Bubba
There was a building in Bubba Verboten’s neighborhood, a windowless brick building with a big electronic sign hanging from the facade that said, in black letters over a pixelated green background: “Desire.”
“Maybe I should check it out,” thought Bubba. “In fact, I think I will. After all, what do we want out of life if not that which we desire, and unless I’m misinterpreting the sign, this must be the place to get it.”
As it turned out, it was actually one of those places where women wiggle their nearly bare bottoms close enough to your face for you to catch a whiff, which came as a major disappointment to Bubba because for one thing, he was suffering from significant nasal congestion on account of the combination of it being autumn and him being allergic to senescent leaves and consequently detected no aroma, and for another, smelling some stranger’s nearly bare bottom wasn’t really what Bubba desired.
What Bubba really desired was to eat a football. Specifically, he desired to eat a football of the American variety, which is to say, prolate spheroidal in shape and fashioned out of tanned cowhide encasing an inflatable rubber bladder.
“You can’t do that!” cried his friends when he revealed his dark secret to them. “A football isn’t food!”
“You’re right,” conceded Bubba, “I can’t.”
But refraining drove him crazy: most nights, especially during football season, he could be found crawling around on all fours howling at the moon.
Myrtle
“Are you crazy?” cried Myrtle Bellagamba’s friends when she told them Bubba Verboten had gotten off his hands and knees the night before and ceased howling at the moon for just long enough to propose to her, and that she had furthermore accepted his proposal.
“Not yet,” replied Myrtle with a wink and a chuckle. “Oh, I’m only kidding. Bubba may be crazy, but it’s not like it’s contagious.”
Evidently, Myrtle was wrong about that, however, as no more than a couple weeks after their big, sexy wedding night, she started audibly smacking her lips every time she laid eyes on an American football matching the above description; and not too much longer after that, she came right out and announced to her friends what most of them had already begun to suspect, namely that she had developed a powerful urge to eat one of the curvilinear projectiles.
Making matters worse, it was possible the newlywed had gone even crazier than her husband, for unlike Bubba, she would not listen to reason when her friends reminded her that footballs weren’t food and thus shouldn’t be eaten by human beings such as herself. That Thanksgiving, while everyone else was busy hogging out on basted turkey meat, bone-in holiday ham, big crunchy heaps of green bean casserole topped with French fried onions, and gloopy slabs of pumpkin pie, Myrtle tucked a bib into the collar of her seasonally apropos Fair Isle sweater and instead plopped a nice fresh American football onto her plate.
“What’s the big deal?” she asked, honing her knife against the edge of her fork. “It’s not like it’s going to kill me.”
But evidently, Myrtle was wrong about that, too.
Eli S. Evans publishes his absurdist fictions and other oddities all around the internet. Two books of stories, Obscure & Irregular and Various Stories About Specific Individuals in Particular Situations, have been published by Moon Rabbit Books & Ephemera.
Image: GaborfromHungary, morguefile.com
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