Bra Cannon Day!

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

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

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

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

Happy Bra Cannon Day!

Your New Boyfriend Was The Killer All Along Day!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Your New Boyfriend Was The Killer All Along Day!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Turnstile Hopper Day!

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

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

Happy Turnstile Hopper Day!

Strip Club Buffet Day!

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

Happy Strip Club Buffet Day!

Maintain A Message Board For Runaways Day!

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

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

Happy Maintain A Message Board For Runaways Day!

Sharktalkers Day!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Sharktalkers Day!

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

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

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

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

"Nice encouragement," you said.

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

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

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

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

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

You Have Naked Pictures Of Someone Very Powerful Day!

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

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

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

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

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

There'll be a pause.

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

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

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

Chuckle a bit.

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

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

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

You'll both laugh.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy You Have Naked Pictures Of Someone Very Powerful Day!

Go Tell The Zebra Day!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Go Tell The Zebra Day!

Go To The Construction Site Day!

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

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

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

Happy Go To The Construction Site Day!

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

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

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

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

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

You Took An Oath Day!

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

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

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

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

Happy You Took An Oath Day!

Sledding With Your Prosecuting Attorney Day!

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

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

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

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

"Oh," you'll say.

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

Happy Sledding With Your Prosecuting Attorney Day!

Please Wash Your Dish After You Use It Day!

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

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

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

Happy Please Wash Your Dish After You Use It Day!

Take The Love Test Day!

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

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

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

Happy Take The Love Test Day!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stephanie Chamomile Day!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Stephanie Chamomile Day!

Wristwatch Salesman Day!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ask, "How much money do they want?"

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

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

Happy Wristwatch Salesman Day!

Be A Modern Day Robin Hood Day!

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

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

Happy Be A Modern Day Robin Hood Day!

Security Guard Fistfight Day!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Say, "Fight!"

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

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

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

Happy Security Guard Fistfight Day!

Bump Into Your Casual Encounter The Day After Day!

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

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

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

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

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

"Neither do I," say.

"You sure?!" he'll shout.

"You think I'd lie?" say.

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

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

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

Say, "Fuck you."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Bump Into Your Casual Encounter The Day After Day!

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

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

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

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

Birdhouse Graffiti Day!

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

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

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

Happy Birdhouse Graffiti Day!

You Are The Human Cannonball's Agent Day!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy You Are The Human Cannonball's Agent Day!

Apologies In A Bottle Day!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Apologies In A Bottle Day!

You Are A Male Stripper With Psychic Powers Day!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"No! Tell me!"

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

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

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

Happy You Are A Male Stripper With Psychic Powers Day!

Your Teenage Daughter Is Bulimic Day!

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

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

Happy Your Teenage Daughter Is Bulimic Day!