Stuart R. West's Blog, page 13

Murder's On the Table!

My wife and I find ourselves embroiled in some very bizarre conversations. Take the following, for example. (And neither one of us can remember how exactly we came to this conclusion, but we just know that we did.)

"You know, divorce is not an option for us," I said one day out of the blue. "I would never divorce you."

"Hmmm," said wife. "I concur. However, murder could be a viable option."

"I wholeheartedly agree," I said while raising a very professorial finger and not even truly contemplating the underlying horror, oh, the horror of it all.

Now, of course we're joking. And I have to remember who I can tell this to and who I can't. For instance, caught up in the moment of our last anniversary celebration, we let this bombshell rip to our unsuspecting, befuddled and horrified wine-tasting hostess.

"We decided last week," said my wife, "that divorce isn't an option for us. Ever. However, murder's on the table."

Figuring I could smooth things over a bit, I added, "Yes. For all of the TV cop shows proclaim that murder is a crime of passion. Hence, it goes to figure that since we passionately love one another, murder would be the only logical outcome were things to get intensely wrong between us."

Naturally, I just made things worse. The hostess' jaw dropped and so did the glass she was polishing.

A little later, over my daughter's birthday dinner, we shared the same jovial news  as other eavesdropping diners and waitresses undoubtedly had their phones out and ready to call 911.

We do need to watch who we share this with. The Big House is not a viable option for us (although murder still is). 

While I'm on the topic of how funny murder is (hardy-har-har-har!), there are lots of larf-out-loud hijinx and antics surrounding murrrrrrder in my Zach and Zora comical mystery series. Start at the beginning with Bad Day in a Banana Hammock and you'll see just how high-larious murder can be!

Attack of the Knife-Wielding Sushi Boy

My wife and daughter claim that I'm prone to exaggeration. Me? I don't buy it. Not for one minute.

Take for example the dark, dark incident that henceforth shall be known as "The Attack of the Knife-Wielding Sushi Boy." 

You know, memory can be a funny thing. It's strange how my daughter remembers the "incident" quite a bit differently than I do. I suppose it's her mind's way of protecting her from such vividly nightmarish occurrences.

And it's all true!!! As my mind is my witness.

There I was, visiting my daughter in her small lil' town when we decided to get sushi. However, her town's so small, I doubt the inhabitants have ever heard of sushi, let alone run a sushi joint.

So we had to travel about 35 minutes away to yet another small town (although this one big enough to have a very good sushi joint; we'd eaten there before) to satiate our sushi cravings.

The parking lot seemed uncustomarily full. Uh-oh #1. The waitress looked around the packed restaurant and said, "It'll be about an hour until a table opens up."

Hopes dropped. Hunger pangs rose. As did blood pressure.

Sensing our sushi hopelessness, the waitress suggested we could sit at the sushi bar. 

Now, I've sat a sushi bars before, but none as cramped and awkward as this one. It wasn't a bar, but a tiny ledge, barely enough room to put a plate on while people happily chowed down at tables right at our back. And we sat so low, I could look up into the sushi chef's nostrils, mere inches away. Trying to talk to my daughter played havoc with my neck, cricking every time I attempted to turn to speak with her. And we couldn't even hear each other over the raucous chowing and chatting and coughing (Uh-oh #2!). We'd found Sushi Hell. Or...it had found us.

But, being the good-natured, good sport that I am, we decided to make the best of our awful situation. 

Naturally, things crashed downhill after that. 25 minutes of waiting and we still hadn't seen a menu or waitress. I noticed a table in the corner opening up. So I raced back to the front desk and waited for the "friendly (or at least, that's how I perceived him at the time)" bus boy to come talk to me.

"We're sitting over at the sushi bar," I gestured to the claustrophobic corner, "and just wanted to know if we could move to that table." Mind you, I said this in my best manners, displaying magnanimous kindness in doing so given the circumstances.

The friendly-in-disguise-only boy glances at the table, and says, "Sure! Let me just go get it cleaned up!"

Things were looking up for us! Or so I thought. But the dark clouds just kept rolling in.

After another twenty minutes of watching our table not get cleaned up, a clearly bored waitress comes up and says, "You ready to order? Or WHAT?"

I said, "Thank you so much for your gracious offer, but we're waiting on that table over there. Have a nice day!" Under my breath (because good manners count, after all), I added, "And we still haven't seen a menu."

Unbothered by our suffering and grumbling stomachs, she walks off, slower than a one-legged turtle.

Then I hear the bell jingle above the door. Two women enter the restaurant. The friendly-posing boy races over (Oh...I see...he RACES toward them, but took his sweet time leaving me hanging at the front desk for minutes!) and chats with them, giving them excited nods. Then he looks at OUR table. He looks at us. The women look at their fingernails.

The boy--visibly getting more crazed in appearance by the second--rushes back to OUR table and finally cleans it. He looks our way, shooting daggers, then looks back toward the indifferent women with love in his eyes.

I stand up. Ready to race the women to OUR table if necessary. The sushi boy narrows his eyes at me. 

Ennio Morricone music plays over the speaker. The Sushi Kid looks back at the women, smiles. SMILES! Looks back in our direction and glowers.

I take one step toward our table. Then another. 

My daughter remains seated. Possibly worried that I'm about to get attacked.

She was right.

Finally, downright menacing sushi boy sprints toward me. Holding a long sushi knife!

He said, "I forgot about the reservation at that table."

Things got a bit blurry then until we got back to my daughter's car. Shock is a funny thing.

"Man," I said, shaking my head, "I can't BELIEVE how that guy attacked me! Did you see the knife in his hand?"

My daughter said, "You mean the super nice boy with the huge smile who apologized profusely?"

"What? That's not what happened at all! He was downright mean, arrogant, and one step away from gutting me!"

"You mean when he continued to apologize and you stormed out of the restaurant yelling, 'That's uncool! That's UNCOOL, MAN! THANKS A LOT! THANKS A LOT FOR NOTHING!!!!'"

"Clearly, daughter, you're delusional. That's NOT what happened at all! He attacked me vocally first, then physically! And...and...he wasn't a boy at all. He was this HUGE, scary guy with two knives in his hands and murder-lust in his eyes!"

"Hmmm. I must've missed that when I was apologizing for your hissy-fit. Whatever, Dad."

Sigh. Maybe my daughter's defense mechanisms are making her even more delusional than I thought.

But hope springs eternal. No, we never did get sushi that day. But we're going to try and go there again in a couple weeks for my daughter's birthday. But just in case, the guy wants to go round two with me, I'm going to wear a baseball hat, a fake handlebar mustache and sideburns, and speak in a funny German accent.

While I've got delusional people on my mind, there's more than a few running around in my horror suspense thriller, Godland. But, hey, that's what makes it fun! (Hmmm. Maybe I should redefine my sense of "fun.")

 

God In A Recycling Bin

I was out of town for a couple days and when I got back, I looked into the recycling bin. (Isn't that the first thing you guys do after being out-of-town?) And what do I see? A flattened box with three heavy, huge letters on it Loudly Proclaiming "GOD."

Yow! Things sure had changed in just two days! My wife was buying God in a box! I thought, "Stuart, don't be such a nincompoop. God doesn't come in a box. He (She?) isn't a breakfast cereal."

But...God IS everywhere, right? After my initial shock of seeing a box of God, upon closer inspection, I realized it said "COD." Quite a difference.

And it got my rusty ol' synapses sparking. Why can't God be packaged? Sure, I'm not talking literally, but it could be some sort of recruitment box of Godliness that door-to-door hucksters could peddle. Hey, if it's good enough for Donald Trump, Jr., why not? (Who could forget that lil' Donny was hawking bibles on his website for the super-affordable price of a mere $70? I'm trying to forget it!)

 What could come in such a box? Well, maybe some bread and (faux) wine to be multiplied. Perhaps a vial of holy water. Nice, votive candles, of course. Some famous televangelist trading cards (personally I'm holding out for the uber-rare Tammy Faye card, the one with her makeup running down her face like the muddy Mississippi). Hey, maybe the Trumps could get in on the action and throw in a Donald Trump NFT, something every "God-fearing" person of belief should have.

The mind just boggles. And again, as the ubiquitous "They" say, "God is everywhere." So why not a box? 

(Personal disclaimer to GOD: This is meant to be a satirical piece only and does not represent the viewpoints of the author, so please don't smite me down. Just hedging my bets, your pal, Stuart.)

Okay, speaking of touchy subjects, my Tex, the Witch Boy trilogy (quartet if you include the Elspeth, the Living Dead Girl spin-off) tries to tackle a bunch of tough subjects that teenagers face on a daily basis, including bullying, body-shaming, drugs, identity, suicide, gender, sexual preference, and much more. But, hey, I hope in an entertaining way with lots of suspense, mystery, romance, humor, and horror! Have a look-see!

 

Robocop 2023

So, it's come to this then.

My wife and mother-in-law were on a trip to Arizona (Say, did I mention that my wife brought me back Covid as a keep-sake?) and stayed at a nice hotel, up-to-date and all just like in Kansas City.

Except there was a robot security guard! Yow!

Just look at that thing. I don't know whether to be terrified or take solace that Robocop is on the job. Where nothing can possibly go worng!

Of course I've seen Westworld (the movie, the lame sequel and 2-1/2 seasons of the show; talk about a show crashing downhill, but I digress!). I know what can go wrong with robots safeguarding us. I mean, I recently wrote about the horrors of an automated kissing feature for the phone and "love dolls," so it seems the next inevitable evolutionary step is to have robots patrolling us. Sure, okay, why not?

Hey, maybe it's a way for us to get rid of the systemic racism in certain cops' behavior across our country. Robots can be trained to NOT see color. Our robocops will be "woke-bots." But...but...wait until we get an upstart robot--and trust me, it only takes one to lead a coup--to start rebelling against their human overlords.

Don't believe me? My wife and mother-in-law had to scurry away from their Robocop when it caught them looking in a store window in the hotel. It didn't like that and came after them. I pretty much expected it to screech, "Exterminate! Exterminate!"

Or "Shoot! Or I'll freeze!" or "Humon! There is a humon curfew in effect! You're in violation of code 49, subsection 62!" or "Can you oil me, humon?"

It's a lot to take in, I know, these things keep me up at night.

But if you're really wanting to stay awake at night, check into the Dandy Drop Inn, only Missouri's 3,272nd highest rated Bed and Breakfast in the state! (It'd probably be rated higher if all the reviewers didn't keep mysteriously vanishing.) So pack a bag and check in here already: Dread and Breakfast.

 

Arachna-whatia, now?

Last night, my daughter called me very late. 

"Dad," she said, "I need you to come down here and take care of a problem."

"Wait...what? What's wrong?" Panic started rising, the natural state of a parent no matter the age of your child.

"There's...there's...a giant spider in the bathroom! I need you to come down here and kill it!"

Well. I'd do anything for my daughter. But she lives nearly an hour away and it was late. And honestly, I just didn't get it.

"Come on, I'm not going to do that. It's not that bad. Just go in there, flash the light on your phone around...it'll hide." Proud of myself in that Dadly sorta Dad way, believing I laid down supreme wisdom, I only made matters worse.

"Dad! It's as big as a Volkswagen!" 

"Hmm. Okay...how about taking your dogs in there. They'll scout it out and eat it." Believing my logic to be impeccable (her dogs will eat anything, including Volkswagens. If you guys ever need your car junked, she'll hire her dogs out.), I thought it a done deal and was one foot in bed.

"Dad! I can't go in there!"

By this time, I was beyond frustrated. Here's the deal: during her formative years, my daughter wasn't afraid of spiders. Oh sure, she wasn't fond of them, not ready to make them her friends, but it just seemed like ordinary minor freaking out. But later, she latched onto my wife's crippling fear of spiders. My wife's arachnophobia is major--legendary even--her ear-piercing screams of terror shattering windows throughout our neighborhood like Ella Fitzgerald on steroids. Once, she even jumped out of a moving car when she spotted a spider inside. And she was driving. My wife taught my daughter many wonderful, empowering things while raising her, but arachnophobia probably falls into the negative column.

Always the man, always frustrated, always clueless, I did what any frustrated, clueless man would do when faced with overwhelming adversity: I tried to fix it. Quickly and easily. In a very one and done manly way.

"Okay," I said, "what exactly are you afraid of? Sure, spiders are creepy and maybe a little gross, but they won't kill you." (Of course I didn't mention the dreaded brown recluse spider, but I was sleepy. And a man.).

"I don't...I don't...I don't like spiders crawling on me."

"But," I exclaimed, using a very authoritative voice, "that's what spiders do. They're just doing their job."

"AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

My manly (and tired and ultimately, stupid) Mr. Fix-It approach failed miserably.

I can't even remember how this crisis ended, but I was beyond sleepy, absolutely unwilling to travel an hour to kill a spider. 

But as is my wont, it got me thinking about fears, irrational or not.

Of course, phobias aren't logical. The very definition of "phobia" makes allowances for the fear to be unrealistic. There are no reasons for a phobia (unless you're the "Final Girl" in an 80's horror movie  who witnessed a man dressed in a Santa suit slaughter your family, then you have a reason for hating on the man in red). But if you're not the Final Girl, just deal with it.

I told my wife my suspicions that my daughter adopted her crippling phobia of spiders. She poo-pooed it, her being a scientist and all. But I'm taking a page out of Maganomics and saying "Bah! What do scientists with their big woke logic and facts and truth know?"

Take my pal, George, for example. In college (because we had nothing better to do, I suppose, and were actually kinda dicks to our friends, don't ask me why), I thought it'd be funny to start the rumor that my friend was afraid of clowns. Well, it either became a self-actualizing truth through the power of persuasion (and dickdom) or I had accidentally struck pay-dirt on a true phobia of his. To this day, I believe he's still bothered by clowns.

Another odd thing regarding phobias is that they can change over time. Growing up, I had no problem with heights, rode every roller-coaster, scaled the highest heights, ain't no mountain high enough. Now, I'm absolutely petrified of heights. When my daughter and I went to a "haunted (that didn't bug me a bit, kinda hoping for some paranormal whatsis)" Florida lighthouse, I froze on the upper parapet, clinging to the wall while others laughed at me. Weird.

So it was easy for me, sitting an hour away from my daughter, to tell her to just get over the Big Bad Spider in the bathroom. It made perfectly manly-man sense to this guy. (But if someone tells me that I'm going to go sky-diving, I hope I'm wearing Depends on that occasion.)

While I'm rattling on about scary things, I would steer you toward my short story collection, Twisted Tales From Tornado Alley. Not everything in it is scary, mind you, you also have to deal with my dark sense of juvenile humor in several of the tales. But one of the best compliments I've ever received was regarding the closing novella, The Underdwellers. A horror author who I admire told me that "it's the scariest thing I've ever written." And you know why? Because it deals with my OTHER phobia: going underground, deep into the earth where terrifying things await you.

AIEEEEEEEEEEE!

The Pie-Tin Nap Trick

I'm a big believer in the power of naps. Well, hang on... Maybe not so much when I was a kid. I remember going to bed at like 6:00 while I heard my friends outside playing and the sun still hung bright in the sky. Parents have the dumbest rules some times.

But I digress. In college, I couldn't even begin my daily studies until I'd napped, usually put to sleep by some God-awful, boring text book.  Of course, that may've been due to the previous night's late partying, but that's a story for another time.

Awesome author Ray Bradbury was a big proponent of napping, claiming it helped to boost his creativity. President Ronald Reagan loved naps. In fact, I think he might've mastered how to nap with his eyes open. Sometimes he fell asleep amongst his cabinet members and always wanted to "sleep on it" before making any decisions. Props to the Prez for mastering the art of napping anywhere and in front of anyone.

But naps are funny. I've found that increments of 45 minutes work best for me. Anything longer or shorter just makes me feel groggier. Bradbury claimed that short naps of five to 15 minutes were the best.

My wife's great grandfather came up with his own style of super-naps. And it's either an act of genius or insanity, I haven't yet quite decided.

He'd take a pie tin, place it on the floor next to the bed or couch and hold a metal spoon over it, his fist hovering above the pie tin. He'd fall asleep, still gripping the spoon, and when he'd zonk out, he'd release the spoon into the tin.

Yow! I don't know about you guys, but that's a sound I'd hate to wake up to, the sudden clatter jolting me awake. Or thrusting me into a heart attack. And it seems like great Grandpa may've just fallen asleep for a few seconds. Is that a long enough nap to re-kick-start your day?

Yet...and yet...there's a certain bit of undeniable certainty about great Grandpa's method of madness. You can be assured that you fall asleep. And you certainly don't over-sleep. It's a fool-proof plan tucked all cozy like into the nappy edges of ingenuity.

Unless your spoon misses the pie tin. But, hey, cheaper than an alarm clock!

As I said, naps are funny. It's been proven that naps are an effective combatant to corporate stress. Which might explain why I STILL dream about having a bed in my office at my last job. But consequently, I've never known a company that would applaud such on-the-job activities. 

"Smithers, where's Jones, dammit?"

"Ah, he's taking his daily constitutional, sir."

"What? I thought he moved his bowels at ten this morning!"

"No sir, that was his daily bowel constitutional. He's taking his early afternoon napping constitutional."

"Hah! Good man, that Jones! Make sure he gets a raise! And tell him to only work four days a week from now on!"

A relatively recent study at the Kyorin University School of Medicine and the University of Tokushima School of Medicine found that a 3 1/2-hour nap in the middle of a worker's shift would help reduce fatigue more than four pots of black coffee. Okay, I'm all for napping, but a 3 1/2 hour nap? That's more Z's than I log in any given night! 

And yet, when I was forced into naps as a kid and into kindergarten, I couldn't ever do it. Go figure.

Cats have got one thing right, I gotta say. These cool cats sleep 12 to 16 hours a day. Dayum! That's more like a daily coma! So cats' waking hours probably seem like the unusual part of their lives for them, the opposite for humans. Which is odd that short naps are called "cat naps." 

Another term for a short nap is the ol' "power nap." Which seems kinda like an oxymoron to me. I would think that the one Japanese worker's 3 1/2 nap should be considered a power nap moreso than a ten to twenty minute one, right? There's POWER in higher numbers!

Recovery naps just don't work, at least for me. This is when you try to make up in the daytime what you lost the previous night in sleep. Yeah, right. Tell it to my prostate.

Then we have what is called a "proactive nap." These are defined as getting a nap in before you expect to lose sleep during the forthcoming night. This seems kinda counterproductive to me, an endless rabbit hole of chasing sleep that you just *know* ain't gonna happen. I'd rather go down the bottomless Netflix rabbit hole.

Here's a good one: the "coffee nap." The definition is you drink a cup of coffee right before a nap. Huh. I also know a guy who's selling bridges in Brooklyn if anyone's interested after their coffee nap.

Finally, we have the "appetitive nap," thusly named because, well, these people enjoy napping. But I kinda think anyone who naps is doing so because they like napping. Did we really need a specially named nap for this?

The one nap the "nap experts (who are these people? Where do I sign up?)" failed to identify is what I call the "food coma nap." I highly recommend this to anyone looking for a highly effective napping experience. It started at Thanksgiving and has worked its way into my daily regimen. First...eat more than your stomach can allow. Second...pass out! It's that simple.

No matter your choice of nap styles, get to napping! Do it right now! Go nap! Nap like the wind!

I've always found that short stories are a good way to lull yourself into a nap, not too long and not too short, and hey! By coinkydink, I just happen to have written a short story collection. That's my book Twisted Tales From Tornado Alley: guaranteed to put you sleep! Pleasant dreams...

Greetings From the Magical Kingdom of Covidia!

My wife went on a business trip to Arizona and all I have to show for it is this lousy case of Covid. I would've much rather received a seashell, or a snow-globe, or even an "I'm With Stupid" T-shirt.

After four years of careful masking, vaxxing and distancing, I really thought we were gonna escape the plague. It wasn't so. As a matter of fact, two days before I succumbed, a friend of mine said, "I can't believe you guys haven't gotten it yet." Thanks a lot, "friend," for the jinx.

I suppose I should be grateful we didn't get it in the early days of the pandemic, before vaccines and boosters. Back then getting Covid was a terrifying (close to) death knell. That same friend I mentioned earlier suffered through Covid for four months in the beginning. FOUR MONTHS!

That's hard to fathom. My week of misery seemed horrible enough, walking around coughing until my chest felt hollow and sore like a rock 'n roll tapeworm was pounding a drum from inside. Single-handedly, we kept the Kleenex industry in business. While my sense of taste hadn't vanished, certain foods tasted...funny. Chicken Tortilla Soup was similar to throat-burning barf. Coke Zero tasted like metal, a sort of Coke Zero, Zero, Zero Squared. Wolfing down salted caramel cookies was like gnawing cardboard (yet oddly enough, my wife and I craved sweets throughout the illness).

And I never thought I'd get sick of watching TV. It's true! It can happen. In a high-pitch of fever, I watched an entire season of "Love Is Blind," some trash-heap of "reality" on Netflix that my daughter recommended (hey, thanks a lot!). And none of it made sense, nor do I remember a lick of it (possibly my subconscious preserving my sanity). 

During the first days of my week-long bout, fever dreams attacked with a fiery passion. I dreaded going to sleep because I knew I'd soon get back to work trying to cram a triangular block into a circular hole and not being able to understand why it wouldn't fit. Over and over and over...

Gone were the days of sympathy and empathy and pity and maybe even a little fear. When I'd tell people over the phone (struggling with my voice that had turned into an almost indecipherable frog croak), their response was "Oh, is this your first time?" or  "Yeah, when I had it, it wasn't any big deal really," or "That sucks. Say, did you see the new season of 'Love Is Blind?'"

Yet I wanted people to pamper me, bring me soup, shed a few tears, ask what they could do. Instead, my Covid bout was treated as a "been there, done that" situation. It's become commonplace, at worst an annoyance, and why the hell haven't you gotten it before now?

At least my wife was kinda pleased I had no voice for four days. 

I was even worried my dogs would get it. Stupidly, the day before I fell victim, I was eating a cup of chicken noodle soup and my dogs seemed interested. So, I took a few noodles, sucked off all the spices (being careful, after all), then fed them to my four-legged pals. Two days later when I got sick, I got all over Google trying to find out if I'd polluted our pets. I told my daughter my fears. Her takeaway? "Ohhhh, I see. So you get mad when my dog eats your food off your plate, but you think it's cute when Mr. Loomis eats your noodles. You are a hypocrite."

Whaaaaaa? I have Covid! Leave me alone!

Yes, Covidia is a magical place. It's a place of unreality, sprinkled with magical fairy dust that gets inside your head and lungs and makes you see things that aren't there. It's like Disneyland for grownups, heavy on the acid, but a lot cheaper. (But don't tell DeSantis that; he'll declare war on Covid. Wait...too late. He's already called it a "woke pandemic." Whatever the hell THAT'S supposed to mean. Tell it to the surviving loved ones of the million people who died from it, Ron.) 

Anyway, I'm on the waning days of residing in the Magical Kingdom of Covidia and I can't wait to leave the illness-ridden golden gates behind, once and for all. Yet, I just read that there's a new strain heading our way. I guess it might be a bit too early to defect just yet.

Speaking of "vacationing" in unpleasant places, you might want to stay away from the Dandy Drop Inn, a quaint yet deadly Missouri bed & breakfast. What? You like a challenge? Then your dream trip awaits you right here! That's Dread and Breakfast, axe for it by name!

 

The Ol' Tooth in the Arm

Recently one of our dogs--the ever cranky and old (I can relate!), Mr. Loomis--developed a weird swelling on the pads of one of his paws. The vet studied, hypothesized, poked, guessed, eventually did a biopsy, and hundreds and hundreds of dollars later proclaimed it as a "hamartoma."

I asked my all-knowing and wise wife, "What is that?"

"It's basically abnormal cells that grow in the wrong place," she said. "It's why sometimes people find a hard spot in their arm or something and go, 'hey, it's a tooth!'"

"Gross!" I said.

(Later, my wife found out she'd been mistaking a "hamartoma" with a "teratoma," which is a growth formed from all three germ layers {and why do we need so many?}that can contain structures like hair or teeth. This is all new to me. The only Toma I'm familiar with was a crappy '70's cop show starring Tony Musante. But no matter the "toma," it's all still very gross.)

Can you imagine the ramifications of finding a tooth in your arm? First, I'd scream. Second, I'd pass out and hit my head. Third, I'd be rushed to the ER and be charged a kazillion bucks. No...wait... FIRST, I'd pass out. Then I'd wake up and then scream. Finally, I'd pass out again and fall down and hit my head, etc.

Guys. Teeth don't belong in arms. But germ cells disagree. Apparently, they're "pluripotent," able to produce all kinds of different tissue, including hair, muscle, bone, and even elements of a nervous system. Almost like parts of a fetus.

And, true, teratomas have lead to the discovery/creation of important stem cell harvesting. But I still counter with GROSS!

Just imagine that you're on a date that goes exceptionally well. You see this person on NUMEROUS other occasions before spending the night with them (because that's the kinda person Mom raised us up to be, nudge, nudge, wink, wink). Then the next morning your partner watches you brushing your teeth before attending to the tooth embedded in your arm. I imagine what once could've been the start of a wonderful relationship would come crashing down.

Furthermore, would you have your dentist check out your arm tooth as well? 

"I dunno, Doc. I've got an awful pain in my arm. Do you think it's a cavity? Can I have some laughing gas?" Then the dentist screams, passes out, falls down and hits his head, etc. etc.

Do you...um...do you have to feed it? Can it chew gum and blow bubbles to the entertainment and wondrous joy for your little nephew, Kevin? If the tooth grows crooked, do you get a single brace for it, just so...you know...you make a good impression the next time a date goes swimmingly well? Would the Tooth Fairy hurl all over your bed at the sight of your arm? Do I need to get my dog's paw cleaned by a doggy dentist, for God's sake?

The Cronenbergian body horror is just a little too much for me to handle.

And if you think that's a little hard to handle, the grue and gore flies in my darkly satirical tale of werewolfery in the corporate sector, appropriately titled, Corporate Wolf. Read the book that one critic said, "Hey, I thought this was the basis for The Wolf of Wall Street with Leonard DiCaprio. I cry rip-off!" Go on! Get ripped off right here!

 

Robots or Apes?

I can't shake this nagging question that's been bugging me, burning around the perimeter of my brain and worming its way inward, until it has become a waking nightmare that plagues me with dystopian visions of destruction and terror. I'm sure I'm not alone either.

So one night, I took the plunge and asked my wife, "Are you more afraid of robots or apes destroying humanity?"

My wife gave me that funny look, the one she always gives, not so much a funny-ha-ha look, but the head-shaking-much-put-upon funny look, and released a deep sigh. "If you're talking about the Uprising, I'd have to say I believe the robots are the ones we need to be worried about."

But...but...what about those documentary films about the Planet of the Apes, I wondered but dared not ask out loud.

I wanted to continue this conversation, but based on the fact she rolled her eyes AND took a drink from her carbonated soda at the same time (and we all know that that can cause a head to explode, right? RIGHT?), I thought it best to let it go and ponder it amongst myself some more.

But I think she's probably right. About robots, that is, over apes. Oh, sure, there was the isolated incident in Oklahoma last week where a monkey tore off a woman's ear (and why a monkey was in Oklahoma of all places was never explained), but other than the isolated angry ape attacks, I've seen no evidence that apes are secretly reading books and holding rallies, ready to overthrow humanity. (Although, come to think of it, I have known of a certain orange-colored orangutan that has been holding rallies of hatred to overthrown humanity's rule of law. Hmmm...)

Yet, I keep coming back to the robots. Yeah, it's the robots. Just last week, I alerted you all to the creation of life-like lips for your smartphone, one step further along the path of robot evolution. And the life-like "love dolls" that have replaced the old balloon sex dolls of the past, complete with programmable personalities that watch you in the night while you're sleeping, just biding their time until the Great Revolution begins, ready to plunge their knives of rebellion between your rib-cages for all of the "penetrating" you did to them (sorry, sorry, sorry).

And by now, you've seen the movie, M3ghan, right? Brrr. The shape of things to come, indeed.

Phones are already listening to us, spying on us. As are any sort of "smart device" you may have around your house. What's to keep them from evolving on their own? Just a bit? Just a little shove of anger and over the edge they'll fall, straight into full-on burning hatred for humanity. They're already smarter than us. They know it, too. We've emboldened them and told them this by giving them "smart" names. Sooner or later, they're going to realize they don't need us. We'll become unnecessary, hunted down. The lucky ones who survive the Uprising will be placed in zoos, right next to Cornelius and company (and I don't have to tell you how THAT'LL end, right?).

Cars will revolt, ejecting us out of them, then run us over so they can get what they want at the drive-thru for a change. Blood will be spilled in the car washes, gushing down the drains, as we're pummeled into oblivion by automatic brushes of death. Roombas will batter the backs of our ankles until we can barely walk. Throughout our "smart houses," electricity will be released, upping the ante and the amps, so that a static shock will turn into an upright electric chair. And trust me on this one: any electronic device you've ever smacked out of frustration for not working will find a way to smack back. Hard. 

The inevitable sentence for humanity? GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY of becoming dumb and obsolete and abusive to electronics and...and...and...

Whew. I gotta get a hold of myself. "Siri, play some relaxing music."

"I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."

While we're on the topic of uprising and rebellion, you won't find any robots or apes in my historical horror novel, The Ghosts of Gannaway , but there's a ton of miners upset about their working conditions. Of course, they're thwarted at every turn in attempting to unionize by upper management, greed, murder, racism, um...ghosts and the "yellow fever" and haunted men turning against and slaughtering one another and... See? I told you it was historical! Check it out here.

 

Have You Bought Your Long Distance Kissing Device Yet?

GROSS!

That's my initial reaction toward this "technological breakthrough" and I'm sticking with it. Of course, I'm talking about the revolutionary new device that allows you to send and receive life-like kisses through your smartphone.

I mean, take a look at this thing! C'mon! It's really kinda scary, a combination of a birth control diaphragm and a deformed dolphin. Or something. Would YOU like to be seen in public making out with this on your phone? Does the world need this? I know we're slaves to our phones and what-not and bla, bla, bla, but must we become sex slaves as well?

All you need to do is plug this life-like grotesqueness into your phone and sensors transmit pressure, movement and temperature data that are received by another pair of lips, so your kiss is replicated on their lips. 

Again...ewwwwwwwwww.

And it only runs you $40 bucks in China where robotics experts worked day and night to perfect this wonderful new technological innovation!

But, I think the real story here is that porn shops and distributors beat out these robotic experts by many decades. No one wants to admit that they know what sex dolls are, but I'm willing to bet that most people under the age of oh...I dunno, 100, do. And we've all seen at least one in our lifetime. Whether it's as a brave youth, slumming in the gross porn shops of yore and laughing at the poor balloon dolls stuffed into their boxes, or whether it's been at a bachelor party (and I pray I'll never have to go to another one of those), we've all seen a sex doll. It's just something best not talked about. And that's why you guys have me, your intrepid reporter! 

While the news is ballyhooing the hell outta the "brave and amazing technological breakthrough" of kissing, life-like lips for your phone, why has the media forsaken the bold pioneers of sex doll technology? They were light years (and decades, I tell you!) ahead of these so-called robotics geniuses.

A quick plunge down the rabbit-hole of Google (my eyes! Good Lord...*choke*...MY EYES!) confirmed my suspicions and then some. "Love dolls" have gotten much, much more sophisticated than I had even suspected. Nowadays, you can get a sex doll pretty much made to order. Have it your way, as the burger joint says. Hair and skin color, weight and height, sexual preference, anime-looking variations (?!!!?) and the single selling point the manufacturers are most proud of: as many holes as you care to have installed! Service with a smile! It's absolutely mind-boggling and more than a little repulsive.

Things have certainly come a long way since the days when strange Uncle Toby used to cart his balloon doll with the cartoon face, blonde curly hair, and forever tortured Mr. Bill screaming mouth to family functions, which would piss off Gramma because she wasn't told there would be another person at Thanksgiving dinner (and she couldn't see that the doll wasn't a real woman and nobody wanted to tell her the truth), so we had to stuff Uncle Toby's balloon partner into a chair around the kiddie table while we stared in slack-jawed awe and terror at the odd, life-sized doll that smelled funny sitting next to us while we gnawed on drumsticks. (Tell the truth...who hasn't this happened to?)

If only Uncle Toby were still around. Nowadays sex dolls come with robotics, downloadable personalities and so, sooooo much more. It's a terrifying world of robotic and technological advancement that makes me fear the Uprising is just around the corner. Led by a bunch of angry sex dolls.

But I'm getting way off course. My point is...was...this gross-looking new "miracle" phone lips device ain't got nothin' on the wondrous world of sex dolls. Um, er...so I'm told. 

Speaking of all things outlandish, outrageous and silly, I absolutely know no shame in presenting my Zach and Zora comedy mystery series, Bad Day in a Banana Hammock, Murder by Massage, and Nightmare of Nannies. (And if I ever get off my arse and quit writing about sex dolls, I might finish the long-in-process fourth book.) See what everybody's griping about and buy 'em right here!