What a terrible poem! It doesn't even rhyme! My name is Hector Buenavista and I am the CEO of Come Mis Brotes! (Eat My Sprouts!) here in Valencia, Spain. Prior to my relocating here from a dead spot on the map I was told Brussels sprouts had never been grown in Valencia and never would. Fools! Not only did we grow them, we ate them too! And no one complained like you, you complainer! We turned those Spanish naysayers in Spanish believers. And that's just what we intend to do to you! We think it's a marketing issue, not a taste issue. Let's be frank, Brussels does not exactly inspire confidence. You ever been there? Jesus. But our sprouts are from Spain. Big difference. Spain is cool. So I am sending you a package of our delicious Valencia sprouts. You eat them damn it. They are good. Capish? After you have consumed them and if you don't have another job, we will turn you into a Valencia sprout influencer. How's that sound?
Sincerely,
Hector Buenavista
CEO of Come Mis Brotes! (Eat My Sprouts!)
Valencia, Spain
Dear Hector,
No.
March 3, 2023
I was sent a residual check for $3.89. It's such a silly thing that instead of cashing it and buying, what, two sticks of gum, I think I'll frame it and the next time someone asks me my rates for a writing project, I will proudly show them this check as evidence of my superior status and worth in the industry. Wait a sec...
March 4, 2023
I was asked in an interview what I thought of social media. I recited my latest poem.
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Social media is vile
Anything more need be said?
March 6, 2023
It was -4C. Wearing only a t-shirt and shorts, she was sitting in a red Mustang at a red light with the top down blasting Appetite For Destruction. While belting out Sweet Child O' Mine, she slammed the car into gear, hit the accelerator and went barrelling through the red light. Her convertible shot across the intersection and sped off into the distance. A couple of miles down the road I came across the Mustang stopped by an RCMP cruiser. No more Guns N' Roses, convertible top now up, her crying in the driver's seat while the officer waved a baggie of white powder he just found inside her car. Appetite for destruction indeed.
March 7, 2023
Someone asked me why I don't want fame, praise for my work or accolades from the public. It's simple really, I do this for myself. It really doesn't matter if anyone else reads it or reacts to it. If someone gets something of value from my work, that's great, but I don't need to hear about it. I don't have the need or desire to discuss my work, my ideas, or my reasons for writing what I have; the work itself says what I wanted to say. Listen, success can be measured in many ways other than dollars and cents, awards or praise from strangers. Can too.
March 8, 2023
-- I hate you!
-- I hate you more!
What do you do when you can no longer live with your spouse but you can't live without them?
March 9, 2023
While you are alive, you are the sole arbiter of your own life. You decide what to do, when to do it, how to do it and why you're doing it. You decide the desired outcome, the need for action and the way you'll react when you either achieve it or you don't. It was you all along and not admitting that, not taking responsibility for it and not believing any of this is true is also up to you and you alone. Thus, results may differ.
March 10, 2023
Met this guy who said his current girlfriend was ghosting her last boyfriend and he was worried she might do the same to him. He wondered if he should break up with her before she cuts off all communication and leaves him for a new guy. He said he loved her but had relationship angst and was just waiting for her to leave and never tell him. Relationship angst. What a way to characterize a love affair.
March 12, 2023
Overheard two girls at a hockey game.
-- So anyway, Julie comes up to me and says that Todd asked her out but she's not going to go because his breath stinks.
-- Yeah, but he's hot.
-- I know! All she has to do is give him some gum or Tic Tacs, but she says she doesn't want to kiss him.
-- She doesn't have to kiss him to mess around.
-- That's what I told her!
-- She's nuts, blowing off the hottest guy in school over some bad breath. That's just stupid.
-- Maybe you should ask him out?
-- Julie would go crazy.
-- All the more reason.
-- Is he playing tonight?
-- Yeah, he's number 12.
-- If he scores a goal, maybe I'll flash him my boobs.
-- He plays defence.
-- If he gets in a fight, maybe I'll flash him my boobs.
-- Julie would hate that.
-- I know. You got any gum?
March 13, 2023
I went to sign into a site I have accessed hundreds of times over the years and they told me my password had expired. Expired? I've never heard of such treachery. Then, when I went to change the password it locked me out of the account! Well I never...
March 14, 2023
So I have been in talks with a famous actor's production company to do an original screenplay for him. We've been at this for a couple of months and they keep dithering on the direction of the movie. By this point, my interest has waned. So, can I happily live the rest of my life if I don't write a movie for a famous actor who seems incapable of committing to something and has a bit of a reputation for it? Why yes, yes I can.
March 15, 2023
I was in a friend's barn helping him work on his tractor when the biggest rat I have ever seen ran from a pile of wood. I remarked on the enormous size of the animal. "That's Charlie", my friend laughed. "He's lived down here ever since my daughter brought him home from school. He was a lab rat in her biology class and when the course was over, they were going to kill Charlie but my daughter wouldn't have any of that. She took him and put him down here in the barn. She made a little house for him in the wood pile and she feeds him cheese. He's really very friendly." I smiled. Rats deserve love too.
March 16, 2023
My file cabinets are once again overflowing. It's probably time to purge the old paperwork but to do that I'd have to look at and read everything before throwing it out. Who wants to relive the past? Not me. It's way more modern to just buy new filing cabinets. That's so tidy, so 2023.
March 18, 2023
In Canada, is it true...
...that you have to bow to King Chucky before you say grace at a meal?
...that one must remove their shoes before boarding public transit?
...that health care is free but you have to pay for hospital parking?
...that Canadians don't know how to swim because the water is too cold?
...that Brussels sprouts are the most vile vegetable north of the 49th parallel?
...that 80% of Canadians have a 50% opinion of the US?
...that beavers are allowed onto public transport for free, with or without wood?
...that there is so much room up here everyone has 1,000 acres and a snowmobile?
The answers? Yes, to every single one.
March 19, 2023
Buddy's Blog was unique in that Buddy would go to restaurants and order the most unpopular dish on their menu. He would take a picture of it, eat it and then review it. It was his angle in a crowded world of food review blogs. He had 86 readers who suggested where he should eat next. The only problem was he ate some weird, gross, disgusting, nearly unpalatable things. It started to get to him. He started dreading restaurants, knowing he was getting the worst food they had to offer. Buddy was also going bald, but he didn't know if it was the stress of a job he was beginning to hate or the flamboyant cuttlefish he ate at Sammy's CuttleFish Cafe. His mother was worried about him and suggested that his gaslighting readers were evil, sending him to the worst places on purpose and perhaps he should quit Buddy's Blog. "But that's my angle, Ma!", Buddy shrieked. "Those 86 people depend on me!" before breaking down and crying real tears over his upcoming dinner at Jody Serves Bugs!
March 20, 2023
She went to a heavy metal concert and at 140 decibels her ears started bleeding. She told her boyfriend that she wanted to go home. He took a look, said it was just a trickle and she was being a namby pamby. Intimidated, she stayed for the entire 3 hour show. By the time she got home, she was completely deaf with a pair of ruptured eardrums. If she were Canadian she could have gotten free tympanoplasty surgery to repair her eardrums. But she was American, so she sued.
March 21, 2023
If someone tells you to do something, are you more or less inclined to do it?
March 22, 2023
I know this has happened before because it's all so familiar...
In a pile of backup CDs and DVDs were 5 ¼" floppy discs from 1984-1995 from my first computer, a Kaypro II. I still have that computer, so for fun I hooked it up again to see what was on the discs. Unfortunately, the whole CP/M operating system was run off a command line and I can't remember any of the command prompts. Even though I have the original manual that came with the computer, I'll be damned if I'm going to relearn a 39 year old operating system just to look at some curiosities. Still, I wonder what's on those discs...
March 23, 2023
His wife was an actress. She had never done a nude scene before but her latest role was such a part. She asked her husband if he could stand watching her have sex with another actor. The husband laughed and said all movie sex scenes were fake so it was no problem for him. But when his wife informed him that it wasn't going to be faked and that she was expected to have sex for real, what did he think about that.
Together they went to a marriage counselor to work this out.
-- Thank you both for coming in. How can I help you?
-- I'm an actress and a very famous, somewhat risqué director wants me in his latest movie.
-- Yeah, this pervert wants my wife to have penetrative sex with some actor-
-- This director only deals in realism and it could be a major coup for my career to work with him. But the role does require me to have real onscreen sex multiple times in the movie.
-- You're doing it more than once?! You never said that!
-- So you're saying that a part you have in this director's movie requires that you have real, not fake sex onscreen multiple times and your husband apparently does not much like it. Is that a fair summation?
-- I have my career to consider. This could be a breakthrough part for me.
-- Are you getting paid for this role?
-- I am. Union scale.
-- Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're being paid to have sex with a stranger.
-- It's a role!
-- Ma'am, you're whoring yourself out in the name of art, or your career, or whatever, while at the same poisoning your marriage.
-- Bam! Hit the nail on the head! My wife is a paid whore for some perverted director. Boy, you're good. Can you see why we're here?
-- This might take several sessions to work out.
-- I don't have time! The movie starts shooting next week.
-- You can't wait to fuck this guy can you?
-- Get off my back! And it's not just one guy! I screw multiple guys multiple times!
-- What?!
-- Ooh, like I said, this might take several sessions.
March 24, 2023
I was downtown and heard someone yell, "It's a trap!" I instantly became more alert. I started scanning the street and building tops just to make sure. On guard, I cautiously made my way up the block, but nothing happened. Huh, must have been a trap for someone else. Too bad 'cause I was ready.
March 25, 2023
If you're happy and you know it stamp your feet. That's all.
March 26, 2023
She didn't like her life. To compensate, she would get stoned and eat a lot. She gained a ton of weight. Then she didn't like her life even more. So she started drinking. She didn't like the taste of alcohol, but quickly got used to it. Then couldn't live without it. Then, when she was contemplating hard drugs to take the edge off, it happened. She met a guy who liked her for her. She didn't understand how that was possible. She was confused and flustered. Didn't believe him. Tested him. But when she was convinced that he was for real, she only wanted to give him the best version of herself. She took the red pill. She quit drinking, quit smoking, quit eating food as a compensate and found out in the end that truth and love are the best things that ever happened to her. Kel surprise!
March 27, 2023
I was thinking this morning how I miss all the dogs we've had. They all came at different points in our lives, each different chapters of an age gone by. Though I miss them individually, collectively, they are the purest experience I have ever had.
March 29, 2023
We went out of town yesterday. It was a super weird trip. To start off, filling the truck, the gas pump malfunctioned with my debit card still in it. It wouldn't release the card and it wouldn't pump gas. We were stuck at that gas station for 20 minutes while the attendant tried to figure out how to get my card released. On the road, we got short changed at Starbucks, nearly ran over an old man who stumbled off the sidewalk and into the street in front of our truck, and watched two dogs on the loose chase a bunch of kids into a ravine. At our destination, we witnessed a fender bender involving two men who both accused the other of causing the accident. Then got to watch them attack each other in a fist fight over it. While shopping, an alarm went off in the store and the front doors automatically closed and locked. The alarm kept ringing for a solid two minutes and while everyone was complaining about the noise, the doors unlocked and opened again. Nobody from the store explained anything. On the way home, watched a bald eagle land on an ice covered lake and stand there looking both perplexed and majestic. When we got home, there was a phone call from the gas station that mangled my debit card. The manager said he pulled it out with a pair of pliers and if I wanted all the pieces, he had them there. Hmm, maybe going out of town is, I dunno, overrated?
March 30, 2023
Some guy tried to buy the pants off me! I was downtown and stopped to look in the window of a vintage clothing store. This dude comes out, looks down at my faded Levi's and offers to buy them. I had no intention of selling the proverbial shirt off my back, but I did ask him how much. 25 bucks, he replied. Pshaw, I said, never having uttered that word out loud and wondering as I did whether it's a silent "p" or not. He shrugged his shoulders. We both stood there. Neither of us knew what the other meant. Now what?
March 31, 2023
Got an outrageous bill! Look at this thing! It has to be wrong. Has to be. There is no way it isn't. This is all messed up. This bill should not be this high. Cripes, look at this thing! No way. It's wrong and that's all there is to it. Mistakes have surely been made. No doubt heads will roll when I expose this. People might get fired. Families might split apart. I'm sorry but this is what happens when the bill is wrong. Someone has to pay.
