Medically speaking

So anyway I had to create clients on my computer system to test insurance docutmentation on. I had to create someone to be my fuel-injected guinea pig. Ideally a family orientated person who’s going to have to be a multimillionaire to afford all the cover and brokerage fees they’re going to get whether ornot they want it.

So I reach into non-existence like a small, nice smelling god, and I pull forth my principle client.

She is a female. As she’s often are. (Originally she was going to be a man but I only had a female ID number so her parents were rather confused at the sudden sex change. It’s never easy on the folks.)

* Her name is Macaroni cheese. ( Her parents were hippies and all the weed and crystal meths had insured whatever name she got would be a lame one. It caused her a lot of trouble in high school but luckily she made the cheerleading team and there was a guy named Eustace to take some of the heat as well, I mean what do parents think naming their kids? Or small computer godlings either for that matter?)

* She is a butcher (Originally she was to be a stewardess but the optionsfor work descriptions were long and windy and I didn’t feel like scrolling all the way to S. Butcher she is.)

* and earns R20 000 a month. (Which gives me the uncomfortable feeling that she might dabble in some nepherious things that only butchers with the right dismembering and mincing equipment could be in!)

* She is married to Vegan Cheese who has is chronically lactose intolerant. (They tried to hide this on medical reports to keep the insurance down, but I’m good at my job and they eventually relented and gave a full medical report. At least I didn't mention his unfortunate rash...)

* Vegan is a rabbi. (very devout and his only regret is rabbi’s don’t have choir boys.)

* He moonlights as a Mortitian. (He currently get’s no earnings for it, it’s really more of a hobby)

* He earns R5000 a month (With his wife earning so much more,we suspect he might be a henpecked husband. We asked him but he had to go get his wife’s permission to answer first and then just never came back)

* They have two twins, a boy (Gouda Cheese – a red haired rambunctious kid. Which is odd as neither of his parents have red hair. The post man does though…) and girl (Bree cheese – dark hair and the spitting image of her mother in that she too likes sharp weapons and dead things.)

* Both kids will, for insurance purposes, have to come down with many weird and costly diseases. Which to cripple? Which to blind? The world of insurance can be a cruel one!

* They live in a four room house. (It’s in a good part of town. You have to have money to live there. After all the insurance policies they’re getting, they will have to move.)

* They have a pet dog. (He’s so cute I’ve decided not to give him rabies)

* They have two cars. (There used to be a third but an unfortunate accident involving alcohol, speeding and a mime scrapped that car and upped their premiums.)

* The first car is a porche. (This is owned by our dubious butcher principle client Macaroni – she likes the feeling of the wind in her hair and bugs in her teeth. Her husband borrowed it once and made a show of driving around all the churches in the area in a way that could be only described as 'mockingly'.)

* The second car is a hearse. (Because the porche is too small, the kids have to ride in the hearse at the back. They like to lie down and stretch their arms up to the windows, making clawing motions and watching other cars swerve suddenly away from them. Sometimes there is a body in there as well but Vegan tried not to bring his work home.)

* The family is very healthy. This is a momentary thing)

* The Cheese family is well off, they are content and life is rosy.

Now they will be truly tested! Medical insurance after insurance policy will be created. What family secrets will be relieved? Will they learn that Macaroni still smokes on the sly? How Vegan cheese got that nasty STD at Rabbi camp? How the kids are such liabilities that Macaroni and Vegan invest in a large chain saw – just in case?

Will the family survive these tests and turmoil? Will they be able to hold together or will they fall apart, as each medical insurance taken out reviles more uncomfortable, and frankly rather unbelievable, truths?

But now I must go off and do my testing. Work work work! And since that’s part of my job and therefore, quite confidential, you'll just have to spend the rest of your life wondering. Kind of like the Cheese family is going to be doing!

Pineapple blues

So anyway, it started as a day like any other day, the sun came up, the day dawned and velociraptors chirped from the treetops.

I was at my work station, a half smoked cigarette dangling from my lips (which, since I don’t smoke, was vaguely disturbing).

I was tapping away at my keyboard. Then I turned the machine on and it worked even better.

I was tired. I’d worked hard at doing nothing and felt I deserved a little something as a reward. After stealing my boss’s paperweight I decided even that wasn’t enough and that a delicious pineapple would go down just right. Especially if I cut it up first, not like last time.

I went upstairs to the cafeteria. Then I remembered it was downstairs.

The cafeteria was amazing. It served everything, even fish. The ones in the aquarium were always happy with the attention. Today’s special was advertized as bean soup. The smell coming from the bathrooms I went by confirmed it was.

I walk into the cafeteria. After rubbing my nose, I decide it would be easier to go through the door.

I start loading my plate up with goodies, mostly wallets and watches and anything else I can pry off people when they’re not looking.

I got to the serving counter and with a smooth and graceful demur asked, “WHERE THE HELL ARE YOUR FREAKING PINEAPPLES?!?!?!”

The lady responded in an odd voice, probably caused by my choke hold, “We only had one and that gentleman there has it!”

I turned to see a man sitting in the middle of the room, a knife (Not as big as my pocket machete but still pretty mean looking) pointed at the side of a pineapple that he was holding, gibbering wildly to himself like I do when the voices start up.

He was going on something about being stalked by an ex lover, how he couldn’t take it, how life was cruel and something else or other, I was too busy focusing on the pineapple. People go through hell all the time but a perfect pineapple is hard to find.

And it was a perfect pineapple, just the right shade of orangy-yellow, with firm flesh and a magnificent leafy green top spattered just lightly with the blood of whomever the mad man had wrenched the fruit from.

It was beautiful!

I had to have it!

I looked at the pain in the man’s eyes. His life was obviously completely off the rails, the obsessed ex had driven him utterly crazy.

He didn’t deserve that pineapple, he’d probably not even taste it as it went down.

I had to act!

I slid up to his table, mostly because I didn’t see that banana peel.

He was telling his friends about his woes. The fact that they were all invisible didn’t faze him.

I sat down opposite him. The spittle spray made me move another seat over.

“Sounds like you’re suffering my friend” I said, reaching out a comforting arm to the pineapple.

The man looked at me through blood shot eyes. He then put the eyes down and looked at me normally.

“Yeah” he said descriptively.

“I can’t believe she did that to you, man” I said sympathetically, “I never knew she was capable of it!”

“I know!” he yelled, “she won’t leave me be! I can’t get on with my life! I just want to move on, go to Alaska, go dive and slaughter seals and make bibs for toddlers, but how can I with her dogging my steps all the time?!”

He then launched into his whole life story.

Longest 2 minutes of my life.

“Thanks for listening mate” he said.

I notice his death grip on my pineapple lessening. “Maybe that’s all I needed to do, was talk about it a bit? Maybe, maybe it’s not so bad…”

“She sent you that pineapple” I said.

The man looked at it in horror!

That’s no way to look at a prime pine!

“She planted it in the cafeteria; she knew you’d want it.”

Now an ordinary guy wouldn’t fall for that but that’s why I like crazy people, they’re malleable, when they don’t bite.

The man grabbed the pineapple and made as if to hurl it from him!

“NO!” I yelled, “That’s what she wants you to do!!”

“It is?!” he asked, but then a look of suspicion snarled up his face and made me feel slightly offended that he didn’t trust my lies.

“How would she know? I could toss this fruit and she’d never know! She’d never find out!”

“Ah my friend I said” shaking my head sadly (poor pineapple), “She would know! It’s HER man! HER!! You know she’d know and she’d not let you ever not know how she knew after you did, you know that!”

“My god” he whimpered, “That makes sense…”

He slumped slowly into his seat, his fingers loosening slowly from the fine fruit. If he’d bruised it…

“Life is so hard! I can’t take it! Perhaps I should just end it? If only someone would show me some kindness, maybe things wouldn’t be so….”

I didn’t hear the rest as I yoinked the pineapple from his loose grasp, vaulted over the table, then back over again as it hadn’t been necessary, and ran out the cafeteria doors laughing all the way! SCORE!!!!

But don’t worry our story has a happy ending. The pineapple was delicious!!

Oh, and what happened to the man with the problems you ask?

Don’t worry, I didn’t give him even a small taste!

THE END

Have faith

So anyway there were these two Religious fanatics who were canvasing the area for people who couldn't run as fast as they could and disabled kids and trees and anything that would pay them the attention they craved.

So they went to this one little cottage and knocked on the door and scoped out the resident's mail while they waited in case there was anything nice they could borrow.

The door was opened by a sweet faced young woman and her fit and healthy husband. (If his insurance and gym membership were anything to go by).

The female fanatic quickly put her foot between the door and the wall to keep it open. She wore reinforced boots, not just because they made her look extra pious and holy and therefor earned her bonus points but also because of the many times her foot had been nearly crushed to a pulp in people's frantic attempts to get away from her Divine Message.

But the young lady did not panic, did not chase them away swearing or using the Devils logic to drive them back. After making sure no large dogs or cocked weapons were in the area, the Religion nutters were cautiously optimistic.

They went inside and sat on the sofa. It was a nice one. Very comfortable. They hated it at once.

"Do you know our Lord and Saviour?" the male one asked, waving aside offered biscuits, all hyped and ready to get his sales pitch on.

"We do go to services" replied the young lady, feeling a little put out and glad she'd not used the good biscuits.

"Ah but do you LOVE HIM?!!" foamed the male fanatic, "Would you DIE for HIM?!!"

"I would" replied the husband, calmly.

He then removed a pistol from his shirt and shot himself pointblank in the head.

"He's a man of conviction" said his pretty, brain splattered bride.

The Religious loons sat there with their mouths open. Partly because of shock and partly because they had bits of the now ex husband in their mouths and swallowing wasn't really optional.

"He had strong faith", smiled the wife. "And I wonder", she said as she picked up the now rather sticky pistol and aimed it at her new friends, "how strong, is yours?"

Kentucky Brain Fried

So anyway there was this woman who one day started growing feathers and a beak and wings and two large, well larger she’d never had petite feet to start with, clawed feet and turned into a large chicken.

Now her husband wasn’t chicken himself, in any form or function, but this was rather odd. It doesn’t happen every day like taxes and the mail and alien abductions and it had quiet ruffled his feathers!

But he had married her for better or worse and though he did suspect fowl play there wasn’t really much he could do about it. Besides he liked the fact that he now had quite the tale to tell! Stories about men whose wives became chickens were as rare as hen’s teeth! He decided he might even invite the neighbours over for a bit of a hen party!

So he built her a nice cage outside and chased the large chicken ex-woman, but not ex-wife, into it! She did manage to stab him with her beak a few times and he realized that he would probably spend the rest of his life as a hen-pecked husband. But he had a lot of pluck and a lot of pride, and with a cocky smile he informed the world that he’d do right by his avian wife!

Though when she started laying eggs, boy was he eggstatic! His eggstacy was through the roof! The eggs were large and would sell for eggxactly 5 times what an ordinary egg would!! He fed her top quality grain and kept egging her on to lay more! This would help him build up quiet the financial nest egg and mean he wouldn’t have to scratch a living anymore, relying on pay that was hardly chicken feed! When ever he thought of this it just made him crow with delight!

Having a large hen in the house felt very satisfying, almost as much as if he’d had a large cock!

In the end the husband was most happy with this arrangement, and they both lived happily ever after, she eating grain and laying eggs, and him reaping the benefits of having married the right chick!



JR Hudson

Pudding it in

So anyway there was this Scientist guy who decided that he just had to know if people would sink or swim in a pool of raspberry jello. He simply could not exist another day, or enjoy another jello and ice cream, till he knew the answer!

First he had to get finance. He went to many banks but they all laughed at him. He had bad hair, it was rather cruel. And then they’d hear his proposition and laugh all over again.

Luckily he was smart and with the last bank, instead of saying it was for home amusement and the continued education of mankind, informed the bank it was a government operation that could see the institution saving as much as 40% on staff lunches and custards. The grant was signed and delivered on the same day.

The next thing he needed was a computer big enough to do the massive calculations that would go into all research involving things like black holes and puddings. Luckily he was in the same sewing bee as Stephen Hawkings and so he managed to swop some up todate research on howler monkeys and a number five sewing pin WITH scarlet thread (the soft velvety kind, but he was a desperate man), for the plans to a mega computer that he managed to build in a few weeks worth of montages.

Finally the day came. Which it usually does after the night.

He placed all his theories into the machine, including sizes, area, flavourants, colourants and speculations on whether or not metro-sexual men will ever have respect, and then…. After hours of churning he managed to make perfect home made butter! Then he left the butter and went to get the results of the equations!

To his question – could a man swim in a pool full of raspberry jelly the answer was…. “YES!”

He was delighted! He jumped for joy, pirouetted in pleasure, did a river dance of revelry and was about to get his clogs on when he decided! Well why don’t I try it?

Racing off to the store he grabbed a basket, then went back and grabbed a trolley, and went to buy every raspberry jelly on the shelves! He must have gone to about 200 shopping malls! Which was about a third of all the ones in his area!!

Next stop the school! It was a Friday and he figured he’d have the whole weekend for work! (Excluding time for his series). They alone had a pool big enough! He belly crawled inside, over shrapnel and glass and other things he could have easily avoided and which was rather unnecessary as the building was open and deserted. And besides it’s hard to be stealthy with 8 000 packets of jello strapped to your back.

He ran to the pool water and placed his Giant-Mega-Ultra egg beater (that he kept for making Giant-Mega-Ultra omelets) into the water and turned it on. It churned the water like he had churned the butter before. It made him want a scone. But no time! He had to add the jello!

Packet after packet was torn open and tossed into the water! He tore packets open till his fingers bled. Then tore them with his teeth until his gums bled! Then remembered he had scissors in the car and the bleeding stopped.

Packet after packet went into the water until there were no more packets left to add! He had to wait rather a long time for the jello to set but he’d brought his game machine, quilting and a few issues of playboy (he read it for the articles) so time passed slowly and painfully.

But eventually the pool had set into a brilliant ruby coloured jewel that smelt so strongly of raspberry flavouring that it almost hid the smell of the professor’s unwashed body! It was Sunday evening, time was running out, the world was waiting!

Our hero stripped off his lab coat, revealing a small, once-yellow g-string speedo that was slightly more brown then yellow owing to the fact he’d been wearing it rather a long time and the loo paper had run out Saturday morning.

He stood on the edge of the pool. Remembered his machine’s calculations. And dived in.

His body was discovered Monday morning by the boy’s synchronized swimming and bake sale group. It was obvious he’d sunk straight down and attempted to eat his way back up, but his slight, stay-indoors-get-no-real-exercise-frame had been overwhelmed by the pungent dessert!

Amongst the onlookers was Stephen Hawkings who just happened to be in the neighbourhood and keen on a few brownies from the bake sale. Shaking his head, he pointed to a flaw in the Scientist’s research. “He forgot to carry the one” he said sadly, and every math teacher in the area understood instantly and wiped a glistening tear from their eye.

Hawkings punched in the correct data and instead of the “YES!” That had first come out of the machine, the answer changed to “NO! DON’T DO IT! YOU’LL DIE! I LOVE YOU!” which is pretty much what happens most in these circumstances.

The Scientist’s body was carefully cut out of the jello and the rest was surreptitiously siphoned away to be used in the schools lunch program since it was hardly the only thing fed to the students with human corpse in it.

Some say the riddle still stands today. Some say Hawkings tried the experiment himself and had varying success with lime and pineapple jellies. But I think you and I know, that some things, some things are better left a mystery.




JR Hudson

The man in the hole

So anyway there was this guy and he was walking along, minding his own business and looking up at the sky and thinking how the clouds looked like “Attack of The Killer Cauliflower”, when suddenly he fell into a hole in the sidewalk, right up to his waist!

Squiggle and squirm though he did he just couldn’t pull himself out. A crowd gathered and a man from the City Bureau of Large Ominous Holes came forth. He said that there would be no way to pull the man out without damaging the integrity of the hole, causing a chain reaction and destroying earth and life as we know it.

The man in the hole, having suspected this might happen to him, this wasn’t the first time in his family, decided there was no need to make a fuss and to live life on as usual.

He had his wife sell the house, which surprisingly she did, and set up a tent next to him so that he could see her and his son. He had his office work brought straight to the hole and never missed a deadline.

Sadly of course his life didn’t always go smoothly. He argued with his wife who said she felt they weren’t as intimate as before, at which point he did kind of point to the hole. His son was also annoyed because his dad never came to his concerts or went and played ball with him. Again the father pointed to the hole. His family felt he used that excuse for everything and one day they up and left. This wasn’t so bad, and he soon forgot their faces. (Though he remembered their shins and ankles for a lot longer but those memories also eventually faded.)

He worked a lot but never forgot to sit back, figuratively speaking, and enjoy life. In winter he had a small shelter put over him and, except for one bad fire caused by his heater and him having no where to run, it was a warm and toasty place to be. In summer a nice umbrella did him well against the sun and occasional downpours, though mud leaking into his nethers did lead to some discomfort and the danger of flash floods was never far from his mind.

Eventually he met Julie, the librarian from across the road who didn’t mind that he was half the man he used to be. She set up her own tent next to him, his wife having gotten the other one in the divorce. (He could have protested but never showed up at court.)

The couple didn’t have any children but that wasn’t a surprise, they just felt they weren’t able to be parents.

He worked very hard and sometimes Julie would complain of his late nights. But not too often since they weren’t that much different from his early ones.

Eventually He retired and the couple decided to see the world. So Julie bought him an atlas and DVD entitled “The world in photos” for his 60th birthday.

Julie had a bad hip but he never had any problems with his legs.

Eventually one day, the man woke up dead and all his friends and family, namely Julie, a few passers by and the rat that had started nibbling on his face at night, gathered around as the work men sort of stuffed the last of him down the hole and covered him up with good quality cement, the way they knew he wanted to go.

Some people say they can still hear the sound of a man yelling, “Get your dog off of my face!” to this very day!




JR Hudson