You Are A Good Person Because You Take Care Of Your Grandmother Day!

She has no one left, clearly, if she's living under the care of one of her kids' kids. No husband anymore. All her children were probably killed in a car wreck or sent to jail or something. Way back, it might have been her taking care of you, but she quickly became infirm and helpless. So it came to pass that you started taking care of your grandma and are therefore a good person.

"Wesley?" she shouts downstairs.

You can't answer because you're making meth in the basement, but only to raise some money for an orphanage that's down on its luck.

"Wesley?" she shouts again.

"Coming grandma!" you say. You head upstairs to the kitchen to get her dinner out of the oven. You stop in the living room on your way and you grab a single yellow rose from a vase and place it on her dinner tray. Then you head upstairs.

"Happy birthday Grandma," you say. She smiles a big smile and claps her hands once.

"Such a good grandson," she says. "What would I do without you?"

"Guess you'd have to be the prettiest grandma all by your lonesome, wouldn't you," you say.

Your grandma laughs, then she waits as you spoon her meal into her mouth.

Just then a shady character from your past pulls into the driveway to make you a proposition that will change everything and send you down the road to either redemption or ruin, but you'll be able to reunite with your one true love along the way so that's bitchin'.

"One more bite Grandma?" you ask.

Both of you hear the car door outside.

"You keep quiet, okay grandma?" you say. "I'll go see who it is."

You get up from the bed and close the door. The next time you see your grandmother, you'll be standing over her corpse making her a promise that you're going to get the bastards who did whatever it was they did to turn her into a corpse.

Happy You Are A Good Person Because You Take Care Of Your Grandmother Day!

You Are The Building Prankster Day!

Everyone in the building was counting on you to bring a little levity into their lives especially after Harris in 6C was found dead (suicide) so that's why you've hidden all of the building's housecats.

"I simply broke into each apartment that housed a cat and covertly abducted the cat to the hideaway, where all of the cats have been playfully fighting for the past six weeks," you tell the police.

"You should have seen their faces when they all started to realize that every cat in the building was going missing," you giggle, ignoring your lawyer's pleas for you to keep quiet. "They were all like, where are our cats? It was classic!"

The DA is still trying to figure out how to inflate the charges he can bring against you. Since no humans were harmed, it's difficult to get you on anything but burglary and animal cruelty. And since they have to make a deal with you in order to get you to tell them where the cats have been hidden (they're in a medium sized storage unit at the U-Stor-It on Columbus), you're holding all the cards.

"Prank of the century!" you exclaim to the police, cackling with pride. Seeing as the cats haven't been fed in a day, the police are running out of time so they're about to begin beating you in the mid-section with their night sticks.

Happy You Are The Building Prankster Day!

Be A Rich Person Who Dates The Poor Day!

Everyone likes it when rich people give to the less fortunate, so you should dump your similarly wealthy spouse and go to a poor-person's restaurant like McDonalds or Chipotle and hit on one of cashiers.

"You have a languorous beauty," say to the cashier, with relative certainty that it's a compliment.

The cashier will respond, "Normally I refrain from making eye contact with someone of such substantial means, but I can't help myself with you."

"Come out with me tonight," say to the cashier. "I will take you places where they keep lobsters in a fish tank and allow you to pick any one you want."

The cashier will be uncertain. "I come from proud people. We may not have a lot, but we don't take what we haven't earned."

Say to the cashier, "Oh I'll make you earn it. For every dollar I spend on you, you have to give a year of your life."

The cashier will estimate what a dinner with you might cost and then do the math. "Why, your asking me to give of myself to you until the end of time!"

Take your cashier's hand and promise to be true. The cashier will cry, and everyone else behind the counter will cheer as they do whenever someone wealthy comes along and steals away a staff-member. They'll take the cashier into the back of the kitchen to be scrubbed clean in one of the extra-large sinks, and then your cashier will be delivered to you, sparkling and fresh with scent of highly concentrated dish cleaner. Now all you have to do is take your cashier to a society dinner and finally give your mother the heart-attack she's been threatening to have for the last two damned decades.

Happy Be A Rich Person Who Dates The Poor Day!

Also this: How To Break Up With Boys

Mom Lives In Dad's Attic Now Day!

You like to stop by your Dad's house and cook him dinner once or twice a week. It makes you feel good to know he's not eating alone every night. You usually close out the meal with some typical chit-chat, updating each other on what you're up to, what you've heard about whom. But tonight, just as you're finishing the dishes and getting ready to put your coat on, your Dad will remember a bit of news.

"Oh by the way, if you wanna see Mom she's upstairs. Mom lives in my attic now, but don't tell the Feds."

After your mom and dad divorced, your mom started getting in a lot of trouble with the IRS and eventually a warrant was issued for her arrest. Apparently she reached out to your Dad and he was fine with her hiding out in his house, her old house for that matter, as long as she didn't make too much noise.

"And none of your sing-songy voice," he said during the negotiation. "Hated the way you couldn't say a word to me without having to sing it like we was living in a musical."

Your Mom agreed to his terms and now she's upstairs on an air mattress, reading some magazines.

"Just like old times," she says when you come up and see her.

You ask her if this is just some ploy to get back together with Dad.

"God no," she says. "It's just if the Feds find me I'll die in prison."

"Quiet up there!" your Dad shouts through the floorboards, banging the ceiling with a broom handle.

"Don't worry about me sweetie," your Mom says. "It's just so nice to be back in my old house, even if I have to stay in the attic."

Your Mom will live alone in your Dad's attic for the next twenty months, until one night your Dad climbs upstairs and asks your Mom if he can sleep up there with her that night because for the first time in 30 years he's scared to be alone. Your Mom will welcome him to her air mattress, and they'll live together in the attic for another four months. Then one night your Dad will die (of natural causes) and your mom will take off before the police show up for the body. She'll write.

Happy Mom Lives In Dad's Attic Now Day!

Significant Objects (Day)

Am taking a brief break from Girls Are Pretty so that I can take some time to roll up into a ball and panic. But you can find a story by me, and an object, here. Read about and bid on my Chrome Turtle, and you'll get a turtle and a story, and all the money will go to charity (826 National). Would make a nice present for a Girls Are Pretty fan.

Go check it out, and happy holidays.

Prisoners Of Love, The Movie Day!

Your favorite movie is Prisoners of Love, The Movie. It takes place in a dystopian future where people are no longer allowed to love each other, but two people who can't help themselves fall in love anyway, so they're thrown into a prison full of other people who can't help but love each other. All of these people whose love can't be destroyed by an evil government are locked away in the same prison, trying to keep their love alive any way they can. They decide if they all love each other with all of their being, they will create a love so strong that it will topple the government so one night they all gather in the prison shower and begin loving each other and you don't know what happens next because it's porn and you only saw the first eight minutes.

Happy Prisoners Of Love, The Movie Day!

Guitar Lessons For Women Day!

You worked all night on your flyer. It's got a picture of you smiling and holding a guitar. Underneath that is your headline.

"Guitar Lessons For Women."

Then comes the hard sell. "I will teach you how to play guitar in eight weeks, all in the privacy of your own home. Women only."

You're excited for your new business venture. You've looked around at the other flyers posted in the chinese takeout places and laundromats, and as far as you can tell yours is the first in-home guitar school that is specifically for females. You are certain that there are a lot of women out there who will be excited that there's finally a guitar teacher for them, a guitar teacher who will not just teach women guitar, but who will refuse to teach men the guitar.

As your flyer says, "If you're a woman and you want to learn the guitar, I'm ready to come over to your house. I will not teach mean guitar, nor will I give a woman a lesson if there is a man in the house. Absolutely private lessons guaranteed. No one else has to even know I'm there in your house."

All the baristas at the coffee shop who said your flyer is too creepy to post there, and the receptionist at the dance studio who said your flyer is too creepy to post there, and those first three copy shops who refused to xerox your flyers because they didn't want to get involved in the investigation that's sure to come, they're all just jealous that they didn't think of your idea first. This is the best business concept you've had since you opened your "Boys Under !2 Only Sauna."

Happy Guitar Lessons For Women Day!

Lantern Day!

Light your Pier One Imports decorative lantern and you will open a window through time to a place where wives sold themselves for money and husbands were fine with it, even proud. In the time before electricity, sex ruled the land and a husband whose wife didn't sell herself for money was considered miserly.

"Will all this descriptive stuff on the back of the tag really happen if I light this lantern?" you ask the Pier One Imports sales associate, who will shrug without looking up from her copy of People.

Your Pier One Imports decorative lantern will also light your way to a time when children over the age of six were forced to dig sewers. Many died there. They died heroes of sewage development.

"Do you have any lanterns that don't do this stuff?" you ask the Pier One Imports sales associate, who will go on her break.

The flame of your Pier One Imports decorative lantern will always flicker in the direction of the eldest virgin in the room, just like in the olden days, and if you look directly into the flame, you will see the faces of all of your deceased relatives who were sent to hell when they died. Cover all mirrors before lighting your Pier One Imports decorative lantern or else the walls of your home will scream with the anguish of sled dogs cut loose and left to perish alone when they grew too tired to cross the arctic.

"I seem to be having trouble letting go of this lantern. It's fused itself to the skin of my palm," you'll say to another sales associate who may or may not be there.

You are your Pier One Imports decorative lantern and your Pier One Imports decorative lantern is you. Burn always.

Happy Lantern Day!

Turn Your Book Club Into An Anti-Government Militia Day!

Try and look distracted while your fellow club-goers are fighting it out over whether Lawrence or Ramsey is the better catch. When someone finally asks you what you think, throw your book down so that it shatters the glass top of the Noguchi knockoff coffee table and shout, "You all just wanna sit here and talk about chapter 9 of 'The Post Birthday World?' We are in the final chapter of the Post-America world people! And I am not just gonna sit here and find out what's in the epilogue while they tax us for every breath we expel! Who's with me?"

The other book clubbers will stare at you in silence. Then that week's host will get up and pull on a margarita glass in the sideboard, which will make the sidebar spin out to reveal a hidden weapons cache.

"Let's get to the woods," your book club host will say. "America still lives in the trees."

The rest of you will jump from your chairs and cheer. Then you'll each grab a weapon, pick up your kids from soccer, and then rendezvous at the compound in the north.

Happy Turn Your Book Club Into An Anti-Government Militia Day!

Your Strength Is In Your Nosehair Day!

You're like Samson, except disgusting. All of your strength and endurance is tied into the length of the hair that grows out of your nostrils. When you trim your nosehair, you find you can barely lift a glass of water without getting winded. But when you let it grow, you can lift couches over your head without taking a breath.

"I like that you're really strong," your girlfriend is going to tell you today. "But I hate that when I kiss you I often catch one of your nosehairs on my tongue and then I have to stop kissing you so that I can throw up for like an hour."

"I'm sorry," tell her. "But if I trim my nosehairs I will be vulnerable."

Your girlfriend will complain that you work in accounting and you don't need to be so strong. Tell her that advancing hordes only remain at bay because they know you're presently invulnerable.

"Break up with me if you ha--" You'll say, but she'll have already left screaming because she'll have spotted a some ants ascending the vine of your nosehair towards your chin and it will have shaken her to her core. GUESS WHO'S SINGLE AGAIN!!!

Happy Your Strength Is In Your Nosehair Day!

The Waste Of Society Day!

Society as a whole got together last night and elected one person to be THE Waste. The biggest waste of potential, of effort, and of space in all of western culture. That person's name is Leon Blatz. You came in second.

"I will murder Leon Blatz if it is the last thing I ever do," you say out loud to your homemade egg sandwich (scrambled eggs on untoasted wheat bread).

As runner up Waste of Society, you win new storm windows.

"I will accept my award of new storm windows and I will leave my storm windows in a pile on the floor, uninstalled for the rest of my days, while I pursue Leon Blatz to the ends of the earth. His life will be mine," you say out loud to the couch pillow.

As runner up Waste of Society, you also will receive a phone call from Thandie Newton, but she will have dialed the wrong number.

"I'll take it," you say to a six year old empty soda bottle sitting on one of your bookshelves.

Also, as runner up Waste of Society, your life is in danger as Leon Blatz knows he must defend his crown with blood and he has taken an offensive stance against you. Specifically, there is a rifle sight trained on your head as you talk to the items in your home about what you plan to do to Leon Blatz. The trigger will be pulled presently, and your conversation will end, and Leon Blatz will move on to the third runner up, and then the fourth, and then the fifth, until he has wiped out the entire human race, truly earning the title "Waste of Society" (HOLY SHIT THAT WORKED OUT GREAT!).

Happy The Waste Of Society Day!

Heart Donation Day!

Your wife needs a new heart and only yours will work out.

"I'll do it," you tell the doctor.

"Sweet!" your wife shouts.

The doctor will tell you that if you donate your heart, you'll die. You and your wife just stare at the doctor.

"Uh huh," you say.

"What's taking so long?" your wife shouts.

The doctor says he just has to scrub in.

"It's been a great 22 years," you tell your wife.

"Yup," your wife says. "Pretty sweet."

You high five. You make one last inside joke about that Seinfeld episode you both like, then you lay down and have your heart surgically removed and reinstalled in your wife's body and that's the end.

Happy Heart Donation Day!

Sectional Couch Day!

You sit here and she sits there.

"Weapons?" she asks.

"Sure," you say. You reach under your cushions for a hunting knife and some throwing stars. She reaches under hers and pulls out two handguns, different ones, you don't know what they're called, but one looks like the kind Riggs would carry and the other would look good in Murtaugh's hand.

"Clothed or naked?" you ask.

"Tops and bottoms?" she asks.

You take off your bottoms. She takes off her top.

"Okay, let's do this," you say.

She takes a deep breath. "I feel scattered."

"I feel heavy," you say. "Like everything inside me is made of wet cement."

She laughs. "Can I write the Van Halen VH on your insides with a stick?"

You don't laugh. You throw one of your stars and she dodges it.

"I hate November. Always have," she says. "More so since you."

You tell her she's just scared of getting older. She shoots the Murtaugh gun and the bullet slices the skin of your left bicep.

Suggest a compromise.

"Let's both get on buses going in opposite directions. First one to jump off the moving bus to sprint after the other person's bus apologizing for everything and begging for a second chance loses," you say.

"Deal," she says. "You're gonna go down in flames."

You tell her you're well aware of that. Then you put on your tops and bottoms and go to the bus station.

Happy Sectional Couch Day!

Deli Racist Day!

Today you're the deli racist. You're the guy in the corner deli who is openly raving about how much you hate the race of everyone who walks in the store. If you see an Asian person walk in, march up and down the aisle barking about how the Asians are walking on thin ice with you and they better watch it. If you see a black person walk in, march up and down the aisle barking about how the blacks are gonna get what's coming to them one day and you're gonna see to it. If you see a Hispanic person, march up and down the aisle talking about how Mexicans better not climb that wall cause you'll be waiting on the other side.

The customers will ask the deli owner why he keeps you there and the deli owner will explain that you ward off pests. That's when you'll see a mouse crawling out from under the soda fridge and you'll stop in your racist rant and drop to the floor to catch its tail in your teeth. Spend the rest of the day playing with the mouse until it's dead. Then expound a little bit on the Arabs.

Happy Deli Racist Day!

Pictures From Your Mom's And Dad's Wedding Day!

If you look closely at the photos of your Mom's and Dad's wedding, you can see the dark, monstrous face of someone standing in the background.

"That's Satan," your Mom says.

"Yeah he was there," your Dad says.

You ask them why Satan was at their wedding.

"Your mother summoned him," your Dad says.

"It was before I met your father," your Mom says. "I was just a kid. I gradually grew out of all that but we were still in touch on occasion. When it came time to send out invites, it would have been rude not to invite him."

You say that it kind of looks like there's a dark, angry spirit hovering over their nuptials.

"Yeah. Because Satan was at our wedding," your Dad says. "Hello? You in there?"

"You'll see," your Mom says. "When you get married you'll have to invite people you don't want to invite."

You make a vow right then and there to begin cutting off ties with Steve the Malevolent Angel Whose Arrival Portends The Coming Judgment of Man. He'd bring a date and you know EXACTLY how that would play out.

Happy Pictures From Your Mom's And Dad's Wedding Day!

The Bikini Car Wash Is Going To Be Shut Down Day!

There's a greedy, evil developer who wants to build a giant strip mall in town and they're going to try and shut down the Bikini Car Wash that's been dispatching bikini clad girls to wash the town's cars for the past three decades. If the Bikini Car Wash doesn't raise ten thousand dollars over the next week, they'll be done for.

"But how do we raise money to save a Bikini Car Wash?" wonders Mama Fredricks, the owner of the car wash. "It's not like we can just hold a bikini car wash. That's just our daily grind."

"The town usually comes to us to raise money for the about-to-be-shut-down orphanages and recreation centers," says Frida, the hottest girl at the car wash. "Maybe it's about time the town paid us back."

"What could this town possibly have to offer that could make people empty their pockets the way they do for a bikini car wash?" wonders Leona, the fifth hottest girl at the bikini car wash.

That's when it hits them all at once. They all throw silk robes over their bikinis and they run to the women's prison to ask the warden if she'll force the inmates to put on a sex show for which they'll sell tickets.

Happy The Bikini Car Wash Is Going To Be Shut Down Day!

Hate The Show "Psych" Day!

There's a show called Psych on TV and you've never seen it, but today's the day you're going to begin hating it.

"What's it about?" you ask.

Psychic cops maybe? Or cops hunting psychics and rounding them up because they can't be trusted? People just messing around with each other who then shout "Psych!" Maybe?

"What do I get if I hate it?" you ask.

One million dollars.

"Really?!" you ask.

Psych!

"Holy crap. I hate you right now," you say.

No, you hate the show "Psych."

"No I don't," you say. "I hate you. I hope you lose a family member today. One of the ones you like seeing over the holidays."

Don't say that.

"Just did," you say.

Look, this was supposed to be about the show "Psych."

"You made it about you by being the worst entity in existence. Get set on fire," you say.

So are you going to watch the show "Psych" just to spite me?

"Every episode. I'm going to rent the DVDs to catch up on the plotlines. Just to make you feel like you failed at something."

What if I told you I'm on the marketing team for the show "Psych?"

"Oh shit are you serious?"

Psych?

"I have no idea whether to watch Psych or not now," you say. "My life has come to a halt."

Because of the show "Psych." Told you it was worth hating.

(You don't say anything because you have lost your will.)

Happy Hate The Show "Psych" Day!

Your New Sweater Pillow Makes You Dream About Things Wearing Clothes That Shouldn't Day!

You bought a brand new, soft, supercomfy sweater pillow from West Elm. It's a big puffy down pillow covered in the kind of fabric normally reserved for cableknit sweaters. You love to nap on it, except whenever you do you start dreaming about mailboxes wearing dresses, refrigerators dressed up in tuxedos, cartons of eggs that are sold wearing little pairs of jeans, a car with a giant bowler hat on its roof, and trees wearing sexy leather miniskirts which is especially unsettling as it makes you dream of having sex with trees. These dreams are weird but your dreams are always weird and your new sweater pillow is too important so deal.

Happy Your New Sweater Pillow Makes You Dream About Things Wearing Clothes That Shouldn't Day!

Tara's Home Day!

Tara's home. It's 8 AM and she wants to come in.

"Come on Jeff! Open the door!"

"Not again Tara! That was the last time!"

Every night your neighbor Tara leaves the house to go out and get her drink on and maybe a few dudes, and every morning she shows up home again demanding that her boyfriend buzz her in. She stopped carrying keys because she always loses them.

"Jeff! It's cold!"

"I can't Tara! I owe it to myself to not let you in!"

You threw away your alarm clock a long time ago. A few months after moving into your new place you learned you can always count on Tara's shrill, newly sober voice and Jeff's weak-kneed heartbreak would be there every morning at 8 AM to shake you awake and send you to the shower. Occasionally you push the snooze button and wait for Tara to walk down to the corner deli to buy a loose cigarette, then come back and put the icing on the cake.

"Jeff! I love you! Please don't do this!"

"I swear to God Tara, this is the last time."

Buzzzzzzz!

Good morning!

Happy Tara's Home Day!

Elder Army Day!

You and the other women in your nursing home are sick of sitting around all day doing nothing.

"Let's form an army," say to them.

"What?" one will ask.

"An army," you'll repeat, louder into her good ear.

All of the other residents will look at each other for arguments against, then they'll all shrug and nod.

"Which one of your sons can get us weapons?" ask them.

Four of the women will raise their hands. Their sons are all members of domestic terrorist groups who are worried about health care reform.

"Who will be the target of our first assault?" one of the residents will ask.

Spin the rocking recliner in which you're seated slowly on its base so that you're facing all of them in such a position that the buzzing florescents above light your face in the most sinister manner.

Tell them, "Whoever gets in our way."

When an orderly shows up to give you all medication, strangle him to death with your catheter and flee.

Happy Elder Army Day!