piss poor planning

Dennis woke up with a new voicemail on his phone, and a sneaky suspicion that he didn’t get the job he drug tested for the day prior. Nevertheless, he placed his cellular device against his ear hole and listened to the message with bated breath.

[…voicemail…]

Dennis rolled his eyes, he closed his eyes, he kept his eyes closed. He went back to sleep.

Another drug test, another failure.

Warm Gatorade looked like urine. It felt like urine. It even frothed like urine. Alas, no matter how hard warm Gatorade tried, it couldn’t pass for piss like clean genuine urine could. Dennis now realized that.

Not to be discouraged however, Dennis awoke several hours later and called up his buddy Jenner. Together they played round after round of cranberry juice pong until Dennis sprayed ocean piss, err.. pissed Ocean Spray.

Dennis was job-thirsty, there was no denying that.

Dennis was also addicted to Quaaludes, which he often tried to deny, to his urine’s chagrin. 

bowled over by anger

Charles watched with wide eyes as the obsidian orb graciously curved its way down the glossy bowling lane. He continued to hold his follow through and his breath as the ball precariously flirted with the gutter’s edge. He stomped his foot on the varnished floor and pursed his lips as the ball rolled directly between the remaining two pins. He was well aware that had finished in last place again.

Charles clenched his fists as he walked back the to seating area. He tapped his bowling shoe impatiently as he waited for the machine to regurgitate his ball. He stiffly extended his middle finger as members of his bowling league extended their hands for a post game handshake. He gritted his teeth angrily as he stormed out of the bowling alley into the bright sunlight. He was temporarily blinded.

Charles let out a glottal grunt as he chucked his bowling ball at a random car in the parking lot. His eyes flashed with satisfied anger as the ball shattered the innocent vehicle’s windshield. He jumped into his Camaro and screeched out of the parking lot as “Born to be Wild” came on the radio. He sped through a red light as the sound of sirens began to crescendo behind him. He hit 75 mph as he shot up the ramp onto the highway. He hit 100 fifteen seconds later.

Charles looked into the rear view mirror as red and blue flashing lights crested the highway horizon behind him. He cursed under his breath as “Sweet Caroline” by Neil Diamond came on the radio. He turned off the radio.

Charles’ ex wife was named Caroline. She was the one who encouraged him to join that stupid bowling league in the first place. 

eye of the elder tiger

Phil continued to peer out across the street at some hot young thing who happened to be jogging past jovially. He squinted with delight.

Mentally, 82-year old Phil was still on the prowl. Physically, Phil’s catlike eyes were the only remaining attribute from an earlier life where he would have eagerly pounced on the young female jogger as if she were the red dot projected from a laser pointer.

“Liked that one, didn’t you?” I asked him.

“Sure didn’t used to make them like they do nowadays, eh?” He chuckled and took a sip of ginger ale.

“She had gold digger written all over her,” I remarked, “but judging by how much you pay me to mow your lawn, I’m guessing you could barely even afford a can of gold spray paint,” I stated matter of factly.

“Weh?” Phil contorted his face and held his hand up to his ear.

“You remember your first beer?” I repeated my original question.

“You remember the first time you suckled on your mothers teet?” He shot back, not missing a beat. Phil was fast, semi-automatic octogenarian fast. I thought to myself for a second, then shrugged. I had to have been like what, 4, 5 minutes old, tops?

“First beer I ever had, got no recollection of it, or that entire night for what it’s worth,” Phil reminisced. “What I do remember is waking up the next morning alone in my backyard with Betsy Stevenson’s poodle skit lying next to me.”

He held out his clenched, arthritis-laden hand. I tapped it gently with my fist. “You were quite the cool cat back then weren’t you.”

He chuckled and grinned and modestly started to prune the pot of geraniums that was positioned between the two of us.

“Had it easy back then, buddy. All my competition was overseas, roughin’ up them goddamn Krauts.” It was a noble confession from a noble man, justified by the 8 months he had served fighting in Vietnam shortly thereafter.

“Phil, how about you hit me with some grandfatherly advice," I beckoned. If hindsight was 20/20, I figured this witty oldtimer’s was at least 20/10. Maybe even better.

He removed his hands from the geraniums and leaned back in his chair, his eyes keenly surveying the street, left, right, left again. The coast was clear. He turned to me and pointed to his face with two fingers.

“You see these, son?” He directed my attention to his eyes. They were fierce and abounding with eagerness. “To succeed in this world, you gotta have the eyes of a tiger.”

I instantly understood the theme song from Rocky.

“These fellas are your desire to succeed. The first thing somebody feels when they see ya, the last thing they remember as you walk away. I don’t care if you’re talking to your boss, or pushing your grocery cart full of Hot Pockets past some pretty face wearing those spandex pants in the produce aisle.”

I remembered the time when Phil tried to pay me in Hot Pockets for mowing the lawn. 

He wasn’t done yet. “Boy, it don’t matter if you’re talking to your teacher after class, or you just trying to have an intelligent conversation with your babysitter, you ALWAYS gotta have them tiger eyes in. That’s how you get things done in this world, and that’s how you let people know that you intend on getting things done in this world.”

I made a mental checkmark in my head. I nodded slowly. “Phil, let me ask you a question- who did that poodle skirt belong to again?”

Quick to respond, Phil repeated the girls name. “Belonged to Ms. Betsy Stevenson, yesiree it sure did.”

“And who was this Betsy Stevenson may I ask?”

Phil proudly chewed on my question for a few moments before answering with a senile smirk. “Sunday school teacher.”

Just then the female jogger jogged back into Phil’s peripheral after having looped around the backstreets. Phil smiled and reached into his breast pocket. He took out a crisp 5-dollar bill and handed it to me. “Go give this to Long Legs and tell her I said to keep up the good work.” As he said this his elderly tiger eyes were ablaze with excitement. I took what was presumably my lawn-mowing money and obediently did as I was told.

Phil’s tiger eyes followed me across the street and barely moved as the jogger slapped me in the face and sprinted off.

Phil shook his head. “Tiger cub’s got a lot to learn” he growled humorously to himself.

you've got mail

As Roger peered into the cast iron cage, he captured the beautiful eyes of his terrified catch. He gazed upon her physique and nodded his head in approval. The strawberry-blonde hair coupled with the fairest of skins was a rarity in this business. She was worth at least $7,000. And that was based on last year’s rates. With the recent shortage of mail order brides, this one might even catch upwards of ten grand.

Roger had been catching mail order brides for a little over 2 years now. It was a rewarding business, and Roger was quickly making a name for himself in a handful of circles. He continued to oggle at the entrapped blondie. She snarled viciously and started to shake the cage angrily, her supple breasts swaying like pendulums. Roger smiled. He knew that whoever the rich American businessman was that would be receiving this one would certainly have his hands full.

Roger was a hunter by nature. His father had been a poacher, long before poaching became illegal. As a child, Roger’s toys were all made of rhinoceros ivory. As an infant, the only baby powder Roger’s behind knew was that made from finely ground-up elephant tusks.

When the time came for Roger to pick a profession, it was right around the time when mail order brides were becoming a fad. Across the Atlantic Ocean, rich businessmen, greedy Mormon husbands and hopeless romantics alike suddenly all wanted mail order brides, and they were willing to pay top dollar for a postage stamped piece of holy matrimony.

It wasn’t hard to catch a mail order bride either. These feral women went after anything that was shiny, or mixed with alcohol. It didn’t take a master baiter to catch one. It simply took a strategically placed ring made of sterling silver, or a carefully placed martini to get a young and wild lass to crawl into the cage. All Roger had to do then was pull the string to trip the trap, tranquilize the caged lady, and then pay for shipping and handling.

The particular mail order bride-to-be that Roger was admiring was more than your typical mail order bride. She was a trophy wife. The Vince Lombardi trophy of mail order brides. Roger reached for his tranquilizer gun. Fumbling around in his pocket, he accidentally triggered the trigger, and he felt a sharp pain in his leg. Shit, he thought to himself. The world started to go dim, and the voice in his head suddenly began to slow down and become deeper and richer, like James Earle Jones’.

Roger woke up 72 hours later with a ring on his finger, deep in Russia. He couldn’t believe that this was real life.

“Karma’s a bitch,” Roger groaned to himself.

“You’re my bitch now,” growled a husky female voice next to him. It belonged to his new wife, who’s name also happened to be Karma. Karma was a retired Russian roller derby skater who had recently responded to an ad on Craigslist for a mail order husband.

“I’m the only Karma you’re gonna know from here on out” she continued. “Now you march your little tush into the kitchen, you make me a sandwich, and when you come back out I’m going to show you how us Russians like to keep warm during the winter.” She winked at him and slapped him on the back side.

Roger frowned, and then did as he was told.