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Comedy Stories

The Bibliophagist’s Magic Shop

Ever since the new Wal-Mart opened by the interstate, there wasn’t much for us to do except throw rocks at the old sock factory. Someone tried to get an Anklebiter football team going, but no adult we knew had the time or inclination to volunteer—since working the night shift at Gas-N-Go takes a toll on…

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Comedy Stories

The Dewey Decimal System

It’s a rare thing to find fulfillment in maintaining order, carving it out of chaos, keeping the Barbarians outside the gates. But it’s been my life’s pursuit. Case in point, I return from my lunch break to find all hell has broken loose in the library. How much anarchy has been unleashed in the quarter-hour…

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Comedy Stories

Tatterdemalion

“Tatterdemalion. Ragamuffin. Slubberdegullion.” David’s great-aunt knew a dozen ways to call him slovenly and unkempt, but he paid her little mind. Since the Catholic Mass she dragged him to each day was tedious, he found crawling under the pews much more fun than listening to Latin. As usual, his great-aunt pulled him up by the…

Categories
Comedy Stories

The Making of Chocolate

Step 1: The Selection and Harvest of the Cocoa Pods Although Jean-Paul had received several invitations from Brussels to Zurich, he decided to apprentice with one of the chocolatiers in Paris. Parisians had a particular passion for all things chocolate, even prescribing it from their pharmacies in the 18th century. Whether chocolate had any medicinal…