Session August 26, 2017

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Rum drinking was just as often linked with good health as with illness.

By CC

They had given one another perms over the weekend. It had not gone well. But both Lucy and Evangeline had been raised to be polite, so their ire did not spill over with one another, at least not until the end of the week, when all hell broke loose.

That morning, Lucy’s husband was at the bar, where he turned to his friend Wilbur and said, “You know, rum drinking was just as often linked with good health as with illness. Historically, I mean.” Then he fell off his bar stool and crumpled into a stupor. Wilbur looked down at his beer and shook his head in dismay. The guy drank all these fancy mixed drinks and look at him now. He went back to watching the boxing match on the TV above the bar while Lucy’s husband began to snore and drool.

Suddenly the door burst open as Evangeline gave Lucy a mighty shove into the bar, crying "YOU USED OGILVY. YOU KNOW I’M ALLERGIC TO OGILVY." She held a red hank of Lucy’s curls in her hands. Lucy fell into the empty bar stool and then slithered to the floor next to her husband, who grunted himself awake from the surprise.

Evangeline grabbed a pair of scissors from her bag and ran towards Lucy, who jumped to her feet and ran out the back door. Wilber tore his eyes away from the screen long enough to see Evangeline, scissors raised, race out the door behind Lucy.

The next day the papers were full of it: Woman kills best friend over botched perm. But no-one would ever know the truth of what really happened out there in the alley. It could have gone into legend or mystery if anyone really gave a damn. But nobody did. Wilbur kept on with his beer, and now Lucy’s husband – nobody had ever known his name – could stay in the bar all day, enjoying his fantasies until their facilitation drove him into the hospital, which it did several years later.

It wasn’t until a decade had passed that Ogilvie Perms were shown to have psychotropic effects, and other perm-related killers and their victims began to collect huge insurance payouts. Evangeline and Lucy were outliers, canaries, just plain unlucky.

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The Mariner 9 and Viking probes found volcanoes on Mars.
by TNT

"Mariner 9 and Viking probes found volcanoes on Mars." She read the paper aloud to her husband. She wasn't surprised - it really didn't affect her own career - but her husband, the astronaut, was extremely concerned because some of his colleagues and friends were on their way to Mars on an exploratory voyage. She would keep on dancing as she gazed into the sky, hopefully facing the right direction towards Mars. She knew her husband's friends couldn't see her as she danced over the embankment - not watching the ground - and fell headlong into the mud. She broke her pretty fan. What a humiliation!

"Well, that's the lot of an astronaut's wife," she thought as she put her costume in the laundry basket. "I'm sure the Astronauts up there couldn't see me - thank God!!"

But her husband did and he'd tell... the jerk! He laughed. He said he wished he had filmed it. 

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He was a gross materialist, lacked forethought, lied and cheated to get ahead.

By RC

  

Candice was going to set his boat free. Going to put it in the water and forget him forever. Why? Therein is the story. She had loved Bruce to the end. They were to be married when he set out on his “around the world trip” in his yacht. It wasn’t, however, because he was a great adventurer or wanted to see if he could do it—you know, the manly sort of reasons. 

He wanted to make money. The whole thing was publicized as a trip for some charitable cause which Candice couldn’t quite recall. He was always doing that kind of thing, and each time it made him richer. That’s right, this is what they all do—those people who start out poor and end up rich by playing on other people’s sympathies. It’s just like the politicians who come into office broke, but end fabulously wealthy.

Well, Candice couldn’t pretend to go along happily with Bruce’s plans of world conquest, but she did love him. That is, until she learned what he was really like. This is the way with women, isn’t it? Love them till the end—or till they find out what they are really like. You see, he was a gross materialist, lacked forethought, lied and cheated to get ahead. It wasn’t until Bruce’s fifth week out that she learned accidentally that he had not really gone alone. No, Barbara, Janet, Fanny, and Cloe had gone with him—all models. 

But he did get his just deserts in the end. He ran into trouble rounding the tip of South America, and he had forgotten to bring the radio. Yep, his lack of forethought again. He had it handy, right by the door, whereas he should have gotten it into the car to bring to the yacht. It turned out that Barbara, Janet, Fanny, and Cloe did not know a thing about sailing, while Candice had been sailing for most of her life.

Candice took Bruce’s model of his yacht down to the ocean and put it in. Then, with her father’s 30-30, she shot it to hell. She felt so good about that. Afterwards, she went to a bar, still wearing her wedding dress, and ended up climbing onto a motorcycle with a member of the Hell’s Angels.

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I grabbed my magnifying glass and examined one of the boxes.
by CT

There he stood - an imposing sight for sure. He worse long, silken robes with a sword strapped across his chest. An eight-layer turban, decorated with silver emblems, sat easily on his head.

He consented to my request for a photo. His smile and the twinkle of his eyes reassured me. I invited him to join me for tea.

We talked of our lives and professions. He was, as I suspected, a spiritual warrior. I, a sociologist and sometime archaeologist, was on holiday.

As we talked, he reached into the layers of his turban, extracting a small box from each one. He rested them in front of me and indicated that I could open them.

I grabbed my magnifying glass and examined one of the boxes. The exquisite carving somehow soothed me. Inside the box lay an etched lapis cabuchon. 

He gifted the stone to me. I gave him my magnifying glass which he exclaimed gleefully over.

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"I never know when they have it," he said. "You just have to keep trying."

by MD

Pan had aspired to be an actor all his life.  Of course his name wasn’t really Pan (it was Theodore) but he’d adopted Pan as his stage name after starring in his grade school production of “Peter Pan.”  It was his first and only experience with the theater, but after it was over, he was hooked.  His drama teacher -- Sister Mary Ignatious -- had declared him a natural.  And so his quest for thespian stardom began.

Now, at age 17, Pan saw an ad for auditions for the community theater’s production of “A Midsummer’s Night”s Dream.”  “This is it,” he said to himself.  “It’s time to start rehearsing.”  The first thing he did before the audition was to purchase a pair of “Dr. Spock” ears, which he super-glued onto his own ears.  Next he visited his local dry goods store, bought felt and fake fur and fashioned for himself what he deemed to be the appropriate costume for his audition.  He knew the plastic scimitar did not belong with the costume, but it caught his fancy and he bought it anyway, figuring it might come in handy for future auditions -- perhaps for “The Pirates of Penzance.”

He arose early on the day of the audition -- he’d found it hard to get into a comfortable position with the ears permanently glued in place -- and outfitted himself in his theatrical finery.  He was issued a lanyard with ID and pertinent information when he presented himself at the door to the auditorium.  There were many aspiring actors ahead of him, but finally his name was called and he stepped up to perform.

The director listened to his lines and requested a song -- there were plans to turn the Shakespeare play into a musical -- but it was then disaster happened.  At 17 years old, Pan’s voice was still in transition.  He gulped but launched into a rendition of Tennessee Ernie Ford’s 1950’s hit “15 Tons.”  The first notes had hardly left his throat when the director yelled “Thank you. You can go.  Don’t call us, we’ll call you.”

Pan drew the scimitar from the back of his belt and hurled it directly at the director. “I never know when they have it,” he said. “You just have to keep trying.”  He followed that with “But now I’m going to let you have it.”  The scimitar bounced off the director’s head.  The director had many theatrical connections, though, and from that date forward, Pan’s theatrical career was over.  He sold the ears -- which took more than a week to remove -- and the outfit to a Halloween store, and retreated to a cave where he spent the rest of his life.

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He needed to make a sacrifice to ensure a good harvest.
by BG

He felt terrible even contemplating the situation. This kind of thing only happened to other people. He shuddered at the thought that only one of his neighbors ever had to go through it, but there were stories he'd heard from other folks down at the local coffee shop where they all congregated to chew the fat every couple of days or so. 

How could things have come to this? He'd always been so careful. His dad had been careful, too, and his grandad before him. There were generations before them, too. The family farm had endured for 2 centuries and a harvest had never been a problem. His family had always done so well. He loved them all dearly..

He couldn't bear the thought but it was for the whole family that he had to make this incredibly difficult decision. It was for the family's future. Even though everyone wouldn't exactly understand he would live with it. But she would understand. He needed to make a sacrifice to ensure a good harvest. he was going to have to sell Grandma.