I can never keep it straight, is the third time the charm, or does trouble come in threes?
Anyway, this feature is back, and every bit as charming as the two times before. So you needn’t let the thought of it improving trouble you in any way.
Some things, you see, just aren’t worth trying to fix.
And with that rousing endorsement for how I’m again offering to waste your time … more Wordle solutions turned into pointless narratives, just ahead!
ROUSE – FLANK – THING – WHINY
Sergei found it tough to maintain his composure when being awoken suddenly in the post-apocalyptic hellscape to find himself being devoured on one side by a giant gelatinous mass named Chuck.
“Oh, come on, man!” Sergei whimpered.
PLUME – SHARK – CATCH – HANDY
Within hours after insufferable young Goosby arrogantly declared himself the discoverer of a new species, it was discovered that his disdainful colleagues in the Woods Hole lab had grabbed the remains of a somewhat disfigured viper dogfish (landed with a gar hook by an uninformed charter-boat customer trolling for marlin, who donated the weird thing to the institute secretly thinking it was perhaps extraterrestrial), from where it was sitting idle in the samples fridge, and then they stapled on a couple of peacock feathers and placed the abomination directly in Goosby’s path on a recent dive.
PARSE – RATIO – TRACK – CRAFT
No matter what they tried to read into it or how they attempted to analyze it for meaning, or how they described Flemmer as one of those “rarest of 1%” geniuses, no matter how they attempted to document the changes in his writing, it was clear to him that no one really understood his work. That he was alone, tormented, his art ultimately untouched by others in its meanings.
To be fair, he wrote mostly in archaic Yiddish about the lives of German white radishes. So, fair point.
TRUSS – PLATE – MOTEL – INLET – FILET
When the upstairs of the Bide-a-Wee Inn and Motor Court collapsed, taking with it the bottom section as well, because some chintzy contractor had, upon running out of steel beams, decided to substitute with creosote-coated pine instead, Purgill Spenzy in his corner room was just then attempting to eat the small flounder he had caught that morning at the mouth of Pennywinkke Bay, having grossly undercooked the modest piece of fish atop a temperamental hot plate … which, left on and unattended, set fire to the window curtains, which caused the walls’ supporting two-by-fours to ignite, which sent flames licking up the highly flammable creosote uprights.
And just like that, the Bide-a-Wee had done bide-a-went.
On the plus side, the fish was no longer undercooked.
CLING – IRATE – VIDEO
Richenel was not one for streaming services; he furiously held to his anachronistic ways. He’d got into home entertainment way back in the beta phase, for heaven’s sake!
Admittedly, it was porn, but he was passionate about it.
CRISP – SOGGY – SAUVE – STALE – SKATE
Kreegle saw himself as a man of action, classy and more than a touch debonair; his five-year plan, now in its 12th year, had him rollerblading at sunset, mojito in hand, along the Venice Beach Boardwalk, greeted with thumbs-up attaboys from the muscle guys and come-hither looks from the tanned, bikini-clad ladies.
But in truth, ah, truth, Kreegle lived the downward-momentum life of a couch potato in Brandon, Iowa, where he resided in all his ample glory in his sister’s ex-husband’s basement, working second-shift as a caricature artist in the long shadows of the World’s Largest Frying Pan. Ironic, perhaps, because Kreegle made no distinction between, for instance, a well-cooked thin-crust pizza that had sat out on the counter overnight and a slice of topping-laden Chicago style that had souped up in the fridge for a few days. In matters of personal taste, he simply had none.
Also, the one time he’d tried roller-blading, Kreegle collided with a parked car and broke both his ankles.
BRINE – PLEAD – GLEAM
No one likes a psychotic pirate with a twinkle in his eye.
“Walk the plank!” he growled.
“To the salty depths wid ye!” he snarled.
“Really,” I responded, or begged, really. “You don’t have to do this! I’ll give you 10 bucks if you don’t.”
So he took my $10. I maybe should have thought that through. Now I’m not only drowning, but broke …
TROLL – STALL
It can be a hard life, living under bridges amid dank and fetid pools of oily roadside runoff, waiting in vain for a goat to pass, in this largely goat-free world, so you can for once have a proper dinner; or else living fat and pale in your elderly parents’ basement at age 42, in cut-off sweats and a ratty Drake of the 99 Dragons T-shirt, clutching a suspiciously sticky laptop amid the thick detritus of empty plastic bottles and crumpled Doritos bags, waiting for some new achievement to be posted online by others so you can assault it as beneath you, and invariably suggest that women, those scornful wretches, are not actually capable of successfully doing whatever, just for good measure.
And you want to venture out from your oily lair, you do! But it’s just, well, no one likes you. So you instead venture out just a few feet under cover of night’s darkness, to quickly nab some new slab of nearby roadkill, its shattered teeth sneering up at you in an accusatory rictus of defeat, with you forever dreaming of cooking-fire spits wafting with the aromas of singed chin-beards, hooves and horns, all while telling yourself that opossum is the filet mignon of squashed meats, really; or you crack open the door from your manosphere HQ to find the bag of fresh “supplies” left hurriedly by your harried old mother so she doesn’t have to come face to face with her own perpetual disappointment, then cavalierly uncap one more 2-liter Vintage Raspberry Dew, to begin searching out some freshly posted praise for Taylor Swift, that assertive harlot, that you can smear textual venom upon with your usual dearth of subtlety.
Tomorrow, you growl, oh tomorrow! Tomorrow I will step anew into the light of day.
WREST – GROAN – GRIND
Jessup hated his job, day in, day out, for 25 years, the sheer monotony of it. Perhaps the time to address this was not during the airline’s promotional tour of the cockpit during the flight from Grand Rapids to Toronto, during which Jessup abruptly pushed the pilot aside and grabbed the controls, attempting a loop de loop. Unfortunately, this was altogether not a wise move in a 747. Also, Jessup was, by trade, a Zamboni driver.
When the stewardess hit him in the head with an empty Heineken bottle, Jessup let out a protracted moan as he fell to the floor. Or at that point, to the ceiling.
In any event, everyone died. The end.
SCRUM – RADON – ORGAN
After it was all over, and that little “toxicity problem” had been fully addressed, and worship services were again taking place, congregants at St. Andrew’s Parish Church there along Upper Church Lane in Farnham, Surrey, were reluctant to discuss the troubling events of that terrible Sunday, even amongst themselves.
Too late it was discovered, the radioactive off-gassing rising for several months from the hollow cavity beneath the old building, and amassing in the seasonally closed-up ductwork, to be unknowingly released en toto on the first chilly Sunday in September, as the heat was first turned back on since spring.
It was then, as longtime church keyboardist Agnes Milapot sat down to work her magic, to ring and drone through St. Andrew’s famous upright golden pipes that framed the gorgeous three-manual organ with its full 38 speaking stops, just as Agnes was launching into her typically show-stopping “Solemn Melody” by Henry Walford Davies, that the rising fog of befouled air took firm hold of the men’s choir waiting there at the ready beside the altar vents.
Lead baritone Figgus Danniby, locally famous as fly-half on the Farnham R.U.F.C., led the short charge, tackling poor Agnes in a manner not befitting standard World Rugy rules. Soon the entire church was in a state, flailing at one another as they quickly passed first the collection plates and then the hymnals as improvised footies backward toward the door. Then, in the absence of anything else that might still be used as a ball, the crowd simply turned toward the front, and rushed into the human pile now spilling from the altar.
When local constabulary arrived inside, in a great huff from pushing through the pile of books and metal plates blocking the main doors, they began yanking the deranged parishioners up one by one and leading them away, finding poor Agnes at the absolute bottom of the pile, her favorite little wooden seat smashed all to bits beneath her.
“I just don’t understand,” she managed to get out after being revived for a moment before fainting once more. “That song is usually such a hit with the congregation!”
GOUGE – SPORT – FROND
It was an ill-advised attempt at entertainment, pitting gladiators in death matches using only the leafy ends of palm branches. Coliseum attendance plummeted.
FOGGY – ORDER – DROVE
Captain Schlib protested, “This is madness, sir, strictly suicide! Colonel, no one can possibly see to drive in this!”
The colonel responded: “Get better eyes then, Captain. You and your men WILL provide support to that bridgehead! This is NOT a request!”
So a furious Schlib led his team that night into weather like warm pea soup, the visibility limited to mere inches in front of them. There was lightning all around, arising from the blistering unseasonable heat, but no one could see it, just hints of fleeting brightness, its corresponding thunder lost among the barrage of anti-artillery fire.
And then, in a horrible instant, with one tank following another and then another, Schlib’s team went straight over the unseen cliff’s edge, into the rocky brine so far below.
The bridge itself, nearly a quarter mile away down a completely different stretch of road, was soon overrun by converging enemy forces. No one on the other side lived.
Ha, ha.
ASPIC – STICK – SINCE
Fogle had developed the most peculiar hobby; he couldn’t even remember how long ago started. He collected the heads from Barbie dolls — ONLY the heads. Odd enough as this was, his means of display was perhaps that much odder, pushing the severed plastic noggins into meat jelly he would then freeze, all in anticipation of his eventual anticipated art opening in a large walk-in freezer space. Unfortunately, the power went out while he was out of town, and he came home to spoiled Barbie-headed meat-jelly soup. In his grief, he stepped accidentally into the greasy liquid, taking a fatal tumble on his tiled floor.
No one said being a fringe artist was easy.
CRUST – GUMMY – FUNNY – BULLY – BUDDY
The thing about potent edibles is first you’re laughing your ass off when you think the cat may have farted (it was actually your brother, who’s equally stoned and laughing, too, cuz you just blamed the cat) and then you’re both stuffing your faces with day-old pizza from the fridge and some stale bread-loaf ends you’d forgotten to throw away, all before you ring up the guy who used to pick on you in school and declare him your new bestie. Only he’s not; he’s just your dealer now, and you’re soon begging another batch, though you aren’t getting a discount regardless.
Anyway, the cat farted again. LOL! LOL! LOL!
CRASS – CAPUT – CABLE – CANDY – CANON
We all know the old saw, about the ease of divesting a wee tot of a sweet treat. In the overlapping worlds of young children and yummy confections, it’s regarded as a simple truth.
But maybe not so much when one considers Lester “Babyface” Bigums, whose chubby-cheeked-infant looks were only complimented by his tiny stature; he was in modern parlance a “little person,” though with a level of piercing maliciousness that would hardly have been contained in even some 7-foot giant.
Lester was a highly successful pickpocket, aided by longtime henchman Larry “Tonsils” Clipfish, who pushed his tiny boss around in a hooded stroller, the exceptional disguise completed by Lester’s sky-blue onesie and an ever-present swirly round lollipop of red, yellow and green held aloft by one powerful little fist.
Enter fat, greedy, unkempt, uncouth and ultimately very unlucky Figby Collins, who was, as ever, feeling a might peckish. Upon seeing Lester’s pram parked beside a shaded bench where Tonsils was engrossed in a racing tip-sheet, and with Lester’s big sucker poking up and taunting Figby’s inflated desire, the bulbous oaf made a beeline for the prize, figuring, y’know, this’ll be EXACTLY like taking …
As Figby leaned forward to nab the tantalizing sweet, Lester whipped out a thick piece of piano wire he always kept handy, beside his gun and several knives and a pacifier filled with brandy.
“No one fucks with Babyface’s sucker, sucker!” a small voice murmured as Figby was yanked forward by his shirt and garroted on the spot.
This was not the usual way, but whatever works, right?
Seeing a bloody loosed head go rolling by in front of him, Tonsils arose and calmly relieved the former lump of Figby of his wallet, then proceeded to push his boss away through the park, amid the diminishing screams from passersby who were even then stumbling upon the perplexing carnage.
GAFFE – STUFF – SCOFF – SKIFF
So there was Mesmer, drunker than a veritable surfeit of skunks and adorned in the sunglasses he assumed, wrongly, were his prescription pair, attempting to remain upright in the little flat-bottom bobbing about 25 feet out in the bay, and yelling all manner of insults at the two blurry people standing just onshore. In particular, he mocked the larger of them, the one who had clearly kept pointing in some consternation at him as he had peed over the side earlier, deriding the ample man as being some sort of beached whale who should really cover up some of that exposed blubber.
So, mistakes here were made. The rotund man was actually bikini-clad Myrtle Clambick, secretary of the local chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and longtime wife of class-A redneck Pard Clambick, standing there beside her. Pard, who hated his wife with a pure-T passion, nonetheless took great exception to the descriptions of her as “one a them lah-vitons,” as he would later recount to Sheriff Pinefellow. Pard felt, you see, that such talk reflected poorly on his own manhood, which had only recently been reinvigorated somewhat via one of those discreet pump contraptions you fitted over your privates. So Pard hopped in his own boat, a new Canyon 456, which could hit 30 mph in under 11 feet, and at about 45 mph, simply ran right over Mesmer, who never saw any of it coming.
They later fished Mesmer’s body out of some nearby salt marsh where he had been, for several days, a very satisfying meal to a lucky colony of ghost crabs.
CHASM – CHARS – CHATS – CHAPS – CHAIS – CHAOS
When everything you’ve taken to has failed, when you have fallen as far as you can, been chafed and burnt by life, talked out the regrets with therapists and bartenders, and even tried to flee it all through vacations and learning to just be fucking present already, what’s left to possibly embrace?
Anarchy, bitches. Anarchy.
