A.G.E's Joint

The trowel slipped into the black paste. Emily felt the cool slickness, rubbing dark flecks into her red hair. Dark streaks covered her t-shirt. Didn't matter to her. This was fun. Where most people saw mud, she saw flowers and they were good. The bath waiting when they got through would be good, too. She wouldn’t be able to see the tub through the water. With a tug, a dandelion came loose and landed in the wicker basket. None of them had made puff balls yet. Mama said it was too early. Too bad, she wanted a cloud to chase. it was a mission, get a full basket of different plants for her school's project. In the process, the flower beds in the front of the house get cleaned up for spring. They pulled viny begonias from the stone curb and creeping clematis off the porch. Yellow, pink and purple flowers, their bright colors contrasting against their dark green stems. Yard trash to most people, but not to Emily. It was God's bountiful bouquet . The next row was a line...

Hey, Heidy and Howdy, Ladies and Gents. Good Ol' Harry here and tonight's show on the Fart is special. We're calling it "Talking to the Moon." Or, howling might be more accurate. Midnight is we think of love and loss, and the best type of music for the theme is Tears in Your Beer country. Yep, all those Grand Ol' Opry stars talking about lost loves. Speaking of lost loves, my competition and colleague, Delilah, is having a rough time in her life. She lost a child recently and has been bereft (don'tcha love that word) about playing her sappy love songs. So the first dedication of the night is to her. Here's hoping she's.. When the full moon is out there, if we have a partner, we think about dancing with them. If we have lost a partner, we want one. Either way we know something is there following us. And as we wander, the sadness of the missing grows. Even when we are home, the sense of loneliness grows. And the wo...

"OK, everyone." Marty taps on the mike. "Everybody get something to eat? Good. Let's settle back down." Acknowledging a question from the back of the room, he nods. "Yes, you in the back? How did we know you hated gefilte ? We have data from everywhere, including from your Grandma." A laugh comes up from the class as the asker chokes down the last morsel of fish. With a click, an organization chart goes up on the screen. "We are now in the final segment of your basic training. Here is a brief overview of what will happen when we get finished. First, you will be assigned to your groups. Most will start out in the Petty Grievance division. They handle most of the day to day tempting around the world. It's a great place to learn about sin combinations you may have heard about but never experienced. This is the division that got most of you down here. Don't expect to become an expert at any of them. We want generalists, not speciali...

As the Dude leaves, the DQ stewardess arrives with a beverage cart. Humming "Always Look at the Bright Side of Life", she hands out cups to the class. The sound of gagging and retching soon fills the room. From the back of the room, "Is this my fate ?" is repeated over and over again. Marty grins and takes a slug out of his cup. Even he couldn't keep from wincing. "Dang. The grapes are sour tonight. Sorry about that." Putting the cup down, he continued. "Sour grapes is the theme for the next segment. Envy is one my personal specialites. What you just had was the wormwood/gall cocktail 3.16 got at the end of his program. It was all the bitterness and jealousy built up over the 150 years of the project. He ended up drinking it at the end. It was really the only time he wavered. If it had run few more hours, we might have suceeded in a full break, but overall we deemed the project a success." "So far in this training we have t...