I once joined a UFO cult.
My initiation was, surprisingly, very brief
***
I signed some papers,
was fitted for a robe,
the leader said a few words,
and then I was immediately handed
a small dixie-cup of poison.
***
Of course, I was quite aghast.
I was like, hold on, one minute, folks,
I thought we built towards this.
.
“Taughannock Falls”
by Mary Cellini
©2020
I dreamt that I was an astronaut
on the moon.
***
There I was, in my moon-suit,
searching for moon-rocks,
when what did I find,
stuck on the bottom of my space-boot,
but the most curious thing
I had ever seen on the moon,
a pirate treasure map!
***
Buried treasure on the moon?
Was I dreaming?
I asked Mission Control to pinch me, just in case,
but they said my suit was not equipped
for remote pinches.
***
Too bad, I thought.
But, no matter, anyway,
because my life as an inter-stellar explorer of new worlds was about to get
a whole lot less boring.
***
Imagine, only 48 hours earlier,
I had landed on the moon,
without a dime in my pocket,
and, now, by an incredible twist of fate,
I would return to earth,
with enough treasure for a million dimes
and a million pockets.
***
But it was not without resistance, as
NASA urgently pleaded for me
to ‘get my head on straight’ and
return to earth immediately,
or risk being stranded on the moon
forever!
***
Return to earth without my moon-treasure?
Unlikely!
There was treasure to be found!
***
But where?
***
Three weeks to the moon-day, later,
I was no closer to finding the treasure
than I had been at the start.
But it was then
I noticed something …
***
Printed on the flip side of the treasure map,
was the second
most curious thing
I had ever seen on the moon:
a children’s lunch menu!
***
Suddenly, all the pieces began to fall into place:
the crossword puzzle,
the find-a-word,
Captain Hardee’s ™ suggestion
I ask my parents for
permission to use crayons.
***
“Good Lord”, I said to myself.
‘Choke’
“This is a children’s placemat!
***
Oh, woe is my tale, dear readers.
What had I done?!”
My hunt for moon-treasure was over.
My spirit crushed.
I was tired, deflated, stranded
and hungry.
***
And it was right about then, an order
of Captain Hardee’s ™ chicken fingers
was starting to sound pretty good
***
I grabbed the placement
and put it in my top space-pocket.
“NASA, I think I will staying a little bit longer”, I said, confidently,
into a dead mic.
There was a Hardee’s to be found!
***
But where?
our first adventure outside since March
It was in late-August,
the day my sister and I
returned home from summer camp
and our old dog Pepper was not
at the door to greet us.
***
Our father sat us down
and solemnly reminded us
that Pepper
had been with the family
since before we were born …
***
But then, seeing our faces,
he stopped and
thought for a moment,
and then explained that while we were at camp,
he had sent Pepper
to live on a farm upstate,
— a magical farm!
One where she could play all day long
and live a life of ease.
***
And, most importantly, he concluded,
it had been mostly Pepper’s decision.
***
We were suspicious, but
then mom appeared
and presented us with a surprise:
a puppy
we named,
Pepper 2.
***
And suddenly, once again, all seemed right in our world.
***
That is, until, later that night,
just a little past our bed-time …
***
The phone rang.
I answered.
It was Pepper.
***
She barked & whimpered
into the phone.
“Pepper is that you?” I asked.
“Are you ok, gurl?”
***
Suddenly,
I heard a human voice say,
“Get that receiver away from Pepper!”
And then the line went dead.
***
It was then I knew our father had lied.
They say from a plane
all the people look like ants,
and ants are too small to see,
but you know the ants are down-there anyway,
millions of them, and
just waiting for you to
leave on a plane trip.
***
At 3:00 a.m. I awoke in my bed
and suddenly remembered that I had left a
pie resting on the windowsill to cool.
So, I got up and went into the kitchen,
and when I opened the light,
I gasped as I saw thousands of ants
covering the pie.
***
This surprised me
because though I was aware
that I had a minor ant problem,
I didn’t think they
kept such late hours.
***
Nevertheless, as a result, now I had a major ant problem
***
My friend volunteered,
that ants hate cinnamon.
And while that is quite shocking,
I explained that I was not looking for
another reason to dislike the ants,
I just wanted them gone.
***
My friend said,
No, no, no, that is not what she meant,
but that
ants really hate cinnamon,
and if I leave some out
the ants will go away.
***
So, that evening I
made some cinnamon toast,
which I then left it out on a
plate for the ants.
***
Come morning-time,
the toast was gone
The ants ate it, anyway, I guess,
but, thanks to my friend,
at least, I have the satisfaction of knowing
they did not enjoy it.
PROMOTED AD
Follow us.
I remember
when-ever one of us kids
had a loose tooth,
our father would go to the basement
and return with some
string from his work-bench.
***
Making a loop in the string,
he would then attach
one end of the string to the loose tooth,
& the other end of the string
to a doorknob.
***
He’d do a countdown
from three,
two,
one
***
And then he would
chuck the doorknob
out the window.
***
“That’s another one for the yard”
he’d say,
reaching for his binoculars
I told my enemy that
if I should out-live him
I would most surely
dance on his grave.
***
“Over my dead body you’ll dance!”
He exclaimed,
shaking with anger.
***
“Exactly” I replied.
***
And I outlived him,
and I danced on his grave.
Dear reader,
you have never
seen such grave dancing.
***
But here is the strange part,
for when I had finished,
I swear to you,
I thought I heard some muted applause.
***
I guess, in the end,
I will say this much for him,
I may not have liked him,
but the guy knew what was good.
PROMOTED AD
will trefology save you in time?
I grew up in a poor family.
We were poor,
but un-happy.
It seemed like good times were hard to come by.
And most-days,
we didn’t have two nickels to rub together.
But I remember, too,
those times when we did have two nickels,
& we’d rub them together
all night long.
One evening,
while driving down an old highway,
I picked up a mysterious hitchhiker.
I asked him where he was headed,
and in a deep voice,
he told me he was going to Memphis to see his mama.
ii.
Now this hitchhiker was very polite,
always replying with a
“Yes, Sir”, or a “No, Ma’am”,
depending on the question or
how the lights of the passing cars
reflected off my eyes.
iii.
I asked him his name, and
he laughed softly to himself, and replied,
“Let’s just say it rhymes with Presley.“
Then he gave gave me a wink.
***
I immediately began making guesses,
“Tresley?
Quesley?
Frezley?
Schlessley?
Zezzley?”
But the mysterious hitchhiker only winked again
and asked me to stop making guesses.
iv.
He told me that life had taught him a valuable lesson,
which he would reveal to me,
if I was willing to listen.
***
I said, no, but
he began to weave a tale, anyway,
which I will relate to you now.
v.
The mysterious hitchhiker
told me that many years ago,
he had willingly given up the august spot-light,
and the adulation of millions
for anonymity and adventure.
He traveled the world several times and again,
solving crimes, and exploring mysteries,
such as,
living for forty days in
the Pacific Northwest wilderness,
searching for Bigfoot.
***
At the end of his journey,
with no sightings of the mythical beast,
the hitchhiker concluded,
that maybe Bigfoot was a thing
that could only
be ‘found’
when searching within oneself.
vi.
Nevertheless,
when the hitchhiker returned home,
he found a note from Bigfoot
that read,
“Just stopped by to say, Hello.
Yours,
‘Bigfoot'”
***
But then, as an afterthought,
on the back, Bigfoot mentioned that he hoped
the hitchhiker was not hiding somewhere
in the Pacific Northwest wilderness
just to avoid paying back the $40 he owed him.
vii.
This, of course, was not true, for as,
the hitchhiker had previously noted,
it was he who had been looking for him!
viii.
Unfortunately, for the hitchhiker,
Bigfoot, had taken the opportunity
to crash at the hitchhikers pad for several weeks, too,
eating all of his food,
breaking all of his chairs,
and doodling all over his personal stationary.
***
What was worse, Bigfoot
had run also off with his ‘old lady’.
***
This surprised the hitchhiker the most of all,
because he had always thought
she worshipped the ground he walked on.
And, in a way, he was right,
as she would eventually leave Bigfoot, too,
and move in with
a piece of ground.
.
PART TWO
.
ix.
The hitchhiker grew sullen and he
turned his attention back to
looking out the car window.
x.
As we passed though a small town,
the hitchhiker interrupted my whistling
and asked if I could let him out
near a Ralph’s supermarket.
“I need to pick up some-thing for my mama,” he said.
xi.
I obliged, and pulled into the Ralph’s ample parking lot,
but after I had parked the car,
I suddenly realized that I was all alone.
The mysterious hitchhiker was gone!
xii.
What could it all mean?” I asked myself.
Then I noticed something on the passenger seat.
It was the hitchhikers,
Ralph’s value club card.
Had the hitchhiker been trying to teach me a lesson about savings?
It was just all too much for me to process.
xiii.
Nevertheless,
I went into the store,
used his Ralph’s value club card and
saved fifty cents on paper towels,
and box of microwave sushi.
***
“Savings.” I said confidently,
as I walked my discounted loot up to the counter.
xiv.
As I paid for my items,
the grocery checker looked at the name on the receipt
and said, “Thank you, Mr. Nestlé!”
I nodded,
struck a rock n roll pose,
curled my lip
and said,
“Thank-you-very-much.”
***
“Oh, all right,” said the checker.
.
CONCLUSION
.
xv.
Exactly ten years later to the day,
I was on the same road again,
and happened to stop at old highway diner for breakfast.
xvi.
There I overhead three truck drivers
talking about a
mysterious hitchhiker
they had all individually encountered.
xvii.
“Trying to get home to his mama.” Said one.
“Disappeared into thin air” said the other.
“Looking for his Ralph’s value club card,” said the third.
end.
Did you know that
you and I are breathing
the same molecules once breathed by
Nebuchadnezzar,
Julius Caesar,
& Abraham Lincoln?
It staggers the mind.
So, in that way,
the next time somebody tell you that you have bad breath,
say, Do I?
Or, does, Julius Caesar?!
It was so hot in L.A.,
I saw a guy on the street corner, and
he was frying an egg on the sidewalk.
The thing about it is,
when I came back later,
the guy was still there,
& he was still frying eggs,
but now there was a line around the block to
get a sidewalk egg sandwich.
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