Sunday, March 29, 2015

Rat Poison

It's been a while since I last posted. But if anything could motivate me to write, a new laptop/tablet will do the job. I swear, one of the days my wife is gonna come home from work, and find me watching a tv show on our Wii, watching a movie on the laptop, and playing games on my phone. #TechnologyOverload

This post is kind of a cop out, but something is better than nothing. I wrote this short story several years ago, and found it today on an old zip drive. It's not very good, but it's at least good for a quick laugh. Just an FYI, Jason Vaughan is one of the pen names I use.


RAT POISON

By Jason Vaughan

 

            The box sat there, from across the garage, taunting me. I tried to ignore it, tried to forget about it, but in my mind’s eye I knew those two words would be forever etched in my brain. RAT POISON.

            How could I have been living in this house for six months and never realized what a hostile environment I had walked into?  Taking another drag from my half burned cigarette, my eyes quickly scanned the room. Cigarette butts. Leaves. Oil stains. But no sign of rats. Had the situation already been resolved?  Or was the war still raging?

            Silently I thought of the many nights I had spent slumbering in the bedroom downstairs. All those nights I had heard the house talking to me. Countless times I had rolled over in my bed hearing the walls creak and the foundation shift. Was that merely the normal sounds of a house in winter or were the rats infiltrating the walls, taking stock of all our positions, waiting for their chance to attack?

            I should make a quick sweep of the house. Check the bathroom cabinets and the kitchen. Every nook and cranny should be evaluated for weaknesses before I could rest in the knowledge that me and my housemates were safe. What about the other bedrooms? There are a million places for rodentia to hide in the stacks of clothing the resided my housemates floor. How could they sleep knowing that in every abandoned pair of pants a filthy, beadied-eyed little monster could be hiding in a pocket?

            Quickly I worked out a game plan. Obviously, my first step should be in arming myself. My eyes swept over the garage looking for a weapon. A hammer.  No, a hammer would be too short. The little devils would be on my before I could defend myself. A shovel. Perhaps, but could I wield a shovel with speed and and precision? A broom. It would have to do.

            I thought about what I would do if they were to attack. Just like a golf club, I would smack the disgusting creatures into the next time zone as they scurried across the floor. Maybe they’d be slowed by the leaves and oil slicks in the garage, but that was not a bet I was willing to make. If they got inside range of my trusty broom I would have to switch to hand-to-hand combat. Foot-to-hand combat. Foot-to-paw combat? How do you refer to rodent appendages? No matter. I could boot them just as easily as I could sweep them. Their small, mushy bodies compressing on the toe of my slipper…

            Slipper??!! What was I thinking. I quickly mashed out my cigarette and stepped inside to put on more appropriate shoes for combat. Taking one last look at the garage I knew that my cigarette breaks were at an end. At least until I could be sure that the rat situation had been completely eliminated.

Monday, March 2, 2015

Leonard Nimoy

Normally, I don't give a rat's ass about any celebrity passing away. It seems like every other day a 'celebrity' dies, and most of the time I've never even heard of them. I guess my age is showing. But, the death of Leonard Nimoy is different. 


I'm a tv junkie. I watch everything, and then I rewatch everything. Even when I was little I was addicted to television. But my first two fandoms were Star Wars, and Star Trek. In high school I remember coming home from basketball practice, late for dinner, and watching Star Trek The Next Generation, every single day. It was our family routine. 

Once, my dad even ditched school with me so we could go see the Friday afternoon matinee of the most recent Star Trek movie. 

So, believe me when I say, if you've never known a Trekkie, you know one now. Ask my wife. When she's annoyed with me she typically says go watch Star Trek, just to get me out of her hair.


He had a full career, covering every genre of television and film. I haven't seen all of it. To me, he will always be Spock. If I knew how to make a video montage I'd post it right here. But I don't. So check out  this article by Entertainment Weekly. They know how to do that stuff. 






We as millennials lost a truly gifted entertainer. I already miss him. But he's really only gone if we forget about him. So queue up your Netflix and Hulu accounts and watch him. Who knows? Maybe we can send him to the Genesis planet and he'll be reborn, or we can warp around the sun, go back in time, and bring him back. 

Doubtfully, but hopefully, 

-J