Today, Luigi Said Some Very Cryptic Things.

“Kristen mentioned we had never eaten breakfast in bed together.

We went to a bed and breakfast once, but the two services offered: beds and breakfasts (sic), never actually overlapped.”

Today, Sahlen's Hot Dogs and Robert Redford Will Make My Day.

The morning my wife told me she was leaving was also my first day as a garbage man for the city of Peoria, Illinois.
Her announcement left me so distracted that, by the time I realized I had been throwing the garbage cans in the truck along with the garbage, my route was half over. That morning I crushed beyond recognition fully half the garbage bins in Peoria’s fashionable East View Heights neighborhood.
My supervisor was livid. But, when I explained why I was distracted, he didn’t fire me. He felt I didn’t need to lose my job and my wife in the same day.

Today, She Typed ONLY IN CAPS

He ate lunch in a food court across the street every day. The people around him were distracting until he paid attention to them. Then they were captivating.
It seemed to be the same crowd every day, but he wanted to be sure.
He assigned nicknames to everyone and wrote them down on a piece of paper. Each day, marks went next to their names indicating whether they were in attendance. The paper list soon became too big to manage so he made an excel sheet for his blackberry.
On the excel sheet, he abbreviated everyone’s nickname, partly to save space, party because “TNL” seemed like a nicer thing to call someone than “turkey neck lady”.

Today, Is A Very Busy Day.

Ever since I shocked myself on the doorknob, my finger has been numb. I was walking across my living room, which has thick shag carpet. I reached for the doorknob a visible spark jumped off into my index finger. It went numb and there was a little black mark on the tip, just under the fingernail. I told a doctor what happened and he didn’t believe me. He said there was no way for me to get a shock that bad from shuffling my feet on a carpet. I explained to him that it was really thick carpet.

Today, We Make Stew.

His double had been tailing him all morning. The blue feather in his cap had given him away. It was a code they had all decided upon three years ago at the end of the summit. On that rooftop, as the storm raged and the world came down around their ears, it had seemed such a grand game. But if Julian was back in the waking world, the game would soon turn deadly serious.

Today, We Dance!

Steve lived in the far northern reaches of Ohio. Together, Lauren and I journeyed to his home for a long weekend. There we met his family, including his grandparents. Lovely people.
When the issue of sleeping arrangements arose, Steve told me, “I hope this doesn’t make you uncomfortable, but you are going to share a bed with me. My grandparents don’t know I’m gay, so if I share with Lauren as I normally would, it’s a scandal. If you and I sleep together, they just consider it fraternity."
Steve was one of three men with whom I shared a bed with that month. A record number for me.

Today, The Dog Smelled Pretty Bad.

Thomas is schizophrenic. It is mostly under control, but he becomes extremely nervous when a new person enters the office. Management knows this, and is very accommodating. Thomas is bright and a hard worker, they don’t want to lose him. Thomas’ office was moved away from the elevators, and his desk faces a window. Despite these precautions, Thomas still runs into strangers on his floor. When this happens, his heart starts to pound and a voice in his head begins to scream and scream and it will not stop. Thomas must go into the bathroom and sit until the feeling passes. His pay is docked if he is in the bathroom for longer than an hour. This adjustment is at his insistence.

Today, I Complete My Christmas Shopping.

There was a morbidly obese man on the train this morning.
He furiously typed away on his Blackberry as a small a stream of blood trickled out of his right ear and dripped onto his shirt.
He was forced to pause his typing a number of times, waving one hand around his ear as if shooing away a fly. He would blink furiously as he did this.

Today, I Cost Hundreds of Countries Millions of Dollars.

He awoke with a start, slowly realizing the dream that had so disturbed his slumber was, word for word and shot for shot, the trailer for Just Friends.
He had seen the trailer several days ago at a matinee showing of In the Mix.
The dream seemed a further indication that his life was headed in a direction that terrified him.

Today, I Learned The Construction Will Continue.

While crossing 18th street, I spotted the crippled man with the one short leg shuffling along in his painful way.
A woman noticed her young child staring at him. She leaned down and quietly said, “That man does a funny walk to make you happy.”
“Odd,” I said to myself. “I thought he was doing it for me.”

Today, I Was Told Norwegian Taskmasters Were the Best and Worst Kind of Taskmasters

A man to whom I owed money slammed my hand in a car door five times today. He slammed it a sixth time and said, "And one more for good luck." Something struck me very funny at that point. Not the one-liner, I think, but the situation in general.

Today, I Think My Speakers Broke.

When the woman from next door, the one with the big hair, walked into our office, I was returning money to petty cash. I looked up at her and she was one of my close friends from highschool. She recognized me and said, "Hello Brendon." and walked out of the office. When I went to find her, she was back to being the woman from next door. The one with the big hair.

Today, The Man From Addis Ababa Asked Me How I Had Been

On my afternoon constitutionals, I often wander over to the White House, located a hop, skip and a jump away from my offices. Today, while gazing upon the the seat of our nation's government, I and four other business-suited men spontaneously broke into a pitch-perfect (and fully harmonized), hummed rendition of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic". Mine was the tenor part. It lasted all of three minutes, and ended as perfectly as it had began. As i gazed upon the gathered listeners, I spotted one of today's famously "troubled" youths. In his eye, there sat a single tear.

Today, I Found Mr. Amoako's Laugh to Be Quite Wonderful.

It used to drive her crazy.
My boss would give me money and ask me to run “personal errands,” for her. If there was any leftover change I would give it to homeless people.
She once gave me a twenty to buy her a loaf of bread.
She looked me square in the eye and said, “Do not give my change to a homeless person.”
I said, “I am going to give your change to a homeless person.”
And I did.
Many people think it was this action that led to my dismissal. Not so. My termination was due, in fact, to my frequent copy room liaisons with an exotic Corsican mail clerk.

Today, I ate a ton at lunch.

To alphabetize things I need to recite the entire alphabet every time something starts with a new letter. To figure out what coast I live on I have to trace a little diamond in the air while saying “never eat shredded wheat”. I have still not figured out a good way to tell my left from my right or tell time on an analogue clock.