He’d been tasked with expanding “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” He decided to dive right in, and by lunch, he’d come up with:

Fool me three times, and you’re once, twice, three times a fooler.
Fool me four times, and I’ll sing Steve Perry’s “Foolish Heart” at karaoke night as punishment for being so easily fooled.
Fool me five times, and I’ll appear to be good-natured about it on the outside but inside I’ll be secretly filled to the brim with rage whenever I see your face.
Fool me six times, triple shame on me, and if I were an ancient samurai I’d probably commit hara-kiri due to so much shame.
Fool me seven times, and I’ll punch you in the neck with brass knuckles.
Fool me eight times, and I’ll tell you to knock it off because like my favorite TV show, EIGHT IS ENOUGH.
Fool me nine times, and if times getting fooled were lives and I were a cat, I’d be dead.
Fool me ten times, and I bow to your fooling greatness, for I have been DECAfooled.
Fool me eleven times, and I will blame it on the rain that was fallin’, fallin’.
Fool me twelve times, and seriously–find yourself another mark, already.
Fool me thirteen times, and you deserve a cupcake, as you have fooled me a baker’s dozen times.

Pleased with his morning’s work, Jack headed for lunch.

But he knew he’d have to make it quick. His boss was expecting an expansion of at least one hundred times fooled by the end of the week.

“Hey–you awake?”

“I am now”, she said, looking at the clock on the nightstand.

3:17AM.

Not taking the hint, Wes continued. “Why do you think they say ‘Flying by the seat of your pants?’ Why not ‘flying by the crotch’, or ‘flying by the inseam’, or ‘flying by the waistband’? The seat of your pants means the butt, right? Why would you fly by your butt?…Hey–why not ‘fly by the fly of your pants’? Right? Fly by your butt–button fly! Heh, heh…see what I did there? Anyway, good night.”

He rolled onto his other side and immediately started snoring.

Rebecca couldn’t get back to sleep. She had to be up in a few hours anyway, so she mentally planned out her morning: She’d get up, shower, have a quick breakfast, and dump Wes.

She figured he could wake up his next girlfriend at three in the morning and ask her, say, why the word “dump” is used for breaking up with someone and also for pooping, since he seemed to like talking about butts so much.

He put on his khakis, his fishing vest and hat, stuck a cigar in his mouth, and was on his way. He couldn’t wait to see who’d be there and what this service was going to be all about.

He arrived early–the very first time he’d ever done so. He got out of the car and bounded towards the church.

He was handed a bulletin at the entrance by a greeter who gave him a funny look and, motioning towards the cigar in his mouth, sheepishly told him, “I’m sorry–you can’t have that in here.”

“Oh, I’m not gonna light it,” Bert replied. “It’s part of my costume. So whe–”

Bert stopped. He was about to say “So where’s your costume?”, when he realized he’d made a huge mistake.

He’d misheard last week; tonight was an ASH Wednesday service.

He quickly turned on his heels and sped-walk back to his car, hoping no one would notice him, and was very thankful that he’d decided against wearing the Klinger costume.

“You’re gonna love this place. Best burgers in the world, I swear. They’re off the charts. And that Fixins Bar, is that not something? There’s, like, every condiment on earth!”

Jay picked up his burger and took a huge bite. Seth followed suit…and immediately grabbed a napkin and spit it back out. He instantly felt nauseated; whatever it was he’d just put in his mouth, it did not taste like a burger. Or food, for that matter.

Jay noticed his stricken look right away. “What’s up? You don’t like it? Is it not done enough, ’cause they’ll take it back and…oh. Wait. Did you happen to put that Mrs. Pickelbottum’s sauce on yours?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Oh man–you NEVER want to use that stuff. Did you read the label?”

“Sorta. It just looked like some kind of German mustard or something. Why?”

“Go back and look at the label again. Closely.”

Seth took a big sip of his milkshake to try and wash the awful taste out of his mouth (it didn’t help), and headed back to the condiment bar.

He found the bottle, turned the label towards him, and read:

MRS. PICKELBOTTUM’S
ORIGINAL
OLD-FASHIONED CRAPPENING SAUCE
since 1857
for beef, pork, poultry, fish
Adds that special crap flavor to burgers!

And below that, the smiling, matronly cartoon head of Mrs. Pickelbottum herself, with a speech balloon rising from her mouth which read:

 “If it ain’t Pickelbottum’s,
it ain’t CRAP!”

Well, that explains it, thought Seth, and he headed back up front to order another burger.

But it was too late. George looked up just as John was at the doorway.

“John! John, I’m glad to see you. Come here, please–I need your help.”

John cringed a bit and turned back into the room. “And how may I help?”

“It’s Jefferson…again. Trying to undermine me. And he has something on me this time.”

This piqued John’s interest. “Oh? And what would that be?”

“He knows about the cherry tree.”

“The cherry tree?”

“Yes, the cherry tree!”, George snapped, as if John already knew the story. “When I was seventeen, I got into my father’s whiskey, got drunk, and while intoxicated, I chopped down my father’s prized cherry tree. Jefferson knows the story somehow, and he’s threatened to use it against me. What are we going to do, John? What do we say? How do we plausibly deny this, make it go away?”

John wasn’t sure why this was a “we” problem, but he thought about it for a moment anyway, then suggested, “Well…what if, instead of cover-ups and denials, we get out in front of this? Take ownership of it. When asked, admit without hesitation that, yes, you chopped down that cherry tree. But, you know, leave out the drunk part. Instead, portray it as just some innocent youthful hijinks. You wanted to chop down the cherry tree to, say, prove your strength, or…because you had a misguided but virtuous notion of providing the family with firewood for the winter, or something. And, what’s more, when your father asked you what happened, you answered him, ‘I cannot tell a lie. I chopped down the cherry tree.’ You were just being a kid, and an extremely honest and mature one at that. And, for good measure, you could strongly suggest it was Jefferson who added the–obviously false–drinking angle to the story.”

George broke into a wide wooden smile. “John, you are brilliant! Brilliant, I say, BRILLIANT!” He adjusted his wig and clapped John on the back as he exited the room, walking tall, his confidence restored.

And the rest, as they say, is made-up history.

“Good evening, and welcome to tonight’s debate. The format for tonight will be as follows: I will pose a question directly to a particular candidate, and he or she will have one minute to respond. After their response, the other candidates will have a minute each to respond as well, if they choose. But first, the opening statements. Thirty seconds each, and we’ll start with you, Cowboy.”

Cowboy slowly pushed his hat back on his forehead and cleared his throat. “Thank yuh, ‘n good evenin’ tuh y’all. Folks ask me all thuh cotton-pickin’ time why ah’m runnin’ fer office. ‘N yuh know whut? Ah reckon the best reason ah kin thank of is–shoot. Us cowboys is hard workers. Y’all want crime tuh go down? Y’all want more jobs? Well, heck–yuh kin be darn tootin’ ah’ll do muh best tuh make it happ’n. Ah russle cattle fer uh livin’–governin’ cain’t be much harder n’at, ah reckon.”

A few mumbles of approval. Then, “Thank you, Cowboy. Spaceship Captain, your opening statement.”

“Thank you, and good evening, citizens of our star system. I stand before you tonight as someone you probably wouldn’t expect to be running for office. I mean, why would I? I’ve already explored the galaxy, served honorably in intergalactic combat, brokered the peace accords between the Gromlaks and Ventipods of planet Jaanus Sorokin, and still command one of the largest spaceships in the entire Intergalactic Forces–all while raising two beautiful children and feeding a husband who loves to eat!” A few muffled laughs, then, “Why don’t I retire and hit the lecture circuit? I’ll tell you why: Because there is still work to do, and if elected, I’ll be able to do it, and do it successfully. My track record speaks for itself. Thank you.”

More mumbles of approval. Then, “And, last but not least, Pizza Delivery Guy, your opening statement.”

Pizza Delivery Guy coughed and leaned into the microphone. “Um, I…uh, really don’t know how I ended up onstage here. I got the call for a delivery, I showed up backstage, and next thing I know, someone’s pushing me out here to this podium. But I will say this: Someone placed a call from this building and ordered two large pepperoni pizzas. They’re sitting backstage right now, fresh out of the oven, and before I leave here tonight, someone is going to pay for those pizzas.”

Later that night, after the debate had ended, the pundits were unanimous: Pizza Delivery Guy was the clear victor. He earned high marks in particular for not backing down over the pizzas, and also for his ideas on easing the tensions between Iran and Israel.

Her grandmother’s fine china–a complete set in near mint condition–had fetched only an already opened pack of gum. Her vintage Barbie doll–gently used, with original accessories as well as the box it came in, still intact–brought her just a single bent pipe cleaner.

And, probably most insulting, her complete set of first edition Harry Potter novels–each signed and personally inscribed by J.K. Rowling herself–earned nothing but a medium-sized wad of dryer lint.

Shuffling dejectedly through the parking lot, looking for her car so she could head home and forget about the raw deals she got, Betty realized she never should have taken her treasures to a place called the Diminishing Returns Swap Meet.

But for my Dad, it was the bane of his existence.

Dad’s invention? You probably know it as the ‘beer helmet’.

But it didn’t start out that way. When Dad originally outfitted that old plastic batting helmet he’d found in the garage with cup holders and straws, he was simply trying to figure out a way to keep himself hydrated throughout the day while keeping both his hands free.

Yes, he drank water from his helmet. Dad was a health nut who was big on the “at least eight glasses of water a day” thing. He was also a Renaissance man; keeping his hands free was important to him so he could spend his days building, tinkering, reading, drawing, playing music, exercising, whatever else caught his fancy at any given time of any day. And he was an eccentric, the kind of person who thought nothing of wearing the goofy-looking helmet day in and day out.

Beer was the last beverage he would’ve thought to put in the helmet, and his biggest mistake was assuming that, once his invention was made available to the masses, others would find uses for it as sensible as his.

‘But instead’, he’d sneer, ‘my invention has become the symbol of fat, loud, drunken oafs at sporting arenas the world over. I rue the day that someone thought to put beer–BEER!–in those cup holders, and I’d like to tar and feather the person who first did it. I wish a pox on that man, a POX!’

What made matters worse was that, over the years, people would find out that Dad was the inventor of the drinking helmet (long after he’d stopped wearing and promoting it himself, lest others mistakenly think of him as the ‘drunken oaf’ he’d railed against). These people would show up at the house, wearing helmets, totally plastered, yelling, ‘BEER HELMET DUDE–WOOOOO!’ in the general direction of our living room before passing out in the hedges.

It pained Dad being ‘Beer Helmet Dude’, having alcoholics yelling at his family and vomiting on the lawn, feeling guilty that his invention had enabled their behavior.

Which is why he ended up donating every penny he made from the helmet to Alcoholics Anonymous.

That decision never sat well with me–it was A LOT of money he ended up giving away, money I would have inherited–and I grew to resent Dad…a lot. I rebelled in many ways.”

And at this point, Sam paused. He was getting to the hardest part of his story.

“I rebelled against Dad by embracing the very thing he loathed. I thought I was getting back at him, but I was just ruining my own life; I finally see that now.

So, I guess what I’m trying to say is, thanks Dad, for donating all that money; it may very well be the reason this group in this town exists and why I’m here looking to make things right. And also, my name is Sam, and I’m an alcoholic.”

Mike started it. “I once was assigned an Uno tournament in Trenton. I tried offering some of them steroids to spice things up, but they weren’t having it.”

“Please,” Jill scoffed. “Uno is non-stop action compared to the World Series of Marbles–which I covered. Don’t get me wrong, it is a lot of fun…if you’re an eight year old with no friends and it’s 1956.”

Margie cleared her throat. “Excuse me, but you’re apparently all forgetting that it was yours truly who got sent to do a write-up of the–wait for it–Connect 4 Bowl. I know, I know: Watching people stack checkers sounds AMAZING, but–unbelievably–it’s not.”

The group was getting into it now, laughing and discussing amongst themselves. Then Gerald spoke up. “Let me tell you something. You don’t know what boring IS until you’ve been to the World Tic-Tac-Toe Championships. I kid you not, the last two guys left at that thing played to a draw one hundred eighty-two times before they finally crowned a champion. I think the guy who lost actually threw the last game because even HE was bored out of his skull at that point. I’d say it was like watching paint dry, but I’d hate to disparage the fine sport of paint-drying watching.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” said Anne as she entered the break room. Making her way to the vending machine for a drink, she added, “They sent me to the Drying Paint Observation Invitational last summer, and it SUCKED. Disparage all you want.” She picked up her Pepsi and with a quick wave said, “Well, see ya later, guys!”

Everyone exchanged looks that all seemed to say the same thing: Yep–Anne totally wins.

A bottle, half-buried in the sand. Her first instincts were to kick it, pick it up and throw it in the next garbage can she saw, or just ignore it.

But as she got closer, she saw the bottle had a cork stuck in its top. No way, she thought as she kneeled down and starting digging it out.

She pried the bottle out of the sand, wiped it off, and took a few quick steps to the water, carefully dipping it into the shallow remnants of waves to wash off the excess sand, and:

Way. Patti had found a message in a bottle.

She twisted and pulled the cork, finally hearing the satisfying POP as it came loose.

She pocketed the cork and turned the bottle upside down, gently shaking and moving it every which way in order to coax the rolled-up paper back out through the bottle’s neck into which it had been stuffed…who knew how long ago? Or where? She was actually kind of excited about the possibilities, in spite of herself.

Finally, finally, the end of the paper poked out of the top of the bottle just enough for Patti to grab it between thumb and index finger and yank it out the rest of the way.

She dropped the bottle, unfurled the paper, and read the message destined for her:

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
Is the “Macarena” still a thing? Just curious.

For a brief moment, Patti was profoundly disappointed. Really? THAT’S the message I get?

But she snapped out of it as she realized she had a responsibility–nay, a DUTY–to give this person an answer.

She took out her pen, smoothed the paper against her thigh, and wrote:

Yes…AND IT’S SLOWLY KILLING US ALL.

And with that, she rolled the paper up, picked up the bottle, stuffed the paper back into it, got the cork out of her pocket, smacked it back into the bottle’s top, took a running start, and, once she reached the surf’s edge, hurled the bottle back into the ocean.

She watched the bottle splash into the churning waves, then turned to leave after losing sight of it.

I hope someone finds that in time to save us, Patti thought to herself, and smiled.