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!