Flash Fiction #285

PHOTO PROMPT © Bill Reynolds

WOW

My creative git up and go has got up and went.  (What, again??!)  😳

Much as I would like to, I can’t always rely on Fibbing Fridays to end the week with.

My writing skills have flamed out.  Rochelle’s picture this week has left them as sere and ravaged as Yosemite after a wildfire, so this will have to be a WOW post.

The Word Of the Week is

Ischia

This is a Latin word for the name of an island in the Bay of Naples.  It is called that because it resembles the bones at the back of the pelvis.

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If you’d like to join the fun with the Friday Fictioneers, go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

What If?? What If?? What If??

Oh goody!  We’re going to play a game of What If.  I have not been amused or entertained by one of those for years.

Let’s say you were in a naval battle in the middle of the ocean and your ship was destroyed so you are in very cold water. You know that you need to act now to get on a ship or you will die. Now there are 4 ships that you can swim to. But it looks like all the ships are very badly damaged and unlikely to be seaworthy enough to save you. It’s hard to tell from your position but as best you can tell one ship has a 5% chance but the others have less than a 2% chance of being seaworthy enough to save you. 

What do you do? Do you think well no one has “proven” or “verified” that any of these ships will save me so I might as well die in the water? Or do you start swimming to the ship that gives you a five percent chance (the best shot)? I think that is the obvious choice. You are not in a position to demand “proofs” or “verification.” You just have to make do with the information you have. 

I think this is analogous to the situation we are in when it comes to how we should live. We can’t pause our life until someone can prove how we are supposed to live. We choose to act or not act all the time. And we can’t insist on verification or proof beyond what we have. We just have to take our best shot. 

For me I think following Christ’s teachings is the “best shot.” I may wish I had better evidence or proofs but reality does not bend to my wishes. The rational person bends his beliefs and actions to reality.

People often believe that they are thinking, when all they’re really doing is rearranging their prejudices.  So, you’re going to dream up a scenario that is so outlandish and restrictive, that it makes your already-decided-on choice look good barely acceptable.

I am disturbed that you would advocate a selection with a 95% chance of failure, but, as you inferred, It’s (barely) better than nothing.  Desperation is not considered a good method of choice.  It usually results in wrong decisions.  Even choice is a bad method.  You can attend a Christian church, and repeat all the magic words, but it won’t produce the honest, true-hearted Belief that the unwritten rules call for.

I’d like to ask what mechanism you used to determine what percentage of success your choice, both in real life and in your specious analogy, had.  I see none, other than desperation and gullibility – only an unproven claim.

Unlike your fantasy-novel format, in real life it is both possible and advisable to do some research, so that you don’t end up in these religious shipwreck scenarios.

What if that water isn’t as cold and deep as you believe?  What if you were just told that, by the guy who runs the life-preserver franchise?  What if, no matter which ship you swam to, it sank and drowned you?  What if the ship you chose was an enemy vessel, and the agents of Allah tortured you to death?  What if you stopped panicking, and used your strength and determination to swim toward the big orange rubber raft that the rescue helicopter just dropped, labelled Reason/Reality?  What if you’re not Captain James T. Kirk, and there just is no right answer?

What if you summarily dismiss all of my What Ifs, because you think that they sound almost as silly as your What Ifs??!

’22 A To Z Challenge – I

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s not that I’m stubborn.  It’s just that I’m usually right.  I am urged to consider others’ opinions.  I do!  I consider many of them stupid and unworkable.  My darling wife, whose vocabulary is limited to romance novel levels, would not call me

Intransigent

refusing to agree or compromise; uncompromising; inflexible
obstinately maintaining an attitude

Nor

Intractable

not easily controlled or directed; not docile or manageable; stubborn; obstinate:
difficult to influence or direct

I don’t think that I am smarter than others.  It is, perhaps, just that I pay more attention to reality.  I only have a high school diploma, and some work-related post-secondary training.  I am constantly amazed by the ignorance and misunderstanding of people with college and university degrees.

One day, at work, four of us were playing cards at lunch, and the radio played an advertisement referencing the legal code of Habburami.   Two of us perked up, and simultaneously shouted, “Hammurabi!”  A co-worker asked, “How do you know?”  I answered, ”Because we paid attention in class.”

Religion is not the only reason that people believe and say foolish, stupid things.  The education system in North America, more and more, resembles a sewage treatment plant, with about the same type and quality of output.  Something is rotten in the state of Denmark Mississippi, New Jersey, etc.

I am amenable to being honestly and intelligently guided, but I refuse to be blindly led.  I am willing – anxious – to change my opinion if I am offered solid evidence, and well-thought-out presentations.  I will not take seriously, any opinion, from someone who asks things like, “Do Atheists have children?” – or Flat-Earth-type fools who claim that, “Australia is a lie.  It’s not real.  If it was, (sic) people would fall off.”

Twice As Lucky Fibbing Friday

Pensitivity101 has thrown up her hands in resignation and wonderment at how I continue to sneak past her guard-Corgis, and purloin yet another list of prompts for creative mendacity.
(Trade secret: I quietly read to them from The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night-Time, as a bed-time story, and they doze right off.)

1. What is meant by jumping bail?

He is Christian Bale’s irreligious cousin, Atheist Bail.  (The Immigration Department spelled their name differently, when they immigrated here separately, from Inner Slobovia.)  He is the Track and Field Wunderkind at his high school, with his long, powerful legs.  He competes in long jump, high jump, hop-step-and-jump, and finishes his afternoon workout with a few laps of hurdles.

2. What is a skipping rope?

The United States still has several states with the death penalty.  If you kill somebody, we’ll kill you back.  In Texas, if you kill a police officer, they have installed an express lane.  The State of Utah, full of loving, religious Mormons, offers the condemned prisoner a choice – hanging, or firing squad.  If you choose the firing squad, that’s skipping rope.

3. What is a sickly hue?

One of my cats has allergies, and is not above hacking up a bile-encrusted hairball in the middle of the night.  When I stepped on one, getting out of bed one morning, I said to the wife, “I must remember to put on my slippers.” until the morning I found one – by squeamish touch – in a slipper.  A sickly hue was the look on my face that day.

4. What is cooking the books?

In an effort to be relevant as a wife and mother, providing food for her family, the wife purchased cookbook after cookbook – The Betty Crocker Cookbook, The Joy Of Cooking, The Canadian Cookbook, Food That Really Schmecks, The International Cookbook.

Over the years, we have enjoyed a spicy beef stew from Kenya, Scottish shepherds’ pie, French onion soup and tourtiere, perogies from the Ukraine, hot and sour soup, and beef and broccoli stir-fry, vindaloo beef, and tandoori chicken from India, Greek tarragon chicken and rice, Mexican beef fiesta, and Louisiana shrimp Creole.

As she aged, she grew weaker – more apathetic.  More and more, the preparation of meals fell to me.  I couldn’t produce the fancier dishes.  There was one more book that I found invaluable, 365 Ground Meat Recipes – meatloaf, pork burgers with sautéed onions, hamburger goulash, hamburger stroganoff, curried hamburger, spaghetti Bolognaise, chili con carne, sloppy Joes, chili fries, ground chicken or turkey egg Fu yung, and ground lamb gyros/doners.  Bon appetite.  😀

5. What is a microwave?

It was the minuscule, almost subliminal, acknowledgement of my existence, from him, when I ran into my Baptist minister at the liquor store.

6. What is meant by passing the buck?

This is a habit that Canadians have developed since our government stopped printing one-dollar and two-dollar bills, and replaced them with large, clunky coins.  Small change isn’t all that small anymore.  If you’re not careful, it’s easy to acquire a pocket or purse so full, that a limp can be induced.

While Canadians in general have embraced debit and credit cards, many of us make sure to lighten our load by paying for small purchases with these albatrosses Loonies.  And some genius has been minting and passing counterfeit Toonies, with seals instead of polar bears, and some zombie guy instead of Lizzie the Twooth.  https://ottawa.citynews.ca/police-beat/police-investigating-counterfeit-toonies-found-at-hawkesbury-store-4949995

7. What are air kisses?

Hopefully, they’re the only kind you get, while COVID and Omicron are putting tag-team arm- ass-locks on us.  The Glitterati out in Hollywood have been practicing for this for years.  They’re a lot like online sex.  You can have a thunderous orgasm – even if no one else is in the room.

8. What is meant by shooting one’s mouth off?

A female Arizona newspaper columnist was assigned to interview the oldest man in the county – 106 years.  She asked him what he attributed his long life to.  He told her that he mixed a little gunpowder with his cereal each morning, and suggested that she try it.  She did so for years, finally dying at 96.  She left behind four children, eight grandchildren, twelve great-grandchildren, and a 24 foot crater where the crematorium used to be.

9. What does a dentist do?

He’s a guy like my neighbor Bob, operating a vehicle in a crowded parking lot.  The local Association of Auto-Body Shops have voted him their favorite driver, three years in a row.

10. What is a ruff?
    

That’s Dennis the Menace’s dog!  Am I the only one old enough to remember?   😕

Son Of A Gun

Or in this case, a grandson.  In an attempt to dilute and disperse my fanatical, homicidal, antisocial obsession with possessing dangerous weapons, he has already given me a

Sacrificial Stone Dagger
We’ll call it a Scottish letter opener.

And a

Gorgeous rapier
We’ll call it shiny, sharp and pointy.

The United States has recently endured several domestic terrorism attacks, where assault-type weapons have been used to murder numbers of people.  In an attempt to look like they’re doing something – anything – more of the wrong thing, and solving someone else’s problem, the Canadian Federal Government has passed legislation that further tightens gun-control laws that are already some of the most restrictive in the world.  At least temporarily, the purchase, sale, or transfer of legally-owned handguns has been suspended.

Unlike Hercules, the grandson cannot cut the Gordian Knot of bureaucracy, and present me with a Government-authorized pistol.  Ingenious little devil he, he has found a way to tap-dance past the restrictions.  It is legally permitted to hire the services of a licensed gun-shop/shooting range owner, who will provide supervision and safety instruction, and temporarily lend and allow me to fire, five of my favorite handguns.

A sixth, my more favorite, the Berretta Model 92, is not included in the offering.  I plan to (reluctantly) ask if it is possible to substitute it for one on their menu.  Being Canadian, I have only fired two hand-guns in my life – a Police .38 Special, and a .32 caliber Spanish officer’s semi-automatic, a darling little thing with shiny stainless steel, and mother-of-pearl handles, suitable as a lady’s purse gun, or in the don’t ask – don’t tell brigade.

I received this I Am Impossible To Shop For package as a Fathers’ Day present.  The grandson and I, and the range owner, will negotiate a mutually acceptable Saturday, probably near my birthday in late September.  This is the most useless, but at the same time, the most treasured bucket list present that I have ever received.

I’m sure that some, make us feel safe at any cost, even if we’re not, Chicken Littles will want to know why I want to fire these dangerous guns.  As Willy Sutton said, when they asked him why he robbed banks – that’s where the money is.  Or George Mallory (not Edmund Hillary), when asked why he climbed Mount Everest – because it’s there!  I feel no need to justify this adventure but, that’s where the enjoyment is, and, because I can.

I will employ my hundreds of hours of gun safety training to ensure that I don’t shoot myself or anyone else.  With my worsening essential tremor, I won’t reveal target scores.  It will be enough just to keep flying lead between the range walls.  I will report later on this guys’ escapade.  You’ll know me by my goofy smile.

Putting the Fun In Funeral

Subject: The Italian Funeral

A Jewish man was leaving a convenience store with his coffee when he noticed a most unusual Italian funeral procession approaching the nearby cemetery.

A black hearse was followed by a second black hearse about 50 feet behind the first one.  Behind the second hearse was a solitary Italian man walking a dog on a leash.

Behind him, a short distance back were about 300 men walking in single file.

The Jewish man couldn’t stand the curiosity. He respectfully approached the Italian man walking the dog and said:

“I am so sorry for your loss, and this may be a bad time to disturb you, but I’ve never seen an Italian funeral like this. Whose funeral is it?”

“My wife’s.”

‘What happened to her?”

“She yelled at me and my dog attacked and killed her.”  

He inquired further, “But who is in the second hearse”

“My mother-in-law. She came to help my wife and the dog turned on her and killed her also.”   
A very poignant and touching moment of Jewish and Italian brotherhood and silence passed between the two men.

The Jewish man then asked, “Can I borrow the dog?”

The Italian man replied, “Get in line.”

***

If we could convince the Chinese that Jihadists’ testicles were an aphrodisiac, perhaps in ten years they’d be extinct.

***

Married 50 years 

After being married for 50 years, I took a careful look at my wife one day and said, “Fifty years ago we had a cheap house, a junk car, slept on a sofa-bed and watched a 10-inch black and white TV.  But hey I got to sleep every night with a hot 23-year-old girl.

Now … I have a $750,000 home, a $45,000 car, a nice big bed and a large screen TV, but I’m sleeping with a 73-year-old woman.  So I said to my wife “it seems to me that you’re not holding up your side of things.”

My wife is a very reasonable woman.  She told me to go out and find a hot 23-year-old girl and she would make sure that I would once again be living in a cheap house, driving a junk car, sleeping on a sofa bed and watching a 10-inch black and white TV.

Aren’t older women great?

They really know how to solve an old guy’s problems!

***

The wife and I were sitting on the patio yesterday, each sipping a glass of wine, and she said, “I love you so much.  I don’t think I could ever live without you.”
I said, “Is that you, or the wine, talking?

She replied, “That’s me….talking to the wine.”

***

No one believes seniors . . . everyone thinks they are senile.
The wife and I were celebrating our fifty-fourth anniversary.  We had married as childhood sweethearts and had moved back to our old neighborhood after we retired.  Holding hands, we walked back to our old school.  It was not locked, so we entered, and found the old desk we shared, where I had carved ‘I love you, Sally’.

On our way back home, a bag of money fell out of an armored car, practically landing at our feet.  She quickly picked it up and, not sure what to do with it, we took it home.  There, she counted the money – fifty thousand dollars!

I said, “We’ve got to give it back.”
She said, “Finders keepers.”  She put the money back in the bag and hid it in the attic.
The next day, two police officers were canvassing the neighborhood looking for the money, and knocked on our door, “Pardon me, did either of you find a bag that fell out of an armored car yesterday?”

She said, “No.”
I said, “She’s lying. She hid it up in the attic.”
Sally said, “Don’t believe him, he’s getting senile.”
The agents turned to me and began to question me.  One said: “Tell us the story from the beginning.”
So I said, “Well, when she and I were walking home from school yesterday … “
The first police officer turned to his partner and said, “We’re outta here!”

Twenty Ate Fibbing Friday

Pensitivity101 had a Balderdash clustered around her site.  That’s a collective noun for a group of free-range fellow bloggers, so she decided that the theme would be Collective nouns this week.  Give it a try.  See if you can do any better.

1. A dynasty of ………………………..
   

The worst ducking TV series ever aired.
2. A bevy of ……………………………

Empty pub ale glasses
3. A mustering of ………………………

Armed Services vets, at the George Santayana commemorative services, being held in your local Royal Legion, or VFW.  My Father was an ex-WWII member, then there was Korea, then Viet Nam, then Iraq, then Afghanistan.  😯  When will they ever learn?  When will they ever learn?
4. A scold of …………………………….

My wife’s constant nagging list of helpful suggestions to improve myself.  😉
5. A cast of ……………………………….

Teenage boys, practicing for the Darwin Awards Olympics.  After their arms have healed, they can try the ‘Dig A Huge Hole In The Beach’ challenge.  😯
6. A sedge of ……………………………

Water plants in the moat around my little country cottage
7. A comb of ……………………………

Thanksgiving turkeys.  I just go bananas for a big meal of tryptophan turkey and stuffing (myself).
8. A pod of ……………………………..

Tide detergent-eating challenges – for those who survived number 5.
9. A covey of ……………………………

C. W. McCall’s greatest hit – Convoy Whuzzat?? Covey, not convoy?  Oh Hell – just listen to it anyway.
10. A party of …………………………………

Actually, TWO parties – The one that threw Boris Johnson out on his arse – and the one the nation threw after it happened.

I will try to collect my wits – the noun for which is, black hole – before we meet again on Monday.

A Habit Of Telling One-Liners

I was going to quit all my bad habits for the New Year….
….then I remembered, nobody likes a quitter.

Behind every successful man….
….is a woman with nothing to wear.

My wife said, “You really have no sense of direction, do you?”….
….I said, “Where did that come from?”

I got a job at a bicycle factory….
….I’m their new spokesman.

The dinner I was cooking for the family was going to be a surprise….
….until the fire trucks ruined it.

I never know what to do with gossip….
….so I just pass it on.

One way to stop a runaway horse….
….is to bet on him.

I consider other opinions….
….I consider most of them stupid.

There are two kinds of men who don’t understand women….
….Bachelors, and husbands.

If you don’t remember my name, just say “Donuts”….
…..I’ll turn around and look.

When I found out that my toaster isn’t waterproof….
….I was shocked.

Smaller babies may be delivered by a stork….
….but bigger ones need a crane.

The world’s oldest man just died….
….Why does this keep happening?

A bargain is something that you don’t need….
….at a price you can’t resist.

Hospitality is making your guests feel at home….
….even if you wish they were.

I gave up my seat to an elderly person on the bus….
….That’s how I lost my job as a driver.

A can opener that doesn’t work….
….is a can’t opener.

The female neighbor said she’d do things my wife wouldn’t, for $20….
….She ironed four shirts.

I think they picked me for my motivational skills….
….Everyone says they work twice as hard when I’m around.

If every day is a gift, I want a receipt for Monday….
….I want to exchange it for another Friday.

I got a job in a paperless office….
….Everything was great till I needed to use the washroom.

’22 A To Z Challenge – H

 

Benny Hill!  Benny Hill!  Benny Hill!

What can you say about Benny Hill?

He was a mediocre actor, a funny TV comic, and a brilliant writer and comedian.  To be the writer and comedian, he was also a brilliant linguist, sometimes making puns and jokes in two and three languages.

He got “Son of a bitch!” past the BBC censors by claiming that a French skit character spoke of, ‘Ze sun, over ze beach.’

He talked about having a bent wood chair in his dressing room.  Not a Bentwood Chair – but a bent wood chair, because his dressing room was in the damp, BBC basement.

With the moving of a couple of letters on a sign, he turned
Dr. Johnson
the
rapist

Into

Dr. Johnson
therapist

Not only was he familiar with French and German, but quite knowledgeable about regional British accents, where, if you travelled 50 miles, the common folk could not be understood, and bread rolls had changed names.  Sometimes he used words and phrases that those born on this side of the pond didn’t recognize.

Once, he wrote a bit, making fun of a commercial from Cheer detergent, which had just begun selling in the UK.  We’ll take two dress shirts, and pour blackberry juice on both of them.  Then we’ll wash one of them in Applaud detergent, (So no-one could accuse him of making fun of Cheer) and the other one in Ben’s Cleanso.  Flash out – flash in.  And there you see it friends (Both shirts still badly stained)  Not a haip o’ the difference.

HAIP

haip = “wattle, sheaf or heap of straw etc.”
(Therefore – something small, or inconsequential)
And you thought that the word for H was going to be Benny HILL.

I took its meaning from context, but I had to wait for Al Gore to invent the Internet, and then wait some more until stable genius (Like Mr. Ed), Donald Trump perfected it, to meet its parents online.  I still haven’t, really.  I finally found one word-site which gave the definition, but only said that it was British dialect, and very rare.  It did not say what area dialect, although I suspect Northumbria/Yorkshire – up north, away from London and the universities, where the poor folk live.  If this word were coined in the US, it would be from Appalachia.

Helpful fellow-blogger and word-nerd Daniel Digby, just introduced me to wordhistories.net, a Frenchman living in Lancashire, who blogs about etymology.  At first I shook my head about a Frenchie in England but it makes as much sense as a Quebecois in Ontario.  It’s 300 miles from London to Paris, and 300 miles from Toronto to Montreal.  Perhaps he’s more successful wrestling search engines than I am.  When I get back from Merriam-Webster on Wednesday, we can have a few laughs.   😆

Flash Fiction #284

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

SPIN SPIN SPIN

The hurrier I go, the behinder I get.
I have to run faster and faster, just to stay in the same place.

It is pleasant to recline in the lap of technology – so many things to make our lives quicker and easier – but, there is a cost to pay.  Change has been thrust upon us, occurring more and more often.

Studies show if the maze is constantly altered, the lab rat eventually goes insane – which brings us to cops killing innocent people, and schoolboys committing mass murders.  It’s not the testosterone or guns. Our easy, effortless lives are killing us.

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If you’d like to join the fun with the Friday Fictioneers, go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.