Prizefight: Write Like David Sedaris and Win His New Book

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Wednesday 18 June

By Cindy Small

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Every Sunday at noon sharp, my mother and I picked up my grandfather from the psychiatric center for our weekly lunch at my grandmother’s house. “Come on Papa,” I said, “we have wiener schnitzel calling our name.”

One would think of a Viennese Sunday dinner as soft music, summer gardens, flickering candles and fresh flowers. Not in this house. While opera belched from the stereo on high volume, my mother and grandmother sat in sequined dresses outlined with fruits. I normally wore my cream dress with cherry sequins. Summer in New Orleans is “jungle-hot,” but we corseted ourselves in long-lined girdles and sheer stockings. It might have been the attire that caused us distemper. Most Sunday dinners would begin with matzo balls hurled in all directions. Tempers were fused by tales of lack of business, who is suing whom, who was my uncle’s latest mistress, who is so not Jewish and why we would never do Sunday dinner again. At times, if my grandfather’s temper hit the “red” button, he would hurl the tablecloth off and I would quickly catch the bouncing hot matzo balls. The finest Viennese curse words would flow in a melodic blend.

Sunday dinners were also endurance contests. Who had the most stamina to eat the scorching wiener schnitzels in sweltering heat? Who had the staying power to hunch underneath the huge crystal chandelier hanging down from seven-foot ceilings? How many sugar cubes could a human plop into a demitasse coffee cup? Could it be the Sacher torte that made these people crazy? I would ask myself if there were laws attributing to the delinquency of senior citizens. We all sat on stiff Louis IV furniture, bellies full, while my grandfather threw the family dog, Cha Cha, into the air. The dog grimaced and hated this weekly event. I suppose Cha Cha was gay and despised the rowdy butch behavior.

It was early evening. We piled into the pink Cadillac and I stared at the plastic roses stuck in the dirt as we left the driveway. Yes, there might have been a slight air of instability in my grandmother’s home, and perhaps I had to dodge one too many hot matzo balls, but it was a family event. Perhaps we would leave injured or angry, but like the plastic roses, we endured, and nothing could keep us away from returning each Sunday.
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Wednesday 18 June

By Alex

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... seven beers and two shots of Jim Beam later, there I am, looking achingly into the eyes of the latest in a string of beautiful but unattainable straight men, before clumsily leaping forward in a sloppy attempt at a kiss on the mouth. My would-be beau declines as politely as can be expected and bolts for the patio, leaving me feeling rejected and vulnerable as several other partygoers, who’ve seen the entire anti-seduction unfold, alternately bulge their eyes and show off their best “oh no you didn’t” rictuses. A few kind souls try not to laugh. Within seconds I’ve gracelessly excused myself from the house party, stumbling along the sidewalks of South Philly in the rain, looking for a cab. I successfully flag one down and proceed to piss and moan for the duration of the trip about my frustrations with "women". My cabbie knows all too well and offers a few sympathetic clicks in his native tongue. By 3 A.M. I've managed to crawl my way into bed and pass out.

The following morning finds me desperate for an omelet and attempting to make amends via text-message:
"My sincere apologies for last night's... gratuitous display of enthusiasm."

Because that sounds much better than, "Sorry I kept attacking you with my face."


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Friday 20 June

By Laz

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Here's the Seven-Up Rule (a natural Law of the Universe which I discovered while working summers during college delivering delicious, refreshing Seven-Up): Never tell someone that you're paying for their meal until after they order. A simple but compelling law which should be followed by all. Here's an observation to reward you for reading this far: There's only one thing worse than being alone when you're old -- wishing you were alone. Think about that. You'd do well to respect it.

I just contributed two very sage pieces of advice to this contest. I hope I win. If it don't, the contest is horsesh*t. I'm going to write a book and this entry will not be in it. I won't even remember (or admit to) being entered in this contest. Thank you.





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Thursday 19 June

By Noah

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“Plip, plip, plip.” The sound echoes behind as I pick up my pace like this makes the sound or smell vanish like it never happened. I think it is common knowledge that we all fart a little when we go for a run. The occasional plip is expected. The constant mid-section agitation from each stride sets the ground for a plip, but sometimes a plip does not come out as a plip.

On a recent sunny 90 degree June day, I venture out for an 8 mile run. Running along rocky, decades old pavement, sweat dripping like Gatorade off of a winning coach’s suit, I hear the all too familiar “plip, plip, plip.” Everything is right in the world.

As I keep moving along at a good pace, around mile 3 an uncommon “phlip” pops out. What was this!? What is that feeling!? Could it really be? The dreaded dangler! I keep on moving believing in my invulnerability. No way could a plip be a phlip. The thoughts of a nice Snuffleupagus colored thank you mark left by the phlip pushes me to go faster so I can examine back at the crime lab, aka my house.

I arrive back home, my sweat creates a trail throughout the house that Hansel and Gretel wouldn’t get lost on. I dash into the bathroom. Before even taking off my shoes I throw down my shorts and underwear, expecting the see a little phlip dangle cocooning below. My excitement builds, Can it really be there? As I stare down, my pupils growing to twice their size, I find myself in disbelief. No phlip, not even a plip mark. Maybe I imagined it, maybe it dropped out?

To this day I do not know what happened. Speculate all you want but I believe t is impossible to have a soft, unexpected phlip during a run. For now, we’ll have to stick with our common plips.


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Wednesday 25 June

By David Blake

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I killed a Panda the other day. Oh, don't give me that it's a cute, cuddley, precious, endangered species look...It's a fucking wild, crazy, would love to rip your heart out and eat it bear. The news lady said it's name was Myling...Meyling...something like that. I couldn't really understand her because she was crying as she did her report...pull it together...you're supposed to be a pro. Anyway It wasn't really my fault. I was so blasted... I mean like snot slinging drunk. I don't even know how I got into the zoo. I kinda remember waking up on this bench...there was I giant gate with bar in front of me...I figured I'd been arrested again...I didn't hear anybody around so I figured I'd break out...Man this jail was easy to break out of....O.K. so I guess I do know how I got into the Zoo, but like I said I thought I was busting out of somekind of Mexican Jail. That Panda just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time...Why the hell are people making such a big deal out of this...I should just go public and let everyone know that it was either him or me...Stupid bear...it won't be trying that again.

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Thursday 19 June

By Wendy

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I’ll just start by saying that my mother is and always has been an animal lover. How she demonstrates that love might be misguided. I’ll let you be the judge.

One fine summer day during my teenaged years, my younger sister, my mother and I were at the kitchen table, shelling peas. It was one of those glorious summer days—not too hot or humid, maybe some puffy clouds. Oh and we weren’t bickering over anything. All of a sudden we heard a “scratch-scratch-scratch” at the kitchen door and stopped our shelling to listen. What could it be? We didn’t have any pets, not anymore.

I’ll back up here and tell you that the week before, my mother had taken our two very old cats to the vet to be put to sleep. Blackie and Gay-Gay were sisters and they’d originally been barn cats, so they were tough old birds. (They weren’t gay—not that I know of—but I couldn’t say “gray” when I was little and the name stuck.) Blackie had started to get sick and she smelled pretty awful too, so my mother decided it was her time. And because she didn’t want Gay-Gay to be lonely, she thought it was better if she entered Pet Heaven at the side of her beloved sister.

It did us no good to protest—my mother had made up her mind. So off they went.

And now, we return to the pea-shelling session and the mysterious scratching. My mother jumped up from the table and ran to the door and screamed, “Oh my GOD! It’s a MIRACLE! She’s alive! DEAR JESUS!” My sister and I then saw Gay-Gay in my mother’s arms.

“But-but-she’s dead!” my sister exclaimed. I said nothing. You can’t argue with a miracle, after all.

My mother explained that when she took the cat sisters to the vet the previous week, when she arrived there, only Blackie remained. Gay-Gay had escaped from the box in the back of the truck and all week my mother had been heartsick that she’d fallen out or been run over…but no! She’d crawled all the way home, after all this time! My mother was right: it truly was a miracle.

So the next day my mother loaded Gay-Gay up in the truck and took her to the vet. To be with her sister.


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Thursday 19 June

By Ali Mangkang

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My dad’s penchant for junk is something of a legend in our family. I would file a missing persons report if I ever saw the man and he didn’t start pointing to some newly acquired “treasure” within 30 seconds of our greeting saying, “Guess where I found this?”

Several times, I’ve almost suggested that he just permanently remove the driver side door of his pick up truck so he can clear the neighborhood curbs like a one-man street sweeper. Nothing excites him more than finding something propped up by a dumpster, abandoned, cast-off, or bid a fond farewell regardless of its state of dilapidation. If it can’t be fixed, cleaned or painted back into a usable state he will usually justify keeping it with his standard “You know it’s missing (a leg, a part, a motor) but that make much difference.”

I remember riding with my dad one time on a major three-lane road off a major highway exit when I suddenly heard him say “Did you see that?” I barely had time to turn down Belinda Carlisle on my Walkman before the man initiated one of his infamous “bat-turns” and started headed back in the opposite direction. It was almost like something out of some Hollywood cop movie, except the perpetrator we were chasing down wasn’t some terrorist or drug-smuggler, it was a fluorescent orange Panama Jack tank top.

Many years later, I imagine the small beach community where my dad now lives and how many times people pass him while he is riding one of their old bicycles or how they might peep through their mini-blinds to see him lifting an old coffee table or chair over the side of his truck. Walking into his house is like spending an afternoon in a curiosity shop. Remember that three-dimensional sea gull wall-hanging with a fading sunset and hot-glued driftwood you threw out last week? That’s part of his permanent collection. And maybe I should mention now, that my dad struggled in his younger years with alcohol and drugs, and as much as I want to be embarrassed by his junkin’, it’s one habit I’m glad my dad hasn’t kicked. There’s something to it, I think, being able to salvage the worn-out bits, to hold up them to the light and find something worth hanging on to, to appreciate the life that's left in them and not the life they've left behind.



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Thursday 19 June

By Deborah Beaver

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Hell is the DMV.

I awoke on Election Day feeling like crap. But I had to vote. Crap, my driver’s license expired four months ago. There was only one way out. I had to drag my sickly body to the DMV. I could do this.

Some smart government official made the call to condense several small driver’s license renewal places into one giant mega store. Except that calling it a store would imply a certain level of service. At the DMV, service is never spoken or acknowledged, in the company handbook or within those blank white walls.

I couldn’t take my eyes off him, the scruffy dark-haired guy at the front desk. He had a snappy opening line and then immediately lost interest in your conversation. I watched him get angry, confrontational and argumentative, all in the span of two minutes. He was the quintessential drivers license Nazi. And you’d better know exactly what you’re here for, ask very little, and move ahead quickly. He was odd, tapping his pencil in a way that suggested he should probably drink more outside of work or less on the job.

There was an inescapable mood here – it wasn’t the plain counters, grim faces or lack of quality entertainment while you wait, it was something deeper. It was a crater-sized void of any semblance of human care or consideration. Dante failed to identify one crucial fact: murderers and bandits aren’t the ones in the first ring of the seventh circle of hell. It’s bored and unhappy government workers. I fished out my expired license, laid it on the counter and breathed a happy sigh of relief. “There’s a problem, “ bored government worker said. “Your license was cancelled.”

“You will have to retake your written and driver’s test.” “The numbness was starting to set it. (Now I understood working here.)

“I took my written driving test and waited in the formal seating area. No TVs, no magazines, just time alone with your thoughts. Finally, it was time for my picture. I was actually getting a new license. “This is for your permit, you have to call back to schedule your driving test,” surly girl said. That made more sense. The notion of purgatory was clear. “You ready?” camera girl said. “Yes,” I said stone cold and with no smile. I wanted to remember this moment, just as it was.




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Friday 20 June

By Nicole Burgess

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I just came inside from spending over an hour sitting on my flatmates car bonnet to prevent him driving off. We had had a silent argument, the type where one person gets offended, then the other responds in kind. He had reversed back to turn, I stood in fount of him blocking him between the fence and myself. His refusal to come inside gave me considerable pause for thought. How I have come to emanate those in my live whom I dislike most. My sister, my stalker, my mentally abusive ex-boyfriend. I sat and tried to thing of an appropriate courses of action to take. Stress brings out the worst in people. Threats, begging, tantrums. I've found that these are the simplest and greediest options, and it is human nature that they are the first that come to mind. I sat and dismissed them one by one as something my ex would do, or that's how my sister treats me.

He ignored my gesticulations suggestion he come out and talk. So I began to sent him SMS's I argued my case for him to come inside, backing it up with a reminder that he had to go to work (in 5 hours, and that I'd wait if I had too.) before I had to do anything. I replied "get off my car" I did, and he pulled up to park where he had started from. I waited behind his car, but he didn't emerge. I had long ago realised that a stalemate had been reached, neither of us were going anywhere while the other stayed.

His rear window had fogged up, I couldn't see him from where I stood. I wondered how well he could see me. Realising it was the only amicable way to conclude, I slipped off inside. I put the kettle on and started to make him a coffee. It wasn't long before he noticed my absence, but rather than driving off, he got out of his car. He walked up the street and around the corner. I paused, then decided to run thought the house to the door he'd be closest to. I went outside and watched him down the street. I watched, He turned and saw me. He walked on and I let him go. I'm sick of threats and begging and tantrums.

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Friday 20 June

By Valarie

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My parents live in the Midwest. I was born there but I think I got out in time.

After hacking a Cottonmouth to death with a flat head shovel and downing two Xanax I felt I was in good shape to give my mother a call.

“Hi, it’s me.” It was surly of me, she’s 71 and on the brink of mild dementia.
“Who? Who is this?”
“It’s Valarie, your daughter? What’s going on up there?”
“Oh, hi!” My mother’s voice is small and girlish. “Not much. Your father and I are getting ready to go out to dinner with some friends.”
They hate all their neighbors because they let their dogs pee on the lawn, so I asked what friends?
“Merrilee and Bob, they go to our church. Well, they used to go to Beechwold, but now they go to Worthington. You wouldn’t believe how many people are leaving Beechwold. It’s just not the same anymore.”
My ears pricked right up. I love a good church scandal. “Really? What’s going on over there?”
“The minister is just weird.”
We are not Catholics so I’m ruling out pedophilia, “weird how?”
“You wouldn’t believe what he did. Everyone is talking about it.”
“Well, what is it? What did he do? Stop the traditional music service? Go to only contemporary?”
“Oh no, no, nothing like that.” She whispered, “He did a somersault across the podium!”
“He did a somersault?” That was it? A somersault?
“Ministers aren’t supposed to do that!” She was getting riled up.
“Do what? Be flexible?”
“No! Somersaults.”
“Maybe he was trying to cheer people up.”
“That just isn’t done. People are so depressed about it. They’re leaving in droves.”
“Because of the somersault?”
“Yes, because of the somersault. I’m telling you, that just isn’t done.”

I switched the conversation over to my brother and his wife who is bankrupting them as we speak. I know this because my mother told me. Then, after I say good-bye and hang up the phone, I do a somersault across the living room floor and land at my partner’s feet.
“Yes, Chinese is fine tonight,” I tell her -- instead of the steak place we’d originally discussed -- because I got out in time, I am flexible.






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Saturday 21 June

By Joyce Pardon

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I don't know about other people's, but my mind sometimes goes on automatic pilot. I don't consciously think about what I'm doing, where I am going, or what I am saying. On second thought, I think other people's minds must work this way a lot of the time. It explains a lot. Iraq for starters. AIDS.
There are the more familiar examples of the automatic pilot dilemna: driving on familiar roads toward a familiar destination, and suddenly realizing that the last half hour has gone by unconsciously. "There's the bank ATM. How did I get there already? I only just passed the school twenty miles back." Or someone at a party is telling a fascinating story that you suddenly realized has ended. You of course, have been thinking of the blonde across the room the whole time and have no idea what has been said to you for the past ten minutes. Your auto pilot brain has been helping you smile appropriately, look attentive, and actually mutter encouraging remarks occasionally, thereby completely deceiving the active storyteller. The automatic pilot must be how I swallowed the dog's anti-worming medications tonight. I was rushing out the door on the way to a concert, when I remembered Fido needed his medications before I left. While giving the babysitter last minute instructions, I opened the dog's pill bottles, getting them ready to administer. I had a glass of water ready to hand to my toddler before I left.
While continuing to talk to the babysitter, I swallowed the pills, finished my instructions to her, grabbed my keys and left. Now at the concert, I'm wondering about my drug allergies, the dog's health, and whether I'll live until intermission.

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