XXIII

I was five when I saw my first sunrise. During the winter months, my mom and grandfather would get up at the ass crack of dawn every Tuesday morning for breakfast at The Coffee Cup. I went with them a few times, but only for the amusement of knowing I'd be up before the sun was. Once seated, I'd sit and stare in amazement at the waitresses weaving through a maze of white collar workers, tables, and chairs, with eight or ten bowls of grits all up and down either arm. I knew what I wanted to do with my life!

As we were heading out of the restaurant one morning, an old woman stopped me, told me I was pretty, and asked me to smile big for her. Always obey your elders. Yes ma'am, and I smiled big. She plopped her dentures into her hands and smiled back. I didn't know how to react, so I laughed. As soon as that happened, she garbled to me, sans dents, that I shouldn't laugh at other peoples' losses, and that I'd be lucky to live long enough to see my teeth fall out.

Today, a blind man asked me if I had two hands. I had to look at both hands before I could give him a sure answer.

XXII

The first time I ever BS'ed an assignment was in first grade. Since it was Friday, it was show-and-tell day. Show-and-tell was invented by The Man to ingrain into the soft minds of American children that consumerism relieves the pangs of being a human. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition! Seeing as how I caught onto this at age six, show-and-tell was never anything I got hyped up over.

Inevitably, I forgot to bring something to class one week. Thanks to my mother's unwavering will to pump me full of potassium, I had a banana in my lunch box. The poor thing had been suffocating in the PVC entrapment for 4 hours and as a result it was all spotted. When it was my turn, I held up my spotty banana in front of the whole class and declared, "I know this is just a banana, but I brought this to show everyone today, because I call this a dalmatian banana."

"How clever!" my teacher exclaimed.

XXI

I'm sitting in Starbucks. Two tables down a man in his mid thirties is reading The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats. He's not really reading. He's been on same page for the past 20 minutes, and keeps glancing up. Yes, that's right. Our friend is sitting at Starbucks, pretending to read, in a desperate attempt to attract women.

Back in the day when a man wanted a woman's attention, he would spill a drink on her at a show, hook her up with drugs at a rave, or make sure she had beer at all times at a kegger. If he was really committed, he would break into her house and climb into bed with her parents.

I do not agree with this new mating ritual at all. It's sad and boring.

XX

You scream, I scream, we all scream for ice-cream!