Breaking Protocol

    I work on the edges of corporate environments where people too-often worry about covering their asses rather than getting things done. A while back someone stopped a conversation and said, "let's worry about solving this rather than finding out who's at fault." She was a secretary, but I hope someday she becomes a CEO. I interpreted that experience into the below piece.

   Tracy didn’t know the man by name, but she knew him by sight. Evey other Friday  like clockwork he’d gas up, set a case of Keystone on the counter, and scan the lotto tickets. “Which one’s a winner,” he mumbled under his breath. He was always dirty, but in a good way. In a metal shavings, grease-under-the-cuticles sort of way.  
    For years Tracy rang up booze and dollar scratch tickets, until, like a dove dying in mid-flight, he had some sort of fall from grace. The man began to come in sporadically--sometimes daily, sometimes once a  month. He’d always be dirty--not in a good way. Cheap beer and a chance to get lucky turned to malt liquor and desperate hope.
     The man didn’t show tor weeks, then months. Finally,  when he make his way back to the store, Tracy noticed he’d lost two of his top teeth. Tracy noticed the grey lotto ticket dust under his fingernails had turned black and slimy. Threads of red spider-webbed across the whites of his eyes and his fetid breath teased Tracy’s gag reflex. She watched him and listened to the grumbling, manic whisper, “Which one is a winner?”
    Breaking protocol, Tracy reached out, laid her hand on his dusty Army-issued cameo jacket. She asked, “Hey, are you all right?”

A Birthday Wish from a Four-Year old to his Younger Brother.

I wrote this not long after one of my kid's birthday parties when I looked around at all the new toys and thought, "This is too much....too much." Yet I wanted to capture the experience from the perspective of a four-year-old with all the responsibility of an older brother.

        Brother, let me tell you that I am so proud of you for having a birthday. Truly, this is a momentous day for you to have won the affection of so many who are so willing to bestow us with the new tube of mini plastic dinosaurs, the pair of foam swords, your new Roman style helmet and chest plate armor, our new large cardboard box filled with some such or other of a tricycle or something, oh and all these new toys will surely heighten our brotherly bond.  To be honest, last year I did not focus on your birthday due to the anxiety surrounding the recent mastery of my bladder and I had urinated inside my pants. This year however, I was highly focused and very clenched.
           And I realized something: your birthday – along with my own and Santa’s – is such a bountiful day for our little playroom.  From here on out we are no longer merely brothers; we are allies. In the interest of growing our collective worth in toys I will no longer torment or ask you to test possible food items I find– I am committed to your survival. You must admit dear brother, surviving has been difficult for both of us. Do you recall the time you scaled the counter and gained access to the ice pick? Remember, Mother did not understand, “What the hell was going on?” If she did she would have moved the cookies into a more attainable spot. Without your brotherly love and the cracker you found under the couch we would have surely starved to death that day
           Also, dear brother, do you recall almost dying of a broken heart when the next-door neighbor let his dogs into our yard? Father did not understand they were growling at each other, quarreling over whom was to receive our attention first. He was much too harsh with them. Yelling at those poor creatures scared them far too much.  Visions of their muscular shoulders and jaws clenching, flexing, and bulging with fright still permeate my mid-afternoon nap dreams. Fright has paralyzed those dogs’ once carefree spirit, why I have not even seen them in their own back yard since Father chased them off into the forest with a shovel.
           Yes, it is safe to say our parents are quite inept at caring for us or understanding our success. Mother and Father shared none of our triumph when we acted independently, finding and eating all the Halloween candy. We did it all by ourselves and all they did was ask God to dam something. And how are we to rely on parents who can barely stay awake the following day after we were up sick all night. I for one have very little confidence in a man’s fathering abilities after watching him cry over a gurgling toilet stuffed with wiping papers. It seems our survival is up to us poor brother, so we must stick together.

No gesture could convey the importance of this message, but I hope you’ll accept this hastily made birthday card. I’m not implying it needs clarification, but the picture on the front is a monster, wishing you happy birthday and on the inside you’ll see I’ve irreverently used the stickers from our Barnyard Animals collection. Do forgive me if I misspelled your name for you see I have not yet learned the spelling of “DAN.”

          
           So again, brother, please accept my very sincere wish of Happy Birthday.

Lost in Translation at the Laundromat Arcade

 This is a fictional story I wrote after playing a lot of Target Terror. Outside of using my real name and the fact that Target Terror was located in a laundromat arcade--this is a work of fiction.

Didn't  you used to be Area 54?

Ahem….excuse me, pardon me. I don’t mean to intrude but you see we have a problem. Or rather you have a problem and I have a problem and our problems have met each other. I don’t mean to assume.... but you don’t speak English do you? No? What is that? Cambodian? Laos? Either way, its a beautiful language. Loud, but beautiful. …..Well...I’ll do my best to convey our little problem.  Now I know that you may still be busy poking your wife in the forehead with her newly purchased dryer sheets so I’ll try to be brief and to the point. Your daughter (and may I say she sure is a doll) seems to have pooped her pants.
Now I understand every culture is different and what is considered appropriate in different families encompasses an extremely wide spectrum. Just look at the way you’re taking all of your wife’s underwear and stretching it out as wide as it will go then pretending the stretched out fabric is walking as you’re making farting noises. Why if I did that to my wife she would do a lot more than sit there with her chin in her chest trying not to cry. But we’re traditional, middle class, white people - borrr-ing. Anyway back to your daughter and our problems converging. The issue is not with your daughter or the fact that she seems to have poopy pants, but rather the fact that she has wandered off, which brings me to my problem.
Let me introduce myself: My name is Phillip Bash Kopczynski - PBK - and as you can see from the high scores in this Laundromat Arcade - I’m kind of a big deal around here. And therein lies my problem. I own a washer and dryer - frontloaders actually. I’ve never used them because I have a lovely wife who stays home with my precious sons and she does all my laundry, but from what I understand they’re very nice. With all that going for me, I still come here 2-4 times a week to see how many headshots I can rack up on Target Terror: Gold Edition. Now it’s not always about the headshots - sometimes its about finding secrets, or improving accuracy, or seeing how far I can get on only three dollars, but at the same time it is kind of totally about seeing terrorist heads explode into a cartoon gore.
And that is my problem - I’m a 31 year-old man who has a weekly quarter budget, but I’m okay with my problem. Yet now I can smell your daughter behind me and I’m concerned this might not be the most appropriate game for her to--Oh excuse me for a moment I just got the gun that makes those terrorist bastards explode with their guts going everywhere. God Damn that is awesome--okay I’m sorry about that, now what was I saying? Oh yes, I can hear you on the other side of this arcade and last time I saw you, you were making farting sounds and pointing to your lips while dumping out all your crying wife’s belongings from her purse (what a rich and vibrant culture you come from, I must say). So maybe you already know about your daughter’s diaper. Maybe that's your way of telling your wife. I don't know.
But again, I don’t want to take away from the issue at hand which is not the fact that your lovely little princess is really ripe and the ventilation around these games is not all that great. The issue is that she seems to need some kind of help based on her screaming. I would help her,  I know that I’m not her father yet I’m very qualified - trust me - it’s just that I’m not really able to look away since I’m right on the edge of getting a high score which I’ve been competing for with a gentlemen by the name of A-S-S for a few weeks now.

I’m sure you can understand my dilemma, and there is no hurry to get her or anything. She’s completely fine to just stand or sit behind me and scream like she’s frightened or scared or hurt - I can’t really tell since I haven’t been able to look away for a while. So no rush - whenever your done dumping all of the powder laundry detergent all over your wife’s freshly folded clothes basket feel free to come get her.

CONTEST! CONTEST! CONTEST!

Reservation Pet Parade

I wrote a different version of this nearly 8 years ago when I worked as a rural market freelance journalist. On one assignment, I covered a story about a fourth grade dance troupe out in Worley, ID on the Coeur d' Alene reservation. I don’t remember anything about the dance troupe, but the day I was at the school was total chaos. The school principal had snuck off in the middle of the night and left the community. It was the second principal who’d broken a contract in less than three years. Driving home from the assignment, I passed by a personal residence that had buffalo, bobcats locked in a kennel, miniature horses, and pitbulls  caged in a kennel next to the bobcat.

All the kids my age on the reservation squabbled about which teacher lasted the longest. Some said it was Mr. Bicks, I thought is was Mrs. Nistle who I had in the first and third grade, but all of us agreed on the one thing: Miss Hansley was the one we ran off the quickest.

          Mrs. Hansley was sweet and naive and her smile screamed “White Christian.”  By the time I was 10 years old, two of my friends had been taken away by white Christian ladies so they could live with other nice, white Christian ladies. Nobody I knew really thought too highly of white Christian ladies--nice or not. Mrs. Hansley was nice and pretty and young, so we all knew she wouldn’t last long.

When I came home after my third day of fourth grade and told my mom how my teacher told us we could all bring pets to school she twisted around on the couch and said, “Good luck getting Crow on a leash.” Whenever our dog, Crow, was in heat my mom wouldn’t let her in the house on account of her bleeding.

            Getting Crow on a leash wasn’t too hard, and the next day she was the best behaved animal in class--her and Fawn’s iguana. Mrs Hansley said we could have a pet parade through the halls of the school to show off our pets, but she came from Chicago where people have cats and gerbils and maybe a dog. She brought a fish in a fishbowl to show off. When we all lined up at the front door, she twisted the thin golden strand with the cross on it she always wore around her neck as our cavalcade of beasts stood before her: Jack, Hanna, and Lee all brought pitbulls who just sat and stared and stunk--Jack’s was smeared in crusty brown crumbs; Lina brought in what everyone thought was a kitten until she said it was a newly born linx; Lolo brought in a full grown doe led around by a leash made out of bail wire attached to a harness, she said her dad trained it to not  run off to lure bucks--he kills the buck and if it all works out she said he’d eat the fawn as veal (at this Mrs. Hansley covered her mouth); a few kids brought cats, one kid did bring a dead gerbil, and Charlie--who’s the richest kids in school 'cause his dad owns the fireworks stand--thought it’d be funny to just put a leash on a mortar shell, drag it around all day and keep telling people, “She’s a nice pup, but don’t get too close 'cause she barks real loud!”
           The parade never happened. When Jack and Hanna’s dogs started fighting Miss Hansley went to grab Jack’s dog and recoiled as the dried dogshit crumbs flaked off on her hand. Then, Lee’s pitbull mounted Crow and all of us started to cheer as he waddled up behind Crow and began to pump away. Miss Hansley screamed from the sink, scrubbing her hands, “Don’t look” and at the dogs, “Stop it. Ssstop it.” Her es sounded like a person trying to imitate a snake and suddenly she didn’t seem so young, standing at the sink, yelling at the dogs in vain.
          One of the tribal elders was acting as principal that day and when he heard the commotion he sent us all home. Through the window, I saw Miss Hansely start to cry and lean up against the elder as he patted the shoulder of her white blouse.
          On the way back to my house, Lee and I talked about what we were going to name Crow’s pups and how many each of us would get. The next day Miss Hansley was gone. We scared her off in four days which is a record that stands to this day.

June Beiber Smith-Carter

Whip yo hair. In the future.

This came from an idea I had for a satirical website called “Future Wikipedia,” which would be fake posting from the future. The below entry is meant to be a fictional Wikipedia entry made in the year 2069. Ultimately I came to this idea after wondering what sort of glass ceilings will exist in the not-to-distant future. By then a woman will have become president and maybe even (gasp!) a Mexican or a white gay male. So I thought the next obvious breakthrough would be for a an African American woman raised by celebrity lesbians.

Also I suppose I came up with this idea because my cousin kept re-posting a bunch of corny and somehow inspirational Will Smith tweets. And who doesn’t love name-dropping like a maniac?

June Beiber Smith-Carter (born April 7th, 2033) is the 53rd  and current President of the United States. Apart from her political career, she is also a best-selling author. She is the daughter of musician and performer Willow Smith and real estate mogul Blue Ivy Carter NYC.  

Born in New York City, NY her birth was highly controversial at the time due to the procedure of DNA merging used to harvest XY and XX chromosomes from two same sex partners which was still very experimental. As the granddaughter of two well known celebrities--Jay-Z and Will Smith--much of her life was lived in the public eye.

Smith-Carter’s birthday was overshadowed in the press by the assassination of the 48th President of the United States, Justin Beiber, who’d was killed on the same day by political rival Zac Ephron with the use of a poisoned blow dart. In honor of President Beiber’s death, Smith-Carter’s middle named was changed from Yellow to Beiber.  

As an undergrad at Yale University, Smith-Carter excelled in Business Ethical Law, eventually acting as chairman of the student investment squad. She went on to complete NYU's MBA program and garnered national attention as the youngest mayor in the history of New York City. During her first term as mayor Smith-Carter led an effort to reduce child labor laws in NYC’s vast systems of underground sweat shops and open up job opportunities for children under the age of 15.

After one term as mayor, Smith-Carter stepped down during a successful bid for the governorship of New York State in 2062 against the leader of the New Jersey Rebellion, Snowy Polizzi, daughter of former reality star and Italian ambassador, Snooki Polizzi.  

During the 2063 Republican National Convention, Smith-Carter’s keynote address brought her political career to national attention. In her freshman term as Governor she fought to lower the age at which children could buy assault rifles to thirteen, bringing her a widespread following in the Midwest and South. In her book, Freeing the Children she outlined the theory behind bringing opportunities to children by lifting laws thought to protect them, strengthening her support in the Midwest and South.

In the 2068 Republican primaries, she defeated the oldest living American, Rand Paul, for the Republican nomination. In the 2068 presidential campaign she unseated President William Rodham Clinton II in the largest presidential landslide in American history. At 35, she became the second youngest president after John F. Kennedy.

As president, Smith-Carter signed the American Child Freedom act, allowing children to emancipate themselves at age 13 from their parents. In foreign policy, she closed Guantanamo and was a key figure in ending the 11 year Russo-Chinese Sewage War.

Alpha Overdose

After seeing pheromones advertised in the back of Popular Science for years, I finally looked into them and realized they are primarily bought by total douche bags. This is a story in a review I wrote and posted on Amazon for a pheromone called Alpha-7. I call it a "fiction bomb." The Amazon review was left intentionally unedited so for a smoother read see below. My reviewer name is Single Dude. 

BTW, my Alpha-7 is in the mail.

Spend 60 bucks for ball sweat? Sure.

I'm a 27 year old guy and I've used pheromones for about four years now and am pretty used to them. I'd heard to be careful when using pheromones with Androstenone and I've got to say - they aren't kidding! These are the most powerful sexually charged human male pheromone known to man.

Most pheromones I've used in the past aren't for "alpha male" types, but after getting a promotion at my job, I thought maybe I was ready to step it up a notch. This was BY FAR the most intense experience I've ever had with a pheromone.

When my Alpha 7 came in the mail I was stoked because I had a date the next night and I wanted to try it. Before meeting my date I put two three inch strips on each forearm just like with Scent of Eros and Aqua Vitae - two pheromones I use on a regular basis.

Right before I left my apartment, my roommate saw me and flipped out. This is someone I've known since I was like 12 years old - he's one of my best friends and he just started raging as soon as he saw me. At first I though he was yelling into his Call of Duty headset until he stood up and pushed me. He kept asking me, "What the F are you looking at?" When he didn't let up I left and heard him yell, "get outta here you pervert!"

This is one of my BEST friends and got SUPER aggressive with me the moment he saw - or smelled - me.

At the restaurant it got really weird. I was early so I got a drink at the bar. I'm 27 and I look young for my age. I've NEVER dated older women. I'm not into them and they are not into me, but as I sat down, drinking a beer and texting,  an old lady - like almost 40 year old - came up to me and ran her fingers along my neck. I didn't even look up before she whispered, "hey handsome," in my ear. Her HUSBAND came and whisked her away. Literally! Her HUSBAND.

When my date arrived she smiled from across the room. It was our second date after I got her number at a club. The first date went great - we made out and I though I could close the deal on the second date. She was crazy hot and the wait was worth it. As soon as she came up to give me a hug she instantly recoiled like she was afraid of me. Most of our dinner she spent with her chin in her chest and at one point when I waived the waiter over she ducked and let out a little whimper. She couldn't get away from me fast enough after I paid for the meal.

This stuff is the real deal. It's called Alpha for a reason. If you can't handle being the top dog, then stay away. Since my pheromone overdose, I've learned to mix it with others like Scent of Eros or Aqua Vitea