Sounds simple, doesn't it?

Topics are selected by the winner of the previous weekly challenge. This week, the winner was Mick.

And the topic is Shrouded In Mist.

You have until midnight on Friday July 10 to get the following in my hot little hands:

• The text of your story so I can post it on the site. Just post the text of the story in the body of your email message. Do not put it in Word, Word Perfect, Sun Office, or any other document format. Just copy-paste the text into the body of the message. This will save me the hassle of firing off another program to read it and it will reduce the chances that gmail will flag your message as Spam.

• If you have a blog, podcast, or other site that people can go to so they can learn more about your handiwork, the URL would be appreciated.

• What you would like the topic of Weekly Challenge #169 to be. Failure to send in a topic with your selection will mean that if you win, whoever is in second place will be considered for the topic, and so on.

• A recording of your story in .mp3 format. Please use your name as the filename if you can, okay? Makes it easier to produce the show quickly.

If you do not feel like recording a story for the podcast, well, go ahead and send the story in anyway. I'll include it in the show notes, but it won't be eligible for choosing the topic or winning the magnets.

Send the stories to isfullofcrap (at) gmail.com and then add a comment here saying you've sent it in.

Once all the stories are in, I'll assemble them into a single podcast collection for your enjoyment.

Good luck, and feel free to e-mail me with any questions you have.

Hear y'all in a week, and as always, keep it brief.

The topic this week was... was.... um...

It's Step Into A Slim Jim.

The excellent theme music is by Guy David

VOTING

Go ahead and listen to them and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):

Norval Joe

It was the morning of their final day on the face of El Capitan, in Yosemite National Park. He sat on the edge of his port-o-ledge and adjusted his climbing harness. He felt the layer of fat on his teeth and tongue and regretted eating the 'Slim Jim' the night before. All their supplies were in the large pack they hauled up after each pitch they climbed. Water was limited on a multi-day climb, but he needed to brush his teeth. As he spread hydrocortizone cream on his toothbrush, he suddenly realized why his jock itch wasn't getting any better.

Danny Machal

Shakespeare leaned against a brick wall contemplating ancient prose.

'Let's face it, this stuff was drudging to read and made even the most poor pauper wish for the guillotine,' he thought.

There was an explosion of brick and a brightly dressed man appeared.

“Art thou bored?!” the man shouted.

“Is this entirely appropriate? You can't just...” but he was interrupted.

“Step into a SLIM JIM!” the rough looking man was forceful.

He proceeded to bite vigorously on a stick of meat. A snap was heard and the nearby grain mill exploded, showering them with bits of debris.

Houston Keys

OK, Macho Man, you ready to go buddy. Yeah brother, I’m ready to go. OK, here’s your line. “Step into a Slim Jim!” Anytime you’re ready. What? “Step. Into. A. Slim. Jim.” Whenever you feel it babe. I thought it was “Snap into a Slim Jim.” That’s what we’ve been saying for years. Well Babe, change of plans. This is a new strategy, a new look. How exactly do you “Step” into a Slim Jim? That doesn’t even make sense. What kind of moron made this campaign up? Do you want your paycheck or not? “STEP INTO A SLIM JIM!”

Jeffrey Hite

It was not until he stood that he realized that his legs didn't work. He fell painfully to his knees, or at least he believed it should be painful, because he could not feel his legs. Somewhere between sitting and standing he had been hit in the back, just below his ribs. "You stole my car," said a very angry woman now standing before him . "What?" "You stole my car you bastard, on my wedding day. He thought I stood him up." Dumb founded he looked at her. "But we found your finger prints on your dropped slim jim."

Guy David

Slim Jim stepped into the jungle gym. The metal rods expended around him. He started climbing, forever reaching upwards. As the ground disappeared below him a bus appeared, flying between the rods. Slim Jim advanced towards the bus, then he made a jump for it. Unfortunately, he missed it. As he fell down he could see the face of Elvis, the bus driver staring at him, then the bus dove for him, trying to catch him. Sadly, Elvis couldn’t fly as well as he could drive. Slim Jim ended as a squashed mess on the floor of the jungle gym.

Platinum Lightning

“Hey, look what I just invented. It's a round stick of dehydrated meat.” “Cool! It can be a snack or a dowel!” “Looks marketable to me.” “That's not all. It's magical. Take a bite.” “Is that a portal?” “Yep.” “Is it safe to go inside? “Probably. I haven't tried it myself.” “Here I go.” “Ugh, what's happening to him?” “He's being eaten by cactus people.” “There go his arms. Ew. I think these are marketable enough without the portal.” “I was thinking the exact same thing.”

Anima

Howdy Pardner! Put some spaghetti in your western role-play - Step right into a Slim Jim today!

If you need to cowboy up, but don’t have a clue, then put on the white hat that gives you the Sergio Leone backdrop you’ve been searching for. Swagger like you’ve spent a month on the Chisholm Trail, smile a gap toothed grin that shows you floss with barbed wire, and use a ten gallon vocabulary that consists of “yep”, “nope”, and “ ‘nother whiskey for me and my horse.”

Don’t be fooled by other inferior white hats – Accept only genuine Slim Jim’s.

Lynda

"What've we got?"

"Macho Man Randy Savage. Looks like he blew through the wall of that skyscraper, did the big diving elbow drop.”

“Ew."

"Yeah."

"Find any tire tracks?”

“Nah, if it was that bus his body wouldn’t be here.”

“True. Think it’s the same perp that lured the Kool-Aid man out of the Space Needle?”

“Beats me.”

A Slim Jim crunched under the coroner’s foot. He picked it off the ground and bit into it. I cringed.

“What? It’s not like he’s gonna eat it.”

High above, the leader of the mechanically separated chicken justice league clucked contentedly.

Laurie

She was ready…her hair done up tight in a blue bandana. Her body was tense and she could smell the fear in the air. . every time she raised her fist in the air the girls behind her would chant …the tears would fade and the anger surfaced. her opponent looked to be at least four years her elder. the skanky Cholo pulled her knife and her smile angered Shovay. Shovay swung

immediately knocking the knife to the ground. As the girl knelt to retrieve the knife she delivered a fatal blow, the carcass fell and brain matter spilled into the cracks in the sidewalk. The Cholo’s baby sister started screaming at Shovay

and came at her…she held up the slim-jim just to push the young one away…forgetting she had sharpened the end…as the lil one stepped into it running its point between her ribs and deep within her lung….shovay withdrew the slim jim and the city fell silent …the only sound was a faint whistle of air escaping from Jelli’s Wound. It wasn’t suppose to go down like that.

Justin

"Jim, you home? Vacation was a blast!"

He rolled in his suitcase and dropped his keys on an end table right next to Jim's. The suitcase he leaned against a wall.

"Hey, Jim?"

The TV was on. A game waited on the screen, paused. No Jim in sight.

A look in the kitchen and the bathroom also revealed no Jim.

Jim's bedroom was dark. On the way to the lamp, Matthew stepped into something squishy.

When he flipped in the light, he found that he had stepped into his roomate's decayed remains.

In the background, The Who began to play.

Mike P

At Donovan’s Institute for Personal Control, we believe in your freedom to choose. You may have been born in just one specific body, but thanks to modern technology you don’t have to stay there. Our revolutionary External Control System makes stepping in to a different body as easy as walking through a door. In seconds you can be taller, shorter, more athletic, blonde, brunette, younger, or older. Some of our clients have even stepped into bodies of the opposite gender. Whether you want to be a Fat Matt or step into a Slim Jim, we’d love to help you out.

Planet Z

There's this Broadway show called “Snap” that's getting rave reviews.

No, not “Stomp.” These people don't stomp. They snap.

Their fingers snap like firecrackers, gunfire, or as light as a kiss on the back of the neck.

Their big star is named Jim Slim. Each of his fingers are worth a million bucks.

Insured by the Mob, it turns out.

One evening, he's going through his routine, and he slips and falls.

But the snapping doesn't stop. It's a recorded track.

He's been doing hand-sync all along.

What did Jim Slim step in?

The Mafia snapped his legs.

In the world of tomorrow, futurists say there will be nanobots making
adjustments, repairs, and corrections.

At what point do we stop being ourselves and end up at the mercy of machines?

Does it matter who controls the machines?

Does it matter who dispenses the drugs?

What raw animal instincts are we prisoners to?

Perhaps we never have had any control over ourselves?

I feel a spark and my vision flickers for a bit.

I feel better now.

That shot didn't hurt at all. Thank you, Doctor.

The sheriff was confused. “Do you know how hard it's going to be to get this crap out of my shirt?”

Not hard at all if you know what you're doing.

You see, I run the drycleaning shop.

Caulk is easy to get out of a shirt. Easier than blood.

That's why I gunfight with a caulking gun.

He gets up, draws his gun, and shoots me.

Great. A huge bloodstain on my shirt.

This'll be a bitch to fix.

So, I did.

But I read it backwards.

Instead of getting in the airplane and jumping out of it, I was standing in the middle of a field. The parachute was draped over me, and I was tangled up in its lines.

When the plane passed overhead, I shouted "I'll be right up!" and I jumped as high as I could.

No, I didn't fly up to the plane. Instead, I twisted my ankle on a rock and got tangled up in the parachute lines even worse.

Stupid manual.

We elves have been gathering for centuries. The deep, rich forests that produce the best moonbeams may be gone, but there's plenty of trees left in hard-to-reach places to harvest under.

Besides, we're more efficient at refining moonbeams now. It only takes ten jars of sparkles to fill a Moonbeam Bomb where it used to require thousands.

My water-basin swirls, and a message arrives from Germany. Another ancient forest is in danger from developers.

Not for long. Send a bomb to Berlin.

They catch it each time.

One man tries to catch it in his teeth, and with a head-spin he comes up smiling, blade in his mouth.

He tosses it to the other man, who leaps and kicks at the knife, catching it in his toes.

This goes on for hours, until one man is lying on the sand, knife buried in his chest.

The other man pulls it out, wipes the blood off on a sleeve, and says “So, what do you think of my suggestion to flip a coin now?”

It's a scar.

Cupid got his arrows mixed up with hunting arrows.

I saw my true love, worked up my courage, and took an arrow in the chest.

He missed my heart, thankfully.

Unlike my true love. She was dead within a second.

But then, we both were hit with hunting arrows, not with Cupid's.

Were we hit by Cupid's arrows, I'd believe it.

Maybe it was just the heat of the moment.

Cupid apologized at the funeral, offered to hit us again with the right arrows.

“What's the point?” I said.

Sounds simple, doesn't it?

Topics are selected by the winner of the previous weekly challenge. This week, the winner was Danny.

And the topic is Step into a Slim Jim.

You have until midnight on Friday July 3 to get the following in my hot little hands:

• The text of your story so I can post it on the site. Just post the text of the story in the body of your email message. Do not put it in Word, Word Perfect, Sun Office, or any other document format. Just copy-paste the text into the body of the message. This will save me the hassle of firing off another program to read it and it will reduce the chances that gmail will flag your message as Spam.

• If you have a blog, podcast, or other site that people can go to so they can learn more about your handiwork, the URL would be appreciated.

• What you would like the topic of Weekly Challenge #168 to be. Failure to send in a topic with your selection will mean that if you win, whoever is in second place will be considered for the topic, and so on.

• A recording of your story in .mp3 format. Please use your name as the filename if you can, okay? Makes it easier to produce the show quickly.

If you do not feel like recording a story for the podcast, well, go ahead and send the story in anyway. I'll include it in the show notes, but it won't be eligible for choosing the topic or winning the magnets.

Send the stories to isfullofcrap (at) gmail.com and then add a comment here saying you've sent it in.

Once all the stories are in, I'll assemble them into a single podcast collection for your enjoyment.

Good luck, and feel free to e-mail me with any questions you have.

Hear y'all in a week, and as always, keep it brief.

The topic this week was... was.... um...

It's A bucket of gruel.

The excellent theme music is by Guy David

VOTING

Go ahead and listen to them and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):

Danny

“Next!”

They shaved our heads and stripped us of our possessions.

We're forced into uniforms and our identities raped into numbers, some have forgotten their own names.

My steady surgeon's hand used scalpels to save people's lives once. Now it holds hard plastic and is weighted down with chains.

“Next!” the voice ordered everyone to shuffle forward.

It was her fault for making me teach him a lesson. She was the unfaithful demon, I was the angel of justice, of love.

“Next!”

A ladle scrapped the steel drum as the last bit of prison gruel was served on my tray.

Justin

Oliver stared down mournfully. His tummy rumbled with despair. He clinked his spoon into the empty bowl, picked it up and stood. Even though what passed for food around here made his mouth numb, likely to keep the boys quiet, he wanted more. He walked up to the kitchen master.

"Pleath thir, Mah I have thum moa?"

The master leaned over, squinting.

"More what?"

"Fewd, pwease."

The master crossed his arms.

"What kind of 'fewd'?"

"Grue, thir."

The master grinned, picked up a bucket, and dropped it on Oliver's head. The bucket fell from his empty shoulders. Inside, only darkness.

Lynda

For sale: One lightly used bucket of gruel. My children don't appreciate the healing properties of my fine millet and honey recipe, so I'm selling it along with their video games to teach them a lesson.

What makes this bucket of gruel so special is that after my son vomited in it last Thursday, the spirit of a Mayan priest emerged from the swirling chowder and summoned a delightful goblin who cleaned our house top to bottom before playing many amusing tricks on us.

Don't miss out on this one of a kind delicacy with bonus goblin! Local pickup only.

Jeffrey

"It is always about this line with you. You can never be happy." "Well what do you expect. I mean this is the longest line in town and you always want to come here for lunch." "Their food is good and they are cheap." "Good, it may taste good but it is not good for you." "I like it and that is what matters." "if you say so, but I think we should find a better place to eat." "What would you like better?" "I don't know, but even the name is, well wrong." "You don't like Bucket of gruel?"

Anima

Buckets of grueling tension and flop sweats wash over me. The plane has finally landed; I’m reviewing my continuation to Calgary. CHECK INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTS. Shit. I “see” my passport. At home. A thousand miles away.

This morning, the car wouldn’t start. Once jumped, the fuel filter failed. Change plans: cancel appointments, call mechanic, hastily pack.

On the flight there’s no diet soda. I overhear, “Think this is contagious?” A child screams, “We’re landing in the river!”

Teenage ninja mutant terrorists are taking over the terminal. Is Mars in retrograde? Note to self: Fire travel planner. And find overnight express office.

Guy David

The bucket of gruel looked like a thimble at the hands of the oversized baby. The servants running around it looked like midgets, though in regular perspective they looked massive. The baby was ancient. No one knew how ancient it was, they just knew it was there long before the empire was founded, long before the wars, long before civilization came and fell. Suddenly, a bus came out of the porridge, taking the baby with it. “Thanks for taking me from that place” said the baby, his voice deep and resonant, “I was getting tired from playacting the baby part.”

Norval Joe

The orc guards were distracted from their watch by their nagging hunger. "What's for dinner?" One orc said. They both eyed the bucket of gruel. Silently a hobbit slipped past, making his way into the stockade. Rumors of the rich treasury inside the stronghold was adequate motivation for the diminutive thief. He noticed the bag of gold hanging from the guards belt and thought to add it to his stash. Suddenly the guard sat. The two orcs stood looking at the dead hobbit. "Not much to eat there." "Nope. That and a bucket of gruel would almost make a meal."

Mick Bordet

Shug sat, staring at the burger between his calloused hands.

His wife left after they lost the farm, his faithful dog died and the welfare cheque didn't cover his rent. He was living a classic country and western song.

He blamed the scientists; they eventually spotted the pattern – mad cow disease, bird flu, swine flu, sheep lurgi – but it was too late. Mother Nature's course correction was in place. Contaminated meat stocks led to Government restrictions: “Families can thrive on a bucket of gruel per week.”

“Bunch of damned hippies,” he muttered and sank his teeth into the delicious beef.

Laurie

When the Congee finished cooking I poured two bowls. I ache for my retired General to be young again. As I spoon fed, I began to daymare of my General pushing me to the floor. Barking elicit commands through clenched teeth. Seething with lust. Violating me repeatedly until satisfied. The General begins to aspirate pulling me from my fantasy. He spews the milky rice all over my face and breasts. I smile at the irony of my twisted thoughts and reality. Once fierce, now he is nothing more than a puny, diseased invalid. I scrape the leftovers into a bucket and draw the steaming bubble bath. I disrobe and lift him ever so gently into my arms. I wrap his gnarled fingers around the sweet scented bar of soap and guide his hand slowly over my tan skin. I search under the bubbles and confirm his eagerness for me to begin cleaning him.

Planet Z

He was The King.

He always would be, and this made him sick.

Since he was a child, the spotlight blinded and burned him.

His sullen, manipulative family withered in his shadow.

A brother, his name lost in a prescription haze, subjected to continuous disfiguring surgeries...

Snip this.
Slice that.
Shift it around.
Smooth it out.

I swear, it's as if they were twins.

The day came to fake his death, but the dosage was wrong.

Dead.

Maybe, just maybe...

No. The doppleganger in the basement, face down in a bucket of gruel.

Also dead.

They both were finally free.