Hooker With A Heart Of Wet Cardboard Day!

You’re trying to write a screenplay about a mean, vicious hooker who is bitter and resentful and cruel. When a rich, sweet and divorced John falls in love with her, she has trouble accepting his love because she’s only ever been taught how to strike at people where they hurt and how to defend herself when she is retaliated against. You know how the story begins (the John picks her up and after they do it, she holds a knife to his scrotum and demands his watch and his money, which makes him track her down because the watch was his grandfather’s). And you know what happens in the second act (the hooker murders the John’s daughter and frames him for it. He is executed). But you’re just not sure how to get them to fall in love after that. You’re going to have to do some more research by soliciting sex from some more hookers, which you were going to do today anyway because today’s payday.

Happy Hooker With A Heart Of Wet Cardboard Day!

The Banker And The Conservationist Day!

You’re a rich fat banker with hundred dollar bills constantly fluttering out of your pockets and lots of girlfriends who only will only eat stuff if you sprinkle cocaine on it first. You love to buy and immediately destroy everything you see. Wildlife refuges, low income housing developments, and schools for the one-armed children of tomorrow are just a few of the things you get a kick out of buying and then hastily turning into parking lots. Today you’re going to show up at the demolition of the landmark building you bought a little while ago. After much wrangling with City Hall, they’re finally going to let you level it.

When you get there, you aren’t surprised to find some conservationists chained to the front of the building to prevent its demolition. You are surprised to look into the eyes of one of the activists and see everlasting comfort and beauty like you never thought imaginable. Go and hit on her.

“Can I borrow a quarter?” ask her. “I need to call my doctor and tell him that my heart just skipped a beat when I caught a glimpse of your pretty face.”

She’ll spit in your face and tell you you’re the reason why children have to shiver at night. Then she’ll demand that you not level the building where Eleanor Roosevelt once spent an historic lost weekend in the company of several off-duty midwives.

“If I let the building stand, will you let me buy you dinner?”

She’ll agree. You’ll convince her to move in with you that night, with the threat that if she says no you’ll tell the wrecking ball to swing at dawn. You’ll spend the rest of your lives together, and anytime she says she wants to leave you’ll just pick up the phone and pretend to be calling the demolition company to tell them when to swing the wrecking ball. Your kids will see it as a cute little game between Mommy and Daddy. When you start to bicker, your kids will scream, “Call the wrecking ball Daddy!” Then you’ll wave the phone in their mother’s face and everyone will burst into giggles until you pull your principled little conservationist into a big fat capitalist kiss.

Happy The Banker And The Conservationist Day!

Bumper To Bumper Day!

You’re stuck in vacation traffic and your kids are going crazy in the backseat. Now is about the time when you start peering into the other cars, wondering what it would be like to just step out of the driver’s seat and climb into someone else’s life and drive away. The car to your left is a beat-up old station wagon with an elderly couple inside and nobody in the backseat. The car to your right is a newish mini-SUV and behind the wheel is the woman you almost left your wife for ten years ago.

It’s her. It’s Michelle and she’s got a husband and kids. You had just proposed to your wife when Michelle started working freelance at your firm. You thought nothing could come between you and the woman you loved, which is ironically the way you justified your suddenly falling into bed with Michelle. ‘It must be right,’ you thought. ‘I wasn’t looking for it, I was perfectly happy, so it must be right and natural.’

You and Michelle snuck around together until she was about to head back to Atlanta and you started to panic. You began to talk about chucking everything and moving with her. Michelle was smart enough to know you were just scared over settling into your impending marriage, so she held you off long enough to get out of town without you. Your marriage has been happy, but Michelle is still the one you think about when you think about how it could have been.

Your wife is asleep in the passenger seat, so when Michelle looks over and recognizes you, you wave hello. Her husband is awake in the passenger seat, so she only smiles your way and wiggles one finger off the steering wheel. Your son saw you wave and he’s asking who that is in the car next to you. You tell him it’s nobody, hoping he won’t wake your mom. You’re busy studying Michelle’s husband and kids and trying to calculate which car is carrying the better life, and you don’t want to be interrupted. Her husband is about as attractive as you, or as attractive as anyone can be with two kids in the back seat. Michelle looks older but great as ever. Her kids might be fatter than yours, you can’t tell. When your son asks you why you keep looking into that car, you change lanes just as your wife is waking up. She leans over and hugs your arm, and you keep in the left lane for the rest of the drive to your summer rental.

Happy Bumper To Bumper Day!

Your Blacklight Poster Of The “Dark Side Of The Moon” Album Cover Has A Score To Settle Day!

You bought your blacklight poster of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side Of The Moon” at a yard sale. You were told a roommate who had moved out some time prior had left it behind in the house. He left a lot of stuff, including a Molly Hatchet blacklight poster, and a lot of loose beads that he must have been planning to string together one day.

Though you aren’t aware of it, today is the anniversary of the day your Blacklight poster’s owner walked out on it. When you smoke up first thing this morning, your blacklight poster is going to tell you to put on some pants because you and your blacklight poster have some work to do.

“Is this going to get violent, Blacklight Poster?” you’ll ask.

The prism will appear to crunch in on itself when it says, “We’re just going to teach somebody a lesson.”

The blacklight poster of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side Of The Moon” will tell you to unhook it from the wall and take it into the car with you. Then it will give you directions.

“Steve eats lunch at the Del Taco on Cahuenga,” the blacklight poster of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side Of The Moon” will say. “Pull up slow. And turn off the engine about 20 feet before we get to the restaurant.”

You’ll do as the blacklight poster says. You’ll pull up to a space by the window to the restaurant, and then you’ll wait. Through the glass, you’ll see a guy eating tacos with three friends. He’ll be wearing a Lynyrd Skynyrd tee shirt that you own yourself. You love that shirt.

The prism in the blacklight poster of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side Of The Moon” will send its refracted beam out of the poster frame and through the glass of the restaurant, directly into Steve’s eyes. Steve will look out at your car, his mouth hanging open in terror when he sees the poster he abandoned in his former house. Then the beams of refracted light will all turn bright orange and Steve’s eyeballs will turn into black coals. He’ll be screaming and tearing at his face when the blacklight poster of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side Of The Moon” tells you to drive away.

“Never leave me,” the blacklight poster of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side Of The Moon” will say.

You’ll shake your head vigorously. “I’ll never leave you. I’ll stay with you forever.”

“Forever and ever,” the prism will say.

“Forever and ever,” you’ll respond.

When you get home, you’ll take out the hook from the wall and hang your blacklight poster closer to the stairs, where the air is better, according to the blacklight poster of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side Of The Moon.”

Happy Your Blacklight Poster Of The “Dark Side Of The Moon” Album Cover Has A Score To Settle Day!

Anonymous Donor Day!

Today you are the extremely wealthy individual who makes all those anonymous donations to people whose tragedies and acts of heroism capture the nation’s attention. It’s a busy job. Today alone you have to send a year’s supply of diapers to the woman who had quintuplets, you have to buy a first class ticket so that a man traveling for work in Peru can make it home for the funeral of his wife and four sons (they all fell down a well), and you have to send another $25,000 check to subway hero Wesley Autrey (he’s basically living off of an anonymously donated allowance now). Sometimes you get a little selfish and you wonder why you shouldn’t just hoard all your money and pass it along to your kids. But people need to believe that there are rich people out there who can’t help but just send out cash to people who get interviewed on Good Morning America. Even if you’re the only one doing it, as long as it gets reported on TV, people will still have something to hope for. When they’ve suffered the most tragic of tragedies, your generosity will send them to the mailbox every day hoping against hope to find a big fat check in there, signed “Anonymous” (you legally changed your name to Anonymous a couple of years back because your work is your life).

Happy Anonymous Donor Day!

Holy Underwear Model Day!

You’re a very successful male underwear model whose real dream is to enter the priesthood. For the past three years, you’ve been saving every penny you’ve made from modeling to pay for Priesthood tuition. Today you’re going to find out that your Dad lied to you about the Priesthood charging tuition.

“Yeah,” he’ll say. “It’s free. They can’t expect dudes to never have sex and pay for it. I just told you that because I didn’t want you to become a priest.”

“It was my dream,” you’ll tell him. “How could you?”

“Let’s take a drive.”

Your Dad will drive you around town, past all of the billboards featuring your underwear-clad image towering over the populace. You’ll see you in some underwear holding a baby on a bare mattress, you in some underwear cooking bacon, and you in some underwear drinking a glass of Cutty Sark.

“Look at that up there,” your Dad will say. “That’s you, fifty feet high, with everyone in town looking up to you, waiting for you to tell them what to buy and what to drink or eat. It’s like this entire town is your church, this entire nation. Except you get to hold mass in your underwear. Would you really prefer to address your flock while wearing a big black dress?”

“I never thought about it that way,” you’ll say, because you’re very dim. Remember, you were convinced that priests paid tuition.

“You’re an underwear model, son,” your Dad will say. “If God didn’t want it that way, he would have made your groin area more ruddy. As it is now, you don’t even get bumps after a wax. You were born for it.”

You’ll stare up at a billboard which has you in some underwear feeding Fancy Feast to a kitten. You really do look great up there. Anytime you imagine yourself as a priest, you just see a world without ice cream and flowers, since your Dad also convinced you that priests are not allowed to eat ice cream or smell flowers. He also convinced you that priests can’t sit down when they have a bowel movement, but you stopped trying to figure out how that would work a long time ago.

“Be who you were born to be,” your Dad will say. “God gave you those abs for a reason.”

“I’m an underwear model,” you’ll say to the billboard which features you in some underwear reading the instructions that tell you how to build a child’s bicycle. “In service to the Lord.”

Your Dad will suppress his triumphant glee. He saw this whole thing as a battle for your future between him and Jesus, and he just kicked Jesus’ butt so he’s feeling pretty good about himself.

Happy Holy Underwear Model Day!

You’re A Terribly Sexy, Terribly Sucky Divorce Lawyer Day!

You are as sexy as you are terrible at divorce law. You’re also real lonely. So when your female clients, half-crazed by the emotional whirlwind of divorce, inevitably come onto you, you can’t help but respond in kind. You don’t have time to go out and meet someone because you’re too busy trying not to suck at your profession (an uphill battle). Therefore, when an offer of intimacy comes your way, it’s hard not to accept.

It never works out though. Your clients are all out of their minds with mourning over the marriage that was supposed to last forever, and they don’t really want much more out of you than a few weeks of self-destructive nudity, and an awe-inspiring settlement.

The bloom comes off the rose when you lose their cases and leave them penniless without even managing to finagle them some child-support. You try to guilt them into staying, telling them that they should be ashamed for not valuing you for who you are over what you can do for them. But they just shout some crap about not being able to pay for their kid’s tuition to the school for the hearing impaired and having to put him back into special ed at the public school. Like that makes you feel any better. It’s lonely being a sucky divorce lawyer who’s really attractive. Poor thing.

Happy You’re A Terribly Sexy, Terribly Sucky Divorce Lawyer Day!

Water Park Turd Wranglers In Love Day!

When you first laid eyes on Amy reaching her net into the wading pool at the bottom of a waterslide to pull a turd from the water, you were standing by the rapids and a raft came splashing up against the wall, sending a wave of water raining all over you. It was like a baptism.

“I feel like God made me a turd wrangler solely so I could meet you,” you told her on your third date.

“I feel like God made you a turd wrangler just to test me,” Amy responded.

Amy loves her work. She relishes the challenge of catching a turd and netting it out of the water before too many mothers pull their sons out of line for the ride. It takes a special attentiveness to purpose to distinguish a little kid turd from just another stray pair of goggles. And the dexterity required to make that net, she feels like she could just as well be roping bulls at the rodeo.

“Then you came along,” she said. She’d been working her way up to this waterpark for years now. It only hires the most talented of summer job seekers to be their turd wranglers, and Amy wasn’t about to blow her shot at excellence just for love.

“I’m sorry,” she’ll tell you today. “But I can’t see you anymore. I can’t date another turd wrangler. This is too important to me.”

“I’ll quit,” you’ll tell her. “I’ll get a job at the go-cart track.”

“Oh,” Amy will say. “Sweet.” Then she’ll kiss you and that night you’ll get boob.

Happy Water Park Turd Wranglers In Love Day!

You’re Not Going To Pick Up Hitchhikers Anymore Day!

Today you’ll be on the second day of a four day trip back to Minnesota after a job down south and you’ll be about ready to drive into a ditch just to relieve the boredom when you spot a pretty girl in her twenties holding up her thumb for a ride (it happens!). You’ll pick her up and you and her will get along really well, talking about music and movies and roads that seem like they’re going to be perpetually under construction (she grew up not far from where you grew up). That night, you’ll pull into a motel and they’ll only have one room left and she’ll say that’s cool with her, she needs to save money anyway. So you’ll share a room and you’ll do it with her then she’ll start talking about her Uncle Mick and you’ll say, “I guess everybody’s got an Uncle Mick.” Then she’ll start talking about Uncle Mick’s wife, Aunt Evy, and you’ll say, “I guess everyone’s Uncle Mick’s got a wife named Evy.” Then she’ll talk about how Uncle Mick lost his right leg to cancer and how Aunt Evy supplements his disability payments with her job selling appliances. That’s when you’ll realize you just fucked your cousin and you’ll make a vow that you’re not going to pick up hitchhikers anymore, no matter how bored you get. It’s just too dangerous.

Happy You’re Not Going To Pick Up Hitchhikers Anymore Day!

Girls Who Wear Fake Toes Aren’t Liars Day!

Back in high school you got heartbroken pretty bad and you vowed to never trust another woman again. You pulled it off for a couple of decades, until last week when you met Lucy at a waterfront bar near your work. She knew a colleague of yours and joined your table. You and she got to talking and before you knew it, you were making plans to have dinner the following Wednesday.

You and Lucy had about four dates before you found out about her fake toes. She’d invited you back to her place, and things looked promising. You were enjoying drinks on her couch, kissing a bit, when you looked down and saw she’d taken her sandals off. The sandals were sitting on the floor five feet away, poking out from under the glass coffee table. Her pretty toes were still in them.

You stopped kissing and grabbed one of the sandals. The hollow toes with the perfect bright red polish were made of a kind of thick rubber. Off the foot, you were shocked that you ever thought they were real.

You then saw her naked feet, and the toes on them. Oddly shaped, fat in all the wrong places, chipped and neglected nail polish barely coating her nails. Just a bunch of ordinary, everyday, ugly-ass toes.

“Toe cleavage,” she said. “It’s a big trend right now.”

You got up from the couch, went to the kitchen to grab the doggy bag you brought from the restaurant, and you got the hell out of there.

She left voicemails and sent you emails for several weeks and you stayed silent. Then she stopped trying to reach you. That’s when you realized how much you missed her. That’s when you panicked and told her you’d like to meet and explain. You’re having coffee tonight at six, and you’re going to tell her you were lied to around 23 years ago and therefore trust is a very big issue for you.

“Girls who wear fake toes aren’t liars,” she’ll say. “I just wanted to look pretty for you.”

You tell her about the prom. How you were surprised when the cheerleader asked you to go with her because you weren’t exactly quarterback material. Then when it was announced you had been elected prom king, it was like a dream. Then it turned into a nightmare when they dropped a pig on you.

“It was alive, but with its legs hog-tied. It pinned me there on the stage. They laughed, all of them, students and teachers, and they left me there stuck underneath that enormous pig while it squealed and shat all over me, and they went about their dance for another couple of hours, occasionally coming on stage to take a picture with me or to fart on my eyes. It wasn’t until they’d all gone that the custodial staff came onstage and rolled the pig off of me.”

Lucy’s crying when you finish your story. “That was the only reason that girl asked me to the prom. So her and her friends could trap me underneath a live pig while everyone pointed and laughed. I made a promise to never trust another woman again, until you came along. I didn’t want to hold anything back from you. Then I saw those toes.”

“Those toes were no more an effort to deceive than the lipstick on these lips,” she says. “Nothing more than an effort to make you want me just as much as I want you.”

You lean in to kiss those lips. She pulls back.

“You have to trust me,” she says. “This won’t work if you’re going to doubt my heart.”

You nod.

“You have to trust me,” she says. “I’m not a liar, and I want you in my life.”

You swallow. You say, “I trust you.” She reaches across the table and pulls you into her kiss.

Happy Girls Who Wear Fake Toes Aren’t Liars Day!

You’re A Filthy Goth Day!

You’re a filthy Goth, so late last night, while painting something black (your throw pillow or your bathroom mirror, those aren’t black yet) you responded to a TV commercial and you bought one of those lightbulbs that you can carry around the house from room to room, setting the bulbs into little sockets that you mount in places around your home where, for whatever reason, there is no wiring for electric light. It’s great for filthy Goths like you because you get to use the magic of electric light to pretend that you live in a time before there was electric light, when people had to carry oil lamps with them everywhere they went. Except you don’t have to worry about setting your eyelashes on fire.

Tonight when you use the lamp, you’ll discover that all those places in your house that are not wired for electricity were neglected on purpose. When the light comes on in the stairway leading down the basement, you’ll see the ghost of a teenage girl. She is blonde and beaming with joy, jumping up and down in a cheerleader’s outfit. Her perkiness offends your love of darkness and ruffled shirts.

When the light comes on in the stairway leading up to your guest bedroom, you’ll see the ghost of a well-built man with a sweater tied around his neck. He’ll appear to be calling his kids to take them all out to a waterpark. The wholesomeness of it all will disgust you.

When the light comes on in your pantry, you’ll see the ghost of a happy mother reaching for the top shelf, where you’ll see the ghost of a can of cake frosting. True and real and horrible.

You’ll hastily throw away the lightbulbs that you can carry around the house with you and rip the mounted sockets from their walls. These spirits can carry on their horrific reverie, just as long as you don’t have to watch the hideous obscenity occur. You’ll be under the silver mosquito netting over your princess bed, drawing on the sheets in the blood from your under-thigh thank you very much.

Happy You’re A Filthy Goth Day!

You Are The Ice Cream Woman Day!

Anytime the children see your Ice Cream Truck coming down the street, they come running at you to buy some of your delicious treats and to ask you questions like when is your husband coming home from Iraq and why is there war?

“I’d like one 4th of July Pop,” little Kimmy says. “And I’d like to know if you’re angry at George Bush for taking your husband away and making you drive his Ice Cream Truck.”

You explain that getting angry doesn’t help anybody, and you’d drive your husband’s ice cream truck to the end of the Earth if it meant his Ice Cream route would still be secure and profitable when he returns. “He loves this route and he misses you kids so much. I have to make sure it’s all still here for him when he gets back.”

“Fudgsicle,” Hank the fat kid says. “Is your husband winning the war?”

You give Hank his fudgsicle and you tell him your husband is doing his part.

“Banana Split Pop,” Lizzie the child of divorce says. “I’m uncomfortable buying Ice Cream from an Ice Cream Woman. Ice Cream should be bought from Ice Cream Men.”

You give Lizzie her pop and you tell her about the sacrifices that are made in times of war. Then you tell her about Rosie the Riveter and the Goldie Hawn/Kurt Russell movie “Swing Shift.” Lizzie points out that Goldie cheated on Ed Harris in “Swing Shift.” You quickly jump behind the wheel and peel out.

Happy You Are The Ice Cream Woman Day!

You’re Not There For Him Day!

Your son is a competitive eater and today he’s competing in the most important hot dog eating contest of his life. He’s made it this far thanks to your encouragement and your lessons of how important it is to discipline yourself to finish whatever you start, whether it be a plate of coleslaw or a plate of 75 hotdogs and some water.

You can’t be there to cheer him on because you’re in jail for embezzling from your own company, the company you built from scratch. Your son hasn’t visited you yet. The last you talked, it was the night before the sentencing.

“Is there discipline in stealing from what you’ve created? Do you take pride in hobbling your life’s work?”

“It was for your training,” you offered. You sent him to a Competitive Eating, Plate Spinning, and Sword Swallowing camp and it was very expensive.

“So it was for me that you threw away everything,” he said.

“It was for you that I did whatever it took.”

He put his hand on your cheek, it was the last time he touched you, and he said, “Would you have been proud of me if you knew I was stealing hot dog buns? Or, Jesus strike me down, hot dogs?!”

You hung your head in shame, and you didn’t see him when he left.

The C.O. set it up so you could watch the competition in the TV hall. By the look in your son’s eyes you’ll know immediately that he’s going to blow this. By midway through he’s trailing by twelve hot dogs. With ten seconds left he throws them all up into the bucket they provided for him by his chair. Then he just sits there and stares into the camera.

He’s staring at you. He knows you’re watching. And he’s letting you know it was in honor of you that he threw away his dream. Now more than ever you wish you could go back in time and not steal that money. Not to set a better example for your son, but just so that you could be there today to teach him one last lesson: If you strive for anything at all, you should strive to be a better man than your Dad. Anything less, and you’ve failed.

Happy You’re Not There For Him Day!

Chase A Lady Through Some Ruins That Smell Like Pee Day!

Jennifer married the wrong man, and she knows it, which is why when she comes by your place for the reception after your Dad’s funeral it won’t be long before she takes off running out the door and across the street into the ruins of the waterfront buildings that burned down in 1977.

You had your arm around her shoulder while you watched the buildings burn. The two of you were only ten years old. Your big brother and his friends were grabbing pieces of wood and garbage and tossing them over the fence into the flames. But you and Jennifer stood and watched like you were getting a look at a second 4th of July.

Jennifer’s husband wasn’t there when the waterfront burned down. He wasn’t even born yet. Just a thought in his mother’s head all the way across the country in Northern California.

“I can’t run through here,” you shout at her back. “Too much piss.”

Jennifer doesn’t stop. She races out of one cinderblock doorway and finds her way in another. You started drinking early today to get through the funeral, and you’re now praying for a rain that’ll at least stamp down the pee smell a bit.

“Jennifer please,” you shout. Then it comes. You bend over and you start throwing up on the floor of what was once a shoe factory. You retch loudly to make sure she hears you. It isn’t long before she’s by your side and rubbing your back.

In between your vomiting, when you pant for air and enjoy Jennifer’s hands on you, she explains why she’s married to a man over a decade younger than her, and not you.

“You stayed in the neighborhood,” she says. “You got a place right here looking at all these burned out buildings. You never wanted anything more.”

You start throwing up again. Then you stop.

“I pictured marrying you and I saw nothing more than the life my mother and father had,” she says. “I wanted control. I met this young boy, you know he’s not even thirty. He does what I want.”

You throw up. Then you stop again.

“I’m fooling myself, yeah,” she says. “I’m gonna get bored with my boy husband, I know. But I'll never be trapped.”

You’re done throwing up. You get on your feet and Jennifer looks in your eyes for the first time today. They’re bright red from the vomiting. Jennifer doesn’t move a muscle to stop you from grabbing her close and lifting up her dress. You keep your head on her shoulder, facing away from her so she can’t smell you, and you kiss her neck while she undoes your pants. Then her boy husband calls her name.

“Jenny?”

His voice and his footsteps turn you both into shadows. You’re up against a wall turned gray with piss and shaded by the trees hovering over the open roof. Your pants are down and her dress is up. Her boy husband comes closer.

“Baby?”

You consider calling him in so you can crack his head open with a block of wood. But that would mean letting go of Jennifer. You stay quiet. You and Jennifer look into each other’s eyes while you listen to his footsteps.

“Jenny?”

He’s just outside your building now. He’s stopped. He can see through the door that the roof has fallen in and it looks more dangerous in there than the other buildings. You wonder if the fresh scent of your puke is reaching him through all that pee.

“Jen?” He’s calling like he knows you’re just inside that room. Then his footsteps start up again. He’s walking away. When the sound of his steps disappears, Jennifer grabs your head from her shoulder and plants her lips on your disgusting mouth. You both move deeper into the shadows of the burned out building, not trying to be quiet anymore.

Happy Chase A Lady Through Some Ruins That Smell Like Pee Day!

You And Your Dad Find A Box Full Of Hashish And Some Money Day!

“I’m really glad we’re doing this, Dad,” you say. “It’s been hard for me since Stacey left. She told me I’m one of the ones that just gets thrown away, and I’d better get used to it. Honestly, I haven’t felt so helpless since I was a little kid waiting for you or mom to tuck me in.”

“Hey look, a box of hashish!” your Dad says, pointing out the window.

It’s an open box, like a high-walled lunch tray, sitting in the leaves on the ground. The five bags it holds must contain fifteen or twenty thousand dollars worth of hashish. There’s also a handful of hundred dollar bills.

“Here,” your Dad says, handing you the money. “I want you to have this.”

You mumble, “Thanks.” Your Dad is sorting through the drugs. You’ve seen that look in his eyes before. He’s adding up numbers, probably comparing the value of those drugs to whatever expenses he’s been trying not to face.

“You need to get yourself back on your feet,” your Dad says. “So your wife’s gone. Come on! Get back in action!”

He’s saying goodbye. This is the way he does it. He starts throwing out some quick advice, trying to cram in some fatherly-ness before vanishing. Then he finds the back door and you hear from him again when the decade turns.

“I’m gonna go take a leak,” he says. Then he gets out of the truck and just starts walking through the woods. You watch him stumble over rocks and underneath branches for about ten minutes. Then he’s too far away. He’s gone.

You sit there in the truck for a while, enjoying the woods. You got to see your Dad for part of an afternoon. No matter how it ended, you got that much. When the drug dealers come by looking for their stash and they ask you if you know who took it, you point them in the opposite direction of where your Dad headed. They thank you kindly. “You’re one of the good ones,” the drug dealers say.

Happy You And Your Dad Find A Box Full Of Hashish And Some Money Day!

Go Bust Your Crazy-Ass Girlfriend Out Of The Mental Hospital Day!

The girl you love was admitted into a mental hospital the other day and they won’t let you see her because you aren’t family. Since you’re an idiot, you’ve concluded that her family is just trying to keep the two of you apart. While her parents would certainly love for their daughter to lose all interest in you, being as they are aware that you are a complete freaking idiot, the reason they admitted her into a mental hospital is because she’s been increasingly paranoid and delusional. She was under psychiatric care long before you showed up and decided you could make her all better by dragging her outside in her pajamas in the middle of the night so she could watch the first snowfall of winter and charming bullshit like that. Her medication has been futzed with more times than you’ve filled in the “do not withhold taxes” box on your unemployment forms, and this week it was recommend that she try inpatient for a few weeks so they can monitor her reaction to the medication more closely.

Unfortunately, due to your being a fucking moron and a dickhead who sucks anus, you’ve decided that’s all just a bunch of bullcrap and you’re going to go right over to that hospital and “rescue” her from her very expensive care. You’re going to put on an orderly’s uniform that you bought from a uniform shop, sneak past the front desk and creep about the hospital until you find your girl. Then you’re gonna kneel by her bed and propose, using a plastic ring naturally. Because she’s only been there for two days she’s presently tranq’ed out of her mind and she’ll say yes with the same enthusiasm she uses to affirm that she would like a piece of cornbread with her chicken at dinnertime. Then you’ll pull her from her bed and drag her down the hallways to the main exit, with dozens of orderlies chasing after the two of you. You’ll elude them and you and your new fiance will escape from the hospital and you’ll finally be free to explore your great and endless love for each other.

After three days without medication she’ll be completely unmanageable and you’ll abandon her in a Roy Rogers. The manager on duty at Roy’s will alert the police and her family will arrive in a few hours to return their little girl into the hands of her physicians, and you’ll run off and ruin everything for everyone someplace else, hopefully someplace where everyone owns rifles.

Happy Go Bust Your Crazy-Ass Girlfriend Out Of The Mental Hospital Day!

Maybe He’ll Just Reach Out Of The Bathroom And Yank You In There With Him Day!

You and your boyfriend are out at a bar for his brother Matt’s birthday tonight and Levi is there. Levi is the only boy you’ve considered cheating on your boyfriend with in the six years you’ve been together. By “considered,” I mean “masturbated incessantly to the idea of.” You have no intention of making a pass at Levi. But you do like to put yourself into situations where he could make a pass at you. Like tonight, when Levi goes to use the unisex bathroom downstairs, you’ll follow close behind and get there just after him.

“Oh,” he’ll say, halfway through the door. “You want to go first?”

“That’s okay,” you’ll say. “Finder’s Keepers.”

If he wants, he could just reach out and yank you in there with him. The unisex bathroom is in the basement, down a hallway of creaky floors. There’s a set of men’s and women’s bathrooms upstairs so not too many people come down there. If he feels like it, or if you look at him the right way, he could just grab your hand and yank you in there with him and then…things will happen. Things that are beyond your control. You won’t have done anything but gone down to the bathroom and you’ll have just gotten yanked into someplace and then before you knew what was happening…

Levi shuts and locks the door in your face and you wait. Maybe when he comes out he’ll tell you the toilet has a weird flush and he’ll take you in there to show you and when you’re both hovering over the toilet like that, playing with the flush and lifting your pants cuffs so they don’t absorb the puddle on the ground, it’ll just be so perfect that…not your fault.

“I didn’t do that to the seat,” he’ll say when he comes out. You’ll laugh in a way that tries to get him to make eye contact with you and pull you into his arms and kiss you before you have a chance to do the right thing and say no, but he’ll just keep walking down the hall and back up to the party. You’ll go inside and while you’re wiping strange urine off the toilet seat you’ll wonder why it’s just gotta be so fucking hard to accidentally cheat on your boyfriend.

Happy Maybe He’ll Just Reach Out Of The Bathroom And Yank You In There With Him Day!

Magic Samantha Day!

Today you are 76 and you’re going to tell your husband the truth.

“I’m actually not magic at all.”

“But all these years I’ve lived in fear of your powers. I gave up so much.”

You’ll explain that you just told him you were magic when you and he were back in high school because you wanted to go out with him and you didn’t want him to be friends with his stupid asswad rich kid clique anymore. So you told him your powers were great and he had to be your boyfriend and love you. If he refused, you warned him that you would turn him into a squirrel and you would set Marnie, the girl he really loved, on fire.

“My life. I’ve lived my whole life in fear. Of a fraud.”

“We had some good times.”

“Marnie. Marnie.”

He’ll just go on like that for a month. Moaning Maarnie. Maaaarnie! After a while you’ll wish you were magic so you could rip his tongue out without worrying about him biting your hand. Later, he’ll go.

Happy Magic Samantha Day!

Dear Mountaineer Day!

You’ve been having trouble with your Mom lately, so you decided to write to your favorite nationally syndicated column, “Dear Mountaineer.” Your letter was published today! Check it out…

Dear Mountaineer,

My Mom says I’m too old to live in her house anymore. I’m forty-four. My Dad’s dead so it’s not like she doesn’t need a man around. Why is she being such an asshole?

-Mama’s Boy

Dear Mama’s Boy,

Your Mom is experiencing what we mountaineers call “Altitude Sickness.” Hope this helped.

-The Mountaineer.

The great thing about the Mountaineer is, you can tell by his prose that he really does hope he helped. If he didn’t, it’s a shame because the mountaineer has a strict policy of cutting people off after a single correspondence. You can’t be weighed down with a lot of letters when you’ve got the summit in sight.

Happy Dear Mountaineer Day!

Blood In The Barbecue Sauce Day!

At the State Fair last night, you lost the Boldest Baddest Best BBQ Sauce Contest to Louie Watkins. Today you’re going to take his life.

“I knew you’d come,” he’ll say from behind his grill.

“It’s not fair,” you’ll say. “Your sauce tastes like assholes.”

Louie will turn off a pork shank. It will sizzle.

“The people have spoken,” he’ll say.

“I have a rebuttal,” you’ll say to Louie. Then you’ll shoot him twice in the chest. A cloud of red will form on his apron, blotting out the “If You Don’t Like My Ribs, SUCK THE BONE!” decal. Louie’s young daughter will go to her daddy and hold his hand while he dies. She’ll look up at you.

“I have to raise you now,” you’ll say.

“I don’t want you to raise me,” Louie’s daughter will say.

“It’s the way things are done,” you’ll say. “It’s in the sauce.”

You’ll snatch Louie’s daughter and the two of you will take off for Kansas City where you’ll build a BBQ empire with a brand new sauce recipe. Your sauce will put Louie’s daughter through Harvard. It will buy her and her husband a house. It will fill the space under her Christmas tree with presents for her grandkids. After many years she’ll visit your sauce factory and find several small glass tanks of blood labeled, “Louie’s Blood. Add One Small Drop per Fifty Vats.”

Suddenly she’ll realize her entire life of luxury has been built from her father’s murder. She’ll want to throw everything away in honor of her father, but can she? And did she know all along? Couldn’t she have guessed when you chose the slogan, “Sauce So Good You’ll Think I Murdered My Daughter’s Biological Pappi!” Yes, she probably could have guessed. That slogan is very obvious and she probably could have guessed.

Happy Blood In The Barbecue Sauce Day!

Guess Who’s Back Day!

Your Mom’s back and she’s sitting on your couch. She ran off on you and your Dad when you were seven. You’re seventeen now, and you’re not doing so well.

“Your Dad still suck?” she asks.

“He’s making do,” you say. “He wasted a lot of time wondering where you’d gone and what he could have done to make you stay.”

“He used to tell the worst jokes and he snored,” your mom says.

You don’t say anything.

"His breath stunk too. I’m just saying. I had my reasons.”

You don’t say anything.

“If you’re just gonna sit there and not say anything, maybe I shouldn’t have come back at all.”

You ask your Mom, “Why did you come back?”

“I wanted to see how tall you got,” she says.

You stand up against the door-frame where they used to mark your height. The last mark is only three feet from the ground. Your mom marks the wood at over six feet.

“Those are my genes you know,” she says. “Your Dad and his whole family are real short. Fat too.”

“Is it your genes that are making me fail out of school and break into houses so that I can buy drugs?” you ask. “Or am I just doing that because my Mom ran off when I was seven?”

“Sorry kid,” you Mom will say. “But I’m betting it’s because you’ve been living with your Dad all these years. I mean, man does he suck.”

Just then your Dad walks into the house. He farts while chewing with his mouth open then he says something racist and makes a phone call to his real estate company to tell them to make a business deal that leaves thousands of low income families without a place to live. He’s bleeding from someplace on his body and he’s tracking blood on the carpet.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he says when he sees your Mom.

Your Mom takes off. After she’s gone, your Dad tries to clean up the blood with a rag that he wet with grape juice. It upsets you, but admitting that he’s doing something sucky would be siding with the mother who ran off on you all those years ago. So you get down on your hands and knees and help him rub grape juice into the carpet. While you’re down there, your Dad gets angry and hits you.

Happy Guess Who’s Back Day!