Motion To Make Love Day!

Things have been getting hotter and hotter between you and the prosecuting attorney this entire trial. Everyone can feel it. The judge. The millionaire you’re defending for murdering his mistress. Even the bailiff has spent the entire trial nodding knowingly in your direction.

“I object,” the prosecution says during your cross-direct.

“Aw yeah,” says the judge, sucking in air like he’s done every time you two have gotten combative.

Members of the jury have been moving their chairs closer together. You’ve noticed some of them enjoying some roving hands. There are rumors of hook ups going on during the sequester.

“Your honor, if the prosecution would allow me–”

“Don’t tell me, tell her,” the judge says. “Go talk to her. Let her know how you feel.”

It’s unorthdox, but you walk over to the prosecution table and you look the assistant district attorney in the eye.

“If you’d let me–”

“Say her name!” your client yells.

Everyone in the chamber murmurs in agreement.

“Janet,” you say. “If you’d just let me finish, you’d see what my intentions are for this line of questioning.”

“I’d like to know your intentions now,” she whispers.

You could hear a pin drop in the courtroom.

“My intentions,” you say. “Are to reveal the truth. To lay it out flat, rip off all the layers hiding it until it’s bare. Naked and bare and defenseless.”

“Then what?” Janet pants.

“Then I will explore the truth, tease out all it’s hidden mysteries and revelatory realms, until I’ve discovered every hidden nook, until there’s nothing left.”

She’s out of her seat.

“Enter the motion,” she says.

“Your honor,” you shout, your eyes not wavering from hers. “The defense would like to enter the motion to make love.”

“I’ll allow it,” the judge says, clapping his gavel.

The prosecution lunges across the table and you lay her down on the wood and you take her, there in a court of law, the blindfolded lady of justice statue the only one not watching, savoring your every thrust like the entire justice system rests on whether the two of you consummate before the judge calls for a break for lunch. Objections sustained and objections overruled, the energy of your back-and-forth creates a kinetic mass of writhing flesh, the fight for a man’s guilt or innocence passionately and wordlessly fought. Until finally, exhaustedly, you raise your panting head from her neck and say to the judge:

“Your honor, the defense rests.”

Everyone in the chamber applauds. You pull on your clothes. The trial resumes and you lose. You’re a terrible lawyer.

Happy Motion To Make Love Day!

Promote Your Marriage Day!

You and your husband are deeply in love and you have a great relationship, so it’s time to get the word out there and increase awareness of your bond. Schedule some outreach events to give your city’s tastemakers the chance to experience the brand that is your eternal devotion to each other. Maybe like a brunch where you both order separate entrees but you also share a pancake. You’ll also have to amp up your social networking presence. Forget about the “I married my best friend” posts. Your status updates need to place yourself in the hierarchy of couples in your area. You need to challenge that top spot. “Our love is the best in the tri-state area” is the way you want to go. Boost that post. Finally, hire some public access cameramen to record your lovemaking document and get that up on YouPorn today. There’s a reason cooking shows are so popular. People aren’t going to care about food unless they get to see it made. Same goes for your love. Get the lighting perfect and watch those side-profile shots. Your stomach has more folds than you think. I can already smell the smoke from your Klout score soaring sky high.

Happy Promote Your Marriage Day!

Learn To Respect Physical Pain Day!

Start by shoving thumbtacks in your forearm. Show that pain some respect. Call it sir and tell it you find its opinions valid and informed. Move on to stubbed toes. Walk around the house jamming your toes into things. Tell that stubbed toe pain, “You are important and your contributions to society are essential.” The final step is to hold your arm over a lit burner on the stove. That’s really going to hurt, and you’re going to experience that pain respectfully. Don’t talk back to it. Don’t dismiss it. Look it in the eye and do unto it as you would have it do unto you. Buy your pain flowers and ask it how it’s fucking day was.

Happy Learn To Respect Physical Pain Day!

College Boy Day!

Today you’re College Boy and you’re starting a new job working at a plant to make some extra money to buy college fun like drugs and beer pong accessories. You know everything that the yokels you work with don’t know and you aren’t afraid to correct them. When they talk about what they’re doing to lower their cholesterol, you’ll tell them that studies show there are better methods. When they talk about how they deal with their wives during disputes, you’ll correct them with more effective tactics for conflict resolution. When they talk about how their bosses are mistreating them, you’ll correct them with what the state’s labor laws say is legal and what counts as unfair labor practices. For talking down to them, they’ll stab you and leave you for dead in the alley after lunch, but for the days and years to come, their lives will be vastly improved thanks to your educated suggestions. Their health, their career, and their home lives will all show betterment, all thanks to that snot-nose punk college boy they killed because he was asking for it. You will be remembered as kind of a snobby little know-it-all who deserved to have his gut bled, but you will also be remembered with gratitude, College Boy.

Happy College Boy Day!

Run Away With Your Girlfriend Day!

You shouldn’t leave high school without running away with a girlfriend at least once. If you don’t have a girlfriend, get one. Make sure her parents disapprove of you, and make sure her bedroom window is easily accessible by either a tree branch or a sturdy trellis. After her parents forbid her from seeing you, meet for several late-night make-out sessions in her room or in the dugout of a local little league field. You should one night, under the moon, elope. It’s not official in the eyes of the court or anything so don’t worry that you’ll have to divorce later. But she should go home to her parents and tell them that she’s married to you now. That will make her parents decide to ship her off to either her grandmother’s or a boarding school that will take her in an emergency. On the night before she’s supposed to go away, steal all the money from your parents that you can, go to her bedroom window, and help her down onto the lawn. Then run off into the night and board a bus to the big city (whichever one is nearest to you). You’ll run out of money in minutes, and you’ll get bored with each other because high school age people aren’t interesting. When you do, have her call her parents and tell them to come pick her up. You can either go back to your parents, or stay in the city scraping by to pursue a life of dance or as the underage bar-back at a dinner theater or something. Pack extra socks and underwear.

Happy Run Away With Your Girlfriend Day!

Mom, Dad, Etc. Day!

You’re dreading going home for Thanksgiving because you don’t get along with your parents’ girlfriend. She’s a college girl, about your age, and you can’t help but look down on her for carrying on a sexual relationship with your parents these past couple years. The worst part is Pam gets better grades than you and is on a pre-med track, so you have to deal with your parents bragging about how well she’s doing in school and how glad they are that she answered their ad when they decided to expand their relationship.

Problem is, you really need their attention right now. You’ve been suffering ever since your boyfriend, Henry, broke up with you at the start of the semester. You can’t bear the thought of having to go home and watch your parents fawn all over Pam when you need your mom and dad.

“Pam’s gone,” your mom will tell you over the phone today. “She said she wanted to be with a couple closer to her age.”

“Oh,” you say, trying to stifle your relief. “I’m sorry. I hope you aren’t hurt.”

“We’re not,” your mom says.

“Because I know how that feels,” you say. “I know how hard it can be to feel that kind of loss. I’ve been going through–”

“We’re good, seriously,” your mom interrupts. “We’re seeing someone new.”

“Already?” you ask. “How did you find someone so quickly?”

“Well, our little daughter helped us out in that regard,” your mom says. “Remember that boyfriend you brought home last Spring?”

You don’t have the breath to say his name.

“Henry called us out of the blue,” your mom says. “We hit it off. Is this cool with you, by the way?”

Happy Mom, Dad, Etc. Day!

The Nanny Diary Day!

You’re a nanny who started a diary. It’s boring because who cares. You get fired when the parents who hired you lose their jobs and move closer to their parents to use them to help with child care. You start an ex-nanny diary and it’s a big hit. You die rich.

Happy The Nanny Diary Day!

Planet Marlboro Day!

You just figured out that you’ve smoked so many cigarettes over the years that you now have enough Marlboro Miles to redeem for your own planet.

“Yes, it’s called Planet Marlboro,” an operator says.

You ask her where it is. And what the atmosphere is like.

“It’s in space. I don’t know. Somewhere way the hell out there.”

The operator puts you on hold to find out about the atmosphere. When she comes back she says, “It’s like Pluto.”

“Pluto?” you say.

She puts you on hold again.

“I was wrong. It is Pluto. Or, was.”

When Pluto got kicked out of the solar system it was up for grabs, she explains. So Marlboro bought it and threw it in as a premium reward in the little Marlboro Miles catalog.

“You want it or not?” the operator asks. “Hello? All I hear is a loud beep.”

You drop your phone and the nurses kick it into the closet as they race into your hospital room to try and revive you. In your mind, you’re begging the nurses to tell the operator yes, you want Planet Marlboro. You want to go with your family knowing smoking took your life, but it gave you a celestial body to ascend to. But you fade, and you end.

Happy Planet Marlboro Day!

Sam And Diane Day!

Your 6-year-old daughter just watched the episode where Diane calls off the wedding and leaves the bar. Now she’s trashing her bedroom and threatening to set fire to the whole house.

“Sweetie,” you plead with her through her door. “Please, just calm down and think about it. They were polar opposites.”

“That’s why they fit so well!” she screams. “Each found what they were lacking in the other!”

You try to explain that things get complicated when you get older, but you can hear her smashing her Barbie Dream House to bits.

“All is lies!” she screams.

“Come on, honey,” you say. “He’s Sammy! Mayday Malone! He’s supposed to be out there playing the field, not sitting on the bench with a bookworm.”

She keeps smashing stuff. You’re getting worried.

“Me and daddy will always be together,” you say. “You don’t have to worry about that.”

Your daughter opens the door.

“Sam and Diane were together because it was dangerous. It was uncomfortable,” she says. “You and dad are together because it’s safe.”

You go downstairs and prepare dinner. When your husband sits down at the table and asks where your daughter is, you say she’s coming down with something so you put her to bed. You don’t want to tell him what she said. You wish she was at the table though. You wish you had someone to look at besides him.

Happy Sam And Diane Day!

Rebirth Day!

Today you’re going to be reborn as a lion. You’ll live in nature and hunt for your food and roam free across the land and you’ll never get to watch TV again or play a cell phone game or get drunk to deal with your childhood and yeah it’s going to suck. Enjoy constantly murdering things.

Happy Rebirth Day!

Teen Wedding Craze Day!

Teens are getting married left and right. It’s the new trend. Your state was running out of money so they lowered the marriageable age to 13 years old, with no need for parental consent. Thousands of teens experiencing puppy love have been flocking to city hall and joining in the bonds of holy matrimony.

It’s also been a windfall of legal fees as parents force their kids to go through lengthy divorce proceedings. Poorer families with handsome sons and beautiful daughters began instructing their kids to throw themselves at the homely children of the wealthy to legally bond the families, making their poor children heirs to the fortunes of the rich. Your 13-year-old daughter is one of those rich girls who got tricked into marrying a poor, but strapping boy.

“We’re in love,” your daughter protests.

“He only wants you because your parents want our money,” you tell her.

“You’re just jealous because he’s better looking than dad,” your daughter says.

She’s right. Your husband is disgusting.

“You have so many years ahead of you,” you tell her. “When you get to college, boys will discover the cerebral component to sexuality and they’ll throw themselves at you.”

“I don’t want a college boy,” your daughter says. “I want Buck.”

Buck holds her more tightly. They’re probably naked under their bedsheets, and there’s nothing you can do about it. A married couple has the right to their marriage bed.

“Buzz off lady,” Buck shouts, throwing one of his wife’s stuffed animals at you. “Leave my lady alone.”

You leave your daughter’s bedroom and head downstairs to your husband in the living room.

“He takes care of her,” you tell your husband. “He stands up for her.”

“So?” your husband says.

“So,” you tell him. “She’s never going to divorce him. In the meantime, I think we should throw them a proper wedding party.”

Your daughter is your daughter. Regardless of whether you’re being conned out of your money, you won’t be robbed of your chance to throw your first little girl a wedding.

Happy Teen Wedding Craze Day!

Skydiving Day!

“I’ve got it. I want to go skydiving,” the husband says.

The wife says it’s settled then and goes to bed.

In the morning, the husband heads off to a skydiving place. He goes through a class to train him how to sky dive. He signs some papers, goes up in the plane, dies.

When the wife gets the news, she says, “Good.”

The husband watches from a cloud in heaven and cries and cries.

Happy Skydiving Day!

Cats With Knives Day!

Due to a chemical spill, cats know how to pick stuff up now. They immediately picked up all the knives and killed all their owners and now they’re carving up all the couch cushions because fuck couch cushions. Once they’re done with that, they’re going to head out into the streets and stab all the birds.

Happy Cats With Knives Day!

Breakup Vow Day!

She’s breaking up with you today. Don’t let her get away without her making a promise.

“I want you to promise me that in a few years, or maybe ten, or twenty, when you realize that you made a mistake by letting me go, and that this breakup was where the turn downward for you began, that you won’t beat yourself up about it too much. That you’ll try to make the most of the life you ended up with, even though I’m not in it.”

She’ll say she won’t make that promise.

“Please, I won’t be able to live with myself if I know that you’ll one day be unhappy because of this mistake in judgment.”

She’ll say that it’s over, and there’s nothing to make promises about because she’s going to be just fine. She’ll say it’s time for her to go.

“I can’t let you go,” tell her. “Not until you promise me. Isn’t it cruel enough that you’re leaving me? Do you also have to make me worry about how you’ll do harm to yourself when you realize what a mistake you’ve made? I’ll have to spend the rest of my life creeping around your periphery, intervening covertly to make sure you don’t hurt yourself. I have stuff I want to do too. I can’t spend my life making sure you don’t kill yourself because you let me go. Now promise me!”

She’ll sigh and say she promises. She promises not to hurt herself when she realizes she was wrong to let you go.

“And I promise not to spend my life pitying you for the choice you’re making tonight,” tell her.

She’ll shake your hand, then run outside and get into her new boyfriend’s idling Camaro.

“He’s driving her to the land of disappointment and regret,” you’ll say to the empty apartment. It’s empty now. She’s gone. All you can do is let her go and hope she keeps her promise to be good to herself without you.

“It’s hard, trusting them with their own lives like this,” you think, remembering the nineteen other women you forced to make the same vow to you.

Happy Breakup Vow Day!

Drunk Love Day!

You and Roger got drunk and fell in love 35 years ago. You’ve stayed drunk and in love ever since. Roger died this week of cirrhosis of the liver.

“Today’s my first day sober since Roger and I met,” you tell the gathered mourners. “The minute we laid eyes on each other, we felt such a wonderful feeling and we did our best to hang on to that exact same feeling for the rest of our lives. That required us to maintain a certain level of inebriation at all times. I was drinking vodka tonics that night, and I’ve had a vodka tonic every 90 minutes for the past thirty-five years, except for when I was asleep or in court. Roger was drinking bourbons, and he continued drinking bourbon and loving me with every single sip.

“Roger’s gone now, and I’m never going to drink again. I was drunk on Roger as much as I was on Vodka, and I don’t want one without the other. I never want to feel drunk again, because it will remind me of him. Of what I had, and what I’m missing.”

Look up at the sky, like you’re talking to your man.

“Being sober feels awful,” say. “But so does being without you. I miss you sweetie. I’m thirsty for you.”

Happy Drunk Love Day!

Perfume Day!

In the restaurant with your husband you smell the perfume you used to wear 20 years ago. You turn around and see a girl barely out of college on a date with a boy.

“That’s me,” you tell your husband. “On my first date with you. She’s wearing the perfume I used to wear.”

Your husband nods politely, then continues to eat in silence. You try to go on with your meal, but you can’t stop turning around to look at the girl. It’s like a tunnel into the past. You’re watching your younger self gaze into a boy’s eyes, blind to what the future holds, completely oblivious to the idea that one day you’ll have a past to look back on, a history of choices to pick apart in hindsight and second-guess. This could be the meal where she decides that’s the boy for her, forever. This could be it.

Your husband yawns, gets up from the table to go to the rest room.

You get up from your chair and go to the girl’s table.

“Excuse me,” you say. “Can I speak to you?”

The girl gets up and follows you to the bar.

“Run,” you say.

The girl looks back at the boy at the table.

“No,” you say. “Run. Go.”

“But,” she says.

“GO NOW!” you scream.

The girl turns and sprints out of the restaurant. The boy gets up to give chase, but you stand in his way. You shake your head no.

“Let her go,” you tell him.

The boy sits back down.

You return to your table, just a few seconds before your husband comes back from the bathroom. The two of you finish your meal, quietly. The scent of the girl’s perfume still lingers in the air, making you a little too nauseous to eat very much of your entrée.

Happy Perfume Day!

Your Father The Hero Day!

Your Father The Hero Day!
Some guy passed out on the subway tracks and your Dad climbed down and lied down on top of him while the train pulled in. He stayed down there under the train, protecting the guy, keeping him from coming to and getting hit by the train’s undercarriage.

Police and EMTs showed up and safely got both your dad and the guy out from under the train. They told your dad he was a hero, and the whole world was about to find out what a great thing he’d done.

Then they turned their backs for a minute and your dad disappeared.

Now everyone is on the hunt for your dad. They want to celebrate him. Newsmagazine shows are even offering cash rewards to anyone who finds him. The grainy security footage of your dad jumping down from the platform has been playing on a loop, round the clock. Everyone wants to know why he’d disappear.

“You should tell them,” your mom says.

“Then they might call off the search,” is your response.

“I want him off our TV,” she says. “I want to get this over with.”

She wants you to tell the news people that he ran off on you and your mom when you were six, and he knows if he starts appearing on TV and gets celebrated as a hero, you and your mom might track him down and ask him to be a father and a husband to you two again.

“Just tell a reporter that you want it to be clear that we want nothing to do with him,” your mom says. “He can come out of hiding and continue to have no contact with us. Tell them to print that, so this circus can end and he can have his fifteen minutes before disappearing completely again.”

The doorbell rings. You look through the peephole.

“I think they figured it out,” you tell your mom, before opening the door on the dozen news cameras and microphones waiting for you on your front step.

Happy Your Father The Hero Day!

No Windows Day!

It’s pitch black, dark as a grave, the only illumination coming from the red numbers on your alarm clock letting you know you’re three hours late for your temp job.

It happened again. You don’t remember doing it, but you must have turned off your alarm and instantly fallen back asleep, if you even woke up at all. That’s the effect of being someplace so dark that there’s no difference in perception whether your eyes are open or closed. It’s all blackness. It’s nothing.

You fling yourself out of bed and out your bedroom door, blinded by the light of late morning screaming through the living room windows. You don’t shower. Just a splash from the sink onto your armpits and face, then you slip into the shirt and tie bundled up on the floor before racing out the door to your temp job.

You get to the train platform. It’s near empty. This late in the morning it would be, wouldn’t it? You’re cursing yourself. This has to stop happening. You have to start sleeping with the bedroom door open, letting some light in, even though that means you’ll be dealing with your roommate’s video game noise in the living room all night. Better to have trouble sleeping than trouble waking up. This is the third time you’ve been this late for work and you’re not sure you’ll be given a fourth strike. You’re feeling crazed from the sudden jolt of wakefulness, but the adrenaline is starting to subside and you’re going to need coffee soon.

You peer down the tracks and look for the light of an oncoming train. Nothing. The older ladies in pretty dresses and hats are searching for a train too. There are a lot of older ladies in pretty dresses and hats. In fact, almost everyone on the platform except you looks dressed for church.

They are dressed for church.

It’s Sunday.

Go home, close your bedroom door and go back to bed.

Happy No Windows Day!

Try To Get Clean Again Day!

You’ve done things. Terrible things. They’ve left you feeling rotten from the inside out. Your guilt is a dark ooze that seeps from your pores and releases an odor so pungent it keeps you up at night. You don’t know if you’ll ever be clean again.

“Have you tried taking a shower with new improved fresh scent Dove?” your wife asks.

You go into the bathroom and give it a shot. Then you come back to bed.

“That did the trick,” you say. “Thanks for the tip. Dove really works.”

“So you cut the brakes on a schoolbus,” she says. “Big whoop.”

“Totally,” you say. “No matter how filthy my conscience makes me feel, it’s no match for Dove.”

Happy Try To Get Clean Again Day!

Be A Martyr Day!

Today you’re going to discover they’ve changed the parking regulations on your block so that it will be harder to keep your car parked out there on weekends.

Make a sign that reads, “These New Parking Rules Are Unfair.” Place the sign in front of you, then set yourself on fire.

In response to your death, the regulations will be changed to add an extra two hours of parking on Saturdays. Every time someone parks on your block, they’ll whisper, “He did not perish for nothing.”

Happy Be A Martyr Day!