Who Dies First Day!

You and your boyfriend are playing Who Dies First, the fun game where lovers tell each other which of them they wish would die first.

You tell your boyfriend you wish you would die first because you could never wish for your boyfriend to die. You’d gladly go before him given the chance.

“I wish you would die first too,” your boyfriend says. You run from the room and don’t talk to him for days.

When you finally speak to him again you demand that he take it back.

“Nope,” he says. “I want you to die first.”

You go silent for a couple more days. When you confront him again, you’re certain he’ll change his tune.

“I’m playing by the rules of the game, which is to say who we want to die first, and we have to be honest. I want you to die first.”

You ask him why.

“I want to die knowing I shared as much of your life as I could,” he says. “I want to die knowing that there won’t be an unknowable future for you without me, a future that I could have enjoyed had I not walked in front of a bus or whatever kills me. I want to die knowing that the only thing I’ve lived for, that being you, is no longer around to live for any longer. That will be a peaceful death, knowing that there’s no point in staying alive any longer because you’re gone and the world is awful. I want to make sure you’re dead, then I’ll kill myself one minute after you.”

Tell him you get it now. Tell him he won the game.

Happy Who Dies First Day!

Your Wife Is Leaving You For The Superhero Who Saved Her Life Day!

She was abducted by a super-villain and used as a human shield when the super-villian (calls himself “Irradiation Man”) snatched her from a crosswalk and pulled her to his chest just as the superhero (calls himself “Steel Aaron”) arrived for the big showdown. Steel Aaron managed to snatch her from Irradiation Man’s grip and fly her to safety on a nearby rooftop. He asked if she was okay, he called her “ma'am,” and by the time he flew away she knew there was absolutely no other man in the world she wanted to be with. Certainly not you.

“But does he even want to be with you or was saving you just some protocol given to him before being sent to this planet by his alien overlords?” you ask, understandably, seeing as you always figured you and your wife had something deeper going on than just providing each other safety from evildoers.

She’ll explain that it doesn’t really matter if he wants to be with her. “You don’t understand,” she’ll say. “I was rescued. Valiantly and impossibly. This man–”

“He’s not a man,” say.

“Exactly,” she’ll concur. “This being, knowing that he exists, having been held and protected in his arms, I can’t just go back to cuddling in the flimsy limbs of an ordinary male like you. I’m sorry.”

Your wife will leave as soon as she can get her things packed. She’ll spend her days and nights tracking Steel Aaron, trying to pin down his next likely location, hoping to catch his eye and remind him of the time he rescued her, remind him that he might have felt something that day.

She’ll soon run out of money, and out of sanity. Before long she’ll be indistinguishable from any other street vagrant. How many women out there have gone mad from being saved by a superhuman? How many have found themselves ruined for any other man, ruined for all other human relationships after a brief taste of what it’s like to be cared for by an otherworldly being of impossible strength and unknowable powers? There’s no telling.

You’ll remarry. You’ll occasionally see your first wife on the street staring at the sky, searching for her hero. You’ll hide your face and move on, not that she’d care. She had her love with you and she had her brief moment with a superhero, and spending the rest of her life just barely living in the hope of having another brief moment with a superhero is what she chose. And she still thinks she chose wisely.

Happy Your Wife Is Leaving You For The Superhero Who Saved Her Life Day!

Dating A Sub Day!

You can’t do it. You can’t let it happen. You can’t date another substitute teacher.

“Been through this before,” tell him. “Promised myself never  again. Full-time teachers only, tenured preferable. No more subs, no, no more.”

He’ll kiss you gently.

“Just like the others, they were just like you. Here today because someone teaching third grade language arts has the flu, gone tomorrow to stay home and do whatever it is you do”

He’ll caress your hand sweetly.

“Just don’t do that to me,” you say and you pull your hand away. “I know how it works. It’s not temporary. You’ll say you’re here to stay. Being a sub’s just your job, not your romantic inclination.”

He’ll tug a bit of your hair in his fist.

“Tenured only,” you’ll whisper, your lips closer to his. “Tenured only.”

“Give me tenure then,” he’ll whisper. “Lifelong tenure in your heart”

“I need to think about the school,” you whisper. You’ve kissed him once already, just now. Kiss him again, right now.

“I’m thinking about the school too,” he’ll whisper. “I’m a narcotics officer.”

He’s a narcotics officer. He’s undercover as a substitute teacher trying to get drugs out of the school.

“You’re a narcotics officer,” you’ll whisper into his mouth.

“I’m a narcotics officer he’ll whisper into yours.”

Kiss him without even checking to see if there are any students spying on you. Kiss him just to thank him, to thank God in heaven that you fell for a sub who’s secretly a narcotics officer, that you fell for a sub who for once is not a musician on the side.

Happy Dating A Sub Day!

Henry’s Alive Again Day!

You’ve just gotten word that Henry is still alive all these years later, that when his car went off that cliff he wasn’t in it, that for one reason or another he needed you and everyone else to believe he was dead.

“Guess we need to get a divorce,” you say to your second husband, Brad.

Brad won’t be happy. “You don’t have to go back to him! He’ll understand that you thought he was dead and moved on.”

Tell Brad you didn’t move on. Tell Brad he’s a really sweet guy and he’s pretty great in the bedroom department and you’ve had a fun time these six years during which he helped raise your kids as his own, but he’s no Henry.

“But you don’t even know why he faked his death,” Brad will say. “For all you know he didn’t even care how his death affected you. For all you know he faked his death to get away from you.”

Explain to Brad that that might be the case, but now that Henry’s letting you know he’s alive again he clearly changed his mind so you have to go to him tonight.

“Tonight! What? You’re just going to…Ow!”

Apologize for dropping your suitcase on his head while trying to get it out of the closet.

“Sorry Brad,” say. “I’m just in a hurry. Want to try to get Henry to see me naked before he changes his mind again.”

Brad will be exasperated. “You’re supposed to be conflicted about this kind of thing! You’re supposed to be searching your heart to find out if you still love him or if you having mourned him and married someone new has effectively closed the chapter on that part of your–”

“Sorry, not conflicted. Henry’s alive! Thanks for subbing in as my husband for a while!” you’ll shout from the window of your car as you speed out of your driveway.

Brad will go inside to find your kids packing their things. “You’re not our Dad anymore! You’re just Brad now!”

Brad will go into the bedroom and try to get used to just being Brad now, just being Brad now that Henry’s alive again.

Happy Henry’s Alive Again Day!

You’re All Out Of Love Day!

Explain it to your husband.

“I’ll keep hanging around and we can still have sex and stuff, but it’ll be totally physical. I’ll have empathy for you if you’re in pain, but no more than I would for a character in a movie.”

Your husband will shrug and go back to his model WWII plane. Tell your kids.

“I’m basically going to have as much interest in watching you grow up as I would the Obama girls. Kind of just want to check in and see what kind of adults you’ll start to look like, but as far as feeling you pulse through my veins like you were my life’s blood, that’s all over.”

Your kids will wander off to process their feelings by smoking cigarettes in various areas of the woods behind your house. Tell your dogs.

“The unconditional thing you feel for me, it’s not reciprocated. You’ll get fed and walked, but my connection to you is no stronger than my affinity for the pillows decorating the sofa. How you taking this?”

Your dogs will turn on each other, each blaming the other for draining the love from you. They’ll lunge at each other’s throats, tearing them open to send blood gushing to the floor. Just one will remain, but he’ll run off into the streets, under the impression he is undeserving of shelter in your home if he can no longer inspire love in you.

Clean up the mess and take the dog carcasses out back where you should bury them quick before Sunday night TV starts up.

Happy You’re All Out Of Love Day!

Steal The Hearse Your Best Friend’s Body Is In Day!

Emma’s dead. Emma your friend, dead at 27. The two of you were supposed to stay friends as you grow old, marry, have kids, get divorced, mourn the kids that go before you, then die and be buried in the same cemetery. But now Emma’s dead and you’re still alive. She had a bad year and she got drunk and drove her car into a pole, and you’re still alive.

“I think they need you in the rectory,” you tell the hearse driver after the pall bearers get Emma into the back. Once he’s gone you climb behind the wheel and tear ass away from the church. The other mourners aren’t even in their cars yet. No one will be able to catch up to you. Drive to the cliffs looking out over the lake.

“I’m still here with you and you’re still here with me,” you whisper into Emma’s dead ear. After parking at the cliff you got the coffin open and climbed inside with her. Her body’s barely the same, it feels nothing like it would when you’d climb into bed with her and hold her until either you or she stopped crying over whatever it was you had to cry about.

“We all have our reasons to stay alive and you were mine,” you whisper. People will say it’s a tragedy, that you were silly girls, that a friendship isn’t worth all this.

“They’ll say I had so much more to live for but I don’t want to miss you Emma,” you whisper. They’ll say it from their unhappy homes. They’ll say it with angry voices. They’ll say it tired because no sleep because worry because there’s no guarantee tomorrow is ever worth sticking around for.

“I’m still here with you and you’re still here with me,” you whisper.

You get out of the coffin and close the lid and climb back behind the wheel. You start the engine and accelerate the car over the cliff. It lands nose-first on the rocks a hundred feet below. You were afraid it might not explode, that that was just on TV, and you’d just be a couple of dead bodies in a smashed car, one dead since a couple days ago and another dead just now. But it does explode, and you both burn, turned into ash and carried on the wind bursting from the same big ball of fire that ate two best friends whole.

Happy Steal The Hearse Your Best Friend’s Body Is In Day!

The Tragic Double Life Of Your Taxi Cab Passenger Day!

You drive a taxi and there’s a guy in the back of your cab and he’s dressed to the nines. He wants you to take him to meet his girl, Iona. She’s waiting for him in an old factory somewhere in the messed up part of town.

“Step on it,” he says.

At the old factory the guy gets out of the cab and tips you fifty bucks and asks you to wait a few minutes in case he needs another ride. “In case it doesn’t work out.”

You ask him if she’s never seen him before.

“It’s complicated,” he says. He takes his duffel bag and goes into the warehouse.

A few minutes later the same guy comes out of the warehouse, now dressed as a woman, full makeup, in a wig and everything. She asks, “Were you waiting for Lenny to come back out here?”

You nod.

“I’ll take the cab instead,” she says.

In the car she says her name is Iona and she and Lenny love each other deeply but it just tragically isn’t meant to be. You tell her you assumed she was the same person as Lenny, except now she’s wearing women’s clothes and a wig.

“Exactly,” Iona says. “When I am Lenny, Iona is gone. When I am Iona, Lenny is gone. We are both so in love, yet we can’t exist in the same moment. It’s doomed without time travel.”

You pull the cab over, so overwhelmed you can’t do anything but turn off the engine and cry.

Happy The Tragic Double Life Of Your Taxi Cab Passenger Day!

You Murdered Henry Day!

Tonight at your twentieth high school reunion you and your old friends will start talking about Prom and someone will mention Henry Potter.

“His ghost still haunts me,” you’ll say. “But still I think I was in the right.”

No one will know what you’re talking about. Explain that you murdered Henry that night. Then you put him in his car and sent it off the bridge making it look like he had a drunk driving accident on the way home from Prom.

“You guys all knew that though, right?”

Their shocked expressions will make it clear that they did not know that.

“Oh wow, I assumed everyone was cool with it and you all ran with that drunk driving story just to keep me from having to go to jail,” tell them. “No one liked Henry. Figured you all were grateful.”

Emily, the former cheerleader/current veterinarian will point out that your high school class had the highest number of students killed in drunk driving accidents in the nation.

“We were way above the national average,” Emily will say.

“Yeah I killed all seventeen,” tell them.

“But there were eighteen,” Emily will say.

“I never laid a hand on Louis Biederman. He was a full-on alky,” say.

While they appreciate you trying to make their student body better by removing undesirables, they’ll be upset that they had to spend so much of their senior year attending anti-drunk driving assemblies.

“Sorry I made your senior less fun,” tell them.

Was that so hard? Why is it so hard for you to apologize to people when you know you’re in the wrong?

Happy You Murdered Henry Day!

You Ferry Teens To Makeout Point Day!

The Makeout Point in your town is across a raging river and up a rocky slope to a narrow and slippery mountain ridge. Many teens don’t make it more than a few hundred feet up the slope before losing their footing and tumbling down to stain the rocks with their blood. The ones that do make it to the top are often too dehydrated and weak to actually make out once they get there. And getting up to the Point is only half the journey. Getting back down is so treacherous that it’s said some teens have chosen to stay on Makeout Point and live out their lives there.

It used to be that teens wouldn’t even make it to the ridge because they’d all die trying to cross the river in makeshift rafts. That was before you started your ferry service. You wanted to give lustful teens a fighting shot.

“I deserve just as much a chance at getting some tongue as any of my peers,” your son is saying to you, one foot on your ferry, one hand clasped around the bicep of a blonde classmate of his named Gina.

“Your peers aren’t my son,” you tell him.

He tells you that he and Gina feel lots of lust for each other, and they’re going to make out with each other whether his father gets them to Makeout Point, or they strap on some floaties and cross the river themselves.

“Let me be a teenager,” he pleads. “Please. I can already taste the inside of her mouth I want it so bad.”

You know you can’t dissuade him. You raised him to be the kind of young man who won’t be dissuaded. You raised him to be a survivor. If anyone can get up that ridge, scarf down some tongue and maybe cop a little boob, and then get back down to the river safe and sound, it’s your boy.

“Get on if you’re coming then,” you say, stepping out of their way to board the ferry.

“Thanks Dad,” your son says as you guide the ferry against the current to find the safest spot to dock and start him on his brave adventure in Frenching.

You Ferry Teens To Makeout Point Day!

You’re The Last Of Your Friends To Get Divorced Day!

None of your friends believe that you two are still in love. They think you’re refusing to get divorced just to try and be different. They’ve all been divorced for years. Your house is the one they’d all come to in tears when they decided it was time to make the big split. Many of them even came to you two and asked you to witness their divorce papers. That might be why they resent your marriage so much. Because you were there for the sad dissolution of theirs and none of the debris so much as bruised your bond. They’re starting to think you just consider yourselves so far above everybody that you can look down upon them and judge them as their marriages shatter. They’re angry that you’re still together and they’re outside.

“We’re not leaving until you two get divorced,” says Pam, divorced three years.

“It’s bullshit. You guys never even seemed that right for each other,” Arthur, divorced two years, says.

“Split up or we bust your heads open,” shouts Laraine, divorced seven months.

You tell Laraine she’s being crazy and Laraine comes running at you with a baseball bat. She swings and you duck, but her bat hits Arthur in the head and kills him. You and the dozen or so divorced friends carry Arthur’s body into the back yard, chop him up and bury him.

“We’re all accomplices here! You all let us stay together or we tell the police what happened here tonight!” you shout.

Your divorced friends reluctantly agree to stop pressuring you two to split up. You send them on their way and you and your spouse head up to the bedroom and make love to each other with more passion and fury than you’ve felt in years. You haven’t spoken it out loud but both of you have been having doubts lately, until tonight. Burying Arthur woke something up in you and you feel like your love has been reignited as you scratch at each other with the soil of Arthur’s grave under your fingernails. Murder has made your marriage stronger, and you’ll need more blood if you want to continue to lord your everlasting bond over your friends the way you have been.

Happy You’re The Last Of Your Friends To Get Divorced Day!