When life gives you lemons, use them as a weapon against haters.

HERE'S HOW:

Just cut a 1-inch incision through the rind of any lemon and stop halfway through the lemon's flesh. Mark that spot with a Sharpie. Place in your dominant arm's pant pocket. When you encounter a hater, pull out your lemon. Quickly find the Sharpie-mark. Point the mark within 12-inches (304mm) of hater's face. Squeeze the lemon as hard as you are angry. Then, drop the lemon and walk away. Start running. Pick-up speed gradually. Then, try to blend in with the crowd. Sometime later, wash your hands thoroughly to get rid of the lemony scent, as the K-9 unit or hater will be hunting you down. Prepare another lemon once you return home and your heartbeat has returned to 70bpm or below.

-Enjoy!

The sole is the part of your foot that takes the most damage.

The soul is the part of your body that takes the most damage.

And now that I'm thinking about it, the butt also takes a lot of damage.

Therefore, the soul must be both your ass and sole.

The thing about Grandma’s Coconut Pie is that she always bakes them in the wrong pie crust. I have told her many times that coconut pie is sweet enough ‘as is’ and does not need to be baked in a graham cracker crust. Yet, she does not listen. This has left us with a strained relationship and she has now cut me off from all of my college funds. Also, I am no longer in her will, and she has stopped offering me juice boxes at snacktime. So, my lesson to all you kids is very simple:

JUST LET GRANDMA BAKE WHATEVER THE HELL SHE WANTS.

We had been warned.

Mrs. Warton always said, "Don't Sound".

We all knew the rules.

But Tommy never listened.

He's the dumbest person in my class.

For a ten year old, he's pretty lame.

We should have known he'd do it.

Two hands in a single pant pocket was his tell.

But we watched him take his safety horn out anyway.

Damn all of us for letting him sound.

He had no idea.

No clue to the repercussions of his buffoonery.

But neither did we.

Now we're sure to die.

All of us.

It this pit of frightened children.

With no one left to save the day.

"Don't Sound" -our teacher had always said.

We should have listened harder.

If anyone could please tell me how to write in the English language, please leave me a comment. I am Lithuanian and have never left my country. I only speak the Baltic language, but my neighbors once had some family from Russia over to their house, and I heard them speaking, I do believe, what may have been the Russian language.

Anyway, I’d love to expand my horizons and leave Lithuania, then someday learn a new language. I have studied that English is a very popular thing in many places and maybe, one fair and magical day, I will be able to communicate in this popular English I have read much about.

I am fully aware that this whole post is moot, as there is no way that I can express myself to all of you people in this strange English. I only have a box of Lucky Charms to guide me. The cereal box washed up last night inside of a plastic bag on the shores of the sea. I read the entire nutritional panel many times, then extrapolated how to write what I am writing now. That is why there is no hope... No one could ever possibly understand this English trash that I try to write.

Atsisveikina!

- Danute Banyte

My new front door has never been used and never will be. When the soldiers came to our old houses to take us here that night, we were specifically told that our future would forever change. The few that resisted the soldiers' assistance on that miraculous night were probably destroyed, or just left behind to rot, yet I have no way to know because I was made deaf and bagged for safe transport here.

It was all explained to me in full detail, in a wonderfully worded essay, that came inside my ‘Welcome to The Safety Zone’ introductory packet. There were also some unforgettable cookies in that envelope, which I’ll never forget, because they were the first things that I had eaten in days. It proved to me right then and there that I would obey, and commit to memory, all two thousand twenty-eight Safety Zone Rules & Regulations listed on pages 3 thru 29.

Being newly deaf has taught me some valuable leasons. I am very grateful for the loss and fully understand why the soldiers had taken my hearing. Reading about all of those horrible and tortuous ways that Interlopers who still had ‘the hearing’ were savagely beaten and killed made it quite clear.

Rule 625.7 has always fascinated me. That is the rule about opening my front door. Rule 625.7 forbids me to do as such, which is funny to me, as I am deaf and wouldn’t even hear if an Interloper came knocking on my door. Plus, who would come here knocking? Had they evaded the devilish hell mammals and fire moths on their way to my inner cube? I think not! On this point, I am most certain: My cube is for me and me alone. All Interlopers will kill me. Kingship MacMaster made that quite clear on the final page of the packet.

Anyway, the food here is really good. It shows up three times a day in my platter-box nesting upon the center of my cube. There is no need for anything more than that. The rest of my time is reserved for MacMaster’s Worship Poems, my favorite poem of all time being his rather cheeky “Bow Before Me, It’s Terrific Exercise”.

---- Now, before I continue reading my daily poems, I must confess to you at this time, that I may not have fully satisfied today’s bedtime challenge question. I do hope High Bishop Mnezz will forgive me, but I know that this is your test, and my reply will be quite simple and concise:

OF COURSE, YOUR HONORABLE HIGH BISHOP MNEZZ:

I will never, ever, ever, open my front door to any Interloper. Promise!

The Sandborgs knew their way about the city. They knew their way all around Nashville far too well. Ever since my parents died during The Great Scorching at Stuxnet 2020 this past August, while fighting the skillful and enigmatic Stragonian Skin Renders, I had felt an increasing ache in the pit of my belly to affect a meaningful and everlasting change.

But was I brave enough to make the first move?

The Sandborgs currently had us trapped and recoiling in a putrid fear. Tilwin, my government appointed Rally God, is now shivering in the blackness of the sub-basement. We find ourselves huddled in the far corner of the Grand Ole Opry's boiler room. This once great music hall had once been filled with the joyous sounds of country, and vaudeville, and scratchy AM radio voices... Now, after 'The Miz' raided our capital and launched 'The Offensive', America was no longer great. Our President had been so wrong. Again.

Tilwin, my Rally God, was built by Amazon to offer me meals and companionship. But he now seems more scared than I am fearful. My name is Renaissance. I was born in a hospital in Tucson, and my parents had called me Edward, but that name no longer seems to fit. The situation has changed. And so has my name. For better or worse, I'm Renaissance dammit.

The interesting thing that you all should know is that when your name changes, you change too. You become your new chosen name. And now that I have shared my name with all of you readers, I must begin my Swelling. In addition, since we now are in the near future, free of all earthen encumbrances, I must now morph and begin my incantations.

"Elderberry. Grace. Die Hard. Luke. Father. Verbal Kent. Vuldarmort. Vanderwaal."

I HAVE BECOME ALEVED. 100% ALEVEN.

DEVOID OF NARY ACHES NOR PAINS.

IMMORTAL. NON BINARY. I AM A GOD.

I summon to Tilwin to begin our surge. He is no longer scared. He is engorged with 'The Fightings'. We review our rules. Our first rule is to never to speak of 'The Fightings'. We had failed this part, because I have just mentioned 'The Fightings'- but our spirits and our will have remained relatively strong. We now set out sights on The Sandborgs. There are many. They are predictably acting all Loco Diablo-Like.

We make our move.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* excerpt extracted from James Patterson's unpublished future thought-experiment "Tilwin & The Sandborgian Beasts Went Dancing in Nether"

Let me explain this thing. It just makes no friggan sense.

So, I went to Venice in 2012 and the gondola-dude calls my wallet a portafoglio when I go to pay him. So, I start yelling at him you know, telling him he’s kinda freaky looking and not at all as handsome as Giorgio Armani. So then dude, I take out my wallet and start shouting, “Wallet, Jackass. It’s called a WAL-LET, Numbnutz.” He shouts back, “Portafoglio!” and calls me something like a dumb American, which I most likely am, but hate the confirmation. So, I pushed him in that damn canal.

After the authorities were done with me, they escorted me to the Spanish border, which I must say was kinda cool of them, you know. I was hungry from the five hour interrogation and needed some grub in my gut. So, I go up to this lady with a pushcart full of ice cream or some frozen orange-tinted shit, take out my wallet, and wave it around yelling, “How much you want, lady?” Sure, I was like super loud, but I was double-effin hangry, dude! So, get this.... I give her my wallet, just so she can grab some of my pesos or whatever I’ve got in there..... But, while she’s digging for my cash, I decide to test her, because I won’t eat anything frozen from a person who doesn’t know what a wallet is. So I say to her, “What do you call this thing, ice cream lady?” And get this, she says, like really slowly, like I’m a total moron: “CARTERA”.... I mean, What? What the hell is up with everyone in Europe? Has the world gone mad? So, I start running with her cart down the narrow street, you know, which has a whole bunch of people buying fruit and crap--- but when I stop to yell at these people, they all decide to call them CARTERAS when I point at my wallet... So, dude, I got up in all their sad faces, then berated each and every one of those freakin Spanish fruit buyers, and endlessly chastised them for their intolerable stupidity.

Anyway, just before the police got there, I ditched that ice cream cart in an alleyway so I could eat it later. But, sadly dude, it never happened. Those bastard police with the funny-looking hats put me on a plane later that night back home to Topeka, which really sucked... Because I hate Kansas... But at least they know what a damn wallet is!