Coach

I have been hired by an upscale gym to write weekly fitness tips for their newsletter. I know very little about fitness, so run out of ideas quickly. One of my ideas is to keep a football in your underwear at all times. A reader in Japan complains about my lack of qualifications. I am called into the office to discuss the complaint. The office is only accessible by way of a miles-long, undeveloped backcountry road. I am driving an Oldsmobile, and my mother and brother are in the car with me. It's getting dark. My brother and I are discussing how to properly contextualize 9/11 when SUDDENLY THERE IS A WOLF. Then the wolf is gone. I'm sad because I wanted to look at the wolf some more.

Man vs. Wild

I am trapped on a trail high up Mt. Everest. Luckily, I know the old survivalist trick of stuffing my pockets with beef jerky and having a shotgun.

Agent of Chaos

I am in a public bathroom, at the last urinal in a long row of empty urinals. A guy walks up to the urinal right next to me, dressed like the Joker. As he begins to pee he says, in a bad Heath Ledger growl, "Why...so...ser"

"PLEASE DO NOT DO A JOKER IMPRESSION WHILE STANDING NEXT TO ME AT A URINAL."

"Hey, whoa, uh..."

"PLEASE DO NOT PRETEND TO BE THE JOKER WHILE STANDING NEXT TO ME IN THE MEN'S ROOM."

"Jeez man, alright..."

He zips up and skulks away.

Troubadour

I am walking along a beach trail, and there is a guy, walking about ten feet behind me, playing an acoustic guitar song about how there are 500 galaxies which is sort of like love. I turn around, place my hand on the strings so that they are muted, and say, "Stop doing that." He is offended but says nothing, and sullenly walks away. A friend of his runs up to me and says "Hey man, that was really wrong, what you did." And I say, "Are you going to do something about it?" And he says no, and walks off. Then a second friend of the guitarist (whose tousled hair is sticking out of a canvas hat) walks up and says "Hey, I don't appreciate what you did. Do you play music?"

"No."

"Well..." And then he makes a combination handwave-and-nod, as if to say, "Get in here and let's fix this together."

"That's your threat?!"

"Nah man, forget about it," He says goodnaturedly as he trots away in the sand.

Poltergeist

Sleeping in a haunted movie theater. Ghosts are knocking things off the walls. In the middle of this dream I am seized by real sleep paralysis, but do not wake up. My brain narrates the feeling as what it is to be a ghost. Tethered by the feet to something ethereal, hanging, thrashing and screaming, a half-thing, screaming, a rage stronger than anything I've ever felt. I resent the living, knock things off the walls into their heads. I want to damage. I am pure pain.

Civil Service

There is a new cult for middle-aged people that combines the Tea Party with the Secret. The logo is a slightly distorted, inverted pentagram with a robed woman standing at the bottom vertex. They are marching into the city and we trick them all into entering a mausoleum, where we seal them in.

Contrarian

Three goats are playing soccer. Christopher Hitchens, driving an armored car with a huge, blunt lance attached to the front, chases them off the field while chuckling eruditely to himself.