Chapter 1
[Note: Lists are best read first column first, then second column. When a list does not end at the bottom of a page, it will continue on the next page]
THINGS KOALA BEARS WOULD SAY
by Timothy Weinmann
Yay!
Love me!
Climbing trees is fun!
Let’s volunteer at a soup kitchen this Christmas.
My tongue is funny!
Eating leaves is fun!
Will you help me think of something nice we can do for Grandma?
Look, a pouch!
Let’s prevent a forest fire!
No, you’re the cutest ever.
Camus is boring. I find Karl Jaspers’s philosophy much more enlightening.
Wheeee!
Let’s make cider!
I bet I’ll live forever!
FORMER JOBS HELD BY THE GUY YOU ONCE SAW WEARING THAT “PUSSY PATROL” T-SHIRT
by Mike Sacks
Vagina cop
Titty detective
Part-time perineum security guard
Anus temp
Nipple bureaucrat
Executive vice president of technology and worldwide operations for Merrill Lynch
EXACTLY WHAT I MEAN WHEN I SAY MY EX-GIRLFRIEND KRISTIN AND I “WANTED DIFFERENT THINGS FROM LIFE”
by Dan Kennedy
Something I didn’t want from life was for us to stay together after she slept with another man in exchange for cocaine.
Something she wanted from life was for us to stay together after she slept with another man in exchange for cocaine.
7 HABITS OF HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE
by Brendon Lloyd
1.Skiing
2.Yachting
3.Snorkeling
4.Golf
5.Polo
6.Dinner parties
7.Shopping
TOURISM SLOGANS THAT FAILED TO SEAL THE DEAL
by Michelle Orange
Kyrgyzstan: Kazakhstan’s Mexico
Germany: Let It Go
Venezuela: We Dare You
Cambodia: Nike’s Best Kept Secret
It’s Worse in Western
Samoa
Canada: Turn Left at Greenland
Syria: Come for the Ruins, Stay Because We Confiscated Your Passport
ANECDOTAL LEADS FOR NEWS STORIES REPORTING THE END OF THE WORLD
by Hart Seely
Nine-year-old Joshua Harding didn’t plan to miss classes Tuesday at West Monroe Elementary School. Nobody did.
But dismissed were his classes—for good.
After carefully parking his red Toyota Matrix in the lot outside Dick’s Sporting Goods, John P. Boyce strode briskly into the West Burlington store.
He was looking for rain gear on a day when rain gear would not be enough.
“The prices are outrageous,” said Boyce, fifty-eight, of West Street, as he sifted through brightly colored slickers and tall rubber boots. “Then again, I guess you could say it’s a seller’s market.”
An hour later, it was a nobody’s market.
Tamika Carter had dieted all spring to lose twenty-eight pounds in time for the Independence Day weekend. She skipped lunches and jogged each night after returning home from her job at the Pancake Circus.
“I always try to lose weight before summer,” the twenty-seven-year- old Sacramento waitress said. “You want to look good on the beach.”
But this summer, looking good on the beach would turn out to be far less important than Carter could have imagined.
Mo Bushnell was not happy.
Not happy at all.
With a wheezing gust from his eighty-four-year-old lungs, the opinionated former Ashtabula steelworker had managed to blow out all the candles on his large chocolate layer cake. But it was abundantly clear that Bushnell’s birthday wish would not be coming true.
Not this year.
Not ever.
Though the sign outside Desi’s Show Lounge shouted closed for good, Andrew Kramer kept pounding on the front door, as if trying to rouse what spirits of romance might still reside within the abandoned South Side disco.
As his knuckles rapped against the empty building, Kramer found himself humming the classic disco oldie “Last Dance” by Donna Summer.
“Last dance,” he sang.
“It’s the last chance. For
lo-ove.”
It was the musical sentiment that echoed across Sarasota Tuesday.
Claude D. LaMont grinned as he stepped from the yellow taxi, then turned to hand the driver a crisp $50 bill.
LaMont was returning from the Oneida Indian Casino, where he had just lost every last penny in his bank account. Not only that, he had gambled away his house, his car, and all his earthly possessions.
“Who the heck cares?”
LaMont said, flicking his cigarette butt to the curb. “In a matter of hours, we’re all dead.”
And he was right.
With a broad smile emerging from his salt-and-pepper beard, gas station attendant Earl Talbot hailed the little man in the shiny red Porsche that had pulled up to pump no. 3 and demanded,
“Fill ’er up!”
Without skipping a beat, Talbot unveiled the sawed-off shotgun he kept behind his back and blasted four bullets into the unidentified driver’s skull. Then, with a tortured howl directed at the sky, Talbot placed the muzzle of the gun in his wide mouth and pulled the trigger.
For the Exit 41 Kwik Fill, the final exit had come.
GOOD LAST LINE TO A SYNDICATED PRISON HUMOR COLUMN
by Mike Sacks
“Anyway, I guess that’s why they call it prison.”
REJECTED BOND GIRLS
by Rebecca Waits
Chlamydia Johnson
Pussy Notsomuch
Gloria Abortion
Incestua
Plenty O’Hep
Jenny Arthritis
S’phyllis
Star Jones
SIGNS YOUR UNICORN IS CHEATING ON YOU
by Christopher Monks
Seems emotionally distant and uninterested
Wears fancier tail ribbons
Starts working out at the gym
Quickly closes its laptop when you walk into its enchanted den
Credit card bill full of charges to area elf lodges
The “three C’s”: confrontation, criticism, and complaints
Every time you say the word “magic” it sighs forlornly
Is making a movie with Angelina Jolie
BARTLETT’S FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS
by Martin Bell
“Hi there. John Bartlett.”
—John Bartlett
“Reservation should be under ‘Bartlett.’ That’s two T’s. Yes. ‘Bart- let-et.’ ”
—John Bartlett
“Yep, that was me. I’m that Bartlett.”—John Bartlett
“Yes, I’d like another one.”
—John Bartlett
“. . . and I said, ‘Yeah, and you can “quote” me on it!’ Ha, ha!”— John Bartlett
“Ah, yes, where’s your restroom?”—John Bartlett
“Hey there, my little . . . my little cowgirl. I’m Jack Bartlett. Want credit for a quotation? I don’t think anyone’s laid claim to your phone number yet. Nice. Just . . . just one second, let me get a pen.”—John Bartlett
“That’s not funny. It’s not funny. Don’t ask me what, you know what. The little quote fingers. All the goddamn time. Everything I say. Just . . . just stop. Okay?”—John Bartlett
“No, how about you please leave the premises? Huh? How about you don’t make a scene? How about . . . how about that? Well, fine. Fucking . . . fine. Don’t touch me! Don’t you dare touch me! Fuck you, you fucking piece of . . . of fuck. How’s that for a bloody quotation?”—John Bartlett
“Oh, nice one, honey. Yes. Clever. That’s becoming quite a familiar quotation in its own right, isn’t it? Maybe I should just add it to the next edition. ‘Mother was right.’