Tales From the Sock Drawer: The Shampoo O' Plenty

Not all the things in my sock drawer are creatures.  Some are inanimate objects.  Take for example my magic shampoo.  I've been washing my hair with the same bottle since the summer of 2009.  That's three whole years!  And it's not like I skimp on the stuff, yet whenever I pick it up it always manages to remain about one third full.

I've asked my pharmacist for his take and he has no explanation.  Me, I'm beginning to wonder if it has a wormhole inside it connected to a giant shampoo vat.  Either that, or I happened to pick up some kind of magical shampoo o' plenty.  I suppose its possible somebody is playing a trick on me, and pouring some back in when I'm not watching, but that would just be weird.

Tales from the Sock Drawer: Sasha the Skidmark Seer

I am, by nature, rather mystical, so when I discovered a psychic had moved into my sock drawer, I decided to seek her out.  I was in for a bit of a shock, though.  Turns out Sasha is a skidmark seer, meaning for $40 she will read the pooey marks on your underwear.

Fortunately, I am what is known as a pooey person, and after handing her a suitably decorated pair, I sat back and waited for her to weave her magic. What she told me left me disappointed.  Not only did she get my occupation wrong, (she said I was unemployed when in fact I am a writer) and get the names of my parents mixed up (my dad's the one named Jim) but she told me I eat too much cereal as well.

I don't want to say she turned me into a skeptic, but that morning at least, we both walked away thinking the other was full of shit.

Tales from the Sock Drawer: Gary the Crow

Standing five feet eleven inches tall and weighing 120 pounds, Gary the Crow is one massive bird.  And don't let the weight fool you: the reason he's so light is because of his hollow bones.  Seriously, if Gary was a mammal he'd easily top 250 pounds.

Not surprisingly, flying has become difficult for this over-sized corvid, so to make things easier, Gary purchased for himself a big black pickup truck.   He uses it like a bus, transporting crows to various parking lots around the city, quietly reading the paper while his normal sized brothers and sisters go in search of garbage.  Crows, though, are notoriously messy, and to keep his truck clean and shiny, Gary has introduced a strict no pooping policy: you're caught once and you're banned for life.  I don't know how he enforces it though; even Gary will admit they all look the same.

Oh, and what ever you do, don't call him Gary the Raven.  He hates that.

More Fiends from My Sock Drawer

For whatever reason, my sock drawer has become a repository for ghosts and other similar spirits.   One of the creepiest is Trevor.  He's this seven year old who broke his neck falling out of his bed one night and now he hangs around my bedroom with his big box of black crayons, drawing pictures of weeping children and dead trees.  It's so depressing the other ghosts have taken to avoiding him, even referring to him as Cheerful Charlie in the sort of sneery way only the undead can pull off.   And if that's not bad enough, he doesn't know he's dead, so I have to constantly tip-toe around his condition (or lack thereof) asking him stupid things like how his day at school went when I know perfectly well it’s the weekend.

Meet The Fiends in My Sock Drawer

Did you know there's a condition where a person's organs are on the opposite side of the body?  It's true, it's called Situs Invertus, and it comes in very handy if you're in a gunfight.  Or at least that's what Willem McGee told me.  He's a gunslinger, you see, and thanks to his wrongly placed organs, he's survived over a dozen duels, suffering only shattered ribs and punctured lungs when anyone else would have had their hearts exploded.   I didn't believe him at first, but then he showed me his chest, and let me tell you, there's nothing quite as odd as seeing a man's right nipple where his left nipple should be.

Ghost Under my Bed

There’s a ghost under my bed
Of a boy
He’s twelve, I think
Or at least he used to be
I thought it was a rat at first
Until I heard him giggle
He was just lying there
Wide eyed and pale
“You shouldn’t be here,” I said
“Go away.”
That’s the thing with ghosts
They never listen
It’s been six weeks now
In two days it will be seven
Most of the time he’s quiet
But if take out my earplugs I can hear him
Breathing, mostly
In a pattern eerily similar to my own
The truth is: he scares me
Not because he’s bad
But because he’s a ghost
“Leave,” I say, “Or I’ll have you exorcised”
I’m only bluffing, though
The poor fella’s already died once
He doesn’t need to experience it again
So in the meantime
Until I figure out what to do
I’ve bought some comics and a flashlight
And slid them under the bed
Wrapped in a map to my sister’s house

The Poo Pixie