You’re In Love With Your Driving School Instructor Day!

He says it’s not real. It’s just a common pitfall of the driving lesson.

“I’m teaching you how to maneuver your way through the world,” he says. “I’m helping you to see that something you thought was scary really isn’t scary at all. I’m making sure you can go wherever you want to go without getting hurt. How are you supposed to not fall in love with a man who’s giving you that?”

Tell him he’s wrong, it’s more than that. It’s the hair on his wrists. The way every time you successfully parallel park he shouts, “Blammo, that’s a keeper.” The way he always offers you an altoid when he takes one from the six tins he keeps in his glove compartment.

“I think we were made for each other,” tell him. “I think I want to marry you.”

He says he’s been hurt before. He’s had girls tell him while they were behind the wheel that he was the one they always wanted. Then when it comes time to step out of the car, maybe introduce him to their friends, suddenly they aren’t so excited to date a 56-year-old driving instructor when he’s not in the passenger seat reminding them when to signal.

“Then maybe we’ll never leave the car,” tell him. “When we’re here, in this car, we’re married.”

It’s a wonderful marriage. You pay attention to each other and understand each other. You look out for each other. You’re a team. The sex is dizzying, if a little cramped. If only it wasn’t all poisoned by the growing dread of that driving test on the horizon.

You cry on the morning of the test.  “I don’t want a license!” you shout. “I want us.”

He says the license is “us.” That little laminated card represents everything the two of you have built over the last twelve weeks.

“Get your license, or we might as well have been nothing,” he says.

As you drive along the route with the DMV grader in the passenger seat, everything feels wrong. You feel like you’re betraying him with every correct turn. You want to crash over the pylon cone then run to the parking lot and into his arms again.

But you don’t. You pass the test. You honor your time together with a perfect grade. When you look for him in the parking lot, he’s gone.

You still look for him when you’re out on the road. You search the cars ahead for his rooftop Student Driver sign. You worry you’ll find him one day, giving instruction to another young girl. You don’t know if you could bear it.

Your license feels warm in your wallet. It’s an heirloom. A sweet memory. And every time you take it out to flash it at the doorman of a bar, you feel like you’re making a declaration. “I loved once,” you’re telling him as he checks your date of birth. “Look at the face in the picture. That’s the face of a girl who loved.”

Happy You’re In Love With Your Driving School Instructor Day!

Time To Get Your Buddy Greg Laid Day!

Satanists want your buddy Greg.

“We want to sacrifice him,” the HSIC (head Satanist in charge) will tell you.

You’ll try to shake Greg awake. He fell asleep on the bar an hour ago.

“Why Greg?” you ask.

“The Dark Lord demands the sacrifice of someone pure,” the HSIC answers. “If you catch my drift.“

"A virgin?” you ask. “Are you crazy? Greg’s 25. He’s bragged about banging wads of chicks.“

"Apparently, your friend doesn’t trust you enough to be honest with you,” he says. “We will take him one week from tonight when the red moon burns bright.”

When Greg wakes up you relate what the satanists told you, expecting him to laugh.

He doesn’t.

“I just never got around to it,” Greg says.

“Well now look what your laziness got you. We have one week to get you laid or you’re going to be sacrificed to the devil!”

“Shit,” Greg says.

So begins a madcap week in which you try to hook Greg up with various women hoping for an erotic connection (Greg won’t go to prostitutes as he doesn’t want to contribute to the human trafficking economy), and the satanists constantly show up to cock-block Greg right when it looks like he’s about to get some.

Don’t give up. Don’t slow down. Get your friend Greg laid. The Dark Lord craves him.

Happy Time To Get Your Buddy Greg Laid Day!

Teen Date Day!

Parents pay you to chaperone their teenage kids on their dates. It’s usually a pretty easy gig. Parents give you cash to drive their kids around, let them make out in the backseat, and you just have to pry them apart if they go to third or higher.

Tonight you’re chapping two rich kids, Wallace Edmonds and Ashley Van London. A couple blocks from the house, Wallace leans over the front seat with a wad of bills.

“We’re not going to the movies,” Wallace says. “We’re going into Pottersville.”

You tell him he’s mistaken. “That’s the wrong side of the tracks.”

“And it happens to be the hometown of the girl I love.”

“And the boy I love,” Ashley says.

Wallace and Ashley going out is their parents’ idea. Because Wallace’s parents know he’s in love with Betty June, a girl well below his station in life, just as Adam Wilkes is below Ashley’s.

“Our parents won’t let us love the boy and girl we want to love,” Ashley pleads.

“There’s a thousand dollars in that wad,” Wallace says, dropping the bills in the front seat.

You don’t say anything.

“Give him another grand!” Ashley shouts.

“Wait,” Wallace says. “Sir, have you never been in our situation? On either end?”

You’re back there again. Prom night. Standing on Georgiana Turner’s front step, her father yanking your boutonnière off your jacket to stuff a hundred dollars in your breast pocket, telling you he found his daughter an appropriate prom date and you should find yourself someone else to dance with.

“Someone from where you come from.”

You accepted the money. You were respectful to Georgiana’s father and walked away. Georgiana never spoke to you again.

“Keep your money,” you tell Wallace. “I’ll take you to Betty and Adam.“

Wallace and Ashley cheer for you from the back seat. You might be making a very bad move, business-wise, but poor kids deserve a fair shake at winning a rich kid’s heart.

Happy Teen Date Day!

The World Without Your Cubicle Mate Day!

Today you’re going to buy a magic lamp from an antiques shop. When you get home you’ll rub it and a genie will pop out. He’ll invite you to name one person you don’t like, and he’ll make it so that that person never existed.

 “You’d kill anyone I say?”

“I’ll just make it so they never existed,“ the genie will say. ”Give me a name, and they’re gone.”

You name Ron, your cubicle mate who sneezes weird.

“He sneezes a lot, too,” you tell the genie. “It’s really annoying.”

“I don’t need a reason,” the genie will say. “Okay, your cubicle mate never existed.”

He didn’t even leave your sight. You ask him how he did it and the genie explains that he has the power to travel through time, so he went back in time to before your cubicle mate was born and murdered his mother.

“So you are a killer,” you say.

The genie explains that he does what has to be done to prevent people from existing. Sometimes he prevents their mothers from falling for their fathers. Sometimes he frames their mothers for crimes they didn’t commit to keep them from ever meeting their fathers. Sometimes he’ll cause nearby nuclear plants to have meltdowns and mess with their mothers’ ovaries.

“Today I was feeling lazy, so I killed her.”

You tell the genie to go back in time and reverse it. You never wanted anyone murdered.

“Fine, it’s done,” the genie says. “She’s alive again. But as genie code dictates, that’s your only do-over. ”

Ask him what he did this time.

“I kept her from falling in love with your cubicle mate’s dad by making her fall in love with your dad,” he says.

“So wait, is my cubicle mate’s mom now my mom?” you ask.

The genie explains that you still have the same mom and dad. Your dad simply had a long-running affair with your cubicle mate’s mom. Your mom eventually found out and divorced him. So now your dad and your cubicle mate’s mom are married.

“I guess it’s cool since I don’t have him as a cubicle mate anymore,” you say.

The genie says, “Even better than that, you don’t have a cubicle! Because you don’t have a job. You’re a child of divorce and children of broken homes are pretty much unhireable. Everyone assumes that they must have caused their parents divorce by being bad kids, so they figure they’ll probably be bad employees too.”

You look around and see that your apartment is now an abandoned Krispy Kreme. You share the space with a family of opossums. Both of your arms are gone. The genie explains you tried to steal some bread from a bakery and the baker’s sons took you into the alley and cut off your arms.

“But I didn’t ask to be a child of a broken home!” you cry. “I just wanted my cubicle mate to not exist.”

The genie says, “Welcome to the world without your cubicle mate!”

Happy The World Without Your Cubicle Mate Day!

Parents Weekend Day!

You paid models to come to your boarding school’s Parents Weekend and pretend to be your parents so you could impress the other kids with how attractive your parents are.

Unfortunately, your real (gross) parents found out about the weekend and showed up, so you’re trying to keep them from meeting the models portraying your parents. Things will come to a head when both your real and fake parents come to a parent-teacher conference.

“Jacqueline?” your real dad will say to your fake mom.

“Edward,” your fake mom will respond, her face alight with surprise.

They grew up together, fell in love, and when Jacqueline’s father moved Jacqueline’s family away, they promised each other to not let their love die.

“I kept my promise,” Jacqueline will say.

“So did I,” your real father will say before grabbing Jacqueline’s hand and running away from your real mom to find a divorce lawyer and initiate proceedings immediately.

“Want to get some coffee?” your fake dad will ask your real mom. They’ll date so it’s cool, your real mom won’t be lonely. Parents weekend is going to work out for everybody involved.

Happy Parents Weekend Day!

Steal Your Son’s Poems Day!

Your son is deep in love with a girl in his middle school and he’s been writing poems about her day and night.

Your wife moved out of the house last month and you don’t know what to say to get her back. You need your wife, but more importantly, your son needs his mom. He needs her way more than he needs some middle school girlfriend. The solution is simple.

Steal your son’s poems.

Change the name. The girl he likes is Sarah. Change all instances of “Sarah” to “Lauren” (your wife’s name).

Update all the references so they’re age-appropriate. Where he compares Sarah to Mila Kunis, you should compare Lauren to Cameron Diaz. And where he says being with Sarah makes perfect sense, like when one finally figures out the right sequence of moves to complete a level in Portal 2, you should say being with Lauren is like solving a Rubiks Cube or whatever bullshit you do to amuse yourself.

Cut out all the parts where he describes what he’d like to do with Sarah sexually. Your son doesn’t quite understand how sex works yet and you need to have a talk with him. He thinks the crook of the elbow is involved.

Finally, replace his references to “The Notebook” with references to “An Officer And A Gentleman.”

Mail the poem off to your wife at her mother’s. In a few weeks, you’ll receive divorce papers that include, among the many reasons for divorce, you having violated her online privacy. You have no idea what that could mean.

You’ll have to go into your son’s room and tell him about the divorce.

“I tried to get her back,” tell him. “I tried so hard, in fact, that I even enlisted your help, without you knowing.”

Explain about the stolen poems. Tell him you understand if he hates you, but you were doing it for him. For the both of you, but for him especially. He’s just better at communicating his feelings than you are.

“Actually Dad,” he’ll say. “I stole those poems from Mom.”

After she moved out, your son wanted answers, so he hacked into her email (her password is his name so it was easy).

“She was writing all these poems to some guy named Evan. They seemed to be pretty good, so I stole them and changed the references to make it sound more like they were from me to this girl Sarah.”

That’s why the poems didn’t win her back. Your wife thinks you hacked into her email and stole her poems, then rewrote them and sent them back to her.

“So I guess I’m the reason you and Mom are divorcing,” your son will say. “If I had stolen poems from someone else, they might have worked on Mom when you stole them from me.”

Tousle your son’s hair. “Don’t be ridiculous,” tell him. “The reason those poems didn’t work is because your Mom’s a lousy poet.”

You and your son will laugh together. You’ll laugh at your mother. Then you’ll read her poems out loud to each other in a high pitched dumb person’s voice. You’ve never felt closer.

Steal Your Son’s Poems Day!

8 Moments When You Should Take A Break, Look At Your Life, And Wonder What Happened To The Man You Hoped To Be Day!

1. When you first wake up in the morning! Stay in bed and listen to the alarm. Listen to it blare, over and over. Sounds like a child sobbing, doesn’t it? Is that child you, crying in mourning for the person that child hoped you’d be? Maybe. Okay! Time to start your day!

2. In the shower! Plant your palms against the tile, lower your head, and watch the water circle the drain. Those are your dreams disappearing into those pipes, your dreams of being a good person, of accepting honest love, of hanging on to those strands of hair that just fell off your scalp. Okay, now towel off!

3. On your commute! You used to laugh at all these people in their cars. You used to say, “That’ll never be me in that herd. I’ll die first.” Now you compare your BMW to the cars of neighboring drivers. Most of the time, you think you’re a better person than they are. That’s the kind of man you are now. But hey, look at that guy in the old Buick. Least you didn’t turn out like that guy!

4. While laying off massive numbers of your workforce! During the conference call broadcast to seven floors of employees being let go today, put your end on mute and say to yourself, “These people have families. Some of them used to be my friends. Is this how I treat my friends now? I used to value friendship.” Now get back to those layoffs. You have racquetball in an hour.

5. While listening to your daughter’s voicemail OGM! Is this the kind of parent you thought you’d be? The kind whose daughter stopped speaking to him nine years ago, putting herself through college because she refused to accept anything from you? Now your relationship consists of listening to her voice on her OGM and never leaving a message, the only message she needs to hear, the one where you say, “I’m sorry.” Man, kids are a chore!

6. While buying a sex slave from a secret, high-end human trafficking ring! After you raise your bid to $250,000, reflect on what you just did. Back in college, if you thought you’d turn into the kind of person who’d buy and sell human beings like they were stereo equipment, you’d have been really disappointed in yourself. Wait a minute, that asshole from Dubai just bid $275K. Don’t let him beat you again!

7. While gathering old photos of yourself into a pile, setting the pile on fire, then putting the fire out with your own urine! You’re starting to worry that this nightly ritual is a reflection of you being slightly disappointed in yourself. But hey, you’re no shrink! Almost bedtime!

8. While having a glass of milk just before bed! Taste the milk and remember when you used to drink milk as a child. Get inside that little kid’s head. Hey, wait a minute! That little kid used to dream about growing up to be an evil, immoral sociopath! All your dreams really did come true! You did it!

Happy 8 Moments When You Should Take A Break, Look At Your Life, And Wonder What Happened To The Man You Hoped To Be Day!

Best Man Day!

You’re the best man at your best friend’s wedding, and last night at the rehearsal dinner his bride pulled you into the ladies room and told you she’s really in love with you. She fell in love with you the minute your best friend introduced you when you came back to the states (you were working in your office’s Hong Kong branch for 18 months), but they were already engaged.

“I’m going to marry him still,” she said. “Because I know if I told him the truth, that I really love you, you would never destroy your friendship by being with me. So the only way I can still have you in my life is to marry your best friend and enjoy every moment when we have you over the house. If that’s as close as I can get to you, I’ll take it.”

Your buddy just asked you for the ring. You could refuse, you could break his heart, and maybe lose him as a friend forever. Or you could hand him the ring and let him live a lie for the rest of his life. Everyone’s waiting.

Good luck. His fate is in your hands.

Happy Best Man Day!

I Want My Boobs Inside You Day!

You’ve had enough of keeping your feelings a secret. Every day you see him across the teacher’s lounge, with that delicious smile of his, those giant hands of his, that hairline that’s receding just right for his skull shape. You can barely contain yourself. You’ve been letting life pass you by all these years, it’s time to tell him what you want.

“I want my boobs inside you,” you tell him when you pull him into the supply closet after eighth period.

“Like figuratively?” he asks.

You shake your head no.

“How would that work?”

You tell him you don’t care. It’s what you want. And you can’t wait any longer.

“If we have to just go with regular intercourse, will you be disappointed? Because I just don’t want you to—”

Kiss him on his stupid mouth and shut him the fuck up. Jesus why do they have to talk?

Happy I Want My Boobs Inside You Day!

Staring Into Your Coffee, Wondering What You’ve Become Day!

You used to have dreams, hopes, a charitable word for those who were trying as hard as you to become what you thought was inevitable. You were going to be a superhero, a mammoth of achievement and innovation and sexual legend. You were going to be celebrated by wealthy people holding glasses of white wine. Your idols were going to find you at cocktail parties and punch you in the face for being so arrogant that you’d prove their talent fraudulent before you even turned 30. You were on your way.

“But then I got trapped in a well for twelve years,” you sob into your coffee.

“We know!” the barista shouts.

“Twelve years!” you shout back.

“It’s a long time!” the other barista shouts. “You wasted your youth on darkness! We’ve heard all about it! Jesus!”

“I was meant to do so much!” you scream.

You down your coffee and go to the counter and grab both baristas by their shoulders.

“Don’t waste what time you’ve got,” you demand of them. “If you don’t fall down a well, with no one coming to rescue you because the property’s been abandoned and anyone who does hear you pleading for help just assumes the well is haunted, you have no excuse.”

They yank their shoulders away from you.

“Got it,” they both say in unison. “Refill?”

You nod yes, a few new tears fall on their counter. They charge you 75 cents.

“You charge for refills now?” you ask.

“New policy,” one of the baristas says.

You cry even harder. You hand them your quarters and you go back to your table and you drink your coffee refill and you lament.

Happy Staring Into Your Coffee, Wondering What You’ve Become Day!

Sex Town, Population You, Me, And My Friend Leland If You’re Cool With It Day!

Tonight you’re going to be celebrated as a genius in the field of nightlife pickup artistry. You’re going to debut your new pickup line, “Hey girl, how’d you like to take a trip to Sex Town, Population You, Me, and my friend Leland if you’re cool with it?”

The first girl you try it out on, a blonde with arms that won’t quit, immediately asks, “Wait, who’s Leland?”

You point to Leland, a weird looking man in the corner of the bar.

“Is he wearing fake eyebrows?”

“He shaved his off because he liked the fake ones he saw at the Halloween store, yes,” you tell her.

She tells you if Leland is a citizen of Sex Town, then she’s definitely not going there.

That’s when you call Leland over and demand he show you the deed to his house. Leland complies, and she observes that the address plainly reads, “Sex Town.” You ignite a Zippo lighter and set fire to the deed.

“Hey!” Leland shouts.

You tell Leland he’s not wanted in Sex Town anymore, and he should go find someplace else to live. Leland looks defeated. He says he’ll do as you say.

“You kicked that man out of his own home, for me?” the girl asks.

“His childhood home,” you tell her. “His dad built it with his bare hands. But if it keeps you from taking a trip to Sex Town, tough.”

The girl says she’s flattered and she’d be happy to take a trip to Sex Town. You tell her to follow you in your car, and you lead her to a great B&B just off the main drag of Sex Town. She checks into her room and you wish her good night and go back to your apartment. In the morning she meets you for brunch, and over the course of conversation the two of you realize you don’t really have that much in common.

She thanks you for showing her around Sex Town and the two of you wish each other well.

Happy Sex Town, Population You, Me, And My Friend Leland If You’re Cool With It Day!

Since You’ve Been Gone Day!

He’s been running laps, up and down city streets, in sun and in rain, in snow, sleet, and holiday shopping foot traffic. He wants to be ready.

He’s been bursting into restaurants, with grand aplomb through double-glass front doors, with stealth through secret kitchen entrances, with bratty insistence, pounding on the panes of establishments where waiters wave their hands to say no, sir, no, we’re closed sir, she’s gone. We’re closed. She’s gone.

He’s got a notebook of the city’s finest wedding venues, the most popular rehearsal dinner locations, the “top ten most romantic spots to pop the question.” He’s been tipping maître d’s, putting wedding planners on the payroll, handing out your picture to bus boys and reservationists. If anyone in the city is asked to drop an engagement ring into your champagne glass when you aren’t looking, he’ll get a call.

He’ll be there. The guy who thinks he’s got you for the rest of his life doesn’t stand a chance, because he’ll be there motherfucker.

He’s at the top of his game, in peak physical shape, on a diet designed to give him maximum stamina, speed, and strength.

He might not have been able to say what you needed him to say to make you stay, but only because he thinks you deserve bigger, better, more drama, heightened tension, a moment of last minute him or me, what’s it gonna be.

Someone tries to put a ring on your finger, he’ll be there to intercept. Someone tries to introduce you to their parents, he’ll be there to exfiltrate. If you somehow manage to get so far as to find yourself in a white dress ready to walk down an aisle, expect him to crash through the skylight and Batman you out of there before the flower girls can shout, “What the frig?”

Since you’ve been gone, he’s been getting ready. He’ll be there. He’ll be there motherfucker.

Expect him.

Happy Since You’ve Been Gone Day!

Caramels Day!

Dan loved you so he used his vast wealth to open a store where you could sell your caramels.

“Maybe I just have trouble accepting kindness from a loved one,” you tell the cashier, a senior in high school, who you’ve been sleeping with in the store’s kitchen area.

“Let’s have sex again,” the cashier says, pulling off the skirt you just put back on.

When Dan comes in and finds the two of you he takes a pan of caramels and throws them at the wall.

You feel terrible about having hurt him when he was always good to you. You feel even worse when he gives you full ownership of the caramel store in the divorce. You vow to not waste his generosity.

You fire your cashier and replace him with your middle-aged aunt who needs the work, and you put all of your strength and energy into making the business thrive. Before long, The Caramel Lady caramels is a nationwide household name, and every time someone opens a box, they can read the company’s origin story on the lid: The Caramel Lady was a terrible wife, a cheater and a liar. The secret ingredient in every one of her caramels is the sorrow she feels for how she treated her sweet, generous ex-husband Dan, a man far too good to be married to someone as horrible as The Caramel Lady.

Happy Caramels Day!

A Guided Tour Of The Homes Of Ordinary People Day!

You give bus tours of the homes of ordinary, everyday folks who live in your town. You’ve been doing it for years, and the same shtick rolls off your tongue day after day. You can pretty much recite it in your sleep.

This two-story house is where Craig and Nina Olsen have lived out the majority of their lives together. Craig is well-known on the block for his grilling expertise. Nina is an insurance claims adjuster. Their son moved to New York City to study dance.

The people take their snapshots and cross the house off their maps. They’re satisfied that they know the lives of the Olsens now, they know what it means to be Craig and Nina, to live in their home and watch their son head off to find his rhythm. And then you roll them on to another one.

Melanie Llanerch, a widow of 15 years after her husband Mario died on the floor of the plant in a mishap. Melanie’s annual Christmas party has been the source for quite a few local rumors, but it’s all in good fun. She’s very active in the neighborhood decorating committee, and there’s a long line of ladies who’d like to find a way into her book club.

Is that it? Is that all there is to say about Melanie? What are you doing, whoring these people’s homes out to be gawked at by paying strangers? You don’t know them. You make a living summarizing the existence of human beings. This isn’t where you wanted to end up.

Here we are at Pamela and Arthur Reed’s house. I could tell you all that Pamela works in finance and Arthur is a school teacher, but does that tell you even the slightest bit about them? If we want to know who these people are, what kind of lives they’re living, we’ll just have to go into their homes and watch them live it. Who’s with me?

You run out the door of the bus and the passengers follow you as you sprint across the lawn to Pamela and Arthur Reed’s doorstep. The door is locked. You throw your weight against it. Once, twice, a third time. The door flies off its hinges. Pamela Reed has a handgun. She aims at your heart. You die instantly. Two more shots are fired. One hits one of your passengers in the arm. The other hits the wood of the door frame. The rest of the passengers run for their lives. Your murder is ruled self-defense. Pamela had the right to defend herself from an intruder into her home. She had the right to keep you from knowing how she lives.

Happy A Guided Tour Of The Homes Of Ordinary People Day!

You Can’t Feel Day!

You kept it off of your dating profile, you explain, because it scares guys away sometimes.

“Or it attracts the wrong guy,” you say. “Like the kind who doesn’t really like women, and would prefer to not have to communicate with a woman on an emotional level.”

He seems intrigued.

“I bet I could make you love me.”

“I’m telling you,” you say. “I can’t.”

“Bet I could make you eat those words.”

“Fifty bucks?” you suggest.

The two of you shake on it.

You spend the next fifty years together, him showering you in romance from dawn to dusk, bombarding you with flowers and serenades and trips to romantic B&Bs. He writes piles of poetry inspired by you, published even, on reputable presses, with nothing but your name as the title, in numbered volumes. He fills you with children, celebrates you at every turn, with every breath. Your life with him is more wonderful than you ever could have imagined, more wonderful, certainly, than you deserve.

He stays by your side to the very end, when you’re on your deathbed. He refuses to leave you. He spends his days reading to you, telling you stories, putting ice chips on your tongue.

On your last night alive, when you know you don’t have any energy left to wake to another morning, you take your husband’s hand in yours and you squeeze it tight. When he pulls his hand away, he opens his palm and finds a fifty-dollar bill.

When he looks at your face, your eyes are closed, your breathing stopped. The money in his palm tells him his love for you was requited, but the proof isn’t in the fifty bucks. It’s in the fact that you cared enough to die before he could look in your eyes to find some seed of doubt.

Happy You Can’t Feel Day!

Vengeance For The Broken Hearted Day!

Henry broke up with Mary because he wants to go out with Susan now.

“He said he loved me,” Mary tells you.

“Then he’s a liar,” you say. “And we need to get revenge on him.”

Mary suggests she take the private chats they had and post them on Facebook.

“It’s real mushy stuff,” she says. “And there’s a lot of him apologizing for not being able to last very long in bed. It’ll be super embarrassing for him.”

“I’ve got a better idea,” you say.

After killing Henry’s family, grinding up their bodies and feeding them to Henry in a stew, you’re wanted for murder and so you decide go on the lam.

“Come with?” you ask Mary, leaning in her bedroom window. “We can live on the open road, killing what needs killing, stealing when we need a little dough, sleeping under the stars, just being free.”

Mary says no. You say cool, then you try to reminisce about the prank you played on Henry, how awesome it was to see his face when he found out he ate his whole family, but you notice the flashing lights behind you.

Mary shows you her phone. She secretly dialed 911. They heard every word.

“You ratted on me?” you ask. “After I helped you get revenge?”

You go to jail for life, thinking the whole time that all you’re guilty of is helping out a friend with a broken heart.

Happy Vengeance For The Broken Hearted Day!

Your Dad’s On TV Day!

Your dad’s on TV.

“Are you seeing this?” your sister asks over the phone.

You’re seeing this. He’s being interviewed by Anderson Cooper for rescuing puppies from a house on fire.

“I just hope my daughters will let me back into their lives,” your dad says to Anderson Cooper.

You tell your sister you don’t like the way this looks.

***

You’re on TV.

“Are you going to accept your Dad back into your life?” Anderson Cooper asks you. “He did something good for puppies.”

You tell Anderson Cooper that if he did something good for some dogs, but he never did anything good for you or your sister, that means he treated you and your sister worse than dogs.

Someone behind Anderson Cooper throws a tomato at you.

“Are you seeing this?” your sister texts you, forgetting that you’re the one she’s looking at live on her TV screen.

***

Your Dad’s on TV.

“I want everyone to leave my daughters alone,” he tells Anderson Cooper. “I did a lot of bad things in my life, and if they can’t forgive me for them, even after I saved some puppies, then that’s their right.”

Anderson Cooper says, “No, I’m sorry but that’s bullshit!”

“Anderson, take it easy,” your Dad says.

“I fucking won’t,” Anderson Cooper says. “I don’t normally do this, take sides and whatnot, but come on. Would they rather the puppies had died? Is that what they want?”

“Are you seeing this?” your sister asks from the other side of the couch. She moved in with you. Her and Stan are having trouble again.

***

Your Dad’s on TV.

“Until there’s definitive proof that that’s me on that video recording, I stand by my assertion that it’s not me,” he’s telling Anderson Cooper.

In the corner of the screen is a surveillance video of your Dad carrying puppies into a house and then setting the house on fire. Then he’s shown waiting around for some people to show up and turn on their smartphone cameras. Then he runs into the house and runs back out with the puppies.

“It really looks like you,” Anderson Cooper says.

“Well, I maintain that it doesn’t look like me. Look at me. Am I wearing a hat, like the guy in the video?”

“If it was you, I think your daughters need to know,” Anderson Cooper says. “They need to realize how far you’re willing to go to get them back in your life. I mean, you were ready to kill puppies.”

Your dad isn’t sure how to respond so he says, “Maybe?”

“That’s a lot to have on your conscience,” Anderson Cooper says. “If those puppies had died, you would have had to live with that, all because you love your daughters so much.”

Your dad says, “So whether I set the fire and rescued the puppies, or I didn’t set the fire and rescued the puppies, my daughters should let me into their lives again.”

“You’re goddamn right!” Anderson Cooper shouts before throwing his mic at the wall and stomping around cursing while your dad chases after him, trying to calm him down.

“Are you seeing this?” your sister asks Stan over the phone. They’re trying to work it out. You hope they do.

***

You’re on TV.

“Empty your pockets,” the corrections officer says to you. You watch yourself on the closed circuit monitor as you drop your keys and loose change into the bin. Then you walk through the metal detector and into the visitors area.

“I just wanted the chance to say I’m sorry,” your Dad says when you sit at the table with him.

You tell him that you accept his apology, and he shouldn’t feel the need to do more dangerous stuff just to get Anderson Cooper to convince you to reconnect with him.

“He parked outside my house for a week, spraypainting ‘Bad Daughter’ on my front door. It was awful,” you tell your dad.

“He gets results,” your dad says. “That’s why he’s the best reporter in the biz.”

Across the room, another inmate picks up his visitor and throws him against the wall.

“Are you seeing this?” your dad asks.

You put your hand on his. You’re seeing this. You’re right there with him, seeing this together.

Happy Your Dad’s On TV Day!

A Swollen Eye Day!

He’ll show up to work with a swollen eye.

“Looks like some girl’s boyfriend caught up to you,” you’ll say.

“He did,” he’ll say. “Yours.”

You don’t remember a thing. A few of you had rounds in the kitchen after you closed the restaurant last night, then you and he went to a bar to have a few rounds more. You vaguely remember arriving at the bar.

“You took me home?” you’ll ask.

“I didn’t think you would have gotten there otherwise,” he’ll say.

“Did we?”

He’ll shake his head.

“Did you try?”

He’ll say he didn’t get the chance. “You were on me by the time the door closed on the cab. I pushed you off and you went to sleep.”

He carried you into your apartment and tucked you in. Your boyfriend was waiting outside when he left.

“He followed us,” he’ll say.

“He doesn’t trust me. He follows me home from work,” you’ll say. “Because he knows I’m in love with you.”

“Godammit, we’re waiters,” he’ll say. “These diners are counting on us. How are we supposed to deliver their dinner if your heart’s getting in the way?”

“But if we weren’t?” you ask. “Waiters I mean.”

He laughs. “Might as well ask if the sky wasn’t blue. If up was down.”

A table for four arrives. You consider just throwing down your apron, walking out the door and waiting for him, waiting on the sidewalk for him to come out and love you.

But you see their faces. They’re hungry. They need you. And if you turned away from them, would he follow?

He’ll give you a look. “That’s your section.”

You’ll tear your gaze away from his. You’ll walk to the table, pulling your check pad out of your shirt pocket, the one right next to your heart.

Happy A Swollen Eye Day!

Ask For A Raise Day!

Say, “Boss I think I deserve a little more than what I’m getting, okay?”

Your boss will tense up, getting ready for a tough negotiation. “Okay,” he’ll say. “How much money you want?”

Say, “Don’t want no money. I just want to be touched.”

Your boss will look unsure of how to counter-offer.

“You don’t want an increase in salary?” he’ll ask.

“Nope,” tell him. “I just want to feel the warmth of your hand on my person sometimes. Nothing sexual, necessarily. Just in the morning, maybe you can rest your hand on my back when you stop by my desk to say hello.”

Your boss will hesitate, waiting to see if there’s a catch.

“And maybe,” you go on. “Maybe you could occasionally tousle my hair the way my dad used to. Oh and I want a five-second hug goodbye every single day. A five-second hug and a whisper in my ear that you’ll never forget the time we spent together each day.”

Your boss will think about all of your demands. He’ll weigh your recent job performance against that of your coworkers and try to determine if everything you’re requesting is within the realm of what he thinks you deserve.

Finally, he’ll come back with a counter-offer.

“A three-second hug,” he’ll say.

“Four,” tell him.

He’ll say deal. The two of you will rise and shake on it. Feel his skin, focus all of your attention on that touch. That’s two human beings right there, clasping each in the other’s grip, sharing a moment temporally and physically, reinforcing the belief that both of you really are right there, that this isn’t a dream, all of it is as real as the warmth of your combined body heat. That handshake, that’s all there is isn’t it? All those desks and file cabinets and all the money that comes in and out of that office, there’s nothing real to it. Nothing you can feel. Nothing as real as the touch of a man holding onto another man’s hand.

Happy Ask For A Raise Day!

Tell Your Dad He’s Been Replaced Day!

“I met a boy,” tell him. “He’s everything you’re not.”

“Guess he’s not awesome then!” your Dad will say as you lift up your bags and walk out the door. He’ll run to the door, laughing, and yell at your back, “I said, guess he’s not awesome! Come on, that was awesome!”

You’ll keep walking to your new boy’s apartment, vowing never to see your dad again.

Three months from now your new boy will cheat on you and you’ll look up your Dad but he’ll be dead. When you go to his grave you’ll whisper, “You were right, Dad. He wasn’t awesome.”

The epitaph on your Dad’s grave will read, “I Die With Just One Regret - That I Couldn’t Have Been Born On A Planet That Could Handle My Awesomeness.” You’ll pray for him to find himself on that planet in his next life, then you’ll go back to the boy who cheated on you because with your Dad gone, all the remaining men are all the same.

Happy Tell Your Dad He’s Been Replaced Day!

Fist Bump Day!

Today when you fist bump people it means you once heard your mother tell a friend of hers that she regrets having you.

“Don’t you love your offspring?” you heard the friend ask your mother.

“I think he’s okay,” your mom said. “But sometimes when the phone rings I imagine it’s the police telling me he got in a car accident and died, and I get a little giddy. Then when it turns out not to be true, I get bummed out.”

You heard your friend tell your mom that she knew of a guy who buys kids. You were only eight at the time and the friend told your mom eight is the max age he’ll buy. Your mom asked what the guy buys kids before and the friend said she didn’t know.

“Do you care?” you heard the friend ask.

Your mom shrugged and said she’d think about whether she wanted to sell you, when you were almost at the age when you could run errands.

That’s what it means if you fist bump anybody today. That you heard your mom have that conversation. If you fist bump tomorrow, it goes back to meaning you’re afraid of strongmen tearing your hand off at the wrist if you engage in handshakes.

Happy Fist Bump Day!

Ask The Barista Day!

You like that brown-haired girl who always sits in the corner of the coffee shop working on her laptop but you don’t know how to say what you feel so ask the Barista to say it for you.

“Instead of her name, write what I tell you on the side of her cup,” you say to the Barista. He is an angry person with a turtle tattoo on his left hand.

“What’s in it for me you fuck?” he asks. You don’t take it personally. It’s coffee shop policy to address every customer as “you fuck.”

“I’ll drop two bucks in the tip cup,” you say.

He nods. You drop the bucks then you tell the barista what you feel. He writes it all down then he shouts for her to pick up her drink.

“You in the corner. The way your brown hair cascades over your laptop makes me wish I could be your laptop, that my body parts could be the keys on your keyboard, like that my penis was the space bar since you’d be hitting that one a lot, and I guess my eyes would be the bracket keys or something. Anyway, you’re the most beautiful girl in the coffee shop and I wish I knew what you smelled like but you sit so close to the bathroom. Come get your drink and let me love you.”

She gets up from her chair to get her drink and finds you waiting to give it to her. She takes it from you, reads from the side of the cup all that the Barista just shouted, then removes the lid and throws the drink in your face. Luckily, it was iced.

“Are you okay, you fuck?” the Barista asks.

You’re not. “I guess this is goodbye,” you tell the Barista. “I only came here so I could imagine my life with that brown-haired girl. Now that she’s given me her answer, I have to go to find another coffee shop where I can fixate on a new stranger.”

The Barista says, “I won’t let you go.”

He invites you into the back, where he knocks you unconscious and keeps you locked away for months. He keeps several other customers there too, customers who were thinking of frequenting other coffee shops. He’ll slowly poison you with ammonia dosed lattes. Your bodies will be found in a pile under some beans. Your Barista will escape to get a job serving coffee in a new town, developing new, indelible relationships with the regulars.

When your face appears in the paper as one of the dead, the brown-haired girl won’t recognize you.

Happy Ask The Barista Day!

The Bulbs In The Streetlamps Day!

Only one of your neighbors on the community board is still fighting you. Go see him today.

“I just want a month,” you tell him. “A single thirty days of red bulbs.”

“Too dangerous,” he murmurs. He didn’t even turn the TV off. You had to grab the remote and mute it.

“She loved red bulbs,” you say. “Her rose garden. Everyone marveled at it. She gave so much to this block, asking for nothing in return. Let me give something back to her. Let me turn the entire neighborhood rose-red for her.”

He snorts.

“What’s so funny?” you ask.

“I was you once,” he says. “When my wife died I wanted to scratch her name into the sky. I wanted to do what she ‘would have wanted.’ Soon you’ll accept that she wants nothing anymore. That’s the good part of death. The wanting stops.”

You both sit in silence.

“Unfortunately,” he adds. “You have to accept that she doesn’t even want you anymore.”

He cries in his chair, staring at a court show. You drop the photos on the table.

“I know you had your neighbors’ tree branches cut down,” you tell him. “It wasn’t the storm. You used the storm as your excuse and cut down the branches reaching into your yard while the Canters were away.”

He stares at the pile of photos without reaching for them.

“Approve the red bulbs at tonight’s block meeting,” you tell him. “Vote yes on turning the neighborhood red in honor of my late wife’s rose garden. Let me mourn my wife to the fullest of my ability. Or so help me God the photos of you shouting up at your tree surgeon will be on every folding chair at that meeting.”

You leave the photos there for him to peruse. Tonight, you can be sure you’ll get the votes necessary to give a proper goodbye to your sweet, departed bride.

Happy The Bulbs In The Streetlamps Day!

499 Days Day!

Today you got into a car accident. You changed lanes without looking first and you sideswiped a guy. The two of you pulled over and exchanged information. You have a good insurance plan and you told him he should be fine.

“I hope so,” he said. Then he asked, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

You said, “I’m going to be murdered in 499 days.”

He said, “I’m sorry to hear it.” Perfect poker face.

You said, “I wonder if you’re the one who’s going to kill me.” You looked at his information and added, “Arthur Douglas Prescott.”

He said, “I’ve never hurt anyone in my life.”

You told him we’ve all hurt somebody at some point. He said that’s probably true. He has broken a heart or two in his rear view.

“Sometimes needlessly,” Arthur said. “Just to prove to them that, by hurting them, they were wrong to have gotten involved with me.”

Arthur ran his hand through his weak scalp of brown hair. It was getting messy in the wind.

“I feel like we’d be friends under other circumstances,” you told Arthur.

“I’m not going to kill you,” Arthur said. “Or wait, is this insurance info for real?”

You told him yes, it was. It’s not that. It’s just, now that you’ve crashed into each other, you’re in each other’s orbits.

“Who knows how this will play out?”

Arthur seemed to size you up then. It’s like he was trying to figure out whether he could overpower you physically, or would he have to use a weapon?

“Maybe I’ll see you again,” you said to Arthur.

“Not if I see you first,” he said.

It’s moments like that one—and like the one you had later in the afternoon when you were cheating on your wife with a married woman, and her husband came home and chased you out of the house vowing to kill you if he ever finds you—that make you realize it could be anybody. Anyone you meet could be the person who takes your life 499 days from now.

Happy 499 Days Day!

You Just Left The Witness Protection Program Day!

The two of you sit watching the news. There’s a photo of you on the screen.

“I can change it.”

“No.”

You want to hear them say it. You want to hear them say that your life is in danger, that you aren’t a hero, or a villain. You want to hear them say that you’re just a living thing trying to stay alive.

“They keep calling me an informant. A rat.”

“They have to tell the story the way they know people want to hear it.”

He puts his hand on yours. You fall into his chest and cry. Then you’re kissing, crying into his mouth. Your blouse is on the floor. He’s carrying you to the bed. Will this be the last time?

“Why don’t they assign girl Feds to watch girls in safe houses?” you ask, after.

“They do sometimes. They send the Feds that the Feds running the case trust.”

You consider asking if he does this with every female witness, but you know he doesn’t. From the very first time, you knew this was as alien to him as it was to you.

“Could you protect me. Outside?”

“For a year. A few years. Then it’d be luck.”

You consider your options. Take down the entire organization, then go live somewhere in the middle of nowhere, with nothing, without him. Or.

“I choose you.”

“I love you. We have to move now.”

In an instant his clothes are back on and he’s got a bag packed already. He’s got wads of cash in a money belt around his waist. He’s spraying the house with gasoline so it looks like the two of you were firebombed. It’ll be days before they realize you weren’t there.

“You’re really going to throw away the bust of the decade for me?”

“Let’s not make a federal case about it.”

You both laugh because that was a joke since he’s a federal agent. You’re in the car now, a block away. Back at the house the match hits the gasoline. The rear-view mirror turns orange. You just left the witness protection program.

Happy You Just Left The Witness Protection Program Day!

You Just Came Out Of A Forty-Year Coma And You’re About To Learn About The Internet Day!

There are news cameras aimed at you. Everyone wants to watch you learn about the internet.

Someone hands you a laptop.

“This is a personal computer,” they say. “Type something you want to look at.”

You type the words, Chicks peeing on guys’ buttholes.

“It’s magical,” you say as the search results scroll down the screen.

They suggest maybe you could type something else. “You can even write a blog post to get your own ideas out there,” you’re told.

They open a blog template for you. The title of your first post is, “9/11 Was A Joint Mission Of The CIA And Israel And Was The Result Of Airplane Shaped Robotic Missiles Remotely Controlled By George W. Bush.”

A reporter asks, “How did you even know about 9/11?”

You explain it was a hunch.

The cameras stop rolling. Everyone starts packing up.

“Wait,” your doctor says. “Try using the computer to look at an adorable video of a kitten.”

You watch an adorable video of a kitten. Then you ask if there’s a way to call the kitten a homosexual and tell it that you’d like to rape it. You’re directed to the Youtube comments section.

“Why’s everyone leaving?” you ask.

You’re told that everyone was hoping to see how the internet would be used by someone who’s never seen it before, but they’re bummed because you’re using it just like everyone else. You stop listening to practice the Harlem Shake.

Happy You Just Came Out Of A Forty-Year Coma And You’re About To Learn About The Internet Day!

At First Sight Day!

You have your hand on the back of his neck when he first sees her. You’re walking him to the exit. When a kid gets suspended you have to stay with him until he’s through the door, then it’s his parents’ problem. So your palm is on his skin, feeling the heat of his neck, when he first puts his eyes on her.

When you got assigned a high school, the guy at the security agency warned you not to become close with the students. These kids aren’t your buddies, he said. Told you you shouldn’t try to relive your high school years, thinking maybe you can get it right this time around, get the football quarterback to like you this time around, convince the head cheerleader not to pants you at homecoming this time around, get the yearbook editor to not mix up your senior photo with the janitor’s staff photo before he goes to print this time around.

They were afraid you’d get conned. Afraid the kids would cozy up to you, make you think you’re cool with them, and before you know it they’re running drugs and guns and smuggling exotic birds through the halls and you’re looking the other way solely because they promised to let you come to the big party after the game.

To be truthful, you do treat this job kind of like you’re back in high school, in that you try to keep your head down and avoid getting noticed very much.

At about ten yards from the doors, she comes walking in. The other kids have already cleared a path, rubbernecking to see the suspended kid get sent home, so when she enters the school and starts coming toward the two of you, you feel like you’re his best man, and you’re both watching the bride walk down the aisle.

His neck goes hot under your grip. You feel his goosebumps rise. You have to raise your arm as he grows taller, or maybe he’s floating a few inches off the ground.

You want to let go but can’t. Not just because it’s regulations to keep the offender in hand until he’s vacated the premises, but because you want to feel love’s birth. You never had anything but unrequited crushes in high school. You fetishized girls you couldn’t have, and knowing you couldn’t have them was the main attraction. It was never an honest love. Having your hand on that kid’s neck is as close as you’ve ever come to experiencing love at first sight. You feel the weather in his body change under your grip. Your palm is a layer of skin away from his brain-stem, right at the very instant when the chemical signals letting him know he’s fallen for someone have begun their transmission.

She walks past you, turns her head just a few inches and holds his eyes. As she passes, you both stop, you both turn, you both watch her walk away. As this kid falls in love, you two are one person.

She looks back at you once before she turns a corner and disappears.

At the front door, you let go of his neck. You turn and face each other, not knowing how to put what just happened into words. You’re only a few years older than him, but you feel like his father, like he has your blood running through his veins, and you have his. You feel like you need to say something wise.

“Enjoy your 5-day suspension,” you tell him.

He nods, then steps through the door and goes on his way.

Happy At First Sight Day!

He Fell Asleep In Your Sonata Day!

His intentions were good! He came to you to offer you his heart! And he waited on your doorstep for you to come home, he’d have waited all night if he had to! But he’d been drinking! And waiting was boring so he drank some more! He got tired and noticed your Sonata in the driveway so he climbed into the passenger seat to rest! While waiting for you! But you know how he has those night terrors?! Well he had one! While waiting for you! And his flailing arms must have knocked the gear out of park and into neutral! So the Sonata rolled out of the drive and down the hill and into an intersection where it got jackknifed by a bus! So he’s dead now! For you!

He died for you!

Sorry about your Sonata!

Happy He Fell Asleep In Your Sonata Day!

Pet Store Day!

Your mood was so cranky today that when you walked into the pet store all the pets committed suicide.

“Your ‘Say No To Life’ demeanor inspire my merchandise to bring about their own furry little ends!” the pet store owner shouted. “You’ll pay for those!”

You suggested that maybe the two of you could come to some other kind of arrangement. The pet store owner made love to you on a very large doggie bed. After the sex you told the pet store owner you love him.

“And I love being a pet store owner,” he said. “I can’t have you in my life if you’re going to fall into these moods that make my pet inventory die by their own paws. Will you go on medication?”

And that’s why you finally started taking medication and got a handle on your depression. For love, and for animals.

Happy Pet Store Day!

Your High School Love Is So Strong It Made Your Principal Abduct His Ex-Wife And Commit Grand Larceny Day!

You remind him what love is. He had your love once, with Denise. It was just as strong, he could swear it was. He watches you two walking around his school, the affection and desire you feel for each other is just a glowing force-field around you, like you’re walking inside a giant illuminated globe of love. He wants to be inside that globe again.

He’d become convinced that if Denise could encounter you and Jack, if she could see what he sees every day he passes you two in school, she’d remember what was possible. She’d remember the kind of love that was achievable because they’d already achieved it. If they hadn’t been distracted by the laser-focus on their careers, and the long dark period after Denise’s parents died, they might never have let it go.

Denise got the Honda Accord in the divorce. He got the Volkswagen Golf, but he still had the keys to the Honda. So one day after school he went to her office, got behind the wheel of the Honda, and when Denise came out he told her he wouldn’t get out of her car until she took a ride with him.

They started at the park. He drove the Honda up to the ridge overlooking the camp area down below. Lots of kids from the vo-tech trailers go down into that camp are during school hours to smoke cigarettes. Other kids go down there and hang out after school, get high. That day you and your boyfriend were down there, sitting on the trunk of a knocked down tree, making out.

Your principal and his ex-wife watched you for about a half-hour. Your boyfriend’s hand went up your shirt. Both your hands would go down each other’s pants sporadically. Occasionally you’d just stop and nuzzle your heads against each other’s necks like animals keeping warm, like your principal remembered he and Denise would do when they first fell for each other.

You didn’t see him in his car when you climbed back up the ridge because you weren’t looking anywhere but into each other’s eyes. Had you peeked inside you would have seen your principal’s ex-wife crying. Your principal was right. The strength of your love affected Denise. She saw what he saw. She remembered how they felt when they first fell in love. But it didn’t give her any hope of rekindling that love. It just made her sad for all that was lost.

Your principal’s ex-wife explained to him, “It’s like being forced to attend a second funeral for a loved one I’ve already mourned.”

Denise’s lawyer later explained that if they ever wished to press charges, his entering the car without her permission, and driving the car without her permission constitutes larceny. And even though she got in the car of her own volition, without being forced physically, she did so under the threat of not getting her car back otherwise. That constitutes kidnapping (though it would be harder to make stick).

They filed a restraining order against your principal, no phone or email contact except through an attorney. No face-to-face except by appointment, arranged via an attorney. Denise has been cool enough to get her lawyer to refile in such a way that the order is part of the divorce filing, so a restraining order doesn’t show up when future employers Lexis your principal.

And it was all so your principal could drive his ex-wife around town and watch you make out with your boyfriend.

Happy Your High School Love Is So Strong It Made Your Principal Abduct His Ex-Wife And Commit Grand Larceny Day!

February Man Day!

Today, you’re February Man. No matter what challenges might face you, no matter what evil might be lurking in your city, waiting to do harm to your neighbors, you have the power to say, “Fuck it it’s February fuck you if you want me to do shit it’s too fucking cold Jesus how can this be the shortest month of the year I wake up every morning in pitch black darkness using all my strength to not drink a bottle of bleach and you expect me to try this month? If you get in trouble in February it’s your fucking problem, not fucking mine. I’ve got my own fucking February to deal with. I’m fucking February man. Jesus, how many more days of this? I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I just can’t.”

They’re going to write comic books about you one day, February Man.

“Who gives a shit? Fuck you. I can’t. I ca–”

Happy February Man Day!

Walking Home, Listening To Some Songs Day!

You have 90 blocks. Approximately seventy minutes. Time for approximately 12 to 15 songs that celebrate you having just said hello to your ex and his date.

It’s cold. The bones of your ribcage, you feel them all, each one colder than the next, like you’re nothing but skin wrapped around a fancy party’s ice sculpture. But you’re not getting on a bus or a train or hailing a cab. You have songs you need to listen to.

You’re the soundtrack to his evening. It’s important to you that while he’s still at the bar, having a third-week-of-dating conversation, you’re walking through his city, listening to the songs that take your broken-up-after-two-years heartache and scream it over organs, pedal steel guitars, and sad atmospheric, electronic dirges. You’re dragging your frozen bones along miles of icy sidewalk while he’s warm and unsure whether he should put his arm around her in front of his friends. Are they there yet? He doesn’t know.

Your walk home takes place on one half of an imagined split-screen, your ex and his date smiling and drinking on the other half. You’re bathed in the glow of a Don’t Walk sign waiting for the light to change as a singer howls for something lost, while your ex is laughing politely while his date tells a story. You’re leaning into the wind while slow drums build under a sparse guitar line, and your ex is telling his date that not very revealing story about a high school teacher who believed in him. Your eyes are on the moon as the lyrics in your ear wish a departing spouse well, and your ex is playing with his date’s hand across the table.

He has no clue that the two of you shared this night. No clue you’ve DJ’d a 70-minute soundtrack to his evening, a musical storyline playing out concurrently with his quiet date in a booth at a bar. Send him the playlist maybe. Songs For The Sadness You Inspire, maybe. Or, Songs To Walk Away From You To.

Happy Walking Home, Listening To Some Songs Day!

New Netflix Category Day!

A new Netflix category just popped up in your streaming catalog. It’s called, “Movies That Aren’t Really Movies They’re Just Video Recordings Of You Doing Stuff You’ve Never Done.”

The first one is a three minute video of you riding a horse. You’ve never ridden a horse.

The next one is seventy minutes of you asleep in a seat on a zeppelin. That never happened.

The third one is called “Madison Square Garden.” It’s video of you hanging around in a bathroom at Madison Square Garden, until a guy walks in with a briefcase and enters a stall. You enter the one next to his. He slides the briefcase under the stall to you and walks out. Then you open the briefcase and reveal several hundred thousand dollars in cash. You look satisfied. Then you walk out. That never happened, even though it’s right there streaming on your TV.

The next one is called “First Kiss.” And it’s you sitting in your car, honking your horn loudly to interrupt your daughter having her first kiss in the parking lot of a movie theater. The boy she’s kissing gives you the finger, so you get out and threaten him. A police officer interrupts you and he smells liquor on your breath. Your daughter cries and says, “Daddy you promised never again. You ruined my first kiss.” You tell the police officer to take your daughter home because you’re never going back there. The next shot is of you on a bus to Mexico. You pull a photo of your wife and daughter out of your wallet and throw it out the window as the bus crosses the border. You don’t have a wife or daughter.

There are 27 more titles in the category but they’re pretty boring so you just scroll up to look through Romantic Movies With A Weak Female Lead That Take Place In A Dystopic Future And There’s A Dog.

Happy New Netflix Category Day!

Raised By Wolves Day!

You were raised by wolves since birth, and you’ve recently been rescued from the woods and now you’re in the process of being socialized to live with humans. For science.

No one can understand why you’re fighting them so much, and you can’t explain it since all you can do is growl and slash at people who get too close. Finally they call in another guy who was rescued from wolves so he can interpret your growls.

“He fell in love with a wolf from another pack. He wants to be set free to go and be with her,” the other raised-by-wolves guy explains to them after you snarl at him a bunch.

“Cool with us as long as we can watch,” one of the scientists says

“For science,” the other adds.

They release you back into the wild, then you spend the next six years being videotaped by some guys in trees while you have sex with a female wolf. For science.

The videotaping ends when the female wolf dies and you’re rescued from the woods again. Once you become socialized enough to understand stuff you find out millions of humans have watched video recordings of you having sex with your dearly departed wolf girlfriend, so you activate your primal wolf instinct and murder lots of scientists. For love.

Happy Raised By Wolves Day!

Play The Bar Game “Just Me” Day!

“Who thinks they should have died in someone else’s place?” shout.

There will be a show of hands. Six or seven at least.

“Who says the words ‘It should’ve been you’ in the mirror every single morning?”

Another show of hands. Four or five.

“Who’s here solely to drench in liquor the part of the brain that remembers the year 1986?”

Only a couple hands.

“1987?”

Lotta hands.

“Who here feels like every single day he walks on this earth is an affront to nature? That the only way to pay for a misfortune that happened to someone you loved is to inflict it upon yourself?”

Two hands. Yours and the redhead’s.

“Who’s all done? Who’s had enough of trying to believe what everyone insists, that it wasn’t your fault? Right now. Tonight. You can feel it in your bones. Who’s all done?”

One hand. Yours.

“Just me! I won!”

Big cheers for you. A few slaps on the back. A kiss on the cheek from the redhead.

You did it. You won.

Happy Play The Bar Game “Just Me” Day!

Jeff Died Yesterday The TV Show Day!

You are the star of a fun new show called “Jeff Died Yesterday.” The show takes place on the day after you died, and everyone is sad, some more so than others. Your Mom and Dad are very sad. Your younger brother Dan is a little sad. Your older sister Jen is not sad at all. Your friends aren’t sad at all either. They’re attractive and they’re trying to have sex with your older sister Jen, who’s always saying, “Pssh. Not over my little brother’s dead body” which gets a laugh from the crew. Your older sister Jen does sometimes have sex with your friends though. Ratings.

The challenge in each episode involves everyone at your funeral having to try and comfort your Mom and Dad or your aunts when they burst into tears. Every week, another of the mourners is kicked off the show. Yes it’s a reality show and you’re really dead. Sorry. This week your friend Pete gets kicked off when the judges say he was the worst at the funeral for getting a boner while your coffin was being lower into the grave. Pete says this isn’t the last we’ve heard from him and we’ll see big things from him at future funerals one day.

Happy Jeff Died Yesterday The TV Show Day!

Wish Upon A Couple That’s Breaking Up At Dinner Day!

When you see a couple out at a restaurant and they’re clearly in the middle of breaking up, go and stand next to their table, put one hand on each of their dinners, and make a wish.

It’s a guess-wish, in that you don’t really know if what you wish for is possible to come true. The way it works is you can wish for their future to be transferred over to you. The only wishes that will come true are when you wish for something that would have come to pass for that couple had they stayed together.

For example, if you wish for a billion dollars, the chance that it will come true for you is as wild as it coming true for them had they stayed together. Probably not very likely.

But if you wish for a gradually declining romantic interest in your partner, until you find yourself middle aged and wondering why you decided to decline into a joyless marriage with someone you should have broken up with all those years ago in that restaurant that one night when you mustered up the courage, there’s a very good chance it will come true!

So go make your wish. And remember, you do have to touch the food on both their plates. To get the full potency of your wish, wait for the entrees, not appetizers.

Happy Wish Upon A Couple That’s Breaking Up At Dinner Day!

The Boyfriend Your Dad Chased Away Day!

You still think about Dewey, your boyfriend from when you were seventeen, the one who made you feel as rare as a diamond, as light as a breeze, as free as a supermarket sausage sample.

You now know that you settled for your husband. As you grew older and you dated more men you gradually accepted that no one would love you with the strength that Dewey loved you, so you settled for less.

“All through this divorce,” you tell your Dad. “All the time, I keep looking back on Dewey, and how even though it’s ridiculous, I wonder what would have happened if we just kept on loving each other. I wonder what would have happened if you hadn’t chased him away.”

Your Dad and Mom share a look.

“Tell her,” your Mom says.

You ask what she’s suggesting he tell.

“Tell her,” your Mom repeats.

“I didn’t exactly,” your Dad begins. “I didn’t chase Dewey away, if we’re speaking literally.”

You burst out crying. Of course. Your parents only told you that Dewey was chased away to spare your feelings. Because not even Dewey loved you. No one ever loved you the way you dream of being loved.

“No, no,” your Dad says when you stop crying long enough to listen. “I didn’t Chase Dewey away. I paid him to go away. And I’ve been paying him ever since.”

“Your father pays Dewey $71,500 per year,” your Mom says. “All to keep him from ever dating you.”

“But why?” you ask.

“Never liked that long hair of his,” your Dad says. “Or that car he drove. Too fast. Not letting him drive around my daughter.”

Over the course of fifteen years your father has paid your high school boyfriend a middle-class salary to prevent him from dating you. His starting payment was $46,300, but your father continued to give him increases commensurate with the average cost of living inflation.

“He’s still not dating anybody,” your Mom says with a smile. “Never did move on from you. Just lived off your father’s money and waited for the day when—”

“When the checks would stop coming,” you say.

Your Dad looks unsure of this.

“Please Daddy,” you say. “Cut off the checks.”

Your Dad doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know how to stop being a Daddy to his little girl.

“I know the love I’ve settled for and the love I deserve,” you tell him. “Dewey can give me the love I deserve.”

Your Dad thinks for a second, then says, “I’ll send him just one more check, so he has the money to cut that hair of his.”

You throw yourself into your Dad’s arms then you Google Dewey and find out that he won’t be needing that extra check to get a haircut after all because Dewey’s completely bald now.

Happy The Boyfriend Your Dad Chased Away Day!

Telling People How Much They Hurt You Day!

Got someone in your life who is capable of hurting you more than you thought yourself capable of being hurt? Presently staring across a table at a lover or a spouse or just a sexual passer-by who can’t stop ripping up your heart and tossing it into the recycling bin? Today’s the day to let him or her (or them, polyamory is getting more respect every day) know how much power they have over you. Say the following:

“You know I’ve dropped all my defenses and basically placed myself emotionally at your mercy. I’m in the palm of your hand. So when you do [whatever they do that sucks], you’re pretty much just clenching your fist and squeezing me into gummy scuzz in your palm. Stop it?”

They’ll probably respond with, “I had no idea.” That’s because they aren’t as vulnerable to you as you are to them, because they don’t feel as much for you as you do for them. This is love. One party always loves the other more than they are loved back, which blows.

The most important thing to remember is this: If the person who hurts you says they don’t like being confronted the way you’re confronting them, apologize. Apologize quickly, before they decide you’re not worth the headache. Hurry, before they go.

Happy Telling People How Much They Hurt You Day!

Apologize For Falling Out Of Love With Your Boyfriend Day!

“Sorry,” tell him. “Sorry I’ve grown.”

He’ll say he appreciates the apology, but it doesn’t make up for anything.

“I just wasn’t thinking,” explain. “For a long while there I was in love with you. Then I had a bunch of life experiences and learned new insights and new possibilities for who I can be. I knew letting all that stuff happen would change me, but I never thought it would make me fall out of love with you.”

Your boyfriend will tell you should have considered it. You should have at least worried about how changing and growing as a person might affect your ability to stay in love with him.

“You’re right,” tell him. “I was inconsiderate. Especially when my father died and I let my grief and my subsequent maturation into an adult with a deceased parent get the better of me. I wasn’t thinking about how those emotional developments would make me grow bored with what you and I shared.”

Your boyfriend will pace the room in front of you. He’ll look like he’s jumping out of his skin. He’ll ask how he can be sure you won’t do this again.

“Well I really don’t think you have to worry about it,” tell him. “I doubt I’m going to fall back in love with you or anything.”

“You better not!” your boyfriend will shout.

Make him say he’s sorry for raising his voice to you. If he says he isn’t sorry, tell him you’ll devote the rest of your life to making sure he’s sorry.

Happy Apologize For Falling Out Of Love With Your Boyfriend Day!

In His Car Day!

Get in his car and let him drive you to his current girlfriend’s house. “That’s where she lives,” he says. “More rooms than anyone would know what to do with.”

You note that it doesn’t look like anything could ever go wrong in there. He confirms that nothing ever does.

“The promise of a girl who grew up in a house like that,” you say. “I can see why you’re with her.”

He says, “Then why at this moment do I want nothing more than to speed away, leave that house and this whole town, and earn a living driving across the country robbing small-town general stores with you.”

Kiss him and he’ll step on the gas. He’s already made his choice. He’d rather live on the road making love at 70 mph with you than die safe and warm in the biggest house you’ve ever seen. Kiss him and you’ll be on a highway putting every memory over your eastern shoulder. Kiss him and he’s yours.

“But I want to be a veterinarian,” you say. “I love animals.”

He shrugs and says, “Suit yourself.” Then he drives you to a corner where you can catch your bus.

Twenty years from now when you’re treating a sick cat for fur balls you’ll remember the choice he gave you. You’ll Google him and discover he’s fat and sells ad space on roadside billboards.

“You made it to the highway,” you’ll whisper at your computer screen, before returning to the cat sitting on your examination table waiting for his dropper full of medicine.

Happy In His Car Day!

Quit Putting Off The Important Stuff Day!

You’ve been sitting on the couch all day long watching Netflix and dicking around on the internet knowing full well you have to get out into the world and bury your roommate’s dead body in a shallow grave before dawn (you two had a fight over the fact that you’ve been using his conditioner and things got out of hand so you stabbed him to death). This is always the way. Every time you have a big project you end up putting it off until the very last minute, glueing your eyes to whatever screens will accept them, and then you find yourself scrambling to find a store open in the middle of the night that will sell you some lime and a shovel. Oh Christ what are you doing now? You’re calling Jeff? Don’t call Jeff.

“Hey Jeff can I borrow your truck? Zipcar only has compacts.”

Of course he’s going to say no, at least until you lay a guilt trip on him. Why didn’t you just reserve the Zipcar pickup or SUV as soon as you killed your roommate? And now you’re going to try and rope him into helping you dig the grave too, aren’t you?

“I’ll pay you forty bucks. I just gotta get Brad into the ground. Kind of a last minute deal.”

This is how terrible you are at time management. You think you saved yourself some time getting Jeff to help dig but now that Jeff’s an accessory you have to dig two graves, and bury him in the second after you hit him in the head with your shovel.

“Yeah but I get to keep his truck so free truck.”

Okay fine that’s a good point.

Happy Quit Putting Off The Important Stuff Day!

Wedding Vow Day!

You and Larry were always best friends. Ever since college, when you two would stay up all night long watching bad movies together. Or when you’d run to each other for a shoulder to cry on after a bad breakup, or a sympathetic ear after a terrible date.

After college you moved in together and spent a couple years living as roommates, but you were such close friends you might as well have been an old married couple. Each of you felt like it might be impossible to find someone you enjoyed being with as much as each other, and so one night many years ago you made a vow.

“If neither of us finds someone before we’re 35, we’ll marry each other,” Larry said. He even got down on one knee when he said it.

“35?” you said. “Okay, that’s about when I’ll have given up the search. Deal!”

You consummated the vow by microwaving some popcorn and sitting down together to watch a DVD of Lost Season 2.

For a while there, it seemed like you two might end up honoring that vow you made, until three years ago when you met Stephen, who was an usher at your sister’s wedding.

You fell for Stephen almost instantly, and you knew you’d fallen for him based on the one true test of whether you love someone or not: you couldn’t wait to introduce him to Larry.

It wasn’t long before you moved out of your apartment with Larry and into one with Stephen, and after a couple more whirlwind years Stephen got down on one knee and asked you to join him in a for-real marriage vow. The date was set for this weekend, when you will be exactly 34 years and four months old.

“Just under the wire,” you told Larry. “Guess you won’t have to marry me after all!”

“Guess not,” Larry said. “Looks like Stephen’s going to beat me to it.”

It did look like that. Until yesterday, when Stephen’s body was found floating in the river. His head had been bludgeoned, his wallet gone. Appeared to be a mugging gone too far.

You ran to the only person you’d ever run to for comfort at such a horrible time.

“How! How could this happen?” you cried into Larry’s lapel. “Just days before we were to get married!”

That’s when Larry chose to provide you with some words of comfort that proved to be rather strange.

“Well I promise to keep up my end of our marriage vow, even if Stephen couldn’t keep up his.”

You were a bit thrown, but you managed to ignore that he said it. People say odd things to someone in grief, and better just to move past it. But when you left his apartment that night, his words kept repeating in your head, and they chilled you a little more every single time you recalled them. You ended up telling your cab driver to change routes to take you to the police station.

“There’s our motive,” the lead detective says. “People have gone to way more extremes to make sure they got married. The only question is, will he do it again?”

The sting is on. You’re going to go away on what you’ll tell Larry is a vacation to get your head about you, but really you’ll just be hidden away in a safehouse. When you come back they’ll pair you up with Detective Donald Lawrence, a handsome undercover cop who you’ll pretend to have met in Playa Del Carmen and you were both so swept off your feet that you decided to get married.

“Then we wait,” the lead detective says.

This sting operation will hopefully uncover nothing at all. But deep in your heart you know that Larry really wants to get married, and he’ll do whatever it takes to make sure you remain unwed for just a few months longer, just long enough to guarantee that you have to honor your vow to marry him. God be with anyone who wins your heart before you turn 35, because they’ll be saying their prayers for a quick, painless death at Larry’s bloody hands before they ever get the chance to say, “I do.”

Happy Wedding Vow Day!

If You Two Go Home Together Tonight People Will Die Day!

Go ahead. Go find an empty booth and talk to each other. Find out how much you both have in common. Find out how easy your conversation feels, how it feels like you’ve known each other for years. How it feels like you two intended to meet each other here tonight, almost like you’d planned it. Or someone did.

Go ahead and lean in for that first kiss. It will lead to a second. Then you’ll just fall into his body, your head against his chest, listening to his heart. It will be disarming to your friends who see you. It will look like you’re already boyfriend and girlfriend. It will look like they’ve seen you clumped up together in a booth like that every Saturday night for years. It will look totally expected, completely natural, and they’ll wonder if it’s always been this way.

Go ahead and leave the bar. Wander the streets telling each other the truth. Hold hands even. Fuck it. You already feel like you should, like it’s perfectly acceptable for two people who just met a couple hours ago to walk around your city holding hands. Stop occasionally to kiss. Stop occasionally to just press yourselves together. Stop occasionally.

Go ahead. Go on home to your apartment or his. Go ahead and fall into each other’s embrace before you even get through the apartment door. Go ahead to the bedroom and spend the next 72 to 96 hours absolutely devouring each other’s flesh, only to find that you’ve barely even begun to sate your hunger.

Go ahead and go home together tonight. Just know that if you do, people will die.

Not saying who. Not saying how. Not saying why.

But if you two go home together tonight, people will die.

Not saying if the people who are going to die are just fine with that, since they know your love is worth their lives coming to an end. Just saying what’s to be said.

You go home. They go away. It’s only fair that you know what’s at stake. Sometimes, there are repercussions to two people falling in love.

Happy If You Two Go Home Together Tonight People Will Die Day!

Your Dying Dad Wants To Talk About “Inception” Day!

It was on his hospital room TV last night.

“It was ingenious,” he says.

You nod and try not to say anything.

“So well thought out, the way it moved among all those levels within levels of consciousness,” he continues, rasping now.

Say, “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

“And just a riveting action movie to boot,” he adds. “Maybe the smartest, most exciting action movie ever.”

“Can I get you anything from the cafeteria?” you ask, trying to change the subject.

“You didn’t like it?” your Dad says.

You shrug coyly. He gets the picture.

“I can see why you might not have liked it,” your Dad says. “You were always a simpler kid. Never really interested in being challenged by a movie.”

That’s it.

“Look, I spent half of 2010 listening to idiots tell me that because I didn’t like a movie that had to use clumsy exposition to spell out what was happening in every goddam scene, I’m the one who’s not intelligent. Maybe people who liked Inception are the ones who aren’t smart because they’re so easily manipulated by a movie that’s more concerned with insisting to the audience how smart it is than with being entertaining.”

Your Dad is silent for a minute. Then…

“I’m on my fucking deathbed here.”

“I know, it’s just…”

“You tell me you don’t think I’m smart? When I’m on my deathbed? Just because I liked a movie I saw on TNT?”

You’re ashamed.

“I’ll admit all that snow shit looked like an assy Bond movie,” your Dad will say.

“Thank you!” you’ll shout. Then you’ll hug him. Everything will seem okay but he’ll die knowing what your opinion of him is.

Happy Your Dying Dad Wants To Talk About “Inception” Day!

Bottle Of Live Bees Day!

Your new roommate left a bottle of live bees on the kitchen counter with a note that reads, “This bottle of live bees is mine! No one should eat or otherwise make use of any of my live bees! I know exactly how many bees are inside and how deep the aerated cork is inserted into the neck of the bottle. Sharing a living space is about respect so please respect me and my bees. Also I threw out your yogurt. -Joan”

Spend a good hour writing Joan a strongly worded response letter explaining how throwing out your yogurt constitutes a violation of your personal surroundings and kind of amounts to assault. You’re only going to be roommates for so long so you might as well go apeshit on each other in insane kitchen notes while you can.

Happy Bottle Of Live Bees Day!

Your Cat Made Dinner Day!

Today you’ll be surprised when you come home to find a romantic dinner for two waiting for you on the table.

“Did you make this, Mr. Paws?” you’ll ask your cat.

“Yeah,” your cat will say. “I think I fucked up the sauce a little.”

“I’m sure it’s just delicious,” you’ll say as you take off your coat and sit down at the table.

Mr. Paws will pour you some wine and then sit down with you. You’ll start eating right away.

“You’re home a little late,” Mr. Paws will say.

“Not this again,” you’ll say as you stuff lamb into your mouth.

Mr. Paws will throw his fork on the plate. “No, this again, dammit! I slave away all day making you dinner, I don’t deserve a phone call telling me you’ll be late?”

“You can’t answer the phone! Remember? There’s a reason I didn’t name you Mr. Opposable Thumbs!”

“That’s not my point.”

“What is your point then dammit,” you’ll shout. Your fork will fall off your plate and onto your skirt. “Great, now this has to go to the cleaners.”

“Poor you!” your cat will yell. He’s starting to cry now.

“You know I could have you put to sleep,” you say. “Just take you to a shelter and say I’m done with you. It’s totally legal.”

“You’re a monster!” Mr. Paws will scream, running from the table to cry into his cat bed.

“You’re right. This is the saltiest fucking sauce I’ve ever eaten!” you’ll shout at his retreating tail.

Finish eating the meal and then go in and apologize before he takes out his anger on the upholstery of your easy chair.

Happy Your Cat Made Dinner Day!

You Steal Coats From The Chair Backs At The Library Day!

Today you’re going to steal a sweet London Fog from the chair of a college student who headed off to the men’s room. You’ll be halfway across the reading room when you’ll hear, “Dad!”

You’ll keep walking. Calmly. Can’t be for you.

“Dad stop!”

No way that’s for you. Unless…

“Security, that man has my coat!”

A guard by the door will grab you and tug the coat from your arms. He’ll turn you around to face the kid you stole it from.

“You don’t even recognize me, do you,” the kid will say.

You lost your glasses in a fight a month ago so you have to squint to see. Then you squint harder, hard enough to be sure you’re seeing what you’re seeing.

You can’t be blamed for not recognizing him. Last time you saw him he was ten. The only thing you recognize about him is the look in his eyes as he recognizes you. He’s looking at you like a kid would a father.

“This wasn’t a coincidence. I tracked you down here. A private investigator told me you steal coats from this reading room.”

“I wouldn’t have been any good to you,” you tell him. “You don’t want me back in your life.”

“I don’t,” your son says. “Mom’s dying. It’s her wish that you come back with me. Do that and you can keep the coat.”

Your son takes the coat from the guard and puts it over your shoulders, then he holds up two plane tickets. The two of you fly back to Michigan where you’re escorted to your ex-wife’s hospital bed. She wakes from her drugged sleep, sees your face, and starts to laugh.

“I have such a good son,” she says.

“Hi Muriel,” you say.

Your ex-wife says she’s tying up all her loose ends, and yours was the loosest.

“You left without saying goodbye,” she says. “Just disappeared. So I wanted to have the chance for us to have a proper farewell so I can say what I never got to say.”

Your ex-wife calls you a son of a bitch and spits in your face.

Your son leads you out of the room and hands you your plane ticket back. You fly home feeling good to have some of the guilt of your leaving washed away with your ex-wife’s spit. And you’re excited to have a warm new coat to help you get through this bitch of a winter.

Happy You Steal Coats From The Chair Backs At The Library Day!

The Gambler Day!

They call you “The Gambler” because you just bet your child’s college tuition on roulette. You put it all on black and the spin came up red so you lost everything.

“My God what have I done,” you shout as you fall to your knees by the table.

A few people will take pity on you by throwing chips on the floor around you. You’ll grab at them and bet them on black, but it will still come up red.

Finally you’ll crawl on all fours off of the casino floor, crying about how you’ve ruined your family.

“There goes The Gambler,” other casino patrons will whisper as you crawl past them. “He’s a legend.”

“So long Gambler!” a waitress will shout.

“Hey Gambler, where you heading next?” a boy will ask.

“I’m going to jump off of a bridge,” you’ll tell him. “The money I bet on that table is nothing compared to what I owe to the bookmakers.”

“Good luck Gambler!” the boy will shout as you crawl out the front door and make you way toward the bridge.

“I have a disease,” you’ll whimper.

Happy The Gambler Day!

There’s A Hidden Code In Your Daughter’s Finger Painting Of A Pony Day!

A Harvard art professor is in your kitchen aiming a black light at the finger painting on your fridge.

“Do you have any idea what this painting means?” the professor says.

“She’s very talented,” you say.

“We think she might be a prodigy,” your wife says.

The Harvard professor scribbles something in his notebook. Then he pulls some parchment out of his portfolio and compares the sketches on the parchment to your daughter’s pony finger painting.

“My God,” he says.

“Do you think she should be transferred to an accelerated program?” your wife asks.

“Or…” you say. “You could maybe write her a recommendation.”

“Your six-year-old daughter’s finger painting has proven thousands of years of Western society to be built on nothing but lies,” he says.

You and your wife high five. Some monks burst through the kitchen window and steal the finger painting before escaping into a waiting helicopter. The Harvard professor tries to chase after them but you manage to delay him enough to get a brief but effective recommendation letter.

Happy There’s A Hidden Code In Your Daughter’s Finger Painting Of A Pony Day!

You’re The Only Ones In The Restaurant Who Are Still In Love Day!

All the other couples gave up the ghost hundreds of dinners ago. But the light still burns for you two. Everyone can see it in the way you offer each other fork-fulls of food to try, in the way you reach across the table to touch each other’s hands the minute the bus boy clears your plates for the next course. They can see their past selves in you and remember when they felt like you feel. Some of them want to warn you of what’s to come, to tell you to try to hold onto how you feel for as long as you can, to not take it for granted. Others just want to sit as close to you as possible in the hope that your affection for each other might rub off on them and bring them a little closer to each other tonight. Unfortunately, one couple just feels way too pissed off at your happiness and they tipped your waiter a hundred and sixty dollars to let them take your food into the rest room and sprinkle it with urinal water, so you’ve been eating urinal water all night lovebirds.

Happy You’re The Only Ones In The Restaurant Who Are Still In Love  Day!

Be The Princess Who Remembers Where She Came From Day!

You were excited to be plucked out of poverty and away from your cunt step-sisters when the Prince saw how hot you were and fell in love with you. Once in the palace as his princess, though, you discovered just how little regard the monarchy has for the villagers and farmers who comprise their kingdom. You’ve tried to talk the prince into enacting more compassionate legislation but he doesn’t want to upset his father. So you’ve been coercing him to act by witholding sex from him. You first went a month telling him you were just too depressed to have sex thinking about all those high taxes your family has to pay while you’re living in that big castle, until eventually the prince got the message that lowering taxes meant he’d get some action. Then you told him you were too distracted to perform fellatio by the knowledge that so many people were in debtors’ prisons unjustly because of unconscionable lenders, so the prince convinced his father to have all debts under a certain threshold forgiven. You even got the palace whores in on it. They have family in the villages too. He’d go to them but they’d perform horribly to make sure he continued to long for you as his best sex ever. You only have a few more years before you get too old for the prince to find you as desirable as you are now, so make them count. Get the kingdom to subsidize farming and build some schools in the villages, then make him enact a law that makes it illegal for knights to rape commoners. You can do it. You can use your puss to make this kingdom a wonderful place.

Happy Be The Princess Who Remembers Where She Came From Day!

Throw Everything Out Day!

Your possessions are disgusting and today’s the day to stop possessing them once and for all. Throw out all of your furniture, clothing, erotic figurines, human ears, and children that you own and start fresh with all new ones. No sentimentality! Understand? No crying about how you don’t have any money to replace everything. No complaining that a lot of the stuff your husband paid half for. No worrying about how you’ll live without a bed, clothing, a refrigerator, a toilet, salt and pepper shakers, or your medicine. You have to get rid of everything because everything is filthy and you need to get clean.

This is the only way to get clean.

Happy Throw Everything Out Day!

God’s Big Date Day!

God’s got a big date tonight with Diana, the girl who works at the magazine store.

“What should I wear?” God asks some saints.

They suggest the white robe. Then they tell him not to be nervous.

“Don’t be nervous?” God thunders. “I haven’t been on a date since Shannon.”

Shannon worked at Borders back before God caused them to go out of business. She cheated on God with someone else he created.

“Getting cheated on with my own creation? I’m just supposed to bounce back from that?”

The saints tell God he should just be himself.

On the date, things are going really well. Then in the car God makes a move on Diana. They kiss. God puts his hand on Diana’s breast. They undress. Diana performs fellatio on God and then God performs cunnilingus on Diana. Then God does something weird with Diana’s feet but she’s okay with it. There’s some spitting. Diana demands of God, “Tell me I’ve been disobedient.” God enters Diana from behind and the intercourse lasts several minutes.

God drops Diana off at her place and promises to call her. Back at heaven the saints ask God how it went. God just smiles.

“I know that smile!” one of the saints says. The others high five him.

God waves them off and goes to his room to think about Diana. Does he really like her for her, or is he just excited to feel something for someone again? He likes thinking about her. He kind of can’t wait to see her again. Just before bed he causes a massive earthquake in Southeast Asia, killing hundreds of thousands.

“But Diana’s safe,” God thinks as he turns on his white noise machine to drown out the screams coming from Earth. “Diana’s safe.”

Happy God’s Big Date Day!

You Explain Divorces To Kids Day!

Divorcing parents pay you to come by and tell their kids that their parents are splitting up. You get a thousand bucks a kid. Today you’re doing the MacDougals. Two kids.

“Listen up,” you tell them while driving. You always break the news in your Cutlass. “Your parents are getting a divorce. Your mom fell in love with some guy she works with.”

They want to know what about their dad.

“He hasn’t met anybody yet, far as I know.”

They want to know why.

“He seems to still be in love with your mom. Seems like he expected it to last forever. The whole thing’s kind of knocked him on his ass so go easy on him.”

You’re driving them by the river. Life keeps flowing. That’s the message of that river. They get it.

“Why’s Mom doing this to Dad?” Bobby MacDougal asks.

“When you’re older you’re going to realize that you have to make a lot of decisions in life, and you regret all of them just a little bit. Some you regret more than others. You can’t go back and reverse everything, so you have to pick the decisions you regret the most and try and make a change.”

Debbie MacDougal asks, “So Mom regrets marrying Dad the most?”

You slam on the brakes behind the car in front of you. The kids are startled. Life can end at the drop of a dime. That’s the message with stopping short like that.

“Don’t try to read your parents’ minds,” you tell them. “Just let them overcompensate with presents and stuff. Here are some iPads.”

You throw the iPads into the back seat and they lose their shit.

“See, being children of divorce ain’t so bad right?”

They’ll be lost in their iPad screens. Drive them into a heavy, chaotic traffic jam, one with a burning car by the side of the road. Things might feel okay right now, but life is a slow crawl through chaos and suffering, is the message with driving into a chaotic traffic jam with a burning car by the side of the road like that.

Happy You Explain Divorces To Kids Day!