Short Stories To Tickle Your Funnybone

by Thornhill, Robert

  This couldn’t be good.

  I unbuckled and made my way back just in time to hear Mary declare, “I was not smoking.”

  I tapped the man on the shoulder and Air Marshal Grant turned to face me.

  “You again!” He looked at Mary. “I suppose this is one of yours.”

  “Yes, Mary is with me. What in the world did she do?”

  “She set off the smoke detectors in the lavatory. I thought the flight attendant made it clear that this is a nonsmoking flight.”

  “I already told you I don’t smoke.”

  “Then what set off the smoke detectors?”

  Mary looked sheepishly around. Of course every eye on the plane was on her.

  “It’s kind of personal.”

  “Please elaborate,” Grant said.

  “Well, if you must know, I took a dump. When I was done, it was awful ripe in there, so I just lit a match, you know, to get rid of the smell. I knew there was people waiting to come in after me. It was the polite thing to do.”

  Grant just rolled his eyes.

  “Here,” he said. “She’s all yours. Now you owe me two.”

  I thanked him, and as I herded Mary down the aisle, I heard her mutter, “He probably thinks his shit don’t stink.”

  Three weeks to go and this is just the first day. What have I done?

  **********************************

  An excerpt from Lady Justice Gets Lei'd

  http://booksbybob.com/lady-justice-getsleid_309.html

  The Kidney Stone Since Maggie had been planning our ‘healthier’ meals, it had been awhile since I’d darkened the doorway to Mel's Diner.

  I needed a fix of real 'comfort food'. Reluctantly, Maggie agreed.

  I had a chicken fried steak and mashed

  potatoes smothered in white cream gravy. Yum! It doesn’t get much better than this. I can’t remember what Maggie had, but whatever it was I’m sure it didn’t fit in her diet. We were, after all, at Mel’s.

  I was enjoying a mug of steaming coffee with a piece of chocolate cream pie when a sharp pain in my back hit me like a bolt of lightning. My arm involuntarily jerked, and I slopped steaming coffee into my lap. That got my attention. I couldn’t decide which hurt worse, my back or Mr. Winkie.

  “What in the world is wrong with you?” Maggie cried. She’s used to my idiosyncrasies, but this was outside the box, even for me.

  “Wow! Don’t know,” I replied. “It felt like someone just hit me in the back with a rubber hose. It’s easing up now. I’ll be okay.” I started drying myself with a napkin. Good thing I had on dark trousers. At my age, someone might mistake my little accident with incontinence.

  I had just polished off the pie when the pain in my back intensified and spread around my left side. It would subside and then return with a flourish. Every time it struck again, I would squirm. I finally was squirming so much I was distracting everyone around us.

  I paid the check and we headed to the car with me wincing in pain every few steps.

  Earlier in the day, Mr. Winkie and I had discussed the possibility of him becoming Mr. Happy, but as we drove home Mr. Back had the final word, and the message to Mr. Winkie was, “No way!”

  I spent most of the night pacing the floor in pain. In the morning I dressed and went straight to Doc Johnson’s office.

  After spending what seemed an eternity in the waiting room, the nurse called me back, took my temperature and blood pressure, and had me stand on the scale. She took the reading and gave me a glance. “It’s the chicken fried steak,” I muttered.

  She asked what had brought me into the office, and I told her of my night’s ordeal.

  “Here,” she said, “go pee in this cup and wait in room three. The doc will be right with you.”

  First of all, I don’t like doctors. Not Doc Johnson though. He’s okay. Just doctors and hospitals in general and all those places that smell funny. And I especially don’t like peeing in a cup. I don’t really know why. When I was a kid, my buddies and I would write our names in the snow and see who could pee the highest and farthest. But somehow that’s different than peeing in a cup.

  One reason I like Doc Johnson is that he doesn’t have the ‘God complex’ that is the dominant personality trait of many physicians.

  He actually has a sense of humor.

  I remember one of his comments that endeared him to me: “There’s more money being spent on breast implants and Viagra today than on Alzheimer’s research. By 2030, there will be a large elderly population with perky boobs and huge erections and absolutely no recollection of what to do with them.”

  Anyway, I finished and waited in room three. Pretty soon Doc Johnson came in. “Got blood in your urine, Walt,” he said. “You might be passing a kidney stone. I’m going to send you across the street for a CT scan. Let’s see if we can find the little bugger.”

  Swell!

  I’d heard about these things, and nothing I’d heard had been good. In fact, I didn’t know anyone who had said, “Gee, I wish I had a kidney stone!”

  So I went to the radiology lab and was escorted into a little room. The nurse said to strip and put on this little gown hanging on the door and someone would come get me. Who invented these gowns, anyway? Why don’t they go on like a robe, with the slit in front? And why is there only one tie and it’s in the back? You put the thing on and then you have to walk around with your hand clutched behind your back so your butt won’t hang out.

  Then Nurse Ratchet walked in. Why do all my nurses have to look like her? My hiney did a little pucker as I watched her prepare for my ordeal.

  She led me to a room with a sliding table that I was to lie down on. The table would then slowly carry me forward into this giant tube with whirling lights. “This won’t hurt a bit,” she said.

  “Yeah,” I thought, “that’s easy for you to say!”

  As the table slowly moved me toward that gaping hole, all I could think of was James Bond in Goldfinger. He was strapped in a similar machine that was moving him and his privates toward a burning laser.

  I closed my eyes and gripped the side of the table. The machine whirred and I disappeared into the depths of the huge cocoon. Lights flashed and as I felt myself being pulled out, I reached down and gave Mr. Winkie a quick pat. It was over, and I still had my equipment. What a relief.

  I returned to Doc Johnson’s office and again waited in room three. The doc came in and said, “Yep, Walt, you’re about to give birth to a 4mm kidney stone.”

  Lucky me.

  “So what do I do?” I asked.

  “Just drink a lot and pee a lot,” he said. “It will naturally come out by itself. I’m going to give you a prescription for an antibiotic. We don’t want you getting an infection. And also a pain killer, if you need it.”

  Great. Painkiller. Just what I wanted to hear.

  So I took the prescription to Wally Crumpet, the pharmacist at Watkins Drugstore. I handed Wally the prescription and said, “What’s he giving me, Wally?” I can never read what a doctor writes. They must have a special class at pharmacy school to learn to read doc-write.

  “Well, it looks like Sepra and naproxen.”

  “What is it and what does it do?”

  “Well, the Sepra is an antibiotic, and Naproxen is Aleve, a painkiller.”

  “Why didn’t he just say Aleve?”

  “Most drugs have two names,” he said. “Tylenol is acetaminophen, Advil is ibuprofen, and Aleve is naproxen.”

  Right.

  He thought for a moment and with a sly smile said, “I bet you don’t know the other name for Viagra?”

  I shook my head.

  “Mycoxafloppin.”

  Pharmacist humor.

  “Oh,” he said, “you’ll be needing this too.” He whipped out a tea strainer. “Use this to catch the stone. The doctor will want it to have it analyzed.”

  Great. Now I get to pee in a strainer. That’s worse than a cup.

  I paid for my prescriptions an
d returned home.

  Willie was sitting on the porch. “Hey, Mr. Walt,” he said. “Where you been all day?” I told him about my physical impairment.

  “Oh, Mr. Walt, I knowed a guy had dem stones. Like to damn near killed him. He moaned and groaned for days. Had to pump hisself full of dat Valium stuff to keep from scremin’. When he finally passed ‘em, it was like shootin’ BBs out his wiener.”

  Willie, you’re such a comfort.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening drinking and peeing through a strainer. I had just started a stream when I got the feeling that someone had put a blowtorch to Mr. Winkie. Then plop, there it was. Right there in the strainer. I had given birth to a tiny little piece of gravel. My very own kidney stone. It looked like it might be a girl, so I named it Pebbles. You know, like Fred and Wilma’s kid

  **************************************** An excerpt from Lady Justice Takes A C.R.A.P. http://booksbybob.com/lady-justice-takes-acrap_308.html

  The Christmas Party Mary’s arrest and trial had affected everyone in our little circle of friends.

  Naturally, we were concerned about her and all of us were in court every day to give her moral support.

  The trial ended five days before Christmas, but with everything going on, holiday preparations had taken a back seat.

  Now that Mary was off the hook, we were free to turn our thoughts to more festive pursuits.

  We decided to have a get together on Christmas Eve.

  Everyone was invited including Ox’s new squeeze and Ed, our new recruit.

  Our little circle was growing larger.

  The only no show was Vince who was going to Arizona to spend the holiday with his sister.

  It was to be a simple affair. We would order pizza and Maggie and I would serve the drinks and everyone else would bring their favorite holiday goodies.

  Jerry wanted to do the ‘Secret Santa’ thing, so we all put our names in the pot.

  Maggie and I started assembling our assorted libations.

  She mixed up a batch of holiday punch and I made sure there was plenty of Arbor Mist --- it goes great with pizza.

  Of course there was the traditional eggnog and we had a bottle of Kahlua on hand in case someone felt that their nog needed an extra kick.

  Ox and Judy had spent the day baking cookies. It was hard to imagine my robust friend rolling out dough, but I sensed that their domestic time together was a positive thing.

  The Professor brought a fruitcake. I guess that was a throwback to his generation. I just hoped that somebody would eat a piece so that he wouldn’t feel bad. I knew it wasn’t going to be me.

  Jerry brought a cake from the Price Chopper bakery that said ‘Happy Birthday J’. He had rubbed out the rest of the name.

  His justification was that Jason’s family hadn’t picked up the cake, so he got it for a really good price.

  He then reminded us that Christmas was really a celebration of Jesus’ birthday and that’s what the ‘J’ stood for.

  How could we argue with logic like that?

  Willie brought a sweet potato pie.

  He said that when he was a kid growing up, there were some years when all his family had were the vegetables that they had grown and stored, and his momma would bake that pie for their Christmas dessert.

  I guess each of us have our own special memories of Christmases past.

  Ed had stopped by the Cheesecake Factory and bought a Butterfinger cheesecake.

  My mouth started watering the minute I saw it.

  Dad announced that he and Bernice had spent the whole day making her fabulous ‘female fudge’.

  “What the heck is female fudge?” Jerry asked.

  “No nuts!” Dad replied.

  “So how do you know it’s female fudge and not eunuch fudge?”

  “Because we didn’t make the fudge with nuts in the first place and then pick them out, smart ass. This fudge was born without nuts!”

  The pizza guy showed up bearing boxes of the tasty pies and we all dug in.

  As we were filling our plates, Jerry asked Willie if he knew what would happen if he ate the Christmas decorations.

  Willie, of course, didn’t have a clue.

  “You’d get tinsel-itus!

  “You’re crazy, man! Get away from me!”

  When we were all stuffed to the gills, Jerry announced that is was time to exchange gifts.

  Apparently he had drawn my name and he looked on expectantly as I opened my gift.

  It was a little box that had a guy on the front with the word ‘Poof!’ coming out his rear end.

  I looked at him quizzically.

  “It’s a fart machine!” he announced. “Remote control --you can put it under someone’s chair and make it fart from across the room. Very high-tech --much better than a whoopee cushion.”

  Maggie gave me the ‘look’. “Don’t even think about it!”

  “Maybe you could use it at your squad room. I’ll bet it would be a big hit.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure it would. Thanks, Jerry, I’ve always wanted one of these.”

  He beamed.

  Dad had drawn Bernice’s name and judging from the box, he had spent some time in Victoria’s Secret.

  Bernice squealed as she pulled the lacey thong from the box.

  I had to look away. The last thing I wanted was the image of eighty-six year old Bernice wearing the thing burned into my memory.

  Ox had drawn Judy’s name and everyone ‘awwwwed’ when she pulled a charm bracelet from the box.

  The charms were all miniature handguns, revolvers and automatics of every description.

  “I love it!” she gushed and gave Ox a big kiss.

  He blushed.

  After all the gifts had been exchanged, Jerry strode to the center of the room with a small tablet in his hand.

  “I wrote something special for our evening together. I hope you all enjoy it.”

  Twas the night before Christmas And my friends are all here. We’ll laugh and have fun

  And spread holiday cheer.

  We’re all overjoyed

  To see our friend, Mary. She just went through a trial That was really quite scary.

  There was a good lesson That each of us learned. Don’t mess with this gal Or you’re gonna get burned.

  There’s Dad and Bernice And I hope there’s a chance That before they arrive He’ll zip up his pants!

  This year our friend Ox Has got a new squeeze. From what I’ve been told The girl’s quite a tease.

  She’ll laugh and she’ll giggle And call you sweet names But if you get her pissed off She’ll blow out your brains!

  And here’s to Ed Jacobs Our newest recruit.

  He can kick a guy’s ass And he really can shoot. As a brand new cop

  He could sure raise the ante If he could somehow arrest That old vigilante.

  And who could forget Willie The guy from the street. He’s mended his ways

  And he’s really quite sweet.

  Throughout our fine building He’s been known to roam. All that we ask is

  Keep your chitlins at home!

  Then there’s the Professor Our venerable sage.

  He gets around pretty good For a man of his age.

  With a good constitution And a strong, healthy heart He’s in pretty good shape For such an old fart!

  Here’s to Maggie and Walt Our newly wed pair.

  They’ve built their new nest Up here in the air.

  We all wish them well In their life that’s ahead. And may they be happy Especially in bed!

  As I look around

  At my friends that are here. I know in my heart

  They’re the presents most dear.

  And my Christmas prayer And I know that it’s right. Is Merry Christmas to all And to all a goodnight!

  Everyone sat in silence. The guy could be so goofy one minute and so lovable the next.

  ********************************** An excerpt from Lady Justice and the
Vigilante http://booksbybob.com/lady-justice-and-thevigilante_362.html

  The Bachelor Party On the night of the party, I headed over to Ox’s apartment to pick him up. It wasn’t my idea. I told Maggie that Ox was a grown man and could find his way to the Union Hall all by himself, but she insisted. She said that as best man, it was my duty. So off I went.

  We arrived at the Hall right at seven o’clock.

  Dad and Bernice had been in charge of the decorations and when we walked in the door, I thought I had been whisked back in time fifty years to my senior prom.

  Helium balloons graced every table and crepe paper was strung from anything that was fastened down.

  There was one of those goofy things that fold out and make a noise when you blow into them, and little bags of confetti at every chair.

  I didn’t know who was going to be responsible for clean up after the shindig was over. I just hoped that it wasn’t me.

  Maggie was in charge of the food. At this late date during the holiday, she couldn’t find someone to cater the event, so she opted for one of those ‘covered dish’ deals.

  She had made a run to Kentucky Fried Chicken for buckets of wings. Guests were to bring a favorite dish of their own.

  We had warned Willie to leavehis chitlins’ at home.

  The buffet table was loaded with salads, desserts and casseroles of every description. Someone had even brought brightly colored Jell-o cubes in various shades and flavors.

  The Professor had been drafted to be the emcee for the evening, and at the appointed hour, he called the gathering to order and welcomed everyone.

  After a word of blessing from Pastor Bob, everyone made a dash to the buffet line.

  The wedding party was first in line.

  I marveled at the food heaped on Ox’s plate. He’s a big dude with an appetite to match.

  Being the first in line, we were the first ones finished.

  I was stuffed, but Ox went back for seconds and then thirds of the BBQ wings and little Jell-o cubes.

  “I didn’t know you were such a Jell-o fan,” I observed.

  “Me neither,” he said with a goofy grin. “but this stuff is REALLY good. Never had this flavor before.”

  Dad leaned over and whispered with a smile, “That’s not just Jell-o --that’s SUPER Jell- o. Made it myself.”