Horrors!
Dennis Hopper- Speed: “If the bus goes below 50 mph, it blows up.”
Murray Burns- Reedsy: “If you stop reading this, it blows up in your face.”
Or… pick three of the following terrible events that will befall you should you choose to stop reading. They’re broken down into categories to make it easier for you. If you don’t get far enough to make an informed decision, three random selections will be made for you. Make your selection below with an X:
_____ Have this blow up in my face. _____Send three of the following my way.
Political/Government
-Be forced to attend 2 Trump rallies.
-Spend an evening in a bar exchanging funny stories with Joe Biden about growing up in Scranton, PA.
-Have Thanksgiving Dinner at your inlaws who are passionately on the other end of the political spectrum.
-Reside in a swing state and be subjected to incessant, nauseating, repeat campaign ads on TV and in your mailbox.
-Be required to come up with honest campaign ads for a political party.
- Settle into a patronage job in the Federal or a State bureaucracy and spend 8 hours a day in a cramped cubicle shuffling meaningless paperwork around.
- The IRS audits you 5 years in a row.
TV
-Be tied to a chair, have your eyelids propped open with toothpicks, and be forced to watch a Brady Bunch marathon.
- Host a “Keeping Up With the Kardashians “ watch party.
--Lose your remote in a sofa seat cushion never to be found.
-Your Cable TV package includes only CNN and Fox News.
- Your satellite dish goes on the fritz with 5 minutes to go in a 3 hour movie.
-The Network cuts off the end of the big game to show Shirley Temple’s “Heidi” movie in a repeat of the 1968 NBC broadcast of the American Football League Championship game between the New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders.
-Your small children mimic the antics of The Three Stooges.
-Your teenage sons mimic the antics of Beavis and Butthead.
-Land the role of a bad guy who goes up against The Rifleman.
- Your carrier doesn’t offer the Big Ten package.
-Cohost a year of programming with Mother Mary Angelica of the Annunciation of the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration on the Mother Angelica Live TV show.
-The only thing on TV is the Oscars.
The Movies
-Your teenage daughters look at the girls in Beach Blanket Bingo as role models.
-Land the role of Rocky’s opponent in Rocky XXVII.
-Land the role of a nighttime swimmer in the opening Jaws 18.
- You’ll pay $95.00 to get the family into the theater and buy snacks, and then a 6’8’’ guy wearing a 10-gallon cowboy hat sits down in front of you.
- Who wins the Oscars matters to you.
-You recorded all your favorite movies on Betamax.
-You undergo mind-altering therapy and rank Conan the Barbarian and Howard the Duck above Citizen Kane.
Literature
-Your date thinks Robert Burns is “Cookie” Burns’ brother.
-You find yourself rooting for Javert, Captain Bligh, and Moriarty.
- The CliffsNotes rack at the bookstore is out of War and Peace the day before your high school senior English paper is due.
- Your husband thinks William Shakespeare founded the popular fishing rod and reel company.
- Your husband thinks Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye is a book about the famous wry-witted Yankees catcher, Yogi Berra.
Biblical
- You will suffer the losses and afflictions of Job.
- The ten plagues of Egypt will be visited upon your household.
- You will make Lot’s wife look like condiments for a low-sodium diet.
- Catch the flood without an ark.
- Take a Goliath shot to the head.
-Spend 40 days and 40 nights wandering in a desert.
-Survive on a diet of water and manna for 40 years.
Sports
-Relive daily the agony of 1st baseman Bill Buckner for booting the ground ball that cost the Boston Red Sox Game 6 of the 1986 World Series.
-Become a look-a-like for Steve Bartman who interfered with a foul ball and cost the Chicago Cubs Game 6 of the 2003 World Series and then walk the streets of Chicago at bar closing time.
-Suffer the humiliating beatdown of Roberto “No Mas” Duran at the hands of Sugar Ray Leonard.
-Experience a “Wardrobe Malfunction” while performing at halftime of a Superbowl.
-Take the job of Coach of the Washington Wizards who compiled a disappointing record of 1 win against 17,126 losses against the Harlem Globetrotters.
-Take on Serena Williams in a tennis match.
- Wake up one morning and you’re a Cubs fan.
-Watch a soccer game if your kid’s not in it.
Music
-Loop “I’m Henery the 8th I Am” by Herman’s Hermits and listen to it 8 hours a day for a month.
-Attend the three-hour district-wide elementary school band concert.
-Wage a year-long battle with your 6th Grader over taking Saxophone lessons.
-The only thing your teenage daughter wants for her birthday is $850.00 tickets for a Taylor Swift concert.
-Loud rap music blasts out of your son’s bedroom morning, noon, and night.
- You have a near-death experience when you turn your car on in the morning and the radio volume is set to the max because your kid borrowed your car the night before.
Food
-Your wife will count your calories at every meal.
-Your health-fanatic teenage daughter reads the labels on every item you purchase at the grocery store.
- Your health-fantic teenage daughter won’t let you buy the Little Debbie Snack Cakes.
-Open the freezer just before bedtime and discover you’re out of ice cream.
-As a college student, you realize you only have enough money for food or beer.
-Your neighbor who hosts the neighborhood Superbowl party every year substitutes sushi for shrimp.
- Your spouse eats the last piece of cake.
Celebrity
-Paris Hilton joins your book club.
-You accidentally order a three-year subscription to People Magazine instead of Sports Illustrated.
-TV personalities will become political leaders in your lifetime.
-Your wife plasters the bedroom walls with Justin Bieber posters.
-Obsess about the fact the Kardashians all make more money than you do.
Miscellaneous
- Hike through the Sierras and take a shortcut with a guy named Donner.
-Put your life savings into a company reintroducing the Nash Rambler.
- Your toilet clogs up during the year of the Great Plumbers Strike.
- Get your car washed an hour before it rains.
- Your next-door neighbor brings home a pack of barking dogs.
-Your husband undergoes a mid-life crisis and wakes up one morning and tells you he’s Batman.
If you read this, you’ve been spared. Good job.
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8 comments
Very entertaining, especially the political stuff. One thing, you forgot a holliday category. You can't include everything!
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You're right. I always said Thanksgiving at my inlaws was why God invented football on TV.
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For some reason I once had a poster that said ‘Rambler, turns on a dime!’ Implying it was more versatile than the VW bug, even though it was nearly 16 ft long. Not sure why I had that. In any case, it would be a solid investment. The rest of these are appropriately horrifying. Nice job.
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I'm so far out of the loop I missed most of them. (don't have a tv, haven't seen a movie in ages, no in-laws, no kids, listen to jazz) Will the world blow up, or will I? :-)
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Holy cats! Your life sounds more boring than mine... or at least it's a tie. I do have a TV but I never get to pick a channel I want to watch (grandkids). Don't feel out of the loop. Some of my allusions are pretty far out there... especially the ones related to sports. I have a penchant for remembering stuff of little or no import. Thanks.
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Hah! And here I thought my life was peaceful. Come to think on it, so are the dead. LOL
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Scared over and over again.😅
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HA !!! Lovely one, Murray ! Certainly, a creative take on the prompt !
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