The Resignation

"And we have Breaking News here on CNN! The knife that was found at the former OJ Simpson Property several months ago that was determined not to be the murder weapon has now been determined to be the dinner knife that OJ used to eat peas!"  

"I'm Brooke Baldwin and these are my cheek bones." 

"Joining me now is our special OJ Dream Team panel composed of ...."

"Wait! We have further Breaking News! It has just been announced that the Lord God, King of the Universe, is stepping down from his position as God from on High effective May 1, 2016.  And with us now is .... the God of our Fathers!  Welcome to CNN, sir."

"Thank you, Brooke.  By the way, great cheekbones!  Some of my best work, if I do say so myself."

"I've been meaning to thank you for them, God."

"You're welcome.  You know, Brooke, I have a son just about your age.  Would you like to meet him?"

"Perhaps we could discuss that off the air.  First up,  I want to be clear right from the beginning. What do you prefer to be called?  Yahweh?  Elohim? Allah?"

"I have always preferred Kippy.  Don't ask."

"OK, Kippy.  So, I'd like to know what's prompted you to take this rather extreme action at this time?"

"Brooke, it's not extreme at all.  I never meant for this to be a full-time job."

"No?"

"One afternoon I happened to look down and I noticed that the earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and I figured WTF!  I ought to do something with that.  True story!"

"About how long did it take you to put all of Creation together?" 

"I dunno, a week maybe.  I could have done it a lot more quickly if I'd used a mix."

"So what you're telling me, Kippy, is that overseeing and controlling everything that is --- the entire universe and all living things within it --- was just a hobby for you? Sort of like golf?"

"Oh, my word, Brooke, no, not at all!  Golf is much harder."

"So why are you stepping down now as Lord of the Universe?"

"I don't think I like organized religion."

"How's that?”

"Well, millions of times a day I'm asked to bless someone for sneezing. What if I don't want to bless them?  What if I want to bless you but I don't want to bless Anderson Cooper? And why should I bless anybody for spreading snotty germs anyway?" 

"I thought you were  going to mention how organized religion has fomented bigotry, hatred, violence, and war all throughout history."

"Yeah, that too."

"Is there anything you do like about religion?  How about being omniscient?" 

"Oh my me, that's  the worst!"

"How so?"

"Ever see the movie The Sixth Sense, Brooke."

"Sure."

"Imagine you're just about to watch The Sixth Sense for the first time and someone tells you the ending.

"Yeah, that would be lousy."

"Well, imagine you had that same kind of thing going on from the time of the Big Bang to the end of the Universe and beyond!"

"I get it."

"There's not a lot of suspense for me, I'm tellin' ya." 

"Do you like the holidays that come from religion?"

"I can't make hide nor hair of most of them. What's the deal with Good Friday anyway? Why is it called Good Friday?  My son was there when it started and believe me, he doesn't think there was anything good about it!"

"Do you like Passover any better?"

"It's too violent. If I'd been more focused at the time I'd have made  Death of the First Born into something more like the Severely Scraped Knee of the First Born.  That would have been more than enough to get the job done."

"Okay, Kippy, I see why you're calling it quits.  Are you also retiring?”

“Of course not!  I’m only 14 billion and a half years old.  Just this past Thursday, in fact."  

"Happy Birthday!  What’s your secret?"

"Always take the stairs."

"Do you have any plans now that you're no longer going to be King of the Universe?"

"Yes, I have a number of other interests, most of which I can't explain intelligibly to human beings.  And, of course, lotsa golf.

"Best of luck to you, Kippy!  Our time is up, but I just wanted to add one more thing now that I've finally met you after all these years."

"Yes, Brooke?"

"Funny, you don’t look Jewish."

“Yeah, I get that all the time."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you liked this post, you might also like And How Do You Take Your God,  Hello Yahweh!, and Go Down, Twitter. If you hated this post, I hope Elijah the Prophet comes to your house this Passover and NEVER leaves!

Three in One Hundred (FF)

FF-Friday Fictioneers

Copyright: J Hardy Carroll 

It was a cold and stormy night and although soaked to the bone, my spirits rose when I saw a light shining in the decayed castle ahead.

“Walk this way" said the hunchback greeting me at the door, and although it seemed silly I obliged, dragging my left leg in the self-same manner as the pitiable fellow.

We entered Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory.

“Fortuitous!” exclaimed Frankenstein. “I am just in need of a brain for the monster.”

How about that, folks? Three clichés in 100 words.  Not bad for a guy who had no earthly idea what to do with the prompt!  

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Yes, I certainly took the low road this week, slinging a ragtag bunch of cliches at you instead of coming up with a real story.  If I were you, I wouldn't even lower myself to read it! 

I just remembered how few of you ever do. 

You can read actual stories by the other Friday Fictioneers, however, by clicking here. They're all pretty good, but just try to find "a dark and stormy night" in the bunch!

Just What the Doctor Didn't Order

It's often been said that Pennsylvania is actually two states, not one. These two states are:

1) Philadelphia, and

2) All the rest of Pennsylvania that ain't Philadelphia.

For the most part, Philadelphia views all the rest of Pennsylvania that ain't Philadelphia as composed of hayseeds in romantic love with the Second Amendment, and all the rest of Pennsylvania that ain't Philadelphia views Philadelphia as the world's foremost hotbed of sin, wickedness, and depravity.

Notwithstanding the failure of Philadelphia to live anywhere near up to its reputation when it comes to me, however, it seems that the world’s foremost hotbed of sin, wickedness, and depravity is poised to score a major victory over the rest of Pennsylvania. That is, over the rest of Pennsylvania that ain't it.

The legalization of Medical Marijuana is today being seriously considered in the state. Both of them!

Now my dope smoking days are rather solidly in the rear view mirror, but this bit of news coupled with the various aches, pains, and coronaries of modern Boomer life got me to thinking that it might not be half bad if certain objects in the rear view mirror turned out to be closer than they seem.

So I called my family doctor.

"Dr. Kropotkin!  I can't believe I got you on the phone."

"Well, you know I'm very busy. Who is this?"

"This is your longstanding patient, Perry Block."

"OMG, I’m really, really busy, gotta go!"

"You know, Dr. Kropotkin, sometimes I wonder if you actually are that busy or if it's me."

"Mostly it's you.  You have 30 seconds."

"Doctor, I understand medical marijuana may be coming to Pennsylvania soon."

"So they say.  Twenty-five seconds left."

"Well, I want to get on your radar for some dope --- I mean medical marijuana --- when the time comes."

"Perry, I can't prescribe medical marijuana for no reason at all."

"No reason at all?!! I'm a virtual walking ER of symptoms!"

"Such as?"

"My scoliosis.  You know my spine is shaped like the piping under your kitchen sink."

"Perry, medical marijuana is not going to straighten your spine."

"I know, but the more I sit around contemplating the universe the less likely I am to care about it." 

"Twenty seconds."  

"Don't forget I have vitiligo.  I have white patches all over my skin!"  

"Perry, your dermatologist Dr. Joy Davis has advised me your case of vitiligo is not that bad."

"Not that bad?  Cruella de Vil has been stalking me for my coat!"

"Fifteen seconds."

"Eye floaters."

"Everybody has eye floaters."

"Mine are the size of a Buick."

"Buicks are fashionable now.  Look, over there, that guy getting out of one outside the nightclub: that's not your grandpa!  Ten seconds."

"Very painful corns, Dr. Kropotkin."

"Go to the foot doctor and get them cut off."

"I'll never make it. You have to walk across a former Civil War battlefield to get to her office."

"Five seconds, and I'm free."

"Aren't you forgetting something very important, doctor?"

"For the sake of the medical profession, I hope not."

"My psychological problems:  Rampant insecurity, aging angst, and my desire to return to the womb provided they put in a wet bar."

"Oh, crap!  Okay, how many ounces do you need and what flavor do you prefer?"

"I'll leave that up to your professional judgment.  And oh, Dr. Kropotkin? 

"Yes?"

"Could you also write me a script for a very nice bong and a psychedelic poster of Jimi Hendrix?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you liked this post, you may also like Rocky Mountain High, Why Do You Think They Call It Dope?, and It’s Always Smokey in Philadelphia.

If you hated this post, I hope your doctor writes you a script for Medical Marijuana and it turns out to be oregano!

The Story About Cupid on Page One

Yep, it's my buddy Cupid!

"How about we do some work on our book this morning?" I asked Cupid, the former Greco-Roman God of Love whose memoir The Boy Who Shoots the Arrows I was co-authoring.

"Why not?  Family Feud sucks today!"

Cupid and I had been working for several weeks now on producing a memoir that would restore some luster to his somewhat tarnished image since he had stepped down as antiquarian God of Love. I hoped it might do something for my image too which had pretty much been tarnished since birth.

"Cupid,” I began “are you still a God?  Or are you just an ordinary person, like Jeb Bush?”

"No, once a God, always a God. I'm a God without Portfolio."

"Has there been any talk of your getting a new position?"

"Zeus offered me the job of God of Love for Shitty Looking People, but I turned him down."

"Sounds really difficult."

"You'd be surprised. A lot of people like Nicholas Cage." 

"Do your arrows still have any potency?"

"A little bit."

"So you can still make people fall in love?"

“No, no exactly.”

“What then?”

“I can make people admire your clothing." 

Just then the doorbell rang and I excused myself while Cupid set about grooming his wings. Damn, that meant I’d be vacuuming feathers until midnight again!

I opened the door and it was my sometime girlfriend Sandra. 

"This is a surprise,” I said. “Do you want to come in and meet....?”

"No, Perry, and I don’t want to beat around the bush any longer either," she said.  "I think we should stop seeing see each other.”

"But why? I just bought a refrigerator magnet with your name on it." 

"I'll be direct. You're not well-groomed, you wear your hair too long for someone who hasn't got any, and your table manners are straight out of the Three Stooges.”

“Well, you have to emulate someone!”

“And you're not assertive enough. All you do is watch movies. Trhe only exercise you get is pushing your fore finger up and down on the clicker.”

“But wait till you see how it’s helped my thumb wrestling!”

"And  you’re just not cultured enough. You told everyone at the Book Club you thought Shelley and Joyce were a couple of Jewish girls!"

"That's unfair, Sandra!  I only thought Joyce was Jewish."

THWACK!

From the next room I could hear Cupid unleashing one of his quietly invisible arrows in Sandra’s direction.  What a pal, he was doing what he could for me!

"I'm sorry, Perry," Sandra spoke softly.  “I'm afraid this is goodbye." 

I was crushed. Sandra turned to leave. Forever.

"Oh, by the way, Perry," she added brightly. 

"I just love your shoes!"

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