In the sweltering heat of the late Cretaceous period, on a primitive court etched into the dusty earth by the dragging tails of passing Stegosaurus, two Tyrannosaurus Rex faced off for the championship match of the first-ever Mesozoic Open.

Rex, the reigning king of the Cretaceous, stomped onto the court, his tiny arms swinging with determined uselessness at his sides. Across the net (which was really just a row of tall ferns) stood his arch-nemesis, Regina, her sharp teeth gleaming in the prehistoric sun.

"You're going down, Regina!" Rex roared, his massive head bobbing as he tried to intimidate his opponent.

Regina snorted, sending a small Pterodactyl fluttering away in fright. "In your dreams, fossil breath! I've been practicing my serve!"

The Compsognathus line judge, perched precariously on a rock, chirped to signal the start of the match. Rex waddled over to the service line, a regulation tennis ball looking comically small next to his enormous feet.

Now came the first challenge: picking up the ball. Rex bent his huge body forward, jaws opening wide. With a delicate precision that belied his fearsome reputation, he closed his teeth ever-so-gently around the fuzzy green sphere.

"Hmmpf! Hmmpf!" Rex grunted, his words muffled by the ball in his mouth. The small gathering of Triceratops spectators tilted their frilled heads in confusion.

Rex waddled back to his starting position, then with a mighty swing of his head, released the ball into the air. In the same motion, he attempted to swing his comically small arm, hoping to connect with the ball.

Unsurprisingly, he missed. By several feet.

The ball bounced sadly on the ground beside him. The Triceratops audience let out a collective "Oooh" of disappointment, their horns drooping slightly.

"Ha!" Regina barked from across the court. "You call that a serve? Watch this!"

Regina approached her ball with all the grace of a rampaging Ankylosaurus. She too struggled to pick it up, her jaws snapping at the air several times before finally securing the elusive sphere. With a wild thrash of her head, she launched the ball skyward.

What followed could only be described as a full-body spasm as Regina attempted to hit the ball with her diminutive arm. The resulting motion sent her off-balance, and the mighty T-Rex toppled over, landing with an earth-shaking THUD that sent ripples through the nearby tar pits.

Rex let out a roar of laughter, then promptly inhaled the tennis ball he'd been holding in his mouth. A series of hacking coughs ensued, each one sounding like a volcano on the verge of eruption.

The Compsognathus line judge, unsure of how to call this particular violation, began racing back and forth along the fern net, letting out a series of confused chirps.

As Regina struggled to right herself, her tail whipping about and taking out half the Triceratops audience, Rex continued his battle with the tennis ball lodged in his throat. With a mighty cough that stripped several trees bare, he finally dislodged the ball. It shot out of his mouth like a furry green comet, flying over the fern net, bouncing off Regina's head just as she managed to stand up, and landing perfectly in the far corner of her court.

The Compsognathus line judge froze, then let out a triumphant chirp. "Fifteen-Love!" it seemed to say.

Rex blinked in surprise, then raised his tiny arms in victory. "Yes! I am the champion! I am the greatest tennis player to ever live!"

Regina, rubbing her head with her shoulder (the closest she could get with her short arms), glared at Rex. "Oh yeah? Best two out of three!"

As the two T-Rexes continued their ridiculous attempt at tennis, a small, furry creature watched from the underbrush, shaking its head. "Give me a few million years of evolution," the primitive mammal muttered to itself, "and I'll show them how it's done."

And so the great Mesozoic Tennis Tournament continued, with more balls swallowed than hit, more accidental points scored than intentional ones, and more dinosaurs toppled than a perfectly placed asteroid. In the end, while neither Rex nor Regina improved their tennis skills, they did unknowingly contribute to the fossil record - by creating a layer of compressed tennis balls that would confuse paleontologists for centuries to come.

A reading from a Letter to the Corinthians, written on fine Corinthian leather.

(Extracted via the science of Numerology, sequencing together every 5th letter from the book of Genesis, and moving 2 letters back, listing the numerical placement of said letters in the alphabet, multiplying by the numerical placement of the next vowel, then picking the letter coming the closest in whole numbers to the square root of the alphabetical numerical placement of the answer. The punctuation could only be guessed at.)

Chapter One

It was a booming voice. And it said:

1. In the beginning there was nothing. And it's value was zero. And nothing was unstable.

2. And so it passed that something virtually happened. And it was big, and it rapidly filled all that there is. And into this expansion grew length, width, depth, and time. And a, and e, and i, o, u...

…and sometimes y.

3. And the infinitesimal gathered. And then there were clumps. And the clumps grew crowded and warm. And the clumps drew upon their surroundings to grow denser yet. And so it went until the clumps were dense enough for thermonuclear fusion. And then there was light!

And it was good.

4. And there were thousands and millions of points of light in all that there is, and the shadows blended into the blackness that lay between each point. And the giga-watt-centuries that arose from these points grew fainter as they lost all strength, until their girth could not be supported by their bellowing energy. And so they collapsed. They collapsed more so than is imaginable, until the very infinitesimal in the clumps could not withstand the constraint. And there arose from the centers immense measures of heat and density, which burdened the infinitesimals with yet more electron shells until there was...

Carbon...among other things.

And it was good.

5. And then, in the beginning, there was murk.And the new burning clumps shined hard and long on the murk. And atmospheric turbulence begot incendiary lightning, which fell out of the sky, and the ammonia begot amino acids and peptides. And there were bonds. And co-dependency issues.

And it was good.

6. It came to pass that there was sentience and self-awareness. And the soup yielded the four-legged ones who renounced their gills and scorned their blow-holes. And there arose wicked times, with creature devouring creature until only the smartest and fastest and strongest were fruitful and multiplied.

7. And there were those who stood erect.

Darwin and Pfizer would have been pleased.

8. And yea I say unto you that the flame was harnessed, and the wheel, and the pulley.

And the fulcrum didn't hurt none either.

Or moveable type. Or penicillin.

9. And behold, there were harnessed cathode rays which were displayed onto a tube.

And it was not good.

The booming voice continued:

10. And so it came to pass that the Lord appeared to an unknown face in the throng, and spoke thusly:

"You will put on a dinosaur suit of purple, and espouse only good virtues to anyone who will listen. But your faithful will only be children, for adults will want to kill you. And you shalt be called, Barney."11. And the chosen one appeared on the cathode ray tube, and preached goodness, and love, and sincerity, and friendship, and right from wrong. And the children listened. And Barney grew very strong in his followers. And he went into a prime time morning slot, and his ratings were high.

And this was very good.

12. And he appeared to many. He began appearing at supermarket openings, and mall celebrations. Until roving bands of hostile and acneiform teen-age youths roughed him up. And he walked up the steps to a CEO of a major production company, who washed his hands of him.

13. And Barney was no more. But his message lived on in syndication. And it was good.

Once upon Ye Olde English heath, as the door to her cottage swung open, Hildegard smelled burning. Her husband’s boot had crossed the threshold, he would expect dinner, and he would not want it to be burned.

Hildegard rushed to the hearth. She grabbed the dangling pot of stew and instantly, agonizingly, the metal seared her palms.

“Zounds!” she cried.

“Woman!” her husband remonstrated.

“Zounds, it hurts!”

“Hold thy foul tongue!” her husband roared. “Thou wilt not blaspheme in my house!” (For zounds, dear reader, derived from God’s wounds, a reference to the crucifixion of Christ, and to employ the torture of one’s Lord and Savior as an epithet was as shocking to a pious old Englishman as the lyrics of NWA would prove to his descendants' erstwhile colonists 400 years after.)

“But it hurts!” Hildegard cried. “Thy stew burneth, and the metal hath proved too hot for my tender hands!”

“Stow thy pitiful excuses!” her husband retorted. “Find thyself a godlier path, or never again look me in the face!”

Hildegard departed. She wept even after she treated her second degree burns at the home of a crone who practiced homeopathic medicine, for Hildegard loved her husband, for some reason, or at least loved having a roof over her head to escape the goddamned English rain. To keep her husband roof husband, she needed aid, so Hildegard set out to a person who could set her on a godly path.

“Woman, why dost thou weep?” the Archbishop of Canterbury asked.

“Forgive me bishop,” Hildegard answered. “I hath displeased my husband.”

“How?”

“With an ill word.”

“What ill word did thee speakest?”

Hildegard hesitated. “I said, Zounds, your bishopness.”

“Jesus,” said the Archbishop of Canterbury, “that’s fucking awful word. Why wouldst thou say such a thing?”

“I burned my hands, your bishopness. On a pot. Heaven help me, if I don’t find a safer way to hold a pot, I might blaspheme again, and my husband will disown me. Is there any hope for such a disgraced wench as me?”

“Let us pray.”

And Hildegard and the Archbishop knelt and prayed, and, i dunno, burned frankincense or something, and lo, the Holy Ghost sent them down a dove, which carried in its beak a thickly woven fabric, and they gave thanks to the Lord.

“Almighty God,” asked the Archbishop of Canterbury, “what wouldst You, in Your Infinite Wisdom, have us call this thickly woven fabric with which to hold pots?”

The candles flared, the stones of the cathedral shook, the Archbishop wet himself, and a voice from the heavens boomed, “A potholder.”

And so Hildegard carried the potholder home, and gave knowledge of it unto other women, and prepared many delicious stews without burning her hands, which meant she never again said the unforgiveable zounds, which meant her husband loved her, five times a week whether she were in the mood or not, and she bore many children and had a roof over her head to protect her from the goddamned English rain, and they all lived happilyish ever after until the plague destroyed their bodies and minds.

The End.

My first time having sex mirrored my first time riding the Double Loop rollercoaster at Geauga Lake amusement park in Aurora, Ohio. These two events were independent of each other and happened years apart but share many comparable aspects.

I knew about the Double Loop from catching glimpses of the action during visits to the park, scrutinizing the brochures and believing the hype on television. Still, riding it seemed like a daunting task only to be attempted by adults and risk-taking kids. I fantasized about how much fun it must be but out of fear, didn’t put forth any effort in stepping up to the plate and trying. This self-imposed delay lasted to the point some acquaintances younger than me became seasoned riders. There is a deep-seated, legitimate concern that my window of opportunity will slam shut if I don’t summon enough gumption to go for it.

At the park with friends one July evening, there’s no expectation or premeditation to go on any rides. We are just killing time attempting to act cool. We aren’t inherently cool so attempting to act cool encompasses the full extent of our coolness. Then fate intervenes and I cross paths with a risk-taking girl from school who’s heading to the Double Loop. Out of the blue she asks, “Why don’t you come with me?” Caught off guard, my mouth panics and vocalizes words without my brain’s consent. “Huh? Who…me? Now? Um, yup, no, sure, I guess. I mean, okay. Why not, right? Ladies first. Haha, I’m kidding. You are.” (Brain to face: “You idiot, stop talking. Go back to acting like you’re cool while I sort out this mess.”) I oblige but overcorrect by punctuating the end of this one-sided, babbling conversation with a quick, smarmy, “How you doin’?” nod followed by an demonstrative wink. (Brain to face: “Unbelievable. What the hell, why am I even here?”) She thinks I’m cute, so the exacerbated social awkwardness is overlooked. (Face to brain: “You’re welcome.”)

Taking my hand, we stroll to the end of the Double Loop queue. This is territory I’ve never stepped in before, well beyond the main pavement I normally pound. It’s farther off the beaten path than I’ve ever ventured. Squeals from those already experiencing the ride plants a seed of doubt in my soul. Should I find an excuse to turn around and forfeit my spot to someone more deserving? Can I do this? Should I do this? Is there a better ride that I haven’t even heard of in another township or state that’s more suitable? This is a big commitment. Everyone that’s ridden it has gotten off and raved about how sensational it was. This is my chance to join that brotherhood. How hard can it be?

Arriving on the staging platform, I crush the height restriction by an inch then stand for an extended pause, ensuring the attraction comes to a full and complete stop. My experienced co-rider, already seated and flush with excitement, instructs me to “keep your arms and legs inside at all times.” My approach is timid, my movement gangly. Unsure of which foot to lead with, I just propel my body forward, crumbling into her side. “Sorry, that’s never happened before.” “You’re fine,” she offers with a comforting tone. A bar is positioned in place. “Is this enough protection?” No response. “Seriously! Is this enough protection?” “Yes, that’s more than adequate,” she counters. My thighs stick to the seat. It feels like we’ve boarded the Wonkatania. No opting out now.

The surrounding external stimuli don’t match my visceral signals from past experiences at the park. There are new, distracting sounds, the majority of which are generated by me, and a familiar but displaced odor reminiscent of funnel cakes. It’s apparent I don’t know where to put my hands. My stomach is in knots. What I’d give for a breath mint. To allay the stress, my attention focuses on how the local sports teams are doing.

With a lurching jolt, I’m whiplashed backwards then ratcheted upwards then rocketed downwards at a precipitous angle. Sweat discolors the armpits of my shirt. Any remnants of a cool demeanor are stripped away as deep cracks form in this thin façade. With closed eyes and clenched teeth, I begin mouthing an invocation, “Don’t throw up. Don’t throw up. Please God, don’t let me throw up.”

I’m cramping one moment but having an ethereal transcendence the next. It’s disorientating but jubilating at the same time. There’s a tingling sensation running through my groin. I’m finding out where to put my hands. I am becoming one with the ride. Then it ends.

That was phenomenal. Those 90 seconds altered my DNA. Is a minute thirty the norm? Anyway, while regaining my bearings, a grin stretches ear to ear because of the endorphins flooding my blood stream. (Brain to face: “No, you’re welcome.”) My hair is disheveled, my heartbeat is arrhythmic. I need a change of underwear. Although not a smoker, I crave a cigarette. I could use a nap, too. I’m instructed to “Exit to your left.” Unclear of the protocol for disembarking, I high-five my partner before delivering a generic, “Wow, thanks a lot,” then hop out. Can’t wait to relive then embellish then re-relive what just happened.

Contemplating getting back in line for another round is squashed since I gotta get home. Mom’s waiting for me by the front gate, no doubt ready with questions on how things went. She’d freak if she knew what transpired so I’ll be vague with certain details and gloss over the rest.

Carrying the confidence gained from riding the Double Loop that wonderful evening, I tried my luck on other rides in the following years. Some were memorable, others not so much. Some were ridden multiple times. One I thought I’d faithfully ride the rest of my life only to have it stay behind when I moved out of town. There were regretful ones that left me disappointed or in pain and swearing off riding rollercoasters forever. But those feelings subsided. I picked myself up for more tries. It didn’t matter if they were familiar ones at Geauga Lake or new ones at county fairs, Cedar Point or Disney World, I approached each with confidence knowing what to expect and where exactly to put my hands. I owe all this to my inaugural time on the Double Loop. You never forget your first ride.

PRESS RELEASE FROM THE INTERNATIONAL ASTROLOGICAL UNION

In response to the scientific community which has successfully propagated the idea that astrology is bullshit, we of the IAU have proposed implementation of a new astrological classification based--not on the Zodiac--but the Blowbac system. That is, what people are, based on how they act and the names given them by others.

This is felt to be more accurate than describing individual Zodiac signs, which label persons as bold, competitive, energetic,...loyal but stubborn...versatile but impatient...passionate but uncommunicative, and the like.

Such vagueness is the very reason for science calling Astrology bogus! Imagine people--not as how they act being predicted (vague and wrong), but how they act, in daily predictions. The accuracy's already there on the front end. Science can go fuck itself.

Thus, Astrology reimagined as Asshōlogy, will again re-establish accuracy to personalities and more aptly predict how people's days will go according to horoscopes (now called "fluoroscopes").

Dates of birth will no longer differentiate person types, but how they act. Herein are the NEW SIGNS, to be used immediately:

Dicks: rude and inconsiderate, but just don't care.

Assholes: usually men--rude, but derive entertainment out of it. Fuck you over just because they can. Two steps above "Dipshits" (see NEXT); one step above "Dicks" (see ABOVE).

Dipshits: always men--rude but clueless; stupidly inconsiderate. Fuck you over and don't even know it.

Losers: not rude, not crude, just clueless. Just fuck themselves over. Over and over.

Shitheads: rude and crude, bringing whole otherwise upstanding families down.

Scumbags: males who are rude, crude, and lewd. Two steps below "Losers."

Skanks: females who are rude, crude, and lewd. Two steps above "Bitches" (see BELOW).

Douchebags: females or males who insist you should act just like they do.

Fucktards: "Assholes" (see ABOVE) who try to fuck you over but can't because they are too fucking feckless to actually be "Assholes" (see ABOVE).

Numbnuts: (singular and plural) — "Fucktards" (see ABOVE) who wouldn't even think of fucking over those who deserve it.

Assclowns: "Scumbags" (see ABOVE) and "Skanks" (see ABOVE) who have ambitions; also, politicians.

Bitches: female "Assholes" (not anatomically, but Asshōlogically). Usually, successful women mislabeled by "Losers" (see ABOVE).

On Feb. 1rst our young friend Rubric received his ration of sugar for the month. He regretted momentarily that it was not a leap year. Then he dropped one piece into weak tea they were also portioning out amid the family.

Ida spied his sugar, along with their brother, just a year younger than her, Kuba who everyone called Kubby, in short because he was short, stout, and in a word chunky.

This would not do.

The sweet would soon be the source of bitter irritation and argument. The eldest could already hear the surfacing of high pitched, infantile whimpering: I wannnnt somme...

That very night, removing the sugar cubes from the cool dark hiding spot with utmost stealth and precaution, he worked alone in a dim lit corner. With a sharp tannery needle and slender thread, he strung his sugar together, one at a time, 3 x 3. Three times, and he made the sign of the cross each time, for fear of breakage, or of his siblings waking, but mercifully the sugar did not crumble, and everyone slept.

Soon he had three squares of nine. These he ingeniously strung to each other, so that every row rotated left/right and forward/back. The children had, most fortuitously, some salvaged colored papers in a box under the bed. This he swiftly extracted, and soundlessly cut into small squares sized to cover each exposed side of the sugar plane.

He moistened the thin paper with lukewarm water and adhered it by the stickiness of the slightly melted sugar. Red on one side, green on another, then blue, yellow and white would have to suffice for the remaining side.

He set it to dry behind him on the floor and dozed.

In the early hours, with everyone else still turned with their back to him in bed, he was delighted to see that the little papers had stuck, and everything still twisted as intended on the little nylon thread he had strung through with the long piercing needle and knotted off.

The twist of the cubes made a little shuffling noise in the dim light as the sugar crystals scrapped slightly against each other. Ida's eyelashes flittered and a sleepy arm reached out from the mattress, almost touching his sleeve: "Whaaattt is itt?"

"Our new toy," he said and gave the 3 x 3 panels a good twisting left/right, back/ forward, till all the colors were very well mixed up and very visible now in the dawn that was creeping in through the window over their bed, with Kubby still asleep in a clump to her far side. In truth, he wasn't old enough to play. He could, by himself only sleep, eat, and waddle about, and do what two-year old's do terribly best: get into everything.

Ida sat up and took the toy, a flushed look of amazement and joy across her face. She could not remember when they had a new plaything, having been hunkered down here for reasons she could not understand. She did not know what a bomb threat was, except that it was Bad.

They could hear their parents getting readied in the small room adjacent. Mother leaned a head in and gave a wayward smile, thin and hopeful, and went to set out some rations for breakfast. Then Father stood in the door, in his work clothes, and immediately picked up on the novel object. He put out a coarse hand and Ida placed the toy in it without hesitation.

"Well done, son," he said gruffly, and behind the flash in his eyes a calculation. Father knew the value of an idea. "I'll hold on to this."

A mixture of pride and dismay filled the twelve-year-old. He did well, but he'd lost his treasure. And now, as Father walked out with it, Ida wailed inconsolably in tantrum, toddler as she was, even if soon going on four.

It was Kubby who quickly found it.

And Father who found him: sucking on the cube, the colored papers stuck to his cheek and teeth. His fingers a sticky sweet guiltless mess.

Somebody got a whooping.

Father spent the next nights with Rubric reconstructing the toy from wood and paint.

The family made a fortune after the war, and Rubric somewhat made a name for himself, with a little help from Kuba.

06.29.2024

Mysterious History challenge @AJAY9979

When I was a young boy, about four years old, I was quite the precocious little bugger and a budding ladies man to boot. My mom had a couple of friends with daughters my age. Occasionally one of them would come over with their daughter, and I had a playmate for the afternoon. It's funny, but the only game I remember playing was I'll show you my tail if you show me yours. Lack of vocabulary was the reason I called my thing a tail. Lack of experience was the reason I thought girls had some kind of tail too. But I learned fast. The strange thing was, even after learning, it was still fun to play. One time, one of the girls showed me how she could stand and pee like a boy from her non-tail. Boy was I impressed! In any event, somehow, all of our moms found out about our secret game. After that, whenever I played with one of the girls, my older brother was tasked with keeping an eye on us and letting our moms know if we played the tail game. That's why they now call what my brother did tailing. It's also the start of the modern surveillance state.

I take my historical accounts seriously. But that doesn't mean the mysterious--but true--one I tell here isn't funny. Is it the funniest? Hmm...

...maybe to half the world's population!

The male gender has been enamored by the penis since anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) caused his(?) Müllerian ducts, fallopian tubes, and uterus to regress, allowing the male fetus to progress, instead of the otherwise default, female.

Thus, the default--our steady state--is female. Left alone, the fetal human would always end up female. It takes extra effort--actual meddling--to chisel a male out of it. ("If it ain't broke...?)

Yet, in the real world--for too long, and finally changing--it was a Man's world. Women were second-class citizens. So is it any wonder that, as the proud males of our species thought of their penises as "mighty swords," that they would think of the act of copulation as placing such mighty swords where they belonged--sheathed for safekeeping?

Thus, the word, "vagina," comes from the Latin, for "sheath."

But no matter how masculine that makes a man feel, he should never forget that all men start out as women. Just sayin'.

It was back in the year 1762, in all its decadent glory, that there lived a glorious man known as John Montagu. One day, dearest John encountered an incident in his life, that would change the course of History altogether.

He happened to be enjoying an adventurous game of cards with his friends, and he was a bit too lazy to get up and have dinner. Also, he was too busy enjoying his precious card game with his friends. They were busy laughing, playing and doing things the way guys are likely to at a game of cards.

Given that he did not want to leave the table to go and get something to eat, John Montagu, the 4th Earl Of Sandwich came up with a brilliant idea. Now many of us love a good Deli Sandwich, and this idea of his changed the way we dine forever.

So as things would have it, he did not actually get up from his seat. Instead, he asked someone there, to put a slice of meat between two pieces of bread. Hence, the bread-enclosed treat known as the Sandwich!

The men all got back to their vivacious game, after the Earl finished with his treat!

Setting: Comedy club stage.

Host: Welcome to Political Roast Night! First up, Donald Trump!

[Audience cheers.]

Host: Trump's hair is like his promises—mysterious and probably not real. He tweets more than a bird on Red Bull!

[Audience laughs.]

Host: Now, Kamala Harris!

[Audience cheers.]

Host: Kamala’s so good at grilling people, even her BBQs come with subpoenas. Her laugh? It’s like she knows the date of your next tax audit.

[Audience laughs harder.]

Host: Trump and Kamala—one builds walls, the other breaks ceilings. Together, an architectural nightmare!

[Audience roars with laughter.]

Host: Thanks, folks! Keep laughing and thinking!

[Curtains close.]