She’s Going To Say No Day!

You hired a high school brass band to lead from the restaurant to a waiting ferry that’s been decorated with petunias, her favorite flower. The ferry will take you deep into the water where the lead singer from her favorite boy band ($7000) will come up from below deck and serenade her with the song that was chosen as the theme for her senior prom, which she did not attend. The ferry will take the two of you to an island where a canopy bed has been assembled and covered in rose petals for her to lay down upon and receive a massage from a Spanish massage therapist who whispers into her ear how beautiful she is every 45 seconds. Next comes the dancing and singing improv troupe that will come out from the trees and pretend to be island natives inventing language so that one of them can write a love letter to your bride-not-to-be. Next come the fireworks spelling her name in the sky, then a white horse will trot out from the palm trees, then the horse will carry her to a beautiful garden full of frolicking bunny rabbits. She’ll lay down and the bunny rabbits, well-trained, will scurry about her and nuzzle her face while you read to her a poem you wrote. Next comes the check in her name for $75,000, followed by a huge cake that her dad will jump out of (stationed in Afghanistan, you petitioned to get him leave for the weekend to be here for this). Finally you’ll get down on one knee and give her the ring with the diamond you mined yourself, a plane will sky write your question across the sky while pre-teen ballerinas flutter about her and drape her in garlands of flowers. You’ll look up into her beautiful eyes and ask if she’ll be willing to spend the next 50 years by your side and she’s going to say no.

Happy She’s Going To Say No Day!

You’re The Landlord Day!

Today you get to be the landlord. Knock on everyone’s door and shout “You have to pay me the rent!” Tell the tenant with a loud stereo, “Hey what’d I tell you about that stereo, pally?” Tell the tenant cooking the smelly stew, “Hey what’d I tell you about that smelly stew? This hallway stinks like a soup kitchen.” Tell the tenant crying because his live-in girlfriend moved out, “Hey what’d I tell you about forgetting all about her and putting yourself out there to find someone new, someone worthy of all you have to offer and who isn’t always restless, always wondering if there’s a prettier, wealthier, more interesting-to-have-sex-with guy out there waiting to welcome her sweet bod into his bed while she’s wasting her time on a dink like you? Quit blowing your nose into your shirttails and go out to the club. Babes await!”

The crying tenant will tell you he appreciates the kind words but he still needs some time.

“Just take good care of her,” he’ll tell you.

Head back down to your apartment where his ex is panting for you to make love to her again because you’re the landlord. Who can resist? It’s not even fair.

Happy You’re The Landlord Day!

You And The Summer Camp Slasher Are In Love Day!

You thought you were protecting her. She’s the last pretty girl who’s still alive of all the Counsellors In Training. Normally that would mean a long drawn out chase before she either narrowly escapes or she ends up killing the murderer. But you just noticed it’s been over a half hour of running through the woods, and there’s no killer chasing her.

“I can’t exactly chase myself,” she says.

“It was you all along,” you tell her. “You killed Brandon and Diane and Maureen and Nandanee and Karen and Mitch and–”

“Is this a roll call? Look this is who I am. I kill hot teens in the woods. I’m not the perfect girl but I’m happy with who I am and I’m not going to have some guy try and change me into what he thinks a girl should be…even if I’m in love with him.”

You blush. You can’t help it. Love. The word that’s been ricocheting around your head ever since you first saw her teaching campers how to tell deer scat from wolf scat. You can’t believe that very same word just crossed her lips.

“I…Guess I love you too.”

You both smile. Then you burst out laughing.

“This is crazy though! I mean, you’re a slasher!”

“And you’re super-hot,” she giggles. “But instead of driving a scythe through your face, all I wanna do is kiss it.”

She takes a step forward.

“Can I?” she asks. “Kiss you?”

You place your hand on her bare shoulder, her skin warm under your palm. You guide her closer to you and she places a kiss on your neck, then your cheek, then your mouth. Then you both lay down on the path in an embrace.

You pull away.

“But if we have sex…”

“Will I have to kill myself?” she says. “We’ll see. I’ll either commit suicide or be a hypocrite, two fates that are worth the risk if it means making love to you right now.”

She kisses you again in a way that lets you know this is no time to discuss hypotheticals. The way she takes you, it’s gentle, but you can sense the violence inside of her.

She stops when you hear a moaning from the woods. Brandon must still be alive.

“Don’t,” you plead. “Stay here with me.”

She smiles, she complies.

After, you fall asleep feeling blissfully ravaged. You wake up when you hear footsteps. She’s just returned from someplace. She curls up behind you on the path, and you notice that you don’t hear Brandon moaning anymore.

Happy You And The Summer Camp Slasher Are In Love Day!

Mom’s Back Day!

“Been 13 years mom,” you tell her.

She looks at you and your brothers.

“And you’re all still as ugly as your father,” she says.

Mom’s gone again.

Happy Mom’s Back Day!

Tell Your Boyfriend What Happened During The Thunderstorm Day!

“I got married,” tell him.

He’ll ask to who.

“Steve something,” say.

You ducked into a bar you’d never been to before to escape the rain. It was already dimly lit and the lights were blinking with the lightning. Steve something was the only other person in the bar.

“It was too romantic to let the opportunity pass,” explain. “The bartender officiated.”

Your uber is outside. Your boyfriend helps you downstairs. You take off your straw hat (you’re honeymooning in Turks and Caicos) and look up at him.

“Is he good to you?” your boyfriend asks.

“Who?”

“Steve something,” he says.

“No idea,” you tell him. “He watched my gimlet while I went to the bathroom.”

“Goddammit!” your boyfriend shouts. “One time I let a vagrant sneak a sip of your drink and you’re gonna hold that over me forever?”

Open the car door.

“Goodbye Dan,” tell him.

“It’s Dave,” your boyfriend will say.

“Dave,” say. “That suits you.”

“It’s been a nice eleven years,” the Dave guy says as your Uber pulls away, taking you to the airport where you’ll fly to the honeymoon suite of Mr. and Mrs. Something.

Happy Tell Your Boyfriend What Happened During The Thunderstorm Day!

Give Up On Dad Day!

Dad’s not coming.

“He is,” you tell your bride as she waits for you to recite the vows you wrote.

He’s not. And the caterer never got the check Dad said he’d give them. Mom’s new husband Rick will have to pay for that.

“I hate Rick,” you tell your brother and Best Man. “I’d rather everyone go hungry than have mom’s Rick pay a dime for my wedding. Just wait, Dad’ll get here.”

The owner of the wedding venue walks up the aisle and pulls you into a non-consensual embrace from which you can’t escape. Her mouth near enough to your ear to send a whisper straight to your spine, she says,

“Kid. We get married when we realize the limits of the family we were born into, and we decide to try and do better by making a family of our own. You reached the limit of how much a man can shuffle his feet. That girl there in the white, you make her wait a second longer and you’ll give her something to wonder about for the rest of your lives together. Give up on your Pa or I’m calling this wedding a no-go right now. I won’t allow a marriage to start like this. Not under my gazebo.”

She releases you and you take this woman as your lawfully wedded wife while your father dances with a prostitute in a motel off the highway, the money for the caterer now cocaine.

Happy Give Up On Dad Day!

Diane’s Never Won Anything Before Day!

“Well guess what Diane!” the morning radio DJ says. “May is Money Month here on the Itchy In The Down There show, and you just won $500!”

“Oh my God,” Diane says over the sound effects (farts, Jimmy Walker saying “Dy-No-Mite,” the sound of steel bending in Tower 2). “I’ve never won anything before!”

“How’s it feel?” DJ Itchy asks.

Diane is silent.

“Diane?”

“Never,” she whispers, almost inaudible under the sound bite from a Mel Gibson voicemail to his wife. “Not once.”

“Diane?”

“I’m 52,” she says. “What rewards? What accomplishments? 52 years, and all I can say I’ve achieved in life is a radio DJ once threw me five hundred bucks. And that’s pure random chance. Not the result of anything I’ve done. Just because you happened to dial a bunch of numbers. My God, I’ve let it all slip away.”

“Hey, it’s not random chance. You had to enter your work phone number on our website to win, right?”

“No,” Diane says. “No, I didn’t do that. I’m just temping at this desk.”

“Oh,” DJ Itchy says. “Oh God.”

“Oh God!” Diane sobs. “I didn’t win, did I?”

“Diane!” DJ Itchy says. “Diane don’t hang up!”

Diane disconnects the call midway through a sob.

Unsure what to do, because what can he do, DJ Itchy slowly presses a control board button and plays the sound clip from ‘Terms of Endearment’ where Shirley MacLaine is crying and repeating “I’m so stupid! I’m so stupid!” just after Debra Winger dies.

Happy Diane’s Never Won Anything Before Day!

In The Supermarket Day!

You put your hand on the freezer door to get the fish sticks he used to buy.

You never ate them before he came into your life. You used to assume such foods were gross.

But he kept demanding them, he loved them so. He made you think if he had to choose between you and the fish sticks you would be the one he’d happily let go.

“You’d be the one I’d happily let go,” he’d joke.

Then the two of you would take turns taking bites obliterating the length of a fish stick.

Your hand is on the freezer door to grab those fish sticks, a box of the fish sticks he used to buy.

Just because he’s gone back to his ex-boyfriend doesn’t mean that freezer door is locked to you forever.

He opened it for you.

This is what lovers do.

They open doors.

Even when the only thing on the other side is some frozen fish sticks.

The doors stay open. Everything on the other side is yours to keep.

He gave those fish sticks to you, he brought them into your life. He took away his heart, the fish sticks are yours to keep.

Happy In The Supermarket Day!

Bus Drive Day!

Hop on. Get behind the line. Sit where the handicapped and elderly do. You’ll get up if one of em shows.

“Buried the shit,” tell Miles.

Miles lifts his hands off the wheel and applauds. Probably a violation.

“Fucker in the ground!” he shouts. “Good for you, Gladys.”

Tell Miles about the last minutes.

“Asked me to forgive!”

“Ha!”

“Asked me to forget!”

“Ha! Ha!”

“Asked me to visit his sister in Tucson and tell her he regretted the bad blood. I have to do that, apparently. It’s a stipulation of the will.”

Miles will say, “Tucson’s nice.”

Sit back in your seat in silence for a while. He’s gone. He was a bastard and his money’s yours. But he was your bastard, and he was who you had at arm’s length for eleven years. He was a bastard, but you only get so close to so many people while they’re here, and he’s gone now.

“How much, Gladys?”

You try to sound excited. You try to sound like a girl who just won the lotto. But you sound like someone who doesn’t know where to turn when you say, “Eleven million.”

Miles laughs for you. He laughs all the way to your stop.

“Won’t be seeing you on this bus again!” Miles shouts.

You smile as you take the first step down. You sob as you take the second. You leap back up and pull Miles into a hug.

“You might see me again,” you tell him.

He pats your back twice.

You get off the bus and make your way across an office plaza to see a lawyer where you’ll listen to the “gold digger” accusations of some of his nephews and their wives.

Happy Bus Drive Day!

Break A Promise To Your Stepson Day!

“Hey Jim,” he’ll say.

“I told you, Morris” tell him. “Call me Dad.”

Morris will remind you that you’re not his dad. And you shouldn’t want to be his dad because his dad is a fucking piece of shit drunk asshole who deserves to die.

“You said you’d kill him,” Morris will remind you. “I told you you could marry my mom if you killed my dad.”

“Yeah well, maybe I’m rethinking that deal,” tell Morris.

Morris will grip his wiffle ball bat like it’s a weapon.

“I gave you my blessing,” he’ll say. “You promised.”

Shrug. “Your dad’s bigger than me,” tell him.

Morris will wander off to regroup and figure out how to make his father pay, and once that’s done, make you understand that a broken promise to a stepchild yields grave, grave repercussions.

Happy Break A Promise To Your Stepson Day!

Perform Surgery On Yourself On The Subway Day!

You have a gross mole that you’re sick of. Your insurance only covers you for bus accidents (except when they fall on blackout days), and while you’d like to perform a bathtub surgery, it’s 2015, who has a bathtub?

The one place that’s already gross enough that no one will mind is the subway. Not only can you use those wide, curved benches to gather your blood, but if you do it at rush hour there are bound to be lots of people who will call for help if things go south for you. Your fellow passengers love learning (look at all those books!) and they’ll be excited to watch a real live surgery without having to go to med school or steal cable.

So get drunk this morning, grab a steak knife and hop on the subway! You’re gonna die down there.

Happy Perform Surgery On Yourself On The Subway Day!

Have Sex With Your Communications Professor Day!

You’ve been craving him all semester, but you’re worried it will hurt things for you in the long run.

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” tell him during office hours. “But this is the kind of thing that comes back to haunt people. My career. My reputation.”

He’ll close the blinds.

“Don’t worry,” he’ll say.

He’ll unbutton his shirt.

“Nothing we do will have any effect on your life whatsoever,” he’ll say.

He’ll move some papers off the desktop and take your hand, guiding you to climb on top of his desk blotter.

“You’ll never look back on anything that transpires between the two of us as something to regret, or to remember with any sort of importance,” he’ll say.

You’re unbuttoning your blouse now, reassured.

“Because darling, I teach communications. As far as the world is concerned, I don’t matter in the slightest.”

You take him. You take him with great urgency. You take him like he could disappear into irrelevance at any second.

Happy Have Sex With Your Communications Professor Day!

Winter Cabin Day!

Rent a winter cabin with the intention of drinking bourbon and shooting rifles and spending afternoons standing at the edge of a frozen creek wondering why the dead loom larger in your life than the living. Your intentions for the weekend will go out the window when an escaped convict breaks into your cabin to eat all your canned chili.

“Make a sound and I’ll kill ya,” he’ll say, chili at the corners of his mouth.

“Drink?” you’ll offer.

The two of you will spend a fun weekend drinking and laughing and talking about how dumb prison guards can be. When the convict finally decides it’s time for him to move on to Memphis and kill the son of a bitch shacked up with his ex-wife, you’ll be sad.

“YOU’RE MY BEST FRIEND!” you’ll scream when he steps out on the porch.

The two of you will hug as US Marshal sharp-shooters who’ve had the cabin surrounded for the last six hours open fire.

Happy Winter Cabin Day!

Emma, Get Up From That Table And Run Day!

He’s the whole package, Emma. Weird smile, dimples that could store loose change, shoulders that look like your dead brother’s, and hella good hair.

Get up from that table and run.

He’s listening to you talk like every word out of your mouth is a revelation. He’s laughing at your jokes like the punchline is a self-evident truth that cracks everything wide open. You’re opening up to him about things you forgot you still cared about.

Get the fuck up from that table and run. Run like you just saw God on a horse.

You’re reaching across the table and already touching the back of your fingers to his. He’s not letting his eyes look anywhere but into yours. You’re leaning forward with every part of your body, like the only things keeping you from slipping out of your dress and into his embrace are that dining table and decency laws.

It’s almost too late. Get up, Emma. Get up and put your legs underneath you and get swallowed by the night before this feeling swallows you whole.

You’re kissing. It’s too late. Talk to you again in three and a half years.

Happy Emma, Get Up From That Table And Run Day!

Someone’s Been Having Sex With Wax Patrick Stewart Day!

Freddy, the museum director, is pacing the front of the staff room, clearly trying to contain his anger.

“These wax figures trust us,” Freddy says. “They trust us to care for them, just as the public figures who lent their likeness to these wax figures trust us to not use their likeness for anything but to give the public an afternoon of diverting, slightly eerie entertainment.”

Freddy has his hands behind his back, shaking his head woefully.

“Do you know what nearly every celebrity asks before giving their consent to add their wax replica to our museum? They ask, ‘How do I know you’re not just going to have sex with it?’”

Some of the staffers drop their heads in shame. It doesn’t feel good to know you’ve confirmed a celebrity’s worst fears. That a celebrity put his or her trust in you and you dropped the ball.

Someone raises his hand and asks how Freddy knows that Wax Patrick Stewart was fornicated with.

“I don’t want to get into it,” he says. “Suffice to say, there were stains. Stains we can use to get DNA. Now I don’t want to have to ask everyone to provide me with a DNA sample. We’re a family here and we’re supposed to trust each other. So instead, I’m just going to turn my back for 30 seconds. If you did it, simply walk up here, lay your museum-issued vest and cummerbund on the table here, and walk out the door. No further questions, no prosecution.“

Freddy turns his back. For thirty seconds, everyone on staff looks to each other, trying to see if the culprit will come forward. No one stands up. When Freddy turns back around, his disappointment is palpable.

You raise your hand with a question.

“Why would anyone have sex with the figures anyway?” you ask. “When you take off their clothes there aren’t even any holes.”

Before Freddy can ask how you know there aren’t any holes, you realize your mistake and take off running. You drop your vest and cummerbund in a dumpster, then you hide in a park for a few days to figure out what the hell  you’re supposed to do with your life now that your dream of being a wax museum guard has been shattered by one night of erotic bliss.

Happy Someone’s Been Having Sex With Wax Patrick Stewart Day!

Your Wife’s Been Murdering Teens Without You Day!

Ask her how long this has been going on.

“Since the summer,” she says. “You were at your mother’s. I hiked up the canyon and found a cabin full of teens. Spent three days picking them off one by one, different weapons, different lures, different screams. And it was all for me. And it was exhilarating.”

Tell her you and she always killed together. That’s the way it’s been and you don’t see why she needs to murder without you.

“You killed that hitchhiker when you were coming back from your high school reunion,” she says.

Tell her that’s different. You were out of state and you didn’t go chasing him down. Tell her if a meat piece falls into her lap like that she’s welcome to slice it up like it deserves to be sliced, but to go chasing the meat on her own, that’s a betrayal.

“Killing with you is wonderful,” she says. “But so is killing on my own. I feel like I’ve lost my individuality, like I’ve stopped killing for myself and I only kill for us.”

Ask her if that’s so bad.

“I just don’t see why I can’t have both,” she says. “My kills. And our kills. I think we should keep our murdering open.”

Tell her you don’t want to kill without her.

“You don’t have to,” she says. “But you have to let me have something to myself. I want to remember what it’s like to kill just for me again.”

Don’t tell her the truth. Don’t tell her you’re worried that if she goes it alone often enough, she’ll never want to murder a teen with you again. Just tell her you’ll try to be understanding of her journey back to herself, and hope for the best. If you’re going to lose her, you already have.

Happy Your Wife’s Been Murdering Teens Without You Day!

Your Magic Potions Don’t Do Shit Anymore Day!

Everyone’s been drinking energy drinks for too long. The stuff in those drinks is way weirder than newt eyes and possum tails.

“That was supposed to turn you into a half-bull, half-fish,” you say, your head in your hands after another failure.

“Don’t feel bad,” the kids you kidnapped tell you as they polish off the pitcher of your newest, “strongest” potion. “Homeopathic remedies worked on us for a little while but at this point we need the real stuff. We need science.”

“What now,” you say. “Being a witch is all I know. These potions were my bread and butter.”

And that’s how you’ll embark on a career as the most exciting new mixologist in Brooklyn’s exploding artisan cocktail scene.

Happy Your Magic Potions Don’t Do Shit Anymore Day!

Preferred Customer Rewards Day!

“Him,” the counterperson says, pointing to you. “I want him.”

You point to yourself to make sure you’re the one to whom he’s referring.

“Go away,” the counterperson says to the guy standing before him with his credit card out. “You’re not in the program. Get!”

The guy standing before him with his credit card out asks what the big idea is and where does this counterperson get off. Two men in masks take him by his armpits and drag him through a doorway.

“You!” the counterperson shouts, pointing to you. “Get your butt up here. You’re the reason I showed up to work today!”

You go to the counter and tell him you’d like to return the space heater you’re holding in your arms. You present your preferred customer card which gives you no-hassle returns.

“You don’t like it?” he asks. “Do you see the guy who sold it to you?”

You look around and locate the employee you bought the space heater from helping another customer near electronics.

“Hang on.”

Your counterperson approaches the other employee and sucker punches him across the nose. The employee who sold you the space heater goes down and the counterperson starts kicking him in the kidneys. Other employees gather around him and stomp on his chest and face.

“If he ever gives you any trouble again,” the counterperson pants upon returning to you, “You say the word. I’ll handle it.”

The counterperson hands you a trophy. It reads, “Best Customer.”

“You did it,” the counterperson says.

Tell him thanks. Once your return is processed, the counterperson will begin a slow clap. Make your way to the door as other sales personnel join in the slow clap until it reaches a crescendo and the entire sales staff is clapping for you, even the manager outside by the ambulance where the beaten-down employee is being loaded in. The manager claps for you and gives you a “Nice one!” Then she leans down and drags her palm over the beaten-down employee’s face to gently close his eyelids.

Happy Preferred Customer Rewards Day!

Degift Day!

The gift is sitting on your dining room table again. It’s still wrapped, just as you wrapped it. You check the windows, the door. There’s no sign of anyone having entered in the night.

“Happy Late Christmas,” you say to her when you see her at the bar after work. “I could’ve sworn I already gave this to you, but I guess it slipped my mind.”

You watch her unwrap it to reveal the Christopher Nolan boxset you bought for her, the one she unwrapped two nights before Christmas at the potluck, then again two nights after Christmas, then again the night after that, and again the night after that. You swear it. You fucking swear you saw this happen over and over again.

“Oh wow!” she says, exactly as you remember it. “Nolan! You know I love Nolan!”

The room is spinning. This moment is an echo. You search her eyes for some hint that she knows it, that she’s responsible for it. You grip the edge of the table to keep from grabbing her by the collar of her blouse and demanding that she tell you what she’s up to, why she’s doing this to you.

“If you don’t like it you can just regift it if you want,” you offer, your voice sounding louder than you intended.

“Oh I never regift,” she says.

You mutter an excuse me before leaping from the booth to run to the bathroom to vomit.

Tonight you won’t sleep. You’ll sit at the dining room table, the lights on, your eyes never moving from the spot on the table where it’s appeared over and over again. You need to stop the reset. You need the gift to remain in her possession. She has to have a key to your apartment, and perhaps a camera to figure out when you’re in the shower or on the toilet, occupied long enough for her to sneak in and give the gift back to you. You’ve taken up smoking again, you’re drinking coffee, anything to keep you awake and present at that dining room table. She’s going to keep her gift tonight.

The waiting is the hardest. You know that no matter how vigilant you are, that wrapped gift is going to be on your table by morning. No explanation, no merciful clue as to what’s happening to you. The only thing between now and then is the waiting.

Happy Degift Day!

Doris Is Back Day!

Doris is back.

“You give up on Stan?”

Doris says Stan never got his mail order pants business off the ground. He ended up being nothing but a Colorado party boy. She thought he was her ticket to the big time, but she discovered how much she missed her small time life with you.

“So I’m just s’posed to take you back in? After running off on me with another man like that, no word for over a year? I’m just supposed to open the  door and make you a cup of coffee?”

Doris says yeah.

“Come on in then,” you say.

Happy Doris Is Back Day!