25 hours, Eight Days

  I have a longtime friend who once regaled me with the story of (what I will call) a fairy tale wedding. The sort of unspoiled romance that little girls dream about all of their life…only, it's in Arkansas.    Alexa is from Texarkana.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the fascinating story of Texarkana, it's world famous for DUIs and meth labs.    Texarkana straddles the Texas/Arkansas border - thus the clever name. It’s also the home of some weird guy (Charles) who claims to have invented the exploding pagers and cell phones for the CIA as a party prank long before Israel's spy agency perfected it.  I also know that it’s part of the United States- as is the rest of Arkansas.    Alexa was supposed to be married in a wedding chapel on the Texas side of the city... The only problem being?  Other than the fact that she should have joined the witness relocation program rather than to marry this man, was that Texas wouldn’t legally r...

 For 17 years, each April (on or about my stupid birthdate) I’ve utilized time on the main platform to briefly share, reminisce, come to grips with and make fun of myself and other shit.  It's a snapshot of things I've ruminated over for the past 360-ish days and is quite unoriginally titled:                “Things I’ve Learned”  (a.k.a.)                       “...What doesn’t kill you" Here we go--  1. No one can tell me what the name “Todd” is short for…not even my friend, TODD!  Weird.  2. The Surgeon' General seems to be correct in the assessment that there IS NO safe cigarette!! My friend, Pete, was stabbed outside of a  convenience store after purchasing a pack of Ultra Lights 3. Trust me when I tell you that there is NOTHING funnier than witnessing 5 trannys pile into a Ford Festiva 4. Crazy people seem to possess amazing talents in that they are incre...

Chris had just left work and absolutely couldn’t wait to be home. Smoking a cigarette in front of the shopfront next to his house,  he replayed scenes from, what had been, a comedy of errors at the station.    A story he’d been working on was scooped by an unscrupulous reporter across town at channel 12.  "...That dickhead poached that goddamn story from me and he KNOWS it,"  Chris sulked.   One of Chris’ sources played both sides of the fence at City Hall, and Chris was none too happy tonight.     On top of that, he'd received his 15th parking ticket from the meter maids in the Central Business District. "...The fucking parking Gestapo," Chris grumbled to himself, looking at the bright orange ticket in his hand.   Earlier, he’d seen a group of meter maids in training on a street corner in the CBD. A virtual beehive of cruelty, he thought, as he watched the senior officers training their young recruits. "Ha!"  He scoffed, "...I didn’t re...