I Want to Play a Game

It started out as a game, a way to pass the time between friends at work. The game was simple - take a mugshot from the internet and create an elaborate backstory or a funny concept for the person in the picture. No winners, no losers, just a way to make each other laugh. Pretty simple, really. And now here we are. I decided to start this as a sort of "Hall of Fame" - a compilation of the best stories we came up with, or a continuation of the game on a larger scale. I don't expect this will gain much popularity but we'll see what happens. If you are reading this and feel compelled, send us a challenge or even your own submission, and we'll see if it makes us laugh. Maybe we'll use it. For now, here's one to get us started. It's entitled, "The Audition".

Hay there, fellas. My name is Sharla Van Shorn. I'm 53 years old, from backwater Mississippi. I'm spry, wriggly, and I can bite purdy good. As you can see, I think I'd be the perfect candidate to come and play a walker on your little show. I really like The Walking Dead, what I know of it, cause it has everything I've been brought up to believe in - the injustice of the world, good hard country livin', and lots and lots of blood. I knew I was destined to be a part of the show from the first day I watched it.

When Sheriff Rick met up with that first zombie walker in the first episode, I said to myself, "Kyle," that's what I call my inner voice, Kyle. So I said, "Kyle, you gotta do what you gotta do to get on that show. It was meant for you." That night after the show, I started gettin my look right for this audition letter. I shaved off the sides of my head and did a totally messed up mullet thing cause I think that it's a good look for the undead. Honestly, you can never really go wrong with a well-kept mullet especially if you get it to look like that gorgeous Billy Ray Cyrus. Man, I love him he's my inspiration and role model for my life. That daughter of his though, she needs a whoopin' something fierce. To me a mullet is an absolutely essential part of life, sort of like how it's also very important to sleep with your brothers. Well, not really sleepin' with them, more of a - y'all know what? I've said too much. Jest forget I brought my brothers into me....uh, this. Yeah.

Anyway, like I was sayin' I cut my hair to the perfect mullet and I started to starve myself to get all weak and frail lookin'. I done a pretty dang ol' good job, huh? Bet you didn't know that before I started this process six months ago that I weighed near 500 lbs. I looked like Gilbert Grape's momma off to that one movie what had that Johnny Depp in it. Boy, what I wouldn't give to have him depp inside me. Dang it, Kyle! Stop talking that-a way. Well, like I says, I couldn't move off my couch and didn't even know that I had sat on my beloved dog, Blue, and kilt him dead. I always just thought he run off to find him some heat and spread the love. My husband, Greg, he don't think this is a good idea, says it ain't right to lose all this weight cause he liked me big and fluffy and unable to move off the couch so as he could have his way with me more easy. But it's ok cause he dead now.

After I lost all my weight, I needed to practice my shambling, hobbling, and running so I took to chasing Greg round the house. I was really into it, I mean REALLY in to it. One day I finally caught up to him and I did what any good zombie would do and I bit his ankles so he couldn't walk no more and then I ate him. Well, not all of him. I still have a leg, an arm, and part of his pancreas in the freezer for when I get peckish.

Well, after all that training. I decided that if I was gonna be a zombie I bet at some point I would lose my teeth. So I pulled some of them out with help from my friend and neighbor, Miss Jo. She's a good lady, older than dirt and fragile, but she sure can slam on the gas of an old Caddy-lac. See, I knew she and I wouldn't have the strenth to pull my teeth out with the rusty pair of pliers I had used to disembowel my dear Greg, so we took a thin piece of balin' wire and shimmed it up between my teeth, luckily I already had the gaps to accommodate that, and we tied the balin' wire to a shoestring. Took the shoestring and tied it to a small rope, the small rope to a bigger rope, and another bigger rope, and finally a chain. We hooked the chain up to the hitch on that old Caddy-lac and she floored it. Took about five tries to get the first tooth pulled, but the others were pretty easy. I mean, once my jaw was broken things just sort of started falling out on they own.

Well, that's my submission. I know y'all is always looking for some new zombies and I hope that you pick me, Sharla Van Shorn. Thank y'all for yer time. See you on the undead side.