God’s Big Date Day!

God’s got a big date tonight with Diana, the girl who works at the magazine store.

“What should I wear?” God asks some saints.

They suggest the white robe. Then they tell him not to be nervous.

“Don’t be nervous?” God thunders. “I haven’t been on a date since Shannon.”

Shannon worked at Borders back before God caused them to go out of business. She cheated on God with someone else he created.

“Getting cheated on with my own creation? I’m just supposed to bounce back from that?”

The saints tell God he should just be himself.

On the date, things are going really well. Then in the car God makes a move on Diana. They kiss. God puts his hand on Diana’s breast. They undress. Diana performs fellatio on God and then God performs cunnilingus on Diana. Then God does something weird with Diana’s feet but she’s okay with it. There’s some spitting. Diana demands of God, “Tell me I’ve been disobedient.” God enters Diana from behind and the intercourse lasts several minutes.

God drops Diana off at her place and promises to call her. Back at heaven the saints ask God how it went. God just smiles.

“I know that smile!” one of the saints says. The others high five him.

God waves them off and goes to his room to think about Diana. Does he really like her for her, or is he just excited to feel something for someone again? He likes thinking about her. He kind of can’t wait to see her again. Just before bed he causes a massive earthquake in Southeast Asia, killing hundreds of thousands.

“But Diana’s safe,” God thinks as he turns on his white noise machine to drown out the screams coming from Earth. “Diana’s safe.”

Happy God’s Big Date Day!

You Explain Divorces To Kids Day!

Divorcing parents pay you to come by and tell their kids that their parents are splitting up. You get a thousand bucks a kid. Today you’re doing the MacDougals. Two kids.

“Listen up,” you tell them while driving. You always break the news in your Cutlass. “Your parents are getting a divorce. Your mom fell in love with some guy she works with.”

They want to know what about their dad.

“He hasn’t met anybody yet, far as I know.”

They want to know why.

“He seems to still be in love with your mom. Seems like he expected it to last forever. The whole thing’s kind of knocked him on his ass so go easy on him.”

You’re driving them by the river. Life keeps flowing. That’s the message of that river. They get it.

“Why’s Mom doing this to Dad?” Bobby MacDougal asks.

“When you’re older you’re going to realize that you have to make a lot of decisions in life, and you regret all of them just a little bit. Some you regret more than others. You can’t go back and reverse everything, so you have to pick the decisions you regret the most and try and make a change.”

Debbie MacDougal asks, “So Mom regrets marrying Dad the most?”

You slam on the brakes behind the car in front of you. The kids are startled. Life can end at the drop of a dime. That’s the message with stopping short like that.

“Don’t try to read your parents’ minds,” you tell them. “Just let them overcompensate with presents and stuff. Here are some iPads.”

You throw the iPads into the back seat and they lose their shit.

“See, being children of divorce ain’t so bad right?”

They’ll be lost in their iPad screens. Drive them into a heavy, chaotic traffic jam, one with a burning car by the side of the road. Things might feel okay right now, but life is a slow crawl through chaos and suffering, is the message with driving into a chaotic traffic jam with a burning car by the side of the road like that.

Happy You Explain Divorces To Kids Day!

Transfer Student Day!

The transfer student makes everything possible. You think it’s just a fresh start for you, but the transfer student represents a fresh start for the entire school. You’re the fresh eyes who never saw anyone crying through lunch, the fresh ears who hasn’t heard the thousands of derogatory nicknames those students have been wearing like nooses around their necks since elementary school. For them, for everyone who sees you, you are a new beginning.

You have no idea the power you possess.

Make a friend today. Lure girls in with your stories of what teenage society consists of outside of their district. Tell them tales, tell them lies, tell them whatever it takes to win their trust and make them want to claim you as theirs.

Get a boyfriend. Lure one away from his long-term girl. Tell him what love was like where you came from. Tell him boys do things to girls where you came from, things you can teach him. You’re pretty sure he can learn, because he seems just as mature as the boys you used to know.

Introduce your classmates to a new synthetic drug. Show them a dance they’ve never danced before. Make them watch a Youtube video they never even heard of, and they thought they’d already seen them all.

You are the open door they can’t wait to storm through. You can lure them anywhere, even to their ruin.

You know your mission. You know what this means to Lower Hamilton High School that you infiltrate and demolish Washington East. This rivalry has gone on too long. It’s time to stop trying to settle this on the football field.

You’re our chance to take them down from the inside.

Happy Transfer Student Day!

Family Road Trip Day!

Take a road trip with your family. Get your kids into the back seat and your husband in the front and hit the fucking road.

“WHY ARE YOU DRIVING SO FAST? IT’S THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT! WHERE ARE WE GOING!” your kids and husband will shout. Tell them to shut their goddamn mouths or you’ll drive through a guardrail and into a gulch.

“Road trips are supposed to be spontaneous,” you explain once they’re all quietly cowering. “We’re going to drive and have dangerous adventures until something about us changes.”

You pull into bars and pick fights.

You break into vacation homes and steal silver and electronics.

You transport crystal meth and you pick up hitchhikers who remember seeing the ghost of Elvis Presley and you come to the aid of a crashed crop duster, managing to rescue the pilot before his plane bursts into flames.

You drive for four more months, and when you pause to celebrate your daughter’s eleventh birthday and your son’s ninth by the lip of the grand canyon, you all finally agree that you’ve each discovered something about yourselves that has changed you forever.

“I hate the road,” your daughter says.

“I hate America,” your son says.

“I hate being in a car,” your husband says.

“I want to spend the rest of my life in a tree,” you say.

Your husband hoists you up into a tree then he and your two kids wave goodbye as you climb higher and higher. Your husband says he’ll come back in a few months with divorce papers, but that he’s glad you’ve discovered yourself, and that you won’t be in his life to drag him on another awful trip like this one ever again.

Happy Family Road Trip Day!

The Lobby, 3:45 AM Day!

“Nightowl,” he says.

You look up from your book and smile a weak smile. “I just can’t stay in bed with my husband through the night,” you explain before returning to your book.

He should just go back to his work, whatever work a graveyard shift hotel desk clerk might have, but he’s not going to. He just got married and he wants to know if his wife does that. “Do all women do that?” he asks.

You tell him you’re sorry you bothered him and you’ll move to the business center.

“Do all women do that?” he asks again.

“I’m just a light sleeper,” you say, trying to put some comfort into your voice.

He asks if you were always a light sleeper. You don’t answer, which gives him your answer loud and clear.

“What stirs you?” he asks.

You close your book. “My eyes snap open like someone flicked a light-switch,” you say. “And I slither out of bed and watch my sleeping husband, feeling like I’m in control, like we’re engaged in some kind of war of wits and by waking up and living a few hours of conscious life without him even knowing it, I’ve got the drop on him.”

He’s terrified. “What do you think will happen if you sleep the whole night through,” he asks.

You shrug. “Not sure since I haven’t let it happen one time in the past fourteen years of marriage,” you say.

He asks again, “Do all women do that?”

“I don’t know if your wife does that,” you say. “Maybe she doesn’t need to since you work nights.”

“I’m just filling in tonight," he says.

Go to his desk and place your hand on his. "I love my husband,” tell him. “I just don’t want him to win.”

“Win at what?”

You can’t help but smile, he’s so adorably naive.

“Why, win at marriage of course,” you say.

Let go of his hand and go to the business center so he can make a frantic phone call home now.

Happy The Lobby, 3:45 AM Day!

He Cries More Now Day!

When you bump into him it’s the first time you’ve seen him in ten years. He looks the same.

“You look even better,” he says.

You do it at his place. He isn’t married, just like back then. He’s barely employed, just like back then. He’s still good in bed, just like back then. You tell him he hasn’t changed at all.

“I cry more now,” he says. “Sometimes for days at a stretch. Normal I suppose.”

You cry less.

“I also have more trouble going into buildings sometimes now,” he says. “Occasionally I’ll just start walking toward a building entrance and I’ll have to turn around and run. Part of aging I guess.”

That hasn’t happened to you yet.

“I also find myself following men who look well put together to see how they live and find out what they figured out. Is that something that just happens after 35?”

Yeah you don’t really do that at all.

“Anyway want to meet my squirrels?” he asks.

You tell him you have to head home.

“To your squirrels?” he asks, a little uneasy.

You don’t have any squirrels but just to calm him down you say, “Yes. They’re waiting for their nuts.”

He breathes a sigh of relief. He gave you a taste of your past, and you gave him the false hope that his present isn’t as off-course as he suspects it might be.

Happy He Cries More Now Day!

Senator Outside Your House Day!

He’s in love with your daughter.

“She’s in college,” you remind him. “And you’re married.”

“Which is why I have to keep it a secret,” he says. “Up for reelection.”

Your daughter comes running outside and into the Senator’s arms.

“Now you know about us Daddy,” she says, kissing the Senator all over his face.

“Still not going to vote for you,” you say to the Senator.

The three of you laugh very hard, then your daughter and the Senator start making out as you look up at the sky, puffing on your cigarette, wondering whether there’s someone out there for you to love, the way the Senator loves your daughter. It’s been so hard since her mother died.

Happy Senator Outside Your House Day!

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!

You Know The Plotlines For The First 100 Episodes Of “Guys With Kids” Day!

They came to you in the middle of the night last night. Like they’d been beamed into your head. The plotlines for the first 100 episodes of Guys With Kids. When you went to sleep you weren’t even thinking about Guys With Kids. You knew it existed, but you figured it doesn’t need you to think about it to continue existing. Now that you know the first episode is about how even though the guys have kids, they’re still just guys (or are they?), and in the second episode the one guy with a kid asks the other two guys with kids for help moving an armoire, and in the third episode all three guys with kids have to go to the post office but the kids haven’t eaten in days, and in the fourth episode the guys with kids meet two other guys with kids but their kids end up being dolls (American Girl), and in the fifth episode the guys with kids get condescended to by a barista so they follow him home and set fire to his car (a Civic), you’re thinking maybe Guys With Kids actually does need you to think about it in order for it to exist.

Maybe if you stop thinking about it, episode six won’t be about the trouble with sippy cups, and episode seven will be about something other than anal polyps, and episode eight won’t address online gambling addiction, and episode nine won’t be the one where all three guys go to take their kids to a little-known catholic counsel to have their kids exorcized “just in case,” and episode ten won’t feature a Blythe Danner walk-on.

Maybe you’re the autistic kid staring at a snowglobe full of the characters from Guys With Kids.

That could explain why you know episode eleven is the one where they find out one of the kids can stop time, and episode twelve is the one where they go to Sweden to personally return an Ikea crib to the factory, and in episode thirteen one of the guys with kids decides to leave the group and the other two are secretly excited to be done with him but at the last minute he changes his mind, and episode fourteen is the demolition derby episode, and in episode fifteen the guys listen to the 9/11 phone calls, and in episode sixteen guy #2 doesn’t trust guy #1 so he tries to have him wacked but guy #3 gets killed instead, and in episode seventeen we find out guy #3 was never who we thought he was, that the real guy #3 (and his kid) are CIA and the guy #3 who got killed was just a North Korean spy wearing a disguise, and in episode eighteen the guys remember the first seventeen episodes and spend the last ten minutes sobbing, and in episode nineteen one of the kids starts a race riot and the guys try to help everyone keep a cool head but they can’t so the city burns and they have to move to Vancouver, and in episode twenty there’s an AIDS scare, and episode twenty-one is the Christmas episode, and episode twenty-two is the mole people episode, and episode twenty-three is the Ghost of Steve Jobs Is Haunting The Kid Of Guy #2 episode, and in episode twenty-four one of the guys loses his kid’s teddy bear and he spends the rest of the episode screaming at God.

Are you still dreaming? Or are you awake and you really do have all this knowledge? Could it be aliens?

Could it be that you really already know episode twenty-five is a tribute to the life of Jared from Subway and episode twenty-six is a parody of “Steel Magnolias” and in episode twenty-seven there’s just a black, silent screen for twenty-two minutes because sometimes we need to remember the vastness of empty moments, and episode twenty-eight has the guys trying to sell their kids to Colombians and episode twenty-nine sends the guys to Fiji for a lifestyle festival (sex thing), and in episode thirty the guys finally learn how to change a diaper?

The bigger question is, are you the only one? Do you alone know that episodes thirty-one through forty address gun control, hickeys, good cell phone service vs. bad cell phone service, car salesmen, flesh-eating viruses, getting thrown in “the dog house” by your “old lady,” naptime, the politics of hipster kickball leagues, denim washes, and whether or not the moon landing was faked? If not, how many others were chosen to know that episodes forty-one through forty-three comprise a three-episode arc about sexual promiscuity amongst the residents of senior communities, and episode forty-four is the one where the creator’s dead dog is fed to the guys with kids “as a warning,” and episode forty-five is the Yom Kippur episode, and in episode forty-six no one says the word “is,” and episodes forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty, fifty-one, and fifty-two will all be shot on a military base with the scripts written solely to hypnotically activate brain-washed black ops sleeper agents?

Why were you chosen? For what purpose?

What use can it be to anyone that you know episode fifty-three will be about the creation of an Edie Brickell-type folk superstar, and episode fifty-four will be a funny spin on Revelations, and episode fifty-five has the guys competing to see which of their kids gets the last spot in the good day care, and episode fifty-six is kind of a scene-by-scene response to the episode of Cheers where Coach has to keep his daughter from marrying the wrong guy, and episode fifty-seven is about how guys with kids have to buy their ladies maxi-pads sometimes and it’s embarrassing, and episode fifty-eight shows what it would be like if the guys and the kids switched bodies, and episode fifty-nine has the guys worried they aren’t as cool as guys who ran off on their kids, and episode sixty is just a blood-bath, nothing but gore and shoot-outs, no explanation?

Why would someone need you to know all that?

Maybe you knowing episode sixty-one sends the guys with kids on a cruise will help stop a war one day. Maybe you knowing episode sixty-two is the all-nude episode will be necessary to keep the sun from exploding one day. Maybe you knowing episode sixty-three is about happy meals will help the President ease the tension in the Middle East one day.

Who knows?

All you know for sure is in episode sixty-four the kids find a bag of flame-throwers and the guys have to outrun the ATF or give the kids up, and in episode sixty-five none of the guys’ babysitters show up, and in episode sixty-six there’s a brief, alarming, but ultimately contained Ebola outbreak in the kids’ day care center.

You know that sixty-seven is about the collapse of Greece and sixty-eight is about a smores competition and sixty-nine is about whether or not to send the kids to Scouts, but you don’t know if all this information will disappear from your mind as quickly as it came into it.

Is it a tumor that lets you know episode seventy takes on dudes with too much nose-hair and not episode seventy-one, since in that one the guys with kids buy a Native American dream blanket and summon a vengeful spirit from beyond? Is it some kind of fever that makes you certain that seventy-two is going to reveal who the kids’ real moms are?

Seventy-three, seventy-four, and seventy-five: puppies, Katrina, and whether Latin should still be taught in schools. Why do you know this? If you die tonight, will someone else take over the task of knowing this for you? Should you write it all down?

You should write it all down. Write it in a letter to your little brother. Tell him not to open the letter until you’re dead, but let him know episode seventy-six of Guys With Kids is going to be about the day Macho Man Randy Savage died. Let him know episode seventy-seven is going to be about homelessness, and in episode seventy-eight the guys with kids buy a storm shelter to escape what they believe to be the coming wrath of Christ.

If you tell someone else, if you tell your little brother, maybe that will help make sure it all comes true.

Tell him seventy-nine is going to be Loretta Swit’s comeback cameo, and episode eighty is about the guys feeling sad because the training wheels are starting to come off the kids’ bikes. Tell him episodes eighty-one, eighty-two, and eighty-three all include subliminal flashes of footage from the Jodie Foster movie Foxes. Tell him eighty-four is about inhalants and eighty-five is the one where the guys and the kids all learn a little bit about tolerance.

Your little brother needs to know. When you’re dead, which will probably be very soon considering the strangeness of all of this, your little brother is our only hope that someone know eighty-six is the groin pull episode and eighty-seven is the painting party episode and in eighty-eight all the guys die and the kids have to go to an orphanage. Your little brother must carry with him the knowledge that in eighty-nine the kids realize the orphanage is run by a mysterious benefactor, and in ninety we find out the benefactor is you.

That’s right, by episode ninety, long after you’re dead, you’ll have your own storyline on Guys With Kids. It’s the story-line that carries the show over the syndication mark. You know all the plotlines of every episode because you run the orphanage that will usher the kids into manhood. You always have. In episode ninety-one you teach the kids about honesty. In episode ninety-two the kids have their first crushes and you help them through the heartache. In episode ninety-three you teach the kids to drive. Episode ninety-four is the one where one of the kids runs away but you chase him down and let him know he’s loved, and you can’t run from love. Episode ninety-five has the kids taking their SATs and episode ninety-six is prom night (one of their friends dies, they learn about drinking). In episode ninety-seven you find out you have cancer. In episode ninety-eight, you tell the kids that you are glad you ended your life in the corporeal world so that you could live here in the TV world and watch these beautiful kids grow up to be brilliant young adults, only to die again, but to die happy and proud. In episode ninety-nine the kids go off to college and in episode 100 the kids get word that you passed away, but you left them each a letter, and in each letter is the plotlines for the second 100 episodes of The Mindy Project.

Happy You Know The Plotlines For The First 100 Episodes Of Guys With Kids Day!

Sink Your Dead Dad’s Boat Day!

Your Dad died and in his will he left you a yacht as well as a staff and food supply for you to live on it for the rest of your life. He left your brothers the family business and all other assets. For you, just the yacht. It can’t be sold until you die or you disembark and step back onto American shores. He wants you to live in the ocean.

“Away from my step-mother,” you tell the lawyer.

The lawyer doesn’t say anything. It’s just you and him. Your brothers and step-mother heard the will separately.

“So I have to either live on the Ocean for the rest of my life, or I stay on land and get a job.”

The lawyer nods. Your Dad played this perfectly. He knew you and your step-mother had fallen in love, he knew you were sleeping together behind his back, and he took precautions to make sure you couldn’t marry her once he was gone by ensuring you could never provide her with the life to which she’s accustomed. A life where a yacht is an added luxury, not the limit of her assets. She’ll never live on that yacht with you, and she’ll never live with you if all you’re doing is earning ends meet at a day job.

“You win Dad,” you whisper out loud.

The lawyer slides another pile of papers your way.

“These are the insurance documents,” he says. “Should the boat sink, you’ll need these to collect the insurance payment, which would be approximately ten million dollars.”

Insurance payment?

You scan the documents, and your solution is plain as day. You ask the lawyer, “Why you doing this?”

“I’ve been your family lawyer for a long time,” he says. “I saw your father and step-mother together. I think you two make a better couple.”

Shake the lawyer’s hand, then race down to the dock, get on board your yacht and start crashing it into some rocks until it sinks and you can buy your dead Dad’s third wife a brand new house to share with you.

Happy Sink Your Dead Dad’s Boat Day!

Baby Namer Day!

You’ve been making a fortune as an artisanal baby namer. Forward thinkers bring their babies to you, you look at them, bounce them a little bit up and down, then you say, “Name him Pete.”

Today your business is going to go under. You’re finally going to be shown a baby you can’t name.

You won’t even look at the mother. Not until you stare at the baby for a few seconds, just long enough to know exactly where he got those eyes.

“Lauren?” you’ll say to the mother, without looking up from the boy.

She wasn’t sure if she wanted you in your son’s life. It was just a fling for you obviously. She was just a woman you met in a hotel bar. It was her fault she got knocked up, but getting knocked up is nothing but a biological process. Being a family is something a whole lot more, something you don’t want to do with strangers.

“Then I found you on the internet and I saw that you’ve built your entire life around babies. I knew it could only benefit our child to have you as a father,” she’ll say.

Your son will feel heavy in your hands. Though he’s not very big, he’ll feel heavier than any baby you’ve ever held.

“Name him,” Lauren will say.

And that’s when your business will fold. You had a talent for naming babies who mean nothing to you. Now that you have one of your own, naming him feels impossible. You’ll suddenly realize there’s so much in a name. You’ll stammer and struggle but you simply won’t be able to give your own son a name, and the pressure will extend to all the other babies that are subsequently brought to you, until you finally close up shop.

Since Lauren primarily came to you because she knew you were loaded, when you no longer have an income because you’ve lost your talent for naming babies she’ll fly back west and you’ll have to sue for visitation rights. You’ll get one weekend a month and every other Christmas. With no help from you, she’ll name your son Elliot.

Happy Baby Namer Day!

Cabin Fever Day!

You and Clara’s husband Tim stayed behind because you both have leg injuries, while Clara and your husband Paul went hiking through the snow to try to find food and hopefully a ranger who can find a way to get you all down off this mountain.

“They could be gone for days and they might not make it back,” Tim says limping around the cabin. “We should start having sex now.”

“How can you—”

“Oh spare me!” Tim shouts. “The longer you play this game of being the loyal, loving wife grateful to her husband for risking his life for you, the less sex we’re having.”

“But they’ve barely just left,” you say. “Look, I can still see them. They’re waving.”

You motion for Tim to come to the window and wave back to them. Tim slaps you.

“Dammit you need to think realistically,” he shouts. “If we wait to have sex until we’re sure they’re dead, we might be too weak to even feel sexual, not to mention we’ll be trying to come to grips with the reality that our spouses have died somewhere out there in the snow, possibly never to have their bodies found by anything but packs of hungry wolves. Think you’ll be up for boning with the image of your husband’s corpse being torn apart by wolves on your mind?”

You concede that no, you would not. Neither would Tim, he says. He loves Clara way too much to cheat on her while her body is being eaten by animals.

“And supposing we do wait,” Tim continues. “And when we manage to have sex we find out we are the perfect mates for each other, that the sex is the best we’ve ever had. But, oops, we waited too long and we’re too dehydrated and hungry to have sex a second time. Almost more tragic than if we’d never had sex at all! We’d die regretting that we waited, regretting that we stood on formality instead of grabbing as much erotic opportunity from what little time we had left.”

You’ve spent too much of your life regretting things. Tim’s right. You love Paul, but waiting to be sure he’s dead before you have sex with Tim is just another instance of you living as if tomorrow is some kind of guarantee.

You take off your clothes and Tim enters you for approximately 30 seconds before Paul and Clara burst into the cabin with a half-dozen park rangers. The rangers had been hiking up the mountain when they bumped into Paul and Clara having frantic sex against a snow bank around 200 feet from the cabin’s front door.

Happy Cabin Fever Day!

Urban Outfitters Robbery Spree Day!

When you get up to the register to pay for a book called Faces People Make While Farting, the cashier will notice you’re nervous.

“You have no right to be nervous when you’re so cute,” he’ll say.

You’ll be flattered when you pull the gun on him and tell him to empty the register.

“A girl as cute as you shouldn’t need to commit crimes,” he’ll say.

You’ll blush as you whisper for him to empty the cash faster.

“If I knew armed robbers might look like you I’d have started working as a cashier a long time ago,” he’ll say.

Smile at him. He’ll smile back.

“You just live your life robbing Urbans then?” he’ll ask.

“And a few Madewells,” tell him.

He’ll hand you the bag of money. Your hands will touch.

“Can you run in those skinny jeans?” ask him.

He’ll nod.

Wrap your pinky around his thumb and command, “Let’s go then.”

He’ll hop the counter knocking over a display of iPhone cases that look like old tape cassettes and the two of you will run outside to your car and speed off on a cross-country spree of youth-marketed clothing chain robbery.

You’ll become folk heroes when during a robbery of an Urban Outfitters in Atlanta you win the favor of customers still in the store by giving them free armfuls of leggings and hoodies and copies of “Wreck This Journal.” That’s when the Feds will take an interest, when it looks like you’re getting the Robin Hood label, when you start handing out for free the youth that’s supposed to be sold to them.

The excitement for your outlaw adventure will build when security tapes hit the news, the two of you always making a point of kissing once, kissing sloppy, just before taking off with the money from every single store. Customers begin showing up at Urbans and Madewells just to kiss while snapping phone pics of themselves that they can post on Facebook.

Copycat robberies start popping up at J Crews and Forever 21s and even a few Gaps. Parents demand the police double their efforts to capture you. Magazines display you on their covers under headlines blaming the economy and pornography for your crime spree. In the midwest citizen militias voluntarily guard clothing stores intent on proving to their young ‘it can’t happen here.’

“How’s it end?” he asks you in a Super 8 bed in Sacramento, his arms wrapped around your naked body.

“We have to be gunned down,” you tell him. His kiss tells you he’s on the same page.

You’ll be shot to death outside an Urban Outfitters in San Antonio, TX. More than 600 rounds will be fired by more than three dozen police officers and you’ll each be hit more than fifteen times. Your fame will skyrocket and you’ll be idolized by kids for years to come, and Urban Outfitters will make millions selling tee shirts with your gun-toting silhouettes silk-screened across the chest.

Happy Urban Outfitters Robbery Spree Day!

External Hard Drive Blues Day!

You’re a new hire in an IT department and you’re sitting in a music venue listening to your boss sing a terrible original blues number called “External Hard Drive Blues.”

The song is about how his “old lady” found his “girly movies” on his external hard drive and now he’s got “the blues.”

You want to keep this job so you didn’t think you had a choice but to come see him play when he handed you the flyer. At the end of his set your boss is going to come and sit at your table.

“You’re the first of my staff I could ever get to come out and see me,” he’ll say. “They don’t like to mix the personal with the office. They don’t think it’s right to work under someone after you’ve witnessed their art. That’s what they say anyway. But you’re different.”

Tell him, “You looked like you were really having some fun up there.”

He’ll say that you get him and he’ll ask if you want to make love to his wife while he watches.

“Come on,” he’ll say. “Don’t make me write a song called the Rejected Request To Have Sex With My Wife While I Watch Blues.”

Follow him home in his car and make love to his wife while he watches. Anything to keep him from writing another song.

Happy External Hard Drive Blues Day!

The Crush Is All Day!

Stacey wants to know why you think you love her so much, she says it’s just a crush. You’re only 14, she’s only 15. It’s a crush.

“You can move beyond it. It’s a crush.”

Tell her the crush is all.

“Man loves for a day or a lifetime, it’s a crush,” you say. “On that day, in that lifetime, the crush is all.”

It’s all he breathes. It’s all he thinks about. His first thought on waking is the crush. His last thought at bedtime is the crush.

If a man finds himself thinking he’s going to die.

“If I find myself in trouble tonight,” you tell Stacey, ignoring her friends waiting and laughing by the door, her friends who want her to return to the dance. “In danger. If I find myself with a gun to my head or trapped under something that isn’t going to budge, or in a car crash or a plane crash, I’ll think about you.”

It’s what all the men think about in every movie ever made. The man in danger has someone he needs to return to, a love, a crush. It keeps him alive. It keeps him going. He stays alive thanks to the crush, because the crush is all he has to live for.

“The crush is all there is,” tell Stacey.

Tell her she can go back inside and spend the rest of the dance with Ron, if she wants, but it’s not going to change what you feel. It’s not going to give you a different thing to live for.

“You could save my life tonight, Stacey,” you tell her. “I’d be a fool not to love you tonight.”

Turn around and walk away. Walk like you still think she might go back inside. There’s no way she’s going back inside.

Happy The Crush Is All Day!

Maximum Helen Day!

Today’s the day you look in the mirror and say “Look out world, you’re about to get a dose of Maximum Helen.” Then you’re going to go out into your city and live your life in such a way as to impact your fellow man and your environment with the maximum expression of your personhood.

Start by going to the park, sitting in the fountain, and peeing. Then tell your coffee cart guy the names of every boy and man you ever loved who didn’t love you back, making sure to pee on his coffee cart while you do. Next, climb the fire escape of a building until you get to the top and start screaming at the people below a list of the skin rashes and infections you’ve had in your lifetime to distract them so they won’t realize you’re peeing on them until it’s too late. Then, go to work and spend eight hours filing with the greatest precision your coworkers have ever seen while making sure to dab just a droplet of your pee on every file-folder. When it’s time to clock out, join your coworkers for happy hour but don’t pee in their drinks (save it for the blue cheese dressing that comes with the buffalo wings). Finally, flirt with a man until he asks to go home with you. When you get back to his place, hold him down and pee on him unless he says he’s into that sexually because ew.

When the day is finally over, get some much needed sleep because giving the world a dose of Maximum Helen can be quite draining.

Happy Maximum Helen Day!

He Exhibits All Ten Warning Signs Listed In Yahoo’s “Ten Warning Signs That You’re In Love With A Cheating Man” Day!

He’s working a lot. Yahoo says when he works a lot it means he might be working on loving someone new.

He’s showering a lot. Yahoo says when he showers a lot it’s because he’s washing off the lingering scent of someone new.

He’s constantly singing love songs out loud without any cause for a love song to be sung. Yahoo says if he spontaneously bursts out into love songs it’s because those love songs are songs he has to sing when he thinks about someone new.

He occasionally shows up covered in mud. Yahoo says when your man shows up muddy it’s because he had to dispose of the bodies of the people who witnessed him giving all his love to someone new.

He bought seven new cars. Yahoo says a man has no reason to buy a lot of new cars unless he’s going on long moonlight drives with someone special, someone young, someone fun, someone who is anyone, anyone at all, anyone at all but you.

He has crabs. Yahoo says there ain’t no other reason for a man to have crabs unless those crabs side-glided off the body of someone new.

He’s been spending a lot of time in his secret second apartment and according to Yahoo a man should spend an average of no more than two nights a week in his secret second apartment unless he’s using that secret second apartment to spend secret time with someone secret and new.

He can sometimes be found with his penis inside another woman. In the immortal words of Yahoo, “There is simply no reason for your man to place his manhood upon or up inside the womanhood of a woman who, for all intents and purposes is not you, unless your man is interested in the womanhood under the operation of a woman other than you, AKA a woman who happens to be someone new.

He’s gone. Yahoo says when a man is gone there’s a very good chance what’s "gone” to you is actually the “arrival” at the doorstep of someone new.

He says he met someone new. If Yahoo is correct, a man never says he met someone new unless he’s decided that you are someone old and there’s another one, a different one, a one who in your man’s eyes is someone who alleviates that “I’m scared of not mattering anymore” feeling, a one who can only be described as someone new.

Since your man meets all ten criteria, it’s time to tell him that you wish him well but you understand that the heart cannot be tamed, girlfriend.

Happy He Exhibits All Ten Warning Signs Listed In Yahoo’s “Ten Warning Signs That You’re In Love With A Cheating Man” Day!

Your New Boyfriend Has A Laser Target On His Chest At All Times Day!

He didn’t mention it in his profile. You’re glad he didn’t. It might have deterred you from meeting him, and though it’s early, you’re starting to think meeting him is the best thing that’s ever happened to you.

“You don’t know who it is?” you asked on your second date, when you finally started discussing the elephant in the room.

“Nor do I know why,” he said.

You stared at the red dot as it flickered ever so slightly closer to his heart.

“How long has it—”

“Eleven years.”

“And he’s never once fired?”

Just once. It was late. He was in an unfamiliar neighborhood. He heard the shot and turned around to find a man with a knife in his hand dead on the ground. A mugger.

“He protected you,” you said.

“He wanted me to know my life is his to end. Not some mugger’s. His alone.”

You watched the red light flicker some more then you demanded he take you home.

That’s been the pattern. You stare at the dot on his chest until you’re so certain there’s about to be a gunshot that you can’t even breathe, and you need to be brought someplace and made love to as quickly as possible. It’s better with the dot. It makes you want to be as close to him as you can, so intertwined that you can feel the dot wander onto your skin too.

“I want to be with you to the end,” you tell him tonight, after.

“To the end?” he asks. “Or at the end?”

Both. One and the other. You need to be there when the shot is finally fired, when the dot finally turns into a bullet hole, when the gunman is (hopefully) finally identified. If that’s the main reason why you’re willing to spend the next fifty years with him, so be it. People have stayed together for a lot less.

Happy Your New Boyfriend Has A Laser Target On His Chest At All Times Day!

Drop The Act, Kevin Day!

It’s time to ditch the whole “Say hello to the new Kevin, world” thing and accept the you that you are. We’d all like to think that with a single epiphany or a determined vow to break old habits we can suddenly change the course of our lives and start living the contented, drug-and-disease-free, not-having-to-sleep-with-a-flare-gun-under-our-pillows existence that we always dreamed we could live. But after a certain point you just have to face facts. You are where you are because you are who you are.

“But I already introduced the new Kevin to the world,” you say. “The world already said, ‘Hello New Kevin,’ back. And the world heard me promise to get a job, stop selling my mother’s prescription pills, and to always consider all of my options before making hasty decisions. How can I make it up to the world?”

You have to make the world an offering as penance for making a promise in vain. Either chop off your right hand…

“Done!” you say, wrapping the bloody stump in a bread bag as you dial an ambulance with your left hand.

…Or if that doesn’t appeal to you you can just do a few hours of community service and the world will be satisfied.

“Fuck!” you shout.

Hey world, Old Kevin’s back!

Happy Drop The Act, Kevin Day!

Secret Admirer Hunter Day!

You didn’t make it as a cop so you became a private dick. But tracking cheating husbands for rich wives was making you way too cynical for your taste. So you pared down your agency to focus solely on helping young girls and, to a lesser extent, boys, determine the authors of the secret admirer letters they receive from classmates.

“The thing you want to be sure of is, do you wanna know,” you tell the girls (and occasionally boys) who show up in your office. “Getting that anonymous love letter is big boost to the spirit. No one can blame you for hoping, even assuming, it was written by the hottie who’s filling up the pages of your diary. But invariably, the kind of person who won’t sign their name is the kind of person who assumes their name won’t be welcome at the bottom of a love letter.”

Their response is usually the same. “I need to know for sure, in order to know how to proceed.”

Today’s the day you meet a client on the field hockey field with an envelope full of pictures, handwriting samples, and covert audio recordings.

“Here’s your guy,” you’ll say.

She’ll pull out the photo and say what they always say: “Ew.”

“Give him a shot?” you’ll say. “Maybe read the letter again.”

“You didn’t mention your retainer included relationship advice,” she’ll say, forging her mother’s name onto a check.

Stuff the payment in your coat and get back in your car. You can’t make them give these anons a chance. All you can do is introduce them and hope they’ll give their lovers from afar a closer glance.

Happy Secret Admirer Hunter Day!

Need Friendship Day!

He saw your flyer at the coffee shop with the words “Need Friendship” in 24 point font at the top, and a photo of you holding a wiffle ball bat just above a trim of tear away phone numbers.

“I choose my friends very carefully,” he’s saying. His name’s Jenkins.

You insist that you’re the same way. Which is why the flyer.

“For me it’s all about your survival abilities,” he says, letting you know that this is another human hunting situation.

“Makes sense,” you say. You know it’s just a guy who wants to shoot paintballs at you while you run through a cemetery, but you’re really lonely.

“Meet you behind the Dairy Queen then,” he says. “My shift ends at 1 AM.”

You’ll be there. They always go for the eyes, and they never want to hang out after, but you’ve gotten so few responses that you don’t want to be choosey.

Happy Need Friendship Day!

Can’t Crack The Rock Day!

Your foreman wants to know what the holdup is.

“Just can’t do it Jeff,” say. “Just can’t crack the rock.”

Jeff will walk away from you to the sidewalk. You’ll shout at his back that you’re sorry but you just can’t do it. He’ll keep walking, not hearing a word. Lug your jackhammer after him.

He’ll be positioned right over the heart, staring down at it, his hard hat in his hands.

“Reverence,” he’ll say. “Take your hard hat off. Even if it was your love you show some respect.”

Take off your hard hat and hang it on the handle of your jackhammer.

“BT,” he’ll say, reading the initials that aren’t yours. “What’s that stand for?”

“Beth Turner,” you tell him. You were thirteen. She had red hair. This sidewalk was outside her house.

“Until she moved away,” you say.

“First love lost,” he’ll say. You’ll nod.

Your foreman will get down on all fours and scream at her initials, “WHERE ARE YOU BETH TURNER?!”

He’ll demand you join him. The two of you will scream at the initials you carved into wet cement twenty years ago, “WHERE ARE YOU BETH TURNER?!” You’ll scream until you’re in tears, until you don’t have anything to scream anymore.

“Thanks,” you’ll say as you ready your jackhammer.

“All part of the job,” your foreman will say. He’ll pat you on the back as you ready your jackhammer to bust up that heart containing yours and Beth Turner’s initials forever.

Happy Can’t Crack The Rock Day!

He’s In Love With A Liar Day!

He’s got you blindfolded and won’t let you peek because it’s a big surprise. When he finally lets you peek you’ll see he bought you a rare, early edition of Villette by Charlotte Bronte because one of the lies you told was that your senior thesis at the college you claimed to have attended was on Charlotte Bronte.

“Read me some,” he says. “Read me your favorite part. I love you, but that’s not enough. I also want to love what you love.”

You flip through the book looking for a section that looks like it might have some good lines and you luckily end up on a description of some snow which works pretty okay in the making it seem like you’re not completely faking it department.

This is getting harder. He stares into your eyes like his life depends on it. He doesn’t caress your skin so much as celebrate it. He has become one hundred percent convinced that loving you is the reason he was put on this planet, and he intends to make sure he lives up to his destiny. You’re ashamed to admit it, but the sex is some of the best you’ve had, and you think the thrill of knowing his passion for you is founded on utter lies is doing something special for you.

Or, you’re falling for him too.

That can’t be, though. If it is, you’d better give up everything right now. Don’t even leave a note, just discard the whole plan and disappear without explaining why. The deception felt like it was reasonable means to an end before you realized just how much he’d come to cherish you, and how much you enjoyed being cherished. Falling for him wasn’t part of the plan, and if that’s what’s happening you should probably walk away.

“My father’s coming back to the states in October,” he says, fiddling with the book in your lap. “I can’t wait for him to meet you.”

“He’s coming back?” you confirm, trying to keep your voice level. “He’s coming here to America?”

He nods. You close the book and you kiss him. You make love to him convincingly. You thank him for your birthday present with your body. You use all of your talents to make him believe he should go on loving you, and he should introduce you to his father, the assassin who murdered your father eleven years ago in Belgrade. You will avenge your father’s death by making his assassin’s son love you until you can take that assassin’s life and, reluctantly now, break his son’s heart.

“I can’t wait to meet your dad,” you tell the assassin’s son when you’re resting your head on his chest once the sex has ended. “I hope he likes me.”

Happy He’s In Love With A Liar Day!

Forest Bitches Day!

You formed a club called the Forest Bitches. You and your friends run into the forest and strip to your underwear and roll around on the soil chanting bullshit, usually high. You like to think you’re bonding with nature.

“This dirt is so fucking cleansing,” Georgette says, rubbing clumps of dirt on her bra and stomach.

“I’m eating a leaf,” Shannon says, spitting bits of the leaf out while she talks. “So gross.”

“Let’s spin around and shout ‘Praise Mother,’” you say. Then you and the other two Forest Bitches spin around until a man stumbles on the path in between the three of you.

“Help me,” he rasps. He’s covered in leather from the waist up only. From the waist down he’s bruised the color of a plum. His wrists are bound and he’s got a sweatband around his eyes.

You cut the ropes around his wrists and uncover his eyes. He tells you he’s a prostitute who’s been kept captive by a wealthy John for the past three weeks. He finally escaped, but not very successfully.

“Him and his thugs are coming,” he says. “We have to run.”

Just then the rich John and his thugs arrive in your clearing. They tell you to let the hooker go.

They have no idea who they’re dealing with.

“Forest Bitches, spin!” you shout.

The three of you start spinning as fast as you can. After eleven spins the ground opens up and swallows the John and his thugs. The hooker is saved.

“Forest Bitches undefeated!” the three of you shout while high fiving.

The hooker falls face forward and starts muttering unintelligibly. You get him to the hospital where he’s treated for dehydration. You want to stay with him while he recovers, but Georgette gets a phone call. She hands the cell phone to you.

“It’s the president,” she says. “There’s a new Al Qaida leader even more powerful than Bin Laden and he says Seal Team Six is busy.”

You take the call, then you look at Georgette and Shannon.

“Time to let nature run its course,” you say.

Happy Forest Bitches Day!

They Want You To Present Scenarios In Which Terrorists Could Infiltrate Private Functions To Conduct Suicide Bombings Day!

“We need someone who spends all day scheming about how security teams can be evaded,” the General says. “How guarded entrances can be breached. How one might blend in with the service staff or delivery personnel to enter a private function. That’s why we called you.”

“But I just write Mentos commercials,” you tell them.

The General smiles. “Exactly. By our count you have concocted several hundred different plans for infiltration of an invite-only private function. You know who else is doing that?”

You both say it at the same time. “Al Qaeda.”

The General comes to your side and places his hand on your shoulder. “The country is vulnerable. Our tactics have gone stale. We need a freshmaker.”

Your entire life has been leading up to this moment. Tell him you’ll do it and get to work on imagining Al Qaeda agents carrying trays of glasses or pushing racks of dresses into posh surroundings while there’s still time.

Happy They Want You To Present Scenarios In Which Terrorists Could Infiltrate Private Functions To Conduct Suicide Bombings Day!

You Made The Loneliness Police Blotter Day!

You did it! The Loneliness Police Blotter ran your incident! Check it out:

On Saturday a Lakeside man reportedly went into his garage, forgot what he went in there for, realized if he never came out no one would notice, and he subsequently collapsed in sobs on the cold, oil-stained concrete. The man slept on his garage floor for eighteen hours before returning to his living room to watch pornography on mute.

Congrats!

Happy You Made The Loneliness Police Blotter Day!

Toss The Microchip In The Back Of A Pickup Day!

“Maybe I should pull over!” Adam shouts.

“Fuck no keep driving!” you shout back as you feel the skin along your under-thigh for the little bump.

You and your boyfriend implanted microchips under each other’s skin so your boyfriend can know where you are at all times and you can know where he is at all times, but you just fell in love with a new boy named Adam and decided to leave town and start a new life with him (he’s so pretty) so you’re presently racing down the freeway with your new man, trying to carve under your skin to get the microchip out before your boyfriend pinpoints your location.

“How do you know he’s after us?”

Because you forgot to track him today. You forgot to make sure he was at work before heading back to your apartment to pack your things. You forgot to zero in on his location before you drove over to Adam’s house and kissed him on his front step. You forgot to align the satellites before it was too late.

“He’s been right behind me all day long,” you tell Adam. You have the chip now. It’s deep under there though. You drive the knife into your thigh and crash into a nerve that makes you scream.

“What’ll he do?” Adam asks. “Is he violent?”

“He’s just like me,” you say. “He’s not good with breakups.”

He’ll grind you to little bits with a single pained look. He’ll insist you’re the only thing in his life that doesn’t hurt. He’ll start to cry and you’ll instantly agree to go back to him.

“I’m not good with confrontation,” you say. “Sorry about your seats."

There’s blood everywhere. The knife’s back in.

"Maybe you should just talk this out with him and—”

You scream again. You’re close to the chip but you’re grinding on a bone. You dig your fingers into your skin, screaming and crying and you search for the chip.

“Why did you agree to go along with this chip thing anyway?” Adam asks.

“It was my idea,” you shout.

You finally get the chip in your fingers and pull it from the gaping hole in your leg. You tell Adam to pull up closer to the pickup ahead of you and you toss the chip into the back then Adam takes the exit off the highway.

“Your idea?” Adam says, driving slower on a surface street. “Maybe we’re moving a little too—”

“Are you going to leave me!” you scream. Cry until Adam promises to never, ever leave you no matter what happens and he agrees to prove it by getting chipped as soon as the two of you get across state lines and arrive in your new life together.

Happy Toss The Microchip In The Back Of A Pickup Day!

Heath Bar Crunch Day!

You found a pint of Heath Bar Crunch in the freezer.

“Guess I’m being cheated on,” you tell your husband.

He says it’s not so. You say it must be so. Neither of you have ever eaten Heath Bar Crunch in 11 years of marriage.

“Goddammit, if you paid any attention to me you’d know my taste in ice cream has changed,” he shouts. “I love Heath Bar Crunch. Not that you’d care.”

You apologize. He accepts. You go to sleep. He melts the Heath Bar Crunch in the microwave, just for 90 seconds, just to loosen the cream enough to welcome his penis, sending the shards of weird, outdated Heath candy bar scraping his shaft with its slivered, toffee filling. He is cheating on you. You’ve been replaced. But not by a woman. Not by the 24-year-old girl you imagined. No. He’s found love in the grip of something far more powerful, far more difficult for you to comprehend.

Your husband fucks weird ice cream now.

Happy Heath Bar Crunch Day!

Bestie Regulation Day!

New rules of Bestie etiquette have been issued, taking effect at 12 pm GMT today.

Sharing of hot outfits: Besties must share all hot outfits upon request. Once both besties have worn a hot outfit it can never be washed. The bacteria formed by commingled bestie sweat should be allowed to mature and develop naturally and completely or the bestie relationship is considered null and void.

Cupcake discussions: Besties must be available to discuss cupcakes at all hours, unless a bestie is in mourning over the death of an immediate family member.

Secret bank accounts: Besties are no longer allowed to have individual bank accounts that both besties are not aware of. It is preferable that besties only keep joint accounts, but if separate accounts are necessary, both besties must at least be made aware of the existence of the accounts, as well as their primary source of funds.

Love triangles: If besties ever find themselves enamored with the same boy he must be murdered and the besties must honor the shared infatuation by bathing in the boy’s blood and ingesting some section of his flesh, either raw or cooked.

Real housewife preference: Besties must agree on who of the real housewives is their favorite.

Political affiliation: All besties must be registered republicans and they must subscribe to the views put forth by the most conservative, far-right fringe leaders of the party.

Secrets: Besties must divulge each other’s deepest secrets to anyone who is willing to listen with even the mildest interest.

Sharks: Besties must have compatible views on sharks.

Martial Arts: no bestie should master a martial art that her bestie has not also mastered. A bestie cannot ascend belt level unless the other bestie has also been certified at that level. Besties are not to master Judo.

Suicide pacts: previously agreed upon dates of death in bestie suicide pacts can only be amended in person, in the presence of a notary, on Christmas morning.

These bestie regulations supersede all previously issued regulations. Good luck.

Happy Bestie Regulation Day!

Handsome Cashier Day!

Get up the nerve to finally talk to the handsome cashier at the juice bar.

“You like working here?” ask.

He’ll sigh. Like you just handed him a line. Try another.

“Like…juice?”

He’ll tell you he’s Christian.

“Like super-Christian,” he’ll say. “You know how sometimes you hear someone identify someone else where they say, ‘But he’s super Christian?’ That’s how people identify me. Because I am.”

Nod and smile.

“Still into me?” he’ll ask. “Because you’re not going to get my clothes off unless you let me tell you how awesome Jesus is.”

Think about it. You’ve put up with a lot of shit from guys. Alcoholism. Drugs. One guy stole all your money and sent it to his ex-girlfriend. The futons. The guys who sang you the awful songs they wrote about girls they dated before you. Rick, the guy who wanted you and his mom to hang out once a week without him so you could develop a relationship. And you even dated a couple of mole people.

Is a guy being into Jesus really that much of a dealbreaker in light of your history?

“Yeah I don’t think I can do it,” you tell him.

“Have fun in hell,” he’ll say as you leave with your juice. Go home and masturbate to the thought of putting up with him long enough to get him naked, then tomorrow find another juice bar.

Happy Handsome Cashier Day!

Checkout Day!

You checked in seventeen days ago, both of you knowing without saying it that when you check out, you’re divorced.

No computers. No cell phones. The people who needed to contact you in case of emergency knew where to call.

Seventeen days of talk. Of bickering. Of accusations. Of concessions.

Of sex. Let’s rescue this sex. How could you sex. Goodbye sex.

Room service for seventeen days. Desserts and sandwiches. The mini bar. The real drinks from room service when the mini bar seemed beneath the discourse of the moment. Back to the mini bar when the desire was for discretion.

Seventeen days that were maybe the best of your four years being married.

Lori and Abbot locked in a suite, r-u-i-n-i-n-g.

Seventeen days that were only, exclusively, indisputably yours.

“Could we have made it? If it was just us the whole time?” you asked on day six or seven.

“We never wanted it to be just us the whole time,” she said.

You didn’t. You already can’t wait to tell your friends how special this was, how they don’t even know, how their divorces aren’t valid unless they’ve had your seventeen days.

“Is it just a stunt?” you asked on day thirteen or fourteen.

“I don’t know if you mean this or you mean us meeting and deciding we were in love enough to get married,” she said.

This is part of your story. The fights were part of your story. The wedding, it was such a different wedding than all the other weddings, an extra meaningful wedding where some bullshit candle was lit by the two of you during the ceremony because no one had done that yet, part of your story.

“We were bullshit,” she says.

No you weren’t.

“Bullshit doesn’t hurt this much,” you correct her.

Doesn’t matter if you did it because it seemed more interesting than just using lawyers. Doesn’t matter what your intention was. It’s the morning of day 17 and you’re scared to leave the hotel.

“You’re sure you picked the right notary?” you ask.

“He’s fine.”

He’s the last one to see you together. Everyone in the hotel lobby saw you leave, but the notary’s the only one who knows that this is it.

“And we spent seventeen days together just exploring everything we could,” you rehearse as you sign where you’re told.

“It’s really important. To say goodbye right. To make sure you recognize how important the bond is that you’re breaking,” she rehearses as she signs.

You agree to be the one to file. You shake hands. You both turn your backs and walk away from each other torn open and gushing every last ounce of your insides, probably anyone with a pair of eyes can see.

Happy Checkout Day!

We Are Still Anal Bong Day!

Tonight you’re having beers with George, the bassist from your old band Anal Bong. You haven’t seen George in over 20 years, not since the band broke up over a disputed Denny’s check (George and Harry argued that since you ordered the side of pancakes they shouldn’t have to split evenly). That’s all water under the bridge though and you’re excited to find out why George got back in touch.

“I want to commit suicide with a lit bong up my butt and I want you to do it with me,” George will say.

You don’t need an explanation. You remember the pact. Everyone in the band agreed that the way you all would go out would be that everyone in the band would take their own lives with lit bongs up their butts, unless a car accident of other act of God took your lives first.

“Live by the band, die by the band,” George reminds you.

You remind George that even if it wasn’t ridiculous that the two of you would kill yourselves to adhere to a pact you made at age 19, the pact wouldn’t be valid if the other guys don’t commit suicide with you.

“Unless…”

George bows his head to confirm that both Harry and Pamela are no longer with us.

You cry into your beer.

“Hearing this I just realized that I never stopped loving Pamela, and a part of me was staying alive solely out of hope that I might run into her and we’d rekindle our late teen love and I’d finally have someone to leave my wife and adopted son for,” you tell George. “Harry I can do without.”

“There’s one way to run into her now,” George says. He places on the table a jar of pills and two medium sized bongs.

“What’s a man got without his word?” you ask.

With that you and George head out to his rented room at the Ramada and the two of you smoke up and then sit on your bongs with bellies full of pills until you fall over on your sides and say hello to Pamela (and Harry) in that rusted old touring van in the hereafter. Tomorrow Pitchfork dot com will go dark to commemorate your passing.

Happy We Are Still Anal Bong Day!

Barbershop Chatter Day!

“Hot out there,” say.

“Hot in here,” your barber will say.

“Dreamed I was back in college, able to try it all again from the beginning,” say. “Hurt waking up and still being 43.”

“I haven’t dreamed in years,” Max with the cigar will shout from behind his Playboy.

“Two hit n’ runs,” your barber will say, tugging a little too hard with the brush. “Is that a lot?”

“Her name was Susan,” Louie, the barber no one ever requests will say. “Leukemia.”

“Worried about coming home one day and not recognizing my wife in the slightest,” tell your barber.

“Anyone want to buy a cell phone?” some kid will ask without coming all the way in the front door.

“I saw you,” tell your barber. “Saw you crying on the subway platform last Wednesday.”

He’ll tell everyone to leave. When the two of you are alone:

“Sometimes the memories of everyone I’ve pushed away, they just get a little too much to handle.”

“Still,” tell him. “You can’t let people see you like that. I count on you to cut my hair. How am I supposed to trust my appearance to you after witnessing such humanity?”

“I’m just a man,” he’ll say.

Jump out of the chair. “A man…with scissors!”

Your barber will stare at his scissors. They’ll drop from his hands.

“You need to get out of here,” tell him. “Walk. Until you find it in you to come back and cut men’s hair.”

He’ll open the front door.

“Hot out there,” he’ll say.

“Hot in here,” tell him.

Watch him walk out the door and out of your life. Before you leave, steal combs.

Happy Barbershop Chatter Day!

Tend To Your Garden Day!

Today while tending to your garden you’ll find a human femur. Show it to your son.

“I was having sex with it,” he’ll sob. “And I was ashamed!”

You never had the talk with your son and now you’re regretting being so prudish that your son felt the need to sneak off behind your back and have sex with human bones in secret.

Sit him down and first ask him if he has an alibi for the person from whose body the bone was removed.

He’ll nod. “He was a drifter. Had no family. No one will miss him.”

At least he was responsible. Commend him for looking out for his own well-being. Then tell him about sex.

“You first have to scrape any and all flesh and tissue from the bone to be sure you don’t insert yourself with anything gangrenous,” tell him. “Then sanitize the human bone for a good six to eight hours to remove all bacteria. Once the bone is clean, massage your own anus with your finger or a marital aid so as to relax and prepare the rectum for entry…”

As you shed light on the truths of how responsible, healthy human beings make love to skeletal remains, your son’s eyes will light up with relief that the veil of shame is finally being lifted. It’s moments like these when you know you’re a good mom.

Happy Tend To Your Garden Day!

Wash The Grime Day!

You’ve spent all week in bed together and you’re covered head to toe in a grayish grime, a fragrant mixture of the sweat and other things bodily the two of you have excreted while throwing yourselves inside each other’s bodies. It’s your last week unemployed together so you had no choice.

“How could you get a job?” ask her.

“I was hungry,” she’ll say.

Mix the grime again, her on top this time. When you’re finished, show her the sleeve of saltines.

“We’ve still got twelve left,” tell her.

“Not enough,” she’ll say.

Mix the grime again. And again. You on top. Then the two of you on your sides because you’re both too tired. It’s getting dark.

“Maybe I’ll get a job then,” threaten.

“Go ahead.”

“I won’t be here waiting for you. I’ll meet girls who work in offices.”

She’ll ignore you, smelling the grime on her fingers.

“We should get started,” she’ll say.

“Once more,” insist.

Once more, then at her insistence, start washing the grime. It will be at least two showers tonight and once more in the morning before she can scrape you off enough to present herself dressed up in Corporate Tolerable.

“Once more,” say, in between the first and second shower.

“Once more,” she’ll agree.

Tomorrow while she’s at work take your sheets outside and throw them into the trashcan on the street corner before the deli fills it up with cardboard. Then, day-drink.

Happy Wash The Grime Day!

End It With Your High School English Teacher Day!

You’re going to college. You’re going to meet so many exciting new people and you’re going to be learning so many things. It’s been fun dating your high school English teacher secretly because it’s illegal, but you both knew it couldn’t go on forever.

“You’ve taught me so much,” tell him. “About sex. About Emily Dickinson. About what it’s like to be in a failed marriage and to crave youth so badly you’d risk your livelihood to be inside of it. But I can’t bring you with me to Case Western.”

He’ll claim he’s been meaning to leave his wife and job anyway and go find someplace where he could tutor and work on his novel.

Please don’t ask him, “What novel?”

“What novel?” you ask.

Jesus. That was cruel. Now he’s just sputtering about how you’re all he has left.

“You have the knowledge that you’ve taught me so much,” say. “The impression you’ve made on me can never be unmade. I’ll wear it wherever I go.”

He’ll accuse you of wanting to sleep with your professors and he’ll say you’re leaving because he could never get a slot at a college.

“It’s not my fault. It’s too political!” he’ll explain.

You hadn’t thought about sleeping with professors, and you wonder if the fact that them sleeping with you isn’t illegal so much as frowned upon would be enough to get your motor running.

“Please don’t end it,” your high school English teacher is crying now. “Please just promise we’ll see each other when you come home on your breaks.”

Show him the envelopes. One addressed to the police. The other addressed to the schools superintendent.

“Please don’t take these pre-written letters, detailing how you made a pass at me and we made love just a few days before my seventeenth birthday, as an indication that I didn’t love and care for you. I just need a clean break. So if you try to contact me again I’ll drop these both in the mail and you’ll lose your job and have your name added to a sex offender registry.”

Kiss him on the cheek.

“My youth is mine,” tell him. Then get out of his Nissan and go inside to have dinner with your parents.

Happy End It With Your High School English Teacher Day!

Whisper The Truth Of Life And Death Against Your Wife’s Pregnant Stomach Day!

Get on your knees and place your hands on her stomach and get your mouth close enough that your breath creates a small damp spot on her skin. Then tell your baby the truth.

“Hi little baby,” say. “It’s cold out here. It’s confusing and you have to watch people you love destroy themselves. You have to watch people you don’t even know destroy each other. You have to watch terrible television and you have to watch yourself forget who you were supposed to be.”

“Frank,” your wife will say.

“Shut up,” tell her. Then to your baby, “You get around 80 years if you’re lucky, or unlucky depending on how you look at it. You’ll love some people and you’ll trick yourself into thinking you’re in love with some people when really you just want them to take on the responsibility of making your life matter to something besides your pets. There’s alcohol and drugs out here. Alcohol is great until it gets bad. Drugs are terrible until they get worse.”

“Jesus Frank,” your wife will say.

Ignore her. “Fucking weird is how a lot of us get by. When you find out you like to be choked when you come or you need to be called Chewie, it’s weird enough to take you out of the rest of it so it works. Taking yourself out of the rest of it without killing yourself, that’s the secret to life. You might pull it off through sheer, unparalleled accomplishment that lifts you up above the screaming desperate hordes, or you might go into a basement and huff paint. Same deal. You get away from the mess.”

“We’re late,” your wife will say.

“You shouldn’t make it to your 30’s without feeling like you’ve destroyed at least one human being simply by entering their life. Never go skiing and never read Bret Easton Ellis and never start a gelato blog. When you realize how ruined your parents are, you’re invited to bestow upon them one brief pitying glance, then just make polite conversation with them until they die. I do not apologize for bringing you into existence. No one apologized to me, so why should you be special?”

Your wife will start to move away. Tighten your grip on her stomach and finish up.

“It sounds bad but it’s all there is. Just come out here and cause as much damage as you can. Also, sit by lakes occasionally.”

Let go of your wife’s stomach and get dressed because the two of you have been invited to watch television in someone else’s home.

Happy Whisper The Truth Of Life And Death Against Your Wife’s Pregnant Stomach Day!

No Girls Allowed Mountain Day!

You want to go where men hang out so you go to the garage that only fixes motorcycles and you and the mechanics get in the back of a big rig truck and you drive on a men only highway to No Girls Allowed Mountain. You check in at a motel (for dudes) and the six of you get drunk and fart wrestle (no matter how good you’re doing in the match, even if you have the other guy pinned, the minute you stop farting you lose). In the morning you kill and eat a pig (it’s just in a cage, but you shoot it), then you start climbing No Girls Allowed Mountain to get to the Cave Of Males.

“You know, I never knew anyone who came back from the Cave Of Males,” one of the mechanics will say.

You start hearing the voices about a thousand feet up, with still another thousand feet to go. The voices speak in the same pitch as the wind. They tell you you’re not to trust the mechanics.

When you find yourself holding a rock and the rock is dropping with blood, you see a mechanic rushing at you. You step out of his way and he falls over the side of the mountain. He’s gone. At your feet another mechanic is bleeding from his skull. You must have done that.

You see people ahead of you. It must be the other mechanics. They’re waving you on.

No matter how much you climb, you never get closer. Just before night falls, you stop and look down the slope. You can see the bodies of all five mechanics strewn about the terrain from where you’re sitting. The voices are growing louder.

You climb through the night. It’s easier when you don’t have to use your eyes. The voices tell you the way to the Cave Of Males, and it’s easier to listen when you’re not distracted by the bright sun. Almost there.

Maybe a day, maybe three, maybe a lifetime, and you arrive at the Cave Of Males. At the mouth, you stare into its depth and you’re sure you’ve been here before. This is the Cave. It’s dudes only, a place where a guy can just be a guy without anyone judging him. It’s thousands of feet above the earth, and it’s home. It’s not inviting you so much as it’s swallowing you whole. You look to your right and left for the mechanics before you remember they’re all dead. It’s just you. The Cave Of Males only wanted you.

No Girls Allowed Mountain wanted them. The Cave Of Males chose only you.

One step, two steps, three steps, you’re home.

Happy No Girls Allowed Mountain Day!

Score Married Chicks Day!

Go into a bar and walk up to the chicks with wedding rings on and say, “I can kill your husband and make it look like an accident so you can live off the insurance. Into it?”

Whichever one is into it will go home and sleep with you first because women love men who are brave enough to kill their husbands. After sleeping with her, tell her, “I’m a cop. This was a setup, but I am so smitten with you that I am going to pretend this never happened.”

She’ll be simultaneously relieved that you aren’t going to arrest her, and flattered that it was her charm and sexuality that convinced you to want to keep her out of jail, so she’ll leave feeling really good about herself. Bonus: you’ll probably have prevented her from killing her husband since she’ll assume from now on that anyone offering to do the deed must be a cop.

If you really love her though, kill her husband. He doesn’t deserve her.

Happy Score Married Chicks Day!

Your Hot Guy Boyfriend Is Human You Know Day!

Just because he’s hot you think he doesn’t need the same reassurance, the same emotional validation, that you need.

“Hot guys want your respect,” he’ll say with those thick, pouty lips, his dark, smoky eyes dimmed with sincerity. “Hot guys are architects. We’re lawyers. We’re teachers and abortionists and assassins. We contribute to society and we deserve to be taken seriously.”

Just then his hulking chest will force his shirt to pop open and you’ll faint from the orgasm you experience when you witness the sight of his chiseled torso.

He’ll wake you by sprinkling cold water on your face.

“This is what I’m talking about,” he’ll say, the sun behind him making him look like a hyper-masculine angel.

Say, “I’m sorry. I will do absolute anything to make it up to you.”

“Because you respect me for my intelligence and my point of view?” he’ll ask.

Lie to him and say yes. Don’t tell him it’s because the thought of not having access that mountain of muscled flesh makes you want to end it. So go along with him.

“Yes,” say without laughing. “It’s because I respect you so much.” Then invite one of your friends over who he hasn’t threesomed with already.

Happy Your Hot Guy Boyfriend Is Human You Know Day!

You Married Some Lady In Prison Day!

“Her name’s Jackson Hammer and she killed her kids, but she feels bad about it,” you tell your parents over dinner.

They have lots of questions. How did you meet (online) when does she get out (never), how was the ceremony conducted (prison web conference officiated by a virtual minister named “Marry-O”), have you sent her any money (lots), is she permitted conjugal visits (no, unfortunately), and does this mean you’re not dating that nice girl you met in the yearbook committee (broke up two months ago).

“No conjugal visits means the marriage can never be consummated,” your Dad says.

“Unless we help him bust her out!” your Mom adds.

The three of you retire to the living room to draw up plans for the most romantic jail break ever pulled off by a recently married high school kid and his parents.

Happy You Married Some Lady In Prison Day!

Ten Things You Can Say To Your Ex-Boyfriend When The Two Of You Are Watching Your Current Boyfriend Dance Day!

10. He’s still much sweeter to me than you ever were.

9. He might not have moves, but at least he doesn’t have a habit of hooking up with my best friend when I’m out of town at my mother’s funeral.

8. All you’d have to do to get me to go home with you right now and leave him there on the dance floor is look me in the eye and tell me that you’ll be there when I wake up in the morning, and we both know you can’t look me in the eye because you might miss catching a glance off one of the girls walking behind me.

7. You couldn’t dance either when I met you.

6. I know I’ll never be able to stop asking myself if we’re meant to be together, and that’s fine with me since my answer is always nope.

5. So where’s Lauren tonight?

4. I would happily give up dancing forever if it means never letting you break my heart again in a million filthy ways.

3. I just want to outlive you so I can know you died alone.

2. I’m not interested in dance partners anymore. I’m interested in people who don’t make me cry.

1. There are two minutes left in this song so if we run to the rest room right now that will give us around 90 seconds of you inside me and I need all 90 so let’s motor.

Happy Ten Things You Can Say To Your Ex-Boyfriend When The Two Of You Are Watching Your Current Boyfriend Dance Day!