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Really Stupid Stories for Really Smart Kids Page 3


  Dad came home early today, and asked me to help him wash the windows.

  20

  Mom walked by and put my brush and a tube of toothpaste in my hand. But when I looked down, I saw she had made a big mistake! This wasn’t my ultra-double-bubble-fudge ripple toothpaste, it was the tube that was specially made to clean

  8

  my little brother’s butt! It is always messy, and my parents expect me to dump his poop in

  30

  Dad’s favorite slippers! How cute is that?

  24

  My brother Wally just came down the stairs, all by himself, taking baby steps in

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  cow manure for the lawn.

  22

  It was getting dark. Practice was over. I tiptoed into the house quietly so no one could see I was wearing

  1

  a towel that had a picture of a tiger on it.

  7

  Grandma came in and saw me! She welcomed me home and told me she’d been cooking all afternoon so she could serve me my favorite meal

  12

  all the dirt on the carpet.

  4

  Dad opened the hatchback and pulled out a giant bag. And he held his nose and said, “Whew, does this stink!” It was

  21

  Mom’s wedding dress.

  28

  Since my birthday is coming up, I peeked in the closets looking for a present. I am really hoping for an awesome

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  pie á la mode.

  17

  But guess what I found hanging in the hall closet?

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  Uncle Sidney.

  37

  Mom came storming in, yelling, “You are so filthy! March right up to the bathroom and take a bath right now, young lady!”

  5

  My Uncle Sidney stayed for dinner. He’s got a big appetite, and he just can’t say no when the family is serving

  13

  poop in the potty.

  33

  I had homework to do. Uncle Sidney helped, and when it came to math, he knew

  38

  absolutely nothing.

  15

  Kitty walked by and I petted her fur. And then she dashed off, zipping around the room and

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  knitting a beautiful beret for

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  the cat across the street.

  42

  When we finished eating, Grandma decided to show off. She sat down and delighted the whole family by

  34

  hissing at

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  each of us and

  36

  then going pee-pee in

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  the litter box

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  a lot.

  39

  Dad started yawning. He’d had a long day, and since his sports car was being repaired, he was forced to

  18

  skateboard.

  26

  I hate having to spend so much time wiping the mush off

  29

  my pillow.

  46

  It had been a long night. So I kissed everyone goodnight, ran up the stairs, and rested my head on

  45

  the bathroom sink.

  11

  What Millie Meant to Read…

  It was getting dark. Practice was over. I tiptoed into the house quietly so no one could see I was wearing

  muddy soccer cleats! Ooey, gooey, crusty dirt flicking and flying around.

  I knew I’d better grab the vacuum and immediately suck up

  all the dirt on the carpet.

  Mom came storming in, yelling, “You are so filthy! March right up to the bathroom and take a bath right now, young lady!”

  I took a bath. I scrubbed. I rubbed. I used soap. I shampooed. And when I got out of the tub, I dried my body with

  a towel that had a picture of a tiger on it.

  Mom walked by and put my brush and a tube of toothpaste in my hand. But when I looked down, I saw she had made a big mistake! This wasn’t my ultra-double-bubble-fudge ripple toothpaste, it was the tube that was specially made to clean

  Grandma’s set of fake teeth!

  What a big mistake! So of course I dropped it exactly where it belonged, in

  the bathroom sink.

  Grandma came in and saw me! She welcomed me home and told me she’d been cooking all afternoon so she could serve me my favorite meal.

  My Uncle Sidney stayed for dinner. He’s got a big appetite, and he just can’t say no when the family is serving

  meat loaf, topped with mushroom gravy. Wow, there’s nothing better,

  absolutely nothing.

  I grabbed a large serving spoon and plopped a giant portion on my plate.

  Then I picked up my fork and ate every bite, because I figured that for dessert there’d be

  pie á la mode.

  Dad started yawning. He’d had a long day, and since his sports car was being repaired, he was forced to

  drive the minivan.

  Dad came home early today and asked me to help him wash the windows.

  Dad opened the hatchback and pulled out a giant bag. But first he held his nose and said, “Whew, does this stink!” It was

  cow manure for the lawn.

  My brother Wally just came down the stairs, all by himself, taking baby steps in

  Dad’s favorite slippers! How cute is that?

  Since my birthday is coming up, I peeked in the closets looking for a present. I am really hoping for an awesome

  skateboard.

  But guess what I found hanging in the hall closet?

  Mom’s wedding dress.

  I hate having to spend so much time wiping mush off

  my little brother’s butt! It is always messy, and my parents expect me to dump his poop in

  the toilet.

  My brother is two-and-a-half and it’s about time he learned to

  poop in the potty.

  When we finished eating, Grandma decided to show off. She sat down and delighted the whole family by

  knitting a beautiful beret for

  each of us and

  Uncle Sidney.

  I had homework to do. Uncle Sidney helped, and when it came to math, he knew

  a lot.

  Kitty walked by and I petted her fur. And then she dashed off, zipping around the room and

  hissing at

  the cat across the street

  then going pee-pee in

  the litter box.

  It had been a long night. So I kissed everyone goodnight, ran up the stairs, and rested my head on

  my pillow.

  THE END

  SEE HERE!

  Vanessa looked at the ad in the newspaper. It said:

  Send only $14.99 check or money order plus $2.95 for shipping, $3.50 for handling and local sales tax, and $17.12 for no good reason and this very special pair of X-Ray Powered Binoculars will be yours! See through walls! See around corners! See down the block into the neighbor’s house and know what they’re having on their Munchy Flakes!

  “Oh man, this is too good to be true!” Vanessa exclaimed.

  “Then it probably is,” her mom said. “Those things never work.”

  “They have to work,” Vanessa replied. “If they didn’t work, they couldn’t advertise them!”

  Her mother snorted, then reminded her that ads and commercials always try to make products look better, taste better, or seem better than they really are. “That’s what gets people to buy them, sweetie,” Vanessa’s mom chuckled.

  Vanessa rolled her eyes, and said, “Well, I’m buying them anyway!”

  Mom laughed her famous “that’s what you think” laugh, and firmly told Vanessa that there wouldn’t be any X-Ray Powered Binoculars in her future—because mom wouldn’t be wasting more than $30 for them!

  Vanessa then vowed to earn the money herself. And that’s exactly what she did. She mowed lawns, she babysat, she sold lemonade, pretzels, and cooki
es. She fed dogs, she washed windows, and she wrapped packages at Mr. Horowitz’s Nifty Gift Shop and Pizza Palace.

  And pretty soon, she had a huge mess of coins that totaled up to $38.56!

  Vanessa gave her mom the right amount of coins, and mom sent a check to order the X-Ray Powered Binoculars.

  Every day the following week, Vanessa sat by the mailbox waiting for the mail carrier to bring her dream binoculars. And every day… nothing.

  Same thing the following week. And the following week. And the week after that.

  Finally, just as Vanessa had pretty much given up hope, the binoculars arrived. Vanessa ripped open the package and found… a little tiny pair of plastic binoculars. They were so tiny, in fact, that Vanessa could make a fist around them and you wouldn’t be able to tell they were even in her hand.

  When her mom saw the itsy-bitsy binoculars, she couldn’t help but laugh. She gave Vanessa a stern, 20-minute lecture about believing false advertising, wasting money, and so on.

  Vanessa wanted to cry. But she didn’t. She remained quiet during the whole lecture, and waited as mom left the room.

  Then she aimed the binoculars at the living room wall and saw through that, through the garage next door, through the neighbor’s house, around the corner, down the block and into her best friend Jenny’s bedroom, where she spotted a bag of jelly beans she’d left there a few weeks ago.

  “Mom’s right—these are junk!” Vanessa said, tossing the binoculars aside and running out the door to go claim her long-lost jelly beans.

  THE END

  THE BID, BID MISTAKE

  “Welcome to the great national book auction here in Washington, D.C.,” the auctioneer said. “Please try to stay calm, as we auction off original works by some of the world’s greatest poets to raise money to benefit the Foundation of Artists of Resourceful Thinking. Or, as the organization is more commonly known, F.A.R.T.”

  What followed was a four-hour auction unlike anything the literary world had ever witnessed. Collectors bid thousands of dollars on works by noted poets such as Emily Dickinson, W.B. Yeats, and Walt Whitman. Some even bid on artifacts said to have been owned by famous poets, such as a tissue once used by Edgar Allan Poe and some leftover frosting from the desk of Robert Frost.

  But it was the final book of the day that had the bidders leaping out of their seats.

  That book—the only known copy of a work by Roberta M. Mahogany—was the much-sought-after, never-before-read book called…

  Poetry by Furniture

  Indeed, Ms. Mahogany had lived with furniture her whole life, and as her final poetic work, had interviewed various pieces around her home and put their thoughts into words.

  Some said she was brilliant.

  Some said she was a genius.

  Others said she was nutty as a fruitcake.

  But the crowd oooed and aaahed as the auctioneer held up the book and announced that bidding would start at one million dollars.

  No one bid.

  It wasn’t that the people in the crowd weren’t ready to spend a million dollars or more on the book. It was simply that no one had ever heard any of the poems.

  “No one has ever heard any of the poems!” a disgruntled woman yelled from the third row. She wanted to hear a sample poem before spending such a large sum of money.

  “Very well,” the auctioneer said.

  He opened the treasured book, cleared his throat, and read the first poem in the book to the hushed crowd.

  “This is called ‘The Couch.’”

  I can vouch

  It’s nice to be a couch.

  It feels great to help people

  be comfy

  and cushy.

  But please, please, please

  be good to me—

  Dig deep down

  and get the remote control

  out of my tushy.

  “Simply breathtaking!” cried the woman in the third row.

  “I must have that book!” yelled the man next to her.

  “Read another epic poem, please!” called a man through tears of joy.

  “Very well,” said the auctioneer, knowing that the more the bidders heard the poetry, the higher they’d be likely to bid.

  “This is called ‘The Chair.’”

  I look nice

  in your living space.

  But I won’t ask you twice…

  move your butt, you’re sitting on my face!

  The woman in the third row fainted at the magnificence of the poem. The man sitting next to her revived her, (though for a moment, he considered letting her stay unconscious so that she wouldn’t outbid him).

  “I will read one last poem before we start the bidding,” the auctioneer told the throng. “This one is called ‘The Ottoman.’”

  Though I’m a footstool as comfy as a fur-lined moccasin

  it takes strength to be an ottoman

  And so, I take a daily vitamin.

  “Absolutely beautiful,” the auctioneer said. “In fact, never mind one million dollars. I am starting the bidding at two million dollars!”

  “I bid two million dollars!” a voice called from the back.

  “Two million and a penny!” another voice shouted.

  “Two million, seventeen dollars and twenty-three cents!” a third voice said.

  “Two million, one-hundred-ninety-seven dollars… and a half of a jelly donut!” a fourth voice called.

  The bidding went on and on, ultimately reaching five million dollars.

  The auctioneer was about to accept that final offer, when someone who hadn’t been heard from yelled, “One hundred million dollars!”

  The crowd gasped.

  The auctioneer accepted the one hundred million-dollar bid and brought the winning bidder to the stage.

  “Congratulations on winning this precious Roberta M. Moahogany book,” he said. “May I ask your name?”

  The woman spoke softly. She said, “My name is Roberta M. Mahogany.”

  “You bought your own book?” the incredulous auctioneer wanted to know.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Do you have one hundred million dollars?” he asked her.

  “No, but I will be earning that much from this sale,” she told him.

  “No, you won’t,” he said. “You have to pay that much to receive that much.”

  Roberta M. Mahogany thought about that.

  “Oh. Um, I guess you’re right,” she said. “I withdraw my bid.”

  “You can’t withdraw your bid!” the auctioneer fumed. “You made a firm bid, and I intend to hold you to it.”

  “But… but I don’t have one hundred million dollars!” Roberta M. Mahogany said, starting to cry. She feared she would never smile again.

  “I have one hundred million dollars!” yelled the woman from the third row. “It’s right here in my purse. I will pay for the book and return it to its rightful owner—you!”

  “Thank you,” said Roberta M. Mahogany, hugging the woman. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Helen. I am a publisher—and an author too. Perhaps you’ve seen the very famous book about me—the one that earned me fifteen billion dollars.

  Yes, it was that Helen. She generously gave the one hundred million dollars to Roberta M. Mahogany, so that she could use it to buy her own book. After Roberta handed the money to the auctioneer, he gave it back to her, because, after all, she had written the book in the first place.

  Roberta smiled. Then she laughed. A lot.

  In fact, with the one hundred million dollars and her book in hand, she laughed all the way through the dinner meal she ate with Helen.

  And she especially laughed when Helen told her Stanley Hyenawitz’s joke.

  THE END

  BUY-BUY FOR NOW

  “Kids, it’s time for this year’s fundraising effort,” Mrs. Feinsilver told the class. “We are all going to work together to try to earn funds to pay for new playground equipment.”

  “Are we selling wra
pping paper again?” Michael Williams wanted to know. “Because last year, my grandma said that she bought so much wrapping paper, she couldn’t afford to buy any gifts to wrap!”

  “No, not wrapping paper,” Mrs. Feinsilver said. “It’s…”

  “I hope it’s not candy,” Jenna Douglas said. “The gooey chocolate always melts in my backpack when I’m delivering the orders, and people end up spending money for mush.”

  “Nope, not candy either,” Mrs. Feinsilver told the girl. “This year, it’s…”

  “It had better not be seeds,” Ralph Botner announced. “My mom said our garden is already full of plants that aren’t growing.”

  “How can it be full of plants if they aren’t growing?” Jenna asked him.

  “I dunno,” Ralph told her. “It’s just what my mom says.”

  “My mom says we don’t need any more kitchen gadgets.” Jason Reiss said. “My big sister sold choppers and scoopers and peelers and stuff, and none of it really worked. There’s a whole drawer near our sink that’s full of that junk, and we can’t open it because the only thing we didn’t buy was the stuck drawer opener-er.”

  “It’s not kitchen gadgets,” Mrs. Feinsilver reassured the boy. “Rather, we will be selling…”

  “I know! It’s probably gift cards good for local merchants!” Reilly McNeil guessed. “My cousin’s school sold those, and we got a card redeemable for $25 worth of taffy. The school got $5, and I got… three cavities!”

  “Not gift cards, Reilly,” Mrs. Feinsilver said. “I’m glad to hear that you’re all so enthusiastic and full of ideas, but we are actually going to sell…