The Smell Game

I dedicate this to Miss Nicole Sparling for her birthday, because we’re all bound to get tumors someday and die. Please find your own special “Smell Game” and the happiness that comes with it. I have yet to find mine.

-Crash Write


The Smell Game


The main rule of the Smell Game was quite simple: you beat the person that had the Stink until they didn’t have the Stink anymore.

Robbie claims that he invented the game, but I don’t think so, because this one time we were stopped by a cop and he said that he used to play the game as a kid. So maybe Robbie just inherited the recipe. I think that’s probably right because no one knows the exact recipe except Robbie. I know a bit of it though, because all the guys at one time or another have helped to make it. I say guys but there are actually girls that play too, but most of them are so vicious that even the other guys just think of them that way.

But anyways, to make Stink you start out pouring lots of bottles of rubbing alcohol into a big pot. I remember this because my eyes always sting from the fumes when I help make it. Then, after you get the pot half full, you throw in a couple slugs, some tar, a little dirt, the slime at the edge of drain gutters, some rotten vegetables, old seafood, the dead bodies of whatever small animals we can find on the side of the road at the time, and Robbie’s secret ingredient. No one really quite knows what Robbie’s secret ingredient is, but I have my suspicions that it has something to do with the Porta-Potties that his uncle owns for construction, and his cat when it gets in that strange whiny state once a month. Either way, it’s the secret ingredient that gives the concoction its special nose flavor that we can all identify. Some people have tried to fake it and use their own mixture, but it only takes a couple whiffs for us to find out, and then it’s time for “the punishment.” And it only takes a one time getting the punishment to never, never try that again.

Hell, no.

That’s because the punishment involves eating two full mouthfuls of the stink.

I’ve only seen it happen once, but it made me sick on the floor, right there, and I think the kid ended up in the hospital for a month. I still don’t think his guts work right.

True story.

So what we do is we cook up the Stink for a couple of hours on a stove at Robbie’s house (which smells so nasty you can hardly tell anyway). Then we filter it through one of Robbie’s mom’s spaghetti strainers, pour it into little perfume bottles with atomizers on top, and set out to play. It’s a fun bit of sport, and we usually play the Smell Game like this: You go out and spray someone, usually without them knowing, and then you walk away. The person you spray is your Stink Mark. Then, it’s up to the other guys to find the Stink Mark and sock it to them, and if they do they get a point. Oh, and of course the person that witnesses the spraying process can’t be a part of the beating. Or they get the punishment. At the end of the week we tally all the points up and declare a winner. Actually, the winner doesn’t get that much. In fact, all he gets is the Greeble.

I think at some point the Greeble used to be a tiny doll of some sort, but it hasn’t really looked like that for a long, long time. Nowadays, the Greeble is broken and pockmarked with dirt from being run over, and is covered with a thin layer of decaying green that Robbie painted it with a long time ago, so that more than anything it looks like a tiny decaying body. Robbie’s a little greenish too, so maybe he really just made the Greeble to look like a miniature version of himself. In any case, everybody adds to and personalizes the Greeble a bit when they get it, and a clothespin runs through the back of the Greeble, allowing the winner of the Smell Game to wear it throughout the next week with pride.

I’ve only succeed in getting the Greeble a couple of times, but I can honestly say that those were some of the proudest moments of my life. Really. I almost cried. But perhaps some of that was just Robbie sticking me with the pin when he put it on me, because he was a little sore at losing. You see, Robbie wins most weeks. I think it’s mainly because he’s got a nose like a toucan, but don’t tell him I said that.

When I first came to town I didn’t know about the Smell Game. I kept wondering why people told me to carry water and perfume in my pockets, but I know now. Man that first day though, I got beat pretty bad. It was all in good fun, of course, but it hurt just the same. Nowadays though, almost everyone knows, and as soon as they catch the faintest whiff of something rotten excuse themselves to the bathroom to clean up, or else douse themselves with perfume, because that’s part of the rules of the Smell Game. Once the Stink doesn’t smell like the Stink, it’s all over and you can’t touch the person. So it’s mainly the out-of-towners that get the Stink treatment now, and we're pretty good at sniffing them out.

There are mistakes though.

Like this one time Robbie thought he smelled the Stink from across the table where his grandma was.

“What’s that smell grandma?” he asked.

His silly grandma was so hard of hearing she just gave a smiling nod. Boy I heard he just jumped across the table and started in on the beating. Heard it was a good one too. Gave her a couple quick rights, then left hooks.

“Robbie!” his mother yelled, but by then he’d knocked Grandma’s dentures clean out of her mouth. It was only when his mom started smashing china over his head that he calmed down and realized that his nana had just made a dookie in her pants. Boy he was sorry then. But Robbie is a gentleman, and he took his punishment without us even asking. Did it just the next day. I didn’t watch though. I couldn’t. He took two spoonfuls of a stink that had a dead baby possum in it and the leftovers of dog entrails from the road the other day. That Robbie. He’s a stand up guy. He really is.

So up until a year ago the Smell Game was going pretty well. I was only a couple points short of Robbie that week, which is actually really, really good, but then things started going wrong. I’ll tell you in a second about the things that went wrong, but first I want to talk about the things that went right about then. At least with the Smell Game, because that’s the thing that matters anyway. So there was this guy at school. Mickey Donagan. I fuckin' hate Mickey Donagan. He’s a big turd. A big fat fuckin' ka-ka pie. Mickey Donagan sits right in front of me in algebra class, and he’s always making these strange toad-like faces at me when the teacher isn’t looking. He also tells everybody things like my parents are inbred, that I smell really bad and don’t take showers, and that one time at band camp when I had a bunk above him I wet the bed and he woke up to urine leaking on his face. They’re not true of course. Well, except for that bit about band camp, but that was like years and years ago, and I don’t regret it one bit. I’d take a piss on Mickey’s face right now if I could. Right in his damn mouth. Fucker.

But, yeah I hate Mickey Donagan. So the other day I decided to give him a good dose of the Stink. Like I said, he sits right in front of me in algebra, so I waited in class till it was just about time to go, and right before the bell rang I gave him a couple puffs from the atomizer right on his stupid fat butt. Then I followed behind him a bit to see what would happen. With most of the guys, after they give the stink to someone they kind of skedaddle to make it harder for the others to find their Stink Mark. I know it might be sick, but I like to creep along and follow just to see just what’ll happen. It’s kind of like a short game of fate. You know?

So I was following behind Mickey Donagan, dodging behind students in the hall, hiding next to lockers, watching him walk in his stupid carefree fashion, when all of a sudden it happened. Just as he walked past the edge of one of the buildings a fist shot out straight and true and clocked him, bam!, upside his fuckin’ head. Mickey Donagan dropped like a rock, while the arm that hit him remained extended, perfect and straight, until its owner retracted it and walked around the corner. It was Robbie. Of course. Robbie’s a fuckin' Stink Ninja. It’s true. He can sense the Stink with preternatural acuity, agility, and reflex. So after knocking Mickey Donagan on the ground, Robbie gave him a couple kicks to the side before finishing off with two solid football punts to the nadaronies, while good ol' Mickey crumpled like a clam. Then, somehow sensing me, Robbie turned around, ruffled his own messy black hair, flashed a million-dollar smile, and gave me a thumbs-up like in a Mentos commercial. “Doo dooo dooo doo doo doo doowwwwwaaaaa!” It’s true Robbie hadn’t exactly beaten the Stink out of Mickey, but he had beaten the crap out of him, so I guess it was about the same thing. Plus, it didn’t really matter to me anyway. No matter what way he did it, seeing Mickey Donagan beat down was about the best thing I had seen all week, and didn’t even mind that Robbie had just got one step closer to keeping the Greeble.

No sir-ieeee.

The rest of that week I had a pretty tough time figuring out who to Stink Mark. Like, I was waiting one day and all I saw was a guy walk by with a baby, which you can’t spray (I still think that this is unfair), and some people from school, which I didn’t really feel like giving the Stink to. But then I found this out-of-towner about to walk into a restaurant, and gave him a solid dose of the Stink, a real good squirt, and I watched from the window outside to see what would happen. Almost as soon as he sat down at a table, the guy across from him gave a terrified face and dumped a pitcher of ice water all over the man, and started spraying him with a bottle of cologne. Boy, that out-of-towner didn’t know what to think and just stood looking stunned. Then the man across from him started telling him what a damn fool he was, how he just saved him a from a beating, and how he needed to learn to carry perfume on him at all times. Oh man, that guy just backed up and ran out. He must have thought everyone was crazy. But really, he’s just lucky. It’s true. I actually ended up administering a decent dose of punishment to the Marks that I located that week.

Actually, the Stink Marks that I gave the beat down to myself were pretty easy. Just a frumpy soccer mom, a couple skinny EMO kids, that guy in the rat suit at the Chuck E. Cheese’s, and a door-to-door salesman. I was actually surprised by how easy the guys had made it that go round. Usually people Stink Mark big, burly dudes that other guys will be scared to beat up on, people that never go out so that they’re hard to find, or people that are already so vile that you can’t even smell the stink. But mine were easy marks, and easy knock- outs. So easy in fact that as soon as I sniffed out the soccer mom, I did a little dance in front of her, giving her a good sock to the noggin on each forward step. One-two. Punch. Cha cha cha. Three-four. Punch. Cha cha cha.

Oh man, you shoulda seen it.

I got a pretty decent work-out with the door-to-door salesman too. Just as soon as he opened the door and started giving his pitch, I smelled the Stink. I stood there smiling all the time, patiently waiting for him to stop, and when he finally did, slapped his face like a little bitch. Just one good slap. Then two quick ones. Then a punch to the belly. And a kick to the taint. Hiiiiiii yahhhhhh! Yah! yah! Take that stinky Mc Stinkerson!

What fun!

Yup, life was good back then.

But now for the bad.

At about that time a big factory started up on the edge of town. I really don’t know what they make. Maybe tanks. Maybe sawdust. I really don’t care, and I don’t think that it really matters. The thing that does matter about this factory is not its “principle object,” but its “auxiliary impact.”

I learned these terms from the newspaper. “Auxiliary impact.” I like that. It has a nice ring to it like “collateral damage” or “Weapons of Mass Destruction.” Fuckin’ bad ass. My dad says that you can’t really own a word until you can use it “correctly and contextually in a sentence twice.” He’s a teacher so he knows this stuff. Even though I don’t think that first time counts, I’ll try to work “auxiliary impact” into a sentence here and there so I can own it. I think I would like that.

Anyways, the factory. When the factory first started up it didn’t produce much of anything besides the faint clink of machinery echoing through the streets of our tiny town. Nobody much minded though because our town is pretty small, so anything new and different is considered quite entertaining and acceptable. At least most things. We used to joke that the factory’s main product was this noise only we didn’t know how they’d ever get people to buy it or how they’d ship it out to them. But that was only until the end of the first week. At that point a fine mist of soot and smoke began to settle in a black cloud over the city, sprinkling the land with a dusting of what my father called “chocolate death.”

I disagree with this name.

It didn’t taste like chocolate at all.

But sometimes people are strange and call things names that don’t really fit. To me the black dust tasted bitter and sour like biting into a pill that you were supposed to swallow. Besides the taste, it got into our lungs and started to sting our eyes. This made it hard to run, and move, and read (which I didn’t care so much about anyway because it got me out of a lot of homework), but worst of all it got in the way of the Smell Game! Every time we tried to beat someone, we just got so tired and weak and coughing that we could hardly lift our fists to crack a face or lift a foot to smash some testicles. It was awful!

But the true tragedy was that the smoke and dust made by the factory got in the way of our sense of smell. That’s because besides burning our eyes and making them water, it clogged our noses so that it felt like we had a cold all the time. Even worse, when we could smell, the dirt and grime from the factory smelled exactly like the Stink!!! Can you believe that?!

The first couple weeks were chaos! All the guys playing the game kept messing up, and getting the wrong people! The townspeople were in a terror too since they could smell the Stink everywhere and knew that there wasn’t enough water or perfume in the world to get rid of it (unless of course a perfume factory moved in next door to the other one). During this time people mainly stayed indoors, or only came out briefly in a hustle. They didn’t need to do that for long though, because like I said, a wrongful beating gets the punishment. After a couple of the boys got served a lunch of Stink, many of us threw in the towel for good, until finally, near the end of the third week after the factory had started up, almost everyone put aside their atomizers and gave up on the Smell Game.

About this time, the previous winner and continual champion, Robbie stopped wearing the Greeble. This amazed me, because the Greeble is a great honor, so I asked him why he no longer wore it.

He said that the Greeble was pointless now.

I had to agree though.

A Greeble without the Smell Game is hardly a Greeble at all.

With the resignation of Robbie from the Smell Game, things were getting out of hand, and something had to be done. So everyone gathered together in a town meeting to discuss the factory. On the surface this was to talk about its impact, both intended, through its creation of jobs, and through the “auxiliary impact” of the plant’s pollution. Oh yeah! Check that shit out! I used it once. Just one more time and I own that bitch! So like I was saying, we all sat in the auditorium of the elementary school, and while the adults were blabbing “fiscal this” and “environmental that,” I looked around at the crowd. I think that there were only about a hundred twenty five people there, but that still probably accounts for about three-quarters of the town. Everyone looked pretty dazed and depressed, with black dust on their clothes and smudges on their faces where the person at the door had dusted them, as had become customary at that point. The Smell Game guys looked especially bad though, and were pale and sickly because most hadn’t been out for the past couple weeks or so. After all, what was the point of going out if you couldn’t look forward to beating the crap out of people in the Smell Game? I was still pondering the pointlessness of life when I found Robbie seated near the back of the auditorium, hunched over and looking very small and pale next to his giant burly dad. I turned away. It was just too pitiful to see Robbie like that. Really.

Up near the front of the auditorium, I noticed a very fat and nerdy man with glasses and a plaid shirt taking the stage. He introduced himself as the chief engineer of the factory. The crowd didn’t seem very impressed. Then he adjusted his glasses and began to speak.

“I just wanted to thank everyone for inviting me here today, and I want you to understand that I really understand your concerns. I’ve brought with me today,” he said fumbling with a laptop and plugging it into a projector cord, “a PowerPoint presentation, which I hope will answer many of your questions. The lights were dimmed and an electronic projector lit up a screen showing charts and graphs.

“Much has been made in the past several years about industrial emissions containing CFC’s, lead, arsenic, and other similar chemicals which have been signaled out as health hazards. Our company is very aware of the hazards that these chemicals pose and have worked tirelessly with the Environmental Protection Agency to insure that our plants stay well within federally mandated limits.” The engineer waved his flabby arm up at the screen and pointed his laser pen. “I’ve marked on the chart up here the ‘safe limits’ that the federal government has imposed on each of these chemical classes, and as you can see we are far below each of these standards.

“However,” said the engineer flipping to a second slide that had one column labeled “Option A,” and a second labeled “Option B,” “we do understand your concern about the dust that our factory is producing and its emissions of aromatic compounds, which the EPA currently has only recommended guidelines for and no legally mandated limits. Yet, there are easy solutions to these problems, and I have here two ways that our factory can be retrofitted to mitigate these problems. In the first option filters would reduce only…”

“Hey!” someone shouted in the front row. “Let’s cut to the chase!”

The audience was silent and the fat engineer looked around, confused.

“I’m sorry?”

“You know, the Smell Game!”

The engineer, looking even more confused, leaned forward. “The Smell… Game?”

“Yeah, you know that game that some of our kids play. With the Stink and the beatings? You’ve heard of this, right?”

“Oh, yes,” said the engineer with realization lighting his eyes. “That’s that awful game that the hoodlums play in this town, isn’t it?”

“Horrible!” said Robbie’s father getting to his feet so fast he knocked over his chair. “Mister, do you have any children?”

“Well, yes,” said the engineer meekly, looking to the audience for help.

“And where do they live?” demanded Robbie’s father in his big, booming voice.

“Upstate New York, with their mother.”

“New York?! Shoot! That’s what I thought. Look, with all due respect you’re not in New York anymore. You’re in our town and I know that it’s small and quaint, and maybe just a shit spot on the map to you, but to us it means something.”

A murmur of agreement went through the audience.

“I didn’t mean to disres…”

“I’m still talking,” cut in Robbie’s dad. “So, like I was saying, this is a small town, and by and large things are pretty predictable around here and there’s not much to do. You see, your kids up in New York can go to the city, go watch all the latest movies, get new fancy clothes, do whatever. We don’t have that here. We don’t have much of anything. All we did have, mainly, was the Smell Game.”

The engineer looked horrified. “You’re telling me that you are condoning and even advocating that horrible game of spraying offal and assaulting and harming innocent people? It’s disgusting! Depraved! Children acting like that! You’re turning them into future criminals!”

“Hey!” said Nicole Sparling’s dad standing up. “I’m not turning my kid into no criminal!”

“Neither am I!” Tommy Christianson's mom shouted.

“None of us are,” Robbie’s father finished. “But since your factory went up and all the dust got in the air, none of our kids can play the Smell Game. All that black soot smells so much like the Stink, or just plain clogs up people’s noses that it just gets in the way.”

“So you want me to fix all the dust and smell, so that your children can play a game in which they assault each other and harm innocent members of the community?” the engineer threw up his hands in exasperation.

“Listen, my Tommy hasn’t been able to get out of bed for the last week, because he says he just doesn’t see the point in life,” Tommy Christianson's mom said.

“Mine neither,” said someone in the audience.

“Truth is,” said Robbie’s dad, “I think that even some of us adults miss the game. It added a little spice to our lives. I mean, sure none of us likes to get beat, but at least it was something a little different. It kept us on our toes. Kept the blood pumpin'. Without it, all I do day-in day-out is walk two blocks from my home to work in the morning, then walk two blocks back to my home in the evening. And I’m not alone. Many of us are just men and women that live most of their lives within two blocks. You understand? We all just need something in our lives so that every step we take isn’t just another reminder that we’re getting that much closer to death.”

Others gave nods and shouts of agreement.

“I see,” said the engineer wrinkling up his nose. “Well, I suppose it is really no matter, because the options which I have outlined can still help you in solving this rather bizarre problem. However, I must remind you that although the factory will subsidize most of the retrofitting, the town will still be responsible for the bulk of the bills.”

“Hey! Speak in English!” someone shouted, and the audience broke into a laugh.

“Your town pays to clean up the factory,” the engineer said, letting down his guard.

The audience nodded.

“So, in ‘Option A,’” the engineer continued pointing to the screen, “we place active recapture filters on each of our smokestacks to collect most of the smoke and dust generated, and then process it later as solid waste.”

Seeing the blank faces of the audience, the engineer rephrased.

“We get rid of the smoke and smell.”

“Ah,” said the audience almost in unison.

“However, I must warn you that this option will not get rid of the aromatic chemical compounds that are released into the atmosphere.”

“Aromatic, like smelly?” someone asked.

“No,” the engineer said primly, “aromatic compounds refer to a class of hydrocarbon chemicals. But like I was saying, to remove these will require an additional cadmium filter in each of the smokestacks. I recommend this option, because although some of the studies are still fresh, aerosolized aromatics are beginning to become linked to cancer in laboratory rats. So,” said the engineer before anyone could ask, “if you go with ‘Option B,’ you get the original filters for the factory to get rid of the smell and smoke, plus another filter that also takes care of a chemical that might be hazardous to your health.”

“How much more for that option?” asked an audience member.

“Ah, that’s the good thing!” said the engineer eager to deliver good news. “It will only cost a couple thousand more than ‘Option A,’ and will leave the town with perfectly safe, smoke and smell free air.”

A rumbling went up from the audience.

“But the first option gets rid of the smoke and smell?” asked Robbie’s father.

“Yes but...”

“Perfect! Who’s in favor of voting for option A?”

“Aye! Aye! Aye!” The audience exploded with their fists in the air.

“Ok then! It’s settled. Thank you for your time sir.”

“But, wait!" shouted the engineer, "aren’t you concerned for the health of your families?”

“Oh sure,” Robbie’s father said “all of us are, but I think like most American people, as long as we got what makes us happy, we know all that other stuff just kind of takes care of itself.”

“Here! Here!” the audience agreed and piled through the door, officially ending the meeting.


So you see, that’s how it went, how tragedy was averted, and most importantly, how we got the Smell Game back. It’s been almost a year since then and things are going pretty good too. The skies are clear now, the smell is gone, everything’s good. Actually, I’m pretty excited because this week I’m only two points down from Robbie, so I might even have a chance to get the Greeble! Can you believe that? I think when I get it I’ll probably pin it right above the lump on my chest or maybe under the bulge on my neck. In fact, everyone’s got these little bumps or lumps, on their chest, arms or face. The lumps are what we call ‘auxiliary impact’ from the factory. And check that shit out! Second time! I own that word now, bro! You know it! But anyway, the bumps are pretty cool. My momma says that they’re tumors, but most of us just think of them as extra bits of fleshy fun. Like, I saw this one guy, with this big round one on his belly, so he had it tattooed to look like a soccer ball, and then he got this tattoo of this guy kicking it above it! How fucking cool is that? Then, this one girl has two that look like devil horns on her forehead! It was so damn rad, it was fuckin’ sick. Hell yeah.

I know that some people say that all these tumors are going to kill us, but most of us don’t really care. And why should we? After all, we got the Smell Game and life and excitement and fun.

Sure, life may not be a bed of roses, but who wants roses when you got some Stink?



-Crash Write

From the Mixed-Up Files of My Posterior Perineum: Freud’s Son

I was bored yesterday, so I decided to crawl up inside your vagina. Just crawled right up inside.

It was actually bigger than I thought, I mean I fit inside.

I don’t mean that like my dick small or anything, well I guess so, because I was small enough to fit inside, so I guess my dick would have to be small. Crazy. Only I don’t got enough to buy a fancy Mercedes or anything. Just a tiny dick in a big pussy. You dig?

So I was up in there marching, marching, moving, moving legs up and down, mincing midgets with my march when I saw this magic chode enter. I never thought I’d see one, but there it was. All nice and fat and round like. So I jumped up on that sucker and rode it like a cowboy, yeeeeee-haw, while it bounced, bounced, bounced like a Ping-Pong. Up to the top and back, up to the top and back.

“Now who’s dick was this?” I thought. Maybe in the past I wouldda known, but you know, it’s really hard to figure out these days. I mean it could have been Bill or Bobby, or that redheaded kid named Steve, like maybe on a cold day. Tuff to tell. But definitely not Jack. Jack come in and I would be up to your tonsils by now. But anyway, while I sat there a-woderin', I could feel it growing and expandin' and I knew it was about to blow. So I thought, this might be as good a time as any to go further adventuring, so I just nestled myself right up in that dick hole and set to waitin'. Wasn’t long. Not long at all till I feel the pressure buldin', and off I shot, right up like old faithful in your baby makin' apparatus. I was like a full grown human baby, only if you’da pushed me out then I wouldn’t a called ya mom. No way. Hey howdy. Momma’s a lady. You’re just a good recreation spot for spelunking. That’s right. I said it. An' I ain’t going to take it back.

But like I was saying, I was all up in there, and I started getting hungry. I looked around and wasn’t nothing up there for me to have. That is, until I saw your little eggies all sittin' all perfect like in some balls of mush. So I swam over and put my hand up your fallopian tubie things and got me a couple grade "A" freshies and sat to cookin' them up.

You must have felt that. Prolly thought it was some feminine problem bakin' up in ya, but no. It was just me cookin' up your eggs. I mean you got so many, it’d be selfish for you not to share a few. But I do apologize for the smoke coming out your vag. Although you may not have noticed if it’s a normal event.

Anyway, I cooked ‘em up and ate, and got to sittin' and thinkin’ and realized that I was pretty bored. Now I’m not much for shenanigans, but I just thought your life might need a little sprucing up. You know, maybe a little excitement. So what I did, and you’ll have to forgive me for this ‘cause I know that you prolly already know what I did, but I just crawled back down your cavern a bit and I set down and took off my pants. You know, just enough to let out my junk. Then, I set right there to rubbin' one out. But not totally, cause that would have destroyed the point. So I took out my peter piper and was rubbin' and rubbin' and darned if he didn’t expand to about the size of your whole cavern. Absolutely amazin'. So, like I was thinking, you see, it’s always the case that a dick goes into the vagamatasm, but how often you seen a dick come out of a vag!? And I don’t mean no baby dick, 'cause doctors see that every day, but a full grown daddy dick. Well, the proper response is “never.” So I pushed forward and pushed forward until my body was bent back in a little “U” like I was doing the limbo, and all the important parts of me was sticking out in all the important places of you.

Tee-hee. Tee-haa.

Well for the next, I didn’t much have a good view, being inside you and all, but boy I heard about it all later from the guys. Seems that good 'ol Jack was getting all hot and heavy with you after you’d been done with that magic chode fella. Taking off your top, your bottom, and I guess on this particular day, your panties. That’s right. Isn’t it? I always get confused on what to call those. I call them boxers, or briefs, or bloomers, but mine don’t have lace on them mostly. But back to 'ol Jack. He’d slipped off the top, the bottom and all the rest and was just about head level, getting God’s view of all your sinful parts, when out I pop. Almost popped him in the God-damn eye. One eyed Willy in his one eye. Oh boy, I think Jack just about shit his pants. First he is looking at a girl’s girlie parts then out I come inching out, out, out like gopher from its hole. Just about jumped out of his skin and ran out the door. Don’t expect he will be around too much anymore. But tell you what though, saved my fuckin' life. Like I said, Jack goin’ up inside you would have crushed me like a pile driver punchin' nails.

Yowza!

So right quick after I heard him yelling and screaming, I pulled back inside, so that by the time you looked back down, you didn’t know what happened. Just your plain private parts. I heard you crying and running round hysterical but it was just too much. I just swam back up inside where I knew you couldn’t hear me and laughed a good 'ol high pitched laugh, rolling around kickin' and screaming.

When I finally came to though, I started lookin' at my hands and arms.
Phooey! All pruny! But how was that?! I guess I’d stayed up inside you so long I looked like a piece of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Plus, I hadn’t taken a breath in over a day, so I decided I needed one of those. Everyone needs a good dose of good ol' vitamin “O-2” every day. I learned that from TV. Lots of good stuff on TV. Well, I suppose I coulda just popped my head out and got a breath, but I thought you had just about been traumatized enough from the last outing that it might have been a bit too much. So I decided to make a break for it, and hope you weren’t wearing jeans or nothing. Hell, I thought, if I get out at just the right time you won’t even notice at all. Just needed the right amount of speed. Vaginal velocity I do believe those gynecologists call it. So I started swimming and swimming, building up speed, doing centripetal circles. Just kept goin’ tell I could feel my head spinning and the liquids rushin' by, and about that time I gave my arms an’ legs a good push. Just a good kick and a push and a shot out like a rocket.

Whoooo-ieeeeeee!

You must have been lying on your bed crying, 'cause I flew straight out the window and landed upside up in my truck.

Yeeeeeeehaaaaw!

Just landed and off I rode in the night back home.

I don’t think you noticed, but it was a quiet night so maybe you did. I apologize if ya did. Plus that whole Jack thing. Apologize to Jack for me too. I would have stayed and apologized to ya myself, but I had to get home. You know how pops is. Runs a tight ship. Keeps me under a close watch what with my adventuring and all, and’s always askin' ‘bout dreams this and dream that.

Actually, that’s kinda why I wanted to talk to you. See, I got these crazy dreams, but it would just worry good ol' pa too much to speak ‘em.

See just the other day, I dreamed I was an insurance salesman, and was selling policies and doin’ paperwork. I had a little desk, in a little cubicle with a big boss and a bigger stack of papers. I typed all day on a big grey computer, ate lunch in a grey lunch room, and went home to a small square cubicle. Then I did it again, committed the crimes all vulgar-like again with out a second thought.

Paperwork! Cubicle! Desk!

I know it’s disgusting an’ crude, but you know how it is, sometimes that subconscious things got a mind of its own.

Sorry about being so vulgar. I know that gets everything down talking about things like that, but sometimes I just got these filthy dreams that get so disturbin’ I got to get out of my skull so’s I don’t go crazy.

But I guess it’s jus’ a matter of pro-spec-tive.

Know what I mean?



-Crash Write

To All My Pregnant Gamers

So, I want to just preface this by saying, yes, I know that it is pathetic that I am a grown man with a subscription to a video game magazine that is primarily for nine-year olds, but with my last issue of "Nintendo Power" came with a missive telling me of new management ("Future INC."). Now, I'm not sure why any kid would give a ka-ka poo about this, but there was one very interesting sentence:

"If you don't know Future by name, then you certainly know our company by its other industry-leading magazines which include PC Gamer, Official Xbox Magazine, Playstation: The Official Magazine, and Pregnancy."

...
...er
...um...

...Pregnancy? Ah yeah, I remember the last time I sat down to look up Halo cheats while checking indications of cervical dilation and contraction rates... Just who the fuck is their target audience? Are nine year olds having babies? Gearing up to impregnate their teachers? Or maybe pregnant mothers are just addicted to WOW? And not only that, but this last magazine is mentioned without any sort of explanation of its discordant inclusion. That's like a chef saying "I just had a fabulous day cooking crème brule, tarts, savory Danishes, and I took my dog outside for a crap."

What?

What?

God damn you Nintendo! Stop fucking with my mind.

I guess at least now I know that I can be a good Samaritan though and give my old issues of Nintendo Power to the Planned Parenthood down the street.

Nice.

Save the babies and kill the Metroids.

-Crash Write

F.U.N. Giraffe Dies

A moment of silence please.

Today, my most favorite of captive animals, the "Fucked Up Neck Giraffe" (F.U.N. Giraffe) at the Santa Barbara Zoo died. I am actually very sad. I loved Fucked Up Neck Giraffe. He was my special friend. For one reason or other Mr. F.U.N. Giraffe was born with a strange birth defect which made his neck bend laterally at its midpoint, and then upwards again. To all of us growing up in Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties he was a local celebrity, and all that knew him loved him dearly. It is my greatest hope that he is peaceful in giraffe heaven with his own private chiropractor, or perhaps just with other fucked up neck giraffes (so that the hyenas can stop laughing at him).

So today, I invite everyone to pay tribute to our friend, the Fucked Up Neck Giraffe. Although no one could ever figure out how you swallowed your food or how your head didn't fall off, you inspired hundreds of visitors to ask "just what the fuck is wrong with that fucked up neck giraffe?" and many other visitors to constantly harass zoo keepers what was wrong with you, and why they didn't fix your fucked up neck.

That is, until they put up that sign that said "yes, we know his neck is fucked up."

And it was. But that was you. Fucked up. But it's ok. I'm fucked up too.

I just don't have a fucked up neck.

Thank you for being in my life Mr. Giraffe. I will always remember you as my fucked up friend.

-Crash Write

Sonic Fiction

This is for the good
This is for the bad.
This is for the polished prose and the ungrammatical typos.
This is where I have the courage to be crass and controversial and the even greater courage to be boring and prosaic.
This is for everything about nothing and something about everything.
This is for the flowers and blue skies and the vomit and blood.
This is for the stories I never tell and the ones that are told too much.
This is where I make up lies call fiction and tell truths to color reality.


This is Sonic Fiction, and I am Crash Write.

I apologize in advance.