7.13 / November 2012

The First Thing the Stupid Bitch Does is Fall in Love

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Second thing she does is slide into heels so high she doesn’t have to stand on tiptoe for shit.

Third thing the bitch does is throw every appliance into a snow bank. They’ll still be good in the spring.

Unsure what makes her stupid? Take this five question quiz to determine if you yourself are also a stupid bitch. Alas, if you are, there’s no way any of these words strung together in the manner I’ve strung and tuned them will resolve themselves into meaning. Dude. I mean, there’s just no way. I’m not a magician.

Test to Determine Stupid Bitch Status:

Please answer the below multiple choice and short answer questions as fully and as well as you are fucking able.

1)      In the morning, the first thing I want to do is: a) gather my skin around me like a cloak, b) ride off into the motherfucking sunrise, c) brush my teeth, d) put on sensible shoes, e) all of the above except for b

2)      Please describe yourself using five nouns beginning with the same letter: _____________________________________________________

 

3)      I think antiperspirant is for: a) bitches, b) bros, c) all the shining animals, d) your mother, e) I hate tests

4)      If a human being tossed an object as high as possible into the air, how long would it take for you to go run and catch it, and if you caught it, how would catching it make you feel? Would this be one of the finest moments of your life, or would you feel let down, like “yeah, this is just another thing I can do well, along with all the other fucking things I can do well in my life.” If you caught the object and then jumped from a car to a train to a bus to a motorcycle to a helium balloon, what would you change your name to? Please use a complete sentence to respond: _____________________________________________________

5)      Surrounded by the thrummingness of life, I often find myself: a) amazed, b)amazed, c) amazed, d)amazed, e) amazed

Well. How did you do?

Sometimes there are answers that become questions and vice versa. The stupid bitch knows this in her expansive grandmother’s heart. Try taking Tylenol for that. It won’t jigger your body back into anything resembling appropriate.

Appropriate forms for your body: an elephant, Eraserhead, an ermine, eggs, elastic. Antibodies.

Look, this isn’t going anywhere. I’m sorry. I apologize. There was this bitch? Who didn’t know, actually, and in fact, just how stupid she was? And she, like, fell in love?

And she was you and you were here and I was you and you were me and we were her and we wore our best dress and we wore our sexiest underwear and we, anyway, regardless, fell and we fell and we twisted our ankles; failed the test; and we fell in love; and we left our babies home screaming with their nannies; we became the nannies for other orphaned children; we left the island; we left the country; we left our husbands; we left our daughters and our sons and our animals; we left our own heads buried deep in unmarked graves because, hey, it’s fucking Saturday night, right? And someone’s got to be up be up be up be up be up for it.

First, try to yield to it.  Give over as completely and effortlessly as water coming to a boil. Save your best underwear for dark and stormy nights so that when the car flips, you can say you’d already known. Check your reflection once in the morning, once in the afternoon, and once again before bed. Any more than this is vanity. Tonight, if you can stay awake to see it, thousands of meteors will fill the sky like flies on a corpse. Just say I love you I love you I love you I love you.

 


M.R. Sheffield's work has been published in Fiction Southeast, Spring Gun, Epiphany, Blip Magazine, and other publications. This is her second time in Pank, which fills her with abiding joy. Her cat keeps this blog:whyismycatsosad.blogspot.com wherein he discusses literature, popular culture, the inherent absurdity of existence, and general malaise.
7.13 / November 2012

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