Cheer Up Katers!

I wrote this short story below to help cheer up my wife when she was feeling down. My wife knows she can count on me to lift her mood by saying just the right words to pull her up by the heart strings.
Read on to have your heart warmed and your spirits lifted. All you need to do is believe!
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“I made you to serve me food! Why am I still hungry?!”, nine year old Jimmy yelled at the small stack of blocks with an orange play doh head full of hair and a sharpie smile. “Why do you taunt me so?!” He yelled as he threw his arm across the failed food-bot’s body causing the block with its ‘head’ and hair to go flying through the air and straight into the garbage can. “Sweet! At least I got some enjoyment out of you, you old play doh poopy head!” Jimmy snorted in delight.

“Jimmy, what are you snorting about, what did you do this time?” Jimmy’s mother leaned away from the stove she was cooking Jimmy’s dinner with concerned about her son’s snorting, usually about mean hearted things, like kicking clowns or booing those up at bat on his own wiffleball team - so sad, she thought to herself.

“Nothing Mom! When’s dinner going to be ready? I’m starving.” Jimmy shouted from the other room.

“It’s just about ready, and I think you’re going to like dinner tonight,” she replied.

“Oh yea, why’s that Mom? Did you make it with your ‘secret’ ingredient, the secret ingredient everyone knows is really love… which is really just another way of saying something flavorless has been added to something already flavorless?”

“Oh! You a smart cookie, you know that Jimmy! A real smart cookie!” Jimmy smiled, thinking he’s all that. “Keep it up and you won’t have to worry about having flavorless food, you won’t have any dinner.”

“Oh Mom, you can’t NOT feed me, I’m your son!”

“No! I’m your ‘failed’ food-bot, and its time to eat!!” Jimmy’s ‘mother’ turned around to face him and her face was a large block of wood with a sharpie smile and she slammed down an orange haired play doh food-bot head on a plate as all the lights in the house flashed and burned out all at once!

**pitch black**

Jimmy wakes up to a bright and beautiful foggy day, a Katers day.

Billy's Birthday Wish

“You want to play Billy?” The question touched him like a soft breeze carrying a sweet summer scent. Did he have to answer? Couldn’t he just take a few more minutes to make this moment last longer? Nobody had ever asked him to play with them before, would they ever again? Why, why couldn’t this last longer? If he could have taken a picture to make it last longer he would have. He used to daydream about this moment, a time when he would get picked first to play softball. Never again would he have to wonder what the 7^th grade would have been like had he gotten picked first in PE, now he knew.

“Fine, we didn’t really want you on our team anyway. Coach Henry told us we HAD to ask if you wanted to be on our team first. – oh yea, he also said to wish you a happy birthday- so happy birthdahwhatever pimpled railroad face.”

No it’s my birthday today. Today, anything can happen that I want to. And you didn’t just say that.

“Your right, I didn’t. Whoa- happy birthday Billy.”

That’s more like it.

“Yea, I don’t know what got into me but I hope you join our team. We wouldn’t last long if you were on the other team.”

Sure I’d love to be on your team.

“So Billy, what does this all mean anyway?”

Billy knew the sad truth. Should he admit it? Should he open his big mouth and tell his new friend that he was just imagining this, that this psuedobully-turned-friend was just another one of his all to realistic daydreams? Could his new imaginary friend take the stress of realizing that he wasn’t real? The last time something like this happened with one of his imaginary friends, the friend just collapsed and created a wormhole vortex blackhole thingie that sucked away all his other imaginary friends with this warped toilet bowlflushing sound. Could Billy survive another traumatic example of this toilet bowl flushing of friends? -Not today.

I don’t know Tom, I really don’t know. Let’s play ball, ok?

As Billy watched Tom turn and go for the baseball glove on the ground, Billy’s conscience kept nagging at him to tell the truth. But, but I can’t. I shouldn’t. Aww why do I always have to tell the truth! He’s imaginary anyway, he doesn’t care about the truth!

“What was that Billy?”

Oh no, had Billy said that out loud? It was too late; there was nothing Billy could do now. With a loud flushing sound, Tom floated around between 2^nd and 3^rd base in a whirlwind and then disappeared somewhere in the sprinkler system. Nooooooo!!!! Nooot again!!!! The all to familiar sound of friends being flushed down the drain echoes in the background. Flussshhhhh.

If I could have any super power...

If I got to have a super power, I'd want to be able to tell time. No, really think about it, how cool would this be? "Time, go back 20 minutes... I really want to enjoy that steak again. Time, go back 20 years, I really want to enjoy my childhood again. Time go forward 20 years, hanging around my childhood friends as an adult was creepy, lets stay in the 'future' for now."

Why I hated High School

Freshman Year

1. 4'11" Freshman with a high pitched girls voice with the nick name "Chicken Little"
2. Working in McDonald's drive through "Uh, where's the cute girl that took my order?" No, that would be me, I'm still waiting for the Puberty Fairy.
   
3. Guys in PE gleeking and spitting luggies on me.
4. Again PE, being thrown into a trashcan by a couple of jocks

Sophomore Year

1. 5'2" Sophomore but picked on more times for being a freshman than when I was a freshman
2. I used to wear these aviator glasses and a hoodie- about the same time as the pictures were going around of the Unibomber- and that became my nick name. Though it was a little nicer as that got popularized people picked on me less.
   
3. Having my mom take my friends and I to the Mall, "thanks Mom, where and when did you say you were going to pick us up?" "Oh, sorry Mom, how long were you waiting...." No cell phones at that time.
4. No cell phones. "So when did your mom say she was going to pick you up? Did you need a ride? I can ask my mom if she can give you a ride." Thanks, no, I'll be fine I can hear our van now- yea the blue smoke, nope I'm good thanks, she's here"
   

Junior Year

1. Acne. I thought I was cute- looking back at pictures I know why no one talked to me, except for Billy and he doesn't count because he's imaginary, one, and two because his acne was worse than mine- made me feel a tad better.
2. People would come up to me "Hey, you were at that party last week.... yeahhhhh mannnn killer party.... " "No, I work at In N Out Burger now and I probably took your order that night." "Oh! Yea! Your the guy with all that ketchup on your shirt, I thought you got shot in a drive by- I mean drive thru shooting! hahaha *snort*" "That was the ketchup you threw up on my shirt - because you drank too much- I'm surprised you remembered, kudos"
3. First real dance- homecoming. Got to ask one of the prettiest girls for a dance. She said yes, but put her high heels back on- she was a head taller... sad....
   
4. Sister got to drive me to school, that was when I learned the yellow lights stay yellow the same number of seconds as the first digit of the speed limit- 25 MPH stayed for 2 seconds, 40 MPH stayed for 4 seconds and so on and so forth... it's amazing how you can confidently make it through so many lights with this knowledge.

Senior Year

1. My sister drove me to school. I was one of the few 17 year olds without a driver's license. Also, for some we never remembered to turn off the lights and kept draining the battery.
   
2. 3rd year Spanish. My only C's came from Spanish- I needed 3 years of foreign language to get into the University system- it's funny but the lower grade average from my foreign language classes also kept me from having a high enough GPA to even try for the University system... pick your poison.
   
3. 3rd Year Spanish- I've never seen E.T. in English, but I have seen it twice in Spanish- once in 1st year Spanish and the 2nd time in 3rd year Spanish
4. Graduating only to go to the local community college to be reunited with all the people who didn't make it into real 4 year universities.
   

Brownie or Fortune Cookie?

"Sir, would you care for the brownie or the fortune cookie?"
- Hmmm they both look rather tasty, which do you recommend?
"I recommend them both. They're both excellent choices. It's up to you, either is included with the price of your entree."
- Oh... I always like getting fortunes. Let's go for the uh fortune cookie there... yea thanks.
"If you don't mind, sir, what does it say? I can wait a sec for you to open and read it"
-Don't you know it's bad luck to read it before you eat the cookie, but I don't believe in luck sure, why not.
"Well.... what does it say?"
- It says "You should have taken the brownie"
"I'm sorry sir, but the cookie is right. You can't also have the brownie it was either or, not both, I'm sorry. Better luck next time"

 

The Slow Driver and an Orange Cone

I was on my way to work today in the rain going 280 North at about 60 or so miles per hour. I got into the right exit lane for Hwy 85 when I got stuck being a guy going 45 miles per hour. Okay, I can see going 55, it’s raining, but not 45. I tried to get over left but saw a car was passing me. If they stayed on 280 I could get in the left exit lane and pass this guy. Sure enough they stayed on 280, so I turn on my blinker now and start to get over when I see he turned on his left turn blinker and started moving over. I’m like, okay, if he’s going to cut across an extra lane and get back on 280, I better let him do that. So as he’s moving over I’m getting closer to him as I’m getting ready to pass him. Half way through his lane change, I see an orange cone in the middle of the lane in front of me. I was too close to this guy now that I couldn’t swerve to miss the cone that was literally in the middle of the lane, I didn’t want to lose control right? It was one of the smaller orange cones, so I figured my car could clear it. I heard a thud when I ran over it and thought it must have hit the undercarriage of my car. Well, now I’m like crap, I’ve just hit the cone I might as well pass this guy, so I speed up. As I’m passing him, I heard this thud, scrape, thud sounds from under my car and realize the cone is stuck under my car. Great! Now, not only did I hit the cone, but after I pass this guy I’m going to have to be humbled and pull over to the side of the road in the rain just to pull this stupid cone out from under my car right? So I swerve a little and catch a few larger puddles and I heard a few more thuds and finally see the cone in my rear view mirror, thank goodness I wasn’t going to have to pull over, though now I’m fearing damage to my car I can only imagine. That’s what I get for being frustrated and trying to get around this guy.

It seemed funny to me later in the day when I realized that I had picked up and dragged the very cone this guy tried to avoid, passed him, and then dropped it off in the lane again… this means he probably hit the very cone he was trying to avoid in the first place.