• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Let us say that this scenario miraculously happens to work out. By the time I became a daddy—and that’s if this all plays itself out very quickly—I would be at least sixty-three. The way I see it, that is too old to become a father. No kid needs a father that old. No kid needs to be known as the kid who has the father who should be their grandpapa. No kid needs to spend his time with a parent who is a living lesson in mortality. A child is supposed to watch his dad grow older, not deader.

On the upside—and this is probably only the thinnest layer of silver in a very tarnished and battered lining—my imaginary wife could be lucky enough to have both her husband and her child in diapers at the same time. What’s so good about that, you ask? Because she could buy in bulk, and that’s a money saver.

Jesus, it was just supposed to be a shower, not some fucking tribunal. On any other day I just hop in the spray, maybe go over what I have to do that day or imagine that a stunningly gorgeous woman is holding the soap . . . but I digress.

My point is that the shower is not the place to be agonizing over life’s choices. That’s for late nights at a bar, or when something tragic happens and you are forced to face all the crap life can throw at you. Where the specter of death throws a harsh light on all you have done and ever wish to do. A shower is a place for singing, and on Christmas, it’s where you should be caroling.

The Carol from Hell

(Based loosely on the “Carol of the Bells”)

It’s been a year

Let’s have a beer

Is one enough?

No, not enough!

I need a shot

Have you got pot?

Where is the scotch?

Please touch my crotch

Ding, dong my schlong

Just dong my schlong

Where is the bong?

I hate this song

Go roll a joint

Oh, what’s the point?

Not one good gift

Nothing that fits

Ugly as hell

What is that smell?

Merry, Merry, Merry Christmas

Merry, Merry, Merry Christmas

Oh, stop it now

You stupid cow

Tell Mom to stop

She’s serving glop

My head, it aches

What will it take

To make this day

Just go away?

Liquor, Liquor, Faster, Faster

Liquor, Liquor, Faster, Faster

Don’t need a hug

Get me a drug

I want to cry

I need to die

Why won’t it cease?

Give me some peace

If you’re a friend

Just make it end

Ding, Dong, Ding, Dong

This song’s too long

WE INTERRUPT THIS BOOK TO BRING YOU A MAJOR CATASTROPHE

It doesn’t take much to distract me, particularly when I’m doing something that demands concentration, like writing a book and not knowing what the next sentence should be. That does it every time. So instead of my mind going into a laser-like focus in hopes of unraveling the mystery before me and getting on with the next word, it wanders off into every nook and cranny in my increasingly empty head, looking for anything that will keep me from finishing a paragraph in a reasonable amount of time. It will promptly give me a list of all the things I could be doing instead of waiting for the next sentence to reveal itself, because you never know when it will. The arrival of the next sentence is at times much like an erratic and underbudgeted bus service.

And there are things that need to be done. Like, now. Immediately. They should have been done months ago. How does all this stuff stack up? What am I thinking? Where has my life gone? Why haven’t I been a part of it? Why do I keep all these lists of things to do in my head if I am never going to do any of them? Why am I such a lazy shit? How have I managed to waste so much time? Who knows where the time goes? Is it at the back of the closet somewhere—next to the shoes that need to be polished?

God, I have so much to do and there’s no fucking time to do it all. Those sweaters that I bought and don’t want should have been returned months ago. I still need to return calls and e-mails to over three hundred people. I am behind in contacting a whole town. My piece-of-shit printer needs toner. I really need a new