Ten Drabbles From The Time I Had To Move Out Of The Old Condo.

A drabble is a story in exactly one hundred words.

There was almost ten years of stuff in that condo. Two floors, a loft, and a basement storage closet. Two bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, one kitchen, the aforementioned loft. Two beds, two desks, five bookcases, more books than I could count, and a fuckton of dishes, cups, pots, and pans. An entire refrigerator full of food. Everything I owned, including my computer, clothing, and furniture. Plus everything that my mother and sister had left there for later. Plus everything my father and roommates had left when they moved out.

I had two weeks to move it all out.

Burger Time (OR: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The MIRVburger)

Here’s a secret to getting people to do things: offer them food. Not money, food. I don’t know why it is that people will do things for food that they won’t do for cash, but it works. People won’t help you move heavy furniture for less than fifty bucks, but they will do it for about five bucks worth of pizza and beer. It’s one of the mysteries of life.

Racism Is Still Kinda Funny

“So I’d given Rico and Bill a ride over to Catfish’s place for a sports day in the park across the street,” Guy Nutenberger explained, “and like dumbasses, they left the car in the park’s parking lot without checking what time it closes. So it’s past midnight, and the parking lot is locked, and they can’t get out. We figure our only chance is to drive over the curb, so Bill and Rico go over to the dumpster to look for some trash or something while I build a ramp.

“Anyway, we found some wooden pallets, and we built a pretty darn good ramp up onto the curb and back down. Bill is in the dumpster rummaging for more debris, passing it over to Rico, who’s carrying it over to me. We were about to give it a try when the cops came over. I guess one of the neighbors had seen a bunch of teenagers hanging around in the park late at night, up to some unsavory business,” Guy went on.

The Laziest Man on Earth

Somewhere in a public storage facility in an undisclosed city in America, there is a black bag with a Playstation One system with an attached LCD screen. The Playstation doesn’t have a memory card on it, and the controller is worn-out and the left analog stick barely works.

It hasn’t been played in years.

It will never be sold or given away.

The Tale of The Teenagers Who Don’t Read Because They Ain’t Nerds And Shit

“That’s why I think all kids should be put into cages until they turn 21,” Rico said, as we waited at the intersection for the light to turn green.

“Would this be in addition to your plan to forcibly sterilize everyone until they learn calculus?”

“No excuse not to learn calculus,” Rico said. “It was the most important class I ever took in college.”

“I never took calculus.”

“Really?”

“You were a bio-chem major. I was history.” I pointed out.

“And see how that worked out for you?” Rico smirked.

“Touche.” The light turned green, and we proceeded up the on-ramp and onto the freeway. “Let’s compromise. Everyone gets forcibly sterilized until they can pass a class on ethics and sex ed. No one gets let out of their cages until they graduate college or get a GED.”

“What, you want high school kids to read?” Rico asked sarcastically.

“Of course not,” I quipped back. “We don’t read. We ain’t nerds and shit.”

The Tale of The Black Widow Hot Sauce

Last week I discussed my friend Bill and his luck with women. I promised I’d talk about the other half of Bill’s lot in life. . . his status as a fucking weirdness magnet. I also promised I’d tell the Tale of the Black Widow Hot Sauce.

Here it is.