March 31 - Jumper on the Line

Moments before he was about to step in front of the train, he hesitated.
Since he was going to be dead soon anyway, why not have his favorite food one last time? The train whooshed by as he reasoned it out: He still had money and God knew he wouldn't need it tomorrow. Yeah, why not have one last steak? And since it was going to be his last meal on earth, that was as good an excuse as any to splurge and go to D'Antonio's, the high end place he'd never had the occasion to visit.
And so he did, and it was good. Remarkably good. Maybe not reason-to-go-on-living good, but definitely good.
By the time he was finished, the trains were no longer running, so he decided he would do it the next morning. No need to set his alarm clock. Not like he had anything else he had to do that day.
The next morning came and he was a little hungover from the wine he'd had with his steak the night before, but after a couple of cups of coffee he was focused and on task.
On his way to the train station, he passed the used record store where that one indie snob he always hated from afar worked: the jerkoff with the skinny jeans, hipster-approved haircut and irritating column in the weekly "alternative" paper. The one who always had a condescending way of making you feel like a loser no matter what you were buying or trying to sell back.
They'd never met but over the course of living in that neighborhood he'd developed a genuine hatred of him. So much so that he decided to make a quick stop at the record store on his way to the train station.
He walked right up to hipster record store guy and ended his phone conversation by putting his fingers on the cradle of the land line phone he was using. Then he looked him square in the eye, unfurled his middle finger and said, "Fuck you."
Hipster record store guy just stared at him dumbfounded as he put his middle finger away and then swept his arms over the Employers' Picks shelf dedicated to his recommendations and knocking them all to the floor before leaving the store triumphantly.
And it felt good.
So good that he put off his trip to the train station a bit longer and stopped by the supermarket for a celebratory beer, splurging for a wine-sized bottle of a fancy lager from Europe which he split with a homeless guy he found feeding empties into the recycling machine.
Their conversation wasn't life changing, but it felt good to socialize, and he ended up buying and sharing a few more bottles of the European lager with the guy. As the beer flowed, he thought of a few more people he wanted to give the same "Fuck you" treatment he'd given to hipster record store guy before going out, but he didn't want to do it drunk. He didn't want people's last impressions of him to be as the guy who drunkenly told them off (out of the blue) before making a one-way trip to the train station. So instead he went home and made a list of the people he would tell off the next day:

• His sister-in-law
• His brother
• Pretty much everyone at his job
• And his last job
• The "Would you mind if I worked in a set here really quick" guy from the gym who always took forever and then never wiped his sweat off the equipment
• People who talked too loudly on the train
• Smokers
• People who spit in public
• Several others

The more he wrote, the more people he thought of to add to his list. But instead of cutting it off, he let it go, and if it took longer than a day to get through everybody, then so be it.
It definitely took longer than a day to get through everybody, much longer. But once he got into a rhythm, he found the work to be very agreeable. Most people had no idea what was going on. One moment they were going about their day and minding their own business, the next this guy (depending on the person, a relative/friend/co-worker/acquaintence/complete stranger) was coming up to them, flipping them off, and saying, "Fuck you" before leaving just as suddenly as he'd arrived. If he'd bothered to think about it, he would've acknowledged that most recipients of his middle finger "Fuck you" treatment probably didn't understand what had prompted it, but he wasn't concerned about how they took it. He was focused on himself. This was for him. And just as it had with hipster record store guy, it felt good. Every time. It gave him purpose. And once he had gotten through everyone on his list, he felt more grounded. His vitriol had been sated and he no longer felt like going to the train station.
But at the same time, he didn't want to return to his old life. He couldn't. Although he'd never gone through with that fateful trip to the railroad tracks, in many ways his old self was dead. He was a new person now, reborn. Even still, he didn't want to be the "Fuck you" middle finger guy for the rest of his life, either. It had been gratifying while it lasted, but he was ready for something less spiteful. And so he made some adjustments. He kept the spirit of the "Fuck you" middle finger guy--calling people out for inconsiderate behavior (it occured to him later that this was what he hated most of the people on his list for)--but dropped the profanity and the middle finger (since profanity and middle fingers themselves were inconsiderate). His focus would be the same--ridding the world of inconsiderate behavior by calling out the people who perpetrated it--but his delivery would be more family friendly. Among his new catch phrases:

"Hey, don't be a jerk."
"Knock it off."
"Be nice."

None of which may have had the impact of "Fuck you" and a middle finger, but he liked them anyway, and used them every day.
It felt good to have a purpose.

March 30 - Ice Cream Party

It's high time we had an alternative to the Tea Party movement, and I can't be the only one who thinks so. Every time you turn on the news there's some sort of Tea Party rally, and everybody's so angry. Obama's turning us into a nation of socialists! What the hell kind of tea are they drinking anyway? I thought tea was supposed to calm you down. Isn't that what Sleepy Time Tea has made a fortune off of? Tea should be all about cuddly bears in sleeping caps gently dozing off in front of a crackling fireplace, not angry white people yelling about how we need to take the country back. We need something different. And until somebody comes along with a better idea, I've got a suggestion: The Ice Cream Party.
It's pretty simple. Everybody just calms down and has some ice cream. No political agendas, no jingoism, no getting hysterically pissed off about something they're only semi-informed about. The Ice Cream Party is just about Americans getting together and having ice cream, regardless of political affiliation, race, age, gender, religion, socio-economic status, and all the rest of it. We should still be able to do that, right? After all, at the end of the day we're all Americans. (Well, all of us except for the ones who aren't but even non-Americans can be cool sometimes, so maybe we should invite them, too.)
People can have whatever kind of ice cream they want. They're not going to have any liberal Vermont Ben & Jerry's forced on them. Sure, they can have that if that's what they want, but they can also have Baskin Robbins, Breyers, Friendly's, McDonald's, Mr. Softee, whatever. They can even make their own ice cream.
Don't get me wrong: It's great that people are getting involved in democracy, but it's getting ugly and mean out there. We all need to take a break from the tea and the hysteria. Who's with me on this? You scream, I scream, let's all scream for ice cream.
And I'll bring the sprinkles.

March 29 - Funny Faces

Michael took a seat on the subway facing a mom, a dad, and their little girl. While the mom and dad talked, their little girl--probably about two years old-- sat on her mom's lap and gazed vacantly across the aisle. Sitting next to the family was an attractive woman in a business suit who looked up at Michael briefly and then returned to her Blackberry, the faintest trace of a smile visible on her face.
Michael put his paper aside and glanced at the woman in the suit who glanced back. Figuring he would win her over by getting the little girl across the aisle to laugh, he smiled and waved at the little girl, but the little girl didn't respond.
The mom and dad continued talking and the little girl continued staring into the distance. It was like she was watching a cartoon or a video game that only she could see. Michael smiled again and stuck his tongue out at her, and when she didn't flinch he upgraded to peek-a-boo. The woman in the suit caught a glimpse of him and smiled more openly, but there was still nothing from the little girl, although her mom flashed him a perfunctory half smile as if to say, OK. Efforts acknowledged. You can go back to your paper now before returning to her conversation with her husband.
But it wasn't the mom's acknowledgement Michael wanted, it was her daughter's--and through hers, the woman's. Besides, now he was committed to the project, and if smiles and peek-a-boo didn't get him anything, he would have to break out the big guns: funny faces. He put his palms on the side of his face and stretched his mouth and his eyes so that they were slants.
Nothing.
He pinched his eyelids and cheeks and scrunched his face up with buckteeth.
Nope.
He stuck his bottom lip out, put his hands on both sides of his face and pulled down.
Not so much as a blink.
The woman in the suit glanced his way again to see how he took the lack of reaction. Cut bait and call it a nice effort? No way. He wasn't going to back down, not until he got something from her, and if he had to use the nuclear option, he was prepared to do that: Funny faces with sound effects.
Sneaking a quick look at the woman in the suit, he went through the same faces he'd made at the little girl before and added cartoonish boogity-oogity voices to them and finally, finally the girl responded. Her eyes and nose scrunched up in what looked like a precursor to laughter before she buried her face in her mother's arms and cried.
Michael was taken aback. The woman in the suit and several other passengers looked at him to see what he had done and he recoiled in shock.
"Hey asshole," her father mouthed at him. "She's blind, OK?"
The woman in the suit rolled her eyes and texted her boyfriend while the girl sobbed in her mother's arms and Michael prayed for the train to hurry up and get to its next stop.

March 28 - The Mask

Every year, hay fever allergies beat the hell out of him and caused him to go through several boxes of tissues. But one year, he decided that rather than just throwing the snot drenched tissues away, he would hold onto them. And not just hold onto them, but recycle them. And not just recycle them, but make them into something both creative and useful: a snot and tissue paper mache mask that he would use to inoculate himself against future seasons' allergies.
It took him about two weeks to make the mask, and at the end of hay fever season he put it in storage. Then, the following year, when hay fever season was about to start, he got the mask out of storage, put it on, and slept in it, believing that the tiny doses of pollen in the mask would help his body build up its defenses, enabling him to get through hay fever season scot-free.
It didn't work. That year, even with the mask, hay fever hit him just as hard as it had the previous year.
Undeterred, he decided he needed to up the ante. Figuring that the problem was that he was using his own snot for the mask and that he was probably immune to it, he decided he would make a new mask with other people's snot. And so every opportunity he got, he went through the waste paper baskets in his office building and smuggled whatever used tissues he could find back to his house where he used them to make another mask.
But it didn't work either. If anything, his hay fever was even worse that year. And so over the following year, he developed a machine that could extract snot out of used tissues. His goal was to harvest enough of it to fill a kiddie pool, which he would then submerse himself in, believing it would give him a whole body inoculation from hay fever.
Although he wasn't able to get quite enough to fill a kiddie pool, he did get enough to fill a coffin that he bought wholesale from a friend who owned a funeral home. That year, at the onset of hay fever season, he could barely conceal his excitement as he submerged himself in the snot-filled coffin. Finally, he would defeat hay fever! He lay back in the coffin and let the sticky snot wrap itself around every inch of his arms and legs, fingers and toes. It filled his earlobes and enveloped his armpits, crotch, face, and hair. It crept up his nose and down his throat. Believing he had the ability to breathe through the snot and extract the oxygen he needed from it to survive, he didn't fight the process and let it enter his body.
But he was wrong. They found him four days later, drowned in a coffin full of snot.
The moral of the story is: Stay away from snot baths. They might just kill you.

March 27 - Coke Zero

You're such a fuck-up. Those were her exact words, and the hell of it was that he couldn't really argue with her.
The weekend had not gone as planned. It rained when it should have been sunny. The hotel was completely booked when he'd assured her that getting a room without a reservation wouldn't be a problem. And as it turned out, they were exactly one week late for the festival that they (but mostly she) had wanted to see.
His accidentally calling her by his ex-girlfriend's name during sex didn't help either.
And so they were on their way back a day early. Not a lot of conversation. He knew she would get over it eventually, but for now he felt it would be best to let her sleep and then work on a full-scale apology when they got back. He held her overnight bag in his lap and watched the night time scenery speed by.
Their train pulled into a station a few hours from home. There were vending machines on the platform. As a first step toward an apology, he decided he would get a Coke Zero to surprise her with when she woke up. The last train of the night usually stayed at each station a bit longer, so he knew he would have more than enough time to get off, get the drink, and then get back on before the doors closed.
She didn't wake up as the train stopped, and he shimmied out the door, as smooth and quiet as a ninja. The nearest Coke machine was several cars down the platform, and he wasted valuable seconds debating whether or not to chance it before deciding that yes, he'd do it, he'd make it.
He ran down the platform, dug into his pockets, and came up with a handful of change--but not enough. His heart racing, he dropped her overnight bag, got out his wallet, and with trembling fingers pulled out a bill.
The conductor blew his whistle.
He shoved the money into the slot. The sucked it in and spit it back out.
The conductor blew his whistle again.
He thought about aborting. No. I've got this. He straightened out the bill, fed it into the slot, and glanced down the platform which was practically empty of people. The machine sucked his bill in as the conductor stepped back onto the train. The machine lit up, he pressed the Coke Zero button, the can dropped to the opening, he grabbed it and then all but dove back onto the train.
He was elated until he turned around and looked at the Coke machine. Sitting there next to it was her overnight bag containing her cash, credit cards, ID, cell phone, keys, and asthma medicine.
Oh, God!
He leaped off the train to get the bag, and he had it in his hands when the doors closed and he helplessly watched the train pull out of the station.

March 26 - Inner Monologue of a Trained Sea Lion That Performs at Sea World

Here we go again. 11:30 am. Showtime at Sea World. Twenty minutes of yucking it up for yet another identical crowd of camera toting parents and their oohing, ahhing easily impressed children.
Fuck my ass.
There is literally nothing I don't hate about this job: the skits, the tricks, the audience, the trainer, and my willing involvement in all of it. I can believe I actually auditioned for this job and got stressed out about the possibility that I might not get it. Yeah, that would've been a real tragedy. I would have had to stay in the communal pool and spend my day swimming, sunning myself, and eating fish. Wow, that would have sucked.
But no. Instead, I get to trot out in front of the morons twice a day and act like an asshole so the trainers can toss me enough fish to keep me alive long enough to do it again tomorrow. Speaking of which, there's my cue.
OK, people. Yes, right. I'm cute. I'm so adorable with the way I drag myself around with my front flippers and then slide. Hey, guess what, fuckies: We're sea lions. That's how we move. Unlike everything else I'm about to humiliate myself by doing, this handy little way of getting around ain't for your entertainment. It's just how we move. Hold you applause for the tricks, dummies. Jesus.
And here we go with the balancing the ball on our nose trick. And now the balancing our body weight on our front flippers and looking like complete douche bags while doing it. And now we're basically pretending to be a human family because what on earth could possibly be cuter than an animal pretending to be a person? And that's what it comes down to, isn't it? Being cute. They only like us animals if we're cute or food. Or both.
You want to know what really sucks about this gig? Everything. Seriously, man. Everything. For one thing, it's actually hard work. Balancing all my weight on one flipper is not easy at all. For another thing, as performers we're totally isolated from the rest of the group like we're freaking Chinese gymnasts or something. And it's like, hey, assholes: We're social creatures. We thrive in the company of others. But no. Separate tanks. And they probably think they're doing us a favor somehow. Twice a day during my show I can see the main sea lion pool and that fucking Sammy makes it a point to be in my line of vision every time so I can see him laughing at me and scamming on Brenda. And they're totally going to mate, you can tell. Meanwhile, I'm over here doing photo ops and barking like a jerk every time the trainer throws me a fish.
God, I suck.
And now here comes the finale where we play those Goddamned horns and set the animal liberation movement back another 25 years. But what the hell, I get a fish so it's worth it, right?
Whatever. Show's over. Thanks for coming. See you again at 2:30.

March 25 - WOLFF

You know what I wish they'd come out with? An Ultimate Fighting Championship for old women. Don't laugh, I'm serious.
My buddies and I were talking about this the other day and I think it would totally take off. You could call it World Old Lady Fighting Federation, or WOLFF.
WOLFF, fool! Try keeping a straight face when you tell me that's not totally badass. That's right, bitch. I didn't think so.
How it would work is it'd basically be just like UFC, except instead of guys you'd have old ladies from around the world stepping into the octagon and just getting rude with each other. No holds barred, no limits, no rules. What, like you wouldn't be all over watching some hard, wiry, leathery old woman from a hills tribe in Laos going toe to toe with a beefy, blue-haired recovering communist from the Ukraine? Shit would be off the freaking hook man, because these women--all of them--are as hard as nails: Mongolian yak herders, Romanian factory workers, Bulgarian collective farmers, Chinese hostess club managers, Peruvian mountain guides, Malian subsistence farmers. What do all of these women have in common? Everything up until now--their whole existence--has essentially been a training program that has shaped them into hard nosed, hard assed, no nonsense survivors and ass whoopers of the highest magnitude. And if someone was like, Andy, would you ever mess with any of these women, you know what I'd say? I'd be all, Hell no, dude.
And that's just the women who have had work outside the home. That's before you tap into the unlimited reserves of badassery that exist in any pocket of the world where women do the heavy lifting for their households (i.e. pretty much everywhere). You see, a woman's work is like a master's course in stepping up and doing what needs to be done, and I can't be the only one out there who thinks the time is long overdue for these women to have a forum for putting their ass kicking skills to work. Enough screwing around. Let's make this happen because it would kick so much ass.
Seriously: If you put all the hardest, toughest, meanest old ladies from around the world into one fighting league, who do you think would win?
I'll tell you: The audience, dude. The audience.
Dig me hard on this one, kiddies: They are WOLFF. And it is time to hear them roar.