YouTube comments are the butthole of the internet…
…so of course they’re the perfect place to go hunting for story ideas!
During the last stream, a subscriber requested that we write some stories using YouTube comments from videos.
The first video was this one:
And the chosen comment was this one:
That didn’t feel like 46 seconds.
Here’s what we wrote:
That didn’t feel like 46 seconds. The puny kid splat onto the gym mat, not even able to hold a plank for a full minute. His arms shivered like hot Jell-o and his red face was spewing more sweaty air than a leaf blower.
Pathetic. I let out a yawn and my solid, statuesque arms pushed me up to standing, peering down upon my latest victim.
“You got the five bucks on you, bro?” I asked. “Or do I need to shake you out in the locker room?”
I almost felt bad taking money from little babby men, but hey, they were the ones who started it. Last week some twiggy beta bragged that he could outlift me, even when I told him to get lost. So I told him to nut up or shut up: a hundred if he could do it, and a measly five for me if he couldn’t.
I stood up from the bench five dollars richer that day. And now, a week later, I have to bring an extra duffel to the gym for all the Lincolns I’m raking in. No one has even come close, but I’ll let them keep paying tributes to their alpha if they want to.
“Hey there, sonny,” comes a voice. “Think you’re tough enough to take on a real athlete?”
She stood before me, barely coming up to my pecs, even with her curly white hair giving her an extra few inches. A little grandma with veiny arms and legs shooting out from her gym leotard. A faint aroma of lavender and wet-cat exuded from every inch of her.
This was a joke, right?
“Get lost, lady,” I said. “Go back to your shuffleboard class.”
“Oh, so you’re scared to take on someone with more experience then, huh?” she said, narrowing her eyes up at me. She reached into her leotard and pulled out a crumpled Benjamin, holding it up to my nose. It reeked of musty nursing home.
“Whatever, lady,” I said, shrugging my massive shoulders. “Here, let’s make it fun. You pick the challenge.”
She walked over to the free weights and brought back two puny five-pound dumbbells, putting one into my meaty hands.
“Let’s do stirs,” she said, showing the motion. She held the dumbbell with both hands, moving it around in a circle over and over and over. “First one to stop loses. You ready, sonny?”
I’d never heard of “stirs” before, but I was definitely ready to take some candy from a baby.
“Let’s cook, granny,” I said.
And we both were off, a crowd of protein-shake-fueled onlookers surrounding us, watching in part amusement and part concern.
I figured grandma over here would last, like 46 seconds tops. Same as the last loser. But a minute in and she was still stirring strong. Two minutes in and she was happily whistling away to some song I didn’t know. Three minutes in and why was the clock ticking so slowly???
By minute four my arms were drenched. Minute five and I was panting, while grandma stared at me, undaunted. Minute six and fire was coursing through my arms. Which would break first, my ego or my body?
Both. At the same time.
My flaccid arms, little more than pool noodles, dropped the dumbbell to the mat. Above it, grandma’s dumbbell did a few more victory laps in the air, then she gently whisked it away, looking as if she’d barely broken a sweat.
I could do nothing but tremble and sob. My spirit broken. I’d never be able to look anyone there in the eye again. I’d have to switch gyms. And even then, rumors would spread and—
“You did good, sonny,” grandma said, offering me a solid, statuesque hand of peace. “But you could never hope to compete with these arms. They’ve made Depression Stew for decades, and you gotta stir that sucker for at least twenty minutes to get the bones to dissolve!”
Next up was this video:
And there was a tie between two chosen comments:
(1) Reminder that he was probably plastered drunk and on a heroic amount of cocaine as he did this.
(2) You can actually hear the incoming fire ripping through the trees
Here’s what we wrote, beginning with (1) and ending with (2):
Reminder that he was probably plastered drunk and on a heroic amount of cocaine as he did this. I mean, I couldn’t imagine holding a gender reveal party for a baby that I’d found out wasn’t mine either.
Jerry had called me last week at two in the morning, slurring his words but comprehendible enough: “She cheated on mer, Todd! Sher chearted on mer!”
I’d expected him to leave her. Facebook breakup and anything. But as far as I could tell, nothing had changed. The invitations to the gender reveal went out, and here I was in Jerry and Janet’s backyard, standing around a paper-mache robot the size of a monument to a gender god, half of it pink, half of it blue.
Jerry was waving around the wand-lighter like he was trying to cast Wingardium Leviosa, with Janet distracted by her friends who were all chatty smiles. On the one hand the poor dude was probably held together mentally only by the pharmaceuticals at this point, but on the other hand I’m pretty sure he shouldn’t be allowed around fire.
But all he had to do was light the wick. Just tap the flame against the string, Jerry. That’s it. That’s all you gotta go. Then we can all go home.
Jerry did not tap the flame against the wick. Some sort of cocaine twitch lunged his hand right at the paper-mache frills, and that sucker lit up like Nicholas Cage in Wicker Man.
The crash it made to the ground was even louder than the screams. The tablecloth, a nearby tree, the fence, all of it sucked up the flames like a baby at the bottle choking down firemilk and vomiting it back up.
Then the balloons erupted. They flowed out of the cracked-open back of the robot, spewing out pink balloons that carried embers and glowing ashes to the neighbors’ yards and the forest beyond.
Well, I guess it was a girl. Mine and Janet’s kid was a girl.
Among the burning chaos, Jerry stumbled up to me and put his twitching hand on my shoulder.
“You gonnar help me, Jim?” he asked, his eyes bloodshot. “Find the sumr betch who did that to Janet?”
“Of course, Jerry,” I told him, giving him a reassuring bro slap on the back. “But let’s get the hose first. You can actually hear the incoming fire ripping through the trees.”
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Hope to see you next time, friend!
Top image: Pakutaso