You Think The Birds Are All Hi-Tech Cameras That Are Trying To Catch Sight Of You Naked Day!

You are pretty sure that Mrs. Lewis, the 81-year-old lady who lives down the block, has a thing for you. You're also pretty sure that Mrs. Lewis is a wealthy criminal mastermind with the power to build thousands of tiny cameras disguised as birds and scatter them around the trees outside your windows, solely to catch an occasional glimpse of you in the nude.

Everything changed between you and Mrs. Lewis back in 1981 when she wandered over to your stoop one Saturday afternoon and offered you a glass of lemonade.

"I'm a widower," you told her, "but my deceased beloved still has my heart."

Mrs. Lewis went back to her apartment and, you're certain, began plotting ways to glimpse you out of your shirts. She spent the next decade, you're certain, designing the prototype for her bird cameras, and began distributing them in the years that followed.

You're staring at thirty of her cameras right now. You're drawing on a large piece of posterboard. You're making a sign. It reads, "Would you care to join me for a cup of coffee Mrs. Lewis? It's been a long, lonely summer, and I'd prefer that the autumn not follow suit."

You hold the sign up to the bird cameras for a full minute, more than long enough for Mrs. Lewis to read it. Then you put the sign down and you wait to hear her knock on your door. If she doesn't knock, you'll have your answer.

Happy You Think The Birds Are All Hi-Tech Cameras That Are Trying To Catch Sight Of You Naked Day!

Airplane Dance Number Day!

You're on a plane with 83 people who coordinated a dance number to be performed on the plane so that they can get big numbers on Youtube and then get their shit played on a loop on Fox and Friends or some shit like that. You're the only one who doesn't know the moves and they're afraid you're going to ruin everything.

"You have to learn the steps," one of them, named Dusty, is telling you.

"But I'm playing in-flight trivia on my seat-back TV and winning big," you say.

"Who's playing in-flight trivia with this guy!" Dusty shouts. Then the passengers playing in-flight trivia argue that they're just trying to kill some time while you get convinced to learn the dance number. They point out that in-flight trivia really makes the time fly by, but Dusty counters that they all spent over $400 to be on this flight just to do the dance number and the dance number is what they're gonna do. The ones playing in-flight trivia say "fair enough" and they stop playing.

"Fuck!" you say. "I was killing it."

"Just learn the dance number and as soon as we get it on video, you can go back to watching the Office or whatever," Dusty says.

"But I can't dance," you say. "And this sounds gay as balls."

"Of course it's gay as balls," Dusty says. "You think a youtube clip can get played on TV if it isn't gay as balls? You see that one of those stocky people dancing down the aisle at that wedding?"

You concede Dusty's point.

"I really can't dance," you say.

Dusty tries to think of what to do to keep you from ruining everything.

"I got it," Dusty says. Then he beats you over the head until you're unconscious and stuffs you into the lavatory. They conduct their number while you're unconscious in there, but some turbulence knocks you off balance and you end up falling on your neck in a way that constricts the blood-flow to your head and you die in there. The tape of the dance number gets played on all the networks, day and night, to show what the rest of the passengers were doing while a man died in the airplane bathroom. The chyrons on the nightly news will read "Dance Of Death Flight" because no one at the studio could agree on what the chyrons should read so someone just typed something and shouted, "No more arguing!"

Happy Airplane Dance Number Day!

You're a Terrible Developer of Timewasting Websites Day!

You've been trying to come up with a hit, viral timewasting website for a while now, but all of your ideas are horrible. Your latest takes the cake, "Tree or Child Killed By A Stray Bullet dot com." It's one of those constantly refreshing sites where people click quiz after quiz. A name appears, and visitors have to click on whether they think the name is the name of a tree or a child who was killed by a stray bullet. So the screen either says something like "Maple" (clearly, a tree) or something along the lines of "Amber Rae Peterson" (I'm guessing child killed by stray bullet). How is that a challenge?

It's common knowledge that you hate criticism and you're going to read this and shout, "But I'm just trying to get my wife to come back!" This won't work. Write her a letter.

Happy You're a Terrible Developer of Timewasting Websites Day!

Pay The Kid To Sauce Your Lemonade Day!

You threw one too many punches, kissed one too many dames when they weren't looking, threw up one too many times on the pool table right after the felt got changed, and so you finally got thrown out of Murray's for good.

Nowhere else to drink in this neighborhood. What's your day gonna be like with no bar to belly up to? Who's gonna pour your sauce and ask you what's what?

Wait a minute. That yellow-headed kid on the corner selling lemonade to pay for his mom's prescriptions. He's looking for customers!

You slap a buck on his cardboard counter top and you say, "Pour."

He does. You sip. Then spit.

"Weak," you say.

"I can add more sugar," the kid says.

"Nah, nah. Wait a minute," you say. You slap a five on the counter. "Sauce it."

The kid just stares at you.

"Ain't got no sauce? Hang on."

You head to the corner and buy the best pint of vodka five dollars will allow.

"Here you go," you tell the kid. "Pour me another, but fill the cup with that halfway."

The kid says, "I don't know."

"Look son," you say. "I need a bar and I need a bartender or else I'm just a ship at sea. You're gonna have to take the job. You'll learn quick you sauce a guy like me, he'll keep giving you his money till you throw him out, and you will throw him out. Trust me."

You slap two bucks on the counter. The kid pours. You drink.

"Gimme that stool. Ain't sitting on the grass. Bartender works on his feet anyway."

The kid gives you his stool and you sit.

"Hope it don't rain," you say to the kid.

The kid says, "Not likely to I reckon."

Then you spend the next ten hours silently staring at the hedge just past his shoulder, trying to think back to 1973 and remember Gina's hips.

Happy Pay The Kid To Sauce Your Lemonade Day!

Gambling Husband Day!

You're going to have to defend your husband against another close-minded jerk again today. Apparently he stole your teenage babysitter's credit card and used it to gamble online. He ended up charging several thousand dollars in losses onto her card.

"He's a maniac," your babysitter will say.

Slap her in the face.

"My husband is not a maniac. He's a gambler."

"But, he lost all my money."

Slap her in the face again.

"Would you have been complaining if he'd won?" ask her.

"Why'd you slap me in the face? I was just stating a fact."

Put your teenage babysitter in a headlock and drag her around the room while shouting, "You're just jealous because I found a man who's willing to take chances!"

Then throw her through the bay window. She'll run off and call the police.

Happy Gambling Husband Day!

You Owe A Doctor $87,432 Day!

You've never even been in to see this doctor, but he started sending you bills anyway. They totaled $87,432 and they cover routine blood tests and other preventative health screenings.

"But I don't know who you are and haven't seen a doctor in years," you tell the doctor when you call.

"Must have been a billing screwup," the doctor says.

"So do I have to pay it?" you ask.

"Of course," the doctor says. "You got a bill didn't you?"

"But you just said it was a screwup," you say.

The doctor sighs. "Look, I don't know how this billing system works, and I would never presume to know. The billing system has a plan for us that we could never comprehend. What I think is a screwup is probably a part of a grand tapestry of billing that goes back for years and years, and will keep going into the future, until the billing system decides the time is right to reveal itself to a cowering mankind."

You realize that this doctor might be making sense. If you getting billed $87,432 for health services you never sought is part of a larger plan, that means your life isn't just a meaningless assemblage of humiliating moments that will end as randomly as it began.

If the billing system has decided you owe $87,432, choosing not to pay it would be tantamount to choosing to have never existed at all.

"Will you take a check?" you ask the doctor.

The doctor says, "However the bill says to do it, do that. Trying to pay any other way would only anger the billing system."

You hang up and read the bill. It says payment must be made in offspring (either two boys or three and a half girls).

Happy You Owe A Doctor $87,432 Day!

Goodbye The Gardener Day!

The gardener doesn't want to have sex with you anymore.

"But I bought all these new contraptions," you'll say.

"I met someone else," he'll say. "She's married and dissatisfied as well. She lives in the mansion three houses down. She really gets me."

"Is this because of that one time when I told you that if you didn't sleep with me I'd accuse you of stealing and have you arrested?"

The gardener will say, "It's not that. I hear that line every day."

He'll come and kneel by your daybed where you like to drink in the afternoon.

"People change," he'll say. "They grow. It's what makes life worth living. Sure there's loss, but only to make room for more gain."

You'll throw your pitcher of mimosa at his head but he'll duck. Then he'll run out the front door, not even looking over his shoulder for one last glance at the beauty you gave to him. You'll go upstairs, put on some makeup, then you'll go out back to show your naked breasts to the pool cleaner, just to get his input.

Happy Goodbye The Gardener Day!

Long Drive Just To Find Out If A Friend Is Alive Or Not Day!

You're stuck in traffic on some such highway headed north to Dean's house on the ugliest hill in Vermont. Dean was in that group of your friends who dropped out of your life when they turned 35. Dean was at least good enough to go and hole up in the middle of nowhere. The others just went about their lives, not changing a thing except for eliminating you from their immediate social circle.

Dean left town in a scary way. He started getting quieter and quieter, showing up less and less, then right at the point when people started filling conversation gaps with the "I'm worried about Dean" icebreaker, Dean sends out an email inviting everyone to come by his place cause he's giving away a lot of stuff. A week later he was gone.

The traffic's moving a little better now and you wonder if you're really worried about Dean or if you're just bored. You sent your first email to him a month ago without a reply, then you started sending him another every couple of days, demanding he reply.

Earlier this week, you wrote that if he doesn't write back, you're coming up to that shack of his and busting down the door. He didn't write back. Here you are on this stupid road. The leaves haven't even turned yet.

If Dean's dead, you're not sure what you're supposed to do. Did you drive all this way just to be the one who finds his body, dials 911, then drives back home? It's not like you're going to make the funeral arrangements.

His silence has lasted a month now. Were you thinking he's just been sitting on the floor, staring at your emails on his screen, rocking back and forth for weeks and weeks hoping you'll bust through the door and cheer him up?

What scares you the most is maybe you're only making this heroic, worried drive because you didn't go anywhere this summer and you wanted to take a trip. You're worried that you didn't want to save your friend so much as you wanted to get the weekday rate on a Zipcar. Before pulling out of town you considered stopping at the Apple store to get a car adapter for your iPod, but you knew you wouldn't have been able to live with yourself if you had stopped for the adapter and then shown up to find Dean freshly deceased.

"Had I only arrived five minutes sooner..."

Whatever the reason you took the trip, you're here now, here at Dean's. You've just turned off the engine. The light's on in the living room, but you can't see him. That light doesn't need to be on, the sun's shining bright through his many windows. You instantly decide it's been left on for days and nights and Dean really did pack it in.

You escape from your seatbelt and roll out of the car. You drop your keys in the dirt driveway and scrabble around for them. When you stand back up, Dean's standing in his open doorway. He's been waiting for you.

"I was gonna reply, but you said you'd come up if I didn't reply, so I didn't reply."

Dean's excited to have a houseguest. He has lunch ready.

Happy Long Drive Just To Find Out If A Friend Is Alive Or Not Day!

Last Call Day!

You and that guy are the last ones in the bar.

“Guess you’re it,” you say.

“Anything you need to know in advance?” he asks.

You shake your head mournfully. He helps you off your stool and leads you to the door.

“What if we end up together?” he says, while hailing a cab. “What if we get married and spend the rest of our lives together. All because we forgot to leave the bar earlier tonight.”

“I don’t think I’d be so great to grow old with,” you say.

“Me neither,” he says. You’re in the cab now. “That’s what I mean. Our fates could have already been decided by my decision to order that one last one a half hour ago, and your decision to wait for your songs to come on the jukebox.”

“That’s weird,” you say, pulling him into a kiss. You take a breath and say, “It’s hard to imagine that I might be marrying you someday. I mean, I feel nothing.” You kiss him again, just to prove that last statement to yourself. You're in your apartment now.

“Think if you make it out of this one without us getting tied down you’ll start drinking less?” he asks you. You’re having sex now.

“Doubt it,” you say. You’re coming now. “I can make all the empty promises I want but I know myself. I don’t know what’ll make me stop drinking, but it certainly won’t be when things work out the way I’m hoping they will. It’ll probably be more like if I get thrown in jail or something. I wonder about that a lot. You don’t get to drink in jail, do you? I mean, you can probably sneak the occasional bottle in, but that’s probably rare. How do they do it?” You’re done coming now.

“Well, whatever happens, you have a real nice place,” he says. He’s getting dressed and leaving now.

“I’ll call you,” you say. He’s gone now.

Only time will tell if you call him or not, like you said you would. If you do and this thing really does work out, at least you have this great “how we met” story to tell your grandkids one day.

Happy Last Call Day!

Your Daughter Might Be Dating a Relocated Witness Day!

Your daughter is dating a boring guy named Ben Jamison who says that he is in “accounts.” But your daughter says that the only reason he seems so boring is because he was in the witness relocation program and people are still after him.

“He told you that?” you ask your daughter.

“Of course not. He’d be killed,” your daughter says.

According to your daughter, there’s no way she could feel what she feels for Ben if he didn’t have some secret past that he’s trying to keep hidden, which is why he has to present himself as the least interesting person she’s ever met.

“Are you sure you’re not just inventing this secret past for him in order for you to settle for this guy?” you ask your daughter.

Your daughter says, “Watch this.”

She claps a book shut hard so that it sounds like a gunshot. In the living room, Ben immediately drops to the floor, whips a pistol out of his boot and fires twelve rounds through the bay window.

“I’ll never doubt you again,” you tell your daughter. “You got yourself a real livewire there.”

“Thanks Daddy,” she’ll beam up at you.

Happy Your Daughter Might Be Dating a Relocated Witness Day!

Treasure Rehab Day!

You’ve discovered a map that indicates there is an ancient treasure hidden deep underground on a hill in California. Turns out they built a rehab center on top of it, and the only way to get to that treasure is to admit yourself into rehab.

While you bide your time, inspecting the grounds and waiting for the right moment to bust through the basement, you’re going to have to attend the group therapy sessions where you’ll learn quite a lot about yourself. For example, the reason you turned to a life of crime is because your father favored your older brother who died on his Prom Night. And the reason you keep having to steal money to buy more cocaine is because you keep running out of cocaine because you’re addicted to cocaine.

When you finally find the treasure you’ll discover that it’s cursed and you’ll be killed and turned into a ghost forced to haunt the rehab center and that’s how you’ll become “The Ghost Of Shimmering Lake Rehabilitation and Rejuvenation Retreats (We Now Take Discover).”

Happy Treasure Rehab Day!

Your Son Ain't Gonna Be Born In No Women's Prison Day!

You and your wife are notorious thieves wanted in more states than there are stars on the flag, which is tough to do. After your most recent heist, your wife got nabbed by the cops and sent upriver. A pretty inconvenient wrinkle under any circumstances, but especially so right now, because your wife is seven months pregnant with your first child, a son.

"No way is my baby boy gonna be born in no women's prison," you tell the rest of your crew.

"But They know you'll try and bust her out," your demolitions expert says. "They're holdin' her just to make you come for her. They'll be waitin' boss."

"Then we better not make em wait too long," you say.

Happy Your Son Ain't Gonna Be Born In No Women's Prison Day!

Death Race For A Boy Day!

You like a boy named Craig in your school, but so do five other girls. Rather then spend all year fighting over him, you've agreed to a death race. You and the five other girls are going to drive your parents' cars through an industrial area littered with explosives and booby traps. Whoever is still alive at the end gets to date Craig (and live beyond age 17).

You can rest easy knowing that at the end of the race, you're going to come out the winner (your decision to arm your car with paint guns was genius, allowing you to blind the other teenage girls' windshields, sending them to crash at high speeds to their deaths). Though you'll come out of the race alive, a spike that gets lodged in your leg will spread an infection that forces doctors to amputate. Craig doesn't like the disabled, so he'll refuse to date you.

"Forget him," your father will say. "Don't let some boy decide whether you have value or not. The important thing is that you gave it your all, and you came out on top. See what happens when you apply yourself?"

Your mother will add, "I am so proud of you sweetie. I wouldn't trade you for any one of those girls you killed."

You'll thank your parents and ask them to leave you alone in your room. You'll wait for sleep to come, wondering why boys have to be such jerks.

Happy Death Race For A Boy Day!

Leafblower Killer Day!

You want to go down in history as the Leafblower Killer and today's your first kill. You find a neighbor in his yard and you sneak up from behind. When he turns around, you turn on your leafblower and aim it straight at his head. Unfortunately, the gust isn't strong enough to blow his head off. It just puts his glasses out of place and makes him annoyed. So you take the heavy base of the leafblower and bludgeon him to death with it.

That worked, even though it didn't quite go as planned. You'll still be able to be called the Leafblower Killer, but you'll just have to go around hitting people over the head with your leafblower. Your shoulder will be stiff, but hey, that's murder.

Happy Leafblower Killer Day!

Train Tracks Day!

You're nine so it's time to go fuck around near some fuckin' train tracks. Hang out with some homeless guys maybe? Poke a dead opossum with a stick or something. Set fire to a stray cat maybe? Poke a dead homeless guy with a stick or something. Pee up in the air and get a little bit on you maybe? Meet a girl who's looking for food for her sick dad or something. Help escaped convicts get their ankle shackles off maybe? Find a trash bag full of porno mags or something. You're nine. There's train tracks. They were built solely for you to fuck around on. It was only after several years of nine-year-olds fucking around on train tracks that someone realized those tracks could also be used for trains to ride on. The nine-year-olds were against it at first but once the trains started rolling on those rails they found that a lot of stuff falls off of trains that nine-year-olds find very fuck-around-withable. Anyway, those tracks are waiting, nine-year-old. Have a fun and disgusting and extremely dangerous time.

Happy Train Tracks Day!

Wargames Peterson Day!

Your parents named you Wargames Peterson because they loved the movie WarGames and they wanted you to embody the sense of light-hearted terror they felt while watching the 80's techno-thriller. It's annoying, though, because every time you tell someone your name they immediately start speaking in the Joshua voice and asking, "Shall we play a...game?" Or worse, they'll want to tell you how much they loved the movie, as if you had anything to do with it.

"My parents were just real into it," you tell them.

"But you must have loved it too, right? Everyone loves WarGames."

You never admit this to them, but you still haven't seen the movie. You're so pissed at your parents for giving you this crappy name that you've kept yourself from seeing it just to spite them. You're so sick of it all that today you're going down to city hall to legally have your name changed to Lawrence.

The clerk will read your name-change application form, then he'll look up at you and ask, "Now why would you want to go and do a thing like this?"

"I just want a normal name," you'll say.

"But anyone can be Lawrence," the clerk will say. "You're Wargames!"

The clerk will then tell you the story about how his parents named him Adelelmo, which means noble protector in German. He always hated the name and he decided to change it to Felix. Then his father explained to him that his Great Great Great Grandfather named his child Adelelmo but the boy was murdered as a teen when he protected his mother from invading hordes, and since then there's been an Adelelmo in every generation of his family to keep that ancestral child's brave spirit alive. The clerk told his father he didn't give a shit and he went ahead and changed his name to Felix.

"But I wouldn't have done it if my Great Great Great Grandfather had named his kid Wargames. Great movie. Shall we play a...game?"

You'll say to the clerk, "You know, I've never seen it."

The clerk will be shocked. "Then you don't even know what your namesake is. You can't take this step without at least learning what you're named for."

The clerk will invite you over to his place to watch WarGames. You'll only make it a half-hour into the movie before the clerk makes a pass at you and you split. You'll end up keeping the name, but only because you're afraid to see the clerk again.

Happy Wargames Peterson Day!

Stop Drunk Texting Your Priest Day!

Hey fther, just thru up in a cab. Dont tell jeesus! Shhhhhhh

Not cool. Your priest gave you his cell phone number back when your parents were getting a divorce and he wanted you to feel like you could call him anytime you needed some support through that trying time. Yes, it was a mistake on his part. He was new to the Parish and just out of the seminary and he was maybe trying a little too hard to be "the cool Priest." But this is no way to pay him back.

Hey father. Lotta wasted chicks at this party. Gonna try for a 2fer 2night. Jealous?

He doesn't need this. Sure, maybe you never needed his help. Maybe you're feeling a little wild now that you're twenty and out on your own. Maybe you think you'll never need the kind of help your Priest has to offer.

Hey Father. Beating off. Right fuckin now. sinsinsinsinsinsinsinsinsinSINSINSINSINSIN!!!

Have you ever asked yourself why you always feel the need to text your Priest when you're drunk? Do you ever think that maybe, when you're texting all these horrible things what you really want to text is...

Father? I need to talk to somebody.

Lucky for you, he'll still be there when you need him.

Happy Stop Drunk Texting Your Priest Day!

You Left Your Heart At The Topahanga Campground Port-A-Potty Day!

Today riding home in the passenger seat while your husband curses the traffic from behind the wheel, all you can do is remember that hand on your lower back, that breath in your ear, that stench of sanitizer and feces.

"Beautiful night," he said when he saw you.

"Yes it is."

You'd already been waiting for five minutes for the person inside the Port-a-Potty to come out and you really had to go. You tried not to dance while talking to him.

"Here with your family?"

"My husband and son," you nodded.

"My wife and daughter," he said with a little bow of his head.

"I guess we're both on the same page," you said, almost immediately regretting it. What did you mean by that?

"My dad used to take me here when I was a kid," he said. "Weird that I would take my daughter here too. I don't remember ever liking these trips."

You heard a noise hoping the Port-a-Potty door was opening but you were let down.

"It's hard to break tradition," you said. "Sometimes I wonder if I'm ever going to do anything that I haven't already done a hundred times before."

"You just have to decide what you want to do and do it," he said.

His two top shirt buttons were open. You saw his chest. It glowed in the lamplight. The Port-a-Potty door opened and you ran inside and locked the door behind you.

While peeing, you could only think about him out there, waiting, listening. What had he thought when you said "we're on the same page." You didn't mean anything untoward. Did you? And that line about new experiences. Good God, your husband was in a tent only two hundred feet away.

So it had to happen fast.

Your pants pulled up but left unbuttoned, you flung the door of the Port-a-Potty open, grabbed him by his open shirt collar and yanked him inside with you.

It was a matter of minutes. He lifted you up above him, bending your head awkwardly against the curved plastic ceiling so that your neck still hurts this morning. You worried about the surfaces your hand might touch so you made sure to keep them on his body.

You kissed, you grappled, you negotiated the space around you and the space inside you with a man whose name you didn't catch. You were ravished and you ravished, all the while with your sneakered foot resting on the toilet paper roll for balance. When the minutes had ended you left the Port-a-Potty first. You said goodbye only with a "wait thirty seconds after I leave." Then you returned to your tent and hid yourself inside your sleeping bag.

Last summer and the nine summers before that, you'd spend the drive home wondering if you remembered to clean up your campsite. Driving home today you wonder if your footprint was visible on that toilet paper this morning in the Topahanga Campground Port-A-Potty. So nice to have a new place for your thoughts to go, no matter how bad it smells.

Happy You Left Your Heart At The Topahanga Campground Port-A-Potty Day!