Jun
03
This image is available on merchandise! Just visit here!
See you in the funny papers!
May
17
The Fed: Turning Nest Eggs into Chicken Feed since 1913!
Merchandise is available!
See you in the funny papers!
Apr
23
*snort* Change! *guffaw* Hope! *snicker*
Now, before he stops laughing and gets serious, get that nickel out of your pocket and poke it into the coin slot on your cupholder CD-tray, and paypal it in to nickelatatime@gmail.com!
Apr
23
Clouds covered the full moon as he stood at the curb.
His friends clustered close behind him in the grass on the far edge of the sidewalk. They huddle together, whispering wide-eyed to each other. He and they know there is safety in numbers.
…which just reminds him he’s alone.
His toes hang out over the street for a minute that seems like an eternity.
He could back down on the dare. No doubt word would spread, and his reputation would be set for the rest of his life; Screwy Lewis had worn mismatched socks to school, and was still remembered for it five grades later.
But that was second grade, not seventh. And the fear of having a nickname like “scaredycat” dog him through the rest of high school and into college was stronger than the fear of what was across the street. So far, anyway. Resolute, he set one shaky but brave foot down on the pavement, and then the other.
He saw the stripes coming closer with each step, then pass, and then the far sidewalk was in front of his feet. He didn’t bother to lift his eyes and watch for cars, because no cars had passed in the last half hour. This close to the edge of town, it was possible no cars had passed in the last week.
Feet safely on the far curb, he risked a look back over his shoulder. His friends had not moved, and in the darkness, it seemed like they didn’t even breathe. He imagined he saw Angelique wave to him for luck–but there was no way to know that. He hoped she had.
That was the point, wasn’t it? A date with, and a kiss from, the prettiest girl in town? All he had to do was wave to them from an upstairs window in the old Fenster place. The ramshackle house on the outskirts of town, that no one wanted to buy…the dilapidated house where old man Fenster had–according to schoolyard rumor, anyway–hacked his wife into little tiny pieces and fed them to her poodle, before turning his own cleaver on himself. The house was still haunted by the ghosts of a fat angry poodle that had eaten itself to death, and his owners…
He crossed the sidewalk, keeping his eyes on his battered Nikes. It wouldn’t do to trip over the weeds by the front gate. He refused to admit to himself that not looking up at the house made it easier to walk up to it.
He was at the gate; it hung haphazardly from one hinge, and swung gently in the breeze. The front walk, almost invisible beneath dying weeds, was a zig-zag trail to the front porch. Three rickety and water-damaged steps stood before the covered porch. The front door was a menacing portal beyond, with paint peeling away like it was frightened of the house as well.
A tall and narrow window stood beside the door like a bodyguard, but it was boarded over. In fact, every sliver of glass had been smashed out of every window in the house over the years. There were large windows into the rooms on either side of the door. A tattered wooden fence, eight feet high, blocked all view of the yard on the left side of the house. On the right, a rose trellis clung, hanging by one remaining nail.
The downstairs windows were sheets of plywood. The upstairs rooms had been left open to the winds. The two windows hung above him like an angry scowl as he pushed the gate out of his way.
The rusty hinge shrieked annoyance at this affront before surrendering to the twin battles of corrosion and gravity. The gate fell at his feet, scattering shards of wood and rust into the weeds, and startling a nest of cockroaches onto the walk. They scuttled away into the tall grass, away from the noise and excitement.
He almost leaped back across the street in a single bound.
He tried to swallow his heart back to it’s traditional and more comfortable position in his chest as he shuffled up the walk. The crickets that had gone silent at the shriek of the gate started their songs anew, and the moon peeked out from the clouds as he reached the steps. The baleful glare of moonlight picked out the front door in sharp detail as he stepped up the creaking planks.
For just a moment, he thought of knocking on the door and running. But that kind of childish prank was the sort of thing Screwy Lewis would do, and was definitely not what he had in mind. He grasped the doorknob, and turned it, and pushed the door open in a rush, to surprise anyone–or anything–waiting on the other side. The fact that he had given up the element of surprise by breaking the gate was a thought he didn’t want to have.
Moonlight shone across the entryway, and as he feared, there were no stairs in sight. It would have been so much easier to walk in the door and up the steps than to wander in the dark looking for them.
One step into the house, and he could hear his heart beat in his ears.
Three steps, and the fickle moon hid it’s face in the clouds again, plunging the house into darkness.
He stopped, hoping his heart would quiet down, because he couldn’t listen for things in the house over the pounding. He also wished his eyes would adjust to the darkness faster.
Something scraped against the house, and the sudden noise jolted his ears like fingernails on a chalkboard. Probably a tree against the back porch, he thought to himself.
…and in the darkness, an image swam into existence in his mind…a fat and angry poodle, awakened by his intrusion, slowly hauling itself out of a doggie bed in the basement, jaws slavering blood, eyes glowing red, claws scraping on the cleaver it kept as a remembrance…
There, off on the left, a diagonal line, a banister; he wrenched his brain away from the thought of the undead animal in the basement, and headed for the staircase, a black blob against a black shadow. He slowly and carefully made his way up the stairs, while the house creaked and groaned its displeasure around him. The stairs were flimsy, and bent under his weight, and unidentifiable things scurried away from his step into the dark.
The second floor was a bit lighter than the first, because the windows weren’t boarded shut, so he could see the top step. Three steps from the top, the stair tilted, and let out a shriek of rotten wood and nails that shattered the silence. It made an angry muffled groan as it settled back into place, and he swore to avoid it on the way back down.
The angry undead rabid dog in his mind perked up it’s ears, scenting blood, and headed for the stairs.
He paused at the top of the stairs to get his bearings. The hall led off to the right, towards the front of the house; he would have to walk the length of the hall, and find one of those front-facing rooms, and then wave to his friends…and then he could head down the stairs (right into the bloodthirsty jaws of the slavering…he banished the thought from his mind).
He walked the hall faster than he intended, and wasn’t sure if it was because he was confident and sure, or because he was in a real hurry to get done and get out. He turned the corner, and found three doors; at least one of them had to lead to those two shattered windows.
He stepped into the first doorway, and choked back a scream as someone lurched towards him in the darkness. He froze, and it froze, and as his breathing returned to normal, he realized he was looking into the bathroom mirror.
A nervous little laugh escaped him as he strode to the second door. But even that couldn’t dispel the image in his head–an overstuffed and rabid poodle, laboriously hauling its over-sized body up to the second step, and then the third…
There, moonlight. The front window, he was there. Across the room, and wave the rag out the window, and then out. Screwy Lewis would never have survived this trip, he thought to himself. The moon went back behind the clouds as he crossed the room, but that was okay; he knew where he was going. He stuck his head out the window, and breathed in a deep lungful of fresh air, and held out the white rag. Wave it, and leave. He lifted the rag–
…and he heard a noise that turned his blood to ice water. A deep creaking shriek of rotted wood and rusty nails. A noise he had heard once already, the third step, the one he hoped never to hear again.
The dog was on the steps!
He dropped the rag into the night, all thoughts of waving it forgotten. He glanced down, into the lawn; in the darkness, it seemed like a fatal drop, into who knew what dangers. No, he would have to go back to the front door, and hope to avoid the poodle in the shadows. He imagined he could hear it waddling down the hall towards him.
The bathroom.
He dragged his hands along the wall from the window to the corner of the room and back towards the hall. There! There was another door into the bathroom. He opened it, ducked inside, pressed his back to the wall, and held his breath. He could imagine the dog coming down the hall, into the bedroom he had just left; he thought he could hear the drool dripping from jaws onto the floor. He held his breath as long as he could, and let it out in a huff, and slowly, carefully, stepped out into the hall.
Fifty feet to the stairs, then down and out.
He crept along, ears straining for the slightest sound, slow terrified step after step.
Forty feet. Was that a cold ghostly hand reaching for the back of his neck?
Thirty. Twenty, and his lungs were screaming for him to breathe.
Fifteen feet from the stairs, he felt the teeth hit his leg.
He screamed, all thought of silence lost, and ran for the stairs. He hit them at full speed, and took them four at a time; he hit the wall at the bottom with his shoulder, and caromed off into the living room. Out the door–thankful he had left it open–he stumbled down the steps, leaped the fallen gate, dashed across the street, bowled over three friends who didn’t dodge out of the way fast enough.
Schoolyard legend tells what happened next. His hair turned white, and the toothmarks never healed, leaving him with a permanent limp. His deeds became a warning to all schoolchildren: Never do something foolhardy and brave in a desperate attempt to replace a nickname like “Screwy.” The ravenous man-eating undead monster he had so narrowly escaped flew into a rage that collapsed the house around it, into a pile of wreckage that stands to this very day, a cursed lot that no one will buy.
But that’s not what really happened.
He fell to the ground, and turned around to look back, at the horrifying monster that had chased him from the house. The scratches in his leg burned. The moon slipped out from behind the clouds again, and the same moonbeam that heralded his entrance highlighted a sole black cat sitting on the porch.
She glared at him from across the street, eyes glowing a malevolent green in the moonlight. She sniffed haughty disdain, and turned, and strode regally back into the house with one final twitch of her tail. The door swung shut behind her.
If this frightfully fun figment of fiction hasn’t frightened your fur off, fiddle some change out of your pocket, and fling it in the general direction of NickelAtATime! Or you could just send it via PayPal, at nickelatatime@gmail.com!
Apr
17
The ants are coming in over the kitchen windowsill at 3–but you didn’t hear that from me!
If this informative image didn’t leave your skin crawling, your local informers at the NickelAtATime HQ could really use those nickels! PayPal them over, to nickelatatime@gmail.com!
Apr
14
Call me "kooky birdily bird" one more time, and I'm putting YOUR drumsticks on the menu for tonight!
…sometimes, attitude is ALL you need…
Okay, now, before you get sent to your room, check that famous attitude problem at the door, dig deep in the dark recesses of your hip pocket, pull up a nickel, and toss it in the general direction of the eighteen story skyscraper that is the NickelAtATime Corporate HQ…or just send it via PayPal, to nickelatatime@gmail.com!
Apr
14
What goes on inside a programmer’s brain:
Select * from tblBeer
Where [imported] = True
and [Temp] = ‘Cold’
Group By [twelvepack]
Select * from tblGirls
Where [eyes]=’bright’
and [smile]=true
and [boobs]=’big’
RU / 18 = QTpi
Okay, okay, a snip from the female programmer’s brain, too:
SELECT * from tblGuys
WHERE [height]=TALL
and [shade]=DARK
and [looks] >= ‘Pretty Good’
and [sensitive]=TRUE
and [caring]=TRUE
and …
and [isGay]=FALSE
ERROR: No Results!
If this glimpse into the alien thought processes of your average programmer-type-geek hasn’t totally warped your own mind, bend open your wallet, tease out a nickel, and slide it into the PayPal slot on the side of your computer! Address it to Nickelatatime@gmail.com!
