Blog Love Omega Glee: We Love Teas! We Hate Taxes! (29 August 2012)

Francine retreats into the heat, leaving the house and the mounds of comic books piled by Donald in the living room as he does his yearly reorganization of his collection, and heads for Purgatory. She sweats down the street, and expects to find a relatively empty coffeehouse today. How many people will really want a hot drink on a hot day?

Instead, she finds the coffeehouse packed with people--mostly older, mostly white, mostly grumpy--drinking hot tea. She makes her way to the counter, where Eve is hurriedly serving some patriotic pastry--The Declaration Of Donut, Constitution Cookies, and Washington Cherry Americans (formerly known as Danishes)--to some hungry tea partiers. Eve sees Francine and exhales loudly. "Are you O.K.?" Francine says.

Eve wipes her hands on a towel, and says, "I'm just relieved to see a regular."

"Some of the teabaggers are pretty demanding, huh? I'm surprised Lilith let them have their little meeting here."

"That was my idea. We need the money. Lilith refused to work the meeting but otherwise didn't object. It hasn't been too bad actually. Some of them are quite nice. There were a couple people who asked me if I was Red Chinese, but that's been about it. They seem more intent on debating which presidential candidate they're going to support."

"Huh? Aren't they all going to vote for Paul Lipton? He's the National Tea Party candidate."

"Yes, but some of them don't think he'll win, so they 're considering supporting Dick or Polipo, but mostly Dick. Plus there apparently had been a bit of a scandal when it came out that Lipton didn't really drink tea. He prefers coffee apparently."

"Egads! Speaking of that, can I have a cup of the daily special?"

"Are you sure you don't want some tea? It's 10% off today in honor of the flat tax."

"Have you had any tax protests because of the sales tax yet?"

"Actually, yes. It was almost a riot in here until I rang up the orders as takeout, which doesn't require tax. I suppose I'll have to discount the actual price and pay the sales tax without telling them. That's the cost of doing business, I guess."

"On their way home, are they going to protest the roads those taxes paid for?"

"Ha! People often like the things taxes pay for; they just don't want to pay for them. The fact that governments waste a lot of money complicates things a bit though, as do all the wars, war profiteers, lazy people on welfare, and other bullshit the taxes support. I'd complain publicly about what the government does, but I find it more appealing personally to just cheat on my taxes."

"Clever," Francine glances around the room and almost gets poked in the eye by a flag carried by a man dressed as Uncle Sam, "No, no tea for me. Just coffee please. I might stick around though. This looks to be pretty amusing. I want to see what they're brewing up. Boy, they sure look mad about the national debt. They must be boiling and about to whistle."

Eve starts dispensing coffee into Francine's cup, "Francine?"

"Yes?"

"You can stay, but on one condition."

"What's that?"

"No more tea jokes, please," Eve says, handing Francine her cup of coffee.

Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel, which is available in print and as an ebook.

Genghis Con Photo

The organizers of the Genghis Con have posted some photos from it. I'm in the last one with my friend Sheila the Emu.

Blog Love Omega Glee: The History Of Civilization Ends On A Golf Course (28 August 2012)

On a hot tip from Dad and also to get Dad to stop asking "Did you find a job yet?" every evening, Jake got hired at the local golf course as a starter, which as far as he can tell based on his first day there means he punches tickets of golfers before they head out on the course, sweeps the walkway of dust, and gets yelled at by golfers when they finish because they had a lousy round of golf. Seeking some shade and privacy after being yelled at by an elderly golfer on the walkway because of Jake's broom-sweeping form, Jake tosses the broom aside and sits down on the bench in the starter shack, a wooden structure seemingly hammered together by a drunken carpenter. A couple of minutes later, when a friendly-looking black dog wanders up, Jake gets up and leaves the shack. "Hi, pooch, how are you?" Jake says and sticks out his left hand for the dog to sniff.

The dog sniffs Jake's hand, and Jake starts to pet the dog. A moment later, a loud pop pops and a flare shoots by Jake's face. The dog takes off running, ruining a golfer's shot on hole 10. Mr. Imaslob, the elderly owner of the golf course pulls up in a golf cart customized with red racing stripes and the slogan "When I Die, I'm Going To The 19th Hole" on it, "Fuck! What the fuck is fucking wrong with your fucking generation?! We're trying to get rid of the dogs on the course. Idiots drop off their strays here all the time. The goose shit I need to clean up from the damn illegal alien Canadian geese is bad enough; I don't need dog shit all over the grounds too. Don't pet the damn strays!"

With that piece of advice, Mr. Imaslob floors the gas, er, electric on his golf cart and careens off after the dog. He fires another flare into the back nine, terrifying a foursome of middle-aged men.

Jake watches Mr. Imaslob chase the dog down near the putting green, where they disappear from sight. His cell phone rings. Jake ducks inside the shack, hoping it is Francine. It's a local number he doesn't recognize. He answers the phone, "Hello."

"Hi, is this Jake Falls?" a grumpy male voice asks.

"Yes, this is him, er, he."

"You sent a c.v. awhile back for a history position at the county community college. Are you still interested in the position?"

"Uh, yes."

"When could you start?"

"You know, I could come in for an interview anytime."

"Oh, yes, we'll need to do an interview at some point, but the class, a section of History Of Civilization I at Lackwood High School, that you would be teaching actually starts tonight. In fact, it starts in about two hours. Would that be a problem?"

Another flare flies past the shack, shortly followed by the dog and Mr. Imaslob, screaming more obscenities, in his golf cart, racing by. Out of flares, Imaslob hurls the flare gun at the dog, who nimbly ducks it and turns around to pick up the hot dog dropped by a stunned woman golfer coming out of the snack bar. The dog and the dog disappear into the parking lot.

"No, that won't be a problem at all," Jake says, leaving the starter shack, "In fact, I could use some civilization right about now."

Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel, which is available in print and as an ebook.

Blog Love Omega Glee Excerpt

Good King Wenclas has run an excerpt from Blog Love Omega Glee on his new blog, American Pop Lit. Thanks, King!