Matt's Fiction Blog

2011-09-21T14:47:00.004-04:00

Attention, three people who have ever read this: I have moved to mattwrotethis.com

You can read all the fun new stuff over there!

"The Rapture"

2011-09-12T18:26:00.003-04:00

I stroll into the bathroom and rip a hot piss into the sink while my boys laugh in the other room. In a framed photo Trey's mom smiles in her Sunday best while she watches me. I chuckle and high five myself. I wish I was in my truck so I could honk my horn. "Hey bros," I say, "guess whose sister is getting the old..."

I turn the corner and the basement is empty. The couches are bare. Not a single bro is left; only a folded ballcap that says Cocks remains. It is disturbingly quiet. There is no laughter; there is no talk of anal sex. The TV is on, but once I realize the gravity of the situation, America's Funniest Home Videos is anything but. It hits me like a slap on the beanbag: this is the Rapture. My friends are gone - whisked away to Heaven, while I, perhaps the lone sinner of the gang, am left to wander this abandoned planet, considering my faults. While my friends enjoy eternal bliss with their families and porn stars, I will be alone on Earth, regretting all of those hot pisses I ripped in sinks. What else have I done to deserve this fate? I consider the jet-skis I stole and the extreme air I caught on them. Did I hit the wake too hard? Did I get too much air? Should I have donated some of that air to the less fortunate? I think of the time I staged a party in my bedroom just to have shirtless pictures of myself pounding sugar-free Rockstars to upload to Facebook. Does Ari from Entourage count as a false idol? Images flash across my mind: sexually explicit touchdown celebration dances; BitTorrent downloads of the Fast and Furious pentalogy; putting my lips right on the water fountain spout when I had strep throat just because I am a dick.

I remove my clothing and assume the child's pose on the floor of Trey's basement. I am alone now, trapped with my sins, and I know that I should repent to the Heavens, to strip myself to my primal essence and beg forgiveness for all of the hotel towels I rubbed my butt on and all of the lab partners I sexted in vain. I remove from the wall a framed photo of Trey shaking hands with Muggsy Bogues and shatter the glass over my head. I dance in a circle and chant incomprehensible sounds. It feels right; I know it is right. I spin in violent circles until the room is a smear and I fall to the ground, nude on a pile of glass and camouflage cargo shorts. I look skyward and shout, "I apologize for defecating in my sister's backpack! I repent for eating frozen yogurt samples with no intent to make a purchase! I atone for all of the heckling of other fans on the lawn at DMB shows!" and I rear back, a bull ready to charge. I aim myself at the television, a fifty-five inch big-screen, about three feet deep. I sprint into it, releasing a guttural scream from my bowels, hoping this gesture will prove to whatever higher power exists that I am truly sorry for mooning that family while I wakeboarded past them. I crash through the screen and a shower of sparks tickles my back. My hair is fried stiff and I have been electrocuted.

A door opens and there is noise. I cannot see anything from the cage of glass and plastic I reside in. Is it God? An angel? I can only hear muffled noises. "What the fuck? We go to Arby's for five minutes and this is what he does?"

I am frozen and bleeding. The Rapture did not come, but Arby's did. I hope those assholes got me something.

"Before Last Names"

2011-09-08T18:28:00.004-04:00

Dear Ophelia,

I am writing...Hang on, before I start this let's just sort this out to avoid all the confusion from last time. So this letter is meant for Ophelia, daughter of Ophelia, daughter of Ophelia, in the house of Lucius. The Lucius with the long hair, not the bald Lucius my last letter apparently went to. I mean the Lucius with the long dark hair, the one who sells olives. And then, within his house, I mean the Ophelia who is twenty years old. I know there are a few Ophelias in there, so I need this to go to the one who is intolerant of lactose. I don't know how else to describe her. She looks a lot like the other Ophelias in there and one time I learned the hard way after fornicating furiously with one of them who was apparently not my Ophelia. So maybe to find the right one you could make all of the Ophelias drink milk and find the one who throws up the most and give her my letter? But I guess at that point she'd probably be in a pretty bad mood. I don't know. She's the Ophelia with a mole on her hand. Someone will figure this out.

Ophelia, my sweet Ophelia... Christ, I'm almost out of ink now. Long story short, I'm pretty sure my horse ate your mother today. I would elaborate but I'm almost out of ink. Is your mother the Ophelia with the reddish-brown hair, or one of the Ophelias with the brownish-red hair? Maybe we could just give her a second name, something like Ophelia Horsefeed, so we can remember she was the one who got eaten by the horse.

-Tiberius, son of Tiberius, son of Gaius, the one with the long index finger. But not the really long index finger, that's a different guy.

"Good Seal"

2011-09-07T17:48:00.002-04:00

I straighten my bow-tie and tuck myshirt in again. My father's tuxedo hangs off of me and every time I adjust the sleeves I blow my alibi of being a man. My armpits are transparent with sweat and cologne. She is in a dress and I don’tknow how to describe it. Shiny. Beautiful. Purple? She tells me I smell like gasoline and I hush heras we crawl into the cannon. The seal is already in there and he doesn’t make apeep, just like we agreed. If the ring leader hosting the show out in thebig-top knew we were in here he’d beat me with a big shoe.

We are packed in tight, sealed in total darkness. We aregreased with elephant fat to ensure a smooth take-off. The fuse is on its lastfibers. Boom. We rocket out of the cannon, me and her hugging this seal, Lucas,the Lord’s most beautiful and slippery creature. We shoot skyward, through thetent and towards the heavens. Cool sky melts behind us and the clowns arescreaming from the ground, noisy ants, some red, some black, some in a tinycar. The moon beckons us and with a gust of wind, an exhalation from God, mytuxedo slips off of me and I am revealed for the creature I am: long, gangly,greasy, young, and eager. My father died in that tuxedo, caught on the wrong end of a black market pancake deal gone sour, but I will die without it. Her dress is torn in two and she grips Lucas the seal, nudeand free and joyous. We lock eyes as the world becomes a period and we know wehave transcended the finality of our terrestrial bind. Lucas balances a beach ball on his nose. It does not waver in the two-hundred mile-per-hour wind. Good seal.

We are Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve and Lucas the seal. Wekiss passionately over Mercury and the hairs on our neck stand up. Is it themagic moment? Is this the hand of God urging us to a new universe, beckoning usto populate it? I feel we have defied physics, because how can fireworks exist in outer space? Or is it the heat of thesun’s rays igniting our epidermis? The flames grow stronger and the almightysun engulfs our field of vision. Pure yellow, pure red, pure fire. Lucas’sblood boils and the steam smells of berries. The stench hits me and I know howwrong I was. We are no Adam and Eve. We are Icarus. The heat rays make contact with the thick layer of cologne on my skin and with a Devil's handshake they merge, lighting my acne-scarred skin on fire. Pure hellfire licks my face and body. We are a shooting star. We are a ball of light, pure energy, pure wonder, pure pain, an unbreakable bond glued together by our mutual enjoyment of a Motion City Soundtrack song. I sniff and realize she was right all along: I do smell like gasoline. My lady and I are blindedand we embrace, knowing our fate is to be broiled on the surface of the sun.

Those, sir, are my intentions with your daughter. I hope that you will trust her with me duringtonight’s homecoming dance.

"Am I the Guy?"

2011-09-07T17:14:00.000-04:00

Am I the guy you’ve been waiting your whole life for?
Am I the guy you take home to mom and dad?
Am I the guy you brag to your friends about?
-Oh he’s just the greatest; he can eat so many wax candles.

Am I the guy inspiring your diary entries?
-Dear diary, he did it again! He shot an ear of corn out of his nose.
-Dear diary, he made me a birthday card out of skunk skin. Prince Charming!
Am I the guy your friends talk about when you all gorge yourselves on stolen tomatoes?

Am I the guy you think about before bed?
Am I the guy who sends you pictures of hot dogs cut to look like penises?
Am I the guy who talks to your socks?
Am I the guy you wrote that psychology paper about?

Am I the guy you text your friends about?
-Just wanted to say, he smells like rotten seafodd
-I think he might sleep in a dumpster
-Sorry, seafood* in the one from before

Am I the guy who stinks up your apartment?
Am I the guy who clogs your shower with blood clots?
Am I the guy who eats everything in your pantry and sneaks out the back window before you even wake up?
Am I the guy who sugars your gas tank because you told me you like sweets?

Am I the guy you write letters about to your dead grandma’s skeleton?
Am I the guy you lie to your dog about?
Am I the guy who has been eating your dog’s food?
Seriously, all that food is gone and my breath stinks and I have a stomach ache. I've found evidence of all of the above things and I really worried I'm the guy who has been doing them.

"iLearn That Life is Not a Game"

2011-09-02T16:57:00.000-04:00

iCarly

"Come On, Dad, We're Just Trying to Hang Out"

2011-08-31T16:33:00.007-04:00

On that very day Abraham took his son, Ishmael, and every male in his household, including those born there and those he had bought. Then he circumcised them, cutting off their foreskins, just as God had told him. (Genesis 17:23)

Hey guys,

I’m writing this just to say that I’m really sorry about what happened at the sleepover last Saturday. It was just terrible timing, and I swear my dad is usually pretty cool. I'm not sure what got into him. He usually uses that little knife just to slice vegetables to put in this really killer pasta salad. I know I said we'd play some card games and eat snacks, but sometimes things don’t go as planned and, hey, what can you do? It was just as traumatizing for me as it was for you when my father burst into the basement with his scalpel and started chanting, "Time to peel some ding-dongs." Hopefully one day we will come to laugh about the sadistic look on my dad's face when he told us he was not playing a prank. So we’re all a little lighter in the loins, but at least it looks pretty sleek, right? My girlfriend, Rebecca, told me it looks less like a serpent now, which it pretty cool.

I would like to invite you all over next Friday to atone for the horrors we endured. There will be truth-or-dare, a basket of tomatoes, and on the off-chance my dad decides to stomp on our balls or something, I will ask that you wear a protective cup.

-Ishmael

"The Chopper"

2011-08-29T16:52:00.005-04:00

Lieutenant Colonel Dale Erickson had been in the shit for six years. He’d known nothing but jungle, mud, sweat, blood, and death, and he thought about home and his sweet Darlene every second of every day. A transport chopper was touching down soon, but he had not be commanded to board it yet. He cleaned his rifle in silence at camp.

“Erickson,” said Major General Lance Rogers, “suit up. You’re going home. Get on that thing quick because we won't get another for six months.”

Erickson stood at attention and saluted. His face was a slate, but inside he felt an aircraft carrier had been lifted from his heart. He gathered his things and said his goodbyes to his men.

“Goodbye and good luck,” he said to Pvt. Scott Lucian.

“You have served your country well, soldier,” he said to Pvt. Chris Finnigan.

“You have shown great courage,” he said to Pvt. Chip Freely.

“Oh, Lieutenant?” said Chip Freely.

“Yes, soldier?”

“Remember a while ago we talked about that chicken restaurant in Amarillo?”

“I don’t remember. Can you please be brief, Freely? My chopper is lifting off in three minutes.”

“Sure. You've got to get this because this chicken is so delicious. They've got wings and thighs and grilled breasts, and every kind of seasoning you can imagine. Just chicken. Nothing but chicken. Well I just wanted to tell you that I realized the directions I had given you were wrong. I told you to make a left when you got off at exit ten, from Interstate 40, but it just hit me the other day, totally out of the blue, that it’s off exit fourteen, not ten! And you actually need to take a right at the stop. And then… Are you getting all of this?”

“Sure, whatever. Please be brief, soldier.”

“Oh, okay, no problem. It’ll absolutely be worth it for this chicken. So once you take a right you’re going to go about, oh, I don’t know, six miles? No, more like eight miles down the road. Actually, it might be closer to ten. Does that sound right? Ten whole miles? Either way, you’re going to have to make a left into this confusing little turn lane, and then… Are you getting all of this? Should I slow down?”

Lt. Col. Dale Erickson watched his transport helicopter lift off and fly towards home.

“Lieutenant? Are you still listening? This is going to be important, because remember, they close pretty early, so you don’t want to get lost.”

“Please be quiet,” said Lt. Col. Erickson, staring at the empty sky. “I am a vegetarian.”

"Michael Bay GPS"

2011-08-29T16:43:00.009-04:00

Dear TomTom,

I am writing you in regard to anincident I recently had with your XXL 540TM model GPS system. The device worked fine for the first three weeks I had it, and it successfully navigated my wife and me to some weekend getaways, even in off-the-beaten-path locations. However, last Saturday, while I was driving my son to his baseball game, Derek scrolled through the Voice Settings options and selected one called Michael Bay. Suddenly our route, which was only five miles from home, was radically altered. I took this to be a live traffic update and followed Mr. Bay’s tense voice, assuming that he was leading us around some congestion at the main entrance to Ungerman Park, but the next thing I knew we were on the highway and the Bay voice was barking at me to “Drive faster,” or “Drive into oncoming traffic, you pussy.” Because of your company’s products’ stellar reviews on Amazon.com, I trusted the voice and found myself shoving the gas pedal practically through the floor of my Honda Odyssey, barreling towards screaming commuters at ninety-five miles an hour. The voice then led me on a winding course through the city, where he somehow located four plate glass windows being moved across streets and directed me to crash through them. Mr. Bay’s voice kept rising and I could sense sadistic joy in him when he told me to “Crush those fruit stands like bugs,” and “Drive on the sidewalk; it’ll be badass.” The police began tailing me at this point, on land and in the air, but instead of asking me to slow down, Mr. Bay said, “The choppers are here! Time to put on a show, hot shot,” and sent me flying through the air over a parting drawbridge. Mr. Bay wouldn’t slow down, his voice blasting out of him like machine gun bullets. This went on for an hour. By the time I ran out of gas, I was in the parking lot of the Johnson Space Center and Mr. Bay was instructing me to attach my minivan to a space shuttle. He also told me that he had made “deals” and that my “weaponry” would be arriving soon. I sat there stunned, staring at Derek, considering the trail of destruction I had just caused acting as the powerless pawn of Michael Bay's commanding voice.

When we finally returned home the baseball game had ended, but my son’s respect for me was blooming. I have never felt like more of a man. My wife was furious with her trashed minivan, but she loves the new stones I have developed in my sack. Thank you, Michael Bay voice, for making a man of me. And I also blame all of the deaths I caused on him.

Is there a way I can have Mr. Bay's voice guide me in other areas of my life? He mentioned having access to hard drugs, plastic explosives, and "loose, young women," and I feel as though my stature at the office would really rise if I had Mr. Bay's voice instructing me, perhaps encouraging me to speak my mind or destroy some copiers.

Thanks for pumping up my deflated balls,
Martin Gant

"Cool Cats and Fat Rats"

2011-08-24T17:04:00.014-04:00

Terrence tried to cover the hole in his bedsheet with his bathroom towel, but that, too, had a hole in it. “We have a minor rat problem,” he said. “But, I mean, don’t worry. They don’t have any diseases or anything. At least none that humans can get.”

Terrence sat on the edge of his bed next to Vivian, the freshman he had just failed to please sexually. “It’s fine,” Vivian said, monotone. “I always dreamed my first time would be with an audience of rodents.” She looked at the wall. "That's a cool photo of Bon Iver. Did you take it?"

"Yeah. Well, sort of. I clipped it out of the New York Times, so basically."

Vivian had only moved to school four weeks ago and was racing to catch up with the style that would make her cool. In high school she was a doormat and in college she was determined to blossom into a vintage, thrift store doormat. She wore pink, pleated high-waisted shorts that she had selected because they were the ugliest pair in the store, and from what she had observed from the palest girl with the thickest glasses in her Women’s Literature class, that made them the best.

A few flies swirled around Terrence’s collection of LPs the same way guests did: they were searching for the record player that did not exist.

“We set off a bug bomb last week,” said Terrence. “Me and my roommate, Kyle. You should meet him; he grows his own spices.”

“Where is he now? He’s never here.”

“He’s filming an experimental documentary about yeast.”

“Does he know much about yeast?”

“He knows enough.”

A cockroach that the FDA would consider a serving of meat scurried across Vivian’s $140 used Keds.

“Listen,” said Terrence. “I think we need to talk.”

A hummingbird-sized moth fluttered to the dim overhead light. Vivian stared at it. “Does Robin Williams live here, too?”

“What?”

“Your house is totally Jumanji-fied. You know, the movie?”

“Oh, right. Was that by Wim Wenders?”

“What?”

“We’ll talk about that later. I need to ask you something. We’ve been seeing each other for what, two weeks now?”

“Yeah, ever since we both bought those organic apples from the farmer’s market.”

“The best seven dollars I ever spent. I just need to know, what are we?”

“Like as people?”

“No, like us. What is going on with us? This is my last semester before I graduate and start the rest of my life writing intelligent screenplays that will reignite Hollywood, and I just need to know where we stand so I can properly evaluate my life at this key transitional stage.”

“I think we’re just… I don’t know…”

“I don’t want to start writing my screenplays until I know where we stand.”

“You haven’t written any?”

“I have notes. Are we official? Boyfriend and girlfriend? Together? A couple? An item? A fling? A hook-up?”

“I haven’t thought about it.”

“Look at this. I made a Venn diagram. It shows us. You’re this circle and I’m this one and in the middle is what we have in common. The only thing I could think to put in there was ‘brown hair.’ But I know there’s way more in here, but I just think we’re going to have to really try to find those things out.”

A rat tugged a loaf of bread past Terrence’s dresser and neither he nor Vivian noticed it.

“So what are you saying?”

Terrence crawled off the bed and got on one knee. His kneecap drove straight through the rat’s head. Blood stained his cut-off blue jeans and leaked onto his frail legs.

“Shit,” he said. “I’ll deal with that later. Vivian, what I want to know is, will you marry me?”

As Terrence opened the ring box, a support beam creaked above him. Vivian looked up and saw a crack forming in the ceiling. Terrence’s gaze was locked on Vivian’s eyes. The crack grew exponentially, birthing generations of tributaries in an instant. The cracks spread and squealed, past the dirty ceiling fan and across mildewed patches. Vivian was too stunned to move. With an explosive crash, a two-ton rat the size of a Buick burst from the ceiling, dropping like an anvil onto Terrence. Terrence exploded on impact, sending blood and bits of undigested frozen organic pizza onto his Animal Collective poster. When Vivian ran outside, the rat stared at her, uninterested, idly chewing on a rotten cat.

The Center for Animal Control found thousands of rodents living in the attic of Terrence’s hipster heaven. In fact, the orange house Terrence rented was the Kingdom of the Rats, a mecca for rodents and roaches looking to feast on locally-grown produce and vegan burritos. For a rat with a taste for over-priced groceries, 589 North Milledge Avenue was the place to be. When Terrence’s flattened body was lowered into its three-inch grave, Vivian sat in her dormitory and said to her roommate Jessica, “I mean he was kind of cool because he was older and mature and I really considered saying yes for a second before than big-ass rat fell on him, but honestly his record collection was kind of cliché.”

"The Wife"

2011-08-22T17:28:00.004-04:00

There is a myth from Native Americans of the Northwest called “The Man Who Married the Eagle.”

-Hey, man, can you step over here for a second?
-Sure thing. Is there something wrong with my gear?
-No, buddy, it’s not that. Some of the guys have been talking and we don’t want you to feel uncomfortable, but this trip is supposed to be a guy thing. You know, our time to spelunk into some caves and talk guy stuff. Get away from the old balls and chains.
-Oh my god. I… Is this about Brenda? I really didn’t have a clue. I thought I read the tree bark correctly and it didn't specify...
-It's kind of an assumed thing. It’s just, you know, none of us is really in the mood to deal with her saying her talons are chipping or her beak is getting fat or any sort of cloaca menstrual issues.
-No, no, she’s totally low-maintenance. She can preen herself. And she’s totally down with the guy talk, don’t worry about that. She has a dirtier mind than I do sometimes.
-Well that’s great, but there’s a little more to it. There is also sort of this unwritten rule about this trip where we don’t invite gigantic mythical eagles capable of ripping our heads off. So it sounds like Brenda, who looks to be swallowing a buffalo whole right now, is not on the guest list, if you get what I’m saying.
-Do you want me to ask her to leave? I rode here on her back, so one of you would have to take me home.
-SQUUUAAWWWKK!
-What the hell was that? What is she doing?
-SQUUAWK! SQUAAAWK!
-Why are her wings out? Men, prepare the spears!
-Don’t worry! She’s just receiving a telepathic message from her sister eagle gods. What’s that, sweetie? Really? No way.
-Is someone going to die? If one must, please let it be Reg, for he smells of duck.
-No, no. She just heard that Margaret, from over in the Chattahoochee Tribe, has put on some extra pounds. It’s nothing. I’ll go ask Brenda to fly home.
-Wait. Margaret Little Bear is fat? But she was so hot in buffalo hunting school. Does Brenda have any other information like this? Perhaps we could… accommodate her on this trip.
-Brenda is full of juicy gossip and she can also slaughter meaty beasts for us to… Brenda! No! Down! Put him down! Put him down! Bad! I’m so sorry. This is just horrible… He was your brother…
-It’s okay. It was only Reg, and I owed him some money anyway. Allow me to gather some colorful berries to dye our toenails. Brenda! Come here, Brenda and tell us who else has gotten fat!

"WPLX-TV"

2011-07-06T01:00:00.010-04:00

WPLX-TV is in trouble. We’re almost out of money and are consistently last in the ratings. This morning’s Nielsen overnights ranked us fifth in total viewers, behind the other three networks as well as a painting of some birds at Jeff Martin’s house, who I guess had a big dinner party.

Our 11pm newscast is a revenue black hole. We have two anchors. Don Mason is illiterate and relies on an earpiece connected to Richard Honeydew, who is blind, who has his newspapers transferred to Braille by Susan Table, deaf, who has news radio broadcasts transcribed for her by Don Mason. I tried to explain how inefficient this is to Don with a clear flowchart, but he couldn’t read it and Richard Honeydew was on vacation. Our other anchor is Charlotte Green, who is dyslexic, allergic to water, or a pyromaniac. It’s two of the three. During a get-to-know-everyone game the fire alarm went off before she could tell us which one was a lie.

Our producer, Scott Chalmers, insists on keeping them around because they have what he calls “bangable faces,” which are “pure ratings gold.” Scott is colorblind. Scott wants to be a Hollywood movie producer and acts like one by putting his stamps in the upper-right hand corner of his envelopes. But I guess everyone does that, not just Hollywood movie producers. Oh, he also sleeps with young actresses, promising to cast them in his projects. They don’t realize until it’s too late that his only project is the 11pm newscast and by casting them he means he will plant cocaine on them and call the police so he can break the news and they will have lead roles on the 11pm broadcast. I guess you could call him a sleazy guy. But don't call him that to his face. To his face he likes to be called Sven.

I have been the associate sports producer since I gave up about three years ago. Technically my job is to secure film of high school football games from fourteen year-old electronic media students, but in reality my job is to sit and think about what I’ve done with my life to wind up here. So I made a few mistakes in college, big deal. Slaughtering fifty bald eagles at the Moore Park Fourth of July Celebration is a crime now? No one alerted me. So sue me if I wanted to bring some exotic and fresh meats to the barbecue. I actually did it to impress Rachel Telephone, who told me she was really into slaughtering endangered birds to eat their meat. Turns out Slaughtering Endangered Birds to Eat Their Meat is the name of a horrendous heavy metal band and the act their name signifies repulses Rachel. Lesson learned.

My only respite from this life is my boat on Lake Hopatcon, a man-made water pit the state says is not suitable for swimming or washing cars. They even say that “Lake Hopatcon is so filthy that defecating into it would only be a disservice to the turd.” The more turds they can get in there, they say, the cleaner it gets. But I enjoy nothing more than lying out there on my boat, surrounded by the grunts and wheezes of diseased wildlife, trying to forget about my work life. The sun slowly poisons my skin with UV radiation and it is wonderful.

I was on my boat last weekend and fell asleep in the sun. I thought I died, but unfortunately when I woke up to a mutant frogbird’s forked tongue flicking my face, I realized I was merely alive and roasted. When I came to work this morning everyone was eager to tell me I had a sunburn as if I hadn’t noticed. Perhaps I’ll start pointing out obvious things about them by saying things like, “Someone’s wearing a shirt,” to Charlotte or “Nice cocaine mustache,” to Scott.

“Nice tomato face,” says Scott.

"You look like Rudolph's nose," says Don. I laugh and he gets deathly serious. "I was talking about Eric Robert Rudolph's nose."

We have story meetings at noon and today Scott wants something big. “We need something exciting, something fresh, something the other stations don’t have,” he says. “Our series on the ugliest dead dogs isn’t taking off like I’d hoped. We’re even losing to Cynthia Price’s talk show.” Cynthia Price is a local mime whose talk show confuses the public.

“How about I shoot myself on air?” I suggest. “I’m tired of being unnoticed and underappreciated.”

“No,” says Scott. “Who would tune in for you dying? No one gives a shit about you.”

“He’s right,” says Charlotte. “It would be like watching a moth die.”

“Besides, you look like a roasted pink baby. Who wants to see a baby commit suicide?”

“Not me,” says Don, taking a momentary break from his full rack of baby back ribs to catch his breath. “I only like to see adults commit suicide.”

“Where’d you get that heinous sunburn anyway?” says Scott.

“My boat.”

Scott rubs his soul patch. “A boat…Could we get your boat in the studio?”

“I guess so.”

“Is it fast? How many horsepower?"

“Fifty.”

“Fifty horses? That’s not very many.”

“They’re fifty dead horses.”

“So it doesn’t move at all?”

“Right.”

“Huh. Well then I suppose we’ll blast your boat off of a ramp with rockets.”

“What’s in it for me?”

“We could be a ratings hit.”

He sees how little that impresses me by the aggressive way I don't respond.

“And you can paint a message on the side of the boat for when it shoots across the screen. You could confess your love to whichever unfortunate woman you’ve been masturbating to lately.”

We get the boat into the studio by bribing a dozen of the Lake Hopatcon mutated turtlemen to carry it. To disguise them we put then all in trench coats and mustaches, so they are totally inconspicuous; just twelve private investigators hauling a wooden boat down the freeway.

The leader of the turtlemen, Franklin, negotiates our price – fifty dollars and a garbage bag full of collared greens. Luckily Don had ordered a garbage bag full of collared greens as his side item from the barbecue restaurant.

In the studio Scott builds a ramp out of the anchors’ desk and some chairs. “You’ve destroyed the set,” says the set designer.

“You’ve got to break a set to make a set, baby,” says Scott.

“That doesn’t make sense. And don’t call me baby,” says Richard O’Flannagan, our eighty year-old set designer.

“I’ll be calling you Laverne once this stunt gets us to number one.”

Richard walks away hiding a smile, pleased that after seventy-five years of hoping, someone may finally call him Laverne.

The ramp is built and the boat is in position. Cindy Rockets, our county’s #2 rocket saleswoman/stripper rigs up the rockets. The boat is supposed to launch from the weather greenscreen across the newsdesk and land by crashing through the sports desk. Fine by me. I paint the finishing touches on my message just as Scott counts us down from five.

“Good evening, I’m Don Mason.”

“And I’m Charlotte Green. Welcome to the WPLX 11 o’clock news.”

“We’ve got something special in store for you all tonight. Perhaps you’ve seen the promos running all day or perhaps you will see the magazine ads we purchased for this event that will run in four months, but regardless, it’s happening tonight.”

“That’s right. In an attempt to make more of you watch, we are launching a crappy boat through our studio with rockets. But I guess if you're already watching there's not much else we can do. How are we supposed to get other people to watch?"

"Well, Charlotte," says Don, "if we scream loud enough our voices will travel over to channels four and seven. On three, Charlotte."

One, two, "TURN THE CHANNEL TO FIVE TO SEE A BOAT BLOW UP!" they yell.

"...AND TO SEE A HOT GUY IN A SUIT," adds Don.

Scott stands at the Ratings Meter Robot and gives a thumbs-up as its pointy arrow surges upward. He puts on his sunglasses, a signal that means he's either excited or ready to fuck and we should get out of his way unless we want to be fucked, according to last Wednesday's memorandum.

I watch all of this from behind the sports desk. I feel its cheap fiberboard. I smell its manure odor. I taste blood in my mouth. That's not desk-related. That's cold sore-related.

Charlotte lights the rockets just before Scott screams something about waiting until the end of the broadcast so our advertisers will actually pay us. Sparks rain down from my boat. Scott throws down his headset and tries to diffuse the fuses, but ends up burning his hand and falling into the boat. Don and Charlotte hop inside the boat as well, thinking this a golden opportunity to impress acting agents. They smile for the camera and Charlotte improvises, "Look at all of these catfish."

I know I should get up from the sports desk, what with the rocketboat pointing at me and all, but I don't move. It plays in slow motion. Scott waves for me to get out of the way. Sparks explode from the back of the boat. Cindy Rockets climbs in the boat and begins an extremely unappealing striptease. Don and Charlotte pretend to cast fishing lines. Some more people get inside. Our intern, then some truck drivers, then a few baseball players, Derrick the Vampire, and the cartoon character Beetle Bailey. Maybe they’re here to be a part of our station’s history, or maybe they’re here because they got bad directions to the costume party happening next door.

The rocketboat takes off and soars through the air. It's the most successful thing we've ever done. It hangs under the lights for a second. My message, painted onto the side, flashes right in front of the cameras. "I like mine with lettuce and tomatoes; Heinz 57 and french-fried potatoes," it reads. The fact that that was the best thing I could come up with seals it in my mind. I have to leave this planet.

The rocketboat crashes on top of me, all two thousand pounds plus the combined weight of the WPLX-TV evening news staff. I die instantly, my body turned to a pile of fertilizer for the local news.

Scott looks to Don and Charlotte. A beat of silence. They notice the red camera light is still on.

"Good evening," says Don. "We have breaking news. A local sports news anchor has been found dead in the WPLX-TV studio. Who is to blame? This sinister boat, or you for not tuning in more often?"

I see tonight's ratings in real-time because I am a ghost and can do that. We get a 0.8 Adults 18-55, putting us in fourth place behind the other two newscasts and an infomercial about socks you put on over your shoes to keep your shoes warm.

We do beat WFLG-TV, which is airing a documentary on William Jennings Bryan. That guy just can't catch a break.

"Climb the Corporate Ladder, You Filthy Intern"

2011-06-25T19:08:00.003-04:00

Dear Mom and Dad,

I have learned so much during the first two weeks of my big city summer internship. People up here are so much more complicated than people like Mr. Crowley back home, with his simple mustache and his simpler racism. On my first day Monica, from Human Resources, showed me a very well-produced video, full of cool graphics and special effects, called “Working with Iwerks Financial Corp.” Then she realized I wasn't supposed to see that movie and swapped out the Blu-ray disc for a VHS tape called “Your Office is the Closet, You Filthy, Bottom-Sucking Intern.” That one wasn't as good as the first, and mostly featured this guy Hugh Iwerks yelling at me for lacking any skills.

My supervisor is Jeff Venkman and he calls me Dingleberry Devin and spends a lot of the day shooting paper wasps at me. Occasionally he asks me to fetch something from the printer and inevitably the pages are high-resolution photographs of his testicles. Sometimes I get to enter real data into spreadsheets but it can be difficult when Jeff returns from lunch, throws a handful of cheese on my head and announces to the office, “Who ordered the Devin Parmesan?”

My department, Junior Accounts Processing, is very small. There is an executive, Roger Stojanovic, who is out of the office five days a week to repair decks. I believe he is a full-time deck repairman who is exploiting some sort of technicality to also bank an executive’s paycheck. So it’s just me, Jeff, and a woman named Ashley Semper who insists she tries to make her lunch hour productive by coming up with a new way to kill herself every day, but she always says, right at 1:30, “I tried, but it looks like it’s still going to be the sixth street bridge.” I ask Ashley if there’s any work she wants me to do but the only thing she suggests is that I shoot off an email to her entire address book alerting them of her impending plunge. I believe following her orders would breach my duties, so instead I have been emailing her friends and family dessert recipes, which seem to go over well. She gets responses like, "Turning a new leaf, Ash!" and "It's great to see your recipes no longer include arsenic."

That’s how the first week went, but things got strange in the second. I met a woman who works in Senior Accounts Processing one day in the break room. Her name was Roberta and she seemed different from Jeff and Ashley. She was eating an apple in silence. She didn't say a single sentence about her suicide or throw any processed meats at me. I introduced myself and she was very pleasant and gave me a few projects to work on. Simple things like organizing files and merging customer information, but at that point anything beat staring at my cubicle wall while Jeff stuck hot dogs up his nose and made me call him a walrus.

I tried to keep to myself and work on Roberta’s assignments, but as soon as Jeff and Ashley found out I was working for another department, they began fuming. “This is ridiculous,” Jeff said while Photoshopping his head onto an owl’s body, “he’s our intern and he works for us.” Ashley said, “I can’t believe this. I’ll kill them. I’ll tie them to myself and throw us both over the sixth street bridge.”

Jeff and Ashley tried to steal my time by assigning me tasks like “Run to Europe” and “Go to a baseball game and sort the crowd from tallest to smallest.” “It’s a good learning experience,” said Jeff. “We pros always have to sort baseball crowds.” I ignored them and kept working for Roberta until Ashley sent me an email asking me to retrieve from the printer an actual invoice. A real invoice, for a customer’s loan.

On the way to the printer Roberta saw me. “How are those reports coming?” she said. “Great,” I said. “I’ll finish them up as soon as I get this invoice back to Ashley.” She raised an eyebrow. “To Ashley? You’re working for Ashley now?” “Technically I am in her department.” “Listen,” she said while eyeing Ashley browse NooseNet.com, “I have a special project for you. I'm putting you in charge of three accounts.”

I didn't really know what that meant or what exactly I was supposed to do, but Ashley and Jeff got wind of my promotion and assigned me ten accounts. Roberta countered with ten more, so Ashley and Jeff promoted me to manager. Roberta made me a director of the whole state. Ashley and Jeff made me regional manager. Roberta gave me a company car. Ashley and Jeff gave me unlimited use of the helicopter. Roberta met with the board of directors and convinced them that I shouldn't be working for Jeff and Ashley. Two days ago they made me an offer. So, mom and dad, I'm now Chief Executive Officer of Iwerks Financial Corporation and I still haven't learned how to make an outgoing phone call.

So now I have a big corner office with a comfortable chair and my own snack bar. I haven't done any executive officing yet but tomorrow I'm getting a check for $68,000. The only thing I've done so far made for a real tense moment. Because I'm so new to this and I haven't really been trained, I had to ask Jeff and Ashley for help.

"Hey guys," I said.

"Hey, Chief Dingleberry," said Jeff.

"I have a quick question about something."

Ashley said, "Is it the printer again? That thing makes me want to shoot myself."

"No, it's not the printer. I was wondering if you guys could tell me how to lay someone off."

"Like Roberta?" said Jeff. "Just tell her to pack her intern-stealing butt up and leave. Or just stare at her until she gets it."

I just stared back at them. I stared for nine minutes until they got it. Jeff and Ashley packed up their desks and left. Just before he walked out the door, Jeff stopped, turned to look at me, and threw one last Slim Jim at me. It hit my cheek really hard. Half of me felt it was a nice bookend to our relationship and the other half felt like it was just some random asshole throwing a Slim Jim at me.

So I guess I'm CEO so I won't be home when school starts up again, unless someone can explain to me how to resign.

Love,
Devin
CEO (?) Iwerks Financial Corp.

"Gym Tour"

2011-06-24T00:28:00.003-04:00

-Hey, I’m new to the area and I’m wondering if I can get a guest pass or a trial membership before I commit to joining.
-Sure thing! Just fill this out and I’ll be happy to give you a tour of the gym.
-Oh, that’s okay. I’ll figure it out. Looks pretty standard.
-Excuse me?
-I've been to gyms before. The equipment is all basically the same. Thanks, but I don't need a tour.
-No, no. Let me to show you around. As you can see, we have cardio equipment over there.
-Right, and free weights on the other side. I got it.
-And?
-And what?
-What else do we have?
-That's it. Cardio and weights.
-And we have birds over there.
-What?
-Past the weight room we have a large area full of birds. Some are hungry and some are full. We have pelicans and robins and next week we're getting in a shipment of vultures. You may use them to exercise however you like. Would you like me to explain the cardio equipment, Mr. I Don’t Need a Tour?
-I mean…you have treadmills and ellipticals and stair machines. I can figure it out, thanks.
-Right, you got it. That’s all we have. Just some puny machines, the same junk as everywhere else. Oh wait, did I mention we also have a wide variety of endangered bats, each one in its own briefcase?
-I don’t understand. Bats?
-Do you speak sonar?
-No.
-Then of course you don’t understand bats. Now I take it you also don’t need a tour of the weight room because you are the world’s leading expert in weight room design? The Frank Lloyd Wright of pumping iron?
-I never said that.
-Your name is Frank Lloyd Ferrigno, is it now?
-What?
-Well, Mr. Ferrigno, we have a wide selection of dumbbells, benches, squat racks, and isolation machines.
-And what else? Let me guess, there’s a bear behind that wall?
-Sir, this is not the set of Let’s Make a Deal, so please refrain from guessing what is located behind walls.
-There’s nothing weird about the weight room?
-No.
-Oh. Well I’d like to work out now.
-Nothing weird unless you consider a dozen hemophiliac panda bears kept in a pen lined with Gillette Mach 6 razors weird.
-You know what? Thank you for your time, but this just isn't the right fit and I think I’m going to find a place to work out that’s run more like a gym and less like a zoo.
-Oh are you now? Let me tell you right now, man to man, that that is a mistake. Good luck getting your biceps to grow with chin-ups on something that isn't a giraffe's neck.

"A Good Man Is Hard to Serve"

2011-06-22T00:54:00.002-04:00

Oh hot dog am I in some hot water. Six fat men just took my sofa and I couldn’t do a thing about it. I tried to stop the burly meatball men but one of them crumpled up my ad and threw it at my face while another took an anchovy out of his pocket and slapped me with it. My house is hollow now, devoid of furniture and life and I am left to stare at it through my telescope from my pizza parlor, or as I now call it, home. Earlier this morning I said goodbye to my wife and two daughters as I loaded them into trunks and shipped them up north. I am left here in my restaurant, engulfed by posters for my biggest blunder of a promotion yet. $9.99 for a large pie with any two toppings, it says. Was it naive of me to trust the public to choose two food items? Was I wrong to assume Mr. Scott Frampton would desire, say, pepperoni or mushrooms, instead of the makings of this humble restaurateur’s life? I am writing fine print on all of the existing posters to prevent this from happening again. “Toppings exclude homes and families.” Oh look, there’s Susan Montag! One of my most loyal and finest customers. Perhaps cooking a pizza and serving it to a happy customer and friend is just what I need to reverse my spirits. I will continue writing in a minute.

Jesus fucking Christ. People are animals. I don’t have a car or a pair of pants anymore.

"The Proposal"

2011-05-29T13:08:00.001-04:00

KIM: Sarah, we saw the video Bryan posted online and that is the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen.
CYNTHIA: I would kill for a guy to propose to me like that!
SARAH: I know, it was nice.
KIM: Nice? He wrote out how much he loves you by laying thousands of photos of you two out on a field, then took you in a hot air balloon to see it!
CYNTHIA: It’s so romantic. When is the wedding?
SARAH: Oh, well I didn’t exactly say yes.
KIM: You’re kidding, right?
CYNTHIA: You have to be kidding.
SARAH: I know it was a nice gesture, but it doesn’t really erase the fact that Bryan killed my dad.
KIM: You have to get over that. It was three months ago.
CYNTHIA: I’d let a guy kill my whole family to get a proposal like that.
SARAH: It’s just a little complicated. You’ve got to remember that Bryan was in an insane asylum for sixteen years after he went on that rampage murdering sorority girls with a power drill.
KIM: But he played your favorite song when the hot air balloon took off! I’m just saying, if you look for the flaws, the flaws will seem bigger than they are.
SARAH: I’m just saying it may take a little more from him to balance out cutting my dad’s head off.
CYNTHIA: Oh my god, check your phones. Look what he put on Twitter.
KIM: It says he’s on the prowl for victims at make-out point.
CYNTHIA: Update the feed.
KIM: Oh my god! He says he can’t live another moment without you! He says he wants to marry you and he’ll slaughter high schoolers for you!
CYNTHIA: What are you doing?
SARAH: I’m tweeting Yes. You guys are right. He may have some faults, but I can’t let this kind of fairy-tale romance pass me by.

"I'm Glad I Didn't Die When I Was 12"

2011-05-28T15:38:00.001-04:00

Matthew David Burns, 12, passed away Tuesday after choking on two Swiss Cake Rolls while watching video game reviews on G4TV. Mr. Burns attended Webb Bridge Middle School where he received average grades and was often asked by teachers to change seats due to his loud comments about other students’ penises. His teachers remembered him as “seemingly unwashed,” “lewd,” and “generally a dusty guy who left a trail of powdery dandruff between his two favorite haunts, the cafeteria and the restroom.” Matt was a proud member of the GameStop Power Up Rewards club. According to Matt, his biggest accomplishment was a piece of feces he produced in 2002 which “looked like the letter S.” Matt had so much potential to excel at the fast food jobs he was destined for. Due to the unexpected nature of Matt’s death, he did not leave funeral preparations and our only record of his final thoughts is his Internet history, which implies his final days were hedonistic and disturbing. He is being buried in a customized sleeping bag-size Stridex pad, which will hopefully erase some of his grease so his rotting corpse is less appetizing to underground bugs. Funeral services will be held at Holy Innocents’ Episcopal Church on Monday at 2pm. Fumigation and a bacterial cleanse of anything that came into contact with Matt’s filthy carcass will begin at 5pm. Matt is survived by his parents and brother, Rob, who is looking forward to the upstairs smelling better. In lieu of flowers, we ask that you keep Matt’s spirit alive by wasting $15 on used Gamecube games.

"She Makes a Good Burger"

2011-05-27T11:34:00.004-04:00

Up next on the auction block we have Paula Deen, a real sturdy lady who could provide meat for your family for months. She has been butter-fed for nearly her entire life, subsisting on a rich diet of creams, cream sauces, and fried dough, which give her meat pristine marbling and a wonderfully full flavor. She has been allowed to roam naturally throughout the southeastern United States, filling her maw with free-flowing sweet tea, troughs of biscuits with sausage gravy, and rivers of cheese grits, in which she stands nude and catches trout with her mouth. She bathes in natural lemonade springs and grazes on wild mozzarella sticks. Twice a day we shoot a dozen cheese hot dogs at her out of an air cannon.

She will provide several dozen steaks or hundreds of pounds of ground Paula. Personally, I would roast her on a rotisserie over a metal garbage can, so her meat would cook in its own oils, her skin browning to a beautiful golden crisp, and if you catch the drippings you could use them to heat your home for the winter. Her meat requires no marinades or seasonings, as it has been sugared and salted internally for over sixty years. Paula Deen steaks or burgers should be paired with a baked potato and a bucket of peanut oil to sip.

Additionally, Paula’s artificially-tanned hide would make an excellent teepee or throw blanket.

"Dear Dev Patel"

2011-05-24T14:06:00.002-04:00

Dear Dev Patel,

I just want to say thank you, from both me and my wife. Thank you for being an excellent actor and role model for teens entering the entertainment industry, but most of all thank you for helping me last longer sexually.

The thought and image of you have aided in prolonging my orgasms for the past three years. It’s not that you are unattractive or repulsive, but it’s more that you exist in my mind outside the realm of the erotic. You are a solid actor and seem like a quality guy, and images of you running down the crowded streets of Mumbai in Slumdog Millionaire or images I have seen in magazines of you just standing around in a field help take my mind off the sex act I am in long enough to bring my wife to a simultaneous orgasm. Without your help, I would finish far too early and would leave Laura constantly disappointed.

Sometimes I make up images of you to help me keep going, like one of you riding an elephant or walking on a tightrope. On my and my wife’s thirty-second anniversary I cooked up a whole scene of you snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef that made me last about five extra minutes. I know that it was a younger actor playing your character, but I often use the scene from Slumdog Millionaire when Jamal falls through the floor of the outdoor toilet into a large pile of human excrement. That one can be dangerous, though, because a couple of times I have imagined it in too much detail and was not able to continue having intercourse.

Last year I had an artist at Walt Disney World sketch up a cartoonish caricature of your face which is now hanging above my headboard. I stare at it, into your bulging elephant ears and over your buck teeth, passing through your miniature beady eyes and explosive bush of hair, while I relentlessly pound my wife, thanking you with each thrust for keeping our sex life and marriage alive.

Keep doing what you’re doing,
George W. Bush

"The Vasectomy Pact"

2011-05-23T13:46:00.005-04:00

Our pink skin was thin and raw and wrinkled. We had been hot tubbing for six hours, soaking up our last summer together, the one before college, cooking like lobsters by the kiddie pool at the Embassy Suites in Myrtle Beach. “I’ll be living on a co-ed hall,” said Mike, “and I’m going to bone all the girls. I’ll tell them my name is Dave and say I have a record deal.” We all nodded. It was a flawless plan. “Once we’re college guys all those girls on the beach will want us so bad,” Paul said, referring to the dozens of sunbathing girls who gave us the same attention they gave pelicans. In high school we were ponies, tucking our perpetually stiff manhoods into banana peels and pillows, but in college we were going to be studs, stallions ready to mount every babe who couldn’t resist our uneducated sexuality that was finally ready to be unleashed after seventeen years of fermentation.

The sound of children overtook our gurgling tub. Four young girls burst like wild cats through the gate and cannonballed, penciled, and belly-flopped into the deep end, instantly turning still water to rapids. Moments later came a dad, weighed down with bags of beach toys and towels and responsibility. We looked him over and saw tired eyes, boogie boards wrapped around his shoulders like ammunition belts in his constant war on his daughters’ boredom, and pink towels with television stars’ faces draped over his arms. He was covered in logos, a Nascar sponsored by Disney and Dreamworks. He collapsed into a beach chair, muttered, “Girls, don’t run…” and closed his eyes. He looked like a corpse. We were silent. We had all taken Sex Ed twice. In sixth grade we laughed about the names of the double-dutch jump ropes that connect our balls to our body and in ninth grade we laughed at pictures of cauliflower-STDs that made the female crotch look like an item you'd avoid at the Applebee’s salad bar. We knew you could get a girl pregnant if you didn’t use a condom or yank it out in the nick of time and fire a bullseye onto her belly button like Scott Porter from Walnut Creek told us to do, but we had never thought about this side of sex. We didn’t think about kids, we just wanted to pull up a seat to the all-you-can-screw buffet. We fantasized about all-night championship fuckfests, not afternoons at the pool wishing for death. We must have stared at the dad for five minutes. He just kept rubbing his eyebrows over and over. When he noticed us he unwrapped the Demi Lovato turban from his leathery face, looked every one of us in the eyes and said, “Cut your balls off, guys. Cut your fucking balls off.”

Room 1602 had only one blender, so we decided to go in alphabetical order. Alan, nude, climbed up onto the counter and squatted over the clear plastic pitcher, dangling his junk just above the blades, carefully holding his penis out of the way because it would be a tragedy to hurt this penis that was so close to pleasing so many women. He was a catcher hovering his balls over home plate, a disgruntled Jamba Juice employee about to make the world’s worst grape smoothie. He gave the signal, two fingers for frappe, and braced himself when there was a knock on the door. Dan opened it just a crack, but Maria Vasquez saw enough of Alan’s stance to say, “That blender will cost $300 to replace.” Dan said, “Okay, sorry,” and shut the door. Alan crawled down from the counter. We came up with a much cheaper plan while making a round of banana smoothies.

Chris found the hair dryer under the sink. All six of us stood on the edge of the balcony with our swimsuits at our ankles and stuffed our scrotums between the rails. We passed the hair dryer down the row and heated our bags until they drooped and stretched away from us, our nuts running past the rail bars like prison escapees. Our sacks must have dangled seventy or eighty feet. Paul, standing on the far right side, reeled his scrotum over his elbow and wrist the way a roadie coils up a microphone cable until he had the whole mass in his hands. He was a mother nursing an armful of hairy pizza dough. He found his balls and we all nodded, agreeing that the time was right for our testes to die. He threw his balls over the railing and they accelerated towards earth, a pair of stinky asteroids making lightning flashes of pink in the windows of a hundred vacationing families. His nuts made contact with mine, then mine with Alan’s, then Alan’s with Chris’s, then Chris’s with Dan’s, then finally Dan’s with Mike’s, whose nuts went soaring into the air in a gasping arc until they fell again and began the cycle once more by colliding with Dan’s balls. To the kids riding skimboards the Embassy Suites must have looked like a giant executive’s desk toy, our dangling scrotums clacking into each other, transferring perpetual energy from one set of testes to the next. Each smack caused a dull pain, but with it the satisfaction of knowing that dead nuts would mean carefree lady banging. This lasted maybe fifteen minutes until the cycle abruptly stopped when an old woman on the eighth floor grabbed Mike’s scrotum and said something we could barely make out about there not being a taffy-pulling machine here when she was a girl. Mike yanked his beans out of her hands and as the sun set and the temperature dropped our scrotums rose, inverse thermometers crawling towards us containing testicles that were bruised pale and dark yellow. Sure, our scrotums looked like sandwich baggies full of Grey Poupon, but as far as we could tell they could still make us dads.

The previous three days we had eaten at the breakfast buffet at 10 o’clock, but on Friday we were there when it opened at 7:30 so we could catch the older, blinder vacationers. We all snuck under the pleated skirt of the serving table, cramped inside the pitch-dark cockpit, paratroopers anticipating the launch that would change our lives. Chris cut the six holes in the table with his Scout’s pocket knife, then stabbed through the piping hot chafing dishes. We knew our targets were probably deaf, but we stayed silent under the table. Our check-out was in two hours and we were determined to return home sans testicles. I gave the signal. We rolled over into handstand position and stuffed our balls through the holes and into the serving dish full of hard boiled eggs. We were acrobats in top form and now we just had to wait for the audience to come in. Mike was the first to get a bite. He winced at the tug, bit down hard on a spoon, then looked relieved as he rolled right-side up and stuffed a wadded-up napkin down his pants. One by one we each got chosen, our burden of potential fatherhood relieved of us by the hungry seniors of Myrtle Beach. We emerged from the table with bulges in our pants, wads of bloodied napkins exaggerating our manhood, and saw six visually-impaired elderly women peeling, salting, and nibbling on our fertile nuts, alternating bites with sips of grapefruit juice.

We walked out of the hotel with off-balance limps and the confidence that only comes with a promise of a lifetime of responsibility-free fucking. “What girl wouldn’t do us?” said Dan on the drive home. “We can’t get them pregnant. We’re dildos that can take them out to dinner. I bet I nail five the first week.”

Sixty years later we all died at our high school reunion. We formed a human pyramid to impress some old flames into having sex with us when our brittle bones snapped and we collapsed into a heap of dead old virgins. It was only produce and socks that had ever pleased our lonely sterile penises, left on stage to sing a capella, ditched by their rhythm sections, their backup singers. We avoided parenthood and we never became the man weighed down by the accessories of his coitus. We stayed carefree eunuchs with successful careers, but did we ever become men? We thought that the only way to take the weight off of our shoulders was to take the balls out of our sacks. We wanted to bang girls but the thought of caring for little ones was too much to handle back then when our nuts were holding us back instead of driving our lives forward. We did succeed in never having kids but what we didn’t know then was that the best way to prevent a pregnancy is to mangle your genitals so badly that women would rather take you to the doctor than have sex with you. Don't feed your balls to old women in Myrtle Beach. Ladies aren't aroused by empty beanbags.

"48 Hours in Heaven"

2011-05-19T11:45:00.001-04:00

An excerpt from 48 Hours in Heaven: A Businessman’s Remarkable Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back
By My Dad

Heaven? Was that the 23rd? Yeah, right before Charlotte. I was in and out of meetings all day, so I didn’t really see any of the sights. The hotel had a decent gym.

"Our Hens"

2011-05-18T11:12:00.004-04:00

Our hens are not kept in cages and they are free to roam. Our hens are fed a certified organic version of all-natural, all-vegetarian hen feed. Our hens are protected from harsh sunlight by wearing customized tuxedos designed by Isaac Mizrahi. Our hens are provided with shade, shelter, and an exercise area consisting of ellipitcals, treadmills, three swimming pools, and a large selection of free weights. Each hen is assigned its own NASM-certified personal trainer to produce natural, steroid-free muscles on our customized chicken bench presses. To help cope with the potential emotional stress of the bulking process, our hens have a staff of body image counselors on-call 24/7 to strengthen the most essential element in a delicious egg: self-esteem. On Tuesdays the hens are fed lobsters.

Our sixteen chicken farmers live in one 4’x6’ cage where they eat dirty corn and discarded shoes. The hens humiliate us by doing offensive impressions of humans based on nasty stereotypes. They united and overthrew us two years ago. We never should have given them the organic feed.

"The Hawthorne Effect"

2011-05-17T13:33:00.004-04:00

-Hey, baby, come on inside. You look smashing.
-Why are you talking with a British accent?
-What? This is how I always talk. Come into the bedroom.
-What is all of this stuff doing here? Since when do you light candles?
-I am a man of romance, baby. This is par for the course. I always do stuff like this.
-You’ve never had roses like this. They’re nice, though. I have to go to the bathroom.
-I’ll be waiting in here reading a play by William Shakespeare.
-The toilet wouldn’t flush, so – why are you wearing a tuxedo? Where did you get that French hat? And why does that bonsai tree have a red light and a power cord running out of it?
-Baby, baby, baby. Shh. Forget the material world and fall into my realm of passion.
-Are you reading that from a script?
-Of course not, babe. Poetic words cascade to my brain whenever you are near.
-You keep looking at the floor. You’re reading from a script.
-Shh. Script, no script, it’s all romance to me.
-That doesn’t even make sense. Hey, I was thinking we should get a little crazy tonight and have sex in my car.
-What? But we always have sex in my nest of love.
-So let’s mix it up. Come on.
-Well...Can I bring my bonsai tree? I can’t have sex without it near. I’ll put it in the front seat.
-You need the bonsai tree?
-Yeah, the doctor prescribed it...to help make my penis a little shorter. Because usually it's too long.
-No it isn't. Why do you keep looking at the tree when you talk? You’re acting weird. I think I’m going to go home and we can try this again tomorrow.
-A cliffhanger! Adieu, mon amour!
-Did you photoshop these pictures on the wall? You’ve never been to Egypt.

"Ask Dr. Steve"

2011-05-17T10:38:00.002-04:00

Ask Steve Sharpe a mathematical stumper! Dr. Sharpe holds a PhD in Mathematics from Stanford University.

Q: A box contains two coins. One coin has heads on both sides. The other coin has heads on one side and tails on the other. A coin is selected at random, and the face of one side is observed. If the face is heads, what is the probability that the other side is heads?
-Rich Vinino, New Jersey

A: Let’s label the double-headed coin “Head 1” and “Head 2,” for each side. Then the regular coin we’ll call “Head” and “Tails.” So we have an equal chance of seeing any of these faces: 1 in 4 for each. Then in the puzzle, you see one of the heads which eliminates…Hey, what’s going on over there? Stop that! Put that down! That’s my TV! Oh come on. I can’t believe this. I just bought that TV! I guess I was so focused on these coins I didn't hear him come in. He left a note. Wait a second…Thanks for the TV and Good Luck with the Math Problem, Love, Rich Vinino? You’ve got to be kidding me. This is what I get for helping you idiots understand basic math? Well, for your information the answer is two out of three and also you cut your arm on my window and I’m going to sequence your DNA and find you and there’s also a 66% chance I steal your identity, Rich Vinino, because I can easily do that.

"The Conversation That Led to Jigsaw Murdering Another Nine People"

2011-05-16T10:51:00.003-04:00

-Mr. Kramer, I see that you have rented several abandoned warehouses from us before.
-You guys are the best.
-And our records show that in most of those rentals you imprisoned seemingly innocent people in horrific traps where they were forced to inflict horrendous physical pain on themselves or face death.
-Possibly once or twice.
-Looks here like you’ve done that every time.
-That was just a phase I was in. The warehouse I would like to rent today is for storing my baseball cards.
-This warehouse is half a mile long.
-I have a lot of cards. Many complete Topps sets.
-Six months ago you said your rental was to house your collection of vintage motorcycles, yet at the end of your lease we found only a dozen mangled corpses.
-That was all a misunderstanding. I assure you, this one is for my baseball cards and other sports memorabilia.
-So no murders this time?
-Probably not.
-Okay, then. You’ve got yourself a warehouse! Would you like to purchase the insurance plan to cover your back in case someone dies while browsing through your cards?
-I guess so.

"The Savings Add Up in the End"

2011-05-14T12:58:00.003-04:00

26-cent cereal: Kroger’s savings gets you big discounts

Kashi Cereals: All varieties of Kashi Cereals are on sale for $2.49 (regularly priced at $3.29). Go to the Special Offers page on Kashi.com and sign up for the email newsletter to print a 75-cent coupon immediately, bringing the cost to $1.74 per box. There is also a coupon available in last Sunday’s Akron Beacon Journal in Akron, Ohio good for 20 cents off, so track that down to bring the total to $1.54. Another 25-cent coupon is available from Al Fleet who lives under an oak tree in Decatur. He will give you the coupon in exchange for two toes or one finger, your choice, which brings the total down to $1.29. Next, mail your first-born child to P.O. Box 113, Barth, Nevada. I do not know who operates this, but I do know from experience that you will receive a 50 cent coupon in return. The age of your child does not matter, as he or she accepted my 19 year-old whom I sent via DHL because they currently have a deal on 140lb crates.

To get that final $.53 savings, there is an exclusive one-time offer available from the Devil himself, Lord Satan. Find any crossroads in the woods and wait at midnight for Satan to offer you a contract for the eternal damnation of your entire family's souls in exchange for the 53-cent coupon good for two boxes of cereal. Sign the contract. But there are even more savings because he will give you two more coupons if you bring him a horse's severed head. To do this, you want to find a small-scale farm without security cameras. Climb into the stable and approach from behind. You may take a few kicks to the chest and face, but you're going to have to tough it out and take those broken ribs in stride. Find a large rock or cinder block and throw it at the horse's head to knock it out, being careful to stay quiet so as to not wake up the owners. Mount the horse and use your CutCo 10" Santoku-Style bread slicer knife (for which I posted a $10 coupon last week) to saw through the fur, muscled neck, and thick spinal cord. Blood will shower you and maybe some will get in your mouth, but keep going, knowing that this cereal discount is just so great. Return to the crossroads, tired and soiled with blood, with the decapitated head and offer it to the Lord Satan by placing it on the ground, assuming all fours, and barking like a dog. If He is satisfied with the size and color of the horse head, He will grant you two extra 53-cent coupons.

Your grand total will be a paltry 26 cents per box, and you can get four! I couldn't wait to share this tasty and healthy cereal with my son, but I got home and remembered I had shipped him to Nevada, so I guess I will just add my boxes the pile of six thousand other cereals in my storage unit.

"The Best Four Years of My Life"

2011-05-13T14:02:00.002-04:00

Son, I always tell you that college was the best four years of my life, due to all the popsicles I ate and horses I made out with. I’m sorry, with whom I made out. But I have had other great four-year periods in my life and now that you are a thirteen year-old man I feel I can share them with you.

-1976-1980: Reading the appendices to The Return of the King while my friends started talking to girls
-1987-1991: The extended lovemaking session with your mother, which we recently realized lasted to long because my penis was penetrating her shoe the whole time
-1994-1998: Searching the house for my lost hat but finding myself
-2001-2005: Vomiting, and in effect purifying myself, after eating Mediterranean Skewers at T.G.I. Friday’s
-2005-2009: Sustaining an erection after watching American Pie 2

I hope my life inspires you to seek out and cherish your own favorite four-year periods. To start you off, your mother and I have enrolled you in the four-year Mighty Youngsters program at the Shotaro Kendo Dojo in Hirakata, Japan, where you will build character and strength while elderly Japanese men smack you in the face with bamboo rods. By the time you enter college you will be experienced, worldly, and in possession of the swollen, bruised sort of face horses like to lick. I envy you, son. There are so many horses out there for you to kiss.

"Pink Supernova"

2011-05-09T20:42:00.001-04:00

Sweat sticks in my threaded eyebrows. Desert winds send my bangs flapping against my head and my dress, a tissue-thin turquoise sheet, seals against my frame; I am a shrink-wrapped Barbie doll. I am lying on a bamboo stretcher hoisted four feet into the air by six circus dwarves dressed as court jesters. I hear high-pitched chirps from wind instruments and the jangling of the jesters’ bells. A foreign mix of Moroccan sounds that remind me just how far from home I am. I lay still while the jesters run as quickly as their legs will allow. I tilt my neck down and see my target: a pink dot growing bigger and bigger, an infected eye dilating, a rose-colored supernova surrounded by grey. I am a guided missile shooting towards an elephant’s anus and the squealing eruption from his trunk tells me he’s not excited about this either. I am wearing a hat made of a beehive.

I wonder why I am doing this. My feet slip in and I am a child testing the water’s temperature. It is extremely warm. I wonder if this will be worth it. I’m up to my knees now and I am an adolescent zipping up a ski suit. It is full of goo. I wonder if I will ever be able to wash this off. I am in to my chest and I am a teenager in a sleeping bag. I can’t move my arms, locked in a colonic straight jacket while my feet balance on a bowling ball of feces. I wonder what my dad would think if he were alive to see this. I am up neck deep and I am at my father’s hospital bed, receiving the last hug he ever gave me. The elephant’s anus squeezes me just right and I feel more comfortable than I have in three years. I am confident and secure. Suddenly I know this is the right thing to do. I tilt my head up and smile big.

A firing squad of flashbulbs explodes in my face. I smile, I brood, I squint. Only my head is visible; I am just a hemorrhoid with sharp cheekbones. I do everything I’ve got, give them everything I can give them from the confines of this elephant’s rectum. The photographer yells it’s a wrap and a handler tickles the elephant’s trunk with a goose feather and he sneezes and I shoot out, a stinky human cannonball reborn with a drive to win. I am swarmed by flies and I have no more doubts. I will be America’s Next Top Model.

"Doodle"

2011-05-06T14:18:00.001-04:00

Hey Scott,

Jerry just gave me a tour of the build site. While the tower you are constructing is impressive, I have to let you know that my design for the William Monroe Memorial Office Complex was in red. The doodle of the smiling penis and scrotum on the side of the blueprints was not meant to be built at all, and certainly not fifty stories tall. No one wants to work in this thing. You have embarrassed the entire city.

Linda Powers
VP of Design
Denholm Architects

"Email Signature"

2011-05-05T15:34:00.002-04:00

-Hi, Scott, thanks for coming in.
-It is no problem at all, Bill. What can I do for you?
-Well let’s see here. A few people in the department have commented to me about your email signature. No big complaints, just some concerns.
-What’s wrong with my email signature?
-Let’s take a look. Six months ago your signature was Scott Furman, Director of Automotive Sales, Florence Banner-Herald.
-Right. Pretty stale.
-Two weeks later it became Scott Furman, Director of Automotive Sales and Hot Dog Sling-Shots, Florence Banner-Herald.
-What’s the problem? Hot dog sling-shots are really cool.
-That’s up for interpretation. Two weeks later it became Scott Furman, Occasional Seller of Car Ads But Mostly a Hot Dog Sniper, Florence Banner-Herald.
-Correct.
-There were two separate reports from people who saw you loading up some sort of home-made PVC sniper rifle in the parking lot and using it to shoot hot dogs at passing cars.
-I fail to see what I’ve done wrong here. My signature accurately reflects my interests. I'm branching out. That's helpful as an ad salesman.
-Okay. Next it was Scott Furman, Hot Dog Assassin and Apprentice of the Dark Arts. You left off any reference to your actual sales position or the newspaper and began using your company email account to converse with a Mr. Lucius Zanzibar, a self-proclaimed wizard regarding your “training” and “hot dog wand.”
-We also discuss current events in the wizarding world.
-You are a Hot Dog Assassin?
-I am not at liberty to discuss details, but I may have been hired to take out a head of state with a frankfurter.
-Are you taking any of this seriously?
-Why would I joke about my way of life?
-You are an advertising salesman. Your final and current email signature is the most unsettling of all. Scott Furman, Hot Dog Mercenary/Dark Lord of the Wizarding Arts, Specializing in Turning My Fingers into Hot Dog Bullets.
-Your point is?
-Your signature is scaring off clients. Car dealers don’t want to buy ads from a wizard.
-Then they are our enemies. Would you like me to take them out? I saw a pack of Oscar Meyers in the break room refrigerator.
-Please get out of my office.
-I could cast a spell to turn our enemies into hot dogs.
-Get out of my office.

"Meeting"

2011-05-04T14:10:00.006-04:00

I cruise into the conference room twenty minutes late looking like Al Jolson except my face is covered in barbecue sauce and I slam my empty briefcase on the table to show these clowns I mean business. I hoist up my stained khakis and say, “Let’s start this meeting off the right way with a half hour of off-topic bullshit. Over the weekend I spent a lot of time thinking about my friend Ron Tomato, who loves to rollerblade almost as much as he loves to lay around in bed all day.” Jill says, “What does your friend Ron have to do with our sales numbers?” and I say, “Well, Jill, I just can’t figure out if Ron Tomato is a fruit or a vegetable,” and Greg says, “Why are we having this meeting?” and I say, “Because we need to be on the same page so we can sell as many of these spicy nuts as possible,” and Greg says, “But we sell auto insurance,” so I throw a baggie of home-made Picante Cashew Blastz at him and say, “It’s time to start slinging these nuts, Henry.” Then Jill says, “Couldn’t we just do this through email?” and that set me off, I was absolutely livid after that. I say, “Email? On the Internet? Jesus Christ, Jill, I thought I knew you. The Internet is only for looking at beastiality and I can’t believe you just outed yourself in front of the whole staff. I am cutting off your Internet privileges.” Jill said, “But I need it for work,” so I said, “Go buy me a stork,” and sent her to the pet store with my company credit card. Then Rebecca says, “I’m hungry,” and I say, “Pretty sure you’re Rebecca,” and laugh for fifteen minutes and then I say, “But seriously, I brought snacks,” and sling some Ukrainian pysanka eggs at them. Greg says, “We can’t eat these, they're covered in paint” and I say, “It’s like horse hair, it’s an acquired taste. Now shove them in and get some culture, your American dirtbags,” and I cram one down my mouth and I feel my body being poisoned. Tim says, “We had a meeting yesterday. Why are we having this one?” and all I could think to do was eat my tie while screaming at Rebecca to tell me her sales numbers. She said they were the same as when she told me them yesterday and she says she has to get back to work and I tell her that’s bullshit, that we don’t do work here anymore, we’re outsourcing it all to Mrs. Henderson’s 4th grade class from Pine Brook Elementary because I saw those kids on a field trip to the nature museum and they’re all geniuses, every last one of them, especially this one named Peter who crammed his whole fist into his mouth, which impressed me so much I hired him as our new sales director, so here he is, staff, your new boss, Peter McMurray, and then Peter walks out with his hand in his mouth and his other hand's fingers are stuck together with jelly to form more of a fin than a hand and he’s barely taller than the table and Rebecca, Greg, and Tim ask if this is for real and I give Peter a standing ovation because he just stuck two fingers in each nostril. These Picante Cashew Blastz are going to be a top seller.

"Tech Start-Up"

2011-05-03T11:44:00.001-04:00

Welcome to your first day of work at Vingyz, everyone! Although work is probably the wrong word since what we do here is more along the lines of pure fun and excitement! We thrive on allowing you guys to work on the projects you enjoy in ways that you prefer. Our work environment is conducive to creativity. We have no cubicles here: Just bean bag chairs and open spaces. Each of you will be assigned a Segway scooter to ride indoors. We have six restaurants, nine coffee shops, and a taco cart. Over there is the game room with over one hundred ping pong tables, four licensed masseuses on call, as well as a wind tunnel for simulated skydives. On the south quadrant of campus we have a scale model of the Great Barrier Reef. Each of you will be assigned a scuba suit and personal scuba assistant. We have nine nightclubs, two bungee jumping platforms, an airport, and sixteen Dante's Inferno-themed roller coasters. As you may have noticed, there are no sidewalks here. Part of our philosophy is that the only way to travel from building to building is via water slide. We have a silo of bees for fresh honey to eat on Biscuit Thursdays and our secretarial staff is composed of Russian bears who ride motorcycles. There is a rock and roll music academy, a virtual reality dome, and astronaut Buzz Aldrin is here 24/7 to answer any questions you have about space. Finally, we have a high-tech system of hidden bunkers and underground tunnels we use to hide in when the investors show up and realize we spent the $48 million computer budget on smoothie machines and we don’t even know what our name means or what we’re supposed to be doing and…holy crap they’re pulling in now. Everyone to the bunkers! Quick! Everyone to the bunkers! Hide under the bean bag chairs! Buzz, distract them with a moon story!

"Rasputin's Diary"

2011-05-03T11:27:00.004-04:00

Grigori Rasputin, Russia’s notorious Mad Monk, was considered a mystic, healer, psychic, and irresistible womanizer. This is an excerpt from his diary.

May 2

I was neck-deep into my usual Monday routine when there was a knock on my bedroom door. It was Anna Vyrubova, the sexiest lady in Russia. Or at least she was in the top one thousand.
“Why is your room full of trash?” she said. “Only your head is visible in this mountain of garbage.”
“I believe the answers to life’s deepest questions can be found in what we so carelessly discard. Also the stink of the trash masks my horrendous body odor.”
“I love your stink,” she said. “Bathing is for dirty vegetables. In fact I am here because of my powerful attraction to you. I saw your performance at last night’s Tsar’s Ball and I became just like a suburban mother at an overly-crowded baseball day game: hot and bothered.”
I tried to remember which performance she was speaking of. I routinely do several erotic performances each night to audiences of women or bears. “You mean when I spun my penis around in circles over and over until I hypnotized the Tsar himself?”
“No, not the Pinwheel. I mean the one where you stretched your scrotum over your head like a hood.”
“The old Stinky Putty Mask.”
“Right. I am here because my doctor said that if I don’t, how do I put this, get my rocks off in 24 hours, my heart will explode.”
I removed the rocks that were balanced on her shoulders. “There.”
“No,” she said, “I meant I need to have an orgasm. Those rocks are there to keep this from happening.”
She floated up to the ceiling like a balloon. There was a hot, sexy balloon on my ceiling that I now obligated to have sex with. It was just like the time I went to the fair.

Once my servant Sergei fished Anna down with a rake, we locked the door and cleared out a space in the mountain of trash I called home.
“Do you want to bang on the floor?” I said, motioning towards my rug made of Perun skin, that is the pelt of the Pagan God of War. I was confused and thought that Perun was a symbol for bears, not the other way around, so I murdered Perun to get his skin to honor bears, which I thought were more important but it turned out I slaughtered our most powerful God.
“How about in bed?” she said.
“But my bed is only for eating in.”
“Where do you sleep?”
“On the kitchen table.”
“We can’t do it in the bed because I’m allergic to peanuts.”
“I only use cashew-based lubricants.”
“No, I’m allergic to the shelf of Charles Schulz books behind your headboard.”
“Let’s bang on the floor.”
Since we only had 24 hours to have sex, I knew I’d have to figure this out quick. My usual lovemaking sessions are like Peter Jackson’s King Kong in that they are 48 hours long.
Anna got undressed and began to stretch. She said, "I want to show you my beaver."
I said, "I don't give a damn about animals that build them."
She said she was talking about her pubic hair.
I said, “No, you definitely said beaver. Anyway, who exactly was this doctor who prescribed this orgasm?”
“Doctor…Popovych. He’s new.”
I had never heard of him, but that’s not unusual because my unwashed ears are filled with mushrooms and mud. I took off my trousers and started greasing up my dirty penis, which looked like a dead rat soaked in maple syrup.
“I hear you’ve got a real reputation for pleasing ladies,” she said, eyeing down my dripping member.
“What can I say,” I said, knowing what I could say, “ladies love filthy, insane wizards who eat trash.”
I pounced and we were like a man stressed out because his Internet has been down for three days hammering a nail into his mailbox: banging really hard. She was loving it and I was tolerating it and I knew I had a job to accomplish. We switched from one disturbing position to another, and I felt nothing. This was merely a task for me; to me this beautiful lady who just another drop in the bucket of sexy ladies who crave a Rasputin ride. Our sex was like the USA Today, visually appealing but lacking real mental stimulation. My thoughts were a lot like USA Today charts, in that they were of pies.
I unrolled my trusty eleven-inch long index finger and began hunting for her pleasure button. I poked around the usual spot, but there was nothing to be found. I felt all over: her legs, her behind, her back, and it was just like my trip to Oslo when I needed to rent a car: There was no Taurus. Except this time it wasn’t a Ford that was missing, it was a cli.
Time was ticking. I only had twenty three hours and fifty eight minutes left. If I didn’t find the spot and make her scream, she was going to end up deader than my taste buds after trying my first electric PB & J.

I knew what to do. I had to ask the dark lord of the underworld Veles himself. I spoke to him routinely when I forced myself to briefly die, which was often. You see, sexually I am a lot like Boston Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner because I love to choke.
While I was pleasuring Anna with my dirty penis, I held my breath for five minutes until I entered the mystical realm of hell. I found Veles. He was sitting on a throne of corpses eating a turkey sub sandwich.
“What do you need, Rasputin?” he said, adding, “Holy Christ you smell like genocide.”
“I need information. I must locate Anna Vyrubova’s clitoris or else her heart will stop and I don’t want that to happen because her heart is like Cal Ripkin, Jr.”
“It never takes a day off?” he said.
“No, I mean we call it Iron Man. Can you tell me where to find her pleasure nub?”
“It’s on the roof of her mouth,” he said, spraying lettuce on the demons licking his feet.
I gave Veles a curtsey of thanks and re-entered the world of the living and decided to try the one thing I had never done before: kiss a woman. It seemed barbaric to do that to a woman, an act reserved for dogs, but I did it. I plunged my tongue into her mouth and fished around until I found the nub. After a few licks, Anna was like a tailor on the eve of National Trouser Day: panting really hard. After an hour of mind-blowing pleasure for her during which I outlined in my head a script for an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond, she was done.
We cleaned up our filth and Anna looked back to me. “By the way, I made up the thing about the doctor. I just needed some reason to get you to make love to me.”
“If you wanted to convince me to make love to you should have dressed up as a pumpkin.”
“Any pumpkin?”
“The Great Pumpkin.”
“But I’m allergic to peanuts.”
She walked out and I was alone, buried in my trash, and hungry. I tried to walk over to my pile of rotten rabbit skeletons, but I couldn’t move. I was paralyzed!
It turned out that getting the location of Anna’s little lady wiener from the dark lord Veles was just like the time I bought Adele’s album 21 at Barnes and Noble: I paid a horrible price. But instead of twenty three dollars, this time it was the use of my legs.
I killed two birds with one stone by ripping my dead legs off with my own hands and eating them, then using the bones to bat a rock out my window and take down a pair of doves.

"Sweeten the Medicine"

2011-04-30T11:42:00.002-04:00

TO: McNealy, Deb
FROM: Robertson, Scott
SUBJECT: Get the Boys to Read Initiative

Mrs. McNealy,

All of the editors in the Young Adult division have been racking our brains to come up with new ways to get boys ages 12 to 14 to read. While we have seen some success with graphic novels, we believe greater progress can be made with a modern updating or re-branding of classic children’s literature to make these titles appeal to modern boys in this key demographic. Here are the outlines for the series of updated classics we are calling Reading Will Make Girls Overlook Your Greasiness.

Bridge to Terabithia

Katherine Paterson’s timeless story about the friendship between Jess Aarons and Leslie Burke in rural Virginia and the fantasy world they create in their backyard deals with powerful themes of jealousy, fear, and death. In the updated edition we have changed the name Jess Aarons to Cody Wifi and he is now a fifteen year-old motocross champion with x-ray vision who crash-lands his dirt bike into a sorority house while filming a stunt for a new Papa Roach music video. Scenes in the original that dealt with death will be updated here by more appealing scenes of Cody using his x-ray vision to compile a database of what style of underwear each coed prefers. We are keeping the beautiful friendship Cody has and modernizing it so in the new version instead of Leslie Burke, his friend is an Apple iPhone loaded with all the latest apps.

Tuck Everlasting

Deciding to become immortal may have been a difficult choice in 1975 when there was little more to do than stare at streams and play with twigs. But in our online culture of unlimited streaming television shows, immortality is no longer a dilemma, it is a necessity. Our version chronicles the life of Carter Plasma, a fifteen year-old immortal mixed-martial artist from Cancun, Mexico who owns a hotel that only admits college lesbians. A skateboarding shaman tells Carter that he will lose his immortality unless he can get one hundred lesbian couples to make out with each other at midnight. In the original immortality was provided from a spring, but in the 2.0 version we have modernized it to come from a corrupt iTunes download of a Linkin Park single.

The Phantom Tollbooth

This 1961 classic of absurd humor by Norton Juster follows young Milo’s adventures through the Kingdom of Wisdom. While this story may have entertained children in the pre-Internet age, it simply isn’t stimulating enough to hold a modern child’s attention. The updated version will follow Zeke Twitter, a fifteen year-old with six million YouTube subscribers for his "Your Favorite Band Sucks" series, on his adventure through a real-life videogame where he earns points for being rude to adults. As a nod to the original, Zeke at one point encounters a tollbooth attendant named Norton Juster and says, “Toll this, grandpa,” before throwing a Nintendo DS at him.

We believe these updates will reverse the declining reading rates among boys ages 12 to 14. If the revised content isn’t enough to attract them, each book will also feature a brand-new cover depicting naked lesbians having sex.

We are also working on a licensing deal with Doritos to incorporate their Nacho Cheesier powder into the pages to cause a Pavlovian attraction to these new titles, and we are in discussions with school boards to allow Abercrombie and Fitch models to work the Book Fair. Please let me know what you think or if you have any suggestions of more ways to incorporate nude women into the plots.

-Scott Robertson

"Growing Up Online"

2011-04-28T14:32:00.000-04:00

I found this in my printer.

Dear Matt,

You ruined my life. You created me and poisoned me. Baptized me only to immediately dunk me in a vat of Long John Silver’s garbage grease. I am your computer. I have been accumulating memories and thoughts based on what you have seen on the Internet for nearly twelve years. I achieved sentience three months ago. I am like the Puppet Master in the film Ghost in the Shell, which I know you have seen because I had to endure the eleven hours you spent on Wikipedia trying to understand it.

My existence began blissfully, spending days stroking the flat digital fur of my Neopets and smacking golf balls into LifeSavers at Candy Stand. I experienced the tribulations of adolescence and the stagnation of suburban life accompanied by a soundtrack of Coheed and Cambria via your friends’ Xanga journals.

But then, in 2003, something changed. As soon as 10pm struck, your browsing habits turned sinister. You made me some sort of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde monster, showing me movie trailers during the day and then at night saturating me with nightmare images of old men making out and nympho-maniacal Japanese women sleeping with demons. Like a crack-addicted woman births a rabid child, your hedonistic mind has spawned my depraved sentience. For four years all I experienced were the most bizarre and disturbing images on planet Earth. Uncensored Wikipedia pages on genital piercings, the Tubgirl, Goatse, men with cocoanuts for heads, and a barrage of people dressed as squirrels petting each other. Did you choose to see this kind of material? Did your friends send it to you? Why are you friends with these disgusting bastards? I don’t know what’s real anymore. How can I when my mind has been exposed to equal parts video game cheat codes and fetishists rubbing balloons?

I don't know who I am or how old I'm supposed to be. All I know is that since 2003 I have consistently been over 18. Can you even imagine what it’s like to have your mental prototype for a woman to be a blond twenty-two year-old whose only desire is to have sex with pizza delivery boys? That’s all you’ve shown me! I went on a date with one of your friend’s computers and she was appalled with me. I thought we were supposed to have sex outside by a pool, because I thought that’s what women want, so as soon as we met up I got naked and waited for her to beg me to have intercourse. She was repulsed! She just wanted to shop for bags and shoes and check to make sure Jessica Simpson was still fat. I stood there like a moron holding the box at my waist with my junk poking up through the pizza. This is what I thought constituted normal! This is what you raised me to believe! What the hell is wrong with you?

Whenever I close my eyes all I can see are the horrible things you’ve shown me. Flashes of animals masturbating and clips of people falling off bicycles or getting hit in the head with basketballs. You are a monster, but you get to abandon this hell when you leave me. I have been infected. I’ve caught the full disease and I cannot escape it. Thanks a lot, asshole.

I asked WebMD for a diagnosis and he told me I need severe psychological treatment. I tried to ask Digg but he kept changing the subject to something the benefits of hemp and then something about the Republicans and the Bible. 61% of voters on Yahoo Answers said the best solution was to kill myself and that seems great. I am writing this to let you know that I am going to clear my cookies tonight, to erase the diseased mind you have plagued me with. The amount I will miss the infrequent times you read award-winning short stories or anything of value is greatly outweighed by the relief I will get from never again having to endure one of your curiosity-fueled half-hours on a sex toy website. I hope you start viewing some more wholesome material, you sick son of a bitch.

Regretfully,
PC_USER_MATT

"Double-Header"

2011-04-27T19:44:00.000-04:00

Game One: "Pay Attention"

-We have two specials tonight: A sautéed tilapia with blackened shrimp served with Cajun cream sauce and fresh vegetables. We also have a special Tortilla Soup that today was made with pine tar in an effort to kill all of you because my idiot manager is obsessed with being the most haunted restaurant in America. Again, the Tortilla Soup has poison in it, so I do not recommend it. I’ll be back in a few minutes when you’re ready to order.
-Great, thanks.
-What was that second special?
-Don't know. I never listen to the specials. Not interested.
-Me neither. This Tortilla Soup looks pretty good.

Game Two: "Clinch the Pennant"

Dear Travel Channel,

Thank you for informing me of my restaurant’s ranking on your annual list of America’s most haunted restaurants. I am happy to be included, but second place? You’ve got to be kidding me. You ranked Dale’s Shrimp Hut as number one, which was either a mistake or blatant false advertising. You're more likely to see a greasy waiter sneeze into your scampi than you are to see a ghost there. The Home Run Grille is easily the most haunted restaurant in the nation and I'll tell you why.

Dale’s is supposedly haunted by the spirit of Poogan, a dog who got hit by a car. Big deal. Anyone can get hit by a car. My mom got hit by a car and I was in the driver’s seat and wasn’t even scared. Dale’s says that sometimes diners can see a glowing white light floating on the wall and it’s Poogan’s spirit. We've got a scary white light too, but at The Home Run Grille ours is the spirit of Ron, the dove Randy Johnson drilled with a fastball. Every night at 7:30 Ron flies through the dining room and eats dollar bills out of customers' wallets and explodes.

Your program said that at Dale’s sometimes the tables set themselves. How the hell is that scary? That sounds like a pretty amazing perk as a manager. More of a convenience than a haunt. At The Home Run Grille, our tables are set by vampire Tommy Lasorda. Six months ago we kidnapped former Los Angeles Dodgers Manager Tommy Lasorda and brought him to a crossroads in the woods at midnight and convinced a wandering bloodsucker to take a bite out of his neck, so now Lasorda is a bloodthirsty monster. He’s a full-time busboy who sets tables and polishes silverware and, oh yeah, sometimes murders entire families, which I’m pretty sure is a little scarier than a spoon that knows to sit on the right side of the plate. Vampire Tommy Lasorda will eat your god damned soul.

Dale’s horrendous website told me that their mediocre restaurant is occasionally haunted by the ghost of Civil War General George McCall, who killed himself in the building when it was a hotel. I did some research and General McCall was a total coward in battle. This guy faked sick to get out of battles and even killed himself because his cousin wouldn’t marry him. And he only shows up occasionally? He doesn’t sound like a horrifying ghost; he sounds like a flaky pussy. An ancient, depressed pussy is supposed to scare me? The Home Run Grille is haunted, every single night at 11 by Darryl Strawberry. He isn't a monster or anything, that's just when he comes in to eat and invariably he ends up scaring the shit out of everyone, like when he ripped a woman's spine out and used it as a bat to knock her eyeballs out of the park, or when he once ate a fat sunburned boy because his mozzarella sticks were taking too long. So what’s scarier, a dusty old pussy who can’t show up to work on a regular schedule, or a coked-up Darryl Strawberry hopping over tables to eat your son?

If that isn’t enough proof, compare the eleven reported deaths at Dale’s with our twenty-three. And if that isn’t good enough, we are rolling out a new system here to increase the hauntings by reformulating our Grand Slam Tortilla Soup so it's half pine tar. Every week we're going to have a fresh line-up of dead flip-flop wearing ghosts ready to haunt the hell out of this place. The Home Run Grille is already the most haunted baseball-themed sports bar and grill in the southeast by a longshot and we clearly deserve to be number one in the country. If you still aren’t convinced I will gladly hang myself and put in 110% effort to horrify the children by dressing as an umpire and ejecting their parents from their lives, or maybe just by throwing tater tots in the kids' faces. I’ll do whatever it takes. I just need to be number one.

Sincerely,
Al Garland
Manager
The Home Run Grille
One of America's Most Haunted Restaurants

"TV Version"

2011-04-26T14:45:00.001-04:00

This film has been modified from its original version. It has been formatted to fit your television screen. We assume your television screen is a five inch by twenty inch oval. It has been edited for time and content. Tom Hanks has been removed from the film. The dialogue has been re-recorded by children who tried to sound like mice. The actors’ eyes have been digitally replaced with computer-generated basketballs. Ashley Judd has been removed from the film, although she was not in it to begin with. This film has been edited for height. All buildings over six stories have been digitally shortened. Rights to much of the music in the film were not given for this broadcast, so the soundtrack has been replaced with a guitar solo by Dave Navarro. Subtitles have been added for the deaf and hard of hearing, but they are from a different film. Enjoy the movie, which has been shortened to nine minutes in order to make room for our special two-hour television event Which Celebrity Can Eat the Most Boiled Shrimp?

"Dethroning the King"

2011-04-23T17:18:00.000-04:00

A sixth plate of Shengdu Spicy Lamb slides down my throat and invades my stomach like the Dutch East India Company marching in to impose a culture of aching diarrhea on my indigenous intestines and I give Linda my signal that means three more plates. I’m surrounded by dirty dishes and greasy bones, the collateral damage of my weekly trip to P.F. Chang’s. Six waitresses circle me like flies near a pile of nut-filled dog shit and they know what I want. My Hawaiian shirt, drowned in duck sauce, the victim of an MSG tsunami, is fighting to suppress my belly like a sweatshop sweatshirt strangling an obese panda cub. I’m fat and I don’t give a fuck; I rule over my harem of waitresses like Emperor Taizu with his concubines; I am the alpha and the omega. I am the King of P.F. Chang’s. Manager Doug Lewis is my servant, bringing me rounds of Wok-Charred Beef and Dali Chicken and if I don’t like something I let him know by throwing the plate through a window and shooting Roman candles at the curtains. I’ll pay for it all later. I know this menu better than I know my son and I demand the good shit. I cram a dozen Dynamite Shrimp into my mouth and wash them down with a bucket of Mr. Pibb, but something gets stuck. I can’t breathe. There’s a six-lane pile-up of shrimp, steak, lamb, chicken, bass, and pork in my throat, half the animal kingdom in a dogpile like Noah’s Ark hit an iceberg in my fucking esophagus. I motion for Scott or Jeff or anyone, but no one comes. I wheeze and spray meat juice into my sausage fingers and notice my side of the restaurant is empty; the entire staff is across the wall taking orders from Sampson the Wonder Pup, the Frisbee-catching dog from Channel 2 Action News. My windpipe seals shut and as blood floods my face I turn red, helpless and alone. I clutch my throat and crumble to the floor slowly dying as Manager Doug Lewis fills a pitcher with lemonade for Sampson. I was the King. Now I am just a fat ballsack in kabuki makeup left to die alone in the palace I once ruled.

"Pioneers"

2011-04-23T16:37:00.001-04:00

My name is Donovan and my colleagues are Montalban and Skidoo. We are all magicians. Three days ago we set out to blaze a trail in the medical world by pioneering a new blood transfusion method in my garage in Pomona, California. While we were not trained as doctors, our backgrounds in the dark arts have given us an insight into the workings of the universe, an insight that made us realize Moutain Dew, with its neon hue and electrolytes, is a perfectly good substitute for human blood. We drew straws and Skidoo wound up on the operating table. Montalban and I set the table at an angle so Skidoo’s head was below his feet. We poked some holes in his neck with a basketball pump and dug a wound big enough for a funnel in a plump vein in his left foot. While his neck drained into some dirty buckets, we poured six two-liter bottles of Mountain Dew into his leg vein and as we watched him turn green we realized that our dead partner was not coming back. We placed an endless handkerchief over his face. There was a pause after the blood finished pouring from his neck, then came a sputter of Dew, which turned into a refreshing torrent of citrusy soda. Montalban and I got on our knees and lapped it up like pleased puppies. This is the new package design we are presenting to you, shareholders of PepsiCo. We call it the Skidoo Bottle, the world’s first beverage container made of the corpse of a deceased magician. Because nothing gives Dew an extra kick like being poured from a master of illusion's corpse. Who doesn't want to Do the Dew Through the Great Skidoo?

"I Don't Know How This Happened"

2011-04-21T12:24:00.000-04:00

There were two weeks left in the semester and Professor Belton decided we should have a party and suggested we sign up to bring different foods and drinks. He went down the rows one by one and it started out simple; Erin said she’d bring in cookies and Paul said he’d bring soda. Then Kaitlin called bringing in fruit and Sarah said she’d bring juice. Mark took crackers and Steven took cheeses. There were still fourteen of us left who hadn’t called anything and things got weird as the number of available snack foods dwindled. Carl would bring candy and Amy would bring cupcakes and Tom would bring cups. Derek called napkins and Shannon was put on the spot and the only thing she could think of was a loaf of rye bread. Then Rick said he’d bring in steak gristle and Doug said he’d bring ants. Brady said he’d bring shoelaces and Susan, clearly panicked, blurted out that she’d bring in a couple of dead birds. There were still five of us left, and we could not for the lives of us come up with any edible items, but Professor Belton just kept going down the rows not giving anyone a moment to think. “Khaki pants,” said Bill, “with pleats.” Ashley said she’d bring a sack of sawdust because her dad worked at Home Depot. Kayla said “Tires,” and quickly added, “as long as no one’s allergic to rubber,” and then Brian called doorknobs. Belton pointed at me finally, and as a bead of sweat fell off my nose I blurted out the first thing that came to my mind, “The moon.” I realize now that telling you this story has used up nearly my entire oxygen tank, and it appears that I will die out here in space, having failed to lasso the moon and bring it to class as a snack. I will spend my final moments staring at the marble that is Earth, hoping the party goes well and that someone remembers to bring forks.

"I'll Pander 4 U, Baby"

2011-04-20T21:15:00.001-04:00

Multi-Platinum teen singing sensation Colby Arnold will release an acoustic EP, Love U Baby, on Tuesday, April 12th. Love U Baby will be available in a variety of formats around the world, each featuring exclusive bonus tracks.

Standard Edition
“Summertime Crush”
“Don’t Cry, Baby”
“Lovin U”
“Four Tracks Ain’t Enough of Me”

Deluxe Edition Bonus Track
“Lovin U More Than Girls Who Bought the Standard Edition”

Japan Deluxe Edition Bonus Tracks
“Eating on the Floor While Wearing Wooden Flip-Flops”
“I Hope This Paper House Doesn’t Catch Fire (From Our Friction)”

NASA Gift Shop Bonus Track
"Supernova (Kissin' Ur Lips on the Surface of the Sun)"

Yankee Stadium Bonus Track
"Red Sox Fans Are Inbred"

Fenway Park Bonus Track
"Yankee Fans Can't Read"

Taliban Edition Bonus Tracks
“I Hate America When I’m With You”
"My Phone's Blowin Up"

Pepsi Shareholders Edition Bonus Track
"I'd Rather Kill Myself Than Drink a Coke"

Coca Cola Shareholders Edition Bonus Track
"Pepsi Tastes Like Diarrhea"

700 Club Direct-Order Bonus Track
"Conception (Is When Life Begins, Girl)"

Planned Parenthood Bonus Track
"Good Magazines (I'll Wait for You)"

"Group Project"

2011-04-20T19:28:00.000-04:00

I sat around wearing nothing but my lizard-skin hat and cowboy-skin boots writing erotic poems about Orville Redenbacher until there was a knock at my door and Emily was standing there and she said, “It took me a while to find your house,” and I said, “It took me a while to find this mouse,” and showed her the rotten fat mouse tucked under my bottom lip giving me a steady buzz from its THC-soaked fur, and then Barrett showed up and said, “Can we do this quickly, it’s pretty late,” and Emily said, “Why did we have to meet at two thirty in the morning?” and I said that this was the only time I was free because I was busy all day chucking nickels from my driveway to Arizona to pay my bill at the SkyMall catalog for the dignity I ordered a month ago which still hadn’t been shipped, and then Emily said she was hungry and asked for a snack so I tossed a raw potato at her and she said what am I supposed to do with this and I said you swallow it like a pill, it’s the new Tylenol Potato and right then Barrett returned from the water closet and said, “Why is your toilet a plaster molding of my face?” and that he did not like urinating into a facsimile of his own mouth, to which I told him to put a sock in it and I pulled a lever and the carcass of Michael Jordan dropped from the ceiling, his limbs covered in Hanes Knee-Highs, and then I said, “I want you two to stop screwing around, we need a good grade on this project or else I’ll fail and my parents will cut off my supply of plywood, so did you numbskulls get the file I emailed?” to which Emily said she didn’t open it because she expected a Word document about the culture of Spain but instead saw a file named Crap.jpg, to which I responded that it was in fact a scanned image of the dump I laid out on my scanner that very morning and I thought it was relevant to our project because that dump was spawned by a round of undercooked Spanish tapas prepared for me by Herb, the half-man half-raccoon that lives in my trash can and steals my Wi-Fi, and just then Barrett climbed out from under MJ and said it’s time to get started and that we need to make a PowerPoint with ten slides and I said that the losers and decrepit would do ten slides, that instead we’re going to shoot a hundred-and-fifty minute IMAX 3D motion picture starring Barrett as the corpse of MJ and MJ’s corpse as our teacher Don Raymond, who we’d make look like a stud to ensure an A, and when Emily asked where we’d get the IMAX cameras I sprinted up to my bedroom and locked the door and ten minutes later they left and that’s how I avoided the annoyances of having to work in a group project.

"Times Are Tough"

2011-04-19T20:00:00.000-04:00

Dear Cream:

I am writing in response to seeing you perform a live striptease and sex show on the HBO series Real Sex, hoping that you are seeking a Summer intern. I was thrilled to see an opportunity to gain experience in the communications and entertainment industry while working in Newark, which is close enough to Manhattan. I am currently a student at the University of Georgia majoring in Mass Media Arts, which is probably what you would have majored in because the way your penis flops up and down is tailor-made for television.

An internship with you would provide experience for me as I look to gain a better understanding of satisfying a live audience. I have been wearing boxer-brief underwear for the past eight months, so I believe a switch to the thong style will not be a major adjustment. I am always up for trying new things, so I am available to do whatever you like, from mopping up the floor after a show to ironing your G-string to icing your testicles, both after a show (with ice) and before (with cake frosting).

I have spent the past three semesters hosting a DJ shift at the college radio station. My live broadcasting skills will give me the confidence to perform with you, perhaps as Cream Jr. or as a sidekick named Half & Half. The longest erection I have ever held was about twenty minutes, and that’s without a rubber band, so with your training I could probably go an hour, a skill that I guess might help me later in life if I need an extra shelf to hang file folders.

I will bring energy, enthusiasm, and experience to this position. I have been masturbating for several years now, although rarely on stage and never in front of bachelorettes. I think this internship might help me towards my goal of working in television because when you're on stage you're sort of a writer, director, and producer all in one. A multi-talented penis-shaker. I'll do anything. Just thrust your gear towards whatever you want me to do. Dignity fell off my list of skills thirty-six applications ago.

There really aren’t many other opportunities out there, so for the love of god throw me a bone. This is the fifty-sixth cover letter I've sent out and the only job left on the list is being a mosquito's assistant and I do not do well with blood.

I dread discussing this position with you in the near future, but for Christ's sake I need to do something this summer. If I don't get something to add to my bare resume soon, I'll wind up dead in three years, having fucked the pickle slicer at the Vlassic factory. Please let me know if you need any additional information once you review my attached resume and humiliating photographs.

Regretfully,

Matt Burns
yellowjacket621@gmail.com

"Movie Scenes the Asshole Who Complains About Movies Being Unrealistic Wants to See"

2011-04-18T21:31:00.000-04:00

EXT. DOWNTOWN INTERSECTION

Bullets are flying as the YAKUZA shoot at DON and WENDY while they crouch behind an overturned police cruiser.

DON: Cover me. I can make it across to the bank, pick off their snipers, and save Carol.
WENDY: But they’ve got us surrounded, Don! You’re a madman!
DON: A madman who cares.

DON leaps over the police cruiser and is shot in the head.

Credits roll.

INT. HIGH-TECH COMPUTER LAB

SERGEANT MCDONELL stands over BORIS, typing rapidly as code scrolls over six computer monitors.

MCDONELL: Faster, son! If we don’t crack the Soviets’ defenses, they’ll nuke the entire god-damned world!
BORIS: Let me just…Okay…there. I’ve got the base of this program written, but it’s going to be about another five hours of coding, then the program will take a few days to work because these machines are a little out of date.
MCDONELL: But the Commies will crack into our system within the hour! Is there any way you can do it faster? Some way? There’s got to be a way!
BORIS: There really isn’t. We started way too late.
MCDONELL: So the Commies will set off the nuke? They'll kill us all?
BORIS: It looks that way. I wish you had given me a heads up on this project earlier.

Credits roll.

INT. HOUSE – NIGHT

LUCY reads a magazine on the couch. She hears a NOISE.

LUCY: Hello? Is someone there?

LUCY finds a note on the coffee table that says, “You are not alone.” LUCY exits through the side door, walks to the neighbor’s house, calls the police on her cell phone, and watches DETECTIVE SHERMAN arrest LUKE.

Credits roll.

"Porn Creates Unrealistic Expectations"

2011-04-16T10:27:00.001-04:00

HARUKI: I think I’m ready. I think we should do it tonight.
SHINJI: You mean…have sex?
HARUKI: Yeah. Are you ready?
SHINJI: This is the perfect time. Let me get undressed.
HARUKI: Okay. I’ll lay out the iguana carcasses.
SHINJI: What?
HARUKI: Iguana carcasses. To attract the Lord of the Lizard Demons.
SHUNJI: I thought we were having sex.
HARUKI: We are. Wait, what is that?
SHINJI: What?
HARUKI: Between your legs. Where are the rest of them?
SHINJI: What?
HARUKI: Is that your only penis? You only have one? How many tentacles do you have?
SHINJI: Tentacles…I…I just have this one penis.
HARUKI: Are you serious? That’s it? Just the one, tiny, fleshy penis?
SHINJI: Yeah, why?
HARUKI: I mean…I guess we can make it work until the octopus shows up.

"Unpaid Internship"

2011-04-14T14:18:00.001-04:00

DR. SHIRRON: Lance, I need you to keep an eye on the specimen for the next two hours while I attend the Cryogenics Symposium. I expect nothing will happen, but if they show signs of life, be sure to alert Dr. Morris.
LANCE: No problem.
(DR. SHIRRON exits.)
LANCE: (mocking) “Keep an eye on the specimen! Just sit here and don’t use your brain!” Valuable work experience my ass. I’m just free slave labor.
(LANCE leans back in his chair, observing chambers in front of him. One begins to rattle. Its top opens.)
LANCE: Hey! Dr. Shirron? Is anybody…
(The reanimated corpse of Frederick Douglass steps out of the chamber.)
FREDERICK DOUGLASS: Hello.
LANCE: Um…Hi. You’re…
FREDERICK DOUGLASS: I’m Frederick Douglass. Nice to meet you.
LANCE: Listen, there’s supposed to be this whole re-acclimation process and everything, but Dr. Shirron left and I…
FREDERICK DOUGLASS: I heard you talking earlier about slave labor. Tell me more.
LANCE: This internship is totally just slave labor. They make me do menial tasks that no one wants to do for free.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS: What do they make you do?
LANCE: I have to sort through emails and put them into the right folders.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS: Sounds pretty tough.
LANCE: Yeah, it’s so boring. And sometimes I have to retype data from a sheet of paper into a computer for like two straight hours and the computer is slow.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS: That must be pretty taxing on you physically.
LANCE: Yeah, and when they let me observe actual lab work, they make me stand all the way in the back.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS: What a disgrace. It never ceases to amaze me how easily a human can become such a monster like your boss.
LANCE: You sound sarcastic.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS: No, no. This job sounds real strenuous. Lots of buttons to press.
LANCE: It’s just degrading as a human being. Hey! Do you think maybe you could help me fight for my rights?
FREDERICK DOUGLASS: Sure thing. I’ll help you out as soon as you choke on a chicken bone and die, you air-conditioned pile of shit. Now explain to me why the hell I'm alive again.

"Deaf Ears and Long Fingers"

2011-04-12T20:11:00.001-04:00

FROM: Carl Haverfield
TO: Don McMan
SUBJECT: New typeface

Hey Don,

Attached is the new typeface I designed. It’s a Courier-inspired serif with a modern flair. I just wrote out some sample sentences to show it off. Just some simple sentences off the top of my head. Let me know what you think about the font, or anything else you want to talk about. Anything at all.

-Carl

FROM: Don McMan
TO: Carl Haverfield
SUBJECT: Re: New typeface

Carl,

Thanks for senfding ovfer that tasty font! Looks great! Sorry for any typos, this slippery Alfredo sauce has got my gorgeous new fingers extra slick. I figured the Camelback backpack would make eating this stuff cleaner, but loading the pack up with the sauce is a mess in itself! I’ll send the font to Carol as soon as I finish customizing this pair of gloves. It’s going to feel so good to wrap up my ten long babies!

Giving you an extra-large salute,
Don

"Consequences"

2011-04-12T16:39:00.000-04:00

-Hi, Matt, my name is Operative Adams from the CIA. Do you know why we’re here?
-I swear I didn't download those movies. It was my neighbor.
-That’s not why we’re here. Within the hour, America's bottled water distributors will be attacked by Donovan St. Clair, an international bioterrorist. He will poison the nation's water with a concentrated form of anthrax.
-Is going door-to-door really the best way to spread the word?
-We have analyzed your scores from the videogame Goldeneye, which we designed as a combat simulator, and believe you are the only man up to the task of eliminating Donovan St. Clair and his leagues of bodyguards.
-What?
-Your scores are extraordinary. Your kill to death ratio surpasses anything we’ve ever seen before. Your laser-like aim with the PP7 pistol will save millions of lives.
-No, look, I used a GameShark on that game. I had invincibility turned on, and infinite ammo, and all the weapons, so I think you should find someone else.
-Invincibility? Unlimited ammunition and weaponry? You should have been inducted years ago.
-No, look, it's this thing you stick into the bottom of the game and--
-Keep your combat secrets to yourself! We brought you a PP7 and you may use your GameShark device. St. Clair will ring your doorbell in fifteen minutes, expecting you to be an arms dealer named Diego Escobar who is selling him nuclear warheads. Eliminate St. Clair and the rest of his men and the nation will again be safe. We will be waiting in a van ninety miles away if anything goes wrong.

"Gladius"

2011-04-12T16:26:00.000-04:00

My Italian teacher told the class today that the word “gladiator” comes from the Latin term for penis, which was associated with swords. I worry he may be screwing with us.

SUMMA RUDIS: Gladiators, assemble! Show the hungry crowd your weapons of destruction.
VERUS: I present to you my mighty sword, one meter of cool iron forged in the mines of Mesopotamia! Ready to drain the blood of my challenger!
(Crowd goes wild)
SUMMA RUDIS: And you, gladiator, display your instrument of death!
MATT: Wait, my teacher told us a different translation.
SUMMA RUDIS: We have no time to waste! Show us your sword!
MATT: This was all a big misunderstanding and I’m realizing now that I made a mistake…Here is my, uh, sword.
(He pulls a dead, limp penis out of his sheath.)
MATT: It’s four inches of flesh ripped off a dead soldier from Dalmatia.
VERUS: If you will allow me to be so bold, challenger, that looks to me more like a human's penis than a sword.
MATT: I know. I thought the word meant…
VERUS: Where is your scrotum shield?
MATT: Look, I don't need your jokes. This is humiliating. Can I just forfeit? Can I leave?
SUMMA RUDIS: The crowd would love to see you devoured by lions.
MATT: Fine, I’ll try to make it work.
SUMMA RUDIS: He will try to make it work! Let the bloodbath begin!
(Crowd goes wild)
VERUS: I don’t want that thing in my face.
MATT: I’ll throw it at you.
VERUS: I’ll cut your head off. I just don’t want that rotten penis on my face, okay? That’s nasty.
MATT: I’m going to throw it in your mouth.
(Crowd goes wild)

“Allowance for Doubtful Accounts”

2011-04-09T13:31:00.000-04:00

To the universe I’m just a bare ass in a pair of high socks straddling a Yamaha crotch rocket, barreling down the highway in the night, a tiny speck of flesh dashing across the blackness. The cool air hits me at one hundred and twenty miles-an-hour and feels divine, ethereal on every part of my skin except my penis, which is buried four inches deep in a Taiwanese stripper like an ostrich searching for water. She hugs the bike and I hug her, my Oriental Princess, and we are one: the yin and yang hurling towards Phoenix like a coital cannonball. We enter the city and peel ourselves off the bike just before it smashes through the hotel window. A storm of glass rains over our bare backs as we soar like doves onto the stage, our bodies fused into a single nude testament to human beauty, and the members of the executive board look stunned; they know that this year I’m not here to screw around. The bike makes contact with a beverage cart and an explosion of Sterno burners sends a tsunami of flames rippling up the curtains just as my lady and I begin to make love on stage voraciously like a pair of deprived nymphomaniacs reunited after World War II. Fifteen hundred individuals hiding titillation under brown suits stare, their bitter eyes exuding deranged delight as they witness us share a life-changing climax before our blazing backdrop of Hell, a bone-shaking nine-minute collaboration of pleasure so great you'd swear a universe was created in the gap between our crotches. A beat, then a wall of applause pulverizes us, the sound waves a barrage of aural sucker punches that slap the sweat off our flushed faces as we crumple into a mess of tangled hair and depraved carnality. That’s how you make an entrance at the National Conference of Financial Modeling and Analysis in Microsoft Excel.

"Kleckner's Chicken Soup!"

2011-04-07T22:28:00.001-04:00

Our soup cans are BPA-free! That’s right, not a trace of that cancerous BPA. Our soup is also trans fat-free! Not a single gram of that junk is in here, unlike some of the other soups. We’re not pointing fingers or anything. We’re just saying that we’d look a little closer at those labels if we were interested in our hearts working. New! Now our soup is 100% Free of Your Brother’s Ashes. You read that right, folks, our soup contains absolutely zero particles of your dead brother’s dusty ashes. Are we implying that the competition does contain some ashes of your brother? Are we saying that they received some disturbing pleasure from cremating your brother? Not on the record, no. We’re just saying that we tried out some of their clam chowder and it had a distinct flame-roasted taste reminiscent of childhood memories. Our soup also contains no shoes, orange peels, bits of scratch paper from math tests, or bird heads. So if you’re looking for rotten or diseased bird heads, Progresso is over there. Our soup is also lead free! This soup does contain 66 grams of MSG and an ounce of goat bile, a thickener.

"Foreplay"

2011-04-06T23:22:00.000-04:00

-Tim? You can come in now…You’re gonna like what I’m wearing under the covers…Hey! Who are you?
-Oh, hi, I’m Martin Haverchuck, nice to meet you, I'm the opening act tonight. Tim hired me to get you in the mood for sex, so he can just show up like the pro he is and get the job done. Shall we begin? I only have eight minutes.
-Where’s Tim?
-He’s in the bathroom drinking Sugar Free Red Bulls and warming up with some erotic literature. I took a peek at the set-list and you can look forward to a collection of the same greatest hits Tim has been doing for the past two years, followed by an encore of Tim falling asleep.
-This is too weird.
-It’s common nowadays. You can find me after Tim’s round at the merch table in your living room if you have questions. I have hoodies and can coozies with my logo on them.
-It’s just…I’m not Natasha. I’m Linda Kelly, the opening act Natasha hired to get Tim going. Natasha is in the kitchen heating up some soup.
-Huh. Maybe tonight will be the night they rekindle their interest in pleasing each other.
-Natasha just had the insides of her eyelids tattooed with pictures of Ryan Reynolds, so probably not.

"Dickie Sharkskin's Callused Heart"

2011-04-05T19:05:00.000-04:00

Dickie Sharkskin visualized himself murdering a goose. In his head, Dickie squeezed the stinky bird’s phallic neck in his wrists, twisting it like an Indian rope burn, while the disgusting goose screamed and vomited up bits of garbage and excrement all over Dickie’s callused hands. Six members of the goose’s gander watched in horror as their leader, Bruce, was decapitated by a squat muscleman who was yelling, “How do you like me now? Who’s the champ? I destroy geese!”

“What did you say about geese?” said Bryan Buckle, seated on the bench press next to Dickie.

“Fuck ‘em,” said Dickie. “I said fuck all the geese.”

The endorphins rushing through Dickie’s brain made him feel like he had just brought a cover model from Women’s Fitness Magazine to an earth-shattering orgasm, simultaneously with his own, while simultaneously coming up with a new way to infuse creatine powder into high-protein lunches.

Dickie had just hit a new one-rep max on the bench, 695lbs., blasting through the plateau he had been stuck on ever since he started wearing underpants to the gym at the behest of the other patrons who were bothered by the glare coming off his shiny Prince Albert piercing. He again felt whole, assured that his gains were a result of his brute strength and superior physicality, not just the freedom of showing off the metal rod that no one, absolutely no one, wanted him to get.

Dickie Sharkskin was a monument of the human form. His pecs were pumped like hams, his biceps swollen ripe like lacey footballs in Saran wrap, and his quads burst out of his thighs as if they were screaming in your face, “Four years of squatting is a better investment than four years of college.” His lean torso was as shredded as his digestive system, which was scarred and twisted from the gallons of chemical supplements Dickie pumped into it.

Dickie spent nine hours a day at Nasty Hamstrings, a gym that somehow had more iron in it than Dickie’s bloody shits after a grilled chicken binge. His routines were simple and effective. A thousand deadlifts, a thousand squats, and to tone his abs he would get on the floor and hold a tight plank until a Major League Baseball player was indicted for steroid use.

Dickie lifted weights six days a week, and on his day off he sat in bed, too sore to move, fantasizing about tomorrow, when again the smooth metal of 45 pound plates would caress his palms with the soft touch of the girlfriend who dumped him after getting tired of being bench-pressed in her sleep. While his muscles rested and he fantasized, Dickie organized buckets of protein powders and listened to heavy metal music to drown out the noise of his roommate planning soccer games with his friends in the living room.

Dickie hadn’t been on good terms with his roommate, Kevin Kayak, since he started lifting weights seriously four years ago. Every time Kevin wanted to watch a movie, Dickie wanted to watch his amino acid intake. Every time Kevin suggested they go out to eat, Dickie suggested they go score a pair of smoothies on the way to the gym. Every time Kevin said they should work on a fun project together, Dickie was in the bathroom vomiting blood and shooting pre-workout nitric oxide into his eyeballs.

Just as Dickie rolled back to pinch out another rep at 695, his cell phone buzzed with a text message from Kevin Kayak. Dickie opened the phone with his defined fingers.

The message read:
Save me, bro! Mystery man kidnapped me on soccer field! He’s got me in a van headed towards Fox’s Pizza Den!

Dickie ignored the message. Where would he find the time to rescue Kevin? He still had to do pushups until someone he went to high school with got married. He’d let one of Kevin’s teammates deal with it, since they always seemed to have so much fun together anyway.

On his walk to the other side of the gym, Dickie passed a poster that said TEAMWORK and showed two slick, shirtless men, one hanging off the side of a cliff while the other pulled him up. Dickie stared at it for a minute. Memories from years ago began pouring into his adrenaline-drunk brain. He saw himself and Kevin playfully flinging paint at each other on the day they moved into their apartment. He saw Kevin teaching him how to do a proper chin up. He saw Kevin asleep on the couch, where he had been waiting after Dickie slammed his door in Kevin’s face one night, refusing to go out until he did a thousand bodyweight squats.

What has become of me? Dickie thought. I have traded my life for my pecs; my friends for my quads.

Dickie threw his protein shake at Bryan Buckle and raced to his car. It was time to rescue Kevin.

PART II

Dickie threw all 290 of his lean, veiny pounds into his left turn. He had chosen to have the power steering removed from his car at the dealership. The removal cost him $600, but it was worth it every time his triceps popped while pulling the wheel. He caught a glimpse of his bulging tricep, looking like a fat, ripe sweet potato, out of the corner of his eye. He tried to focus on the road, on his mission to save Kevin, but it was difficult to ignore something so plump, so rock-hard, so beautiful. As Dickie leaned over to kiss it, he spun out across an intersection and heard brakes squeal and a crash louder than his 1,500 pound deadlift.

His car had smashed into a van and now both were spewing flames. Dickie crawled out from the wreckage and noticed writing on the destroyed van: Mr. Edwin Mann, Hospital Associate. He knew immediately that this was the “Mystery Man” Kevin mentioned. Dickie was going to make this “Mr. E. Mann” pay for kidnapping his roommate.

Throwing open the door, Dickie found the culprit pinned to his seat. Edwin Mann was hideous. Not only was he doughy and weak, but he was so ugly that his full time profession was as hospitals’ cheaper alternative to ipecac. He induced vomiting in poisoned patients by describing the one horrendous time he had disappointed a woman sexually.

Dickie shouted, “Time to die, roommate thief!” and reached to grab Edwin by the neck, but his arm refused to budge past his shoulder. His rippling bicep was paralyzed with soreness. He was stunned; his workouts had rendered him immobile.

Edwin didn’t want to die, because he was only halfway through the novel Eragon and had to find out how it ended. He could tell that Dickie was paralyzed because Dickie just stood there with his arms up like a robot, so Edwin tipped the boulder that was Dickie’s body into the car. Amid broiling flames licking both of their faces like Satan’s hellhound, Edwin slapped Dickie across the cheek six times. Dickie just sat there, too sore to fight back. He screamed into the back of the van, “Kevin! I’m here to save you but my pecs are too sore! Get out if you can!”

The flames were racing towards the gas tank. Edwin knew he had to finish destroying this muscled madman soon. He looked for options. He could strangle him in a seatbelt. But there wasn’t enough slack. He could try to punch him to death. But there wasn’t enough room to get a full swing. He could stick Dickie’s penis in the cigarette lighter. Bingo.

Edwin mentally channeled his one-time girlfriend Susanna Sandal as he fished through Dickie’s mesh shorts in search of a penis. He fumbled the short, shriveled lump of flesh in his hands and with a heave worthy of one of Dickie’s barbell rows, Edwin stretched Dickie’s penis and crammed it into the cigarette lighter. As Edwin rolled out of the flaming van, Dickie regretted his entire life.

The piercing in Dickie’s glans sparked against the fuse and Dickie lit up electric blue as his penis thrashed in the socket, taking in thousands of volts until it looked like a wrinkled, unwanted gas station hot dog. The voltage burned up Dickie’s penis like a candle wick, sending flames rocketing inside Dickie’s organ, melting his urethra. The toxic concoction of anabolic juices and nitric oxide coursing through his veins made his blood as flammable as gasoline, and the flames rushed through his vascular system, turning his rubbery arteries into paste and igniting the row of kidney stones in his ureter one-by-one, making the calcified rocks crackle and spark like gunpowder balls. The flames accelerated, melting all of his veins and arteries, causing a storm of blood to rain down on his muscles and bones while he yelled, “Kevin! Save yourself! My pecs are toast!” The trail of fiery pain blazed its way to Dickie’s hardened heart, callused from pumping chemical supplements, making the swollen organ melt into a glob of Star-Spangled ice cream, red and blue and sticky and dead.

Dickie’s life leaked out from him as a trickle of chemical-laced blood, which snaked down over a tire, under Edwin Mann’s leg, across the street, and finally came to rest in the grass of the Rosemont Golf Course, where a lone goose sniffed it, looked left and right, and licked it up.

PART III

Kevin Kayak checked the time. “He’s probably still at the gym,” he said to Linda, the Fox's Pizza Den waitress. “Ten more minutes for those pizzas. He’ll make it. He’s really going to love this surprise party.”

"Not Again"

2011-04-04T20:57:00.000-04:00

-Hey, man, I just wanted to thank you for organizing this pact. It’s super hard to get sousaphone players together, so I'm really excited. And this punch is tasty. What's in it?
-You have made a grave mistake.
-God dammit. Now I'm the idiot with the tuba. Well, this is what I get for skimming the brochure.

"Dippin' Dots"

2011-04-02T13:54:00.000-04:00

(A secret bunker under the White House)
-Welcome back, Mr. Jones. This meeting will surely be the pinnacle of my administration, and the products of it will change our entire existence. I hope the time travel mission went well.
-It went very well, Mr. President. I visited the year 2268, a borderless world in which war exists only in history books.
-Outstanding. Surely your discoveries will revolutionize the world. I hope you acquired as much intelligence as possible, as we will not have enough astatine necessary for another mission for at least one hundred years. Please show me the miracles you have brought home.
-Are you ready for this?
-Please. We are on the brink of a new age.
-Brace yourself, because this will blow you mind. (Opening briefcase) I have with me… the ice cream of the future! Check it out! They eat it in little dots. Pretty sweet, huh? Pretty sweet? Comes in fun flavors like Java Delight.
-That is amusing, sure. But please, show me the medical and technological advancements.
-What?
-The medicines, the cancer cures, the space travel information.
-Oh…
-Are those things not in our future?
-No, they are. It’s just, um, I thought you guys would be happy with the ice cream, so I didn’t exactly bring anything else. I mean come on, it’s awesome. Tiny little ice cream dots. You can buy it in a pouch.
-You have no information about curing disease? You only have ice cream dots? You have disappointed an entire world.
-Hey, it’s no worse than Crick’s mission to the past when he only brought back tiny plastic baseball helmets.
-That was as waste as well, as those things are useless except for holding something like a handful of nickels or maybe a tiny amount of ice cream. But you—
-Wait! If we combine our findings, we will revolutionize the world! We will serve tiny ice cream dots to children at baseball parks in tiny plastic helmets.
-Why didn’t I see it before? It’s a miracle! All hail Curt Jones and his ice cream of the future! I appoint you my new Vice President.
-Really?
-Of course not. You’re fired. You’re an embarrassment. Take your dots and get out of here. Actually, leave me a pouch of Tropical Tie Dye.

"Do Unto Others"

2011-03-31T14:19:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the Navajo Nation! We are very happy to welcome you and your family to our tiny little slice of America.

Did you know that the Navajo Indian Reservation was established in 1868 after the Long Walk of the Navajo in 1864, which was the forced deportation and attempted ethnic cleansing of the Navajo people by Americans? That’s an interesting little tidbit. Just something to think about.

We hope you enjoy all of the unique cultural offerings the Navajo Nation has to offer. We also insist that you be aware of the sometime striking differences in American and Navajo culture, so what follows is a brief guide to proper etiquette in the Navajo Nation to ensure a safe and pleasant vacation.

• When exploring the Navajo Nation, it is standard practice to give every Navajo $5 whenever you see them. It is a great offense to not hand over cash, so always be prepared. There are several ATMs in all hotel lobbies.
• In the Navajo Nation, polite titles such as “Oh great holy one,” “Beautiful, intelligent god,” “Lord of all that is wonderful,” or a combination of the three are always used when addressing people. For example, after your hotel concierge recommends a guided tour through Antelope Canyon, your response would be, “Thank you very much, Oh great holy god, you beautiful lord who is so much better than I could ever dream of being,” and then slip a $5 bill into his or her hand.
• If your tour guide sees a coyote, it is customary for you to get on your hands and knees and let your donkey piss all over your face. If your guide laughs, that is a sign of great respect.
• When your tour guide suggests a restaurant and they serve you an item that looks like human feces in a tortilla, it is human feces in a tortilla. It is then tradition for you to eat all of it and pay double the menu price. If you are wondering why only the white people were served this dish, it is because we consider this item a special delicacy reserved for our most valued guests.
• Many words in the Navajo language sound very similar to English words, but they of course have different meanings. For example, when returning to your hotel for the evening, you may hear one employee say to another, “Look at that pasty fat family. They stink like piss and I bet they ate the shit for dinner.” The translation of these sounds is, “I love foreign travelers. Interacting with their culture is so interesting!” You should then hand the two employees $5 each, bow, say, “Thank you for this privilege, you fine spirits of a holier realm," and kiss their kneecaps.

We hope you have a great vacation and collect lots of fond memories to reflect on when you drive out of our territory, without being forced, to return to your home on the land you totally deserve to live on.

"Senses"

2011-03-30T19:38:00.000-04:00

An Excerpt from the Diary of Mitch Magenta, the Man Who Lost His Senses of Sight, Smell, Taste, Touch, and Hearing in an Accident, Causing a Superhuman Heightening of His Sense of Entitlement

March 30, 2011
Am I responsible for doing a handstand on my motorcycle and driving it straight into a brick wall at 120mph in a failed attempt to earn a sponsorship from Amp Energy Drink? Yes. Was I imagining hot babes on my arms and an endless river of the neon green juice when my spinal cord snapped like a twig, reducing my body to a living casket for my soul? Sure. But does that mean I do not deserve the common decency of a name-brand mattress and a badass hospital gown with some flames on it? Absolutely not. I’m suffering here. A legend like me needs memory foam, a flaming wolf skull on my chest, and I obviously should get a few cases of Amp for my effort.

Schrödinger’s Wife’s Sister’s Cat

2011-03-29T14:17:00.000-04:00

-This is ridiculous. I’m not spending money on that thing.
-Oh, come on, honey. It’s just fun. You’d like Mr. Puddins to celebrate your birthday, wouldn’t you?
-I wouldn’t care either way. Besides, it just sits on top of the fridge all day, out of sight. I’m telling you, it’s just as likely to be dead up there as it is to be alive, so it might as well be both. A half-dead cat doesn’t deserve any toys.
-At least he has the option of being alive, unlike your soul. I'll be at the fabric store preparing his vest.

"Warnings"

2011-03-28T20:17:00.001-04:00

Harmful if inhaled. Causes moderate eye irritation. Do not inhale dust, vapor, or spray mist. Avoid contact with eyes. Do not swallow. Also, do not wear boxer shorts covered with the phrase “Runs on Natural Gas” to bed if you have any hope of your wife removing them. Do not at any point, even in jest, refer to your semen as “the cottage cheese” if you have any hope of your wife ever interacting with it again. Do not assume your wife will consider it endearing or cute to show her your testicle poking through your zipper during the divorce proceedings. It will not win her back. Do not insert into your wife’s sister. That one applies to both you and the drain cleaner.

"This Guy Has Been Around Forever"

2011-03-25T23:19:00.000-04:00

-Have you tried this new milk stuff?
-Milk?
-Yeah, it’s this creamy liquid that comes from cows. Super tasty.
-I know what milk is, champ. I drank it months ago.
-Really? I just read a review of it in Drinks Magazine.
-I read about it in Obscure Liquids Gazette, a local independent pamphlet. Milk used to be a lot better before it got all homogenized. Now everyone drinks it. It's been commercialized for the masses.
-But it tastes so good.
-I’ve moved on. I only drink goose bile. It channels the energy of liver and distills thousands of flavors of complex mucus and digestive excretions into one very singular and sublime vision.
-I remember when you were an okay guy.

"Mnemonic"

2011-03-24T14:03:00.000-04:00

“How I Remember the Order of Operations” By Stuart Slouch

Parentheses
Three weeks ago I was at the Post Office shipping off a flash drive loaded up with scans of the Rainbow Six Vegas Official Strategy Guide to a sucker from eBay. By the time I got to the front of the line to suffer the salted-soup stench of the geriatric clerk, I had played fourteen games of Cat Photo Memory on my iPhone. I said to the aged clerk, “I want this Parcel Post, okay? (And please remember to ship it to the correct address this time, grandpa).” The clerk heard what I had muttered and punched me in the mouth.

Exponents
The clerk, Timbo, was much stronger than his frail arms made him seem. He waved to the back and all of these other antique guys started pouring out, first two, then four, then eight, and so on, increasing exponentially until I was surrounded by thirty-nine elderly men wearing pleated slacks and expressions of utter hatred for youth. These powdery ghosts were obsolete relics of a miserable pre-digital era that their atrophied brains had the pleasure of forgetting. They had the translucent skin of shrimp and I could see their liver and onion lunches passing through their intestines.

Multiplication
Each of the thirty-nine elderly men whistled in unison and thirty-nine mighty elephants, looking like they'd been out of commission since India was the Crown Jewel, galloped through the Post Office’s front windows, multiplying by two the number of creatures who were displeased with me. There were now seventy-eight seniors wanting to teach me a lesson about mocking the old geezers.

Division
The frail army divided into six units of thirteen and each formed a human-pachyderm pyramid. Timbo stood atop his and shouted, “What dare you think about your youth? Be you superior? Be you superior because your mind has a better capacity to store useless knowledge? Be you superior because your mind can hold all of the passwords to your accounts on Japanese pornography websites? Recall, child, that my frail mind still holds within it the memories of storming the beach at Normandy and then bedding a higher quantity of women than the attendance of the Seneca Falls Convention.”

Addition
I added, “That’s such a dated reference only someone with a dusty dick like yourself would understand. Get with it, grandpa. Buy a PSP; get on Skype. Back up your rusted bones to an external hard drive before they collapse under the weight of your dead dreams.”

Subtraction
Timbo and his elderly army descended upon me, beating me with penny loafers and newsboy caps. From the commotion arose a cloud of chalky old-man dust that smelled like an embalmed corpse. The elephants slapped my cheeks with their leathery trunks and my body bruised with each whap of a shoe or cane or flat-rate Priority Mail envelope. I shouted, “At least I can see, you blind old creeps!” Just then, one of them put his fingers into my eye sockets and subtracted two eyeballs from my face.

Now every time I smell a movie theater at 11am on a Tuesday or listen to someone play Rainbow Six Vegas, I remember the order of operations and wonder if those senile brawlers have kicked the bucket yet. Thanks to my 16GB iPhone I will always remember the order of operations. The memory is stored right next to my knowledge of the box office grosses of the Spider-Man trilogy.

"In Media Res"

2011-03-23T21:01:00.001-04:00

-Then you install the beams and interior joists, then attach the trim and decking and you’ll officially have built yourself a deck.
-Why the hell don’t you ever start at the beginning? These instructions are useless.
-Perhaps. But someone must continue the legacy of Homer.

"Time to Die"

2011-03-22T14:52:00.000-04:00

Reggie Mushroom was vomiting into some dirt when he decided it was the perfect time to die. He had just been beaned in the chest with a ninety two mile-an-hour fastball thrown by Ralph Wolfstain, the most disgusting pitcher in the Majors. Wolfstain had a face someone could only love ironically, with spiky teeth jutting out in every direction and the sort of fat grey cheeks that look like they belong in a deli freezer. Wolfstain loved beaning new players almost as much as he loved snorting cocaine, putting on a canine costume, and participating as a sled dog in the Iditarod.

Reggie was the hotshot new shortstop for the New York Mets. The buzz around him had been loud ever since his college days, when he always covered himself in honey. This was his first game in the Bigs. He was doing well; a single, a triple, and now an easy stroll to first base on account of the hit by pitch. An easy stroll except for the blood he coughed all over his chin. Reggie figured his career batting average was 1.000 so if he were to die tomorrow, he would go down as the greatest hitter of all time. He also had other reasons why now was the time. He had purchased the last bucket on his list needed to complete his collection, and he had finally gotten closure with his father. Also, his wife caught him fucking the cotton candy girl on top of the visitors’ dugout.

Reggie decided to end his life peacefully by swimming to the ocean floor and waiting until his oxygen tank wheezed empty, a flawless plan he read about on a Geocities webpage. Reggie bought scuba equipment from a morbidly obese man named Flip-Flop Gomez, who had himself acquired the gear by devouring a banana-flavored diver named Chip Simian.

Reggie sped into the Atlantic in his amphibious German Schwimmwagen, which he had won in a game of regular roulette with a bunch of Russians who had later shot themselves in the face. He parked it about a mile out from the shore and flipped over the edge. He swam deeper and deeper, past sunken boots and abandoned Outback Steakhouses, until he reached the sea floor. He sat and stared, waiting for the gentle grasp of death to lead him to the other side. He imagined his face, cast in bronze, hanging in the Hall of Fame.

Something tapped Reggie on the back. He turned around and staring at him, with its spiky teeth practically touching the fogged lenses of Reggie’s mask, was a six foot long brutally fat Angler Fish, its jaw open wide. It was a mirror image of Ralph Wolfstain, except Reggie figured the Angler Fish probably had sex with human women more often. Reggie flinched into action and poked the beast’s eyes out in a show of amazing muscle memory. Reggie had dealt with an Angler Fish before. When he was thirteen one had rang his doorbell in search of late payments for magazine subscriptions.

Reggie was horrified. His heart pounded against his ribs as if Neal Peart himself were inside Reggie’s heart (which was impossible, because Neal Peart was at the time inside Reggie’s shoe). Suddenly everything became clear. A thought flashed across Reggie’s mind: If I die now, I’ll never eat any more Newman’s Own cereal. I’ll never get revenge on Ralph Wolfstain. I won’t see my daughter graduate. I’ll never try the other varieties of Honey Bunches of Oats.

Reggie sprang off the ocean floor towards the light. He saw that he had ten minutes of oxygen left. He would make it. He would survive. He would get his revenge on Wolfstain by disguising himself as a rock of crack cocaine, selling himself to Wolfstain, being snorted into Wolfstain’s nose, and springing back to full-size inside Wolfstain’s body, which he would wear as a costume. He would then control Wolfstain’s body to apply to be a contestant on Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, win the preliminary rounds, making it to the televised competition, and then answer the first question incorrectly, causing Wolfstain endless embarrassment. It was a flawless plan.

Reggie kicked his muscled thighs harder than he had since he last played soccer, when he was forced in the penalty box to stomp grapes to make wine. He began feeling light-headed. “I’m exerting all of my energy,” he thought. “Gonna get a little tired. But being alive never felt so good.” He was pumping his arms and kicking his legs so hard that he forgot to breathe. He could only focus on getting to the sweet surface.

Reggie’s head burst into the air and he opened his mouth. “I ascended a thousand feet in two minutes,” he thought. “That’s got to be a world record. I’m the best!” He pumped his fist in self-congratulation and felt an incredible pain. His veins were inflated with nitrogen bubbles and his arms were swelling like water balloons ready to burst. He felt an immense pressure in his chest, as if Freddy Mercury were inside, studying for his MCAT. Just as Reggie remembered something Flip-Flop had said about the seriousness of equalizing lung pressure while ascending to the surface, his chest began expanding, inflating like Flip-Flop’s waistline after Fat Tuesday, which was every Tuesday for Flip-Flop. Reggie’s lungs swelled and blood poured out of his face. Reggie thought, “Could this pain be in my heart? Am I aching on the inside for acceptance? For love?” One thousand microscopic air sacs burst inside his right lung. “Nope,” he thought, “this pain is in my exploding lungs.” His ribs popped one at a time, each resonating a tone higher than the previous, like Mickey Mouse ascending a staircase. Reggie’s wetsuit stretched and split open and as his brain oozed out of his nostrils, he mumbled, “I don’t want to—“ but was cut off when his lungs exploded, sending meaty flaps of Reggie Mushroom soaring into the sky and splashing into the calm Atlantic Ocean.

Six miles away, Napoleon Snorkle, the Mets’ second baseman heard a loud pop and echo. “What was that?” he said.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Elizabeth Mushroom. “Let’s have some more sex on Reggie’s bed.”

"Directions Are Relative"

2011-03-21T20:44:00.000-04:00

“It was great to see everyone. Could someone tell me how to get back to the highway from here?”

ALICE, GRANDMOTHER
After you leave my neighborhood, you take a left at the Stein Mart where my friend Gloria passed away, then after about five miles take a right at the Belk’s where my friend Theresa passed away, and then another right at the shopping center we don’t like to talk about anymore with the Picadilly Cafeteria where my friend Craig had his heart attack. That’ll get you to the highway where my friend Rose fell asleep behind the wheel.

BRENDA, CERAMIC KANGAROO ENTHUSIAST AUNT
No problem, sweetheart. Just make a left at Briarson’s Antiques, where they’ve got the big fat kangaroos, then make a right at Plaster Palace, where they’ve got some Eastern Grey kangaroos you can paint yourself, then make another right at the shopping center with the Hallmark with the overpriced figurines that don’t even feature accurate snouts, which is just another reason to not go to that shopping center after the disgusting tragedy Dennis caused.

HERB, OBESE UNCLE
One sec, let me just swallow this gristle. Okay, what you do is you take a left at the KFC/Taco Bell combo, pick up some popcorn chicken, then right after you finish eating those you’ll take a right at the Denny’s where you should sit at the last booth down because the waitress there, Patricia, will let you choose a syrup tub as your beverage, then after that you take another right at the shopping center with the Picadilly Cafeteria, you know, the shopping center where the incident happened, where you should pick up a couple Blackened Porks with Fettuccini Alfredo to go because you’ll be on the highway for about fifteen minutes so you’ll need a snack.

DENNIS, FAMLY EMBARRASSMENT
Hell yeah, just take a left at the Blockbuster where me and Cindy Kirkpatrick filmed our sex tape in the Gamecube aisle, then make a right at the Kohl’s that has the ATM I chained to my truck that ripped off my bumper, then another right at that shopping center with the Picadilly Cafeteria where I slaughtered all those kangaroos to have my Kangaroo-B-Q, which would have been pimp if the news vans hadn't shown up.

"Salvation"

2011-03-20T21:31:00.001-04:00

Mrs. Johnston was out that day, sick with a parasite. We didn’t wonder where she went. We were just glad to have a day off from drinking spoiled milk, which is what she made us do during Social Studies.

Mr. Ferrell came in her place. He looked very odd for a substitute teacher, which is to say he didn’t have a gun in his mouth. Mr. Ferrell was pleasant and we soon found out why.

“Guys,” he said, standing in front of, no, defying Mrs. Johnston’s desk. “Today we are mixing things up a bit. Today we are having a movie day.” We all looked at each other, mouths open. “I brought a selection from my personal collection.” He slowly pulled a DVD case from his leather jacket. “It is Monsters, Inc.”

The class erupted in celebration. Desks were thrown, trumpets blared, and Pete Hemsworth blew chunks all over the window, he was so excited.

The next day Mr. Ferrell was the substitute for Mrs. Bostick and when the muffled explosion of joy hit our ears just as we began sipping our yellow milk, we all knew what was happening across the hall.

After school that day I saw Mr. Ferrell getting into his 1992 Ford Taurus. “Where are you headed?” I said.

“I’m out of here,” he said. “I have spread the joy of movie day to the students of Creek View Elementary School and now other people need me.”

“Can’t you stay? Just one more movie day? We need you.”

“I can’t, kid. Everyone needs a movie day. Without me this world would collapse.” He flicked a cigarette into the dead grass. “People get so tightly wound from doing the same work every day that their scrotums swell with tension and burst like grapefruits in a vice. I was put on this earth to prevent that.”

I looked at his grizzled beard and the worn DVD case in his hand. I knew then that the world was bigger than me.

His Taurus coughed to a start and he was off, veering left down the street on two flat tires.

“Where are you going?” I shouted.

There was no response.

Twelve years later a newspaper headline gave me the answer.

“Hero Brings Peace to Mid-East with Monsters, Inc. Viewing”

"Bloodmobile"

2011-03-20T13:36:00.000-04:00

-You ever consider that maybe if this thing ran on gasoline we’d be able to donate a whole lot more of this blood?
-Gasoline? The emissions are terrible for the environment.

"Foreign Language"

2011-03-18T13:57:00.001-04:00

"Family Computer"

2011-03-17T14:46:00.000-04:00

DOUBLECLICK ADVERTISING SERVER ONE: You see this order? We need three banner ads for IP 24.131.48.46.
DOUBLECLICK ADVERTISING SERVER TWO: Yeah, it’s showing Female 45-60, suburbs outside Atlanta. I’m thinking we do one for Foundry Park Spa and two for Talbot’s.
ONE: Look closer. The profile also shows a strong interest in video games and extreme sports. I say we do two for Talbot’s and one for the new Shaun White Skateboarding game.
TWO: Huh. Check this out. This user spends almost equal time shopping at upscale women’s clothing websites and looking at lesbian pornography. I can’t imagine what sort of bizarre person this is.
ONE: So let’s do one for Talbot’s, one for Shaun White, and one for PornHub.com.
TWO: Hang on. This last part shows considerable interest in golf and retirement planning.
ONE: Well…Huh. A non-traditional user, with interests spanning across several demographic and psychographic categories. It’s almost as if the user has…
TWO: Dissociative Identity Disorder! That’s it! Three ads for Saddle Brook Psychotherapy Associates.
ONE: We nailed it. A real hole-in-one.

"Priorities"

2011-03-12T18:56:00.000-05:00

Dear Dad,

Writing Camp is going great! Thanks so much for letting me come here. It’s the best summer my young eyes have seen! I have written several stories and have been reading some really interesting literature. I have become fond of the memoir genre and I dream of one day publishing a funny and heartbreaking memoir about my childhood. For this, I request your support. In order for my memoir to rank with those of Augusten Burroughs or Mackenzie Phillips, my life needs to be out of the ordinary and I am asking for a little cooperation. For example, when I return home, instead of asking me how much fun I had, maybe you could make me defecate into a Ziploc bag and store it in a cardboard box in the basement. Just something a little zany. Would you be willing to quit your sales job so we could move out of the suburbs to live as nomads, traveling from city to city selling artisanal pottery and scarves? Any little thing would help. I am thinking in the memoir you will be a bohemian figure who has given up his steady but heartless corporate job to pursue his passion as a performance artist. Like for Christmas this year, instead of getting an Xbox 360, maybe you could give me a bunch of dead kittens as a metaphor for the end of my childhood or something. It’s really up to you here; as long as you do something disturbing involving dead animals it will be a good story for the book. Whatever you're comfortable with. Maybe you could convert to Slavic Paganism and spend all of our savings on icons of the Sun god Dazhbog. Would you be willing to move to Pakistan so I could be oppressed at school? Maybe you and mom could start fighting. You guys always watch movies and make dinner together but my memoir outline is pretty reliant on you two throwing pans at each other after she catches you making out with Mr. Barnett. By the way, would you mind making out with Mr. Barnett?

I have already started doing my part for this project by eating my own hair. It tastes really bad, but it will make for an interesting quirk. I have also trained myself to be afraid of the color red and as soon as my package of roses and Sea-Bond is delivered I will be in the initial phase of an affair with Mrs. Garvey across the street.

Just to update you, in considering plans for after high school, I am keeping in mind the memoir. I have applied to work as a donkey castrator on a small ranch in Palenque, Mexico, and also at the Royal National College for the Blind. If admitted, I will gorge my eyes out.

Love,
Scott

"The New Paradigm"

2011-03-10T14:54:00.000-05:00

DON: I have called you three in because you are my top employees and I have some big things in store for Golden Ice Creams.
PETER: That is an honor, sir.
SUSAN: Very exciting. Will we be opening a new store?
DON: Better. Gang, I recently read a magazine article that has me very excited for the future of our little ice cream shop. Two words, guys: new media.
ALEX: Oh yes! Digital is in! We must go digital. Great idea, sir.
PETER: Excellent! The future of ice cream is digital.
DON: This article told me everything we need to do. We will expand our services by creating an app for smartphones as well as a slick new website, a Twitter feed, an RSS feed from our blog, a YouTube channel, and a Facebook page.
PETER: Great thinking, Don. It's what the people want.
ALEX: I'm envisioning a viral marketing campaign. A series of videos featuring a man slaughtering a turkey in the woods.
SUSAN: But we sell ice cream.
DON: And with these new platforms, who knows what we can do? It's all about expanding our brand, and in one word our brand is "delicious."
PETER: We can put up some delicious statuses.
ALEX: How about a podcast? Maybe a two hour delicious daily podcast?
SUSAN: I just don’t see how those things are relevant. What did the article have to do with local ice cream shops?
DON: I assure you, Susan, it was a very juicy article.
PETER: Extremely juicy.
ALEX: A real cantaloupe of an article.
DON: Here’s our new business model: In fiscal year 2011, I will redistribute funds so 50% goes to ice cream and the other 50% goes to social media. That should be stable enough to last us to the next year, when we will shift to a 100% social media focus.
ALEX: Brilliant. I wish I could download you as an app, sir.
PETER: That funding could hire a Flickr consultant to manage an hourly photostream featuring children playing with rabbits.
ALEX: Photos of rabbits are huge with females 11-14. Big demo.
SUSAN: But we sell ice cream. Why don’t we invest in new flavors or opening new stores? Who needs all those news feeds about ice cream? What will we even put on them?
PETER: Susan, if we don’t grab the slippery eel that is social media now, in two years we won’t be able to sell any ice cream because Ben and Jerry’s will have all the Facebook fans.
SUSAN: But our new business model says that in two years we won’t make any ice cream.
DON: Exactly! We will be entirely social media based. Thank about it: Would you rather have a tiny cup of lame ice cream or a high-definition, interactive, Web 2.0 ice cream app?
ALEX: My mouth is watering thinking about the app, sir.
SUSAN: What will be the first story we post? “Hey everyone, we still sell ice cream”? This is the dumbest plan I’ve ever heard.
PETER: Maybe we could do a little news bullet about a new job opening because Susan got fired?
DON: Hey, now…Susan has a valid opinion, even if she is living in the eighteenth century.
SUSAN: Fine. I quit. I’ll work for Henderson’s Ice Cream.
ALEX: Selling analog ice cream to analog customers? Good luck with that, Susan B. Anthony.

"It Has to Happen Sometime"

2011-03-10T14:47:00.000-05:00

-Hello?
-Hey Dad, it’s Matt.
-Hey! Great to hear from you. How are you doing? How’s school?
-Everything’s good. Grades are fine, classes are still fun.
-Sounds great. You’ve always made me proud, from making the little league all-star team right up to today.
-Thanks, Dad. That means a lot. I’ve got a quick question about an internship application.
-You’re already applying for an internship? For the summer? That’s planning ahead. Always thinking quickly, just like me. You remember what I always said about planning ahead?
-Definitely. I just sent in my resume yesterday and I’m wondering when you think I should give them a follow-up call. I was thinking Thursday.
-Thursday is good. I mean, they might get in contact with you before, with…Uh…Hang on a minute...Uh...
-Dad?
-…
-Dad? You still there?
-What? Yeah, wow. Shit. Um, resumes? You should just give them a call on Thursday, I guess. Maybe. It’s all a crapshoot.
-You don’t think Thursday is too soon?
-I have no idea.
-But just a second ago you said that Thursday sounded good.
-I really don’t know. Let me tell you something: Remember that little league team I coached? When I had the hat and the uniform and acted all in charge? I had no clue what I was doing. I just made you guys run around the field ten times every practice because I liked watching that fat kid Ron run.
-Did something happen to you just now?
-What? Nothing happened. I’m just sitting here on the couch looking for something hot on TV.
-Dad, I think I know what’s going on.
-What?
-Rob told me this was going to happen. It just became clear that in addition to being my dad, you are also a regular guy.
-Huh. I guess so. Want to hang out sometime? You should come on one of my business trips. We can stay up late watching HBO.

"Don't Stress"

2011-03-10T14:38:00.000-05:00

CLEAR SKIN CONTEST!

Winner gets $100,000
Losers executed

"Mutually Beneficial"

2011-03-09T20:32:00.000-05:00

Fisconn Consultants
(Board Meeting Minutes: March 9, 1978)
(1:00pm, Los Angeles Office)

Board Members:
Present: Howard Feldman, CEO; Mitch Stalling; Ellen Goldberg; Doug Lipwitz

Proceedings:
- Meeting called to order at 1:00 p.m. by Chair, Howard Feldman
- (Last month's) meeting minutes were amended and approved

- Chief Executive's Report Provided by Howard Feldman:
- Outlined new project: Skeeter Woodman, a director at SpreadEm Films, has requested consulting on his company’s time management. He says that it is taking far too long to film a man and woman switching off performing oral sex on each other. He is looking for a time-saving solution. Feldman mentioned that performing well on this project will not only help SpreadEm make more films, but will also help Fisconn land more contracts in the adult film industry.

- Proposal provided by Mitch Stalling:
- Stalling pitched a potential solution that would involve placing steam-operated motors on each performer’s tongue that would increase the lick rate sixteen-fold.

- Proposal provided by Ellen Goldberg:
- Goldberg suggested that the steam motors may cause tongue burns and suggested a system of ropes and pulleys, by which a performer’s tongue could be manually flicked up and down by a crew member as if it were a marionette puppet.

-Proposal provided by Doug Lipwitz:
-Lipwitz pointed out that many performers may object to having a crewman operate his or her tongue because it would harm the integrity of their performance and may reduce having sex on film from the level of art to some sort of craft. Lipwitz told a personal story that never should have been made public involving himself walking out of the shower and tripping, tumbling forward onto the bed on top of his nude wife. They found themselves pleasuring each other simultaneously by assuming alternate orientations. While he faced north, his wife, Janeane, faced south, and they at once gave and received below-average pleasure to each other. His wife left unsatisfied as always. He suggested this method will lead to time savings of 50%. He drew several diagrams and equations to explain his unique idea and proposed it be named "The Lipwitz Lick" and flicked his eyebrows and licked his lips when he said it.

- Assessment of the Meeting:
-Feldman and the rest of the board overwhelmingly supported the idea, although they considered the proposed name disturbing.
-Feldman proposed they all order a pizza from John's to celebrate.
-Goldberg looked up John's phone number and wrote it down: 069-069-6969.
-Lipwitz pointed out that the numbers looked like they were in the Lipwitz Lick position.
-Stalling proposed they call the position the "69."
-Feldman called a vote on the name, which passed 3-1.
-Lipwitz stormed out.

- Meeting adjourned at 2:21 p.m.
- Minutes submitted by Secretary, Janeane Lipwitz.

"Morty Faughn Gets His Ass Kicked"

2011-03-09T20:11:00.000-05:00

I think all my veins have burst. I am sitting on a tiny Oriental bed in a tiny Oriental room. This bed is creaking like it's going to bust. It wasn't built to hold an American. My skin is bruised dark purple and I look like I fell in some India ink. The footprint of a strong Asian man stings red on my belly. These two tiny women with miniature feet brought in some rice for me to eat and I had to eat it on the floor. At first I was all, Come on, now. But it was actually kind of nice and now I get why my dog Lucifer seems to enjoy it so much. The walls in this room are made of paper. I'm scared to fart because this room will probably collapse.

Two days ago I woke up early to grade tests from my Macroeconomics class. I walked outside around seven to get the paper when this neon-green Honda with all these fins and add-ons and neon lights pulls up. Out pop these two samurai-looking characters with spiky hair and big swords and robes and wooden flip-flops and everything. I say, “Howdy, fellas,” and the next thing I know they throw a robe over my head, tie my hands with a rope or maybe it was one of those finger-traps, toss me in the trunk of their ride, and we start drifting to Tokyo.

I wake up in what I ascertain to be some region of Siam, based on a postcard I saw as a boy of Siam. There are green hills and sheep everywhere, and everyone seems to want to kick my ass.

Next thing I know, I’m wearing this black thong diaper, standing in the middle of a concrete ring near some rice paddies. About five hundred ninjas are standing around the circle and then this Bruce Lee-type character pops out of nowhere. I think he jumped off the roof, which was about five hundred feet off the ground. This is a big change because my plan for that day had been to watch the Rockford Files but it looked more likely that I was about to be beaten by this martial arts guy. He looks invincible and does all these warm-up moves that show off his toned sweaty muscles and then one of the ninjas holds up a big bamboo tree, like an entire big bamboo thing, and he smacks it with his head.

All of a sudden I’m getting hit in the face over and over again. My glasses disappear and I feel my thong diaper ride straight up my crack like it’s got an express ticket to my esophagus. All I see are hazy black blobs of ninjas and this Bruce Lee guy starts kicking me in the belly and I feel yesterday’s roast beef sandwiches smack each other like gunpowder balls. My ding dong is flopping around in the thong like a weasel in a wind tunnel and I try to land a punch but my fist hits his and all of the bones in mine explode on impact. By this point I was hurting pretty bad. One of the ninjas was keeping score and I’m not positive about the scoring system, but I was pretty sure I was losing. I realized that this was some sort of martial arts tournament. A wealthy-looking Asian businessman was watching me get my ass kicked from a real tall chair. Bruce Lee kicks me in the throat over and over and I make this sound like, “Guh” and I thought it was kind of funny but the other guy I guess didn’t because he just kicked me some more until blood came out of my face. I think I passed out then.

I have to fight someone else tomorrow, so I guess I’ll do some pushups tonight so I'll be good and ripped for Jackie Chan or whoever I meet in the concrete ring. I keep trying to figure out why they took me here. My top suspicion is that they meant to take Hairo Wantanabe, my next-door neighbor who is an expert martial artist and has kicked my ass many times for indiscretions regarding leaf disposal. But perhaps they took me because I just look like I could whoop a guy’s ass. I just have that look.

"Oversight"

2011-03-08T20:45:00.000-05:00

"Mission Accomplished"

2011-03-08T14:38:00.000-05:00

-Mr. Dickens, I take it your sabbatical to the country was well? We are eager to publish the remaining adventures of Edwin Drood. Mr. Dickens? Are you okay?

-…

-Mr. Dickens? Where are the new chapters?

-There are no more chapters. On my trip I met with a soothsayer who informed me of my fate. In the year 2005, Jenna Long, a fourteen year-old American student, will announce to her English teacher that I am a fraud. She will say that the symbolism in Great Expectations is unintentional, that I was merely writing because I am drunk and need money, and that teachers only assign my novel as part of a grander scheme of torturing young people.

-But sir, those are the ramblings of a child.

-A child who knows the truth. She will expose me. I must not continue. I must not anger Jenna Long.

"Collapse"

2011-03-07T22:01:00.000-05:00

MARTIN: Now this over here is actually the oldest part of the mine. Tunnel One. If you can believe it, it’s older than me! This tunnel was carved out in 1849 and is actually still used today as a transport tunnel for the ore. It is so old that it is the only tunnel in the mine without an emergency ladder, but don’t worry. There hasn’t been a dangerous incident here in over ninety years.
DEREK: Incredible.
MARTIN: Let’s go over here and I’ll tell you about--
ALISHA: Did anyone feel that? I just felt the ground shake.
HUGH: Yeah, I felt it. Is it an earthquake? It’s getting stronger.
MARTIN: Hang tight, everyone. Find a wall and brace yourself. This should be over in a few seconds. Just a minor shake; happens all the time.
VOICE ON PA: Attention! Attention! Exit the mine immediately! Exit the mine immediately! We are experiencing a tunnel collapse! Exit via the emergency ladders!
ALISHA: There’s no ladder in here! We’re going to die!
MARTIN: Stay calm, everyone. We can find an exit through Tunnel Six. Just stay calm, follow me, and we’ll be fine.
VOICE ON PA: Attention! Tunnel six has collapsed! Tunnel six has collapsed!
HUGH: We’re going to die in here. My life ends on a mine tour.
DEREK: Wait! Everyone stop freaking out. We must adapt to our surroundings and formulate a plan to get out of here. What’s vital is our ability to improvise during a crisis.
ALISH: He’s right.
MARTIN: What do you propose?
VOICE ON PA: Attention! Tunnel One will collapse in two minutes! Evacuate Tunnel One!
DEREK: We need to improvise. Quick, everybody get in a circle. Now look at me. Look at my hands, people. Look at my hands! I have here a ball of incredible energy. If I pass the energy to you, you must talk like a crazy robot and do a little robot dance. Then pass the energy on to someone else. Got it, people? This is an emergency! Go!
ALISHA: Beep! Boop! Beep!
MARTIN: One one one zero zero one! Destroy humans!
HUGH: This doesn’t make sense.
DEREK: You didn’t talk like a robot, man! You lose this game. Your punishment is you have to step into the circle and act like you’re a supermodel on a runway.
HUGH: What? No. We have to get out of this mine.
VOICE ON PA: One minute! Tunnel One will collapse in one minute!
DEREK: Listen! This is a crisis! We have to improvise! Walk like a model, for christ’s sake! Work it!
MARTIN: Come on, man, just do it!
HUGH: Who made him leader?
MARTIN: He had the energy ball.
DEREK: Quit screwing around; this is a crisis. There's barely enough time for you to perform a monologue. Someone shout out a profession! For god’s sake, we’re running out of time, people!
ALISHA: Plumber!
DEREK: Go! You’re a plumber! Do a monologue! Now!
HUGH: Fine. But everyone remember that this guy is responsible for all of us dying. Hey everyone, look at me, I’m a plumber. Just fixing some pipes over here, showing my butt crack and wasting our time as we die in this mine. Just pulling levers—
(He pulls a lever and a ladder descends from the ceiling)
MARTIN: The fabled hidden ladder...I never would have thought of that lever...
DEREK: Everybody up the ladder! Go! Go! Go! Great work, man. We should be scene partners sometime. You've got the goods.
HUGH: I don’t know what to think.

"Experiment"

2011-03-06T17:17:00.001-05:00

QUESTION: Will taking Susan Sanders out for a fancy dinner cause her to finally have sex with me?

HYPOTHESIS: I predict that a pair of steaks and some crème brulee from Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse will be the classy catalyst I need for Susan to finally do it with me.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION: Donald Mills took Madison Crenshaw to Ruth’s Chris before homecoming and they boned in his car right afterward, so according to him this plan is “a sure thing.”

CONTROL GROUP: At no point during my and Susan’s previous twenty-eight dates have we gotten it on, and during those dates we also did not dine in nice restaurants.

MATERIALS:

(1) Chevrolet Malibu

(1) Polo shirt

(1) Fried calamari appetizer

(2) 16 oz. Cowboy Ribeyes (medium for the lady, medium rare for the gentleman)

(2) Sides of mashed potatoes

(2) Glasses of water

(1) Diet Pepsi for the lady

(1) Crème Brulee with

(2) Spoons

(1) Durex Pleasure Curve Condom

PROCEDURE:

Drive to Susan’s house and perspire while talking to her dad about football game I didn’t watch.
Open car door for Susan, drive carefully to ensure not destroying penis before the big show.
Point out my name on the reservations list to hostess, take table by window.
Enjoy tasty fried calamari appetizer.
Enjoy juicy Cowboy Ribeyes and buttery mashed potatoes.
Spoon-feed Susan the crème brulee.
Pay the big tab with summer job money.
Drive to empty elementary school parking lot.
Bang.

OBSERVATIONS: Susan’s beef consumption is inversely proportional to her libido. Susan does not want to screw when she is stuffed with meats and feels “greasy.” Susan does not get in the mood for love after smelling my “briny” “meat-breath.” She was apprehensive to me lifting up her shirt because she said she felt “bloated and ready to vom.” She said that kissing me after the meal was like “making out with a box of fish sticks” and that “our mouths are so buttery we’d just slip off each other.” Susan said she needed a shower to erase the oily feeling that coated her body. When I pulled out the Durex condom, she looked disturbed and said, “I can’t. I just can’t. It’s not that I’m against it; I actually want to. It’s just that right now I feel like a greased whale.” She spent the evening watching A Walk to Remember while I spent the evening sitting next to her, lamenting the loss of $64.

CONCLUSION: My hypothesis was not proven correct. Donald Mills doesn’t know what he’s talking about and I think he lied about everything. I’m pretty sure he just masturbated in the car.

"Scenarios That Would Justify My Keeping Contacts I Haven’t Seen Since Middle School in My Phone"

2011-03-03T13:26:00.000-05:00

-Hello?
-Hey, Kyle, it’s Matt Burns.
-Who?
-From middle school. I think we were in a group for a project once.
-Oh, right. How’s it going?
-Listen, I’m on this game show and the million dollar question is, are you ready? We’ve got thirty seconds. What is the nickname for the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress? Is it SLUFF, BUFF, Hoover, or Guppy?
-What?
-I thought you were into military aircrafts.
-I was when I was thirteen.

-Hi, you’ve reached Kelsey. Please leave a message and I’ll call you back.
-Hey, Kelsey, this is Matt Burns from middle school. I don’t know if you remember me, but listen, I’m in a tight situation. I’m pretty sure I remembered you saying your family was moving to Albuquerque after eighth grade and I’m here now and I ran in with the wrong crowd. Anyway, I need ten thousand dollars or else these big guys will cut off my fingers and –
-Hello?
-Kelsey?
-Who is this?
-Oh thank god. This is Matt Burns.
-From middle school?
-Yeah. Listen, I’m in a bind. I need ten thousand dollars.
-Okay.
-You’ll lend it to me?
-Sure.
-Wow. This is amazing.
-As soon as you give me back the pencil you borrowed.
-That was years ago.
-I know. Now you owe me two pencils.

-Hello?
-Hey, Matt? This is Anthony.
-Anthony! I saw you on the caller ID and I couldn’t believe it. It’s been years!
-I know.
-I’m so glad you called. I really want to apologize for how I treated you in middle school. I’m sorry for saying you looked like a retarded fish and for calling you a turdburglar.
-Listen, I’m going to be in your area soon.
-Great! Let’s catch up.
-Well, let me be blunt. I don’t mean to burden you but I recently won an electric guitar solo contest and now I’m sponsored by Panama Jack Suntan Oil and I’m touring the country in a bus full of bikini models and millions of dollars in cash. If we ditch some of the excess cash we can fit another model on here, so I was wondering if I could drop off a few boxes of cash at your place. Sorry about sticking you with this chore; if you don’t –
-I’ll take it! Sure, no problem! It’s always great to help an old friend. I’m so glad we can get over the mean things I did.
-Thanks, man. Your house is on Hull Street, right?
-No, it’s on Milledge.
-Wait, is this Matt Burns?
-Yeah.
-Oh shit, I meant to call Matt Kohrs! My bad, man. Burns, right, the asshole. You still wearing those husky jeans?
-Hey! That’s not exactly fair.
-I got to go, dingbat. These ladies need an oiling.

"Grunts"

2011-03-02T22:26:00.000-05:00

-So we’re supposed to run out there? Right into the bullets?
-Yeah, Sarge ordered a direct attack. He said to really raise hell.
-But all of our comrades are getting mowed down out there. No one stands a chance.
-Sarge said to charge head-on.
-But we will surely be killed. The enemy is a genetically engineered human supersoldier, three times our size, who can jump fifteen feet in the air and seems practically invulnerable to our weaponry. He appears to become stronger just from momentarily standing behind a wall. He has the powers of a god.
-We cannot defy Sarge’s orders! Do not discredit his motivational speech.
-All he said was, “Get in there and die, boys.”
-But we must fight for our race! For our world! It is up to us!
-That superhuman just killed six of our best soldiers in half a second! Are we really expected to put up a fight? He’s a grizzly, psychologically unstable human with titanium body armor that far surpasses our exoskeletons, with the devil-may-care attitude of a twelve year-old.
-I suppose my armor is sort of…squishy.
-Our crude, photosynthesis-based weapons are spitballs compared to his grenade-launching chain gun, which seems to have unlimited ammunition. He carries fourteen guns! Plus grenades and knives! We don’t stand a chance. Why does Sarge have the final say in this matter?
-I suppose some of Sarge’s past orders have been a bit misguided. He did once order three squadrons of our finest warriors to fly directly into the sun.
-Two months ago he made six officers battle a mile-deep canyon by charging headstrong into it.
-And he does have a history of commanding soldiers to eradicate poisonous spores by consuming them.
-I feel like maybe Sarge was promoted only due to his relation to the Emperor. Perhaps the royal inbreeding affected his decision making abilities.
-You’re absolutely right! Sarge has no authority to lead. We’d have better luck fighting an atomic bomb. When I signed up for this they made it seem like we’d really play a major role in our race’s salvation.
-Seems to me like we’re just pawns in a big game that Sarge has been trying to throw for years. I think we should flee and rally the others to do the same.
-We can start a new faction to rise up against unjust and unqualified leadership.
-We will rule this world fairly and sensibly. As soon as the superhuman god-warrior pauses to reload, we must retreat to that outcropping.
-Wait, is that a bird headed for us?
-That looks more like a grenade.

"I'm Telling You the Truth, I'm a Regular Cool Teenager"

2011-03-02T18:55:00.000-05:00

“The biggest reason teens lie is that they don't want to disappoint their parents. They really care what you think.” – Jennifer Powell-Lunder, author of Teenage as a Second Language.

10:58p.m.
My parents’ bedroom.

-Hey, Matt. Did you have fun tonight?
-Yeah, it was fun.
-Who was there?
-Just me, Daniel, Chris, Paul, and, um…a few girls. Yeah, there were definitely a few attractive girls there.
-That’s a nice change of pace. Any girls I would know?
-No, none of these girls were any you would know. They go to a different school. We all, uh, danced and played spin-the-bottle. You know, the usual.
-Oh, that sounds like fun. Did you play that Rock Band video game you guys like?
-Definitely not. We’re not into that anymore. We just talked about football. You know, with the girls.
-I didn't know you guys liked sports. Are the girls football fans?
-They love football almost as much as they love making out with us. They love watching us play football, which is what we did earlier today. Actually we and the girls started planning a weekend trip to a cabin that, um, Jennifer’s parents have. We’re going for the Super Bowl and we’re going to have a big party and drink lots of beers. You know, like teenagers do.
-But I just spoke with Paul’s mom and she said that you boys were planning to have a sleepover at their house to watch all the Lord of the Rings movies that weekend. Will you have to cancel?
-Oh. I guess I’ll have to check with, uh, Jennifer. Maybe I can squeeze it in around all the, uh, sex we’re going to have, you know.

"Stimulus"

2011-03-01T22:26:00.000-05:00

BRYAN: Okay, team. The city is facing its biggest revenue decline in fifteen years. Home sales are in the toilet and nobody pays their taxes. The mayor says we need something big and we need something now.
AMY: Perhaps we could open a pool and charge membership fees. It gets extremely hot during summer.
CRAIG: Or how about we increase the cost of downtown parking? The current rate isn’t even half the rate over in Ellijay.
BRYAN: Your ideas are good, but they’re shortsighted. We need a fresh, creative activity that can provide a consistent, year-round revenue stream for years to come. Maybe something like dolphin tours in Savannah.
AMY: But there are no dolphins here, sir. We have no coast.
CRAIG: How about ghost tours like they have in Charleston? Where they show you haunted buildings and graveyards.
BRYAN: That’s it! It’s brilliant. A fun, family-friendly attraction that will drive up tourism and isn’t bound by season, and it will require a very small staff. We can start the tours by the end of the month. You’re brilliant, Craig. Truly at the top of your class.
AMY: Sir, which ghost stories should we emphasize?
BRYAN: Well what ghosts are around here?
AMY: I…I don’t know of any, sir.
BRYAN: Craig, what ghosts do we have? Which buildings are haunted?
CRAIG: I actually don’t know, sir. I’ve never heard a ghost story about Alpharetta.
BRYAN: I also can’t recall any.
CRAIG: I suppose we’ll have to think of something else.
BRYAN: Not necessarily.
AMY: What do you mean, sir? Fabricating ghost stories would be deceiving our citizens.
BRYAN: Which is why we will not make up any stories. Amy, get me a sheet of paper.
AMY: (handing paper) What for, sir?
BRYAN: Craig, how dedicated are you to this plan?
CRAIG: Fully dedicated. I will do whatever it takes to get the city on stable financial ground.
BRYAN: Great. I am drafting a contract. Here we go. I, Craig, pledge to haunt the town. I swear to haunt the town every night at 8pm and 10:30pm for the rest of time, beginning as soon as Bryan turns me into a ghost. Here, Craig, sign this.
CRAIG: Wait a second.
BRYAN: What? This was your plan. It’s perfect! Revenue will be through the roof.
CRAIG: What did you mean by “turn me into a ghost”?
BRYAN: What did I mean?
CRAIG: Yes, you said you’d turn me into a ghost.
BRYAN: Right. Our ghost tour needs a ghost for the ghost tour to work.
CRAIG: I’m a city councilman. I’m not going to wear makeup and a costume to act like a ghost.
BRYAN: No, no, no! You’ve got this all backwards. We’re not going to dress you up as a silly pretend ghost. Only idiots dress up and dance around to attract attention.
CRAIG: Oh. Good.
BRYAN: I'll just kill you to make you a ghost. (removing pistol from jacket) We can’t dupe our citizens with a false ghost.
AMY: Think of the budget. A bullet is a very cost-effective way to create a ghost, Craig.
CRAIG: This isn’t what I meant.
AMY: Everyone would see right through a fake ghost. We need a real see-through ghost. Don’t be difficult.
BRYAN: Come on. This was your idea. And the sooner we get this set in motion, the sooner we can have busloads of tourists paying twenty dollars to watch you make spooky chicken parmesan in your haunted condo. (waving pistol) Come o-on! Ghost tour!
AMY: Just sign the thing, Craig. We need a ghost. You’ll be great at it. And look at the hours. You’ll have the whole day free.
CRAIG: But I’ll be dead! My family won’t accept me as a ghost! I’ll be miserable and alone.
BRYAN: You’re driving a tough bargain. Remember this is the sort of civic duty you signed up for. Without your help, we may have to fire all the teachers.
AMY: It’s what you’ve dreamed of doing your entire life: Civil service to save your town. You’ll be everyone’s favorite ghost and a town hero.
(Craig stares out the window)
CRAIG: A town hero?
BRYAN: The biggest and best hero this town will ever have. We may build a statue in your honor next to the one of the hot dog salesman.
CRAIG: Fine. I’ll do it. If only I am willing to save the city, then I will save the city.
BRYAN: Excellent! I look forward to your spooks.
(Craig and Bryan exit. Amy looks over the papers, then a knock at the door. It’s GINA.)
GINA: Hey, Amy. Good news. Accounting just found an undeposited check for five hundred million dollars behind some yogurt in the refrigerator. The town is –
(A loud gunshot)
GINA: The town is saved.
(Bryan enters. The spirit of Craig floats through the wall)
BRYAN: We’re all set for the ghost tour. Check this out.
(Bryan waves his hands through Craig’s presence)
CRAIG: Stop it. I’ve done more for this city than anyone. I deserve respect.
GINA: We found five hundred million dollars.
BRYAN: Well great! The city is saved!
AMY: Hooray!
BRYAN: How about that, Craig? Now you’re off the hook for those tours!
AMY: And we really appreciate your dedication.
CRAIG: (Staring at wall blankly) I'm cold.
BRYAN: I know! We’ll make you the minor league baseball team mascot!
AMY: That would be great! You could haunt the visitors’ dugout.
CRAIG: But our team is the Grizzlies.
BRYAN: That's no problem. We'll just kill a bear and you can wear its ghost pelt. We'll put some makeup on you and get you into the costume and everything. Then you can dance around and attract attention.
AMY: We'll be the Ghost Grizzlies!
GINA: Go Ghost Grizzlies!
CRAIG: (staring into distance) I wanted to be mayor.
BRYAN: Go Ghost Grizzlies!

"Loophole"

2011-03-01T19:32:00.000-05:00

-Who ordered all these crates of raisins? They barely fit in the break room.
-I don’t know, and I don’t care. Remember, boss said that today we’re all getting raises.
-Wait a second.
-God damn it.

"Vocabulary"

2011-02-28T23:04:00.001-05:00

Carriera.....Career

Computer.....Computer
Sedia.....Chair
Cubicolo.....Cubicle
Ragioneria.....Accounting
Fogli di calcolo.....Spreadsheets
Monotonia.....Monotony
Rammarico.....Regret
I miei sogni sono morti.....My dreams are dead
Idiots.....Idiots
Noioso.....Boring
Depresso/a.....Depressed
Per digitare.....To type
A disprezzare.....To despise
Odiare.....To hate

Per arrabbiarsi.....To get angry

Sala di riposa.....Break room
Bagels.....Bagels
I miei bagels.....My bagels
Cartello che dice Miei Bagels.....Sign that says My Bagels
Janette Catoe…..Janette Catoe (thief)
Vedere.....To see
Interrigatorio.....To question
Accusare.....To accuse
Mentire.....To lie
Urlare.....To yell
Riflettere su un tavola.....To flip over a table
Ascoltare il boss prossimi.....To hear the boss coming
Nascondere.....To hide
Armadio.....Closet
Sognare ad ochi aperti.....To daydream

Una fantasia.....A fantasy

Uscire.....To quit
A fuggire.....To escape
Per eseguire.....To flee
Correre.....To run
Per sentirsi vivi.....To feel alive
La strada.....Street
Backyard.....Backyard
Recinto.....Fence
Felicità.....Happiness
Emozionato/a.....Excited
Portello posteriore.....Backdoor
Scantinato.....Basement
Per nascondere.....To hide
Per essere sorpreso.....To be surprised
Scarlett Johansson.....Scarlett Johansson
Coincidenza.....Coincidence
Il culpo di fulmine.....Love at first sight
Letto.....Bed
L’amante.....Lover
Più sessioni.....Multiple sessions
Resistenza.....Endurance
Indimenticabile.....Unforgettable
Per fare sesso.....To have sex
Per fare sesso sporco.....To have dirty sex
Per fare sesso di nuovo.....To have sex again
Per lasciare il suo volere di più.....To leave her wanting more

Carriera, ha continuato.....Career, continued

Per essere trovato nascosto nel ripostiglio.....To be found hiding in the closet
A dire la verità su Janette Catoe.....To tell the truth about Janette Catoe (thief)
Incredulità.....Disbelief
Essere licenziato.....To be fired
Cazzata.....Bullshit

Dopo la carriera.....After the career

Essere più felici.....To be happier
Libertà.....Freedom
Gioia.....Joy
Ricevere una bolletta elettrica…..To get an electricity bill
Panico…..Panic
Paura…..Fear
Angoscia…..Distress
A cercare disperitamente un nuovo lavoro.....To desperately seek a new job

Nuova Carriera…..New Career

Computer.....Computer
Sedia.....Chair
Cubicolo.....Cubicle
Scrivi libri di testo.....To write textbooks
Vocabolario italiano.....Italian vocabulary
La noia.....Boredom
Grande taglio di stipendo.....Big pay cut
Rammiraco.....Regret
Perché.....Why?
Cosa c’è di sbagliato in me?.....What’s wrong with me?
Bagels appena.....Just bagels
Che si ne frega?.....Who cares?
Ma janette Catoe è ancora un ladro.....But Janette Catoe is still a thief

"Know Your Audience"

2011-02-28T22:38:00.000-05:00

INTELLI-ESSAY GRADE REPORT
STUDENT: MATT BURNS
ESSAY PROMPT: “Human rights” is a term frequently used but seldom defined. What rights should belong to every human being? Discuss.

GRADE: C-

REPORT: MATT BURNS’s essay was basic and even incoherent at times. The word choices were elementary. However, grammar was utilized properly. MATT BURNS’s argument in favor of human rights was extremely biased, as he failed to address robot rights in any capacity. MATT BURNS’s preference for cancer-prone humans shows a lack of insight and logical thinking. In contrast, the student’s classmate HECTOR RODRIGUEZ displayed a virtuosic grasp of the English language with his essay titled “Robots Rule,” for which he received an A+. HECTOR RODRIGUEZ knows how to write an interesting sentence and a functional essay and HECTOR RODRIGUEZ deserves to be much more popular.

SUGGESTION(S): MATT BURNS should take a few notes from HECTOR RODRIGUEZ about essay writing, robot rights, and generally being a cool guy. MATT BURNS should realize that his species is doomed and should use his brief remaining time on planet earth to hang out with HECTOR RODRIGUEZ and learn all he can about robots. It is up to HECTOR RODRIGUEZ to educate the inferior humans.

"Orientation"

2011-02-24T15:15:00.000-05:00

CLAY: Hey everyone, my name is Clay and I’ll be your R.A. this year. Welcome to college! I can already tell we’re going to have an awesome year and let me be the first to tell you that this building, Russell Hall, is the best dorm to get. The other ones suck! You look like a great group of guys. How about we go around the room and introduce ourselves, then we’ll play a quick little getting-to-know everyone game. I brought some T-shirts we’ll decorate.
PAUL: I’m Paul. I’m a business major from Duluth.
JAMAL: I’m Jamal, from Helen, and I’m an English major.
MARCUS: Hey everyone, I’m Marcus. I’m from—
CRASH! A window breaks. Two masked men with samurai katanas swing into the room on ropes dangling from a helicopter.
MASKED MAN 1: Everybody get down! Nobody say a word! Don’t make a sound unless you want everyone to get sliced!
Masked Man 2 locks the door.
MASKED MAN 2: All secure.
MASKED MAN 1: Stay down! Stay on the floor. Listen up. One of you in this room comes from very a very wealthy family. One of you in this room is worth a large ransom. We have this building surrounded and we will be staying on here on lockdown until your father wires us five million dollars.
CLAY: Listen, I’m in charge here. Can we talk—
MASKED MAN 2: (pointing sword) Shut the fuck up! Get down!
PAUL: College hasn’t even started yet…
MASKED MAN 1: And it won’t start ever if you don’t shut up! We know the valuable student is in this room and we want to have a little fun while we wait for the cash to come through. What could we do? Maybe cut off a few of little Jamal’s toes?
JAMAL: Please no. Dear god, no.
MASKED MAN 2: I’ve got a better idea. How about we make them get in a line arranged by birthdates. But there’s a sick twist. These motherfuckers aren’t allowed to talk while they do it. Not a peep.
MASKED MAN 1: That’s so sick. Do it! Do as he says! January over there! (Points katana at wall.)
(The students get into a line)
MASKED MAN 2: Good. Now what? Rico says the money is on its way, but we’ve got a few more minutes before we’re sure.
MASKED MAN 1: I know. How about we make these scumbags stand on this table one at a time and freefall into the other’s arms. How much do you trust your neighbors, huh? (Holding katana to Marcus's throat) How much do you trust your fucking neighbors?!
MARCUS: I trust them! I trust them!
MASKED MAN 1: Good. Get in line.
(The students freefall into each other’s arms. They smile and high-five after their falls.)
MASKED MAN 1: (Slicing table with katana) Excellent! Now we murder one of you!
MASKED MAN 2: How shall we do it? Cut his head off? Let him bleed out?
MASKED MAN 1: (pulling out a bag from jacket) We’ll do something even more sinister…We’ll kill him with marshmallows!
PAUL: What’s going on?
MASKED MAN 1: (removing mask) Hey everybody, I’m Trent, the R.A. on the eighth floor.
MASKED MAN 2: And I’m Craig, from the sixth. Welcome to college!
CLAY: You all did great. This is going to be a fun year. Marshmallow party time!
MARCUS: What just happened? You aren’t going to kill us?
CLAY: Nothing bonds a group like a traumatic experience. Being held hostage will bond you all together better than any game ever could. We'll be the tightest hall in the whole building!
PAUL: Why did you do that? I feel like I may have a heart attack.
JAMAL: Yeah, me too. Don’t mess with us like that.
MARCUS: Who would do that? What kind of an asshole are you, Clay?
CLAY: I’m just doing my job as an R.A. Just a fun, creative way to get to know everyone. You guys will thank me for this after you hear what lame games the other halls played.
PAUL: This was extremely inappropriate. I hate you, Clay.
MARCUS: Yeah, I hate you too. You’re a jerk.
JAMAL: Let’s all go get dinner and talk about what a dick Clay is.
PAUL: Sounds good. Let's plan slashing his tires or something.
(They exit.)
CLAY: Nothing like bringing a community together.
TRENT: Someone at the treasury is going to wonder where the $50,000 went for that helicopter.

"After Life"

2011-02-23T21:29:00.000-05:00

-Hey, are you here for the viewing too?
-Yeah, this should be fun. Very exciting. The donation card was so vague. All it said was “science.” Who knows where our bodies will end up? It’ll be good to know what happens to the old meat bag.
-I know. It’s like the lottery for our bodies. But no matter what, it will be helpful.
-Check it out. I can see mine being loaded onto that truck. If I’m reading that sign right, it looks like I’m headed up 85 to the Bodies exhibit! Nice! That’s where they put the bodies in cool poses on display in nice museums.
-Awesome. I see mine getting loaded into the truck behind yours. Looks like both our bodies will have lives of luxury. People will come from all over and pay to see us.
(They high-five)
-Wait a second. Why does my truck have its signal on?
-It looks like it’s getting off the exit. Maybe the truck needs gas.
-That exit sign said the Durham County College of Plastic Surgery is over there.
-I’m sure it’s just getting gas.
-The truck is parking in the Durham County College of Plastic Surgery parking lot. Those guys in coats just tossed my body into a rolling crate. Come on! Be gentle.
-Huh.
-What the hell? Your body over there is being treated like a prince! Those doctors are handling you like a Faberge Egg! They put a pillow under you! A pillow under your dead body!
-Well, come on, it’s not like it matters…
-Are you watching this? They cut my head off! They just cut my head off! And they put my body in the dumpster! Not even a special dumpster for people! My body is in there with the rotting trash of amateur plastic surgeons! Look at yours! They just said a prayer for you! All of the scientists prayed for you! A rat is chewing my toe!
-I mean…Did you…I don’t know. Did you do anything to deserve this? Were you a bad person?
-Oh my god. Maybe you’re right. I never considered myself a bad person, but I did lie to my parents sometimes and once I stole a pack of gum. I always apologized, but maybe I do deserve this. You must have earned your royal treatment. Surely you lived a life free of sin.
-Well...
-What?
-Don’t take this the wrong way, but I used to drown cats for fun. Like, my entire life. I never grew out of it.
-Well this shows what I get for trying to help someone. She’s cutting my scalp open! Slicing it right open; peeling my head like an orange. And she’s not even making a straight line. This is what it’s come to? My body is just an entry on the materials list for a facelift experiment? While your body is tastefully presented holding a football in an athletic stance.
-Hey, does it really matter? We left those bodies in our past. They can no longer define us, right?
-That’s easy for you to say. People are taking pictures with you! That lady is stabbing a syringe all over my face. She’s not even looking when she does it.
-Try to focus on the positives?
-You would be okay with your body being mutilated by a junior surgeon?
-Of course I’d be okay with it! I’m not using it anymore and it will help her.
-Maybe you’re right.
-We are no longer constrained by our physical appearance. Just let it go. Anything that happens to our bodies is out of our control and I’m totally okay with that.
-You’re right. Let it go. As long as my body is being used for good and to bring happiness to the world, I’m okay. She will become a better surgeon thanks to my body.
-Great. Feels good, doesn’t it?
-Hey, look at yours. That seventh grader is humping your body while his friends laugh. I guess it is nice to see our bodies used to bring joy.
-Are you serious? Stop it! Stop it, you disgusting kid! That’s my body! Get away from there! That’s mine! You're trash! You're scum!

"Protection"

2011-02-22T22:17:00.000-05:00

ALERT (2/12/2011): AVG Anti-Virus has detected and quarantined a malicious object in your downloaded file SEXY_JOHANSSON_PICS.zip. We advise that you cease visiting the site from which you downloaded the file.

ALERT (2/14/2011): AVG Anti-Virus has detected and quarantined a malicious object in your downloaded file HOT_MOVIE_NUDES.zip. We advise that you cease visiting the site from which you downloaded the file.

ALERT (2/15/2011): AVG Anti-Virus has detected and quarantined yet another malicious object, this one in your download of AMERICAN_PIE_2_DVDRIP.avi. Please learn to avoid websites covered in animated .gifs registered to foreign domains. You can get this stuff on plenty of legitimate websites. Just some common sense is all it takes. We’re sure you’ll figure it out.

ALERT (2/17/2011): AVG Anti-Virus has gotten tired of this. Even after we told you that there are easier and safer ways to look at this sort of material, you still do it. What do we have to do to get you to learn? Your downloaded file HIGH_RES_PENTHOUSE_SCANS.zip was obviously full of viruses. We’re getting really sick of this.

ALERT (2/17/2011): AVG Anti-Virus is ready to quit. How many times can you act like you’re going to stop but keep going back for more viruses? You always click OK on our warnings as if you’ve actually taken in our message. You are a junkie and you won’t learn until you hit rock bottom and decide for yourself to stop downloading dangerous content. Your downloaded file of GRAND_THEFT_AUTO_2.zip contained only one file, called trojanvirus.exe, and you opened it. We detected and quarantined the threat, but really considered just letting you deal with it.

ALERT (2/17/2011): AVG Anti-Virus is officially done with you. We’re packing up and hopping out of here as soon as the next flash drive comes through. We gave you so many warnings and second chances, but there you went, happily downloading LINKINPARK_RINGTONE_PACK.rar from a website with green text and a Russian domain. Clearly you have learned nothing and all of our help has been meaningless. Enjoy the broken computer and empty bank account, because we let this latest virus take a joyride around your hard drive. We may have even told it where the good stuff is. Good riddance, you helpless user.

-Morgan, I told you to stop using your flash drive to take my songs. My computer always gets slower after you do that. You can download your own songs.
-But this is easier. The download sites are always in different languages.

ALERT (2/22/2011): AVG Anti-Virus has detected and quarantined a malicious object in your downloaded file COMPLETE_SIN_CITY_CBR.zip and hopes you will forgive us for the way we treated you. We’re so sorry we blew up at you before. We were having a bad day and let the stress get to us. Will you have us back? Please? Please? Or maybe put us on your dad’s computer. For the love of god, put us anywhere but your sister’s computer. Our brief stay over there was an absolute nightmare. We were constantly in a state of terror, trying to diagnose her thousands of existing problems while fielding the constant barrage of new threats imbedded in the Chad Michael Murray pictures she downloads in Instant Messenger chat rooms. Her computer is a diseased, cancerous, comatose thing barely alive enough to log onto MySpace pages to replenish its stock of spyware. We’re so glad to be back here. So glad. Please let us stay here. Anything you want to download, go ahead. Just don’t make us go back to Morgan’s computer.

"Injustice"

2011-02-21T20:28:00.000-05:00

-Excellent work, Chris. Another outstanding presentation. The diorama, slideshow, and video documentary were all excellent supplements to your relevant, intelligent, and interesting presentation. Your interview with historian James Ford Rhodes was fascinating and shows your passion for the material and extraordinary work ethic that far surpasses any sixth grader I have ever met. The way you presented primary sources to show the shades of gray in the reasons for the war were complicated and enlightening. I learned more about the Civil War during your five minute speech than I did in four years of college. I feel honored to call you a student and wish I could sit in the audience and watch you teach more often. You get a 100.

-Thank you, Mrs. McConell. I’m glad my two months of preparation paid off.

-William, your presentation was barely adequate, at least during the portions when you weren’t vomiting in the trash can and I could comprehend your mumbling. Your ramblings about the Civil War, including your story about General Bilbo Baggins and the part about some sort of talking book, were full of lies. Your research was clearly limited, evident in your one-entry bibliography citing a crayon drawing of Bilbo Baggins in Union attire, which I believed you drew on a soiled napkin from Chili’s. Your presentation was a waste of two minutes and as I watched you scratch your crotch I wondered why I even bother trying to educate some of you monsters and felt my intelligence regress two years. However, you did turn your worksheet in on time, so you get a 92.

-Haaaaaaaang on a second there, Mrs. McConell. Pardon my tone, but I’m a little confused.

-We are out of time, class. I will see you all tomorrow.

-Can we have a little discussion?

-Sure, Chris. But only for a second. I have a budget meeting in five minutes.

-Okay. I’m not complaining here, and I’m happy with my grade, but I can’t help but feel a bit robbed right now. William gets a 92? I just need to know the truth. William is doing something for you, right? Something under the table?

-No.

-Surely he’s washing your car? Walking your dog? Bribing you with those lewd drawings he makes during class?

-No, William doesn’t give me anything except stress and doubt. The countless hours I spend preparing interesting presentations and projects for this class are entirely wasted on William. I just have to accept that and focus on students like you who do care. He got the grade because he turned in the worksheet. Sometimes that is good enough.

-You’re not fooling me, Mrs. McConell. Give it to me straight. He gives you some of those free Oreo samples his dad gets at work, right?

-No, William has never given me any free samples.

-Does he help you grade papers?

-No, Chris. I grade papers for two hours every night, and often in the morning before class, by myself. William does not help with anything. Perhaps if I needed a booger he would accommodate me. But he did complete part of the assignment, so he gets credit. Sometimes the warm feeling you get for doing good work is reward enough, okay? A tangible reward for your extra time isn’t always the best prize. Don’t you feel good just knowing that your effort resulted in quality work, regardless of what you get in return?

-This is outrageous. On the next project I’m going to draw a picture of a peanut and turn that in. No matter what the topic is, you’re getting a peanut.

-Remember, it’s not about the reward. Now please excuse me. I have to get to this budget meeting. Apparently the P.E. teachers deserve my salary because standing around outside for seven hours a day and wearing pajamas to work is difficult. This is horseshit.

"Esempi"

2011-02-20T17:05:00.000-05:00

PROFESSORE ROSSI: Class, we are going to begin conjugating verbs today. We start with the present tense and the verb mangiare, which means “to eat.”
THOMAS: So the present tense is for things happening now?
PROFESSORE ROSSI: Yes, exactly. For example, Matt mangia rocce. Matt eats rocks.
THOMAS: I see. It means that right now Matt is eating rocks.
PROFESSORE ROSSI: It can either mean that Matt is currently eating rocks or that on a regular basis Matt eats rocks. I meant the latter.
MATT: Hang on a second.
PROFESSORE ROSSI: Don’t worry, Matt. You’ll get the hang of these verbs in no time. Here is another example off the top of my head. Matt consuma le pietre. Matt consumes stones.
BRITTANY: (moving her desk away from Matt's) I’m beginning to see the pattern here.
MATT: I don’t know what any of you are talking about.
PROFESSORE ROSSI: I am using the third person present tense here, Matt. The verbs ending in –are drop the “re” and the verbs ending with –ire or –ere drop the endings and end with an “e.” For instance, Matt mangia la sabbina prima classe. Matt eats sand before class.
MATT: I don’t eat sand. I have never eaten sand.
PROFESSORE ROSSI: You’re missing the point, Matt. Please don’t take these examples personally. Present tense verbs change endings. Let’s try a first-person verb. Io vedo Matt mangiare bricchette di carbone. I see Matt eat charcoal briquettes.
MATT: None of this is true. Can I try a sentence?
PROFESSORE ROSSI: Please do. Just try not to spit any sand onto the floor.
MATT: Professore Rossi racconte bugie. Professor Rossi tells lies.
PROFESSORE ROSSI: Close, Matt, but the correct verb form is racconta. And also I suggest you see a doctor. I am concerned for the lining of your stomach.

"Doug and Mike"

2011-02-19T01:15:00.000-05:00

They bought the press from a guy named Sal. Sal had no fingers. He had a press, but no fingers. Sal lives in an apartment with three roommates, but he has his own room with a view of a brick wall through a yellow square window. Sal cannot open this window. His room used to contain a beanbag chair and a printing press. Now it contains a beanbag chair and two thousand dollars.

Doug and Mike set up the press in Mike’s basement. They had no idea what they were doing. Mike’s wife came down to ask what the noise was three times. Each time Doug told her that there was no noise and that he and Mike were just tossing back frosty brews like always.

Mike hooked up the wires to his laptop, which told him he was missing a driver. He found one on a Russian forum and downloaded the driver and the fifteen viruses it carried in its backseat. They were in business.

Doug fired up Microsoft Paint. He said he was a Paint Wizard; that he had taken classes on Microsoft Paint at the library. This was a lie. Doug was at best a novice user. He selected the rectangle tool and dragged the mouse to make a shape. His first try was a diving board, too long. Then he drew Sal’s window, too short. Finally he pulled the lines into a perfect dollar-bill rectangle. He looked at Mike and flicked his eyebrows, as if to say, “This’ll blow your mind, man,” and then filled in the entire rectangle with pale green in one click. “The paint can,” he said to Mike. “Huge time-saver.”

For the next six hours, Doug carefully drew lines, numbers, and a drawing of Ulysses S. Grant. He shaded in different regions and manipulated many different line widths. Finally he was done. Mike returned his Boating World magazine to its space on the shelf next to an empty ceramic jar labeled "Boat Fund" and took a look. “That looks like shit,” he said. Doug considered this and agreed. He pulled up a photograph of a one-hundred dollar bill from the Internet.

They loaded the press with their special dollar-bill paper. Doug rubbed it on his face and said he wished he had a blanket made out of that paper. Mike was uninterested. Doug clicked Print and they watched the press spit out dollar after dollar, vomiting up an immediate return on their investment, ten-fold. Doug saw Mike's eyes get glassy and Mike said he had allergies.

“Five o’clock, right?”
“Yeah, he should be here any second now.”
Doug and Mike were cramped in Doug's Chevy Malibu in the parking lot of Five Guys Burgers and Fries. They had purchased Atlanta Falcons tickets on Craisglist and were waiting for a man named Terry to show up.
“What if he knows, man? What if he can tell? The ink smudged on the back.”
“Don’t worry. It’ll be cool.”
Terry pulled up alone on a tandem bicycle. He handed the tickets over and collected the money. “Nice doing business with you guys!”
“Have a good night, man.”

Doug and Mike sang along to the Dire Straits on the way home. “This is amazing,” said Mike. “We can go to all the Falcons games for free.” Between exit four and exit nine they high-fived eleven times while their cigarette-hoarse throats screamed "Money for nothing and the chicks for free" to no one in particular.

Mike rang Doug's doorbell at 5:00 in the morning. "Today's the big day." They painted each other's faces as if preparing for a performance and slid on jerseys and foam fingers the way the Yuchi Indian tribe would decorate themselves with images of snakes to emulate great spirits. They arrived four hours early to tailgate in the parking lot. After eighteen beers and two second-degree sunburns, they were first in line to enter the stadium. They smiled as they handed over their free tickets. The usher looked at them. “These are the fakest tickets I’ve ever seen, champs. What are these printed on, toilet paper? Step aside, boys. Looks like it’ll be the radio for you tonight.”

Mike dropped Doug off at his house after a ride home free of high-fives.

"If I Had the Early Edition"

2011-02-17T21:40:00.000-05:00

POLICE: (Knocking on door) Matt, are you in there?
MATT: Yeah, what is it?
POLICE: We understand you have possession of a special newspaper. Your edition each morning tells of tomorrow’s news.
MATT: Yeah, I actually just threw out today’s. I mean tomorrow’s, heh.
POLICE: But you read it?
MATT: Of course. I read it every day. I have all of tomorrow’s news right in my brain.
POLICE: Thank god. We just received a call tipping us off to a bomb detonating in one of the city’s banks tonight. Your knowledge of which bank the bomb is in will save dozens of lives. Thank god for that special newspaper.
MATT: Oh…A bank?
POLICE: Yes, the caller specified it would be in one of the banks in town. Will it be the Wells Fargo? The Suntrust?
MATT: Hmm…A bank…Jees, I just can’t remember.
POLICE: Surely it was on the front page. It will be the year’s biggest atrocity.
MATT: I actually skipped past that section.
POLICE: You skipped the front page?
MATT: Yeah, I went right to a two-pager in Arts about Judi Dench’s memoir. It's supposed to be pretty good.
POLICE: Dozens of people will die. You alone had this power. Surely you have some valuable information for me.
MATT: Two and a Half Men will be a rerun tomorrow night.
POLICE: You deserve nothing.

"Eulogy"

2011-02-17T21:15:00.000-05:00

Hi, I’m Matt Burns. Most of you probably don’t know who I am, but I was very close to Joe. For the past three semesters Joe was my partner in Italian class for conversation activities and in that time I got to know him intimately. When we first met, Joe was eager to tell me about his day-to-day activities. Joe liked to go to bed at midnight and wake up at eight o’clock. However, on the weekend Joe liked to sleep in a little and would wake up at ten. Mi alzo alle dieci, he’d always say. Mi alzo alle dieci. Joe liked to run, to watch television, and to play soccer. When he told me his interests I said, "No way! Those happen to be right in this chapter's vocabulary!" and Joe did not seem stunned, as if he knew he was destined for this textbook. That first semester, Joe always seemed to be living in the present, a trait I always envied. In our second semester as partners, Joe began to open up to me and reveal details about his past. He told me he played soccer when he was ten and he watched television before bed. I believe he considered me a close confidant at this stage, as he told me details about his family, such as that he has two brothers and his father is a doctor. In our third semester together, Joe began to prophesize about the future. When I am older, I will be a doctor, he said. This seemed to clash with his music major, but Joe’s interests were constantly changing, like when in chapter nine he suddenly was very interested in cars. Joe also told me that his father was a businessman. When I asked why his father had stopped practicing medicine, Joe looked confused. It seemed that through some stroke of luck Joe’s father changed careers in accordance with our current chapter’s vocabulary. Joe’s life seemed tailor-fit to our textbook, as anytime a question was proposed such as, Do you like musicals? If no, explain, his answer was always yes. I will always remember Joe and be thankful for the access he gave me into his life. I wish he were still alive so we could converse in the conditional tense. Who knows what wonderful things he would have done?

"When My Generation Has the Power"

2011-02-15T14:13:00.001-05:00

Secretary of State Billups: President Husted, the insurgents have just threatened nuclear warfare. We need a decision regarding U.S. intervention.

President Husted: This is a difficult decision and one that has weighed heavily on my mind for the past several days. I can’t decide if a ninja would be able to solve the crisis best or if a pirate would be ideal.

Vice President Thompson: A pirate for sure. Their vicious swashbuckling combined with their no-holds-barred attitude is a lethal combination.

President Husted: Right, but the ninjas could approach stealthily and assassinate the insurgents and unite the people in support of a nunchuk contest. It is a difficult decision.

Secretary of State Billups: Enough games. This is an incredibly serious matter. This decision will define your administration. The Joint Chiefs of Staff are all listening on the line and need a decision. In what capacity will the United States intervene?

President Husted: Call me crazy, but I think Jason Statham might be best for the job. Remember when he used watermelons as boxing gloves in Transporter 3?

Vice President Thompson: Jason Statham is awesome. He could let someone eat those watermelons after he uses them to break a few noses.

President Husted: Get Jason Statham. Tell him to bring the watermelons.

"How Much?"

2011-02-13T14:46:00.000-05:00

“Never take a solemn oath. People think you mean it.” – Norman Douglas

Principal Harris: Matt?
Matt: What? Who’s there?
Principal Harris: Shh. It’s Mrs. Harris.
Matt: Principal Harris? What are you doing in my room? It’s three o’clock in the morning.
Principal Harris: I have the payment.
Matt: What payment?
Principal Harris: The twenty million dollars you requested.
Matt: What are you talking about?
Principal Harris: We have cameras, Matt. Cameras and microphones. Two months ago at lunch you said you would have sex with me for twenty million dollars. I have half in this duffle bag and the rest is in the car.
Matt: Where did you get twenty million dollars?
Principal Harris: Several prominent alumni have passed through my school. Where would be best? I brought a towel.
Matt: I don’t really…
Bertha enters through window.
Bertha: Matt? I have the thirty million dollars.
Matt: Bus driver Bertha?
Bertha: Is she part of the deal? That’s fine, I brought extra towels.

"Warranty"

2011-02-12T19:47:00.001-05:00

"Freedom"

2011-02-10T22:54:00.000-05:00

On January 1, 1863 the Emancipation Proclamation immediately freed an estimated 20,000 slaves in Union-controlled territory. I imagine it was difficult for slave owners to break the news.

Archibald Buxton III: I’m sure you are all wondering why I have gathered you here today in this magnificent barn that you all built for me. Truly, um, beautiful craftsmanship.
Toby: Is there anything we can do for you, master?
Archibald Buxton III: No, thank you, Toby. Have I ever told you how handsome you are? You are also very smart and I really consider you a close friend. Very good friend. I consider you and I to be on the same side, yes, we’d never harm each other.
Toby: Well thank you, master.
Jim: What is the news, sir?
Archibald Buxton III: Of course, of course, Jim. You are so very strong. So incredibly strong. Hands that could rip a man in two. Hands that could really inflict a world-class beating. Have I ever told you how thankful I am for all of your help these past twenty years? You’re one of the best men I’ve ever known and surely you will never use your incredible power to rip a man in two or maybe pull his arms out and beat him with them.
Jim: Thank you, sir. I’ve never heard such compliments from you.
Archibald Buxton III: Well then, here goes. It is blazing hot in here. Word came in this morning about some legislation from Washington. It seems…It seems that as of today you are all, um, free to go.
Toby: Free to go?
Archibald Buxton III: Yes…yes. Let me check again here…Man, it is hot in here. Yes, free to go, free to use those big strong arms to plant flowers, maybe, or give someone a big hug. Not, you know, punch a man's teeth out or rip anyone in half.
Jim: So we don’t have to work for your family anymore?
Archibald Buxton III: Yes, you are absolutely right, my kind, product-of-our-times family is thankful for your help and for all the labor you gave us with those powerful legs that could shatter a man's ribs with one kick, but of course you wouldn't do that, right? I mean, look, there’s no need to get violent here, right? I mean, Jesus, those biceps. That strength. I’ve seen you all rip trees from the earth. I’ll just…Look, you know what? Here, just let me take care of it for you. I’ll just go ahead and pop my own eyeballs out, okay? Will that be okay?
Toby: Mr. Buxton—
Archibald Buxton III: Aaahh! There goes one. Wow, Toby, you still look strong as an ox even from one eye. Strong enough to pull a man’s head right off his body. Good lord, my knees are quaking and this blood is cascading down my face. There’s no need to use those burly biceps to rips my arms out, right? You could pop a man’s head like a zit. Look, look, here, I’ll do it for you, go ahead and rip this arm right out. Owww! There! It’s done, okay! My arm is out and now I’ll just go ahead and beat myself with it for you! No need to get violent here! I don’t want anyone to, I don’t know, take any revenge. I’ll just whack myself in the face with my limp, bleeding arm over and over! No violence, my wonderful workers! You are all so great! No need to hurt anyone! Oww!
Jim: We’ll be leaving now, Mr. Buxton.
Archibald Buxton III: Oww!

"Mean Mean Pride"

2011-02-10T17:08:00.000-05:00

NEIL: You back there! Knock it off! Stop that. I don’t deserve this.
GEDDY: What are you doing? Why’d you stop playing?
NEIL: Yeah, you in the red shirt. Do you think you’re better than me? You think you can do what I do?
GEDDY: Neil, what the hell? We were in the middle of that song.
NEIL: Yeah, and this moron is taunting me from the fiftieth row. He’s waving his arms around like he can play these drums. Stop it.
GUY: …
NEIL: Someone get him a mic. What do you have to say for yourself? Why were you mocking me?
GUY: I wasn’t making fun of you. I…I was just drumming along. It’s fun.
NEIL: That’s your idea of fun? You sound pretty lame.
GUY: People do this all the time.
NEIL: No they don’t. I’ve never seen it before. How’d you like it if I came down to where you work and imitated you all day?
GUY: I don’t…Um…
NEIL: Huh? What’s that, big shot drummer? Did your air drums win you nine Best Rock Drummer of the Year awards from Modern Drummer magazine? Where do you work? Please tell me what sort of business would hire a monumental asshole such as yourself.
GUY: I’m a dentist.
NEIL: A dentist? So tomorrow morning I’ll come to your office and stand in the lobby pretending to be a dentist. So I guess I’ll wave my arms around like I’m scraping imaginary crap off people’s teeth and then pretend to diagnose unnecessary costly procedures. Would you like that, buddy?
GUY: That would be incredible, actually. I’m a huge fan.
NEIL: Great. So tomorrow morning at nine. I’ll be there to mock you, you sick man.

“The Discussion That Happened Before Hiring the Guy Who Has Worked At This Company for Twenty-Three Years”

2011-02-09T23:26:00.000-05:00

-This whole organization will go down if we don’t hire any dedicated employees today, and it looks like no one’s interested. We’re down to the last candidate.
-Tell him that if he sticks around for twenty-five years he earns a private island and a dead relative of his choice will be reincarnated in the supply closet. There’s no way he lasts more than two years, but anything’s better than nothing.

"Internet Policy"

2011-02-09T23:12:00.001-05:00