Writer's Block #3

A crocodile was resting on a rock in Africa.

“She has big, sharp teeth,” said the turtle

“She has nutritious blood,” said the skin parasite

“She has tasty skin parasites,” said the bird

“She has a warm, soft belly,” said the rock

“She’s a vicious man-eater,” said the man

“She loves me and wants me to be happy,” said the crocodile’s baby

“Don't break my heart, my achy breaky heart,” crooned the crocodile, who had a penchant for country music.

Why is it that walking down the street with your arms by your side you look normal, but when you hold them up in front of you with your fingers curved like bear claws people give you funny looks?

“Noooo, Larry, noooo!!!” she screamed. But it was too late. Larry had voted Republican. He later blamed the Imperius Curse.

Dirk: He’s got tentacles.

Acorn: Ah, but that’s not terribly unexpected.

Dirk: For a house cat? Acorn, you’re bloody mad. I suppose you think badgers have fins?

Acorn: Naturally, Dirk, how else would it swim? Besides, the dandelions have been marvelously talkative this year, which proves my point.

Dirk: We’re talking about my house cat. He didn’t have tentacles yesterday but he’s got them today. The vet really doesn’t know what to make of it.

Acorn: That’s because he only knows how to shoot people

Dirk: The vetrinarian

Acorn: Are you wearing ladies’ underwear?

Dirk: Am I what?

Acorn: I said, did you feed him a grape popsicle?

Dirk: No, Acorn, I don't feed my cat popsicles. But I do let him outside sometimes, and come to think of it, his lips were tinged a bit purple when I found him…He could have gotten one from a litter bin I suppose.

Acorn: A child could have fed him one. He is quite a cute little beastie.

Dirk: Well now he’s a tentacled little beastie with purple-stained lips and I haven’t the faintest idea what to do about it.

Acorn: Does he seem uncomfortable?

Dirk: No, not exactly. He’s having a bit of fun using his tentacles to tease the shrews before he eats them.

Acorn: Then there’s nothing to be done, is there? Accept him, Dirk, tentacles, purple lips and all.

"Quickly, quickly!" said Agatha to Yolanda. "We’ve got to eat the pineapple, milk the cow, water the ferns and taunt the midgets who sing in the church choir!" "Hey Agatha, you've got elbow blubber!" a voice yelled. "Hey Yolanda, you've got tuna-breath!" another squeaky voice chimed in. "You're both uglier than wilted kale!" said a third. "It's too late," said Yolanda. "The choir midgets got to us first."

Here it comes! The brigade of French walruses! Oh, aren’t they magnificent? Flags on their tusks, stately whiskers…I don’t know about you, Harold, but I’d lay my life on the line for them.

You either had to hate him, or love him. Or be sort of lukewarm towards him. Or find him quite pleasant at times, and unpleasant at other times. Or understand, that as a complex being, he is never as he seems, and has both dreadful and beautiful desires.

Oscar Wilde wrote that all great art is self-conscious. But he never put a paintbrush in the hands of a disgruntled orangutan.

Francisca had had quite enough of the silverware coming to life when she wasn't home. Returning to the kitchen was like returning to the scene of some horrendous culinary crime. Tomatoes stabbed and bleeding, Frosted Mini-Wheats scattered all over the floor, lemons squeezed dry, chunks of banana stuck to the walls, and sometimes even a creative touch, like a knife-impaled onion with a sticky note on it, with the words “YOU'RE NEXT.”

The adorable little children of the Italian mafia loved spinning the globe and seeing where their fingers landed. If a child's finger landed on Russia, that meant Russia would be the next country their family would move to in order to evade the law or escape murder. If a child's finger landed on the ocean, it meant daddy would soon go to sleep with the fishes.

Pirate Scraggly-Beard and Wilma the Wench knew each other well, as they had spent quite a bit of time together sailing the wild seas on the Scorched Mermaid, but never experienced any romantic attraction. Wilma considered Scraggly-Beard as more of a friend than an object of attraction, and Scraggly-Beard was known to say, “Arrrr, Wilma’s a fine wench, but she don’t excite me more’n if she was a barnacle.” Then one day, after both had imbibed a substantial amount of rum, Wilma and Scraggly-Beard found themselves alone on deck. The night was as black as a pirate flag and as silent as a dead parrot. Wilma, with an uncharacteristic tenderness, stroked Scraggly-Beard’s scarred and weathered cheek, and Scraggly-Beard felt a warmth within that was different from the heat in his bones produced by rum or whiskey. And once Wilma was done tracing the constellations on his face, Scraggly-Beard guided her mouth towards his and kissed her with the soft wetness of a mop and the determined precision of a compass needle. Then Wilma gazed into Scraggly-Beard’s right eye (the patch over the left wasn’t much to gaze at), and noticed for the first time how brilliantly it seemed to reflect the shimmer of the waves at mid-day. But neither Wilma nor Scraggly-Beard ever mentioned that night, as both preferred to pretend it hadn't happened. And so the memory of their kiss sunk to the bottom of their minds like the body of drowned man to the ocean floor.

“How’re you feeling today, Jameson?”

“Miserable. Like every other day of my life.”

“Now, now, that’s not true. Remember the day the Christmas elves came to town? You were ecstatic.”

“I had inadvertently inhaled large quantities of nitrous oxide.”

“Nevertheless, you thought the elves were wonderful. You felt the need to give each of them a hug and a kiss on the nose.”

“I was accused of assault and stabbed repeatedly with candy canes.”

“Ah, but you should’ve seen the grin on your face.”

The three Flemington sisters all attended Queetsley Senior High. Every morning, Linda would curl her hair and skip breakfast, Mandy would eat a grapefruit and a chili pepper (it was part of her most recent fad diet), and Frieda would eat bacon and eggs while reading the comics and using her fingernails to scratch the dandruff off her scalp. As soon as they got to school, Frieda would write obscenities in the bathroom stalls, Mandy would hungrily buy and devour a bagel with cream cheese (not a part of her most recent fad diet), and Linda would meet up with her boyfriend behind the gym and get to second base before the bell rang. Later, the three sisters grew up. As adults, Linda worked as a sales representative for Revlon, Mandy wrote for a celebrity gossip magazine, and Frieda became the president of the United States. She didn’t win re-election, which she blamed on the media’s discovery of her dandruff problem.

People over-simplify most things in life. Like, for instance, if Patricia doesn’t like oatmeal, is it more likely that she simply isn’t fond of its texture, or that oatmeal attacked and killed her baby cousin when she was only four and a half? Most people would say the former, but most people would be wrong.