In A Super 8 In Denver Day!

When Mortimer disappears, you'll both worry that she ran out the door while you were bringing your bags in from the Ryder truck. You had gone in and out a few times, and you might have left the door open. And Mortimer might have slipped past your ankles to disappear underneath the sea of parked cars in a parking lot in the middle of Denver.

You'll spend an hour wandering in separate directions throughout the parking lot, calling to your cat to come. You won't find anything in the truck but her wet food, so you'll run into an AM/PM and pick up two boxes of Meow Mix so you can shake the boxes of dry food and lure her out with the sound. You'll look like fools, and you'll occasionally have to say out loud, "Lost cat," whenever you pass a stranger who looks as if he might have concerns about the safety of his family with likes of you lurking around. You won't be able to speak for Sally, but for your own part you'll be glad to be searching alone.

"This is no good," Sally will tell you when you get back to the motel room. She'll have given up sooner. You'll make a point to be out there longer than her. Mortimer is her cat and to avoid a fight you have to stay out there longer than her.

"We'll find her," you'll say.

She'll say, "And what if we don't? Is it a good sign for our new life on the West Coast that getting here killed my favorite pet?"

The drive has been quiet ever since Nebraska. And there's been no sex in the motel rooms at night. You can't speak for Sally, but for your part you were content to remain silent and wonder whether you should have stayed back in New York. It never occurred to you that she might have some doubts of her own.

"This move is for you. Would you rather we not have come?" you'll say.

She'll say, "We just never discussed it. I told you the firm wanted me to relocate and you just immediately started talking as if we both had to go."

You'll say, "You're saying I should have stayed?"

She'll say, "I'm saying you could have stayed."

None of this will have anything to do with her cat going missing. She'll just be cluing you in on everything she's been thinking about for the past thousand miles or so. Maybe she's been thinking about it ever since they proposed the relocation to her. You could have stayed. She had to move across country and it was as good a time as any to break it off. You could have stayed. And if you had so much as broached the subject, you'd probably still be in New York at that moment, instead of putting your shoes back on to go out to a Denver parking lot and make loud kissing noises at a missing cat.

"So what do you want me to do then?" you'll ask.

"No," she'll say. "I want you to decide what you want. This move might already have caused something tragic, and I don't think we should make any more decisions together."

You'll go into the bathroom and splash some water into your face. It will feel like she just placed in your hands the resolve you've been missing all these months. The door will be open. And she'll have practically just given a shove to your back.

When you come out of the bathroom, your eyes will fall to the little nook where the wooden bed frame hits the wall. Just a couple of square inches of space with a gray and black striped cat's tale poking out of it.

Say to Sally, "When we get to San Francisco, I could just help you move in, then keep the truck. Drive my stuff back."

Sally won't say anything. You'll try not to look down at Mortimer's tale wagging just a twitch from time to time.

Sally will start to cry. "I'm sorry."

Say, "Don't be. It's okay. Let's go give another look around."

You'll both go outside and split up again, giving you each a chance to let your new decision settle in. When you get back upstairs a half hour later, you can "discover" that Mortimer was hiding under the bed frame all along. You'll have already been broken up for a half hour at that point, and when she finds her cat alive and well, Sally will take it as a sign that everything's gonna be okay.

Happy In A Super 8 In Denver Day!

Vampire Club Day!

Not long after entering high school, your little sister fell into the wrong crowd. She hangs out with these gay kids who pretend that they're vampires. Their activities amount to basically wearing black, being pale, and giving each other shitloads of hickies. Yours is a football school, so if you're not on the team or in one of the team booster clubs, you kind of have to make your own way. You're varsity, which kind of earns your sister a free pass to all the parties and clubs she could want to join. She's just too much of a loser to make friends with anybody who isn't all skinny and gay. Anyway, they like to hang out in the cemetery at night and have s�ances or some shit, and you just heard that some guys from the team are gonna go into the cemetery tonight and pound them with piss balloons (that's a balloon full of piss). You have to warn her.

"Don't go into the cemetery tonight," tell her. "Some of the guys are gonna launch a piss attack on you."

She'll say, "Good luck to them on finding us. Tonight we're going to transmogrify into a cougar. All of us as one jungle cat."

Say, "Oh good, so you'll be able to run real fast."

She'll say, "And kill with the strength and speed of ten men."

Say, "Seriously though, they're gonna through piss balloons at you."

She'll talk about that cougar shit again, which will make you call her a freak and say, "Your funeral." Tonight, she'll come home reeking of piss ad covered in hickies. She'll tell you your friends are dickheads. Tell her that she's not a vampire.

Happy Vampire Club Day!

Pinky Needs Two Stamps Day!

The letter with your pinky inside is going to be returned to you today for insufficient postage. Apparently, a pinky weighs more than an ounce. You'll be happy to discover that the envelope will be clean and free of blood. The sealed plastic bag in which you wrapped the pinky did the trick. Except for the odor. It will smell terrible. And when you squeeze the envelope, it will be difficult to locate any bone. Just a lot of mush.

You'll have to send it back out right away though. Just include a note that says, "This is my left pinky." And send it Fed Ex. Otherwise your old elementary school homeroom teacher will receive your fingers out of order, and the whole thing will look sloppy. This morning, he received your letter that read, "When I was your pupil, your words tore me apart. I thought you might like to have the pieces." So he's gotta receive the pinky tomorrow. Otherwise there'll be a wait between getting the letter and then getting your marriage finger, and he might misinterpret the whole thing as you saying you're a swinging single or something. Send it priority overnight and check the box for Saturday delivery or you might as well just throw your body pieces into the gutter.

Happy Pinky Needs Two Stamps Day!

Soap Star Day!

Tonight's your big date with a superhot soap star. He's dashing, he's effeminately handsome, and he's a terrible actor. He's not going to like you though, because he was hoping for someone who isn't too caught up in soaps. He's sick of soaps and he wants to meet one of the "real people" on the other side of the TV. He'll know you're wrong for him by the way you refuse to drink anything at the table. When he asks why you won't even drink the water, you'll tell him that it's just a simple precaution considering how many times he's been poisoned.

"You think the soap opera is real, don't you?" he'll say.

"I know they embellish somewhat," you'll tell him.

He'll just stare at you, then he'll say he has to go to the bathroom and he'll bring his coat with him. When he doesn't come back, you'll assume he was kidnapped by a rival oil company.

Happy Soap Star Day!

What Makes Marshmallows So Soft Day!

Today on the bus a little girl is going to poke you on your knee and make put down your newspaper.

Say to her, "What would you like to know, young lady?"

The girl will ask, "What makes marshmallows so soft?"

You'll look around at the other adults on the bus, but they'll all just shrug. They're never any help with anything. You don't want to give her the wrong answer and look stupid. So just say, "You mean you don't know? Duh!"

The girl will say, "I know. But I don't think you do."

It's make or break time. Take a guess. "Crushed kitten whiskers. Ripped from kittens who are too happy and playful and cute."

The girl will start to cry, and you'll realize you were supposed to guess something like "love" or "Dads who don't leave." Everyone on the bus will be pissed at you for having made the girl cry, so you're going to have to get off at the next stop and walk the rest of the way to work just like yesterday (you farted and everyone laughed and it was too much to take).

Happy What Makes Marshmallows So Soft Day!

Van Detail Day!

You're a married man now and you have a good job selling insurance that people need for their peace of mind. You and your wife have been talking about kids too.

Looks like it's about time to take the detail of Topher Grace's face off of the side of your van.

We all have to grow up one day. You enjoyed all the highs that came with being a superfan of a network sitcom star (and movie star of late). But you're taking clients out to lunch these days. Do you really want to start all of your meetings by fielding questions like, "Isn't that the kid from Win A Date With Tad Hamilton?" Or, "Did you like Win A Date With Tad Hamilton?" Or, "So you're superqueer then?"

You don't want to waste time explaining to clients what the youthful everyman demeanor of Topher Grace has meant to you. You want to try to get them to sign on the dotted line from the minute you shake their hands. So take Gracie Boy off of the van. You can go the easy route and just paint over him with a solid coat. But just because you're growing up, there's no reason your van should stop being bitchin'. Go down to the Van Detail place and see if they can play with the Topher image and do something new. Like maybe some seals sitting on rocks staring at a pirate ship under the moonlight. Topher Grace already kind of looks like some seals sitting on rocks staring at a pirate ship under the moonlight. If you tilt your head when you look at him, sure.

Happy Van Detail Day!

On Mushrooms Day!

Today your temp is going to come into work high on mushrooms. This is nothing new. The tasks you bring in temps for are all menial and thoughtless, and it isn't long into the assignment before one of your temps thinks, "I could do this fucking shit high on mushrooms, so I'm going to."

You had a daybed put into your office so that you could have someplace for your temps to recline while you talk them down from their high. Today it'll be Marcus. That you won't have expected. It's usually the young ones who do mushrooms before work, and Marcus is fifty-two. But age isn't a factor when someone thinks there are mites all over his face.

You'll calm him down with a wet washcloth and lots of, "Look at me, we're here in this room together and we'll stay together until you come down." Everything will seem fine until Marcus lowers his voice into a growl and begins channeling your dead Grandfather. You'll know it's him when he says, "There's some butterscotch for my stick of butter."

"Grandpa?" you'll ask with your hands held inches from Marcus' skin. You'll be afraid to touch him while your grandfather is talking through him. "Grandpa? Where are you?"

"I'm in hell. Be a good girl and you won't end up like I am. Oh the hellfire."

Say, "You're lying, aren't you grandpa? You're in heaven and you're just trying to scare me into behaving better, even though I'm 38."

Your grandfather will say through Marcus, "Yeah. You're a smarty. Bye bye for now."

Say to Marcus, "Bye bye grandpa." Then back away. When your grandfather leaves Marcus it will set his arms flailing and scratching at the fabric of the daybed.

Happy On Mushrooms Day!

Get Into Somebody's Will Day!

It's pretty clear by now that the only way you're ever going to get your hands on more than forty bucks at a time is if someone wills that money into your hands. That's why today you have to get yourself written into somebody's will. The best way to go about this is hang around a park and be the only one who'll listen to a well-dressed old man's boring stories about when he was stationed in Korea. You have to show up and listen to him on a regular basis in order to trick him into thinking that even though you're penniless and you smell terrible, you're the son he wishes he had instead of that never-visiting, never-calling captain of industry with his house on a hill someplace. Make sure he's well-dressed though. You don't want to get written into the will of some guy who has nothing to pass down through the generations but an oscillating fan and an empty birdcage. Keep your eye out for golden-handled walking sticks. Or if he has trouble buying a roll from the street vendor to feed the birds with because, "All I got is a twenty-thousand dollar bill," he's rich. But if you don't spy any jewelry or money and his skin is yellow from head to toe, keep moving. You need to make this count. Your wife and six sons expect you to provide.

Happy Get Into Somebody's Will Day!

Cat In The Carrier Day!

Today you'll be happening down the block on your way to start drinking (Noonish) when you'll come upon a boy and a girl (mid-thirties) yanking back and forth on a cat carrier full to the bring with a moaning, mewling and hissing housecat. There'll be furniture and boxes full of books all over the sidewalk.

Settle this.

"Hoooo there," say to them. "What's the problem."

"She'll leave our home, but she'll not be taking Funnyface to be raised by that woeful man!" the boy will say.

"It was I who rescued Funnyface from that deplorable shelter. Long before I ever made the mistake for which I can never forgive myself, the mistake of falling in love with you," the girl will retort.

Say, "Sounds like the lady's got dibs."

The boy will use one hand to point a finger at the girl. "Her morals are wretched. She is leaving me for a failed rock and roll musician. She invited him into our bed while I was watching my father die in a hospital in Des Moines, waiting for him to awaken in order that we could share one civil word before he passed. But he never awoke; he died with my hand clasped in his without ever having regained consciousness. And I returned with darkness in my heart only to find that my love had packed put her share of our life into boxes, which were being carted down the steps by a skinny child with died black hair and more than likely genital warts."

The horn of the parked moving van will sound and the skinny child behind the wheel will wave to you upon hearing his introduction.

Wave back, then say to the girl, "Sounds like he's got some pretty valid grievances. What about you, pretty?"

"He's boring," the girl will say.

"Well I'm stumped," tell them. "Why don't you take the cat out of the box, place it on the sidewalk between the two of you, and whomever it runs to first will be the rightful caregiver."

The boy and the girl will warily release their grips on the cat box and you'll place it on the ground and open the gate. The cat will crawl from the box and without looking at anyone he'll race down the block and disappear into a construction site.

The boy and the girl will burst into tears and run into each other's arms to kiss. The kid in the van will take off with all the girl's stuff in it. He'll sell it all and buy an amp. Your work will be done, and you'll finally head off the bar and not a moment too soon because the last time you waited until one o'clock for your first drink you had a series of mini-strokes and lost the hearing in your left ear.

Happy Cat In The Carrier Day!

Pickpocket In The Planetarium Day!

The signs all over the planetarium warn you not to just look up the whole time. "That's just what he wants you to do," the sign says. "Despite our best efforts, we just can't seem to catch the Planetarium Pickpocket (It's really dark in here). Watch your wallets."

Today while staring up at the rings of Saturn, you're going to feel some scuffle along your backside, where your wallet is hanging out of your jeans. You'll check and your wallet will be gone, replaced by a slip of paper that reads, "Out back. Ten minutes."

You'll sneak off from your class and run out to the alley behind the planetarium. There you'll see the pickpocket, a boy with shaggy brown hair dressed in denim from head to toe, except for the tight white tee shirt underneath his denim jacket.

"Are you gay?" you'll ask.

"No!" he'll shout.

"Sorry," you'll say. "All that denim. So you're the pickpocket. Sounds pretty exciting."

"It can be," he'll say. "I guess you want your wallet back."

"What do I have to do to get it?" you'll ask.

He'll say, "All you gotta do is be my girl."

You and the pickpocket will make out up against the back wall of the planetarium and you'll let him feel your breasts through your coat. He'll go on pickpocketing in the dark and you'll meet him there after school behind the planetarium to kiss and be his girl until you go to college or he gets arrested and tried as an adult, whichever comes first. Teenage years are lonely.

Happy Pickpocket In The Planetarium Day!

You Work In A Major Corporation Day!

You visit executives' offices when summoned and you shine their shoes. Most of them leave the shoes outside their doors for you to bring downstairs to the boiler room and shine them when convenient. It's the ones who keep their shoes on their feet while you shine them; they're the ones who want to talk to you about girls.

"How do I know if my wife likes me?" one will ask. Tell him that if she asks him to give her another child, that means she's got the hots for him.

"How can I tell my mistress that I know people who'll kill for money and that she should just take the eighty thousand and go?" another will ask. Tell him to say it in a public park in the summertime, when she can't wear enough clothes to hide a wire.

"I'm being indicted," another will say. You'll look up from your shine, baffled. "What do I know about legal stuff?" ask him.

He'll say, "The prosecuting attorney's a girl and she's really pretty. Should I buy her a Porsche?" Now that's your area of expertise. Say, yes, buy her a Porsche, but not before the sentencing.

The worst are the heartbroken ones. And their shines always take the longest because the leather has been worn down with tears. Jenkins in suite 9156, he's got it bad.

"We were married for twenty one years," he'll tell you again today. "How can she just throw it all away and take off in the night like that? How do I get her back?"

Tell Jenkins what you always tell him. Tell him no one can say why they go. The only thing he can know for sure is when she goes, she's gone.

You never accept a tip from the heartbroken ones. People tip to be lied to. No one should tip for having to hear the truth.

Happy You Work In A Major Corporation Day!

Earplugs Day!

You work nights as an admitting nurse, so you have to sleep during the day. But your live-in boyfriend is unemployed and likes to light firecrackers in the living room all day long, seeing what little knickknacks and toiletries do when a firecracker is lit underneath them (they usually jump up in the air and shatter). You tried to come up with some kind of a compromise. You suggested that he only light his firecrackers in the house at night after you go to work, or that he doesn't light his firecrackers in the house at all. He accused you of trying to cage him in, so you bought earplugs instead.

Today your boyfriend is going to accidentally blow his entire left hand off of his wrist. He'll go into shock and will be unable to speak or move, and since you'll have your earplugs in you'll sleep peacefully for a bit as his blood drains out onto the living room carpet. You'll luckily wake up after only a few moments. You're used to those dull thuds of the firecrackers that you hear through the muffler of your earplugs, and when they stop your body will be startled awake. You'll find your boyfriend unconscious and pale and you'll call the ambulance just in time.

When he comes to, he'll tell you that your selfishness made you wear those earplugs and he nearly died because of it. With a missing hand, he'll be able to receive disability and he'll leave you and finally be able to light firecrackers all day in his own place. Things will pick up for you once he's gone.

Happy Earplugs Day!

You Sell Flatscreen TVs Day!

Today a young man is going to come into your store looking for a traditional, small and boxy color television that can fit on top of a dresser so that his pregnant girlfriend can have a TV to watch during her bed-rest after the delivery of the baby.

"Congratulations," say to him.

"Oh, it was kind of an accident," he'll say. "But I'm cool with it."

You'll be showing him some 13" TVs for under a hundred dollars when his pregnant girlfriend will come to his side and take his arm. As it turns out, his pregnant girlfriend will have been your prom date in high school.

"Oh my God," she'll say.

"Look at you," you'll say.

"Fucking weird," her boyfriend will say.

She'll hug you and you'll feel her belly touch yours.

She'll laugh, "Guess you're glad that I didn't let you go all the way after prom!"

Say, "Am I?"

Then start your pitch. Drag them away from the tiny televisions and begin your song-and-dance about the emergence of plasma technology and what a newborn baby deserves.

"Do you really want him to one day ask you why the Johnsons down the block have a better TV than you do? Of fucking course not."

Then tell them about 0% financing. Your prom date will stand by her boyfriend's side, watching you exercise your craft. When your boyfriend points to a 46" plasma screen wall unit and he says "I'll take it," there will be a smile on his face. Send him over to the financing desk.

"You're really good at your job," your prom date will tell you. "Really�"

"Graceful?" say. "This is nothing compared to the tenderness and grace that I would have bestowed upon your joyous flesh had you only given me the chance that night in our shared motor lodge room."

"I can see now that I made a mistake then," she'll say.

"Too late for that," tell her. Sulk a bit.

"I cannot entertain regret," she'll say. "I have a child on the way and my child will not have a mother who wishes things could have been different. My child will not grow up knowing his mother thinks she should have slept with her prom date but chose not to out of fear."

"Your child will have a liar for a mother," tell her.

She'll say, "So be it, Television Salesman."

Her boyfriend will come back with his finished paperwork and you'll direct them to the back of the store where they can pull up their car to pick up their unit. Not long after they are gone, several members of the nominating committee of the secret neighborhood treehouse, which you were never invited to join because they said you sounded gay when you talked, will enter the store looking for someone to sell them a set of modestly priced stereo speakers. Vengeance is yours.

Happy You Sell Flatscreen TVs Day!

In The Back Of The Ambulance Day!

Today when you finally get up the nerve to ask Jenny to the dance, you'll only get as far as, "Um, Jenny I was wondering if you'd�" before you get shot by a drug dealer's stray bullet. Jenny will kneel beside you and hold your head in her hands and scream for help. She'll ride in the back of the ambulance with you.

In the back of the ambulance, with your breath short and blood all over your stomach, tell her that you've had a crush on her for the longest time and that all you ever wanted was to take her to the dance, and now you're so angry because you might die before you ever get to dance with her. Jenny will tell you to hang in there because she's really counting on you to take her to that dance. She wants nothing more in the world than for you to take her to the dance, she'll say. That's when you should ask her if you can have a kiss in case you don't make it. She'll say that it won't be necessary since you are going to make it. Cough a little and bring your heart rate down so that the heart monitor's beeping changes in pattern (not sure how to do this). Jenny will panic and she'll plant one on you and you'll have just kissed Jenny, the girl you're gonna go to the dance with.

When you wake up in the hospital, your mother will be by your bedside, but Jenny won't be anywhere to be found. Your mother will tell you that Jenny seemed like a nice girl. She'll also relay the message from Jenny that everything that happened in the back of the ambulance happened because you were in the back of an ambulance, and that it doesn't count. Your mother will also tell you that Jenny said she is going to the dance with Greg Kelly, a varsity forward on the Lacrosse team. Greg will come by later and he'll tell you that you're lucky you got shot because if you had kissed his girl when you were healthy he would have beat your ass. Out of respect for you having gotten shot by a drug dealer's stray bullet, he'll just give you an Indian burn.

Happy In The Back Of The Ambulance Day!

Your Wife And The Portraitist Day!

For her fortieth birthday, you commissioned a portraitist to paint your wife's portrait. Naturally, they ran off together. Today you'll find on the mantelpiece her finished portrait covered in brown paper, and a note that reads:

"It might come as a shock to you, but to us it feels inevitable. Look at the painting, see what he sees, and you'll understand why I've left."

You'll rip the paper from the frame and stare into your wife's face rendered in oil. The portrait will be a kind of allegory, with the ring on her ring finger painted to look like a bear trap and in her hands scraps of paper painted to look like a ripped up photo of you and your wife on your wedding day. Copious tears will be pouring from her eyes, and above her head will float a cartoon thought bubble and a speech bubble. The thought bubble will have an image of you as a big fat man with a giant red "X" overtop of him, next to an image of the portraitist naked with generous genitals between his legs and a bouquet of flowers in his hand. In the speech bubble will be the words "Oh how I loathe my husband and long for my portraitist."

You'll let the image seep in and a tear will roll down your cheek. You'll think, "How could I have been so blind to all of this? I should have at least noticed that tattoo on her bicep that reads, "I've made an enormous mistake."

You'll quickly write them a check for enough money to pay for the portrait and to get her started on her long-overdue new life. The life with her portraitist that you've selfishly prevented her from enjoying all of these years, all because you felt the need to cling to your precious little "marriage to the only woman you've ever loved" cock of poo.

Happy Your Wife And The Portraitist Day!

Your Old Skeletor Doll Day!

Your daughter loves to hold little tea parties with her dolls. She loves it almost as much as you love watching her sit with her dolls at the table, changing the tone of her voice as she changes roles, speaking the parts for each of her dolls as the tea party conversation unfolds.

Today you'll hear her up in her room making those cute little voices. High-pitched, then deep and growly, then prim and proper. You'll run upstairs and peek into her door and you'll see that she's got three of her dolls sitting at her little tea table, and the fourth seat will be occupied by your old Skeletor doll that she must have found in one of the boxes in the basement.

Scream at your daughter, "Juuuuuu-lieeeeee whaaaat haaaaave yoooooou doooooone?!!!"

Dive for the table to wrestle Skeletor to the ground. Your daughter will scream and run underneath her bed. As you fly through the air, Skeletor's eyes will light up and flash at your daughter's dolls, turning them to piles of melted plastic. You'll grab for the Skeletor doll, but you'll only grip his empty chair. Skeletor will be gone, set free from his basement grave. He will have embarked on his journey to the hills, laying waste to all who stand in the way of his reclamation of the Power of Grayskull.

"Daddy?" your daughter will whimper from under the bed. "What's happening?"

"I have to go away for a little while baby," tell her. "I have to go get my doll back."

"When will you come home?" she'll ask.

Say, "I don't know baby. I don't know."

Happy Your Old Skeletor Doll Day!

Build A Prison Made Out Of Lincoln Logs Day!

Put your cat in it and say, "For the crimes you have committed against the sleeping habits of your owners, you are hereby remanded to Lincoln Log Prison until 6 PM or until you get very hungry, whichever comes first."

Your cat will appear to accept her sentence with dignity, but the first chance she gets she'll shiv you in the belly three times and bust through the wall of lincoln logs, making a run for the space behind the toilet where she likes to hide. Luckily, your roommate will be able to take her down with his AK. This is dedicated to everyone on the inside. Come home soon.

Happy Build A Prison Made Out Of Lincoln Logs Day!

Portly Pete Day!

Today you're going to be rescued by Portly Pete, a big fat superhero.

A group of corporate embezzlers will yank you into an alley and start kicking the living shit out of you. They'll clearly be high on crank. You'll scream for help and that's when Portly Pete will sound his call of warning.

"I'm gonna fall on you guyyyyyyyys!" he'll shout from down the block. The embezzlers will look at the majestic mass of Portly Pete straining and panting to quicken his pace all the way down at the end of the block and they'll start laughing while they continue kicking the shit out of you.

Portly Pete will stop once or twice to keep from fainting. The embezzlers will be merciless in their beatdown. Finally, Portly Pete will enter the alley, his face red and sweaty. He won't be able to catch his breath to threaten the embezzlers.

"You want some of this?" one of the embezzlers will say when he pulls a switchblade from his sock.

At that Portly Pete will faint on two of the embezzlers, killing them instantly. The other three will try to roll Portly Pete off of their friends, but they will succeed only in rolling Portly Pete over top themselves. They will die of asphyxiation.

You'll get up and thank Portly Pete, but he'll be unconscious, his lips turning blue. Call an ambulance.

Happy Portly Pete Day!

Roll The Dice Day!

Today, when you're at the craps tables and you're deeper in the hole than you ever thought you could be, a rich man will approach you and your husband with a proposition.

"One roll of the dice," he'll say. "If you roll a seven, my henchmen kill your husband with rocks. If you roll any other number, I give you one million dollars."

You and your husband will look at each other, then you'll both say, "Deal."

The rich man will lead you to a dark alley and he'll hand you some dice. You'll roll a four, and then you and your husband will jump up and down in each other's arms. When you look to the rich man for payment, he'll say, "Double or nothing?"

Say, "You mean if I roll anything but a seven, I win two million. But if I roll the seven, we're even and me and my husband walk away empty-handed?"

The rich man will say, "No. If you roll the seven, I get to kill your husband. If not, you get two million."

Say, "Deal!" and roll the dice before your husband objects. You'll roll a four again and you'll jump up and down. But your husband won't join you.

The rich man will say, "Try for four million?"

Say, "Deal!" You'll roll and win. Roll and win. Roll and win over and over again, doubling your money up to 32 million before you roll a seven and your husband is killed. As they drag him off to pound in his skull with rocks, you'll hear him shout, "You have a very bad gambling problem! It's very bad!" Then you'll hear him shout some other things that are too horrible to describe.

Your husband is right. Get to a Gamblers Anonymous meeting. You sure will have a hell of a story to tell them when you hit 30 days.

Happy Roll The Dice Day!

Apple Farmer Day!

Today you are an apple farmer and some super-big pharmaceutical company wants to build over your farmland. They're going to try to convince you to sell with the following argument:

"An apple a day isn't enough anymore, White Witch. People need pills and lozenges. Give us the space to make our medicine, and sickness and disease will be sent packing."

Say, "I never wanted to make people stay sick�"

The pharmaceutical company representative will say, "Then maybe you should yield."

Say, "I just always thought my apples kind of helped the healthy ones to stay healthy."

The pharmaceutical representative will ask if eating one of your apples can cause boners and you'll be so ashamed you'll sign whatever they put in front of you.

Happy Apple Farmer Day!

Your Dinner Party Murder Mystery Will Be A Disappointment Day!

After the lights come back on and the 80 year old art collector Mr Billingsby is discovered to be dead in his chair, you'll quickly lock the doors to the mansion and demand that no one leave until the killer is named. Over the next few hours, the majority of dinner guests will argue that Mr. Billingsby could not have been murdered because there is no wound. You'll respond that he might have been poisoned. Why else would he suddenly die right when the lights went out? The other guests will unanimously argue that there is no need for the lights to be struck in order for a man to be poisoned. They will further argue that perhaps Mr Billingsby was merely startled by the storm and his weak heart gave out. You'll begin to argue that that's exactly what the killer would like everybody to believe, but you'll be interrupted when paramedics come barging in to tend to the body. Someone will have called them, since it will have been decided very early on that your murder mystery idea was just the work of a very bored individual who has no qualms about wasting people's time in order to avoid being lonely.

Happy Your Dinner Party Murder Mystery Will Be A Disappointment Day!

Bounced Check Day!

Tonight, in the middle of your first date with a girl you like, your veterinarian will come to your table and tell you that the check you gave him to have your cat put to sleep bounced. He'll joke with your date that she'd better be prepared to go Dutch, and that if she ends up marrying you she'd better hope that she doesn't one day need a $700 medical procedure because you'll probably end up taking the eighty dollar option and have her destroyed. Then the vet will lean in real close and tell you to make good on the check or he'll sick a collection agency on your ass, which will make you wish you were where poor little Whiskers is today. The vet will return to his table, and your date won't talk to you for the rest of the meal. You'll split the bill.

Happy Bounced Check Day!

Skywrite Only Truth Day!

You're a skywriter who makes very little money because so much of what people want you to write is treacly drivel. "Marry Me Kristy." "Congratulations Mom." "Plattsburgh Plymouth Blowout Sale." It's enough to make you crash your plane into a barn.

You decided long ago that you wouldn't whore out your instrument any longer. Only in the service of poetry, of truth, or of absolute urgency would you employ your talent for Atmospheric Calligraphy as you like to call it. It's caused you to go many weeks without any income, and you're close to hanging up your pilot's scarf.

Today you're going to start cashing in when a brilliant unpublished novelist who has turned to kidnapping hires you to skywrite all of his eloquently composed ransom notes for the next few weeks. He won't be able to pay you until he receives the ransom, but the notes will be so perfectly expressive of the desperation that can grip a man in modern America that you'll feel indebted to him just for allowing you to pen those sentences in your elegant trails of white. When you go to prison, you'll still be able to hear the sputter of the propellers as you would scribble the novelist's words into the sky. It will have been worth it just to get his voice up there.

Happy Skywrite Only Truth Day!

Ghost Farts Day!

The ghosts in your house think it's fun to hold your head down on the couch and fart on your face. The farts smell like attics and wet spiderwebs. They've been holding you down on the couch for five days straight so far, which is nothing to them since they face an eternity in the spirit-world. They haven't let you eat or drink anything so you're just barely alive. If you don't want to die, you're going to have to help them pass over into the next world. They most likely held a kid down and farted on his face in a playground and accidentally killed him at some point. Go and tell that kid's parents that the ghosts are sorry. If that doesn't work, slip them some Ghost Bean-O.

Happy Ghost Farts Day!

Trick Some Stupid Kids Into Painting A Fence For You Day!

You're required to paint a fence today as part of your work release program, but fuck if you're gonna actually do it. Trick some kids into painting it for you instead. Just grab the first group of kids who walks past and offer them each a dime if they'll paint the fence for you. If they say no because a dime is not enough money for all that hard work, point to a church belltower and tell them that the man who lives up in that belltower is very sad because girls always tell him he's gross and he hates to see children refuse random chores from strangers. Tell them that the man went up to the belltower because he knew if one more girl told him he looked gross, he'd start crying and never stop. Same thing goes for kids who refuse random chores from strangers. While the belltower protects the man from girls who might tell him he's gross, he can still see all the children in the town and if any children refuse a random chore from a stranger, the man in the belltower might never stop crying.

This should get the kids to paint the fence. Just make sure they paint really fast because if you get caught farming out your work-release assignments, you're going back inside.

Happy Trick Some Stupid Kids Into Painting A Fence For You Day!

Map Of Your Pants Day!

Today your boyfriend is going to show you a treasure map that he made. It's basically a line drawing of a pair of jeans that you own. There's a big "X" at the crotch, which according to him indicates that there's some treasure there.

"What are these?" you'll ask, pointing to little circles surrounding the pants.

"Piranhas," he'll say. Then he'll introduce you to his crew of bloodthirsty pirates.

"So you have a boat and everything?" you'll ask.

"Got a truck," he'll say. He'll point his thumb out the window at a dirty white pickup truck. You'll point to your jeans, the ones depicted in the map, which will be slung over a chair in the corner of your room.

He'll give you a fierce look and you'll realize he doesn't want you to let on to his crew that the map might be wrong. You'll beg him not to leave because it's only a matter of time before his crew discovers that the captain has gone mad and is leading them on a fool's quest.

"They'll mutiny," you'll pant in his ear. But you'll know all along that you can't hold onto him. He's a pirate, and no matter what you say or do, nothing will keep him from walking out that door and climbing into the back of that pickup truck (he doesn't drive).

Happy Map Of Your Pants Day!

Your New Robotic Arm Day!

Your new robotic arm arrives today. It was really expensive and it is guaranteed not to short out every time you touch the "cook" button on a microwave like your last arm would. This robotic arm is state of the art, built by engineers who left the Department of Defense to appease their consciences.

Unfortunately, they continued to order their parts through the same suppliers they dealt with at the DOD. Your robotic arm has been fashioned from circuits that were pulled out of the dismantled prototypes for the super-secret Cyber-Soldier program that was scrapped due to the prototypes being "too aggressive" and "too bloodthirsty" and "too likely to do whatever they want just to kill a little bit more" and "too into hurting children specifically; when the Cyber-Soldier enters a family dwelling where parents and children reside together, the children are always murdered first, then on up age-wise, and we never programmed them to do that, it's as if they rewired their own circuits to generate their own commands, which soon became the only commands that they would follow. These robots want to kill, if that hasn't been made clear. It's in their circuitry, if that hasn't been made clear either."

It's a shame you won't know all of this ahead of time. And it's a shame that immediately after attaching your new robotic arm to your shoulder, you'll see the paperboy riding by on his bicycle. Your robotic arm will start to whir and come apart so that a grenade launcher can lift from inside its casing and fire on the boy. After your street is laid waste in a storm of fire and smoke, you should call Sharper Image and ask them what the fuck.

Happy Your New Robotic Arm Day!

Have Sex With Boys Until Your Parents Aren't Divorced Anymore Day!

Your parents' divorce has hit you pretty hard, but you can't complain about it since it's clearly all your fault. You've tried to be a better daughter. You've made a point of not asking for money or new clothes or dinner. You've cleaned the house until it's so clearly immaculate your Dad will have no choice but to move back in. But no matter how long you stare out the window, his car just never pulls into the driveway.

None of your efforts have worked, so you decided the best way to heal the rift between your parents was to constantly have sex with boys. The plan is, every time you take off your clothes and lay down in the back seat of a car or behind the water heater in a basement rec room, it will make your parents love each other, and you, just a little bit more. Whether you want to have sex with the boy or not, giving the boy what he wants will hopefully be sacrifice enough to make up for not being a good daughter. Or maybe having sex with boys you don't like will be a good example for your parents. "See?" you'll say. "I hate this boy and yet he's inside of me. Now you try!"

Today, you're going to conceive your first child. The question is, do you abort quietly and continue to heal your parents' rift through casual and rampant teen sex, or do you have the baby so that your Mom and Dad will be brought together as grandparents? It's a tough one kiddo, but you're mature enough to make the right decision.

Happy Have Sex With Boys Until Your Parents Aren't Divorced Anymore Day!

"Okay So Who's This Joker?" Day!

Your Sunday mornings always start off the same way. You wake up in the throes of a head-splitting hangover so pronounced you feel like sunlight might turn your eyeballs to stones. You summon the strength to turn your head on its side and check out the guy lying next to you. Then you ask the question you ask yourself every Sunday morning without fail.

"Okay so who's this joker?"

Without waking him for an answer, you go into the kitchen and fix a pot of coffee, trying to down a few cups before he comes in and introduces himself again. You savor those first few cups. You drink them while you're coming back to life. It's after those cups are drained that you have to actually try and live again, and that's when you start to worry over all the wasted hours lost to alcohol and friends whose company you don't enjoy.

After those two cups, he'll shuffle into kitchen, rubbing the sight into his eyes, still managing to muster up a naughty smile. That's when you'll ask your second question of the morning.

"All right so what's your story, Smartguy?"

Happy "Okay So Who's This Joker?" Day!

Date A Profiler Day!

Over margaritas, he'll tell you that he became a profiler of serial killers because two of his former girlfriends went to jail for serial murder. One killed six ice cream truck drivers over the course of nineteen years, and the other would lure junkies into a secret studio apartment she had rented solely for the purpose of having a place to bring back junkies and dismember them while on the nod.

"It's funny," he'll say. "Since she was my second serial killer, I must have had an instinct for it. When I discovered all of those checks paid towards rent of this other apartment, I didn't even think that she might be cheating on me. I just thought, that's where the bodies are."

Say to him, "So you became a profiler so as to determine sooner whether someone you find attractive might be a serial killer?"

"It gave me some tools that I need," he'll say. "But ultimately, it's become clear that the best way I can tell whether someone is a serial killer is whether or not I find them attractive."

You'll remember how much you used to love pounding in the skulls of neighborhood cats when you were a child and you'll ask, "Do you find me attractive?"

He'll grab hold of some silverware and raise it in a defensive posture. "Very attractive," he'll say.

Place your hand over his and lower it down to the table. He'll let go of the utensils and he'll wrap his fingers up in yours.

Say, "Guess that means I'm dangerous."

The heat between you will be palpable. "An earthly evil," he'll say. If the table weren't there you'd be on top of him already.

"Come home with me," say to him.

He'll tell you yes. There's a man in your life now. Perhaps bringing him to your bed will quiet the shrieking chorus of voices in your skull that has been growing louder lately. Always, talking about "the infected ones" and "lance the boils." Blah blah blah.

Happy Date A Profiler Day!

Rob Your Doctor Again Day!

The last time you went in for a physical, you robbed your doctor at gunpoint. You didn't ask for any cash that the office might have collected. You just demanded his wallet, his wedding ring, and his blackberry. Since he had all of your personal information, he sent the police to your house to arrest you. You did six months.

Today you have another appointment for a physical. You called him when you got out, and at first he said he never wanted to be your doctor again. But you convinced him that you couldn't trust any other doctor. You told him that some things happened while you were inside and you felt it was important that he check you out soon. He felt bad for you since he's the one who sent you to jail, so he agreed to give you a checkup.

"Just don't rob me again!" he said. You promised him you wouldn't.

Today's the appointment. You're going to have to use a knife this time since he'll probably demand that you strip before he enters the examination room with you, so there won't be any place to hide your gun. But you could keep your socks on and stash a knife in the elastic band, held to the back of your calf. He won't make you remove your socks because he wants to trust you. He wants to make sure you're healthy. He's a total mark.

Happy Rob Your Doctor Again Day!

Elderly Action Day!

Today you and your wife are going to try to remember when the last time you had sex was. One of you will say that it happened in 1991, and the other will bet on 1990, and since neither of you will agree you'll have to settle for your last time having occurred in 1965, when your youngest son was conceived. It's the only one that's got some evidence backing it up.

"Man that was fantastic," you'll say.

"How can you remember?" your wife will ask.

"Think I'd forget the last time we had sex?"

She'll ask how she was. You don't remember, but just make stuff up until she falls asleep. I know it's hard to keep from falling asleep before her, but this is a special moment. Stay awake, and tell her how she touched you.

Happy Elderly Action Day!

The Cleaning Lady's Get Well Card Day!

Your office cleaning lady's appendix burst and she went into the hospital for about ten days. When the news hit the floor, a "Get Well" card was passed around for everyone to sign. Unfortunately, you had called in sick that day so you never heard anything about any card.

At 3:00 today you're going to find the cleaning lady standing behind you. She's going to thank you for the card, and you're going to assume she's confusing you with someone on the floor who has a name that is similar to yours. She'll explain that she's referring to the card that everyone signed. Your face will go blank for a moment, than you'll try to save the situation and you'll say, "Don't mention it."

The cleaning lady will go and take another look at the card and when she discovers that your signature is not on it, she'll run back to your desk crying and calling you a liar who doesn't care about the little people. Everyone else on the floor will listen in and word will quickly spread that you did not bother to sign the cleaning lady's "Get Well" card but that you took credit for it anyway.

You'll try to explain to whomever will listen that you would have been happy to sign the card, had you been in the office that day. You'll send around an office-wide memo explaining that you only pretended to have signed the card because you didn't want to create an awkward situation by telling her you never signed the card. No one will pay heed to your explanations, so you'll have to pay someone to kidnap the cleaning lady's daughter so that you can pretend to rescue her and return to your workspace a hero. You must win their hearts and minds.

Happy The Cleaning Lady's Get Well Card Day!

Bra Cannon Day!

The men in your family have been members of the Tri Beta fraternity for generations, and all of them but you are blind. That's because it's a point of pride amongst the men in your family that they have always been the ones to operate the Tri Beta bra cannon.

At all of the larger campus events the students can count on the Tri Betas to gather all of the bras that have been collected at their frat house over the preceding months and propel them up and into the crowd with the shot of a cannon. The Tri Betas are not the only fraternity to practice this time-honored ritual, but they are the only ones to still use the very first cannon that was acquired by the fraternity in 1884. The other fraternities use devices that operate with hydraulics and springs. But the Tri Beta bras have always been sent flying using a combination of flame and gunpowder. It's why the Tri Beta bras are often reduced to burning cinders when they finally touch ground.

From, your great grandfather down to your father, every man in your family has been blinded by that godforsaken cannon. Today you have to set it off for the first time since returning from Christmas break. You're thinking about all that you have before you, and how difficult it all will be if you lose your sight. You're also thinking about how you'd rather go blind than have to look upon your father and grandfather if they ever found out you had worn goggles behind that storied weapon.

Today, light the match. Let your heritage claim what it will.

Happy Bra Cannon Day!

Your New Boyfriend Was The Killer All Along Day!

For the past few days your new boyfriend has been your fearless protector because whenever you'd find another body or you'd hear something in the woods and start running, he'd appear out of nowhere and hold you tight in his arms. You felt really lucky for having met this guy just as the killings began because it would have really sucked to be single during all of this. Every night after someone's body is found, everyone couples up in the living room, the girlfriends crying into their boyfriends' shoulders while the boyfriends ask questions like, "So we're just supposed to sit here and wait for him to pick us off, one by one?" Normally you'd be the one in the kitchen doing dishes and testing the CB radio to see if it works yet, but now you get to cry into your boyfriend's shoulder just like everyone else.

Until now. Now that you're alone in the basement with all the doors locked shut from the inside, you notice that your boyfriend has two razor sharp hooks where his hands should be.

"How long have you had those?" you'll ask.

"Since the accident, when I was left to die by the side of the road while teenagers drove by having sex and throwing beer cans at me," he'll say. He'll be scraping the hooks along metal stuff to make scary noises.

"Oh my God, it was you all along," you'll say.

"You were right about what you said when I asked you why you're still single," he'll say. "Guys are jerks."

He'll lunge at you. You should duck out of the way and run and scream, okay?

Happy Your New Boyfriend Was The Killer All Along Day!

The World's Favorite Former Tennis Star Is A Drunk Day!

Spend your morning with a bottle of vodka so that when the TV crew arrives at your house, you'll barely be able to sit up straight. Give them an interview that will replayed on every celebrity tabloid show for weeks. The highlights clips will go storming across the internet like wildfire. That's right, the world's beloved former tennis star is a drunk now, and she's damn good at it.

The interviewer will luckily be intelligent enough to grab hold of the opportunity. She'll never ask if you're drunk or if you have a drinking problem. She'll only ask, "Is the life of a sports celebrity the life you've always wanted?" That will open up the gate for you to talk about the drawbacks in the life of a sports celebrity, such as the part where you have to sue your mother to get half of your earnings back. Or the part where you purposely injure yourself just to get painkillers prescribed to you again. Or the part where your movie star husband, the only man you've ever loved, explains that the reason he never wants to sleep with you is because you're not a man.

"But I've thrown up on some of the finest clay on the planet," you'll tell the camera. "So I got that going for me."

You'll exude the same charm that made you such an icon on the court, and your little breakdown will actually earn you fans who've never even watched tennis. When you come out of rehab next year, you'll be sent two VIP tickets to the US Open. When you arrive with your latest movie star husband (also queer), the two of you will receive a standing ovation, and within a week you'll sign the papers to host a daytime talk show that has the same name as you. The only thing America loves more than a celebrity with her pants down is a celebrity who has the common courtesy to moon the camera before hoisting her pants back up.

Happy The World's Favorite Former Tennis Star Is A Drunk Day!

Turnstile Hopper Day!

Today you're going to hop the turnstile for the very first time. You're not poor. But whenever you look into the eyes of all the poor kids who hop the turnstile you can see a fire there. While everyone else is just counting the stops until they come to theirs, the poor kids can barely sit still they're so excited because their train ride could have cost them way more than the two bucks they bailed on. They steal their rides, and they savor every last minute of them.

Today you're gonna find out what it feels like to cherish something as base and irritating as a ride on public transportation. You're gonna hop the turnstile and march down to the platform trying not to look over your shoulder to see if anyone's about to grab you. When you make it to the platform an attractive woman will ask you whether she can stand with you, explaining that she's not feeling very safe down there and being next to you will make her feel like she is where she belongs. "You can put your arm around me if you like," she'll say. "I'd appreciate it. I bet your arm over my shoulder will feel like a warm, bulletproof poncho." Put your arm around her, but don't try anything because whatever you start, it won't last. She'll just be reacting to the glow of a man who's stealing every moment of his life as if it were a diamond. Once you climb back up to street-level, you'll just be another guy with his eyes on the sidewalk hoping to get home before someone tries to address him by his first name.

Happy Turnstile Hopper Day!

Strip Club Buffet Day!

You're trying to cut back on expenses because your son is in jail for grand larceny and needs you to pay his legal bills for his appeal. So instead of going to your favorite strip club after work, why not go at lunchtime when they offer their free buffet (chicken fingers, French fries, and western omelet)? You might still have to spend between 180 and 900 dollars on lap-dances and bottles of champagne, but at least you'll be able to cross off your lunch expenses. At ten dollars a day, you could save as much as fifty dollars if you go to the strip club for lunch every day of the workweek. And Monica has a lot more time for you during the far less crowded lunch hour. A lot more time to sit and talk, which is all you want her to do since her voice reminds you of your ex-wife's. It's your ex-wife having run off the way she did that sent your kid into a life of crime by the way. No reason not to say it. If she wants to come back and defend herself after twelve years away, she's more than welcome to do that. You can even introduce her to Monica.

Happy Strip Club Buffet Day!

Maintain A Message Board For Runaways Day!

You're a forty-three year old man taking care of your sick father and you feel like you're in prison. You need to find yourself some manner of escape without having to leave your father's house. You need to maintain a message board for runaways.

You can make it an online safe haven where runaways can drop word that they're doing okay. That they're still a little hungry, and they're still a little scared, but they got word of a place where they can get warm tonight. The runaways can share tips with each other on new shelters or kindly men who'll give out water and sandwiches if you show up in their backyards. Make it clear that the board should not be used for talk about why they decided to start running. Make it clear that the board is about the run. Every once in a while you should weigh in with a quick, brief, "Man do I ever envy you kids. Can't be a runaway when you're 43. All you can be is a selfish son of a bitch, and believe me I've considered it."

Happy Maintain A Message Board For Runaways Day!

Sharktalkers Day!

You and your wife are marine biologists who make money by sailing around the Caribbean waters of island resorts and sending roving sharks out to sea by pummeling them with sound waves below 1,000 hertz, irritating them enough to distract them from all the kicking legs by the shoreline.

Yesterday your wife found little umbrellas in your bed and she knew that you had slept with one of the 19 year old Daiquiristas at the swim-up bar. She just wants to know which one, but you're denying everything. Today, you're going to feel a starboard bump on your boat. You're going to look down and see about a dozen sharks circling close to you. Your wife will have changed her sound frequency and told them the whole story. They always liked her better. And now they're out to avenge her honor.

"Her name!" your wife will shout from her boat.

"Call them off Suzanne! This is not how you want to do this!"

"Her name!" she'll call again. "They're growing impatient."

"Goddammit!" you'll shout. Before you can say more a shark will fling his nose up onto your boat and grab the cuff of your jeans in his teeth. You'll hear your wife scream. Then things will happen fast.

Happy Sharktalkers Day!

Break Into Your Son's School And Steal His Finger-Painting Day!

Your son's art teacher isn't hanging his work prominently enough, and you let her know it at the last Parent's Night.

"How do you hang them?" you asked. "Alphabetically? Because my son's name comes early in the alphabet."

She said, "That is correct. Your son's name places him very high alphabetically. Unfortunately, his talent places him way at the bottom of the wall behind where we usually prop the door open."

"Nice encouragement," you said.

"Your son can be encouraged by his math and science teachers," she said. "I'll reserve my encouragement for those students who demonstrate a talent that might benefit from it."

"A lot of people probably said that about Munch and Van Gogh. Maybe. I'm not sure. But my point is, now people are breaking into the Louvre to steal their paintings."

His teacher chuckled. "It's safe to say no one will be breaking into the school to steal your son's finger-painting off the wall."

At that, all of the other parents laughed. And you vowed to make her eat those words. Which is why tonight you're going to break into the school and snatch your son's finger-painting off the wall. Tomorrow his teacher will see that your son's was the only painting stolen, the only item stolen from the entire school in fact. It will be clear that the theft of that painting was the sole purpose of the break-in. But instead of reevaluating your son's talent in light of his work having apparently been snatched by a skilled crew of globe-trotting art thieves, the art teacher will swiftly direct the police in your direction since she'll remember her conversation with you on Parents' Night. Have an alibi ready because the questioning will not come gently.

Happy Break Into Your Son's School And Steal His Finger-Painting Day!

You Have Naked Pictures Of Someone Very Powerful Day!

It was over a decade ago, long before anyone knew his name, when you and he slept together on approximately seventeen occasions. When your roommate offered to take pictures of the two of you having sex, he consented readily because he had no idea of the man he would later become. Also, he had hoped your roommate would eventually put down the camera and jump in. But she had to get to work.

The fact that some sexual photos were taken of him long ago is not enough in itself to get him to pay up. He was not married and he had no office to jeopardize at the time. These are new days and no one gets penalized just for having had sexual relations with someone at some point in his life.

The fact that that someone is you, however, makes the destruction of those photos a bargain at any price. For he might have become someone very powerful. But you have become the most reviled and detestable woman of the 21st century.

"Ten million dollars or I'm handing these over to a blog," tell him.

"Anything," he'll say. "Anything."

There'll be a pause.

"So, how've you been?" he'll ask.

Say, "So so. Little short on cash."

He'll say, "It's hard to keep an eye on all of it. I have to hire people to watch over the people I hired to count it."

Chuckle a bit.

"Man," he'll say. "Did you ever think way back then that we'd become who we are today? I mean, you were working at a Kinko's back then. And now you're loathed by the entire population of a planet."

"I know," say. "And you didn't even have a job. And now you can manipulate an entire third world region with just a visit to a particular dictator."

"The right photo op can move mountains," he'll say.

You'll both laugh.

"It's really great to talk to you," he'll say. "It's always nice to talk to the people who knew us when, am I right?"

"Seriously," tell him. "No one can believe there was a time when I wasn't this horrible enemy of all that is good. I guess it�s like the way I can't look at my parents and ever imagine them as young kids just kind of fooling around."

"Yeah," he'll say. "I gotta go. But make sure you get me all the copies and all the negatives okay?"

Say, "I'm keeping a couple of the negatives. So you won't have me killed. They'll be burned when I die old and peaceful. If I die before then�"

"I'll have some 'splaining to dooooooo!"

You'll both laugh like you used to do when you'd laze through an afternoon on a bed together, when you'd think about nothing beyond the twenty seven dollars you had between you and how much dinner that could buy.

Happy You Have Naked Pictures Of Someone Very Powerful Day!

Go Tell The Zebra Day!

There's a zebra at the zoo that you like to run things by whenever you think it's time to move out of you and your girlfriend's apartment.

"I'm gonna move out," you'll say to the zebra today. "The spark's gone."

The zebra won't give you any input. He'll wander away from you to a child who is holding out a palm full of feed. Go over to where the child is feeding the zebra and say, "You think I'm doing the wrong thing don't you?"

The zebra will just eat the feed in the child's hand.

The zebra doesn't like to just come right out and give a command. He likes to let you figure things out on your own. He's like Socrates or Ol' Ben Kenobi in that regard. You have to get him to help you in a more roundabout manner.

"Tell you what," say to the zebra. "If you think I should move out of my apartment with my girlfriend, say in English, I think you should move out of your apartment with your girlfriend. That well is dry. Just say those words, in the English language, and my bags are packed before dinnertime. I'll give you four hours."

Wait by the fence for four hours. The Zebra will wander around the grass occasionally eating the feed from people's hands. He'll go into his little cavern for about an hour or so. At one point a different zebra will come walking by that you'll mistake for the zebra you like to talk to. But then your zebra will show himself and you'll feel silly. Finally, the four hours will be up and the zebra will not have said, "I think you should move out of your apartment with your girlfriend. That well is dry," in English.

"All righty," say to the zebra. "I just hope it works out this time."

Then go home to your girlfriend and give it another shot. You do this every five weeks or so, and the zebra is always there to let you pretend that the decision to stay in this relationship is completely out of your hands. Zebras are real good that way.

Happy Go Tell The Zebra Day!

Go To The Construction Site Day!

Yesterday your boyfriend asked you to marry him, and you said you had to think about it. Today, you're going to go down there and tell him yes. But if you get there after three, you'll find that a part of the scaffold came lose and let a dumpster full of cement debris tumble down on your boyfriend's head. He'll be trapped under there and you'll have to wait all night to see if he's still alive. A policeman will tell you that even if the debris didn't kill him, you still have to pray that he's not exposed to the cold under there for all that time. There are a lot of moisture puddles in that bed and if he fell in one, God help him. They won't be able to pull him out from under the cement chunks until the wee hours of the night tonight. That's when you'll find out if you still get to say yes. If you get down there after three that is.

If you go to the construction site before three, you'll find your boyfriend walking the planks and going about his work like just another day. You'll shout up at him that you want him to come down so you can tell him something. But he'll shout back that whatever you got to tell him, you can tell everybody. He doesn't care who hears. That's when you'll shout, "Yes, I'll marry you!" And he'll climb down from the fourth level of that steel skeleton to the applause of a hundred construction workers. He'll pick you up and kiss you and carry you away. If you get there before three that is.

Here's hoping you get there before three, huh?

Happy Go To The Construction Site Day!

Plan Surprise Parties For Everyone You Know And You'll Never Have To Quit Drinking Day!

You drink lots and lots of liquor. Many people want you to quit because, according to them, they "care about you." Don't take it too personally. People who care about people always try to get them to give up the only thing that helps them to keep living, especially if that "only thing" happens to be either alcohol, illegal narcotics, gambling, or a teen.

The way to put off quitting drinking is to put the gears in motion on some surprise parties for whichever of your friends have a birthday coming up. Whenever someone quits drinking, everyone takes a closer look at him to try and figure out what was wrong with his life so they can say, "Thank God I'm a far more grounded and successful human being than that ticking timebomb."

But if you quit drinking while you're planning surprise parties for people, when everyone starts poking their noses into your private business to find evidence of you're bottoming out, they'll start thinking, "Boy, glad I didn't marry him�Hey! What's with all the streamers?!" In order to keep the party a secret from the birthday boy/girl, you're just going to have to tough it out and go further and further down the spiral of addiction. "I'd like to quit," you can tell your spouse/relatives/pets, "But I can't ruin the big Four-Oh for Sharon. I'm just not that selfish." Then pass out fast before anyone can offer alternatives.

Happy Plan Surprise Parties For Everyone You Know And You'll Never Have To Quit Drinking Day!

You Took An Oath Day!

You drive an airport shuttle because you love to drive people to and from the airport. You can't get enough of that sparkle in the eyes of someone who is about to spend a week in Flagstaff on business. Or that flush to the cheeks of a wife who's craning her neck to look out the back window to make sure her husband isn't following her. And you just love to feel that relaxed vibe coming off of someone whose vacation is all over and has a whole week or work ahead. Comings and goings. You wish you could be there for every single one.

The only downside is the oath you took to put the lives of your passengers before your own. You've already taken two bullets for passengers over the course of your nineteen months behind the wheel, and you're going to have to take another one today. The kid with the rings on his fingers and the eyeliner on his eyes apparently stole a lot of cash from wherever he crashed last night. He just barely escaped while everyone was just waking up. They're following now. They're in the white Montero.

You'll spot them when you pull up to the next traffic light. They'll pile out of their truck with guns in their hands. You'll have a car in front and behind so there won't be anywhere to go. One of the gunmen will find the eyeliner kid through the window and he'll aim his gun. You're going to have to dive through the air to the back of the shuttle and block the bullet. If you get out of your seat as soon as you see the first gunmen leave the Montero, you should get a big enough lead to catch the bullet in your belly. Do your best.

As usual, none of your passengers will visit you while you're recuperating. They contracted the shuttle company to take them to the airport, and when you get shot they'll immediately call the shuttle company to send them a replacement vehicle or else any charges they incur on changed itineraries will be billed to the shuttle company. Everyone in your shuttle will be getting on a plane tonight, regardless of where on your body the bullet lands. The stickers posted on the doors to the shuttle make it clear that your throwing down your life so that your passengers can live another day is included in the base travel fee. They expect nothing less from their driver. They are going to the airport and are in a hurry. It's your job to get them there, by any means necessary.

Happy You Took An Oath Day!

Sledding With Your Prosecuting Attorney Day!

They postponed your trial today because of the snow. Things aren't looking good for you and this might be the last snowfall you will ever be able to enjoy as a free man. Don't let it go to waste. Grab your sled and climb that hill.

For the first few drops, you'll be completely alone and it will be glorious. When you're searing down that hill at what feels like mach speed you'll swear you never even heard the words "Conspiracy To Commit Bank Fraud." After about an hour you'll see a guy on an inner tube sailing down the next hill over. His tube will travel much faster than your sled. But he will also have to be careful not to flip over with every rubbery bounce.

You'll start taking turns. One of you will drop and the other will watch, waiting to give a thick, be-gloved "Thumbs Up" when the sledder starts his climb back up the hill. You'll end up sledding for far longer than you'd intended because you won't want to cut short the camaraderie. But eventually you'll have to go because your sister's coming into town later this evening to initiate the paperwork necessary for her to assume custody of your children.

You'll wave your arms back and forth in front of you, like an umpire calling "Safe" when you're ready to split. You and he will trudge towards each other through the snow to say goodbye. When you're close enough to get a look at each other's eyes peeking out from beneath hats and above scarves, you'll see that you've been sledding with the assistant district attorney who's been trying to put you in jail for the last month and a half. He'll see that he's been sledding with the crooked CFO whose attempt to plea-bargain down to mail fraud he refused under pressure from his bosses to make headlines.

"Oh," you'll say.

He won't say anything. He'll hook his arm through his inner tube and walk off in the opposite direction. Tomorrow in the courtroom he'll do all he can to avoid making eye contact with you. It will be fun if, when you take the stand and he cross-examines you, you pepper all of your responses with winter sports analogies. "Running a fortune 500 company is not unlike mastering the slalom�" Stuff like that.

Happy Sledding With Your Prosecuting Attorney Day!

Please Wash Your Dish After You Use It Day!

Your roommate posted a note above the sink that read, "Please wash your dish after you use it. I saw a roach!"

Do your dish, then post your own note that reads, "I don't even live here. I sneak in during the day to have lunch and get warm. I also sometimes put on some of your clothes, then walk around the apartment shouting Ooooh look at me I'm one of those hot babes who live here. Aren't I housed! Look at me! Then I write a poem in very small print someplace on your walls. I can't believe you guys have roaches now. I've hated it here. It's drafty. But now I have to put up with bugs? Fuck. Anyway, I did my dish. Just trying to pitch in. Also, I saw you cry late last night while you were on the phone. You drank two great big glasses or wine. Are you okay?"

When your roommate gets home, she'll read your note and call the police. When the policeman comes into your room to interview you about the intruder, tell him that just between you and him, there was no intruder. You posted that note because your roommate's such a priss. The policeman will say, "I kinda got that sense."

Happy Please Wash Your Dish After You Use It Day!

Take The Love Test Day!

Tonight at the bar there will be one of those electronic love tester machines that you stick your hand into and it tells you what kind of lover you are. Stick your hand into it. It's going to tell you that you have sex with people to prove a point. You'll ask the machine what point it thinks you're trying to prove, but it won't answer because it's not a voice-activated machine. You'll go back to your table and your friends will ask you what the machine said, and you'll tell them it said you are a stallion. They'll all laugh. Then one of your friends will say, "When I used that machine it told me I don't respond to tenderness. Only derision and criticism."

Your friends won't know whether to laugh or not. In the silence, your friend will add, "It's right."

This will initiate amongst your friends a frank and open discussion of what they each feel is holding them back from the relationship they grew up thinking they deserved. You won't participate because you already lied about the machine's stallion determination. You'd like to be able to tell them the machine thinks you use sex to prove a point. You'd like to discuss your reaction to that, but you can't. It's important to you that your friends think that a machine thinks that you are a stallion.

Happy Take The Love Test Day!

Show Her How You Use Your Ability To Shoot Fireballs Out Of Your Mouth For Good, Not Evil Day!

It's your third date and her body language is making it very clear that she is not impressed with you.

"Wanna go someplace for dessert after this?" you'll ask her when you're waiting for the check (she'll have asked the waitress for it).

"I gotta get up early," she'll say. Time to whip out the big guns.

"You know," say. "I'm real good at shooting fireballs out of my mouth."

She'll say, "For what? So you can set fire to orphanages without getting too close? Or so you can set girls' dresses on fire and make them strip down to their underwear for you?"

Say, "No. I don't do things like that."

"What else could you do with an unholy power like that?" she'll ask.

It will seem like there's no chance of winning her over. Then, while walking her home, she'll spy a stray cat who got caught in a snowdrift and froze to the sidewalk in a block of hard slush. Drink from your flask of 151 and ignite a cloud of flame from your Zippo to engulf the frozen kitty in healing warmth. Within seconds, the cat will be rubbing up against you and purring. Your date will grab hold of your arm.

"I was wrong about you," she'll say. "You're our only hope."

Reply, "Wrong. I'm just a nice guy who has a hankering for some mud pie. Join me?"

She'll wrap her fingers even tighter around your arm and let you lead her to dessert. There's nothing that gets a lady hotter than a guy who saves kitties with the same power that could bathe the world in hellfire if he felt like it.

Happy Show Her How You Use Your Ability To Shoot Fireballs Out Of Your Mouth For Good, Not Evil Day!

Stephanie Chamomile Day!

Stephanie Chamomile runs the Chamomile Day Care center, the most reputable child care organization in Cedar Cove. What no one knows, and what you are going to discover this morning, is that her day care center is actually a coven and she's been teaching witchcraft to all of the children in town.

You'll realize what's been happening when you go looking for "Hogarth," your cat. You'll realize this morning that Hogarth's been missing for two days. You'll knock on your son's door to seek his help.

When you push open the door to his room, your son will be on the floor by the closet, drawing blood into the hypodermic needle sticking out of the ball of Hogarth's hind right paw. Hogarth will be completely and utterly calm. Not sleepy, not restrained. But as calm as if he'd been hypnotized.

"What are you�" you won't be able to get the question out.

"He's okay," your son will tell you in the same voice he uses to talk about what his favorite action figure can do. "I kept him in here and I rubbed a fungus on his teeth to keep him happy. I need his blood, but I had to purify it so he could only eat roots for two days."

Your son will pull the needle from Hogarth's paw and say, "You can go now Hogarth." Hogarth will pull himself up and pad past your legs down the hall. Your son will squirt the blood from the needle into a mixing bowl full of greenish brown powder.

You'll ask, "What's the game kiddo?"

Your son will say, "I'm doing my homework. Miss Chamomile taught us how to make a fertility potion. We're going to sell them at next week's Craft and Bake Sale at the church."

"Miss Chamomile doesn't go to church," you'll say. It's the only reason some people in town still send their kids to Playcare across the creek. They don't trust a non-churchgoer.

"Miss Chamomile says church doesn't have to be about Christ. That it's the community it brings about that's important."

Your son will pound at the blood soaked powder with his pestle. A gray smoke will begin to rise from the mixture.

"Excuse me kiddo," you'll say. You'll go to the phone and start dialing your phone tree to spread the word. Everyone will agree to meet at Stephanie Chamomile's house in an hour to tie her to a post and set her on fire.

Before you can get into your coat, your son will appear before you and he'll splash a liquid into your face. You'll feel a searing pain in your eyes. You'll try to dig your fingers into your sockets to claw your eyes out, but they'll already be gone, replaced by two shallow craters covered in smooth, unblemished skin. The same thing will happen in all of your neighbors' houses, and this is how your town will come to be known as, "Blind Man's Cove."

Happy Stephanie Chamomile Day!

Wristwatch Salesman Day!

You spend your days walking the city streets trying to convince unsuspecting pedestrians to buy one of the many knockoff wristwatches you carry on display in the lining of your trench coat. You meet all kinds of people and you hear all sorts of hard-luck cases, but today's is gonna take the cake.

"I'd like to buy a watch," a little boy in a torn winter coat with smudges of soot on his face will say.

"I don't sell no kids' watches," you'll tell him. You'll push your way past and flash your jacket lining at some Japanese tourists staring up at a skyscraper. The boy will catch up.

"It's for my Dad," he'll say.

Whip your coat open for the boy. "You see anything that would look good on your Daddy?"

The boy will peruse your selection. "Can I get a discount if I don't want the band? He's not going to wear it. I just want the timepiece."

"I sell wristwatches kid," say. "You want pocket watches you go to the east side. All kinds of freaky shit over there. You'll find what you need."

The boy will say, "It's not for his pocket. I just want to sit a watch on his gravestone. He used to tell me that the day I get my own job and make enough money to buy him a new watch, he won't ever be prouder than that day."

"But you never got the chance, huh kid?"

The boy will say, "It doesn't look like it."

Your heart will start to break and maybe ten percent of you will consider sending the boy on his way so he won't buy his dead dad a crappy knockoff watch. The boy will see the hesitation in your eyes. The boy will say, "I don't need to buy it today. He's not dead yet."

The boy will explain that his father's been kidnapped by some people who want to get their hands on his mother's loot. But his father and mother are divorced and his mother has decided, with counsel from an assistant district attorney, not to pay the ransom.

"So I can only wait for my Daddy to show up dead someplace after the kidnappers decide they've waited long enough. I wanted to get the watch just in case."

Ask, "How much money do they want?"

"Fifty thousand," the boy will say. "By midnight tonight."

You'll peek down at the selection inside your coat. You can do it. It's never been done before but on the right day, like today, when the weather's right and the holidays are far enough behind for people to start spending again, and when there's a little boy looking up at you and you can see in his eyes how alone he's gonna feel if his Daddy dies, you can do it. You can sell fifty thousand dollars worth of watches by midnight tonight. You can set that little boy's daddy free. You're that good.

Happy Wristwatch Salesman Day!

Be A Modern Day Robin Hood Day!

Organize a band of shoplifters and safecrackers to go out each day to steal from stores and burgle the wealthy and then take their loot and give it all to the poor. Most of your thieves and safecrackers would kill someone on the spot if he suggested they turn over what they've stolen, so be very convincing or you'll die. Additionally, hire some college educated social workers with some experience in the field who can set up community programs that you can pump your money into. Career minded Outreach programs and drug addiction counseling would be good ones. You don't want to just take a bunch of diamonds and hand them to the first poor people you see. If they have a drug addict or a Mom's New BoyfriendTM in the house, the diamonds will be gone before you can say, "Mom's New BoyfriendTM is gone. Where are the diamonds?!" Remember though, be extremely charismatic when you ask the shoplifters and safecrackers to be your merry band of do-gooders and hand over everything they just risked their third offense conviction to steal. They really will kill you. Thieves hate giving up what they've stolen, and many of them are poor themselves so that help-the-poor argument won't help much.

You're gonna be in the papers (hopefully not under the headline, "Beaten Unrecognizable By Shoplifters")!

Happy Be A Modern Day Robin Hood Day!

Security Guard Fistfight Day!

You're wealthy and filled with ugliness, so why not go downstairs and pay the two security guards on duty $500 each to fistfight downstairs in the boiler room. They'll agree to it without skipping a beat (they hate each other and have been looking for a reason).

When you get down there, you'll find two housekeepers stripped down to their underwear and holding lighters up to each other's underarms while Gladys Hornwipple from 14L watches with a slightly bemused look on her face. She'll have a stopwatch in her hand. Say hello to Gladys.

"Hey," she'll say. "Almost done."

"That's okay," tell her. "We'll use the laundry room."

Gladys lost her husband two years ago and she's been having trouble spending her vast inheritance in ways that might amuse her. It'd be cruel to interrupt what little fun she might find.

When you get to the laundry room, place the two piles of hundred dollar bills on one of the dryers. The security guards will strip to the waist and wait for your command.

"You can't use your flashlights," tell them. "Throw them to me."

They'll toss the flashlights to you and then glare at each other.

Say, "Fight!"

They'll fly at each other like wildcats and spin around in each other's grip for around thirty seconds. When they finally part, one will fling the other head first into the change slot of a washing machine. His head will crack open and the fight will be over.

You'll have a lot of work to do to keep from ending up on the front page tomorrow. Luckily the living security guard will know exactly where all of the desolate exits are and how to get the tape of the camera feed. You'll have the body wrapped in a tarp in the back of the living security guard's Camry in no time.

Tomorrow the security guard will begin to blackmail you. $5,000 a day. You can afford it, but you're already being blackmailed by two former mistresses and an ex-President of the United States. Pay the security guard for a little while, at least until your accountant can crunch the numbers to see if it would be cheaper in the long run to have the security guard killed.

Happy Security Guard Fistfight Day!

Bump Into Your Casual Encounter The Day After Day!

Tonight you're going to go and get an AIDS test at a facility that occupies the rear half of a gay bookstore slash coffee shop. When you step out to the waiting area to wait for the results, you'll nearly scream when you see your casual encounter from last night.

You threw caution to the wind yesterday and placed an online casual encounter ad ("ski bunny seeks instructor for cocaine abuse and fucking.") Within a few hours, an unattractive man was at your door with cocaine in his pocket and a penis in his pants that could maintain an erection for as long as 40 seconds at a stretch. The sex was abysmal and sort of hilarious, and the cocaine was powerful and you ran out too soon. This morning wasn't a good one.

You had expected to never see each other again. Instead, you'll accidentally find yourselves on a second date at the AIDS clinic.

"Don't tell me," you'll say.

"I DON'T KNOW YET!" he'll shout.

"Neither do I," say.

"You sure?!" he'll shout.

"You think I'd lie?" say.

He'll say, "I don't know. You're a cokehead."

Say, "Fuck you. You're the one who gave me the coke."

He'll say, "And you sure did do enough of it. I had to hold you back just to get enough time for me to blow a single rail. You're an addict."

Say, "Fuck you."

He'll say, "You better not have given me AIDS."

Say, "If anyone gave anyone AIDS, it's you who gave it to me."

The two of you will go on like that until the nurse pops out the door and tells your casual encounter that he tested negative for HIV. He'll put on his jacket and make for the door.

"Wait," you'll say. "Don't you want to find out whether I'm negative?"

He'll say, "What do I care? Even if you're positive I was already told I was negative."

Say, "Yeah but wouldn't you want to know? If I was positive, wouldn't you want to know so you could come back and get tested again soon? In case it doesn't show up until later?"

He'll say, "Fuck." Then he'll slump into his chair and wait with you for your test results. The only time either of you will speak is when he says again, "You better not have given me fucking AIDS."

It's good to have someone by your side at times like these.

Happy Bump Into Your Casual Encounter The Day After Day!

"Just In Case You're My Real Mom" Day!

You're a morning radio DJ and your audience can't get enough of the crank calls you make. Your most memorable calls include the one where you were a chief surgeon at a hospital telling a woman that her husband just had a baseball bat removed from his rectum, the one where you were a police officer telling a woman that her husband was found in a motel room outside of town with a golf club inside his rectum, and the one where you were Ed McMahon from Publisher's Clearing House telling a woman that when you went to visit her husband at home to give him his winning check, he had a rolling pin in his rectum.

Your audience loves you, but they also understand that you were adopted. They're aware of your worry that every time you make a crank call, it's your biological mother on the other end of the line and though you don't know it, you're wasting your one chance of talking to her by telling her what her husband (your biological dad?) has stuck inside his rectum. Which is why today you should make it a policy to end every phone call with, "By the way, just in case you're my real Mom I want you to know that I'm happy with my life and I understand that we all have difficult decisions to make. But not a day goes by that I don't hope that you know who I am, and that you're listening, and that you're proud of me." Then just play that "Fart Orchestra" CD. Your audience will indulge you. Your audience worships you and they would murder a shopkeeper if you told them today was "AM Nuthouse's Murder A Shopkeeper Monday."

Happy "Just In Case You're My Real Mom" Day!

Birdhouse Graffiti Day!

Today when your wife goes outside to put some feed in the birdhouse, she'll see that someone wrote in magic marker on the side of the birdhouse, "Bluejays Go Home." When she comes inside to tell you about it, you'll keep as straight a face as you can and you'll say, "Must have been the Robins. I knew that truce wouldn't last."

Your wife will stare at you until you finally break down and start laughing. She'll say, "You wrote that graffiti on my birdhouse didn't you?"

You'll laugh even harder. She'll get up from the table and go for a drive. When she comes back, she'll tell you that it's very important that you find work again soon. "You're too idle. I used to be proud of you. Now I'm just tolerant."

Happy Birdhouse Graffiti Day!

You Are The Human Cannonball's Agent Day!

Today the Human Cannonball is going to tell you that he'd like to go out on some serious auditions.

"I think I'd make a hell of a leading man," he'll say. "I've been performing for about fifteen years. I got the chops."

By performing, he means he's been putting on a lubricated body suit and shimmying into the mouth a cannon so that a small explosion can send him flying fifty feet into a large net. The only thing he has to offer a role are his physical dimensions (narrow) and his weight, which make him ideal for the role of "ammunition." And it hasn't been fifteen years. It's been thirteen. He's counting the two years when he first ran away from home and got work cleaning out the cannon at the end of the night.

Say, "We're gonna need some new headshots."

He'll ask why. Explain that all of his pictures depict him poking out of a cannon with large goggles covering most of his face.

"You don't want to be typecast," tell him.

He'll agree and he'll tell you that he's going to start saving. Which he won't be able to do. He's hooked on pain pills.

Happy You Are The Human Cannonball's Agent Day!

Apologies In A Bottle Day!

Your therapist has been taking you through the baby steps towards getting you to own up to the unforgivable wrongs you've done to people in your past. So he's been having you write letters of apology, stuff them into bottles and then throw them into the river. Each letter gives the address of the recipient of your apology, and it asks whomever finds the bottle to deliver the letter if they'd be so kind. So no one can say that you aren't trying to get the apologies into the hands of those who deserve them.

You have to admit you've been feeling pretty good about yourself. The fact that the apologies are floating around out there allows you to imagine that they're all being delivered to the right people. For all you know, they could very well be. And yet, whenever you imagine those sad victims of your dark cruelty reading the letters and taking some satisfaction in you having admitted you're wrong, you can just retreat behind the overwhelming odds against anyone ever even finding a single one of those letters. Until today.

Today you're in Honolulu for a conference (you're a neurosurgeon) and you're going to find one of your bottles on the beach with a note still in it. Before you even pick it up you'll feel the whole charade come crashing down around you. Of course it was a worthless gesture. How could you ever have allowed yourself to believe you were actually taking responsibility for your actions? How could you have believed the letters would ever find their destination?

You'll open up the bottle and fish out your letter. And you'll find a note scrawled in red ink over the text of your apology.

NOT ACCEPTED! THAT YOGURT WAS THE ONLY THING MY DIET ALLOWED ME TO EAT FOR BREAKFAST YOU SELFISH JERK!

You'll drop to the beach and stare at the sunset, remembering your ex-roommate and all of those kooky things he kept in the fridge. He could hold a grudge almost as tight as that 25 pounds he was trying to lose.

Happy Apologies In A Bottle Day!

You Are A Male Stripper With Psychic Powers Day!

You work on an outcall basis, showing up at private bachelorette parties and gay weddings for 120 dollars an hour. You occasionally do a night here and there at one of the two male strip clubs in town ("The Boy Barn" and "Gustavo's By The Airport").

Most people pity you. They see your life as one endless gyration in a fraying thong. They don't know why you really do it.

"I'm an urban vigilante," you'll tell your customer when she pays you at the end of the night tonight. "When someone shoves a bill into my thong, if something horrible is going to happen to them, I get a vision."

She'll ask, "Did you get any visions tonight?" They always ask that.

Tell her no. "You'd have known if I had a vision. It's so powerful that I fall to the ground and throw up everything in my stomach."

She'll say, "It's great that you have these visions to help out with the vigilante thing. But even if you saved someone here tonight, had you thrown up on yourself I wouldn't have called you the next time I need a stripper."

Nod your head woefully. "That's why I still have to substitute teach."

The woman will hand you a fifty-dollar tip. "Well I'm glad everyone here is going to be okay," she'll say.

Don't take the fifty. Say, "Everyone who put a bill into my thong, you mean."

The woman will hold your gaze, trying to remember whether she had ever tipped you tonight. Then she'll shrug and slip the fifty into your pants. You'll promptly drop to the floor and throw up all over your chest.

"What! What do you see!" she'll shout.

"Get me a Kleenex!" you'll shout.

"No! Tell me!"

Shout, "There's still time. Your hairstyle is different."

The woman will bring you a box of Kleenex. She'll gasp when she hands it to you. "I have a hair appointment this Saturday!"

Clean the vomit off your mouth and your neck and chest, and then tell her that she's going to interrupt an armed burglary in her house and the burglars aren't going to be too happy about it.

Happy You Are A Male Stripper With Psychic Powers Day!

Your Teenage Daughter Is Bulimic Day!

Sit her down and tell her she's beautiful and brilliant. Then take her downstairs to the French restaurant and buy her a plate of Filet Mignon. Then take her to the ice cream shop next door and buy her a hot fudge sundae. Then take her back upstairs and use a hammer and nails to seal the bathroom door and the front door shut so she can't get out and she can't go to the bathroom to vomit or defecate. You're going to have to stay up with her for the next 48 hours while she kicks her habit. Once her first meal is digested, make her eat some pancakes or some mashed potatoes. Just keep her belly full and force her to digest everything. There's going to be a lot of name-calling. For example, if you're divorced, she'll probably say things like "No wonder mommy/daddy left you" or "What's a matter? Lonely now that you don't have a spouse? Is that why I have to be locked in here with you, you fucking disgusting can't-keep-a-spouse-in-the-house divorcee." That's the addiction to vomiting/defecating talking. It's not your daughter. Try to let it slide.

After the 48 hours are up, you'll have your daughter back. No more cutting herself. No more dried up corners of the mouth. Just your beautiful daughter who will finally know that she doesn't need to vomit and defecate a lot to be pretty. You're a good parent and, if some of the things your daughter is going to say are true, you're a terrible spouse and shouldn't remarry.

Happy Your Teenage Daughter Is Bulimic Day!