The Refrigerator that Wanted to be a Rock Star

The morning started much like any other morning, but that changed quickly. When I opened the refrigerator to get milk for my coffee, I heard a sigh. I looked at my dog, Jujubee, who looked back with an expression that said, "Don't look at me, I didn't say it!". I looked around and saw nothing that could have made that sound, so I shrugged it off and continued making breakfast.
After breakfast, I opened the refrigerator again to get my lunch. When I closed it, I heard the sigh again. It was soft, but distinct.
"Now why do I keep hearing sighs when I'm near the fridge?", I wondered. "It came from me.", I heard in reply.
"From Who?", I asked.
"From me, Kenny, your refrigerator."
"My refrigerator has a name?"
"Of course I have a name. Why shouldn't I?"
"I don't know. I just never thought of a refrigerator having a name. I suppose the stove has one also?"
"Of course. Her name is Samantha".
"OK, so why the sighs?"
"Because being an ordinary household appliance is not what I want. I want to be a rock star."
"A rock star! What do you know about rock stars?"
"I do talk to the television. He has a lot of information about rock stars. His name is Harvey, by the way."
"Well, that's interesting, but how do you plan to become a rock star?"
"I don't know how, I just know that's what I want."
Well, let me think about it. Maybe I can help."
So I thought about it that day and, when I got home from work, I told Kenny, the fridge, what I had come up with. I told him that I had a friend who was an electronics genius and he could wire Kenny up to a computer so that he could control it. We could load music composition software onto the computer and then Kenny would be able to compose rock songs.
Kenny liked the plan, so we did it, and, after some practise, Kenny managed to compose some good songs. I managed to get another friend who managed singers to listen and he loved the songs. Of course, he wanted to meet the composer, but I explained that he was very shy plus he was an old guy and didn't want anyone to know an old guy was writing rock songs. My friend bought the story, so we worked together to make an album and gave Kenny the stage name Rick Star.
Well, the rest is history. Rick Star become a big star despite never making personal appearances and made me and my friend a lot of money until Rick retired after ten years. No one but me ever knew that Rick Star was really Kenny, the refrigerator.

The Day my Mailbox went on Strike

It started out like a normal day. That changed when the mailman knocked on my door. "I can't open your mailbox" he stated, handing me my mail. Then he turned and walked away.
"Strange", I thought, "what could he mean by that." The lid on my mailbox is not heavy or difficult to open." So I went out to investigate.
When I pulled up on the lid, it opened with no hesitation at all. Perfectly normal. That I tried to stuff the mail I was still carrying in the other hand into the mailbox and it slammed shut before I could put it in. "What the hell!" I exclaimed.
"I'm on strike." the mailbox replied.
"What do you mean your on strike? On strike for what? More money? Better benefits? Your a mailbox! You don't get money or benefits."
"I'm on strike for better mail. All you ever get is bills and junk mail. It's very boring and depressing so I decided I don't want to deal with it anymore. Maybe if you got some love letters occasionally. Some invitations to go to exotic places. Some instructions for a spy mission. Just something interesting."
"Well sorry if my life is not exciting enough for my mailbox. I do get more personal mail sometimes but now it's sent by email."
"Email! I should have known it! You have another mailbox and that one gets all the best mail and I get all the boring junk mail. Is it because I'm getting old? Is it because my gold eagle is really plastic painted gold?"
"No, no! You don't understand. It's not another mailbox. Email comes in by computer. A lot of people send mail that way now because it's much faster and cheaper."
"So now your letting that damn computer steal my job? A simple, old-fashioned mailbox isn't good enough to hold your precious mail?"
I realized this approach wasn't getting me anywhere, so I tried another. "Tell you what, suppose I get you a new eagle, one of real brass, and promise you will get to hold some juicy personal mail in the future?"
"How often will I get this personal mail?"
"At least once a month", I replied.
"OK, It's a deal".
So I got a brass eagle from the hardware store and I've been getting one or two personal letters by snail mail every month since then. It's been nearly a year and so far the mailbox hasn't gone on strike again. Just don't tell him that I mail those personal letters to myself.

An Afterlife

Ralph wondered out loud, “Is there an afterlife? If so, what is it like?”. Now you may think this is a strange thing for Ralph to be concerned about since he is a cucumber, but that question did concern him. When he asked it, there was no reply from any of the other cukes; cucumbers are notoriously reticent.
The tomatoes, of course, always have something to say about everything, but not to cucumbers which they consider to be beneath them and rather primitive for vegetables, not to mention the dull green-on-green color scheme. To themselves, the tomatoes had discussed this concept thoroughly and came to the conclusion that “the great garden in the sky” and other ideas about an afterlife were completely false. After all, tomatoes were the smartest vegetable in the garden so if there was an afterlife, tomatoes would be running it and would therefore know all about it.
Ralph the cucumber, sighed, and forgot about his question for that day but the question kept returning and he could never get an answer. Eventually, Ralph died.
He woke a few days later in a strange place. It was quite chilly and he found himself in a large jar with several other cucumbers floating in a brine with herbs and spices. “Wow!”, he exclaimed, “Who would have thought the afterlife of a cucumber would be as a pickle?” he said out loud as usual. He got no reply from the tomatoes, now in the nearby jar of Salsa.

A Balloon Adventure

Harvey the balloon held his breath and let the wind carry him hither and yon. He had been to Hither once before, but this was his first trip to the strange land of Yon. He found Yon to be an exciting, but frightening place. Balloons fear pointy and sharp-edged things more than anything else and Yon was full or sharp and pointy things. Pine needles, porcupines, even Elephants! Yes, I know Elephants are usually not sharp or pointy, but this is the strange land of Yon and they are here because the Yonders believe it can happen so, it does. But Yon was also full of many things Harvey thought were delightful. Winds that were happy to carry a balloon all over the place, many bright colors (balloons love bright colors!), and the musical singing of a variety of birds.

Harvey was thoroughly enjoying himself floating around the strange land of Yon, but after a while the wind began to die down and Harvey sank to a height of only twenty eight feet. He had to struggle to avoid hitting one of the sharp leaves of the palm trees. He successfully avoided that disaster but then the wind died down even more. Harvey dropped ten more feet and realized the only thing to do was look for a soft place to land. He let out a little air and dropped a bit lower so he could see the ground better. Soon, he spotted a perfect landing place. He let out a little more air and maneuvered himself in for a landing. He hit the spot perfectly, right on the back of a soft, fluffy Chow Chow puppy. The puppy immediately turned around and bit Harvey.

A Fishy Tale

Three fish living in a fish pond in a park in Boston were bored with life in their little pond. After much discussion one day, they decided to leave the pond and join the dry-landers who always seemed to have much to do and never got bored.
For months they practiced getting out of the pond at night and wiggling around on dry land. At first, it was for just a few minutes, but gradually, they were able to stay out longer and longer. Eventually, they grew legs and lungs and were ready for their great move to dry land.
The next night when they got out of the pond they decided the first thing to do was look for food. They were surprised to find that on dry land they saw much of the same unappetizing food that people often threw in their pond for them to eat. Things like cigarette butts, bottle caps and plastic coffee cups. Those things didn't appeal to them so they continued on.
They didn't go much further though before they came upon a drunk laying on the sidewalk. The drunk spotted them and started screaming about monsters coming from hell to get him (actually, monsters from hell were coming to get him, but that's another story). The screaming drunk frightened them because they didn't realize that nobody would pay any attention to a drunk screaming about monsters. They ran back to the pond as fast as they could go.
The next morning they discussed it while visors in the park threw them cigarette butts and a few pennies. They decided they should not give up, but they needed to disguise themselves so they wouldn't attract too much attention.
That night, they got out of the pond again, but this time, the first thing they did was search under some of the bushes until they found some clothes left behind by some of those “humid beans” that were always hanging out in the park. They dressed themselves the best they could and headed off into town.
This time they were lucky enough to wander into an alley between two rows of restaurants, so they found plenty to eat. They liked spaghetti which resembled the worms they sometimes ate, but tasted much better. They also liked some of the strange, but tasty, things they found in the can behind the vegan restaurant. Unfortunately, their next stop was a trash can behind a seafood restaurant. When they saw the shell of a lobster and the fish heads, they turned and ran back to the pond again.
It took them several days to get up the nerve to try going into town again. This time, they stayed away from the seafood restaurant. They ate well, then wandered around for a while, exploring this strange, new world. It was an exciting time for them.
They were not quite ready to move into town permanently, so they continued to go to town at night and return to the pond in the early morning.
After a while, they learned that if they wanted to stay on dry land, they would have to get jobs, so they started going out in daylight to look for jobs. They had changed enough by now that, with clothes on, nobody noticed they were fish. Very mutated fish, but still fish.
Within a week, they all had jobs of sorts. One sweep the city sidewalks at night. One sold newspapers on a street corner. The third played harmonica for donations.
Things were going reasonably well for the new land dwellers, but it didn't last. The harmonica player got arrested for peddling without a license and his friends had to rescue him. A stray cat tried to eat the newspaper seller and a street sweeper pulled a leg off of the one sweeping sidewalks (which, fortunately, grew back quickly). With those problems along with air pollution hurting their newly formed lungs, junk food making them fat and sick, and the constant noise making them nearly deaf, they decided they had enough of the big city and living with the humid beans.
That night, they headed back to their pond with the intention of moving back permanently. Unfortunately, it was now 2009 and when they got back to the pond they found it occupied. A stock broker and two bankers with SCUBA gear had moved in and were not willing to share the pond with three normal fish, never mind three very mutated ones. So the three fish reluctantly went back to their jobs and hovel in the city where they remain today.
So remember, if a short, smelly guy tries to sell you a newspaper, he may just be an edible fish!

A Tale of Tofu

What is tofu? It’s not cheese, and it certainly isn’t meat, although it’s often used as a substitute for meat or cheese. It’s not a brick of stucco, although it closely resembles one. It’s not just mashed soy beans, although it is made from soy beans. Something must be done to the mashed soy beans to turn it into tofu, but what? Maybe it’s been frightened by a ghost causing it to curdle. Maybe it gets bitten by a vampire (although I can’t imagine why a vampire would want to do that). Maybe it was chewed, than spat out by a rabid cow. Maybe it was pooped on by a soap-eating cockroach. Who knows? No one I think. It’s just one of lifes great mysteries, like what happens to the numerous socks that go into the dryer but never come out.

1:56:00 PM
by Harold Boulette