Jeffrey, being one of many brothers and sisters, couldn’t believe his luck in being the first at the jar of peanut butter.
Why do you need to look up the word ‘dictionary’ in a dictionary?
Second place ain’t bad.
I resolve to deliver some of the red sludge in my innards to the faucet of everyone who wants a nice, clean bath.
Here in the valley we always wear a hardhat on Fridays so that we’re ready for the fresh potato soup showers that rain gently down from noon to 1:00, but not because they hurt, but so that we have something to catch a bowl in for lunch; oh, and I almost forgot - no one ever leaves the house around here without a clean spoon.
So far, no obvious dinosaur attacks.
I resolved to start 2007 with a really astute sentence touching the very heart of the human condition.
Resolutionless, it was business as usual.
Juan watched the most stunning sunrise of his life with awe and trepidation.
There is a secret society of people who have vowed to keep the highway full of cars.
Every season the stores require a brand-new bunch of books, so new books must be written, right?
One benefit of 2006 being my worst year yet by far (far, far!) is a very low bar (low, low!) for 2007.
As Bronwyn’s 12-hour headache finally melted away, she felt the sense of euphoria that once only came from riding in fast cars with fast boys.
Once they’d hit the sale table, Keith couldn’t resist buying himself a Brand New Monster.
If I can’t sell it, I’m gonna recline upon it.
“Everything goes better with Nyquil.”
The light slanted through the clouds, fit for the angels, but she sat in her head unable to appreciate it beyond a grudging acknowledgement.
We’ve rained our way to a new day.
I will never, ever, ever again ride a subway train, stand on a subway platform or look down at a subway track without thinking of Wesley Autrey.
Oh, no, please don’t bother to explain all these acronyms, you inconsiderate SOB.
Rejecting in one move both the controversial monetary system of the European Union and the stifling conventions of her hometown, young Penny demanded that her family and friends immediately start calling her Pfennig.
Whether it’s American on my grilled cheese, provolone on my cheesesteak or pepper jack on my shrimp melt, it all burns me in the exact same spot: right behind my left canine, midway between the gumline and the edge of the palate.
Given that peer pressure couldn’t really be used to explain why notoriously rebellious Bill “Black Mark” O’Shey suddenly started hanging out with a polite group of banjo players who played quietly at reasonable hours of the day, his teachers were certain he was up to no good.
Wally’s dream of watching his son grow up and become a professional hitchhiker was shattered when the doctors confirmed his wildest fears.
I noted when filling out my timesheet the other day that the program that tracks it all divides my time into regular and premium hours and now I’m hoping a cartel akin to OPEC will soon decide that too much work is being done and will limit my level of output resulting in more three day weekends.
The cats bowls have little moats around them - it’s necessary for even the dry food - but still, the ants come… right under the front door and up the hallway like they own the place and even ‘Rid Ant’ won’t stop them.
One of our own has an interview today, and even though we all know that she is more than talented and brilliant enough for the job, let us make a great and hopeful noise on her behalf anyway.
Democracy as a teetering ediface mattered very little to Hector, who had, through a series of bad decisions and coincidences, stuck his foot through a rotting floorboard in the abandoned cabin (surrounded, of course, by wetlands) and lost his boot.
“Your father and I began dating way back in the Dark Ages, when Eisenhower was in office; believe me when I tell you, if any two people in the world know how to fight with an economy of words and motion, it is your parents.”
When you’re home sick with a stomach flu, Dirty Jobs is the wrong show to watch.
A stacker by nature, Bobby’s bowling bowl collection eventually drove him insane.
As the pressure mounts for my (theoretically) upcoming centennial, I feel as if my dorm room has suddenly gotten more boring so as to suppress any creativity that might make it past the white ceiling, white brick walls, dingy tiles, and heavy-slamming doors; but then again, it might just be that I’m boring.
No matter where his career in tax prep took him, Booker invariably became the all-purpose eccentricity touchstone for coworkers interested in how the other half - of anything - lived.
Juan chuckled to himself as he sat in the gym sauna on January 6, watching the parade of chubby men walk into the sauna, sit an average of three minutes, and then waddle off hopefully to the scale.
it’s the beginning of the season and it was supposed to be joyous, the “revelation in the everyday world where the whatness of a common thing or gesture becomes radiant and deeply comprehended;” but things fall apart.
o new scriner, don’t go for our lack of attention, i see you down there in the chat window, but also i see it was two days ago now, o scriner come back, come back and simply begin to post, we’re really a friendly (if tardy) bunch and, when you get to the end, continue…
“More sunshine today [January 7] along with near record warmth[:] morning temperatures will climb through the 70s[;]the afternoon high will be in the lower to middle 80s “ and there will be no air, again.
The horrid glittery sight of anything remotely related to Christmas sent her into a towering rage, causing chidren to cringe and animals to howl uncontrollably.
The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.
Is there anything better than a milkshake and piping hot french fries?
Throwbones Ramirez was, on the whole, well thought of by the populous although all the other witchdoctors and medicine men in the union maintained sternly that dancing in the rain was not nearly the same as dancing to bring the rain and refused to allow him to emblazon “Raindancer” on his business card.
If my life has to be an opera, then I want Rufus Wainwright to write it.
after receiving a “talk to the hand” motion for the umpteenth time, i politely responded with a “speak to the finger”.
Andrea anxiously examined the instruction panel on the bottle of detergent but finally accepted the fact that while it could easily remove ring around the collar, it was rather useless on ring around the finger.
Little Red Riding Hood to the Big Bad Scriner: “My, what long sentences you have!”
Mr. Sugar Ant, I realize that you were looking for something sweet and found me, so here, meet my finger.
I’m sure that that I am the joke of the Muse-ing world as my inspiration is repeatedly switched from full on to full off and back again, all in the manner of minutes.
Sheryl confided quietly to Tammi, “So, like, Robert confided in me that he gets his biggest inspiration for his comedy while he’s in the shower, so I, like, made sure to flush the toilet downstairs while he was in there this morning, so that, like, he would just shut up for like a minute or so.”
It’s not even the rude clerks who wear me down (because rudeness is at least a validation of sorts, however dysfunctional); no, the people who make me want to hide are those institutionally polite clerks who never smile, never make eye contact, and grind through each transaction with ruthless economy.
Years of intermittant insomnia had led Pearl to take more comfort from late-night infomercials than she ever had from bedmates or sleeping pills.
Every morning around 5:30, one lone hen begins her long, slow walk from the coop to the house, shuffling blindly through the dark one hesitant step at a time, her beady eyes locked faithfully on the back porch light, proving, I tend to think, that chickens believe in a higher power.
With Jimmy the Quirk hot on his heels—wearing the monkey mask, no less!—Henry hit the gas pedal hard.
Since today is both Elvis Presley’s and David Bowie’s birthday, I am going to celebrate in the most appropriate way possible: I will crank up the speakers on my computer as I play All the Young Dudes, then crank them up even louder as I play Do the Clam.
“This week, I shall write a scrine inspired by every spam name I read,” declared Mima Meadows to the bus station patrons at large, loftily disregarding the fact she made absolutely no sense to the uninitiated.
“I love you, Carwyn Edwards,” scribbled Prof. Bartholomew in a sudden fit of passion,”and I find your torturously sophomoric misinterpretation of ‘Prufrock’ unbearably sexy.”
When Joseph wrinkled his nose and posed the largely rhetorical question, “What crawled up inside you and died,” he was completely unprepared for Tom’s answer.
Inexplicably and eagerly, the ten-year-old wanted to do laundry.
She could not help but notice the unhealthy shimmering of her office ‘Entry’ sign and how it seemed, fleetingly, that the words ‘Hell’ had appeared.
I wonder what it might be like to not be a person.
Post holidays, all you really want is some nice fried eggs (and another holiday).
I would not recommend spending too much time living inside your own head, it’s far too cramped for one thing.
Raymond’s thoughts went right to the gutter when his date uttered the phrase, “This one time, at band camp…”
After reading the fetish dictionary carefully, Amanda became repulsed but understood why the scat-master had smiled when she mentioned Hershey’s Kisses.
The night sky split asunder and sparkled as it fell to the ground and Becky threw yet another handful of breathless wonder straight up into the air.
“So far, Jake, I make that 72 all up,” said Edwina hopefully.
“Did the chicken atop your head land there before or after it was counted?” asked Jake.
“Oh, yes, definitely, never miss a chicken, that’s me,” said Edwina as she hurriedly shoved a little chick into her coat pocket.
“I like counting!” Timmy said with a smile; “Tastes just like chicken!”
“Cannibal chiefs chew Camembert cheese ‘cos chewing keeps them cheeky.”
From their orbiting space station high above the North American continent, the fowl leader of the Chickens Only Onearth Party was heard to exclaim, “Hmm, tastes like human.”
When and how did you do what with whom and why?
Hilario Church wished his muse would quit dicking around. and focus on the task at hand for a change.
One rainy evening, at Florence’s bar, Malcolm Q. Lehman realized it was the “Q” that had held him back all these years.
What happened to the other shoe?
I’m scared—what if there’s nothing on the other side?
If there is a Heaven, and I happen to get there, the sad part will be that I probably won’t believe in the prelife.
Some days I manage to tick off everyone in my path.
“What a fowl odor,” Laurie commented to herself as she mucked out the chicken coop, causing herself to giggle slightly and then choke on the ammonia smell.
My daughter’s pre-adolescent crazymaking is going to be the death of me - and we’re not anywhere near driving age yet.
Harold hadn’t been the one to shove his arm into the woodchipper, but he was still more than happy to pull it out.
Why does good luck make for such grumpy digits?
Why do you need to look up the word ‘dictionary’ in a dictionary?
Why on Earth was I ever allowed access to the Internet?
Why did the chicken cross the road and just the what hell was it up to anyway?
Why aren’t chickens posting on the Internet yet?
Why did the chicken cross the information superhighway?
Puts a whole new twist on those ‘eggs’ you find in software.
I live in an A-town, a different A-town from the A-town I’ve lived in all my life, but another thing remains the same: folks drive like A-holes.
There was one single, inconvenient impulse of creativity left in Ambrose that he had not yet found and squelched; every few months its tiny peep managed to hypnotize him and lead him to purchase hundreds of dollars’ worth of oil pastels or woodcarving tools, which he would then neglect to return to the store after he recovered his senses.
Two of the obvious signs of hobos on the Internet include website name changes and preoccupation with chickens.
“When you look at the isotope ratios, we North Americans look like corn chips with legs.”
It’s fortunate I’m not a more thoughtful person, because I’ve developed the unfortunate habit of plucking whiskers from my mustache while I think.
When the commode inspector turned up dead, all eyes were on Lenny, mostly on account of irritable bowel.
Surely our civilization could never actually descend into lawlessness and anarchy, not while young Patty Sperry here sits in her TV studio, calmly selling genuine Joan Rivers pavé earring sets.
Juan knew there were those who suffered (and celebrated) with the fall and rise of their stock investments, but Juan’s own emotional health was tied directly to the health (or suffering) of his house plants.
All you have to do is put up with a mildly unpleasant subway ride home; do that and we’ll let you melt us into your cocoa once you get there.
but i want you all to please remember that i once was, and will always be, The Comment Queen, only deposed by the flagrant, if unavoidable, rigging of the machine.
more of a group art project/discussion forum than a blog
Having had to look up “lubricious,” “susurrus” and “megrims” in just the last three pages (and finding them all excellent words), Sam concluded she was a stupid plebe who’d probably never win at Scrabble or carry on an adult conversation.
Viruses are from outer space, riding in on tiny meteors directly into your sinuses.
Nursing a beer between sets, the bass player known as Slim Laptop briefly considered offering his Radio Shack business card to Candida, who was loudly lamenting to any who would listen that they didn’t make answering machines like they used to; however, he felt sure neither she nor the other patrons could be trusted not to laugh at his real name.
Consider “precatory” and “predatory,” separated only by a single letter and a great chasm of meaning.