You’re The Last Of Your Friends To Get Divorced Day!

None of your friends believe that you two are still in love. They think you’re refusing to get divorced just to try and be different. They’ve all been divorced for years. Your house is the one they’d all come to in tears when they decided it was time to make the big split. Many of them even came to you two and asked you to witness their divorce papers. That might be why they resent your marriage so much. Because you were there for the sad dissolution of theirs and none of the debris so much as bruised your bond. They’re starting to think you just consider yourselves so far above everybody that you can look down upon them and judge them as their marriages shatter. They’re angry that you’re still together and they’re outside.

“We’re not leaving until you two get divorced,” says Pam, divorced three years.

“It’s bullshit. You guys never even seemed that right for each other,” Arthur, divorced two years, says.

“Split up or we bust your heads open,” shouts Laraine, divorced seven months.

You tell Laraine she’s being crazy and Laraine comes running at you with a baseball bat. She swings and you duck, but her bat hits Arthur in the head and kills him. You and the dozen or so divorced friends carry Arthur’s body into the back yard, chop him up and bury him.

“We’re all accomplices here! You all let us stay together or we tell the police what happened here tonight!” you shout.

Your divorced friends reluctantly agree to stop pressuring you two to split up. You send them on their way and you and your spouse head up to the bedroom and make love to each other with more passion and fury than you’ve felt in years. You haven’t spoken it out loud but both of you have been having doubts lately, until tonight. Burying Arthur woke something up in you and you feel like your love has been reignited as you scratch at each other with the soil of Arthur’s grave under your fingernails. Murder has made your marriage stronger, and you’ll need more blood if you want to continue to lord your everlasting bond over your friends the way you have been.

Happy You’re The Last Of Your Friends To Get Divorced Day!

You Know The Plotlines For The First 100 Episodes Of “Guys With Kids” Day!

They came to you in the middle of the night last night. Like they’d been beamed into your head. The plotlines for the first 100 episodes of Guys With Kids. When you went to sleep you weren’t even thinking about Guys With Kids. You knew it existed, but you figured it doesn’t need you to think about it to continue existing. Now that you know the first episode is about how even though the guys have kids, they’re still just guys (or are they?), and in the second episode the one guy with a kid asks the other two guys with kids for help moving an armoire, and in the third episode all three guys with kids have to go to the post office but the kids haven’t eaten in days, and in the fourth episode the guys with kids meet two other guys with kids but their kids end up being dolls (American Girl), and in the fifth episode the guys with kids get condescended to by a barista so they follow him home and set fire to his car (a Civic), you’re thinking maybe Guys With Kids actually does need you to think about it in order for it to exist.

Maybe if you stop thinking about it, episode six won’t be about the trouble with sippy cups, and episode seven will be about something other than anal polyps, and episode eight won’t address online gambling addiction, and episode nine won’t be the one where all three guys go to take their kids to a little-known catholic counsel to have their kids exorcized “just in case,” and episode ten won’t feature a Blythe Danner walk-on.

Maybe you’re the autistic kid staring at a snowglobe full of the characters from Guys With Kids.

That could explain why you know episode eleven is the one where they find out one of the kids can stop time, and episode twelve is the one where they go to Sweden to personally return an Ikea crib to the factory, and in episode thirteen one of the guys with kids decides to leave the group and the other two are secretly excited to be done with him but at the last minute he changes his mind, and episode fourteen is the demolition derby episode, and in episode fifteen the guys listen to the 9/11 phone calls, and in episode sixteen guy #2 doesn’t trust guy #1 so he tries to have him wacked but guy #3 gets killed instead, and in episode seventeen we find out guy #3 was never who we thought he was, that the real guy #3 (and his kid) are CIA and the guy #3 who got killed was just a North Korean spy wearing a disguise, and in episode eighteen the guys remember the first seventeen episodes and spend the last ten minutes sobbing, and in episode nineteen one of the kids starts a race riot and the guys try to help everyone keep a cool head but they can’t so the city burns and they have to move to Vancouver, and in episode twenty there’s an AIDS scare, and episode twenty-one is the Christmas episode, and episode twenty-two is the mole people episode, and episode twenty-three is the Ghost of Steve Jobs Is Haunting The Kid Of Guy #2 episode, and in episode twenty-four one of the guys loses his kid’s teddy bear and he spends the rest of the episode screaming at God.

Are you still dreaming? Or are you awake and you really do have all this knowledge? Could it be aliens?

Could it be that you really already know episode twenty-five is a tribute to the life of Jared from Subway and episode twenty-six is a parody of “Steel Magnolias” and in episode twenty-seven there’s just a black, silent screen for twenty-two minutes because sometimes we need to remember the vastness of empty moments, and episode twenty-eight has the guys trying to sell their kids to Colombians and episode twenty-nine sends the guys to Fiji for a lifestyle festival (sex thing), and in episode thirty the guys finally learn how to change a diaper?

The bigger question is, are you the only one? Do you alone know that episodes thirty-one through forty address gun control, hickeys, good cell phone service vs. bad cell phone service, car salesmen, flesh-eating viruses, getting thrown in “the dog house” by your “old lady,” naptime, the politics of hipster kickball leagues, denim washes, and whether or not the moon landing was faked? If not, how many others were chosen to know that episodes forty-one through forty-three comprise a three-episode arc about sexual promiscuity amongst the residents of senior communities, and episode forty-four is the one where the creator’s dead dog is fed to the guys with kids “as a warning,” and episode forty-five is the Yom Kippur episode, and in episode forty-six no one says the word “is,” and episodes forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty, fifty-one, and fifty-two will all be shot on a military base with the scripts written solely to hypnotically activate brain-washed black ops sleeper agents?

Why were you chosen? For what purpose?

What use can it be to anyone that you know episode fifty-three will be about the creation of an Edie Brickell-type folk superstar, and episode fifty-four will be a funny spin on Revelations, and episode fifty-five has the guys competing to see which of their kids gets the last spot in the good day care, and episode fifty-six is kind of a scene-by-scene response to the episode of Cheers where Coach has to keep his daughter from marrying the wrong guy, and episode fifty-seven is about how guys with kids have to buy their ladies maxi-pads sometimes and it’s embarrassing, and episode fifty-eight shows what it would be like if the guys and the kids switched bodies, and episode fifty-nine has the guys worried they aren’t as cool as guys who ran off on their kids, and episode sixty is just a blood-bath, nothing but gore and shoot-outs, no explanation?

Why would someone need you to know all that?

Maybe you knowing episode sixty-one sends the guys with kids on a cruise will help stop a war one day. Maybe you knowing episode sixty-two is the all-nude episode will be necessary to keep the sun from exploding one day. Maybe you knowing episode sixty-three is about happy meals will help the President ease the tension in the Middle East one day.

Who knows?

All you know for sure is in episode sixty-four the kids find a bag of flame-throwers and the guys have to outrun the ATF or give the kids up, and in episode sixty-five none of the guys’ babysitters show up, and in episode sixty-six there’s a brief, alarming, but ultimately contained Ebola outbreak in the kids’ day care center.

You know that sixty-seven is about the collapse of Greece and sixty-eight is about a smores competition and sixty-nine is about whether or not to send the kids to Scouts, but you don’t know if all this information will disappear from your mind as quickly as it came into it.

Is it a tumor that lets you know episode seventy takes on dudes with too much nose-hair and not episode seventy-one, since in that one the guys with kids buy a Native American dream blanket and summon a vengeful spirit from beyond? Is it some kind of fever that makes you certain that seventy-two is going to reveal who the kids’ real moms are?

Seventy-three, seventy-four, and seventy-five: puppies, Katrina, and whether Latin should still be taught in schools. Why do you know this? If you die tonight, will someone else take over the task of knowing this for you? Should you write it all down?

You should write it all down. Write it in a letter to your little brother. Tell him not to open the letter until you’re dead, but let him know episode seventy-six of Guys With Kids is going to be about the day Macho Man Randy Savage died. Let him know episode seventy-seven is going to be about homelessness, and in episode seventy-eight the guys with kids buy a storm shelter to escape what they believe to be the coming wrath of Christ.

If you tell someone else, if you tell your little brother, maybe that will help make sure it all comes true.

Tell him seventy-nine is going to be Loretta Swit’s comeback cameo, and episode eighty is about the guys feeling sad because the training wheels are starting to come off the kids’ bikes. Tell him episodes eighty-one, eighty-two, and eighty-three all include subliminal flashes of footage from the Jodie Foster movie Foxes. Tell him eighty-four is about inhalants and eighty-five is the one where the guys and the kids all learn a little bit about tolerance.

Your little brother needs to know. When you’re dead, which will probably be very soon considering the strangeness of all of this, your little brother is our only hope that someone know eighty-six is the groin pull episode and eighty-seven is the painting party episode and in eighty-eight all the guys die and the kids have to go to an orphanage. Your little brother must carry with him the knowledge that in eighty-nine the kids realize the orphanage is run by a mysterious benefactor, and in ninety we find out the benefactor is you.

That’s right, by episode ninety, long after you’re dead, you’ll have your own storyline on Guys With Kids. It’s the story-line that carries the show over the syndication mark. You know all the plotlines of every episode because you run the orphanage that will usher the kids into manhood. You always have. In episode ninety-one you teach the kids about honesty. In episode ninety-two the kids have their first crushes and you help them through the heartache. In episode ninety-three you teach the kids to drive. Episode ninety-four is the one where one of the kids runs away but you chase him down and let him know he’s loved, and you can’t run from love. Episode ninety-five has the kids taking their SATs and episode ninety-six is prom night (one of their friends dies, they learn about drinking). In episode ninety-seven you find out you have cancer. In episode ninety-eight, you tell the kids that you are glad you ended your life in the corporeal world so that you could live here in the TV world and watch these beautiful kids grow up to be brilliant young adults, only to die again, but to die happy and proud. In episode ninety-nine the kids go off to college and in episode 100 the kids get word that you passed away, but you left them each a letter, and in each letter is the plotlines for the second 100 episodes of The Mindy Project.

Happy You Know The Plotlines For The First 100 Episodes Of Guys With Kids Day!

Sink Your Dead Dad’s Boat Day!

Your Dad died and in his will he left you a yacht as well as a staff and food supply for you to live on it for the rest of your life. He left your brothers the family business and all other assets. For you, just the yacht. It can’t be sold until you die or you disembark and step back onto American shores. He wants you to live in the ocean.

“Away from my step-mother,” you tell the lawyer.

The lawyer doesn’t say anything. It’s just you and him. Your brothers and step-mother heard the will separately.

“So I have to either live on the Ocean for the rest of my life, or I stay on land and get a job.”

The lawyer nods. Your Dad played this perfectly. He knew you and your step-mother had fallen in love, he knew you were sleeping together behind his back, and he took precautions to make sure you couldn’t marry her once he was gone by ensuring you could never provide her with the life to which she’s accustomed. A life where a yacht is an added luxury, not the limit of her assets. She’ll never live on that yacht with you, and she’ll never live with you if all you’re doing is earning ends meet at a day job.

“You win Dad,” you whisper out loud.

The lawyer slides another pile of papers your way.

“These are the insurance documents,” he says. “Should the boat sink, you’ll need these to collect the insurance payment, which would be approximately ten million dollars.”

Insurance payment?

You scan the documents, and your solution is plain as day. You ask the lawyer, “Why you doing this?”

“I’ve been your family lawyer for a long time,” he says. “I saw your father and step-mother together. I think you two make a better couple.”

Shake the lawyer’s hand, then race down to the dock, get on board your yacht and start crashing it into some rocks until it sinks and you can buy your dead Dad’s third wife a brand new house to share with you.

Happy Sink Your Dead Dad’s Boat Day!

Baby Namer Day!

You’ve been making a fortune as an artisanal baby namer. Forward thinkers bring their babies to you, you look at them, bounce them a little bit up and down, then you say, “Name him Pete.”

Today your business is going to go under. You’re finally going to be shown a baby you can’t name.

You won’t even look at the mother. Not until you stare at the baby for a few seconds, just long enough to know exactly where he got those eyes.

“Lauren?” you’ll say to the mother, without looking up from the boy.

She wasn’t sure if she wanted you in your son’s life. It was just a fling for you obviously. She was just a woman you met in a hotel bar. It was her fault she got knocked up, but getting knocked up is nothing but a biological process. Being a family is something a whole lot more, something you don’t want to do with strangers.

“Then I found you on the internet and I saw that you’ve built your entire life around babies. I knew it could only benefit our child to have you as a father,” she’ll say.

Your son will feel heavy in your hands. Though he’s not very big, he’ll feel heavier than any baby you’ve ever held.

“Name him,” Lauren will say.

And that’s when your business will fold. You had a talent for naming babies who mean nothing to you. Now that you have one of your own, naming him feels impossible. You’ll suddenly realize there’s so much in a name. You’ll stammer and struggle but you simply won’t be able to give your own son a name, and the pressure will extend to all the other babies that are subsequently brought to you, until you finally close up shop.

Since Lauren primarily came to you because she knew you were loaded, when you no longer have an income because you’ve lost your talent for naming babies she’ll fly back west and you’ll have to sue for visitation rights. You’ll get one weekend a month and every other Christmas. With no help from you, she’ll name your son Elliot.

Happy Baby Namer Day!

Cabin Fever Day!

You and Clara’s husband Tim stayed behind because you both have leg injuries, while Clara and your husband Paul went hiking through the snow to try to find food and hopefully a ranger who can find a way to get you all down off this mountain.

“They could be gone for days and they might not make it back,” Tim says limping around the cabin. “We should start having sex now.”

“How can you—”

“Oh spare me!” Tim shouts. “The longer you play this game of being the loyal, loving wife grateful to her husband for risking his life for you, the less sex we’re having.”

“But they’ve barely just left,” you say. “Look, I can still see them. They’re waving.”

You motion for Tim to come to the window and wave back to them. Tim slaps you.

“Dammit you need to think realistically,” he shouts. “If we wait to have sex until we’re sure they’re dead, we might be too weak to even feel sexual, not to mention we’ll be trying to come to grips with the reality that our spouses have died somewhere out there in the snow, possibly never to have their bodies found by anything but packs of hungry wolves. Think you’ll be up for boning with the image of your husband’s corpse being torn apart by wolves on your mind?”

You concede that no, you would not. Neither would Tim, he says. He loves Clara way too much to cheat on her while her body is being eaten by animals.

“And supposing we do wait,” Tim continues. “And when we manage to have sex we find out we are the perfect mates for each other, that the sex is the best we’ve ever had. But, oops, we waited too long and we’re too dehydrated and hungry to have sex a second time. Almost more tragic than if we’d never had sex at all! We’d die regretting that we waited, regretting that we stood on formality instead of grabbing as much erotic opportunity from what little time we had left.”

You’ve spent too much of your life regretting things. Tim’s right. You love Paul, but waiting to be sure he’s dead before you have sex with Tim is just another instance of you living as if tomorrow is some kind of guarantee.

You take off your clothes and Tim enters you for approximately 30 seconds before Paul and Clara burst into the cabin with a half-dozen park rangers. The rangers had been hiking up the mountain when they bumped into Paul and Clara having frantic sex against a snow bank around 200 feet from the cabin’s front door.

Happy Cabin Fever Day!

Urban Outfitters Robbery Spree Day!

When you get up to the register to pay for a book called Faces People Make While Farting, the cashier will notice you’re nervous.

“You have no right to be nervous when you’re so cute,” he’ll say.

You’ll be flattered when you pull the gun on him and tell him to empty the register.

“A girl as cute as you shouldn’t need to commit crimes,” he’ll say.

You’ll blush as you whisper for him to empty the cash faster.

“If I knew armed robbers might look like you I’d have started working as a cashier a long time ago,” he’ll say.

Smile at him. He’ll smile back.

“You just live your life robbing Urbans then?” he’ll ask.

“And a few Madewells,” tell him.

He’ll hand you the bag of money. Your hands will touch.

“Can you run in those skinny jeans?” ask him.

He’ll nod.

Wrap your pinky around his thumb and command, “Let’s go then.”

He’ll hop the counter knocking over a display of iPhone cases that look like old tape cassettes and the two of you will run outside to your car and speed off on a cross-country spree of youth-marketed clothing chain robbery.

You’ll become folk heroes when during a robbery of an Urban Outfitters in Atlanta you win the favor of customers still in the store by giving them free armfuls of leggings and hoodies and copies of “Wreck This Journal.” That’s when the Feds will take an interest, when it looks like you’re getting the Robin Hood label, when you start handing out for free the youth that’s supposed to be sold to them.

The excitement for your outlaw adventure will build when security tapes hit the news, the two of you always making a point of kissing once, kissing sloppy, just before taking off with the money from every single store. Customers begin showing up at Urbans and Madewells just to kiss while snapping phone pics of themselves that they can post on Facebook.

Copycat robberies start popping up at J Crews and Forever 21s and even a few Gaps. Parents demand the police double their efforts to capture you. Magazines display you on their covers under headlines blaming the economy and pornography for your crime spree. In the midwest citizen militias voluntarily guard clothing stores intent on proving to their young ‘it can’t happen here.’

“How’s it end?” he asks you in a Super 8 bed in Sacramento, his arms wrapped around your naked body.

“We have to be gunned down,” you tell him. His kiss tells you he’s on the same page.

You’ll be shot to death outside an Urban Outfitters in San Antonio, TX. More than 600 rounds will be fired by more than three dozen police officers and you’ll each be hit more than fifteen times. Your fame will skyrocket and you’ll be idolized by kids for years to come, and Urban Outfitters will make millions selling tee shirts with your gun-toting silhouettes silk-screened across the chest.

Happy Urban Outfitters Robbery Spree Day!

External Hard Drive Blues Day!

You’re a new hire in an IT department and you’re sitting in a music venue listening to your boss sing a terrible original blues number called “External Hard Drive Blues.”

The song is about how his “old lady” found his “girly movies” on his external hard drive and now he’s got “the blues.”

You want to keep this job so you didn’t think you had a choice but to come see him play when he handed you the flyer. At the end of his set your boss is going to come and sit at your table.

“You’re the first of my staff I could ever get to come out and see me,” he’ll say. “They don’t like to mix the personal with the office. They don’t think it’s right to work under someone after you’ve witnessed their art. That’s what they say anyway. But you’re different.”

Tell him, “You looked like you were really having some fun up there.”

He’ll say that you get him and he’ll ask if you want to make love to his wife while he watches.

“Come on,” he’ll say. “Don’t make me write a song called the Rejected Request To Have Sex With My Wife While I Watch Blues.”

Follow him home in his car and make love to his wife while he watches. Anything to keep him from writing another song.

Happy External Hard Drive Blues Day!

The Crush Is All Day!

Stacey wants to know why you think you love her so much, she says it’s just a crush. You’re only 14, she’s only 15. It’s a crush.

“You can move beyond it. It’s a crush.”

Tell her the crush is all.

“Man loves for a day or a lifetime, it’s a crush,” you say. “On that day, in that lifetime, the crush is all.”

It’s all he breathes. It’s all he thinks about. His first thought on waking is the crush. His last thought at bedtime is the crush.

If a man finds himself thinking he’s going to die.

“If I find myself in trouble tonight,” you tell Stacey, ignoring her friends waiting and laughing by the door, her friends who want her to return to the dance. “In danger. If I find myself with a gun to my head or trapped under something that isn’t going to budge, or in a car crash or a plane crash, I’ll think about you.”

It’s what all the men think about in every movie ever made. The man in danger has someone he needs to return to, a love, a crush. It keeps him alive. It keeps him going. He stays alive thanks to the crush, because the crush is all he has to live for.

“The crush is all there is,” tell Stacey.

Tell her she can go back inside and spend the rest of the dance with Ron, if she wants, but it’s not going to change what you feel. It’s not going to give you a different thing to live for.

“You could save my life tonight, Stacey,” you tell her. “I’d be a fool not to love you tonight.”

Turn around and walk away. Walk like you still think she might go back inside. There’s no way she’s going back inside.

Happy The Crush Is All Day!

Maximum Helen Day!

Today’s the day you look in the mirror and say “Look out world, you’re about to get a dose of Maximum Helen.” Then you’re going to go out into your city and live your life in such a way as to impact your fellow man and your environment with the maximum expression of your personhood.

Start by going to the park, sitting in the fountain, and peeing. Then tell your coffee cart guy the names of every boy and man you ever loved who didn’t love you back, making sure to pee on his coffee cart while you do. Next, climb the fire escape of a building until you get to the top and start screaming at the people below a list of the skin rashes and infections you’ve had in your lifetime to distract them so they won’t realize you’re peeing on them until it’s too late. Then, go to work and spend eight hours filing with the greatest precision your coworkers have ever seen while making sure to dab just a droplet of your pee on every file-folder. When it’s time to clock out, join your coworkers for happy hour but don’t pee in their drinks (save it for the blue cheese dressing that comes with the buffalo wings). Finally, flirt with a man until he asks to go home with you. When you get back to his place, hold him down and pee on him unless he says he’s into that sexually because ew.

When the day is finally over, get some much needed sleep because giving the world a dose of Maximum Helen can be quite draining.

Happy Maximum Helen Day!

He Exhibits All Ten Warning Signs Listed In Yahoo’s “Ten Warning Signs That You’re In Love With A Cheating Man” Day!

He’s working a lot. Yahoo says when he works a lot it means he might be working on loving someone new.

He’s showering a lot. Yahoo says when he showers a lot it’s because he’s washing off the lingering scent of someone new.

He’s constantly singing love songs out loud without any cause for a love song to be sung. Yahoo says if he spontaneously bursts out into love songs it’s because those love songs are songs he has to sing when he thinks about someone new.

He occasionally shows up covered in mud. Yahoo says when your man shows up muddy it’s because he had to dispose of the bodies of the people who witnessed him giving all his love to someone new.

He bought seven new cars. Yahoo says a man has no reason to buy a lot of new cars unless he’s going on long moonlight drives with someone special, someone young, someone fun, someone who is anyone, anyone at all, anyone at all but you.

He has crabs. Yahoo says there ain’t no other reason for a man to have crabs unless those crabs side-glided off the body of someone new.

He’s been spending a lot of time in his secret second apartment and according to Yahoo a man should spend an average of no more than two nights a week in his secret second apartment unless he’s using that secret second apartment to spend secret time with someone secret and new.

He can sometimes be found with his penis inside another woman. In the immortal words of Yahoo, “There is simply no reason for your man to place his manhood upon or up inside the womanhood of a woman who, for all intents and purposes is not you, unless your man is interested in the womanhood under the operation of a woman other than you, AKA a woman who happens to be someone new.

He’s gone. Yahoo says when a man is gone there’s a very good chance what’s "gone” to you is actually the “arrival” at the doorstep of someone new.

He says he met someone new. If Yahoo is correct, a man never says he met someone new unless he’s decided that you are someone old and there’s another one, a different one, a one who in your man’s eyes is someone who alleviates that “I’m scared of not mattering anymore” feeling, a one who can only be described as someone new.

Since your man meets all ten criteria, it’s time to tell him that you wish him well but you understand that the heart cannot be tamed, girlfriend.

Happy He Exhibits All Ten Warning Signs Listed In Yahoo’s “Ten Warning Signs That You’re In Love With A Cheating Man” Day!

Your New Boyfriend Has A Laser Target On His Chest At All Times Day!

He didn’t mention it in his profile. You’re glad he didn’t. It might have deterred you from meeting him, and though it’s early, you’re starting to think meeting him is the best thing that’s ever happened to you.

“You don’t know who it is?” you asked on your second date, when you finally started discussing the elephant in the room.

“Nor do I know why,” he said.

You stared at the red dot as it flickered ever so slightly closer to his heart.

“How long has it—”

“Eleven years.”

“And he’s never once fired?”

Just once. It was late. He was in an unfamiliar neighborhood. He heard the shot and turned around to find a man with a knife in his hand dead on the ground. A mugger.

“He protected you,” you said.

“He wanted me to know my life is his to end. Not some mugger’s. His alone.”

You watched the red light flicker some more then you demanded he take you home.

That’s been the pattern. You stare at the dot on his chest until you’re so certain there’s about to be a gunshot that you can’t even breathe, and you need to be brought someplace and made love to as quickly as possible. It’s better with the dot. It makes you want to be as close to him as you can, so intertwined that you can feel the dot wander onto your skin too.

“I want to be with you to the end,” you tell him tonight, after.

“To the end?” he asks. “Or at the end?”

Both. One and the other. You need to be there when the shot is finally fired, when the dot finally turns into a bullet hole, when the gunman is (hopefully) finally identified. If that’s the main reason why you’re willing to spend the next fifty years with him, so be it. People have stayed together for a lot less.

Happy Your New Boyfriend Has A Laser Target On His Chest At All Times Day!

Drop The Act, Kevin Day!

It’s time to ditch the whole “Say hello to the new Kevin, world” thing and accept the you that you are. We’d all like to think that with a single epiphany or a determined vow to break old habits we can suddenly change the course of our lives and start living the contented, drug-and-disease-free, not-having-to-sleep-with-a-flare-gun-under-our-pillows existence that we always dreamed we could live. But after a certain point you just have to face facts. You are where you are because you are who you are.

“But I already introduced the new Kevin to the world,” you say. “The world already said, ‘Hello New Kevin,’ back. And the world heard me promise to get a job, stop selling my mother’s prescription pills, and to always consider all of my options before making hasty decisions. How can I make it up to the world?”

You have to make the world an offering as penance for making a promise in vain. Either chop off your right hand…

“Done!” you say, wrapping the bloody stump in a bread bag as you dial an ambulance with your left hand.

…Or if that doesn’t appeal to you you can just do a few hours of community service and the world will be satisfied.

“Fuck!” you shout.

Hey world, Old Kevin’s back!

Happy Drop The Act, Kevin Day!

Secret Admirer Hunter Day!

You didn’t make it as a cop so you became a private dick. But tracking cheating husbands for rich wives was making you way too cynical for your taste. So you pared down your agency to focus solely on helping young girls and, to a lesser extent, boys, determine the authors of the secret admirer letters they receive from classmates.

“The thing you want to be sure of is, do you wanna know,” you tell the girls (and occasionally boys) who show up in your office. “Getting that anonymous love letter is big boost to the spirit. No one can blame you for hoping, even assuming, it was written by the hottie who’s filling up the pages of your diary. But invariably, the kind of person who won’t sign their name is the kind of person who assumes their name won’t be welcome at the bottom of a love letter.”

Their response is usually the same. “I need to know for sure, in order to know how to proceed.”

Today’s the day you meet a client on the field hockey field with an envelope full of pictures, handwriting samples, and covert audio recordings.

“Here’s your guy,” you’ll say.

She’ll pull out the photo and say what they always say: “Ew.”

“Give him a shot?” you’ll say. “Maybe read the letter again.”

“You didn’t mention your retainer included relationship advice,” she’ll say, forging her mother’s name onto a check.

Stuff the payment in your coat and get back in your car. You can’t make them give these anons a chance. All you can do is introduce them and hope they’ll give their lovers from afar a closer glance.

Happy Secret Admirer Hunter Day!

Need Friendship Day!

He saw your flyer at the coffee shop with the words “Need Friendship” in 24 point font at the top, and a photo of you holding a wiffle ball bat just above a trim of tear away phone numbers.

“I choose my friends very carefully,” he’s saying. His name’s Jenkins.

You insist that you’re the same way. Which is why the flyer.

“For me it’s all about your survival abilities,” he says, letting you know that this is another human hunting situation.

“Makes sense,” you say. You know it’s just a guy who wants to shoot paintballs at you while you run through a cemetery, but you’re really lonely.

“Meet you behind the Dairy Queen then,” he says. “My shift ends at 1 AM.”

You’ll be there. They always go for the eyes, and they never want to hang out after, but you’ve gotten so few responses that you don’t want to be choosey.

Happy Need Friendship Day!

Can’t Crack The Rock Day!

Your foreman wants to know what the holdup is.

“Just can’t do it Jeff,” say. “Just can’t crack the rock.”

Jeff will walk away from you to the sidewalk. You’ll shout at his back that you’re sorry but you just can’t do it. He’ll keep walking, not hearing a word. Lug your jackhammer after him.

He’ll be positioned right over the heart, staring down at it, his hard hat in his hands.

“Reverence,” he’ll say. “Take your hard hat off. Even if it was your love you show some respect.”

Take off your hard hat and hang it on the handle of your jackhammer.

“BT,” he’ll say, reading the initials that aren’t yours. “What’s that stand for?”

“Beth Turner,” you tell him. You were thirteen. She had red hair. This sidewalk was outside her house.

“Until she moved away,” you say.

“First love lost,” he’ll say. You’ll nod.

Your foreman will get down on all fours and scream at her initials, “WHERE ARE YOU BETH TURNER?!”

He’ll demand you join him. The two of you will scream at the initials you carved into wet cement twenty years ago, “WHERE ARE YOU BETH TURNER?!” You’ll scream until you’re in tears, until you don’t have anything to scream anymore.

“Thanks,” you’ll say as you ready your jackhammer.

“All part of the job,” your foreman will say. He’ll pat you on the back as you ready your jackhammer to bust up that heart containing yours and Beth Turner’s initials forever.

Happy Can’t Crack The Rock Day!

He’s In Love With A Liar Day!

He’s got you blindfolded and won’t let you peek because it’s a big surprise. When he finally lets you peek you’ll see he bought you a rare, early edition of Villette by Charlotte Bronte because one of the lies you told was that your senior thesis at the college you claimed to have attended was on Charlotte Bronte.

“Read me some,” he says. “Read me your favorite part. I love you, but that’s not enough. I also want to love what you love.”

You flip through the book looking for a section that looks like it might have some good lines and you luckily end up on a description of some snow which works pretty okay in the making it seem like you’re not completely faking it department.

This is getting harder. He stares into your eyes like his life depends on it. He doesn’t caress your skin so much as celebrate it. He has become one hundred percent convinced that loving you is the reason he was put on this planet, and he intends to make sure he lives up to his destiny. You’re ashamed to admit it, but the sex is some of the best you’ve had, and you think the thrill of knowing his passion for you is founded on utter lies is doing something special for you.

Or, you’re falling for him too.

That can’t be, though. If it is, you’d better give up everything right now. Don’t even leave a note, just discard the whole plan and disappear without explaining why. The deception felt like it was reasonable means to an end before you realized just how much he’d come to cherish you, and how much you enjoyed being cherished. Falling for him wasn’t part of the plan, and if that’s what’s happening you should probably walk away.

“My father’s coming back to the states in October,” he says, fiddling with the book in your lap. “I can’t wait for him to meet you.”

“He’s coming back?” you confirm, trying to keep your voice level. “He’s coming here to America?”

He nods. You close the book and you kiss him. You make love to him convincingly. You thank him for your birthday present with your body. You use all of your talents to make him believe he should go on loving you, and he should introduce you to his father, the assassin who murdered your father eleven years ago in Belgrade. You will avenge your father’s death by making his assassin’s son love you until you can take that assassin’s life and, reluctantly now, break his son’s heart.

“I can’t wait to meet your dad,” you tell the assassin’s son when you’re resting your head on his chest once the sex has ended. “I hope he likes me.”

Happy He’s In Love With A Liar Day!

Forest Bitches Day!

You formed a club called the Forest Bitches. You and your friends run into the forest and strip to your underwear and roll around on the soil chanting bullshit, usually high. You like to think you’re bonding with nature.

“This dirt is so fucking cleansing,” Georgette says, rubbing clumps of dirt on her bra and stomach.

“I’m eating a leaf,” Shannon says, spitting bits of the leaf out while she talks. “So gross.”

“Let’s spin around and shout ‘Praise Mother,’” you say. Then you and the other two Forest Bitches spin around until a man stumbles on the path in between the three of you.

“Help me,” he rasps. He’s covered in leather from the waist up only. From the waist down he’s bruised the color of a plum. His wrists are bound and he’s got a sweatband around his eyes.

You cut the ropes around his wrists and uncover his eyes. He tells you he’s a prostitute who’s been kept captive by a wealthy John for the past three weeks. He finally escaped, but not very successfully.

“Him and his thugs are coming,” he says. “We have to run.”

Just then the rich John and his thugs arrive in your clearing. They tell you to let the hooker go.

They have no idea who they’re dealing with.

“Forest Bitches, spin!” you shout.

The three of you start spinning as fast as you can. After eleven spins the ground opens up and swallows the John and his thugs. The hooker is saved.

“Forest Bitches undefeated!” the three of you shout while high fiving.

The hooker falls face forward and starts muttering unintelligibly. You get him to the hospital where he’s treated for dehydration. You want to stay with him while he recovers, but Georgette gets a phone call. She hands the cell phone to you.

“It’s the president,” she says. “There’s a new Al Qaida leader even more powerful than Bin Laden and he says Seal Team Six is busy.”

You take the call, then you look at Georgette and Shannon.

“Time to let nature run its course,” you say.

Happy Forest Bitches Day!

They Want You To Present Scenarios In Which Terrorists Could Infiltrate Private Functions To Conduct Suicide Bombings Day!

“We need someone who spends all day scheming about how security teams can be evaded,” the General says. “How guarded entrances can be breached. How one might blend in with the service staff or delivery personnel to enter a private function. That’s why we called you.”

“But I just write Mentos commercials,” you tell them.

The General smiles. “Exactly. By our count you have concocted several hundred different plans for infiltration of an invite-only private function. You know who else is doing that?”

You both say it at the same time. “Al Qaeda.”

The General comes to your side and places his hand on your shoulder. “The country is vulnerable. Our tactics have gone stale. We need a freshmaker.”

Your entire life has been leading up to this moment. Tell him you’ll do it and get to work on imagining Al Qaeda agents carrying trays of glasses or pushing racks of dresses into posh surroundings while there’s still time.

Happy They Want You To Present Scenarios In Which Terrorists Could Infiltrate Private Functions To Conduct Suicide Bombings Day!

You Made The Loneliness Police Blotter Day!

You did it! The Loneliness Police Blotter ran your incident! Check it out:

On Saturday a Lakeside man reportedly went into his garage, forgot what he went in there for, realized if he never came out no one would notice, and he subsequently collapsed in sobs on the cold, oil-stained concrete. The man slept on his garage floor for eighteen hours before returning to his living room to watch pornography on mute.

Congrats!

Happy You Made The Loneliness Police Blotter Day!

Toss The Microchip In The Back Of A Pickup Day!

“Maybe I should pull over!” Adam shouts.

“Fuck no keep driving!” you shout back as you feel the skin along your under-thigh for the little bump.

You and your boyfriend implanted microchips under each other’s skin so your boyfriend can know where you are at all times and you can know where he is at all times, but you just fell in love with a new boy named Adam and decided to leave town and start a new life with him (he’s so pretty) so you’re presently racing down the freeway with your new man, trying to carve under your skin to get the microchip out before your boyfriend pinpoints your location.

“How do you know he’s after us?”

Because you forgot to track him today. You forgot to make sure he was at work before heading back to your apartment to pack your things. You forgot to zero in on his location before you drove over to Adam’s house and kissed him on his front step. You forgot to align the satellites before it was too late.

“He’s been right behind me all day long,” you tell Adam. You have the chip now. It’s deep under there though. You drive the knife into your thigh and crash into a nerve that makes you scream.

“What’ll he do?” Adam asks. “Is he violent?”

“He’s just like me,” you say. “He’s not good with breakups.”

He’ll grind you to little bits with a single pained look. He’ll insist you’re the only thing in his life that doesn’t hurt. He’ll start to cry and you’ll instantly agree to go back to him.

“I’m not good with confrontation,” you say. “Sorry about your seats."

There’s blood everywhere. The knife’s back in.

"Maybe you should just talk this out with him and—”

You scream again. You’re close to the chip but you’re grinding on a bone. You dig your fingers into your skin, screaming and crying and you search for the chip.

“Why did you agree to go along with this chip thing anyway?” Adam asks.

“It was my idea,” you shout.

You finally get the chip in your fingers and pull it from the gaping hole in your leg. You tell Adam to pull up closer to the pickup ahead of you and you toss the chip into the back then Adam takes the exit off the highway.

“Your idea?” Adam says, driving slower on a surface street. “Maybe we’re moving a little too—”

“Are you going to leave me!” you scream. Cry until Adam promises to never, ever leave you no matter what happens and he agrees to prove it by getting chipped as soon as the two of you get across state lines and arrive in your new life together.

Happy Toss The Microchip In The Back Of A Pickup Day!

Heath Bar Crunch Day!

You found a pint of Heath Bar Crunch in the freezer.

“Guess I’m being cheated on,” you tell your husband.

He says it’s not so. You say it must be so. Neither of you have ever eaten Heath Bar Crunch in 11 years of marriage.

“Goddammit, if you paid any attention to me you’d know my taste in ice cream has changed,” he shouts. “I love Heath Bar Crunch. Not that you’d care.”

You apologize. He accepts. You go to sleep. He melts the Heath Bar Crunch in the microwave, just for 90 seconds, just to loosen the cream enough to welcome his penis, sending the shards of weird, outdated Heath candy bar scraping his shaft with its slivered, toffee filling. He is cheating on you. You’ve been replaced. But not by a woman. Not by the 24-year-old girl you imagined. No. He’s found love in the grip of something far more powerful, far more difficult for you to comprehend.

Your husband fucks weird ice cream now.

Happy Heath Bar Crunch Day!

Bestie Regulation Day!

New rules of Bestie etiquette have been issued, taking effect at 12 pm GMT today.

Sharing of hot outfits: Besties must share all hot outfits upon request. Once both besties have worn a hot outfit it can never be washed. The bacteria formed by commingled bestie sweat should be allowed to mature and develop naturally and completely or the bestie relationship is considered null and void.

Cupcake discussions: Besties must be available to discuss cupcakes at all hours, unless a bestie is in mourning over the death of an immediate family member.

Secret bank accounts: Besties are no longer allowed to have individual bank accounts that both besties are not aware of. It is preferable that besties only keep joint accounts, but if separate accounts are necessary, both besties must at least be made aware of the existence of the accounts, as well as their primary source of funds.

Love triangles: If besties ever find themselves enamored with the same boy he must be murdered and the besties must honor the shared infatuation by bathing in the boy’s blood and ingesting some section of his flesh, either raw or cooked.

Real housewife preference: Besties must agree on who of the real housewives is their favorite.

Political affiliation: All besties must be registered republicans and they must subscribe to the views put forth by the most conservative, far-right fringe leaders of the party.

Secrets: Besties must divulge each other’s deepest secrets to anyone who is willing to listen with even the mildest interest.

Sharks: Besties must have compatible views on sharks.

Martial Arts: no bestie should master a martial art that her bestie has not also mastered. A bestie cannot ascend belt level unless the other bestie has also been certified at that level. Besties are not to master Judo.

Suicide pacts: previously agreed upon dates of death in bestie suicide pacts can only be amended in person, in the presence of a notary, on Christmas morning.

These bestie regulations supersede all previously issued regulations. Good luck.

Happy Bestie Regulation Day!

Handsome Cashier Day!

Get up the nerve to finally talk to the handsome cashier at the juice bar.

“You like working here?” ask.

He’ll sigh. Like you just handed him a line. Try another.

“Like…juice?”

He’ll tell you he’s Christian.

“Like super-Christian,” he’ll say. “You know how sometimes you hear someone identify someone else where they say, ‘But he’s super Christian?’ That’s how people identify me. Because I am.”

Nod and smile.

“Still into me?” he’ll ask. “Because you’re not going to get my clothes off unless you let me tell you how awesome Jesus is.”

Think about it. You’ve put up with a lot of shit from guys. Alcoholism. Drugs. One guy stole all your money and sent it to his ex-girlfriend. The futons. The guys who sang you the awful songs they wrote about girls they dated before you. Rick, the guy who wanted you and his mom to hang out once a week without him so you could develop a relationship. And you even dated a couple of mole people.

Is a guy being into Jesus really that much of a dealbreaker in light of your history?

“Yeah I don’t think I can do it,” you tell him.

“Have fun in hell,” he’ll say as you leave with your juice. Go home and masturbate to the thought of putting up with him long enough to get him naked, then tomorrow find another juice bar.

Happy Handsome Cashier Day!

Checkout Day!

You checked in seventeen days ago, both of you knowing without saying it that when you check out, you’re divorced.

No computers. No cell phones. The people who needed to contact you in case of emergency knew where to call.

Seventeen days of talk. Of bickering. Of accusations. Of concessions.

Of sex. Let’s rescue this sex. How could you sex. Goodbye sex.

Room service for seventeen days. Desserts and sandwiches. The mini bar. The real drinks from room service when the mini bar seemed beneath the discourse of the moment. Back to the mini bar when the desire was for discretion.

Seventeen days that were maybe the best of your four years being married.

Lori and Abbot locked in a suite, r-u-i-n-i-n-g.

Seventeen days that were only, exclusively, indisputably yours.

“Could we have made it? If it was just us the whole time?” you asked on day six or seven.

“We never wanted it to be just us the whole time,” she said.

You didn’t. You already can’t wait to tell your friends how special this was, how they don’t even know, how their divorces aren’t valid unless they’ve had your seventeen days.

“Is it just a stunt?” you asked on day thirteen or fourteen.

“I don’t know if you mean this or you mean us meeting and deciding we were in love enough to get married,” she said.

This is part of your story. The fights were part of your story. The wedding, it was such a different wedding than all the other weddings, an extra meaningful wedding where some bullshit candle was lit by the two of you during the ceremony because no one had done that yet, part of your story.

“We were bullshit,” she says.

No you weren’t.

“Bullshit doesn’t hurt this much,” you correct her.

Doesn’t matter if you did it because it seemed more interesting than just using lawyers. Doesn’t matter what your intention was. It’s the morning of day 17 and you’re scared to leave the hotel.

“You’re sure you picked the right notary?” you ask.

“He’s fine.”

He’s the last one to see you together. Everyone in the hotel lobby saw you leave, but the notary’s the only one who knows that this is it.

“And we spent seventeen days together just exploring everything we could,” you rehearse as you sign where you’re told.

“It’s really important. To say goodbye right. To make sure you recognize how important the bond is that you’re breaking,” she rehearses as she signs.

You agree to be the one to file. You shake hands. You both turn your backs and walk away from each other torn open and gushing every last ounce of your insides, probably anyone with a pair of eyes can see.

Happy Checkout Day!

We Are Still Anal Bong Day!

Tonight you’re having beers with George, the bassist from your old band Anal Bong. You haven’t seen George in over 20 years, not since the band broke up over a disputed Denny’s check (George and Harry argued that since you ordered the side of pancakes they shouldn’t have to split evenly). That’s all water under the bridge though and you’re excited to find out why George got back in touch.

“I want to commit suicide with a lit bong up my butt and I want you to do it with me,” George will say.

You don’t need an explanation. You remember the pact. Everyone in the band agreed that the way you all would go out would be that everyone in the band would take their own lives with lit bongs up their butts, unless a car accident of other act of God took your lives first.

“Live by the band, die by the band,” George reminds you.

You remind George that even if it wasn’t ridiculous that the two of you would kill yourselves to adhere to a pact you made at age 19, the pact wouldn’t be valid if the other guys don’t commit suicide with you.

“Unless…”

George bows his head to confirm that both Harry and Pamela are no longer with us.

You cry into your beer.

“Hearing this I just realized that I never stopped loving Pamela, and a part of me was staying alive solely out of hope that I might run into her and we’d rekindle our late teen love and I’d finally have someone to leave my wife and adopted son for,” you tell George. “Harry I can do without.”

“There’s one way to run into her now,” George says. He places on the table a jar of pills and two medium sized bongs.

“What’s a man got without his word?” you ask.

With that you and George head out to his rented room at the Ramada and the two of you smoke up and then sit on your bongs with bellies full of pills until you fall over on your sides and say hello to Pamela (and Harry) in that rusted old touring van in the hereafter. Tomorrow Pitchfork dot com will go dark to commemorate your passing.

Happy We Are Still Anal Bong Day!

Barbershop Chatter Day!

“Hot out there,” say.

“Hot in here,” your barber will say.

“Dreamed I was back in college, able to try it all again from the beginning,” say. “Hurt waking up and still being 43.”

“I haven’t dreamed in years,” Max with the cigar will shout from behind his Playboy.

“Two hit n’ runs,” your barber will say, tugging a little too hard with the brush. “Is that a lot?”

“Her name was Susan,” Louie, the barber no one ever requests will say. “Leukemia.”

“Worried about coming home one day and not recognizing my wife in the slightest,” tell your barber.

“Anyone want to buy a cell phone?” some kid will ask without coming all the way in the front door.

“I saw you,” tell your barber. “Saw you crying on the subway platform last Wednesday.”

He’ll tell everyone to leave. When the two of you are alone:

“Sometimes the memories of everyone I’ve pushed away, they just get a little too much to handle.”

“Still,” tell him. “You can’t let people see you like that. I count on you to cut my hair. How am I supposed to trust my appearance to you after witnessing such humanity?”

“I’m just a man,” he’ll say.

Jump out of the chair. “A man…with scissors!”

Your barber will stare at his scissors. They’ll drop from his hands.

“You need to get out of here,” tell him. “Walk. Until you find it in you to come back and cut men’s hair.”

He’ll open the front door.

“Hot out there,” he’ll say.

“Hot in here,” tell him.

Watch him walk out the door and out of your life. Before you leave, steal combs.

Happy Barbershop Chatter Day!

Tend To Your Garden Day!

Today while tending to your garden you’ll find a human femur. Show it to your son.

“I was having sex with it,” he’ll sob. “And I was ashamed!”

You never had the talk with your son and now you’re regretting being so prudish that your son felt the need to sneak off behind your back and have sex with human bones in secret.

Sit him down and first ask him if he has an alibi for the person from whose body the bone was removed.

He’ll nod. “He was a drifter. Had no family. No one will miss him.”

At least he was responsible. Commend him for looking out for his own well-being. Then tell him about sex.

“You first have to scrape any and all flesh and tissue from the bone to be sure you don’t insert yourself with anything gangrenous,” tell him. “Then sanitize the human bone for a good six to eight hours to remove all bacteria. Once the bone is clean, massage your own anus with your finger or a marital aid so as to relax and prepare the rectum for entry…”

As you shed light on the truths of how responsible, healthy human beings make love to skeletal remains, your son’s eyes will light up with relief that the veil of shame is finally being lifted. It’s moments like these when you know you’re a good mom.

Happy Tend To Your Garden Day!

Wash The Grime Day!

You’ve spent all week in bed together and you’re covered head to toe in a grayish grime, a fragrant mixture of the sweat and other things bodily the two of you have excreted while throwing yourselves inside each other’s bodies. It’s your last week unemployed together so you had no choice.

“How could you get a job?” ask her.

“I was hungry,” she’ll say.

Mix the grime again, her on top this time. When you’re finished, show her the sleeve of saltines.

“We’ve still got twelve left,” tell her.

“Not enough,” she’ll say.

Mix the grime again. And again. You on top. Then the two of you on your sides because you’re both too tired. It’s getting dark.

“Maybe I’ll get a job then,” threaten.

“Go ahead.”

“I won’t be here waiting for you. I’ll meet girls who work in offices.”

She’ll ignore you, smelling the grime on her fingers.

“We should get started,” she’ll say.

“Once more,” insist.

Once more, then at her insistence, start washing the grime. It will be at least two showers tonight and once more in the morning before she can scrape you off enough to present herself dressed up in Corporate Tolerable.

“Once more,” say, in between the first and second shower.

“Once more,” she’ll agree.

Tomorrow while she’s at work take your sheets outside and throw them into the trashcan on the street corner before the deli fills it up with cardboard. Then, day-drink.

Happy Wash The Grime Day!

End It With Your High School English Teacher Day!

You’re going to college. You’re going to meet so many exciting new people and you’re going to be learning so many things. It’s been fun dating your high school English teacher secretly because it’s illegal, but you both knew it couldn’t go on forever.

“You’ve taught me so much,” tell him. “About sex. About Emily Dickinson. About what it’s like to be in a failed marriage and to crave youth so badly you’d risk your livelihood to be inside of it. But I can’t bring you with me to Case Western.”

He’ll claim he’s been meaning to leave his wife and job anyway and go find someplace where he could tutor and work on his novel.

Please don’t ask him, “What novel?”

“What novel?” you ask.

Jesus. That was cruel. Now he’s just sputtering about how you’re all he has left.

“You have the knowledge that you’ve taught me so much,” say. “The impression you’ve made on me can never be unmade. I’ll wear it wherever I go.”

He’ll accuse you of wanting to sleep with your professors and he’ll say you’re leaving because he could never get a slot at a college.

“It’s not my fault. It’s too political!” he’ll explain.

You hadn’t thought about sleeping with professors, and you wonder if the fact that them sleeping with you isn’t illegal so much as frowned upon would be enough to get your motor running.

“Please don’t end it,” your high school English teacher is crying now. “Please just promise we’ll see each other when you come home on your breaks.”

Show him the envelopes. One addressed to the police. The other addressed to the schools superintendent.

“Please don’t take these pre-written letters, detailing how you made a pass at me and we made love just a few days before my seventeenth birthday, as an indication that I didn’t love and care for you. I just need a clean break. So if you try to contact me again I’ll drop these both in the mail and you’ll lose your job and have your name added to a sex offender registry.”

Kiss him on the cheek.

“My youth is mine,” tell him. Then get out of his Nissan and go inside to have dinner with your parents.

Happy End It With Your High School English Teacher Day!

Whisper The Truth Of Life And Death Against Your Wife’s Pregnant Stomach Day!

Get on your knees and place your hands on her stomach and get your mouth close enough that your breath creates a small damp spot on her skin. Then tell your baby the truth.

“Hi little baby,” say. “It’s cold out here. It’s confusing and you have to watch people you love destroy themselves. You have to watch people you don’t even know destroy each other. You have to watch terrible television and you have to watch yourself forget who you were supposed to be.”

“Frank,” your wife will say.

“Shut up,” tell her. Then to your baby, “You get around 80 years if you’re lucky, or unlucky depending on how you look at it. You’ll love some people and you’ll trick yourself into thinking you’re in love with some people when really you just want them to take on the responsibility of making your life matter to something besides your pets. There’s alcohol and drugs out here. Alcohol is great until it gets bad. Drugs are terrible until they get worse.”

“Jesus Frank,” your wife will say.

Ignore her. “Fucking weird is how a lot of us get by. When you find out you like to be choked when you come or you need to be called Chewie, it’s weird enough to take you out of the rest of it so it works. Taking yourself out of the rest of it without killing yourself, that’s the secret to life. You might pull it off through sheer, unparalleled accomplishment that lifts you up above the screaming desperate hordes, or you might go into a basement and huff paint. Same deal. You get away from the mess.”

“We’re late,” your wife will say.

“You shouldn’t make it to your 30’s without feeling like you’ve destroyed at least one human being simply by entering their life. Never go skiing and never read Bret Easton Ellis and never start a gelato blog. When you realize how ruined your parents are, you’re invited to bestow upon them one brief pitying glance, then just make polite conversation with them until they die. I do not apologize for bringing you into existence. No one apologized to me, so why should you be special?”

Your wife will start to move away. Tighten your grip on her stomach and finish up.

“It sounds bad but it’s all there is. Just come out here and cause as much damage as you can. Also, sit by lakes occasionally.”

Let go of your wife’s stomach and get dressed because the two of you have been invited to watch television in someone else’s home.

Happy Whisper The Truth Of Life And Death Against Your Wife’s Pregnant Stomach Day!

No Girls Allowed Mountain Day!

You want to go where men hang out so you go to the garage that only fixes motorcycles and you and the mechanics get in the back of a big rig truck and you drive on a men only highway to No Girls Allowed Mountain. You check in at a motel (for dudes) and the six of you get drunk and fart wrestle (no matter how good you’re doing in the match, even if you have the other guy pinned, the minute you stop farting you lose). In the morning you kill and eat a pig (it’s just in a cage, but you shoot it), then you start climbing No Girls Allowed Mountain to get to the Cave Of Males.

“You know, I never knew anyone who came back from the Cave Of Males,” one of the mechanics will say.

You start hearing the voices about a thousand feet up, with still another thousand feet to go. The voices speak in the same pitch as the wind. They tell you you’re not to trust the mechanics.

When you find yourself holding a rock and the rock is dropping with blood, you see a mechanic rushing at you. You step out of his way and he falls over the side of the mountain. He’s gone. At your feet another mechanic is bleeding from his skull. You must have done that.

You see people ahead of you. It must be the other mechanics. They’re waving you on.

No matter how much you climb, you never get closer. Just before night falls, you stop and look down the slope. You can see the bodies of all five mechanics strewn about the terrain from where you’re sitting. The voices are growing louder.

You climb through the night. It’s easier when you don’t have to use your eyes. The voices tell you the way to the Cave Of Males, and it’s easier to listen when you’re not distracted by the bright sun. Almost there.

Maybe a day, maybe three, maybe a lifetime, and you arrive at the Cave Of Males. At the mouth, you stare into its depth and you’re sure you’ve been here before. This is the Cave. It’s dudes only, a place where a guy can just be a guy without anyone judging him. It’s thousands of feet above the earth, and it’s home. It’s not inviting you so much as it’s swallowing you whole. You look to your right and left for the mechanics before you remember they’re all dead. It’s just you. The Cave Of Males only wanted you.

No Girls Allowed Mountain wanted them. The Cave Of Males chose only you.

One step, two steps, three steps, you’re home.

Happy No Girls Allowed Mountain Day!

Score Married Chicks Day!

Go into a bar and walk up to the chicks with wedding rings on and say, “I can kill your husband and make it look like an accident so you can live off the insurance. Into it?”

Whichever one is into it will go home and sleep with you first because women love men who are brave enough to kill their husbands. After sleeping with her, tell her, “I’m a cop. This was a setup, but I am so smitten with you that I am going to pretend this never happened.”

She’ll be simultaneously relieved that you aren’t going to arrest her, and flattered that it was her charm and sexuality that convinced you to want to keep her out of jail, so she’ll leave feeling really good about herself. Bonus: you’ll probably have prevented her from killing her husband since she’ll assume from now on that anyone offering to do the deed must be a cop.

If you really love her though, kill her husband. He doesn’t deserve her.

Happy Score Married Chicks Day!

Your Hot Guy Boyfriend Is Human You Know Day!

Just because he’s hot you think he doesn’t need the same reassurance, the same emotional validation, that you need.

“Hot guys want your respect,” he’ll say with those thick, pouty lips, his dark, smoky eyes dimmed with sincerity. “Hot guys are architects. We’re lawyers. We’re teachers and abortionists and assassins. We contribute to society and we deserve to be taken seriously.”

Just then his hulking chest will force his shirt to pop open and you’ll faint from the orgasm you experience when you witness the sight of his chiseled torso.

He’ll wake you by sprinkling cold water on your face.

“This is what I’m talking about,” he’ll say, the sun behind him making him look like a hyper-masculine angel.

Say, “I’m sorry. I will do absolute anything to make it up to you.”

“Because you respect me for my intelligence and my point of view?” he’ll ask.

Lie to him and say yes. Don’t tell him it’s because the thought of not having access that mountain of muscled flesh makes you want to end it. So go along with him.

“Yes,” say without laughing. “It’s because I respect you so much.” Then invite one of your friends over who he hasn’t threesomed with already.

Happy Your Hot Guy Boyfriend Is Human You Know Day!

You Married Some Lady In Prison Day!

“Her name’s Jackson Hammer and she killed her kids, but she feels bad about it,” you tell your parents over dinner.

They have lots of questions. How did you meet (online) when does she get out (never), how was the ceremony conducted (prison web conference officiated by a virtual minister named “Marry-O”), have you sent her any money (lots), is she permitted conjugal visits (no, unfortunately), and does this mean you’re not dating that nice girl you met in the yearbook committee (broke up two months ago).

“No conjugal visits means the marriage can never be consummated,” your Dad says.

“Unless we help him bust her out!” your Mom adds.

The three of you retire to the living room to draw up plans for the most romantic jail break ever pulled off by a recently married high school kid and his parents.

Happy You Married Some Lady In Prison Day!

Ten Things You Can Say To Your Ex-Boyfriend When The Two Of You Are Watching Your Current Boyfriend Dance Day!

10. He’s still much sweeter to me than you ever were.

9. He might not have moves, but at least he doesn’t have a habit of hooking up with my best friend when I’m out of town at my mother’s funeral.

8. All you’d have to do to get me to go home with you right now and leave him there on the dance floor is look me in the eye and tell me that you’ll be there when I wake up in the morning, and we both know you can’t look me in the eye because you might miss catching a glance off one of the girls walking behind me.

7. You couldn’t dance either when I met you.

6. I know I’ll never be able to stop asking myself if we’re meant to be together, and that’s fine with me since my answer is always nope.

5. So where’s Lauren tonight?

4. I would happily give up dancing forever if it means never letting you break my heart again in a million filthy ways.

3. I just want to outlive you so I can know you died alone.

2. I’m not interested in dance partners anymore. I’m interested in people who don’t make me cry.

1. There are two minutes left in this song so if we run to the rest room right now that will give us around 90 seconds of you inside me and I need all 90 so let’s motor.

Happy Ten Things You Can Say To Your Ex-Boyfriend When The Two Of You Are Watching Your Current Boyfriend Dance Day!

Take The Are You Sexy Quiz Day!

Write yes for the question about whether or not you’ll sacrifice properly respectful attire for sexiness when attending middle school graduations or funerals.

Write yes for the question about whether you think about sex while you’re having sex. And write yes for what you’d say if a handsome stranger walked up and asked you if he could have your home address.

Write yes for the question about whether you’ve ever made love to more than two people at once, and write yes in response to whether you’ve ever made love to a door stop or a Pepsi can.

Write yes when you’re asked whether you’re afraid you have no sense of decorum and write yes when the quiz wants to know if you would rather be incinerated than wear underwear on Easter.

Write yes to the next five questions whatever the fuck they are, and write yes to the question about whether you’d consider having sex with an insect.

Wish you were having sex right now? Write yes.

Wish your body had extra genitals? Write yes.

Wish sex was a FDA food group? Write yes.

Prick your finger and scrawl the word yes in blood until the entire quiz is barely legible, wet and dripping red, the word yes spilled out from your veins and splattered across the paper.

Write yes when asked if you’ve ever had sex with someone you love. Write yes when asked if it was better. Write yes when asked if it was a lot better.

Write yes.

Check the results and you’ll find you’re a moderately steamy pot of sex juice but there’s still ways you can be sexier if you’d just quit being so proper and let that inner alley cat strut. Work on that.

Happy Take The Are You Sexy Quiz Day!

Call Alan Day!

Ask him if he remembers you and he’ll say he can’t talk right now he has a wife.

“But I’ve been drinking,” explain.

He’ll say he understands and he’s really sorry but he made a promise.

“I told her I’d be faithful,” he’ll say.

Explain to Alan that when he made the promise he couldn’t have known you’d call one night when you’ve been drinking. She’ll understand.

Alan will go to his wife and ask her if it’s cool if he breaks his vow of fidelity.

“An ex got drunk and it sounds like she’s down,” he’ll say.

“I guess you couldn’t have known way back when,” his wife will respond.

Alan will come back to the phone and shout, “I can sleep with you! She’s cool with it! Where do I find you?”

You fell asleep and the phone fell under your bed.

Happy Call Alan Day!

Pleasure Place Day!

You weren’t looking forward to taking your kids to Fun Town Place because you hate amusement parks. Then when you got there you found out that the park was safe enough for you to let your kids run free while you and your husband go to the adults-only section of the park called Pleasure Place.

At Pleasure Place, you can drink alcohol, eat delicious gourmet food, listen to educational lectures from people who’ve actually given TED Talks. And best of all, you can have sex with other open-minded couples in Pleasure Place’s massive erotic arena which is basically one giant rinsable mattress.

“Is this really appropriate to have in the middle of an amusement park?” you ask your waiter at the restaurant.

He explains that the park began with the sex arena. The goal was to build the largest swingers’ destination in the world, a mecca for the polyamorous.

“But the couples complained that they couldn’t get here often enough because they didn’t have anyone to look after their kids,” the waiter says. “So we built an amusement park around it.”

“So the only reason the amusement park exists is to babysit children while their parents fornicate with strangers?” you ask.

He says it’s not that uncommon. Six Flags began as an S/M dungeon, then they added roller coasters for the kids. Eventually the roller coasters became a bigger attraction than the dungeon, so they turned it into a haunted house.

“Also,” he says. “Dorney Park and Wildwater Kingdom started out as fight club.”

You ask about the delicious restaurants and the educational lectures.

“We’re verging on Six Flags territory now,” he explains. “We’re getting huge numbers of visitors who have no idea we’re just a sex club surrounded an optional amusement park for kids. So when a lot of parents find out, they need some warming up to the idea. So we let them enjoy a nice meal, listen to a ‘fascinating’ talk. Give them something else to pretend to focus on while they grow more and more curious about the arena.”

You admit to your husband that you’re curious about it, and maybe you and he should poke your head in after dessert. He admits that when he said he went to the bathroom he actually had a three-way with a couple in their 50’s from Saskatchewan.

“Looks like I’ve got some catching up to do,” you say.

Your husband gets the check, then you both go into the arena where he watches two Minnesotans double-team you until it’s time to go and find your kids.

Happy Pleasure Place Day!

Your Idea For A Smartphone App Called Draw Boobs Is A Bad Idea Day!

Your thinking on this is that everyone loves that game Draw Something, and everyone loves boobs, so why not come up with a game like Draw Something except instead of having to draw gophers and shit, you just draw boobs. Over and over again, you and your buddy draw boobs for each other. You draw boobs and send it to your buddy, then your buddy has to draw boobs and send it back to you. Every time you receive each drawing you’re asked, “What are these things?” And you type, “Boobs!” Then you draw boobs again.

“What do you think?” you ask your wife.

“I’m in love with my boss,” she says.

You drop your sketches for the Draw Boobs app on the floor and you and your wife sit down so she can explain how it happened, how she tried to stay true to you, and how in the end it was inevitable. This is just who she is now. This is the love she’s been consumed by.

You listen, stunned, and maybe it’s just an effort to protect yourself, but you start feeling glad that she is leaving you before you seek investors for the Draw Boobs app. You stare at the sketches on the floor and you dream of the wealth that’s coming your way, and you look forward to your wife wishing she’d stuck around. You’re certain that app is going to be a runaway hit, but it won’t be. It’s really a bad idea, and you should focus on healing your heart.

Happy Your Idea For A Smartphone App Called Draw Boobs Is A Bad Idea Day!

Your High School Got Together And Named You Boyfriend Of The Year Day!

But that wasn’t one of the categories in the yearbook questionnaire.

“Screw the yearbook questionnaire,” Jenny the yearbook editor says. It’s a surprise to see her so devil-may-care because Jenny is all about the yearbook. “We didn’t want to graduate without you being recognized. Your love for Pauline is an inspiration. We’re all going to look for men in college who treat us the way you’ve treated Pauline.”

Just spit it out.

“Pauline and I broke up.”

They all gasp.

“This morning,” tell them. “I decided that there’s no point in being her boyfriend if it’s not going to earn me any awards or accolades. Wish I’d known you were planning this.”

They all start talking at once, and after lots of shouting and bickering it’s agreed that you should call Pauline and ask her if she’d like to give it another chance.

“Will you take back the award if I don’t?” you ask.

They caucus and decide that no, you can keep the award regardless since it was based on your performance as boyfriend during the school year.

“Then I’m good,” you say. “Time to focus on numero uno, if you know what I’m saying.”

You point your thumb at yourself just to make it clear.

“Fine,” Jenny says. “But just so you know, having given you this award, and then watching you behave this way, it’s really not going to help us in our future relationships.”

And it won’t. Everyone, every single person in that room, will get at least one divorce in their lifetimes. Except for you. You’ll be dead next year. Campus shooting.

Happy Your High School Got Together And Named You Boyfriend Of The Year Day!

You Keep Having Sex On The Seat Of The Motorcycle You’re Trying To Sell Day!

The guys who keep answering your ad just happen to be your type, which is to say, guys who are in the market for a used motorcycle. Rough guys. Guys who are so far from settled down that they’re considering buying a cheap way to get out of town on nothing but a couple wheels and some handlebars. How are you supposed to walk around your motorcycle with a guy like that and not invite him to feel how the seat fits two with room to spare? But as soon as the sex is over you tell them you’ve decided not to sell and you send them on their way.

“Maybe you’re not trying to sell the motorcycle,” the precocious little kid who hangs out with you while you tend to your rose bushes says. “Maybe you’re looking for a man to share that seat with you?”

“Then why’d I post my ad in the for sale section of Craigslist?” you ask.

The precocious little kid says, “You’re scared to admit you need somebody.”

You tell the precocious little kid not to tell you what you’re scared of. The precocious little kid reminds you that he’s smarter than adults and you ask him if he’s smarter than a pair of garden shears. You throw the shears at him. He tries to duck out of the way but catches a blade in the thigh.

He doesn’t die, but the story about how a grown woman stabbed a little kid for giving her relationship advice makes big headlines. “How are we supposed to protect our kids from the single women who don’t want help with their love lives?” moms will demand to know. You’ll be tried in the media long before you make it to court, and you’ll be thrown in jail for three years, a merciful sentence, according to your lawyer. All because you keep having sex on the seat of the motorcycle you’re trying to sell.

Happy You Keep Having Sex On The Seat Of The Motorcycle You’re Trying To Sell Day!

Excerpt From An Oral History Of The Day Jeff And Christine Broke Up Day!

Anthony, Jeff and Christine’s deli guy: I felt like my organs were made of glass and someone took a sledgehammer to my body, shattering them to pieces. Now I’m just a skin bag full of broken glass. They should have gone the distance.

Phoebe, Jeff’s boss at Pfizer: He brought Christine to the Christmas party and the minute I saw them together I thought, oh of course. It just made you believe that there really is that perfect someone for everyone. They proved it. There was no doubt in my mind that they belonged together, and they were going to stay together. When I found out they broke up, I gave up hope of ever finding anyone worth my time. I’m still single.

Grey’s Anatomy star Sandra Oh: We had been shooting a scene where McDreamy finds out he has a rash and my assistant stopped the taping to tell me my agent had an urgent call. He said it plain. Jeff and Christine. I asked what Jeff had done and he said, “That’s the weird thing. I don’t think either of them really cheated or anything. I think they just decided.” I couldn’t get my head around that.

Mrs. Palmer, Christine’s mother: She was a willful child. When I heard that they’d broken up, that’s what I thought. She’d always been a willful child.

Country music singer Keith Urban: I’d been following their relationship from the beginning. We all had I guess. When they went home from that bar’s trivia night together, and they slept together for the first time, I think the whole world just knew. This is it, we thought. We did it. Two people finally got love right. And by them getting it right, it felt like we all had gotten it right. So when they broke up, I went to a dark place inside. I haven’t come out of it yet.

This guy Max who used to see them in the waiting area of a Thai place in their neighborhood, where they’d wait to pick up their takeout Thai food: I quit my job. I left my kids and my wife. Fuck it. Jeff and Christine can’t make it, fuck it. I got work on a boat and ended up in Alaska.

Barack Obama, current President of the United States: We were in the situation room, watching the live feed from the chopper as Seal Team Six approached Bin Laden’s hideout, when two of my staffers came in, their faces wet with tears. “We’re in the middle of something here,” I said. “Mr. President,” they said. “You’re going to want to hear this.”

Darren, their upstairs neighbor: I’m the only tenant who still lives in the building. Six tenants took their own lives within a month. Everyone else moved away. They couldn’t stand knowing that deep, wondrous love had moved out. I leased their apartment and I keep it empty. People on pilgrimage occasionally buzz the building so they can look at it. It means something to see the four walls. They need to know that kind of devotion can be contained in a space as small as a 1.5 bedroom apartment.

Gary Burghoff (‘Radar’ from M*A*S*H): I blamed Christine. For a while. Her job at that market research firm sapped a lot of her hours. And she started that book club in their apartment without asking Jeff. Eventually I realized no one was to blame. But the minute I heard, all I thought was, man, talk about incoming wounded.

Some robot: Jeff and Christine were important to the humans. They were ordinary people who worked for a living and had to struggle to make a life, so they represented the majority of the population. They found a love that, by all accounts and appearances, seemed to be the caliber of love that every human desires. When that love died, it made the humans lose hope that such a connection is sustainable. I don’t understand love, but I understood Jeff and Christine.

Neither Jeff nor Christine agreed to be interviewed for this project. These statements in no way reflect the feelings or opinions of Jeff or Christine.

Happy Excerpt From An Oral History Of The Day Jeff And Christine Broke Up Day!

Driving Lesson Day!

“Takin’ a different route,” he tells you, directing you to turn right and head onto the freeway.

You ask if you’re ready for the freeway and he grabs you by the shoulder. “Don’t waste your time!” he shouts. “Do what you need done. Say what you need said. Make sure you get it all out before the people you need to say it to are gone.”

“We’re going to another funeral aren’t we,” you say, turning onto the on-ramp.

“We’re going to another funeral,” your instructor says.

You’ve had six lessons so far, and four of them have been spent driving in cemeteries past funerals. They’re all funerals for women with whom your instructor had torrid affairs.

“Heather Bonaventure,” he says as you exit the freeway and head toward the cemetery. “She was married. Married to the wrong man, and she knew it. Way she behaved in bed, it’s like she was trying to cram in a whole lifetime’s worth of loving with me, even though we didn’t have but forty minutes before her mister came home.”

Your driving instructor is eighty-one years old and it’s clear he’s packed a lot of sensuality into those eighty-one years. But it seems he can only see the regrets.

“Did you love Heather Bonaventure more than you loved Felicia Campopiano?” you ask him as you creep his Buick past the gathered procession not fifty feet away. Felicia’s was the funeral he drove you past two lessons ago.

“No comparison,” he says. “Loved ‘em at different points in my life. Man who loves at 30 isn’t the same man who loves at 45. Aw God, Heather,” he bleats at the coffin, clenching his fist to his mouth to hold in his sobs.

“Did you ever love anyone but Italian Catholic women?” you ask, now doubling back as the casket is being lowered.

“No female blood hotter to the touch than Italian Catholic,” he says. “No offense.”

You’re a Russian Jewish woman but no offense is taken. You’d complain about all of his driving lessons being about how to drive slowly in cemeteries so you can spy on funerals, but you’re hoping he can teach you a much more important lesson.

“How can I be sure that when I die, I’ll leave behind men as heartbroken in love with me as you are with all of these women whose funerals we covertly attend?” you ask.

He wipes the tears from his eyes, takes a deep breath and says, “You give them a glimpse of your heart, then you hide it away forever. Now get me the hell out of this cemetery.”

You exit the cemetery and head back to the freeway as your driving instructor weeps into his hands. Give them a glimpse of your heart, then hide it away forever. It sounds cruel, you think, but necessary. If it means someone will be driving slowly past your funeral in tears, it’s necessary.

Happy Driving Lesson Day!

Adopt Norman Day!

Norman’s 7 and he is ready to give you purpose.

“Not a pyromaniac,” Norman tells you in his sales pitch. “Never beat an animal with a rock. Not overtly homophobic in my teasing of my peers. Getting B+ or higher in my schoolwork thus far.”

“This all sounds very appealing,” you tell Norman.

“Well in child-rearing, as in life, there are no guarantees,” Norman says. “That’s family.”

Explain to Norman that you never thought you wanted to raise a child.

“Let me guess,” Norman will say, turning back to his coloring. “You got older.”

Tell him turning 43 sent you into a kind of tailspin.

“What am I living for?” you ask Norman. “What kind of mark am I making?”

Norman will close his coloring book. “A cartoon I saw once,” he’ll begin.

“Go on,” you say.

“The duck. She rode a rocket into the moon and there was a giant puff of moon dust. Her ducklings watched her fly away, watched her explode in the sky,” Norman will say.

“Did it send them reeling?”

Norman shakes his head. “They just looked at each other, like they each wanted the other to provide an explanation. Surely their mother hadn’t just exploded in a puff of moon dust.”

Norman smiles.

“Had she?” you ask.

“She hadn’t,” he says through that adorable smile. “The rocket burst straight through the moon, rode a U-turn and soared back to Earth, dropping Mama duck in front of her babies, and they all cheered her return.”

Norman will place his little hand over yours.

“They knew she wasn’t gone. They had never before considered that she could ever be gone. She was more permanent than the moon in the sky.”

You’ll feel Norman’s words in your blood.

“There’s no more bold a mark you can make than when another human being takes you as a given,” Norman tells you. “A parent is more permanent than anything in a child’s life. Become permanent. Adopt me as your son.”

Tousle Norman’s hair, then stand up and shout at the orphanage director, “I’ll take him!”

As you count out the $80,000 in cash, Norman will say, “You’ve made the right choice, Dad.”

Say, “Speak when spoken to, son.”

Happy Adopt Norman Day!

You Have A Book Deal To Document Spending The Rest Of Your Life In Your House, But You’ve Fallen In Love With Your UPS Carrier Day!

She lives her life in transit, in constant interaction with the world and its inhabitants. It’s her work and her calling. She can’t shut out the world the way you can. Your love is valuable to her, but her work she values as well.

“What kind of a book is that anyway?” she asks. “What is there to document of a life lived in four walls.”

Volumes! you want to scream. You wish you could throw whole chapters at her mid-section to make her feel the heft of all the realms of experience you’ve toured. The wild flights inward. All the questions you’ve had answered by the silence. The many creative yet appropriate names you’ve given your furniture pieces and home accents.

“I once spent two years digging a hole in my kitchen so that I could reside at even further physical depths of my home,” you tell her. “It was a vast, vast land.”

She tells you that she simply can’t continue to see you unless you kiss her under the sun.

“But the book documents a man living the rest of his life under the roof of his home. if I step outdoors I am in breach of my contract,” you explain. “There can be no suspension of the project’s premise. If it were to come out that I occasionally left the house, think of the damage it would do to sales.”

“But you won’t even be alive to watch it sell,” she insists.

“True. The book is supposed to be sent into editing the moment I am declared dead,” tell her.

She says it’s all too sad, but she’s going and she’s never coming back, unless you step outside that front door with her.

Send her on her way. Your book won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on if the story it tells isn’t tragic.

“I love you, and when you go, I’ll love you,” tell her.

She’s crying. She’s angry that this is really your choice.

“Promise me that you’ll outlive me,” plead with her. “Promise me you’ll live long enough to read my book.”

She promises. She goes. You’ll spend some years in regret, and other years knowing it’s for the best. She’ll die two years and eight months before you.

Happy You Have A Book Deal To Document Spending The Rest Of Your Life In Your House, But You’ve Fallen In Love With Your UPS Carrier Day!

Avoid The Common Pitfalls Of Cheating On Your Boyfriend Day!

Pity. Don’t show your boyfriend any pity because you know how cheated on he is. You can’t say stuff like, “I feel so sorry for you” or he’ll start to wonder why and he might think it’s because you’re cheating.

Scattered knives. The guy you cheat on your boyfriend with probably keeps a knife in his boot or in a sheath strapped to the small of his spine and he’ll most likely take it off when he has sex with you in your house. Make sure he takes his knives with him so when your boyfriend comes home he doesn’t find a knife and think, “Hey this isn’t one of my knives. I am suspicious.”

New addictions. You and your boyfriend probably enjoy the same drug and alcohol addictions or you wouldn’t be together. You might be compelled to take on some of the addictions of the guy you cheat on him with just to make him feel more at home with you while you’re having your affair. Don’t. If your boyfriend sees you doing a new drug or drinking lots of alcohol when you normally only enjoy pills, he’ll wonder who exposed you to the new experience and then, ugh, the questions!

Gross new sex moves. Your side-ass will probably teach you how to bend yourself in different ways and he’ll ask you to rub yourself on parts of him you never thought to, and you’ll want to bring that home to your boyfriend to show him all the stuff you’ve learned. Rookie mistake! Your boyfriend and you decided a long time ago exactly what gets shoved where during sex. If you deviate from the plan, he’ll worry there are other penises.

Screaming wrong names. If your boyfriend and your secret mount have different names, you have to make sure you don’t shout the wrong one during sex or when something is about to hit your boyfriend in the head. Learn your boyfriend’s name really well. Use flashcards or iPhone reminders.

New diseases. If neither you nor your boyfriend have ever had AIDS, and then you catch AIDS from your covert piece, you can try to act like you’ve had it all along and you just never bothered to tell your boyfriend, but that might not work. Just to be safe, don’t catch AIDS.

A whole bunch of new stuffed animals all of a sudden. “WHERE DID ALL THESE NEW STUFFED ANIMALS COME FROM ALL OF A SUDDEN??!” That’s what your boyfriend will shout if you bring home a bunch of new stuffed animals that your secret hottie won for you by playing the hoop toss at the carnival. Boyfriends know where new stuffed animals come from. Boys! Stuff them all down a sewer before going home.

Finally, hickeys. Use coverup.

You’re ready. Sneak out the bathroom window and start cheating!

Happy Avoid The Common Pitfalls Of Cheating On Your Boyfriend Day!

Pillow Day!

Today’s the day you get to walk around in public holding a pillow to your chest. You even get to spend some time with your nose buried in the meat of it, breathing in the comforting stench of your own skull sweat. So whether you’re running a day care or you’re the CEO of a fortune 500 company, spend the day clutching a soft, warm, happy pillow to your chest whenever you feel threatened, sleepy, or in need of the mother who withdrew her love for you many years ago you fucking infant.

Happy Pillow Day!

Tell Him It’s Vengeance Day!

You’ve made your decision. You’re staying with Evan.

“Everything’s gray,” Jeff will say. “It’s like, the whole sky just went dark gray. How can you do this?”

Tell Jeff you must have experienced a brief period of insanity.

“Because of course you had to be insane to want to get back together with me,” Jeff will say.

Evan was being cold to you, explain. He was traveling and his phone calls were few and the few were also icy. And you were lonely, explain to Jeff, and so you ran back into a familiar embrace.

“You know this is cruel,” Jeff will tell you.

Tell him it’s vengeance.

“Vengeance?”

Tell him you’re sitting in the exact same office, talking on the same phone you spoke on six months prior when Jeff called to tell you he wanted to end it. Tell him he was careless with your heart, and so he shouldn’t be surprised that you’re breaking his.

“Vengeance,” Jeff will repeat, doubtful.

Tell him again, yes, it’s vengeance.

“This wasn’t vengeance,” Jeff will say.

It wasn’t. It was the irresponsible actions of a confused, under-loved girl who was unhappy with her boyfriend, who is still far from happy with her boyfriend, so she slept with her ex. But don’t tell Jeff that. Tell him it’s vengeance.

“You’re not allowed to call me anymore,” Jeff will say, now with his voice low, a tone devoid of anything resembling affection. “You’re not to speak to me. You can’t email me when you’re alone or when Evan isn’t being nice to you. I’m not going to be your surrogate goddamn boyfriend.”

Tell him you deserve that.

“You deserve nothing,” Jeff will say.

You could explain to Jeff that had he decided he loved you while the two of you were together, instead of six months after he ended it, this wouldn’t be happening. But there isn’t time to explain. Jeff already hung up.

Tell Him It’s Vengeance Day!

Your Husband Isn’t Over His Mother Yet Day!

You blame yourself. As you pour through the emails between them, him asking her how she’s feeling, her asking him if he’s been eating enough, you can’t help but feel like you’re lacking.

How long has this been going on? How long has he been keeping this relationship from you?

How long have you been such a disappointing wife to him that he still keeps in touch with her.

“Are you just keeping her in your back pocket, in case you and I don’t work out?” you should ask him when he gets home. “Do you want to go and see her, to see if there’s still something there between you? Were you lying in your vows when you said I would forever be the only woman for you?”

You could do what so many wives before you have done. Turn a blind eye. Pretend you didn’t read the emails, didn’t see her number on his caller ID, didn’t notice the birthday card.

Or you could work your ass off to be such a fantastic wife, emotionally, spiritually, and sexually, that he finds no need to ever even think about his mother again.

Or…You could suggest an open relationship. It’s gross, but lots of wives do it. You could let him go and visit her on holidays or weekends. Hell you could even cook for the three of you if she wants to come by. If you want to keep your man, even though you’re clearly not woman enough for him, you might just have to share him.

His car just pulled into the driveway. You don’t have to decide how to handle this right now. Just slam his laptop shut, fix your make up, and go give him a kiss that makes him remember why he chose you over her.

Happy Your Husband Isn’t Over His Mother Yet Day!