This week’s Photo Challenge is to share a photo of something that is dearly loved.
I am not sure if it is I who dearly loves my dog and cat or if it’s my dog and cat who dearly love me. Probably both.
Well, maybe the cat doesn’t love me dearly — until it’s time for him to eat.
A judge in Texas interrupted jury deliberations to let the members of the jury know that “God wanted a not-guilty verdict.”
I’m not making that up. It seems that a Texas district court judge, Jack Robison, told jurors that he had talked with God and that God told him to intervene on behalf of a woman accused of trafficking a teenage girl, her niece, for sex.
“When God tells me to do something, I gotta do it,” Robison told the jury.
Fortunately, the jurors ignored the will of Robison — and, apparently, of God — and found the defendant guilty of the charge. The judge then recused himself before the sentencing phase. The defendant’s attorney asked for a mistrial, but the new judge denied the request and the jury sentenced the woman to 25 years in prison.
Suck it God!
In an unrelated tale, how many of you know that you’re not supposed to carry a loaded gun onto an airplane? Good for you if you do know that. Some people apparently don’t.
Federal law does allow for passengers to transport unloaded guns in a locked, hard-sided container. It must be declared, and the gun cannot be packed in a carry-on.
And yet, according to the TSA, more people this past year were packing heat in airports across the country than ever before. The TSA reported that in 2017 a record-breaking number of firearms in passengers’ carry-on bags for the 10th year in a row.
Airport security screeners uncovered almost 4,000 firearms last year, representing a 16% increase from 2016. The majority of those guns — 84% — were loaded.
These guns were discovered at 239 airports nationwide, with Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport taking the top spot with 245 guns.
Suck it guns!
Harry looked around to see if anyone had seen him trip and fall. He was sprawled out on the wet pavement, his suit soaked, his ego bruised, but no bones appeared to be broken.
He remained in his prone position, almost admiring his unique rat’s eye view of the city. He saw himself reflected in the man with the umbrella trying to stay dry as he rushed off to spend his day sitting in his cubicle punching numbers into his computer.
That was the moment when Harry decided to get off of life’s conveyor belt and quit the rat race.
(100 words)
Written for this week’s 100 Word Wednesday prompt from Bikurgurl. Also written for today’s WordPress one-word prompt, “conveyor.”
Photo credit: Matthew Henry.
Doug Larson was a columnist and editor for the Door County Advocate from 1953 to 1964 and wrote a daily column, “Doug’s Dugout,” for the Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1964 to 1988.
He was known for his insightful, folksy quotes, like the one above, which resonates with me because English often doesn’t make any sense. If it wasn’t my native language, I’m sure I’d never be able to master it.
Another quote of his that I like is “To err is human; to admit it, superhuman.” Clearly, our president is not superhuman. I’m not even sure he’s even human.
Or how about this one? “A pun is the lowest form of humor, unless you thought of it yourself.”
And then there’s “Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon.”
But I digress. If you’re interested in reading more of Don Larson’s witty quotes, they can be found here.
Written for today’s One-Liner Wednesday prompt from Linda G. Hill.
I was going to write a post in response to today’s one-word prompt, “cavity,” with a snarky post about how Trump supporters have a cavity in their heads where their brains should be.
Or perhaps how Donald Trump, his GOP enablers in Congress, his big business cronies, and his Russian backers have a cavity in their chests where their hearts should be.
But then I thought better of it because, well, I have good teeth. The last time I had a cavity was when I was ten years old. And I’m now quite a bit older than ten.
I did have to wear braces during my teen years. And because I inherited relatively large teeth from my father and a relatively small jaw, courtesy of my mother, I had to have four teeth extracted in order to get my large teeth to properly align in my small mouth.
Unlike most people I know, I don’t mind going to the dentist. During my twice yearly visits, the dental hygienist scrapes the accumulated plaque from my teeth and shines them up. Easy peasy and relatively painless.
Then the actual dentist comes in, checks everything out, tells me it all looks good, and then complains that he’s not making any money off of my mouth.
I bet he voted for Trump.
Yikes. Yesterday’s Just Jot It January word was “fantastic,” and my post was all about how that is not a word I use very often. And now, today’s word, “scrumptious,” is yet another word that is not in my everyday vocabulary.
I associate “scrumptious” with mouth-watering, delicious foods. But I would not use “scrumptious” to describe such foods. Instead, I would use the word “yummy.”
Okay, I know what you’re thinking. For a senior citizen, which is what I am, to utter the word “yummy” to indicate that something tastes scrumptious might seem a little strange. But I blame my mother.
You see, when I was a little kid, my mother would use the word “yummy” to get me to eat certain things. For instance, she would take a can of Campbell’s condensed tomato soup, add a can of milk (instead of water), mix it together, heat it up, crush in it some Ritz crackers, and serve me a bowl of “yummy yummy soup.”
Or she would take two slices of bread, carve out a hole in the middle of each slice, throw both pieces of bread into a frying pan, crack open two eggs and drop each egg into the hole in each slice of bread, and fry up what she told me were “yummy yummy eggs.”
And that is why, to this day, when I eat something that is mouth-wateringly delicious, I refer to it as being “yummy.” Or maybe even “yummy yummy.”
But never “scrumptious.”
Written for today’s Just Jot It January prompt from Linda G. Hill. The word of the day, “scrumptious,” was suggested by Judy E. Martin.
I honestly can’t remember the last time a read a book. Well, a physical book, that is. A hard cover book or even a paperback book.
It’s not that I don’t read books. I read maybe a dozen or so a year. But I always download the books onto the Kindle app on my iPhone.
It’s what I do.
(279 characters)
Written for Kat Myrman’s Twittering Tales prompt.
(Okay, I know I didn’t follow Kat’s instructions to “pick one title…or a few or all…and tell [her] the story behind the words.” But I guess I just felt like being a bit rebellious today. I hope Kat won’t punish me by not including me in her round-up next week!)
“Is he God?” Allsion asked Victor. “Did you see how he reached up and grabbed a sunbeam from the sun and held it between his thumb and forefinger? He must be God.”
“No, he’s not God, Allison,” Victor said. “It’s a parlor trick. He’s a cheap magician. He probably has some little bulb in his hand that lights up when he presses something down.”
“No!” Allison said definitely. “It wasn’t a trick. He grabbed the light right out of the sky and captured it in his hand. I saw it with my own eyes.”
“Allison,” Victor said, “You’re being naïve. He’s a con man. He’s selling you and everyone here bottles of snake oil.”
“That’s not true,” Allison insisted. “He promised that if we follow him, he’ll lead us to a better life. I believe him.”
“It’s all bullshit….” But before Victor could finish speaking, the cups were being handed out to everyone assembled.
“Now everyone drink the Kool-Aid,” Reverend Jones said, “and you, too, will see God, just as I already do.”
(173 words)
Written for this week’s Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers from Priceless Joy. Photo credit: Goroyboy.
I remember reading a story awhile back about a Harvard University researcher who had the good fortune of having a paper he wrote accepted for publication by 17 medical journals. I thought was pretty impressive.
The paper was titled “Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs?” I thought that was an impressive, albeit a bit strange, title for an article being published in 17 medical journals.
Some of the reviews of his article called his methods “novel and innovative.”
And that is, indeed, quite impressive. Because, you see, this Harvard researcher’s paper was created entirely by using an online random text generator. It was total gibberish.
Still, 17 “respected” medical journals accepted it for publication. Well, 17 journals accepted it. And they would publish it once the researcher paid the $500 “processing fees” to each “journal.”
Upon further analysis, most of these so called medical journals turned out — surprise, surprise — to be bogus.
Many of these publications sounded legitimate. The paper’s author, Mark Shrime, now an Assistant Professor of Otolaryngology and of Global Health and Social Medicine at the Harvard Medical School, pointed out, “To someone who is not well-versed in a particular subfield of medicine — a journalist, for instance — it would be easy to mistake them as valid journals. As scientists, we’re aware of the top-tier journals in our specific sub-field, but even we cannot always pinpoint if a journal in another field is real or not.”
When Shrime looked up the physical locations of these publications that accepted his paper, he discovered that many had very suspicious addresses; one was actually inside a strip club.
But hey, just think about the how great this will look on Shrime’s CV. He wrote an “academic paper” that was accepted for publication by 17 medical journals.
Not too shabby.
Here’s a factoid I bet you didn’t know. A typical sneeze removes air from your body at speeds of up to 100 miles per hour. No wonder attempting to stifle a sneeze with that kind of velocity behind it can be challenging…and possibly even dangerous. Yet that is precisely what I’ve been attempting to do for the past month.
During what was supposed to have been a routine dog walk, I seriously bruised the ribs on my left side after falling hard onto the cement sidewalk.
Sneezing when you have injured ribs can be agonizing. And so, since that fateful night a month ago, each time the urge to sneeze comes over me, I do everything I can to stifle the sneeze.
Why not just blow my nose when I feel a sneeze coming on? The mere act of expanding my lungs with enough air to enable a productive nose-blowing puts significant pressure on my ribs. So instead, I pinch my nose, hold my breath, and pray that I can successfully stifle the sneeze and avoid the intense pain.
For the most part, my sneeze prevention approach has worked. But on several unfortunate occasions, the sneeze got the better of me and I would end up writhing in agony for several minutes until the acute pain on the left side of my rib cage eventually settled into a dull ache.
This morning, just a bit over a month after the rib-bruising episode, I once again felt the urge to sneeze coming on. But this time I bravely decided to let it go. I sneezed.
Not once.
Not twice.
But three times.
EUREKA! While I could definitely still feel tightness on the left side of my chest with each sneeze, the feeling was more annoying than agonizing. And being able to experience a full, robust sneeze was amazingly satisfying.
I’m still taking Advil periodically, as the left side of my ribcage remains somewhat tender. But the worst is clearly over and I am thrilled that I no longer need to struggle to stifle that reflexive sneeze response.
All I have to say at this point is “ahhhh.”
Or perhaps I should say, “ahh-chooo”!
Written for today’s one-word prompt, “stifle.”
Facts, Fictions & Fantasies 