Satire
(Fic)
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These are stories that I wrote in response to things that happened in my life while I wasn't in my right mind. Some of them are lies!
Yeah, I know, that's outrageous, but, I'm an author. I make things up! "Sounds interesting!"
You Can’t Blame That On Me! by Larry K Thompson TEXT EDITED BY DAVID OSTERHOUT ...
A Word About David Osterhout
A Word About David Osterhout: Osterhout is a personal friend of mine. He graciously donates his time to edit my novels. Any errors which might creep in are entirely my fault. He is an accompl...
Previous Publications Page
You Can’t Blame That On Me Other Books by Larry K. Thompson From Berlin to Texas From Berlin to Texas Vol. Two From Berlin to Texas, Vol. Three Also The four Novel series Clearly Love, Maybe Love Comes Together? Love’s Critical Ploy Love or Something Like it Prod...
Dedication This small volume is dedicated to my wife. She is, without doubt, the most caring, loving, nurturing woman on the face of the earth. When she loves someone, s...
Table of Contents The Wolf, Sleepy and Bushy 1 Snow White and the Seven Army Dwarves 7 A Natural Gas &nbs...
The Wolf, Sleepy and Bushy
The Wolf, Sleepy and Bushy My brother says it never happened. but I know it did. I was there. I saw it. My little brother and I have a problem with sibling rivalry. I call him my little brother. He's 15 months my junior but about three inches taller and 80 pounds heavier. He's losing his hair, as I am, but he's got bushy eyebrows, so he's got his bald forelock covered. For a guy who i...
Snow White and the seven Army Dwarves
A writing prompt by Bexx Matthews, an author at ChapterBuzz.com, “Write at least 750 words that retell your favorite fairytale - except this time add monsters,” caused the following response by me. Snow White was the only fairy tale I could remember, and I just couldn't sully Snowy's memory with a Zombie Land scenario, though the thought did tickle creative writing funny bone. The following was the best I could do! Captain Snow White and the Seven ...
A Natural Gas My wife and I knew that the Hill Country of Texas, and particularly the area around New Braunfels, San Antonio, San Marcos, and Austin was literally pock marked with caves and caverns. We knew that out of the 3,000 or so caves, clefts, caverns, and sinkholes in the state, most of them were in that area, and we knew they were very well visited by many persons. We decided t...
When I Say, “No” ​When I tell you, “No, you can't do that,” I am not denying you anything. On the contrary, when I tell you, “No,” I am giving you many things. I am giving to you the ability to say “No” to circumstances and situations that could cause you harm. I am giving to you the strength to ...
Don't Rock the Boat The wrinkled old woman looked at me and said, “What’s the matter, Sonny? Ya don’t look so good.” I turned my green face toward her and said, “Mmph!” She kind of snickered, and turned to her husband. “Sonny here has never been ocean fishin’ in choppy water.” Oh, silly person, don’t you know bett...
The Price of The Ancient Cowboy
The Price of the Ancient Cowboy I was standing out in the middle of a section of land out on the Llano Estacado, the staked plain, just looking at the grassland, thinking about how my life had turned out. Earlier in life I had been a soldier. I had some good times and some great friendships,...
Father's Day Apples? Father's Day morning was....an interesting.... morning! My son and his family had come to visit for the holidays. Sunday morning, I was sitting beside my bed drinking morning coffee when our oldest granddaughter, came in carrying one of those gift sacks with handles on it. It had some tissue stuff stuck in the top. A few seconds later, grandson, Kal ...
Doris and Bill, Living Legends
Doris and Bill, Living Legends A few years ago, my wife and I had gone to a town in the western half of Texas to attend an arts and crafts show. I dabble in pottery and sell it at craft shows. Our vendor’s booth was right next to a lady who was selling a book she had written. Her name was Doris and her husband, Bill, was with her. We struck up a conversation during a lull in sales. We...
Not exactly "Bump" in The Night
A number of years ago, James Thurber (1894-1961) wrote a story that became famous. It has appeared a number of anthologies. His story was about things that happened in the night at his home, things that go “Bump” and scare people. It was titled, “The Night the Bed Fell.” Not Exactly “Bump” In the Night My bed has never fallen in the night. As a matter of...
What We Will Be As we were younger and the world was much simpler, knowing what we were and what we wanted to be was not so difficult. When we grew, we came to understand that we had been too young to know what we needed to know in order to be what we would be. When we learned,...
The Rooster, Egg, And Court House
If the story I’m about to tell you is a lie, I didn’t tell it first. I heard it right after I had stepped in manure, and I’m only repeating it. The guy who told it to me asked that he not be blamed for the story, although he did tell the story to me. Honest, he really did. I’ve just substituted me for him in the story. The Rooster, Egg, and Court House It starts this...
Memories Are Made Of This
Bexx Mathews suggested this short story, “You are someone living in a world where the currency is your very own memories. The rich know everything, while the poor trade what happiness they remember in order to survive. Write at least 750 words describing your life.” Memories Are Made of This The wife and I put on our bank packs, you know, the ones where we keep our memories. Som...
Who Could Have Guessed What The Demands Would Be?
Who Could Have Guessed What the Demands Would Be It’s almost dark outside. I stand in the darkened living room looking out at the street. The kids and their friends ride their bikes and play catch. The boys chase the girls and try to put bugs on them they have caught. And the girls scream. I remember; we rode our bikes in the street. We played catch, shot marbles, and chased the girls...
On A Hog I just saw a guy that looked a lot like my buddy, David. Hawk is his motorcycle name when he goes riding with the gang. I was stopped at a traffic light, and this guy pulls up beside me. He was about Hawk’s size; with totally gray hair, not silver, but gray. Nice tan, a toothpick in is teeth. He was smiling a lazy smile, wearing sun shades, a gray sleeveless sweat shirt...
Whiz By Or Drop In Grandpa Harvey Fletcher’s wisdom, at age 94, was someÂthing I came to appreciate. Whenever I visited with him, he always told me something I’ve never forgotten. He said, “Always keep your eyes open and your drinking glass covered.” Whenever I think of Grandpa Harve, I remember his ears. These days people say that long ears come with old age. I&r...
The assignment was, “Write a short story of no more than 250 words about the statement, “The Bridge was out.” The Bridge, Again The bridge was out! Damn bridge was always out! Folks are always saying the County Commissioners should fix it. But just like last year, that won’t work. Last year they drew a budget. It included a small tax increase to fix the d...
The Sound Police Last week my wife and I were sitting in our car at a traffic light when the car began to rock and sway. A deep throated ba—ba—boom vibrated through the car with a sound so low that at first, I thought I was imagining it. I asked my wife, “Is that a George Jones song? She replied, “Darlin’, George Jones never sounded like that.” <...
Tou Can't Blame That On Me
You Can't Blame That on Me For me, it was a small misunderstanding, but for my mom, she has always thought I deliberately spit on the kitchen floor. I did not spit on the floor. We were living up in the panhandle, on the Tom Taylor ranch, where Dad worked. I was about four years old. The day was warm. Dad and Tom were outside, in the shade of a big old tree. They were sitting on...
The assignment was to write Flash Fiction, 50 words or so, about a fishing boat just off a frigid northern coast. Including the headline, I dud it within 40 words. The Unexpected Thing Off the Greenland coast, the boat Captain shouted, “I can’t get our motor restarted. Everybody, quickly, tear up the deck planks. Use them to row ashore.” The deckhand, upon jerking his ...
Asking the Impossible I was slowly but ponderously typing away on chapter 31 of my new novel, Critical Deception, when I felt a soft tap on my shoulder. Assuming it was my wife, I said, “Just a minute, Hon, while I finish typing this sentence.” A soft feminine voice said, “It’s not Hon sir. It...
At the Corner of Hope And Reality CAUTION When you read Words may SEDUCE You Into ENLIGHTENMENT! Sorry, this old English teacher used to tape these sayings to the classroom door for the students to ponder during the day. Yeah, right! ...
Populating an Intellectual Wasteland
A couple of years before I decided to retire from teaching, I stood in the hallway at school observing the students as they passed from one class to the next. As I watched them behave and communicate, and thereby demonstrate their level of learning for the day, I was confounded by their complete ignorance of the concept of living out their educational advancement. I wrote the following in despair. Populating an Intellectual Wasteland <...
Three Guys Walk into a Bar!
Three Guys Walk into a Bar! I’m the kind of guy who is easy to get along with. I mean I don’t get very emotional over odd or rare events, even when they happen to me. I just kind of let them slide, you know? Well, several of my fellow teachers of Roman mythology and I were at a bar when three really strange men walked in. But let me back up. I’m a literature professor...
What does That mean? I had driven an RV motorcoach before I bought my RV travel trailer. Parking the motorcoach was reasonably easy. I had help from my wife when it came time to backup into a slot. But when I bought the travel trailer, backing into a slot became an entirely new experience. We had taken our first trip with our new RV travel trailer, and when we reached our destination, we im...
Marrying Time May and June, the wedding season, have a lot of history behind them. People talk about traditions during this time without ever really knowing where the traditions come from. Usually, they don’t know what they mean either. During a quarter century of research and teaching, I learned where a good many originated. Cats and Dogs Let’s start with...
They Did What at Christmas?
They Did What at Christmas? It’s funny about nursery rhymes, you know? We teach our children social graces and behaviors through nursery rhymes. We also teach them how to sing and how to memorize words to music. Nursery rhymes cover a multitude of subjects, but we seldom associate nursery rhymes with Christmas. There is one nursery rhyme that mentions Christmas in one of its lines. Th...
Only That and Nothing More!
Only That and Nothing More! A few years ago, I was still teaching at a rural 4 AAA high school. I had two students in my classes who were memorable. Each was memorable for a different reason. They both faced the challenge of adulthood differently. They were Jesse and Junior. Jesse was a reasonably intelligent young man. He was capable of doing good school work but in practice was totally no...
On Marriage and Family To the Sons and to the Daughters: Take heed and listen as one who knows speaks. These words are for you as you become spouses and fathers and mothers. When we deal with our loved ones, because of our familiarity with them, we have a closeness and a privacy that no one else shares with them, and because of that our loved ones bare their souls to us, ...
The Irony of Valentine’s Day
The Irony of Valentine’s Day Valentine’s day is an age-old practice, and it is one of life’s little ironies. While the celebration of Valentine’s Day is almost as old as Roman history, there was a time in Roman history when marriages were banned and there was no Valentine’s Day. The roots of Valentine’s Day go back to the year 270 AD. History shows ...
What? Phil Hill, the high school teacher stood at the chalk board. He wrote tomorrow’s date and tomorrow’s assignment. Tomorrow would be April 18, 2017. Once written, he hoped, so that at least one student would write the date. He wrote because his fervent hope was at least one of them would just open the book. Open the book and read the assignment. Open their mind to a wider wo...
The Asian Assassin The three American Special Forces Army operatives were not in uniform. Two were dressed in Russian attire for their clandestine mission. The third was dressed as a Kenyan General. Their nerves tense, they stalked through the Vladivostok’s airport. Their mission was to take out a North Korean General. The General was known to be in Russia. He was traveling on the Trans-Sib...
You Can’t Handle It On Sunday, the Doc gave Fred a well-known medical steroid for his chest congestion and coughing up green stuff. He did not give Fred the 5 mg kind. He gave Fred the 20 mg kind. He wouldn't give Fred another antibiotic so soon after the last bout and Zpak. Good thing, probably, but Fred’s attitude has suffered. This a.m., Fred went to get haircut, th...
The Obvious Answer The doctor said, “The test results are back, and they confirm my initial diagnosis! It’s true, I’m afraid.” I looked at him and asked, “You mean your original suspicion that I have…” He nodded and cut me off, “There’s no doubt, the tests show you have Emphysema!” I objected, “But I have never sm...
The Writing challenge was to write a piece of Flash Fiction, 100 words, plus or minus. The subject was New Years’ Resolutions. Done in 100 words. Who’s Not Perfect? New Year’s resolutions? After 78 years of making them, yeah, I’ve heard of them. Made a bunch of them. What? Yes, I have kept, um, a few, well, maybe not a few. Okay, I didn’t keep any of them. But ...
Next, the novella, Black Bushwhack
Black Bushwhack by Larry K. Thompson Black Bushwhack Other Books by Larry K. Thompson From Berlin to Texas, From Berlin to Texas Book Two From Berlin to Texas, Book T...
If My Wife Likes the Color, I’ll Buy It
If My Wife Likes the Color, I’ll Buy It I had a plan. I would go to my favorite automotive national franchisee, and I would tell them what I wanted. They would evaluate my vehicle. I would give my social security number so they could c...
I found this online Using Your Head Exercising the Brain Exercise of the brain is as important as exercise of the muscles. As we grow older, it's important that we keep mentally alert. The saying; “If you don't use it, you will lose it” also applies to the brain, so... Below is ...
About the Author Larry Thompson grew up in El Paso, Texas. He lived an almost normal life, and barely escaped being labelled a juvenile delinquent. He and his brother lived with his father and mother on the Fort Bliss Army installation. His father was an Army NCO, and his mother was a government civil servant. The family lived in Europe for three years, while his father was stationed there, before returning to Texas. He graduated from Kaiserslautern American High School in Germany....
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