My flash SF story Pop And The Pirates appeared on Daily Science Fiction last Wednesday. Retirement, asteroids, and space pirates! Since my story notes were accidentally omitted upon publication, I’m including those here (you may want to read the story first):

While it may not be immediately obvious to the casual observer, this story was inspired by Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints. But since that is an utterly boring bit of management theory, I’ll muse on something else that also fed into this tale: how it’s often a mistake to believe you can finally relax. Parents, especially those with young children (like myself), can relate. Just like Pop was hoping to sit out the remainder of his career on a quiet asteroid (or should that be planetoid?), parents go into relaxation mode with a sigh of relief after the kids have been put to bed. The Parental Alertness Button can finally be switched to the Off position. Me-time! Until someone trip-traps down the stairs, because they need a glass of water, or had a nightmare, or were bothered by their brother’s snoring, or want to talk about what was bothering them, that they utterly refused to talk about four hours ago. Children aren’t space pirates, and parents don’t grab blasters when they appear. But other than that, I can relate to Pop’s feelings. Every single evening.