Oyster Hoisting

"That's the way that it is." His beard blows in the salty wind.

The young man squeezes the netting knots in his hand. "Yeah, but that blows! It shouldn't be like that! We shouldn't be be able to hoist the oysters!" he voices. He throws down the net.

"Tough. That's how it is. Do you want to just save the world?"

"What?"

"Yeah? You want a utopia where shit doesn't happen?"

"It just doesn't feel right to employ the oyster hoister near adjoining groynes!" He points to the nearby beach structure, buoy.

The tanned fisherman sucks his pipe with sour lips. "Ain't no choices when our boys is foisted to hoist moist oysters, of coise."

"Even when they're that moist?!"

"YES!"

"It needs to change!"

"Oh phooey. That's the way the world works, son."

The young man turns around and grapples.

11/12/13

 The woman woke up at 5am as she always did, screaming. She didn’t even look at her calendar, she knew which day it was. She screamed and ran down the attic steps and into the tiny second landing’s bathroom. She ran inside, her cold feet on the bare tiles. She brushed down her hair. She watched individual strands with each stroke to make sure they were in line. When they weren’t, it was a simple tug of the finger. 5:08AM was approaching according to her red blinking digital clock. She screamed. Frantically she straightened the strands. She was usually almost done with this process by the first ten minute block! Her hair had gotten particularly messy! She was very stressed overnight. She hated 11/12/13. It was neat and orderly, which was her addiction, but it started at an odd number! It felt like everything was off. It was bad enough to be in an odd numbered month to begin with, but then to keep stacking the numbers in order one after another, it should be aborted and killed. It was like a monster number, looming over the sky that day. Nothing would go right.

                She wasn’t done until 5:11am, so Kathy made up for it by stepping her foot into the tub and cranking the water with her feet. That counted but she was still not full because the last strains weren’t quite down – ah and there! They were finally done. She threw the hairbrush into its place and jumped in the shower and let the water rain down all over her perfect strands. The water cascaded down her head in perfect “umbrella formation” as she described it in her head. Water fell almost evenly along a 360 degree perimeter. Her hair had been cut to perfectly match half sphere shape when wet. She kept two batchy bushes that nearly perfectly filled in for two larger divots in her skull. The water droplets feel around her. Suddenly a clump of her hair fell out: one of the clumps in the divot. Water dropped out of that divot and favored that side.

                Kathy screamed “NO!” and tried to compensate by lowering her head to the left and letting the water hit the divot first. She balanced her body in the right way so that the water would hit the crater and then flow out evenly. After what felt like minutes on end, she found it. Finally it was time to shampoo. She held the shampoo bottle up past her shoulder. It was very difficult at this uneven angle. She poured it on the back of her head. It missed the divot and splattered behind her ear. She started crying.

                When the whole debacle was over it was 5:22! She was already into the second 10 minute time block and hadn’t even started the lawn mower yet! She rushed out of the bathroom naked still and ran into her yard to start it. It the lawn mower was at least on, it sort of counted so she could go back inside and get dressed.

                “Mommy, I want Cheerios!”

                “In a minute darling!”

                Yes 11/12/13 would be a horrendous day. But at least she could look forward to the glorious prophetic day a year and 31 days from now…

Asian Veggie Tales

All Cathy ever ate was Chinese Food. She'd go to middle school during the day, skip lunch to go to Ping's 44 or Japanese Sushi, then when she'd come home the first thing she'd do is take out the fryer that her parents got her for Christmas, roll some rice, vegetables, egg, and cut-up chicken into dough and fry it into eggrolls and go to Chinatown on them.

But one day when she was eating her beef won-ton in a nearby Korean restaurant -- the kind where they cook the meal at your table -- and the mushroom in her food started speaking to her.

"Are you Cathy?" asked the sliced mushroom.

Cathy screamed and jumped up. People looked over at her. The chef who was about to catch the egg on his spatula missed it and the egg cracked on the stove. He swore in Korean. The female wait staff rushed over to the girl to make sure everything was alright. She assured them everything was fine. They walked away and she looked back at the mushroom.

"You are Cathy!" the mushroom said. The little curls under its dome seemed to be watching her like eye holes. A little slit in the center stem opened like a mouth.

"Are you alive?!" Cathy stammered, her heart beating like a drum. The waiter and the small family on the opposite end of the oven-table looked at her with judgmental eyes.

"Yes! Oh I'm so glad to be eaten by you, Cathy McRinnis! Oh, how delighted I am! You're quite a celebrity in the Asian food circuit."

"I am?!" Cathy said, her heart still beating in her throat.

"Absolutely! You've eaten more different kids of Asian food than most Asian people! Your intestines and bowels have collected so many different kinds of food particles from Eastern countries' cuisines I've heard that it's heaven for us Asian foods! I'm going to heaven!"

"Are you hearing this?" Cathy asked the other people at the table. They stared at her with wide eyes, open mouths, and the father slightly shook his head. They weren't hearing it.

The noodles on Cathy's plate shook. "Bfffftt. Whhhhell, hello there Cathy!" it said in a goofy, robust voice. The snowpeas squeaked hello. "Our savior! We're going to heaven!" The bits of broccoli, the onion slices, the bits of teryaki beef, even the splatterings of curry sauce formed itself into a wide-eyed smile in her plate. They started to chant, "Eat us! Eat us! Eat us! Eat us!"

Cathy quickly granted their request and chop-sticked themselves into her mouth bit by bit, trying to only chew them gently. She could hear their voices inside of her ears.

"It's glorious in here!"

"So wonderous!"

"My long lost cousins!"

"Bits of broccoli -- my ancestors! It's good to be reunited!"

"We'll have more soy sauce to splash around in for centures!"

"All hail Cathy, our goddess!"

"CATHY! ALL HAIL CATHY!"

The story of someone totally unrelated to me

Once upon a time there was a boy named Trevor.

Trevor had a blog.

He updated it every few weeks because he wanted to build his readership base.

Trevor was so excited because he had so many blog views! The blog he used showed the statistics of who read his blogs, what websites they were from, what parts of the world they were from. It was so cool!

So for months Trevor was so excited about his blog. But then one day Trevor decided to look into the websites that gave him the most hits on his website.

They were websites like "Fat Loss Factor by Dr. Charles Livingston," and "Filmhill.com," and "VampireStat."

Trevor realized the majority of his traffic was spam. It hurt him in his heart. He knew that anybody involved in doing things like that are evil at heart, and they will probably go to hell. Trevor imagined Dr. Charles Livingston burning in hell. Still, Trevor felt bad.

So Trevor didn't update his blog for over a month. Every time he thought about it, he had no oomph. He had no excitement.

But then Trevor remembered that there are some people still visiting his blog. Real people, who enjoyed his stories, and not just a bunch of people who went to school for Marketing & PR who now sit in an office exploiting people's websites in order to get their penis enlargement and exercise websites more hits. And then Trevor thought, I'd better update my blog.

So he made a blog post about a boy with a slightly different name than him, and clued his readers into the fact that it was supposed to be about him by naming the blog post a title indicating that the post isn't about him, but in an ironic way, so that smart people would understand that it is.

And then he wrote the post about a boy who experienced this sadness with advertisers. And he felt happy and at the end of the story finished by expressing that the fictional character he made up is so happy that there are some people who read his blog, and that he hopes they continue to read it, because he likes them.

One of those Learning Moments

"I'm so sorry!" cried Ted, grabbing my hands, preparing to tell some kind of bad news. I had just walked into the dorm room and put my bag back down (I just got back from being at home for the weekend.) "I purposefully killed your fish!" he said, his eyes big with worry at how I'll react.

"You did what?!"

"I actively killed your fish!" he said, his voice booming with deep empathy. "I am so sorry! I was fully conscious of what I was doing!"He blinked his nearly tearful puppy-dog eyes.

"Did you forget to feed him?" I asked.

"No, I just wanted to kill him so I scooped him out of the bowl, put him under my chem book, and sat on it. I'm so sorry!" he said, his hands crossed in a plea for forgiveness. 

I tried to say something but my words couldn't get through the thicket of his contradictory tone and words. "H-Wh-But why?"
"I wanted to!" he said exasperatedly. "I wanted to murder your fish, so I did! And I'd definitely do it again because it was really fun, but I'm so sorry!"

That was the first time I noticed this bizarre behavior from my Freshmen year roommate. The similar situation happened several times throughout the year. One day he shook me awake in my bed.

"Dude, I am so sorry but I'm about to go sleep with your girlfriend and I won't be wearing a condom and might impregnate her!" he said, rubbing his head with nervousness at my reaction. At first I thought he was joking until he showed me the sexts from my girlfriend's phone number.

"Don't do it!" I said.

"I want to, but I'm totally sorry, and I feel horrible about how it makes you feel, but I can't wait to go to town on her oily body."

"What is your problem?" I asked him. "You're always apologizing for things you're completely aware of what you're doing!! It's ridiculous!"

"So much for diversity appreciation, huh?" he said, shaking his head.

I leaned up in my bed. "What are you talking about?" I asked him.

"I was raised by nuns."

"Your mother was a nun?"

"No, my mother was killed by German truckers. I was raised by a group of nuns who shooed away the truckers at the scene of the murder. I was raised in the convent, and they taught me to always be honest."

"Hm..." I said, thinking about it.

"I may do some pretty weird things, but forgive me, for I saw my mother get murdered by drunk German truckers when I was three weeks old, okay?"

"You remember it?"

"I remember seeing like a duck in a pond. And I still think about it to this day. In any case, you may think I'm weird, but at least I'm up front about my weirdness."

I smiled and patted him on the shoulder. "I'm sorry, Ted," I said. "I guess I'm the chump. You go sleep with my girlfriend. To be honest..." I said trying to get it off my chest, trying Ted's way of life. "I can't satisfy her that way... because my penis is split sideways."

Ted smiled and nodded. "I appreciate your honesty."

"Feels good to say that out loud to someone other than the team of plastic surgeons who are trying to bridge the gap." I looked up at the roommate who's already taught me so much. "You go. Go bang my sweethart. She likes being called a dirty foreigner while you do it." We hugged it out and the wisest friend I've ever known threw his bag of condoms to the side and skipped out the door.

The first song

I like to imagine that the first song was invented by an ancient species of the homo genus. I like to imagine it was way back, perhaps habilis or erectus.

I like to imagine it was a couple of bored hominids, a young brother and sister perhaps, hanging out near the river. Perhaps one was banging some fist-sized rocks together while the other was banging a hollow stick against a tree trunk. I like to imagine that, by mathematical chance, the brother banged his stick at precisely the same rhythm that the sister banged her rocks. They must have fallen into a rhythmic sinc and looked at each other, instictively bobbing their heads, suddenly experiencing the euphoria of song.

I like to imagine the others in their tribe looked over suddenly, the heavenly sensations of music permeating their furry brow world. Perhaps they watched the impromptu concert with a fascination they never knew before. Perhaps the two hominids dropped their instruments when they noticed everyone else staring at them. I like to imagine that many hominids in the tribe started hooting and hollering when the music went away, as though wanting it back. Perhaps others felt threatened by the deep soul-stirring of this enchanting rhythm they'd never been exposed to before and ran up to the two young hominids and wrenched the sticks and rocks from them. I like to imagine they tried licking the sticks and stones, tried smelling them, tried breaking them open, but discovered nothing unusual about them, and roared in frustration. I like to imagine their hominid mob-mentality grew to a fever pitch and out of fear began to throttle the two young hominids. I like to imagine they beat them against the nearby trees and then ripped them limb from limb, hoisting their body parts above their heads, blood pouring down their furry necks and chests.

Ahhh... I think of this as I listen to Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. Call me a romantic, but that's how I like to imagine it.

Think of almost every P.E. teacher you've ever known....

Vice Principal Hill and P.E. Department Head Logan scribble on their multi-paged interview forms in their laps. Jim Brightman, in his crisp suit and red-white spackled tie, tries to see what they write but can't quite see past Hill's big fountain pen and nails, nor Logan's hairy knuckles.

Vice Principal Hill straightens her glasses under her blond bobby-cut hair as she reads aloud from her paper, "The P.E. instructor position requires you to work a good deal of weekends, especially in the months that you'll coach your sports. You could expect to work anywhere from twelve to sixteen hour days during certain times of the year."

"Not a problem! Only sixteen?!" he jokes with an optimistic laugh, subconsciously rubbing the corners of his optimistically yellow folder. "When I was a student teacher I'd be there eighteen, nineteen sometimes!" Hill and Logan glance at each other for a brief moment. The young man smiles, "Are there any coaching opportunities for the baseball teams? That's what I played at KSU. Pitcher and shortstop."

Vice Principal Hill purses her lips. "We'll tell you that if-and-or when we hire you, Mr. Brightman. Now, if you were hired, you'd have to sign a waiver of liability for the school due to the physical nature of the job, submit your proof of citizenship and medical history, and of course we do require that you grow a strange mustache and-or beard."

Brightman nods. "Wait, what?"

"Yes, Mr. Brightman," Logan says, "And by the codes of the school board it will have to be one of the following; wiry, unkempt, patchy, jagged, oddly-shaped, or as deuschy-looking, or perverted-looking as possible. Looking is the key word there. We do not tolerate any inappropriate teacher-student relations."

"This is actually how we prepel it," mentions Vice President Hill, trailing off a bit. "In addition, Brightman, you will be expected to gain substantial weight, and-or incur diabetes type one and-or two. And if you want to take up smoking, we can look the other way."

"What?!"

Hill blinks. "Mr. Brightman, your resume says you attended an American high school, you coached and student-taught at physical education departments in the area - You should know by now these are  standard measures for phys. ed. in public high schools!"

"But why?"

"Why are trees brown? Why are coyotes territorial?" Hill muses. "Why are attractive gym teachers a sex-scandal liability? It's just is the way life is."

Department Head Logan clears his throat. "Now of course if you don't want to gain the body and general lifestyle of a modern biker, there may be another to qualify."

The candidate perks up. "What's that?"

"Could you provide documentation of mental illness?" Hill asks. "We'd even accept forms of severe emotional damages that could affect your behavior, as evidenced by a psychologist or personal reference." She gets ready to grab her pen again. Logan looks hopefully at the candidate's folder in front of him.

"My knee flairs up once in a while... " Brightman says. "It gets me all out of sorts..." Hill puts her hand back on her lap. Logan sighs and leans in, in a fatherly way.

"Anger issues? Trauma? Do you even carry a chip on your shoulder?"

"Yeah, you know what?" Brightman says, puffing out his chest. "I think I do sometimes! I think I do have some issues, and could be a P.E. teacher!"

Logan leans back and shakes his head. "Sorry, son. The correct answer to a question like that would be more like, 'What the hell do you mean, do I got a chip on my shoulder, asshole?' or 'What are you saying, I have a small dick?' or something similar. You see the problem, buddy?"

Brightman nods. With a sigh, he stands and scrapes up the now tauntingly yellow folder from the desk. The faculty also stand and Hill extends her hand out, diplomatically, and shakes the young man's hand as she says, "It was great to meet you, Mr. Brightman, but unfortunately you lack the disgustingness, psychological damages, or emotional instability needed for a P.E. teacher at North Highlands... It's too bad that you didn't study History Education at KSU, because we really could use a Geography teacher with your chutzpah, determination, and personal pride. Best of luck."

A bit dazed, he turns around and heads out past the oak door. The faculty sit down and in walks the next candidate: A balding man, with a mushroom-shaped belly and ketchup stains still around his neck. His unbuttoned collared shirt was so wrinkled it looked like it would probably break the iron that tried to straighten it, and a certain odor came from the man, like sea-salt mixed with dying shit.

"I'm here for the job interview but first I need a friggin' Gatorade, where you people got the damn soda machines? I looked everywhere up this freakin' place. Disrespeccful!"

Hill and Logan light up. "Down the hall, near the cafeteria, and when can you start?"

That's some serious seaturtle shit man!

I pick the small transportable water tank, full of barely-born sea turtles and head back across the windy beach towards the lab, when the bellhop from my Casa Magna Marriot hotel happens to walk my way. He still has his uniform on, and seems to be smoking a self-rolled cigarette.

"Whatcha got there amigo?" he asks.

"Sea turtles." I respond as I passed by, smiling politely.

He looks at the turtles and then up at me.

"You a scientist?"

I stop. "Volunteer. Scientist. Yeah."

"A volunteer scientist? And you come to my country to look at those things?"

I look at the bucket of sea turtles.

"Yep!"

"The fuck?!" he mutters, taking a drag.

My heart gives a jump. "Huh?"

"You gonna be doctor and you volunteer here to look at those little shitty things swimming around instead of helping my wife who is dying of AIDs because of our terrible health care system?"

"Uh.. no, it's just that-"

"Or my brother's son who was kidnapped for a ransom he can't pay?"

 "...See the thing of it is is I'm in vet school. Study animals. Animales. Not... people."

"You pay money to fly here and help out, and you help out those little faggots," pointing at the sea turtles.

"The thing is, they're suffering too," I explain, as I squashed my toes into the sand. "Right now they're almost extinct because of this new microbiotic infection that's causing some of them to go blind and become easy pray. If the sea turtles die out, you're going to have an out of control jellyfish population around here. Hate to step on one of those guys, they're a shocker, am I right?" I ask, going out of pitch.

He skull-fucks my eyes. "I can handle jellyfish."

My big toe was fully buried in the sand. "You know what!" I say. "I have a couple hours free tomorrow, I'll stop by somewhere and give your wife some antibiotics, or - help you look in the jungles for your kidnapped nephew, err... Put up posters, what do you do about that exactly?"

"We have to pay eight hundred thousand pesos. He cut hair for living."

"Hm..." I blink. "Could he use an assistant?"

In the name of the pages, the ink, and the holy binding

"People call this book the Word of God!" Pastor Channing said, holding up his gold-covered Bible, his tiny veiny arms straining. "The book whose truths of God have pervailed over thousands of years! The book that has shown the light of God, no matter its translation from Hebrew and Aramaic and Greek to English, to Chinese, to French -- although we all know God speaks English, not French."

A light laughter rippled through the crowd, so light in fact that some members of the congregation were undoubtedly nodding in actual agreement.

"A book that has survived that many translations and still holds true! The book that can encapsulate the power of God using only pages, ink, and glue! Nay, that kind of a book is God! Only God himself could hold that kind of power! THIS IS GOD!"

He held the Bible as high as he could, the veins in his neck and arm ever prominent. People in the congregation knelt.

"And those who have translated it are prophets! God has made it so that any translations in the name of the Holy Bible are accurate! After all, that is how we've treated it! All worship Zondervan Publishing House in La Porte, Indiana!"

The white people in the pews bowed their heads further.

"And we worship the retailers who brought God to our bookshelves! All hail Borders Books and Music!"

The people bowed their heads further, most of them touching the pew in front of them.

"And to the copywriters and edit- uh oh!"

The book -- the God -- in Pastor Channing's old white hands fell through his fingers. It flipped through the air, the corner of it hitting the chalice of red wine -- Jesus' blood -- and the bowl of crackers -- Jesus' skin. All three hit the red carpet next to the altar, the wine splashing across the pages of the Bible, the crackers splaying around.

Someone in the crowd stood up.

"He spilled Jesus on God!"

The Pastor looked at the mess of deities on the floor at his feet, and then looked back up at his congregation.

"It is a sign! The blood and skin of Jesus is now encompassed in the book!" He held up the Bible dripping with wine and crackers. People gasped. "The Bible is our God!!"

When in doubt, follow the classic Hollywood script formula!

Teresa scowled with her bushy eyebrows.

"I'm 26 and I still haven't found myself."

It was a realization that came that morning with Cheerios. As she munched the same oaty flavor, it hit like the spoon hiting the bowl.

"I work in a sheet metal factory and I don't know who I am! I didn't want to go into sheet metal! Why didn't I go to MYU?"

Her boyfriend Cho ate his fruity pebbles and nodded. "Y-You're doing great, honey. We've got a great routine going here. You're making a lot of money." He picked up his bowl and squeeked across the floorboards to the sink.

Teresa shook her head.
Later at work, Teresa turned off her gigantic spot welder machine and removed her safety glasses. She glided through the machines and workers to the supervisor Tompkins' office door.

"No, you can't go to Cancun! You have to schedule off your vacations, and you've already used all of yours this year!"
"Mr. Tompkins, I need to find myself and God so my only choice is to go on a roadtrip to Mexico, or fly to Hawaii." She cocks her head to the side, as though annoyed by the idea that she has to go.
"No! We've got you Monday through Thursday next week! If you want time off you've got to give more advanced notice!" He looked back down at his office desk. A loud sheer began in the background yards from the open door.

"BUT!" Teresa shouted, "I need to do this! God told me while I was eating breakfast!"

Mr. Tompkins rubbed his bald temples.

"You don't know who you are because you haven't strived to ask. You'll never know the full extent of who you are, but the only way that you can ever figure out who you are is by stepping into the shoes of others, so that you can see yourself through their viewpoint. You can't look at who you are with your own eyes; you must see through the view of another."

Teresa went silent. "That gave me goose pimples."

"I've been to Hawaii before."

God created love; Humans created marriage

"I am trying to create marriage between a man and a women right now and I am faa-reeaking out!" cried a booming voice through the clouds. Jesus shielded his eyes from the sun.

"W-What's the problem father?" Jesus asked as he stepped up on a rock in the desert, as though hoping to bring himself a bit closer to the heavens.

"Well, I'm supposed to create marriage between a man and a woman for humankind by tomorrow but none of the one million four hundred forty six thousand two hundred and eight streamers are ready, the centerpieces for all the weddings are all wrong -- they went with fuschia instead of burgandy, even though I specifically told them burgandy-- and only half the cakes are ready! This is a DISASTER!" The ground rumbled. Jesus held on to a desert rock beside him as he waited for the ground to quell.

"Dad, have faith in yourself. Everything will be fine."

"I know," said God, with a sigh that brought a warm breeze across Jesus' facial hair.
"Don't be a Godzilla. We don't want a repeat of the Noah fiasco. Tell you what, leave all of the preparations to the humans."

"The humans? They can't do anything right. They can't even walk two steps without letting the devil into their hearts."

"Exactly. And that's something they'll have to overcome in their weddings! If they can't overcome that for love, then their love isn't strong and they don't deserve marriage!"

God laughed heartily. Thunderclouds shooting bolts appeared briefly as he guffawed, and then vanished. "Sometimes it takes the innocence of a child."

"Dad, I'm twenty-nine..!"

"Well I'm infinity, little boy!" God chuckled again and a lightning bolt struck down nearby. Jesus winced.

"Careful, Dad! Oh, and really quick -- what about same sex marriage? My friend Profethius and his boyfriend Amfthius wanted me to ask..."

"I like your idea, son, let's leave that to the humans. It'll be another test, a great test, to see how far their capacity for love for their fellow man goes..."

Jesus kicked a grain of sand. "It's going to cause some problems..."

"Again, their love for each other will have to overcome that!" God said.

"And Dad, real quick before you go, what about interspecial marriage? Can humans marry their mule?"

Thunderclouds formed again and bolts shout out of the sky as God's explosive laughter filled the heavens. "Good one, son. That's why I keep you around!"

Jesus winked.

We didn't evolve from monkeys, we ARE monkeys

Yeah you're right, we didn't evolve from animals. We just happen to be hairy, smelly, pus-filled mammals. We just happen to howl when in pain, bark at each other, and walk around in herds. We just happen to smell like a zoo if we don't run water over our bodies daily. We just happen to attack those who threaten our territory, or look different than us. We just happen to prey on smaller animals. But no, we sure didn't evolve from animals.

You say God created us in His image. What in the hell would that say about God?

The Sun of God

God is like the Sun. it illuminates everything around us on Earth; it shows Truth; it comes at us with blazing glory; and yet somehow it is yet received as granted by us much of the time. and even though the Sun casts in pure color all of the Truths we Humans commit, they still remain gaseously invisible to those who choose not to look.

we cannot even run from it, lest we hole ourselves in caves and homes! we cannot even look at it with our own eyes! if we did they would probably burn! so instead, we believe that it's there. we can even deduce it's there because of Science. (as my mother said, evolution sounds like a pretty intelligent design to me.)

we even see what Life is like when our Sun leaves us. all becomes immediately dark and frigid. the distant cold black engrosses us, and reminds us that its vast nothingness would deaden us in a freezing heartbeat; without anyone for light years away noticing. so we give thanks to the Sun, that we gravitate around it, that it keeps us brilliantly warm.

God made the Sun. let us allow his most amazing creation to remind us of the power of love towards all, daily. 

If you don't pick up after you're dog, you're going to hell

Mick McKinnon floated comfortably into his fifties. He was a fifty year-old by the time he was a three year-old, insisting his parents get their money back on his soggy green eggs and ham at Denny's. Now that the big Five Oh was officially here, he was just done. Done. No more trying. No more trying to date, no more working for promotions at Granbull Construction Corp, no more paying child support. Life was a breezy downward slope now, and he only needed to sled into pension.
You wouldn't be surprised to hear that Mick was done changing. He was the type of guy who’d rant on his cell phone about his new liver growth in a crowded Metra car, and at the highest possible volume before you'd consider it shouting level. He was the type of bloke who'd use the right emergency lane in a highway traffic jam. But his own undoing began when he bought a puppy from Pet Heaven, one of those retail stores that probably get their dogs from mills. A growing Rottweiler named Molly, he never bothered to put a leash on her, nor pick up her messes in the neighborhood. After all, Mick thought, Molly was an animal and didn’t deserve to be bound, and her poop was as natural as the Earth. "Hey," he'd said before. "We all put our shit in the ocean, and I can't let my dog fertilize our grass?"
In the dark of the early morning, you couldn't even make out that Mick's hair was graying in strange patches instead of all at once. In his den, he sat down besides his late mother's oak bureau, the bottom drawer already open. He picked out pieces of the damp tobacco and began to roll them. Mick loved his finely-rolled tobacco joints first thing in the morning, when the moon was still out, when the sun was only a slight shimmer.

Molly sat at his feet, looking up at him, her tail bobbing left and right.

"Just a moment, Moll."

He finally finished rolling his juicy tobacco. He chuckled to himself, thinking of how genuis he truly was. You see, most every tobacco aficionado clamps their tobacco in a humidor and for years he thought they were right. But ever since the one day he accidentally left his tobacco exposed to the air, it's gotten richer and tastier.

"I should write a book." On what? He thought. "General life." He nodded to himself.

Outside, the air was crisp. Spring was yet around the bend. He greedily sucked the last bit of the amber-flavored tobacco and flicked it onto a neighbor's lawn. Molly sniffed the tiny piece of paper and then squatted.

Mick remembered the last time that he left his dog's doo on Mrs. Schlivk's lawn. She came running after him, throwing the feces at him in a wrapped up newspaper. "PICK UP AFTER YOUR FUCKING DOG, MICK!!!" and after he slammed his front door behind him, he could still hear her shouting. "YOU'RE GOING TO HELL, DIRTBAG! YOU'RE GOING TO BURN IN HELL!" If there was ever a moment that solidified Mick leaving his dog's solidifides, it was this moment. Other neighbors had made little passive-aggressive comments; the people who wanted to say something but were too passive and afraid.
"Molly, come back! Molly..." The dog ran up Schlivk's lawn, sniffing underneath her front window. She'd never gone this far into someone else's yard before. She bent over and delivered yet another pile.
Mick squinted his eyes. His dog had really changed coming into her adulthood. Her demeaner was sturdier. She seemed to prance around like a show dog. She even took her bowel movements wherever she liked. Mick smiled. She was like the daughter he never had (besides the daughter he actually did have, who calls him once a year, on Christmas.)

The next day, his dog's feces were on his door. Not his doorstep, they were smeered all over his front door. Mrs. Schlivk yelled at him from her car later in the day. "I can't wait for you to burn in hell!" It made Mick chuckle; living outside social norms, a purer state, sure had its challenges.

Mick began smoking his tobacco more and more. Keeping it exposed to oxygen was the best thing for it. About a week later, he was done puffing through his second tobacco roll of the morning already. He had nearly tripled his intake. He woke up a bit late this morning, and the sun was already coming out.

He looked at his hands. The tobacco had left a bit of a smear. He went into the kitchen and washed his hands in the sink. When he returned, he gasped.

"MOLLY!"

Molly was squatting over his lower drawer.

"Get away from there!" He shooed the dog away, but it was too late; she pooped onto his tobacco. Aggravated and shouting, he turned on the den light, for the first time in perhaps months. He grabbed a nearby Kleenex and bent over the drawer.

"Jesus....Jesus... JESUS!"

This fresh crap wasn't the only one in the drawer. Old remnants of drying feces lay in clumps all along his tobacco stash.

His stomach clenched. Many of the remants had his finger prints in them. Clumps were missing. He looked at the joint between his fingers. He quickly unwrapped it. Inside the joint was smeared with brown mess.

He couldn't make it to the kitchen sink before vomiting onto his stove. He emptied the contents of his breakfast, which was smeared with brown. Thoughts began running through his head.

"I should have picked it up...Should have... ughh... picked it all up..."

That's right. For the fact is that Molly grew to feel she could poop anywhere. Afterall, she learns her attitudes from her master, who lets her do it. Not only that, but Molly has always associated the ground outside, where she can poop, with Mick's flicked tobacco joints. Thus, she felt more than compelled to poop right into Mick's tobacco. Nay, it felt natural.

So remember, if you're a "Mick," that type of person who thinks the world is your oyster, that your dog's mess is someone else's issue, you deserve to ingest your dog's feces and you WILL. And Mrs. Schlivk is right; you WILL go to hell in addition.

Surprise! You aborted your child!

Lisa twisted the key and walked into her apartment, mostly dark except for slivers of afternoon light coming from behind the shades in the living room. Relieved to be home, she sighed and hung up her business suit in her closet. She yawned, and dragged her briefcase along the narrow hallway. Before she reached the kitchen/dining room area, all the lights flicked on at once.

"SURPRISE!!" people shouted as they jumped from behind her couch, her bookshelf, the wall that covers part of the kitchen. Lisa gasped and balled her knuckles into fists, ready to attack.

Balloons went up, streamers flew threw the air, poppers went off. Lisa looked at the faces of her smiling family; her grandparents, almost eighty, with party hats on, with tight-lipped smiles; her mother, hair just beginning to gray a bit; her aunt, uncle, and their five children, the youngest a toddler, the oldest a high school sophomore, all with the classic O'Donahue white-blonde hair.
There was a cake in the middle of the room, with a "5" shaped candle already lit. A banner had been hung up from the ceiling, saying, "Happy 5th Birthday, Lisa's Son/Daughter!"

"Screw you guys!!" Lisa hammered through sharp breaths.

"We just want to celebrate your child's birthday, Lisa. Or at least... almost birth day," said her mother, slicing into the cake.

"You did this to yourself," chorted her uncle under his sharp mustache.

"He would have been five years old today," Lisa's mother said, her lips curling. "Still glad that you slapped God in the face?"
"Get out, all of you!"

They stood still.

"How did you find me?!"

"God hath shown us the way on yellow pages dot com," said her grandmother.
Lisa ran into the kitchen and slipped a knife out of her wooden knife set and ran into the living room, brandishing it in front of her. "I'm gonna abort you all just like I did the fetus!!"
The family screamed and darted towards the front hallway.

"God save us!"

"The eyes of the devil she's got!"
**
A few minutes later, Lisa had packed the essentials in two large suitcases. She looked back at the apartment. It seemed like she had just set it up to be home.

She got into her car and drove a few blocks away to the Albertson Elementary School. Luckily, the bell was just ringing. Lisa wiped mist from her eyelids. A little boy with white-blonde hair, a bit taller than the gaggle of children around him, flocked towards Lisa's car. He opened the door and got in. Lisa gave him a kiss on the cheek.

"What's wrong, Mom?"

"We have to move again, sweetie."

"What?! Why?!" The boy threw his backpack on the car floor.

"Because our family found us."

"They did?! Can't I meet them?"
Lisa bit her lip. "No, hon. You can't. They can't know you're alive or where we are. They're insane. Hey, I've got a birthday present for you."
"What?"

"You know how you said you wished we lived near Disney Land?"