GIRLS ARE PRETTY

Caramels Day!

Dan loved you so he used his vast wealth to open a store where you could sell your caramels.

“Maybe I just have trouble accepting kindness from a loved one,” you tell the cashier, a senior in high school, who you’ve been sleeping with in the store’s kitchen area.

“Let’s have sex again,” the cashier says, pulling off the skirt you just put back on.

When Dan comes in and finds the two of you he takes a pan of caramels and throws them at the wall. 

You feel terrible about having hurt him when he was always good to you. You feel even worse when he gives you full ownership of the caramel store in the divorce. You vow to not waste his generosity.

You fire your cashier and replace him with your middle-aged aunt who needs the work, and you put all of your strength and energy into making the business thrive. Before long, The Caramel Lady caramels is a nationwide household name, and every time someone opens a box, they can read the company’s origin story on the lid: The Caramel Lady was a terrible wife, a cheater and a liar. The secret ingredient in every one of her caramels is the sorrow she feels for how she treated her sweet, generous ex-husband Dan, a man far too good to be married to someone as horrible as The Caramel Lady.

Happy Caramels Day!

A Guided Tour Of The Homes Of Ordinary People Day!

You give bus tours of the homes of ordinary, everyday folks who live in your town. You’ve been doing it for years, and the same shtick rolls off your tongue day after day. You can pretty much recite it in your sleep.

This two-story house is where Craig and Nina Olsen have lived out the majority of their lives together. Craig is well-known on the block for his grilling expertise. Nina is an insurance claims adjuster. Their son moved to New York City to study dance.

The people take their snapshots and cross the house off their maps. They’re satisfied that they know the lives of the Olsens now, they know what it means to be Craig and Nina, to live in their home and watch their son head off to find his rhythm. And then you roll them on to another one.

Melanie Llanerch, a widow of 15 years after her husband Mario died on the floor of the plant in a mishap. Melanie’s annual Christmas party has been the source for quite a few local rumors, but it’s all in good fun. She’s very active in the neighborhood decorating committee, and there’s a long line of ladies who’d like to find a way into her book club.

Is that it? Is that all there is to say about Melanie? What are you doing, whoring these people’s homes out to be gawked at by paying strangers? You don’t know them. You make a living summarizing the existence of human beings. This isn’t where you wanted to end up.

Here we are at Pamela and Arthur Reed’s house. I could tell you all that Pamela works in finance and Arthur is a school teacher, but does that tell you even the slightest bit about them? If we want to know who these people are, what kind of lives they’re living, we’ll just have to go into their homes and watch them live it. Who’s with me?

You run out the door of the bus and the passengers follow you as you sprint across the lawn to Pamela and Arthur Reed’s doorstep. The door is locked. You throw your weight against it. Once, twice, a third time. The door flies off its hinges. Pamela Reed has a handgun. She aims at your heart. You die instantly. Two more shots are fired. One hits one of your passengers in the arm. The other hits the wood of the door frame. The rest of the passengers run for their lives. Your murder is ruled self-defense. Pamela had the right to defend herself from an intruder into her home. She had the right to keep you from knowing how she lives.

Happy A Guided Tour Of The Homes Of Ordinary People Day!

Girls Are Pretty on Twitter

Hey follow Girls Are Pretty on Twitter too. I’ll make sure to tweet out every time there’s a new story, and I’ll also fire off links to some of my old favorites.

https://twitter.com/GirlsArePretty1

You Can’t Feel Day!

You kept it off of your dating profile, you explain, because it scares guys away sometimes.

“Or it attracts the wrong guy,” you say. “Like the kind who doesn’t really like women, and would prefer to not have to communicate with a woman on an emotional level.”

He seems intrigued.

“I bet I could make you love me.”

“I’m telling you,” you say. “I can’t.”

“Bet I could make you eat those words.”

“Fifty bucks?” you suggest.

The two of you shake on it.

You spend the next fifty years together, him showering you in romance from dawn to dusk, bombarding you with flowers and serenades and trips to romantic B&Bs. He writes piles of poetry inspired by you, published even, on reputable presses, with nothing but your name as the title, in numbered volumes. He fills you with children, celebrates you at every turn, with every breath. Your life with him is more wonderful than you ever could have imagined, more wonderful, certainly, than you deserve. 

He stays by your side to very end, when you’re on your deathbed. He refuses to leave you. He spends his days reading to you, telling you stories, putting ice chips on your tongue. 

On your last night alive, when you know you don’t have any energy left to wake to another morning, you take your husband’s hand in yours and you squeeze it tight. When he pulls his hand away, he opens his palm and finds a fifty-dollar bill.

When he looks at your face, your eyes are closed, your breathing stopped. The money in his palm tells him his love for you was requited, but the proof isn’t in the fifty bucks. It’s in the fact that you cared enough to die before he could look in your eyes to find some seed of doubt. 

Happy You Can’t Feel Day!

Vengeance For The Broken Hearted Day!

Henry broke up with Mary because he wants to go out with Susan now.

“He said he loved me,” Mary tells you.

“Then he’s a liar,” you say. “And we need to get revenge on him.”

Mary suggests she take the private chats they had and post them on Facebook.

“It’s real mushy stuff,” she says. “And there’s a lot of him apologizing for not being able to last very long in bed. It’ll be super embarrassing for him.”

“I’ve got a better idea,” you say.

After killing Henry’s family, grinding up their bodies and feeding them to Henry in a stew, you’re wanted for murder and so you decide go on the lam.

“Come with?” you ask Mary, leaning in her bedroom window. “We can live on the open road, killing what needs killing, stealing when we need a little dough, sleeping under the stars, just being free.”

Mary says no. You say cool, then you try to reminisce about the prank you played on Henry, how awesome it was to see his face when he found out he ate his whole family, but you notice the flashing lights behind you.

Mary shows you her phone. She secretly dialed 911. They heard every word.

“You ratted on me?” you ask. “After I helped you get revenge?”

You go to jail for life, thinking the whole time that all you’re guilty of is helping out a friend with a broken heart.

Happy Vengeance For The Broken Hearted Day!

Your Dad’s On TV Day!

Your dad’s on TV. 

“Are you seeing this?” your sister asks over the phone.

You’re seeing this. He’s being interviewed by Anderson Cooper for rescuing puppies from a house on fire.

“I just hope my daughters will let me back into their lives,” your dad says to Anderson Cooper.

You tell your sister you don’t like the way this looks.

***

You’re on TV.

“Are you going to accept your Dad back into your life?” Anderson Cooper asks you. “He did something good for puppies.”

You tell Anderson Cooper that if he did something good for some dogs, but he never did anything good for you or your sister, that means he treated you and your sister worse than dogs.

Someone behind Anderson Cooper throws a tomato at you.

“Are you seeing this?” your sister texts you, forgetting that you’re the one she’s looking at live on her TV screen.

***

Your Dad’s on TV.

“I want everyone to leave my daughters alone,” he tells Anderson Cooper. “I did a lot of bad things in my life, and if they can’t forgive me for them, even after I saved some puppies, then that’s their right.”

Anderson Cooper says, “No, I’m sorry but that’s bullshit!”

“Anderson, take it easy,” your Dad says.

“I fucking won’t,” Anderson Cooper says. “I don’t normally do this, take sides and whatnot, but come on. Would they rather the puppies had died? Is that what they want?”

“Are you seeing this?” your sister asks from the other side of the couch. She moved in with you. Her and Stan are having trouble again.

***

Your Dad’s on TV. 

“Until there’s definitive proof that that’s me on that video recording, I stand by my assertion that it’s not me,” he’s telling Anderson Cooper.

In the corner of the screen is a surveillance video of your Dad carrying puppies into a house and then setting the house on fire. Then he’s shown waiting around for some people to show up and turn on their smartphone cameras. Then he runs into the house and runs back out with the puppies.

“It really looks like you,” Anderson Cooper says.

“Well, I maintain that it doesn’t look like me. Look at me. Am I wearing a hat, like the guy in the video?”

“If it was you, I think your daughters need to know,” Anderson Cooper says. “They need to realize how far you’re willing to go to get them back in your life. I mean, you were ready to kill puppies.”

Your dad isn’t sure how to respond so he says, “Maybe?”

“That’s a lot to have on your conscience,” Anderson Cooper says. “If those puppies had died, you would have had to live with that, all because you love your daughters so much.”

Your dad says, “So whether I set the fire and rescued the puppies, or I didn’t set the fire and rescued the puppies, my daughters should let me into their lives again.”

“You’re goddamn right!” Anderson Cooper shouts before throwing his mic at the wall and stomping around cursing while your dad chases after him, trying to calm him down.

“Are you seeing this?” your sister asks Stan over the phone. They’re trying to work it out. You hope they do. 

***

You’re on TV.

“Empty your pockets,” the corrections officer says to you. You watch yourself on the closed circuit monitor as you drop your keys and loose change into the bin. Then you walk through the metal detector and into the visitors area.

“I just wanted the chance to say I’m sorry,” your Dad says when you sit at the table with him.

You tell him that you accept his apology, and he shouldn’t feel the need to do more dangerous stuff just to get Anderson Cooper to convince you to reconnect with him.

“He parked outside my house for a week, spraypainting ‘Bad Daughter’ on my front door. It was awful,” you tell your dad.

“He gets results,” your dad says. “That’s why he’s the best reporter in the biz.”

Across the room, another inmate picks up his visitor and throws him against the wall.

“Are you seeing this?” your dad asks.

You put your hand on his. You’re seeing this. You’re right there with him, seeing this together.

Happy Your Dad’s On TV Day!

A Swollen Eye Day!

He’ll show up to work with a swollen eye.

“Looks like some girl’s boyfriend caught up to you,” you’ll say.

“He did,” he’ll say. “Yours.”

You don’t remember a thing. A few of you had rounds in the kitchen after you closed the restaurant last night, then you and he went to a bar to have a few rounds more. You vaguely remember arriving at the bar.

“You took me home?” you’ll ask.

“I didn’t think you would have gotten there otherwise,” he’ll say.

“Did we?”

He’ll shake his head.

“Did you try?”

He’ll say he didn’t get the chance. “You were on me by the time the door closed on the cab. I pushed you off and you went to sleep.”

He carried you into your apartment and tucked you in. Your boyfriend was waiting outside when he left.

“He followed us,” he’ll say.

“He doesn’t trust me. He follows me home from work,” you’ll say. “Because he knows I’m in love with you.”

“Godammit, we’re waiters,” he’ll say. “These diners are counting on us. How are we supposed to deliver their dinner if your heart’s getting in the way?”

“But if we weren’t?” you ask. “Waiters I mean.”

He laughs. “Might as well ask if the sky wasn’t blue. If up was down.”

A table for four arrives. You consider just throwing down your apron, walking out the door and waiting for him, waiting on the sidewalk for him to come out and love you.

But you see their faces. They’re hungry. They need you. And if you turned away from them, would he follow?

He’ll give you a look. “That’s your section.”

You’ll tear your gaze away from his. You’ll walk to the table, pulling your check pad out of your shirt pocket, the one right next to your heart.

Happy A Swollen Eye Day!

Ask For A Raise Day!

Say, “Boss I think I deserve a little more than what I’m getting, okay?”

Your boss will tense up, getting ready for a tough negotiation. “Okay,” he’ll say. “How much money you want?”

Say, “Don’t want no money. I just want to be touched.”

Your boss will look unsure of how to counter-offer.

“You don’t want an increase in salary?” he’ll ask.

“Nope,” tell him. “I just want to feel the warmth of your hand on my person sometimes. Nothing sexual, necessarily. Just in the morning, maybe you can rest your hand on my back when you stop by my desk to say hello.”

Your boss will hesitate, waiting to see if there’s a catch.

“And maybe,” you go on. “Maybe you could occasionally tousle my hair the way my dad used to. Oh and I want a five-second hug goodbye every single day. A five-second hug and a whisper in my ear that you’ll never forget the time we spent together each day.”

Your boss will think about all of your demands. He’ll weigh your recent job performance against that of your coworkers and try to determine if everything you’re requesting is within the realm of what he thinks you deserve. 

Finally, he’ll come back with a counter-offer.

“A three-second hug,” he’ll say.

“Four,” tell him.

He’ll say deal. The two of you will rise and shake on it. Feel his skin, focus all of your attention on that touch. That’s two human beings right there, clasping each in the other’s grip, sharing a moment temporally and physically, reinforcing the belief that both of you really are right there, that this isn’t a dream, all of it is as real as the warmth of your combined body heat. That handshake, that’s all there is isn’t it? All those desks and file cabinets and all the money that comes in and out of that office, there’s nothing real to it. Nothing you can feel. Nothing as real as the touch of a man holding onto another man’s hand.

Happy Ask For A Raise Day!

Tell Your Dad He’s Been Replaced Day!

“I met a boy,” tell him. “He’s everything you’re not.”

“Guess he’s not awesome then!” your Dad will say as you lift up your bags and walk out the door. He’ll run to the door, laughing, and yell at your back, “I said, guess he’s not awesome! Come on, that was awesome!”

You’ll keep walking to your new boy’s apartment, vowing never to see your dad again. 

Three months from now your new boy will cheat on you and you’ll look up your Dad but he’ll be dead. When you go to his grave you’ll whisper, “You were right, Dad. He wasn’t awesome.”

The epitaph on your Dad’s grave will read, “I Die With Just One Regret - That I Couldn’t Have Been Born On A Planet That Could Handle My Awesomeness.” You’ll pray for him to find himself on that planet in his next life, then you’ll go back to the boy who cheated on you because with your Dad gone, all the remaining men are all the same.

Happy Tell Your Dad He’s Been Replaced Day!

Fist Bump Day!

Today when you fist bump people it means you once heard your mother tell a friend of hers that she regrets having you.

“Don’t you love your offspring?” you heard the friend ask your mother.

“I think he’s okay,” your mom said. “But sometimes when the phone rings I imagine it’s the police telling me he got in a car accident and died, and I get a little giddy. Then when it turns out not to be true, I get bummed out.”

You heard your friend tell your mom that she knew of a guy who buys kids. You were only eight at the time and the friend told your mom eight is the max age he’ll buy. Your mom asked what the guy buys kids before and the friend said she didn’t know.

“Do you care?” you heard the friend ask.

Your mom shrugged and said she’d think about whether she wanted to sell you, when you were almost at the age when you could run errands.

That’s what it means if you fist bump anybody today. That you heard your mom have that conversation. If you fist bump tomorrow, it goes back to meaning you’re afraid of strongmen tearing your hand off at the wrist if you engage in handshakes.

Happy Fist Bump Day!

Ask The Barista Day!

You like that brown-haired girl who always sits in the corner of the coffee shop working on her laptop but you don’t know how to say what you feel so ask the Barista to say it for you.

“Instead of her name, write what I tell you on the side of her cup,” you say to the Barista. He is an angry person with a turtle tattoo on his left hand.

“What’s in it for me you fuck?” he asks. You don’t take it personally. It’s coffee shop policy to address every customer as “you fuck.”

“I’ll drop two bucks in the tip cup,” you say.

He nods. You drop the bucks then you tell the barista what you feel. He writes it all down then he shouts for her to pick up her drink.

“You in the corner. The way your brown hair cascades over your laptop makes me wish I could be your laptop, that my body parts could be the keys on your keyboard, like that my penis was the space bar since you’d be hitting that one a lot, and I guess my eyes would be the bracket keys or something. Anyway, you’re the most beautiful girl in the coffee shop and I wish I knew what you smelled like but you sit so close to the bathroom. Come get your drink and let me love you.”

She gets up from her chair to get her drink and finds you waiting to give it to her. She takes it from you, reads from the side of the cup all that the Barista just shouted, then removes the lid and throws the drink in your face. Luckily, it was iced.

“Are you okay, you fuck?” the Barista asks.

You’re not. “I guess this is goodbye,” you tell the Barista. “I only came here so I could imagine my life with that brown-haired girl. Now that she’s given me her answer, I have to go to find another coffee shop where I can fixate on a new stranger.”

The Barista says, “I won’t let you go.”

He invites you into the back, where he knocks you unconscious and keeps you locked away for months. He keeps several other customers there too, customers who were thinking of frequenting other coffee shops. He’ll slowly poison you with ammonia dosed lattes. Your bodies will be found in a pile under some beans. Your Barista will escape to get a job serving coffee in a new town, developing new, indelible relationships with the regulars.

When your face appears in the paper as one of the dead, the brown-haired girl won’t recognize you.

Happy Ask The Barista Day!

The Bulbs In The Streetlamps Day!

Only one of your neighbors on the community board is still fighting you. Go see him today.

“I just want a month,” you tell him. “A single thirty days of red bulbs.”

“Too dangerous,” he murmurs. He didn’t even turn the TV off. You had to grab the remote and mute it. 

“She loved red bulbs,” you say. “Her rose garden. Everyone marveled at it. She gave so much to this block, asking for nothing in return. Let me give something back to her. Let me turn the entire neighborhood rose-red for her.”

He snorts.

“What’s so funny?” you ask.

“I was you once,” he says. “When my wife died I wanted to scratch her name into the sky. I wanted to do what she ‘would have wanted.’ Soon you’ll accept that she wants nothing anymore. That’s the good part of death. The wanting stops.”

You both sit in silence.

“Unfortunately,” he adds. “You have to accept that she doesn’t even want you anymore.”

He cries in his chair, staring at a court show. You drop the photos on the table.

“I know you had your neighbors’ tree branches cut down,” you tell him. “It wasn’t the storm. You used the storm as your excuse and cut down the branches reaching into your yard while the Canters were away.”

He stares at the pile of photos without reaching for them.

“Approve the red bulbs at tonight’s block meeting,” you tell him. “Vote yes on turning the neighborhood red in honor of my late wife’s rose garden. Let me mourn my wife to the fullest of my ability. Or so help me God the photos of you shouting up at your tree surgeon will be on every folding chair at that meeting.”

You leave the photos there for him to peruse. Tonight, you can be sure you’ll get the votes necessary to give a proper goodbye to your sweet, departed bride.

Happy The Bulbs In The Streetlamps Day!

499 Days Day!

Today you got into a car accident. You changed lanes without looking first and you sideswiped a guy. The two of you pulled over and exchanged information. You have a good insurance plan and you told him he should be fine. 

“I hope so,” he said. Then he asked, “Why are you looking at me like that?” 

You said, “I’m going to be murdered in 499 days.”

He said, “I’m sorry to hear it.” Perfect poker face.

You said, “I wonder if you’re the one who’s going to kill me.” You looked at his information and added, “Arthur Douglas Prescott.”

He said, “I’ve never hurt anyone in my life.”

You told him we’ve all hurt somebody at some point. He said that’s probably true. He has broken a heart or two in his rear view.

“Sometimes needlessly,” Arthur said. “Just to prove to them that, by hurting them, they were wrong to have gotten involved with me.”

Arthur ran his hand through his weak scalp of brown hair. It was getting messy in the wind.

“I feel like we’d be friends under other circumstances,” you told Arthur.

“I’m not going to kill you,” Arthur said. “Or wait, is this insurance info for real?”

You told him yes, it was. It’s not that. It’s just, now that you’ve crashed into each other, you’re in each other’s orbits.

“Who knows how this will play out?”

Arthur seemed to size you up then. It’s like he was trying to figure out whether he could overpower you physically, or would he have to use a weapon?

“Maybe I’ll see you again,” you said to Arthur.

“Not if I see you first,” he said.

It’s moments like that one—and like the one you had later in the afternoon when you were cheating on your wife with a married woman, and her husband came home and chased you out of the house vowing to kill you if he ever finds you—that make you realize it could be anybody. Anyone you meet could be the person who takes your life 499 days from now.

Happy 499 Days Day!

You Just Left The Witness Protection Program Day!

The two of you sit watching the news. There’s a photo of you on the screen.

“I can change it.”

“No.”

You want to hear them say it. You want to hear them say that your life is in danger, that you aren’t a hero, or a villain. You want to hear them say that you’re just a living thing trying to stay alive.

“They keep calling me an informant. A rat.”

“They have to tell the story the way they know people want to hear it.”

He puts his hand on yours. You fall into his chest and cry. Then you’re kissing, crying into his mouth. Your blouse is on the floor. He’s carrying you to the bed. Will this be the last time?

“Why don’t they assign girl Feds to watch girls in safe houses?” you ask, after.

“They do sometimes. They send the Feds that the Feds running the case trust.”

You consider asking if he does this with every female witness, but you know he doesn’t. From the very first time, you knew this was as alien to him as it was to you.

“Could you protect me. Outside?”

“For a year. A few years. Then it’d be luck.”

You consider your options. Take down the entire organization, then go live somewhere in the middle of nowhere, with nothing, without him. Or.

“I choose you.”

“I love you. We have to move now.”

In an instant his clothes are back on and he’s got a bag packed already. He’s got wads of cash in a money belt around his waist. He’s spraying the house with gasoline so it looks like the two of you were firebombed. It’ll be days before they realize you weren’t there.

“You’re really going to throw away the bust of the decade for me?”

“Let’s not make a federal case about it.”

You both laugh because that was a joke since he’s a federal agent. You’re in the car now, a block away. Back at the house the match hits the gasoline. The rear-view mirror turns orange. You just left the witness protection program.

Happy You Just Left The Witness Protection Program Day!

You Just Came Out Of A Forty-Year Coma And You’re About To Learn About The Internet Day!

There are news cameras aimed at you. Everyone wants to watch you learn about the internet.

Someone hands you a laptop.

“This is a personal computer,” they say. “Type something you want to look at.”

You type the words, Chicks peeing on guys’ buttholes.

“It’s magical,” you say as the search results scroll down the screen.

They suggest maybe you could type something else. “You can even write a blog post to get your own ideas out there,” you’re told.

They open a blog template for you. The title of your first post is, “9/11 Was A Joint Mission Of The CIA And Israel And Was The Result Of Airplane Shaped Robotic Missiles Remotely Controlled By George W. Bush.”

A reporter asks, “How did you even know about 9/11?”

You explain it was a hunch. 

The cameras stop rolling. Everyone starts packing up.

“Wait,” your doctor says. “Try using the computer to look at an adorable video of a kitten.”

You watch an adorable video of a kitten. Then you ask if there’s a way to call the kitten a homosexual and tell it that you’d like to rape it. You’re directed to the Youtube comments section.

“Why’s everyone leaving?” you ask.

You’re told that everyone was hoping to see how the internet would be used by someone who’s never seen it before, but they’re bummed because you’re using it just like everyone else. You stop listening to practice the Harlem Shake.

Happy You Just Came Out Of A Forty-Year Coma And You’re About To Learn About The Internet Day!