DementedBlogger

The IRS tried to contact me, by e-mail no less… I simply could not pass up the opportunity to respond.

Now that several hundred filthy rich Nigerian relatives have passed from this world, and left their long lost cousin from the era of neanderthal a huge fortune, and the United Nations has stepped in and dropped me a line to kindly let me know that this is as real as it gets… Why even the FBI has sent a Internet note to back it all up and ease my mind, telling me that this cannot possibly be a scam!

The IRS in their wisdom is trying to add to my fortune… evidently they missed those millions of dollars careening in from all of those relatives just dying to leave me a heritage that will support me long after Social Security ceases to function!

To receive this windfall, all I have to do is submit my refund payment… that’s right, submit it. I can download the pertinent form right from my e-mail, a mere 213KB file, and submit it right away so they can send me my $733.50, I bet if I download it I will get a few bonuses too! I would bet that there are a yacht or two and some gold bullion just lying around the IRS offices that they can send along with my check….

The e-mail did come with a stern warning, anyone providing false information would be “pursued and indicated”! I don’t know about you, but the last thing in this world that I want to have done to me is to be “indicated”.

It must have been a typo, they had to have meant the lesser penalty of “syndicated” which carries a much smaller fine and jail sentence!

Good ol’ IRS, always willing to instill fear of torture over “submitting” a refund payment.

Perhaps I should consider moving to Nigeria, obviously the tax laws are simpler and one can amass a fortune in no time, and the Government there has already been kind to me… all those nice e-mails they sent to let me know how to send my money to claim my inheritance…

Thomas H. Forthe

The winners of Accentuate Services “Reality” Theme contest were announced Friday afternoon.

First place was filled by Lindsay Maddox.

Second place went to Terrie Schultz.

There were three thirds awarded

Chris Williamson, Robert Arend, and Gillian. I am unable to find Gillian’s last name to announce it, my apologies for that.

Congratulations to all these fine authors! I am looking forward to reading their stories when the book is in hand, and anticipate many more from each of them.

Thomas H. Forthe

Michy, announced the winners of the Accentuate Services short story contest’s “reality” theme tonight.

I will be giving a complete list of all the winners tomorrow here on the blog. Congratulations to all of them!

I am honored to have been given the editor’s pick on my own story, and will be included in the anthology that will go to print in December I believe, I will have to check the date to be sure but December is sticking in my mind at this point.

Until tomorrow,

Thomas H. Forthe

How did we ever survive without the cell phone? What happened to the days of blissfully wandering off without a care in the world or ties to it?

I once caused my mother a conniption fit, traveling around the country, at the ripe old age of seventeen, looking for a job, seeing the world, and generally driving her crazy with worry.

I traveled Colorado and Wyoming. I saw people lighting fires under the oil pans of their vehicles to get them to start. (Not a great idea by the way.) I don’t remember the exact temperature, but forty below zero seems to stick out for some reason… Wyoming has no sense of decency when it comes to temperature.

The ol’ car gave up the ghost in Wyoming and I was forced to leave it and many of my earthly possessions behind and hitch hike home. Riding with a very drunk couple in a blizzard will give you a whole new outlook on walking long distances let me tell you.

Now to a teenager a month is not a long time, but to the mother of said teenager it is a whole other story! I walked up to the house, happy to be home, and got to see a whole new side to my mom… right after she made sure all my fingers and toes were still there.

If only cell phones were around then, she could have spread that shredding out over the entire time I was gone, instead of having to wait for me to show up to vent it all away!

Thomas H. Forthe

Ouch! Yes that is right, I need my head examined… I became a roofer today. Well maybe not became one… more like became a learnee, or a trainee of sorts.

Mostly what I learned was that I really got out of shape since I have been unemployed! Right now I’m hoping the adage that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger is true, but I might consider cremation….

I had forgotten about certain body parts being attached. Don’t worry though, they reminded me that they are still attached today, and I am sure they will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

I have to get up at 3:30 am to make it to the job site by 5:30 am, so I may be posting late if at all until I acclimatize myself to this torture. Did I say torture? I thunk that compared to what I did today the detainees at Guantanamo should all face the rising sun and be very thankful that they aren’t eligible for training….

Tom

I spent the last two days playing contortionist under the sink cabinet, and the adjoining cabinet, changing out another genius’s wonderful plumbing disaster from many years ago.

Funny how a small thing, like changing out a faucet, can change from an hour long job to several days of hair pulling, name calling, and multiple trips to the hardware store! I bet his ears are still burning.

Trying to pry 6′6″ of body into two square foot of cabinet space and still be able to see what I was doing, and use my arms has left me with an appreciation for those poor souls that make their living as human pretzels on a regular basis. It has also left me with an intimate relationship with a heating pad and a bottle of Ibuprofen.

Laying half inside a cabinet raised off the floor with the other half sprawled across a concrete floor does wonders for the human body and I am thinking that five gallons of gas and a match might have been the best method of plumbing by far….

Thomas H. Forthe

After seeing Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman perform their version of the list, I had little choice, but to add a few items of my own….

Killing all of the weeds in my yard, especially those nasty vines full of thorns would rank high on my list. Releasing a biological nuke on them would give me a euphoria that is difficult to transform into the written language.

Eradicating fleas, a sure fire get into heaven free pass if there ever was one!

Write a Television commercial that didn’t make people want to use the tube for target practice.

See Congress make a guest appearance on Jack Ass. Oh wait, that has already been done.

Watch the first episode of the hot new reality show, “Welcome to our World” where politicians are forced to lose all of their benefits and live like the rest of us. Wanna bet they could fix our economic woes faster than a speeding bullet?

See the Arctic by dog sled, pulled by a team of Cabinet members.

See something majestic… an honest politician.

Find Pelosi’s missing mind.

I am going to be very busy!

Thomas H. Forthe

How many times can one edit a 3,500 word story? Apparently, for me, 3,500 times is nearing the sweet spot….

How many times can I read and re-write a short story and still find errors? After the first couple of edits the errors switch from glaringly obvious to the ninja mode.

Missing punctuation, over punctuation, and incorrect punctuation check! Past tense, present tense, wrong tense got ya! Oh darn, wrong word, run on sentence, or debilitating extra words snuck into the fray.

Few things spell, like a spell checker, and one of life’s truly interesting pastimes is getting it to realize that too separate words don’t make one write. Argument is futile, you will be assimilated.

Formatting is another gifted entity that often assumes it has the only correct answer. Typing merrily along only to find it auto corrected after 3,500 words is a joy you have to experience firsthand. Tag lines on dialogue that it capitalized are lots of fun, and the find function useless, unless of course you care to re-edit to look for all the uncapitalized he’s and she’s that it will unerringly switch to lower case in its quest for perfection, again.

Few things say I love you like having someone point out another simple error after the fifth edit… One thing is for sure, a monitor is really hard to light on fire in a fit of anger.

Thomas H. Forthe

Raccoon

He is visiting in full daylight, not very Raccoonish if you ask me. Nearly all of his relatives see fit to visit after dark as all good Raccoons should.

Char loves to chase them, and watching a hundred pounds of pure wishful thinking explode into motion is a sight let me tell you.

The trouble is she’s not as nimble as she used to be and is limping on the return trip.

The masked bandit will look at us and continue eating only as long as we have the good common sense not to open the door… if we have the audacity to move the door he is off and running.

As long as we just watch, he digs out another paw full without taking his eyes off of us, and chows down.

The cats don’t bother his feast in the least, and can lay within two feet and watch him eat without him even seeming to notice.

Thomas H. Forthe

A few Pictures of Bear and Char in better days. Bear is the beautiful black dog and Char is the beautiful brown one.

Bear, as near as we can figure, was around ten years old when she died.

Bear had ear tufts and fetlocks back in Colorado, but was too hot in Florida and had to be trimmed. The young man with the puppies many years ago is Robert.

She was a good friend and my wife’s faithful companion.