You’re Five Day!

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

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

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

Happy You’re Five Day!

Couples Jump Day!

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

In sports, the Grizzlies.

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

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

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

Forget that raincoat.

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

Happy Couples Jump Day!

Complaints Line Day!

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

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

You gasp for a breath.

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

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

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

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

Happy Complaints Line Day!

California Is Haunted Day!

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

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

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

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

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

Happy California Is Haunted Day!

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

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

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

“I loved The Godfather,” she’ll say.

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

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

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

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

Tell her you won’t do it.

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

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

“I knew you would,” she says.

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

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

Cross-Country Loving Day!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Cross-Country Loving Day!

Loveway Day!

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

Happy Loveway Day!

Your Kidnappers Can’t Kidnap Your Inner You Day!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He Went Over A Cliff With That Whore Day!

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

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

“That whore?” you’ll ask calmly.

The Sheriff will look startled. “You knew.”

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

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

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

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

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

Your phone will ring. The Sheriff will rise.

“That’s probably for me.”

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

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

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

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

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

“She survived?”

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

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

“Now Frida–”

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

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

Happy He Went Over A Cliff With That Whore Day!

Come Up To The Lair Sometime Day!

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

Today you’ll discover your assumption was incorrect.

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

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

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

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

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

You’ll say that you’ll be there.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Come Up To The Lair Sometime Day!

Major In Her Face Day!

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

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

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she’ll ask.

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

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

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

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

Happy Major In Her Face Day!

Everyone On The Plane Feels For You Buddy Day!

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

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

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

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

Happy Everyone On The Plane Feels For You Buddy Day!

He’s A Nobody Day!

When your husband leaves the room to get more wet wipes, lean into your baby’s crib and whisper, “Don’t worry about him. He’s a nobody.”

Your husband will come in and say that he heard you. Explain that you just didn’t want your baby to think he was some kind of big shot just because he’s the tallest guy in the room.

“I’m not a nobody,” he’ll say.

Ask him if he’s famous. Ask him if he’s been given any awards recently. Ask him about the last time his name was a trending topic on a social media site. You’ll be out of breath by now, but if you can, ask him what would happen if he walked into a fancy a restaurant tonight and didn’t have a reservation.

“I read about this in the books. You’re claiming her. In the first few months parents can feel like they’re competing for the baby’s love.”

“I’m just telling my baby the truth.”

“I don’t want my child–”

“To know her father? These are all facts. If you want to hide your true self from your baby then why don’t you just leave us alone? I won’t have my baby raised by a duplicitous man.”

Your husband will walk out of the room, his head hanging low. When he does, lean into your baby’s crib and whisper, “See? Total zero.” Then pull out the past five year’s tax forms and read your husband’s total net gross income to your baby until the little angel falls asleep.

Happy He’s A Nobody Day!

Blame The Gangs Day!

If you’re having an affair and you get home from the affair-having too late to not arouse suspicion from your husband, tell him the street gangs held you up.

“They grabbed my purse and played keepaway,” tell him. “I had to jump up and down for a half hour trying to get it back while they laughed.”

“Damn gangs,” your husband will say.

“Then they made me pick which public building they were going to graffiti. I told them I didn’t want to, but they made me choose. So now, whenever I drive past the post office and see the graffiti on it, I have to know I had a hand in that.”

“I wish I could clean this world up for you,” your husband will say. “I want you to be able to live in a better world.”

“I can still smell their leather jackets,” say. “I’m going to take a shower.”

When you go into the bathroom you’ll find your husband’s secretary naked and hiding in the shower and your husband will run in and shout “Where’d she come from? A street gang must have put her there!"  You and your husband will laugh together and then amicably divorce.

Happy Blame The Gangs Day!

Your High School Boyfriend Is Dead Day!

The principal keeps calling your house, just to check up on you and let your mom know that you can take all the time you need.

Your teachers keep stopping by to drop off your homework, as well as some novels that aren’t a part of the curriculum but that they think might help you get through this.

Your little brother comes home every day with his backpack filled with notes from your friends, little crafts that other boys, breathing boys, have made for you in wood shop.

Ever since your high school boyfriend died, you’ve been able to stay up in your room listening to music and watching cable. Your blinds are drawn and no one makes you eat anything. The whole school, the whole town, is aware that this is your time to grieve.

“We all knew Ricky. He touched all of our lives. But no one understood him better than the girl who held his hand on the way to English class.” So began the local newspaper’s editorial on the morning after Ricky gasped his last and finally succumbed to the injuries sustained in the car crash. So began the shift of concern for Ricky to sympathy for you.

You’ve stayed in your room, for 22 hours out of ever day, sneaking out every night at one am to meet Henry in the woods behind the school. You don’t kiss, you don’t drink, you don’t do anything but sit next to each other in those dark woods and stare at the tree branches lit up by the moon. Henry was Ricky’s best friend. He’s the only one who knows what a relief it is that Ricky is finally gone.

“He shone too bright,” Henry said to you on the first night you met him in the woods. “I was grateful that he chose me as his friend. I hated him for how grateful I was.”

“I knew I could never be anybody but Ricky’s girlfriend,” you told Henry.

“And I was Ricky’s best friend. My entire high school existence was nothing more than an orbit around Ricky.”

You get sick of Henry’s complaining. At least no one cares about Ricky’s best friend. At least he’s not expected to spend the rest of his senior year in mourning. He doesn’t have to play the part of widow at 17. You’ll tell him that tonight.

“Let’s go then,” he’ll say. “Let’s run away.”

“What’ll we do?”

Henry will shrug. “We’ll get jobs. We’ll go and work somewhere where they never heard of Ricky.”

Henry will rise and give you a hand to pull you up. You’ll go to your house first to get a bag of clothes and food, then to Henry’s. Then you’ll disappear forever, and everyone from your high school will hate you forever. You were supposed to be there for them. All year, until graduation day, you were supposed to let them know that Ricky will live on in the girl who would never feel better again.

Happy Your High School Boyfriend Is Dead Day!

Onboarding Day!

Take him there on the confidentiality agreements. Use that pile of unread yet signed and dated promises to keep things hush hush as a cushion while you engage in three of the seven behaviors detailed in the employee conduct manual section 3C-12: “Inappropriate Relationships and Mediation Processes Preceding Disciplinary Action.”

He’ll have some questions when you’re both buttoning.

“What now?”

Now you’ll direct him to fingerprinting and set up a time for him to get his ID photo taken.

“No, you and me now.”

Tell him if he intends to blackmail you, his name will go out to every HR admin in the city. Tell him your kind sticks together. Tell him the HR network would never let one of their own take a fall for tappng a piece of ass during an onboarding.

“I wouldn’t,” he’ll say. “I just want to know, do you do this a lot? Or was I…”

This was your first. Something in his eyes flicked a switch inside you that made you want to be reckless, do something to burn your career to the ground, maybe send you home with a cardboard box and a confession to your husband. Would that switch have been flicked had you not been staring into those new hire eyes? No telling. More importantly, will the switch be flicked again when you bump into him in the copy room? No telling.

“I do it all the time,” tell him. “You’re just a file I have to alphabetize.”

The buttoning (the buttoning takes forever!) will be just about over. You’ll keep your eyes on your daughter’s photo, knowing he’s keeping his eyes on you. Staring at your daughter’s face, you feel only chaos.

“See you around the office,” he’ll say, pulling his suit jacket on.

“Welcome to the company,” tell him. Once he’s gone, find a band aid to cover the wound you just dug into your palm with your fingernail.

Happy Onboarding Day!

Get Away From The Window Sarah Day!

Get away from the window Sarah. You’re not in love you’re just unemployed and that boy down there on the sidewalk in the rain he’s never going to go back home if you keep giving him a face to moon up at.

Get away from the window Sarah. Girls are human like everybody else. Girls get those dark times, the ones that last two years and eight months, when they’re pretty sure that nothing better’s ever going to happen again. Boys like the one on the sidewalk, they prey on those moments. It’s all they have. They pout like puppies and try to convince you that love is supposed to happen between a pretty girl up in a window and whichever boy is willing to embarrass himself the most for her.

Get away from the window Sarah. You only have sixteen months left of this terrible week. Sink into alcohol or a cult or a job at a non-profit. Just don’t sink into a boy. Not until you find the boy who belongs up in the window, with you on the sidewalk, wondering what in God’s name you’re going to have to do, how cold that rain is going to get, before he finally decides he can’t do better and so condescends to buzz you in.

Just get away from the window Sarah. I promise there’s a boy out there who’s better, better than you.

Happy Get Away From The Window Sarah Day!

Fire Your Dance Boy Day!

The economy’s in the shitter so you can’t afford all your extra perks anymore. First and foremost is your Dance Boy. Give him the pink slip!

“Check out this new move,” your Dance Boy will say when you enter the 10,000 square foot studio you built exclusively for him. He’ll get up on his toes and spin once. It will be a really pedestrian move and he’ll kind of stumble at the end of it.

“That was great,” tell him. “But I have some bad news.”

“Wait,” he’ll say. “Check this out.”

Your Dance Boy will bob his head like he’s leaning up against a wall, absently grooving to a tune. It can barely even be called dancing.

“I need you to listen to me, Garret,” tell your Dance Boy. “I can’t afford you anymore.”

Your Dance Boy will grab a tee shirt and pull it on. Then he’ll find his underwear and pants, turning his back to you while he dresses.

“They’ll kill me out there you know,” he’ll say.

“You’ve never said who’s after you,” tell him. “After all these years, why won’t you tell me.”

Your Dance Boy will wave away your concern. “If you knew who they were they’d have to come for you too.”

He’ll ties his sneakers and start packing a back.

“You know I’d keep you forever if I could,” tell him. “But I just can’t afford to be so extravagant as to have a boy in the house who just lays around naked, occasionally getting up off the floor to groove a bit. Really, I thought you’d have learned some more steps by now.”

“I’ve been too worried!” he’ll say. “They could have come bursting through that door at any second.”

“Who?” ask him. “Ever since I found you running down that alley, you refused to tell me who was chasing you. If you’d just let me in, I could help keep you safe.”

Your Dance Boy will say, “Your obligation to me has ended. It was an honor to be your Dance Boy.”

You’ll grab him and stuff some hundred dollar bills into his pocket.

“Do you think that maybe you’re just making up these people chasing you?” ask him. “Do you think you’re just afraid of going out there and making a life on your own?”

Your Dance Boy will nod weakly. “Yeah, that’s probably it,” he’ll say. “I’ll be fine. Sorry you can’t afford me anymore.”

Your Dance Boy will hug you goodbye, then he’ll step out the door of his dance studio and immediately be shot in the top of the skull by a waiting sniper.

When you kneel beside him and scream no at the sky, focus your anger on the investment banks. They put you in the position of having to send your Dance Boy out to meet his assassin. The investment banks killed your Dance Boy. It’s not worth seeking vengeance or anything because how many people would you have to kill, really? But you could at least write an op-ed about it or something.

Happy Fire Your Dance Boy Day!

You Just Got Caught Fuckin’ Day!

Tonight is your anniversary and you and your husband are going to go to a hotel and have sex for the first time in five months. You’ve been terrified of having to have sex tonight. After so long, you worried that if the passion wasn’t there, it would confirm what you’ve been suspecting for over decade: that you married the wrong man.

You’ll be nervous while eating the room service dinner, both of you making chit-chat about work and the kids and the design of the hotel lobby. Each bite will feel like a turn of the arms on a countdown clock. As soon as you finish your dinner, you’ll have to rise from the table, kiss, then move to the bed. How on earth could that possibly happen?

“I had an affair in 2002,” your husband will say suddenly. “I’m sorry.”

It will feel like the room flipped through the air and sent you flying to the roof. You’ll be unsure of whether to scream, to throw a drink in his face, or what. Finally, you’ll settle on saying the following: “I had an affair in 2005.”

Your husband will ask, “Do you think about him a lot?”

Say, “No. I think about you a lot.”

You and your husband will rise from the table and move to the bed while kissing, you’ll move like water down a stream bed, fluid and perfect. In that bed, you’ll transform, you’ll know that a new wonderful stage of your marriage has begun. You won’t feel the passion you felt when you first met. You won’t feel the love you felt when you first married. You’ll feel something altogether new, and mature, and honest. You’ll feel like you and your husband possess a secret that could topple the world.

While he’s in inside of you, a panel will open in the ceiling and a TV monitor will drop from the ceiling. On the TV will be TV personality Larry Crowne. He’ll be standing in front of a studio audience and he’ll announce, “You two just got caught fuckin’!”

The door to your room will open and several dwarves will run into the room to present you with a check for $25,000. On the monitor, Larry will play back some of the footage of your sex act and the studio audience will laugh when they’re supposed to, and go awww when they’re supposed to. “Looks like you two really jumpstarted the old marriage engine tonight,"Larry will say. "Whatcha gonna do with all that money?”

You and your husband will say it at the same time. “We’ve always wanted to go to Paris!”

Happy You Just Got Caught Fuckin’ Day!

Let’s Pretend Mom And Dad Never Met Day!

Today you and your brother are going to pretend that your parents never met.

“That way we would never have been brothers and we would never have fallen for the same girl,” you’ll say.

“I fell for her first,” your brother will say. “12 years ago. I married her 8 years ago.”

“And then I fell for her three months ago,” you’ll say. “Yes, I know the dates. But if our parents never met, you and I would probably have never met either. We wouldn’t even have been in the same social circles. So we never would have come in contact with, and fallen for, the same girl. Right?”

Your brother will point out that if your parents had never met, neither of you would even exist.

“And we never would have fallen for the same girl!” you’ll say. “Then we definitely wouldn’t have! Right?”

Your brother will ask, “Do you love her?”

Don’t answer. Say, “I’d happily not ever have existed if it means that you and I wouldn’t be fighting over some girl. I’d prefer to be wiped from the universe’s memory than fight with you over what’s in our hearts.”

Your brother will ask, “Does she love you?”

Say, “Let’s just pretend. For the day. Let’s just pretend Mom and Dad never met.”

“Did she say she’s going to leave me for you?” your brother will ask.

Say yes.

Happy Let’s Pretend Mom And Dad Never Met Day!

Digging Under The Girls Locker Room Day!

You and Felix are digging into the ground underneath the girls locker room so that you can drill a hole into the floor and look up at the girls as they undress.

“Why couldn’t we have dug under the girls locker room at school?” Felix will ask when he hits another layer of rock. “We don’t even know what kind of girls are members of this Crunch gym location.”

“Keep digging,” you tell Felix.

After digging for three weeks straight, Felix will start to go mad (the two of you have been living down there, sharing the air and sleeping standing up in that dirty four foot wide hole). He’ll decide that you’re going to cheat him out of his share of the treasure he discovered (his shovel hit a chest containing approximately $3.2 billion in emeralds. You explained that since the shovel he was digging with came from your dad’s garage, where your dad placed it after spending the 14 bucks for it at Ace Hardware, he has to split the treasure with you). Felix will confront you with bloody intent.

“Rrrrrghhaglllmmmmph,” he’ll say. His speech will have devolved considerably.

“No one’s cheatin’ nobody,” you’ll say. Then you’ll drive your hammer against the chisel aimed at the ceiling up above, and a beam of light will shine down upon you from the crack you just made.

“Felix,” you’ll say. “We done it!”

You’ll pin your good eye up against the crack to watch a woman in a sports bra and danskins remove a large bandage from the leaky blister on her foot.

“The promised land,” you’ll say.

Felix will drive his shovel into your neck, killing you instantly. The treasure his and his alone, he’ll stay down there with it in the dark hole to make sure no one tries to trick him out of it again. Fourteen days later, Felix will die.

When some of the fine ladies of Crunch Gym alert a trainer to the smell, Crunch Gym will dig into the ground and find you, Felix, and the emeralds. Since the treasure was buried under a Crunch Gym, the Crunch Gym company will claim the treasure and use the $3.2 billion to replace some treadmills.

Happy Digging Under The Girls Locker Room Day!

This Is Their Black Vietnam Day!

Your students are going to embark on their uprising today. They’ll start burning their homework in a giant bonfire, then they’ll strip down to their waists and dance around the fire, occasionally stopping to perform sex acts on each other predesignated by the colors of the bracelets on their wrists.

“I always thought those bracelets were going to be the downfall of this generation,” you’ll say to the other teachers locked in the teachers lounge with you.

“I thought it was the video games. Especially that one called Murder The Adults. Sick,” another teacher will say.

“I thought it was the attention deficit disorder drugs,” the janitor will add.

“Jersey Shore. It was Jersey Shore and Four Loko and the fathers all leaving them behind,” the divorced school nurse will say.

“Quiet!” the school Principal will shout. “Let them tear it up. Our kids are finally reacting to their world, instead of shrugging their shoulders at it. This is their moment. This is their Black Vietnam.”

The Principal will then open the door to the lounge, run into the hall and shout, “Exact your vibrant vengeance upon me, kids! I am authority!!!”

The kids will launch themselves upon the principal and tear wads of his skin off in their teeth. One of the teachers will manage to get the door shut and locked.

Many of you will be crying quietly, until one teacher pipes up with a question.

“Why black Vietnam?”

No one will have an answer right away.

“Maybe he means like the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement rolled into one?” someone will suggest.

Some of you will nod.

“How old was Principal Watkins? 39?”

Yes, he was 39. So he pretty much knew very little about Vietnam. And he probably knew even less about Black Vietnam, whatever that is.

“Could he have meant the Rodney King riots?” someone will ask. “He lived in LA for a little while. He told me that once. Did they ever call the riots that?”

No. They never called the riots that. You’ll have another 36 hours of being locked in that lounge together before the police quell the student uprising, so it’s suggested you spend that time taking a vote on whether or not to amend the Principal’s last words before you’re asked on the morning news what they were. Maybe change them to something like “Those are my kids out there. I’m going to go reason with them.” Anything but the Black Vietnam thing. What the hell was that?

Happy This Is Their Black Vietnam Day!

You’re Going To Marry Her Day!

You got that after-school job making sandwiches at Fanta’s Deli. You’re bringing in almost a hundred bucks a week now, and it’s only going to go up from there. Time to tell Diana your plans.

“I’m going to marry you Diana,” tell her. “I’m going to save up my money and as soon as I can afford the proper wedding for you, we’re going to get married.

"In hell,” Diana will say.

Diana will spend the rest of her life sabotaging your finances to make sure you never have enough money to pay for the kind of wedding she deserves. She’ll call your places of business and submit anonymous complaints about your service. When you try to increase your savings by betting on the horses, she’ll sneak into the stables in the middle of the night and hobble the front-runner to offset the odds on the longshots.  When you manage to have enough money to invest, she’ll start dating the manager of your hedge fund and subtly influence him to divert all of the billions he manages into unimaginative start-ups with crappy prospectuses.

It’s not that she hates you. She just has a lot she wants to do with her life and she thinks having a husband would just be a needless distraction.

“Please,” you’ll say to her in about twenty-five years after she’s bankrupted you ten times over. “Just let me accumulate enough money so I can marry you. I’m so tired.”

“Never,” she’ll say. “If I spend every minute of my life trying to keep you from marrying me, at least I’ll die knowing I spent my life trying to pursue the life I wanted.”

“I’m going to find a way,” you’ll say. “One day you’ll be distracted. Grieving over a deceased parent perhaps. Or making arrangements for a cross-country move thanks to a new job. One day you’ll let your guard down and I’ll earn the approximately twenty-eight grand necessary to pay for the wedding that you deserve.”

“We’ll just see about that, motherfucker,” she’ll say. Then she’ll single-handedly bring about another recession, putting millions out of work, solely to empty your bank account so she’ll never have to say the words “I do” to you in front of 150 of her friends and family just before a gorgeous sit-down reception where everything is just perfect, down to the flowers in the centerpieces.

Happy You’re Going To Marry Her Day!

Presidential Book Of Secrets Day!

When you look inside the Presidential Book of Secrets, you’ll find out that the moon landing was faked, 9/11 was an inside job, JFK was assassinated by an experimental sex robot that became autonomous after being struck by lightning, 55% of the House of Representatives is populated by extra-terrestrials as per the treaty, Katrina never happened and neither did Live Aid, that sex robot who killed JFK is still out there and she wants to learn how to feel, Eric Stoltz has been dead for years but it’s imperative China believe he’s still alive, Barack Obama was born in an African restaurant in Hawaii called Taste Of Kenya, which is why all the confusion, and finally, you are the prettiest little thing in the whole wide country, which is a weird secret for the president to be briefed about but whatever.

Happy Presidential Book Of Secrets Day!

Be Tortured Day!

When you see a friend who still bothers to acknowledge you and they ask how things are going, start shaking your head and saying things like “Oh everything is so very difficult because I’m more sensitive than you and others.” Then spend ten minutes trying to explain a very common emotion (loneliness? fear?) as if you were the first one to ever feel it and you’re reporting back to the populace, who could never possibly understand. Your friend will probably begin to weep, just before cutting into his or her own skin in protest of a God that would be so cruel as to make you so much more sensitive than the rest of the planet that you are forced to curl up in a ball and lament your predicament while others are able to just get to work and finish something.

“Well I’d better get to work and finish something,” your friend will say. “Perhaps you should spend the day drinking heavily to ease the pain. You clearly deserve it.”

Thank your friend for understanding, and then go to the bar that opens in the morning and stare at yourself in the mirror behind the bottles. You really enjoy your own face.

Happy Be Tortured Day!

Blood Of Kevin Day!

Kevin, one of your altar boys, has been pricking his fingers and dripping his own blood into the wine you drink to represent the blood of Christ during mass. Confront the boy and ask him if he has any questions.

“I assume it’s a compulsion,” say to the boy. “I assume you can’t help yourself.”

The boy will nod. “I felt jealous. Like my own blood was being rejected. I felt like if any blood was going to be drunk during mass, I needed it to be mine. Not Jesus’s.”

Relate to him by telling the story about how when you were a teenage altar boy you started shaving chunks of fat from your thighs, baking them into wafers and mixing them in with the communion for people to eat.

“Did you ever get caught?”

Nod. Tell him you felt shamed to the core, and that you don’t want to make your altar boy feel the same.

“But I can’t let you continue to trick me and my parishioners into drinking your blood.”

Kevin will ask, “But what am I supposed to do? I have all this glorious mead flowing through my veins. I need it inside somebody!”

Ask him, “Do you have a girlfriend?”

The boy will say yes, and you’ll coach him on the proper way to ask a partner if she might be into blood-play without scaring her off. Don’t tell him to quickly laugh it off as if he was joking when it seems she might be disturbed by his question. He needs to take this seriously, and he needs those who matter to him to take it seriously as well, or it’ll just get more out of control.

“What if she says no,” he’ll ask. “Am I just supposed to open up a Kool Aid stand on my street corner and surreptitiously drip my blood into the pitchers?”

Tell him yes. “I don’t care what happens at a Kool Aid stand. When people buy from a Kool Aid stand they know they’re taking a risk. People come to my mass, they expect Jesus’s blood. Not some awkward pubescent punk’s doesn’t know when and how to express his sexual identity. Keep it out of my mass.”

The lights will go down and the movie will be about to start (you and your altar boy are seeing “Blue Valentine”) so hush up and let your guidance sink in. He’ll be the better for it.

Happy Blood Of Kevin Day!

Wear The Dress To Tonight’s Town Council Meeting Day!

When you walk into the meeting a hush will fall over the crowd. The only sound in the room will be your high heels stepping toward the microphone, save for a few groans and the occasional pant of someone trying to catch his breath.

At the microphone you’ll read your statement. It will be brilliantly worded, despite the fact that it could just as well be a succession of fart noises for all it will matter. For everyone there with you in that room tonight, your words will only serve as the reason for you to expand your bosom with air and release.

But you’ll speak your heart. You’ll tell them you respect the fact that they think yearbooks are devilish in that they promote pride and vanity, sins in the eyes of God. You’ll tell them how proud you have been of your son for fighting them tooth and nail to get a yearbook for his graduating class, because he didn’t leave his old school district with its top-ranked yearbook committee just to end up in this podunk town and be told he’ll never be able to put a caption underneath a poorly framed photo of a bad haircut again.

“I’m thinking of his transcripts,” you’ll say, making sure to shift your balance and send your left hip jutting out just so. “And I want to put this to a vote right now.”

You promised yourself you’d never again wear the dress. It has too much power. It’s sent too many men to their ruin. It even once forced you to pack your bags in the middle of the night when you spotted a caravan of angry wives coming over the hill, their headlights blazing like firey torches in the hands of an uncontrollable mob. No, the dress is too much and the best thing would be for it to be destroyed.

But is it wrong to wear the dress in an effort to help your son?

“All in favor of allowing yearbooks into our school, raise your hands.”

The council will suddenly look frightened.

“What do you want us to do?” the council president will ask. “We don’t want to make you unhappy. We don’t want to make you leave.”

Tell them, “Raise your hands.”

The entire council will raise their hands.

“Now say that it’s unanimous and that a yearbook committee will be established in the school as of Monday morning.”

The council president will do as you command. You’ll thank them and announce that you have to go. They’ll protest, a few of them crying, but they’ll be silent as they watch you leave.

You’ll leave a note next to your son’s pillow telling him that by the time he wakes up. you’ll be gone, and that he’s going to have to go and live with his aunt across town.

“Make the best yearbook any high school’s ever seen,” write to him. Then get in your car and start driving. When word gets around town about your dress and the power it has, and the lives it took when several of the council members strangled themselves with their own ties not long after you left the council meeting, the town’s wives will come for you.

“Just like every other stronghold of small-town America,” you’ll say to yourself, watching horizon of closed minds recede in your rear view mirror. This time was really the last time. This time you really are going to destroy that dress.

Or you’ll at least pack it away into storage. No reason to throw away a perfectly good dress after all, is there?

Happy Wear The Dress To Tonight’s Town Council Meeting Day!

Sit Down With Lance Day!

No one ever sits with Lance, the divorcee who comes to the coffee shop every day to rearrange the photos of his ex-wife for the scrapbook he’s putting together in hopes of winning her back. Do him a favor and go ask him some questions.

When you first take your seat Lance will look at you and say, “What.”

Tell him you just wanted to share some time with him, find out his story.

“I’m trying to get my wife back. That’s my story. You’re either going to help me by going away or you’re going to ruin everything by distracting me with your horseshit questions.”

Ask him if he really thinks a book full of pictures of his ex-wife will win her back.

“You got any better ideas?”

Move on, tell him. Open yourself up to new experiences.

“New experience. Like what, sex with you? That’ll be the day.”

Ask him why sex with you is so impossible to imagine.

“I can imagine it, sure. I can also imagine killing myself right after. Here’s how that’ll go down. We’ll have sex, Patty will find out and decide that I don’t care about her anymore, all my efforts of the last 14 years will be lost all because you tricked me inside of you. Suicide is next, because yeah, that’s what happens when the only thing you ever wanted slips away.”

Ask him why Patty left.

“Why do they always leave?”

He was doing too much cocaine? Ask that.

“Bingo! She wins the jackpot.”

Tell him that 14 years seems like too long to hope for a second chance.

“Look, you’re very pretty, and I don’t expect you to give me any other advice except to move on. But I don’t care. I’m going after my ex-wife. You can chase a career goal or kids or some kind of big sailboat trip or whatever. You fill your three or four decades before death with whatever activities you want. I’m going to fill mine by making the perfect scrapbook in order to win my ex-wife back. The world doesn’t give a shit about either of us so let’s do whatever we want.”

Just then Patty will sprint into the coffee shop, stop at Lance’s table and say, “It’s never going to happen.” Then she’ll steal his unfinished scrapbook, sprint outside and toss it into a passing trash truck before running away.

Lance will take out a shoebox full of photos and a new empty scrapbook.

“She does that. I got duplicates,” he’ll say.

Leave Lance alone to start over on his Pattybook. You should really be more focused on your big sailboat trip or whatever.

Happy Sit Down With Lance Day!

It Ends Day!

Today the world ends when some aliens from outer space accidentally fire a weapon near our solar system and it detonates, causing an explosion big enough to wipe out several galaxies. Just before the blink of hot white kills you and everything else, you’ll be at City Hall with your pregnant girlfriend, reciting the words the judge is telling you to recite in order to be considered officially married by the city. You’ll be scared, wondering whether you’re making the right decision, whether the rest of your life is going to deliver what you hope. Then you’ll look down at the baby in your girlfriend’s stomach and you’ll think, “I’m going to make this world great for you little sweetie. The world won’t be perfect, but perfection is what I’m going to demand of it.” The judge will tell you to kiss the bride. You’ll be married and she’ll have to pee. You’ll take the opportunity to pee as well, and you’ll think, “The first urination as a married man! Let’s see if it feels different.” You’ll watch your new wife disappear into her rest room, then you’ll put your hand on the doorknob of the men’s room. As you turn the knob, white, some heat, an escape of breath from your longs, and gone. Everything gone with no evidence that anything was ever there. It’s over.

Happy It Ends Day!

The Kids Who Want To Make Their Mom Come Day!

You and your sisters and brothers have all returned home for Dad’s funeral, and tonight you’re all going to stay up late with your mom, drinking and reminiscing, and your mom will let on that your father never gave her an orgasm.

“Nope,” she’ll say. “Just wasn’t in the cards I guess.”

After lots of questions, you’ll learn that not only did your father never give your mom an orgasm, but she never gave herself one either.

“Never occurred to me I guess,” she’ll say. “I decided long ago that I wanted my first orgasm to be given to me by someone else. I even cheated on your dad some to try and find the right man to give it to me.”

No matter how many men your mom had sex with, she just couldn’t find that exactly right guy with that exactly right touch. So she gave up.

“By now I figure screw it,” she’ll say. “I’m gonna die soon so why bother try what ain’t gonna happen. Oh did I tell you kids I only have six months to live?”

You and your sisters and brothers will pow-wow, and after you take a vote on it, you’ll agree to go out and find a man to have sex with your mom until she climaxes. After placing several ads on several websites, you’ll narrow the pool down to fifteen guys. One by one they’ll go in and have sex with your mom, and when that doesn’t work out, you’ll invite all fifteen back to do her all at once. She’ll tell you that was fun, but still, no dice.

“Guess this thing’s shot,” your mom will say, referring to her clitoris.

You’ll send your mom to a sex therapist, where after one breakthrough session she’ll remember the time she came the closest to coming.

“We were out in the barn, me and Tommy Braddock, one of the stable boys my papa hired. He knew just what to do and with how much pressure, and I swear he had me on the ropes, but then we heard Papa’s shotgun. Papa was standing in the barn door and he chased Tommy off. I never saw him again.”

When your mom relays the story to you, you’ll know you have no choice but to track down Tommy Braddock and bring him to her. Luckily, he’ll still be alive and he’ll remember that time just as well as your Mom.

“Wow,” Tommy will say. “That’d be amazing to finish where we started. It’ll be like we started having sex when we were kids, and we never finished until we were seniors. It’ll be as if we’ve been having sex our whole lives.”

You’ll fly Tommy back to your Mom’s house and send him into her room. You’ll close the door on them just as you catch sight of Tommy kissing your mom, then you and your siblings will listen at the door to what will sound like a raucous marathon of love-making. Lots of shouting, lots of headboard banging, lots of instances of people taking the Lord’s name in vain.

When you reenter the room you’ll find Tommy dead, your mother’s bedsheets wrapped around his neck.

“He tried to kill me,” she’ll say. “He came back her for revenge. He told me that getting fired as a stable boy sent his family into poverty and ruined his life, and then he tried to crack my skull against this headboard.”

Eventually your mother turned the tables, got a length of bedsheet around Tommy’s neck and choked the life out of him.

“And guess what?” your mom will say, smiling.

“Did you?” you’ll ask.

“It was magnificent,” your mom will say. “Just as Tommy released his death rattle I felt a current of pure synaptic ecstasy spasm through every inch of my body, head to toe. I felt it burrow into my marrow then explode outward again. All this time I’ve been chasing the perfect sexual partner, when I had no idea that all I had to do to finally have an orgasm was murder a man with my bare hands.”

Your mom will pull you and all your siblings into a hug. Her tears will soak the tops of your heads. Then she’ll tell you to take Tommy out back and bury him. She’ll watch from her chair by the window while you dig. When you finally have him buried, you’ll come back upstairs to find your mom still in her chair, her eyes closed, a peaceful smile on her face. She’ll still be warm, having perhaps just passed a few minutes prior.

That smile will tell you she died happy, not because she finally had an orgasm, but because she raised such good kids that they would go to such trouble to give her one.

Happy The Kids Who Want To Make Their Mom Come Day!

The Tree Voices Day!

The trees have been whispering stuff to you while you lay awake in bed. With every gust of wind through the branches, you can hear their eerie declarations.

“Give more TV shows a chaaaaaance,” they whisper. “You’re tooooo quick to juuuuudge things harshly. It’s like yooooooouuu want to beeeee the firrrrst to own your opiiiiiinion and it’s coooosting you the opportunity to enjoy some really great shoooooooooows. Liiiiiiike with that one. You know. The one with the cop. It’s a goooooood show. Soliiiiiid. But yoooooooou just were so exciiiiited to dislike it before all your friends. You’re going to miiiiiiiss out on some really gooooood TV if you keeeeep this up.”

You’ll do that thing where you fall asleep for a bit, the kind of light sleep where you wake up after fifteen minutes and you aren’t sure if you slept or not. Then the voices will pipe up again.

“Whiiiiiite Collar. That’s the one. It was killing meeeeee, but I remembered.”

You’ll wait for more, but the trees just wanted to tell you that they remembered the name of that show you gave up on. It’s White Collar and you think it blows.

Happy The Tree Voices Day!

Eight Dad Fistfight Day!

Today eight neighborhood dads are going to head out into the middle of the cul de sac to smash some face and finally find out which Dad is the motherfucker who can beat up the other seven dads living on your gated street. Weapons are encouraged, which didn’t used to be the way. All you kids and Moms are going to go out to root your dads on and talk shit to the other kids and moms. Your Dad will get knocked out fourth, and you and your mom will drag him back up the hill to your house where you’ll tend to his wounds. When you open his shirt you’ll be shocked to find a gaping wound gushing way too much blood.

“I wanted to win for you,” he’ll say. “I let myself get cut and I’ll miss you both so much.”

After his funeral you’ll have to move from the cul de sac because you don’t have a father to protect you anymore. When a Dad dies on your street, the other homeowners give a 24 hour headstart before they bust through your doors to steal and rape and burn your home to the ground. Before the fight your Dad rented a u-haul for just this contingency (all the dads rent u-hauls in case they die in the fistfight). Get the truck filled and make tracks to a studio apartment on the other side of town, where moms and daughters can live peacefully without a father on the premises for the price of a moderate tax paid in cash at the sheriff’s.

Happy Eight Dad Fistfight Day!

Everyone’s Got Their Hopes Pinned On The New Stepdad Day!

Their mom, your new bride, will introduce you and tell them about some of the other families you’ve be a part of in the past. Then she’ll invite you up from the couch to address everybody. Open with a joke.

“Who’s your daddy?” say with a smile. It’ll get a polite titter from the older kids who were alive when that was a thing, but the younger kids will look at each other, unsure of whether they’re supposed to answer. One of the older kids will raise his hand with a question. Call on him.

“Yes, Louis Howard, with the Howards 13 years. Can you tell us a little bit about how you plan to steer our family so that we’re profitable enough to move out of this two-bedroom apartment before the summer?”

Explain that if things go well you should be promoted by March and the salary bump would more than cover the relocation costs.

“Sally Howard, eleven years in family,” Louis’ sister will say. “I have to tell you this isn’t very different from what we’ve heard before. Lots of promises depending on a whole lot of variables completely out of your control. In my experience, when a stepdad says he’ll be getting a promotion by March it means he’ll be getting fired and beating my mom by February. Care to respond?”

Break out the powerpoint with your company’s corporate structure showing the number of vacant positions above you, as well as the email from your boss telling you to “hang tight and we’ll take of you.”

The shorter boy, Brad, will pipe up next.

“When you get drunk do you get yell-y?”

Ask him to define “yell-y."  Brad will do his impression of one of your new wife’s former husbands. He’ll raise his voice and growl, "Who put these emmereffin toys in the living room. Trip on the G-D toys every time I gotta take a S. You’re all nothin but trash!”

Reassure Brad that when you get drunk, most of your anger turns inward, at yourself and your own failings.

“If I ever yell, I usually do it at pictures of my own dad. I wouldn’t really be interested in you kids and what you’re up to, so you won’t have to worry about that.”

They’ll seem to have been appeased by your answer. Finally, Sabrina, the youngest, will raise her hand with the hard-hitting questions.

“Can we have a puppy?”

Tell her, “Funny you should ask, sweetie.” Then reach into the box you have hidden behind the couch and reveal the golden lab that’s going to buy you at least a four month stretch before they start stealing cash off your dresser.

Happy Everyone’s Got Their Hopes Pinned On The New Stepdad Day!

New Husbands Day!

You and your friends got some new husbands yesterday.  They’re pretty awesome.

Jenny got this husband named Brad. He makes money working as a doctor in a hospital and he says nice things to her like “When I look in your eyes everything feels okay again” and “Nice buttocks.”

Amber got this husband called Aaron. He doesn’t make a lot of money but he works with kids or something. Amber says he knows how to build bookshelves and he gave her a shoulder massage just because she sounded tired.

Missy got a husband named Isaac.  Isaac is really handsome but he’s schizophrenic.  But he’s really handsome.

Pam got a husband named Oliver. Oliver loves the living shit out of guns. He has like fifteen different guns, so Pam’s safe now.

Karen got a husband whose name is Felix.  Felix is still in love with his first girlfriend after college who he wanted to marry, but he was drinking a lot back then so Gina, that was her name, she took off.  Felix is sober now, has been for years, and he says he’s fine with being Karen’s husband, but just under the surface is this need to convince Gina that he’s a good man, wherever she might be.  His marriage to Karen is pretty much going to be an example of the life that Gina could have had if she’d given him a chance to get clean.  So basically, Karen is in a marriage that exists solely for the possibility that Gina might happen back into Felix’s life and discover that Felix turned out to be a good man.  Is he hoping that Gina will just drop everything and beg him to take her back? She could be dead or gay by now. Anyway, Karen says Felix is a great cook and he likes hiking just as much as she does because Gina loved it just as much as she does also.

Beverly got this husband named Ulysses.  He’s just weird in a lot of ways, but Beverly was always into that.  He wears makeup.

The husband Mary got is called Henry. He’s ten years younger than she is so she got the best one because he’s the newest.

You got a husband named Mario.  Mario owns his own cheese shop and he gets as angry as you do at certain billboards.  You like laying down on the couch with Mario because it feels good to put your head on his chest and feel his heartbeat while the two of you watch TV.  You like having consensual sex with Mario too. You’re pretty sure you’re not going to replace Mario for years.

Happy New Husbands Day!

You’re So Fucking Punk Rock Day!

Today at the health insurance company where you work as a temporary administrative assistant, just after you drop your bag under your desk and take off your coat you’ll be accosted by your supervisor insisting that you print twelve copies of a massive powerpoint presentation for a meeting she forgot she had that morning.  You’ll only have about five minutes before the meeting starts, but after emailing all the other admins to lay off the printers for a few minutes, you’ll send those copies out to every networked printer on the floor, managing to print all twelve copies almost simultaneously and getting them placed in front of every chair in the conference room just before the danish and croissants cart gets rolled in. You’ll be on your way out of the conference room when your supervisor grabs your arm and whispers in your ear, “You’re so fucking punk rock."  You weren’t sure if your co-workers had realized that your excellent job performance and near perfect attendance record over the course of your three years as an insurance company permatemp was fueled entirely by the anarchic spirit and uncompromising fury of true punk, so it’s nice to know that someone gets you for once.  Back at your desk, following a silent prayer to Saint Johnny Thunders, you’ll start on today’s big action item: making calls to the Delta SkyMiles customer courtesy line to try to get the triple mile bonus for your supervisor’s trip to the Akron satellite campus back in November.

Happy You’re So Fucking Punk Rock Day!

Confront Your Mom Day!

Don’t let her treat you like this.  She’s headed for the kitchen.  Go chase her down.

Ask, “What was that?”

She’ll say what was what?

“That. You totally just dissed me.”

I don’t know what you’re talking about is what she’ll say.

“You dissed me. Just now.”

She’ll ask how she dissed you.

“When you walked through the living room I nodded hello and you totally just walked passed me as if you didn’t see it.”

I didn’t see it, she’ll say.

“You totally saw it. You were looking right at me.”

I was busy. I have to fold these clothes.

“Which is it? Did you not see me nod or are you too busy to nod back?”

Your mom will say she’s really tired.  It’s hard for her to sleep since your father left.

“So now you’re too tired to nod.  Too tired to be polite to your own daughter.  This is about respect.  You disrespected me.  I won’t tolerate people disrespecting me.  That’s one thing I won’t put up with.  Not in the place where I live.  I won’t be disrespected.”

Your mom will say that she does respect you.  She won’t say anything else.  She’ll just continue folding some towels as if the matter’s been resolved.

“Hey! You’re being a coos!  You’ve been acting like a total bitch to everybody in this house! ”

Your mom will say that it’s just you and her in the house since your father left.  Then she’ll cry into one of the towels.

“You crying doesn’t change the fact that you disrespected me.”

Your mom will say she’s sorry.

You should suddenly raise your voice and get up in her face and scream, “I am a strong, smart, confident woman who won’t be disrespected like this!!!”

Throw your plastic cup of vodka and diet coke into your mom’s face then drag her to the ground by her hair.  Once she wriggles away, you should both take an hour or two to cool off, then later tonight both of you should sit down and talk this through in the hot tub.

Happy Confront Your Mom Day!

Weather Reports From The Dead Day!

You are haunted by a ghost who every night enters your room through the wall and wakes you with a high-pitched, eardrum piercing scream, the kind of scream that can only come from the mouth of someone being tortured by the cruelest of hell's minions. The ghost eventually stops screaming and looks around your room as if he's surprised to be there. When his eyes finally land on you, his eyes bulge in his sockets and turn black. Then he tells you what the weather will be like in the morning.

"Gonna rain. Just danced on some of the drops about 40 miles from here. Headed this way."

"Sunny tomorrow. You'll really be able to see the faces of those whose grins you covet."

"Snow's a comin'."

For some reason, whenever it's going to snow, he always says, "Snow's a comin'."

Today you're going to do some research to find out who lived in your house before you. After many hours at the microfiche machine, you'll find out you're being haunted by the ghost of Ichabod Proulx, who was known by many as "The most boring man in town!"

Happy Weather Reports From The Dead Day!

Two Salesmen At The End Of Their Lives Day!

Jack Rafferty, the number one salesman of aluminum siding for eight years straight from 1965 to 1973, is going to pay a visit to you, the number two salesman of aluminum siding for those same years. You overtook him in 1974, and he turned to drugs, alcohol, guns, sex clubs, and neo-nazism.

"I took it a little hard," Jack will tell you. "Not being number one anymore. Couldn't even enjoy it while I had it because I just kept fearing you and the way you were nipping at my heels."

Tell Jack that for years you thought that nothing else mattered except overtaking him on the sales board. But once you finally pulled it off, it hurt to watch the way Jack tumbled down that slope into drugs, alcohol, guns, sex clubs, and neo-futurism.

"Nazism," Jack will correct you.

"Sorry," say.

Tell him you actually hated him even more once you became number one. "I couldn't bask in the light at the top because I couldn't take my eyes off of you, as you raced for the bottom."

Jack will say, "Glad that's all behind us now."

"We can just be men," say to him.

"Dying men. How long you got?"

Tell him your doctor says you have six months to live.

Jack's eyes will go wide. That old fire will spark to light. "Me too," he'll say.

Neither of you will say a word, but each of you will silently and unequivocally devote the rest of his short life to outliving the other. Nothing else will matter to either of you, except the dream of one day standing topside by your rival's freshly dug grave. WHO WILL GET THE TOP SPOT ON THAT BIG SALES BOARD CALLED LIFE????

Happy Two Salesmen At The End Of Their Lives Day!

The Thing Where You See Your Bully Getting Beat Up By His Dad Day!

Today you're going to have that thing where you see your bully getting beat up by his Dad. It's the bully who is constantly shoulder-checking you into lockers and occasionally spitting on your chair in Social Studies just before you sit down, the one who you hate, who ruins school for you every single day. You have a fantasy of how awesome it will be when you're all grown up and you come back to town from the big job as a lawyer for Hollywood movie studios that you're going to have, pulling into a gas station in your Mercedes Benz with your doctor husband holding your beautiful twin daughters on his lap and you'll look out and see the bully, fat and bald and waiting to pump your gas. You'll say, "That's the bully who used to make my life hell." Then you'll tell him to fill er up and make it quick.

That fantasy won't seem so fun anymore after today, because it's hard to feel bad for a bully after you see him getting beat up by his dad, like you're about to see. You'll be leaving the Putt Putt with your parents when you'll hear a commotion in the parking lot. You'll look over and see your bully and his dad with their fists up, circling each other, each of them looking for that little piece of real estate that they can throw a punch through and connect. The dad will be trash talking and your bully will be quiet and maybe a little scared. Your bully will throw a big left hook and miss wildly. His dad will take the opportunity to send three hard rights into your bully's gut, making him double over. His dad will raise his fists in the air and do a little dance, making one or two spectators cheer him on. Your bully will get some wind back in his lungs and he'll take his spot in front of his dad, sending a quick right into his Dad's nose for a good connect. His dad will shake it off, even as the blood starts to pour forth, then he'll sock his son in the left eye and the right side of the head, a combo that sends his son, your bully, careening into a parked LeSabre. His Dad won't wait for him to get back on his feet. He'll crowd him against the LeSabre and send a succession of blows into your bully's kidneys, one after the other. Your bully will roll out and show some real pluck when he manages to duck his Dad's roundhouse and then send a left up into his dad's chin, causing his dad to bite down on his tongue and fill his eyes up with tears. Your bully will dance back a few paces then rush in, maybe a little too soon. His dad will hop to the left, recover his stance and unload on your bully with a succession of hits to the face and gut from which, anyone can see, there will be no recovery. The hits won't stop for maybe 30 seconds before your bully finally tumbles backward, flattens on the blacktop of the parking lot, his head making a loud clap when it clicks back on his neck. Lights out for your bully as his dad does a victory dance to the cheers and applause of the Putt Putt patrons waiting to get into their cars and go home.

You won't be able to help but feel bad for your bully after that, even though you have no reason to feel bad for him. It was a fair fight between him and his dad and he lost, plain and simple. That's no justification for him being mean to you. Still, you can't help but want to reach out to him and let him know you understand what he's going through. And that's exactly what you're going to do.

"Hey," you'll say to him. "I know you're only being a bully to me because your Dad keeps beating you up. Problem is you're too heavy on your left foot and you leave your gut wide open."

"So what turdbrain," he'll say. "What's it to you?"

"Lemme train you," tell him. "Gimme three months. After I'm through with you, you'll knock your dad down flat. I don't waste time on losers."

"What's in it for you?" he'll ask.

"I come through for you, you gotta come through for me. No more shoving me into lockers. No more spitting on my chair. No more bullying me of any kind. Deal?"

The bully will think about it.

"Deal," he'll say.

You and your bully will shake on it, then you'll start training every day for four hours a day, nearly breaking his body into pieces while building his spirit into something not even a tank could topple, and you'll almost fall in love but you'll manage to keep it in check, both of you knowing full well that he's gotta keep that love in his heart if he's ever gonna beat the living shit out of his old man.

Happy The Thing Where You See Your Bully Getting Beat Up By His Dad Day!

Breakfast With Two Guys You Don't Remember Meeting Day!

You're at a diner in a booth shoveling some French Toast into your hole when you look up and you realize you have no idea who the other two guys at the table are. You were laughing together just a few minutes ago, though you don't remember at what. One of the guys has an eye that's clouding up with blood, and you have bruised knuckles. Yesterday was your daughter's birthday so you went out drinking to forget about the last time you saw her back in 96. That's about all the data you have on the situation right now.

"Where'd you two come from anyway?" ask them.

"Oh thank Christ," the one with the eye will say. "I was worried I was the only one who didn't know who the hell you two were."

The other one, in the Mariners cap, he'll start to chuckle. "I just been sitting here hoping someone I know might come in so I can introduce him to you two, but do that thing where I only give my friend's name and force you guys to introduce yourselves."

"Yeah I do that too," say. "At parties. I'm terrible with names."

"Me too," the eye will say.

"But never this bad," say. "I mean, it's like you two were beamed down here by an alien craft."

You'll all share a moment of silence. Were aliens involved? you'll wonder.

"Let's retrace our steps," the Mariners hat will say.

"Okay," the Eye will say. "Yesterday afternoon I went out drinking. Went to Johnny's Local."

You and the Mariners hat will nod. "Yep, Johnny's Local," you'll both say.

No one will have anything to add.

"Man," the Eye will say. "Guess we had a fun night. This is just like that movie The Hangover!"

"You bet," Mariners hat will say.

"Except I'm 53," you'll say. "I'm around the corner from my one-room apartment, the one I'll probably be found dead in after someone notices an odor, and it's Monday morning. And it's cold."

The Mariners hat will lower his head and his shoulders will shake with sobs. The Eye will just keep eating his breakfast.

"Don't care what you guys think," the Eye will say. "The fact that I can't remember yesterday means I can decide how things went down. And I decide that me and my two new best friends had the most fun three middle-aged guys can have."

The Mariners hat will stop crying. You'll raise your coffee cup for a toast, and you'll all three clink your mugs and agree to meet at Johnny's Local every Sunday afternoon from here on in. Then the police will come and arrest the Mariners cap on an outstanding warrant.

Happy Breakfast With Two Guys You Don't Remember Meeting Day!

No One Cares If The Matchmaker Ever Falls In Love Day!

"We never would have met if it wasn't for you," they say. "I was so alone, wondering if I'd ever find anyone who liked sex to be exactly as violent and food-based as I do. But then you came along and with your meddling ways, you introduced me to some guy you met once at a book club or AA or something, and love was instant."

"We're going to name him after you," they say. "We decided that it's only right that our first born carry your name, since he never would have come into being had you not been so bored with your own life that you had to start steering the lives of others. Whether it's because you're afraid of intimacy or because you think you're unlovable and therefore your romantic instincts should only be used to help others, you gave us love. You gave us our child. For that, we thank you."

"It was real cool of you to introduce me to your friend after I told you I could never be attracted to you," they say. Oh they say it.

You've devoted your life to bringing happiness and warmth into the lives of others while you yourself must spend every night alone, on the floor by the wall, crying into the electrical sockets. No one bothers to return the favor to you with anything more than another word of gratitude. You know full well their expression of thanks is just another excuse for them to tell the story about how they met, like it was some momentous occasion everyone's supposed to care about, as if we're all supposed to know where we were on the night Jenny and Johnny first laid eyes on each other, the way we remember where we were on the day they announced the new Star Wars movies or 9/11.

Tonight you'll gather all those couples you fixed up at your home because you have an announcement to make.

"Jeff and Annie, Maurice and Alana, Kevin and Kevin, George and Bharati, Paul and Tatiana, Jenny and Johnny, Heather and Doris, Terance and Susan, Giovanni and Pam, Colleen and Steve, Eunice and Bill, Harry and Paula, and Frank and Maryanne, I've brought you all here tonight because I have an announcement to make."

They'll all stop talking to each other about their respective relationships, trying to top one another on the subject of who takes the more interesting vacations, to hear what you have to say.

"I'm going away," tell them. "To live in a cave in a barren, rocky land where I'll meet no one and share my life with nothing. I'm practically living that way already, and seeing as there appears to be no reason for me to assume I'll ever have love in my life the way you all do..."

That was a mistake. A few of the couples will start talking about something cute that happened over the Christmas holiday, something about buying each other the same gifts. They'll try to shout over each other.

"Quiet!" say. "Since I have no reason to believe I'll ever find someone to love me, I'm going to remove myself from society so that I don't have to enter conversations at parties and experience that faint flicker of warmth when I imagine someone possibly wanting to share time with me, only to have that warmth hastily extinguished when they ask whether I know anyone who is single, leaving me colder than ever, wishing I'd never left the safe comfort of my afghans at home."

You'll wait for them to express some kind of wish that you'd stay, but they'll just kind of stare at you.

"So, I guess this is it," you'll say. "This is the last you'll see of me. I'm leaving in the morning, setting fire to most of my possessions once I get to a vacant lot."

Now they're staring at each other. Mooning.

"So, goodbye," say to them.

Finally, one of them will come forward with his glass raised.

"A toast," he'll say. "To the one person in the world without whom I never would have found the love of my life."

That will make them nearly claw at each other, practically screaming their similar declarations of the one, true and incomparable love that wouldn't have been possible without you. Some fights will break out when they start to doubt each other's love. There'll be some trash talk and someone's blouse will be ripped. In the midst of the melee you'll decide to leave early for your cave, slipping out the front door and leaving a note asking that they not lock the door because the realtor will be showing the place in the morning.

Happy No One Cares If The Matchmaker Ever Falls In Love Day!

Alive Americans In Crisis Day!

Raise your voice and declare yourself:

"I am an alive American. I have been alive for __ years now, and every day is harder than the last. But I will remain alive, breathing, interacting with people behind cash registers and people who want to use the ketchup on my table at the diner, until I get hit by a car or something.

People think I am staying alive just for the attention and the fried foods. They are wrong. I am staying alive because I am frightened that dying hurts.

People think I am staying alive because I want to be congratulated. They are wrong. I am staying alive because I can pretty much be counted on to do what everyone else does, because I don't like to stray too far from the herd.

People think I am staying alive because of the Summer Olympics. They are kind of right. I do enjoy watching the Summer Olympics. But they come around so infrequently that it's not enough.

I am an Alive American. I vote. I pay taxes. I fall in love and I experience heartbreak and I battle substance addictions and I sometimes get really into TV shows and spend weekends watching all the episodes in a row on DVD.

I am an Alive American and I'm cold, bored, and there's nothing I want to buy."

Good. Now lay in bed for another 45 minutes, then roll over the side and onto the floor so you can crawl into the bathroom and take a shower.

Happy Alive Americans In Crisis Day!

Divorced Superintendent Day!

He hangs out in the hallway now, asking all the tenants who pass if everything's okay in their apartments. He's knocked on your door three times to offer to double-check your radiators to make sure they're distributing the optimum level of heat.

"I found this shower head," he told you on one of these impromptu visits. He held up a variable speed shower head, still in the plastic. "I can attach it if your shower's been weak."

You thanked him but let him now that you already have the exact same shower head in your shower.

"That must be a spare," you said.

He said it's good to have spares on hand. You don't want to find yourself one day, caught unawares, with nothing left.

"Nothing."

Like most of these recent visits, he shuffled away without saying goodbye.

Today when you come home he's going to be sitting on your stoop. You'll ask if everything's okay.

"I'm thinking of traveling," he'll say. "Seeing some things in this country. Before I'm too old."

You'll say that sounds great.

"Nothing keeping me here anymore," he'll say. "Nobody expecting me home."

You'll tell him you'll miss his being your super. "Send me a postcard. You have the address."

In a few months you'll receive a postcard from the Grand Canyon. On the back, a message from your Super: "Our problems are really small compared to the world. Also, the landlord once asked me to install a camera in your bathroom but I refused. Thanks for the talks."

Happy Divorced Superintendent Day!

Competitive Cyclists Should Just Do What People With Seasonal Affective Disorder Tell Them To Do Day!

Today you're going to be abducted and held for ransom by a woman with Seasonal Affective Disorder.

"I don't need the money," she'll tell you while she pastes newsprint onto a piece of construction paper to form the ransom demand she'll send to your wife. "I just do this because it's what people expect. I just hate the fucking winter and I need someone around to talk to about it. Fuck it's cold."

You'll ask her to let you go.

"Not till Spring. Jesus, it's so fucking gray outside. Isn't it too fucking gray?"

You won't say anything.

"Agree that it's too fucking gray or I'll lock you in the storm cellar with no food. There's water bugs down there."

You'll tell her it's too fucking gray.

"So depressing," she'll say. "Doesn't it just make you want to crawl into a tree trunk and die?"

Say, "Yes."

After mailing your ransom demand your kidnapper will come home and make a giant pot of stew. It will taste really good. You'll spend the next three months watching cop shows and eating hot stew and talking about how cold it is. One day you'll say to her, "I kind of like the coziness of winter sometimes" and she'll break your right knee with the fireplace poker, which will be devastating to you because you're a competitive cyclist.

Happy Competitive Cyclists Should Just Do What People With Seasonal Affective Disorder Tell Them To Do Day!

With The High Heels Still On Day!

You're old and dying and some people you're related to have crowded around your bed to ask you if there's anything you've never done that you still want to do.

"I've been watching the videos," you rasp to them. "The dirty ones. I wish I could have done like the girls in the videos and had sex with the high heels still on."

Of the people you're related to, the older ones look concerned. They brought their children for you to see once more, to give them a chance to say goodbye to their grandma. But it sounds like you're about to go off on one of your "those videos" tangents.

"In those videos," you gasp at them. "The girls look so sleek, smooth as new cars, and I think it's because they leave their high heels on. Like they know that there's no point when a lady shouldn't try to look her best, even when she's on her back letting strange men do their worst. The men have no need for the feet so why not keep them dolled up in the pretty high heeled shoes. I wish I had kept my high heels on when I used to put my feet on your grandfather's shoulders."

The children have been ushered out of the room by now, and some of your descendents are telling you to shhhh.

"I don't want you to pay any men to come here and fulfill my dying wish," you whisper, holding one of the many hands extended to you. "Don't trouble yourselves. Some regrets we take with us to the grave to keep us company."

They're used to your passive aggressive tactics and normally they'd call you on something like this. But you're on your deathbed and they don't want to fight, so one of your sons-in-law has gone off to find enough wifi to search through adultfriendfinder and see who's still taking out-calls in your hospital's zip code.

Happy With The High Heels Still On Day!