I Always Wanted To Be A Camp Counselor

Ok, let's put this whole sordid Day Of bitter relatives, emotional blackmail, and turkey Thanks behind us, shall we? I would like to state for the record that I only heard the creepy music from Friday the 13th (ki, ki, ki...ma, ma, ma) a few hundred times instead of the constant loop it usually plays in my head when relatives get too close. You may be wondering if Jason Voorhees is trying to telepathically tell me to continue his killing spree (well we do have a Crystal Lake here). I wonder that too, sometimes. But then I remember that it was just a movie so I take off my hockey mask, put down my butcher knife, remove Uncle Dick's hand from my thigh, and eat some pie. Mmm, pie.


Anyway, now that Thanksgiving has passed and the month of Hellvember is almost over I can concentrate on the important things. Things that I have been unable to attend to as I have been hiding under my covers for most of the month. I think you know what I'm talking about.


Things Requiring My Immediate Attention

1. War must be declared on Luxembourg. Does anyone want to join my newly formed Country, Amnesia, and help? Well it's actually more of a cross between a country and an empire with a democratic monarchy and a motto of "Where Skull Bashing Is Law Of The Land", but you get the picture. Note to Luxembourg: Size does matter.


2. The canceling of 502 magazine subscriptions, including Lifetime (of Lifetime, Television For Women fame). It's unclear how I acquired these subscriptions, although I can almost see myself up late at night, delirious from the heat coming out of the HOLE in my living room, in tears, calling some 1-900-SubscribeMeToAllYourMagazinesBecauseIamSadAndPatheticThanks number. I need help. Yes, I do. And these magazines are getting in the way of my budding relationship with my mailman. I can sense his frustration at trying to cram all 502 of these magazines in my tiny mailbox (I swear this isn't a metaphor, no, no, no) even though he hasn't said anything to me (ever, except for those conversations we have in my head in which he tells me he begged to be on my route and then we ride off into the sunset together in his mail truck).


3. Finding a way out of my "evening" with 85,000 year old neighbor. I'm thinking it's too late to pretend I don't speak English/I'm really a man/I'm really Hannibal Lecter/I moved to Guam/I'm a xenophobe/or I'm one of the stars of The Cat In The Hat and so will be out of the country on a promotional tour for the rest of my life, but there has to be a way out. Maybe if I show him my glow worm collection? Show him my hockey mask? Pretend to have a crack addiction? (Did I say pretend? Who am I kidding?)


4. The firing of my Psychic Friend. I did what she said and screened all calls and didn't talk to anyone except her for the month, but if she's so psychic why didn't she tell me I was going to forget to turn the volume down on my answering machine and so still hear every damn phone call I didn't want to hear in the first place? Hmmm? And she didn't warn me about the Hellmouth in my living room opening up and vampires coming out and taking over my house or that I was going to acquire an unsettling addiction to fabric softener or that I was going to get fired from my job as a sports agent after writing that mission statement and have to start my own company with Renee Zellweger who had me at hello, and her son who is probably a serial killer because he knows how much the human head weighs and who just wants to go to the f@#king zoo. So yeah, she's fired.


So much to do, so little time.