“How many times do I have to tell you to put your shoes away?” or, “How many times do have to tell you, don’t leave the door open, the dog’ll get out?”
I heard it every day, growing up. You’d think I’da learnt. But no.
Now, fifty years later, Mom’s gone and so’s the dog. With my shoes.
Prompted by the Daily Post with today’s word, Countless.
I remember picking up the keys at the lawyer’s office, opening the front door, and walking in for the first time, my dog, Buster, at my side. I finally owned my own house. It was just going to be the two of us.
I had my mom look after the pup for a few days and I got my brother to help me move stuff in. My mom didn’t like the idea of me, a single woman, living alone, but it was what I wanted. I was strong enough to help my brother lift all the furniture, after all. And I had my hound.
I’d been living there for about a week before I started to get really annoyed with Buster. If he wasn’t outside trying to dig a hole under the shed, he was whining at the back door to get out there. Finally I got my brother to come over with a shovel and help me dig out whatever Buster was trying to get at.
And what do you know? Dead bodies.
So I had a choice. Contact the authorities and lose my house until they finished their investigation–it could be a year!–or drag the bodies out and rebury them so the dog couldn’t find them. I decided on the latter. Which would have been fine if they hadn’t come back to life.
Now my life is all zombies, all the time. They come in and raid my fridge in the middle of the night, I keep finding the occasional limb under my bed – Buster! – and every single morning as I’m getting in the car to go to work it’s, “Hey Julia! How ’bout them brains? When are we gonna get them yummy brains for dinner?”
All I wanted was a nice quiet life in my own house. Maybe Mom was right.
50yo WASP male seeks female aged 20-65 for serious relationship.
The lady I’m looking for must be outgoing, fun-loving, faithful, and committed. Must love beards, and be okay with a man who limps, has one arm, has one good eye, and flies. Must love planes and fish. Must have good grammar.
The doorbell’s ring had an ominous tone. It was with trepidation that I opened it; the bright sunlight burned my retinas, and it took a moment for the two policemen at my door to come into focus.
“Yes?” My voice shook.
“Are you Mr. James Miller?”
“I am.”
“Are you familiar with the name,” the officer looked down at his notepad and then back up to me, “Greta Miller?”
“She’s my great-aunt on my mother’s side. Is she okay?”
“I’m sorry to inform you, Mr. Miller, your aunt has passed away. We have you listed as her sole survivor.”
I felt my face crumple as I cried, “I killed her!”
The two officers moved quickly to handcuff me. “What did you do with the gun, Mr. Miller?” one of them asked.
“Gun? What gun? I posted a meme on Facebook that guaranteed me a fortune – and now Aunt Greta has gone and left me her all her money!”
“Is… that how you killed her, Sir?”
“I DIDN’T THINK IT WOULD WORK!!!” I’d never felt so distraught in my life.
“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” Hannah read the sticker pasted over the Happy Acres sign at the end of the long, dusty driveway. She knew she’d been here before, but she didn’t remember why.
“Dad said there were hookers here,” said her husband, Jessie.
“Well, they’d better be male strippers, ‘coz if they’re female, you’re not gonna last long.”
“Pfft,” Jessie scoffed. They got back in the car and headed up the lane way to check themselves in.
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Tuesday Use It In A Sentence is fun! This week’s word is “abandon.” Try it out! The link to join in is here.
“It looks like a nice place,” Hannah said as she stood with her husband, Jessie, before the gates at the end of a long, dusty driveway.
“The sign is a bit old.”
She stepped in front of him to take a closer look. “The Happiest Place In Town,” she read out loud. “I don’t know if I’d go that far,” she said to Jessie. “But maybe it’ll be appropriate.”
“Do you really think my dad will do well here?”
“Yeah.”
“We’ll ask him.”
They walked together to the car and spoke to the man inside through the open window.
“We think it’s the right place,” Jessie said to his father.
“Do they have hookers?”
“Wait, I’ll check,” said Hannah. She trotted back to the sign and read it silently, then returned to the car.
“The best hookers in town, the sign says.”
“Well what are we waiting for?” asked Jessie’s father. “Let’s go get ’em!”
And that’s how, with Hannah’s help, Jessie got his father into a nursing home.
You’re like a hangnail
Dangling by a nerve in-shoe
You make me lamer
“Uh, Sir, I think you underestimate me.”
“Do you really think so, Johnson? I mean, look at your record. Just last week you picked up three dead raccoons, twenty squirrels, and four crows. Your contemporaries doubled that!”
“But you forget that they are in the city. You have me out doing the rural routes.”
“Where there should be more roadkill!”
“But…”
“But what, Johnson?”
“But what about the moose?”
“There was a moose?”
“Yeah. Just last week. Didn’t Davis tell you?”
“It’s the first I’ve heard. Did you pick it up all by yourself?”
“Yes, Sir. I did.”
“What did you do with it?”
“It’s been your lunch, Sir, for the last three days.”
This post is part of both The Daily Post and Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Click the links to find the prompts!
“You can only survive for twenty-four hours without a drink.”
“Nuh-uh! You’ll die in fif… I mean twelve.”
“Nuh-uh! My dad told me it was a whole day!”
“Wanna bet?”
“Sure!”
“Okay. Don’t have a drink for the rest of the day and see if you wake up tomorrow.”
“…I’m thirsty.”
“Me too. Let’s go to my place. My mom made Kool-Aid.”
“Happy Children’s Day,” said the mother to her son on Mother’s Day morning.
“What do you mean?” asked the son.
“If I’ve done my job right,” explained the mother, “you will derive more pleasure from spoiling me than I will for being spoiled.”
The son smiled, “You’re right, Mummy! Please enjoy your sardine pancakes. I brought syrup, too!”
Linda G. Hill 