The Guy Who Stole Your Laptop Is Way More Likeable Than You Are Day!

You got your laptop stolen from a coffee shop not long ago (you left it alone on a table to go hit on a girl looking through postcards for terrible plays by the window. By the time the girl told you to leave her alone and you turned around, your laptop was gone). The guy must have immediately gone home and started answering your emails, because within 48 hours of losing your laptop, you and your father had reconciled your differences, your ex-girlfriend drunk dialed you, and your boss started telling everyone in the office that if they all had your attitude, the company’s stock would be through the roof already.

You check your sent mail file on Gmail and find that the guy who stole your laptop is capable of the most eloquent and evocative correspondence you’ve ever read. He was able to read into emails you’d gotten and instantly suss out what the writer was trying to say, and what the writer wanted to hear in response. And man did he tell them what they wanted to hear. Reading the emails he sent to your estranged father, ex-girlfriend, and especially your boss, you can’t help but shed a tear imagining what your life might have been like had you always had this strange man’s voice and grasp of human nature.

You decide to send an email to thank him, so you send it to yourself, assuming that he’s still reading.

Dear Guy Who Stole My Laptop,

Thanks for being me, in a way I could never be. I’m going to change my email password now.

Best

You change your email password and then you put on your good suit. You’re having dinner with your dad tonight.

Happy The Guy Who Stole Your Laptop Is Way More Likeable Than You Are Day!

PS: Hey UNITED KINGDOM, my new book is available in your part of town on July 3rd. Pre-order now!

PPS: Listen to me on NPR's "The Bryant Park Project," reading from and discussing my book.

PPPS: Another reading in NY this Friday, at KGB Bar. 7 PM. Free!

You Are A Fart Guitarist Day!

Today you’re going to quit playing fart guitar for an aspiring parody rock band that parodies popular rock songs in the vein of Weird Al, except without anyone knowing that you do it because you don’t make recordings that people can buy.

“I just don’t think there’s a future for me in Ned Bleppelin,” you’ll tell your lead singer.

“We have that gig at the orphanage in July. You’re just gonna let those kids go without hearing some funny music?”

“It’s not even a gig,” you say. “We just stand outside the orphanage’s window and play. They called the police the last time.”

This makes your lead singer cry. He grew up in that orphanage and his dream was that one day he would come back and perform there as a famous pop song parodist. After a few years of trying to make it, he grew impatient and just started playing outside the orphanage’s windows.

“What are you gonna do?” your lead singer asks.

“I’m going to join a song parody cover band” you say. “We’ll play parodies written by other people, like Al. There’s good money in it.”

“And the integrity?” he asks. “Is there much integrity to be found in that line of work?”

You shrug him off.

“Hey man, maybe one day we’ll parody one of your songs,” you say. “’My Fart Will Go On’ is bound to hit it big one day.”

Your lead singer loses his shit and starts throwing whatever he can find at you. Whoopie cushions, punching nun puppets, George W Bush masks. Whatever’s lying around the rehearsal space he sends flying at your head and cursing. You get the hell out of there and go meet your other band, Dare To Be Stupid, for practice. Tomorrow you’ll find out your former lead singer attempted suicide and is in the hospital. You won’t go visit. This is the business you’ve chosen.

PS: Pick up "You Are A Miserable Excuse For A Hero," the new book by Bob Powers. Out now!