larry!” Dolores said.
“Sorry,” Larry said.
“I repeat,” the Walt Frisby lawyer said. “You must stop making the wombats at once, or my company will be forced to --”
There was a shimmering in the air, and he disappeared.
Dolores turned to Larry, who was studying the weave pattern in a nearby set of drapes.
“Larry,” she said. “Would you by any chance know what happened to that man?”
“Me?” Larry said. “Just because I’ve had a passing familiarity with discontinuities in the space-time continuum, that’s no reason--”
“Bring him back, Larry.”
There was another shimmering, and Mr. Kibosh reappeared, his tie askew and his sunglasses sitting at a jaunty angle on his head. His hair was standing straight up, and he had the look of a man who had seen a charging mastodon head on.
“We’ll stop making the wombats, Mr. Kibosh,” Dolores said.
“That won’t be necessary,” Mr. Kibosh said, trying to stop the tremor in his voice. “N-not necessary, n-not nohow.”
He left abruptly, and Dolores turned to Larry.
“Larry coughed and tugged at his beard . “What?” he said. “I’ll be in my room solving Waring’s Prime Number Conjecture. I’ll be down for dinner.”
Dolores just smiled.
THE END
Copyright John McDonnell, 2010. All rights reserved.
Things slowly settled into a pattern at the Murphy house. Larry watched a lot of TV with Edna, Murphy spent most of his time at the bar, and Willow explored the higher levels of body piercing and tattooing with her boyfriend Horst.
Dolores was the only one who didn’t seem happy with her life. She felt a restlessness, a discontent. The fizz had gone out of her days.
“You need a craft,” Edna said. “That’s what’s always kept me going. Learn how to make something pointless and tacky, and you’ll feel better.”
“But I don’t like crafts,” Dolores said.
“Neither do I, dear,” Edna said. “But they keep us from listening to the voices in our head.”
Dolores thought maybe she was right. Maybe a busy mind would keep her from thinking about how dissatisfied she was with, oh, the entire last 20 years of her life.
“What type of crafting should I take up?” she asked Larry one night.
“How about a miniature proton beam collider?” Larry said. “You could make one that would fit on a keychain. You never know when you’re going to need to smash a few protons together. I think people would love it.”
There was a prolonged silence while Dolores stared at him.
“What?” Larry said. “You don’t like that one? Okay, then how about a subatomic--”
“No.”
“Okay, let’s see,” Larry said, scratching his head. Which, by the way, was hairy. He had come down for breakfast this morning in the form of a chimpanzee, and he was scratching himself a lot today and pooching out his lips.
“How about stuffed animals?” Larry said, wrinkling up his face and scratching hard. “Everybody loves them. You could make them cute and cuddly, and give them names like ‘Smoochy’ and ‘Cutiepie’ and ‘Huggums’.
“That might work,” Dolores said. She went to work immediately, and in no time the house was filled with a collection of cute, cuddly animals stuffed almost to bursting, and all of them complete with full biographies of their lives, written by Edna. The biographies were very long and went on tangents to discuss 1950s TV trivia and recipes for stuffed olives and mince pie, and although Dolores didn’t know how that would appeal to 8 year old girls, she didn’t have the heart to tell Edna to edit them.
Dolores set up a Web site to sell the animals and it was a big success. Before long Dolores had a staff of illegal alien workers in her basement sewing stuffing into the animals, and the money was pouring in. The most popular stuffed animal was a wombat named Huggsie, and the kids just loved it.
Then one day there was a knock at the door. Dolores opened it to find an official looking man in a black suit, wearing sunglasses, who said, “Is this the headquarters of the Huggsie operation?”
“Who wants to know?” Dolores said, eyeing him suspiciously.
“My name is Edwin Kibosh, and I represent the Walt Frisby company,” the man said. “Your Huggsie the Wombat doll is a copy of our Cuddles the Sloth product, and this is a cease and desist order. You must stop production at once,” he said, handing a sheaf of papers to Dolores, “or we will be forced to burn your house to the ground and destroy your family down to the tenth generation.”
“This is outrageous,” Dolores spluttered.
“Quite true,” Larry said, coming downstairs in a tweed jacket, bifocals, and a pipe, looking very much the professor. “Wombats are completely unlike Sloths. For one thing, wombats are marsupials, crepuscular and nocturnal, found in southeast Australia and Tasmania, while Sloths are arboreal mammals who live in South America. They both have extraordinarily slow metabolisms, however. Did you know that it takes a wombat 14 days to digest its food? They also have distinctive cubic droppings. Now the sloth’s droppings--”
“That’s enough Larry!” Dolores said.
“Sorry,” Larry said.
“I repeat,” the Walt Frisby lawyer said. “You must stop making the wombats at once, or my company will be forced to --”
There was a shimmering in the air, and he disappeared.
Dolores turned to Larry, who was studying the weave pattern in a nearby set of drapes.
“Larry,” she said. “Would you by any chance know what happened to that man?”
“Me?” Larry said. “Just because I’ve had a passing familiarity with discontinuities in the space-time continuum, that’s no reason--”
“Bring him back, Larry.”
There was another shimmering, and Mr. Kibosh reappeared, his tie askew and his sunglasses sitting at a jaunty angle on his head. His hair was standing straight up, and he had the look of a man who had seen a charging mastodon head on.
“We’ll stop making the wombats, Mr. Kibosh,” Dolores said.
“That won’t be necessary,” Mr. Kibosh said, trying to stop the tremor in his voice. “N-not necessary, n-not nohow.”
He left abruptly, and Dolores turned to Larry.
“Larry coughed and tugged at his beard . “What?” he said. “I’ll be in my room solving Waring’s Prime Number Conjecture. I’ll be down for dinner.”
Dolores just smiled.
THE END
Copyright John McDonnell, 2010. All rights reserved.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Edna Saves The World From An Alien Takeover
By John McDonnell
The pill that Horst gave Larry had the effect of sending his metabolism on a roller coaster ride, and Larry crashed on the down cycle. He fell asleep on the sofa with his head in Edna’s lap, snoring loudly. Edna didn’t seem to mind that she had a large pink rabbit snoring in her lap while she watched her favorite TV shows.
Dolores peeked in at them, and since everything seemed quiet, she tiptoed off to bed.
About 3 AM the TV set started glowing bright green. At the same time it began emitting a series of high frequency beeps, and then a pattern of pulsating multicolored circles. Edna thought it was grand how these new TV shows had so many delightful special effects.
Then there was a high, tinny voice coming from the TV set. “Transmission for Agent Z9 Double Six Click (followed by a few glottal stops). Give us your coordinates.”
“Why, I’m right here,” Edna said. “Although I’ve never been called that name. You may be confusing me with my friend Blanche. She had the most ridiculous last name, with a whole string of x’s and z’s in it. You couldn’t pronounce it at all. It came with that horrid little man she married, and I always thought she should have divorced him because of it. I like a good short name, like ‘Smith’.”
“Agent Z9,” the voice went on. “Please give a report on the last 100,000 years of human history, and your recommendations.”
“Poor Blanche died years ago,” Edna said. “Do you know, I remember when you could buy a ticket to the movies for 25 cents? I think Roosevelt was president then, although I don’t remember if it was Teddy or Franklin. I was quite the dancer in those days -- I don’t suppose you remember the Black Bottom? My mother said it was too risque, but I was a wild girl and I used to hike my skirts up and -- well, now you’ve got me telling naughty stories,” she said, giggling.
“Is this planet worth colonizing, Agent Z9?” the tinny voice said.
“Do you know, I’ve often wondered why my acquaintances on the TV don’t stop in for a visit,” Edna said. “I’ve invited them many times, but they haven’t taken my offer yet. There’s a nice young doctor named Brad, or Brent, or something like that, he has the most stunning blue eyes, and I’m sure he could cure this ringing I have in my ears, but so far he’s been too busy chatting up blonde secretaries and I haven’t been able to get his attention.”
“We won’t be visiting this quadrant of the universe for another hundred million years,” the voice said. “Do you have anything to add to your report?”
“I do try to watch my diet, of course,” Edna said. “I used to like sweets, but now it’s nothing but sugar-free this and low-fat that for me. My daughter means well, but she has no appreciation for a couple of slices of chocolate cake, or a pudding with whipped cream on top.”
“Very well,” the voice said. “We will take this planet off our list of places to colonize. This will be our last transmission for another million years. Goodbye, Agent Z9.”
“Oh my, so soon?” Edna said. “Well, it was nice chatting with you. Call again sometime.”
The TV screen flickered, the green light disappeared, and the screen resolved itself into a game show, which Edna happily began watching.
In a few minutes Larry stirred, then sat up.
“I had the strangest dream,” he said. “It was as if my home planet was trying to contact me. You didn’t hear a transmission where they were calling, ‘Agent Z9 Double Six Click (followed by a few glottal stops)’, did you? That’s my official title.”
“What’s that, dear?” Edna said. She was trying to remember the name of that nice host on “Family Feud” years ago, the one who was so friendly with all the contestants, especially the young female ones.
“I said--”
“Richard Dawson!” Edna said.
“What?” Larry said.
“Richard Dawson was the host on ‘Family Feud’. Now, what was it you wanted to know?”
“Never mind,” Larry said. “It was probably just a dream.”
“I always say there’s nothing wrong with dreaming,” Edna remarked. “It takes the edge off reality.”
THE END
COPYRIGHT JOHN MCDONNELL, 2010. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
The pill that Horst gave Larry had the effect of sending his metabolism on a roller coaster ride, and Larry crashed on the down cycle. He fell asleep on the sofa with his head in Edna’s lap, snoring loudly. Edna didn’t seem to mind that she had a large pink rabbit snoring in her lap while she watched her favorite TV shows.
Dolores peeked in at them, and since everything seemed quiet, she tiptoed off to bed.
About 3 AM the TV set started glowing bright green. At the same time it began emitting a series of high frequency beeps, and then a pattern of pulsating multicolored circles. Edna thought it was grand how these new TV shows had so many delightful special effects.
Then there was a high, tinny voice coming from the TV set. “Transmission for Agent Z9 Double Six Click (followed by a few glottal stops). Give us your coordinates.”
“Why, I’m right here,” Edna said. “Although I’ve never been called that name. You may be confusing me with my friend Blanche. She had the most ridiculous last name, with a whole string of x’s and z’s in it. You couldn’t pronounce it at all. It came with that horrid little man she married, and I always thought she should have divorced him because of it. I like a good short name, like ‘Smith’.”
“Agent Z9,” the voice went on. “Please give a report on the last 100,000 years of human history, and your recommendations.”
“Poor Blanche died years ago,” Edna said. “Do you know, I remember when you could buy a ticket to the movies for 25 cents? I think Roosevelt was president then, although I don’t remember if it was Teddy or Franklin. I was quite the dancer in those days -- I don’t suppose you remember the Black Bottom? My mother said it was too risque, but I was a wild girl and I used to hike my skirts up and -- well, now you’ve got me telling naughty stories,” she said, giggling.
“Is this planet worth colonizing, Agent Z9?” the tinny voice said.
“Do you know, I’ve often wondered why my acquaintances on the TV don’t stop in for a visit,” Edna said. “I’ve invited them many times, but they haven’t taken my offer yet. There’s a nice young doctor named Brad, or Brent, or something like that, he has the most stunning blue eyes, and I’m sure he could cure this ringing I have in my ears, but so far he’s been too busy chatting up blonde secretaries and I haven’t been able to get his attention.”
“We won’t be visiting this quadrant of the universe for another hundred million years,” the voice said. “Do you have anything to add to your report?”
“I do try to watch my diet, of course,” Edna said. “I used to like sweets, but now it’s nothing but sugar-free this and low-fat that for me. My daughter means well, but she has no appreciation for a couple of slices of chocolate cake, or a pudding with whipped cream on top.”
“Very well,” the voice said. “We will take this planet off our list of places to colonize. This will be our last transmission for another million years. Goodbye, Agent Z9.”
“Oh my, so soon?” Edna said. “Well, it was nice chatting with you. Call again sometime.”
The TV screen flickered, the green light disappeared, and the screen resolved itself into a game show, which Edna happily began watching.
In a few minutes Larry stirred, then sat up.
“I had the strangest dream,” he said. “It was as if my home planet was trying to contact me. You didn’t hear a transmission where they were calling, ‘Agent Z9 Double Six Click (followed by a few glottal stops)’, did you? That’s my official title.”
“What’s that, dear?” Edna said. She was trying to remember the name of that nice host on “Family Feud” years ago, the one who was so friendly with all the contestants, especially the young female ones.
“I said--”
“Richard Dawson!” Edna said.
“What?” Larry said.
“Richard Dawson was the host on ‘Family Feud’. Now, what was it you wanted to know?”
“Never mind,” Larry said. “It was probably just a dream.”
“I always say there’s nothing wrong with dreaming,” Edna remarked. “It takes the edge off reality.”
THE END
COPYRIGHT JOHN MCDONNELL, 2010. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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