Last week, after contracting Covid, it was revealed that Green Bay Packers star quarterback, Aaron Rodgers, had lied before the season about his Covid vaccination status, prompting a deluge of criticism.

                     “I didn’t lie… nor did I mislead anyone,” Rodgers said.  He went on.  “In response to being asked by reporters if I was vaccinated, I simply responded with a string of hair splitting words that were tantamount to the complete, fucking opposite of the truth.  So much so, that it even elicited an enthusiastic thumbs up from Pinocchio, who was in the back of the room at the time, a benefactor of season tickets courtesy of the Green Bay Woodworkers Union.”

                          Rodgers said that he had been taking his own regiment of homeopathic supplements to boost his immune system against Covid 19.

              “Yeah, I’ve been taking zinc, vitamin C, Ivermectin, a horse dewormer not approved by the FDA to treat Covid 19, and lots and lots of greens… which includes kale, green beans, Soylent Green, and green eggs and ham,” Rodgers said.   He continued.  “Yeah, I ultimately did contract Covid, but I’m one hundred percent sure I don’t have any worms… mainly because I didn’t have worms to begin with.”

           Rodgers went on to say that he had consulted a top notch medical team of advisers that included, Bones McCoy, comedian, Joe Rogan, and one of the old, cranky guys from the balcony of the Muppet Show.

           And as to how he has been criticized for breaking NFL protocol by attending press conferences unmasked, while not vaccinated, Rodgers incorrectly cited MLK.   Rodgers compared MLK’s legacy of being jailed, beaten, and ultimately assassinated while fighting for civil rights for millions of oppressed people, to his own self-described draconian plight of having to wear a mask in a press conference to protect the health of fellow human beings.

              “The rule doesn’t make sense to me,”  Rodgers said.  “That’s why I ingest pills that kill worms in the belly of horses.”

             We wish Aaron Rodgers a full and speedy recovery from Covid… and the brain fog that sometimes precedes it.

                 Yesterday, a worm named John, was faced with the difficult decision of whether or not to free some of his fellow worms who had been captured during a  marathon contest of Hide and Go Seek.  The contest was between the worms and several fisherman from the east dock.

                   “I had the can opener and the will,” said John.  “But I was advised not to do it by the local casualty and disaster prevention official.   I’m pretty sure I heard my next door neighbor, Mr. Don, and my Uncle Ernie inside that can.  Their appeals for freedom were somewhat faint, but I’m pretty sure they wanted me to get them the fuck outta there.”

                There was an estimated forty-five worms inside the can.  There has been speculation as to whether two fishermen and one of the Bee Gees was also inside the can as well.   Not sure which Bee Gee it was, but all indications suggests it was the one with the high pitched voice.

           “I can’t say whether there were  fishermen or Bee Gees inside that can or not,” said John.   “All’s I know is… I’m now one hundred percent sure that my Uncle Ernie was inside that can, because now that I think back… I could hear him talking about Frank Sinatra.  He was a big Sinatra guy.  And I could also smell his undeniably pungent cologne and cigar smoke through those tin walls.  Still… the disaster prevention guy warned me-no, he guaranteed me… that if I carried though with my mission, that I would bring holy hell upon our community.   What could I do?  I mean, the guy correctly predicted that the last season of Game Of Thrones would be terrible, so who was I to question him?”

                Last week, Grammy Award singer, Adele, broke the single day record for most music streams with over one kabraZillion, with her new song Easy On Me.

             “We’ve never seen numbers like this… since Elvis broke the single day record for consumption of donuts, hoagies, and most rhinestones on a one piece jumpsuit,” said Spoti-Tunes executive, and rhinestone historian, Dillon Babcock.

                        In fact, Adele’s song Easy On Me was streamed so many times that a totally new numeric quantity had to be invented to quantify the running total.  KabraZillion.   Which is also a term used to count the leaves on all the trees in the Amazon Rain Forest.

                  “These numbers are staggering,” said Mr. Babcock.  “We’ve never seen numbers like this… unless of course, you tally up all of the bad movies Nicholas Cage has done in recent years.”

                  In fact, the major streaming platforms had to come up with a special algorithm to keep up with the emormous volume of Adele’s streams.  The algorithm consisted of complexed meta-computations and was also used in previous years to count the amount of boos at New York Jets home games.   It was also used to tally the total number of rats in Baltimore City.   Although the actual formula for the algorithm remains a secret, it has been rumored to involve multiplying the sound of raindrops against a tin roof, and then throwing an abacus down an abandoned mine shaft, carry the 1, and then putting it all into an Excel spreadsheet before Ground Hog’s day.  After Ground Hog’s day would involve adding 6 unneutered goats into the equation and then things become a whole lot more complicated.  Anyway, congratulations Adele!

 

                                      Last night, a mummy who goes by the name of Bezel, had himself dry cleaned, with disappointing results.

                         “I had requested the standard cleaning and pressing service, with the additional three thousand year old fabric, funk neutralizer,” said Bezel.  “I also wanted them to remove some sand that had collected up in my crotch area since wayyyyyyy back before Cleopatra declared Tuesday night as Ladies Night at all of the Great Pyramids.  Simple requests, right?  Not so much.  When the cleaners were done with me, my bandages were all in tatters, unraveling, and I looked like an outpatient in a West Baltimore Emergency Room.   And the sand that had been in my crotch area had somehow migrated into my hair, eyes, and mouth.  And you have no idea how three thousand year old mummified, crotch-seasoned sand tastes like… unless you’ve eaten a Taco Bell bean burrito.”

                       And with his bandages unraveled from his body, several scars, rotted internal organs, and questionable tattoo choices were now exposed.

                   “And those exposed tattoos on my body are the worst of my problems now,” Bezel said.  “Like… I have a tattoo of Nefertiti on my chest that is really, really awkward and pointless.   Because she and I broke up a long time ago.   I mean… right after the downfall of Ramesses II, which was right in-between 1275 BC and Woodstock.  And that tattoo is really hard to explain to my present girlfriend.  But it’s not as hard to explain as the one of King Tut that I have on my ass.”

 

                           Yesterday, a zombie named Kent, finally received his GED after his fifteenth attempt at passing the test.

                  “I… I iiiiAaaaaghhg  ahhhhghghh soooo aaaghghhapppy,” said Kent, through an interpreter, who was also a zombie, and equally as intelligible.

                         Prior till now, Kent has spent the last several years wandering the land aimlessly as most zombies do.

                       “Yeah, I felt like I was wasting my time,”  Kent said through another interpreter, Charles Barkley.  “There were things I wanted to do like…  perform  Shakespeare in the park… and perform Shakespeare on a schooner, with the aromatic scent of Davey Jones’ gym socks percolating from his locker as a backdrop.  It got to the point where I really couldn’t remember who I was, or what I was about before the zombie apocalypse.  Didn’t know if I went to college or what.  Didn’t know shit ever since the part of my brain that would know such things, was eaten away by advanced decay, and aggressive, zombie brain fog.  I just felt empty, bumbling around eating people, grunting at the sound of the wind.  And sometimes… I would waste a whole day trapped inside the revolving door in the foyer of an abandoned Sears department store, or some such pointless bullshit like that.”

                  Kent says, he now feels somewhat whole again with his newly acquired GED credentials.   Although, he readily admits that he didn’t actually take the GED test and pass.

              “So… I found these blank GED certificates while I was eating a human foot in the dumpster behind WormHole Square High School,” Kent said.   “That’s how I earned my credits.  So… I guess that makes me a fraud.  Fuck it.  That part about how I took the test fifteen times was just dramatic, empathy-bait bullshit.   Yo, I’m a zombie.  I can’t read, write, and I definitely don’t know the difference between an abacus and an abscess…. of which, I’m told, I have many.”

 

                   Yesterday, a beaver known as Ramon, was ejected from Hell for using the word “damn” too many times on a Monday.

                  “We have rules down here,”  said Constable Perry, who works the Southside post of Hades.  “Ramon was retelling, for the one hundredth time, of how his house was destroyed in a flood.  Damnnnnnnnnn!  Ramon says.  “Then Ramon drops a bowling ball on his foot and says Dammit!    At that point, he was warned.  And then he rattled off a profane tirade that included, You damn straight! …You damn skippy!…  I’ll be damned!… And damned if I do, damned if I don’t!”   Constable Perry shook his head, continued.   “And it was all in response to being asking if the rumours were true that he had sometimes smeared peanut butter on his genitals to lower his cholesterol.”

                  Ramon was initially sent to Hell for living a life full of debauchery that included, sleeping with his wife’s sister, her cousin, and grandmother.

               “Yeah, my wife figured it out at her family reunion,” Ramon said,  “…when the unusual aroma of peanut butter, deviled eggs, and beaver filled the swamp.”

               Shortly thereafter, Ramon met his demise at the hand’s of his wife Etta.  He had been a resident of Hell for six months before being reassigned to a different section of Hell.               Westside Baltimore.

                               Last month, a twister named Curt Blow Jr., went to see a psychiatrist about difficulties in his life, which he thinks stem from living life under the shadow of his highly well known father.

                   “My father was that twister that lifted Dorothy’s farmhouse in Kansas and blew that joint all the way to the land of OZ,” Curt said.   “And so I’ve been trying to live up to his iconic status all my life, without anywhere near the same level of success.  You would think the tremendous amount of pressure that I’m under would produce an enormous amount of gusty and swirling winds.  Nope.  Some days I can barley even work up enough wind to blow dead leaves across a grave yard.   So… I’ve been dealing with serious bouts of cyclone envy, negative funnel cloud over compensation, and vortex impotence.  Initially, I sought help from different meteorologist.  But all they could tell me was what ever my chances of raining was gonna be on any given day.   So, I decided to seek help from a mental health professional, and here I am.”

                     And after several visits with Dr. Lewis, at the WormHole Square Mental Health Treatment Center, Mr. Blow’s negative emotional condition has improved.

            “Yeah, it took a lot of deep, internal self reflection and positive image rearranging,” Mr. Blow said.  “But I’m making progress.  Yesterday, I blew the roof off of a dog house.   I also made a weathervane spin five revolutions and I blew a plastic bag three blocks.  I felt a little light headed afterwards, but I was all right after a took a few hits oxygen from the first aid kit.”

                     And Mr. Blow credits his mental health improvement to Dr. Lewis, who implemented detailed psychoanalysis and prescribed a regiment that included deep breathing exercises, and watching Rudy Ray Moore’s movie The Human Tornado one hundred and fifty-five times.

 

                                Last week, Frankenstein was fired from his job as a customer service representative for a major credit card company.

                     “It just wasn’t working out,” said Janice Hall, Frankenstein’s supervisor.   “We brought him on, despite having no prior work history, zero people skills, and the inability to speak in basic intelligible sentences.  You see, we started a Reanimated Dead Corpses To Work Program about two years ago here at the company.  And in that time we’ve successfully trained numerous reanimated dead corpses and many are still with us today, including a zombie named Kent who works in the mail room.  We’re proud of that.”

                   But in the six weeks Frankenstein had been working at this company, he had racked up numerous complaints from customers and fellow employees as well.

                  “Mr. Frankenstein was never really able to establish any type of report with our customers,” Ms. Hall went on to say.   “His method of solving customer issues was to grunt loudly, stump his heavy boots, and to throw one of his co-workers out of his fifth story office window.  That’s against company policy.  And obviously, that behavior had a seriously adverse affect on our company’s employee retention rate.  Additionally, Mr. Frankenstein had previously drawn the ire of the people of a nearby town, who would often gather in our lobby with pitchforks and torches to threaten him.  And this would prompt the Fire Marshall to issue thousands of dollars of citations for violating the fire code.   It was an untenable situation.  Mr. Frankenstein had to go.”

                          Last night, a fish named Darius was faced with a choice of choosing a blue worm or a red worm as part of some Matrix-like process to determine whether or not he was the one… of the undersea world.

                             “So… he choose the red worm and… well, that was the worst decision made by fish since that shark in the movie Jaws bit into that oxygen tank,” said a lobster named Neil.

                          Apparently, according to maritime reports, after Darius bit into the red worm, he was pulled from the water onto a boat, where he was immediately tossed into a large ice cooler, which was loaded with other unlucky sea life including, crabs, oysters, tuna, and one of Captain Crunch’s crew members who had just gotten a unsatisfactory employee evaluation.  Darius was then transported to an unsavoury fish market on the south side of Baltimore, where he was rejected for having too much algae under his armpits and being too sarcastic towards the fish mongers.  Darius then sat at a local bus stop for six hours, waiting for the number 13 to take him uptown.

                     “Hell no, I didn’t let him on my bus,” said bus driver Sandy Davenport, 33.  “He didn’t smell right, nor did he have exact change.”

                After three days of wandering the streets of Baltimore, which is only a few blocks from WormHole Square, Darius was finally picked up by a homeless man, who promptly scaled and gutted him.   Darius was then placed on a makeshift grill which consisted of the undercarriage of an old shopping cart placed over a burning fifty-five gallon metal trash can.

                        When Darius failed to rise from the flaming grill, doubt began to mount as to whether he was, indeed, the one of the undersea world.

 

                         Yesterday, Eddie Robertson, 55, was attacked in the 2800 block of Riggs Avenue by an assailant with a bottle.   And despite having eyes in the back of his head, Mr. Robertson was unable to describe his attacker to police.

                     “Yeah, the eyes in the back of my head don’t see too good no more,” said Mr. Robertson.   “All them years of sleeping on my back on the beach has really done a lot of damage to my vision.  Not to mention the astigmatisms and cataracts I developed from playing long hours with toy trains.   Not to mention the really, really large amount of cannabis that I smoked to counteract the cataracts.  So… that all considered, there’s no chance in hell that I would have been able to describe my dealer, who hit me in the goddamn head over a five dollar bag of weed and the remnants of a vintage Lionel train set.”

                    But according to witnesses, there was another unknown attacker who became hostile when he didn’t like the way Mr. Robertson was looking at him.

                                “Maybe.  I get that a lot,” said Mr. Robertson.  “People think I’m looking at them when I’m simply walking away across a room or out the front door.  Or… if I’m simply trying to figure out whether or not I’m being followed.   But that usually happens after an interaction with the cannabis.”