Story 30: The Anti-Litterbug

            All you garbage-tossers, cigarette-butt-flickers, and other assorted litterers, beware: your comeuppance is at hand.

            No, not in the guise of some measly, $1,000 ticket that is rarely bestowed.  This, instead, is justice.

            Justice for the Earth.  Justice for the flora and the fauna.  Justice for everyone who has had to clean up your mess.  At last, their advocate has arrived.

            You do not know my name or my face, and you do not see me until it is too late.  I come upon you when you least expect it and I dash away into the night – or day, depending on what time it is.

            My methods are simple: anything you throw that lands far outside of what would be considered a proper receptacle will be thrown back at you.

            If you toss a finished cigarette out the window of your moving car, I will stop wherever I am, pick up that butt in the middle of traffic at great risk to my own life and limb, and follow you until I am able to throw that butt right back at you.  I do avoid your face, but a little ding on the arm never hurt anybody.  You can rest assured that it is your own cigarette, with the addition of the pebbles or grass where it had landed when you cast it away to what you thought was the void.

            Do not rail at me with faux righteous anger.  You are the one who treats the world as your garbage can – you are the agent of your own destruction.  Next time, get an ashtray.

            For those who toss fast food remains out of moving vehicles at midnight, be on guard: those same greasy trays and acidic soda cups will reappear in the very same setting from which they were ejected.  Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but sometime within the month you sons-of-loose-women will be tracked down and your leavings returned in your cars’ passenger seats.

            For the rest of you illegitimate offspring and female dogs who walk along sidewalks and throw things into bushes; who drive to the lake and dump sordid items; and yes, even those who see the world as their urinal, know that everything you discard will be returned to you.  Yes, I said everything, even if that requires me learning how to scuba dive or take a class on forensic techniques in gathering bodily fluids.  The number of hypodermic needles I have come across would make any phlebotomist weep with fear.  Know that even your homes and front yards are not safe from my “Return to Sender” deliveries.  Know that I have had a 100% success rate in locating my targets.

            Know, again, that you are the instrument of your own undoing.  Here are a garbage can and a recycling bin – make them your friends.

            The World will thank you, and my work will be done.

Story 29: Loser Takes None

            I can’t believe my loved ones staged an intervention for my gambling addiction.  Who do they think they are, anyway?

            I’ll prove it to those judgmental relatives: they’ll show concern out of the other side of their faces after I’ve won a BILLION DOLLARS in A.C., woo-hoo!

            I leave a considerate away message on my e-mail for them, and at 5:00 a.m. commence the ole pilgrimage down the GSP running through the state of N.J.  I then head over to the ACE going into A.C. proper (those from Jersey know what all these initials mean; those who aren’t, wish they could be this cool and in).  I had calculated that the tolls would be $20 round trip – the NJTA should all be arrested for the highwaymen they really are; however, they’re also The Man, and you can’t fight The Man.  I’ve been told you can’t fight The House either, `cause The House Always Wins, but I’m about to prove them wrong in spades.  And in hearts, diamonds, and clubs.

            I cut across five lanes of traffic to make the turn onto the City’s main avenue in order to maximize my time actually on the casino floor, and I gracefully screech to a stop at the hotel, casino, and resort’s valet parking.  A helpful gentleman comes to assist me with my luggage, but as I refuse to feel the need to tip any more than I must, I throw my 10 suitcases and overnight bags onto the nearest trolley and gratefully toss him a dollar for his trouble in parking my car.  I’ll be buying a luxury vehicle soon, so I really don’t care if I never see my piece-of-junk again.

            I wheel my trolley to the nearest elevator and proceed to the check-in counter; noting that check-in time is 1:00 p.m. and it is only just now 7:00 a.m., I mentally slap myself in the face for always forgetting this crucial fact in hotel operations.  Undaunted, I wheel my trolley to the always-open casino floor, the safe haven for me and my kind.  Security tries to give me a hard time, so I let them take my trolley and wiggle out of having to tip the nice fellows in the luggage holding area (you always have to look for the right angle when wanting to conserve your cash).

            Twelve hours later, all of the slot machines, card tables, and roulette wheels  have been a bust and the free drinks aren’t making me feel any better, so I check in at last, break my luggage out of Security – no bell hop, please, I am a grown woman – and I head up to my room on the 50^th floor to collapse from the effort of all that losing I just did throughout the day.  The door is inconveniently situated in a corner, so I have to thrown my luggage in piece by piece before scooting the trolley down the hall and letting it glide to a stop – some random child or alcoholic can now have fun with it.

            Once inside, I realize something is amiss as I fall all over my stuff.  It takes a few moments to register the fact that I cannot see a thing: the curtains blocking the beautiful view of the other casinos have been closed tight.  I stumble over to the window and let in the natural light radiating from the boardwalk mall – ah, how peaceful the shore is.

            My toiletries are kept in four bags, so best to open them all now.  The bathroom has nice lighting and subliminal numbers on the wallpaper to keep us professional gamblers focused on our goal, which is very thoughtful.  I spread out les articles de toilette and notice that soap and shampoo have been provided, but tsk, no lotion – and what?  The towels are crooked?!!

            I go back to the main room to steady my nerves and try to find comfort in the other included amenities.

            They charge for movies?

            They charge for food?!

            They charge for phone calls??!!

            I collapse on the bed in despair; when I turn my head, I see it: some of the thread on the quilt is frayed.

            I can longer contain my anguish and let out a blood-curdling scream.  I then hear banging on my wall and my so-called “neighbor” telling me to shut the expletive up, for expletive’s sake.  Apparently, my monologue has not been entirely internal, but he needn’t be so rude about it, either.

            I find solace in one of the many hotel bars where the drinks are most decidedly not free, but I need to prepare myself for that evening’s high-stakes poker championship.  My nerves are steel, and my mind is as sharp as the razor that I carry with me always.  I also look forward to the preamble to the game, since I am always fascinated by the dealer’s opening patter and explanation of the tournament rules.  Watching them manipulate the cards in demonstration, I am convinced that casino card dealers are, in fact, frustrated magicians.

            I return to my room at 2:00 a.m., not the billionaire I had planned to be by that hour but still ahead thanks to the pockets I was able to pick on the boardwalk after the game.  Those people can afford to cancel their credit cards anyway – I just want the cash and the cute grandbaby photos.

            I can’t sleep with all this racket, but good luck turning off the Atlantic Ocean, `cause I’ve tried.  I turn on the television to drown out (pun intended) the noise, but only get partway through an excellent sales pitch on diamond vacuum cleaners when the wall-banger starts in again, this time with even more off-color language and topped off with vague threats to my person.  I choose to ignore them, until a door-banger turns out to be Security yet again, promising me eviction lest I turn off the television during non-prime-time hours.  I ask that he instead move my neighbor to a new room, but my reasonable request is denied.  It isn’t as if the hotel’s booked to capacity – oh, snap!  So, I turn off my white noise and suffer the grating sound of waves gently crashing onto the shore for the rest of the night.

            By the time the sun rises and is shining in my eyes, I decide that I have had enough thrill and magic of the casino to last me for another week, so I go downstairs to check out.  At the counter, I express my displeasure with my room’s temperature, in that I would have had to adjust the thermostat when it should have been at a proper level all along; that meals were not complimentary to reward me for my presence; and that I was not guaranteed to win anything in the casino when the establishment’s slogan clearly states that guests will “have a winning time”.  Along with the aforementioned complaints, I also challenged the “Room Assessment Fee” listed, since the room should have been assessed after it was first constructed and I should not be forced to contribute to the consequences of any poor decision-making on the hotel’s part.  The concierge then comes over to me with Security – oh, that bothersome Security – and reads off a list of my supposed offenses during my stay there, banning me for life before turning me over to the City police for my “shopping spree” on the boardwalk the night before.

            As I am led away in handcuffs, I find some comfort in knowing the joke’s on them – in my discombobulation this morning, I forgot to leave a tip for housekeeping.  Maybe my jailer will let me mail it to them with a note.

Story 28: Life in the Slow Lane

            Traffic, that cursèd organism with a mind of its own, literally inches forward in the daily parkway ritual of lane closures, accidents with their inevitable offspring of rubbernecking, backed-up exits, backed-up entrances, and nowhere else for the imprisoned participants to turn.  In short: Hell on Earth.

            The regulars know their parts and resignedly play them.  The most intricate of the routine is the maneuver dubbed “The Waltz of the Sedans” which, when properly executed, is a thing of beauty.  It involves two or more vehicles simultaneously swapping lanes, akin to synchronized swimming and producing much the same awe to any observer who can steal a glance.  Those who stumble in this pas de automobile wipe out spectacularly and earn the sudden horror and subsequent wrath of their fellow travelers, followed by pity when the tragic results are seen.  The ones caught in the wake hours later settle for wrath because it’s easier.

            The amateurs – the out-of-staters, the vacationers, the student drivers, and the fools who just do not know any better – invariably either drive at the speed limit (aka the suggested starting speed) in the far left lane, or never know when or where their exit will show up.  The regulars do their best to go around and beyond them, but one sap always will be trapped behind an amateur trundling along with its right blinker on for the past five exits, hoping the next will be “the one”.

            Rush hour usually is rush day, except between the hours of 3:00 and 4:00 a.m. every other Sunday.  If you are lucky, the DUIs race past you with only your car rocking in the slipstream as evidence of your narrow escape.  The state trooper not far behind is planning the next phase of his career: race car driving, with its dangers of crashing and burning making it the infinitely safer life option.

            To avoid this horrible, convenient roadway, it is best to memorize the myriad backroads to your destination.  The journey will be just as long if not longer, but the advantages are that you will be in motion the entire time rather than idling; you pay for just gas rather than gas and tolls; and the scenery is better.  A few of the downsides include traffic lights and the pedestrians who step into the road just as you approach because they want you to hit them.  They are a wily bunch, tripping you up by crossing against lights, walking in non-people-designated areas, and appearing out of thin air as your car is in mid-turn.  Don’t let them succeed in their suicidal goal: stop short, blast your weak horn, shake your fist mightily, and shout a blessing that they have long lives in spite of their self-destructive tendencies.

            To avoid this nice, inconvenient roadway, take the parkway.  Yes, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity, but sometimes one must just endure it.

Story 27: The Call During the Movie

           The perils of the modern age: bright and noisy electronics have invaded that sacred hall of darkness and silence, the movie theater.  All it takes is one user to distract an entire audience from the awesomeness happening on the screen.

            One afternoon, a theater in the heartland of the U.S. of A. had only eight people in it, since the current blockbuster was already in its third week on the marquee and therefore almost dead.  Half of the attendees had seen it at least once and were still trying to figure out when exactly the villain had tipped his hand before they even knew he was a villain, the sly devil.  Sixteen eyes were staring at the flickering screen, blinking only if absolutely necessary, when the jarring beep-beep-beep-boop-boop-bip-beep-beep resounded.

            The response was a mix of “Argh!”s, “Ssh!”s, and kernels of popcorn thrown at the sound.  The siren call could not be ignored, however, and was answered in a whisper.

            “Hello?”

                "Sssssshhhhhh!!!!”

            “You saw a what?!”

            “Take it outside, man!”

            One repeat viewer didn’t mind missing a boring scene to drag an usher in and bodily evict the caller, who was struggling out of his seat and down the row, blocking the view of people behind him, and dodging more popcorn.  “Don’t kid about stuff like that – I don’t believe an actual alien spaceship has just landed next to Stonehenge.”

            This got everyone’s attention.  Those with super phones consulted the oracle that is The Internet for confirmation of the news.

            “Holy crow, a spaceship just landed next to Stonehenge!”

            “This has to be a hoax.”

            The caller covered one ear as an usher with the helpful audience member came up to him in the aisle.  “My friend’s over there right now – ” He glanced at his phone.  “She just sent me a picture of it!”

            Everyone got up from their seats and ran over to see.  The spaceship looked like a cross between an aircraft carrier and a tugboat, and was coated in a strange shade of mauve.

            The usher yelled up to the projectionist.  “Hey Mark, get down here, you gotta see this!”

            The caller put the phone back to his ear.  “Is anyone coming out of it?”

            “Put it on speaker!”

            “It doesn’t work.  Someone’s coming out!”

            “What does it look like?”

            “A… slug?”

            “What?”

            “Ew.”

            “What’s it doing?”

            “Does it have a ray gun?!”

            “It’s looking around… it turned around… it’s sliding back into the ship….” The sound of a roaring engine was heard and the caller had to hold the phone away from his ear for half a minute until it was done.  “Brenda!  What happened?!”

            “Oh no, the invasion’s beginning!”

            “I knew something like this was going to happen today!”

            “It left?”

            “To where, New York?!  They always go to New York.”

            “They never go to New York, there’s not enough room to land.”

            “No, she said it went straight up into the sky, back into space.”

            Phones were consulted again.

            “It left!”

            “That’s it?  No war of the worlds, no insight into the mysteries of the universe?”

            “Brenda, what’s happening?”  He listened and hung up.  “She had to give her phone to the G-men.”

            Everyone looked at their phones.  “Hey, the photos were taken down!”

            “I can’t find any of the discussions I was in the middle of!”

            “They can’t wipe out everything about this, can they?”

            “Who’s ‘they’?”

            “You know, ‘they’.”

            “You may never see Brenda again, you know.”

            “We need to fight this!  We can’t let them get away with a cover-up of this magnitude!”

            “They can’t find out that we know what really happened!”

            “We have to go underground – I have a bunker!”

            They all followed the usher in determined panic after he said this.  The house lights came on as the credits rolled.

            One attendee turned back.

            “Hey, they made me miss the end!”

Story 26: What Happened to Ernest Frankenstein?

          (Based on a recent book club pick)
 
          I loved my family: no one could have had a more blessed childhood than I had in 18th-century Geneva.  My parents, though distant in age, adored each other and their children; the two girls we had incorporated into our clan had their beauty equaled only by their virtue; and our little brother William was everyone's favorite.
          And then, there was Victor.
          Do not misunderstand me: I loved my brother as I loved all my relatives.  It is only that there was always something, well, how to explain: not quite natural about him.
          From a young age, he had become interested in alchemy and achieving eternal life.  Honestly!  Father should have kept a tighter reign on that boy's reading material, if anyone had asked me, but I do not begrudge the freedoms we all enjoyed.  We were allowed to frolic anywhere we wished like well-behaved hooligans, getting ourselves into all sorts of orderly mischief.  My blood siblings were Victor and Saint William, and our parents adopted Elizabeth, the Mother Superior, and Justine, our social equal until she would come of age to be our servant.  Elizabeth was our sister in almost every sense of the word but everyone, her included, expected her to marry Victor, which I found a bit distasteful and added a disturbing layer to our childhood games; however, no one asked for my opinion.  Come to think of it, few people ever asked me about anything.
          Victor's departure for university was delayed when Mother died, as mothers nursing sick adopted girls tend to do.  I do not know if her passing significantly affected the turn his studies took while he was at school - that die seemed to have been cast well before that tragedy could have been used as an excuse.  He wrote not once - not once! - while he was studying in Germany.  I could understand several weeks or even a few months, but years?  That was when I first started suspecting that he was not entirely well.  In the head, I mean.
           Our friend, Henry Clerval, then wrote to us that Victor had fallen ill, which naturally had us all worried for him.  We were soon distracted from that by The Saint's martyrdom - that is to say, poor little William was found randomly murdered.  Odder still, our mother's miniature portrait that he was wearing on a whim that day was found on Justine.  The finger of the law pointed to her and no other.  I myself thought it odd that someone who would do such a thing would then leave incriminating evidence lying around for others to find in her possession, but no one asked me.  Poor Justine confessed so she would not burn for eternity, and was hanged for it.  On his return home during the trial, Victor was extremely upset about the whole thing, even more than the rest of us: he beat his chest, pulled his hair, and groaned a lot.  He also spent much time walking around and rowing on the lake.  I mourned as well, then had to continue studying for my exams.
          After one of his walkabouts, Victor asked Father's permission to study in England.  England!  As if Germany hadn't been enough!  Clerval wanted to go with him, the better to complete his training in spreading The Word to foreigners, so Father acquiesced.  I had yet to be allowed to join the service and see the world, yet there was Victor, on his second international journey.  Well, someone had to keep Elizabeth company while he was gone, at any rate.
           Time passed (onward, as it must), and we received word that Clerval had met an unfortunate end and Victor had been arrested for it.  That news most assuredly set us astir, until we received word later that Victor was proved innocent by eyewitnesses stating that he was in the vicinity of his island laboratory with its foul stench at the time of the murder.  That was certainly a relief.
           The inevitable then happened: after Victor came home, he and Elizabeth married.  I spent the whole ceremony holding back the feeling of sickness as I watched them sickeningly make their sickening vows of love and destiny and virtue and ad infinitum to each other.  When we received word later that Elizabeth had been found dead on her wedding night, I first thought she had expired in self defense.  Then I thought Victor had finally snapped and killed the one he loved, but he claimed that some "monster" (he always exaggerated) had murdered her.  Father gave way to the tidal wave of grief and joined Mother, who was the lucky one out of all this, in Heaven.  And then Victor disappeared, leaving me, well and truly, alone to face the cold world.
          Some time later, I somehow came across letters written by a sailor to his sister that detailed his meeting Victor in the middle of the Arctic, of all places.  The whole sordid story of my brother's attempt to play mother (twice) by creating a living human being from the parts of dead human beings, his responsibility for our family members' and friend's deaths (except for Mother's: that was all sick Elizabeth's fault), and the possibility that his "man" was still running around wreaking havoc despite its claims to the contrary just about killed what was left of my spirit.  Having said all that, the one act of Victor's that I absolutely could not forgive was his behaving as if his entire family was dead when I was still alive and had to hear about all this years later.
          I think Mary Shelley forgot about me. 

Story 25: Lust at First Sight

            Their eyes met across the crowded room, both pairs desperately searching for happiness.  Once locked onto each other, they could not tear themselves away.  The eyes led, and the bodies followed: they met at last in front of the bar at the height of happy hour.

            There was just… something about him.

            She was beautiful in her loneliness – he knew she needed someone like him to take care of her.

            This was the real deal: this was true love.

          Each of their families disapproved of their moving in together the following day, but the blood relations just didn’t understand the magnetism, the chemistry, the biology, not even, most importantly, just how hot the other person was.  Sure, he was a bad boy; sure, she was a bad girl.  Each needed the other desperately - it was plain for all to see.  The rest would come some time later.

            SOME TIME LATER

            She saw the court order in the mail.

            “You pay alimony?!  You never told me you were married!”

            “You never asked.”

            “I never asked if you were a deadbeat either, but it seems that’s been answered, too.”

            “Which one is it?”

            “Which one what?”

            “Which wife.”

            “How many….?!”

            He held up three fingers.  She threw a plate at his head, which barely missed him in spite of her aim.

           “Wait, does separation still count as marriage or should that be considered divorce?  `Cause if it’s the latter –” He held up four fingers and received another plate.

            “I don’t believe this!”

            “Just a head’s up in case you also see this in the mail soon, maybe now’s a good time to mention my five kids – those checks’ve been a little behind, too.”

            “I can’t imagine why.”

            “Hey, you’re one to talk – what about all those stripper photos I saw posted of you, huh?”

            “You weren’t supposed to see those!  I was supporting myself through college!”

            “And I would applaud your entrepreneurial spirit, if it didn’t also involved B&E and grant theft auto.”

            “I thought those records were sealed!  You are such a hypocrite to throw those in my face – I was a kid!  Kids do stupid things!”

            “You were 35 years old, and it was last year.”

       “I thought you didn’t care about my past!  You said the past doesn’t matter, only our future, remember?”

           “Not if our future involves me being charged as an accessory after the fact!  I always knew you didn’t buy that van that's been sitting in the garage.”

            “I need wheels for my kitchen!”  She covered her mouth to retroactively take back what she said.

            “Oh, I knew it – you have a mobile meth lab!”

            “Don’t get all sanctimonious on me, Mr. Floating Poker Game!  I followed you one night and saw you’re both the organizer and the kneecap breaker!”

            “It cuts costs!”

            “And what’s with the offshore accounts you hid from me that’ve suddenly disappeared?”

            He started crying.  “So much money!”  He suddenly stopped.  “How’d you know about them?”
            “The IRS came calling this morning.  I said you were out, but, in good conscience, I don’t think I can keep lying for you.  The good news is, you’ll have your choice between federal prison and plain old prison.”

            “If you rat me out, I’ll rat you out!  And another thing – that ballet you dragged me to last Saturday was boring!”  She gasped in horror.  “How could you think I’d like it?”

            “I guess I was under the same delusion you were when you dragged me to that tennis match!”

            “You said later you liked it!”

            “It was boring!  Don’t you know me at all, John?!”

            “My name’s Brian.”