Without a doubt, the hat makes the man.
Douglas VanHornersmeltser knew this. He also knew that without removing his hat, the bald spot atop his head would never receive the proper tan he needed for his date at precisely 7 p.m. on the night of Saturday the 11th of January.
A prudent New Englander, Douglas had rarely ventured to concern himself with tanning, his chaste, leathery skin almost always coated in the finest sheer of exfoliated heaven. Yet on this very occasion he sought the affections of the lady up 12th Avenue, Lydia Snout.
An elegant woman with slender legs...
Decked out in a tight green speedo, Charles swung open his screen door, strutted down the three concrete stairs into his dilapidated back yard and was instantly wet.
The rain occupied every inch of sky. Somewhere there must be sun, but not in Indiana. Charles watched the clouds slumber in their beds, unmoving. Now was noon though, and soon would be two PM. These were prime tanning hours, and how, how, did Charles need a tan.
Hosts of elder-cruises were always tan, and this being his first elder-cruise, he was going to be a tan host. As an elder himself...
He put on his green scarf and walked out the door. Damn door. Never closed properly.
The sun was peaking behind some clouds. Damn clouds. It was probably going to rain.
He winced as he felt the warm sun on his face. It had been months since he'd seen the sun, months.
Damn sun. Probably give him skin cancer, at best, a tan.
One misty morning, the green-clad man woke up to his usual alarm clock. He looked out his window to see the sun shining heavily. "Jolly good! I can finally get a tan, and women will find me attractive!" He exclaimed as he rushed out from his covers to get dressed. As he was walking out the front door, he heard an unfortunate newscaster announce, "Well, if you're planning to go to the beach today, you might want a change in plans. Turns out lots of rain is headed in only a couple of hours. It's a good thing I already...
It was enjoyable, this feeling. And so unaccustomed! He had come to a place in his life where so little really made him happy anymore. Leaving the store, though, despite the fact that it was a cloudy, cool day, he felt sunny on the inside. He had bought a new shirt, and he was wearing it - he decided to put it on right away, before he had even left the store. It was green - but a certain shade of green that he didn't see very often. It was his favorite color, and it had called out to him....
When he went to the pet store Mark Anderson thought it was going to be just another day. He was going to pick out the goldfish for his nephew's birthday and head on his way. Boy was he ever wrong.
It started as soon as he walked in, the cashier was giving him a very funny look that Mark couldn't exactly place. The pets were even weirder. They all looked as though they'd been through hell and back, but Mark, startled as he was, kept looking for that goldfish. If only he'd left then.
He got to the aquarium section...
There once was a man who live on Richmond street, he died a few years back. Took care of his elderly mother who used to shave her head and named her pet cat Winston Churchill, she had a few pet birds too. Anyway, the man was a Musician. He used to park his van down by this old run down building in the center of town and sit with the door open playing his guitar. He wasn't the greatest and he wasn't the worst, he just really enjoyed what he did. I forget his name but I haven't forgotten the...
There was a little girl who loved a boy. It was her first time with a crush on a boy. It was her first time with love. This little girl was my sister, so I tried to explain to her that she was too young to love. She wouldn't listen. She loved her "boyfriend" too much.
One day, I took her to preschool. She ran over to a boy tried to give him a hug and a kiss. He pushed her to the ground. "Don't talk to me, you Wussy Wimp!" he shouted.
I ran over to her to help...
So close, yet so far. Matey the Pirate never understood the phrase until these last few days of his life. The woodpecker would get closer and closer to the nub that was left of his leg, chipping away at the wooden peg that was left. He had to make it to shore. The ship was not going to last. The gapping hole in the bottom was filling the ship with too much water. This all meant that Matey would have to float to shore. Alone, he had not enough buoyancy to make it. In such a situation he though could...
The first time I saw Tommy, I knew he was a total douche. I don't allow my sister to date douches; shit — no brother should. That's rule number 2.
Rule number 1, in case you are wondering, is that you don't interfere with your sister's romances. But I take exception with douches.
Of course, there's a perfectly civil way to address his low-life status without resorting to a politically un-savvy term like "douche," which can alienate the polite, women, and my parents equally well, but anyone who knows me will say there ain't a bone of misogyny in this...