Chip Hilton, Author at Postcards from The Pug Bus - Page 2 of 27

Postcards from The Pug Bus

Lifting a satirical leg on popular culture

Persons in the Ether

Question of the Week

Passion or stability?

MD

Mavis Drouk, emotional escrow officer

Believed to be near Harrisburg, PA

Stability. Passion is what people choose when they still believe a staircase can be made entirely of sparks. Stability may not sing outside your window, but it does remember where the insurance cards are.

RC

Rufus Clenn, freelance thunder consultant

Last reported west of Tulsa, OK

Passion, obviously. Stability is just boredom wearing shoes with arch support. I want life to arrive late, smell faintly of lightning, and explain nothing until several lamps have been broken.

NV

Nora Vell, deputy curator of small regrets

Possibly sheltering in Eugene, OR

Passion is useful for beginnings, stability for the paperwork afterward. I prefer both in moderation, which is another way of saying I would like to be ruined briefly and then driven home safely.

a man's hand touching a rose crowing in concrete

"You can complain because roses have thorns, or you can rejoice because thorns have roses. (Ziggy)

A Rose in Any Other Place

Chip Hilton 50-Word Stories, Brevity is the Soul, flash fiction, Micro Satire 10 months

She bloomed in a crack of concrete, defiantly. Commuters passed, blind to her grace, but one man paused. He knelt, wept, and whispered her name–forgotten… Read More

an image of a man sitting in a hollowed out large boulder

"Crater Dave, one of the world's last lichen speakers."

Capping THC Levels Is a Cosmic Buzzkill

Chip Hilton marijuana 10 months

In states where marijuana is legal, some lawmakers are flirting with the idea of capping THC levels, claiming this is necessary for “public health” or… Read More

AMA Dropping Elitist Foreign Names for Phobias

Chip Hilton 4 years

CHICAGO–American Medical Association (AMA) board member Deter Camel, MD, MPH, HMFIC, ended weeks of speculation when he announced yesterday that the association will discontinue its… Read More

America Rocked by Assault on Capitol Decor

Chip Hilton trump 5 years

LastWednesday afternoon a mob of Trump supporters, many of them armed, was roaming about the Senate floor and the Capitol Rotundalooking for souvenirs and a… Read More

CFA Says Tiger Is Most Popular Cat Password

Chip Hilton 6 years

ALLIANCE, OH–According to The Cat Fanciers’ Association (CFA), the world’s largest registry of pedigreed cats, the cat name used most frequently as a computer password… Read More

Dishing with the Founder of National Penultimate Day℠

Chip Hilton 7 years

Our culture is obsessed with going the extra mile, giving 110 percent, leaving it all on the field. Supermarkets are open 24/7/365 to satisfy our… Read More

SPAM to Introduce Edible Swimwear During Fashion Week

Chip Hilton 7 years

Hormel Foods, makers of Spam, announced yesterday that it has added edible swimwear to the ever-growing catalog of novelty gift items made in the image… Read More

Mike Ditka Is the New Face of Lane Bryant

Chip Hilton 10 years

In a move certain to raise eyebrows if not hem lines, Lane Bryant is set to introduce former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka as the… Read More

The Pug Bus Breaking News

The Pug Bus Breaking News requires no email address, no mother's maiden name, no first pet's nickname, and no DNA sample. You simply mash the link below and read.

Deliver It

⚡ Scholars at the Royal Institute for the Advancement of Obvious Things have concluded, after eleven years of exhaustive inquiry, that people who speak at great length in meetings do not thereby become more correct. The findings have been submitted to a committee for review.

⚡ It has been determined by authorities in several jurisdictions that the phrase "I just want to be honest with you" reliably precedes the portion of the conversation one would most prefer not to have. Legislation is pending.

⚡ The Bureau of Perpetual Reassessment has announced that this is not, in fact, the most divided the nation has ever been, a distinction that continues to belong to a prior era when the disagreements concerned rather more consequential matters and people occasionally died over them.

Adverse Effects

The following lines of prose cleverly arranged as poetry may induce brief clarity, misplaced certainty, and the sense that something has already been decided without your approval ...

By seventy you know which doors you walked past without opening,
can name the rooms you never entered,
hear the echoes anyway.

Read It All

By seventy you know which doors you walked past without opening,
can name the rooms you never entered,
hear the echoes anyway.

The years do not accuse.
They simply pile up like newspapers you meant to read,
each one carrying news that is no longer news.

You think: I should have said that differently.
I should have stayed. I should have gone.
The mind is efficient this way,
filing the same cases under the same wrong headings,
finding them again at 3 a.m. in perfect order.

What surprises is not the weight of it
but the patience —
how regret waits,
how it has nowhere else to be,
how it sits across from you at breakfast
and asks for nothing,
knowing you will offer it everything
on your own.

The body slows.
The catalog does not.
You carry the unlived lives
the way old houses carry
the smell of people who are gone —
not haunting exactly,
just present,
just there,
just refusing
the simple courtesy
of leaving.