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.

The Magic of Tonsils

There once was a little boy named Tom

Who complained of an owchy throat to his mom

So his mom took Tom to the local doc

Who said, “My, those are ugly tonsils you’ve got!

I’m sorry, Tom, but it seems to me

You’ll need a tonsillectomy.”

Tom wasn’t scared yet, but that’s because

He didn’t know what a tonsil was

The doc explained they were gobs in the throat

That seemed to cause trouble for a lot of folks

He said it might hurt to have them out

And little Tom began to pout

He cried all over his little face

So his parents took Tom to his grandma’s place

“So,” said grandma, as she puffed her cigar

“They’re taking your tonsils out, they are?

Then you’re a lucky little boy

I hope you’re crying tears of joy.

There's no need to moan, lament or pout

Just keep your tonsils once you get them out

A tonsillectomy is far from tragic

Because tonsils, my boy, are actually magic.”

Little Tom’s tears were suddenly gone

“Magic?” he asked. “Like a magic wand?”

“Not quite,” said grandma. “Though that’s a good notion.

But tonsils are actually used in potions.

A tonic of tonsils with clam juice in it

Will cure any cold in less than ten minutes

And a juice made from tonsils and the tears of a crow

Will make you immune from stubbing your toe

Drink a mixture of tonsils and warts from a witch

And you’ll find that you’ve suddenly got perfect pitch

Boil tonsils with yak spit and decomposed squids

And you’ll be able to see through closed eyelids

Or boil tonsils with slime from a frog that’s done croaking

And you can blow smoke rings without even smoking

And tonsils in seal blood, with the juice of a lemon

Makes a wonderful rattlesnake anti-venom.

And then there’s a potion that’s the strangest of all

Just boil tonsils with tomatoes and a tennis ball

And the people who drink this potion, they say

Will act very odd for the rest of the day

They’ll go to the store with a goofy smile

And cackle for hours in the produce aisle

They’ll hug the mailman and eat the roses

And shove brown sugar up their noses

They’ll hop on one foot while waving flags

And shove their heads in popcorn bags

Then with the bags still on their heads

They’ll skip down the street, throwing pieces of bread.

They’ll blow kisses to dog-walkers passing by

And bake a lot of lemon pie

Then they’ll buy a rabbit and name it Mango

And try to teach it the Argentine tango

They’ll build small castles out of pickles

And pay for pumpkins using nickels

They’ll stand on the roof of the morgue and sing

And the very next day, won’t remember a thing."

Granny patted Tom on his little head

And to finish her monologue, she said,

"Well, Tom, that’s quite enough from me.

Good luck with your tonsillectomy.”

Tom got his tonsils out that week

His throat hurt, and he couldn’t speak

He had to spend all day in bed

And was soon bored out of his little head

“Will you rent me some movies?” he asked his dad

But his dad said, “No, son, movies are bad.”

“Can my friends come over?” he asked his mom

But she answered, “Your friends are too rowdy, Tom.”

The weather was overcast and raining

Tom wanted something entertaining

Then an idea popped into his head

He got a tennis ball from the shed

And using his mother’s big iron pot

He cooked some ingredients 'til they were hot

Then he called, “Mom! Dad! Look what I’ve got for you!

I’ve cooked you some tasty tomato stew.”

His parents ate from the steaming vat

And we both know what happened after that.

The Letter X

Poor letter X is so unloved

So feared and so abused

In all the English language

It’s hardly ever used

Why did the X deserve its fate?

It’s certainly no crook

But it’s hated all around the world

By authors of alphabet books

“Oh, why won’t more words start with X!”

The whiny authors moan

“We’ve already used up x-ray

And we’re sick of xylophone!”

“I’d do anything for a new X word,” pouts Xena

“Except travel the globe.”

“Why’s that?” asks the author Xerxes

“What are you, a xenophobe?”

“Xenophobe!” cries Xena

“An lovely new X-word!”

“In an alphabet book?" Xerxes replies

Come on, don’t be absurd.”

“We might as well teach the word xanthic

Which means ‘of or pertaining to yellow’

Now what kind of 5-year old wants to read that?

He’d have to be quite an odd fellow.”

"Or try using xerophilous

Which means 'plants that prefer to be dry'

Squish that between “walrus” and “yellow”

Go on, I dare you! Try!"

“And what would parents think

About a word like xenograft?

They’d think the book pretentious!

They’d think the authors daft!”

“And then there's xenobiotic

Which means a foreign chemical

Try putting that in a children’s book

I tell you, it’d be polemical!”

“The words X-ray and xylophone

Are the only that don't create panics

Although I suspect, in this day and age

The kids will soon learn the word Xanax.”

Bilingual Harry and his Rubber Duckies

Harry is a special bloke

And most would say he’s lucky

He’s one of the few in whole wide world

Who speaks fluent Rubber Ducky

He has four favorite rubber ducks

Jill, Hector, George and Clive

And when he wakes up in the morning

He sets teacups out for five

“Squeaky squeaky-eek!” he yells

Which means, “Get up you sleepyheads!”

And drowsily, the little ducks

Wake up in their bathtub-beds

Harry checks the kitchen fridge

But finds the milk is gone

“Squeak-teek!” (“I’m going to the store!”)

“Squeak-sneek!” (“I won’t be long!”)

The milk he picks is 2%

Which duckies like the most

He also picks out whole-grain bread

To make some healthy toast

“Good morning,” says the checkout girl

“Bleek-queak,” Harry says with a smile

“Harry, English,” the girl reminds him

“You haven’t been here in a while.”

“But of course!” says Harry

“I always forget. Well, have a lovely day!”

Then he hands the girl some cash

And is once more on his way

“I’ve got groceries!” calls Harry when he arrives

But the ducks say: “Leaky-tucky!”

“Oh right,” says Harry, with a bashful smile

“I forgot to speak in Ducky.”

The five friends all have breakfast

And each ducky cleans his plate

Then Harry glances at his watch

“Squeak-yeek!” (“Oh no! I’m late!”)

“Nucky-neeky!” (“Oh, please don’t leave!”)

Cries out the littlest ducky, Hector

Replies Harry: “Heeky-Squeaky feek!”

(“But I’m the Chief Squeak Inspector!”)

Harry hugs Hector, then waves goodbye

And heads off to work with glee

Because Chief Squeak Inspector’s an important job

At Simkin’s Rubber Ducky Factory

Harry’s back in time for dinner

And he cooks the duckies fish

“Meak-veek!” they say, between big bites

Which means, “This is delish!”

Harry says, “Teeky-yeek, yeek-pleeky!”

(“Eat your veggies before ice cream!”)

And Hector whines, “Geek-kleeky!”

(“But I hate string beans!”)

The other ducks get ice cream

And Hector starts to mope

“Reek-deeky!” he pouts

And Harry, shocked,washes Hector’s mouth out with soap

After supper, Harry gives the ducks a bath

And fill it to the brim with bubbles

Swimming and splashing is so much fun

Even Hector forgets his troubles

Then Harry reads a bedtime book

And plugs the night-light in by the door

He whispers "Sweet Dreams," but waits to leave

Until he hears their soft, squeaky snores

The Pilot of Dreams

I woke up late this morning

Feeling strange as strange can be

For I was floating on a turnip

In the middle of the sea

The purple sea had gentle waves

With vegetables bobbing along

Like pumpkins, peppers and celery sticks

And the turnip I was on

“Excuse me,” I said, to no one at all

“But why am I not in my house?”

Then you wouldn’t believe what crawled out of my ear—

A tiny crimson mouse!

“I’m so sorry, so sorry!” the crimson mouse cried

“You see…I’m your Pilot of Dreams.

But I've made a mistake, and oh, what a mess

You woke up in the middle it seems!”

“You’re in charge of my dreams?!” I blurted aloud

“I must be completely insane.

A rodent controls my somnolent world?

My dreams aren’t produced by my brain?”

“Of course not, my dear,” the rodent replied

“Nighttime is rest-time for your brain.

Dream Pilots take over the unconscious work

Don’t worry—we’re very well trained.

You’ve got buttons and levers inside of your head

And I can control them all

If I push the red button, you’ll dream that you’re short

But the green one will make you feel tall.

The white knob makes dreams in which you can fly

And the black lever makes your dreams scary

The lavender button will make you a child

And the blue one will make you a fairy

If I press blue and red, but I have my toes crossed

You’ll dream about amorous weasels

And if I uncross my toes, but wink my left eye

You’ll dream you’ve contracted the measles

If I stick out my tongue, and pull a pink knob

You’ll dream you’ve been yodeling all day

And if I press the gray button three times with my tail

You’ll dream you’re a horse munching hay

If I pull the beige cord while gargling soup

You’ll dream that you’re buying new soap

And if I pull the same cord while my eyes are crossed

You’ll dream that you’re dating the pope

At the time I was pulling the orange knob

And turning the sparkly key

To produce a dream about a turnip boat

In the middle of a purple sea

But, whoops! I pushed the crimson button

And I felt like such a dunce

For I knew as soon as I did it

That you would wake up at once

And now you’re awake, and I’ll surely be sacked

Yes, my Dream Pilot days are through

But I thought before I put you back to sleep

I’d apologize to you.”

“Oh, the sea is just fine,” I stuttered

“I don’t really mind being here.”

But by that point I noticed the mouse’s tail

Disappear back inside of my ear.

Soon after I fell fast asleep once more

And woke up inside of my house

But I can’t help but wonder, if maybe someday

I’ll meet my new Dream Pilot Mouse.

An Unapeeling Encounter

I was in Alabama
When I met a banana
Just a-strollin’ down the street
He was plump and yeller
And the strangest feller
I’d ever had the chance to meet

He thought it good taste
To pick me up by my waist
And hold me against his ear
He used my stomach to dial
Then chatted for a while
Which I thought was rather queer

“That was fun,” he said
Then, starting at my head
He peeled the skin from my flesh
Once my skin was in strips
He held me up to his lips
Declaring, “Ooh, this one’s ripe and fresh!”

It must have been a sight
To watch him take a big bite
Of my skinless, bloody head
He ate me up in a wink
Or at least, that’s what I think
Because by this point I was dead

My skin he didn’t keep
He just left it in a heap
For the next banana coming down the path
Then he hid behind a wall
To watch the other one slip and fall
And they both shared a hearty laugh

Now I bet you’d never think
Even if you’d had a drink
That you could be a snack for a banana
But this story ain’t fake
And it’s a risk you take
When you go to Alabama

The Toddler

It surely is amusing
To watch a baby try to talk
But it’s even more engrossing
To watch him try to walk
He stumbles left, then stumbles right
Then resumes his wobbly toddle
And all the while I wonder
Whether someone’s slipped gin in his bottle.