do not read this



he toddled up to her and asked



"Mom, am I weird?"



she was polishing her prosthetic arm



the cigarette aroma of her seeping boogers wafted to him from her mustache



"First off," she said, "I am not your fucking Mom. I am your fucking landlady. Referring to me as "Mom" again will result in me coming up to the communal bathroom where you sleep and then I shiv you in the fucking neck with a Dixon Ticonderoga No. 2."



somehow, in that moment, she'd triggered it. the billion decibel mantra. thundering in his head. no escaping it



i am a pee smelling Garanimal...i am a PEE SMELLING GARANIMAL....AND ALL THE KIDS DO LAUGH...i am a pee smelling Garanimal...i am a PEE SMELLING GARANIMAL....AND ALL THE KIDS DO LAUGH...



"And second," she continued, her single deft hand working the black shoe polish (as was her habit) into the fake arm's creaky elbow nook, "For a 39 year old pot-bellied eunuch with sparse hair and a lisp, you ain't that weird at ALL. I've known tax accountants who were weirder. I've known stockboys with more derring do. Any manager of any Dairy Queen in America has more pure elan than you do, Chester."



She called everyone that: Chester. Nonetheless, it was his real name.



He trudged back up out of the cellar to his filthy linoleum abode, hoping that no one had deposited any fluids in the sink while he'd been gone. If not, he'd wash his friar's fringe tonight with the purloined sliver of motel soap he'd been hiding in his one of his Keds.



The casual vehemence of her response had decided it for him: he'd had enough. It was time to bring the fight to them. Right to the front lines. Metaphorically speaking, it was "Punkin Chunkin" time. Except it wasn't punkins he would be chunkin. It'd be his own pickled nads in the blue formaldehyde mist of an industrial sized "Cains" mayo jar that he'd be chunkin. One of those two gallon fuckers. His pickled nads floating like tiny black mitochondria, right in the center of all that blue. Wham-O, like the frisbee. Direct hit.



Oh, they'd pay. They'd pay.



His mind wandered in delicious review of his latest gambit. He replayed the scene in his mind over and over again - he couldn't stop.



This was his last, best shot.



The plan was to interviews at temp agencies, then noisily crap himself while seated at the person's desk, then launch into a hysterical, histrionic...feigned nervous breakdown, replete with crying. Hey, he thought, if it results in a free ambulance ride, then whatever works...