Howdy. I’m that naked guy you’ve probably seen beachcombing. You can be sure it’s me by my potbelly, which makes it look like I’ve swallowed a basketball. Because I carry my keys and phone in my hands, I need a place to carry any washed-up objects I wish to take home. I was inspired by […]
Washed Up
Posted inWashed Up
Mollusk Noir
On weekends, I front a punk band called the Dead Cousteaus. On weekdays, I’m a private investigator. So, on Monday morning, I was in my office nursing a bottle hoping to ease out of my weekend, but the shadow of a stacked broad crossed my desk. She smelled of mollusks and trouble. The “stacked” part […]
Posted inWashed Up
Ladybug Wind Deniers
“It’s the wrong time to go, folks. It’s a warm spring day, but there’s a Devil Wind a-blowin’,” said a ladybug to the hundreds of others huddled together waiting for the right time to emerge from my shed. “Eat shit, you woke pansy. I’m gonna go find a rose garden, chow some aphids and bang […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Ghost in the Abalone Shell
Hi. My name is Able. I was once a magnificent red abalone. Now I’m just a junk bowl on the desk of the dipshit who normally writes this column. I contain some presumably reusable toothpicks, an expired condom, probably a raisin and a smelly glass pipe. And my partner here is a red abalone shell […]
Posted inWashed Up
Moon Snail Pie
I was walking along Humboldt Bay when I heard, “Psst. Hey!” A Lewis’s moon snail (Neverita lewisii) was calling me from a shallow pool in the tidal mudflat. The snail said, “I want to enter the big baking contest. But those jerk-offs will never let a snail win. So, can you pose as me? Plus, […]
Posted inWashed Up
Mass Wash-ups
Back when I worked for the Feds, a major non-NATO ally of the United States gifted me a luxury research submarine. While decorating the sub’s interior with golden filigree at taxpayer expense, we discovered a clandestine surveillance system. So, I wired in a video player to show the foreign spies daily episodes of the popular […]
Posted inWashed Up
Magical Comb Jellies
When I was a kid, my babysitter was a witch. She was a typical pointy-hatted, spell-casting witch. But she was also a marine biology major at Humboldt State University, so she’d take me on her broom to the beach after school to look for washed-up stuff. One day she said, “Look, my lovely, the beach […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Topsnail House Makeover
All the houses in my 1980s-built neighborhood were painted in just a few dull repetitive colors. They are essentially all the same. But I dream of living in a neighborhood with a full spectrum of vibrant colors in every combination. So, I did something about it by painting my house using the color palette of […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Don’t Eat the Sand Turkey
A mysterious man sold me an elixir he said would make my stringy beard as thick and silky as an otter’s pelt. However, he did not mention the side effects. I drank the stuff and went for my regular beach walk. It wasn’t the hallucinations that produced a perfectly roasted Thanksgiving turkey on the beach […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Purple Jellies of Doom
Hi there. I’m a stranger from the future here to beg you to stop reading these Washed Up stories. The asshole who writes them made a vast fortune by bilking his readers. Then he became another one of those tedious billionaires who buy their way into political power and do a bunch of stupid stuff. […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Sea Nettle Babymaking
A local grocery store was overstocked, so they had a big sale. When I arrived, the place was packed with people having sex and grabbing groceries. People were even rolling around in shopping carts having sex and stuffing groceries in with them. Things I won’t describe were happening in the produce section. And there were […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Moon Jellies for Breakfast
We at Washed-up Foods Inc. are preparing to launch our first breakfast cereal. It’s called Sugar Frosted Moon Flakes. It’s made from our local moon jelly (Aurelia aurita), one of the jellyfish species harvested for human consumption. Dried jellies are used in several Asian cuisines, and are high in protein and low in fat, but […]