No Time Like The Present, Except For April 9, 2004 Day!

You’ve got a lot on your to-do list. And even more on your bucket list. And let’s not even get started on the point-by-point five year plan to achieve everything you want to achieve professionally and romantically. Well, there’s no time like the present, unless you count April 9, 2004.

If you want to get things done, putting off what you could do now is only going to make things harder. Granted, you’re nowhere near the person you were on April 9, 2004, when you were at your peak physical and emotional self. Your brain chemistry was like a high-functioning state-of-the-art machine, and you were brimming with confidence, introspection, and curiosity. It’s safe to say you could have excelled at anything you put your mind to on April 9, 2004 (you ended up renting some DVDs and vegging out that day). Man, what promise you held briefly.

Still, that day and every subsequent day of gradual decline aside, no time like the present!

Happy No Time Like The Present, Except For April 9, 2004 Day!

Ask Your Mom Why Love Hurts Day!

“It used to feel so good,” tell her. “Now it hurts so bad. Why is that?”

“I wouldn’t know,” your mom will say. “Never been in love.”

“Hey!” your Dad will say. He’ll get up from the dining room table and go out on the lawn to sulk. The divorced lady who lives across the street will see him out there and she’ll run over and they’ll have an affair right there on the grass while the bug zapper sings its murderous song of summer.

“Oh my God,” your mom will say while watching your dad make love to the divorced lady on the grass. “I guess I have been in love, because I really, really hurt right now.”

Ask your mom if she’ll answer your goddamn question then, or is she too busy thinking about herself. She’ll just stare out the window and weep.

“I’m not enjoying this you know!” your dad, still inside the divorced lady, will shout.

Happy Ask Your Mom Why Love Hurts Day!

Camp Murder Day!

Your mom works three jobs and is just scraping by, but she still wants you to have a summer camp experience. Unfortunately, the only camp she can afford to send you to is Camp Murder.

“They only average about three murders a day,” she’ll tell you. “And between the murders, you’ll still be able to swim and hike and have fun. Just make sure you stretch a lot so you don’t cramp up running from the murderer. And don’t fall for any girls. Getting physical with a girl will basically sign your death certificate.”

“Why can’t I go to Camp Diamond Lake?” you’ll pout.

Your mom will pull over by the side of the road. She’ll stare out her window, looking at nothing in particular. When you see her shoulders shake, you’ll realize you made your mom cry. She works so hard, day in and day out, trying to give you the best life she can give, but it’s still far from the life she wishes she could give to you. The life she knows you deserve.

Before you get the chance to say you’re sorry, she’ll say it to you.

“I’m sorry my sweetie,” she’ll say. “I’m sorry that you can’t have everything you should have. But what we got to do, while times are hard, is we got to make the most of what we got. We got to take the bad, and we got to make it good. Can you do that for me sweetie? Can you do that with me?”

You’re crying now too. “Yes mommy,” tell her. “Of course I can. And I bet I’m going to have the best summer of my life at this camp, even if it is called Camp Murder.”

“That’s my boy,” she’ll say. The two of you will hug and wipe away the tears, then your mom will continue the drive to the camp.

On your second day of camp you’ll be murdered.

Happy Camp Murder Day!

The World Has To Be Saved By Lou, Who Loves You Day!

Lou, who loves you, has to leave you.

“But we have weddings to go to,” tell him. “I have to go alone?”

Lou, who loves you, has to save the world. He’s the only one who can save it.

“It’s written in a scroll or something,” he’ll say. He’ll show you the scroll. It will say, “The world will end in the year 2013, unless it’s saved by this guy named Lou, who loves [your full name with middle initial] who lives at [your address] and has the social security number [your social security number] and the following three secrets [your secret about the thing you heard your dad say to your mom when your mom was crying, your secret about the time you stole a hat full of money from a street busker, and your secret about the time you pulled over at a car crash before any help was there, and then drove away without doing anything even though the driver was unconscious.]”

“You love me?” ask him.

He never said it before. Seeing it in that scroll is the first time the word even entered the space between you two. Lou, who loves you, will nod.

“Yeah,” he’ll say. “And I love you so much, I don’t even care if the world ends. As long as we’re together!”

“I’m so glad you feel that way!” you’ll shout, as you hug him and the two of you go into your bedroom, putting all that “saving the world” silliness behind you as you have the kind of sex people have when they recently decided they love each other. The world will end a few days later. Thanks, dick.

Happy The World Has To Be Saved By Lou, Who Loves You Day!

Haunted Bike Room Day!

Your wife says the bike room is haunted.

“Really?” you ask, panicked.

“As I was walking past it a ghost called me inside,” she says. “He said the things he sees are things I would never in my life want to see. I ran away but he said I won’t be able to run forever.”

“I have sex with the other tenants on the bikes,” tell her. “I go into the bike room and we use the seats. Sometimes one of us sits on the seat. Sometimes one of us bends over the seat. I’m into sex on the seats.”

“You cheated on my with a tenant in our building?”

“I cheated on you with all of the tenants in our building,” tell her. “The ghost was going to tell you eventually, but I’d rather you hear it from me.”

Ask her if she’s at least impressed that you managed to have sex with all of the tenants in the building. “I’m that attractive,” say.

Your wife will say that she is impressed, but she’s still going to leave you.

“But why,” ask her. “Now that I know that room is haunted, I’m too scared to go in there. No more bicycle seats, no more cheating.”

“The bike room isn’t haunted,” she’ll say. “I read in a magazine that the best way to get your husband to admit to stuff is to tell him a ghost is going to tell you.”

Say, “Oh. Cool.”

Your wife will move out, and you’ll stay in the apartment and continue to have sex with tenants in the bike room. Just to be safe, you’ll occasionally have an exorcist come by to make sure the room still isn’t haunted, then you’ll have sex with him on one of the bicycle seats.

Happy Haunted Bike Room Day!

Cooking At Home Day!

You and your husband have been ordering in dinner way too much. A little while ago you suggested, “Why don’t we cook tonight?”

“That’s a great idea,” your husband said.

You searched online for a great recipe that called for you to use utensils that you presently own and recognizable ingredients that you’re pretty sure your grocery store sells.

“This is gonna be fun!” you said to your husband.

“Let’s get shopping. I can’t wait to eat this dish,” your husband said.

You’re headed to the grocery store right now, where a cashier’s angry ex-boyfriend showed up a few minutes ago with a shotgun. He’s already killed the store manager and he’s wounded his ex. When the two of you walk in, he’ll shoot your husband dead. You’ll hold your husband’s head in your hands as he dies. He’ll be tackled before he can shoot you too, but you’ll spend the next few years wishing he had pulled the trigger. You’re a block away from the store right now. There’s still time for you to turn around, go back to your couch and order in. There’s still time for you to realize you never should have tried cooking at home.

Happy Cooking At Home Day!

Just Stop Being Day!

When someone asks you to help with dinner or to give them a ride to the hospital or how your day is going, say, “I am not.”

They’ll say, “Not what?”

Don’t say anything else. Only people who are still being can talk.

“Not WHAT?!” they’ll demand, getting frustrated. They might start to hit you, but there’s nothing to hit.

Happy Just Stop Being Day!

Lovers Screaming In The Street Day!

Three more porch lights just flickered awake at the sound of someone screaming the words “Psycho Bitch Demon.”

They want to see it. We all want to witness it. Witness the lovers screaming in the street. Your love is stronger than ours. We know it, and we want to pay our respects by watching one of you duck as the other of you grabs a planter from a lawn and sends it flying at the other’s head.

Your love is so big and combustible that you have to take it out of doors, away from innocents, into the middle of a street where hopefully no passing motorist will be distracted by someone so vehemently accusing someone else of being a “cocksucking failure of a man.”

Man is a warring creature. When someone surrenders to love as completely as you have, when that love threatens to lower all defenses, that violent, aggressive instinct to protect borders kicks in.

An attack is launched. Sometimes at the dinner party my wife decided to throw. She’s scraping sweet potatoes off the wall, but she’ll be at the window to listen to you soon enough.

What more important border is there than the border between self and other? Your love threatens to erase that border altogether, it compels you to tear down the checkpoints, rip up the passports, and give yourselves entirely to each other.

This can’t be allowed. That’s why you’re shouting in a cul-de-sac, accusing each other of destroying each other’s lives. You’re just trying to fight against something stronger than you, stronger than all of us.

The police just pulled into the cul-de-sac, then made a u-turn and peeled away. Out of respect.

Happy Lovers Screaming In The Street Day!

Hotelier Day!

You’re a wealthy hotelier whose wife took your kids and is moving them from hotel to hotel, staying in a Penthouse suite for weeks at a time before flying to a new city to stay in the Penthouse suite of another of your 4-star luxury accommodations.

“If anyone sees my wife and kids,” you wrote on the flyer you posted in the employee break rooms of all of your hotels, featuring photos of your wife and children, “let me know immediately and you will see a $200 bonus in your next paycheck.”

Your staffs despise you, and harboring your wife and children while they run from you has given them endless joy. They bring them vast buffets of room service, morning, noon and night. The more educated of your staff have been tutoring your children, so that they aren’t behind in school when they finally stop running from you. They’ve even been feeding you false information, sending you flying from Milan to Paris with a fake tip that your wife and kids had just checked in.

“Sorry sir,” you’re told when you arrive. “They must have just sneaked out.”

This is how you’re going to divest yourself of your empire. You’re going to start selling off your hotels, one by one, to limit the number of places she can hide. Until finally, when you’re left with nothing but a vast sum of liquid cash, she’ll come out of hiding and file for divorce, taking half of everything.

But for now, you’re drawing up a new flyer, where you up the employee bonus to $225.

$225. That’s the price you put on reuniting with your family.

Everyone knows you originally planned to offer $300, but decided to lowball.

Happy Hotelier Day!

Slip Into Your Fat Pants Day!

The world is more tangible. Your senses are alive. The colors are brighter. The smells more pungent.

You.

Feel.

Everything.

When you smile it’s because you’re pleased, not polite. When you laugh, the truth of a joke has reached into your body and yanked the laughter from you. When you cry, you know exactly why you’re crying.

Plain as day.

Slip into your fat pants and the veil is torn from in front of your eyes. Life is lived, directly. The plastic, protective coating of your too-tight jeans have been shed. You’re in your true skin. You’re in truth.

You’re in your fat pants.

Repeat after me:

“I live my true life, as my true self, occupying my true space in the world.

The lies are in my hamper.

I am wearing my fat pants, the pants that fit the person I am, not the person I wish I could be.

I am wearing my fat pants.

I wear the universe in a relaxed fit style.”

Happy Slip Into Your Fat Pants Day!

Survivors Day!

Tell her, “I keep thinking that we were meant to be together ever since we survived that crash.”

She’ll say, “What crash? Who are you?”

Remind her that you were her seatmate on the doomed Flight 363 to Phoenix.

“That flight landed fine,” she’ll say.

“Fine?” you force a laugh. “It was pretty bumpy.”

“It was turbulence!” she’ll say. Then she’ll shout into her house, “Jeff!”

Jeff will come to the door. “You bothering my wife?”

“He’s trying to date me because we were on a bumpy plane together.”

“And we survived!” you remind her. “Why were we put there and allowed to make it safely to land if we weren’t meant to be together?”

Jeff will think about it. “I’ll go pack my bags.”

“Jeff!”

“He’s got a point, honey,” Jeff will say. “You and I never had no shared experience like that. What’s holding us together? You can keep the kids.”

Jeff will pack his car while you unpack yours and bring your things into the bedroom. Once all your stuff is inside you’ll sit down for dinner and eat what’s left on Jeff’s plate. Your seatmate from Flight 363 will cry in the kitchen.

Happy Survivors Day!

Falafel Restaurant Day!

Today you are a falafel restaurant. You’re called “Chick Pea” or “Tahini” or “Pita Town” or some other completely unimaginative name based on one of the ingredients you offer. The name serves only to warn people that you do not bring pleasure to their lives.

“I ruin dinners,” you confess to your therapist, a bowl of olives. “One person who has terrible ideas about what dinner should be will tell his or her significant other, ‘Let’s go to the falafel place.’ The significant other will agree either because they picked the restaurant yesterday or they don’t think they deserve joy, and they’ll come to me and eat my food and it’s always among the least pleasurable experiences of their lives.”

“You could always kill yourself,” the bowl of olives tells you.

Tomorrow police will be baffled when they find a falafel restaurant hanging from the side of a neighboring apartment building. Written on the sidewalk in tahini sauce: “I’m sorry.”

Happy Falafel Restaurant Day!

Breakup Sex Day!

“Want to have some breakup sex?” ask him.

He’ll protest that you aren’t broken up yet.

“I know,” say. “I want to break up while having sex.”

In between kisses, tell him it’s just not working out. As he fondles your breasts, explain that you’re really busy right now and you need to focus on your work. Perform oral sex on him, then tell him he never really gave you what you needed emotionally while he reciprocates, using his mouth to bring you to orgasm (your usual order of things is you have an orgasm orally before intercourse since you can’t via intercourse). During intercourse, he’ll beg for another chance, panting and thrusting while insisting he could be a better man. You’ll feel full with him, like you’re consuming him, as you tell him he’s a great guy and there’s a girl out there who’s right for him but it’s just not you, then he’ll climax.

As he goes into the bathroom to remove his condom, start gathering your things from his room. When he comes back out, both of you still naked, give him a weak hug goodbye.

“Breakup sex is so hot,” whisper in his ear as you give him a light back-pat. After you pull on your clothes, block him from your phone and unfriend him on Facebook.

Happy Breakup Sex Day!

Your Husband Could Die Otherwise Is The Addictive New Game For Smartphones Day!

Giraffes are trying to break into a house, the house that your husband’s in. You need to fight off the giraffes with balloons. Your husband could die otherwise.

“Honey we’re going to be late,” your husband shouts.

“BUT YOU COULD DIE!” you shout back as you continue to play on the toilet.

The game has been sweeping the nation, as has a rash of husband deaths thanks to wives who suck at smart-phone gaming. Millions of husbands across the country are being buried every week, and the census bureau is worried that their most recent numbers are already meaningless.

“That game’s so addictive,“ the census bureau says. "We could see less than 10% of American households with a proper father-figure by 2015, which means crime.”

But you’re not going to let your husband die.

“You quit your job?” he asks.

You shout that you didn’t quit. You just didn’t show up so they fired you. Then a giraffe knocks out the back window of the house and you tell him to talk to you about it later.

“I’m having an affair,” your husband says. “You haven’t been there for me.”

You tell him you’d be happy if he slept with the whole neighborhood, as long as he was alive, as long as it wasn’t you that let him die.

You finally beat the game and your phone automatically downloads Your Husband Could Die Otherwise Rio!

Happy Your Husband Could Die Otherwise Is The Addictive New Game For Smartphones Day!

Undercover Lovers Day!

You were just infiltrating the high school to find a dealer. You never expected to fall in love.

“You’re just so mature,” you tell Veronica. “You’re not like these other kids.”

Veronica tells you don’t.

You tell her, “I can’t help it.”

Veronica tells you it’s wrong.

You tell her, “It’s never felt so right.”

Veronica tells you you don’t know who she is. But she knows who you are.

You pull away. “I’m just a transfer student. Looking to buy some of the pot, if you know a dealer. Wait, who do you think I am?”

Veronica says, “You’re Officer Pendleton, Narcotics Division.”

Your cover is blown.

“Veronica please,” you beg her. “If my identity is found out, I could be demoted. And my life could be in danger. If you love me as much as I love you, please don’t tell anyone I’m a cop.”

Veronica promises she won’t. Blowing a fellow officer’s cover would boot her off the force.

“What are you saying, Veronica?” you ask.

“My name isn’t Veronica,” she says, pulling out her badge. “It’s Officer Royce, IAD. I was sent her to investigate undercover officers establishing inappropriate relationships with students.”

She’s here to bust you. Even though she’s not a student, you didn’t know that when you professed your love to her.

“Write what you want in the report,” you tell her. “I don’t care about my badge anymore. Discovering that you’re old enough for me to have a legitimate relationship with has made me the happiest man on earth.”

Officer Royce asks what you’ll do for work after she takes your badge. She can’t support the both of you on an IAD income.

“I was thinking of becoming a high school teacher,” you say.

The two of you laugh. The two of you kiss. You kiss deeply. A kiss that lasts all through the days of IAD hearings and shameful newspaper coverage to follow.

Once your badge and gun are taken away, you move into Officer Royce’s apartment and begin studying to get your teacher’s license. You’re going to need that income quick, what with a the half-IAD, half-disgraced former narc baby in Officer Royce’s belly.

Happy Undercover Lovers Day!

You’re A Bad Boy Chef Day!

You have a faux-hawk and you wear concert shirts for bad boy rock bands like AC/DC and Stone Temple Pilots that you bought at a department store and you say fuck a lot when talking to your staff and you enjoy the drug cocaine.

When your restaurant closes you ride a motorcycle to restaurants owned by other bad boy chefs and you and the other bad boy chefs drink all night and talk about the busy nights you had cooking food for people as if they were bar fights you got into but really all you were doing was cooking food for people.

Like moms do.

You and the other bad boy chefs talk about waitresses you fucked in your respective restaurants’ bathrooms none of you letting on that all you did was grope waitresses in your respective restaurants’ bathrooms because when it came time to fuck the drug cocaine prevented you from maintaining erections.

Sometimes your asthma acts up.

You like to talk to waiters as if you were telling them how the world works and how if they want to make it in this world they’d better do what you say because you’re the baddest bad boy chef in the whole city but then the waiters quit to pursue their futures because it was just a job serving people food anyway and when you find out they quit you remember all you do is cook food.

You get scared on your motorcycle so you don’t ride it very much.

Happy You’re A Bad Boy Chef Day!

Ask Your Teacher For Help Talking To Boys Day!

Say to her, “Miss Wallace, I like Derek but I don’t know how to tell him. What should I say?”

“Tell him he’s allowed to walk all over you until he gets what he wants out of you sexually and tosses you aside for someone in a lower grade,” Miss Wallace says.

The next day Miss Wallace is replaced by a sub and your class is told that she’ll be taking time off until things with Mister Wallace are settled.

You’re glad you got to ask her for advice before she left. You use her advice on Derek and he says he likes you too. “But it’s not like Miss Wallace said,” Derek insists. “I really like you and want to be your boyfriend forever.”

Derek breaks up with you two days after you let him get boob.

Happy Ask Your Teacher For Help Talking To Boys Day!

You Had Each Other’s Husbands’ Kids Day!

You slept with Richard, your next-door-neighbor Kelly’s husband, when you helped him carry his cooler home from one of your summer cookouts. Kelly saw the two of you go off together and she could sense something was up, so she asked your husband, Nat, to give her a tour of your remodeled second floor. Kelly, Nat, you, and Richard were all having sex at almost the exact same moment with a pink summer sunset pouring in through your respective bedroom windows.

Nine months later, just days apart from each other, you and Kelly both gave birth to baby boys.

No one’s spoken of it. No one’s admitted even to the possibility. Neither of your marriages were sexless so there’s still a very good chance that you had your husband’s child, and Kelly had hers. But your son, Hank, is starting to develop Richard’s round pug nose. Kelly’s son, Oliver’s blonde hair is starting to turn Nat’s shade of red.

It’s not certain, but you know. So does Kelly. It’s time your husbands did too.

Tonight you’re out on your lawns at dusk, you and Nat in lawn chairs, Kelly and Richard on their porch swing. Hank and Oliver play together on your shared lawn. All four of you watch them play, watch them argue like siblings.

The ball bounces up onto Kelly’s and Richard’s porch. Oliver shouts, “Daddy, throw it here.”

Kelly says, “Throw it to Hank.”

Richard looks at Kelly, then at Hank, then at Kelly.

Kelly, again, “Throw it to Hank.”

Richard drops the ball, walks across the lawn and pulls Hank into a hug.

Nat looks to you. You nod, a confirmation, as sure as a paternity test.

Nat bursts into tears, crosses the lawn, takes Oliver by the shoulders. When he finds himself in the boy’s eyes, he embraces him.

As your husbands kneel in the grass holding their sons for the very first time, you and Kelly raise your glasses to each other in a toast from across the property line. Thanks to one hot July night a few years prior, this neighborhood is finally a family.

Happy You Had Each Other’s Husbands’ Kids Day!

The Weather Girl Is Blaming You For The Heat Day!

Turn on the news. You’re on it.

“If you’re angry about yet another day of sweltering heat, blame this guy,” the weather girl, your (newly) ex-girlfriend is saying as an unflattering photo of you in cargo shorts appears over the map.

“Wait, Cailey, are you saying that man is single-handedly responsible for the heat wave?” Sue, the anchorwoman, asks. You cheated on Cailey with Sue. “How is that possible?”

“Go fuck yourself, Sue,” Cailey says. “As I said folks, this guy is why it’s so hot outside. Here’s his address.”

Your address is on the screen. You turn off the TV just as the first brick flies through your window. There must be a hundred people outside, all of them sick to death of this heat and excited to finally do something about it.

Happy The Weather Girl Is Blaming You For The Heat Day!

You Want To Talk About The Murders Day!

You’re new in town and you want to meet people, so go knocking on doors in your area to see who’s home. When someone answers, say, “I want to talk about the murders.”

If there were any murders in that house, you’ll be invited in for a long, intense conversation about them, and those people will become your lifelong friends. If there aren’t any murders to talk about, you’ll be sent on your way.

Unfortunately, doing this means you run the risk of someone inviting you in to talk about a murder, and only after you’re talking about it for a while will you realize that the murder being discussed hasn’t happened yet. At that point you’ll conclude you’re the victim of the murder that’s about to happen, and you’ll jump up and stab the homeowner with the fork you were just using to eat a pastry.

With his last breath the homeowner will smile and say, “I’m glad we got to talk about the murder,” and you’ll realize he was talking about himself being murdered, that he was talking about you being the murderer, that he knew the minute you walked in you were going to be the murderer.

Still, aside from that one guy, you will make some friends.

Happy You Want To Talk About The Murders Day!