Remember When You Didn’t Have to Create a Profile Everywhere You Go?

There is a support group for people who sign up for too many online profiles. The group meets once a week in the basement of an old church. I went to last week’s meeting.

The group is led by a woman who at one point held profiles from 157 different websites. “Each account had a unique password with at least one uppercase letter, one number, and one symbol,” she said to me as she introduced herself. “This was a great source of pride to me.” Then one day she couldn’t remember one of the passwords, and she had a nervous breakdown, and had to spend some time in an institution, where she was heavily medicated and had to re-learn how to say her own name without numbers or underscores. She eventually became rehabilitated enough to go into a group home and now her responsibilities are leading the weekly meetings and refilling the reservoir on the Keurig coffee dispenser.

We sat in a circle and one of the attendees, a young man, began to speak.

“I had a Google account and a Facebook account and a Twitter account. Then I joined LinkedIn, even though I didn’t have a job, and I had to borrow a coat and tie and pressed shirt from a friend for the profile photo, and because the t-shirt was mine you could still see the dinosaur design through the white shirt I borrowed.

“And then I joined Pinterest even though I had nothing to pin, and Goodreads even though I haven’t read a book in years. Frankly, I had thought they stopped making books.

“Then there was a site that advertised free music, and a site that counted calories.” He tapped his abdomen as he says this. “I had to pick a username and password for all these accounts, and I always picked the same password: RoseBud. I thought I was being smart. Turned out I wasn’t so smart, because it was the same username and password that I use for my online banking, and my identity was stolen. Luckily, I didn’t have any money. So I deleted all these accounts and now I’m much happier. I even tried to buy a book, but I had deleted my Amazon account.”

Next a young woman spoke. “I was on all those sites and apps that he was on, and more. Except I used a different username and password for each one. I was like a secret agent, walking the Earth with a stack of drivers’ licenses, trying to keep track of multiple identities. I didn’t know who I was. I created a document in Microsoft Word to keep track of all my usernames and passwords, but then I got worried that a hacker would be able to find the document. So I encrypted the usernames and passwords with a code of my own making. But I had to keep the code somewhere, and I was afraid to keep it on my computer. So I wrote the code with a pen and paper and hid it inside of a box of Cracklin’ Oat Bran.”

Suddenly all the eyes were on me. It was time to share my story. But I didn’t know what to say. I clearly didn’t have a problem. I was in attendance only because I needed a topic for my blog, a blog that I access with a password that I change every week because I’m worried that someone will hack my account and start posting unfunny blog posts. These people were the crazy ones. Not me. So I finished my cup of coffee and said that I wasn’t ready to talk about myself. And they smiled, and thanked me, and said to keep coming.

Posted on 30 April 2013 by Mark Kaplowitz 14

Remember Spring?

“Ah, spring!” I said as I swung my legs out of bed, opened the window, and was hit with a blast of bitter arctic air in the face, exacerbating the dryness about my nose and mouth.

As a rolling stone gathers no moss, I quickly donned my parka, my bomber’s cap with fake rabbit fur, and my Gore-Tex boots that take two men and a crowbar to lace up, and filled up the mower with gasoline. In high school chemistry we learned that gasoline’s freezing point is far below that of water and fingertips, and so I was not surprised when the gasoline gushed out all over the lawnmower engine and onto my boots and the garage floor just as it always did, while the layer of snow on our garbage bins remained as pristine as it was when I brought them in from the curb three days ago.

I had often wondered if a lawnmower could blow snow off the lawn as snow blower blows snow off a driveway. Well let me tell you: it doesn’t. I had to shut off my poor confused mower while I shoveled the lawn for an hour, revealing the grayish-green grass that resembled the frozen spinach I pick up from the store when it’s my turn to cook dinner. I don’t think the mower blade could reach the mashed-down grass but the tracks of the mower wheels were just as satisfying to me as on a Sunday afternoon in July.

July…the very word is like a bell. I go into the backyard, shovel in hand, to hunt for the buried sprinkler that I forgot to recoil somewhere around Labor Day. After another hour of shoveling I’ve found the sprinkler along with a few mammoth bones and the cork to a champagne bottle that I popped when McDonald’s announced that the McRib was back.

The sprinkler head was fine but I had to take an electric blanket to the hose to unfreeze the water that clogged its passageway. The hose was fifty feet long but the electric blanket only a foot and half, so I could only do a small section at a time, moving on down the length of the hose, ignoring the strange looks of my neighbors’ kids whose school had evidently remained closed for the day. But when they saw me turn on the sprinkler they smiled, and went and got their ice skates.

I grabbed a trowel from the garage and began digging in the flower beds. I’d lent my ice pick out to someone for a Halloween party last year, so I had to hammer the butt of the trowel to drive the metal point into the flower beds so that I could expose enough frozen earth to dig. After an hour I had two holes dug out, but my hands were so cold and numb that when I tried to open the little paper bag of seeds I jerked it and sent the seeds flying in a cloud of hope over my newly cut frozen spinach lawn.

My work done for the day, I looked up and down my street, at the pockets of snow on the tree branches, and the dirty ice and slush shoved up against the curb, and tendrils of smoke from the chimneys, and the icicles hanging from the gutters. And somewhere, in the frozen stillness of March, as the snowflakes began to fall again, I heard a little bird begin to sing.

Posted on 22 March 2013 by Mark Kaplowitz 11

Remember When There Was No Pope?

When I was a boy I decided that I wanted to be the pope. To show my enthusiasm, I pretended to play the part for a while. I locked myself in my room, and when my parents knocked on my door to tell me it was time for dinner I would blow black smoke at them. Except since I was too young to play with matches, instead of black smoke I had to sprinkle the black crayon shavings that collected below the crayon sharpener that was built into the base of my giant box of crayons. The white crayon was never pristine, so when this cardinal college of one had made its decision, I had to blow bubbles instead of white shavings, and hope the faithful would forgive me.

I rolled the Sunday comics into a tall hat and wore my Superman robe all day. I walked around, blessing my parents, and making changes to the canonical laws that governed our household. I would no longer drink milk by itself, but only in combination with a suitable cereal such as Cheerios or Kix. Chuckles, the gummy candy that came in five equal pieces, each of a distinct color and flavor, would have to be consumed according to a rigid formula: black, green, orange, yellow, and finally red. I would wear pajamas with feet on weekends only.

My parents and hangers-on had some challenges with these abrupt changes, but eventually their faith gave them the strength to adjust. And just in time, for while chewing a red Chuckle one afternoon, I decided that it was time for me to inject myself into a controversy.

At school a battle had been raging for months over which version of a particular toy sword was the superior weapon in battle. One version had a silver plastic blade and gold plastic handle. The other version had a gold plastic blade and silver plastic handle. The two sides would battle it out in the middle of the classroom during morning recess, and our teacher refused to get involved in anything that did not involve paste.

I could see that divine reason was needed. Taking burnt sienna crayon to a piece of manila construction paper, I issued a papal bull that deposed the leader of the silver blade army and the leader of the gold blade army. I could see that both leaders were contemplating an alliance against me, but by serendipity they and their followers were whisked away to the nurse’s office to be checked for lice.

During outdoor recess I insisted that I be placed inside of a clear plastic box in case any one wanted to draw His Holiness into a game of dodgeball. Amidst the kids skipping rope and plummeting from jungle gyms to the lush concrete below, I sat in my plastic box and read Pope Gregory I’s commentary on Where the Wild Things Are.

My papacy was not immune to scandal. The classroom had only so many toy trucks to go around before boys had to dip into the far less popular toy vacuum cleaners. I was caught selling my influence over distribution of the toy trucks for chocolate milk, and as penance had to pay a large settlement to the families and then sit in the corner.

But at home I still reigned supreme in my regal vestments and pajamas with feet. I looked with pride upon my flock, even if it did consist mainly of stuffed animals and He-Man figurines. I believed that being pope was my future, and that absolutely nothing would get in my way as long as my faith remained strong. And strong my faith remained…right up until the moment that my parents dropped me off at Hebrew School.

Posted on 14 March 2013 by Mark Kaplowitz 14

Remember When Smartphone Protectors Weren’t A Cottage Industry?

A few weeks ago I did my patriotic duty and upgraded to an iPhone 5. At a third of an inch shorter and nearly one ounce heavier, my iPhone 4 was like something out of the Middle Ages.

“Do you want to get an iPhone protector, sir?” the salesperson asked me as our dealings were drawing to a close and our teams of lawyers were shaking hands. He waved his hand over a display.

“These go for $38 apiece, but if you buy one now as part of your upgrade, I can probably give one to you for, oh…” he scratched his chin “…how does $30 sound?”

I looked over the display. “Do you have any in blue?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “Just black, pink, and leopard.”

“I was really hoping to get something in blue.”

“You should stop hoping.”

“Thanks, but I think I’ll pass,” I said, and started to sign the reams of paperwork that go with the upgrade.

“Sir, are you really going to leave the store unprotected?” the salesperson asked. “It’s dangerous out there. If something happened to your new phone…” He didn’t have to finish the sentence, but looked down at the ground and faintly shook his head from side to side, pondering the consequences.

I went with the leopard case. It was sleek and thin and was particularly effective against Vervet monkeys. The peace of mind was invaluable…until I saw the protector my sister-in-law had obtained for her iPhone 5. Hers had been custom-made by a company called OtterBox. The protector had three main components to it: an inner shield, a clear covering for the glass face, and a hard plastic outer shell that could withstand being dropped or burned at the stake for heresy.

I have never dropped or scratched a cell phone but the very sight of the OtterBox got me thinking. What if I did drop my iPhone? What if I threw it? Sartre says that we are condemned to be free. With the terrifying freedom to throw my iPhone, how could I go another moment without an OtterBox? I stayed home for a few days with a “family emergency” and safeguarded my iPhone with the cheap protector until the custom-made OtterBox arrived—blue—delivered by an otter that balanced a ball on its nose while I signed the receipt.

As I clicked the hard outer shell closed I felt my worries lift like a morning mist. At last I could safely take my iPhone out into the world, and to celebrate I let my iPhone sit on the edge of a table for half an hour.

That night I had a terrible dream. It was still the Cold War, and the Soviet Union had discovered my iPhone 5 to be part of a secret operation to take photographs of nuclear warheads and put them on Instagram. I watched helpless as my iPhone was crushed under the treads of a Red Army tank. Even the OtterBox could not stop the guts of my iPhone from running blue through the streets of Leningrad. I awoke in a sweat and, after wiping my hand to prevent smudging, held my iPhone close. When would we feel safe?

I located a man in my town who had designed the craft that the space program sent to Mars. He told me all about it while I stood in his trailer. With a home equity loan I commissioned him to build me an iPhone protector that could enter the Earth’s atmosphere at 33,000 miles per hour, slam into the ground somewhere in Russia, and still give me push notifications on Manti Te’o’s draft status. He found an old tank on Craig’s List, cut holes for the headphones and power cord, and painted it blue.

It is a little strange driving around the neighborhood in my blue iPhone protector tank. The kids point and stare and street parking is next to impossible. But at night I sleep the sleep of the innocent knowing that nothing can damage my iPhone 5. I do not care that I cannot touch the screen to make a call. I never got good reception anyway.

Posted on 28 February 2013 by Mark Kaplowitz 19

Remember When the Toilet Worked, Part I?

I know I haven’t blogged in a while. I’m working on a book – my first – and just coming up with the right approach has taken up all my writing juice for the past month. I know what Kristin Lamb would say about that line, but there it is. I appreciate your patience, and pray that you’ll be even more patient as I experiment a little with these posts. -MK

The toilet ran every ten minutes whether the flush handle had been pressed or not. I could not sleep at night. I would lie in bed, waiting for that lonely sound of water rushing into the porcelain tank. When the sound would start again, I would tense up as if startled by gunshot or a wild animal.

To understand what was wrong with my toilet requires some knowledge of toilet physics. The toilet comes in two large pieces: the bowl and the tank. Prior familiarity with the bowl is assumed.

The tank has three internal organs: the fill valve, the flush valve, and the flapper. A pipe from the wall sends water into the tank through the fill valve. The fill valve stops the water from coming in when the water level in the tank is at a certain level. That is what is happening after you flush, and you hear the water running, and then it stops suddenly. The water level in the tank has reached the appropriate level and the fill valve has stopped the water from flowing into the tank.

Attached to the outer side of the tank is the flush handle, colloquially called “the handle,” as in “jiggle the handle.” And at the base of the tank is a large hole that leads into the bowl. Under normal conditions, a piece of rubber known as the “flapper” prevents the water in the tank from flowing through that hole into the bowl. Attached to the flapper is one end of a chain, and the other end of the chain is attached to one end of a long lever that runs parallel to the base of the tank.

The other end of the lever is attached to the handle. So when you press on the handle, you push one end of the lever down, causing the other end of the lever to rise, in turn pulling up on the chain, that lifts the flapper, and permits gravity to pull the water in the tank down into the toilet bowl. This is the act of the flushing.

When the handle is released, the flapper is brought back down by the force of gravity, once again sealing off the tank from the bowl. So the tank begins to fill with water again, and does not stop until the fill valve stops it as explained above.

The flush valve is a vertical tube. The flapper is affixed to the base of the flush valve in two points, around which it pivots when pulled up by the chain. The flush valve definitely does something else, but I’m not sure what it is.

The entire premise of the tank rests on the assumption that when the flapper is in the down position, it will not allow any water to leak from the tank into the bowl below it. For if water is permitted to leak from the tank into the bowl when the flapper is in the down position, the water level will fall, causing water to rush into the tank because the fill valve now thinks that the toilet has been flushed. And since the fill rate is far greater than the leak rate, the water level will of course rise enough to stop the flow again, until the leaking lowers it again, and on and on into infinity.

For some reason, water was leaking through my flapper even when it was in the down position, causing the infinity cycle just described. This was why I could not sleep at night.

I bought a shiny new flapper. A red one. When I returned home and took the top off the tank, there was the old flapper. “You’ve had a good run,” I said, and unhooked it from the base of the flush valve and dropped it in the bathroom wastebasket with a great showing of respect.

I hooked the new flapper onto the base of the flush valve. I could already see the difference. The new flapper was heavier at its center, and it hung over the hole with greater authority than its predecessor. And it was red. My troubles, I believed, were at an end.

But mere moments after tucking myself in to bed I was startled by the sound of the tank filling up. The new flapper had done nothing to stop the trickle of water into the bowl. I would have to fight another day.

Posted on 18 January 2013 by Mark Kaplowitz 13

Remember When Football Was Dangerous?

The head coach watched the film from the previous week’s game and he didn’t like what he saw.

“The defense is soft,” he said to his defensive coordinator, who was standing right next to the head coach. “Armin, are you paying attention? Put down that apple fritter a second and watch what I’m watching.”

Armin did as he was told.

“Now look,” the head coach went on, “I know there’s a been a bit of an adjustment for defenses ever since they banned tackling and put tickling, of all things, in its place. Believe me, I understand. But we’ve still got a game to play. And that game requires discipline to win, even if your only defensive weapon is a tickle. You’ve got to target the opponent’s weak spots, and then go through the tickle. You’ve got to tell those clowns to target, and follow through.”

Armin had to admit his head coach was right. He finished his apple fritter and licked his fingers and then washed his hands and went out onto the practice field.

“All right everybody,” Armin said to the defensive players when he arrived at the practice field, “put down your iPads and gather ‘round. There’s something I need to say to all of you at once, and my iCoach Instant Lecture isn’t working.

“Now look,” Armin continued, “I’ve been looking at the film from last week, and we’ve got to do a better job at tickling the offense. I mean, this is ridiculous. You’ve got to do it like this.”

Armin went up to one of his players, and violently shot his hands right into the player’s armpits and tickled him with grim determination. The player collapsed on the ground, convulsing with laughter, and crying, “Stop…hee, hee…Stop…hee, hee…I can’t take it.”

“Now that’s the way you’re supposed to tickle an opponent,” Armin said.

“But coach, aren’t we doing that?” asked the team’s top pass rusher, one of the best defensive players in the league, and the heart and soul of the team.

“Have you seen the film from last week?” asked Armin. “You guys aren’t targeting and following through. You’re just fluttering your fingers around their sides. You can see their faces – they barely crack a smile. Last year you led the league in tickles. Now, just last week, on one play you were right up at the quarterback, and instead of attacking his throwing armpit and maybe forcing a fumble, you kind of just massaged his back and cost us a touchdown.”

The all-pro looked down at his shoes.

“Now, look,” Armin said. “We’re still in contention for a wild card spot. So let’s go out there and get ready to throw some serious tickles on Sunday!”

* * *

“I’ve got to say, this defense we’re watching has really come back to life from its mid-season tumble,” said the first announcer.

“It’s like this team was last year, when they came within a missed field goal of the Super Bowl,” said the second announcer. “I don’t know what the coaching staff said to them during practice this week, but it sure fired up this gang. Just look at defensive coordinator Armin Feldhammer on the sideline there. Now that is energy.”

The camera showed Armin gesturing wildly at the referees.

“Are you kidding me!” shouted Armin. “You call that a late tickle? He still had the ball when he got in there!”

Armin threw his headset down on the ground, picked it up, and made sure it was still working. He wished he hadn’t used so many pronouns, and he was angry at the referees, who were taking this late tickle nonsense too far. So a study showed that years of tickles caused nerve damage in the armpits. This was football, for crying out loud.

Overall, though, Armin was in a good mood. This was going to be a win, thanks mainly to his defense, which had held the other team’s offense to 42 points, a league-wide low for that week. The tickle tutorial during practice had been worth it. Armin didn’t like to give his players humiliating lectures. But sometimes a coach had to make his players see what they could be, rather than what they were.

Posted on 12 December 2012 by Mark Kaplowitz 7

Remember When You Had Never Heard of a Fiscal Cliff?

To thank you all, who have stuck with me through this, my 150th post, I thought I would tackle a serious topic for a change. -MK

It was cold in Washington, D.C. Cars took longer to warm up in the morning and made people late to work. Heavy coats on backs of chairs at restaurants made it hard to squeeze by. The cold air made people’s hands very dry. But for the government, it was business as usual. coupons

“Sir, what are we going to do about the fiscal cliff?” the intern asked the Director.

“Hold on a minute. I’m moisturizing. This cold air turns my hands into parchment.” The Director squeezed some hand moisturizer on the knuckles of either hand, and then rubbed his knuckles together, with the palms of hands facing out.

“This way,” the Director said, “I don’t get that greasy moisturizer on any official documents. It’s a good thing the Declaration of Independence was signed in July, otherwise there would have been greasy moisturizer stains on it. Imagine what that would have done to liberty. Now, what were we talking about?”

“The fiscal cliff, sir.”

“Ah, yes. I heard something about that while I was in line at Krispy Kreme. What is it again? Some kind of landmark?”

“The fiscal cliff is the colloquial term for the set of austerity measures that automatically go into place at the end of the year as part of the debt ceiling compromise of August, 2011, sir.”

“What you just said is all Greek to me.”

“Sir, unless we do something about the federal budget, government programs will be cut and taxes raised, automatically on January 1, without any votes or debate.”

“Oh, so this cliff isn’t a real place? Like, I can’t get a bumper sticker that says ‘This car drove off the Fiscal Cliff’?”

“No, I don’t believe so, sir.”

“Bummer. All right, let’s see. Where can we find money?” The Director leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling and drummed his fingers on the sides of his neck. “Money…money…money. We…need…money.” He closed his eyes as if he was making a wish before blowing out birthday candles. Suddenly he opened his eyes and sat up.

“I’ve got it!” he said, and told the intern of his plan.

It took a little while for people to get used to the idea of the government engaging in extreme couponing. An entire new bureau had to be built and staffed with the most extreme couponers in the country, who had to be lured away from their home communities with laundry detergent and frozen steakums. Conservatives complained that the framers of the Constitution had never intended the federal government to save money. Liberals complained that the program was going to take coupons away from teachers and firefighters.

But when the Bureau of Extreme Couponing purchased a fleet of stealth bombers and new toilet seats for every restroom in the Capitol for only $1.37, the people embraced the program with open arms. Health care costs plummeted from 17% of GDP to less than the price of a Netflix subscription. Just by checking the Presidential Sofa for loose change, the federal government was able to restart the shuttle program, and procure canned peaches through 2043.

They started televising the purchases at the checkout line. Millions of viewers would sit on the edge of their seats, holding hands, watching the digits on the price display. In one episode, the employee at the register called out the names of each public good right before scanning it.

“Highway programs…[beep]…National Park Service…[beep]…Coast Guard—”

“Wait, I have a coupon for that,” the Federal Couponer said. Dramatic music played while the Couponer rifled through a stack of coupons in a little zippered purse. The employee looked bored and the shoppers behind looked around for a line that was moving faster.

When the coupon was located, a fanfare was played and the price on the display went from $487 million to zero. And as if it could not get any better, United States Postal Service pensions were buy-one-get-one that week.

“Sir, the Extreme Couponing program is a success!” the intern said. “This year we’re going to post a budget surplus along with 17 million tons of spaghetti sauce.”

“Excellent,” the Director said. “But you look troubled.”

“Well, sir, I just don’t understand how it works. The money that we’re saving, that’s great, really great. But, I mean, where are these coupons coming from?”

The Director wrinkled his brow, and stared out the window, and rested his chin on his hand, and considered the question that was his awesome responsibility to answer for the good of the nation. Suddenly his eyes gleamed and he snapped back to face the intern.

“Manifest destiny,” the Director said, and then picked up the phone to order a pasta lunch for the third time that week.

Posted on 2 December 2012 by Mark Kaplowitz 10

Remember Twinkies?

The archaeologists were done for the day. It was getting dark and Happy Hour at the Drunken Pick Axe lasted just until 7:00 p.m., after which time the drinks were served only in plastic cups, a prospect most of the dig team found unrefined. The young graduate student, formally named Byron Russelbeard III, but who had somehow earned the nickname Spacecake, was putting away the tools when he noticed a little yellow object protruding from the inner wall of the large hole in the ground.

He stuck his head up out of the hole and waved for the others to come over, but they responded with pantomimed drinking motions, and kept walking away.

Spacecake turned back to the object. Proper procedure would have been to note its size, color, and position in the log book and then cover it up with a paper towel. But his laptop had already started downloading the latest version of iTunes, and paper had been extinct for many years.

And Spacecake was curious. The yellow object was wrapped in a clear plastic shell that was malleable to the touch, and Spacecake was induced with a sudden desire to eat it.

“That’s crazy,” he said to himself, but still the object called to him. Inside of a minute Spacecake had dug out the object and placed it in his pocket and was walking away with a nonchalant whistle he had seen someone do in a movie.

Spacecake returned to his room and took the object out of his pocket and examined it with his penlight. He turned on his pocket recorder.

“Oblong object,” he spoke into the recorder, “about six inches long, a continuous height of two inches, and a continuous width of slightly less than two inches. Appears to be made of a yellow cake-like substance and wrapped in thin transparent plastic…late 20th or early 21st Century.” He examined the object’s underside. “Ventral surface shows three white dots, regularly spaced lengthwise.” He looked closer. “The white substance is creamy. I want to eat it.”

He snapped off the recorder. What was the last thing he had said? That he wanted to eat it? He replayed the recording. Yes, he had said he wanted to eat the object.

“But that’s crazy,” he said. “I mean, it’s an artifact, buried under earth for many—”

There was a noise outside. Kind of like a scratching, like someone—or something—was trying to find a way inside. Spacecake dropped the recorder on his bed and covered up the object. He opened the door and looked outside.

“Hello?” he said into the darkness. “Who’s there?” He could hear his heart pounding and he was sweating. He shut the door slowly.

“Probably just the wind,” Spacecake said aloud, and laughed nervously. He ran his hand through his hair and exhaled.

He uncovered the object. The yellow cake—he was convinced now that it was cake—glowed under the small light and Spacecake was again filled with a desire to eat it. That would be a serious breach of archaeological ethics. For years he had studied and worked to get this chance to be on the most elite team of Apatosaurus diggers in the world. Taking the object out of the hole was bad enough. To unwrap it would throw all that hard work away.

Spacecake unwrapped the object, peeled back the plastic, and took a bite. Oh ecstasy! He had never tasted anything like it. It was pure sweetness with no nutritional value. It was the most wonderful thing he had ever tasted. His mind was so overwhelmed by the explosion of taste that he did not hear the door open and the footsteps coming up behind him and the blunt object hitting him over the head. As all went black, Spacecake was still moving the yellow cake and white cream around his mouth and savoring the taste.

* * *

“Whatever it was, it was quick and painless,” the detective said, staring at Spacecake’s lifeless body lying on the floor. “Look at that smile on his face.”

“But the configuration of his hand…it looks like he had been holding something when…when it happened,” the program director said.

“Maybe that was what his killer was after.”

“But what could it be?”

“I guess we’ll never know,” the detective said.

The program director nodded, took one last look at what had once been his most promising graduate student, and walked towards the door. The detective held the door open, and then shut it gently behind them, leaving the body completely alone…save for the small, unnoticed, pocket-sized recorder laying on the bed.

Posted on 25 November 2012 by Mark Kaplowitz 15

Remember When Black Friday Took Place on Friday?

The young nation was divided. The Black Friday purists who insisted on Black Friday sales not starting until the morning of Black Friday had been unable—or unwilling—to reconcile with the block of states who insisted on starting Black Friday sales on Thanksgiving, no matter how much cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie still lay uneaten on the table, or how many relatives still passed out on the couch.

Abraham Lincoln had run for President on the Purist ticket, and his very election brought the dispute to a fevered pitch. Shortly after his inauguration speech, in which the ol’ Turkey Splitter insisted that he had “no intention” of interfering with the institution of big box stores, the “Target” states, as they came to be known, declared their secession from the Purists and went back to greasing the wheels of their shopping carts.

Lincoln, seeing secession as unacceptable, and worrying that all the stove pipe hats would be gone from the shelves by the time Mary Todd hit the aisles at 5 a.m. on the Friday after Thanksgiving, ordered the Union army to stop the Target States of America from seceding. The Union had more ammunition, more railroads, and more coupons from Bed Bath & Beyond which were used to equip the soldiers with much needed towel warmers and memory foam slippers. But the Target States had a passion for shopping and a general dislike of family events and an army of stock boys armed with box cutters ready to meet the Union forces.

The war dragged on and Lincoln needed a solution. He had a meeting planned that morning with Edwin Stanton, the Secretary of War, and Lincoln paced his lanky frame about the Oval Office, preparing himself. He tugged at his beard. Mary Todd had wanted him to shave it for the holidays. Said it was too scraggly.

“Over my dead body,” Lincoln said to himself, and double-checked the bowl of candy on his desk. Yes, there were plenty of green apple Jolly Ranchers.

“I don’t think there’s any other way out of this war than to strengthen the blockade of the stores,” Stanton said, tugging at his own scraggly beard. “They’ve pushed us to this point, and there’s no way I’m missing the Cowboys game to go shopping.”

Lincoln thought about it, tugging at his scraggly beard again. The two men tugged at their scraggly beards.

“Violence is not the answer,” Lincoln said at once. “I should know. I used to hunt vampires.”

“But without violence, I won’t have a job,” Stanton said. “How are you going to keep those Target States from being open on Thanksgiving without violence?”

Lincoln crossed his long legs, and leaned forward, and rested his chin in the crook between his thumb and forefinger.

“I’m going to make a speech,” he said, and, dismissing the Secretary of War, went to go sharpen his pencil.

The next day President Lincoln stood before a crowd in Leesburg, Virginia, known for its many outlet stores, and gave what would become known as the Leesburg Address.

“Four score and seven years ago,” he began, “I received a gift card to a well-known retailer, and now the retailer is telling me that the card has expired.

“But that is all past. We are now engaged in a great civil war over whether it is proper that stores open for Black Friday sales on Thanksgiving. It is not a question of whether a nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that it is never too early to start Christmas shopping, can long endure the helpings of turkey and inappropriate questions from distant relatives, like ‘When are you two getting married?’ or ‘Don’t you think it’s time to do something with your life?’ or ‘Why can’t you put that device down when I’m talking to you?’

“Rather, the question is whether one can really call it Black Friday if it starts on Thursday.”

The crowd stood stunned. Abraham Lincoln had once again spoken an incontrovertible truth. It was impossible to have Black Friday on Thanksgiving, which had always been a Thursday, and always would be a Thursday. And until everyone recognized that truth, the civil war would never end.

So the name was changed to “Black Thursday,” and the stores offered turkey sandwiches and cranberry sauce at the register, and the States were once again United—now and forever, one and inseparable!

Posted on 16 November 2012 by Mark Kaplowitz 13

Remember Election Night?

I’m watching a flat screen television, and on the flat screen television is another flat screen television that shows an image of all the states. Some states are blue, some states are red, but all states are peppered with little dots that denote locations of Denny’s. Next to the flat screen—the one on TV, not the one in my living room—stands a news reporter.

He touches one of the states, and the screen zooms in so that the state fills the screen and now all that state’s counties can be seen, some colored blue, and some colored red. He touches one of the counties and the screen zooms in yet again so that houses can be seen, some blue and some red. He touches one of the houses and now the rooms of the house fill the screen, some blue and some red.

He touches one of the rooms, and the room grows large so that now two people in the room can be seen. One person is blue, the other red. Then he touches one of the people, and now we can see inside the person’s brain. Some of the brain cells are blue, and some of them are red. Most of them are green.

A second news reporter comes over and tries to touch the screen. The first reporter slaps the hand away.

“Only I can touch the magic screen!” the first reporter says, and the awkward moment that follows is mercifully interrupted by an exciting ritual. There are loud noises and fireworks, dancers and clowns, fire-eaters on stilts and acrobats, and above them all a graphic that reads “Projection!” It is announced that one of the states is projected to be painted in a certain color even though only 2% of the votes have been counted.

The channel goes back to the reporters. The first reporter toggles the screen between this election and the election of 1840, when there were fewer states and more log cabins. The second reporter has a black eye but tells us that we are now going to hear from a correspondent in one of the voting precincts.

The image shifts to a large cat with a poofy face. It has green eyes and white whiskers that radiate in perfect symmetry. Behind the cat are people trying to clear a paper jam from the vote-card reader.

The second reporter speaks to the cat. “Tell us, what are you seeing in terms of voter turnout?”

The cat licks one of its paws, and then rubs the paw over its face a few times in a circular motion. Then it looks back at the screen and blinks.

“Yes, that seems to be the story we’re hearing all over the nation tonight.”

My TV goes back to the first reporter with the magic screen. He is showing what the electoral situation might look like if Florida was rotated 90 degrees towards the Gulf of Mexico.

Then the image on my TV shifts to the headquarters of one of the candidates. From the sequence of percentages that flash at the bottom of the screen, I can tell, using a slide rule, that this candidate is about to have a lot of free time. But the people at the campaign headquarters still wave their arms and go “Whoooo” when they see themselves on the big screen.

I eat another piece of leftover Halloween candy. There is a small mound of wrappers next to the bowl.

We’re back to the first reporter with the magic screen again. The screen is frozen at the election of 2612, with water covering most of the coastal states, and their votes tallied by counting the bubbles that rise to the surface. The second reporter is trying to help by sticking a pen into the restart button at base of the magic screen, a terrifying treatment for the first reporter, who apparently forgot to save his work.

Posted on 9 November 2012 by Mark Kaplowitz 6