Bone Popping Good Time

The Eastern European Chihuahua known as Ren shivered and trembled as he stepped into the waiting room, his feline friend Stimpy guiding him by the arm. Stimpy patted his bestie on the head, which did very little to stop the fearful convulsing. “There there, Ren. You’ll be okay. It’s just a little adjustment to help you out. You’ll feel nothing at all.”

Salt water welled up in Ren’s puffy red eyes. “I…I don’t want to go the chiropractor!”

“It’ll be okay, Ren. He even works with little children.” Stimpy waved his hand across the room to reveal small children who were shaking as hard as he was while their Karen moms read magazines and ignored the red flags.

Ren and Stimpy took seats in the lobby with the rest of the patients, Stimpy picking up a copy of Playboy magazine and picking his nose while “reading it for the articles”. The red flags were already a darker shade than Stimpy’s fur and nobody but the children and Ren seemed to care.

And then…the waiting room shook harder than any fearful patient ever could. Thunderous footsteps crunched and crashed behind the main office door. The children tried to get up and run, but most of them were on leashes held in place by the willfully ignorant mothers. Ren clung onto Stimpy’s arm for support and only let go when he realized his friend was still reading the copy of Playboy (in a family practice).

The door swung open and a hulking monster of a man stared out into the waiting room arms akimbo. His medicine ball muscles were barely able to be contained by his tight polo shirt and yuppie khakis. His military crew cut and square jaw caused the color to fade from Ren and the children’s faces, giving away a Navy SEAL drill sergeant vibe that had no place in the world of chiropractics.

He thudded and tromped across the floor, making kids cry along the way, still to the concern of nobody, least of all the parents. The chiropractor towered over a curled up Ren, held out his hand, and introduced himself. “Howdy, little guy! I’m Dr. Dennis Hanover! Nice to meet you!” Ren reluctantly accepted the handshake, which produced the sound of glass shattering as Dr. Hanover squeezed like he was making orange juice. When he let go, Ren’s now much bigger pink hand throbbed and pulsated. “Right this way, buddy!”

The ogre-like Dennis and the twerpy gnome Ren headed back to the office together, Stimpy smiling and waving like it was a final goodbye of sorts. Ren gulped as the door was slammed and bolted shut behind him. The chiropractic table looked comfortable enough with vinyl padding, but the skeletal models surrounding the room looked like something from a horror franchise. Ren’s knees knocked together as a rumbling in his tummy sounded like it could shoot off ammunition out of the wrong end at any moment.

Dennis patted the table and waved Ren over. “Come on, it’ll be fine. I promise you’ll feel like a million bucks afterwards.” The tan Chihuahua crawled to the table as though he was dead long before any adjustments took place. His once clear complexion was now icy blue. And then Dr. Hanover gave him gentle karate chops across his spine, playing him like a glockenspiel of sorts. Ren started to relax and the color was coming back to his face. Dennis kneaded his back like pizza dough and his patient nearly fell asleep on the table.

“Breathe in…and out…” After Ren did as he was told, Dr. Hanover pressed down on his spine and made his office sound like a war zone complete with bombs and machineguns going off.

The hard adjustment caused Ren to jump up and scream his head off, the background morphing into spotted colors with each successive yell. One long scream, two short ones, and one long one again until he was almost out of breath. Ren rushed to the door trying to escape while Dennis held onto his ears. The Chihuahua even pounded on the door with his fists and begged, “Let me out of here! Open the door! Please let me out! Somebody! HELP!”

Dennis finally detached Ren from the doorknob and the door wiggled like a piece of rubber. Dr. Hanover then held his patient down with skin-reddening force and duct taped his mouth shut. Ren used both hands to try to regain his first amendment rights, but the tape was too strong and all he could do afterwards was surrender and shake some more.

“Hold still, little guy. We’ve still got more work to do. It’ll only take a second.” Dennis clutched Ren’s head and snapped his neck in both directions. The Chihuahua’s muffled screams still managed to echo off the walls and knock over some artwork. His neck pulsated and thumped on both sides like a dying heartbeat. And then Dr. Hanover pulled Ren’s fingers, making his joints sound like a pistol duel. His toes sounded like those pistols were upgraded to AR-15’s. His wrists sounded like his chiropractor walked on a snowfield of broken glass.

“One more adjustment! You’re doing great!” As Ren continued to try to free himself from the gag, Dennis pulled out a black leather Y-strap and secured it around Ren’s head. The Chihuahua could do nothing but shake his head as his final plea for help. “Relax your shoulders, and…” Dennis yanked on the Y-strap and every single bone in Ren’s body popped and crackled with deafening volume. The duct tape could no longer muffle Ren’s screams, for he did it so loudly this time that the gag floated through the air into the garbage can. After his last rallying cry, Ren did a literal cry as his entire body melted into a slimy tan puddle.

“There we go! All set! You did great, little buddy!” Dennis patted Ren’s head a little too roughly, nearly giving him a concussion and almost liquefying that part of his body too.

Ren slithered and slimed back into the waiting room while his chiropractor got the table ready for his next patient. The children watched him make his defeated reentry with wide tearful eyes themselves. Stimpy finally stopped picking his nose long enough to notice. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing….”

“How come you’re sad?”

“I’m fine….”

“You don’t sound fine….You look like you’re about to cry…”

And cry he did. The pain was so horrible and so fiery that Ren thought he had died and gone to hell. In reality, hell was already on earth and Dr. Hanover was the devil. The square-jawed military nut marched out into the waiting room and sat next to Ren on the floor. “There there, little pup. I know just the thing that’ll help you. When my dad caught my crying like a girl, he gave me some words of wisdom I still carry to this day. ‘You know, son…Japan had an earthquake…Haiti had an earthquake…Australia had a wildfire…California had a wildfire…and you’re sitting there whining about life?’”.

“Hey, that’s mean,” said Stimpy with saucer eyes.

“Mean? Nah, that wasn’t mean. I gave your boyfriend a bone popping good time back there. He’ll man up in no time at all.”

“B…boyfriend?”

“Yeah, boyfriend! I knew you two were Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell violators the minute you walked through the door. You looked like you were taking him to the prom with your arm around him.”

As Stimpy and the subsequent children cried at the remarks, Ren’s slimy puddle form started to bubble like a pot of spaghetti, though his regenerating limbs were anything but spaghetti. For the longest time, he didn’t feel like his old self, which was why he came to the chiropractor to begin with. He was too scared to be the villain Stimpy knew and loved (in whatever way he wanted to). But that anxiety turned to skin-purpling anger. Steam blew out of his ears. His body returned to its strong roots. He smiled for the first time in his many depressive weeks, but not out of happiness. This was pure psychosis fueling him like diesel.

“Uh-oh…” said Dennis the minute he realized he knew he fucked up.

Ren jumped on his chiropractor’s back and twisted his neck in a direction it was never meant to go, an obvious mockery of that genre of medicine. Dennis screamed while Ren taunted him. “JAPAN WAS HIT WITH AN EARTHQUAKE!” Ren bent Dennis’s legs into reverse L shapes. “HAITI WAS HIT WITH AN EARTHQUAKE!” He bent Dr. Hanover’s fingers off to the sides. “AUSTRALIA HAD WILDFIRES!” In his final “therapeutic adjustment”, Ren popped Dennis’s penis and testicles, which weren’t supposed to have joints in the first place. “CALIFORNIA HAD WILDFIRES! And you’re bitching about life?”

Gone were the days of macho muscles and towering ogre presences. In their place was a broken heap of screaming sticks with a garnish of waterfall tears, still known as Dr. Dennis Hanover, a name which was probably going to be carved into his tombstone sooner or later. The children’s sprinting momentum dragged the chairs their Karen mothers were sitting in by the leashes. Some mothers held on for dear life while others fell on their butts. Those that did the latter chased after their children with whiny demands and shaking fists.

Now it was Stimpy’s turn to convulse in pants-wetting fear. But since he was a cat who didn’t wear pants, the biological sludge stained the floor and mixed with Dennis Hanover’s broken remains. Ren patted his friend on the back and said, “I feel great, Stimpy! You were right! We should come here more often!” Stimpy swallowing a lump in his throat and out of his ass was the surefire sign that Ren was back in all of his glory. Chiropractic medicine was truly the stuff of gods, provided that god was one who worshiped destruction and war. “Let’s go home!”

Crippled

“Where the hell is the goddamn delivery boy?” asked Joe Herzog as she laid in bed with ice on her swollen knee. The ice did a tremendous job of numbing her pain. Getting pissed off over a late breakfast burrito did not, as evidenced by her hissing noise. “Why does the damn tournament have to be a week away? This is horseshit! All that work for nothing!” She pounded her mattress and sent another jolt through her leg. “Damn it!”

Figuring it wasn’t a good idea to wait in bed for the delivery boy, Joe wrapped her knee in a heavy black bandage and hobbled out of the bedroom wearing just a white T-shirt and blue sleeping shorts. Every hop had her mumbling, “Ouch!” in a low, grumpy voice. Anybody who made it to the finals of a martial arts tournament only to go down with an injury would be grumpy as well.

Her tiny gnome body made looking at her hallway of trophies and medals a chore. Twisting her neck backwards just to look at second place accolades made her shake her head in disgust. “This is bullshit…this is fucking bullshit…” She resumed mumbling, “Ouch!” as she hobbled down the hall of shame and into the living room.

Resting across her tree stump table was a blue karate dress, one she wouldn’t be wearing again for a long time. Joe wiped away a singular tear with her finger before hobbling and cursing towards the table. “I should probably just set this damn thing on fire. Besides which, who the hell wears a dress into combat? It ain’t like…” She glanced at herself in the full-length mirror and frowned at what she perceived to be a lack of beauty. Joe sighed and sat down on her eiderdown couch. “I’ll get rid of that damn dress some other time. Goddamn knee injury…”

All Joe wanted to do was close her eyes and relax until her food got here. The throbbing and pulsating of her knee kept her eyes wide open no matter how comfortable she tried to make herself. And then…there was a knock on the door. More like a feverous pounding that got louder every time Joe tried to ignore it. “That better be my food or else I’m jamming this good for nothing leg up someone’s ass.”

The pounding of both Joe’s heart and front door resumed. “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming!” She hobbled over to the rune-covered entrance, where the pounding grated on her ears some more. “I said I’m coming, damn it! This better be good!” Reaching for the doorknob on her tippy-toes, she almost fell over as she swung the door wide open. “It’s about damn time! Uh-oh…”

It wasn’t a delivery boy. The only food this man was carrying was in his wide gut, about three hundred pounds worth. The scaly orange skin, the dragon-like face, the rotund frame, and the jeans held up by suspenders. A cold sweat broke out over Joe’s face as she fell backwards, giving her a better view of “The Chiropractor” Bargon Sevili. The moniker was silly to her until she remembered that amateur wrestling was his strong suit. She swallowed a lump and said, “Bargon…wha…what are you doing here? The finals aren’t until next week.”

Bargon leaned his drooling face down and said in a deep, raspy voice, “Yes, I know!” He slathered his tongue across his already slimy lips. “Sweet gee-nee girl! Lovable midget pie! Love muffin! Come here and let me…”

Joe screamed in terror before he could finish his cutesy-wutesy sentence. She scrambled to get back up on one leg, but kept falling over and sending more shockwaves through her crippled knee. Her clutches and whiny screams didn’t earn enough sympathy from Bargon to get him to wipe his smile off of his face. In fact, his deafening footsteps on the stone floor made Joe’s head throb worse than her knee.

Instead of trying to get up, Joe crawled across her filthy stone floor using just her elbows to drag her little body. Bargon took his sweet time in approaching his opponent, though the thudding of his boots didn’t help in giving Joe any comfort. She crawled so quickly that cuts and bruises formed on her arms. She swung her bedroom door open and crawled some more.

With adrenaline flooding her system like a biblical disaster, she endured even more scrapes as she hurried over to her wooden chest. She nearly popped her arm out of her socket reaching for the latch, but open it she did. Joe stood up on both legs, her sense of urgency allowing her to numb out her knee pain. The faster she dug through her belongings, the louder the footsteps pounded. Her hands shook as she fiddled with a metal object and some tiny shells.

She loaded the shells into her single barrel shotgun as fast as she could, though not without having to pick them up after dropping them repeatedly. “Guess who, sugar britches!” Bargon taunted in his saccharine ogre voice. Joe didn’t give a shit about her knee anymore. She stood terra firma in the center of her room locked and loaded, her bruised arms still trembling with fear.

The minute Bargon kicked the door open and said, “Ta-da!”, Joe pulled the trigger. She needed this easy victory over someone who was supposed to wait until next week to fight her. She needed to be in first place for once in her life. But the shotgun jammed and blew her backwards, sending her crashing through her glass window and into the grass. Shards ripped at her flesh. Her arms were embedded with glass. Her knee pain flared up to infernal levels. Little droplets of blood stained the grass beneath her. She whined and cried like the second place loser she was.

Even on soft grass and dirt, Bargon’s footsteps grew more obnoxious the closer he got to his victim. He had to squeeze his wide ass through the broken window, but he arrived at his destination all the same. He held the shotgun over Joe’s blood-covered face and snapped it over his knee. He discarded the broken pieces and dusted his hands off like it was nothing. Leaning his head down so that he could be eye-level with Joe, he said, “Give me your knee, you sweet piece of pumpkin pie!”

“Oh god…Oh my god…Please, just get it over with. Anywhere but the knee. Literally anywhere else!”

Despite Joe’s pathetic begging, Bargon indeed grabbed her by the injured leg, causing her to cry out in agony. After picking off a few pieces of glass and getting even more ocular juices out of Joe, he asked, “Are you ready, little darling?”

“…As ready as I’ll ever be…” whimpered Joe as she covered her face with her scarred arms.

“Good, because this is going to hurt like a bitch!” Bargon made good on his promise. He yanked on the injured leg and had Joe yelling in a high pitched, demonic tone.

It did hurt like a bitch. It was the most agonizing thing Joe had been through. But the best part about it? It only hurt for a few seconds. And then the pain was gone. Was she in heaven? Was St. Peter already opening the pearly gates for her? No, she was still on planet earth outside her home. She uncovered her face and wiggled her leg. No pain. She knew the injury was still there, but she didn’t feel like dying afterwards. “You…you really are a chiropractor? Um…uh…thanks?”

Bargon grabbed Joe by her shirt and leaned in so that they were nose-to-nose. His breath radiated with skunk odors, probably due to him not brushing his fangs in a long time. “I don’t need your thanks, Joey-Bowie. All I need from you is to be one hundred percent in the finals next week. That way, when I beat the living piss out of you, there’ll be no excuses. No knee injuries, no glass shards, no bullshit. If you lose to me and get second place again, you’ll have nobody to blame but yourself. You got it?” He threw her against the grass and said, “See you next week, sugar plum” before blowing her a kiss and walking away.

Any gratitude Joe felt for her opponent twisted in the wind when she noticed a foil-wrapped burrito sticking out of his back pocket. “Hey! That’s my breakfast, you asshole!”

Bargon pulled the burrito out of his pocket, unwrapped it, and took a massive bite out of it. With a full mouth, he said, “It’s my breakfast now! Besides, if you want to beat me in the finals and be a winner for the first time in your mediocre career, you’ve got to eat better than this. You’re getting a little chunky around the belly. See you soon!”

As the demonic ogre walked away, Joe clenched her fists and stood up, her knee staying pain free the entire time. She wasn’t thinking about burning her karate dress anymore. She wasn’t looking at her second place accolades with scorn. After a morning like this one, Joe Herzog had all the motivation she could ever want. She would train as hard as she damn well could. She would pump more iron, run more laps, and beat the training bag like it owed her a breakfast burrito.

With her muscles bulging and the shaky adrenaline morphing into raw anger, Joe shouted out, “You should have killed me when you had the chance, you fat pig! I’m not just going to beat you in the finals! I’m going to destroy your career! You hear me, Bargon Sevili?! You’re a dead motherfucker!” Joe raised her fists to the sky and let out a primal scream to anyone who would listen, letting them know that motivation was not an issue anymore.

Incelbordination, Chapter 20

Oswald Crow hated the man he saw in the mirror. He could forgive the fact that he had to stand on a footstool to see that image. He could forgive his own inability to attract women (despite his latest crush being married). He could forgive the idea that he’d caused all of his own worst problems. But the part that really made him stare bullets into the mirror…was his hair and his beard. He stroked his long, greasy locks with so much force that he damned near pulled out the follicles. He gripped his shaggy beard like he was making a fist, as if the thought of punching himself in the face was his greatest idea yet.

“No more…no more of this garbage…” he said with a menacing scowl. He gingerly stepped down from the footstool and put his medical boot back on. Walking had gotten a hell of a lot easier since his (hopefully) final encounter with Antero. He didn’t limp nearly as much and his speed had picked up just a little bit. All that was left was for him to find a better shirt to wear and out on the town he would go. How about Dark Side of the Moon T-shirt with prism, rainbow, and all?

When Oswald went for his trek downtown, he still played it safe and walked at a tender pace. Any residual pain he suffered in his foot was downplayed by one long glance around the misty city. A terrorist attack happened not too long ago and people still carried on with their daily lives. Some still shook with fear. Some still had the color drained from their faces. Some even shed a few tears. But even with all of this latent fear, Valerie’s prophecy came true: life went on. Oswald expected the results to be no different when he entered Two Bits Barber Shop.

But even for customer service standards, the barbers looked somewhat happy, just minding their own business and accumulating a pile of hair on the ground like nothing had happened. The blond lady at the service desk smiled a warm smile down at Oswald and asked, “Can I help you?”

“Do you take walk-ins?”

“We sure do. In fact, we have an opening right now if you’re ready.”

“Cool.”

“Can I get your name, please?”

“Oswald Crow.” He said his name with slight trepidation, as if it was as blasphemous to say as Jesus fucking Christ in a crowded mega church. But it turned out his name held no such weight in this strange barber shop. He wasn’t as big of a villain as he imagined himself to be.

He breathed a sigh of relief as the woman penciled his name in her schedule and never lost her happy expression. “Alright, Oswald, looks like I’ll be taking care of you today. My name is Callie. Do you need any help getting set up?”

“Nah, I’ve got this,” he said as he struggled to get into the barber’s chair. There were a few instances where he slipped and slid, much to the head shaking, hands-on-hips chagrin of Callie. She grabbed him by the hand and lifted him into the chair with minimal effort. “Guess I needed help after all.”

“You really shouldn’t be shy about accepting help from others. It’s what brings us all together,” said Callie while running her fingers through Oswald’s hair. “So what are we doing today?”

The little guy really didn’t think this one through. What would he look good with? A Mohawk? A high fade? A bald head? All he could muster up was a long, “Uh” and this got a giggle from Callie. She said, “How about if I surprise you with something? I think you’re going to like what I have in mind.”

Shrugging his shoulders, Oswald said, “Sure, why not?”

With that Callie got right to work on Oz-Man’s new hairstyle. Lots of spraying, lots of buzz-cutting, and lots of scissor snipping. There was enough hair on the ground to create another Oswald Crow and two Burmese kitties.

“So what do you do for a living?” asked Callie.

“I’m unemployed.”

“Oh,” said Callie with a twisted mouth and shifting eyes. “Okay.”

“I take that back. I’m a sex surrogate at a funeral home.”

The barber made a flat tire noise and shook her head at the joke. “See, that would have been a better response than saying you’re unemployed.”

“But it’s a lie.”

“Of course it was. I don’t think anybody here would willingly believe you get paid to do…that. The important thing here is that you have a sense of humor about it. Employers like that kind of thing. Granted, I wouldn’t use that particular joke, but you get the idea.”

“I don’t even know what I’m going to do once I get out of college.”

“Wait a minute, you’re in college? Why didn’t you say that when I asked you what you did for a living?”

“Because I don’t get paid for it. I’m the one making all the payments here.”

Patting Oz-Man’s shoulders, Callie said, “Listen, you don’t have to get paid in order to call something your profession. It could be something as simple as a hobby like building things or writing stories or carving soap.”

“Or sitting on my ass watching television.”

Callie let out a hearty laugh and struggled to compose herself. “Wow. You are something else, Oswald. On second thought, maybe being your delightful self is just what you need to land a job.”

He smiled, “I’m not as delightful as you think.”

“Oh really? Is that how you scared me off just now?” The little man didn’t have an answer for that except for a small sigh. “The fact that you’re willing to come in here and get a nice haircut shows me you care at least just a little bit what the world thinks of you.”

“Maybe I don’t care enough.”

“That’s something you need to find a balance with. You should care just enough to get your foot in the door and just little enough that you don’t lose yourself along the way. It takes work, but as a college student, you’re more than ready for it. I know it.”

Oswald kept quiet the rest of the time he was getting his haircut. Hating small talk aside, he didn’t want to get pieces of his locks in his mouth. He may have spit out a few strands here and there. But before he knew it, Oswald truly was a new man underneath all of that Wookie fur. The top of his head had short spikes, he had a low fade just underneath, and his beard was just short enough to not resemble an African jungle. The next time he looked in the mirror, he felt less and less like punching himself in the face. He ran his fingers through his remaining hair and said in a soft voice, “I look good.”

“You sure do,” said Callie with her sweet smile. “But we’re not done yet.”

As the barber walked away, a much taller presence in the form of a longhaired young man approached Oswald from the rear. At first the little guy swallowed a lump in his throat, thinking this guy was going to crush him with his massive hands. But instead the man with Damian on his nametag gently squeezed the tension out of Oswald’s shoulders and scalp. All the injuries, the bruises, and the cuts he received throughout his journey melted away from him like butter on popcorn. He could have transformed into a puddle right there on the chair.

No small talk, no frills, no gimmicks of any kind, just a gentle massage Oswald never knew he needed until then. He closed his eyes and allowed his healing mind to take him to faraway places. Tingles washed over his upper body. And then Damian grabbed little Oz-Man by the jaw and quickly twisted his neck in both directions. The crunching and popping noises echoed throughout the barbershop and managed to get a few stares from the customers. Oswald shook his jowls at the one second pain, but immediately relaxed again. “It’s been a while since I’ve had a massage and an adjustment.”

A smile etched on Damian’s pale face. “You should get them more often. It’s not unheard of for customers to come in here just for the massage.”

“Really?” Damian nodded. It took every ounce of strength in Oz-Man’s body (and assistance from Damian) to help himself down. He thought this could be a new treatment option for his mental illnesses, even if it only provided temporary relief. Maybe if he did it long enough…

He snapped back to reality when Callie ran his bill up for him. “That’ll be twenty dollars even.” Oswald pulled his wallet out and gave his barber and massage therapist an extra fifteen, but Callie waved the overpayment away. “We don’t accept tips here. We’re unionized, so we get paid well.”

“No kidding?”

“No kidding. Just the twenty dollars will do. Plus, you’re going to need that extra fifteen dollars for Jessica Bradley’s roses.”

Oswald’s eyes widened. She knew about that? His name was public knowledge and she didn’t let on the entire time? Was he really a big celebrity? Or a social pariah? What the hell was going on?

“Have a nice day!” said Callie as she and Damian waved at him with smiles on their faces. Oswald left the twenty dollar bill on the counter and hightailed it out of there.

The Crying Clown with Back Pain

There are times when you can never fully decipher what a dream means and then there are times when they’re painfully obvious. One night, I had a dream that was the latter of those two extremes. Before going to bed, I had a tremendous pain in my lower back. It was so bad that the next day I had to call in sick to my weekly volunteer job at the Kitsap Historical Society. Somehow my subconscious took all this pain as a cue to create of the most depressing dreams I’ve ever had. I dreamed I was watching a cartoon where a clown was riding around in a small car bumping into police cars. He’s happy and fine one minute, but with no real transition into the next moment, he’s suddenly crying because his back hurts. This isn’t just any kind of crying. It’s not the kind of crying that a child does when he hits his head. It’s not even a minor euphemism for complaining. This was an actual tearjerker of a scene. There were tears raining down his face all because he suddenly had back problems that prevented him from taking a shower. The clown is a symbol of happiness and joy (despite what you see in “The Brave Little Toaster” and “It“). To see a prominent symbol of laughter crying in a depressive state over having dull back pain is the ultimate slap in the face to someone in the real world who actually has back pain. When I woke up, after I made the call to the museum that I was taking the day off, I went downstairs to have a heat wrap pasted to my lower back. Ever since then, my pain became a non-issue. I might have to go to the chiropractor, but I like going there anyways, so it’s not a big deal. Knowing that a positive outcome was on the horizon, why exactly did my subconscious need to send me a clinically depressed clown? It’s not like the clown had a malignant tumor in his back, nor did he have any slash marks. It’s just minor back pain and he’s crying like his grandma just died. If it’s bothering him that bad, he should shell out some dough for a massage or a chiropractic adjustment. Minor back pain doesn’t necessarily constitute high drama. But in my imagination, it just might. If I make a story out of this, it will have to be done with a clear head and intensive planning. I can make this work. In fact, I can make it work or my name isn’t Garrison Kelly. Actually, Kelly isn’t my last name, it’s a pseudonym. The Garrison part of my penname is right, so maybe I can split the difference 50/50 when it comes to my success with a story about a sad clown with back pain.

　

***TELEVISION QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“Ever heard of Obama Care? Well, this is We Don’t Care.”

-Marty Deeks from “NCIS: Los Angeles”-