Network: 
Don't you think you're as funny as David Sedaris? C'mon, isn't that exactly what you told your friends last Christmas when you were dolled up as an elf and face down in the eggnog? Well, now's your time to prove you can drop bon mots like: "I love things made out of animals. It's just so funny to think of someone saying, 'I need a letter opener. I guess I'll have to kill a deer.'"Tell us a funny tale and you get a chance to win a copy of Sedaris's new book "When You Are Engulfed in Flames."
The Rules:
Write up a 100 to 400-word humorous essay in our comments box below and you'll be entered to win one of the 20 copies we're giving away. Your piece can be about a dysfunctional moment from your childhood, that awkward time you dropped trou at a nudist colony or just that soul-killing work you look to Asylum to escape from.
More about how to win after the jump.
What kind of writing are we looking for? We want it to be Sedarious -- that's Sedaris and hilarious combined, get it?
We're going to pick the winners at random from the entrants: Don't be afraid that your mini-memoir won't match up with the other wits at this electronic Algonquin Round Table.
As long as you put in a 100 to 400- word essay (jabberwocky and gobbledygook will be disqualified unless you're the ghost of James Joyce), you're eligible to win. (We'll also highlight our favorite entries on the site.)
The entry period is from June 6 at 9 a.m. (E.S.T.) to June 20 at 6 p.m. (E.S.T.). We'll pick the winners on June 23.
For all of the official rules, read this page.
Let's make that a little more forceful:
By submitting an essay in the comments box you are stating that you've read and agreed to our official rules.
Now start dropping little turds of brilliance in our comments box.
Comments:
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Friday 06 June
By James Calvert
It's not that clowns scare me, per se. It's just that clowns have a way of taking the most innocent comment, and just because it's coming out the mouth of a guy with crack-whore makeup on, make everything sound sinister. Clarabelle was the mute clown on Howdy Doody. Never said one thing. That is, until the last show. Then he turns to the camera - kids across America leaning close to their screens - and he finally hoarsely croaks out, "Goodbye, kids." It that didn't make 100,000 kids simultaneously shit their pants, I don't know what would.
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Friday 06 June
By Race
Many summers fade into the obscurities of time, but some manage to retain importance for many years to come. I was eight-years-old, and my mother brought me along as she cleaned the house of an elderly man in our neighborhood. I was desperately bored. Searching for anything to do, I found a large series of anthills. I'm a Chemical-Engineering student now, but even in my young age, I was science savvy, carrying my trusty magnifying glass with me. I tried to focus the light on the hill, but as I did, clouds obscured the sun. "Dang, now I have nothing to do."
At that moment a strange feeling passed through my stomach. I sat down on the curb. I began tossing gravels into nearby potholes. I developed a game, giving myself points based on how far it was to the hole. It struck me again. I stood, and the feeling vanished. "It must be that spaghetti," I said to myself. I left the curb and went back to the anthills. As I stood watching the ants, I felt little bubbles of gas trying to escape my body. I was outside, so I obliged, but immediately realized my mistake. I had miscalculated the situation.
I was horrified. I glanced around to see if anyone had seen. "Be cool, no one knows what just happened.” I tried desperately to think of a way out of this mess. I ran around to the back of the house. The old man had a concealing row of hedges following the contours of his house. I dug a small hole under the most concealed bush.
I double-checked behind me just to make sure that I wasn't being watched. I loosened my belt and relieved myself of the mess. I quickly pulled my pants back on, trying to keep them away from my soiled skin. I tossed the underwear in the hole and filled it in as quickly as I could manage with my bare hands.
I ran inside without even removing my shoes. Once in the bathroom, I cleaned myself of both the dirt and the muck, and washed my hands. Before I left the room, I flushed the last remaining evidence of my transgression.
"Did you just use that toilet?! I just cleaned that one! Why couldn't you just go upstairs?"
"Mom, relax. I just had to go. I didn't make a mess or anything."
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Saturday 07 June
By Keith
When we were kids, my little brother and I used to hatch elaborate schemes every Christmas Eve to try to catch a look at Santa. The closest that we ever came was the year that I turned 8, and my brother was 6.
That year, we resolved not to sleep at all. It was pretty futile anyways - we never slept that night no matter what we tried. After waiting forever after the lights went out, I gently opened the door to my bedroom and listened for signs of life. Nothing. Excellent.
My brother and I got down on our hands and knees and army-crawled down the hallway. We went as slowly as possible for stealth, just like Vic Morrow taught us to. It took 5 minutes to get to the end of the 20 foot hallway and reach the wall between us and the living room. It was pitch black - we couldn't see anything, and the place was dead silent.
I started to peek around the corner of the wall into the living room. Suddenly, we heard the sound of packages rattling. We froze. Was the fat man in the next room? I could hear things moving around. Panic set in. Everyone knows the penalty for getting caught. No presents. Probably forever. And he'd likely tell my parents too.
We jumped up and ran back to bed. In our haste, I slammed the door shut. Loudly. We pulled the covers over our heads and hid while we waited for the door to open. We eventually passed out in nervous exhaustion.
At 7am, the door opened and we walked in to the living room. I was a little surprised (and much relieved) to see presents there. Under the middle of the tree, our fat cat was splayed out across 2-3 wrapped boxes. As we walked in, he stretched out to make himself more comfortable. The noise from packages rattling and shifting underneath him sounded all too familiar.
While I felt embarrassed to have been thwarted by my former ally, on the other hand, I felt lucky not to have blown it with Santa. It was enough though - after that year, we never pushed our luck again.
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Sunday 08 June
By Pat K
My roommate is a virgin. This is not so startling. My roommate is also Asian. This caught me by surprise. The moment I discovered that my roommate was an Asian virgin, I took it upon myself to get him laid before the end of the semester. Luckily, his birthday fell just before break so I figured I had a valid excuse to get him a hooker. Sadly, the one problem with being a college student is that your parents will only send you a certain amount of spending money per semester. And after setting aside most of it for beer and Ramen noodles, there isn’t much left for prostitutes. Disappointingly (and I did check) hookers aren’t too enthusiastic about charitable donations, despite the numerous tax incentives.
This left me with a fairly sizeable dilemma. “There must be some way for broke losers to have sex with hot chicks,” I thought to myself, “look at Kevin Federline.” Then it hit me. Craigslist – the largest leap forward in the field of anonymous sexual encounters since the blindfold. It was perfect. Motivated by a newfound faith in horny strangers and armed with several photos of him in an elephant costume, I set out to bequeath my roommate with the greatest gift one man can give to another: a “casual encounter with a female 18-24 years of age.” Of course, wanting to keep an eye on things, I had the responses sent to my email address (specifically created for this occasion) and then forwarded to his.
By the end of the next day, four lovely ladies had replied and waited anxiously for him to respond to their messages. However, for reasons unknown, my roommate decided not to accept any of their offers, and by association my gracious birthday gift; although he did mumble something about “morals” and “values” and “STDs”. But while my endeavor ultimately ended in failure, I did learn a valuable lesson. People are far more likely to agree to sex with a stranger when they are drunk, and that’s the plan for his next birthday.
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Sunday 08 June
By Priya Bhakta
It was the stench of the Bombay air that first made me shake my fist to the heavens. It smelled like rancid milk and dung gone wild. The airport was populated with barely-clad vagrants who moved not unlike tortoises. My father told me to hold tightly to my purse in case a looter got any ideas. But a thief wearing white M.C. Hammer pants did yank off my beloved Little Mermaid key chain. He ran for the hills and I was rendered a mute, merely pointing in the direction where he escaped.
The template of my doom was proven in my first visit to a classic Indian bathroom. My eyes spied a stylized hole in the floor. I burst into tears when my mother told me this was the toilet. One had to squat over the decompressed toilet bowl. If that wasn’t bad enough, I’d have to resort to the always-there-natural-toilet-paper: MY HAND!
After a month of disappointing menus, I became dejected in my quest for something to treat my homesick palate. I snarled at my sister when she bopped my head with a menu in a restaurant somewhere in Rajasthan. She was forgiven when she whispered in a maniacal giggle that there were Americanized dishes. I voraciously scanned the bilingual listings. Cheese pizza! Are you kidding me? After months of traditional Indian fare? We pounded the table with our forks like savage peasants. We want Pizza! We want Pizza!
I picked up a small slice and angled it into my mouth. I chewed once and then my taste buds formed a coup d'état against the appalling morsel. An expired fruit jam had replaced the tomato sauce.
But the worst day of my adolescence happened when one of the housemaids named Saadha became a promotion-hungry sleuth. It was just my luck that my menstruation transpired in India. I was bewildered enough to stuff my underwear in a water pipe embedded on the floor of the upstairs bathroom. I thought I would hide it there until I figured a way to surreptitiously dispose of it. But Saadha the Thorough had other plans for me. She dangled my balled-up panties on a wooden stick in front of my step-
grandparents and father. I died a million deaths that day, I was this mortified. Priya stuck her underwear in a pipe! My sister would terrorize me with this for years to come.
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Sunday 08 June
By Anne Rodgers
I knew I was set up for failure as a gamine early in life. The most easily recalled confirmation of this was in 7th grade gym class when I looked down upon my thighs resembling sausages adjacent to the lithe and light thighs of Regina Hull and knew that the "Skinny Legs and All" wasn't meant to be my story. My mother informed me that early on my grandfather hesitantly admired me as a six month old in my crib and said to my mother, "Her legs are so skinny, she looks malnourished." Living under the authoritarian times of her generation, she immediately took it upon his advice to confirm this through a visit to a MALE MD. Insensitive to ever having to be a girl with fat thighs, he suggested feeding me the equivalent of heavy cream to help "fatten me up." I later learned that our body constantly moves toward filling up those fat cells initially formed in early development and have wanted to sue him for malpractice ever since. Most females in my family leaned toward skinny legs, hence my fat cells had been unnaturally morphed. My grandfather’s intention was based on his immigrant mentality that I might be stranded in the Atlantic on a ship trying to get to another coast and that a "little extra padding" could help me across the pond should the ship go astray. I have no plans to cross any pond, and if I did I'm afraid that these thighs would cause sinkage and the opposite of his intended effect. Later in life, my grandfather lived with us in his old age and as a former baker, continued baking his delectable bread, adding an addendum onto my thighs. A decade or so later, after his passing, the "no carb" diet would become in vogue. Not too long after this a restaurant in my neighborhood opened known as the "Bread Bar" and it felt as though Grandpa Harry had been reborn. I oftentimes sit there with a delectable assortment of bread and butter and wondering how my life would have fared if my grandfather were a vegetable farmer instead of a cream puff purveyor. I then look down at the sausages, spread more cream on the carbs and wink towards heaven.
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Tuesday 10 June
By Tracy Rouge
One week I was a popular first-grader in Westchester County, New York, the next I was enrolled in a missionary school in the middle of rice paddies in Taipei--the only Jew in the school. The other children wondered why I didn't know the words to “Jesus Loves Me” or threatened to “tell my mommy” when the teacher rapped my knuckles with a ruler. The richest girl in the school was Flora Yen—whose father actually owned a gold mine. She was pretty, prissy, with gorgeous hair always braided with silk ribbons. Her birthday was coming up and we all hoped for an invitation because last year’s event had featured an elephant and gifts for all.
At recess Katrina, a Dutch trader’s daughter, asked if I wanted to get into the “club.” To prove myself, I had a task to perform. That recess, we were going to play Follow the Leader on the raised dikes between the marshy rice paddies that surrounded the school. Every sixteenth paddy was the poo-poo patch. Men carried the night soil buckets on bamboo poles and deposited them in this spot, then farmers dipped what they needed to fertilize the crop. All I had to do was trip Flora when we got to the liquid excrement and make sure she slipped in.
We sang “Onward Christian Soldiers” to keep our minders content as we skipped along the grassy bank. At the crucial moment, I performed my duty. Flora fell. Nobody screamed louder than I did because I was not only horrified for her—but what would happen to me. In the odiferous confusion, I was never blamed. Flora’s locks could not be rescued. The photos of her seventh birthday party include me, the ponies we rode, and Flora in a bowl cut with her sweet, shy smile.
Hey, Flora wherever you are, I’m sorry.
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Tuesday 10 June
By J. Silva Redmond
My mom became an assistant teacher at our elementary school when my brothers and I were eight, seven, and six. I was the baby of the family, but being so close in age we three shared many things--toys, TV shows, and a fear of my mother embarrassing us.
My mom was not a drunk, or schizo, or abusive. She was simply a mother and a hippy in 1967, when that was really not the thing to be. Perhaps the humilation engendered by seeing your mom in a batiked dashiki and Tonto-style braids-and-headband look striding across your schoolyard wouldn't have freaked you out--well, you were a stronger kid than me.
I was far to young to protest (except on weekends, with a homemade crayon sign "War is not healthy for children" etc) so I kept quiet, but I cringed and hid a good deal. It never worked. My teachers thought my mom was the coolest thing since the peace sign and let us know it--sometimes out loud, once even in class. I slide down as far as my seat-and-desk set would allow and thought of other things.
I thought my mom was cool, too--at home, far from the slim world view of my middle-class friends with their Wonder Bread and bologna sandwiches. I traded them for organic p-nut butter and honey on whole grain.
Somehow I survived that year--knowing things couldn't get worse...Then my mom joined the PTA.
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Tuesday 10 June
By Robert Mills
I used to be a cook at a shabby falafel joint in Toronto. The place had a bit of history - apparently Joni Mitchell and Neil Young shared an apartment over the place many years before. Joni's only memory of the time was that Neil always refused to do the dishes. In those days it used to be a chicken take-out place and still had the sign: "Lickin' Chick'n".
The customers who trudged through the establishment were almost as shabby as the place itself. They thought themselves free spirits and prided themselves on eating healthy alternative foods. Falafels and frozen yogurt. They didn't know the falafel mix had roaches in it and the oil it was fried in was rancid and the owners would never let us change it until just before the health inspector was due to arrive. The freezer kept breaking down and the "frozen" yogurt had been refrozen so many times that the small paper wrapped bricks of yogurt looked more like toilet paper wrapped turds. A good portion of wrapping paper ended up going through the yogurt machine - mixed liberally with the rotting fruit that was burbling in the metal bins from which our customers selected their poison.
The only saving grace to the experience was my co-workers. We were of a like mind and clutched each other for safety, keeping the counter between us and the dim-eyed trolls who mumbled condescendingly for their rotten food. Often we would hide in the back, sharing a spliff, and ignoring the incessant clang clang clang of the bell next to the cash register.
It was endless. It was mindless. It was hell.
One night we rebelled.
We changed the oil and cut up fresh potatoes. We made our own delicious perfect french fries. The smell filled the small restaurant and the regulars were visibly salivating - becoming aware for the first time of the toilet-smell emanating from their own plates. We smacked our lips loudly.
Once the fries were gone we went one step further. We ordered a pizza. The guy delivered it to us at the counter in the restaurant. We paid for it out of the till. Some of the customers asked if they could have some too.
"Sorry, no. This is for staff only. Would you like more fizzy tahini sauce on your feel-awful?"
The capper for the evening was making our own frozen yogurt magic mushroom shakes. You got to have dessert.
If I remember correctly we had to hold off the patrons with mop handles, standing astride the counter like white aproned samurai, clutching our pizza slices in one hand and keeping the ravenous hordes at bay with the other. We sang loudly and closed early.
Everything after that was a blur. I haven't worked in a restaurant since - which is kind of odd - 'cuz that last night was a lot of fun.
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Wednesday 11 June
By Rebecca V.
Mistaken Identity
My sister Terry entered my 90-year-old aunt's apartment and found her slumped in her recliner, unable to get up or say anything intelligible. She called 911 immediately and the paramedics arrived promptly. Meanwhile, my cousin happened to be driving down the street and saw the paramedics. Concerned, he stopped at my aunt's and came in to see what was wrong. Upon seeing him, my sister explained, "Oh, thank goodness you're here. I was just getting ready to call you." Not until the paramedics jaws dropped did she notice he was wearing his name tag -
James
Feldman Funeral Home
"No, no, no. He is my cousin", she exclaimed. The paramedics let out a big sign and everyone had a good laugh. After a two-day stay, my aunt was released in excellent health with no residual from this unexplained episode. Thankfully, visits from my cousin remain purely social.
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Wednesday 11 June
By R. Vinson III
Why I don't go to the Circus.
Don't get me wrong, just like you, I laugh at people that are scared of clowns and popping balloons. The former's lifetime of tragedy and aversion to people that apply pancake make-up for a living amuses me, (unless there was some psycho-sexual Gacy-type shenanigans in their past). The latter are usually cute or grew up around gunfire as a child, therefore adorable. The experience I tell at low-key gatherings to ingratiate myself as human to those who are ashamed to admit they are afraid of clowns, when the subject comes up, is from a place inside myself containing unmitigated rage.
Now I grew up in a city where it wasn't unusual to have at least one instance of violence or crime perpetrated on you by another party with a gun. Detroit. What's unusual in my case is that although I've never had such things happen to me on the streets, in my home, or in various shady establishments I've been to in Detroit, my instance of violence happened at the Circus. By a clown. With a rifle.
In most cultures the idea of shooting a child point-blank in the face, or even aiming a gun at child is most likely, taboo. The probable exceptions being, if the child was also armed, or a kid was going after another kid or adult with a gun. But all around a bad situation to be sure. So imagine me at 5-10 years old enjoying the circus festivities from the audience under the simulated big top, and having an insidious clown point a rifle at my head and firing (a blank) at me. I was stunned, scared, and it happened to fast for me to wet my pants at all. Then "he" laughed. Me: confusion, nervous laugh, realization, anger. The anger came much later when I had time to process what happened. On what occassion would anyone find themselves staring down the barrel of a wood-stock rifle pointed at them by a clown? What constitutes entertainment in that aspect?! Who would even LIKE that? Who could laugh that off? Now you should understand.. just a little.
I mean, I get it. Clowns have it tough all over. People (& kids)are afraid of them. The job description is pretty bleak, and the kind of disposition it takes to be employed as a clown for a long period of time would be excrutiatingly upbeat and possibly coke-fueled. And don't forget the professional accessories; the little car, animal training, balloon art forms, mimicry, rodeo barrels, etc. But that excuses nothing! You should quit being a clown, not pretend to shoot a kid in the face that hasn't a clue that the gun isn't real.
To be honest. I don't trust clowns. Not that "irrational fear of cats by dog lovers so they don't trust having a cat in their house stealing shit all the time" kind of trust. I don't trust clowns not being able to resist trying to shoot me in the face given half the chance. I believe there's an existing psyche in a clown's make-up (no pun intended) that's in direct opposition to what they are trying to achieve performing for the general public. That inside every happy-go-lucky, burger-selling, horn-tooting, red-nosed, balloon jockey is a twisted persona of loathing, mockery, and general sense of civil disobedience which is hidden under the surface of that ridiculous cancer causing make-up.
Seriously! Would you trust someone that was a clown? Would you be roommates with them? Could you stand to be around someone that devoted to making people happy without thinking one day the worst will happen and they will snap? If your son or daughter was a clown, could you bring that up in conversation? Could you honestly tell them if they were going to be a clown, to be "the best fucking clown ever"? That statement works out better if they were in ANY other career in the world, even the sex industry!
I don't go to the circus. I don't begrudge anyone their entertainment choices. I would also hit a clown in the face regardless of the circumstances.
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Wednesday 11 June
By MNBC 70
As an Easterner gone West, (in the white collar caste), I've obtained a bird's eye view of many a chaos.
In the white collar circle (as the years roll), I've found the men searching and detaching, the women vasilating from egocentric to extremely altruistic and the aging mini me's all ego and aura.
The wives of the east are now buying apples by the barrel hoping an apple a day keeps the doctor away and the children are demanding that a two bedroom, two bath home await them in the college town of their Jesuit choice.
The wives of the west, are learning about chakras, with their naive children, the hopeful artists & Olympic athletes, who excel in every activity they can pedal their holistic coolies to, the world plentiful, an oyster bed.
But like a capybara who has tripped into the Amazon, the dreamers of the Western pride eventually meet the schemers or pirhana of the Eastern pride, and they dance, the West drawn into the manipulative ways of the edgier Eastern privledged circles.
I have hope, thanks to Pandora, we live amongst smart people with hearty good wishes, we may all step out of the ego at some point- giving more of ourselves instead of fine tuning the image and shape of the brow.
For sport, I remain the spectator, as "all the world is indeed a stage". Watching the archetypes swish and sway, different facets illuminating, different paths skipped upon....
L'Chayim
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Wednesday 11 June
By BETSY ROSS WILLIAMS
I'm finished with the "go green" crap. Did my part and paid my dues in the early '70's when my father decided to convert the hot water heater in our Florida home to run on solar energy. This technology for residendential homes was fairly new at the time, and only one company in the area offered to install the solar collectors on the roof, which was tile.
After the solar panels were installed and the tiles crushed by Wolverines were replaced, a strange dialog began to take place in our home, where my mother, father, and three teenaged daughters resided. Each morning my mother would greet each us with a smile and a plan.
"Good morning. If you are going to take a shower, you should take one now because I have to do a hot water wash today and it looks like it's going to be cloudy later. Your sister Marianne took a shower last night, so you should take one now. Rebecca said she only needs to do a cold water wash, but your father wants to clean the boat and you know he'll want to shower after that, and I have to run the dishwasher sometime this afernoon."
We only had a 40 gallon tank, so suddenly we were on this hot water rationing system in order to make the expense of solar hot water heating systm the super energy saving aparatus my father envisioned it would be. I imagine my father thought that there would come a point where he would have free hot water the rest of his life.
At the end of the evening, dinner conversations were about who took a shower when, and if there was enough hot water. How hot was the hot water? When the faucet was turned toward hot, did it immediately become hot, or did it take a while? My mother would say something about the second load of wash not being as hot as the first load, and my father would ask her how long she left the washer lid open while she was loading the wash.
I left my parents home and went off to college. Sometimes I would take a shower in the middle of the day for no reason other than I knew there would be hot water.
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Thursday 12 June
By Joanne Cameron
Compared to That
Our adrenaline fueled high speed car ride to the Valley Hospital Emergency Room was brought to a screeching halt in the center of town, just two minutes from our destination, when a policeman held up his hand to allow the high school marching band, baton twirlers, and clowns in crazy cars to pass by. The Fourth of July was apparently not a convenient day for my father to be having a heart attack in Ridgewood, NJ in the summer of ’74. In an act of bravado mixed with sheer terror, I wound down the window and screamed out to the officer, “My father’s dying…we have to get to the hospital!” and without waiting for a response, my boyfriend gunned our car across the intersection in a break between the parade’s floats. I think I actually hoped the police would follow in hot pursuit to assure us a safe, unimpeded escort the rest of the way to the hospital.
My father did make it…not only to the hospital, but fortunately for all of us, for another 20 years of life.
So today, as I sit here for nearly an hour stuck in traffic, I can reflect back and think, “Hey, compared to that, it’s a very good day indeed.”
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Thursday 12 June
By Sonja Bentley Zant
I have a mild, self-diagnosed case of obsessive-compulsive disorder that really kicks in when interacting with public...items...of any sort, really. Take today for example. I went to a lovely coffee shop with my husband, and it was suggested that we split a muffin. Splitting things is always a dicey venture - there is the issue of how the hands are placed on the food item during the dissection process, and then the actual moving of the two halves into their own locations. It’s just a huge set up for germ migration possibilities.
But after considering the size of these giant, monster muffins, I decided that if I could properly wash my hands, and handle the cutting event on my own, sharing a muffin with the love of my life wasn't a bad idea. So off to the restroom I went to wash my hands. Entering the Ladies Room is never the problem. After all, if I pick up a cootie or funky bit of human contact clinging to the doorknob on the way in, I just immediately wash it off, and all is good again. But once I’m inside the germ-emporium (oddly known as a restroom), I have a lot of work to do.
I immediately assess the state of the bathroom and spot the clotted soap pump with an ANTIBACTERIAL label. I decide it’s safe to touch by virtue of the fact that the congealment is antibacterial. So, with my contaminated, doorknob-touching hand, I decide to grip the handle of the towel dispenser on the wall and grind out a short sheet of paper. I rip this sheet off to use on the faucet knobs after my hands are clean, and then I grind out a second longer sheet to leave hanging from the teeth of the dispenser for use after my hands are washed.
But wait a minute. If I used a contaminated hand to tear off the faucet sheet, are my clean hands re-contaminated if I touch it after I wash? Should I use the towel in the teeth to shut off the faucet and then grind out a new sheet using the wet towel as protection from the handle germs? But hold on. Do germs transfer better through wet towels? And is the towel really even clean?
Twenty minutes later, I emerge, stressed out and confused, only to see my husband finishing up his muffin.
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Thursday 12 June
By Hazel Aliaga
The Bonham Conspiracy
Over the course of my tenure as a manager in the corporate world I have somehow managed to elude the rumor mill that infects certain coworkers in the aftermath of a work party or team-building picnic, spreading like a toxic roma tomato outbreak and spawned primarily by said coworker’s over consumption of alcohol. The consequences of such events can be all too jading for the mortified offender as the office minions start exacting their plots to humiliate and destroy. I sometimes wonder what my employees would say if they only knew that I’d stayed out until dawn on several occasions, hanging out with marijuana toting, philosophy spewing elitist hippies with Berkeley degrees, discussing the complexities of being a bon-vivant.
Though my reputation at work is at least somewhat intact, I did make the mistake of indulging my employees in the splendor of my night moves recently at a trendy bar in Hollywood. My rock star ways must've come as a surprise as they all ordered glasses of crappy chardonnay while I headed straight into a John Bonham combo of Jack Daniels and some fine, California microbrew. Nearly four John Bonham’s later, I found myself outside, surrounded by my coworkers and singing along to the Dead’s China Cat Sunflower with the neighborhood homeless man.
Little was I thinking at the time of the ubiquitous camera-phone, in all its’ surreptitious splendor, held with glee by one of my front office staff as I twirled around on the sidewalk in a display of degeneracy and wantonness not seen since the commune scene in Easy Rider. Fortunately enough, the nightclub scene in L.A. is cleverly wrought, with its dismally lit atmosphere, to conceal the sins of many Angelinos like a veil, the remnants of which can be removed effortlessly the next morning with the help of some fluorescent lighting and conference calling. The next day I rolled into work, smiled politely at the previous evening’s cohorts and quickly headed upstairs, locking myself in my office for the greater part of the day, only to re-emerge with the occasional “Did you process that payment?” and “What is the status of the floor resurfacing?” By day’s end, the staff wasn’t really too sure what to make of my split personality and eventually got bored with the hopeless task of trying to unearth the mystery of the previous night’s tryst. Sweet.
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Tuesday 17 June
By Jay Schwarzhoff
I was going to enter a writing contest, the winner gets a book. I decided to enter even though I have nothing to say, and the other contestants are far more hysterical than I am. And I will probably buy the book anyway, after growing impatient for the judging and the verdict, and even if I win, the weeks of shipping and notes left by the mailman when I'm not at home.
You are supposed to try writing like somebody else. I picture myself winning, being introduced to the C list celebrity author. I walk up, hand extended, uncontrollable silly grin on my face, "I write just like YOU!" Better actually, but I'll wait until we are good friends to say so.
Maybe I will get a Best Impersonator sash.
But I can't really get into the whole writing contest, so I read the articles in the bars on the sides of the webpage. NAKED MAN TRAPPED IN JOHN, Calls 911 on His Cellphone. Some material just writes itself. How many bars did the naked man have? Did the naked man tell the 911 operator that he was naked, or just trapped? Is it a naked emergency, or a trapped emergency? I'd love to find out, but I'm too lazy to click on the link.
MAN DIES WHILE FIGHTING A COBRA, While Wearing a Condom. Hmm, are they sure he was fighting the cobra. I mean, he's dead. The only thing they know is that he was wearing a condom, and I don't know about you, but whenever I'm wearing a condom, I'm not in a fighting mood.
Well, that's it. I can see there is no realistic chance of winning. I'll just have to go make my own sash.
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Wednesday 18 June
By randall caporale
I now have a Healthy Respect for Hollywood. Maybe not so much respect as fear, which all too often seems the same to me. It’s the same Healthy Respect I have for the ocean. Like my respect for Hollywood, I found my respect for the ocean the same way:
The Hard Way.
When I was 7 and a great swimmer – aren’t all native Californians? - I devised my own version of boogie-boarding by holding onto a beach-ball and riding the waves to shore. Ball-surfing. My own sport! Rising up to the top of the wave’s crest, my stomach dropping out and replaced by a sensation that lives exactly in the middle of fear and excitement, I’d slide down the face of the wave while simultaneously being shot all the way in to the beach. Then I’d swim back out to catch the next wave. Shoot in, swim back out. For hours. I am doing exactly what I want to do and nobody’s stopping me – a rare situation. Then the Big One hits. I know it’s the Big One because as I’m lifted to the top of the Big One’s crest, before beginning my slide down it’s face, it looks like I’m higher than the roller coaster on the Santa Cruz boardwalk. I think, “I’m higher than the roller coaster - no one will believe me.” Next, I’m free-falling through the wave’s curl, and I know I’m in trouble because now I’m tumbling, with no sense of direction. Which way’s the beach? The enormous tube of water I’m caught in slams me down into the gravely ocean floor, the bottom of the ocean. Isn’t it a couple of miles deep? I’m at the bottom of the ocean! I swallow a belly-full of Pacific. I try to swim toward what I think is up and am sucked into another tumble, this one underwater. I don’t know where the surface is. I open my eyes and all I can see is dark green-brown water and bubbles and some sand, like the inside of a polluted washing machine. Then it’s over. I’m lying near the shore, throwing up bitter salt water, bleeding from little cuts on my stomach and chest, my beach ball gone. When I reach my mother, crying and still gagging on saline, she says the words I’ll always remember: “You have to have a Healthy Respect for the ocean.”
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Sunday 15 June
By Marinka
This is what I notice about other women who have successful blogs. And yes, I realize that David Sedaris would never write about blogging, but until such time that I move to Paris and feast on croissants on a daily basis, this will have to suffice. Anyway, all the blogging stars seem to be married to a type—the nerdy computer geek who can design and redesign their blog so that it is fabulous and practically guarantees fame and fortune and a book deal. I’m married to someone who slams down the mouse on our 4 year old computer when it fails to bend to his will, and screams “Macs are supposed to be intuitive!” Which I think, to him, means psychic.
When I started blogging, I decided that I needed to seek blog happiness outside the marriage. Since I have no friends under 40, and therefore no one knows what the hell is going on in the webspeak world, I placed an ad on Craigslist, America's solution to the 21st century. It was a simple enough. I said that I had a sad blogspot page and I wanted it transformed to a fancy shmancy one. I asked for people to respond with a fee quote and an approximate time frame involved.
The response that I received made me reconsider not only blogging but ever turning on my computer again.
I am convinced that several responses were from Gitmo detainees. Others went on about things that I had no idea about in a way that made me want to become suddenly illiterate. Another one asked that I would pay in U.S. currency, as opposed to, I guess, a handjob that is implicit in Craigslist ads. Someone else linked me to his most recent blog creation, which for some reason featured a cartoon on its homepage about how to avoid rape in prison (hint: eat Doritos so that the shards with injure the offending penis. There are several questions that come to mind in this scenario, but perhaps this is where poetic license comes in. Although there is a strong argument for it being revoked.) My favorite one responded with “If you want, I will do it for you. It will take me two months and I will charge $1500.” In that amount of time and for that money, I would expect him to be finishing up the first trimester of surrogacy for me.
I didn’t end up hiring anyone. But Mr. Dooce, I’ve got my eye on you.
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Monday 16 June
By H P
She likes to come and visit the kids, check to make sure I have light bulbs, and measure the thickness of my curtains in case voyeurism infiltrates my domain. She rarely speaks of the changes in my life; for example, divorce. It might trigger conversation. Anyway, when my mother visits the itching begins. No, I did not forget the B, I was just being polite. In fact, I tend to break out in spongy hives that protrude from the deepest parts of my ethnic legacy.
On her first night with us, it seemed necessary and kind to fix a traditional Friday night dinner. Challah, chicken soup, vegetables, and baked chicken were ready and waiting. During the meal my kids fought for speaker rights to tell grand stories about their lives. As my daughter’s tale of soccer competitions worked into a physical frenzy I heard my mother cough once, twice, and well you get the idea. “Mom, Mom, are you all right?” I shouted. She glared at me as if to say, “Are you that stupid to think I can tell you how I’m doing while choking to death?” After countless attempts to stop the problem, 911 was called and the ambulance appeared swiftly. The kids were scared, I was panicked, and Grandma was strapped to the cot while the policeman raced to the hospital.
While waiting in the proverbial waiting room, the doctor and police officer appeared. Their stares were equal in intensity and seriousness. “Officer,” I carefully asked, “how is my mother?”
The gangly policeman nodded to the doctor and pulled me to the side of the room. “When we were able to alleviate the choking, gauge her blood pressure, and calm her down, your mother pulled me close and whispered, “It was her dry chicken.”
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