I decided to try writing a story, any story, in 15 minutes, with no corrections or revisions. Here it is:
I’m at Home Depot on Saturday and I’m standing in the electrical aisle and who should come walking down the aisle but the Almighty himself – God. Yep, it seems the King of Everything was having issues with one of the Klieg lights in his game room, so he needed to stop by and pick up a new light switch.
He was kind of standoffish when I asked him how he broke the switch in the first place. He just muttered something about Dionysus, Steve McQueen, and a poker game.
So while he was here I figured I might as well take advantage of the situation and ask a few questions. I asked Him if that would be ok.
“Sure. Why the hell not”, He said.
At this point, the 700 lb dog He was traveling with decided this was going to take a while and curled up on the floor next to the forklift, farted, and sighed loudly.
“So why didn’t you just whip up a new light switch from scratch?” I asked.
“I like coming to Home Depot from time to time. It’s much better than Wal-Mart. Too many reminders of my mistakes there. It’s like Darwin’s waiting room!”
We both laughed.
This was followed by an awkward moment when we both reached for the same light switch. He glared at me.
“That’s mine”, I said.
He smiled. “Of course it is.” He let go, and the building shook a bit.
“Look, I have a few minutes to talk, and then I need to get back to Heaven, so you can ask me three questions”.
“Great! Ok. Did you really create Adam and Eve?”
“Yes”, he replied. “Adam was a bit of a douche-nozzle, but Eve was a nice kid. She did have some serious jealously issues though. Not sure why – she was like the ONLY woman on the planet at the time. She was so jealous that when Adam would come home late at night, she would count his ribs”.
“Wow”, I said. “If you knew Adam was going to be such a dweeb, why did you create man then?”
“Because a vibrator can’t mow the lawn, kid”.
The dog lifted his head and looked at God.
God looked back at the dog and shrugged his shoulders. “What?”
The dog shook his head in disbelief and laid back down.
“Um. Ok. Well, is Jesus real?” I asked.
God pulled out his wallet. It had an OP logo on the side and I could hear the sound of Velcro tearing as he opened it up.
“Check this out”. He handed me his wallet.
“That’s him on the dinosaur”, God said proudly. “And this is him and I coming out of a theater in Toledo. That was an all night Chuck Norris marathon”.
I handed the wallet back to him “That is so cool”. I reached up and grabbed a six pack of light bulbs and placed it in my basket.
God smiled wickedly. “You won’t have time to use all six”.
I turned white and dropped the bulbs.
“Hey, just kidding. Jokey-Smurf. God jokes, you know?”
I picked up the light bulbs and stopped hyperventilating.
“Anyway Steve, that was your three questions. Sorry, but I need to get going – New Girl starts in 20 minutes and I just love that Zooey Deschanel”.
The dog stood up, yawned, then took the light bulb package out of my hand and swallowed it whole.
As God headed toward the register, I called to Him. “Do you have any advice for me…to make me a better person?”
God stopped and looked back over his shoulder.
“I sent out an email to all the good people of the world last week. I gave them some great advice and explained the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. Didn’t you get it?”
He continued walking toward the self checkout registers.