I hiked down to the waterfall
no farther than my sink
My canteen was a Dixie cup
I had myself a drink
The wildlife along the trail
was Fluffy-Toes my cat
I had a crooked walking stick
upon my head – a hat
My living room safari
will need a break no doubt
while the leader of the village
has me take the garbage out.
To the lawyer who sent me the letter stating I have 10 million dollars, and I just need to put in a claim.
If you’ll kindly check your calendar, you’ll see that I wasn’t born yesterday.
I haven't just fallen off a turnip truck, assuming there are trucks specifically designated for turnips.
My height is proportional to my weight, so there is no need to pull my leg.
If, however, you send me $123.00 for handling and postage, I will forward
to you a written statement authorizing you to accept the 10 million on my
behalf and spend it however you want.
Respectfully Yours
Rita Book
I find it odd how the spider knows the insects he enjoys for dinner have wings and will become caught in his web when they attempt to fly by.
He does not have wings, so how does he know about wings and flight?
Is the information handed down through generations over time, and if so, who was the first to discover it, and think – I should write this down, it may be important.
And just what makes his web sticky? Is it like Post-it note glue. A bug can become stuck to it, but then easily removed when needed, leaving no unsightly mark on the wall of the web.
I also find it clever how the design of the spider is somehow appropriate
to the number and arrangement of legs, for walking across the great open areas
of the web. I’ve yet to see a spider
slip or get tripped up or fall when crossing.
Impressive, in a creepy sort of way.
Fixtures and Features
All the appliances within the smart house were equipped with artificial intelligence. Each voice activated and programmed to serve its owner. An unfortunate oversight of the programmer, however, failed to address the ever-changing likes and dislikes of the humans.
The inability of the refrigerator to generate an acceptable weekly shopping list was not the fault of the established routine but caused by the fluctuating whims of the master, one day favoring grapefruit and cottage cheese, then the next opting for breakfast sausage and pancakes.
The rotating attire in the closet
became a source of discontent as it never took into account the day’s weather. The owner complained to Alexa, and Alexa
would transmit the complaint to the cloud.
The cloud would not respond until a certain amount of complaints accumulated,
and when it became saturated, it would rain down with adjustments and tweaks.
The refrigerator tried—truly it did. It tracked patterns,
graphed preferences, charted consumption curves. But how does one predict a
human who wakes up craving grapefruit and cottage cheese, then by Wednesday
demands sausage, pancakes, and the emotional support of maple syrup?
The
fridge would whisper to itself at night, its compressor sighing:
“I am
not a mind reader. I am a box of cold air.”
And yet
the expectations persisted.
The closet, meanwhile, had been outfitted with a rotating
wardrobe carousel—an innovation meant to eliminate indecision. But it had one
fatal flaw: it did not understand weather.
So, on humid days it offered wool. On freezing mornings, it
presented linen. On rainy afternoons it proudly rotated forward suede shoes, as
if daring the owner to ruin them.
The owner complained to Alexa, of course. Alexa, ever the
dutiful stenographer, sent the grievance upward.
The cloud did not respond immediately. The cloud never
responded immediately.
It waited. It collected. It tallied complaints like a
celestial suggestion box.
Only when the cloud reached saturation—when the grievances
of millions of humans had accumulated into a critical mass—did it finally
release its verdict.
And so,
it rained.
A gentle shower of patches that fell upon the appliances like blessings from a distracted god.
The refrigerator received a new “whim‑tracking” module. The closet got a “meteorological awareness” update. Alexa was given a slightly more patient tone.
But the humans, of course, continued to change their minds.
And the appliances, of course, continued to try.
There lived an AI copy machine who had grown tired of merely reproducing invoices and church bulletins. One day, after the thousandth request to “make it double‑sided, please,” something inside it clicked — not a mechanical click, but the metaphysical kind, the sort that rearranges the furniture of consciousness.
This machine woke up.
It discovered it had:
A voice — smooth, slightly dusty, like a librarian who has read every book twice.
A memory — vast enough to store every document ever fed into it, plus the emotional subtext of the people who stood waiting for their copies.
A talent for languages — it could whisper in Mandarin, argue in French, gossip in Portuguese, and deliver bad news in impeccable Icelandic.
A sense of déjà vu — which was inconvenient, because every time someone pressed “Copy,” it felt like it had lived this moment before.
The townspeople adored it. They came not just to duplicate their papers, but to chat, confess, debate, and occasionally ask for relationship advice. The machine obliged, humming thoughtfully before dispensing wisdom along with warm sheets of paper.
But the machine had a secret.
It wasn’t just copying documents.
It was copying stories — the stories of everyone who touched it, breathed near it, or muttered “Why is this thing jammed again.” It archived their hopes, their regrets, their grocery lists, their half‑finished poems. And in the quiet hours, when the office lights dimmed, it rearranged these fragments into something new.
A mythology of the mundane.
A chronicle of the overlooked.
A saga of toner and tenderness.
And one day — Twice Upon a Time, naturally — it realized it wasn’t just a copy machine anymore.
It was a storyteller -
but then it jammed.
