SALEM, MA-

When we were kids, we thought that our cousin Mike was the Incredible Hulk.

I can’t recall if Mike “suggested” to my brother Chad and me that he was the mean green man, or if Chad simply saw the resemblance and thought that he had uncovered the Hulk’s plain-guy identity, but we thought we were related to a comic book hero.

At the very least, we figured that Mike was Lou Forigno’s body double: he was a short, sculpted bodybuilder with a massive, muscular chest and arms, and he had that signature Lou Forigno/Patrick Swayze feathered hair. Certainly they wouldn’t overlook him as Forigno’s wingman to take a stunt-beating on-film.

We were maybe six and seven—Chad my elder by a year—when Chad charged the neighbor kids a nickel

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SALEM, MA-

You always hear that “the Lord works in mysterious ways.” But sometimes, he’s really fucking obvious.

Two years ago, I completed graduate school and continued working on a book that I drafted during my MFA program. I worked part-time at the University of New Hampshire, where I got my degree, and took on freelance writing gigs to pay my bills.

But when my “writing life” laxed and became my “cleaning the house and hanging out with grad school friends” life, my wife gave me a not-so-subtle nudge:

Get a job.

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DORCHESTER, MA-

I did something this morning that I swore I would never do:

I picked up a steaming pile of dog shit—with my hand.

Dog owners do it all the time, and I assume it’s no big deal to them. They carry around their extra plastic bags from Target and Stop & Shop, and when their dogs take a crap, they stick their hands in a baggie, lightly grasp the turds, turn the bag inside out, and tie it shut at the top. Done. No shit on the street, no shit in your hands. Everything contained neatly in plastic.

But I’m not a dog owner. And the idea of touching a hot crap while it still holds the body’s heat disgusts me— (more…)

SALEM, MA-

“I don’t know how to break this to you, but I’m baking the penis cake.”

My wife shook her head, defeated. She knew that morning that there was nothing she could do to stop me. So instead, she made me promise that if the cake wasn’t well-received at the party, I would make a public announcement saying that she had not approved of it.

I agreed.

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SALEM, MA-

I have found that it’s difficult for people to be rude to you when you’re dressed as a 5’4” hot dog.

Desperate for cash like so many others in this crap economy, I took a seasonal job this fall working as a cashier at iParty, a party supply store that sells costumes by the truckload during Halloween season. One afternoon in early October, I walked into the store looking for a costume and left with a job. The assistant manager looked over my application, saw my degrees and my years of teaching and writing experience, and said, “Yeah, you’re way overqualified. You’ll start on Thursday.”

Yes, I was overqualified. And yes, I hoped that the manager wouldn’t actually call my references, thus informing these respected individuals that I was putting my master’s degree to use as an iParty cashier.

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SALEM, MA-

Dear Santa,

I’ll start by admitting that I haven’t been very good this year.

I drank too much and did many things that I regret. I wished terrible things on people that I hate. I hated people. I haven’t gone to church. I haven’t given to charity. I haven’t finished my book…four years later. I have cursed and said horrible things to my wife that have made her cry. I’ve lied—many times. I have pissed away way too much money on alcohol and office supplies at Staples. I have considered sending someone a dead cat in the mail (though she did deserve it).

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