Stories Short and Strange

17 short stories for general audiences ranging from the unusual to the unbelievable to the just plain strange.

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With a Little Help From My Friend

Jim Jenkins is an ace detective who solves the most difficult crimes. Yet he always works alone. Or does he?

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The Boy Who Could Wiggle His Ears

Learning how to wiggle your ears is really hard. But you can do it if you keep trying. And if you learn to keep trying, no problem is too big. So if you can wiggle your ears, you can do anything!

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Have You Ever Heard of a Grolar Bear?

Never underestimate the adaptability of nature. I was reminded of this again by a Smithsonian Magazine article entitled “Five Shocking Animal Hybrids That Truly Exist in Nature, From Narlugas to Grolar Bears to Coywolves” by Carlyn Kranking (https://getpocket.com/explore/item/five-shocking-animal-hybrids-that-truly-exist-in-nature-from-narlugas-to-grolar-bears-to-coywolves?) Some of these are pretty predictable, like the liger, the result of a male lion and female tiger,

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An Easy Way to Lower a City’s Temperature

There hasn’t been much good news on the climate front lately. We’ve just survived a record hot summer, and the very expensive natural disasters continue. Yet here is something positive — painting roofs white can significantly lower urban temperatures. This revelation came from London, which is expecting a changing climate to bring hotter and drier summers,

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“Troubling Trend in Teenage Sex”

I read a very disturbing article recently in The New York Times — “The Troubling Trend in Teenage Sex” by Peggy Orenstein. The trend is a disturbing increase in “rough sex” among college students, especially sexual strangulation, more commonly known as choking. Not only it is dangerous, it’s more dangerous than you might even imagine.

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Last Day

For the next seven days — until August 6 — This book is 99 cents on Kindle Countdown https://www.amazon.com/Stories-Short-Strange-Bob-Welbaum-ebook/dp/B0D3S444J3/ref=sr_1_1? Look for Kindle $0.99 to buy 17 short stories for general audiences ranging from the unusual to the unbelievable to the just plain strange.

Too Good To Go — The End of Food Waste?

Tired to hearing about how much food is wasted? There is an imaginative way to start taking advantage of leftover food at commercial establishments — restaurants, bakeries, grocery stores — especially if you like surprises. The idea is called Too Good To Go (https://www.toogoodtogo.com/en-us). According to its website, “Too Good To Go is a social

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What is Your Superpower?

Do you have a superpower? Mine is turning a two-sided piece of paper into a one-sided piece of paper. Okay, it’s actually a mathematical trick (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-timeless-journey-of-the-moebius-strip), but middle-school students don’t know that, so I usually get away with it. Yes, humans can have superpowers, although maybe not the kind found in comic books. For example,

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You Have to Know the Code

When I worked as “Christmas help” at the local Disney Store one holiday season, I learned that calling someone a “customer” wasn’t a compliment. Our patrons were our “guests” and “customer” was a code word for a suspected shoplifter. I was reminded of this after reading”14 Secret Code Words You Might Want to Know” by

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What in Tarnation?

The origin of common expressions is always a fascinating subject. Some origins are reasonably obvious, like “flash in the pan” and “going off half-cocked,” come from firearms. But other derivations are more obscure. Take the word “tarnation.” According to the Oxford English Dictionary, this expression is a combination of two terms: darnation, a natural variant of damnation; and tarnal, a

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