DELUDED CUSTODIANS DENY DEPRESSION

Flirting With Short and Strange Lives

When life throws burning explosive lemons, get creative!

**Lizard girls just wanna have fun**. Made with Canva. Source: Author

Life gets tricky sometimes. Just when you get bad news from the doctor, elderly parents call with an odd request. “I don’t have anyone to cry to. Just listen.” Soul-shattering sobs threaten to blast the Universe open.

“Mom, the Gators can’t always win. Whazzat? Goiters neither.”

Human hearts are so lame. So I hung up after faking a peacock attack.

Recommended musical companion for this piece:

I knew my stupid human typist must be slip-sliding away off her choose-to-be-kind-and-cheerful shiny side rails. She used me to write a piece for Ann James’s January 2024 prompt “Deluded Custodians.” Typist the Terrible was determined to find the topic for deluded, demented, deranged, disturbed, dystopian, disastrous, and demeaning. No, not separately.

All positivity, all the time! (gag)

I suspect she’s intellectually disabled, destroyed, and desperate.

I know, right? She’s kinda dark at the moment, praying for asteroids.

Perhaps the Lakers lost and she chipped her nail polish.

Shallow minds, shallow sorrows.

The Deluded Custodians contest

Ann’s contest rules included something hanging, like draperies or a magic carpet. I thought of politicians.

Tyrant Typist hung Ryan Klemek and animated the photo so he’s actually swaying over the mutant dinosaurs fighting. Pretty positive so far. But having one gag on pulsating balls was a little weird, and the fetid flopping fish cleaning teeth was kind of out there.

When she hums Bob Dylan’s lyrics “buckets of rain, buckets of tears, got all them buckets flowing outa my ears” and thinks blood is better than rain, she’s not thinking buckets of moonbeams and “all the love I can stand.”

I’m hiding the lipstick, afraid of the smiley faces she’ll draw on the mirror.

The Typist’s Kin

Somehow, the maniac raised a nice kid. “Mom, are you okay? Have some tira misu.” Nothing chases demons away as well as dark chocolate on top of NASA-inspired foamy foamed foam.

The typist showed her kid the GIF she made. “That’s a little weird Mom. Wait, is that porn? Is he the same guy who liked the creepy monkey?” We explained both men are smart, creative, and competing in a cut-throat world for clumsy claps.

And, the monkey was cute.

**Billy the Buddhist monkey contemplates self and plays instruments upside down**. Source: Author

“Great. When are these boring titans of normal coming for dinner?” the kid asked. Kinda weird she keeps asking, “Is he gonna be my new Daddy?” She’s nearing retirement and may not be keen on current prospects.

Okay, not really. She’s not that old, not that nice, and celebrates diversity.

Yesterday she asked if she might be racist. Because she trusted the handsome older brown-skinned man but would have run if it was a young white guy who said, “No, the neighborhood’s not on fire. Ignore the sirens.” Evolved, or clueless?

I/we/he/shee-it set aside the laptop and resumed a video series. The image of fingers sticking up from a toaster like pop tarts surprised the typist’s “I’m only a quarter lizard” offspring.

“What are you watching?” the quarter-breed asked.

“It’s a campy comedy with cartel members from China.”

“Campy?”

“Yep. Camp Camus of Absurdity. Very funny, these people are killers.”

“Here’s chocolate-dipped strawberries too. Did HBO get back to you on Dexter’s comedy special?”

The typist sneezed. Dutifully, the kid responded “Awesome octopus!”

And that’s why having Short and Weird, Grandma Smillew’s Dead or Alive (or is it Smillew’s?) and other publications that promote extreme creativity is a great outlet. Sure, we run with jewelry thieves, ex-cops turned assassins, cybercriminals, and kinky playmates, but parties need color.

I’m thinking red and black attire. There’s nothing finer than a form-fitting little black dress with screen-printed splattered… paint.

Hang in there!

The intrepid typist is wearing all black… just whose funeral is she plotting? I could see this going several ways.

Watch out Winnie the Pooh. And Tigger too.

Hang on! Tigger’s my Spirit Animal!

Back off Wandering Dead Wokey Witches — I’m not implying Tigger’s got ADHD. But Eyore needs antidepressants.

I think I’ve just hung The Sourpatch Typist’s dour mood out to dry.

Can we Make it Weirder (MiW)? Yes we can!