Each packet of your weight-loss powder costs $7.99. The recommended dosage for my weight (378 lbs.) is three packets each day. This is my eighth week on your program and I have only lost 12 lbs. I’ve spent over $1,300.00. What am I doing wrong?
Answer: My Good Lady,
I fear yours is an exceptionally difficult case. I suggest you increase your intake of Dr. Lookingood’s Extreme Miracle Weight Loss Powder™ to six packets every day.
Question: Dr. Lookingood,
I have used your weight-loss powder for three weeks and have gained 14 lbs. Help! What am I doing wrong?
Answer: Dear Madam,
Do not be alarmed. You are experiencing fluid retention. Reduce the amount of water used to mix each packet of Dr. Lookingood’s Extreme Miracle Weight Loss Powder ™ from the recommended 64 ounces to 48 ounces.
Question: Dr. Lookingood,
Each time I call your help line I am put on hold. The calls cost $4.99 per minute. Do you have a toll-free number?
Answer: Dear Madam,
No.
Neither Hulga nor I have been to Costa Rica. I think we will have a fantastic time. I sure hope she speaks Spanish.
Outside the Box
John Haggerty
Aaaaarrrggh!”
“Aaarrgh?”
“Yeah, but with more of a kind of guttural thing in the middle. Aaaaarrrggh!”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah, it’s edgy, it’s kicky, it’s fun.”
“What does it mean?”
“Uh…well, you know. ‘I want to feast on the flesh of the living!’ Or something.”
“Jesus. You have two months to come up with a campaign, and you bring me this? Christ, how about ‘Flesh! It’s fresh!’ or ‘The human meat I want to eat!’ I mean, I’m just spitballing here, just throwing stuff out and it’s better than ‘Aaargh.’”
“More like ‘Aaaaarrrggh!’ You know. Kind of raspy.”
“That’s not the damn point. The point is that some weird moan is not an advertising tagline. ‘Warm meat! Let’s eat!’ Now that is an advertising tag line.”
“Tremendous stuff, Rob. Brilliant. We really lost a major talent when they kicked you upstairs. Really, really great. But here’s the thing: We don’t really know if they understand English anymore. It’s pretty much all moans and lurching slowly about. And to be honest…”
“What? Spit it out.”
“Well, some of us are wondering if this is a market segment we should really pursue.”
“Are you crazy? Are you out of your minds? Have you seen the numbers? I have spreadsheets that will blow your eyes out of the backs of your heads. The Post-Living market is just exploding. It is the single fastest-growing demographic in the country right now. And you’re telling me that you don’t want to pursue it?”
“Well, first there is the ethical…”
“Gray area. It’s a gray area.”
“Yes, the idea of selling human flesh to zombies is something of a gray area ethically. But beyond that, we just don’t know very much about them. They don’t seem to spend money or engage in leisure activities. They aren’t interested in sex at all, and that takes a lot of bullets out of the gun, marketing-wise. Aside from an obvious attraction to eating…uh, the rest of us, we really don’t know how to incentivize them. And so far, the focus groups have not gone well. Really, really badly, in fact.”
“Bullshit. You’re all on a failure safari here. Let me bottom-line it for you: I want this. It’s the most exciting emerging market I have ever seen. We are going to own it. We are going to tear it a new asshole. And this team is going to find a way or you’re going to find new jobs. Thomson! You’ve been awfully quiet today. You’re the executive on this account. Any sage words? Do you suppose we can get one single pearl of wisdom out of your overpaid mouth?”
“Sorry, Rob. It’s just that…well, my wife, uh, transitioned last night…”
“She transitioned! Thomson, that is excellent news!”
“Not really. She, well…”
“No, don’t you see? You’ve got an in! You’ve got a courtside seat at the hottest game in town. Tremendous. This changes everything. I want you to get inside her head. Find out what makes her tick. Take her apart and put her back together again. Crawl up inside her and root around.”
“Well, that’s the thing. She, you know, she, she attacked my son, and there was a bit of a struggle, and in the end I had to pin her up against the wall with one of the dining room chairs while my son hit her over and over and over again with a baseball bat. And she just wouldn’t quit, and he hit her and hit her, and there were these awful kind of crunching and squishing sounds where he was pulverizing her skull. And her head flattened on the side that he was hitting her but she was still so strong, and I think some of her brains got in my hair and there was this awful stench, this terrible smell of rotting flesh and death and fresh blood. And then the chair shattered and she grabbed my son and was slowly pulling him toward her mouth, except that half of her jaw was gone and she couldn’t really get a good bite. And finally I took the leg of the broken chair, it had a sharp end, and I drove it through her shattered skull and held her like that, and she was clawing at me with her rotting fingers, reaching for me, trying to pull me closer and pieces of her flesh were rubbing off on my clothes and my face, and finally my son brought the sledgehammer from the basement and I pinned her there, impaled my wife against the dining room wall with that chair leg, and I think she’s still there. I mean, I really, really hope she’s still there, because otherwise I don’t know where she would be, and that would be so much worse…”
“Is she dead?”
“Oh, God, I hope so. But they kind of start out that way, so it’s really hard to tell for sure.”
“Damn! That’s a missed opportunity. Well, did you get a chance to talk to her? Did she say anything?”
“Just sort of made noises. ‘Mmmmurrggh.’ Like that.”
“Mmmmurgh?”
“Mmmmuuuuugrrgh!”
“Nice. That’s actually got a really nice feel to it. Mmmmuuurrgrgrgrrgh!”
“Mmmmmmmmuuuuuurggh! That’s great, Rob. You have a real talent for getting outside the box.”
“Mmmmmuuuuuuuugrgrggh! I love it. It’s got energy. It’s got kind of a hip-hop feel, doesn’t it? Gentlemen, call the art department. They’re going to be working late tonight. I feel good about this. We are going to eat this market alive.”
Excuse Me
Scott W. Baker
So tell me, Mr. Flugle,” Dr. Kwack said in his best over-the-top Freud impression, “vhat zeems to be the problem?”
“Please,” I said from the vinyl chaise, “call me Gary.” I never liked my last name. Flugle is such a silly-sounding name. Dr. Kwack probably hadn’t noticed.
“Very well, what’s the problem, Gary? Is it a mother issue?” Did I mention Freud?
“No,” I said reflexively. “It’s more complex than that.”
“A father issue?”
“Nope.”
“Grandmother? Great aunt?”
“Every time I fart, I travel back in time seven seconds.”
There, I said it.
A moment of silence passed while the insanity of my words filled the room.
“Doctor?”
“Back in time, you say?”
“Yes.”
“When you do what?”
“When I fart.”
“I see.”
There was another moment, this one more a moment of twitchiness than silence, but the twitching was noiseless.
“And what makes you so sure you travel back in time when you do this?”
“I live the seven seconds preceding a release twice, once before and once right after.”
“A release? You mean a fart?”
“Do we have to keep using that word?”
“Apparently. Why seven seconds? Why not a minute or a week?”
“I don’t know.”
“And when did
you start having this delusion, Gary?”
“Which delusion?”
“The time-travel delusion.”
“It’s not a delusion.”
“No? Then why did you come to a psychiatrist?”
I sighed. “Honestly, I have a hard time dealing with the whole thing. Plus I found a coupon in the paper.”
“Ah, you have a coupon. Excellent. You can pick up your free snow-cone maker on the way out.”
“Thanks.”
“It’s a very good snow-cone maker, you know. Not one of those cheap ones they sell in toy stores.”
“Like I was saying, I have trouble dealing with it.”
“What’s to have trouble with? You put the ice in the top and it comes out a snow cone. You have to put on the flavor yourself, but that’s no harder than pouring something onto another something.”
“No, not the snow-cone maker.”
“So you’d rather have the toaster?”
“I’d rather talk about my problem.”
“With the toaster?”
“With my time-traveling farts!”
Kwack blinked twice. “Of course, the delusion.”
“Would you stop calling it that? When I fart, I travel back in time. It really happens; it is not a delusion. I just need some help coping with the issues that stem from inadvertent time travel that begins and ends with the same expulsion of gas from my anus.”
“When you put it that way, it all sounds perfectly sane. So tell me, Gary, when did you first notice that your farts made you travel back in time?”
“When I was about three. I was learning to use proper manners at the time.”
“What’s a twelve-letter word for ‘stoppage’ starting with I?”
“Interruption? Intermission? Why?”
Kwack glared at his notes for a moment, nodded agreeably, scribbled something down, then stared at me as if he expected me to speak. I looked at him similarly. The expectancy built until we both lost track of what we were expecting.
“Weren’t you saying something about manners?” Kwack asked finally.
“Right,” I said, since for once he was. “I discovered it when my mother was teaching me to say ‘excuse me’ when I’d do something impolite—I swear, if you say this is a mother issue I’m going to jam that pencil into your temple.”
Kwack lowered his finger which was already in position to punctuate the “Aha!” that was about to leap from his mouth.
“The problem was,” I continued, “I said it too early.”
“Said what too early?”
“Excuse me.”
“You’re excused, Gary.”
“No, I got in trouble for saying ‘excuse me’ before I farted instead of after, at least that’s how my mother perceived it. From her perspective it would go: ‘excuse me’—sound similar to a distressed duck—horrible smell. Often followed by foul language and a spanking—the threat holds double if you touch that one. But I was certain the sequence went distressed duck—’excuse me’—horrible smell. But it was still followed by the language and the spanking.”
“And which sequence do you believe?”
I shrugged. “I suppose to an observer outside our space-time continuum, the sequence would be: distressed duck–time warp—’excuse me’—duck catches up, still in a fair amount of distress—horrible smell.”
“I disagree,” Kwack said. “I think, to someone outside our space-time continuum, the event would look like the changing room at a lingerie shop.”
“Why would my time-travelling fart look like a lingerie shop?”
“The changing room in a lingerie shop.”
“Why that?”
“I know if I could step outside our space-time continuum and watch you fart, I wouldn’t; I’d go peep into the changing rooms of a lingerie shop. As would most men. And some women. I should know, I’m a psychologist.”
“Psychiatrist.”
“Whatever.” Kwack leaned forward. “Listen, I have a solution for you. Count.”
“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thir…”
“Not now, when you fart. If it’s seven seconds you travel back, count to seven, then say excuse me.”
“You let me count all the way to twelve and a half? Are you just trying to fill time in this session?”
“I’m trying to find a nine-letter word for euphemism. No, wait, I was trying to help you.”
“Euphemism is nine letters. And you haven’t helped me a bit.”
“Sure I did. With the counting thing. I’m not as bad at this as you think I am.”
“You couldn’t be.”
“Sorry?”
“Not as sorry as I am, Doc. At least that bell means we’re out of time.”
Kwack did a double take. “The timer didn’t ring.”
“…five, six, seven.”
Ding! “Like I said, time’s up Doc. And enjoy that one; it was a doozy.”
A Great Weight
Joe Ponepinto
It was on the news—perhaps you saw it—my mother saved my life. I was in the yard by the old crooked tree, the one that leans way over, lying under the Toyota doing a brake job, and the jack slipped, and I was crushed by a tire. My breath was pressed out of me, my ribs cracked, my organs were pounded like pieces of veal. Mom came racing out of the house, grabbed the front bumper, screamed, and deadlifted the darn thing off me enough so I could roll out to safety. The TV reporter asked her how she found the strength to lift a car and she said, “It was my boy under there. My boy was in trouble and I had to save him, that’s all I know.”
I have to admit I felt a little childish having her talk about me like I was a five-year-old or something, but I couldn’t say anything because this was her moment and I wanted her to enjoy it.
I was still convalescing at home, looking out the window, when the guy two houses over was working on his car, and his jack gave way and he was pinned under a Dodge. I couldn’t do anything in my condition, so I yelled at Mom to call 911. But instead she ran outside in her flowered housecoat. I heard her scream and saw her jerk the car off the ground, just like mine, so he could slide out. The TV crew came out again, and this time she was the lead story on the six o’clock broadcast, and she said, “I saw my neighbor under there, and I knew I had to save him.”
When she came back, I asked Mom where she got the strength. She said it just came over her when she saw the man in danger. I couldn’t believe she’d have the same emotion for a stranger as she had for me.
A week or so later Mom began spending afternoons out of the house. She’d get all fixed up—hair, makeup, and everything, plus a pair of workman’s gloves, which was strange, but she said she had to protect her nails. I assumed she was shopping or visiting friends. I was still laid up and couldn’t go with her, not that I would have wanted to.
One day, though, she came home and her jacket was layered with dust. I asked her where she’d been, but she said not to worry about it. Then the six o’clock news came on, and there was Mom again, being interviewed at a construction site. A steel beam had broken from its cable and fallen on one of the workers, and before anyone else could get to him, Mom had lifted a ton of metal, saving his life. I confronted her and she admitted she had been driving around looking for people in peril. How could I berate her for that?
Soon she spent most of the day on the road, cruising by potential trouble spots, places where she thought people might need to have great weights lifted from them, like at the shipyard or at houses with moving vans parked out front. She got herself a new cell phone number and turned it into a hotline for people to call for weighty emergencies. Mom lifted an upright piano off one man, and—I still can hardly believe this one—a city bus off another. She lifted a refrigerator from some guy using only one hand. I stayed at home and saw it all on TV. Each time she was interviewed she said it was just her motherly reaction to seeing people in danger. She got a call from a few talk shows requesting appearances, and from
some writer who asked if she’d let him ghostwrite her story.
By this time I should have been recovered from my injuries. I was able to walk and go back to work, but I didn’t have my old vitality. I couldn’t participate in anything strenuous, not even my Wednesday-night bowling league—I could barely get the ball down the lane. The doctor said there wasn’t anything physically wrong with me and suggested I see a psychiatrist to figure it out. I went for a few sessions but then stopped—the guy kept asking me about my relationship with my father, who had left us when I was small. It was a waste of time. And I still I felt as weak as I thought Mom was before I learned her true strength.
Eventually I quit my job. Mom was making enough from her appearances and endorsements that my income was meaningless. Of course, I didn’t get to see her much, with her being on the road either for guest spots or lifesaving, but at least everything was taken care of. But it was boring. I tried to make new friends and meet girls, but people weren’t interested in me. They only wanted to know about my famous mother. I stayed home to rest and watched a lot of TV, but I stopped tuning in to the news.
Mom was due back from an appearance in L.A.—Conan, I think—and I went to the window when I heard her taxi pull up. She grabbed her suitcases—no need for me to help, obviously—and started walking past the crooked tree. It seemed to be bending even more than usual—looming, malicious, its roots tearing out of the ground, like it was ready to attack. It began to move, to uproot. Mom didn’t notice. She kept walking up the path, looking pleased with herself. But I saw it all. She would be crushed under the great weight. Someone would have to save her!
I reached for that pair of workman’s gloves. It struck me that I should move out, into my own place. I was beginning to feel stronger already.
From the Ashes
Jamie Lackey
Fireflies flickered in the trees, and the scent of lighter fluid and seared meat floated on the gentle July breeze. I pulled a wedge of watermelon out of my cooler, plunked down on my porch swing, and tried not to think about Janet. So of course I pictured her on a beach somewhere. With André. The wife-stealing asshole.
Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Presents Flush Fiction Page 21