That giant green blob in the middle of the weather map? It could be the spread of Republicans
I consider myself fortunate to be living in a day and age when I can experience the miracle of a 24-hour TV weather station.
Until recently, only the most rudimentary of services were provided on a 24-hour basis, such as murders or foreclosure proceedings on your house brought about by a computer that has confused your credit rating with that of Joan Collins’ most recent ex-husband.
But now, any time of the day or night, you can turn on your television and see colorful maps depicting the spread of rainfall, the spread of hot or cold temperatures, the spread of mold spores, the spread of radiation from the latest reactor meltdown, the spread of Republicans, the spread of Joan Collins’ ex-husbands or the Earth tilting on its axis.
These maps are extremely complicated, requiring a crack team of TV weather station personality clones to interpret them for us numbskulls out in television-viewer land.
For instance, a map featuring a gargantuan green blob in the center of the United States with a little arrow pointing to it that says “RAIN” might be interpreted many different ways, such as the spread of mold spores or Republicans.
But the TV weather personality clone will clear up any misunderstandings. “Yes, it looks like there’s a gargantuan green blob of rain in the center of the United States,” he will explain.
The problem with weather is that you can talk about it for only so long. But the weather station has solved that with:
1. Tomorrow’s forecast for the known universe.
2. The extended forecast for 100 years into the future.
3. The fire danger for various household closets.
4. Helpful tips on how weather kills.
5. The weather forecast for inside your house, as opposed to the weather forecast outside your house, and how you shouldn’t let the two mix or you could cause a tornado the size of Jupiter to suck up your television and then you wouldn’t be able to watch the clever weather station personality clones make faces at one another while on camera and break into jovial, weather-related laughter.
The weather station offers various public-service hints, such as how to avoid dehydration in case of a 10-alarm fire at your house, or when to take out your houseplants and have them shot.
The weather station personality clones will also interrupt their riveting, blow-by-blow description of the fog in Napa Valley to broadcast documentaries on weather phenomena. You probably never knew the lost continent of Atlantis was done in by incorrectly flushed automobile coolant systems and cheap antifreeze, and if the Antlanteans had used advanced-formula coolants, why, we would all be speaking Atlantic right now.
Yes, it is truly a miracle that I can tune in any time, day or night, and check on the spread of Joan Collins’ ex-husbands.
This column was published in 1987 in the Playground Daily News and is used with permission.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
Image courtesy of Healthline Gate. CC license.
I estimate that by the time my yard is covered with real grass, the ozone layer will have disappeared and life on Earth will cease to exist.
As it stands, my yard is covered with a lush, green carpet of weeds, some of them requiring power tools to keep at bay if you dare walk among them. The weeds bear a passing resemblance to grass when mowed to within a quarter inch of the ground, but they grow at the slightest provocation, say, if the world hasn’t tilted on its axis in at least a week.
What the weeds lack in attractiveness they make up for in variety. I have your basic stickers that could disable construction vehicles; I have bushy, green things with purple berries that would wipe out the population of mainland China if eaten; I have tall, hairy things which I’ve been trying to pass off as fruit tree saplings; I even have dollar grass, which is called dollar grass because you have to spend several million dollars in herbicides to get rid of it.
The weeds are home to a menagerie of various crawling and slithering life forms you hear about in those little newspaper stories about some Third World inhabitant who had all of his blood sucked out by a new species of butterfly.
The other day I was clearing some thatch with a front-end loader when I noticed whole herds of black beetles scrambling madly to hide. I assume they were black beetles. I didn’t get too close on the chance they were roaches. They’re still out there, but I expect they’ll be taken care of by the flesh-eating scorpions.
Occasionally I see hints of movement in the taller weeds, and from watching television I know this means a member of the reptile kingdom is out there and if I were smart, I would let Jim handle it while Marlin Perkins watches from the helicopter and talks about term life insurance. “You know,” Marlin says, “seeing Jim being devoured by that python is a handy reminder that you should take out a Mutual of Omaha life insurance policy, because you never know when you’re going to run up against a snake in the grass. THAT’S IT, JIM! KICK HIM IN THE GROIN!”
My plan to conquer the yard with real grass is to sprig it. Sprigging is to yards what the Chinese water torture is to human beings. The successful sprigger must follow a careful series of steps if he is to sprig a yard correctly:
1. Obtain the sprigs, usually by stealing them from your neighbor’s yard after they’ve gone to bed.
2. If felony isn’t an option, search your own yard for sprigs. Sprigs only grow in the wild next to houses or in sidewalk cracks.
3. Rid a small area of weeds. Use dynamite if necessary.
4. Plant sprigs. You way want to protect the young sprigs from Mother Nature’s voracious sprig predators by building a reinforced concrete bunker around the sprigged area.
5. Hope the ozone layer holds up until you can have sod trucked in.
This column was originally published in the Northwest Florida Daily News and is used with permission.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
Weeks ago I told you that on our previous visit to the Bahamas we had skipped out on a $2 debt for a loaf of bread. I theorized Flossy, our resort manager at the time, was sticking pins in a voodoo doll to exact revenge.
I promised that when we returned I would repay Flossy so the mysterious car breakdowns and diseases would stop. Well, this is what happened.
It was early on a Monday. I remember that much. The sun had not yet crossed the yardarm (whatever that is), so the rum punch sat untouched in the refrigerator.
Tracy and I were driving to the grocery store to stock up on provisions. The store, for some perverse reason, had closed early Saturday and hadn’t opened at all on Sunday, depriving us of the pleasure of paying $3,50 for a loaf of bread. But now it was Monday and we were starving and $3.50 for a loaf of bread didn’t seem unreasonable.
We had taken a different route that morning – in other words, we were lost – and there, lo and behold, appeared the resort where we had stayed two years ago. It loomed above the pine trees and broke beer bottles like the house above the Bates Motel.
“Let’s stop and pay Flossy!” I suggested.
Tracy gave me one of those “You-don’t-have-to-do-this-just-because-you-said-in-your-column-you’d-do-it”looks and said, “OK.”
We pulled into the parking lot. I expected to see Flossy standing at the gate, hands on hips, glowering at us the way voodoo debt collectors glower at their victims.
We entered the front office. There she sat. I think I said, “You’re not going to believe this.” Tracy and I blurted our confession.
Flossy started laughing.
“You came all the way back here to pay for a loaf of bread?” she snickered. “I’ve never heard of such honesty.”
I never said we came all the way back just to pay for a loaf of bread, but if she wanted to think that, fine. Maybe she’d give us a free loaf.
At any rate, she cheerfully accepted our $2 and I assumed the curse had been lifted. Wrong-O.
Later that week, as we were preparing to leave for a sightseeing expedition to the other side of the island, Tracy announced she couldn’t find her purse. Then a wallet turned up missing.
Apparently, as we were sleeping, someone had slipped into our unit and robbed us.
The slimeball ripped us off for about half our vacation bankroll. He stole IDs, credit cards, even the green shorts that contained the wallet.
What followed was a panicky ransacking of the unit, search-and-destroy missions into nearby woods, calls to police, cursing and so on.
The stolen items were never found, although we spent the next three days looking for a happy Bahamian in green shorts.
It was explained to me later that the “momentum of Flossy’s curse” had carried over into the robbery. If that was the case, I may have to return – to pay her interest on the $2.
This column was published in the Playground Daily News in 1987 and is reprinted with permission.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .