Tell Your Dad He’s Been Replaced Day!

“I met a boy,” tell him. “He’s everything you’re not.”

“Guess he’s not awesome then!” your Dad will say as you lift up your bags and walk out the door. He’ll run to the door, laughing, and yell at your back, “I said, guess he’s not awesome! Come on, that was awesome!”

You’ll keep walking to your new boy’s apartment, vowing never to see your dad again.

Three months from now your new boy will cheat on you and you’ll look up your Dad but he’ll be dead. When you go to his grave you’ll whisper, “You were right, Dad. He wasn’t awesome.”

The epitaph on your Dad’s grave will read, “I Die With Just One Regret - That I Couldn’t Have Been Born On A Planet That Could Handle My Awesomeness.” You’ll pray for him to find himself on that planet in his next life, then you’ll go back to the boy who cheated on you because with your Dad gone, all the remaining men are all the same.

Happy Tell Your Dad He’s Been Replaced Day!

Fist Bump Day!

Today when you fist bump people it means you once heard your mother tell a friend of hers that she regrets having you.

“Don’t you love your offspring?” you heard the friend ask your mother.

“I think he’s okay,” your mom said. “But sometimes when the phone rings I imagine it’s the police telling me he got in a car accident and died, and I get a little giddy. Then when it turns out not to be true, I get bummed out.”

You heard your friend tell your mom that she knew of a guy who buys kids. You were only eight at the time and the friend told your mom eight is the max age he’ll buy. Your mom asked what the guy buys kids before and the friend said she didn’t know.

“Do you care?” you heard the friend ask.

Your mom shrugged and said she’d think about whether she wanted to sell you, when you were almost at the age when you could run errands.

That’s what it means if you fist bump anybody today. That you heard your mom have that conversation. If you fist bump tomorrow, it goes back to meaning you’re afraid of strongmen tearing your hand off at the wrist if you engage in handshakes.

Happy Fist Bump Day!

Ask The Barista Day!

You like that brown-haired girl who always sits in the corner of the coffee shop working on her laptop but you don’t know how to say what you feel so ask the Barista to say it for you.

“Instead of her name, write what I tell you on the side of her cup,” you say to the Barista. He is an angry person with a turtle tattoo on his left hand.

“What’s in it for me you fuck?” he asks. You don’t take it personally. It’s coffee shop policy to address every customer as “you fuck.”

“I’ll drop two bucks in the tip cup,” you say.

He nods. You drop the bucks then you tell the barista what you feel. He writes it all down then he shouts for her to pick up her drink.

“You in the corner. The way your brown hair cascades over your laptop makes me wish I could be your laptop, that my body parts could be the keys on your keyboard, like that my penis was the space bar since you’d be hitting that one a lot, and I guess my eyes would be the bracket keys or something. Anyway, you’re the most beautiful girl in the coffee shop and I wish I knew what you smelled like but you sit so close to the bathroom. Come get your drink and let me love you.”

She gets up from her chair to get her drink and finds you waiting to give it to her. She takes it from you, reads from the side of the cup all that the Barista just shouted, then removes the lid and throws the drink in your face. Luckily, it was iced.

“Are you okay, you fuck?” the Barista asks.

You’re not. “I guess this is goodbye,” you tell the Barista. “I only came here so I could imagine my life with that brown-haired girl. Now that she’s given me her answer, I have to go to find another coffee shop where I can fixate on a new stranger.”

The Barista says, “I won’t let you go.”

He invites you into the back, where he knocks you unconscious and keeps you locked away for months. He keeps several other customers there too, customers who were thinking of frequenting other coffee shops. He’ll slowly poison you with ammonia dosed lattes. Your bodies will be found in a pile under some beans. Your Barista will escape to get a job serving coffee in a new town, developing new, indelible relationships with the regulars.

When your face appears in the paper as one of the dead, the brown-haired girl won’t recognize you.

Happy Ask The Barista Day!

The Bulbs In The Streetlamps Day!

Only one of your neighbors on the community board is still fighting you. Go see him today.

“I just want a month,” you tell him. “A single thirty days of red bulbs.”

“Too dangerous,” he murmurs. He didn’t even turn the TV off. You had to grab the remote and mute it.

“She loved red bulbs,” you say. “Her rose garden. Everyone marveled at it. She gave so much to this block, asking for nothing in return. Let me give something back to her. Let me turn the entire neighborhood rose-red for her.”

He snorts.

“What’s so funny?” you ask.

“I was you once,” he says. “When my wife died I wanted to scratch her name into the sky. I wanted to do what she ‘would have wanted.’ Soon you’ll accept that she wants nothing anymore. That’s the good part of death. The wanting stops.”

You both sit in silence.

“Unfortunately,” he adds. “You have to accept that she doesn’t even want you anymore.”

He cries in his chair, staring at a court show. You drop the photos on the table.

“I know you had your neighbors’ tree branches cut down,” you tell him. “It wasn’t the storm. You used the storm as your excuse and cut down the branches reaching into your yard while the Canters were away.”

He stares at the pile of photos without reaching for them.

“Approve the red bulbs at tonight’s block meeting,” you tell him. “Vote yes on turning the neighborhood red in honor of my late wife’s rose garden. Let me mourn my wife to the fullest of my ability. Or so help me God the photos of you shouting up at your tree surgeon will be on every folding chair at that meeting.”

You leave the photos there for him to peruse. Tonight, you can be sure you’ll get the votes necessary to give a proper goodbye to your sweet, departed bride.

Happy The Bulbs In The Streetlamps Day!