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Sunday, March 25, 2018

418. Showtime


I wondered into the living room this morning after daylight, and heavens, what a scene. My favorite chair was ready for something. What, I didn’t know. Near the feet of the chair was a small ice chest. On either side were tables full of snacks and a large bowl that we use to serve popcorn. Someone was in the midst of deep preparation.

That’s when he walked in carrying a full sack of “On the Borders.” He sat them on one of the side tables, and said, “Good Morning Mr. Big Dope.”

Yeah, you guessed it. There stood our resident alien, or should I say there stood the apparition known as “Arnold Awesome" the 18-year-old teen. The one so full of wonder. If you remember from the past, Arnold is a little slow on the uptake, but makes up for it in enthusiasm.

“C.W.,” I said, “What is this?”

“Getting set up,” said.

“For what?”

“The big show. Don’t you remember?”

Something struck a chord.

“It’s the night for that movie star Stormy Daniels to talk about her friendship with what’s his name?”

“I think his name is Donald Trump and I’m not sure that you would call her a ‘movie star.’”

“That’s what ‘Scratchy’ Coleclasure calls her. He says she specializes in promos.”

“No, that’s what the president specializes in. Hers is called ‘porno’ and it’s a bit, well, not much but a bit, different from what he does.”

“Scratchy says she’s gonna talk about giving him a head. Do think it would have been a real one or just a plastic model?”
 
She gives him a head. Then what? - C.W.
“I think we need to talk.”

“She’s also gonna describe giving him a ‘doggie style.’ That should be fun. Can you imagine all that orange hair done up like a Pomeranian’s? I hope she had enough hair spray when she styled him.”

“Have you and Scratchy been into his daddy’s stash again?”

“What does she mean by ‘an all’ and what does it have to do with a back door. Wouldn’t the President of the United States come in the front door?”

My knees began to get a little weak. “I think that’s a little too earthy for a teenager to know about,” I said.

“Oh,” he said, brightening noticeably. “Don’t worry, she says she always gave him a shower afterwards. She called it gol …,”

“Let’s let it go at that,” I said. “Now look,” I’m not sure this would be the best use of your time. Don’t you have some studying to do?”

“That’s just it,” he said. “This will be educational. She’s going to share with us the President’s views on missionaries, their style and everything. It may not last long. She’s said something about him being a one-minute man.”

“Have you mentioned this to my wife?”
 
I'm confused. She says one dull minute.
He says two, and they're great ones.
The show is called Sixty Minutes.
But she keeps mentioning 69. - C.W.
“I tried,” he said, “but she like went off on something about global warming.”

“Global warming?”

“Yeah, like hell freezing over and all that.”

“Oh,”

“You’ll watch it with me, won’t you?”

A voice pretty much roared from the next room, “Yeah, he will … the day Franklin Graham starts reading the Bible.”

I spoke clearly and firmly enough to be heard in the next room. “I’d never stoop so low as to watch a show about two creeps wallowing in filth.” I listened, and relaxed when I heard the baseball bat being returned to its holder.

C.W. raised his eyebrows, made a circle with one hand and pretended to hold a clicker in the other. He nodded a question.

I shrugged an okay. What the hell?


See also:
Enjoy these at all? If so, order Big Dope's Book at Wattensaw PressAmazon, or other book sellers. It will make him so happy. Also, click on an ad. It earns him a little and costs the advertiser, sort of a win-win.




Sunday, March 18, 2018

417: Dark Matter


I had this feeling that the Galilean was going to pay me a visit. C.W. chose it as a favorite shape years ago. He normally uses it times of stress, particularly when he encounters difficulty in explaining us to the Falloonian Elders.

It was a nice day in late winter or early spring, depending upon your outlook. I found him sitting beneath a budding tree watching the birds, his hands clasped together and resting on his robe. He likes birds.

I sat beside him without speaking. I always try to let the Galilean speak first. He turned to me and nodded, Then, he turned back to the singing of the birds for a full moment before he spoke.

“Where the hell do they come from?” he said.

“I think,” I said, slowly while I tried to think. “that they descend from the same evolutionary line as the dinosaurs. Odd, isn’t it?” Reason hit me like a stray raindrop. “But you know that already.”

“Don’t be such a dope,” he said, stroking his beard and refusing to look my way.

“You aren’t talking about the birds?”

“I’m talking about what they call in Falloonia the ‘monsters from your darkest impulses.’ The actual Falloonian term is broader and refers, as well, to self-mutilating tendencies.”

I thought I knew where he was going, but caution crept in. “People? Are you talking about people?”

“These aberrations,” he said, “These malformed examples of your species that originate such damage on your planet.”

“Oh.”

“Would you call such people as this Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions members of your same species?”

“Our anthropologists  are beginning,” I said, “to strengthen the hypothesis that our species bred with Neanderthals and that scattered individuals carry the traces. Would that help explain it?”

“Only if you wished forever to impute a strain of maliciousness to the noble Neanderthals,” he said.

I knew it was time for me to stay quiet.

“I must explain them to my superiors. I told them that I had, in a previous assignment, left written instructions.”

“Oh?”

“Surely you recall ‘Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.’ That was pretty damned clear, wasn’t it?”

“You don’t think the ones you mentioned read it?”

“If they have, it will come as hell of a surprise to Andrew McCabe.”

“That’s true.”

“Not only that, I left word to love your neighbor as yourself. I made that pretty clear, didn’t I? Did I mince words?”

“No, I recall that you were fairly specific.”

He turned and glared at me. “Fairly specific my ass,’ he said. “I left clear written instruction in … in … what ever language my Galactic Universal Translator had me speaking back then.”

“Your GUT was using Aramaic, I think.”

“Maybe so,” he said. “I forget. At any rate, it translates into English, right?”

“Greek, Latin, English, all of them,” I said.

“So these characters like Trump, Sessions, and the lemmings that are following them can read, can’t they?”

“Supposedly.”

“Has anyone informed them about the instructions that I left?”

“It wouldn’t appear so, although they claim to be aware of you.”

“Then are they just purposefully trying to piss me off?”

“May I make an observation?”

“Why not? Everybody else does.”

“If I may point it out, you are being a little earthy today.”

“So what?”

“Also, what about your strictures on forgiveness?”

He thought, I imagined that I could hear machinery humming. “You’re right, I think I did say that if someone sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says , ‘I repent,’ forgive him. I think me and the boys had been practicing my water-into-wine trick a little too much that day.”

“But you left us with them, your orders I mean.”
 
It would explain a lot, right? - C.W.
He sighed and listened to the birds again. I could sense relaxing calm in him.

“I will,” he said.

“Will what?”

“Will abide by my own rules.

“So Trump, Sessions, and the others are forgiven for their meanness?”

“Not so fast,” he said. “Not so fast.” His face hardened.

“You don’t forgive them?”

“Maybe,” he said. “But first I’m going to wait until the sonsabitches repent.”


See also:
Enjoy these at all? If so, order Big Dope's Book at Wattensaw PressAmazon, or other book sellers. It will make him so happy. Also, click on an ad. It earns him a little and costs the advertiser, sort of a win-win.




Sunday, March 11, 2018

416. March Madness

It was the funniest thing you’ve ever seen. I stayed bent over laughing for five minutes and I still chuckle when I think about. Excuse me for a second.

It started when I heard a voice calling from the front yard of our farm.

“Big Dope, get out here, make them quit!”

Intrigued, I wandered out onto the porch. That’s when I saw it. “What the … ?

“Let my tongue be equal to the task,” as the Great Communicator said when he first met Stormy Daniels.

Imagine, if you will, how you would expect the literary character of Ichabod Crane to appear, all super-skinny six feet of him. Imagine him wearing a brown military uniform, a ‘you know what’ cap sitting squarely on his head with a flowing peacock feather tucked into a fold.

That’s what I saw.

The legs of the uniform extended down into a pair of paratrooper-like boots, polished to a bright sheen. Dozens of medals festooned his chest. He turned to kick at one of my wife’s dogs and I saw the letters GLSF across the back of his uniform.

“What the … ?”

“Make them quit,” he said. The face was a sharp collection of angles proceeded by a chiseled chin. Both hands rested on assault-type rifle strapped securely to him. I found out later that it was a fake, no surprise there.

At the time, though, I could just stare and barely speak. “C.W.?”

“Great Leader Special Forces Trooper GA-20189,” the apparition said.

“What the … ?”

Four of my wife’s “rescue dogs” stood around him. Another two, those with physical disabilities lay near a fence, an audience.

“What the … ?”

“I’ve been chosen,” the figure said. He kicked at one of the dogs with a shining boot. “Chosen by Great Leader himself, and now they won’t let me practice.” He kicked again. “Make them stop.”

“C.W.?”

“Great leader has chosen one alien visitor, those with exceptional qualifications, for each regiment.” He made a shooing gesture. “I need to practice, but they won’t let me.”

“They are my wife’s dogs. You need to talk to her.”

“I did already.”

“What did she say?”

“She just laughed and slammed the door.”

I had no trouble imagining that. “What are you practicing for?”

“The ‘Make America Feared Again Parade.’ Perhaps you’ve heard about it.”

“I have indeed,” I said. “I thought it was supposed to be a military parade, with actual military uniforms.”

He indicated his outfit with a flourish. “What do you think this is, a ballet outfit?”

“What I think it is doesn’t matter,” I said. “It’s just that I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Special forces,” he said.

“Special forces?”

“Great Leader Special Forces, to be exact. We’re to be his chosen bodyguards. Our units will march last in the parade to let people around the world see how serious we are.”

“Serious?”

“Here in a once-again great America.”

“I see. So, what is your problem?”

“I need to practice our regimental march, and they keep interrupting me.” He motioned at the dogs gathered ‘round him.

“How so?”

“Hold my piece and watch this,” he said. He unbuttoned the rifle strap and handed the gun to me. As I watched, he punched a pocket device and martial music erupted, a stirring tune. He told me later it was entitled ‘Blessed Leader over all us,’ and had been composed especially for the upcoming parade.

Anyway, he jogged to the edge of the yard, came to attention, did a sharp “About Face” and began what was intended to be a goose-step march. As he passed me, one leg shot more or less straight out, then another. He did an “Eyes Right,” whipped a salute and returned to marching position. At the end of the yard, he did a “To the Rear,” and started back. He was getting better.

That’s when it happened.

In unison, the four dogs—Calvin, Cassie, Penny, and Judy Kate, the attorney-dog—raced to a spot behind him, formed a line, got in step with the music, and then, … . Excuse me for a moment.

And then, their little legs began to shoot directly out, two at a time, in a perfect imitation of Great Leader Special Forces Trooper GA-20189. To this day, I don’t know how they did it, but oh my. Here they all came, strutting across the yard.

In unison.

Wait until you see our sister regiment.
Great Leader calls them
"My Little Trooperettes." - C.W.
.
When he reached the “reviewing stand” again and he saw me, doubled over laughing, our brave soldier turned and saw his fellow marchers. All stopped.

“See what I mean?” he said. “How can we have the most wonderful, the largest, the most admired, the most impressive, and the most watched parade in the world’s history if even dogs are going to make fun of us?”

I wiped a tear, “I don’t know,” I said as another wave of laughter rolled over me. “I just don’t know.”

I couldn’t swear to this, for the tears interrupted my vision, but I do think I saw the two non-participating dogs clapping their little paws, in unison.

And, of course, you’ll never believe that the other four took bows.

In unison.


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Enjoy these at all? If so, order Big Dope's Book at Wattensaw PressAmazon, or other book sellers. It will make him so happy. Also, click on an ad. It earns him a little and costs the advertiser, sort of a win-win.



Thursday, March 8, 2018

Advice

Caught C.W playing on my computer this morning. I told him I would only post this as an example of the type humor I find offensive.




Sunday, March 4, 2018

415. Resistance


“Don’t make me have to come in there.”

Oh, no, as I walked in from doing some outdoor chores, I heard one of the most dreaded threats a Southern child can hear. I rushed in the living room to check on things. I heard C.W. before I saw him. He was what you might call, “wailing.”

“Oh, what will become of me, what can I do?”

A voice from the kitchen said, “Try setting yourself on fire.”

I had reached the living room by then and witnessed a sight I’ll never forget. There was the form of what appeared to be a genuine 1968 version of a Haight-Ashbury resident sitting cross-legged on the floor moaning and rocking to and fro with tears streaming down his face and onto a pale pink robe festooned with peace symbols.

“What the … ,?”

“Oh, Big Dope,” he managed between sobs. “Am I glad to see you. You must help me.”

I was feeling a bit weak so I sat. I said nothing.

“Tell me you’ll help me, man.”

“Help you how?”

“Keep them from drafting me.”

“Keep them from what?”

“Drafting me, man. I’m not cut out for the military, man, not even the navy. You know how I got seasick when you took me fishing that day. And the sight of human blood makes me nauseated.”

“Calm down,” I said. I looked at him with all the sternness I could muster. He sniffed once and looked at me. His mustache and beard were glistening from his tears, and his nose was running. He drew a breath and nodded.

 “Now what is this about a draft?”

He started to sound off again, but I wagged a finger at him and shook my head. “Speak.”

“I requested a transfer home,” he said. “They turned me down.”

“Who turned you down?”

“The Falloonian Elders. They quoted Section Eight of the Alien Service Agreement.”

“What’s that?”

“What I had to sign to be eligible to come live with you.”

“No, I meant what is Section Eight?”

“That’s the one where it says I have to participate on host-country life to the greatest degree possible.” With that, he broke down and wailed, “Now I’m going to get drafted.” His sounds filled the room.

“I’m not going to tell you again,” came from the kitchen.

“Calm down,” I said again. “There hasn’t been a draft in this country since the 1970s.”

“And look at how many years you’ve been at war since then,” he said. “Now this new one is bound to require that they start up the draft again.” Snot dripped from his nose. “What am I going to do?”

“C.W.,” I said, … ,”
When it comes to drafting me,
I find I must agree. - C.W.

“Tranquility’s Child,” he said between sniffs.

“Say what?”

“That’s me,” he said, “Tranquility’s Child.”

“Whatever,” I said, “but there is no new war, yet.”

“Haven’t you heard?”

“Heard what?”

“The political party in power in your country just declared war.”

“Did what?”

“Declared war. What shall I do? I’m too young to die.” He stopped and thought, shaking his head. “I’m only half a century old in Earth years.” With this he wailed again, “Oh what am I to do?”

“I’ve heard nothing about a new war.”

“They call it a ‘trading war,” and that means trading bombs and bodies, my people tell me, body counts and all that. They say I’ll be a hero maybe.” He began to wail again. “Help me. Help me.” His voice rose. “Help me. Help me.”

I couldn’t help thinking of that old film, The Fly. I shook it off.

I said, “Do you mean ‘a trade war’ with other countries? That’s not a war of armies. That’s only about the buying and selling of products. It doesn’t lead to invasions and battles. It’s just about products, or a product.”

“A product that one country buys and one country sells?”

“Exactly. Buying and selling. No ‘bombs bursting in air,’ no troop ships, no napalm, no draft, no dead babies. Just everyday products for sale or trade.”

“Does that include rubber and oil?”

I felt as though someone had slapped me in the face with a wet towel. I stared at the floor for a moment.

“I’m too goddam old,” I said. “You’re on your own.”

He screamed, “Oh woe is me, woe is me.”

A voice from the other room screamed back, “I’m gonna make you think ‘woe is me’ if you make another sound.” 

See also:
Enjoy these at all? If so, order Big Dope's Book at Wattensaw PressAmazon, or other book sellers. It will make him so happy. Also, click on an ad. It earns him a little and costs the advertiser, sort of a win-win.