It was past noon and he had accomplished

It was past noon and he had accomplished exactly nothing. While there was nothing to do, the fact that he was doing nothing disturbed him. When the doorbell range, he felt

a sense of dred, because not doing nothing might become more difficult. He realised that just pondering whether to answer the door was not doing nothing, and said "oh fuck"

she's only a girl scout selling thin mints. He opened the door. It was the size of a girl scout but the badges on her sash were eyes, staring at him. In her cookie box was an

other box and inside that box was

a little diorama, cut of construction paper, depicting the Red Coats in 1776 meeting their untimely end by the barrage of dinosaurs. Under a talon, was another box, which contained

I collected these pencil sharpeners for years. You see, I had my first kiss with my late husband at the pencil sharpener in second grade and ever since, I've been completely

smitten with them. My house is filled with them. Stacks upon stacks of sharpeners. My favorite is my 1932 pink Stafford sharpener. I like to turn the crank and listen to the gears

power my garage door. My house was wired to manual sharpeners. But as I cranked, a spark set off a pencil shavings fire. I started my car with another sharpener, but more sparks

consumed the garage in a blase of glowing yellow embers made of gay, bombastic shrapnel. And so it turned out to be a festive Fourth of July after all. In April.