Modern Rock Concert Day!

You’re a narcotics officer who’s working undercover to bust the lead singer of a modern rock band for drugs because the mayor doesn’t like him bringing his filthy music and godless stage show into his town.

“What if he doesn’t have any drugs?” you asked the mayor.

“You make sure he does,” the mayor told you.

You’re used to planting drugs on suspects when you know that getting the suspect behind bars is better for everyone in the long run, but you’re not sure how comfortable you are planting it on a guy just because the mayor has some ideas about what kind of music kids should be listening to. Lucky for the mayor you stopped worrying about keeping right away from wrong a long time ago.

When the band goes out on stage you sneak into their dressing room with the bag of heroin at the ready. Just as you’re about to stuff it into the lead singer’s guitar case, a girl walks out of the bathroom and sees you.

She doesn’t blink an eye. Just holds out her hand to you and says, “First, come listen.”

She takes you to the wings of the stage and tells you to stand there and listen to the band play. Just for the next song. When it’s finished, if you still think it’s right to frame the lead singer for a crime he didn’t commit, that’s up to you and the girl won’t stop you.

The song is slow and quiet at first, then picks up the tempo, and before long the lead singer is wailing and the entire crowd is electrified. The song makes you feel even more disappointed in yourself than you normally do, because the song actually fills you with hope that there’s still a chance for you to turn things around.

“I didn’t know who I was,” you tell the girl. She is holding your hand like you’ve known each other for years. “I could still be so much better.”

The girl leads you into the crowd and introduces you to her friends. They all look like her; everyone half your age looks like her. The girl says goodbye to her friends, says that you and she are going to make a go of it. You leave town with the girl that night, selling the heroin where you can and living off the proceeds. You have two little girls together and it isn’t long before the heroin runs out and it’s time for you to go back to work.

“No way am I going back to being a cop,” you say.

The girl tells you to go for a drive and listen to that song again, the one that told you what to do the night you two met. You do as she says and this time the song hits you ever harder, it admonishes you for not doing anything more with your life than selling drugs to people in peril. This time the song sounds urgent, like time is running out. With the song blasting out the car windows, you put the pedal to the metal and blaze out of town without so much as a goodbye to the girl and your daughters. It might be cold but it’s what the song wants. Rock and roll doesn’t always intervene in the lives of man, and when it does, man had better be ready to pay heed or else pay dearly.

Happy Modern Rock Concert Day!

We Can’t Let Go Of Him Day!

Everyone in your little podunk town is trying to kill you because they heard you got into one of those colleges up north where they teach you communications and how to flirt with Jewish girls by speaking heatedly about politics.

“So it’s agreed,” the senior councilman said last night at the Town Center. “We kill him before he gets on that bus tomorrow morning. We’re a jealous folk here in our simple little town, and if we can’t have him, no one can.”

“Perhaps we should do it tonight,” the town mailman said.

“Nope,” the senior councilman responded. “Too sleepy. Had a big dinner.”

That was your big break. Wake up early this morning, pack your bags, then go house to house murdering everyone in your town before getting on the bus to Villanova. Your town has a population of 865, so you have to kill 4.8 people per minute to make your bus in three hours. Use fire. Make sure you get everybody because if you leave any living witnesses, they could come to Villanova and kill everyone on campus out of vengeance.

Congratulations on being the ninth person in your town to get into college. Now let’s work on you being the first one to get out of that town alive.

Happy We Can’t Let Go Of Him Day!

Party Store Owner Discovers The Irony Of Being A Party Store Owner Who Could Never Throw A Party Of His Own Because He Doesn’t Have Any Friends Because He’s Awful Day!

Today the Party Store owner is going to chuckle to himself when he realizes that even though he has an entire store full of party supplies at his disposal, having not a single friend to his name means he doesn’t have the capability of throwing a party.

“Funny,” the Party Store owner thinks. “That I, of all people, would own a party store after having spent my whole life being such a miserable human being that I don’t have a single friend who would come to a party I threw. Come to think of it, I’ve never attended a party, unless you count that neighbor’s backyard wedding I watched from my bathroom window after calling the police with a noise complaint. I wouldn’t have even watched that if I didn’t want to see their faces the moment the police told them they had to take it inside. Man, me, a Party Store owner. Life sure does work in weird ways.”

Irony sufficiently acknowledged, the Party Store owner then starts going through job applications so he can throw some candidates in the trash based on the apparent ethnicity of their last names.

Happy Party Store Owner Discovers The Irony Of Being A Party Store Owner Who Could Never Throw A Party Of His Own Because He Doesn’t Have Any Friends Because He’s Awful Day!

Under A Red Lamp Day!

You’re sitting under a red lamp, chewing on a ten-day old cigar, telling your son what love really means, when the men come in to the restaurant to make you pay.

“Love really means being disappointed. Disappointed in your own heart for not being able to give enough of itself. Disappointed that your lover can’t make everything okay, that she can’t make you forget all about where you expected to be at this point in your life. Disappointed that love isn’t all you need. Disappointed that love’s all you have.”

“You killed Mom, didn’t you?”

“She was talking to the Feds.”

Two of Mack Leland’s soldiers just opened their rain coats and leveled shotgun barrels at your head. One of them moves his eyes from yours to your son. He’s giving you the split-second you need to slap your son to the ground before the triggers are pulled. You take advantage of his consideration, throw your son safely to the ground, and then you accept their gunfire readily and without rebuttal.

You die reasonably content. You at least got around to telling your son what love really is. You never got to tall him about the time you saw a ghost when you were in the war, but no one ever died without a few items left on their to-do list.

Happy Under A Red Lamp Day!

One Of Those Photos With The Girl Who Got Her Face Impaled On A Fence Day!

You have trouble dating because you were in one of those photos of a girl who got her face impaled on a wrought-iron fence.

“I just can’t get over the idea that we’ve met before,” boys will say. “And I get uneasy when I look at you. Did you once hurt me?”

When it’s clear they won’t let it go you have no choice but to tell them.

“I was in one of those photos of a girl who got her face impaled on a wrought-iron fence,” you tell them. You describe the photo, wherein the spike at the top of the fence had gone through the skin underneath your chin so that the spike was sticking out of your mouth.

“Aww God that’s it!” the boys shout. “Aww God! Aww my God! I remember that photo. Aww God!”

And that’s how it ends. You can be sure that from that point on every time they look at you they’ll be imagining you with a spike piercing your chin and sticking out of your mouth and they’ll be thinking “Aww God!” and wanting to cover their eyes. So you tell them the story of how the spike had to be sawed from the fence so that you could be lifted off of its base and rushed to the hospital, and then you say goodbye forever and log back onto OkCupid.

Today you’re going to go on a date with a guy who was in one of those videos where he dove off the roof into a pool but landed face first on the concrete perimeter instead.

“Aww God!” you’ll shout. You’ll tell him about your wrought-iron fence situation and he’ll shout “Aww God!”

Since you both remind each other of cringeworthy visuals of unimaginable pain you decide to marry and spend the rest of your lives looking at each other through your fingers, unable to put the horrible images out of your heads. Every morning when you wake up and see each other across the bed, you’ll ask each other once again, “So did it hurt real bad?” Then you’ll kiss and make coffee.

Happy One Of Those Photos With The Girl Who Got Her Face Impaled On A Fence Day!

Present For Your New Dad Day!

Your new Dad has been in the house for just a few weeks but he’s really hinting for a present from you for Father’s Day.

“I know I’m not your real dad,” he keeps saying. “So I get that you wouldn’t wanna give me nothing for Father’s Day. But I could also see how you might have missed having a Dad around to give something to on Father’s Day so if you wanted to give me something, The Panther wouldn’t give it back to you or anything. Just saying.”

Since you were already planning on running away from home tonight, you should redraft your goodbye note so that it seems like you always intended for it to be an early Father’s Day present.

“Dear Mom and Panther,” write. “I know that I don’t belong here anymore so I’m running away to Hollywood to try and be an aspiring child prostitute. Panther, I hope you enjoy the extra space around the house that I’m giving to you. Happy Father’s Day. Mom, I hope you’ll be very happy spending your life with a man who calls himself Panther.”

After you go, Panther will read the letter and say, “The Panther’s gonna cry Panther tears. The Panther just got a father’s day present. He remembered to resepct the Panther.”

Your Mom will say to her new husband, “Before we go chasing after him, why do you call yourself The Panther anyway?”

The Panther will jump away from her and crouch in the corner, making cat noises. Your Mom will argue that he just sounds like a housecat, but The Panther won’t break character, not even while your mom calls the police about your Father’s Day present.

Happy Present For Your New Dad Day!

Salads N’ Food Day!

Today at lunch when you sit down at Salads N’ Food, pull a handgun out of your bag and drop it into the salad, then go back to the salad station and tell the salad maker you found a handgun in your salad. He’ll say he doesn’t know how it happened. Tell the manager that his salad maker intended the handgun for someone else in the restaurant, and he was clearly planning an uprising. The manager will lock the door and keep everyone inside until he finds out who was the salad maker’s accomplice in the effort to overthrow the Salads N’ Food. The manager will start killing those he suspects were involved and It will take up most of the afternoon and all of you will remain friends for life because that’s what happens to people who were in the same Salad N’ Food when they saw innocent people die.

Happy Salads N’ Food Day!

You’re Five Day!

Today you’re five and you love matches. You love the way they feel in your hand, the way they smell, and especially, the way they start big, luscious, proudly raging fires that swallow anything and everything that might have the misfortune of residing in their path. When you use your matches to set fire to and destroy a small restaurant, leveling the dreams of a man who spent most of his twenties and thirties setting aside savings and making connections with people in the community and established businessmen to help him make his dream of one day owning a restaurant come true, the man will come to you and tell you he’s not angry - even though you can tell he is, and that he’s been crying - that he knows you’re too young to know better, so he just wants you to promise him that you’ll never play with matches again.

“I promise,” tell him, because this is what you have to do every time you play with matches and some adult decides that he can make you stop, that he has more power over you than the matches, and the fire, that beautiful, ever lovely fire. “I promise to never play with matches again.”

The man will go back to staring at the ashes of his hard work, unaware that if you actually had any intention of following through on your promise, you wouldn’t want to turn six.

Happy You’re Five Day!

Couples Jump Day!

Couples fresh in new love jump to their deaths hand-in-hand today and does the evening news bother to say a word about it? The TV doesn’t concern itself with those Americans so consumed with each other they sprint crazily from rooftops to the ground below. They only report on the resulting gridlock as Dads drive home from work rubbernecking, remembering those seven months twenty years prior when they wanted to pull their women close and leap twenty stories, putting an end to the world before the feeling fades.

In sports, the Grizzlies.

Happens every day in neighborhoods you might be too scared to visit, and neighborhoods you might hope to live in one day if that raise ever finds your paycheck. Dozens in the winter, hundreds in the spring. Littering the concrete with the mingling blood and bone of two human beings out of a billion who found each other. It was impossible but the puddle and the side by side body bags proves it happened. Too bad the news vans are all parked outside the house where the little blonde girl was kidnapped.

Only 14 years old. An honor student, beautiful Heather.

Good people don’t like to hear bad stories. People have to go to work in the morning. They don’t want to remember that they once had the chance to enter the infinite with hearts fat with gratitude that someone else on this planet exists. They want to know if it’s going to rain or if their baby stroller is hazardous.

Forget that raincoat.

No one cares if another new love falls out of the sky. It happens and it’ll keep happening and people don’t like to hear about it so it’s really not worth reporting.

Happy Couples Jump Day!

Complaints Line Day!

You bought an oscillating fan in 1963 that doesn’t work very well. The instructions came with a phone number to call if you have complaints. You’ve been calling once a week for the last 48 years. You missed your call last week because you went to the hospital with a hematoma on your brain. Jeff, the guy who’s been listening to your complaints for most of his life, he got worried so he tracked you down and now he’s sitting by your bedside, his hand clenched tight in your feverish grip. There’s no one else in the room, no family or friends, just the guy who works for the oscillating fan company. You’re fighting an infection post-surgery.

“Come on,” Jeff says. “Tell me what’s wrong with the rotor! Live another day to tell me how that contraption couldn’t blow air stronger than a kitten fart.”

You gasp for a breath.

“Goddammit,” Jeff says. “What about the adjustable stand. That thing slips and drops more than a drunk on ice. Lemme hear it.”

The machine sounds. You’re in cardiac arrest. Nurses and doctors converge while Jeff continues to scream in your ear.

“The cord’s too short! Lemme hear it! That power cord doesn’t let you place the damn fan more than two feet away from a damn socket! You know you wanna tell me, dammit!”

The doctors try to revive you but you’re too far gone. They call the time of death at 8:43 PM. Jeff wanders out of the room without anyone noticing. He goes home and cancels his second phone line. When the fan company shut down in 1988 Jeff managed to secure the complaints phone number and had it installed at his one-room apartment. You were the only one who ever called it and he looked forward to hearing your voice every week. He’s going to miss you. Someone on this Earth heard you, and he’s sorryer than Christ he’ll never be able to hear from you again.

Happy Complaints Line Day!

California Is Haunted Day!

The ghost of the boy who tried to give you everything haunts California. You can never go back there Amy. The minute you cross the state line, when you’re telling the guy in the booth whether you have any fruit or vegetables in your possession, a gust of wind will bounce that voice into your car and you’ll swear you hear him ask you why when he tries to hold you you always try to make him let go.

When you get to your new apartment and you turn on the tub to take a bath, you’ll see his face reflected in the water, looking up at you, pleading with his eyes for you to lean forward and kiss his sweet wet face. Entranced you’ll do what his eyes demand and you’ll suck some water down your windpipe, making you cough, sputter, and fall to the bathroom floor struggling for air.

On your first day at your new job, when you sit down at your cubicle and open up your desk drawer, you’ll feel the warmth of his spirit fly up out of the drawer, then papers and office supplies will go flying everywhere and a stapler will swirl around the room releasing staples at your coworkers’ eyes. Three will be left blind, and since no one will be able to explain what happened, no one will be able to blame all that horror on your decision to push a boy out of your life who just wanted to give you the love he thought you deserved.

When you go out on dates they’ll burst into flames during appetizers. When you try to join softball leagues everyone on the team will have car accidents on game day and you’ll constantly be forced to forfeit. When you go hiking in the canyons, windstorms will send your hiking companions tumbling to the bottom, and they’ll be left with broken arms and legs, unable to join you on hikes for at least six weeks at a time.

California is haunted, Amy. It’s haunted because of you. You refused a love that wanted to be yours, and even though the boy who offered you that love hasn’t died, but is in fact alive and well and selling insurance in Cincinnati, the love he had for you is still there in California, and love never ever ever dies.

Happy California Is Haunted Day!

Kill Me Like The Failed Hit On Vito In ‘The Godfather’ Day!

People with diseases pay you to kill them when they don’t want to battle their diseases any longer but they’re too scared or Catholic to pull the trigger themselves. You settled into this line of work after the mafia got too weak to afford your fee and the only client you still had left was the Government of the United States, but since they only ever wanted to pay you to kill people who stood in the way of the one-world government and secret global bank initiative, you decided that lowering your fee to kill people who actually wanted to die might be a fun change.

Anyway, today by wild coincidence you’re going to be hired to kill the woman you always thought you should have married. You haven’t seen her in thirty years, when you were getting on a plane to Helsinki and at the least minute she changed her mind and refused to go with you. She wants you to kill her while she’s buying oranges from a sidewalk grocer.

“I loved The Godfather,” she’ll say.

Tell her you can’t do it. Tell her you’ll do anything if she’ll stay alive and share whatever time she has left with you. Tell her you have some money and you can pay to get her better treatment for whatever disease she has.

“I don’t have a disease,” she’ll say. “I’m just done. I made the wrong choice thirty years ago when I didn’t go with you, and I’ve tried to live with it until now. I think thirty years is enough time to realize it’s not working.”

Tell her that you’re here now and you and she can make up for lost time.

“Just being around you makes me sad for the decades I wasted not being with you. It’s not fate that brought you here. I didn’t have the idea to die until I tracked you down and found out you were a killer for money. I realized that if it was you who killed me at the very end, the pain of being around you would be so great that I’d definitely go through with it. Make sure I’ve just barely bought the orange when you run up and pull the trigger.”

Tell her you won’t do it.

“Then I’ll report you to the police,” she’ll say. “Come on. You didn’t get to be the most important person in my life. I’m giving you the opportunity to be the most important person in my death. Don’t you want that?”

She makes a convincing argument. You agree to kill her and on the big day, right after you shoot her, while she’s still panting her last breaths, you lean over her and put the gun to your head.

“I knew you would,” she says.

Then you pull the trigger and the two of you leave this life the way you should have lived it - together.

Happy Kill Me Like The Failed Hit On Vito In ‘The Godfather’ Day!

Cross-Country Loving Day!

You and Jennifer started fucking back in Nebraska. You met when you started fighting over a cab at the airport after both your flights were cancelled. You decided that if you put your heads together you could get home faster than apart and make it home in time for your kids’ respective graduations. Tonight at the Super 8 in Denver you’re going to tell her the truth.

“I don’t have any kids,” you’ll tell her. “My wife, Pam, left me and we never had children. I just go to airports in bad weather looking for women trying to get across the country because I’m trying to recreate the trip I took with my wife back in 1992, when we were relocating for her job in Palo Alto.”

Jennifer will ask if there’s any reason why she shouldn’t just immediately leave the motel room and go find someone else to travel across the country with.

“Only this,” tell her. “The next time I go to the airport looking for a woman to travel across the country with, it won’t be to recreate the trip I took with my wife. It’ll be to recreate the trip I took with you.”

She’ll be unable to help but smile. Tears will form in her eyes. She’ll wrap her arms around you.

Whisper in her ear, “I’ve had such a good time with you on this trip, I can’t wait to try and recreate it with someone else.”

She’ll pull away and ask if maybe you and she could try and make it work and you’ll tell her that’s not what you’re into. “Old trips with new women,” say. “That’s my thing. But rest assured, when I trick a woman into helping me recreate this one, I’m going to do it with a woman who’s really special.”

Then tell her to wear a green dress to dinner that night because that’s what Pam wore in Denver.

Happy Cross-Country Loving Day!

Loveway Day!

Lower the top of his newspaper so you can look into his eyes and say this subway just stopped being a subway because now it’s a loveway, then lean in and kiss. He’ll lift his napkin to his lips and cough into it because a lot of his lung was removed back in 2004. He’ll say he’s seen you ride this train every morning for the past forty-five years, sometimes with your mop, sometimes in a nice dress. When you wear the nice dress he becomes suicidal because he assumes you’re on your way to visit a lover. Tell him you have grandkids, grandkids with a man who widowed you long ago, and you like to look your best when you visit them. We have to set a good example for our young, say, show them how getting old is done. He’ll say he’s angry that you didn’t kiss him sooner, that you and he don’t have much time left. Kiss him again and ask him if he’s feeling any less angry yet. He’ll lift himself on his cane, pull you by your waist against his itchy tweed overcoat and he’ll tell you it’s time for these years to finally get golden. Lay down on the bench and kiss him through smiles while the entire car applauds the discovery that love lives on when the skin gets loose and the memory gets long.

Happy Loveway Day!

Your Kidnappers Can’t Kidnap Your Inner You Day!

Your new self-help book, titled “Your Kidnappers Can’t Kidnap Your Inner You,” is selling like crazy, which is a pleasant surprise because you figured that the target audience for a book about how to achieve personal growth while being held captive for ransom would be unable to go shopping because they are all tied to water heaters in basements. You can thank the ebook craze and the ease with which it allows kidnap victims to keep up their reading for your royalty statement. Many kidnappers throw Kindles downstairs with the food, water and TV remote, believing that a kidnap victim with something to read is a kidnap victim who will spend less time dreaming up ways to knock their abductors over the back of the head and escape. The kidnappers generally keep an eye on the books being bought to make sure their abductees aren’t trying to send Amazon messages about their location, but unless kidnappers choose a safehouse in an area that’s been celebrated in literature, it’s kind of hard to pull that off just by buying book titles. Later this afternoon USA Today is going to interview you and ask whether you yourself was ever kidnapped. Be vague about it if you want sales to keep growing. Kidnap victims hate taking advice from people who were never kidnapped. They need to believe you’ve been there, even though you’d never be so stupid as to let something like that happen to you.

Happy Your Kidnappers Can’t Kidnap Your Inner You Day!

Write Your Name And Address On The Inside Of Your Undershirt, Take It Off And Leave It On The Table So That Maybe The Waitress You Like Will Return It To You In Person After Her Shift Ends Day!

You really like the new waitress at Patty’s On Main, but you aren’t sure how to tell her how you feel because even if she does share your feelings, you don’t know if waitresses are allowed to tell customers that they care for them while their server number is still active in the kitchen’s computer. The best way to handle this is to go into the bathroom and take off your undershirt, write your name and address on the inside and leave it on the table with your tip. That way when the waitress finds the undershirt, she’ll either throw it away if she doesn’t want to love you, or on her break she’ll bring it into the changing closet and rub it against her face, breathing in your scent, until her eyes spy the scribble of pen on the inside and she sees you’ve left her a small but priceless treasure. Your address! The place where you sleep and where you sing into hairbrushes when you’re happy! The place she’s envisioned in her daydreams while standing in the back waiting impatiently for your order to come up, silently imploring the kitchen staff to cook faster so she can bring your dish to your table and see you again. If she loves you she’ll go to your home tonight and hand you your undershirt, then without asking she’ll insert herself into your embrace and you’ll lead her inside and show her the shelves you cleared off for her in the bathroom medicine cabinet.

Only use your undershirt for this because if she doesn’t care for you, she’ll throw out the undershirt and if you go back the next day and ask her to reimburse you for the undershirt, she might balk.

Finally, if this works out as planned and she does return the undershirt, you must never tell her this was all planned. Waitresses are a surly, streetsmart bunch and when they find out they’ve been tricked, their language turns vulgar and they start stealing from you until they feel the wrong has been made right.

Happy Write Your Name And Address On The Inside Of Your Undershirt, Take It Off And Leave It On The Table So That Maybe The Waitress You Like Will Return It To You In Person After Her Shift Ends Day!

He Went Over A Cliff With That Whore Day!

After two days the Sheriff finally located your husband’s car. He didn’t make the turn around blind man’s pass and he went into the gully nose first.

“We’re sending a team down to pry his body out of the wreck,” the Sheriff will say. “I should warn you though. Some people in town saw your husband earlier in the day. They say he was with–”

“That whore?” you’ll ask calmly.

The Sheriff will look startled. “You knew.”

Take a tissue and hold it to your nose. It will keep the tears at bay.

“I thought it was just a phase,” tell him. “I thought that when a man reaches my husband’s age, he panics. He creates a fantasy about the man he used to be. He embraces the lie that once upon a time he was bold, without a care for caution. That he was a feared barroom brawler. That he never slept in a bed alone or with a familiar face. That he knew angles, schemes. He’ll focus on five happy minutes enjoyed when he was 23 years-old and in the throes of his illusion those five minutes will stretch to ten or fifteen years, just so he can fill his heart with the longing for this "man I used to be,” enough longing to send him floating out into the night, away from his wife, into the arms of–“

"That whore,” the Sheriff will say. “I should warn you, after she arrived in town and registered her name with my deputy, he did some digging. She has some experience with luring husbands away from home.”

“I know about the will,” tell him. “But it’s useless now. There’s no way they both could have survived that crash, right?”

The Sheriff will look into your eyes. He’ll know plain as day what you’ve done, and badge or no badge, he’ll know it’s none of his business. He’ll just be sure to keep a close eye on the investigation to make sure no one decides to check to see if the brakes were cut.

Your phone will ring. The Sheriff will rise.

“That’s probably for me.”

A few minutes in the kitchen, muttering a few one word questions and one exclamation, and the Sheriff will be back in the living room, resting on the ottoman, this time his hat in his hand.

“Your husband didn’t survive the crash,” he’ll say.

A quick inhale. Put the tissue to the nostrils. You surrendered the right to cry for him.

The Sheriff will arch up in his seat, take a breath, then he’ll add, “The whore. She wasn’t in the car.”

Your lips will part just wide enough to execute a gasp.

“She survived?”

“All we know is she’s not down in that gully.”

Say to the Sheriff, “You’ll have to excuse me Leo.”

“Now Frida–”

“I said you’ll have to excuse me Leo. See yourself out.”

The minute you hear the Sheriff’s car pull away, get the hell into town and this time make sure you kill that whore before she can get a lawyer to hand her everything your poor murdered husband worked so hard to provide for you.

Happy He Went Over A Cliff With That Whore Day!

Come Up To The Lair Sometime Day!

You always assumed his invites were just him being polite, and you never intended to take him up on it. Whenever you’d see the evil mastermind who rid the town of the bats then held the town under financial and psychological enslavement for decades to come, long after most in the town realized that he was probably the one who brought the bats to begin with, he’d say hello and ask after your family before parting with a casual “Come up to the lair sometime!” You’d say you’ll be sure to and then go on with your day, happy that he didn’t sick his albino thugs on you.

Today you’ll discover your assumption was incorrect.

“You haven’t come up to the lair,” he’ll say. “Tell me why. Now.”

You’ll stammer an apology and you’ll tell him you assumed–

“No one should make assumptions about what I say. I only speak information that I want the listener to process and act upon. You received information that I wanted your company in my lair. You processed this and decided I didn’t want the company I requested. Shall I kill you?”

Tell him you’ll be up to the lair after you fix your mother’s lunch.

“I’ll wait until 12:45. A minute after that, if I don’t see you in my lair, your family and your employers will be taken to the creek bed and shot. You’ll have no family and no income.”

You’ll say that you’ll be there.

“I’m making mimosas today,” he’ll say. Then he’ll be off.

After you fix your mother’s lunch you’ll head up to the evil mastermind’s mountainside lair, where you’ll be greeted like a long-lost friend with whom he’s reunited at long last. You and the evil mastermind will drink mimosas while you watch footage of a war in southeast asia that he orchestrated. On his fourth mimosa he’ll be drunk enough to ask, “So does everyone down there in the town know I’m the one who brought the bats?”

You’ll nod. “It took us a while to figure it out. But yeah, I think everyone knows.”

The evil mastermind will say, “Then I guess I owe them all an apology.”

He’ll walk across the room to a PA console and shout into the microphone. “Hi everyone. I’m a little late on this I know, but I just wanted to say, about the bats, sorrrrrrry!”

As he returns to the couch you’ll hear that “sorry” echoing up from the town into the hills. Once on the couch he’ll tell you that he’s never apologized to anyone before. He’ll say, “I guess it’s the champagne. Or maybe it’s the company.”

The evil mastermind will think for a second, just a second, and then he’ll have made up his mind.

“I want you to be the one to kill me and take over my global operations. Even though you’ll intend to destroy all I’ve worked for and bring good unto the world, the power will corrupt you and you’ll prove to be even more cruel than I. Agree or your family and your employers will be shot.”

You agree. The evil mastermind will keep you close to him for the next 30 years. All the while you’ll be plotting a way to murder him and free your people, but one day you’ll be on the green of the eighth hole on his indoor golf course and he’ll drive up in his golf cart, approach you and hand you a knife and he’ll say, “It’s time. Kill me now. Do it or your family and employers will be shot.”

You’ll stab him in the heart and you’ll go upstairs to his PA system to announce that everyone is free, but when you start to speak you’ll get confused. Instead of telling your people they have their lives and their town back and they needn’t worry any longer, it will come out sounding more like, “I’d like to inform you all of a new tax being levied to finance the safety of your first-born sons. The tax will be paid or your first-born sons will be taken down the to creek bed and shot.” You’ll put down the PA, stunned at yourself. The evil mastermind’s body is still warm and already you’re raising taxes.

Happy Come Up To The Lair Sometime Day!

Major In Her Face Day!

You thought that majoring in Patty’s face would be easy but you’re failing out of college now because you forgot to study, which is sad because studying didn’t require anything more than staring at Patty’s face, taking it in, marveling at her eyes and the poke of her nose and the way her cheeks puff out when she’s angry. But you’ve been having real trouble.

“Look,” Patty says. “I would have been fine if that night at the bar when you told me you were going to major in my face, it was just some pickup line. But you went through with it and chose my face as your concentration. Do you know how embarrassing it is for me that you’re about to fail?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Have you seen another face you wish you’d majored in?” she asks.

“No. Just drop it all right? I’ll go pump gas or something. Who needs college?”

“You do!” Patty says. “We all do. You can’t just quit. Is it really that hard to study my face?”

You’ll finally break down and let it all out.

“I’m bad with faces all right!” you shout, crying before you realize it. “You happy to hear me say it?”

You’ll fall to the ground and sob. Patty will rub your back until you calm down.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she’ll ask.

“I’m great with names,” you say. “Faces though. I just blank.”

Patty will ask how you got through high school and you’ll tell her you were on football and the rally girls remembered all the faces for the guys who had trouble.

“Well we’re not going to let that stop you,” Patty will say. “Now that we know how hard we have to work, we can do it. I’m not going to let you quit.”

Then you and Patty won’t sleep for the rest of the weekend so you can cram, which basically means you’ll spend the next 72 hours staring at Patty’s face and repeating to yourself, “That’s Patty’s face.” You’ll also use some flashcards that have pictures of her face on one side, with her name on the other side. When you finally take the test you’ll get a C and Patty will tell you how proud of you she is and you’ll say “Do I know you?” but it will be just a funny joke.

Happy Major In Her Face Day!

Everyone On The Plane Feels For You Buddy Day!

She showed them all your picture; they asked to see it. They wanted to see the face of the guy whose heart was going to be ripped in two just after the plane touches ground. She made her decision just after the seatbelt sign went off, then she said to her seatmate, “If I tell you something that I’m about to do, will you tell me if I’m a bad person or not?”

The people in the surrounding rows listened in, and word spread throughout the cabin. The flight attendants got wind of it and they started spreading it around first class and the cockpit. By the time she was above the Grand Canyon, that entire plane knew she’d decided not to marry you.

Don’t think they didn’t try and persuade her one way or another. Passengers started getting out of their seats to go to her row and tell her a promise is a promise and who is she to think she deserves better. They told her no marriage is perfect, and no love ever feels like the storybooks. Others elbowed their way down the aisle to offer their support. “Don’t listen to those babies,” they said. “Those babies are just scared of being left behind,” they said. “Life doesn’t wait for you to live it. We could all be dead if this plane goes down so–” That guy got restrained by an air marshal.

Basically, the ones who were sick of getting their hearts broke told her not to break your heart. The ones who’d done a lot of heart breaking told her to follow her heart. You can plainly see who took what side when nine dozen strangers disembark and form a single file line to greet you at the arrivals gate. The ones who tried to keep you two together will pull you close into a hug and they’ll tell you to be strong. The ones who wanted her to set herself free will give you a light punch on the shoulder and tell you that the knocks we take in life are what make us a better person. She was seated near the bathrooms so you’ll hear inspiring words from nearly everyone on the plane before she finally stands before you with tears in her eyes and tells you that she needs to go to the ticketing desk because after she says what she has to say she’s going to need to change her return ticket.

Happy Everyone On The Plane Feels For You Buddy Day!