Break Up With Your Reanimated Boyfriend Day!

You tried dating for a little while after your boyfriend died, but most of the guys you met were jerkoffs. So you spent a few weeks descending into the mad sciences of reanimation (you can take a course online) and you perfected the technology to bring your boyfriend back to life.

Now that he's back, you're glad to not have to sleep alone anymore, but after a few nights you started remembering all the things that bugged you about him (the way he picks his toenails in the bathroom with the door open, the way he'd occasionally try to make a story funnier by talking in "black voice") and there are a whole bunch of new things he does that bug you now that he's returned from the dead (when the black pus leaks from his eye sockets he likes lick it off his fingertip, and also his legs are really stiff so you have to wheel him around on a handtruck whenever you want to go out to dinner). You're realizing that you painted him in kind of a rosey light when he was dead, and now you're regretting having reanimated his corpse. It's time to break the news to him.

"I don't think we should see each other anymore," say to him.

"It's all right," he'll say, shocking you with his instant understanding. "I'm grateful that you took the time to bring me back to the living, but you deserve better than a guy who feels spontaneous electric currents pulsing through his limbs, causing him to thrash about with great force."

"Wow," you'll say. "You are just...such a great guy. I was really worried--"

Just then one of those pulses of electricity will cause his right arm to swing out wide, knocking your head off of your neck as easily as if you were a plastic doll. He will mourn you briefly, then he will trudge off to a castle and wait to be hunted for having popped the head off of a pretty young girl.

Happy Break Up With Your Reanimated Boyfriend Day!

Corporate Dennis Day!

Everyone in town hates Corporate Dennis because the only thing Corporate Dennis cares about is the bottom line. As far as Corporate Dennis is concerned, things like the arts and charity and loving one another should be considered hobbies that you try and squeeze in on your free time if you have it. Corporate Dennis isn’t interested in anything that can’t be monetized, which is why you’re so ashamed to have gone back to his place with him last weekend, and why you’re doubly ashamed to have allowed him to come over to your place when he called you late last night.

Right now Corporate Dennis is sitting in the chair by your bedroom window staring at you, still under your blankets. What are we doing he’s asking you. There’s nothing about you and me that benefits either of us financially.

Shrug your naked shoulders and tell Corporate Dennis you don’t want it to continue between you two, but you also don’t want him to do anything else but crawl back under the covers and make you feel the way he made you feel last night.

I feel it too is what Corporate Dennis is telling you right now. I don’t see the point in anything but putting my lips on your skin. I don’t want to go anywhere except inside of you.

I hate you, tell Corporate Dennis. I blame you for everything that’s wrong with this country. I get excited when I hear about bad things happening to you.

And yet Corporate Dennis is asking you.

And yet I want you to chew me up and leave nothing left Corporate Dennis.

Corporate Dennis is back in your bed now, and he’s asking are we a metaphor for capitalism and its nefarious effect on even the purest of souls?

No, tell Corporate Dennis. We’re just a girl and a boy in a bed in a room.

Happy Corporate Dennis Day!

The Mission To Find Out What Happened Up There Day!

Your father was an astronaut, one of the ones who went up in a rocket but when he came back he was someone else. Same body, same face, different Daddy. You're certain of it.

"He was one of the best," the head of NASA will say to you during your interview today. "Any child of your father will always have a home at NASA."

Tell the head of NASA that the reason you've decided to become an astronaut is to go out there into space and find whatever it is out there that changed your Daddy into the blank xerox copy of the man that got sent back home.

The head of NASA will nod his head. "You aren't the first. In fact, there's a whole shuttle mission being staffed up with nothing but kids of astronauts who want to find the alien sons of bitches who sent their parents home full of static and dead stares. We want you on board."

The head of NASA will hand you a contract that says you want to sign on for The Mission To Find Out What Happened Up There.

You'll give the contract a quick read. "But you're sending us up there to wipe them out. Not to bring back. Not to study."

The head of NASA will say, "Of course." But he'll look away when he does because he doesn't want you to guess that the only reason you're being sent into space is because the beings who changed your Daddy and all the other Daddies aren't up there in the cosmos, they're RIGHT HERE IN THE NASA OFFICE BUILDING BECAUSE NASA IS RUN BY ALIENS! Also, once you're out of the Earth's orbit they're going to pump a gas into your craft that murders you all in a few breaths. You can't fight NASA, kiddo.

You Stink Of Tears Day!

Today your cubicle mate is going to lean in close to you and jokingly wave his hand in front of his nose.

“Pew!” he’ll say. “Smells like tears over here.”

“Sorry Larry,” you’ll say to him. You’ll start crying again.

Larry will put his hand on your shoulder. Then your upper back. He’ll rub his palm on your upper back, like your mother used to.

“Is it because you confessed your love to me on Friday, and I said that it could never work out between us, but then I kissed you anyway and we went to your place and had sex all night Friday and all day Saturday, then on Sunday I said that I still don’t think it will work out between us, but I hope we can still share a cubicle. Then on Sunday night I called you and said to come over to my place, which took you ninety minutes and two trains. Then after we had sex I told you it still won’t work out between us and I’d like you to go, and so you had to go back out into the cold in the middle of the night and wait an hour for the first of your two trains to arrive, only so that you could go home and call me over and over again, leaving me voicemails that I deleted without listening.”

“You didn’t listen to my voicemails?” you’ll ask.

“Pssh, hell no,” Larry will say.

You’ll decide right then and there that Larry’s not worth your tears. You’ll stop crying, get up from your desk, march into your boss’s office and quit. The job market being what it is you won’t work again until 2013.

Happy You Stink Of Tears Day!

Meet Her By The Fandango Ticketing Machines Day!

She said she has a husband and a daughter and she can’t just give them up for some torrid affair with a man she met on the train. She said she has to get you out of her life, that she has to cut it off, once and for all, because you’re all she can think about and it’s time for her to think about her family again. She said it has to be goodbye, that she can’t go on with the lunchtime hotel rooms and the lies about working late. She said it’s over.

“If that’s really your decision, I’ll respect it,” you said. ”But if you change your mind, tomorrow evening you can find me at the Sony Loews Cinerama Dome Stadium 28 where I’ll be seeing Faster starring Dwayne Johnson. If when you wake up in the morning you still want it to be over, I’ll never contact you again. But if tomorrow you find you’ve changed your mind, meet me at the Sony Loews Cinerama Dome by the Fandango ticketing machines in the lobby at 7:10 PM. The movie starts at 7:40 and I like to get there a half-hour early to get good seats.”

She said she means it, it’s over, and you’re going to be seeing that movie by yourself tomorrow.

“I wouldn’t be able to make it through the night if I believed that,” you told her. ”I already bought two tickets. When I get to the theater tomorrow, I’m going to buy two Dasanis, two Dove Brand Cream Pops, and two trays of Nacho Cheese Hot Pretzel Bites. Meet me there. Meet me by the Fandango ticketing machines.”

She told you to stop it. Stop tempting her. You grabbed her by her shoulders, the both of you in tears.

“Meet me there!” you shouted. ”Meet me by the Fandango ticketing machines! I love you too much to let you walk away from happiness like this. Tomorrow you are going to go to the Sony Loews Cinerama Dome Stadium 28 and you are going to meet me by the Fandango ticketing machines no later than 7:10 PM and you and I are going to see Faster starring Dwayne Johnson. Do you hear me you beautiful little girl?”

She shook her head no.

“Meet me there,” you said.

She shook her head no.

“Meet me there,” you said one last time.

It’s 7:18. You can feel the Nacho Cheese Hot Pretzel Bites getting cold. The Dove Brand Cream Pops are turning to mush. You wish that the theater were more crowded, that there might be too many faces gathered around the Fandango ticketing machines for you to be sure. But you’ve studied every face, and none of them are hers.

You drop her Nacho Cheese Hot Pretzel Bites into a garbage bin, along with both of the Dove Brand Cream Pops. You take one last look around the lobby. The area surrounding the Fandango ticketing machines is desolate, as if the other moviegoers knew the area had been reserved for heartbreak. You consider throwing away her ticket as well, but you decide to hang onto it. The last thing to remember her by, a movie ticket she refused to claim.

You make your way to the up escalator. It’s blocked by a suitcase.

Her hand is still on the handle. She’s smiling at you through tears. You take the suitcase from her. You take it because you’re worried if you don’t, she’ll change her mind and run back outside.

“I’m afraid I threw away one of the trays of Nacho Cheese Hot Pretzel Bites,” you say to her.

“Then we’ll just have to share,” she says.

You rise. The escalator carries you. You float higher and higher, fleeing the world below, so that you can begin your life together in Theater 12 for the 7:40 screening of Faster starring Dwayne Johnson.

Happy Meet Her By The Fandango Ticketing Machines Day!

Find A Reason, Any Reason Day!

Maybe it's because you got messed up when you were a kid after your adoptive mom met your biological dad and fell in love with him and then your adoptive dad hooked up with your biological mom but they realized it was just a vengeance boff so it didn't work out. Or perhaps someone locked you in a locker for twelve minutes when you were in middle school. Whatever the reason is, you need to find it today. Might be that you need a reason to finally say "you know what, fuck this" to the Clown College T.A. you've been banging for a grade bump on your mid-term, or maybe you're looking for a reason to finally write that letter to Richard Roeper telling him how much he got wrong in his review of "Faster." No one cares what you need the reason for, we're just rooting for you to find one. It's rare in life that anyone gets to behave in a manner that is 100% justified, but we think you can be the first. Get back in therapy. You need a hand with this.

Happy Find A Reason, Any Reason Day!

Your Son Joined A Rock Band Day!

They're in the driveway waiting to take him away to the life of rock n roll.

"Let me talk to them," say.

Go outside and approach the coolest one in the band, the one with the longest feathers dangling from his ear ring.

"Do you all do drugs?" you'll ask.

The rock band member will say yes.

"When you do drugs, will you keep an eye on my son to make sure he doesn't do too many?"

The rock band member will shrug and say he guesses.

"I assume there are girls in that van," say to him.

He'll raise his hand for you to high-five him. Do so.

"Any of them dead?"

The rock band member will shrug and say he's no doctor.

"If my son ever has sex with a girl and she dies, will you help him get rid of the body? Help him hide it in the drop ceiling of a hotel room?"

The rock band member will say they have an agreement. You have sex with it and it dies, it's your responsibility.

"So you believe in responsibility," say to him. "That makes me feel more comfortable."

The other band members will stop playing air guitar and air keyboards so that they can set fire to your recycling containers. Watch the blaze rise and know that there's nothing you can do.

"Rock n roll," say.

"Rock n roll," the rock band member will concur.

Turn to your son. "You're 14 now. I can't tell you what to do anymore. This seems like a rock band you can trust. I give you my blessing."

Say goodbye and hug him to your chest. His fishnet top will get caught in the buttons of your shirt. You and your son will laugh. The last time you'll laugh together, because rock n roll is going to change him. Rock n roll changes everybody in the end.

Happy Your Son Joined A Rock Band Day!

Start Collecting Your Teardrops In A Jar Day!

If you start collecting your tears in a jar then one day you'll be able to tie someone who's made you cry to a chair and pour the jar of tears down his or her throat so that he or she can literally choke on your tears. Make sure when you pour the jar of tears down the person's throat that you pour it really fast to ensure that they'll choke. If they manage to just swallow your tears, that's a sign of strength or resolve or something, and all this collecting your tears in a jar stuff will have been for no other reason than to make the person who made you cry feel good about him or herself. Though, the "swallow my tears" thing is usually about swallowing your own tears. Swallowing someone else's tears just means you managed not to choke when someone poured a jar of tears down your throat.

This making someone choke on your tears thing is worrisome. Just start collecting your tears in a jar (do it by crying over an open jar!) then when the time comes maybe we'll just have you throw it in someone's face or pour it down the waistband of their sweatpants or something.

Happy Start Collecting Your Teardrops In A Jar Day!

The Ballerina With The Terrible Father Day!

You are the ballerina with the terrible father, the father who yells and did the hitting in the house before Mom got away. He's the father that the neighbors shake their heads about when they hear the yelling and the drinking. You find your escape in grace.

"Such grace," says one of the dozens of ballet critics watching you float like a feather on your show's big opening night. You're the star of the ballet about the kitchen utensil that comes to life but instead of murdering the whole town it dances.

"You know hers is the terrible father," says the other ballet critic.

"She clearly finds her escape in grace," the first ballet critic says except now he's getting shushed because shut up!

Everything will seem to be going smoothly until your terrible father makes a racket in the lobby then shoves his way past some ushers and into the aisle of the theater. He'll stumble down toward the stage shouting about how beautiful you are and how beautiful your mother was and how they all escape into some kind of grace or other in the end. You'll pause in your dance long enough to catch his drift, then you'll lock your eyes with his and you'll get up on your toes and here it comes, the dance that says everything to Daddy that you never ever could've said with words, the dance that with every bounce and jump and kick-ball-change (what's ballet?) tells Daddy you're angry and you're sorry and you wish it could have been better for him and you and mom but this is it for you two, you're done with all of it.

You will dance and the terrible father will weep with fallen shoulders in the aisle and everyone will say “we were there when a peace was made between a father and his little girl. They might never speak again, but only because her feet already said everything that needed saying and man we had great seats.”

Happy The Ballerina With The Terrible Father Day!

The True Meaning Of Thanksgiving Day!

On the day you discovered the true meaning of Thanksgiving, you woke up at the bottom of a 20-foot pit dug into the floor of a basement. You were naked, the rocks underneath you were cold, and there was a bucket on a rope descending down toward you.

The bucket was being lowered by a man in a burlap mask leaning over the top of the pit. When you asked him why he was doing this to you, he stopped lowering the bucket so that he could lift his burlap mask to reveal the most disfigured, disgusting face you’ve ever seen. Then he continued lowering the bucket.

When the bucket finally landed beside you, you were terrified to see what was inside. Was it lotion to rub on yourself? Acid to throw at your face so you could look like him? You kept your hands over your eyes while the man at the top yelled wordlessly. Then he threw something down at you.

It was a salt shaker.

When you finally looked inside the bucket, you saw a plate overflowing with turkey, stuffing, cranberries, sweet potatoes, the biggest most abundant thanksgiving plate you ever laid eyes on.

You looked up and saw the man had lifted his mask just enough to free his mouth, and he was eating from a plate of his own.

You realized then that you’d only been kidnapped and dropped into that pit because this man was lonely, and he knew that the only way he could avoid another Thanksgiving by himself was to dig a twenty foot pit and trap someone he'd abducted inside it, forcing them to have dinner with him.

You lifted the plate from the bucket and began devouring the food. You had never eaten anything so delicious. Looking back, you're not sure if it was the food you were tasting, or the togetherness, the joy of knowing that just by being there at the bottom of that pit, you made someone feel a little better on Thanksgiving day.

“Happy Thanksgiving!” you shouted up at the man.

“RRRHGHHHA RGGHA RGHHHA RGHHA,” he shouted back.

When you finished your plate, you asked the man if you could have your clothes back. That's when he started dropping bugs on you and he ordered you to masturbate while he watched or else there'd be more bugs. You did what he said, because you didn't want the bugs. It's been many years now since your first Thanksgiving in the pit, and every day you do disgusting things to yourself so the man at the top of the pit will save you from the bugs. You've come to love this man, not just because he's the one who decides whether you get the bugs or whether you don't deserve the bugs, but because he's the one who, all those years ago, taught you the true meaning of Thanksgiving, which is togetherness.

Happy The True Meaning Of Thanksgiving Day!

Vegan Stephen Day!

Today Vegan Stephen is going to pound on your door and beg you to let him in. You'll hear a mob outside in the street. Voices. Angry voices.

"I need a place to hide," Vegan Stephen will say.

"Are you that vegan?" you'll ask.

"It's a personal dietary choice! Let me in dammit!"

"It upsets me," you'll say. "When I found out you were vegan, I was kind of pissed. Why don't you just eat what I eat?"

Vegan Stephen will pull a wad of cash form his pocket. "Do you want money? Is that it? I'll give you money if that's what you want!"

"Vegan money? God no."

You'll hear pounding on the front door of your building. The people chasing Vegan Stephen are getting closer.

"Jesus Christ, do you know who's down there?" Vegan Stephen will plead. "Do you have any idea what they'll do if they find me?"

"Like, if it was your birthday and I baked you a cake, would you refuse to eat it just because it had some milk and eggs in it?"

"And butter! Yes! Save me, please!"

You'll consider it. "Jesus, butter too. I hadn't thought about that. It just seems like you're trying to call me a terrible person by living this way."

The first door to the vestibule will come off its hinges and you'll hear them pounding at the second door with their shoulders. They'll be on the stairs soon.

"They're after me because I found out something about the police, something that threatens us all! They want to silence me! I'll do anything if you just let me in."

Tell Vegan Stephen that you want him to eat a piece of bacon. If he eats a piece of bacon, you'll protect him. He'll agree and you'll let him in. While you're cooking bacon, he'll crack you over the head with your fireplace poker, run downstairs and open the front door to let in all the vegans outside who were only pretending to be a bloodthirsty mob. While you bleed on the floor, they'll rob your apartment of all of its possessions, then they'll look inside your refrigerator and judge you.

You trusted a vegan and look what happened. Look at what happens when you trust Vegan Stephen.

Happy Vegan Stephen Day!

The Boyfriend Pact Day!

You and your girlfriends have made a pact that you're all going to have steady boyfriends by the end of your senior year. It's going to be a fun, crazy time as you and your friends go on date after date with geek after geek, trying to decide how low you'll go to make sure you honor your pact and score yourselves a boyfriend.

Janice will end up with Greg, a kid on JV lacrosse.
Megan will end up with Joey, an asthmatic who's sweet behind those glasses.
Louise will end up with Keith, her chem lab partner who it turns out is secretly a really good website designer. He's gonna make something of himself.
Gina will end up with Walter. Walter's the class treasurer and he's had a crush on Gina since junior high.
You'll end up with Gina's dad. It just happened. He gets breakfast at the diner where you've been waitressing to pay the bills ever since your Dad went to Iraq. Gina's Dad is leaving his wife for you and Gina's furious. The other girls are on her side. Janice still hangs out with you sometimes, but you're pretty sure she just reports back to Gina what you tell her about you and her dad.

He's really good to you. And you like making him happy. You're 18, an adult, it's your life and your heart and you never expected to hang onto your high school friends forever. At least when you're standing alone at graduation, and you see Gina's dad smiling at you from the stands with nothing but love in his eyes, you can take comfort in the fact that no matter who you ended up hurting, you honored your end of the boyfriend pact.

Happy The Boyfriend Pact Day!

The History Of Melanie Day!

Your Dad and Mom have sat everyone down in the living room to tell them about this girl Melanie again.

"No one ever mattered so much to us," Mom says. "Not even you kids."

"You kids owe your life to Melanie," says Dad.

"If we hadn't both fallen for her so deeply," Mom continues. "We wouldn't have felt the need to be together, to be with someone else who understands how wonderful Melanie was. That's really the only basis for our love. We share a love of Melanie."

"One day you'll have kids too," says Dad. "And you'll realize that as much as you care about them, you can't help but care just a little bit more about this girl you dated for a few weeks in college."

"I dated her for seven weeks and four days," Mom jumps in. "Your father only dated her for three weeks."

Dad gets up and storms off, slamming the bedroom door behind him. You know he only went in there to pull out the box of photos of Melanie and he's laying on his back with the photos spread over his chest like a blanket made out of the days when it was still possible to believe he deserved a girl like her.

"It all started when Melanie came running into the lobby of my dorm to escape from the rain," Mom says. She tears up when she talks about the shape of Melanie's right breast which, as you've heard a million times, was slightly more oblong than her left.

"We stayed in bed for two days," Mom continues. "In a way, I'm still in that bed. Under those covers, feeling her bare stomach against my own. In my mind, I've never left that bed. When I married your father, saying I do, my thoughts were in bed with Melanie. When I was giving birth to you kids, with every pant and push, I imagined Melanie's breath mingling with my own. Her breath smelled like apples. Always apples."

She goes on and on like that, not even thinking about signing the bank papers. Just looking back on every milestone. Your first day of kindergarten. Your high school and college graduations. Your own wedding to your husband of seven years. During all of those special momentous occasions...

"I felt Melanie's lips against the skin of my neck," Mom says.

"But something about Mom must have been lacking, and she saw something in me that filled that void," Dad says from the doorway. He's come back out, his cheeks wet with tears.

"I only started dating your father to find out why Melanie left me for him," Mom says. "I'm still not sure."

Ask them once more if they're ready to sign the bank papers. The house sold a week ago and the buyers are wondering why they haven't received the notarized documents yet.

"What if Melanie's looking for us?" Mom says.

"We've had the same address for forty years," says Dad. "What if the day after we move, she finally decides to contact us again, and tell us which one of us she loved more?"

Get angry and make them sign. They'll do as you say, and they'll move out a week later. Not twelve hours after they've left their home, Melanie will arrive on the doorstep, looking forward to seeing faces she hasn't seen in so many years. She'll knock on the door, but there won't be an answer. She'll knock again. And once more. Then Melanie will peer through the window and see that the floors are bare. She'll know she's too late, and she'll get back into her car to go visit this couple she dated for a few months in grad school (MFA in Art History).

Happy The History Of Melanie Day!

Drug Dealing Nuns Day!

You're the Mother Superior of a nunnery that's about to be shut down by the city because your nunnery is behind on the rent and the city wants to build more bowling alleys. You need to come up with thousands of dollars very quick.

"We have no choice," you'll tell the bunch of nuns you have to see like every fucking day. "We need to sell drugs."

The nuns will faint. When they wake up, they'll ask, first, if they made a mistake going the nun route since it was either this or roadie-ing Lilith Fair and at least at Lilith Fair you don't have to dress in a glorified burka. Then they'll remember why they fainted and they'll ask if you're serious about selling drugs.

"We have no choice," you'll tell them. "We have to think of the kids. If we get shut down those kids will have no one to teach them Sunday School. It's for the kids."

"But who will we sell the drugs to?" the nuns will ask.

"The kids," you'll say.

The kids will love the drugs you sell them and you won't be able to re-up your supply fast enough. Sunday School will be a little chaotic since all of the pre-teens and young teens you teach will be on the floor high off their asses. As the kids get more addicted, raise the price on the drugs. Raise it just a little bit, but not so much that they'll go out to the street for cheaper stuff. Little kids can usually be counted on for the comeback when they find the right high.

When you've sold enough drugs to the kids to pay your rent, throw a little party telling them all that your convent isn't going to be shut down and Sunday School will continue without any interruption. The kids will ask what this means as regards them buying more drugs from you. Tell them there won't be any more drugs and then hit their hands with rulers until they kick their habits. All but two of the kids will kick. Those two will become prostitutes.

Happy Drug Dealing Nuns Day!

PS: I think I'm moving this blog over to tumblr. Make a note or something.

Ferry Murder Day!

Today you're going to be late for work because there's going to be another ferry murder. The lights will go out by the interior snack bar, and when they come back on the snack bar clerk will be dead. Written in his blood will be the letters P.F.

"Nobody leaves the ferry until we know who did it," the captain will announce. "Sorry, transit authority rules."

For the next four hours you'll float still in the middle of the river as a retired private detective, who just happened to be on board, engages you all in a game of cat and mouse, trying to suss out from each of your whether you had the motive, the weaponry, the appropriate temperature of blood in your veins. Though you were all told to stay together, you'll one by one wander off into other parts of the ferry where you'll be found murdered too.

Late tonight, after all of the questions have been asked and all of the brandy has been drunk, all but one of you will be dead. The one who is still alive is named Paul Frank. That's right, the Paul Frank. The one who puts the monkeys on his clothes. He'll steer the boat into dock, and he'll step onto shore to accept his new fame as the fashion designer who killed more people on water than any other fashion designer in history (behind Sergio Valente, Gloria Vanderbilt, and whoever was the guy who dreamed up those Ocean Pacific tee shirts because that guy killed a lot of people).

Happy Ferry Murder Day!

Love House Day!

You can hear Randy upstairs punching the wall behind his bed and screaming the name Marsha, the love of his life, the one who said no.

You can hear Louie in the room next door scratching against the wall as he writes the name Patty in his own blood.

You can hear Janine downstairs pacing the ground floor, dining room, living room, kitchen and back, as she tries to walk Darren's name out of her head.

Can they hear you? Can they tell by the sounds you're making that you're packing all your things into a couple of bags. Will they hear you crawl through the window and down the roof, tossing your bags to the lawn. Will they hear you drop to the ground below and take off running for a new place to live, one that doesn't remind you with every creak and footstep that you've never been in love?

"I tried," you told your roommates one night long ago, back when you were still able to talk about it, before it got embarrassing. "I drink a lot when I'm around people. But I still never seem to let anyone in."

"Sometimes it takes more than drinking to lower your defenses," Louie said. "Sometimes you have to give up on a dream or two."

You've given up on five dreams (wealth, beating your dad in a fistfight, taking a balloon ride around the world, learning to text and drive, and becoming an eccentric but brilliant barista) and you don't know how many more you have left to give up on. It's becoming clear, you're probably never going to fall in love. Your housemates know it. They had a meeting.

"How can we share a home with someone so incapable of feeling what we feel?" Janine whispered. They were at the breakfast table and you were outside, crouched down just beneath the open window.

"The other day I saw him trying to practice loving a pillow," Randy said. "After a while, he just started punching it. Broke my heart."

"I think if we ask him to leave he might be relieved, honestly," said Louie. "I mean, he can't enjoy having us walk around mooning over the objects of our affection all day long. Also, what if he's contagious?"

They said all in favor then they all said aye. You're getting the deed done before they have to do it. You're going to throw your bags out that window and you're gonna take off tonight, before they have to try to break it to you gently. Go find a new place to live. You never know, you might finally be able to find some love for yourself if you're living in a place where your dumb housemates aren't hogging it all.

Happy Love House Day!

Be The Airplane Crazy Day!

When you look at the seat next to you it'll be empty so you should go to the flight attendant and ask if she's seen your daughter. When the flight attendant says that they checked the manifest and you came on the plane alone, without a daughter, and that a half-hour ago when you were boarding you were telling everyone how glad you are that you don't have kids, tell her that she must be confusing you for someone else. Go back to your seat and sit next to the tall Asian man who's been sitting there all along, or so he says. Sit quietly and become suspicious that the flight attendants have stolen your daughter.

Go to the bathroom to look for your daughter and you'll find a bloody, murdered corpse slumped at the base of the toilet. Scream until the flight attendants drag you back to your seat. Insist to them that there's a dead man in the bathroom and there's clearly a murderer on the plane. They'll check the bathroom, then return to you and say that the bathroom is empty and free of blood. They'll even let you check for yourself. You'll go and see that the dead man is gone, and you'll become suspicious that the flight attendants murdered the man and threw him out of the plane and that they know how to clean bathrooms really fast.

Back at your seat, you'll suddenly be covered in bees. You'll jump up swatting at them to get away from you, then the flight attendants will tell you there aren't any bees. Look down at your body and become suspicious that the flight attendants can control bees.

Open the inflight magazine and you'll find nothing but articles about why passengers on planes should ignore strange activity and not ask questions because sometimes planes serve a more important purpose than mere travel. At the end of each article there will be a question in italics that reads: "Do you even remember buying the ticket to board this plane? Do you even remember where you're going? Or why you're going there?"

Show one of the articles to the flight attendants. They'll read it for a second, then show you the magazine again and point out that all of the articles are normal, and the one you were reading is about the new soul album by a reunited Eurythmics. Go back to your seat, certain that the flight attendants know how to change what's in magazines just by touching them.

Back at your seat, you'll find that someone booby trapped your seat with sharp spikes and when you sat down on them you died. Tell the flight attendants and they'll say that nope, you're still alive. They'll even pinch you to show that you're still there. You'll become convinced that flight attendants have the ability to control life and death.

Finally, make love to a flight attendant. He will impregnate you with the daughter you remember clear as day having boarded the plane with, the one who disappeared earlier. The flight attendant, you're certain, is able to take a life, snuff it out and regenerate it at the moment it came into being.

"Savor every moment," the flight attendant will say to you as he wipes the sweat from his brow. "Don't let her grow up so fast this time."

"Why did you take her?" ask him. "If you were only going to give her back to me."

While slipping back into his uniform, the flight attendant will tell you that they needed her for a few minutes, they needed all of you in fact, but that you're not needed anymore. You'll go back to your seat feeling those first tiny flutters of a beautiful new life inside your body. You've been given a second chance to enjoy those first seven magical years of your daughter's life again, all because you decided to save a few bucks and fly Spirit.

Happy Be The Airplane Crazy Day!

Last Will They/Won't They On Earth Day!

You used to say that you wouldn't have sex with Jeff if he was the last man on earth. Well guess what. The apocalypse just happened and Jeff is the last man on earth so it's up to you having sex with Jeff if you want the human race to continue.

"No," say.

Jeff will sit down on a piece of the broken Statue of Liberty and feel bad because there's still rejection even at the end.

"But... Then we're just handing it all over to the machines and the intelligent rodents," Jeff will beg.

"Sorry," tell Jeff. "I meant what I said at that Christmas party. Not if you were the last man on earth. How would it look? Everyone heard me say it."

"But they're all incinerated," Jeff will say.

Tell Jeff that you can't in good conscience unleash upon the planet the kind of human race that would be born from a sex act between disparate castes of attractiveness.

"That's not a race I wanna be a part of," tell Jeff. "Sorry."

You and Jeff will continue to live together platonically, working together to keep warm and fight off all the stuff that's turned huge and/or smart thanks to radioactivity. Jeff will grow stronger and a little more attractive, and he'll comfort you sometimes, but it's still not clear whether you'll ever be able to drop your superficial dating rules and finally realize that you two were made for each other since you have no choice, making you two the last will they/won't they couple on earth. Except this time we all hope it will be will they not because it would make us feel warm and happy, but because it's the only way there will be future generations who might tell our stories and carry on our traditions. Also, for there to be future generations not only would you two have to have sex but so would your kids. With each other. Sorry.

Happy Last Will They/Won't They On Earth Day!

Rooftop Rochelle Day!

Rooftop Rochelle has set up some plastic chairs on the roof of your building. She goes up there for a few hours every evening. You can join her up there if you want and listen to her talk about the time she talked a guy down from the ledge of a building.

"I still feel terrible about that," she'll say. "What was I thinking? He could have ended it right then and there. Now for all I know he's probably still out there, alive, trying to figure out how he's going to wake up again tomorrow. He has to get out of bed and get dressed every morning and it's all because I was so persuasive with my bullshit about how life is a gift or whatever."

"You didn't know then," tell her. "How could you, Rooftop Rochelle? You were so young."

Rooftop Rochelle will say that that's no excuse. She could have looked around and seen the looks on the faces of those who weren't 23. She could have seen how their mouths hung open just a little bit, like they constantly felt like they'd just been socked in the gut and they couldn't get enough breath. She could have taken a moment to think that maybe if a guy had the moxie to climb out onto a ledge, he probably knew something she didn't.

"If I could go back in time," she'll say. "I'd push him."

Rooftop Rochelle will ask you if you think she's a horrible person.

"No," tell her. "I think you might have been back then, when you decided to get a whole bunch of pats on the back for convincing a guy to live when he obviously wanted to die. That was selfish and cruel, but you know that now and you feel bad about it. And no one should expect more from you on that."

Rooftop Rochelle will hug you in gratitude and then she'll go in for a kiss. She just wants to work out some stuff on your body, but this is the only way you're ever going get the chance to do it on a rooftop. Lay back and let her get angry all over you.

Happy Rooftop Rochelle Day!

Switching Gears Day!

Karen had just decided she was done with Lenny, that New York is a mistake, that she wasn't going to get back into the car with him after the check was paid. She wasn't sure how it was going to work out, her getting away from Lenny, without a big scene, a lot of tears, Lenny pulling out all the stops to convince her to come along. Lenny had convinced her to give up on so many things over the past three years (a continuing education program, her brother in a mental hospital, cigarettes), he was a master at it. Karen knew she couldn't hold her ground against him, that a confrontation would end the way they always ended, with Karen agreeing to whatever Lenny was begging her to agree to. There could be no parking lot shouting match, no laying it all out on the line in an honest and direct manner, the way that Lenny maybe deserved after three long years taking care of her (he covered more than a few months of her rent). Karen knew the only way out was to sneak out a bathroom window, slip into the kitchen and out the back by the dumpsters, pretend she left something in the car while they were still eating and then take off with the first trucker who might think this was his lucky day. Time's running out for all of us, so if being honest is going to keep you from doing what needs getting done, fuck honesty is how Karen saw it.

But the check was paid, the coffee cups were almost dry, and New York was only a short walk through the parking lot and ten more hours of driving away. That would be that, she was certain. If she left that restaurant through the front door with Lenny, that would be that. But leaving that restaurant through the front door with Lenny was looking like it might be the only option, at least until the front door opened and the men in the rubber masks started yelling for the cash drawer, unaware of the cop in the men's room already radioing the two squad cars parked in the back.

How we gonna get out of here?

I ain't goin' to jail.

If we don't step out soon, they're comin' in.

Karen tried to disguise it with a pretend cough when she said, "Hostage!"

"Karen?" said Lenny. "You okay?"

Suppose we could take some hostages with us.

Hostages?

It's the only way I can see.

"Human shield!" Karen said, under cover of a loud pretend sneeze.

"Karen," Lenny said. "Try to hold them in. Don't draw attention to yourself."

Cops won't shoot at us if we got one of the customers blocking their line of fire.

Which one should we take?

Not sure. Who would cops be least likely to shoot at?

"Women!" Karen fake coughed. "Brunettes!" she fake sneezed. "Late twenties in the booth by the window!" she fake hacked and fake wheezed and even faked snorted a tiny little snort.

I think I know which one.

They took her with them, drove her halfway across the country before finally agreeing to set her free and never tell where they last saw her. She lives in Flagstaff now, happy enough, occasionally wondering if trying to end it with Lenny in a more confrontational manner would have been better than spending 18 months tied up in the backseat of a stickup team's Cutlass, but she's pretty sure she did the right thing.

Happy Switching Gears Day!

Talk This One Through Day!

When your best buddy in the whole wide world comes home from the war he'll find you in bed with his wife, the woman you've loved ever since he introduced her to you as the only woman in the world for him.

"Whoah!" your number one pal will say. "Some welcome home party."

"Let's talk this through," you'll say.

Spend the first hour telling your friend how important his friendship is to you, and therefore you clearly love his wife more than he does if you were willing to sacrifice something so important to be with her, namely, his friendship.

Your friend will spend the hour after that telling you how well he knows you, which is why he knew the minute you were introduced to his wife just how in love with her you were, and it broke his heart to have to make you feel so much pain, seeing him and his wife together like that when he knew you thought it was you who was supposed to be with her.

"If I could do that to my best buddy in the world," your friend will say. "If I could cause him that kind of pain, a pain that I feel myself, deep inside, if I could hurt my palomine like that just to be with the woman I love, clearly that woman is very important to me."

Spend three hours confirming that yes, it pained you to see him and his wife together, but you knew that his wife wanted it that way, which is why you didn't try to steal her away. "I endured that pain for her, because that's what she wanted. Clearly, I love her, if I could stand by watching the woman I'm meant to be with spend her days with my best friend, if I could endure that hot jagged pain solely because I knew it's what she wants, clearly that means I'm totally into her."

Your friend will spend the next 50 hours describing the sex he has with his wife, and how with every kiss, nibble and thrust, he feels like he's driving a stake through the heart of his best pal, knowing how much his top cochise wishes he was the one administering those kisses, nibbles and thrusts. "But I couldn't stop," he'll say. "I just couldn't stop."

Spend the next six months chiseling a sculpture of your buddy's wife. When you're finished, all three of you will burst into tears at the obvious boundlessness of emotion present in your concrete rendering of the woman you love, the woman whose hand belongs to someone else.

Your buddy will spend the next five years writing a two minute song about his wife and when he finally sings it, you'll all three try to hang yourselves because you never knew a man could feel so much for a woman. Even your buddy didn't know, and he's the one who wrote it.

Finally decide that the only way this is going to be figured out is if you two fistfight for it. Spend the next two decades fistfighting until you decide it's a draw. By then your buddy's wife will have divorced him and remarried twice. You and your best buddy in the world should go and visit her and meet her kids.

Happy Talk This One Through Day!

Wine Store Full Of Fucktential Day!

You've toured all of the retail and food establishments in your neighborhood and you've decided the wine store has the highest fucktential, which is a word you made up that means potential for fuckatude, which is another made up word, though you didn't make that one up (your Mom used to use it before she died in Desert Storm). Anyway, the wine store seems to have a lot of fucklihood. Fucklihood is a way of describing a place that is fuckamentally sound, which is a way of describing a place that looks to be ideal for those interested in forgoing modern medicine and instead experimenting with natural fucklistic healing. Basically, the wine store looks like a pretty good place to go if you're looking for a little bit of true love and undying devotion. Just kidding, the wine store's a good place to try and get yourself effed.

Go down there today and hang around in the French wines section. When a nice piece of trim rolls up and pretends to be reading the wine bottles when what she really wants to do is read the "YKK" on your zipper, just pick up an expensive bottle and let her know what you wanna do with it.

"I want to drink this entire bottle as fast as I can," say.

She'll ask, "Why?"

Let some tears fall. Then say, "Not be me for a while I guess. Just kind of wanna erase me."

She'll nod. "I know what you mean." She'll pick up her own bottle. "I like buying bottles of wine because I like the suspense of wondering whether I'm going to finish the entire bottle before smashing it into pieces and slicing open my wrists with one of the shards."

You'll both just stand there, your heads bowed as tears flow from all four of your eyes onto the floor.

The wine store owner will come over to the two of you and say, "I could tell from all the way over there that we seemed to have a fuckuation back here, which is a fun word for situation of fuck."

The wine store owner will lead you both to the stock room, wrapping his big beefy arms around your shoulders, then he'll make the two of you have sex for him at gunpoint. It will ultimately feel a little fuckapointing.

Happy Wine Store Full Of Fucktential Day!

Desk Instructions Day!

You're temping at a new desk today and the secretary you're filling in for left some instructions to give you the lay of the land:

1. Director Harris likes to keep his door closed at all times, and he especially likes it when you knock on his door but don't come in even though he says it's okay to come in. Do it at least a few times per day, making sure that on one of the occasions, you do end up coming in. He loves to feel the anticipation build for the moment when he says "come in" and after so many fakeouts, the door finally opens and you give him his messages.

2. Director Harris hates a gossip, but he isn't sure what the definition of gossip is. So to be on the safe side, never share anything remotely personal about yourself or anyone else, no matter how trivial. If you tell him that today is your daughter's birthday, he'll chastise you as a gossip and fire you on the spot.

3. Director Harris has never killed a man with his bare hands and so you should never ask him if he has. You have the answer. He hasn't.

4. Director Harris likes his mail to be removed from the envelopes, dipped in lemon juice and baked in an oven until the paper has browned to look like parchment so that he can pretend it's revolutionary times.

5. If Director Harris's wife should call, ask her where she is and what he said to make her go.

6. There's a heart shaped locket in the top left drawer of my desk with a photo of a young girl inside. Wear it around your neck and tuck it under your blouse. When Director Harris asks where the locket is, tell him "It's safe."

7. If the CEO should come by asking whether Director Harris has been a good boy or a bad boy today, tell him you're just the temp and so he can shove his fucking questions up his fat hairy ass.

8. Don't sit in my chair. Bring your own chair if you want to sit. Or stand. Fuck you.

9. If Director Harris should bring you into his office and tell you that it's about time this company brought in a fresh point of view and so would you like to be hired full-time as Senior Vice President of Operations and Future Planning, it's a trick. Get out of there. Get out of there immediately.

10. By now you probably realize that Director Harris doesn't exist. Hopefully you're already across state lines. Dye your hair and get underground. I'm sorry you got involved in this mess Denise. God, we had such big plans for you. You were gonna be the one to go all the way. You were gonna be the one that we looked at and said, "See, this ain't a dead end. Some of us get out." Aw Denise, hold onto your heart okay sweetie? Keep that sweet, golden heart safe and sound.

Happy Desk Instructions Day!

The Desperate Man's Guide To The Rest Of His Life Day!

Today someone is going to throw a book through your window called "The Desperate Man's Guide To The Rest of His Life." After you clean up all the shattered glass you're going to crack open the book and start reading. You'll find that you really relate to the book, with chapters like "Oh God What Next What Do I Do?!!" and "Maybe I Should Just Give Up But Then What?!!!" and "Ahhhhh! Trying To Live A Life And Make The Most Of Your Potential Sucks!!! Ahhhhh!"

You'll do the exercises at the back of each chapter and you'll realize that when it comes to living a life in a constant state of desperation, panic, and quiet certainty that everything's going to just get a little worse as you get a little older and a little more tired with every passing day, you score in the 87th percentile! Congratulations. Now use the stick taped to the back page of the book to slap yourself on the thigh until the physical pain makes you forget that tomorrow's going to happen.

Happy The Desperate Man's Guide To The Rest Of His Life Day!

Magic Mirror Day!

Hang your magic mirror on the wall, turn around so the back of your head appears in it, then say three times, "Cillian Murphy and me are friends, but he's kind of a liar."

Then poof! Cillian Murphy will call you up and tell you how glad he is to talk to you, his old buddy. You'll tell him you're glad to talk to him too, then he'll say that he just found out he's related to Bill Clinton.

"Not like first cousins or anything, but we do share an ancestry," he'll say.

You won't challenge him, because really, how do you challenge something like that? And seeing as he's already a movie star, why would he feel the need to lie about being related to Bill Clinton? All the same, you don't really believe Cillian Murphy, and it makes it hard to be friends with him even though you only just became friends thanks to your magic mirror.

The big question: was Cillian Murphy kind of a liar before you bought the magic mirror, or did you make him into a liar when you intoned your spell before the magic mirror's reflection?

The even bigger question: Why doesn't your magic mirror do anything else?

Happy Magic Mirror Day!

Tell Your Best Friend You Never Liked Her Husband Day!

Tell her as soon as she's done dialing consulates.

"I know I'm supposed to wait before I say this," tell her. "That couples always end up getting back together and they remember everyone who took sides when they were split up. But I can't help it. You deserved better than him."

Your friend will be thrown, but just keep hitting her with the truth. She'll tell you she doesn't have time for your bullshit right now, and that she has to figure out which embassy to contact.

"He kind of made the two of you live out his dreams, you know?"

Your friend won't want to hear this, but that's only because deep down she agrees with you. She's just going to keep trying to find someone on the phone who understands prosecution procedure in Indonesia.

"I know it doesn't feel this way yet, but you're going to have a great life now that he's gone. The life you were meant to have."

Your friend will tell you that she really needs you to shut up. Her husband isn't gone, she'll say. He got scammed into transporting someone else's bag through customs and it was full of heroin, and now he is at risk of spending the rest of his life rotting in a jail cell on the other side of the planet.

"I know someone who would be great for you," tell her. "He works in marketing. A little young for you, but I bet you two would hit it off."

Your friend will try to shut you out while she tallies her savings to figure out if she has enough for a plane ticket, lodging, and the cost of a lawyer who'll stick with a case that could drag on for months if not years.

"Screw it, let's get trashed! Girls night!"

Your friend will realize she doesn't even know where Indonesia is. She'll google it, then she'll collapse into a sobbing mess beside her desk chair. Put "Irreplaceable" by Beyonce on the stereo and see if the two of you aren't dancing with empowerment by the second verse.

Happy Tell Your Best Friend You Never Liked Her Husband Day!

Your Husband Was In The Movie Krush Groove Day!

"Thought that was gonna work out to be something bigger for me," he said to you on your first date. "A lot of the cast used Krush Groove as kind of a launching pad for whatever else it was they were working on. I just couldn't get my shit together like they could."

You were staring at a high-rise where there used to stand a warehouse, which had been used as a location in Krush Groove.

"The roof of the warehouse," he told you. "I was one of the guys dancing on it."

You asked him whether he was still in touch with any of the other cast-members of Krush Groove, and he just shook his head. "Hurts too much."

You leaned over the gear shift and gave him a kiss on his cheek. You told him that you're glad he didn't go on to become a movie star after Krush Groove. "If you had, you might not have given me the time of day. And I wouldn't be having the wonderful time I'm having with you right now."

He said, "Guess that's one thing I can be glad about. I'm having a great time too."

You kissed some more, then you said, "Krush Groove is a stupid movie anyway."

He pulled away and drove you home in silence, angry that you would talk that way about Krush Groove.

A few weeks later he realized he had a shot at something pretty good with you, and maybe it was time to get over the whole Krush Groove thing anyway. He showed up at your door with a signed DVD of the movie Krush Groove. He stuck it into your DVD player and showed you his scene, then he said he'd never watch it again, if you would take his hand in marriage.

That was twelve years ago today. Happy Anniversary you two!

Happy Your Husband Was In The Movie Krush Groove Day!

Babies Having Babies Day!

At six months old, you are the first baby to ever get pregnant. The press has three big questions for you:

1. Are you going to keep it?

2. If you do decide to keep it, since you're only a little bit larger than the average newborn, will the presence of a developing fetus inside your tiny body kill you?

3. Who's the father?

The answer to the first and second questions is yes. The answer to the third question is one you'll take to your grave, since the father is none other than Rookie Of The Year star Daniel Stern!

"We were in love," you would perhaps tell reporters one day if a gestating baby wasn't going to tear your body into pieces in a few weeks. "He was afraid that I was too young to make love, but I told him that love has no age. I made a vow to keep my relationship with Daniel a secret, as I knew if it got out that he had had an affair with a toddler, his career as a star of family entertainment might be jeopardized."

Not only will your baby somehow survive, he will lead a long healthy life, and Daniel Stern will send him $5000 per month under the condition that the baby never try to contact him, and that his paternity never be made public. So good news, your baby won't have to temp.

Happy Babies Having Babies Day!

Rob Your Ex-Wife Day!

Russel's going to be the last one lingering at the end of your backyard party, he'll be standing by the honeysuckle bush, sipping his O'Douls and looking like he's not waiting around to pitch you on a new score.

"You know how much cash those Pitch N Putts take in on a Saturday?"

"You wanna rob a Pitch N' Putt?"

He'll shake his head no, then he'll hold up three fingers.

"Three Pitch N Putts. You're out of your mind."

He'll name them. The Putt Putt. The Putt N Pitch. And the Pitch And Putt out on Route 40. All three owned by--

"Our ex-wife Clarise."

You and Russel were both married to Clarise. She divorced you to marry him in fact. It put a strain on your criminal collaborations, but after the wounds healed and you started dating again, you found you were able to forgive Russel. Once Clarise divorced him as well, Russel kind of forced his friendship on you again, and you decided it wasn't worth it to refuse.

"I'm over Clarise," tell Russel. "Long over her, in fact. It's still too soon for you to be making decisions like this. You're robbing with your heart, not your head."

Russel will jiggle the fake beer in his bottle. You'll start cleaning up the plates.

"Guess me and Keith'll just have to plan a robbery of three Pitch N Putts on our own, then," Russel will say.

"Why would Keith rob from his own wife?" you'll ask.

Russel will hold up the gossip page from the Pennysaver. The headline will read, Pitch N Putt Titan Drops Husband Number 3.

"Ex-wife," Russel will correct you.

Reading that headline, all the old humiliations will come rushing back at you. Your wife leaving you was one thing. Leaving to marry your partner, that made it even worse. Now she's left a third guy in the dust, making the three of you into a laughing stock. The three stooges. Clarise's castoffs. It's time to make her pay.

"How many guys you think we're gonna need to pull this off," you'll ask Russel.

"Thirty Seven," Russel will say. "Maybe thirty-eight. And guys we trust too."

Happy Rob Your Ex-Wife Day!

The End Of Joey Day!

Today is the end of Joey. He's going to lock himself inside his kitchen and turn on the oven and breathe in a bunch of gas or something. He hasn't planned it out very well but he IS going to die today so you should start planning the "Joey's Gone" party and invite Joey's friends, neighbors, and all the police who used to love the way Joey would make them laugh when they'd arrest him for ruining everything in various situations (parades, funerals for Joey's parents and step-parents, this one party that Joey's boss threw for him when he was about to promote Joey but instead Joey showed up with some unloaded guns and a dog). A lot of people are going to want to claim that they always "got" Joey so if you send out the first evite, you'll get the jump on them. Best of luck and don't serve shrimp. Joey loved shrimp and he was very vocal about it so if you refuse to serve it, everyone will ask why no shrimp and you can say, "Didn't you know that was just a put-on?" Remember, when someone takes his own life, it's up to the people he left behind to profit off of the loss socially.

Happy The End Of Joey Day!

Nude Pete Day!

You're Nude Pete and you just woke up in an empty hospital that looks like the aftermath of a bloody battle. When you walk out into the hall, you'll find that people have written stuff from the bible in red paint on the walls, and there's trash all over the place and doors torn off their hinges. Looks like you're the only man who survived some kind of war between the living and the walking dead.

"Wonder if I still love being nude with no one alive to see me," you'll think.

Just to get a sense of yourself, you'll put on some clothes you find in one of the closets of a neighboring hospital room. A sweater and some slacks. The sweater will be a little big, but the slacks will fit okay. Head out into the hall and see how it feels.

"Hm. Gotta say, I'm not really feeling the urge to nude out, seeing as there's no one to take a gander," you'll think. "Is it really the case that all these years, I've gravitated toward nudity solely for the thrill of being seen by others. Am I really that dependent on the other?"

You'll go outside into the ruined and blood-soaked street and stare out at the still glowing embers of burned buildings and cars.

"So everything about my sense of self, it was all based in the reaction I got from witnesses. What a thing to learn about myself. I'm a small, small man," you'll think.

Sitting there in the hospital parking lot, you'll be delighted to discover another living human stumbling toward you. You'll quickly disrobe.

"Thank goodness," you'll say to the man, who appears to be coughing. "I just realized that I've kind of defined myself according to the gasps and titters I drew from others with my nakedness," you'll continue. "I was kind of worried there that with no other people around, I'd have to come up with a whole new 'thing.'"

The man will continue approaching you, and you'll see his eyes turn black and his limbs become stiff. You'll note a profound change in everything about the man. He no longer sees you as a person who just took off all his clothes. He, or rather, it can now only see you as a source of sustenance.

"Wow," you'll think. "Just like that, I couldn't give a crap about being nude in front of this guy. A little zombification and the jazz goes out the window."

You'll slip back into your clothes and then behead the undead man with one swing of a jagged shaft of steel you'll find nearby.

Ultimately, you'll find an empty apartment on the high floor of a building in which to hide. Zombies can't read, so outside the building you'll post a sign that reads, "If you're reading this, you haven't changed yet. I am on the eighteenth floor of this building and I want to show you my body." And that's how the surviving army of humanity will be marshaled together in a lone city apartment by you, Nude Pete, a man who just wants to live in a world where there are still cognizant human beings who will avert their eyes from the unexpected appearance of your naked sack.

Happy Nude Pete Day!

Mom's Cigarettes Day!

The old wive's tale goes, every time you smoke one of Mom's cigarettes, Dad considers leaving wherever he is and coming home to live with you and Mom again. Which means you have to really smoke a lot of Mom's cigarettes to keep the thought going through Dad's head, making him think about you and your Mom so much that eventually he thinks, "Well, they've been on my mind a lot lately. Guess maybe I miss them or something. Is it worth my time to go back and live in that house full of awful again?"

Since Mom gets angry when her cigarettes go missing, you're going to have to space out the cigarettes you steal. Do one in the morning, one around lunch, and one right after she goes to bed. Making your Dad think about coming home three times a day is a pretty good frequency. Unfortunately, your Mom has gotten the sense that you feel like you need a father-figure in your life, so she's been keeping a close eye on her cigarettes.

"I don't want that fucker back here," she'll tell you when she discovers some of her cigarettes gone. "Stop putting us into his head."

Scream, "You drove him away!"

"Damn right," she'll say. Then she'll throw a carton at you. "Bought you your own."

Tell her you only want to smoke hers, but she'll tell you that she's not going to let hers out of her sight from now on, so if you want a cigarette, you're going to have to smoke one of the carton she bought you. You'll tell her you only started smoking to get Dad to come back so she can keep the carton. Five minutes later, you'll crave every cigarette inside that carton so you'll rip it open and start smoking, the smooth, delicate nicotine high making you feel pretty okay with not having a Dad around. Anti-smoking researchers find that more children become smokers to get their dads to come home than peer pressure and youth-targeted advertising combined.

Happy Mom's Cigarettes Day!

Rocket Dance Day!

Tonight is the big dance on your rocketship. You're going to go with Captain Landry but you really wish you were going with the humanoid who is programmed to provide sexual simulations (basically sex but to not make it sound like you all rape robots, they call it simulations) upon request, but you were too shy to ask it to go with you. Lieutenant Grace is going with the humanoid instead.

At the dance Lieutenant Grace is going to order the humanoid to strip and dance lasciviously for everyone. The humanoid will comply and while everyone will cheer it on, you'll feel like something terrible is happening. You'll wonder if a human race that can treat it's humanoid friends in such a manner is really worth spit. Even though you know it's unpopular and you'll only get ragged on by the other astronauts, you'll run into the circle to cover up the humanoid with your jacket and protect the humanoid's honor. Unfortunately, the humanoid will interpret this act of chivalry as nothing more than your effort to thwart it from carrying out an order given by a military officer, basically an act of aggression, and the humanoid will tear you in two at the waist. The other astronauts will open fire on the humanoid, but the other humanoids will come to their fellow humanoid's defense. When all of the astronauts are dead, your rocket ship will be the first to be piloted by humanoids in the great Humanoid Against Real Human war that will lead to the end of the human race by next March.

Once all humans are dead the humanoids will direct their humanoid scientists to learn how to make humans. They'll eventually succeed and these wars will just keep happening on and on because it's what you do when you have opposable thumbs on planet earth. You try to make something that can destroy you.

Happy Rocket Dance Day!

In The Tunnels Day!

You got a job digging a tunnel for the city, so you spend all your days underground feeling rats and Native American spirits scurry over your shoes. When the tunnel’s path cuts through one of the already existing tunnels down there, lots of mole people end up getting displaced. That’s when you’ll bump into your old buddy Danny.

“So this is where you been hiding,” you’ll say, once you recognize Danny’s eyes peeking out from the mask of black soot.

“Yeah,” Danny says. “I could tell you the whole story, but like everything else in life, it takes a whole lot of boring little steps before you finally find yourself living in an old abandoned subway shaft. Anyway, how you been?”

You’ll shrug. “Been better. Been worse.”

You’ll kick at some garbage on the ground. Danny will move his eyes about the ceiling. Both of you not wanting to bring her up.

“Heard from any of the old Northwestern gang?” Danny will ask.

You’ll nod. “All of em,” you’ll say. “There’s this web thing called Facebook. It put everyone back in touch.”

Danny will say, “Pretty cool.”

It’s stupid to pretend you can ignore it.

“We got married Danny,” tell him.

Danny won’t look at you. He’ll keep his eyes on a hamburger wrapper in the corner, wrapper’s turned pale, probably fifteen years old.

“We have a daughter now too,” say. “And I love her Danny. But the fucking truth of it is she doesn’t love me. She never stopped loving you Danny.”

He’s not letting you see those white eyes of his. He’s not letting on that he’s hearing a word.

“I’d like to crack open your head and drag you up to the surface just so she can see once and for all that you’re gone,” you’ll say to him. “Pretty neat trick. Disappear without a word of goodbye or why, and make sure someone out there keeps on loving you no matter how deep a hole you end up dying in.”

“I didn’t tell nobody what to feel for me,” Danny will say.

Step around and get your eyes in front of his. “That’s the thing about feelings Danny,” say. “People just go ahead and have em whether you want em to or not.”

Danny will bend his knees and crouch to the ground. It looks like he might feel sick.

“I gotta go get back to work,” say to him. “I gotta make money to keep a roof over the head of the love of your life. I’d tell her I saw you but my daughter don’t need her mommy running away to live underground with a son of a bitch.”

Danny’s on all fours by now. Tell him he has ten days before demolition comes in and blows the ceiling to the floor, then turn around and leave him there on his hands and knees.

Happy In The Tunnels Day!

Dollhouse Moment Day!

Tell your boss you're sorry but you're having a dollhouse moment and he should get away from you.

It's one of those moments when you're suddenly a little girl again on your knees on the bedroom carpet staring into the windows of your second-hand dollhouse wondering whether you'll ever live somewhere quite so idyllic. Wondering whether your hair will be as blond as that doll's, and whether your kitchen will be as spacious as the one you see through those windows. She's fixing a pot roast for her husband, who's out making money as a salesman. You can see her right now. You can almost touch her hair.

You reach out to touch the doll's hair, stroking your fingers against nothing. Your boss takes slow, measured steps in reverse toward his office.

"She had so many copper molds," you say. "They were shaped like fish and Christmas trees and hearts. They hung on the walls. She could have spent the rest of her life making meals with those molds."

Your boss has his hand on his doorknob by now. He'll wait for the right moment to turn the knob and slip inside. One step too soon and he'll rattle you, and you'll turn wild.

"I hated her then and I hate her now," you say. "I was a little girl who wished sadness upon her dolls. When I played with the dollhouse, I'd have her husband come home and tell her he lost his job, and that they had to sell the dollhouse. Then I'd take the dolls from the house and I'd leave the house empty for weeks. Other times the husband doll wouldn't come home. That blond doll would sit at her beautiful kitchen table and wait. I'd keep the light on while I slept, knowing that while I was dreaming in my bed, she was awake, wondering how she could have such a beautiful house and such beautiful blond hair and a husband who doesn't come home at night."

Your boss made it. He's in his office, the door locked, the phone to his ear. Your phone's going to ring in a moment.

"But now when I see it, I can't touch it. I can't make the husband stay away. I can't take them out of their beautiful house. She won. She gets to live in that house forever, and all I can do is sit behind my desk and watch."

Pick up your ringing phone and hear your boss say, "You're having a dollhouse moment. You told me to call you from a safe distance when this happened and to tell you this isn't real. Push the tip of a pen through the skin of your leg and tell me what you feel."

You do as he says. "I feel pain."

"Do you know where you are now?"

Say yes and thank him. He'll put down the script you typed for him and he'll tell you that when you come back from the bathroom in a half hour, he'll again go over today's assignments with you. Before you hang up, he'll tell you that he thinks you and he are getting better control over these moments, and that he's proud of you.

Happy Dollhouse Moment Day!

Card Shark Day!

He's a card shark mama. He can pull into town and rob every table blind and they don't know what hit em until he's already on the train. He once left a table with seventeen thousand dollars in his pocket, all won through dishonest means. He's got suits with more pockets than I got pores on my skin. He's been shot at twice, strung up to be hanged once even but his Mexican compadre at the time rode in and saved the day with the swipe of a hatchet. He can bluff his way into heaven and out of hell, I swear to you mama. And he wants to marry me. Me! Oh mama, I know he seems all flash and pin stripes, but once you get to know him you'll see that it's only to throw off the stink of poverty he's carried with him ever since his childhood working on the river. He's just trying to make a better life for himself mama. Isn't that what we're all trying to do? He just happens to make his by dealing from the bottom of the deck and shoving jacks inside the double lining on his jacket. Is that so much different from you or me?

"It's very different from you or me," Mama will say. "You made a better life for yourself by starting your own new media advertising firm specializing in pharma. And I made a better life for myself by being Lynn L Elsenhans, President, Chairman and CEO of Sunoco."

He said you'd react this way mama. He said you'd tell me all about what a different class of man he is than you or me. He said you'd say your full name like I hadn't heard it over and over again on 60 Minutes. But he gave me something that don't care about class Mama. He gave me a gift that don't care about banner ads for drug companies or oil company fortunes. He gave me a child. I'm pregnant mama. I'm pregnant with his baby and it's a boy. A Boy mama! I'm gonna have a card shark's son, and there's nothing you or Daddy can do about it.

"Like hell," Mama will say. "I am Lynn L Elsenhans, President, Chairman and CEO of fucking Sunoco! And you, young lady, are going to get an abortion! Guards!"

Mama's guards will grab you by the arms and drag you to the abortion clinic in the basement of the Sunoco building. As you're dragged away, Mama will mutter under her breath, "Lynn L fuckin Elsenhans. President, Chairman, and goddamn CEO. Mother-in-law to a goddamn card shark? Pish."

Happy Card Shark Day!

Martin's In New York Day!

You've been married for eleven years, have had two wonderful children with a wonderful man. You have a job you love, friends you never thought you'd ever be able to hang onto after the way you treated them back when all the messiness happened, and you can pretty much spend a lot of your time marveling at how perfectly things have turned out for you.

"I made a vow though," you explain to your husband as you load the clip of your handgun. "I told him if he ever set foot in this city again, I'd blow his fucking head off."

Your husband pleads with you to just let it go, that he was just a bad boyfriend.

"There are degrees of bad," explain. "Sometimes, you can be such a bad boyfriend that you deserve nothing less than a messy death. Seriously, he convinced me that holidays like Christmas were for the intellectually weak. He deserves to die."

Your husband will ask you if killing him is worth having your daughters visit you in jail.

"Yeah," say. "Yeah it is. If I don't kill him, our little girls might think it's okay for a guy to be as bad a boyfriend as he was, that you should forgive boyfriends like that when in fact the reality is boyfriends like that surrender the right to house their brains inside their skulls. I mean it, he used to videotape British sitcoms off of PBS, the ones with the wigs and the screaming."

"Videotape?" your husband will confirm.

Nod. Tell him you had a whole library of VHS tapes of that one in the department store.

Your husband will ask you to at least wear a vest.

"No need," say. "He thinks violence is for people who went to public school."

Your husband will say, "I think I'm starting to support you in this."

Kiss him and tell him he's the best man there ever was, then strap up and go shoot your ex-boyfriend in the face.

Happy Martin's In New York Day!

Your Sister's Cellmate Day!

Today you're going to have to give up your fun-loving bachelor's lifestyle when your sister tells you that her cellmate wants you to raise her son while she's in jail.

"But I go on two dates a night with hot babes!" you'll complain. "Now I have to raise a kid? This is such a turn of the tables! Such a turn of the tables!"

Your sister will explain that her cellmate, Gladys, has promised to set your sister on fire if you don't raise her son.

"So I guess you have no choice but to give up the party life and start being a dad to a boy in need of some tough love. You might learn something about yourself."

Tell her that you've already learned something about yourself. You've learned that you hate having an arsonist for a sister.

"You mean you hate having an arsonist who got caught for a sister. You didn't mind so much back when you needed someone to set fire to that 800 acre expanse of forest."

Ask her why Gladys wants you to raise her son and your sister will say that she guesses she might have mentioned that you were a great big brother to her, that underneath your hard-partying demeanor is a really nurturing soul.

That will bring a tear to your eye, and you'll agree to do it. When you meet Gladys's son, he'll knife you in the leg and you'll never walk without a limp again, but then the two of you will find common ground and he'll win a spelling bee or something.

Happy Your Sister's Cellmate Day!

Phil Cartwright Day!

Phil Cartwright is outside your house screaming your daughter's name.

"You're 18 now," tell her. "You can do what you want with whomever you want, regardless of how long they've been in my employ as a Vice President of Northeastern Regional Promotion."

Your daughter will thank you for respecting her autonomy.

"But you're still my dad," she'll say. "And I'd like your advice."

Tell her what the former Mrs. Cartwright told you about Phil back when you and she were having an affair, that Phil only wants a woman to stand witness to his failure as a man.

"He only seduces women so they'll one day leave him," tell your daughter. "The way Phil's mother left Phil and his Dad when Phil was seven."

Your daughter will listen to Phil shout her name again. You'll see her flinch, like she wants to run to the window but she's afraid to in front of you.

"But women are drawn to him," tell her. "Because they all wanna be the one to prove mama wrong."

Your daughter will look at you, and she'll see the blessing in your smile.

"What about college?" she'll ask.

Tell her college can wait. Love's a little more impatient.

"I'm sure I can get a refund on your first semester's tuition," tell her. "Go."

Your daughter will kiss your cheek, say thanks daddy, then run out the door and into Phil Cartwright's big puffy arms. When they're done kissing, Phil will see you watching from the window, and he'll wave up at you.

"I'm almost done with the Hobart & Heinz presentation," Phil will say. "It's really gonna knock their socks off Monday morning."

"Now one thing I won't abide is you wasting my daughter's time talking shop," say to Phil. "You two go home and be with each other. And I mean completely!"

Phil will make a pistol with his hands and shoot you a "no sweat." He'll pick up your daughter the way you used to when she was just a little girl, he'll put her in his Camry, and you'll watch their taillights disappear.

Happy Phil Cartwright Day!

Michigan Day!

She said Michigan.

"No," say.

She won't stop packing her suitcase.

"No, I said." Pick up her suitcase and throw it against the wall. Her clothes will spill out all over the floor. She won't even blink. She'll just bend her knees and start gathering up her things, right the suitcase, and continue readying her leave.

"It's called Jack and Nina's Auto Body."

"I'll pay for the cost of a new sign."

Tell her you don't want a new sign. Tell her you don't want to fix cars without her. Tell her it's gonna be cold there.

"You knew I'd go back," she'll say. "You had to know."

Storm out. You'll spend the next few months telling customers that Nina's visiting family. One morning, a man you've only seen in pictures will come to the counter and hand you twelve hundred dollars.

"Take my wife's name off your sign," he'll say.

Take the money and ask him how long he thinks he'll be able to hang onto her this time, how long he'll be able to keep her name on his auto body shop's sign, before she goes and finds someone new to fall in love and open a new auto body shop with.

He'll offer his hand for you to shake.

"You know Nina," he'll say. "You know as well as I a woman like that don't hang around nobody forever. But until she leaves, her name ain't gonna be on no other man's auto body shop sign."

Shake his hand and wish him luck. When you let go, you'll know for sure that she's never coming back to you. She might not stay with her husband, but she's never coming back to you.

Happy Michigan Day!

That Guy Has A Boat Too Day!

Your wife thinks you should just sail over and talk to him.

"No, he's probably busy," you'll say. "I'd just be bugging him."

Your wife thinks that he'd probably enjoy talking to another guy who has a boat.

"It's something you have in common. You can ask him how he got so much money that he decided he'd better throw some away on a boat, then you can tell him about how you made a killing buying out underwater mortgages from families who'd been bodily removed from their homes by sheriffs."

You know your wife won't get off your back about this until you finally break down and talk to the guy, so you sail your boat next to his and you shout over to him, "Hi! I see you have a boat."

The guy will fall all over himself to engage you.

"Yeah, you too huh? How about that?" he'll say. "How much money do you have?"

Tell him exactly how much money you have, including assets and long-term investments. Tell him how much your house would sell for if you put it on the market today.

"Wow," he'll say. "We, like, almost have the exact same amount of money!"

He'll start to cry and you won't have to ask why. He feels what you feel. Relief, that finally, at long last, there's someone out there who is able to buy just as much stuff as him.

"I once sailed around the world," say to him. "I did it looking to have a conversation just like this one. Sailed around the world, and here I didn't even have to leave the marina."

Later tonight, you and the other guy with a boat will go below deck on his boat to drink some really fucking expensive brandy and talk about the most disgusting/astonishing acts you ever paid human beings to perform for your sexual arousal. Congratulations on making a brand new friend at age 51.

Happy That Guy Has A Boat Too Day!

Die Buddy Day!

Everyone attending a public high school gets to pick their Die Buddy today. Sometime between first period and the closing bell, you have to kiss someone on the mouth, and whomever you kiss, that's your Die Buddy, the person who will die on the same day as you, someday in the unknowable future.

"Does this mean we'll die together? Will we die in each other's arms, or at least, will we die in the same prison camp, side-by-side before the same firing squad?" you ask.

The answer is not necessarily. You and your Die Buddy could die on opposite sides of the world, one of you dying of natural causes while the other dies from a live hand grenade stuffed into his mouth. The only thing certain is that you will die during the same 24-hour period (Greenwich Mean Time, in case the two of you are in different time zones).

However, many Die Buddies do end up dying together, simply because as Die Buddies you'll feel an urge to stay in touch, to find out if this Die Buddy program is legit (it is), and that will keep you in each other's orbit. The bond of knowing you're going to die during the same 24 hour period can often be misinterpreted as a bond of affection or mutual attraction so you might strike up a romance. Keep in mind that many Die Buddies who become romantically involved find that when the day of passing arrives, they realize that their bond was nothing more than a shared anticipation for the final moment. They regret having given their companionship to a Die Buddy. They regret having never tried to love someone for the way they lived.

"What happens if I don't kiss someone and don't pick my die buddy today?" you ask.

The answer is that you will lose your eyesight.

Happy Die Buddy Day!

He Drinks Tea Now Day!

Your Dad's back.

"Yeah, back in town. Looking for a way to stay out of trouble," he'll tell you at the coffee shop where you agreed to meet.

Tell him you won't let him see his grandchildren, and that after this afternoon you would appreciate if he'd never contact you directly again until someone handling his estate reaches you to tell you how much of his debt you've just inherited because he died by setting himself on fire in bed or driving through the front door of a school or one of the many other horrible ways in which everyone has always assumed he'd leave this earth.

"Tea," he'll say to the waitress when she appears to take your orders. "Chamomile if you have it."

Ask him when he switched from coffee to tea, then tell him never mind, you don't care, and then show him the scar on your arm.

"I'd take my own life if it would take that mark off your skin," he'll say.

Watch him sip his tea and tell him you're not buying it. That just because he's holding a little teacup in between the small of his index finger and thumb, it doesn't shorten Mom's prison sentence.

"I never asked her to take the rap for me," he'll say.

"But she did," tell him.

Your Dad will suggest that maybe the two of you should make the most of your mother's sacrifice, and keep the family together in her absence.

"Tea," say to him. Say it as a question.

Leave feeling like you really gave him the business, but in a few months you're going to invite him to your home for Sunday dinner with his grandkids, and a week or two after that the two of you will go and visit your Mom together, then finally he'll die pulling one of your kids out of the way of a speeding car, and you'll cry for him at his funeral, and none of it would ever come to pass had he ordered coffee today.

Happy He Drinks Tea Now Day!

That Hammering Day!

Go next door to find out what all that hammering is.

"What's all that hammering?"

You won't recognize the woman holding the hammer. She moved in last week and she's divorced.

"Divorced and ready to make up for lost time," she'll say, the hammer clutched in her soft palms.

You and the divorced woman will make love amongst the unpacked boxes.

"My husband never did it like that," she'll say. "He was too busy messing around with other women."

You'll tell her that you understand where she's coming from, that your wife cheated on you not all that long ago, and that it tore a hole in your heart.

"I guess I might have been getting back at her today," you'll say. "But now I feel kind of awful."

"Help me unpack," she'll say.

You'll start to help her unpack. Eventually you'll come upon a box of photos and you'll see a picture of a man you recognize. A man you've seen in pictures given to you by the private detective you hired to tail your wife. The man who met your wife in a motel room every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon for fourteen months.

"Wow small world," you'll say.

"Not so small," the divorced woman will say. "I purposely bought this house next to you. Your wife lured my man away from me. It's only right that I make love to hers. Didn't realize all it would take was a little hammering. I should have rented."

Happy That Hammering Day!

The President's Son Is A Car Thief Day!

You are the President of the United States and you can't stop bringing up the irony of you being the leader of the free world with a son who makes a living stealing cars.

"It should be a lesson to the people of this country," you've said in, like, six State of the Union speeches already. "No matter how powerful you are, you can still end up with some part of your life running astray, creeping off into the night, hotwiring Lexuses and driving them onto Russian freighters for a quick eighteen grand, just for the jazz of it. Think about that America."

Your advisers have warned you that the people are getting sick of hearing about your car thief son, and they're all pretty sure that you're proud of him.

"Why not talk about your daughter at Brandeis?"

You shrug. "What's there to talk about? The president's daughter gets good grades. Stop the fucking presses."

Your advisers tell you that the people think you wish you could have been a bad boy like your son, and they're afraid that you might try to fulfill that wish through policy.

"Yeah, right," you say. "Like a subclause in a jobs bill is really going to give me the same adrenaline rush my son probably gets when he jacks a Lincoln."

Your advisers will say that the people are worried that you don't like being president, and that you wish you had the freedom and devil-may-care lifestyle that your son has.

"Tell the people they're right on the damn money," you say.

This afternoon your son is going to appear on TV in another high speed freeway chase, this time he'll be driving a car carrier full of Benzes. You'll be the only one in the country rooting for your son to get away. Everyone else just wants him to go to jail so their president can finally learn that crime doesn't pay, that when you break the law you're eventually going to have the pay the price with your freedom. Lucky for you, he'll make it across state lines just before the police catch up to him, and since you enacted that "No, Seriously, The Cross State Lines And You Can't Get Arrested Anymore Law Is For Real From Now On" law last year solely to help your son stay free, you're not going to have to learn a damn thing today.

Happy The President's Son Is A Car Thief Day!

You're Just Not Going To Get Anything Done Until You Have Sex With Jordan Day!

Call him.

"Jordan look I need this," say. "I've got a big month ahead of me but ever since you started temping at the office I've kind of become obsessed with you being inside me. What are you doing tomorrow at like 7 PM so we can make that happen?"

Jordan will ask who you are and how he knows you again.

"Cut the shit!" shout.

He'll remember now how he knows you since you scolded him on his first day for drinking out of your tea cup.

"Anyway. You. Inside me. Capiche? This is already taking too long and kind of fucking up my night."

Jordan will tell you that he's getting over a lovely ex of his named Karen and--

"Fine call me Karen then. Jesus. I'll wear a nametag. Tell me how she squealed and I'll make the same noise. Do you realize how many presentations I have to get ready in the next couple of weeks?"

Jordan will think about it.

"Okay," he'll say. "But just promise me you won't--"

Hang up on Jordan. Then send him an email telling him what time you want him to get inside you, and explain that you hung up on him because he already wasted enough of your time with his yappy mouth. Everyone hopes you get this Jordan being inside you thing taken care of because everyone is counting on you to do a great job. You sell soda machines to bus stations.

Happy You're Just Not Going To Get Anything Done Until You Have Sex With Jordan Day!

Assassin Priest Day!

Today you are a priest who makes money for your church and affiliated orphanage by being an assassin for hire. You got into the line of work a long time ago, back when it looked like the city was going to shut your church down (cities do that!) and all the orphans in your orphanage would be thrown into child protection programs and the foster care system. You had to do something!

"So I did what I promised myself I'd never do," you tell the Archbishop. "I followed in the footsteps of my father."

Your father was a special ops asset during the cold war, and he was the best there was.

"I only take jobs where I can be sure the target is a sinner, through and through, one who is beyond redemption."

"No sinner is beyond redemption," the Archbishop says. "You're assuming the role of God in your killings."

"Only by assuming the role of God can I get the money to continue doing God's work," you tell the Archbishop. "If it weren't for my contract killings, my church would be no more."

"Fine," the Archbishop says. "If you insist on lying to yourself, do what you have to do."

You raise your pistol and fire two rounds into the Archbishop's chest, and a third round into his forehead. You'd better head downtown to report the job done. No longer will your city have an Archbishop who uses his frock to shield a network of drug running, human trafficking, and arms dealing.

And most importantly, the orphanage is saved!

Happy Assassin Priest Day!

Sam The Guy Your Daughter Married Once Day!

Today you'll be having a nice lunch in a nice restaurant when you'll be visited at your table by the restaurant manager. It will be Sam, the guy your daughter married once.

"Can you tell your daughter I'm manager here now?" Sam will ask. "She ended it because she said I'd never follow through on my dreams of managing a high-end restaurant like this one. Seeing as you eat here, you clearly agree that this place is pretty boss. Can you tell her? Can you tell your daughter I made it?"

"No," tell Sam. Then explain that your daughter cut you out of her life after you pressured her to divorce Sam.

"I'm the one who convinced her to leave you, son," tell him. "I told her she's better than you. I told her you were never going to be more than you were."

Sam's voice will be choked with rage. "Then you are duty-bound to tell her you were wrong!"

"She already knows, son," tell Sam. "But she's remarried to a man she doesn't love, and she has two young children who don't impress her, but she says she's stuck with them, all because I told her you weren't good enough. She told me it was all my fault and she said that's the last I'd hear from her."

"I could go to her," Sam will say. "I could destroy her family and we could finally live out the happy life I know we were supposed to share"

"It's the only way she'll ever speak to me again," say to Sam. "I'll fund the operation and get you the manpower."

And that's how you and Sam will join forces and gather an eclectic crew in a high-stakes caper to break up your daughter's home!

Happy Sam The Guy Your Daughter Married Once Day!

Cigarette Day!

When Jenny asks you for a cigarette today she'll only be asking you for it because she thinks you look absolutely breathtaking with a cigarette in between your big pink lips and she wants to look like that too.

"I want boys to want me the way they want you," Jenny will say.

Tell her, "Oh then you need the cigarette, definitely."

Explain to Jenny that before you started smoking boys never gave you the time of day. After you started smoking, you were stunned.

"Do you know how many poets go to this school? The minute I started smoking about nine boys started writing the most glorious verse about me. They'd rip the poems out of their notebooks, bloody the back of the pages and stick them to my locker for me to find after 5th period."

Jenny will be hanging on your every word. She'll be ready to strangle you just to get one of those cigarettes in her mouth.

"After you smoke this," tell Jenny. "You should get a day planner. And start telling your parents where you go and who you're with every time you leave the house. Some boys kidnap. Their parents have cabins in the woods and they try to take me up there and lock me away with them so no one else can have me. Boys don't like to share when they find the beauty they believe will save them."

"Oh my God," Jenny will say. "Give me one of those Marlboro reds right now or I think I'll explode."

Hand Jenny her cigarette and tell her, "We have something to celebrate anyway."

Light both of the cigarettes. Let Jenny inhale and feel her life change. Then...

"I'm pregnant and I'm not keeping it!" tell Jenny.

The two of you should jump up and down screaming and smoking.

Happy Cigarette Day!