Tom Cruise Fights Aliens in Space

It was a Tuesday, and everything in Tom Cruise’s life was awesome.  He had $1B sunglasses, was the tallest most hetrosexual bachelor in Hollywood, and Suri’s playhouse had a mailbox that was worth more than most towns in Minnesota.  Oh yes, and aliens were attacking.  Aliens from space.

“Go faster, John Travolta!” He said.  John slammed the gas pedal to the floor.

“Vroom vroom!”  Spake his Ford Prius as it shot like a mighty, salmon-colored bolt of lightning-coated gunpowder down San Francisco’s mysteriously empty roads.

“Head for the Golden Gate!”  Tom cried, firing his twin Desert Eagles at the alien ships that loomed over the city like enormous, technological, looming things.  His gun’s names were Katie and Nicole, and he held them sideways in each hand, firing one after the other like a true gangsta G money boss.  The wind sung through his perfect hair, and he looked very tall and rich in his designer sunglasses.  “It’ll be up to let the sailboats past!  We’ll jump it!”

“But it’s a suspension bridge, Tom!”  John cried.  “It won’t go up!  NEVER!”

Tom sighed angrily.  Grabbing control of the wheel, Tom jerked John’s Ford Prius towards the bridge’s enormous suspension cables.  There was a thwump as the tires gripped the braided steel wire, and they wildly spun round and round the cable.

“Yee-HAW!”  Tom cried as he shifted the Prius into overdrive.  The car’s engine roared like a dragon that just found out it was adopted, oil smoldered, rubber smoked and bubbled, and the Prius careened up the cable at over a million miles per hour.  Time slowed, and for a while, they became their own grandparents.  Suddenly, they reached the top of the bridge and launched off the cable and into low orbit.

“Omigod!”  John Travolta cried.  “It’s the flagship!  It’s black and spikey like Justin Beiber’s hair!  Only black!”
They parallel parked on the ship as Tom Cruise continued firing his Desert Eagles like a boss.  Then they broke out and crashed through a hatch.  

“Haw haw haw!” Bellowed a mysterious voice.  It came from a figure with big, bug-like eyes, a dome-shaped head, and a gold cape like Bella Lugosi!  It also had moon boots and a belt buckle.

“Xenu!”  Tom Cruise cried.  “How did I know this alien force would be led by the one man who is nearly as tall and fabulously powerful as I?”  

“It’s not only me!”  Xenu bellowed.  And so it wasn’t.  Tom saw that he was immediately surrounded by an old man in a beard and a sweater.

“Sigmund Freud!”  Tom gasped.  “The father of psychology!”

The old man laughed.

“How could you do it, Siggy?”  Tom asked.  “All Scientology wanted to do was free earthlings from their Thetans!  All we asked was a three billion year contract and a donation of several hundred thousand dollars!  Then you came about beforehand and wrecked it all with your psychology!”

“And me too!”  Said a guy with a nose.

“Who the heck are you?”  Tom asked.

“Joe Psychiatry.  The guy who invented psychiatry!”

“You’re bad too!”

“This is the end of you, Tom Cruise!”  cried Xenu.  “From here on out, people will not believe in the invisible space people I blew up in a volcano five billion years ago!  Guided by my false ‘sciences,’ they’ll blame their problems on fake things, like the death of their spouse, and horrible childhood experiences!  And there’s nothing you can do to stop me!”

“I’ll stop you!”  Cried Tom Cruise.

“What are you going to do?”  Xenu asked.  His laughter filled the chamber.  “There’s two of you and three of us!”

“Then I’ll even the score!”  Said a voice!

“Michael Bay!”  Everyone cried.

“And with the help of Michael Bay I’ll transform into -- a giant metal tank-man!”  And so Mecha Cruise charged in and dealt Xenu a mighty blow that sent him careening across the room.

Xenu picked himself up, dusted himself off, drank a Red Bull, and clapped his broad hands loudly.

“Why are you clapping?”

“You fool-- the moment you set foot on this spaceship I set it to self destruct in five minutes!  We’ll take you down with us!”

“Yeah?  Well, no sacrifice is too great to stop you! I would expend every last drop of blood to see you dead and gone!  That’s why John Travolta will transform into a super megaton bomb!”

“What??”  Said John Travolta as his skin turned into metal and radioactive bits.

"And blow you all up!"

"Aieee!" John Travolta cried, emitting a bright green glow.  It was terribly painful.

“We’ll remember you, John Travolta!”  Tom cried, picking up Michael Bay in his arms and forcing open an airlock.  “We’ll remember you as we plummet safely to earth!  Farewell, my sweet knight! Goodbye, my prince!”

And so, with the spaceship a radiant and radioactive ball in the background , Mecha Tom Cruise and Michael Bay free-fell through the stratosphere to the safety of the earth below them.  Tom’s glasses looked just awesome as they landed in Charlie Sheen’s hottub among many beautiful women.

Ruthy's First Rufie

Rufie was lying on her belly in the Cambot household, her teenibopper legs lolling up in the air as she scanned through prerecordings of the other children's daily television allotment.  "Fruit on fruit contact!"  She cried, deleting the last fifteen seconds of Veggie Tales.  "False legume idols!  This is a clear violation of FCC Rule Deuteronomy 14:33:22!!"

"Hey there, Ruthie."  Rufio said as he came into the room just then.  Rufio lived in her house and was just a wee bit older than her.

She wobbled her legs in what was probably a mildly suggestive way.  "Hey there Rufio," she said.  "How would you like to get me some grape Shasta?"

"Oh, I think that's only for adults, Rufie," spake Rufio.  "You know what they say about teens and the evil of stimulant addiction."

"Er, I'm pretty sure it's caffeine free."

"Can anything ever be TRULY caffeine free, Ruthie?"

"Stop being such a square and get a blessed pop."  Rufio gasped.  It was the first time he had ever heard young Rufie use such language.  Rufie batted her sparkly eyelids, her bright fuschia lips like happy worms doing yoga spread into a smile as sweet as honey that was also produced by worms that were perhaps crossbred with bees.  "Why don't you get one for each of us?"

"Gee," Rufio said, coming back into the room with the Shastas. "It sure is nice living with you in the Cambot household, Rufie."  He said, sitting down next to her.

"Can I see your soda for a sec?"

"Sure.  Say, you sure have a lot of brothers and sisters."

"Yes.  Here, you can have it back."

"It's fizzing now.  It tastes fizzy.  Say, am I your brother?"

"I don't remember your backstory, David."

"Well, I love you all the same."

The remote slipped from Rufie's sebaceous grasp.  Did he just say what she thought he said?  Perhaps her heretofor unquestioned methods were purposeless.  She slid her right knee closer to him.  "Rufio..."

"I love Pastor Cambot too."

"Ah."

"And I love the dog."

"Mmm..."

"Do you know what I love the most?"

"Huh?"

"That theme song that plays every time we're about to have an adventure and learn more about family and being considerate of one another."

"Oh no."

"It goes like... you know... where can you gooooooo when the world won't..."

Ruthie sighed.  It was obvious the rufie she'd surreptitiously inserted into his Shasta like a man slipping a very small penis into a sleeping prostitute was obviously not going to kick in fast enough.  She took her can and blackjacked him across the back of the head.  Since it was only aluminum, she had to continue beating him for a bit, then finally picked up a pillow, then a chair to rend him unconcious.

"Gee,"  David said, waking up.  His head felt like it was full of grape Shasta.  Drugged grape Shasta.  It was also on something soft like a tumor.  A tumor shaped like an alluring girl's lap.

"I see you're up."  Rufie said.  He suddenly felt good.  And also hard.  "I took the liberty of taking off your pants."

He looked down, blinking at his purple manpipe came into fuzzy view.  A vague blur of well-manicured purple fingernails glid over it.  It was scary like a velicoraptor, but also sexy like a velicoraptor with boobs.

"Rufie stop," he tried to struggle, only to find his hands and ankles bound with a slinky.  "Where are we?"

"Someplace we won't be bothered, Akira."

He recognized the vaulted ceiling, and the wooded pews.  "Gosh, Ruthie, we're in your father's church."

"Shush now," she whispered, her dyed blonde hair, brittle like really sexy corn flakes, whisking over his bared chest as she planted kisses down his body.  "It'll all be over soon."

"Oog," he said.  "That feels good.  And also slippery like herpes."

"Mrbbbl," she said, her mouth full just then.

And then they had sex.  It was pretty okay, but he bled a bit.

Little Billy and the Polka Dotted Trousers

A look of utter malevolence and contempt crept across Tom Cruise's broad face like a communist spy as he approached the Orange Julius cart.

"It's been a while," he said, his voice hollow as an abandoned dumpster as he took off his sunglasses.  It had indeed been such a very long time. The flashbacks were stark, polarized, black and white; a grainy image of a much younger Tom, his lips stretched into a far less malevolent, open-mouth smile, his nubile hips, clad in Daisy Dukes, wrapped around the bulk of a pink, merry-go-round emu, his young abs bulging through his Pac Man tee as he waved to the camera.

"You've done well for yourself," said Tom, shaking the grainy image from his head.

The cart, predictably, said nothing.

"Saw you now and then when I took Suri to Taco John's or Panda Garden."  Tom walked around the side, running his fingers along the metal corners.  "She's that age, you know.  You remember when I was that young?'


He flashed back to his own perspective; the coolness of molded plastic between his legs, the merry-go-round pole in his right hand, his left waving back at an Orange Julius cart holding a Polaroid.

Tom laughed.  "Yeah, we went to the pinball arcade.  You got me that  posh Hawaaiin shirt from Chess King.  Yeah,"  Tom chuckled, jabbing a finger at the cart.  "Yeah, yeah I guess I did look just like Magnum PI.  Then you took me back to the food court for my first smoothie."  His smile was rapidly decelerated, like a Lamborghini plowing through a soup line of orphans.  "Yeah, I sure was green.  Never had one before."

"You have to mash the blender buttons harder."  Said the Julius cart.

"I'm trying," spake Young, Monochrome Tom, "but I find I have to bend over and gyrate my hips a titch to get my arm at the proper angle."

"Oh yeah," the cart mumbled as the ice sloshed about.

"I'm terribly sorry for the trouble."

After a further moment of gyration, its voice was husky, its breath heavy and humid as an abandoned refrigerator.  "Yeah, now pull the cup out of my dispenser."

"Shall I put in a straw?"

"Right through the lid, kiddo. Slide it in nice and deep and suck that sweet, sweet nectar."

'Slide it in nice and deep.'  The seemingly kind words sank into Older Tom Cruise's brain folds like a burning pirate ship that had herpes.  "I was just a kid," he seethed through gritted teeth.  He took the napkin dispenser and launched it  five, six feet, maybe even a yard, across the food court. "How could you do such a thing?"

The cart remained stolidly silent.

"I'm kind of a big deal now," Tom said.  "I was in Far and Away.  And Days of Thunder."  He swept his arms across the service counter, scattering oranges for tens and tens of inches.  "I threw a grenade into an alien ship's vagina!  I can take you down, Orange Julius Cart!"

"How does it feel when someone does THIS?"  He demanded, opening and shutting the minifridge door.  He moved the juicer to a slightly oblique angle.  "Doesn't feel good, does it?  Don't like it, DO you?"

He vaulted over the counter, running his fingers over the yellow molded plastic exterior.  "Don't have much to say now, do you?"  he jabbed his crotch into the metal corner guard.  "You jerk!"  His voice cracked against the tennis ball in his throat.  He ground his crotch in deep, running his hands across the sticky counter.  "How do you like it now, huh?  How does it feel?"  Despite the torrent of tears and mucus, his bunny was close to the train station.  "Ergh!"  He cried.  "This is how you made me, Orange Julius cart!  This is how you made me!"

There was an explosion of colors in his mind, and a torrent of one very specific color in his pants.  "Who's your wingman NOW, Goose?  You want me to show you the money, Cuba?? WELL HERE'S THE MONEY SHOT, YOU CRIMINAL!"

"Hey yeah," said John Travolta, behind the camera.  "That was pretty hot, but, uh, wasn't it the Orange Julius cart in Long Beach that did all that stuff?"

"What?"  Tom asked.  "Aren't we in Long Beach?"

"No dude.  You told the slave -- I mean chauffer -- to drive us to, uh, Oakland!"

"Oh," said Tom, dabbing his zipper with scattered napkins.   "Well, sorry about that."  He spake to the cart,"But what you just saw was SLANDER!  And we'll SUE!"  You could still hear him cry as they dashed away from the encroaching security guards "We'll SUUUUUUUUEEEEEEEEE!"

The Ritzy Tale of Rupert the Bunny

Once upon a time, in the ritziest part of Briarwood lived Rupert T. Bunny.  Rupert was a dapper hare who wore a monocle, spats, a tophat and a cute little vest with a gold watch fob upon which the sunbeams danced like wee fairies when they came through the tall windows of his beautiful penthouse apartment.

Rupert mostly vested his time hippity-hopping about Briarwood’s smarter boutiques and coffee shops, but today he decided to visit Briarwood Township.  Rupert would not normally slum it like this, but Briarwood Township is where his cousin Flopsy T Bunny lived in a hole in the ground.

“Wot ho, cousin Flopsy,” Rupert said, descending the hole, cautious not to muddy his fine spats. “How goes life in the country?”

“Meep!”  Cried Flopsy, who had just then been startled.

“Wotwotwotwotwot!” Rupert chuckled, as this is how proper rabbits laughed.  “Wot is that you just said there, cousin?”

“I said ‘meep.’”  Flopsy explained.  “It is what I say when startled or to accent any part of my speech that may require it.”

“But we say ‘wot.’”  Rupert stated.

“What?”  Flopsy asked.

“No,” said Rupert.  “Wot.  All bunnies say ‘wot.’  Every man jack of us.”

“Well,” said Flopsy, flouncing her ears, “I say ‘meep.’”

Just then Millionare Joe came down the hole.  “I’m a crazy millionare.”  Millionare Joe stated, “and I have a mind to give half mah fortune to the first bunny I see.”

“Meep!”  Cried Flopsy.

“Wotwotwotwotwot,” chortled Rupert.

“Well,” said Joe, “we all know proper bunnies say ‘wot,’ so Rupert here gets half mah fortune!  Yeeh-haw!”

“Meep de la beep!” Cried Flopsy, “What does the flopsy get?”

Joe scratched his head.  “Well, reckon I could grow mah moustache out and chase you with a gun every now ‘n again!”

So Rupert got to live in an even ritzier penthouse apartment in an even better part of town whilst Flopsy got to live in a hole with vermin and the occasional terrorist.  All because she couldn’t say ‘wot.’

THE END

The Worst Criminal

Barnacle Bob was a math teacher.  Most people with the first name Barnacle, to say little of the last name Bob, would go out and become a sailor or mariner or Fisherman, and many may well have, but the Barnacle Bob you're reading about this instant taught math and fractions and carrying one's ones to the proper row.  This was his life's ambition.  Unfortunately, the children made horrible fun of Barnacle Bob, and he could no longer teach math.  He had to become a criminal.

"Hands up," Bob bellowed as he entered a booze joint, brandishing his pistols sideways like a proper gangster.  "Listen up and no one gets shot!  If I leave Beesley's Point for Newark at noon going forty miles and hour, and my friend JoJo in Point Pleasant catches the express train to said destination at eleven forty five, supposing that the train was going fifty miles an hour and had to make two stops of five minutes each, and I had to stop twice to go to the bathroom at approximately two minutes each, who would get to Newark first?!"

"Do we have to account for acceleration?"  The old man at the counter asked, his sweaty fingers desperately flicking the panic button.

"No," Bob replied.  "Simply assume what I told you and give me an answer."

 "What if there's traffic at a turnpike?" A young man with a fake ID asked. "And who uses a train in 2012?"

"For the hypothetical purposes of this assignment, we will assume there is no traffic, that we have valid options for mass transit, and that I maintain a constant 40 miles per hour to my destination."

"Yes, he's asking them math questions," Said the fat manager to the phone, eating chips and watching the security cams in the dingy break room. "Old Joe out front dropped out of community college, so it's only a matter of time before he gets shot and dies."

"Just stall him," Officer Jim said.  "We're on our way."

"I've got a question."  The fat manager said, hitching up his dockers as he weezed his way out into the store.  "Who the fuck uses a train -- ??"

"HANDS IN THE AIR!"  Shouted Officer Jimbob, crashing through the window on the trampoline he had cleverly placed in the alley outside a week beforehand.  It was the only booze joint in town, so he was pretty sure shit would go down eventually.  Officer Jimbob rolled twice, landing in a crouch with his tazer drawn.  "FREEZE, SCUMBAG!"

Barnacle Bob was arrested and the fat manager got a medal of honor.

The Bittersweet Tale of Geriatric Blue

Once upon a time there was a little hillbilly named Omar Watson who had a hound dog named Geriatric Blue.  They went everywhere together; the river, the creek, the Texaco Latrine between the river and the creek.  But one day Geriatric Blue was bravely defending Omar from a hobo and got rabies.

"I know he is your only friend in the world and that you'll likely become a stunted individual because we couldn't afford a vet to put Geriatric down in a humane fashion," said Omar's Mom, "but you have to take your shooting gun and shoot him in the face.  It builds character."

Omar got his shooting gun.  He leveled the sights at Blue and put his sweaty finger to the trigger.

"Gotta pull the trigger," he said.  "Got to be a man and make momma proud."

But one look in Blue's rolling eyes and frothy gums reminded him of all the good times they had being barefoot and throwing sticks in the river and doing whatever else it was that redneck children do on a regular basis.  It was very bittersweet, which I am telling you rather than describing using critical detail because it takes less effort on my part.

"I can't do it, Ma," Omar said.  "I can't shoot Blue."

And so he didn't.  Geriatric Blue lived a long, happy life biting Omar's redneck neighbors in the neck and buttocks.  Then came the day he bit Squirrely Zeke Loughton, who was out of his inbred mind on some sort of moonshine he'd made out of sterno, Scope and crystal meth.  The drugs caused the rabies virus to mutate, and he became patient zero of the zombie apocalypse.  

This would change Little Omar's life considerably, but that's not what this story is about.  It's about a boy and his dog.  Happy times.

THE END?

The Vampires of Candyland

"Hey," Said Maurice.

"Hey," Said Susie.  "Nice night for a date."

"Indeed it is," Spake Maurice, "and being that it is our third date, I thought I'd tell you that I am a vampire."

"Gee," Susie shouted.  "That means you're all brooding and soulful."

"No," Said Maurice. "It's not like that at all."

"Well," Said Susie, "then you can turn into mist and a bat and other Creatures of the Night!"

"Lord no," Said Maurice, "Bats are dirty.  I think they carry AIDS."

"Oh," Said Susie.  "Well, is it magical?"

"It's very magical."

"Can we go on a Magical Vampire Adventure?"

"We sure can!"

So Maurice whistled and his magical unicorn flew down on a magical rainbow that glittered like Abba would if it were a rainbow and not a band.  "This is my unicorn," Maurice said. "I call him Joe."

"Er," said Susie.  "Will he be doing the rainbow thing every time?"

"He sure will," said Maurice.  "He also shits care bears.  It's all part of being a vampire.  You ready?"

"Er, alright."

So they flew off through the dark and spooky night.  Susie kept hoping they would get to swoop low and maybe wear a cape or a beret and maybe bite people and hang out in coffee shops utilizing iPads, but no such luck.

"Almost there," said Maurice.

Susie looked down and realized she was so lost in her vampire-inspired revery that she had entirely missed their approaching a vast, idealic land with towering spires and cathedrals that seemed to reach to clouds as pink as cotton candy.  She was beginning to think she could get into this medieval-type shit, until she sailed through one of the clouds, and realized it was actually cotton candy. Then they were banking along towers  shingled with gumdrops and the stained glass windows made of some kind of jolly rancher.  Even the night soil carts were laden with chocolate kisses and salted nut rolls.

She sighed, folding her arms in front of her.  "Fuck all," she said.  "we're in Candy Land, aren't we?"

Maurice beamed back at her.  "We sure are!  We're going to go to the castle of the king!  He's my dad!"

"Lame!"

"He's also a vampire!"

She sighed more loudly this time, hoping he would take note.  "Fine.  I'll tolerate this.  But it better be good."

"Oh it's going to be good alright," Maurice said as they banked towards a tall gingerbread castle with peanut brittle ramparts.  "Today's the day of the Lemon Drop Parade!"

Susie rolled her eyes.  "For yay."

They banked through a tall arched window and Joe's hooves clattered on a fruit rollup floor polished as smooth as glass.

"Welcome back, my son!"  An old man with a sour patch crown and a pink cotton candy beard cried.  As Maurice dismounted and embraced his father, Susie could see the king's eyes were red and puffy.  Oh good, she thought.  The old man was probably all shaken up about drinking some peasant girl's blood.  He was probably being driven insane, trapped in the existential rift between disgust for what he had become and  the insatiable lust for blood.

"Father," Maurice said,"You've been crying.  What troubles you?"

The King heaved a sigh almost as heavy as his countenance.  "Oh m'boy, Mean Old Mayor McTaffy called Constable Cream Puff and made a complaint about our trumpets!  There's not to be a Lemon Drop Parade this year!"

"You see, Susie!"  Maurice said.  "I told you there'd be an Awesome Vampire Quest!  We need to go have a polite yet firm chat with Mayor McTaffy tout-suite!"

"You're the king," Susie reasoned.  "Can't you just order someone to cut off his head?'

"Lord no!" The King gasped.

"Well then can't you just order the parade to go on anyway?"

"No."  The old man shook his head sadly. "Not if Constable Creampuff says otherwise!" .

Susie put her hands on her hips.  "But you're king!"

"Technically speaking," Maurice said, "it's a constitutional monarchy.  The parliament has all the real power."

"We do get to have parades though," The King added.  "And ride a float at Booya!"

"Then drink his blood and make him your slave!"  Susie cried.

Maurice cringed at the word 'blood.'  "Oh dear, we could never do that!" The King gasped.

"Look," Susie spat the word through clenched teeth. "Are you guys vampires or what?"

"Of course we are!"  Maurice said.  "We ride rainbows and eat CANDY!"

Susie couldn't take it anymore.  She stomped her feet, hopped up and down, pooped directly in her pantaloons, and sank her molars into  the King of Candy Land's buttocks!

"My ass!"  The King cried, watching her gnaw off a macaroon-sized chunk.  "My royal, butterscotch ass!  Oh, whatever have you done?"

In a poof of pixy stick powder, Susie became a purple gummi bear.

"Oh no!"  Maurice cried.  "The curse!  The molasses witch said that if an outlander ever partakes of the King's royal ass, he or she will turn every night into a gummi bear!"

"She'll feed on the blood of mortals and sleep in a coffin!"  The King cried.

"That's totally skeevy and also dirty!"  Maurice screamed.  "She'll be Candy Land's first ACCOUNTANT!"

And with that Susie bobbed off into the night on a string that was only mostly visible.