PLAIN WEIRD
Published in
4 min readJul 21, 2024
Every now and then, while suffering from bouts of boredom, it’s time to surf the net and read all the strange stories. Humans are truly entertaining and sometimes downright weird. The first example that caught my eye was a story about two male tourists taking naked selfies on Peru’s ancient site of Machu Picchu. And the strangest part of all, no beer was involved.
One could understand their motives if you imagine two good ole boys wrestling with a keg.
“Yep, Billy Bob, think I’ll just wander down to the park and take a naked picture of myself standing beside that statue of our famous General Lee.”
“Now, why the heck are you going to do that?” Joe asks this with his bottom lip drooping from the effects of chugging fourteen beers.
“Oh, heck, Billy, it’s because the do-gooders will take it down one day.”
“I can agree with that, but why the heck naked? I saw you naked when we played football together. It ain’t a pretty sight.”
“I look better than you do, Joe!” Billy Bob quickly replied with a flash of anger.
“Ain’t what your wife says,” Joe shoots back, the beer causing him to forget he’d been fishing lately in his best friend’s pond. Needless to say, a picture of both was taken. Instead of selfies, they were mug shots taken at the county lockup.
The next story really caught my attention. An Australian author, for some strange reason, decided to read all her emails in the junk file. Now, who the heck ever does that? The price for her diligence was $150 grand. She’d won a literary prize for one of her stories, but the junk file had mistakenly captured the announcement.
This story of (found money) set my soul on fire. What I found in my junk file was truly amazing. My combined net worth, all from the country of Nigeria, was just south of a billion dollars. I also discovered there were hundreds of females who thought I was the cat’s meow. On top of all that were medical discoveries to make me fit as a teenager again and cure my male pattern baldness. Sadly, though, Better-Half just didn’t believe any of my good fortune. She made me delete them all.
Just when this Southerner had thought he’d seen everything the dog with braces story popped up. That dog was truly grinning like a raccoon eating green persimmons. Now, I’m sure my brother-in-law is right. If there is life on other planets and they voyage here, they’ll surely conclude our dogs and cats are in charge. They’ll see dogs leading us around and cleaning up after them as if we are servants. Braces for a dang dog! Was that something his Hollywood agent insisted upon?
It also reminded me of Better Half’s first poodle after he took a tumble down the stairs. After several hundred dollars in X-rays, the good doctor gave me his diagnosis.
“His knee is injured from the fall. If it doesn’t improve in the next week, he’ll need physical therapy.”
“Can you do that here?” I asked that question while dollar signs circled around my head.
“Oh no,” he replied. “That requires a specialist. You’ll have to drive to Birmingham.”
I quickly thought about how the animal sawbones from my childhood would have reacted to this poodle’s injury.
“He’s not a working dog, Stephen,” he’d have said. “Just let him limp around. It’s not like he’s earning his keep anyhow. If it bothers him too badly, I’ll whack the leg off right above the knee. He’ll do fine on three.”
The next story made me understand that people have lost their minds. It’s too late; we are never turning back. Common sense is a superpower that has left the building for good.
There was an advertisement for a cat nanny in England. Yes! I said, cat nanny! It seems a lady is opening a restaurant encouraging people to bring their cats so everyone can enjoy their dining experience. They don’t want Fluffy suffering from loneliness.
One of the nanny’s duties is to keep the cats comfortable as they roam around the restaurant and hop on tables.
“Yes, ma’am, I’d like the Fish and Chips, and Fluffy here will have a side order of fish. Go easy on the pepper, though; it gives her heartburn.” What a place! I hope the nanny is there to clean up the hairballs, too.
