’21 A To Z Challenge – N

I AM THE LORD OF DARKNESS!

I COMMAND YOU TO READ AND HEED!

A scientific psychological study that I read on the Internet (So it must be true) says that people who stay up late are more creative, intelligent, and better at making decisions.

HOO – Doesn’t go to bed when the sun does??

HOO – Stays up all night, to greet it when it rises in the morning??

Ooh!  Ooh! Pick me!  Pick me!

The once, and future, perpetual

NIGHT-OWL

My night-owl sister and I were born to a pair of Protestant-work-ethic parents who rose each day before the dawn even cracked, like Medieval serfs.  My Mother would put my brother and me to bed at 8 PM, and wonder why I was still keeping him awake, telling stories and jokes, when they were ready to retire at 11.

As a teen, I often watched Friday- and Saturday-night movies on TV (with the volume down) from 11:30 till 1:00 AM.  In the summer, when the beach bowling alley closed at 1 AM, I often drifted home – quietly – after 2.

When I was sixteen, instead of going home one Friday night, a bunch of us rowdies hiked a couple of miles up the riverbank, into the woods, made a campfire and some noise no-one could hear, cooked some hotdogs and soup made with river water.

I trekked back to the beach to have a swim as the sun came up, got home about 7 AM, and was frying some bacon and eggs when my Father got up.  7 AM??  He’d slept in!  He was so happy that I’d got up ‘at a reasonable hour, for once.’  He was a little shocked/perplexed when I told him that I just got home and was having a late snack.  I told him that I was going to bed, and for him to call me about 2 PM, and I would get up and mow the lawn.

I sometimes wonder if I was just born on the wrong side of the planet, but I think that, even if I lived in Japan or Malaysia, I’d still wind up haunting the dark shift.  It probably made it easier for me to work 3 to 11, and especially the 11 to 7 shifts that others had trouble with.  One young co-worker came in for each midnight shift with three king-cans of high-caffeine Jolt Cola to get him through the night.

I could get up early for the day-shifts, but it was the ‘not all cylinders firing yet’ early-morning inattention that caused me to nudge the rear bumper of a bus that was slowing, as I tried to pull in behind it on my motorcycle, to make a turn.  I broke my bike, my left shoulder, and my wallet.

I know that many of you are happy, breezy morning people.  (Curse your bright-eyed and bushy-tailed diurnal cycle.)   The son is following in my nocturnal, but low-traffic level, footsteps.  He is approaching twenty years straight, on the midnight shift.  Another generation of Dark Lords – I’m proud of him…. or I would be, if I could just find him in the darkness.

I have a sweet post scheduled for Wednesday.  I’ll have it published and ready to read, yesterday, before you get out of bed today.  I’ll see you (later in the day) then.   😎

Flash Fiction #248

PHOTO PROMPT © Ted Strutz

THE MALE MUST GO THROUGH

The late, great, Bob Bryant.

Well, the only thing he was great at, was being late.  He was born almost two weeks after his due date, and never caught up.

He was late for breakfast, late for classes, late to get his drivers’ licence, and late for his senior prom.  His Mother told him that he’d be late for his own funeral.  If he’d shuffled his feet faster, he’d have been on the sidewalk, instead of shuffling off to Buffalo, in front of that bus.

Here he was, returning from the crematorium.  With COVID-delayed postal delivery, Mom would be right.

***

Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

Garbage Picker

I remember the first time that I ate out of a garbage can. 😯 It was in the late 1940s, and Kellogg’s was trying a new marketing scheme.

Their cereals came in small and large boxes, but they began offering them in tiny, serving-size boxes. The equivalent of a large box would get you 10 or 12 of these, all wrapped together. The fronts had an H-shaped perforation. You peeled back the two cardboard wings, and did the same with the waxed-paper liner inside. You poured milk right into the box, and ate the cereal right from it.

This was one of the first “labor-saving devices.” Working mothers didn’t have bowls to wash. The extra labor and packaging material made them more expensive, so they didn’t do well in my cheap, dirt-poor little town.

Kellogg’s produced them in every flavor that they made. They also made a ‘Variety Pack”, with some of each. The tiny, independent grocery carried them for a while. It sat beside a laneway to another street. There was a garbage pail right beside – not a dumpster – nobody could afford to throw that much away. Somehow, one of the sampler packs came apart. Unable to sell it, the grocer just gathered the pieces up, and dropped it into the garbage pail beside his building.

Finally dry from his immersion in the Niagara River, yours truly was busy skulking and gallivanting around town. I approached the store by the alley, from the next street. I stopped to look in the garbage pail, and couldn’t believe it. Someone was throwing perfectly good food away. There were little boxes of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, Vim, Rice Krispies, All Bran, Shredded Wheat, Bran Flakes – several types that I’d like to try, but couldn’t afford to purchase a whole big (or small) box, in case I didn’t like them.

They were all “Good-For-You” cereals…. and all that Bran! You wouldn’t be just regular – more like steady. I don’t remember any Sugar Corn Pops, or Sugar Smacks, or Sugar Anything. Sugar hadn’t been invented yet – or perhaps it wasn’t off wartime rationing. That’s why old people like me are sour and bitter. They had nothing sugary to sweeten them up.

The pail was relatively new and clean. The bulk package cardboard was pristine. The small inner packs touched only it. I dug out most of the tiny boxes – as many as my little arms could carry, and quickly headed for home with them. I told my Mother that ‘someone was throwing them away,’ without mentioning the garbage can, and had a bowel-cleansing assortment of breakfasts for almost two weeks.

Even today, there are individuals and groups – and not just homeless people – who regularly comb supermarket dumpsters for food deemed unsalable – packaged meats, cheeses, bread products, even fruit and vegetables, past their ‘Best Before’ dates. They eat it themselves, or donate it to food banks, to be used today. It saves money, and reduces the amount going to landfill sites.

The son works a midnight shift. He leaves work at 7:30 AM, and reaches the nearby supermarket just as it opens at 8:00, to purchase a discount copy of the Toronto Sun newspaper. He has learned to look at the other discount racks. Stock that will be thrown out tomorrow, is on sale today, for 20%, 30% – 50% off. He often comes home with half-price ground beef, steaks, roasts, bread, and buns. What doesn’t become his 9:00 AM ‘midnight snacks’, or goes into his little apartment-sized freezer, often makes its way into the household larder.

Reduce Reuse Recycle! Waste not – Want not. Do you do anything like this, to aid your economy, and the Ecology?

Flash Fiction #130

PHOTO PROMPT © Roger Bultot

GRAVY TRAIN

He was here, finally! He’d worked long and hard – too long, but he was finally in Seattle, surrounded by the two things that made his life worthwhile – great coffee, and computers.

It had taken a while for Microsoft recruiters to notice him, but they had, at last, offered him employment. He would almost have worked for nothing, but the pay was great….and the perks, pun intended!

Where else would the morning commute to work include a dedicated subway Breakfast Car serving bacon, eggs, and Starbucks Coffee? Take that, you nap room Googlers!   😛

***

Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

The Most Important Meal

WOMAN’S PERFECT BREAKFAST
She’s sitting at the table with her gourmet coffee.
Her son is on the cover of the Wheaties box.
Her daughter is on the cover of Business Week.
Her boyfriend is on the cover of Playgirl.
And her husband is on the back of the milk carton. .

WOMEN’S REVENGE
‘Cash, check or charge?’ I asked, after folding items the woman wished to purchase. As she fumbled for her wallet, I noticed a remote control for a television set in her purse. ‘So, do you always carry your TV remote?’ I asked. ‘No,’ she replied, ‘but my husband refused to come shopping with me, And I figured this was the most evil thing I could do to him legally.’

And finally,
God may have created man before woman, But there is always a rough draft before the masterpiece

***

The object of war is not to die for your country
but to make the other jerk die for his.
General George Patton

***

At one point during a game, the coach said to one of his young players, “Do you understand what cooperation is? What a team is?” The little boy nodded yes.

“Do you understand that what matters is whether we win together as a team?” The little boy nodded yes.

“So,” the coach continued, “when a strike is called, or you are out at first, you don’t argue or curse or attack the umpire. Do you understand all that?” Again, the boy nodded yes.

“Good,” said the coach. “Now go over there and explain it to your mother.”

***

I need to get in shape; if I was murdered right now my chalk outline would be a circle.
I am always going the extra mile: because I never stop for directions.
Am I fat? My favorite food is seconds.

***

What are the Five Reasons for not wanting to be an Egg?

1. You only get laid once.
2. You only get eaten once.
3. Seven minutes to get hard (in boiling water).
4. You have to come in a box with 11 other guys.
5. The only one that sits on your face is your mother.

***

I have a great diet. You are allowed to eat
anything you want. But you must eat it with naked
fat people.

***

I hope you don’t fuck like you park…you’ll never get it in…

***

😆

 

Condiments’ Comments

Two tomatoes cross the street. One of the tomatoes gets hit by a car. The other tomato goes “Aw, come on… Catch up!”

A man walks into a bar with a slab of asphalt under his arm and says: “A beer please, and one for the road.”

“TOWEL HEADS”
Recently I received a warning about the use of this politically  incorrect term, so please try to pay attention.  We have been informed that the Islamic terrorists who hate our guts do not like to be called “Towel Heads,” since the item they wear on their heads is actually a small, folded sheet.
Therefore, from this point forward, please refer to them as:
“Little Sheet Heads.”
Thank you for your support and compliance on this delicate matter.

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A little silver-haired lady calls her neighbor and says, “Please come over here and help me. I have a killer jigsaw puzzle, and I can’t figure out how to get started.”
Her neighbor asks, “What is it supposed to be when it’s finished?”
The little silver-haired lady says, “According to the picture on the box, it’s a rooster.”
Her neighbor decides to go over and help with the puzzle. She lets him in and shows him where she has the puzzle spread all over the table.
He studies the pieces for a moment, then looks at the box, then turns to her and says, “First of all, no matter what we do, we’re not going to be able to assemble these pieces into anything resembling a rooster.”
He takes her hand and says, “Secondly, I want you to relax. Let’s have a nice cup of tea, and then,” he says with a deep sigh……
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“Let’s put all the Corn Flakes back in the box. “

MEN AND WOMEN
WHO DOES WHAT

A man and his wife were having an argument about who
Should brew the coffee each morning. The wife said,
‘You should do it because you get up first,
And then we don’t have to wait as long to get our coffee.
The husband said, ‘You are in charge of cooking around here and
You should do it, because that is your job,
and I can just wait for my coffee.’
Wife replies, ‘No, you should do it, and
Besides, it is in the Bible that the man should do the coffee.’
Husband replies, ‘I can’t believe that, show me..’
So she fetched the Bible, and opened the New Testament
And showed him at the top of several pages,
That it indeed says ‘HEBREWS’

 

A to Z Challenge – E

EGGS – are organic vessels in which embryos first begin to develop.

Isn’t this egg-citing?

Dr. Seuss’s ‘Green eggs and ham’ is better than eggs and green ham.

Emus lay green eggs, about the size of softballs.

He’s a good egg, even if he’s slightly cracked.

Why did the chicken cross the road?  ‘Cause her friends were egging her on.

Ham and eggs is just a day’s production for a hen, but a life’s commitment for a pig.

Justin Bieber’s a rotten egg because he egged a neighbor’s house.

egg on one’s face, Informal. humiliation or embarrassment resulting from having said or done something foolish or unwise:
They were afraid to back the losing candidate and wind up with egg on their faces.

lay an egg, Informal. to fail wretchedly, especially to be unsuccessful in front of an audience:
He laid an egg as the romantic hero.

put all one’s eggs in one basket, to venture all of something that one possesses in a single enterprise.

walk on eggs, to walk or act very cautiously.

Eggs and oaths are soon broken.

You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.

Don’t rush things.  Eggs can’t be unscrambled.

The same boiling water that softens potatoes, hardens eggs.  It’s all about what you’re made of, not your circumstances.

Don’t kill the goose that lays the golden egg.

Evil chickens lay deviled eggs.

Why did the egg hide?  Because it was fry-day.

In my youth I was called an egghead.  Today I’d be a geek or a nerd.

The recipe said to separate the eggs – but it didn’t say how far.

I can’t lay an egg, but I’m a good judge of omelets.

Mark Twain said it’s okay to put all your eggs in one basket – if you watch the basket.

Eggs shouldn’t dance with stones.

People judge you by your actions, not your intentions.  You may have a heart of gold, but so does a hard-boiled egg.

That’s enough yolks for now. I’m going to make my eggs-it.