All That Money

Guy down the street went to work at a roofing mill.  They make tarpaper.  And shingles.  Nasty place.  But the pay was OK.  It was pretty good for just a high school diploma.  One day he fell into the machinery.  Killed him.  Horrible way to go.  Well, maybe not for him.  Dead is dead.  But it was a closed casket.  Insurance paid for the funeral.  Even at that they had to go with the cheaper casket.  After, like, sixty days, his parents got a check from the roofing mill.  $27,500.  That was the amount they paid for accidental death.  One to three fingers was worth $7,000.  A hand was $9,00, and so on.  So his parents get this check.  And they cash it.  They thought about putting it in the bank, but it just didn't seem right mixing it all together.  And they didn't want to use that money just to pay bills.  It seemed like it ought to used for something better than that.  Something more.  They thought about buying a boat, but how much fun we're they going to get out of that boat? 

So they just neatly stacked all that money on the coffee table and looked at it.  They looked at it for almost a year.  It got to the point that when they went out, they left the door open, hoping somebody would come along and steal it.  And by all rights, it probably should've gotten stolen.  There were definitely guys in the neighborhood who weren't above lifting a stereo or two.  They probably didn't want all that money, either.  And I can't blame them. 

So finally his folks decide to just give it all away.  Find somebody who wouldn't know the story.  Somebody who wouldn't care.  So they just gave it all to this guy who was standing on a corner with a cardboard sign.  It was his lucky day.  They handed him a paper bag with all that money in it and just drove off.

The poor schmuck didn't live through the night.  The two guys he was camping with beat him to death.  They probably didn't mean to kill him.  They probably didn't even know he was dead when they took all the cash.  Not that it made a difference to that poor schmuck.  Dead is dead.

One of the two got so drunk he fell off an overpass, 26 feet onto the street below.  The fall should've killed him, and the oncoming traffic should've killed him.  He'd been better off if it had.  Not that he'll probably ever realize it.  The other guy was arrested for killing the poor schmuck, even though he tried to blame it on the guy who fell off the bridge.  He was convicted of aggravated manslaughter, and he'll have to serve at least 12 years before they even think about letting him out. 

Thing is, nobody ever found out what happened to all that money.  I mean, what's the most those two could've spent in one night?  A couple of grand?  That still leaves over 25,000 dollars.  The guy in jail says there never was that much money.  So either he's got it stashed somewhere, or the poor schmuck had it stashed somewhere, or there's something else going on.  Cops have been known to pocket cash.  Wherever that money's at, though, I hope it stays there.  It's obvious that money's cursed.

Happy Hour

 Bennie's was a bar.  As far as bars went, it wasn't exceptional.  But Bennie's had a really good Happy Hour.  It wasn't that their drinks were any cheaper or better than anywhere else.  It wasn't that the service was any better, or any worse for that matter.  It's just that at Bennie's, during Happy Hour, everybody in the bar was truly happy.  Your life could be total shit, but between four and seven every evening, as long as you were in Bennie's, you were happy.

 As the Word is wont to do, it got out, and soon Bennie's was packed during Happy Hour.  But no matter how many people they squeezed in, no matter how slow the service was, no matter how much beer got spilled on who, for those three hours everybody in Bennie's was happy.  And then seven o'clock would come, and Happy Hour would end.  The bar cleared out, and everybody went back to their less-happy lives.

 Then Bennie came up with the idea to have Happy Hour all the time.  A never ending Happy Hour.  And why not?  After all, what business of Bennie's was it to dictate when somebody could be happy?  Besides, even with the discounted liquor prices, Bennie was turning more profit now than ever, which was a good thing, because hardly anybody ever came in anymore when it wasn't Happy Hour.

 It didn't work.  Sure, people still packed into the bar.  For a while.  They still laughed and smiled.  But deep down, even though nobody knew why, they all knew it just wasn't the same.  In no time at all, the only customers left were the regulars, and even they weren't so regular.  So Bennie went back to his old hours, but it didn't work, either.  It just wasn't the same, and everybody knew it.

 Bennie came out alright, though.  He sold the bar to a developer who tore it down, along with the rest of the block, to build high-rise apartments for everybody who wanted to live in that neighborhood.  Bennie took the money and bought a fishing boat, which is what he always wanted to do.  And for the rest of his life, Bennie was truly happy.

History of the Future:  The Cubs win the World Series!

 In October of 2045, the Chicago Cubs finally ended a losing tradition that had persisted for almost 140 years and broke the Curse of the Goat by winning the Fall Classic.  The Cubs had not even appeared in a World Series for 100 years, and had not won a World Series since 1908.

However, by the end of the 2046 baseball season, even though the Cubs were still playing Championship-caliber baseball, average attendance at Wrigley Field had fallen so low it was no longer profitable to sell tickets at all.  Said one lifelong Cubs' fan, "What's the point?  The only reason for being a Cubs' fan at all was to root for a loser.  And if they're not going to lose... what's the point?"

 Soon after that, the Cubs were sold to a Japanese conglomerate, moved to Tokyo, and renamed the Pokémon Cubs.