Pharmacy Pal Day!

You and your Pharmacy Pal like to sit and wait for your prescriptions and reminisce about the women you’ve loved.

Him: “We spent three days in bed in a hotel room in Cleveland. When we finally put our clothes on and turned on the TV, Reagan had been reelected.”i

You: “She used to throw forks at my head she loved me so much. Her husband once offered to pay me $75,000 if I’d move three states away.”

Today’s the big day when you both realize you’re describing the same woman. A woman who used to cry over the bow of the Staten Island Ferry while wearing a white dress.

“That’s so insane,” you’ll say. “I guess with all the women you and I have had we were bound to intersect.”

“Was she real?” he’ll ask. “Or a spectre.”

“Specter,” you’ll say. “Totally. No one else on the boat could see her. She was the ghost of a woman who’d been jilted at the altar and threw herself overboard.”

“How many specters you had?” your Pharmacy Pal will say.

You hate when he asks you first, because he always tops it. You tell him six disembodied apparitions or “energies” as the people on TV like to say.

“Seven,” he’ll say. “Fucking ghosts. They really don’t have any morality do they?”

They really don’t, tell him. Then both of you should sit silently and enjoy your memories of the spirits of women you’ve made love to.

Happy Pharmacy Pal Day!

Tell Your Wife’s Sister It’s Over Day!

“We can’t do this anymore,” say. “You have too strong a hold on me. Every time you open your mouth you make me want you more, and I can’t betray Katie any longer.”

“My sister cheats on you with your brother,” she’ll tell you.

Remind her you don’t have a brother.

“If you did, she’d cheat on you with him.”

Tell her that imagining having a brother, and imagining your wife secretly having sex with him, just made you super-hot. Enter her.

When finished say, “We can’t do this anymore” and mean it this time.

Happy Tell Your Wife’s Sister It’s Over Day!

Remember Where You Came From Day!

You’ve had amnesia for eight months now. You had an accident where your car went over a bridge. You were rescued by a lonely man named Arnold who you fell in love with as he nursed you back to health. He’s refused to help you reconnect with the life you had before you lost your memory. That’s been fine because you’re happy with him, but you still can’t help but wonder who you were really. Arnold doesn’t want to tell you because he’s scared you’ll leave.

“I researched it. The guy you were with before the accident was fucking hot. And you had a really great job. I don’t want you two to learn who you used to be. You’ll dump me so fast.”

You’ve explained to Arnold that there’s no way the guy you were with back then could win you back if he couldn’t even be bothered to find you and help you remember who he is and why you and he were an item. And a job’s just a job.

“No way,” Arnold says. “He’s way too hot. If he’s still into you I’ll be history.”

You badger him until he relents and gives you the address of the guy you don’t remember loving. You visit him and after brief pleasantries he’s inside of you. Feeling that, you remember everything, including that he is a well-respected economist and that you are the Vice President of the United States. Return to Washington and have them call off the search party and tell them to arrest Arnold for kidnapping someone really important. Then work on creating some smooth lines of communication in a fractious Congress.

Happy Remember Where You Came From Day!

Porn Apartment Day!

Half-way through masturbating to a scene about a housewife who decided to have sex with a man who was just trying to sell her a vacuum, you’ll realize that the people you’re masturbating to are having sex in the very spot where you are masturbating. Your apartment must have been used as a location for pornographic videos before you moved in. If you continue to masturbate to this scene, to the point of achieving orgasm, you’ll create a paradox that results in Germany having won the second World War.

Happy Porn Apartment Day!

Vows Day!

You wake up in Joe’s bed on your wedding day, the day you’ll begin the rest of your life with Henry.

Don’t roll out of bed shouting regrets at the clothes on the floor.

Don’t double over in tears.

Don’t shake Joe awake and tell him it was a mistake insisting you love Henry and you just got scared and you did something to put it all in jeopardy because that’s how a young girl sets things in motion.

Stay still, your breath steady, testing the weather under the covers. A heat created by the humming machinery under your and Joe’s skin. He runs hotter than Henry.

Joe opens his eyes and tells you he’s a despicable Best Man. Tell him you’re a despicable bride.

In calm even tones, both of you repeat the following:

I [Your cheating/lying/best friend or husband-to-be betraying name]

Promise to never ever hurt Henry like this again.

I will devote my life to making Henry’s life more comfortable and entertaining

As penance for this dishonest act.

I will never tell Henry about this morning, about last night.

I will do what I can to understand the feelings that made me want to harm this person I love dearly.

I will do what I can to be a good wife/a better friend.

Pinky swear, then sneak out of Joe’s room and down to yours using the fire stairs. It’s time to get ready for the best day of your life.

Happy Vows Day!

Training Day!

Today is your first day behind the fish counter at Whole Foods. The guy training you is named Felix and Felix is sad.

“Last night I got up the nerve to ask my wife to take me back,” Felix says. “She said no, that she’s happy with her new life, living with a new man who doesn’t wear the stink of the sea on him at all times, a stink so deeply penetrating it’s like he’s got guppies swimming through his veins instead of blood. She used to make me hold my arms in a bucket of bleach up to my elbows once a week. I did it. For her I did it, and I still do it in case she ever decides to change her mind and find a place in her heart for me again. That’s why my arm hair’s blonde if you were wondering.”

You were wondering and you’re glad he explained it. However, you’re worried that Felix’s heart isn’t in this and you’re going to start your training off on the wrong foot.

“There’ll be other fish in the sea,” you say, laughing uncomfortably. “Hey how about we start training?”

Felix says, “I can’t train you kid. I can’t induct you into this life. I can’t let another man suffer loveless and alone, nothing to keep him company but the fish scales permanently stuck to the tops of his shoes. Swim, boy.”

Look Felix in the eye and say, “If I can convince your wife to take you back, will you train me?”

Felix will say yes. You’ll spend the next six years of your life trying to convince his wife to take him back but she won’t budge. Eventually, Felix will die of a broken heart, and when his coffin goes in the ground, so will your dream of working a fish counter at Whole Foods. This is how you will learn that just because you have a dream, the universe is under no obligation whatsoever to make sure you see that dream fulfilled.

Happy Training Day!

Say Goodbye To The Guy You Ran Some Errands For Day!

While on the run from the police who want to arrest you for Public Sadness you’ll spy a townhouse with the front door wide open so you slip inside hoping to have a place to hide for a while. In the vestibule you’ll realize you’ve been there before. It’s Murray’s house. Murray’s an angry old rich man and fifteen years ago you used to run errands for him.

“Come to gloat?” Murray will be sitting in a wheelchair before you at the end of the long hall, two suitcases flanking him on the floor.

“I’ve come to say goodbye,” you’ll say.

Walk to Murray and kneel by his chair.

“I was reaching for my wife’s photo on the nightstand and I fell out of bed,” Murray will say. “That was enough to have my home health aide tell em I need full-time staff care. Off to the damn home.”

“Time to go Murray,” the home health aide will say from behind you.

You need to stay in that house until the police pass, so start stalling.

“Murray, there’s something I never told you.”

Murray will say spit it out. Shoot a look at the home health aide to get Murray to tell him to wait outside. When he’s gone, say, “I came to you when I was just 23. You were very important to me at that time, like a father I never had. My whole adult life, I’ve tried to live it with yours as my example.”

Murray’s eyes will well up with tears. “I wasn’t sure if I got through to you, kid. I need to tell you something too.”

Say, “What is it Murray?”

Murray will say, “Lean in closer. I want to tell you about something I want to give to you. When I’m not around anymore.”

You’ll do as he says. He’ll cough a few times, wipe his mouth slowly, then he’ll take a few deep breaths, trying to summon enough air in his lungs to speak. When he finally does, he’ll say, “Sorry kid.”

Two policemen will have you in their grip and facedown on the floor before you realize what’s happened. They came in the open front door right after you and snuck up while you were waiting for Murray’s declaration.

“Nice job stalling, sir,” one of the cops will say.

“Just glad I could help clean up this neighborhood a little bit before I say goodbye to it,” Murray will say.

Look up at Murray and say, “I’m sorry I lied to you. I’m sorry about a lot of things I guess.”

“Then you really did follow my example, kid.”

One of the cops will say, “Maybe next time you won’t be so sad in public, we won’t have to put you away.”

You’ll be taken before the judge and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison.

Happy Say Goodbye To The Guy You Ran Some Errands For Day!

Every Boy Needs A Hero Day!

When Jeff sees you out on the ledge he won’t be scared. He knows you can fly.

“No,” his coworker Arnold will say. “She can stop time, but she can’t fly.”

“You’re both wrong,” Keith from legal will say. “She has the ability to control crowds with the pitch and tremble of her voice.”

“For God’s sake,” the guy from the mail room (forgot his name) will say. “She’s able hypnotize people with her eyes. What’s wrong with you fucking idiots? Get it straight.”

“You’re all wrong,” Evan Holcomb III, the CEO of the company will say. They didn’t see him walk up behind them.

“Mr. Holcomb,” they’ll all say. He’s never spoken to any of them before.

Staring up at you, Mr. Holcomb will continue talking as if he forgot his employees were there. Or, at least, as if he forgot they were his employees. He’ll marvel at you, a deep sadness in his eyes, and he’ll say, “She can hold her breath for a really long time.”

His employees will manage to keep from laughing at him until he wanders away. Then they’ll go back to looking at you, waiting to see how you get yourself out of this one. They’ve all been arguing over which powers you possess every since your first day of work, when you wore the blue dress. They don’t know what made you decide to step out on that ledge while they were all at lunch, but they know whatever it is, you can get out of it.

You — and your eyebrows, and the way your voice gets deep when you argue, and your fingernails, and your sweetness — are their hero. Get down off that ledge safely and you’ll prove them right for having believed in you.

Happy Every Boy Needs A Hero Day!

She Attended The Orgy Without You Day!

You found the cocktail napkin in her pants pocket when you were looking for some money to pay a delivery person. Modern Loving House. She went.

“You told me you didn’t want to go,” say to her.

“I didn’t,” she’ll say. “Then I changed my mind.”

“And you didn’t tell me.”

Run from the house in tears and don’t come home for a couple of days. You can spend time at the second apartment where your presently housing a girlfriend. Your wife knows about Shannon.

After you’ve cooled off, return home and your wife will sit you down and explain with a hand on your knee.

“You’re a showboat,” she’ll say. “When we attend an orgy, all eyes are always on you, as you fuck in wild positions with the precision of an acrobat. Look, he’s doing the Grungy Martindale. The Upside Down Chinese Fire Drill. The Jo Polniaczek. I’m always shunted off to the sidelines by the crudité. Even while getting drilled I get asked what it’s like to be married to such a sexual artist. I just wanted to experience an orgy on my own. I just wanted–”

“To not have your sexual partnering ignored in the looming shadow of my own,” say. “I never knew how my erotic virtuosity affected you.”

“It’s not that I’m not proud,” she’ll say.

“I’m not proud,” tell her. “I’m not proud that I made you feel this way.”

Call the RSVP lines of your next three scheduled orgies and tell them you won’t be able to make it, but your wife will still attend. Return to her, kiss her forehead, and tell her, “It’s time for you to shine.”

Happy She Attended The Orgy Without You Day!

Whisking You Away From A Terrible Mistake Day!

He’ll spot you at the table with your hand clasped in the hand of the guy who’s wrong for you, the one with the curly dirty blonde hair and a fat wealthy face. He’ll see the surrounding family, soon-to-be in-laws, a joyless, undermining lot all of whom claim to be Christian folk but who only care about property and vodka and what kind of promotions the neighbors’ kids are getting.

“Let’s go,” he’ll say to you, suddenly standing beside your chair.

“You think so?” you’ll ask.

“Look around,” he’ll say. “You know you don’t belong with them. They only want you because you’re beautiful, because you’ll look good in the family photos, off to the left, unsmiling. Just like his mother.”

“Who is this?” the mother-in-law to be will ask.

“Let’s go,” he’ll say again.

Your fiance will stand up to him and say, “I don’t know what you think you’re trying to pull–”

He’ll pepper spray your fiance. Then he’ll go around the table and pepper spray everyone in your fiance’s family, including his grandmother. They’ll fall to the floor crying and clawing at their faces while he whisks you away to the sidewalk. Ask him why he pepper sprayed everyone at the table and he’ll tell you no one’s chasing after you are they, so it must have been a good idea.

“Go find another mistake to make,” he’ll say. “Be careful though, I might not be around for the next one.”

Ask him if he’d like to be your next mistake and he’ll wave his wedding ring at you. Ask him why he saved you from marrying the wrong guy if he’s already married and has no interest in you himself and he’ll say he has an interest in doing the right thing.

“I saw a beautiful girl sitting at the wrong table,” he’ll say. “I escorted her away from it. Just being a good citizen.”

Just then lightning will crack in the sky and he’ll shout, “Fuck I hate the fuckin’ rain!” Then he’ll run for shelter, leaving you there, soaked.

Happy Whisking You Away From A Terrible Mistake Day!

Rehabilitate Day!

Today’s your first day as a free man after being in jail for two days. The first thing you should do is go back to your hometown to see how things have changed while you were inside. You’ll discover that a parking meter that was broken before you left has been repaired now.

“Guess time doesn’t stop just because a man makes a mistake,” you’ll say out loud to the parking meter.

You’ll also find that Rise of the Planet of the Apes has left the multiplex, having been replaced by The Debt.

“So much is lost!” you’ll sob, falling to your knees, wishing to Christ you could go back in time 48 hours and not get drunk and take a leak on the front window of that Mailboxes Etc. But no matter how loudly you lament, time stubbornly pushes forward.

Happy Rehabilitate Day!

Make Sure There Isn’t Any Jagged Shrapnel Impaled In Your Bodies Before Trying To Make Love Day!

Having run from exploding glass and storms of debris, there’s a good chance that one of you has some shard of metal or a hunk of asbestos jutting into your skin, poisoning your blood stream and causing the kind of discomfort that makes it hard to focus on romance. It’s important as the last surviving man and woman on earth that the two of you begin to reproduce as soon as possible, but you’re first going to have to inspect your bodies to make sure you’re free of any gaping wounds or shrapnel. Before you start entering each other, make sure that all foreign objects find their exit.

There are some clean rags and rubbing alcohol on the shelf in the rear of the bunker. After dislodging all jagged relics of the society that once stood proudly as towering evidence of all that man can do from your legs, arms, and midsections, pour on the rubbing alcohol to fight infection. You’re made of strong stuff, no doubt, if you were able to survive not only the man-made fires but the ones that seemed to rain down from God’s hand, so as long as you aren’t losing a lot of blood you’re probably going to be fine. Wrap any wounds and give them time to heal. As soon as you both have your strength back, start having intercourse to respawn the human race for the second dawn of mankind.

Happy Make Sure There Isn’t Any Jagged Shrapnel Impaled In Your Bodies Before Trying To Make Love Day!

Met Him By The Trash Cans At The Burger King Day!

You were waiting for your whopper when he sidled up next to you and said, “I’m dangerous. Let me tell you some stories. After you finish eating your burger of course.”

He had a growl you couldn’t say no to. You took the whopper to go and ate it in his passenger seat while he talked about having been in the CIA. It didn’t matter if it was true or not. When you lead as dull a life as you lead, you’re grateful for some lies as long as they’re interesting. When he pulled over you got out and made love behind a tree. Some hikers averted their eyes.

He went back to the car first while you dressed. You heard gunshots. When you returned to the car he was splayed over the trunk and bleeding from five wounds. A helicopter flew away from a cliff above you. You walked the ten miles home, your head full of state secrets that could get you killed if anyone ever knew you possessed them. Your womb full of his child.

Happy Met Him By The Trash Cans At The Burger King Day!

Husband Eyes Day!

You provide a voluntary eye transplant service wherein people who want to see the world through someone else’s eyes can have them transplanted into their own skull for an exorbitant fee. Business was slow for a while because you could only do the operation for people who received eyes via a last will and testament. But after a long fight and pulling a lot of strings, you got a meeting with the organization handling the organs donated by people who select it on their driver’s licenses. You convinced them to allow bereaved spouses and children the chance to get the eyes of the deceased if they then donated their own eyes in turn, assuming that all the eyes in question are functioning. No one could challenge your argument, and now you’re making a lot of money off of bereaved women who want “Husband Eyes.”

Today you’re going to have a consult with a woman who has the most beautiful eyes you’ve ever seen. She’ll show you her dead husband’s eyes in an igloo cooler. You feel like replacing her eyes with her husband’s would be the equivalent of slashing a Klimt canvas in a museum. You’ll tell her you can’t cut out her eyes because you just fell in love with them, and her. She’ll tell you she’s still deep in mourning for her husband, to the point that she is walking around with his eyes in a fucking igloo cooler, and that you’re being very inappropriate. She’ll tell you she doesn’t want the surgery anymore and she thinks she should be refunded her co-pay for the consult. You’ll say co-pays are nonrefundable. She’ll argue, but you won’t budge.

“Keep your goddamn eyes then,” you’ll say. “But I keep the fucking co-pay. I’ll keep it in my hands and you can come get it back on the day I die by reaching into my open-casket coffin at my wake and ripping it from my right palm, where I’ll have had the undertaker sew to the skin.”

Happy Husband Eyes Day!

The M Stands For Murder Day!

Your ATM screen told you to kill somebody today. It showed you his face and gave you his address. It even said when he’ll be alone in his apartment and which window he leaves open. You only went in to get forty dollars and for the first time in many months you didn’t choose “fast cash.” Now you know what happens when you don’t choose “fast cash.”

“So? Do we have a deal?”

The deal is that once the ATM can determine that the target is dead, you will have fifty thousand dollars added to your checking account, increasing your balance to $50,143.

The ATM gave you two options to select from. You chose the “I’m not sure if I have it in me to take the life of another man” option.

The ATM displayed several screens that convinced you that your hesitation is the result of an illusion into which humans have invested in order to preserve society, but that if you could see it from the point of view of a machine, you’d realize how easy and inconsequential a murder is. The way it was phrased was very convincing. You agreed to kill the guy by selecting, “Okay, I’ll do it. I guess you really hated the way this guy pushed the buttons on your screen, huh?”

The ATM will respond that that’s none of your business. You’ll worry that you offended the ATM, but since it’s only allowing you to select from two options for what your side of the dialogue should be at every turn of the conversation, you guess that it’s not something you should concern yourself with. After committing the murder you’ll go back to the ATM and discover that your balance has increased by fifty grand, so it’ll all work out. Congrats. You’ll be the first to murder a man at the behest of a machine, but not the last.

Happy The M Stands For Murder Day!

All These Sweaters Day!

When you come home you set fire to your house then you go out into your backyard to watch it burn. Your neighbor comes into your yard to congratulate you on making the big move. You tell him thanks, it just felt like it was time to make a change. The wall of the dining room crumbles. The bay window bursts. He asks if you saved anything. You open a trash bag full of sweaters that you knitted over the past year and a half. All these sweaters are my ticket out of this life you tell him. Once I open up my own store I’m on easy street. He looks through the bag and thinks the sweaters are hideous and misshapen but doesn’t tell you. He wants you to open the sweater shop and fail. Everyone wants you to fail so they can feel justified in not burning down their own houses and opening their own sweater shops.

Happy All These Sweaters Day!

Spaversation Day!

Getting your nails done at a high-end spa you end up conversing with the lady in the chair next to yours.

“Falling out of love with anybody?” you ask.

She laughs and says, “How much time you got?”

You become fast friends and when your nails are dry you both leave the spa together, first to spy on her husband as he sits by the window during a business lunch.

“He made some promises,” she says. “At least, he stated some hopes for himself. I heard them as promises.”

“Doesn’t matter if it was said or even if it was heard,” you say. “It just matters what you’ve decided you thought you wanted, and how far away that is from what you have. Come on.”

You take her to a cafe across the street from your live-in boyfriend’s storefront real estate office.

“Sometimes I think I live with him just to learn what I don’t want in my next relationship,” you say.

One of you suggests that you both just leave town without a word, take off for a new city and a new life. You both laugh, then you agree to never see each other again.

“This was fun, but no one I see socially can know,” you say.

“Same here,” she says. “The only thing I have left is the illusion that my life might be better than my friends’.”

You smile at each other, and she doesn’t slow down the car. You just open the door and roll out onto the median.

Happy Spaversation Day!

How You And Ned Met Day!

You were fifteen and sort of angry in a general way, so you took your bike and tossed it down the steps into the park, letting it clatter and fall apart as it bounced on the cement. Your dad bought you that bike, and it worked fine still, but for some reason you decided to smash it to pieces.

Amid the sound of a bicycle bouncing end over end you were surprised to hear a man’s shout. You went downstairs to find a homeless man of about fifty-five sitting before a fire, rubbing the back of his head where your bike hit him. You apologized and he introduced himself as Ned.

A friendship began. You joined Ned nearly every night after school and watched him cook possum for dinner and he listened to you tell him about the teachers at school. Ned taught you to never believe anything that’s ever written in any book. Not ever.

“Not even the Thesaurus,” he said.

You were a devoted student of Ned’s and you obeyed his teachings. You came to believe that Ned knew more than you might ever know. He certainly knew more than all of your teachers combined. You decided that you would only accept knowledge that came from one of your talks with Ned, and you would only pursue a life according to Ned’s rules. You’re in prison now for exposing yourself to a minor during an armed robbery.

Happy How You And Ned Met Day!

I’m Steve And I Stole Your Prius Day!

You got a letter in the mail this morning from a guy named Steve. He says he’s the guy who stole your Prius back in March. He says he isn’t sorry he did it, not that it would matter because why would you forgive him. But he wanted to write to you to let you know who he is, and to send you a picture of himself. He realizes that sending you a picture of himself could put him at risk of being apprehended but he claims he lives far enough away from you that he’ll take his chances.

“Stealing your Prius was the first crime I’ve ever committed, and I wanted to explain why I did it,” the letter goes on. “I saw it sitting there outside the grocery store with the engine running and the door open. You had run back in to get something. Probably an item you purchased but left at the checkout. Taking a guess.

"Anyway,” he writes. “I decided then and there that maybe if I steal your Prius I’ll force my life in a direction that might lead to me changing the way I interact with the world. A car theft might lock me into some desperate situations that I’ll have to confront head-on in order to remain a free man.”

“Confronting things head-on is not what I normally do in life. I’ve usually felt as substantial as a ghost. When I meet someone new I feel like the person I’m meeting is already directing his attention to the memory of someone else with whom he’d prefer to be speaking at that moment. Before I release someone from my handshake, I’ve been forgotten. Up until I stole your Prius I felt I had lived my life with absolutely no impact on anything or anyone in this world.”

“So I’m writing to you to let you know who I am, and to let you know I stole your Prius. Though the theft didn’t do much to change my soft-spoken, quietly trod path through life, it did mean that I had an impact on someone. You. I inconvenienced you. I made you speak to the police and drive a rental provided by your insurance agent. Perhaps you even took the bus and developed a racial prejudice based on an assumption you’d made about my ethnicity. I did that to you. I am important to you. Which means I might have no stronger bond with anyone than I do with you.”

There’s a PO Box for you to write back to Steve. You dictate a letter to your home health aide to tell Steve the story about how you walked home after your Prius was stolen and got hit by a drunk driver, losing the ability to walk. You start to get weak as you dictate the part about your wife leaving you for your physical therapist, but you summon the strength to finish. You end on a congratulations to Steve for his newfound “impact” and you tell him you hope you and he can meet in hell one day. You ask your home health aide to mail the letter right away, but she doesn’t bother to mail it at all because she thinks her job is to help you get to the bathroom, not mail your letters, and if she starts acting like your secretary you’ll think it’s okay to continue treating her like one.

I’m Steve And I Stole Your Prius Day!

Coffee Shop Pranks Day!

Your pal Jimmy, a really funny guy who you always like to chat up at the coffee shop, will show up today with blood all over his shirt and hands.

“Rough day Jimmy?” you’ll ask.

Jimmy will tell you he woke up with no memory of the past three days. There was a girl in his room he’s never seen before. You gotta help him get rid of the body.

“This just another one of your ridiculous pranks Jimmy?”

You and the baristas will all laugh together, since you’ve all been the victim of Jimmy’s pranks in the past. Jimmy loves to play pranks.

“You’re with them aren’t you?” Jimmy will say to you all. Then he’ll take off running.

Alert his buddy at the public library that he’s probably on his way there and he’s suspicious. Make sure to send someone over to clean his apartment and get rid of the girl. You aren’t a part of any sort of nefarious agency or anything. You’re all just sick to death of Jimmy’s pranks so you got together to play a prank on him that he’ll never forget. Now get into your makeup and go greet Jimmy as his dead mother.

Coffee Shop Pranks Day!

You Got Up To Pee Day!

Your wife was all ready to leave. While you were getting ready for bed she put all her things back in her suitcase and left it by the door. She had her clothes folded underneath the bed and she was going to slip outside and get dressed on the landing and then drag her suitcase down to the street and hitch her way out of Denver. She wrote a note. It’s still on the desk, sealed in a yellow envelope. She forgot to grab it from the desk when you suddenly woke up to pee and wandered into the bathroom, so sleepy you didn’t even notice her standing by the open motel room door. You didn’t even notice her holding onto her folded up pants and shirt, with her suitcase tipped at an angle ideal for dragging. You just shuffled into the bathroom with eyes half-shut. In the time it took you to pee she got her clothes back under the bed, her suitcase back in the closet, herself back under the covers because she lost her head-start with you awake. She lost her nerve with you shuffling around the motel room. Now she’s back asleep beside you in bed and you’re still awake, no clue that she came this close to leaving you, no clue what that yellow envelope is doing on the motel room desk. Perhaps it’s a comment card, though you don’t remember seeing it there before you went to bed. Probably just a comment card. Guess they use the same yellow envelopes you use at home. You can check it out in the morning.

Happy You Got Up To Pee Day!

Power Outage Day!

The lights will go out and you’ll all hold still, unsure what it means to the agreement you established in the living room. Do you continue as if nothing happened or should you all take a time-out to go and fish your phones out of your pants pockets to check on the sitters.

“What do you think?” you ask Horace.

“I think it’s perfect,” he says.

He’s right, it is perfect. Thanks to a little accidental overuse of air conditioning, it feels like the city has shut down, life has hit pause, so that you all could step out of your usual roles as wife, husband, mother, and father and pretend for a little while that you are completely free to do as you please, to wander into another bedroom, another bed, a bed with Horace.

“Sweetie?” It’s your husband. He’s at the door. “Not coming in. Just checking, think it’s okay?”

While smiling at Horace, a smile he can see by the moonlight, say, “I think it’s more than okay. We’ll call in a half-hour, but I’m sure they’re fine.”

Horace will kiss you once then pull your underwear from beneath your skirt. You’ll hear your husband’s steps as he returns to his bedroom next door, where Horace’s wife is waiting for him. Kiss Horace again on the lips before he leaves a trail of kisses between your ribs. Lay back with your head hanging off the edge of the bed so that you can see the moon upside down. You’ll see the whole city upside down, even the tanks moving down the middle of the street.

Tanks. You’ll flip over to make sure you’re seeing right. Someone in the TV room will start shouting about what he just learned via CNN, then one of the servicemen outside will explain through a mobile PA system what it means for a city to be occupied. You get back into your clothes and your marriages, racing to head home to your children, racing through a world that became a very different place while you wandered.

Happy Power Outage Day!

Spy Vs Spy Day!

Today at the wine tasting you’re going to finally let Heather know that you’re not her husband.

“I had surgery to look like John,” tell her. “It’s important that certain governments think he’s still alive.”

Heather will run from the wine tasting into the fields surrounding the winery. Chase after her and tell her that you only revealed the truth because you fell in love, and that these years pretending to be her husband have been the happiest of your life. Ask her if she could possibly feel the same?

“I don’t like to admit it,” she’ll say. “But I’ve loved you more since you replaced him. I love you more than I ever loved him. I didn’t understand how my feelings could change, since I thought you were the same person the whole time, but now I do.”

Go home and make love. When you fall asleep, she’ll sneak off to the bathroom to contact her agency and let them know that the reconstructive surgery worked because you clearly don’t suspect a thing.

“Not only does he not know that I’m a spy pretending to be Heather so that I could monitor the movements of the spy pretending to be John,” she’ll whisper. “But he thinks he’s fallen in love with me.”

Her agency will say that it’s time for her to activate plan R.

Before she comes back to bed, contact your agency and let them know that the spy pretending to be Heather bought your “I love you” act and she doesn’t suspect in the slightest that you know she’s not Heather. Your agency will tell you to activate plan S.

Your agencies will then contact each other to laugh at how you two don’t have the slightest clue that they’re only using you to play a live-action Sims game.

Happy Spy Vs Spy Day!

You Sold Sneakers To Al Qaida Day!

You’ve been spiraling ever since 9/11, drinking yourself into a blind mess. Tonight, a prostitute who drinks at the same bar as you will invite you back to her apartment to look at pictures of the daughter she hopes to reconnect with one day, and you’ll decide she’s just broken enough to hear your confession.

“I sold sneakers to Mohamed Atta and three of the other hijackers,” you’ll tell her. “Two weeks before 9/11.”

Tell her that you spent forty minutes with them, pressing on their big toes to feel if they needed more wiggle room, watching them walking around in one shoe to get a feel for the insole. You even talked one of them out of a more expensive shoe because he mentioned he had arch issues and you knew the more expensive one offered crap support.

“So what are you saying?” she’ll ask. “Do you think you had a hand in 9/11 because you sold the hijackers sneakers?”

Tell her, “No. But I made 9/11 a little more comfortable for them, didn’t I?”

The prostitute will tell you that you couldn’t have known. If the CIA couldn’t apprehend them with all the red flags they were raising in the months leading up to 9/11, how were you supposed to know that you shouldn’t have sold them sneakers, or at least that you should have sold them sneakers that might inflame their sensitive tissue areas? She’ll tell you that you need to accept that you were just doing your job, and that maybe you’re just hanging on to the guilt because you’re too scared to live your life.

You and she will make love that night and then you’ll hang yourself by your belt in her bathroom.

Happy You Sold Sneakers To Al Qaida Day!

Tied To The Bed And Blindfolded Just As The Sun Bursts And Dies Day!

You let your boyfriend tie you to the bed and blindfold you during sex because things have gotten a bit rote lately. As luck would have it, your sex blindfold is made of a rarely used rubberized polyester that will protect your eyes when the sun bursts and dies today, and everyone else in the world will be instantly blinded. In the coming days you’ll be very popular because you’ll be one of the few people who can still see, and soon everyone will know that if someone still has the gift of sight it’s because they were having weird sex with a blindfold on when the sun burst. And that’s why in the future vision will be considered pervy.

Happy Tied To The Bed And Blindfolded Just As The Sun Bursts And Dies Day!

Keep A Secret Day!

The man in the raincoat will be reading a message on his smart phone when he slips off of the subway platform and falls onto the tracks. Run to the edge and see him there, belly down, conscious but moving slowly. Look around but there’s no one else to help him. Peer into the tunnel. No train coming. There’s time.

Your hand extended: “Here.”

The man will roll over half-way to look up at you. He’ll look down the tracks, searching for anyone else who might be watching from the platform. Then he’ll look at the message on his cell phone once more.

“Can you keep a secret?” he’ll ask.

You can. You don’t say so, but he must be able to tell from your eyes, because the man nods, stuffs the cell phone back in his pants, then reaches out and grabs the third rail.

Tell the police you ran to the edge and saw his body shaking, already cooked.

His wife will track you down because she wants to meet the last person who saw him alive. Tell her you only caught a glimpse of him before he disappeared over the side, and the next time you saw him he was gone.

If it will help you keep the secret to know what was in the email he was reading just before he died, the email he was reading was an email from Netflix asking about the picture quality of Sons Of Anarchy Season 1. If he was getting service down there on the tracks he would have selected, “The quality was very good.”

Happy Keep A Secret Day!

The Loneliest CEO Day!

The loneliest CEO cries in his Lincoln Town Car because he has no one waiting at home to hug him and listen to his stories when he walks through the door.

“You okay boss?” the loneliest CEO’s chauffeur asks through the window separating the front seat from the back.

“Do you know rough men?” the loneliest CEO asks. “Tough men who can kill me for a price?”

The chauffeur makes some calls then tells the loneliest CEO, “75 grand. Do you want it to be a surprise how they’ll do it?”

The loneliest CEO says no so the chauffeur says, “They’ll shoot you. Probably in the head but maybe someplace else.”

The loneliest CEO says, “Okay, but I want it to happen on the front porch of the girl I took to my high school prom. She lives in Ohio now. Married with three kids. I want you to drive me to her house tonight and have your rough friends meet me there. I’ll get on the porch and ring the bell, and when she comes to the door, tell them to shoot me so that I fall forward and die in her arms. Is all that understood?”

The chauffeur says you bet. They drive to Ohio to the woman’s house and when he rings the bell the woman’s kids answer the door. The killers don’t see who answers so they just go ahead and shoot the loneliest CEO and he ends up dying on top of his former prom date’s children.

Happy The Loneliest CEO Day!

There’s Nothing Left In Your Bank Account Day!

You and your wife developed drug addictions last fall and it’s been a super-fun time but today you checked your bank balance and there’s nothing left in the account.

“Honey,” say to her. “Did you spend the last of our savings on drugs?”

She’ll say, “Yes, want some?”

Say yes and do the drugs and feel absolutely wonderful for five hours.

Happy There’s Nothing Left In Your Bank Account Day!

Bunker Fight Day!

She says you never do anything sweet for her anymore and that she feels like you two only have sex to procreate in order to keep the human race from becoming extinct.

“I could sing,” you suggest.

She says go for it and you sing an old Carole King song that was popular before the hellfire turned the earth into a hot rock of pain and horror.

“Do you feel the things you sing in that song?” she asks. “Do you feel them for me?”

Tell her yes. Tell her the human race is very lucky because it’s going to have a beautiful new mother.

She’ll say, “I want you to say sweet things to me. More often. I want you to be sweet to me.”

Just then a 300 pound mutated rat will burst through the bunker door and you’ll wrestle it to the ground and slice it across its throat before it can hurt her. As you wipe the rat blood from your face go to her and say, “Guess he must’ve smelled all that sugar in your veins and wanted a taste of you, Sweetiepie.”

She’ll smile, and she’ll kiss the bloody wounds in your chest where the mutated rat bit through your radiation cloak.

Happy Bunker Fight Day!

Take Your Daughter To Work Day!

Your dad will spend the morning introducing you around to all the people he works with until he comes to Sharon.

“That whore?” say to her as she’s shaking your hand.

Sharon will ask you to repeat yourself. Your father will tell you to say you’re sorry.

“I’m sorry,” say.

Sharon will ask why you said that.

“Mommy always shouts ‘That whore’ and Daddy always shouts back 'Her name is Sharon and nothing happened,’” tell her.

Sharon will look to your dad. She’ll look really mad. Your Dad will laugh uncomfortably.

“Well?” say.

“Well what?” Sharon and your Dad will say.

“Did anything happen?”

“You’re being rude,” your dad will say.

Sharon will ask if your mom put you up to this. Tell her, “I just think if I found out whether or not anything happened, Mommy and Daddy wouldn’t have to yell the same stuff at each other all the time if I could go into their room and let them know once and for all whether or not anything happened.”

Sharon will say, “Well you can tell your mother that nothing will ever happen again, seeing as I’m sure she’s the one who put you up to this.”

“I’m sorry,” your dad will say.

“No I’m sorry,” Sharon will say. “Man am I ever sorry I got involved with you.”

Say, “Mommy didn’t put me up to this. I’m asking for myself. But Mommy did ask me to read you this letter.”

Pull out the letter and start reading. Sharon will run to the ladies room crying right after you begin with the salutation, “Dear Whore…”

Happy Take Your Daughter To Work Day!

The Broadway Adaptation Of The Movie Twister Day!

The Broadway adaptation of the movie Twister is dangerously over-budget because of the cows.

“Maybe we could cut the cows,” one of the investors suggests.

“As far as anyone is concerned, Twister is the movie where the cow gets thrown at the car,” tell them. “Taking the cows out of Twister the Musical is like taking the feet out of Footloose the Musical.”

Another investor says that it’s expensive to fling a cow at the audience every night, and the bungees keep snapping, leading to numerous audience members being crushed to death under the weight of 400 pound cows.

“That’s Broadway,” you say. Then you remind them all that they called you, you didn’t call them.

The investors will be unable to respond to that. They know you have them over a barrel since it’s true that they sought you out and they gave you full creative liberty. Unfortunately they are now responsible for the deaths of 26 tourists and 19 cows. They don’t know how to fire you, so they have no choice but to kill you with one of the cows. Tonight, when you go to your car, the death with be instant save for a few seconds of acknowledgement when you recognize the cow. Tickets to the show will sell out after your death is reported because people will want to see the play that killed its creator in the same manner it killed so many audience members. Then after more audience members die people tickets won’t sell out so much.

Happy The Broadway Adaptation Of The Movie Twister Day!

Babyland Day!

You have an idea for a comedy about if babies could talk. You think if babies could talk they’d speak in hypnotic verse, poems that cut to the essence of what it is to live and experience the color and sound of life. The adults would hear the babies’ message and they’d all go mad, unable to reconcile the lives of obligation and ambition they’ve been living with the undeniable simplicity of the babies’ truth. Most adults will either commit suicide or flop about on the floor, babbling in a manner not too different from the way babies used to. The babies’ will take over and that’s how the first ten minutes of BABYLAND will play out. There’ll be a brief montage of all the adults being rounded up and murdered, then about 75 minutes of babies doing stuff like running congress and seeking funding for much needed infrastructure projects. When the babies grow up they’re no different than the adults they slaughtered at the beginning of the movie so it ends in a way that makes you think. BABYLAND will be rated R for graphic violence and a scene where animals mate.

Happy Babyland Day!

Modern Rock Concert Day!

You’re a narcotics officer who’s working undercover to bust the lead singer of a modern rock band for drugs because the mayor doesn’t like him bringing his filthy music and godless stage show into his town.

“What if he doesn’t have any drugs?” you asked the mayor.

“You make sure he does,” the mayor told you.

You’re used to planting drugs on suspects when you know that getting the suspect behind bars is better for everyone in the long run, but you’re not sure how comfortable you are planting it on a guy just because the mayor has some ideas about what kind of music kids should be listening to. Lucky for the mayor you stopped worrying about keeping right away from wrong a long time ago.

When the band goes out on stage you sneak into their dressing room with the bag of heroin at the ready. Just as you’re about to stuff it into the lead singer’s guitar case, a girl walks out of the bathroom and sees you.

She doesn’t blink an eye. Just holds out her hand to you and says, “First, come listen.”

She takes you to the wings of the stage and tells you to stand there and listen to the band play. Just for the next song. When it’s finished, if you still think it’s right to frame the lead singer for a crime he didn’t commit, that’s up to you and the girl won’t stop you.

The song is slow and quiet at first, then picks up the tempo, and before long the lead singer is wailing and the entire crowd is electrified. The song makes you feel even more disappointed in yourself than you normally do, because the song actually fills you with hope that there’s still a chance for you to turn things around.

“I didn’t know who I was,” you tell the girl. She is holding your hand like you’ve known each other for years. “I could still be so much better.”

The girl leads you into the crowd and introduces you to her friends. They all look like her; everyone half your age looks like her. The girl says goodbye to her friends, says that you and she are going to make a go of it. You leave town with the girl that night, selling the heroin where you can and living off the proceeds. You have two little girls together and it isn’t long before the heroin runs out and it’s time for you to go back to work.

“No way am I going back to being a cop,” you say.

The girl tells you to go for a drive and listen to that song again, the one that told you what to do the night you two met. You do as she says and this time the song hits you ever harder, it admonishes you for not doing anything more with your life than selling drugs to people in peril. This time the song sounds urgent, like time is running out. With the song blasting out the car windows, you put the pedal to the metal and blaze out of town without so much as a goodbye to the girl and your daughters. It might be cold but it’s what the song wants. Rock and roll doesn’t always intervene in the lives of man, and when it does, man had better be ready to pay heed or else pay dearly.

Happy Modern Rock Concert Day!

We Can’t Let Go Of Him Day!

Everyone in your little podunk town is trying to kill you because they heard you got into one of those colleges up north where they teach you communications and how to flirt with Jewish girls by speaking heatedly about politics.

“So it’s agreed,” the senior councilman said last night at the Town Center. “We kill him before he gets on that bus tomorrow morning. We’re a jealous folk here in our simple little town, and if we can’t have him, no one can.”

“Perhaps we should do it tonight,” the town mailman said.

“Nope,” the senior councilman responded. “Too sleepy. Had a big dinner.”

That was your big break. Wake up early this morning, pack your bags, then go house to house murdering everyone in your town before getting on the bus to Villanova. Your town has a population of 865, so you have to kill 4.8 people per minute to make your bus in three hours. Use fire. Make sure you get everybody because if you leave any living witnesses, they could come to Villanova and kill everyone on campus out of vengeance.

Congratulations on being the ninth person in your town to get into college. Now let’s work on you being the first one to get out of that town alive.

Happy We Can’t Let Go Of Him Day!

Party Store Owner Discovers The Irony Of Being A Party Store Owner Who Could Never Throw A Party Of His Own Because He Doesn’t Have Any Friends Because He’s Awful Day!

Today the Party Store owner is going to chuckle to himself when he realizes that even though he has an entire store full of party supplies at his disposal, having not a single friend to his name means he doesn’t have the capability of throwing a party.

“Funny,” the Party Store owner thinks. “That I, of all people, would own a party store after having spent my whole life being such a miserable human being that I don’t have a single friend who would come to a party I threw. Come to think of it, I’ve never attended a party, unless you count that neighbor’s backyard wedding I watched from my bathroom window after calling the police with a noise complaint. I wouldn’t have even watched that if I didn’t want to see their faces the moment the police told them they had to take it inside. Man, me, a Party Store owner. Life sure does work in weird ways.”

Irony sufficiently acknowledged, the Party Store owner then starts going through job applications so he can throw some candidates in the trash based on the apparent ethnicity of their last names.

Happy Party Store Owner Discovers The Irony Of Being A Party Store Owner Who Could Never Throw A Party Of His Own Because He Doesn’t Have Any Friends Because He’s Awful Day!

Under A Red Lamp Day!

You’re sitting under a red lamp, chewing on a ten-day old cigar, telling your son what love really means, when the men come in to the restaurant to make you pay.

“Love really means being disappointed. Disappointed in your own heart for not being able to give enough of itself. Disappointed that your lover can’t make everything okay, that she can’t make you forget all about where you expected to be at this point in your life. Disappointed that love isn’t all you need. Disappointed that love’s all you have.”

“You killed Mom, didn’t you?”

“She was talking to the Feds.”

Two of Mack Leland’s soldiers just opened their rain coats and leveled shotgun barrels at your head. One of them moves his eyes from yours to your son. He’s giving you the split-second you need to slap your son to the ground before the triggers are pulled. You take advantage of his consideration, throw your son safely to the ground, and then you accept their gunfire readily and without rebuttal.

You die reasonably content. You at least got around to telling your son what love really is. You never got to tall him about the time you saw a ghost when you were in the war, but no one ever died without a few items left on their to-do list.

Happy Under A Red Lamp Day!

One Of Those Photos With The Girl Who Got Her Face Impaled On A Fence Day!

You have trouble dating because you were in one of those photos of a girl who got her face impaled on a wrought-iron fence.

“I just can’t get over the idea that we’ve met before,” boys will say. “And I get uneasy when I look at you. Did you once hurt me?”

When it’s clear they won’t let it go you have no choice but to tell them.

“I was in one of those photos of a girl who got her face impaled on a wrought-iron fence,” you tell them. You describe the photo, wherein the spike at the top of the fence had gone through the skin underneath your chin so that the spike was sticking out of your mouth.

“Aww God that’s it!” the boys shout. “Aww God! Aww my God! I remember that photo. Aww God!”

And that’s how it ends. You can be sure that from that point on every time they look at you they’ll be imagining you with a spike piercing your chin and sticking out of your mouth and they’ll be thinking “Aww God!” and wanting to cover their eyes. So you tell them the story of how the spike had to be sawed from the fence so that you could be lifted off of its base and rushed to the hospital, and then you say goodbye forever and log back onto OkCupid.

Today you’re going to go on a date with a guy who was in one of those videos where he dove off the roof into a pool but landed face first on the concrete perimeter instead.

“Aww God!” you’ll shout. You’ll tell him about your wrought-iron fence situation and he’ll shout “Aww God!”

Since you both remind each other of cringeworthy visuals of unimaginable pain you decide to marry and spend the rest of your lives looking at each other through your fingers, unable to put the horrible images out of your heads. Every morning when you wake up and see each other across the bed, you’ll ask each other once again, “So did it hurt real bad?” Then you’ll kiss and make coffee.

Happy One Of Those Photos With The Girl Who Got Her Face Impaled On A Fence Day!

Present For Your New Dad Day!

Your new Dad has been in the house for just a few weeks but he’s really hinting for a present from you for Father’s Day.

“I know I’m not your real dad,” he keeps saying. “So I get that you wouldn’t wanna give me nothing for Father’s Day. But I could also see how you might have missed having a Dad around to give something to on Father’s Day so if you wanted to give me something, The Panther wouldn’t give it back to you or anything. Just saying.”

Since you were already planning on running away from home tonight, you should redraft your goodbye note so that it seems like you always intended for it to be an early Father’s Day present.

“Dear Mom and Panther,” write. “I know that I don’t belong here anymore so I’m running away to Hollywood to try and be an aspiring child prostitute. Panther, I hope you enjoy the extra space around the house that I’m giving to you. Happy Father’s Day. Mom, I hope you’ll be very happy spending your life with a man who calls himself Panther.”

After you go, Panther will read the letter and say, “The Panther’s gonna cry Panther tears. The Panther just got a father’s day present. He remembered to resepct the Panther.”

Your Mom will say to her new husband, “Before we go chasing after him, why do you call yourself The Panther anyway?”

The Panther will jump away from her and crouch in the corner, making cat noises. Your Mom will argue that he just sounds like a housecat, but The Panther won’t break character, not even while your mom calls the police about your Father’s Day present.

Happy Present For Your New Dad Day!

Salads N’ Food Day!

Today at lunch when you sit down at Salads N’ Food, pull a handgun out of your bag and drop it into the salad, then go back to the salad station and tell the salad maker you found a handgun in your salad. He’ll say he doesn’t know how it happened. Tell the manager that his salad maker intended the handgun for someone else in the restaurant, and he was clearly planning an uprising. The manager will lock the door and keep everyone inside until he finds out who was the salad maker’s accomplice in the effort to overthrow the Salads N’ Food. The manager will start killing those he suspects were involved and It will take up most of the afternoon and all of you will remain friends for life because that’s what happens to people who were in the same Salad N’ Food when they saw innocent people die.

Happy Salads N’ Food Day!

You’re Five Day!

Today you’re five and you love matches. You love the way they feel in your hand, the way they smell, and especially, the way they start big, luscious, proudly raging fires that swallow anything and everything that might have the misfortune of residing in their path. When you use your matches to set fire to and destroy a small restaurant, leveling the dreams of a man who spent most of his twenties and thirties setting aside savings and making connections with people in the community and established businessmen to help him make his dream of one day owning a restaurant come true, the man will come to you and tell you he’s not angry - even though you can tell he is, and that he’s been crying - that he knows you’re too young to know better, so he just wants you to promise him that you’ll never play with matches again.

“I promise,” tell him, because this is what you have to do every time you play with matches and some adult decides that he can make you stop, that he has more power over you than the matches, and the fire, that beautiful, ever lovely fire. “I promise to never play with matches again.”

The man will go back to staring at the ashes of his hard work, unaware that if you actually had any intention of following through on your promise, you wouldn’t want to turn six.

Happy You’re Five Day!

Couples Jump Day!

Couples fresh in new love jump to their deaths hand-in-hand today and does the evening news bother to say a word about it? The TV doesn’t concern itself with those Americans so consumed with each other they sprint crazily from rooftops to the ground below. They only report on the resulting gridlock as Dads drive home from work rubbernecking, remembering those seven months twenty years prior when they wanted to pull their women close and leap twenty stories, putting an end to the world before the feeling fades.

In sports, the Grizzlies.

Happens every day in neighborhoods you might be too scared to visit, and neighborhoods you might hope to live in one day if that raise ever finds your paycheck. Dozens in the winter, hundreds in the spring. Littering the concrete with the mingling blood and bone of two human beings out of a billion who found each other. It was impossible but the puddle and the side by side body bags proves it happened. Too bad the news vans are all parked outside the house where the little blonde girl was kidnapped.

Only 14 years old. An honor student, beautiful Heather.

Good people don’t like to hear bad stories. People have to go to work in the morning. They don’t want to remember that they once had the chance to enter the infinite with hearts fat with gratitude that someone else on this planet exists. They want to know if it’s going to rain or if their baby stroller is hazardous.

Forget that raincoat.

No one cares if another new love falls out of the sky. It happens and it’ll keep happening and people don’t like to hear about it so it’s really not worth reporting.

Happy Couples Jump Day!

Complaints Line Day!

You bought an oscillating fan in 1963 that doesn’t work very well. The instructions came with a phone number to call if you have complaints. You’ve been calling once a week for the last 48 years. You missed your call last week because you went to the hospital with a hematoma on your brain. Jeff, the guy who’s been listening to your complaints for most of his life, he got worried so he tracked you down and now he’s sitting by your bedside, his hand clenched tight in your feverish grip. There’s no one else in the room, no family or friends, just the guy who works for the oscillating fan company. You’re fighting an infection post-surgery.

“Come on,” Jeff says. “Tell me what’s wrong with the rotor! Live another day to tell me how that contraption couldn’t blow air stronger than a kitten fart.”

You gasp for a breath.

“Goddammit,” Jeff says. “What about the adjustable stand. That thing slips and drops more than a drunk on ice. Lemme hear it.”

The machine sounds. You’re in cardiac arrest. Nurses and doctors converge while Jeff continues to scream in your ear.

“The cord’s too short! Lemme hear it! That power cord doesn’t let you place the damn fan more than two feet away from a damn socket! You know you wanna tell me, dammit!”

The doctors try to revive you but you’re too far gone. They call the time of death at 8:43 PM. Jeff wanders out of the room without anyone noticing. He goes home and cancels his second phone line. When the fan company shut down in 1988 Jeff managed to secure the complaints phone number and had it installed at his one-room apartment. You were the only one who ever called it and he looked forward to hearing your voice every week. He’s going to miss you. Someone on this Earth heard you, and he’s sorryer than Christ he’ll never be able to hear from you again.

Happy Complaints Line Day!

California Is Haunted Day!

The ghost of the boy who tried to give you everything haunts California. You can never go back there Amy. The minute you cross the state line, when you’re telling the guy in the booth whether you have any fruit or vegetables in your possession, a gust of wind will bounce that voice into your car and you’ll swear you hear him ask you why when he tries to hold you you always try to make him let go.

When you get to your new apartment and you turn on the tub to take a bath, you’ll see his face reflected in the water, looking up at you, pleading with his eyes for you to lean forward and kiss his sweet wet face. Entranced you’ll do what his eyes demand and you’ll suck some water down your windpipe, making you cough, sputter, and fall to the bathroom floor struggling for air.

On your first day at your new job, when you sit down at your cubicle and open up your desk drawer, you’ll feel the warmth of his spirit fly up out of the drawer, then papers and office supplies will go flying everywhere and a stapler will swirl around the room releasing staples at your coworkers’ eyes. Three will be left blind, and since no one will be able to explain what happened, no one will be able to blame all that horror on your decision to push a boy out of your life who just wanted to give you the love he thought you deserved.

When you go out on dates they’ll burst into flames during appetizers. When you try to join softball leagues everyone on the team will have car accidents on game day and you’ll constantly be forced to forfeit. When you go hiking in the canyons, windstorms will send your hiking companions tumbling to the bottom, and they’ll be left with broken arms and legs, unable to join you on hikes for at least six weeks at a time.

California is haunted, Amy. It’s haunted because of you. You refused a love that wanted to be yours, and even though the boy who offered you that love hasn’t died, but is in fact alive and well and selling insurance in Cincinnati, the love he had for you is still there in California, and love never ever ever dies.

Happy California Is Haunted Day!

Kill Me Like The Failed Hit On Vito In ‘The Godfather’ Day!

People with diseases pay you to kill them when they don’t want to battle their diseases any longer but they’re too scared or Catholic to pull the trigger themselves. You settled into this line of work after the mafia got too weak to afford your fee and the only client you still had left was the Government of the United States, but since they only ever wanted to pay you to kill people who stood in the way of the one-world government and secret global bank initiative, you decided that lowering your fee to kill people who actually wanted to die might be a fun change.

Anyway, today by wild coincidence you’re going to be hired to kill the woman you always thought you should have married. You haven’t seen her in thirty years, when you were getting on a plane to Helsinki and at the least minute she changed her mind and refused to go with you. She wants you to kill her while she’s buying oranges from a sidewalk grocer.

“I loved The Godfather,” she’ll say.

Tell her you can’t do it. Tell her you’ll do anything if she’ll stay alive and share whatever time she has left with you. Tell her you have some money and you can pay to get her better treatment for whatever disease she has.

“I don’t have a disease,” she’ll say. “I’m just done. I made the wrong choice thirty years ago when I didn’t go with you, and I’ve tried to live with it until now. I think thirty years is enough time to realize it’s not working.”

Tell her that you’re here now and you and she can make up for lost time.

“Just being around you makes me sad for the decades I wasted not being with you. It’s not fate that brought you here. I didn’t have the idea to die until I tracked you down and found out you were a killer for money. I realized that if it was you who killed me at the very end, the pain of being around you would be so great that I’d definitely go through with it. Make sure I’ve just barely bought the orange when you run up and pull the trigger.”

Tell her you won’t do it.

“Then I’ll report you to the police,” she’ll say. “Come on. You didn’t get to be the most important person in my life. I’m giving you the opportunity to be the most important person in my death. Don’t you want that?”

She makes a convincing argument. You agree to kill her and on the big day, right after you shoot her, while she’s still panting her last breaths, you lean over her and put the gun to your head.

“I knew you would,” she says.

Then you pull the trigger and the two of you leave this life the way you should have lived it - together.

Happy Kill Me Like The Failed Hit On Vito In ‘The Godfather’ Day!

Cross-Country Loving Day!

You and Jennifer started fucking back in Nebraska. You met when you started fighting over a cab at the airport after both your flights were cancelled. You decided that if you put your heads together you could get home faster than apart and make it home in time for your kids’ respective graduations. Tonight at the Super 8 in Denver you’re going to tell her the truth.

“I don’t have any kids,” you’ll tell her. “My wife, Pam, left me and we never had children. I just go to airports in bad weather looking for women trying to get across the country because I’m trying to recreate the trip I took with my wife back in 1992, when we were relocating for her job in Palo Alto.”

Jennifer will ask if there’s any reason why she shouldn’t just immediately leave the motel room and go find someone else to travel across the country with.

“Only this,” tell her. “The next time I go to the airport looking for a woman to travel across the country with, it won’t be to recreate the trip I took with my wife. It’ll be to recreate the trip I took with you.”

She’ll be unable to help but smile. Tears will form in her eyes. She’ll wrap her arms around you.

Whisper in her ear, “I’ve had such a good time with you on this trip, I can’t wait to try and recreate it with someone else.”

She’ll pull away and ask if maybe you and she could try and make it work and you’ll tell her that’s not what you’re into. “Old trips with new women,” say. “That’s my thing. But rest assured, when I trick a woman into helping me recreate this one, I’m going to do it with a woman who’s really special.”

Then tell her to wear a green dress to dinner that night because that’s what Pam wore in Denver.

Happy Cross-Country Loving Day!

Loveway Day!

Lower the top of his newspaper so you can look into his eyes and say this subway just stopped being a subway because now it’s a loveway, then lean in and kiss. He’ll lift his napkin to his lips and cough into it because a lot of his lung was removed back in 2004. He’ll say he’s seen you ride this train every morning for the past forty-five years, sometimes with your mop, sometimes in a nice dress. When you wear the nice dress he becomes suicidal because he assumes you’re on your way to visit a lover. Tell him you have grandkids, grandkids with a man who widowed you long ago, and you like to look your best when you visit them. We have to set a good example for our young, say, show them how getting old is done. He’ll say he’s angry that you didn’t kiss him sooner, that you and he don’t have much time left. Kiss him again and ask him if he’s feeling any less angry yet. He’ll lift himself on his cane, pull you by your waist against his itchy tweed overcoat and he’ll tell you it’s time for these years to finally get golden. Lay down on the bench and kiss him through smiles while the entire car applauds the discovery that love lives on when the skin gets loose and the memory gets long.

Happy Loveway Day!

Your Kidnappers Can’t Kidnap Your Inner You Day!

Your new self-help book, titled “Your Kidnappers Can’t Kidnap Your Inner You,” is selling like crazy, which is a pleasant surprise because you figured that the target audience for a book about how to achieve personal growth while being held captive for ransom would be unable to go shopping because they are all tied to water heaters in basements. You can thank the ebook craze and the ease with which it allows kidnap victims to keep up their reading for your royalty statement. Many kidnappers throw Kindles downstairs with the food, water and TV remote, believing that a kidnap victim with something to read is a kidnap victim who will spend less time dreaming up ways to knock their abductors over the back of the head and escape. The kidnappers generally keep an eye on the books being bought to make sure their abductees aren’t trying to send Amazon messages about their location, but unless kidnappers choose a safehouse in an area that’s been celebrated in literature, it’s kind of hard to pull that off just by buying book titles. Later this afternoon USA Today is going to interview you and ask whether you yourself was ever kidnapped. Be vague about it if you want sales to keep growing. Kidnap victims hate taking advice from people who were never kidnapped. They need to believe you’ve been there, even though you’d never be so stupid as to let something like that happen to you.

Happy Your Kidnappers Can’t Kidnap Your Inner You Day!

Write Your Name And Address On The Inside Of Your Undershirt, Take It Off And Leave It On The Table So That Maybe The Waitress You Like Will Return It To You In Person After Her Shift Ends Day!

You really like the new waitress at Patty’s On Main, but you aren’t sure how to tell her how you feel because even if she does share your feelings, you don’t know if waitresses are allowed to tell customers that they care for them while their server number is still active in the kitchen’s computer. The best way to handle this is to go into the bathroom and take off your undershirt, write your name and address on the inside and leave it on the table with your tip. That way when the waitress finds the undershirt, she’ll either throw it away if she doesn’t want to love you, or on her break she’ll bring it into the changing closet and rub it against her face, breathing in your scent, until her eyes spy the scribble of pen on the inside and she sees you’ve left her a small but priceless treasure. Your address! The place where you sleep and where you sing into hairbrushes when you’re happy! The place she’s envisioned in her daydreams while standing in the back waiting impatiently for your order to come up, silently imploring the kitchen staff to cook faster so she can bring your dish to your table and see you again. If she loves you she’ll go to your home tonight and hand you your undershirt, then without asking she’ll insert herself into your embrace and you’ll lead her inside and show her the shelves you cleared off for her in the bathroom medicine cabinet.

Only use your undershirt for this because if she doesn’t care for you, she’ll throw out the undershirt and if you go back the next day and ask her to reimburse you for the undershirt, she might balk.

Finally, if this works out as planned and she does return the undershirt, you must never tell her this was all planned. Waitresses are a surly, streetsmart bunch and when they find out they’ve been tricked, their language turns vulgar and they start stealing from you until they feel the wrong has been made right.

Happy Write Your Name And Address On The Inside Of Your Undershirt, Take It Off And Leave It On The Table So That Maybe The Waitress You Like Will Return It To You In Person After Her Shift Ends Day!

He Went Over A Cliff With That Whore Day!

After two days the Sheriff finally located your husband’s car. He didn’t make the turn around blind man’s pass and he went into the gully nose first.

“We’re sending a team down to pry his body out of the wreck,” the Sheriff will say. “I should warn you though. Some people in town saw your husband earlier in the day. They say he was with–”

“That whore?” you’ll ask calmly.

The Sheriff will look startled. “You knew.”

Take a tissue and hold it to your nose. It will keep the tears at bay.

“I thought it was just a phase,” tell him. “I thought that when a man reaches my husband’s age, he panics. He creates a fantasy about the man he used to be. He embraces the lie that once upon a time he was bold, without a care for caution. That he was a feared barroom brawler. That he never slept in a bed alone or with a familiar face. That he knew angles, schemes. He’ll focus on five happy minutes enjoyed when he was 23 years-old and in the throes of his illusion those five minutes will stretch to ten or fifteen years, just so he can fill his heart with the longing for this "man I used to be,” enough longing to send him floating out into the night, away from his wife, into the arms of–“

"That whore,” the Sheriff will say. “I should warn you, after she arrived in town and registered her name with my deputy, he did some digging. She has some experience with luring husbands away from home.”

“I know about the will,” tell him. “But it’s useless now. There’s no way they both could have survived that crash, right?”

The Sheriff will look into your eyes. He’ll know plain as day what you’ve done, and badge or no badge, he’ll know it’s none of his business. He’ll just be sure to keep a close eye on the investigation to make sure no one decides to check to see if the brakes were cut.

Your phone will ring. The Sheriff will rise.

“That’s probably for me.”

A few minutes in the kitchen, muttering a few one word questions and one exclamation, and the Sheriff will be back in the living room, resting on the ottoman, this time his hat in his hand.

“Your husband didn’t survive the crash,” he’ll say.

A quick inhale. Put the tissue to the nostrils. You surrendered the right to cry for him.

The Sheriff will arch up in his seat, take a breath, then he’ll add, “The whore. She wasn’t in the car.”

Your lips will part just wide enough to execute a gasp.

“She survived?”

“All we know is she’s not down in that gully.”

Say to the Sheriff, “You’ll have to excuse me Leo.”

“Now Frida–”

“I said you’ll have to excuse me Leo. See yourself out.”

The minute you hear the Sheriff’s car pull away, get the hell into town and this time make sure you kill that whore before she can get a lawyer to hand her everything your poor murdered husband worked so hard to provide for you.

Happy He Went Over A Cliff With That Whore Day!

Come Up To The Lair Sometime Day!

You always assumed his invites were just him being polite, and you never intended to take him up on it. Whenever you’d see the evil mastermind who rid the town of the bats then held the town under financial and psychological enslavement for decades to come, long after most in the town realized that he was probably the one who brought the bats to begin with, he’d say hello and ask after your family before parting with a casual “Come up to the lair sometime!” You’d say you’ll be sure to and then go on with your day, happy that he didn’t sick his albino thugs on you.

Today you’ll discover your assumption was incorrect.

“You haven’t come up to the lair,” he’ll say. “Tell me why. Now.”

You’ll stammer an apology and you’ll tell him you assumed–

“No one should make assumptions about what I say. I only speak information that I want the listener to process and act upon. You received information that I wanted your company in my lair. You processed this and decided I didn’t want the company I requested. Shall I kill you?”

Tell him you’ll be up to the lair after you fix your mother’s lunch.

“I’ll wait until 12:45. A minute after that, if I don’t see you in my lair, your family and your employers will be taken to the creek bed and shot. You’ll have no family and no income.”

You’ll say that you’ll be there.

“I’m making mimosas today,” he’ll say. Then he’ll be off.

After you fix your mother’s lunch you’ll head up to the evil mastermind’s mountainside lair, where you’ll be greeted like a long-lost friend with whom he’s reunited at long last. You and the evil mastermind will drink mimosas while you watch footage of a war in southeast asia that he orchestrated. On his fourth mimosa he’ll be drunk enough to ask, “So does everyone down there in the town know I’m the one who brought the bats?”

You’ll nod. “It took us a while to figure it out. But yeah, I think everyone knows.”

The evil mastermind will say, “Then I guess I owe them all an apology.”

He’ll walk across the room to a PA console and shout into the microphone. “Hi everyone. I’m a little late on this I know, but I just wanted to say, about the bats, sorrrrrrry!”

As he returns to the couch you’ll hear that “sorry” echoing up from the town into the hills. Once on the couch he’ll tell you that he’s never apologized to anyone before. He’ll say, “I guess it’s the champagne. Or maybe it’s the company.”

The evil mastermind will think for a second, just a second, and then he’ll have made up his mind.

“I want you to be the one to kill me and take over my global operations. Even though you’ll intend to destroy all I’ve worked for and bring good unto the world, the power will corrupt you and you’ll prove to be even more cruel than I. Agree or your family and your employers will be shot.”

You agree. The evil mastermind will keep you close to him for the next 30 years. All the while you’ll be plotting a way to murder him and free your people, but one day you’ll be on the green of the eighth hole on his indoor golf course and he’ll drive up in his golf cart, approach you and hand you a knife and he’ll say, “It’s time. Kill me now. Do it or your family and employers will be shot.”

You’ll stab him in the heart and you’ll go upstairs to his PA system to announce that everyone is free, but when you start to speak you’ll get confused. Instead of telling your people they have their lives and their town back and they needn’t worry any longer, it will come out sounding more like, “I’d like to inform you all of a new tax being levied to finance the safety of your first-born sons. The tax will be paid or your first-born sons will be taken down the to creek bed and shot.” You’ll put down the PA, stunned at yourself. The evil mastermind’s body is still warm and already you’re raising taxes.

Happy Come Up To The Lair Sometime Day!

Major In Her Face Day!

You thought that majoring in Patty’s face would be easy but you’re failing out of college now because you forgot to study, which is sad because studying didn’t require anything more than staring at Patty’s face, taking it in, marveling at her eyes and the poke of her nose and the way her cheeks puff out when she’s angry. But you’ve been having real trouble.

“Look,” Patty says. “I would have been fine if that night at the bar when you told me you were going to major in my face, it was just some pickup line. But you went through with it and chose my face as your concentration. Do you know how embarrassing it is for me that you’re about to fail?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Have you seen another face you wish you’d majored in?” she asks.

“No. Just drop it all right? I’ll go pump gas or something. Who needs college?”

“You do!” Patty says. “We all do. You can’t just quit. Is it really that hard to study my face?”

You’ll finally break down and let it all out.

“I’m bad with faces all right!” you shout, crying before you realize it. “You happy to hear me say it?”

You’ll fall to the ground and sob. Patty will rub your back until you calm down.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she’ll ask.

“I’m great with names,” you say. “Faces though. I just blank.”

Patty will ask how you got through high school and you’ll tell her you were on football and the rally girls remembered all the faces for the guys who had trouble.

“Well we’re not going to let that stop you,” Patty will say. “Now that we know how hard we have to work, we can do it. I’m not going to let you quit.”

Then you and Patty won’t sleep for the rest of the weekend so you can cram, which basically means you’ll spend the next 72 hours staring at Patty’s face and repeating to yourself, “That’s Patty’s face.” You’ll also use some flashcards that have pictures of her face on one side, with her name on the other side. When you finally take the test you’ll get a C and Patty will tell you how proud of you she is and you’ll say “Do I know you?” but it will be just a funny joke.

Happy Major In Her Face Day!

Everyone On The Plane Feels For You Buddy Day!

She showed them all your picture; they asked to see it. They wanted to see the face of the guy whose heart was going to be ripped in two just after the plane touches ground. She made her decision just after the seatbelt sign went off, then she said to her seatmate, “If I tell you something that I’m about to do, will you tell me if I’m a bad person or not?”

The people in the surrounding rows listened in, and word spread throughout the cabin. The flight attendants got wind of it and they started spreading it around first class and the cockpit. By the time she was above the Grand Canyon, that entire plane knew she’d decided not to marry you.

Don’t think they didn’t try and persuade her one way or another. Passengers started getting out of their seats to go to her row and tell her a promise is a promise and who is she to think she deserves better. They told her no marriage is perfect, and no love ever feels like the storybooks. Others elbowed their way down the aisle to offer their support. “Don’t listen to those babies,” they said. “Those babies are just scared of being left behind,” they said. “Life doesn’t wait for you to live it. We could all be dead if this plane goes down so–” That guy got restrained by an air marshal.

Basically, the ones who were sick of getting their hearts broke told her not to break your heart. The ones who’d done a lot of heart breaking told her to follow her heart. You can plainly see who took what side when nine dozen strangers disembark and form a single file line to greet you at the arrivals gate. The ones who tried to keep you two together will pull you close into a hug and they’ll tell you to be strong. The ones who wanted her to set herself free will give you a light punch on the shoulder and tell you that the knocks we take in life are what make us a better person. She was seated near the bathrooms so you’ll hear inspiring words from nearly everyone on the plane before she finally stands before you with tears in her eyes and tells you that she needs to go to the ticketing desk because after she says what she has to say she’s going to need to change her return ticket.

Happy Everyone On The Plane Feels For You Buddy Day!

He’s A Nobody Day!

When your husband leaves the room to get more wet wipes, lean into your baby’s crib and whisper, “Don’t worry about him. He’s a nobody.”

Your husband will come in and say that he heard you. Explain that you just didn’t want your baby to think he was some kind of big shot just because he’s the tallest guy in the room.

“I’m not a nobody,” he’ll say.

Ask him if he’s famous. Ask him if he’s been given any awards recently. Ask him about the last time his name was a trending topic on a social media site. You’ll be out of breath by now, but if you can, ask him what would happen if he walked into a fancy a restaurant tonight and didn’t have a reservation.

“I read about this in the books. You’re claiming her. In the first few months parents can feel like they’re competing for the baby’s love.”

“I’m just telling my baby the truth.”

“I don’t want my child–”

“To know her father? These are all facts. If you want to hide your true self from your baby then why don’t you just leave us alone? I won’t have my baby raised by a duplicitous man.”

Your husband will walk out of the room, his head hanging low. When he does, lean into your baby’s crib and whisper, “See? Total zero.” Then pull out the past five year’s tax forms and read your husband’s total net gross income to your baby until the little angel falls asleep.

Happy He’s A Nobody Day!

Blame The Gangs Day!

If you’re having an affair and you get home from the affair-having too late to not arouse suspicion from your husband, tell him the street gangs held you up.

“They grabbed my purse and played keepaway,” tell him. “I had to jump up and down for a half hour trying to get it back while they laughed.”

“Damn gangs,” your husband will say.

“Then they made me pick which public building they were going to graffiti. I told them I didn’t want to, but they made me choose. So now, whenever I drive past the post office and see the graffiti on it, I have to know I had a hand in that.”

“I wish I could clean this world up for you,” your husband will say. “I want you to be able to live in a better world.”

“I can still smell their leather jackets,” say. “I’m going to take a shower.”

When you go into the bathroom you’ll find your husband’s secretary naked and hiding in the shower and your husband will run in and shout “Where’d she come from? A street gang must have put her there!"  You and your husband will laugh together and then amicably divorce.

Happy Blame The Gangs Day!

Your High School Boyfriend Is Dead Day!

The principal keeps calling your house, just to check up on you and let your mom know that you can take all the time you need.

Your teachers keep stopping by to drop off your homework, as well as some novels that aren’t a part of the curriculum but that they think might help you get through this.

Your little brother comes home every day with his backpack filled with notes from your friends, little crafts that other boys, breathing boys, have made for you in wood shop.

Ever since your high school boyfriend died, you’ve been able to stay up in your room listening to music and watching cable. Your blinds are drawn and no one makes you eat anything. The whole school, the whole town, is aware that this is your time to grieve.

“We all knew Ricky. He touched all of our lives. But no one understood him better than the girl who held his hand on the way to English class.” So began the local newspaper’s editorial on the morning after Ricky gasped his last and finally succumbed to the injuries sustained in the car crash. So began the shift of concern for Ricky to sympathy for you.

You’ve stayed in your room, for 22 hours out of ever day, sneaking out every night at one am to meet Henry in the woods behind the school. You don’t kiss, you don’t drink, you don’t do anything but sit next to each other in those dark woods and stare at the tree branches lit up by the moon. Henry was Ricky’s best friend. He’s the only one who knows what a relief it is that Ricky is finally gone.

“He shone too bright,” Henry said to you on the first night you met him in the woods. “I was grateful that he chose me as his friend. I hated him for how grateful I was.”

“I knew I could never be anybody but Ricky’s girlfriend,” you told Henry.

“And I was Ricky’s best friend. My entire high school existence was nothing more than an orbit around Ricky.”

You get sick of Henry’s complaining. At least no one cares about Ricky’s best friend. At least he’s not expected to spend the rest of his senior year in mourning. He doesn’t have to play the part of widow at 17. You’ll tell him that tonight.

“Let’s go then,” he’ll say. “Let’s run away.”

“What’ll we do?”

Henry will shrug. “We’ll get jobs. We’ll go and work somewhere where they never heard of Ricky.”

Henry will rise and give you a hand to pull you up. You’ll go to your house first to get a bag of clothes and food, then to Henry’s. Then you’ll disappear forever, and everyone from your high school will hate you forever. You were supposed to be there for them. All year, until graduation day, you were supposed to let them know that Ricky will live on in the girl who would never feel better again.

Happy Your High School Boyfriend Is Dead Day!

Onboarding Day!

Take him there on the confidentiality agreements. Use that pile of unread yet signed and dated promises to keep things hush hush as a cushion while you engage in three of the seven behaviors detailed in the employee conduct manual section 3C-12: “Inappropriate Relationships and Mediation Processes Preceding Disciplinary Action.”

He’ll have some questions when you’re both buttoning.

“What now?”

Now you’ll direct him to fingerprinting and set up a time for him to get his ID photo taken.

“No, you and me now.”

Tell him if he intends to blackmail you, his name will go out to every HR admin in the city. Tell him your kind sticks together. Tell him the HR network would never let one of their own take a fall for tappng a piece of ass during an onboarding.

“I wouldn’t,” he’ll say. “I just want to know, do you do this a lot? Or was I…”

This was your first. Something in his eyes flicked a switch inside you that made you want to be reckless, do something to burn your career to the ground, maybe send you home with a cardboard box and a confession to your husband. Would that switch have been flicked had you not been staring into those new hire eyes? No telling. More importantly, will the switch be flicked again when you bump into him in the copy room? No telling.

“I do it all the time,” tell him. “You’re just a file I have to alphabetize.”

The buttoning (the buttoning takes forever!) will be just about over. You’ll keep your eyes on your daughter’s photo, knowing he’s keeping his eyes on you. Staring at your daughter’s face, you feel only chaos.

“See you around the office,” he’ll say, pulling his suit jacket on.

“Welcome to the company,” tell him. Once he’s gone, find a band aid to cover the wound you just dug into your palm with your fingernail.

Happy Onboarding Day!

Get Away From The Window Sarah Day!

Get away from the window Sarah. You’re not in love you’re just unemployed and that boy down there on the sidewalk in the rain he’s never going to go back home if you keep giving him a face to moon up at.

Get away from the window Sarah. Girls are human like everybody else. Girls get those dark times, the ones that last two years and eight months, when they’re pretty sure that nothing better’s ever going to happen again. Boys like the one on the sidewalk, they prey on those moments. It’s all they have. They pout like puppies and try to convince you that love is supposed to happen between a pretty girl up in a window and whichever boy is willing to embarrass himself the most for her.

Get away from the window Sarah. You only have sixteen months left of this terrible week. Sink into alcohol or a cult or a job at a non-profit. Just don’t sink into a boy. Not until you find the boy who belongs up in the window, with you on the sidewalk, wondering what in God’s name you’re going to have to do, how cold that rain is going to get, before he finally decides he can’t do better and so condescends to buzz you in.

Just get away from the window Sarah. I promise there’s a boy out there who’s better, better than you.

Happy Get Away From The Window Sarah Day!

Fire Your Dance Boy Day!

The economy’s in the shitter so you can’t afford all your extra perks anymore. First and foremost is your Dance Boy. Give him the pink slip!

“Check out this new move,” your Dance Boy will say when you enter the 10,000 square foot studio you built exclusively for him. He’ll get up on his toes and spin once. It will be a really pedestrian move and he’ll kind of stumble at the end of it.

“That was great,” tell him. “But I have some bad news.”

“Wait,” he’ll say. “Check this out.”

Your Dance Boy will bob his head like he’s leaning up against a wall, absently grooving to a tune. It can barely even be called dancing.

“I need you to listen to me, Garret,” tell your Dance Boy. “I can’t afford you anymore.”

Your Dance Boy will grab a tee shirt and pull it on. Then he’ll find his underwear and pants, turning his back to you while he dresses.

“They’ll kill me out there you know,” he’ll say.

“You’ve never said who’s after you,” tell him. “After all these years, why won’t you tell me.”

Your Dance Boy will wave away your concern. “If you knew who they were they’d have to come for you too.”

He’ll ties his sneakers and start packing a back.

“You know I’d keep you forever if I could,” tell him. “But I just can’t afford to be so extravagant as to have a boy in the house who just lays around naked, occasionally getting up off the floor to groove a bit. Really, I thought you’d have learned some more steps by now.”

“I’ve been too worried!” he’ll say. “They could have come bursting through that door at any second.”

“Who?” ask him. “Ever since I found you running down that alley, you refused to tell me who was chasing you. If you’d just let me in, I could help keep you safe.”

Your Dance Boy will say, “Your obligation to me has ended. It was an honor to be your Dance Boy.”

You’ll grab him and stuff some hundred dollar bills into his pocket.

“Do you think that maybe you’re just making up these people chasing you?” ask him. “Do you think you’re just afraid of going out there and making a life on your own?”

Your Dance Boy will nod weakly. “Yeah, that’s probably it,” he’ll say. “I’ll be fine. Sorry you can’t afford me anymore.”

Your Dance Boy will hug you goodbye, then he’ll step out the door of his dance studio and immediately be shot in the top of the skull by a waiting sniper.

When you kneel beside him and scream no at the sky, focus your anger on the investment banks. They put you in the position of having to send your Dance Boy out to meet his assassin. The investment banks killed your Dance Boy. It’s not worth seeking vengeance or anything because how many people would you have to kill, really? But you could at least write an op-ed about it or something.

Happy Fire Your Dance Boy Day!

You Just Got Caught Fuckin’ Day!

Tonight is your anniversary and you and your husband are going to go to a hotel and have sex for the first time in five months. You’ve been terrified of having to have sex tonight. After so long, you worried that if the passion wasn’t there, it would confirm what you’ve been suspecting for over decade: that you married the wrong man.

You’ll be nervous while eating the room service dinner, both of you making chit-chat about work and the kids and the design of the hotel lobby. Each bite will feel like a turn of the arms on a countdown clock. As soon as you finish your dinner, you’ll have to rise from the table, kiss, then move to the bed. How on earth could that possibly happen?

“I had an affair in 2002,” your husband will say suddenly. “I’m sorry.”

It will feel like the room flipped through the air and sent you flying to the roof. You’ll be unsure of whether to scream, to throw a drink in his face, or what. Finally, you’ll settle on saying the following: “I had an affair in 2005.”

Your husband will ask, “Do you think about him a lot?”

Say, “No. I think about you a lot.”

You and your husband will rise from the table and move to the bed while kissing, you’ll move like water down a stream bed, fluid and perfect. In that bed, you’ll transform, you’ll know that a new wonderful stage of your marriage has begun. You won’t feel the passion you felt when you first met. You won’t feel the love you felt when you first married. You’ll feel something altogether new, and mature, and honest. You’ll feel like you and your husband possess a secret that could topple the world.

While he’s in inside of you, a panel will open in the ceiling and a TV monitor will drop from the ceiling. On the TV will be TV personality Larry Crowne. He’ll be standing in front of a studio audience and he’ll announce, “You two just got caught fuckin’!”

The door to your room will open and several dwarves will run into the room to present you with a check for $25,000. On the monitor, Larry will play back some of the footage of your sex act and the studio audience will laugh when they’re supposed to, and go awww when they’re supposed to. “Looks like you two really jumpstarted the old marriage engine tonight,"Larry will say. "Whatcha gonna do with all that money?”

You and your husband will say it at the same time. “We’ve always wanted to go to Paris!”

Happy You Just Got Caught Fuckin’ Day!