The other day, an acquaintance on Facebook wrote about an “encounter” with a couple of mice that had invaded her second story writing office. She “inflated” the encounter here and there to give it a little fun.
Below is my response to her posting. The encounter told from the point of view of the mice.
Told all in dialogue. You can be the judge if it works.
I call it, Encounter in Fine Print.
“Brian. Hey, Brian, you think it’s workin’? Think we’re scaring her?”
“Yeah, Pink, I think if we stare at her long enough through this magnifying thing we found she’ll think we are four times our size with fangs and claws six inches long. Just keep staring at her.”
“But Brian….”
“Yes, Pink?”
“How do we eat and stare at the same time?”
“We don’t, Pink.”
“Why do you call me Pink? My name’s Gerald.”
“Gerald won’t get us anywhere.”
“Are we goin’ somewhere? I thought we came here for snacks. You know, cheese bits and stuff.”
“Never say ‘and stuff.’ Just say cheese bits.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
“So, I have to be Pink because you said so, and I can’t say ‘and stuff’ because you said so.”
“That’s right.”
“I don’t think I like this game.”
“It’s not a game, Gerald. It’s … it’s … ah … okay, it is a game, but it is a game to make us famous.”
“I want snacks.”
“When we become famous, you will have all the snacks you can handle. I’ll even give you one of mine, Pink.”
“Really!” Pink said.
“Really.”
“Really?”
“Really,” Brian said.
“But when do we get snacks?”
“After we scare this woman. She’s a writer. We scare her, she will put us in one of her stories, her fantastical tales.”
“My tail is nice, but I wouldn’t call it fantastic.”
“It’s not about your tail.”
“If it’s not about snacks and it’s not about my tail. What is it about?”
“Gerald….”
“I thought it was Pink.”
“Pink, I will say it one last time. It’s about being famous. This lady writer writes a story about us in which we are monsters out to take over the world. We’re fifty foot—No, 100 foot rats with fangs like Mammoth tusks and we eat everything in sight. Men, women, children.”
“And they’re our snacks?”
“Yes, Pink, they are our snacks.”
“But I don’t want to eat children.”
“You don’t have to.”
“When do we eat? I’m starving.”
“Not yet, because we have to have to take the story to a Hollywood director, who will want to turn it into a screenplay with lots of special effects that he will use to splash the story across the big screen.”
“And we’ll be movie stars and get snacks?”
“Yes.”
“The Hundred Foot Rat starring Pink and Brian.”
“Brian and Pink”
“Pink and Brian.”
“I think you need a new name.”
“Brian’s a good name.”
“So’s Gerald. But you won’t let it be Gerald and Brian.”
“Okay. Maybe we can use an anagram.”
“Aunt Gram? I think your name would be silly. Aunt Gram.”
“Anagram. Anagram. You rearrange the letters to spell something else.”
“Oh, is that how you got Pink out of Gerald?”
“Ah … exactly.”
“Then what would your Aunt Gram be?”
“Brian … Brian … An rib? No. Hummm. Brian … Brian. Brain. That’s it – Brain.”
“So, we’ll be Pink and Brain.”
“Oh, okay. Your nom de guerre can be first.”
“Now it’s going to be Name the gear and Brain?”
“Pink for short.”
“So Pink for short and Brian?”
“Close enough.”
“Hey, where did the lady writer go? The one who was going to make us monsters?”
“Well, Pink for short, I think she went to get help.”
“You mean another writer to help her write our story, Brain? Our story with snacks in it?”
“Not exactly. I don’t think those footsteps sound friendly.”
“You mean no snacks, Brain.”
“I mean no snacks, Pink.”
“And I bet there ain’t no story, either.”
Filed under 2016, Random Access Thoughts, Silly Saturday, Story by author
by DAVID E. BOOKER
I will not put her in a box
I will not use one with a lock.
I will not bury her beneath the blocks
nor stuff her in the freezer with the lox.
I will not ship her far, far away.
I said I won’t, no, no not today.
But my patience is running thin
and should she try it, yet once again…
I will not be responsible for what I do.
My five-year-old could do it to you, too.
Return postage not included.
Filed under cartoon by author, poetry by author, Silly Saturday
Miley Cyrus did all she could do to promote twerking.
Anyway owning a smart cell(ular) (tele)phone with a front facing camera (And what self-respecting, self-involved dummy DOESN’T have one?) can engage in selfie-ism. Just pose, point, and click. Upload to your Facebook page, your blog, your Pinterest spot, your Twitter account, and anywhere else your digital self resides.
Personally, I am disappointed.
With all the work I have done to promote such new words as obsurd (obscure and absurd), face tedious (where you spend so much time on social media, commenting and in other ways inserting yourself, you become face tedious. Certainly, too many selfies can make that happen.), flib, and elastation just to name a few, why the judges lowered themselves to consider works like twerk and selfie is beyond me.
I can only surmise that their selection was some knee jerk reaction.
In honor of that, here is my selfie. My knee selfie. Take that, Oxford English Dictionary.
My knee selfie.
It’s a little hard to blog from a supine position. Additionally (though math is not my strong suit at this time), some of the medication I am taking renders me time and space challenged. Therefore and henceforth, to wit from this knee jerking wit, you will probably be reading fewer entries from me for a while.
But look on the bright side (or brighter side as the case may be), at least I won’t be out anywhere twerking. With a knee that swollen, I am not even able to shake a leg, let alone anything else.
Happy Holidays.
Filed under Silly Saturday, writing humor
Ripped from the horoscope headlines. Is this an editing typo or a premonition of things to….. Well, you decide:
“Pisces: (Feb. 20 – March 20) Don’t anticipate failure before you even give something a. You have as much chance of wining as you do losing.”
What is to be won? The missing word at the end of the first sentence? What is the Pisces person supposed to “give something a”? I have tried to figure it out, but have come up a failure thus far. I anticipate a no-win situation.
Filed under Silly Saturday
I broke my first rule /
when I tweeted you. That first /
step is the big one.
Filed under poetry by author, Silly Saturday
Q.: How did this (see photo below) man get past NASA security?
A.: He shuttled in.
Puns, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the UGBC (You Gotta Be Crazy) Punster, it’s ongoing irritation….
Filed under joke, puns, Silly Saturday
Baker’s Twine
by DAVID E. BOOKER
Baker’s twine, baker’s twine
Upon their heads we will dine
Like cake pops on a stick of spine
Wrapped and tied with Baker’s twine.
Baker’s twine, baker’s twine
Hanging there so refined
Sandwiches dangling by the twine
Without a brain, I make one mine.
Baker’s twine, baker’s twine
Upon a Sandwich I did dine
I ate it all, including the twine
Now I don’t feel quite feel so fine.
Some days you get the sandwich and some days the sandwich gets you.
Filed under cartoon by author, poetry by author, Silly Saturday
Christmas Time
By David E. Booker
Christmas comes but once a year
As songs and calendar make clear;
And then the bills come blowing in,
Heralding a new year, amen.
So out into the cold I go,
Fighting wind and debt and snow
Bringing Christmas joy and cheer
’Til my bank account is clear.
Then the credit cards come out
And out and out and then about
The time I think I’ve spent enough
There is a present that I’ve muffed.
So back into the store I go
For my tale of substitute woe
Where the clerk tries to smile
And I feel I’m in Kafka’s Trial.
The guardians of tradition wait to ensure your every move is the right one.
O’ Christmas becomes a time surreal
When some dance and some kneel
And oftentimes my intentions digress
And I come out feeling less and less.
As the stories of Christmas past
Tell tales of deeds that truly last.
Try as I might, I come to the day
Watching the show now on display
And feel as the tree tops glisten
And children listen, that I am missing
A moment of my own to clasp,
Something sweet and ethereal to last.
For it’s those moments ill-defined,
When a smile is given un-timed,
When the heart is opened to the moment,
That the soul finds console-ment
That this season means more than here
And those people you wish to hold dear
Find their place and their own rhyme
In your heart, beating in a new time.
[Editor’s note: This poem was first published in a small publication in 2007.]
Filed under Christmas, Photo by author, poetry by author, Silly Saturday
This is a note to tell you
that Wall Street has taken away
the things I really needed:
my workshop, my reindeer, my sleigh.
I now make my rounds on a jackass;
he’s old and crippled and slow.
So, if you don’t see me come Christmas,
I’ll be out on my ass in the snow.
Santa mounts a new challenge.
Filed under cartoon by author, Christmas, poetry, Silly Saturday
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