"I'm with stupid." It was the dumbest t-shirt he'd ever owned. He liked it anyway, but she gave it away. Someone at the homeless shelter would receive an "I'm with stupid" t-shirt this Wednesday at giving time. God he missed her, even though she gave away that t-shirt. He missed the way her face lit up looking at every snowflake that fell in the winter.
He missed her light brown hair sitting upon her bare shoulders in summer; the way she she would groan at him for wearing the "I'm with stupid" t-shirt. She used to dance to "Video Killed...
I was going to the store to buy some Golden Grahams and mushroom soup. I was with Meadow, my kid sister, who was 11. Meadow had developed an infatuation with cole slaw. She wore it under her armpits. She danced a lot too. Her favourite fictional character was Smurfette.
We got to the store and the clerk, Mr. Didd, told us that we could have the Golden Grahams for free if we would do him a favour.
"Wassat?" asks Meadow.
Mr. Didd hands her a pouch of golden dust. "Take this into the woods and dispose of it," he says....
Anyway, after the assembly, the fourth-graders signed up for whatever instrument interested us.
"I like the saxophone!" So my parents signed me up for the saxophone.
Later, when we went to the music rental shop, I was presented with the saxophone. I was confused as it did not resemble what I thought was a saxophone. Where was that brass tube that slid in and out?
What a dumb kid! I wanted to play the trombone, but thought it was called a saxophone. I never protested, shy and passive as I was. So I learned to play the saxophone.
I never...
Care boxes? More care boxes? Do they think care boxes are supporting the troops? Take it back. I don't want it. Don't just take it back, send it back. I don't want their pity. I don't want their support if that is what they call it. I don't want them to be able to get off thinking that they are now justified in continuing to live most apathetically under the freedoms that I supposedly am fighting for.
Instead of filling care boxes they should be filling ballot boxes. Instead of sending care in boxes they should be sending letters to...
You can count me out. I don't care how fun and amazing and what a once in a lifetime opportunity you say this'll be. You can coax and you can pull but I swear on the liquor soaked heart of my father I am not moving from this spot.
It won't be a fresh, new experience. My soul won't suddenly bloom open like a flower because I tried this. I won't be able to see through time or space.
It's stupid. The whole idea is just stupid. You're asking for trouble, that's what you are doing. Not even asking, you're...
He wasn't certain he believed her, or that he'd heard her correctly.
She believed it, though. That much was obvious, from the earnest look in her eyes, from the way she clung to her coffee cup with such a tight grip, as if it was the only thing tethering her. As if it was what was keeping her real, keeping her here.
"How did it happen?" He asked finally.
Althea seemed to relax a little at that, as if she'd overcome a hurdle, as if she was relieved - finally, somebody believed her. "I don't know. If I did, I...
"I'm not stalking you, I swear," she said to him as he stared across the produce section in the grocer.
"Oh? The coffee shop by your office I could understand. The subway too. Maybe we live on the same line. The movie theatre might have been a coincidence. And the cologne section at Macy's could be justified. I'm a little concerned that you'd appear in the same Casino, the same bar and the same strip club, but to each their own. So that you'd even say you're not stalking me, here, in a grocery store, the most obvious place for...
His life was on the line.
Strung from tree to tree, across the back yard, his priorities blew in the wind. There were his coat and slacks, accompanied by an assortment of lively, but respectable, neckties. There was his underwear. There was his hockey jersey.
There were his one-year-old's Big Boy Diapers, and his wife's sweaters, and his dog's blanket.
And there was the note.
He slowly, thoughtfully pulled in the line, taking the items down, one by one. When he reached the paper, his heart caught in his throat.
"If you had another chance," it said to him, "would...
Not everyone knows this, but Kate Beaton is obsessive, the painterly equivalent of a Method actor. To create each new page of "Hark, a vagrant!" she recruits Swiss artists' models to dress in period clothing and pose in front of the Alps. Frozen in position as well as in time, they are required to make only the most ridiculous of faces for her art to take fruition. Eyes are stressed. At least half of the models have held a spot in Guiness for eye-bugging capability.
Once their minds are relaxed after a sufficient period of standing still, they are required...
"Who among you, if her son asks her for bread, will instead give him a stone?"
I was paraphrasing, and quoting out of context, but she didn't know that. She was just a foolish, naive, ignorant, innocent young girl. She'd begged and pleaded for the opportunity to raise a pet. The goldfish just hadn't been enough, either. Oh no; she wanted a mammal.
So the baby gorilla came home with me one day, fresh out of acting school. This little guy was GOOD. He could play dead with the best of them. He could even slow his heart rate to...