383

i remember roaming the haunted halls.

i remember walking the silent yellow line.

i remember vomit on my tuxedo.

i remember hitting concrete the first day.

i remember watching her walk.

i remember the rock crushing my fingers.

i remember realizing it was permanent.

i remember her leaving the room.

i remember breathing.

i remember awakening and seeing the tree.

i remember him saying "theres nothing like taking the first scoop of ice cream."

i remember my cigarette falling to the ground in slow motion.

i remember seeing the final letter.

i remember saying "fuck you" as i got off the school bus.

i remember hearing the album all night long.

i remember seeing charcoal on her teeth.

i remember recognizing the muse.

i remember the first time they arrived at my door.

i remember saying goodbye.

i remember the firefighter telling me the house was burning.

i remember the turtle surviving.

i remember wondering why.

i remember my grandmother's eyes.

i remember losing the blanket.

i remember the throttle of eight pistons.

i remember the warmth of her lips.

i remember the pond reaching our door.

i remember the carbonation.

i remember the shoebox in the backyard.

i remember the sound of descending footsteps.

i remember the loaf of bread.

i remember the smell of cedar ash on my clothes.

i remember the sound of six plates.

i remember the cop saying "you need to leave."

i remember her kissing my cheek in a triangle.

i remember guinness at the brazen head.

i remember saline tears.

i remember waiting to open the envelope.

i remember time refusing to cooperate.

i remember the colors of dawn.



our footsteps like folklore.

our actions like sand.

our acoustics like vinyl.

our paths like hands.

384

last night i registered for tcf bank's online account management system in order to avoid calling the bank every time i needed to obtain a current checking account balance.

i completed all the requisite fields we all encounter every single fucking time we create an account for anything. after selecting a user name and password i was directed to the main accounts page.

all i expected to see was my checking account number with links to various checking account related information.

i saw more.

oh yes, my eyes witnessed scores more.

in the fall of 2000 i opened a savings account with tcf for the retrospectively silly reason that they offered a ten dollar in-store gift card for new customers; i then proceeded to entirely forget about the account for the better part of the next seven years.

thats 84 months.

i called a tcf representative to verify that they hadnt fucked up by incorrectly attributing another person's account to my social security number, which, by the way, is 219-85-3452.

i zipped through all the security questions lickity-split and yeah, fuck yeah, that shit was motherfuckin' mine.

onward!

two facts blew me away throughout this ultimately bounteous process; one, although it was an interest-bearing account, the interest rate was one one-thousandth of one percent.

thats .001%, my decimally gifted friends.

perhaps the 34 cents my account accumulated over the past seven years explains why tcf never sent me annual 1099 forms so i could report the four and 5/6th of a cent i earned every year to the i.r.s.

second, and this is what youve so patientfuckingly been waiting for me to write, i received a five hundred and six dollar payday out of thin air.

had i never bothered to create an online account i likely never would have known about the missing funds especially in light of tcf's decidedly unscrupulous practice of treating accounts as dormant should they fail to show activity for a period of three months.

what a bunch of grinches.

what a bunch of santas.


the moral of the story?

fucking check your shit and make sure you dont have missing funds from a veritable caboodle of potential sources. ask any banks with whom you have ever had an account whether or not you have any additional accounts from years past. check your state's unclaimed money registry to see if you have any inheritances, interest bearing ledgers or safety deposit boxes of which you might be unaware. consult credit card companies to ensure you dont have a negative balance as a possible consequence of cash back awards, rebates or overpayments.


i thought about donating the money to the salvation army guy who incessantly rings his godawful dah-ding dah-ding dah-ding bell outside the store but then i decided nah, ill just go with the hooker.

385

chicago's average november temperature is forty degrees fahrenheit.

its the middle of the night on the 27th day of november and the mercury holds steady at fifty-five degrees without even a semblance of wind chill.


i cant think of any way to commemorate this affront to normal midwestern weather other than to select a roof shingle and blacken a steak on it.

386

for the second time in my life i refused to shake someone's outstretched hand.

"im not shaking your hand," i said.

i paused slightly and added "you treated us like dogs today."

i looked my boss in the eye.

judging by his eyes he had never before been placed in such an awkward situation. i dont think it helped that one of his full-time employees and the assistant store manager were both present.

it dawned on him that i wasnt kidding.


for that split second in time i owned him.



he then said "okay," turned around, walked towards the door and said "happy thanksgiving guys" in a sunken voice.


i keep playing today's events in my head over and over and over again and my heart tells me i made the right decision. im not sure how the aftermath will transpire or what the professional repercussions might be but i feel like i can stand tall in front of the mirror and see myself as an individual with a strong sense of integrity.

virtue is my soul; without it i am fallen.

respectful, interpersonal relationships represent the only aspect of life that really matters. when we lay on our deathbed and ponder our mere moments of existence on this five billion year old planet we inevitably will place enormous weight on the manner in which we treated our fellow human beings.


i would donate a kidney to a complete stranger to save their life.

i will not extend my hand to those who annihilate my values.

387

1949-2006.

388

i was about to mail allstate my $690 dollar, 6-month car insurance premium when i figured hey, what the fuck, why not see what geico has to offer before forking over the beans.

i understand that i have a new car and i know that im a male, unmarried, relatively young driver but ive never been involved in an accident, ive never received a speeding ticket and ive never reported any damage to any vehicle ive ever driven.

ive never even received a parking ticket from an obese, minority, clipboard-wielding, gum-chewing, surly, grinch meter maid wearing a concomitantly baggy and snug black civil service uniform.

i navigated to geico's intuitively interfaced website, supplied the requisite information, matched my current liability, collision and comprehensive coverages dollar for dollar and clicked on the "give me a quote" button.

$325.

are you fucking kidding me, you allstate pigfucker louisville slugger jailhouse sister insurance plunderers? ive been a customer for eleven years, ive never asserted a single claim and you wanted to charge me more than double the amount a competitor to which i had no loyalty offered me following a five minute questionnaire?

what a cohort of blue mascara floozies.

the disparity between allstate's and geico's respective offers took another unanticipated twist:

i doubled my liability coverages and reduced all my deductibles by 50% and geico's quote increased by an almost comically paltry fifty-five bucks. i even got roadside assistance thrown in the package for good measure.

the choice was clearer than a boston marathon runner's pre-race piss.

i placed a call to allstate:

"good evening this is jim how may i help you?"

"i would like to cancel my policy effective november 30th."

"can i discuss some rate options or quotes with you to keep you as a customer, sir?"

"nope."


geico.

15 minutes saved me 15% or more.

389

you might be wondering about the funniest joke ive ever heard.

you need not wonder anymore:

"im working on a screenplay. its called "schindler's list 2: lets get this party started."

--zach galifianakis

390

i love the cornucopia of images the following lyrics conjure; the combination of macabre violence, nonchalance and minimalism is nothing short of brilliant:

i think my friend said, "i hear footsteps."
i wore my black and white dress to the
birthday massacre, birthday massacre, birthday
i wore my black and white dress

i think my friend said, "stick it in the back of her head."
i think my friend said, "two of them are sisters."
"im a murder tramp, birthday boy," i think i said
"im gonna bash them in, bash them in," i think he said

then we wished them all a happy birthday
we kissed them all goodnight. now he chases me to my room,
chases me to my room, chases me
in my black and red dress

i think my friend said, "dont forget the video."
i think my friend said, "dont forget to smile."
"youre a murder tramp, murder tramp," i think he said
"youre a murder boy, birthday boy," i think i said


© the birthday massacre

391

i think this non-actual credit card might be void.

392

never begin a sentence with "there is," "there are," "here is" or "here are." dont conclude sentences with prepositions. pretty please with sugar on top dont put a fucking comma in front of the word "and."

ever.

never describe something as "abstract;" tell me what the fuck you think it looks like. ask a thousand people to describe a paper cup and youll receive a thousand similar yet unique responses.

i want to hear yours.

tell me enough but not too much.

dont play your heinous, cookie cutter music loud enough to stimulate my eardrums. system of a down and linkin park and metallica and the thousands of bands that try to ride each other's one hit wonders suck fucking dick.

pay good artists for good music. music makes the world tolerable. its worth the lighter wallet.

by the way, metallica, what the fuck happened to you? when did you start wearing tampons?

speak to me with dignity and i will treat you like royalty; speak to me with causticity and i will discard you like refuse.

show empathy. if you humiliate a disabled person i will throw you against the wall and burn a hole in your skull with my eyes before ending you.

dont ride my bumper in traffic. the closer you tailgate the slower i will travel.

count on it.

dont ask me questions while engaging in a cell phone conversation. show some fucking class.

dont whistle to hail my attention. im not your fucking yellow cab, im not your fucking sommelier and im not your fucking lhasa apso.

i wont tolerate your disrespect because your day sucked or you hate your life. keep your misery in your shopping cart.

never ask me how im doing unless youre sincere. never greet me at all if you dont look me in the eye.

dont pretend to care. dont tell me about your harvard-bound stepdaughter or your husbands new job at the mayo clinic or your new silver lexus because i dont care. lets call it a draw and skip the bullshit.

live in your bubble. dont burst mine.

dont tell me that disease and famine and poverty exist because god works in mysterious ways. look a person with lou gehrig's disease in the eye and explain to them that their inability to move is an integral component of god's amorous, benevolent plan. fuck you, you contemptuous assholes.

fuck you.

fuck you.

fuck you.

and hey, you motherfuckers, dinosaurs didnt co-exist with humans. you know why? because the bible is a fucking story, you fucking morons.

its a fucking paperback novel.

id explain the overwhelming mountain of evidence that supports evolution but why bother? explaining science to people who believe that the earth is 6000 years old is like explaining the significance of a hypotenuse to a giraffe.

you hear me clear enough?

393

1919-2006.

believe it.

394

a letter from the illinois department of public health:

"dear mr. jordan:

your name has been placed in the illinois adoption registry and medical information exchange (iarmie) program database as per your request.

if in the future we receive a similar request from your eligible family members..."


heh.

i knew the letter was gonna suck dick as soon as i noticed that the salutation was followed by a fuckin' colon.



oh well.

395

its november 9th and the weather has apparently forgotten that illinois doesnt embrace the equator.

im a cold weather guy. i always have been. i always will be.

i cant think, sleep, eat, fuck, piss, shit, work, drink, write, read, watch, listen, crochet or motivate myself to do anyfuckingthing unless the mercury falls below sixty.

i dont understand all you fuckers who lather up with fourteen bottles of banana boat and sit in the scorching sun just waiting for cancer to lay waste to your leathery integument. yeah, youll all look real good in your fifties with gargantuan cheek wrinkles scraping along the ground like the ethereal chains of jacob marley. peel yourself off the horrid, itchy sand, hose yourself down with a foaming bucket of lever 2000 and get some vitamin d from a pint-sized chug of strawberry nesquik.

ugh.

i want to see snow on the ground so thick that i can perform a triple-lindy off my roof and safely land atop nature's marshmallow. i want to feel the magnificent assuagement of falling asleep under a flocculent, down comforter as the air around my exposed head remains so deliciously cool that i can observe wisps of vaporous exhalation play cops and robbers with esoteric nitrogen. i want to listen to winter's draconian winds ceaselessly howl at the fronds of my frosty window sill.

howl at the moon, motherfucker.

unleash the boreal so i can breathe.

396

as read on the comcast.net homepage:

"an iraqi court on sunday sentenced saddam hussein to the gallows for crimes against humanity, closing a quarter-century-old chapter of violent suppression in this land of long memories, deep grudges and..."

blah blah blah blah blah.


now that saddam will be executed perhaps the bush administration can spend a few moments focusing on actual problems.

397

"we apperciate your bussiness!"

nice.


shell v-power: retarding our nation's youth one misspelling at a time.

398

the only good thing about the work marathon in which i am currently engaged is that i have lost ten pounds of excess weight.

my back is fucking annihilated and i hate the negative feelings that ceaselessly ride the coattails of arriving home and realizing that my next shift lurks nanoseconds away; however, as much as this endless shift encompasses endless shit i feel more physically robust and sleep seems far more restorative. i have no doubt the two are inextricably intertwined.

ive also noticed that my sex drive is more intense than a priest's at a boy scout convocation. if that aint incentive to eat a little less rub-a-dub-dub every day then my name aint tikitikitembonosarembocharibarirucipipperipembo.

i wonder how energized i will feel if my weight drops to 200. my stomach tells me steak is god's gift to man. my doctor tells me 200 is a magic number.

maybe some semblance of salvation lies within.