Postcards from The Pug Bus

Lifting a satirical leg on popular culture

Persons in the Ether

Question of the Week

Sneakers or boots?

Marnie Blotch, freelance sidewalk analyst

Currently overexplaining herself in Scranton, PA

Sneakers. Boots imply you have a plan, land, or at least a place where mud is respected. I need footwear that says I may exercise, flee, or stand in line for coffee while reconsidering my values.

Doyle Rusk, seasonal gravitas consultant

Allegedly headquartered near Missoula, MT

Boots. Sneakers are for people who still believe life rewards agility. Boots admit the truth: the world is wet, uneven, and waiting to make a point. Also, they make disappointment sound better on gravel.

Tilda Cramp, assistant deputy of unnecessary errands

Last reported circling a mall in Paramus, NJ

Sneakers in theory, boots in public. Sneakers suggest optimism. Boots suggest I have endured weather, retail lighting, and at least one conversation about parking. At my age, credibility begins at the ankle.

Flash

Ode to Joy

4 months philmaggitti 50-Word Stories

Joy was scheduled. It did not attend.

I set the “Ode to Joy” to remember. It rang once, startled me, and never rang again. Somewhere between snooze and silence, joy slipped out like a thief who realized the house contained nothing worth stealing, even memories. I still keep the alarm, unplugged, as proof that effort once existed.

***Faster than a speeding gummy, able to leap small buildings at a single bound Flash Fiction is a guaranteed page turner.

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The preceding is satire. Straight up, Skippy. No warranties are expressed or implied. For life advice, try a professional. For investment tips, try a dart board. For salvation, the gentleman in the robe has been handling that portfolio for 2,000 years.

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

⚡ The Department of Interior Weather requires all adults to carry a small overcast condition with them at all times. Officials described the phenomenon as “partly functional,” with scattered chances of pretending the sky is falling.

⚡ Researchers at the Center for Applied Futility report that 73 percent of household drawers contain at least one cable belonging to a device no one remembers owning. In drawers that contain more than one cable, the cables are thought to be breeding quietly behind the tape measure.

⚡ The National Council on Mild Alarms has upgraded the phrase “We need to talk” from a conversational advisory to a full-frontal emotional evacuation order. Residents are urged to remain calm, gather their dignity, and avoid replying, “About what?”

Adverse Effects

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

There is a moment, just before sleep,
when the mind loosens its tie
and admits what it spent all day denying.

Read It All

There is a moment, just before sleep,
when the mind loosens its tie
and admits what it spent all day denying.

You remember the thing you said—
not the words,
but the angle of them,
how they leaned slightly wrong
and stayed there.

A life is not ruined in grand gestures.
It goes soft at the edges first.
Corners round off. Standards blur.
You start calling things “fine”
that would have once kept you awake.

Which is the problem.

Because now you do sleep.

Beautifully. Efficiently.
Like someone who has made a series of
very small, very reasonable surrenders
and arranged them into a pillow.

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