Bacalao

It began as a typical Thursday at the office.

I was having a bad day of a sort for no real reason, other than I couldn't get my emotions under control. Close to lunch, I decided to cheer myself up by visiting bright and colorful Web sites featuring cats doing funny things.

I clicked on a random link, and suddenly, the computer stopped responding to me. Then, a horrible low-pitched whine emanated from the speaker.

"Oh my God, what is that?" Sylvia, my cubicle neighbor said, covering her ears.

"I don't know!" I yelled back, my hands around my ears as well.

The sound infected the normally quiet office. It was impossible to get anything done, and my co-workers soon huddled around my cubicle to see what the noise was. In a matter of seconds, the fluorescent lights flickered out, and a pinkish glow bounced off the walls of the cubicles. Russell from Human Resources gasped. Each and every monitor flashed obscene images.

Mitch, the IT technician, making his best effort to act nonchalant, brusquely disconnected my computer from its power source. Nothing changed, and the drone continued. A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead.

At our wits' end, and with no logical options left to pursue, we decided to throw my computer and monitor out the window, in hopes that by destroying the source of evil, we would be able to save the rest of our equipment. After all, it had worked in several cheesy horror movies, Chris, a project manager, had pointed out.

All our hopes sailed down five stories and suddenly became small, shiny pieces. But the drone persisted, disembodied, and confined to the general area of my cubicle. Scenes of unspeakable sexual acts, some involving castor oil, the cast of "Cats", and a wallaby, had been burned into our eyes even though they were no longer displayed on any of the monitors, which were now functioning normally. However, we were far from any kind of normalcy. We were mercifully let off work early that day.

My cubicle was vacated on Friday, and I was reassigned to another floor. The noise remained. The visions too. A priest was called in on Monday to exorcize the spot. We all witnessed how in doing so, he spontaneously combusted, leaving behind the smell of roses, and in place of the horrible noise, the pleasant chirping of birds.

His charred remains were flown to the Vatican, and we returned to business as usual.

Avena

"..but I don't want my son to be a faggot,"
"Well, you like to cook. Are you a faggot?"
"No!"he said with a scowl.
"Then our son is getting an easy-bake oven for Christmas," she said.

So on Christmas morning, a five-year old Sean baked little cakes for his family in what he would later describe to Mexican line cooks as "una chingaderita de plastico", or in words used in polite company, "a small plastic toy".

Calamari

Even though the American news networks would have done better to classify it as a freak occurrence, the attacks on small fishing vessels in the Atlantic by a squid were instead covered as a declaration of war by intelligent marine life.

It had been a slow news week.

A few frightened fishermen from the city had spotted a tentacled something arc out of the water, propelled by a stream of water. As it approached their boat, one of the men lost his balance and fell into the water. The cephalopod landed in front of the boat, and the men hurried to help their friend to safety. As they pulled him out, a tentacle shot out of the water and swiftly wrapped itself around the man's neck. The rubbery tentacle bulged, a loud snap, the man went limp, and his body disappeared under the surface. It had all happened in the span of two minutes.

They wanted to retaliate and so enlisted the help of the local fishermen. However, squid were an important part of the seafront economy and a sudden abundance of them would drive calamari prices down- the last thing struggling restauranteurs needed. Destroying them was also out of the question because tourists favored the region for its steady supply of affordable, delicious cephalopods. Since jellyfish were not an integral part of the local economy, nobody really understood them anyway, and once in a while, someone even got stung, they made the perfect target.

The fishermen went national with the story, which was a complete fabrication. Not only had no jellyfish been involved, but their friend had actually been strangled after he claimed he claimed that had had an affair with the wife of the one of group's members. But, when Fox News picked up the piece, millions of jellyfish wound up dead along the shores of the country.

The population of jellyfish recovered when a Republican congressman was revealed to have been Lady Gaga.