JimSoft Insanitarium -> Insane Stories -> My Backyard Is On Fire
By CrazyJim

While standing about in my backyard arguing with my neighbour a couple of blocks away through the use of a megaphone he bought me for my birthday a few weeks ago after leaving his wallet lying around in his back pocket, almost literally asking me to take it, it came to my attention that I didn't have anything resembling a catapult in my yard.

Attaching the megaphone to my ankle and yelling, "I'm invisible!" I immediately set out to rectify the situation. My first stop: the grocery store; my house had run out of food in a freak incident last night when I ate it.

To most people, a walk to the grocer is generally an easy task. I, however, am very superstitious. On a typical walk, I will make certain to spasm my right arm upwards, take off my shoe, throw it into an oncoming car, run after the car screaming, "It's insidious!" soon give up and start spinning around in circles with my arms out in order to hold up traffic, and finally scream "You have no idea what it's like!" and repeat the entire process until I run out of shoes. This has proven to be effective to prevent me from walking under a ladder, which has proven to lead me to pass black cats, which causes my habit of running inside to open my umbrella to act up, at which point I will often put my hand in the toaster while it's turned off, which usually causes me to turn it on and scream "My name is FRANK!"

After the removal of several shoes, including one from a passer-by and another from a garden gnome, I remembered my mission: to break into somebody's shed and steal anything that resembles a box of oversized prams. Several unsuccessful attempts at gnawing my way through a garden that stood in my path, I remembered my real plan: to restock my refrigerator and food cupboard and purchase a box of tissues for that mushroom that started talking to me after I tried consuming it earlier that morning.

I had no idea why the mushroom wanted tissues, but I was not one to question such requests; the last time I disobeyed my toaster I ended up with my pants glued to my mouth and my shoe stapled to my fist… and the taunting sound of the toaster… 'click' it went, and out came, of all things, UNCOOKED BREAD!

Although it was many years ago, I never did manage to overcome the trauma of that experience. To this day I still wake in the night screaming "Please don't make me use the oven!" followed by "Yes! I'll take three!" which has strangely become a habitual response to the first part.

The first twenty minutes of my walk were spent planning exactly how I would go about the acquisition of the requested tissues. When it came to me, I almost lost it, distracted by a large sign reading 'Safeway'. I overcame this distraction, and immediately sped off in the opposite direction in search of a store named 'Tissues R Us'.

After five or so minutes, convinced my search was futile, I returned to my earlier quest of trying to remove my left sock with my teeth without touching the ground with my right foot.

I walked away from the scene bruised and battered, after I hurled insults at somebody's dog. Apparently, it wasn't a female, and it just so happened that the man that was walking it was.

Somewhat surprised at this defeat, and unexpectedly confused, I made my way back to my house to present the bad news to my mushroom and bathroom mat. They weren't too happy to hear it, and I'm certain they were conspiring with the toaster, which caught alight when I tried having an innocent water fight against it.

It was a good thing it was a water fight and not a brick fight, as the water actually helped to quench my thirst while the fire brigade made their way to the house to put out the fire.

However, by the time the fire brigade arrived at my house, it was already too late. My entire backyard was already flooded after an amateur attempt at watering my garden during my half-hour wait for the telephone to stop hanging on the ground so I could call the fire brigade.

It all turned out for the best in the end; I went to hospital with head injuries that I acquired from my doorframe as I attempted to scream "My leg is wet up to my knee!" and "Wooooo! Look at my arm hit this wall!" at the same time, and I received $10.00 from the insurance company-I believe it'd have been $15.00, but my lawyer said he needed to take a small fees to feed his family. I didn't previously think he had a family, but I assumed they must have been living in Hawaii, where he went after winning our court battle.

I now live in my bedroom cupboard, occasionally emerging to acquire half a sandwich from the fridge; I need to cut my food in half nowadays in order to fit as much as I used to into the fridge, after half of it mysteriously disappeared in some long forgotten incident involving a hose.

I still miss my toaster, though. His abrupt combustion was unforseen by all but the mushroom, who made a mighty fine roast; a very conversational one at that-talked to the bitter end about getting revenge on the mayor.

My life is better than ever now that I purchased that cow. It lives without any trouble in the black expanse that still has three-quarters of a fence around it behind my house. I wouldn't mind having a couple of walls for some privacy, but nobody ever comes around here nowadays. Apparently you don't spell "Come on in; Visitors welcome" with an "I'll shoot you all" and "if you try to enter".

I'm now writing my biography up until the point of my one hundred and fiftieth slice of toast, which coincided with the unfortunate death of my toaster… kind of ironic, the whole thing. I have no paper, so I'm improvising with the remnants of my underwear. I'm thinking of following through on the theme… could make a great marketing gimmick. Either that or it will get me hurt.

© 2003 JimSoft