Give Me All Your Yards
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to show you my true colors this early. I usually wait until we’re more established in the ride.” he said.
It had been three hours, and we still hadn’t reached the Winchester Mystery House.
I was starting to worry that by the time we arrived, it would be too late and all the mystery would be gone.
“Check the GPS.”
He looked at it.
“Oh. I’m sorry, Cinnamon. I forgot to enter the address.”
“Remember how I told you I was going in the opposite direction?”
“Yes.”
“Well, unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened.”
I looked at the time.
It was already dawn. All the ghosts had clocked out for the night and retreated back into the walls. The portals were probably shut off by now.
“Have you ever noticed there aren’t any pictures of overweight ghosts?” I said.
He thought about it.
“I wonder if it just takes more energy for them to manifest.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Cinnamon. I’m more concerned about living beings.”
“Why don’t you all spend the night here?”
I looked around the clown car.
“Here?”
“As you may have heard about or witnessed on television or at a low-budget circus in a mall, clown cars are very spacious inside.”
He opened the little back door.
“I have plenty of bunk beds, showers, and even a large kitchen in the back.”
I looked inside.
There was a hallway.
“How?”
“German clown-car engineering.”
“You’ve heard about all the experiments and technological advances that happened during Nazi Germany. There are so many rumors that nobody knows what’s embellished and what’s true anymore.
“Most of it might be exaggerated. But one thing we know for certain is their contribution to clown-car engineering.”
I looked down the hallway.
“Seriously?”
“Absolutely. Although by law, the technology can only be used within the circus industry to house surplus clown workers.”
“That’s actually the reason I got involved with the circus. I wanted to own one of these beauties.”
“Could we stop at a gas station so I can get some overpriced supplies, please?”
“Of course.”
He pulled into a gas station, and I spent the next hour lining everyone up to make sure I didn't leave anyone behind.
After all, I didn't trust the man. I already knew what kind of man he was, but sometimes the devil you know is better than the alternatives.
We went inside, and I walked up to the counter.
“Can I get a pack of—”
The clerk tried to finish my sentence.
“Cigarettes?”
“No.”
“Condoms?”
“No.”
“Gum?”
“Nooo. A pack of pencils. Colored pencils. Crayons. A feather with ink. Anything you can write or draw with.”
The clerk's expression changed.
“Those are kept under lock and key.”
“Why?”
“A lot of artists live around here. They see art supplies and immediately start doodling all over the store. By the time they leave, you can’t even see the prices on the products.”
“I’ll take one of each.”
“Anything else?”
“Blank paper.”
“Oh, no. I don’t sell that.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“No paper.”
“Then maybe that’s why they draw all over your store.”
He thought about it.
“Never considered that.”
“Could you at least give me some receipt paper from the register?”
He looked down at the mysterious frog.
“Is it for him?”
“Yes.”
The mysterious frog was already reaching for a pencil.
“I could sell you the receipt paper by the yard.”
“Well, then give me all your yards. Until you can’t count yards anymore.”
“Is that all for you?”
“No. Give me some animal crackers that resemble these little guys.”
I pointed at the animals.
“I’ll feed each of them their corresponding animal cracker. I think that’s why they make them that way.”
We got back to the clown car.
I put everyone to bed, and throughout our sleep, I kept hearing little giggles.
At some point, I got up to use the bathroom.
I looked in the mirror.
My face was covered in doodles.
I went back and turned on the light.
Everyone was covered in them.
I looked at the mysterious frog.
He was half asleep, still clutching his pencils. Fumes were coming off them.
He had sleep-doodled all over us.
I should have been mad.
But I couldn't.
He was exceptionally good.
I looked at what was left of the receipt paper.
Had I failed him by not providing enough paper?
More Mouths to Forget to Feed
“Why is your shirt on?” the mermaid asked.
“Excuse me?”
“This is a topless bay.”
“I didn't know there was a dress code.”
“I'm keeping my shirt on.” I said.
She crossed her arms and gave me the evil eye.
“Then I'll have one of Zeus's security guards escort you out this minute.” She said.
“Zeus has security guards?”
“Of course.”
“You ain’t doing nothing, stupid Karen of the sea.”
I grabbed her by the hair.
Her entire wig came off in my hand.
She immediately dove underwater and disappeared.
“Don’t worry. This spell only lasts seventy-two hours.”
“You’ll be back to your odd life in no time.”
He stayed silent and looked at me.
Even as a frog, he was beautiful.
I returned to meet up with the offending trio.
Out of nowhere, the mysterious man’s bats appeared, carrying Chicken between them.
Something looked different.
Chicken looked slimmer.
Upon closer inspection, I realized he was wearing shapewear.
“Oh my God.”
I immediately started pulling Chicken out of it.
“Chicken, you don’t need shapewear. You need exercise.”
But Chicken wasn’t my only responsibility anymore.
Now I even had the bats to look after.
Great. More mouths to forget to feed.
I couldn’t just hop on my broomcycle and carry everyone.
Chicken’s weight alone was going to throw us off balance and put us over the weight limit.
We decided to hitchhike, but nobody was stopping.
I couldn’t understand why.
I didn’t know if it was the number of animals traveling with me or the fact that I also had a shotgun.
“GO BACK TO TEXAS!” someone yelled from a passing car.
Mr. Porcupine immediately fired a few quills after him.
The tires deflated and their car started wobbling.
Another car went by.
Then another one.
Nobody stopped.
Then I did the unthinkable.
I lifted my skirt and showed the knee.
A clown car immediately slammed on its brakes.
He asked me if I was a traveling zoo or had robbed one?
“Neither. I’m the temporary protector of these misbehaving animals until I can safely teleport them through the Winchester Mystery House.”
“Is that where you’re going?”
“Yes.”
He thought about it.
“I’m going in the opposite direction, but I’ll take you.”
I looked at him.
“Really?”
He looked at Mr. Porcupine.
“Well, except for that prickly one. I can tell he’s a ruffian. Not someone I’d trust.”
“And I know better than to trust anyone with a teardrop tattoo.” He said.
“Please, sir! I just need to send him back to whatever dimension he came from.”
The man started laughing.
“I’m just joking. He can come.”
“I just don’t want him ruining my leather seats. I recently had them reupholstered because of a red wine stain.”
“Actually, I recently gave a magician a ride, and she left her box in my car. You know, the one they use to cut people in half? We can put him in that.”
“Do you work for the circus?”
“Something like that,” he said.
We loaded everyone into his clown car.
Mr. Porcupine was secured inside the magician’s box, the others piled in wherever they could, and somehow there was still room.
I kept the mysterious frog with me, resting on my thigh.
The driver kept glancing at the mysterious frog.
“You know, I've eaten a lot of frog legs in my life.”
“Okay.”
“But I've never seen a pair like those.”
His mouth started watering.
He is not for consumption. I said.
“I'm telling you. Perfect proportions. It's almost like the amphibian gods put extra effort into designing that one.”
He licked his lips.
The driver leaned over slightly for another look.
I immediately covered the frog's legs with my right hand.
“That's enough.”
“I'm just admiring them.”
“You're salivating.”
“I know an upscale restaurant that would pay good money for frog legs like those.”
I tucked the mysterious frog into my shirt pocket, directly over my heart.
The driver sighed.
“What a waste.”
“Please keep your eyes on the ROAD.” I said.
“I would never do anything to the frog. I’m a nice guy. I gave you a ride, didn’t I?”
“I heard Ted Bundy was a nice guy too,” I said.
To be continued…
The Seduction of Cinnamon
The mysterious man continued devouring the twenty-four-inch onion sandwich.
Bite after bite, my face slowly emerged from behind it.
He teased me about how the sandwich was almost half my stature.
“How did you manage to get such a large sandwich?”
“I got it from a Texas sandwich stand.”
He looked at the remaining sandwich.
“That doesn't explain anything.”
“Everything is bigger in Texas.”
He took the last bite.
And just as he swallowed, we heard screaming in the distance.
“CINNAMON!”
I looked up.
The delinquent trio was running toward us.
“WHAT HAPPENED?”
“He tried to start your broomcycle.” The koala said.
“I DID NOT. I was just trying to warm up your broom’s engine.
Mr. Porcupine held up his paw.
The mousetrap was still attached to it.
“Mr. Porcupine. It's been fifteen minutes.”
“FIFTEEN MINUTES? Do you have any idea how long fifteen minutes is in the life of an animal?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
“That’s practically two years! We have short lifespans. I don’t have time to waste while you go on a rendezvous with a zombie.”
The mysterious man reached into his pocket and pulled out a dollar.
“Here’s a dollar, Mr. Porcupine. Go sit somewhere. I’m in the middle of seducing Cinnamon.”
Mr. Porcupine looked at the dollar.
“Fine. This will buy you five minutes of privacy.”
He snatched it and clutched it tightly in his paw.
That was all it took for me to finally see beyond the dead skin.
This man had eaten an entire twenty-four-inch onion sandwich, leaving me without lunch, just to get close enough for one kiss.
And that’s when Mr. Porcupine waved his trapped paw.
“CAN SOMEBODY ADDRESS THE MEDICAL EMERGENCY?”
I called Roadkill Assistance.
Vultures showed up immediately.
We canceled the call and decided to deal with the situation ourselves by signing up for a quick online course in roadside veterinary emergencies.
Once we successfully freed Mr. Porcupine from the mousetrap, we went about our business.
I asked the mysterious man to fly me down to the lower rocks so I could help him freshen up.
That’s when I gave him a small peck on his perfect, thin lips.
“I want a French kiss.” He said.
“I'm not French.”
“You don't have to be French.”
“I don't know. I once read somewhere in the dark corners of the internet that upper persuasion can lead to lower invasion.”
He stared at me in disbelief.
“And I'm not ready to be invaded.” I said.
I continued helping him scrub the dead skin off when we heard splashing in the water.
There she was.
A beautiful mermaid, just like the first one he ever saw, and just like the last one who drowned him.
He couldn't help but look.
I couldn't blame him. I looked too.
That's when she noticed him and started swimming closer.
We both panicked.
There was no time to think.
I grabbed him and French kissed him like I had just gained dual French citizenship.
He turned into a frog, fell straight into the water, and reached for my butt cheek on the way down.
The mermaid finally reached us.
“Where is that handsome prince?”
“What handsome prince?”
“That beautiful man I spotted from across the water.”
“What man?” I said. “I've always been a woman.”
“Don't lie to me.”
She started looking behind the rocks.
“Humans and demigods can’t hold their breath for more than two minutes. Ask Houdini.”
“You can’t ask Houdini. He’s dead.”
“Exactly. I’m standing here for seven minutes in case your prince took diving lessons. If he’s hiding underwater, he’ll have to come up eventually.”
“Listen, mermaid bitch. There is no handsome prince here.”
“I think you're seeing things. Perhaps you're suffering from mercury poisoning after years of that high-mercury diet.”
She thought about it.
“You might be right. I've been trying to become a vegetarian.”
“I’d stay and chat about the weather, but we already know the water is freezing”
To be continued…
Funeral Extra Add-On
As we walked toward my flying broomcycle, Mr. Porcupine kept digging his paw into the trash bag and eating.
The koala watched him for a while.
“Can I have some?”
“No.”
“I’m hungry.”
Mr. Porcupine barked at Koala and pulled the trash bag closer to himself.
“You should have asked for your last meal.”
“I forgot.”
Mr. Porcupine reached into the bag and took another bite.
The koala moved closer and tried to stick his paw into the trash bag.
Mr. Porcupine yanked it away.
“Get your dirty paws off my Happy Meal.”
And just like that, they started fighting. Well, more like cat fighting.
They were slapping and scratching while I tried to separate them without getting bitten by the koala or impaled by Mr. Porcupine.
“Stop it! Both of you!”
Meanwhile, the black cat noticed that Mr. Porcupine had dropped the trash bag.
The black cat snatched it and started devouring everything inside, including the Happy Meal box.
I finally managed to pull the other two apart.
“That’s enough!”
Mr. Porcupine immediately looked around for his trash bag.
It was gone.
“YOU GLUTTONOUS CAT!” Mr. Porcupine yelled.
“If it weren’t for those iron claws, I would end whatever is left of your nine lives!”
The black cat raised his middle claw.
Mr. Porcupine took a step back.
As you guys might remember, Mr. Porcupine’s Plan C involved using the black cat’s iron claws to dig their way out of Alcatraz. That was the entire reason Mr. Porcupine had been feeding the black cat Flintstones iron gummies every hour to accelerate the growth of his claws.
“That’s enough. Everybody hop on the broomcycle.” I said.
The three critters climbed onto my broomcycle, and we flew across the Bay.
We eventually landed near a little sandwich stand.
I bought myself a heavily onion sandwich and turned toward the three of them.
“You stay here.”
“Where are you going?” the koala asked.
“I need some privacy.”
“To do what?”
“Eat. I don’t like to have an audience when I devour my food.”
I could have bet my broom on it: Mr. Porcupine was already thinking about taking off with my broomcycle if I didn’t come back within a reasonable amount of time.
I had planned for this, so I left a mousetrap where the key goes.
“I have to say goodbye to someone.”
“Who?”
I started walking away with my sandwich.
“Someone not very special.”
“What about taking something to drink?” the koala asked.
“I’ll just swallow my tears.”
I found a quiet spot on the rocks overlooking the Bay and sat down with my onion sandwich.
After everything that had happened with those three, I just wanted a few minutes alone.
I took a bite.
There were a lot of onions.
My eyes began to water.
What I didn't know was that the mysterious man was directly below me.
He was alive.
And floating in the Bay.
A tear rolled down my cheek, slipped from my chin, and fell toward the water.
The mysterious man caught it in his hand.
He looked at it.
After everything I had put him through, he was certain he knew what it would be.
A crocodile tear.
He tasted it.
But to his surprise, it wasn’t.
It was the tear of a clown.
Behind all the jokes, insults, and the countless times I had whacked him over the head as if I were trying to fix a broken television, there had been something real.
I had actually cared a little, but enough to feed his ego.
He looked up at me from the water.
I was still completely unaware that he was there.
“I knew it,” he whispered.
Above him, completely unaware that a supposedly dead man was conducting an emotional analysis of my tears, I took another bite of my onion sandwich.
More tears streamed down my face.
He closed his eyes.
Love.
Longing.
Dirty thoughts.
Up on the rocks, I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand.
“Jesus Christ, these onions are strong.”
A few minutes later, I thought I heard wings flapping.
Then I felt something tugging at my hair.
Another tug.
Then chewing.
I slowly turned around.
The mysterious man was sitting behind me.
Chewing my hair.
I stared at him.
“You’re supposed to be dead.”
“You know,” he said, continuing to chew, “ancient weirdos believed witch hair was medicinal.”
“Get my hair out of your mouth.”
“I thought you died!”
“No. Well… I was dead. When I was planning my funeral, I made sure I signed up for the Jesus resuscitation package.”
“But you must wait three days,” he said.
“Why?”
“They want you to be absolutely sure you want to come back to this dimension. Which is reasonable. I mean, who really wants to live in this world? Half the population is addicted to something just to get by, and the other half is pretending they’re not.”
“To think I died just to find out you feel something for me.”
“The only thing I feel for you is nothing.”
“So you died just to find out you were wrong?”
“Nah. I wasn’t counting on that mermaid killing me.”
“She didn’t even want to flirt. She just drowned me immediately, as if she was meeting a quota.”
“I thought my irresistible looks would protect me.”
“You’re pale, you dress like a widower, and you’re easily seduced by any supernatural women.” I said.
“You’d think all those stories about sailors and lonely men being lured to their deaths by mermaids were just town gossip,” he said.
“Sometimes you really have to experience something yourself before you believe it.”
“But they’re so beautiful. And hypnotizing.”
He sighed.
“If I saw another one, I honestly don’t think I could resist.”
“You got drowned by a mermaid.”
“Yes. It’s painful to die.”
“I recommend you don’t walk late at night close to the water.” I said.
“You’re easy prey for their agenda.”
“You stand out like a beacon from across the bay.”
“I have Dracula’s complexion.”
“You have the complexion of someone who was already dead before she drowned you.”
“This beautiful milky complexion is what first caught your eye inside that goth church. You couldn’t look away. Could you? he said.
“I thought I was walking into the light, and for a moment, it gave me a false sense of peace. I thought it was finally all over.”
“You don't think I found pictures of you when you were younger on your old MySpace account? You were pale too. You looked dead too.” He said.
He tried to pull me closer, but I shoved my 24-inch onion sandwich between us.
“Perhaps a kiss from you might change my ways.”
“I admit I'm not perfect. The flesh is weak.”
“The flesh was also dead three days ago. And you still have algae and seashells from her in your hair, and here you are demanding a kiss as if I’m running a kissing booth.”
“Kiss me and break the spell.”
“A kiss from me will turn you into a frog, Prince of Darkness.”
“I wouldn't mind.”
“You wouldn't mind being a frog?”
“I wouldn't mind living in your pond.”
Mr. Porcupine’s Trial: The Semi-Responsible Adult
Last day of Mr. Porcupine’s trial…
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, if you still haven’t made up your minds about Mr. Porcupine, there is something else you need to know.”
He paused.
“Mr. Porcupine is racist.”
The courtroom erupted.
“What?!”
“Yes. Five years ago, Mr. Porcupine filled out a loan application. The application asked what color he was.”
“Mr. Porcupine wrote white in order to get a better APR. As you can see, he is chestnut.”
“Objection, Your Honor!”
The defense attorney jumped to her feet.
“Mr. Porcupine lived in Antarctica. And as everyone in this courtroom surely knows, at the South Pole there are approximately six months of the year when the sun does not rise.”
She pointed toward Mr. Porcupine.
“During those months, without direct sunlight, Mr. Porcupine’s complexion tends to fade to a dirty beige.”
“Therefore, when Mr. Porcupine identified himself as white, he was merely referring to his complexion during a very specific point in his life.”
“Your Honor! I need to interrupt these proceedings.”
Everyone turned.
A man hurried toward the bench holding a clear evidence bag.
“I would like Mr. Porcupine to try on this glove.”
“Wait. Isn’t that Michael Jackson’s glove?”
“Nope. It’s the glove from the O.J. Simpson trial.”
The courtroom went silent.
“We just want to rule him out. You never know these days. Sometimes killers aren’t identified until decades later. We just want to show the public, our constituents, their tax dollars at work.”
He turned toward Mr. Porcupine.
“Mr. Porcupine, would you mind trying this on? We just want to rule you out.”
Mr. Porcupine reluctantly slipped his paw into the glove.
His quills shredded it instantly.
Everyone stared at what was left of the glove.
The man looked down at the shredded evidence.
“Well… that did not work out the way I expected.”
He gathered the pieces and shoved them back into the evidence bag.
“Anyway. Thank you for your time, everybody.”
“Both sides have presented very convincing arguments,” the judge said.
“And I have to admit, I really enjoyed that PowerPoint presentation of Mr. Porcupine when he was a baby. He was very cute.”
“So I’m torn. And I want to be fair to everybody.”
The judge thought for a moment.
“I think both sides won.”
The courtroom went silent.
“Mr. Porcupine is guilty… and not guilty at the same time.”
Everyone looked at one another.
“Therefore, I hereby condemn Mr. Porcupine and his two accomplices to death.”
The courtroom erupted.
The judge raised his hand.
“Everybody calm down. Hear me out. Let me finish.”
The room went quiet.
“They will be put to death only if a semi-responsible adult fails to pick them up within forty-eight hours.”
There I was, back at Bates Motel 13 for the remainder of my stay, when my phone rang. Señor Raven picked it up and handed it to me.
It was the prison guard.
“You were listed as the emergency contact for three death-row critters.”
“What?”
“You have forty-eight hours to pick them up alive. One minute late, and you’ll still be picking them up… just dead.”
Ok, this is unfair, what if I refuse?
“You can’t. Once you’re listed as an emergency contact, it’s like putting ‘organ donor’ on your ID. It can’t be reversed.”
I walked into the Alcatraz prison lobby. Very luxurious, much like the entrance of the once-haunted Cecil Hotel: luxury in the front, decay in the back.
“Hi. I’m here to pick up the trio that’s on death row and get my broom-parking validation.”
The guard looked down at his paperwork.
“Oh, yes. Those critters.”
“I don’t understand. Why didn’t you call an animal welfare organization?”
“We did.”
“And they told us that they were going to compassionately euthanize them too.”
“Wait a minute,” he said. “You look very familiar.”
The guard lowered his head and looked me directly in the eyes.
“Have I imprisoned you before?”
“Perhaps in a fever dream.” I said.
“In order to pick up those delinquents, I need you to answer some questions,” the guard said.
“Okay.”
“Are you who you say you are?”
“Yes. I am who I say I am.”
“Okay. Next question.”
He looked back down at the paperwork.
“Are you a semi-responsible adult?”
“Well... I pay my bills on time.”
“Alrighty then.”
He yells at the other guard, “Bring out the caged critters!”
They open the cages and remove the leashes from their necks.
Each one is handed a souvenir T-shirt that reads: I SURVIVED DEATH ROW.
Mr. Porcupine got up on his tiptoes at the guard’s desk and demanded his last meal to go.
“Fine,” the guard said.
He grabbed a few fries from his plate, tossed the rest of the food into a trash bag, and handed it to Mr. Porcupine to carry out with him.
To be continued.
Mr. Porcupine’s Trial: Toxic Positivity
Mr. Porcupine’s attorney, handler, PR crisis manager, and miscellaneous representative met with him privately to deliver an update.
“We finally heard back from Governor Nuisance.”
Governor Nuisance’s Response
“Dear Mr. Porcupine,
Thank you for contacting the Office of Governor Nuisance regarding your request for clemency. After careful review, we regret to inform you that your request cannot be accommodated at this time.
Although the Governor acknowledges your prior assistance in reducing competition within California’s winery sector, he has unfortunately reached the maximum number of criminals he is permitted to forgive, including himself.
We also strongly recommend that you discontinue posting evidence of your crimes online, particularly under usernames containing the words Anonymous Porcupine.
We wish you the very best in your future endeavors.
THIS IS AN AUTOMATED MESSAGE. PLEASE DO NOT REPLY.
Please stop writing to us.
Best regards,
Governor Nuisance’s Reply Team”
On the day of the trial.
Prosecutor: “Your Honor, I will now present a series of trolling messages authored by Mr. Porcupine. Exhibit A: under the username AnonymousPorcupine, the defendant wrote, ‘Texas superiority is not an opinion. It is a measurable biological phenomenon.Every Texan is born with an invisible superiority gland. I am willing to take a biological test to prove it.”
Prosecutor: “On another platform, Mr. Porcupine also posted anonymously: ‘Texans are the true chosen people of God, and the Antichrist has already been born in California, is currently attending public school, and is running for president of the Communist Club, funded by Barnie Sandals.’”
“And as we all know, communism always looks great on paper…like an introductory 0% APR… until, almost without warning, it switches to 35%.”
Prosecutor: “And if all of you think that is outrageous… if you think that is not the browser history of a decent mammal… wait until you hear this.
Mr. Porcupine is convinced that he is in direct contact with a witch. Not only does he communicate with this alleged witch, he admits to having performed several odd jobs for her.
Now, as some of my colleagues may know, according to my ancestry DNA and this has been biologically tested and proven, I descend from executioners and ancient witch hunters. So I believe I am uniquely qualified to speak on this subject.
There are no witches.
None.
“They were all eliminated hundreds of years ago. Every single one. They checked under rocks. They checked the trees themselves. They even checked candy houses in the middle of the forest. Extensive measures were taken.”
There is no evidence of any remaining witches.
And I can prove this with my DNA.
Therefore, the fact that Mr. Porcupine continues to blame an imaginary witch for his crimes raises serious questions about whether this individual should undergo a psychiatric evaluation before being permitted to walk freely among the general population.
And, just for the record, I’m also two percent Native American.”
The Defense
Defense: “Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Porcupine is not simply a criminal. He is a casualty of public-school encouragement.
From an early age, Mr. Porcupine knew he was different from the other mammals. He had quills. The humans around him merely had hair that stood up when they were frightened.
He felt excluded. Misunderstood. Different.
Then one day, a public school teacher pulled him aside and gave him the kind of advice we give children every day.
‘Don’t listen to anybody else. Be who you want to be. Follow your dreams. Be all that you can be. Anyone who tells you otherwise is probably just jealous.’
What nobody bothered to ask was what Mr. Porcupine actually wanted to be.
Mr. Porcupine wanted to be Al Capone.
And so he followed the advice.
He ignored criticism. He refused to conform. He pursued his dreams. He became his most authentic self.
Unfortunately, his authentic self was a menace.
So I ask you: can we truly blame Mr. Porcupine for becoming exactly what he was repeatedly encouraged to become?
Perhaps the public-school system failed to include one very important follow-up question:
‘And what, exactly, do you want to be?’”
The Defense Continues
Defense: “So I believe Mr. Porcupine is innocent because he did exactly what generations of public-school children have been told to do:
Be yourself.
Follow your dreams.
Do not let anybody tell you who you can or cannot become.
But what if ‘being yourself’ means being a menace to society?
What if your dream is to become the person who creates a virus that destroys humankind?
What if somewhere, right now, we are encouraging the future Mussolinis of the world to believe in themselves, follow their instincts, ignore the critics, and never give up?
And then, years later, when they become exactly what we encouraged them to become, we turn around and judge them for it?
Ladies and gentlemen, that is hypocrisy.
Mr. Porcupine did not reject society’s advice.
He followed it.
Perhaps a little too well.”
Defense: “Mr. Porcupine also struggled to find decent work.
He applied at a balloon shop.
Rejected.
He applied at a waterbed store.
Rejected.
And why?
Because of his appearance.
Because people looked at his quills and immediately decided he was a sharp liability.
So I ask you: has society been kind to Mr. Porcupine? Has society been fair to him?
I don’t think so.
We told him to be himself, then punished him for what himself looked like.
We told him to find honest work, then denied him employment anywhere his body presented even the slightest puncture risk.
Defense: “I would also like the court to consider that Mr. Porcupine has recently become the father of a beautiful baby koala.”
Every camera slowly turns toward the koala.
Koala: “What? No. That baby ain’t mine. I’m not the only koala here with an expired zoo visa.”
Meanwhile, inside Alcatraz…
“As we were running toward the ferry, the mysterious man heard the siren call and stopped.
‘Hey, I promised I would go swimming with her. It’ll just be five minutes. I’ll catch up with you at the ferry.’
‘Whatever,’ I said. ‘Maybe I can scalp your ticket to another Alcatraz escapee.’
Unfortunately, the tickets were non-transferable.
I made it to the ferry entrance.
‘Okay, I have your ticket here. It looks like this reservation is for two. Where’s your plus-one?’
‘He drowned.’
‘…What?’
‘A mermaid drowned him.’
“I don’t think he really understood what a night swim meant.”
“He’s probably taxidermy décor inside the mermaid’s underwater cave by now.”
“Anyway, what’s for dessert?”
“Inside Alcatraz, one of the guards notices that several inmates are missing… not just us.
‘Guard… we have a problem.’
‘What?’
‘We appear to be missing several inmates.’
‘I checked. They all had papier-maché heads paired with mermaid hair.’
Two of the decoys were so realistic that they resembled demons I’d seen inside haunted houses. I gave them to the dogs to play with.
‘I KNEW IT. We shouldn’t have put an arts-and-crafts program inside Alcatraz!’
At least they all waited to graduate.”
Mr. Porcupine’s Trial: The Alcatraz Escape
“Nine months later, the guard came running toward our cell, completely frantic.
“I completely forgot nobody monitors this wing. I am so sorry. Okay, here’s what’s going to happen: I’m going to open this door, you guys are going to get on the ferry, and here’s a little gift card so you can pick up some Alcatraz souvenirs on your way out, maybe get something with your names on it. Then you’ll return to your lives, and we’re all going to agree this never happened. This was just one big, fun roller-coaster fever dream. Understand?”
“We’re going to leave this whole thing behind us, just like all your DNA all over this cell.”
He stopped.
His eyes went wide.
The wad of chewing tobacco fell straight out of his mouth and hit the floor.
He counts us twice.
“HOW ARE THERE FOUR OF YOU NOW?! THERE WERE TWO OF YOU!”
“Well, there’s no TV in there,” I said as I walked past him with one baby in my arms.
And that other little one has wings and fangs!” he yelled.
“Luckily, they don’t have tails,” the mysterious man told him.
Suddenly
“AAACHOOOOOO!”
I jolted awake at the sound of a whale sneezing outside the cell.
“Oh, thank God,” I whispered. “It was all nothing. Nothing but a fever dream.”
I looked down at the bunk below me.
“We have to get out of here tonight.”
“Every Alcatraz escape needs a decoy,” I said.
“What are you thinking?” the mysterious man asked. “Mermaid hair and a dead sword-hammer shark?”
“No. The smell would give it away.”
“Then what?” he asked. “Are you gonna use our doppelgängers?”
“No. Mine is currently filling in for me at a funeral convention.”
“Not even your doppelgänger is normal.”
“I have an idea!”
“Oh, no.”
“We’ll put the succubus and incubus in our bunks and use them as decoys.”
How are your going to convince them?
“I won’t. You’re going to invite them in, one at a time, and I’m going to put them in a sleeper hold.”
“You actually know how to do a sleeper hold?”
“I took a self-defense class.”
“Why?”
“A grandmother tried to scam me.”
He stared at me.
“So you took a self-defense class?”
“The fraud-prevention class was already full, and I still needed an elective.”
“I wish you’d be normal. Normal people who do normal things live longer.”
“Why do you care?”
“Because I don’t want to be the one who has to press the cremation button, wait six hours for your remains, and then spend the rest of the day wondering if they’re actually yours as I feed them to a fish and then eat the fish.”
“WHY?”
“So you could always live within me.”
“As stubborn belly fat.”
The Mr. Porcupine Trial: Part Three
After all the sumo wrestling, the mysterious man and I passed out from exhaustion.
Somehow, he ended up using my butt as a pillow.
“HEY! WAKE UP! And get your head off her butt!”
We both woke up.
“I cannot believe you two. I should be scrolling on my phone right now. Instead, I have to fill out paperwork, review the manuals because I haven’t done this in forever, probably watch some training videos.”
“You two have ruined my entire day.”
“You’re spending the rest of your lives in Alcatraz for contempt of court.”
“WHAT?”
“You wore those ridiculous costumes because you were trying to get out of jury duty.”
“That is absolutely not true.”
“Oh, really? Then explain why you showed up dressed like that and got eliminated almost immediately. It was like you two were auditioning in front of Simon Coward.”
“Well, we were taking a ferry.”
The guard stared.
“So?”
“What if the ferry hit a whale?”
“A WHALE?”
“Yes. We could’ve fallen overboard.”
“The costumes are inflatable. Basically life jackets,” the mysterious man added.
“Look what happened to Jack and Rose from Titanic,” I said.
“Enough of this nonsense!” the guard yelled as he started walking us toward the cell.
“You can’t put us in the same cell. We’re from different gangs.”
He kept pushing us toward the cell.
“WE ARE FROM DIFFERENT GANGS!” I yelled again.
“You are not supposed to mix gangs.” I said.
“I don’t care. If one of you gets taken out, that’s less paperwork for me.”
“Have you seen public bathrooms lately? Everybody’s included. No more discrimination. Even cats are allowed to use the toilets.”
“This is the new way jails are. Inclusive. So you’re gonna have to deal with it.”
“THERE. I’m locking both of you in and throwing away the key. How does that feel?”
He hurled the entire key ring through the barred window and into San Francisco Bay.
“Man! I’ve always wanted to say that in real life.”
He rested his hands on his hips with a satisfied smile.
For a few glorious seconds, he looked incredibly proud of himself.
Then his smile disappeared.
“Wait.”
He patted his pockets.
“My car keys were on there. And my house keys. My safe keys.”
“And my mistress’s apartment keys.”
He sighed.
“I guess I’ll just have to wait for the keys to wash ashore.”
“Anyway, I’ve got some shows to binge.”
The guard walked away, whistling the Game of Thrones theme.
Now we were both alone in the cell.
We found two little cups and a dead cricket, so we started playing Where’s the Dead Cricket?
That was fun for a few minutes, until we started noticing more dead crickets.
“I’m hungry,” I said.
He reached into his pocket.
“I have something.”
He pulled out a cough drop.
“I’m so glad I got this one this morning. My throat was sore.”
I looked at the tiny piece of candy sitting in his palm.
“So this is our food supply?”
He nodded.
“Fine. I guess this is all we have to eat.”
It was time to sleep, and we both started climbing toward the top bunk at the exact same time.
“Wait! I’m sleeping at the top.”
“Hell no! There are critters down here.”
“You know what? I’m too tired to argue. Why don’t we settle this like two civilized adults?”
“How?”
“Rock-paper-scissors.”
After ten rounds, all of which I won, he finally gave up.
“Whatever. Stay up there.”
“You're the one next to the window anyway and when a whale swims by and sneezes, you're getting hit first.”
“You were begging for this bunk thirty seconds ago.”
“Before I assessed the whale situation.”
“I'd rather get sneezed on by a whale with the flu than spend the entire night fighting off an incubus/succubus.”
He looked underneath the bed.
“Don't look under there. That's how you provoke them.”
He immediately closed his eyes.
“So yeah, good luck fighting off the incubus and the succubus. Night.”
I rolled over and pulled the blanket up over my face.
“Do you actually think I might be their type?”
“Go to sleep.”
“Are they, like, polygamous? Or in an open relationship?”
“Goodnight.”
At exactly 3:33, I woke up with an idea.
I climbed down from the top bunk as quietly as possible.
“Get away from me, succubus/Incubus!” he yelled.
“It’s me. An angel.”
He opened one eye.
“What do you want?”
“I have an idea.”
“Why don’t you call one of those mermaids you dumped into the water?”
Now he's awake.
“What?”
“Fine! But I don’t remember their names.”
“That’s fine. Just yell out popular names in alphabetical order.”
He leaned toward the little barred window.
“ARIEL!”
“BELLE!”
“CINDERELLA!”
“DAISY!”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me!”
“PENELOPE!”
“ROSE!”
One of the mermaids swam to the surface and waved before swimming closer.
“My master! You said you would call, and you did. You’re a man of your word. I’ll do anything for you.”
“I’ll give you guys some privacy,” I said, moving five feet back.
The cell was small. That was as far as I could go.
“Can you ask her to look for the keys? And tell her to bring us some oysters. We’re starving.”
He yelled through the little barred window.
“PENELOPE! CAN YOU FIND THE GUARD’S KEYS AND BRING SOME OYSTERS?”
“THERE AREN’T ANY OYSTERS AROUND HERE!”
“What kind of mermaid doesn’t have access to oysters?” I said.
“BUT I HAVE SOME CANNED OYSTERS IN MY EMERGENCY PANTRY!”
“What else does she have?”
He yelled through the little barred window, “WHAT ELSE IS IN THERE?”
From somewhere out in the bay, Penelope yelled back:
“CRACKERS! CANNED TUNA! BOTTLED WATER!”
I looked at him.
“Bottled water?”
“Apparently.”
I leaned toward the window.
“PENELOPE! WHY DO YOU HAVE BOTTLED WATER? YOU LIVE IN WATER!”
“FOR EMERGENCIES!”
“WHAT KIND OF EMERGENCY?”
“OIL SPILLS!”
I paused.
“Okay. That actually makes sense.”
“AND MOSES!”
“WHAT DOES MOSES HAVE TO DO WITH BOTTLED WATER?”
“WHAT IF HE COMES BACK AND PARTS THE BAY IN HALF? I DON’T WANT TO BE STRANDED IN THE DRY MIDDLE WITHOUT WATER!”
She returned with some of her provisions and the keys tucked inside a shell. “Here’s everything you requested.”
“Thank you!”
Penelope lingered by the window.
“Will you call me again sometime? Maybe we could go for a night swim?”
“Of course, Ashley!”
“...Penelope.”
The Mr. Porcupine Trial: Part Two
Mr. Porcupine’s lawyer, now serving simultaneously as his attorney, handler, publicist, and crisis manager had agreed to exactly one interview.
There was however, one complication.
The producer gestured toward the koala and the black cat seated on either side of Mr. Porcupine.
“You don’t mind if they participate, do you? They are his alleged accomplices.”
The jack-of-all-trades lawyer looked down at them.
Not metaphorically. They were just really short.
Mr. Porcupine had already made his position clear: trio or nada.
“Fine,” she said. “They can stay.”
The producer smiled.
“But blur them.”
“Excuse me?” the producer asked.
“Blur the koala and the cat. Completely. Especially the black cat. I don’t want him casting a shadow over Mr. Porcupine’s spotlight.”
The lawyer continued making ridiculous demands left and right… from having Jesus himself stop by to drop off a bottle of his best-selling wine to telling everyone on set how to do their jobs.
“We need to make Mr. Porcupine as attractive as physically possible.”
She turned toward the makeup artist.
“If you have any Botox in your purse, inject it into him. Anywhere you can find a place to poke him. Plump him up. Beautify him.”
Her eyes moved slowly over Mr. Porcupine’s body.
“And do something with the quills,” the lawyer said. “He needs more volume at the top. Maybe relocate a few from his butt to his head. We need him to look like he has a fuller head of hair.”
“And the wrinkles are extremely important. Every wrinkle we leave visible costs us an entire generation.”
“Make him look as young as possible. If you can make him look like a baby, even better. We’re trying to make everyone love him, and we know everybody loves babies.”
“Also, give him more wine.”
She paused.
“It’s common knowledge that babies and drunks always tell the truth.”
After hours of preparation, the highly anticipated interview with Mr. Porcupine was abruptly canceled.
According to production staff, Mr. Porcupine had undergone an extensive pre-interview makeover involving approximately one gallon of Botox. By the time the procedure was complete, facial recognition was no longer possible.
Witnesses reported that Mr. Porcupine no longer resembled the individual originally booked for the interview or, for that matter, the same species.
“He looked like a different mammal,” one producer said.
For security reasons, the interview could not proceed.
Mr. Porcupine’s face was so paralyzed that he could no longer move his mouth to speak his lying truth.
Meanwhile, the mysterious man and I showed up for Mr. Porcupine’s jury duty, only to be immediately disqualified because we had both arrived wearing inflatable sumo wrestler Halloween costumes.
“I guess unhinged minds think alike,” I said.
We tried to exit through the doorway at exactly the same time.
We got stuck.
“Suck it in,” he said.
“I am.”
“So am I.”
We both sucked in our stomachs as hard as we could.
Nothing happened.
He looked down at his enormous inflatable belly, then at mine.
“Stop thinking and acting like me. Now we’re both stuck.”
“It’s like we’re sharing one brain.”
I pulled a quill from my hair bun and poked him in the belly.
POP.
He slowly deflated until there was enough room for me to squeeze through the doorway.
“Problem solved.”
I left him there.
Or so I thought.
I had barely made it halfway down the hallway when I heard the unmistakable sound of deflated plastic dragging across the courthouse floor.
I turned around.
He was coming after me.
He pulled out his fangs and lunged at me.
His fangs sank directly into my enormous inflatable tummy.
POP.
“YOU PHEROMONE-FANGED ASSHOLE!”
I began deflating.
He collapsed on top of me, looking extremely pleased with himself.
“Now we’re both unstuck.”
The Mr. Porcupine Trial: Part One
No News Is Good News Network arrived at Bates Motel 13.
“We received an anonymous text from someone identifying themselves only as Mannequin #101.”
The Inn Creeper stepped close to the camera, still gripping the stale French baguette.
Behind him, the remains of several mannequins were piled together like wreckage in a car junkyard. Plastic food and taxidermied cakes were scattered across the floor.
The Inn Creeper pointed toward the wreckage.
“Look at what she made us do.”
“You people need to help us locate her,” he said. “She needs to pay for all this damage, especially our psychological damage. We did nothing to that witch except welcome her into our lives.”
Beside him, the mysterious man nodded, baguette crumbs still tangled in his hair. He leaned on another French baguette like a vampire resting on his cane.
“I gave her everything she ever asked for,” he said.
He hesitated.
“Well, except meaningful communication.”
The inn Creeper interrupted the interview to describe the witch.
“She has high cheekbones, four eyes, plump heart-shaped pillow lips and a sharp tongue.”
The mysterious man eagerly grabbed the microphone
“And, if you’d like, I can provide precise details about her body shape.”
“We actually just need her approximate weight,” the reporter said.
The mysterious man pulled out his phone and asked Google how much I weighed.
As I watched them on TV, I felt compelled to set the record straight.
“I didn’t hit the mysterious man because I’m violent,” I told Señor Raven. “He refuses to communicate like a civilized person, and the fact that he literally lives inside a cavern with an army of bats does not help his case.”
On the television, he stood there with baguette crumbs tangled in his hair. He’d probably make Chicken peck them out later.
“Let’s see what else is on television,” I said, reaching for the remote.
I changed the channel just in time to see Mr. Porcupine tumble headfirst into the jury box. He was still wearing the stilts.
I changed the channel again.
The same fall was playing from a different angle.
On the next sister channel, they showed it in slow motion.
Every station was replaying Mr. Porcupine's fall the way sports networks replay a game-winning touchdown from every possible angle.
One of the news channels cut to live coverage of rallies spreading across I-10, where protesters had blocked traffic and were demanding the immediate release of Mr. Porcupine.
Food vendors had set up shop along the rally route. With a taco in one hand and a microphone in the other, the reporter began interviewing attendees.
She shoved the microphone toward the first person who made eye contact with her.
Reporter: “Why do you believe Mr. Porcupine is innocent?”
Woman: "Because one time he held the door open for me at the Nuns Convention. He was such a gentleman."
Reporter: “Security cameras later concluded that it was not an act of chivalry, but merely an excuse to check her out as she walked inside.”
The reporter interviews another attendee.
Reporter: “Do you believe in Mr. Porcupine’s innocence?”
Short Man: “I’m just here for the party and the mayhem. I don’t even know who that is. Is he a SoundCloud rapper?”
The reporter interviews one final attendee.
Reporter: “Do you think Mr. Porcupine should be free?”
Tall Man: “I don’t know. Let me ask my wife.”
Happy Wife: “Yeah, because all my friends think he should be free.”
Tall Man: “Well, there you have it.”
Pheromone Fangs
The sign outside the Bates Motel 13 lobby promised a continental breakfast.
Underneath, someone had added MARSHMALLOWS in uneven chicken scratch.
The handwriting looked strangely familiar, but before I could place it, the thought of marshmallows overpowered my brain.
When I entered the breakfast room, every mannequin from the motel was already standing in line. They extended from the buffet counter all the way past the vending machines, each one holding an empty paper plate.
I walked directly to the front.
I turned toward the mannequins.
“Does anyone have a problem with me cutting in line?”
Nobody said anything.
“I’ll take the silence as a no,” I said. “Silence is also an answer.”
The continental breakfast was displayed beneath several flickering heat lamps, although none of the food required heating.
The grapes were plastic. The cakes were preserved beneath glass. Several French baguettes had been mounted in decorative positions as though they had been professionally taxidermied.
“This is not breakfast,” I said. “This is a mannequin diet.”
At the far end of the counter stood a man with his back to me. Most of him remained hidden in shadow, but I could see the edge of a familiar cape.
A label stitched into the lining read:
DESIGNED IN MILAN. MADE IN A SWEATSHOP.
He was polishing a cluster of plastic grapes with a small, bloodstained cloth.
“I’ve seen that cape before,” I whispered.
Before I could place it, the beating of wings erupted above us.
A swarm of bats descended through the lobby, carrying Chicken between them.
Chicken floated majestically over the breakfast room in his badly bat printed silky robe, tiny velvet slippers, and miniature dark sunglasses. The bats held him beneath his wings as though he were arriving on a sacred cloud.
Chicken lowered his sunglasses and looked down at us.
“I guess you weren’t joking about laying low,” said the mysterious man. “You know this motel only accepts counterfeit money, which explains why the guests are all plastic.”
“You thought I was too good to set foot in a place like this, but I’ve stayed here several times while ghost-hunting with Hollywood witches.”
He crossed the room, seized me by the point of my hat, and pulled me toward him.
“Let go of my pointy hat!” I shouted. “You know it’s attached to my hair.”
“I am sick and tired of you, you unhinged buffoon witch.”
“Then unfollow me and block me so you never have to see me again.”
“No. I don’t have the time or emotional energy for that.”
“Chicken,” he ordered, “hold her feet while I take the heart.”
The overfed chicken waddled across the room, huffing with every step. The chicken shoved both of my feet together, adjusted them until they were perfectly aligned, and then planted his entire body across my feet like a feathery paperweight.
"Don't you dare lay an egg on me!" I shouted.
The mysterious man leaned in and whispered in my ear.
“Don’t you understand? I only want three things from you.”
“Your heart.”
“Your unwavering worship for all eternity, including liking all my posts and watching every one of my stories.”
“And take my bats out for their evening flight while I go on dates with those fine-ass Hollywood witches.”
He exposed his fangs and leaned toward my neck.
“Just to show you that I know how to treat you right,” he said, “I’m going to sedate you first.”
“Get your pheromone fangs off me!”
He stopped then stared at me.
“Why do you always have to say the weirdest things?”
“How the hell do you even come up with this shit?”
“They’re how you seduce women, aren’t they?”
“They’re pheromone fangs.”
I looked down at Chicken, hoping he would look up and meet my eyes with his crossed ones.
“After all the cheap caviar I bought for you!” I cried. “I even went to great lengths to clip coupons for it, and this is how you repay me?”
Chicken lowered his gaze to the floor.
“And if you must know, the luxury caviar he overfeeds you to purchase your fleeting, counterfeit affection came from the very same pregnant fish as the caviar I gave you.”
“The only difference is that his came in a tiny rhinestone-covered jar with an automatic-opening lid.”
The mysterious man rolled his eyes.
“It was imported directly from the polar bears that fill the luxury water bottles,” he said.
Before the mysterious man could lean any closer, the Innkreeper snatched the taxidermy French baguette from the table and struck him across the back of the head.
The mysterious man stumbled forward, brushing against my shoulder.
“If anyone is going to Houdini that unhinged witch,” the innkreeper declared, raising the baguette like a lightsaber, “it will be me.”
He lowered it slightly.
“Besides, she still owes me the three-star review she promised.”
Meanwhile, Chicken remained sprawled across my feet, half asleep and wheezing contentedly like an overstuffed, feathery pillow.
The Innkreeper stared down at him with disgust.
“I’m not touching that thing. It could have salmonella.”
He grabbed two loose mannequin arms from the floor, positioned them beneath Chicken’s round body like a pair of enormous salad tongs, and carefully lifted him off my feet.
Chicken P.O.W.
Señor Raven and I pulled into Bates Motel 13.
The neon sign blinked:
NO VACANCY
Every room had its lights on.
As I looked closer, I realized every single room was occupied by mannequins.
Some watched television.
Some wigless ones stared out the windows.
We walked into the lobby.
The innkeeper never looked up. He just kept swiping right on his phone.
“Sorry,” he said. “No vacancy.”
Swipe.
Swipe.
I slammed both hands on the counter.
“Listen, you creepy Bates Motel 13 innkeeper. I know you’ve got one emergency room hidden somewhere, and we need it tonight.”
"Sorry."
Swipe.
"Can't help you."
Swipe.
“Then I’ll leave a zero-star review.” I said.
The innkeeper finally stopped swiping right.
“Oh, no.”
“I can’t allow that. I’ve received several one-star reviews, but never a zero-star review.”
“I didn’t even know those were possible.”
“They are,” I said. “You just don’t know how to manipulate the app.”
“How?”
“You log out. Uninstall it. Reinstall it. Log back in. Start the review again, but when it asks you to choose a star, you don’t touch anything.”
The innkeeper’s face went pale.
“And it submits?”
“Zero stars.”
He put his phone down.
“There may be one room available.”
“You know…” he said quietly. “There is one couple I’ve been thinking about evicting.”
“They’ve gone unusually quiet lately, and their same clinical poses are beginning to bore me.”
"I think tonight's the night."
He grabbed his master key.
"Follow me."
He knocked. "Housekeeping!" he yelled.
No answer.
He unlocked the door anyway and left it standing wide open.
Then, after a heated argument that appeared to involve only one loud voice
An arm flew into the hallway.
A torso.
A pile of silky lingerie.
Finally an entire mannequin crashed onto the carpet.
“And don’t you ever come back!” the innkeeper shouted.
“I’ll send every one of you back to Elite Mannequin School for retraining.”
We walked inside and immediately began caulking all the peepholes.
Exhausted, Señor Raven and I collapsed onto the bed.
That was when my phone buzzed with a text message.
YOUR CHICKEN IS MY P.O.W.
BUT LET'S DO A FAIR EXCHANGE.
YOUR HEART FOR THE CHICKEN.
AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.
AND MAKE SURE YOU ADD ME AS AN EXCEPTION TO "DO NOT DISTURB" SO YOU DON'T MISS MY MESSAGES.
“Señor Raven,” I said, “we forgot the chicken at that man’s house.”
He was probably still doing the “Monster Mash” when we left.
But I wasn’t going to lie there tossing and turning, wondering whether the man might eventually consume him or force him into harsh labor, such as laying eggs.
“We’re rescuing him tonight.”
I anonymously sent the man an invitation to the Zucchinis in Bikinis Parade and requested an RSVP.
Forty seconds later, he accepted.
I began calculating how long it would take him to return home.
An hour and a half stuck in Los Angeles traffic.
Another thirty minutes looking for parking.
Ten minutes admiring the zucchinis in bikinis.
Then he would order a corn dog.
At some point, he would autograph a woman’s shirt without being asked.
Finally, he would drive home and spend another two hours trapped in traffic.
That gave us plenty of time to stop at the Hollywood Walk of Fame, take a few photos, and rescue the chicken.
The Uber driver dropped us off directly in front of the house and offered to serve as our getaway driver for an extra tip.
Señor Raven and I crept toward the window and peeked inside.
There he was.
The chicken was wearing a tiny bat-print robe, sitting in a velvet chair with his legs crossed while the bats were feeding the chicken caviar as though they were serving grapes to an ancient emperor.
Then “Monster Mash” started playing.
The bats formed two perfect lines and started to dance perfectly synchronized. The chicken jumped out of the chair and joined them.
Unfortunately, he had no sense of choreography.
The bats moved right.
He moved left.
They dipped.
He spun in a circle.
They raised their wings.
He started freestyling.
“He is completely out of sync,” Señor Raven said.
“He only knows freestyle. He refuses structure.”
We tapped on the window.
The chicken stopped dancing and looked directly at us.
I waved.
He stared for a moment.
Then he walked over and closed the curtain.
Señor Raven and I stood there in silence.
“He doesn’t want to be rescued,” Señor Raven said.
Señor Raven and I returned to our motel room completely defeated.
That was when my phone lit up with a long text message:
I'll meet you tomorrow at Brain Freeze Ice Cream at exactly 3:07 p.m.
Don’t be late. I have a dentist appointment afterward to remove any cavities caused by our sweet encounter.
I’ll be the one holding a bouquet of a dozen formaldehyde roses, so you’ll have no trouble spotting me or tracking me by smell.
The chicken will be tucked safely inside an Easter basket to avoid attracting unnecessary suspicion.
Please wear actual clothes underneath that cloak. It's going to be windy, and dramatic entrances are no excuse for catching pneumonia.
Most importantly, bring your heart already detached and packed neatly inside a suitcase.
If you arrive with it still attached, I'll have no choice but to toss you onto the ice cream table and perform emergency open-heart surgery using nothing but an ice cream scoop.
Let's try to avoid making a scene. The last thing we need is someone asking awkward questions.
A few hours later…
“Why didn’t you show up?” he asked.
“Me and the chicken waited for hours.”
“The chicken had seven scoops of ice cream, and I had five, so the employees wouldn’t think we were loitering.”
“Anyway, the chicken got sick afterward.”
“I panicked. I put a Band-Aid on him.”
“A Band-Aid?” I asked.
“I didn’t know what else to do!”
“But it didn’t help. He just kept looking miserable.”
“So what happened?”
“I stayed up all night with him watching medical dramas to see if that would make him feel better.”
“You know, this only proves that you’ve never taken care of anyone but yourself.”
“What?”
“The first time someone else needed you, you spent the entire night taking care of him.”
“It was a chicken.”
“Not even those bats have ever received that kind of sympathy from you. You trained them to lick their own wounds and Google their medical problems.”
"I don't know how you ever managed with this chicken,"
"I kept him outside." I said.
"Outside?"
"He's a free-range chicken."
"That's where he belongs."
“I’ve had him inside the house this entire time.”
“The bats have stopped their choreography. Martial arts training has been suspended indefinitely. They’ve been assigned to sanitation duty because the chicken keeps leaving salmonella everywhere.”
There was no response.
A few minutes passed.
He had stopped texting because he was carrying the chicken into the backyard.
“Go outside, you salmonella party chicken!” he yelled.
He came back inside and texted me.
“I hate you so much. I wish you were here so I could kiss you and show you how much I dislike you.”
“Oh, really? Well, I wish you were here with me in this condemned room at Bates Motel 13 so I could hug you so tightly that I’d squeeze all the air out of you and make you even more goth-pale.”
Eat My Broom Dust!
There I was in my kitchen, standing on my tiptoes and stirring matzo-ball chicken soup in my favorite cauldron, when the Morse code machine began clicking.
Tap.
Tap-tap.
Pause.
A strip of paper began crawling out of it, covered in dots and dashes.
I translated the message.
I REQUIRE YOUR ASSISTANCE.
Señor Raven.
Another message followed.
THE HEART RECOVERY MISSION HAS BECOME TECHNOLOGICALLY COMPLICATED.
Señor Raven had expected to fly low to the man’s house, knock on the chamber door, slip inside, recover my heart, and make an Irish exit before anyone noticed.
Instead, the man had converted his garage into a fortress.
Cameras.
Motion detectors.
Rodent cages.
Traps baited with peanut butter.
Other traps baited with dollar bills, in case Mr. Porcupine and the rest of the gang came back.
And then there were the laser beams.
According to Señor Raven, they were powerful enough to pulverize a broom and turn any bird that crossed them into rotisserie chicken.
The neighborhood had already renamed the street:
Rotisserie Lane.
I stared at the message.
Then came the final message:
I CANNOT DO THIS ALONE.
I immediately Googled 24-hour vehicle repair near me and found a shop that advertised:
Guaranteed work in 30 minutes or 10 days.
Good enough.
I parked the broom in the designated repair area and began pacing around the lobby.
The mechanic eventually came back inside with his hands covered in Cheeto dust and informed me that the engine I needed could take weeks to arrive from Salem.
Fortunately, he claimed he could install a long-distance engine using nothing but a wrench, a bale of hay, and prayer.
I could believe in the wrench and the hay, but not the prayer. God was already overwhelmed by requests and would probably dismiss one coming from such a small town.
So I booked a flight to Los Angeles and planned to take an Uber from the airport, then have the driver drop me off within fifty miles of the man’s house, the maximum distance my broom could still manage.
However, I had forgotten about the chicken. I couldn’t just leave him at home throwing wild-animal parties. He was a well known party animal.
Unfortunately, he had surpassed the airline’s age limit for lap travel and required his own seat.
He spent the entire flight singing and annoying the baby seated in front of us.
Once I arrived at the man’s house, I parked my broom directly in front of his mailbox, temporarily suspending the delivery of his fan mail. Then I disguised myself as a door-to-door chicken salesperson in a black cloak.
I knocked.
One of his bats opened the door.
“May I speak to your handler?”
The man emerged almost immediately.
“Sorry,” he said. “I already bought solar panels, Girl Scout Cookies, and three magazine subscriptions. I even invited the Mormons inside for tea and other caffeinated goodies.”
He stared at me.
“What are you actually selling? Blueberry muffins? Or... wait. Did you lose your cat?”
“You don't recognize me?” I asked.
His eyes drifted downward.
“You do look familiar,” he said. “Sorry, I just can't place you.”
“Maybe this will refresh your memory.”
I smacked him across the forehead with my broom.
He collapsed onto the porch.
I stepped over him and walked inside, making sure my combat boots landed on him at least twice on the way in.
He smiled.
“This is exactly my type of woman,” he whispered. “Wild.”
Then he passed out.
Señor Raven followed close behind, stepped over him without looking down, and helped himself to the Girl Scout Cookies on the entryway table.
We heard a scuffle.
Wings.
Lots of wings.
It was his army of bats… his loyal disciples, and, more importantly, his home alarm system.
“What do we do?” Señor Raven whispered.
“I have an idea.”
I pulled out my phone, opened the Bluetooth settings, and connected to the man’s speaker system.
Apparently, his password was still 1234.
“Monster Mash” began blasting through the house.
The bats formed two perfectly straight lines and began their choreography.
The chicken joined them.
Left wing out.
Left wing in.
Right wing out.
Right wing in.
Turn.
Twerk.
Jazz wings.
They looked so cute that, for a moment, I forgot why we were there.
Señor Raven pulled a strand of my hair to remind me.
We made our way to the door connecting the house to the garage. Once again, a password was required.
This time, I started with 0000.
It didn’t work.
Then I tried 1234.
Voilà.
The door unlocked and granted us access to the garage.
I could hear my heart beating faster from across the garage.
I opened the freezer and unloaded a mountain of frozen food.
Buried deep beneath it was my heart.
I carefully extracted my heart and placed it inside a velvet pouch.
Señor Raven and I walked out without stepping on him. I didn’t want him enjoying the view up my cloak again. After all, witch tradition calls for wearing absolutely nothing underneath.
We ran toward the parked broom, only to find a citation for breathing the city’s fresh air.
The man and his bats came running after us.
I started the broom, looked back at him, and shouted, “Eat my broom dust!”
Not Wanted in 50 States
Last updated 07/10/2026
The restaurant was the kind of fancy place where the menus had no pictures and the water sounded like it came from El Dorado.
The waiter led a man and his date through the dining room, past several empty tables, all the way to a small table near the restroom.
The man looked around.
“Is this the only table you have?”
The waiter smiled.
“Yes, sir. The other tables are reserved.”
The man glanced at the empty room.
“Reserved for who?”
The waiter lowered his voice.
“For guests who are expected to arrive properly dressed.”
The waiter placed three menus in front of him.
“Here is our dinner menu, sir. Here is our wine menu. And here is our water menu.”
The man looked up.
“I’ll just have water.”
“Of course, sir. We have water from Mount Everest. We have polar water, bottled by polar bears.”
“By polar bears?”
“Yes, sir. They wear white gloves. They sanitize before handling the bottles. Then they fill them directly from Arctic streams.”
“We also have water from the Fountain of Youth.”
“And of course, we have water from El Dorado. It has tiny speckles of gold.”
The man closed the water menu.
“Just bring me tap water.”
I looked away from that table, and that was when I saw her walking toward me.
The woman arrived at my table and thanked me for letting her join me for dinner.
“That’s no problem,” I said. “OpenTable wouldn’t let me book a table for one.”
She sat across from me and introduced herself as Mr. Porcupine’s lawyer and handler.
They say Mr. Porcupine is wanted in all fifty states.
That is false.
Mr. Porcupine is not wanted in any state.
In fact, all fifty states have formally requested that he remain outside their borders.
He is wanted out of those states.
Every state has issued the same official statement:
“Please keep Mr. Porcupine away from us.
If spotted, do not approach. Spray with water until he leaves the premises. He’s a prick.”
“I met with Mr. Porcupine because of his animal abuse allegations,” she said. “And while I was visiting him in Alcatraz, he told me that you are heartless.”
I sighed.
“I hate admitting that Mr. Porcupine is right, because he is usually wrong.”
“So you admit it?”
“At the moment, yes. I am currently heartless.”
“But I have an explanation,” I said. “My heart is not with me at this time.”
“But I am working on it,” I said. “I am trying to get my heart back.”
“If the raven I sent after it doesn’t succeed, I will put a new engine on my broom and collect it personally.”
“Currently, my broom can only fly within a fifty-mile radius.”
Mr. Porcupine claims he is only in trouble because he tried to be a good Samaritan.
According to him, he was only trying to help a damsel witch in distress retrieve a heart she had misplaced.
“That is not what happened,” I said.
“No. Mr. Porcupine was already heading to the West Coast to find himself, like he saw in a pirated Hollywood movie.”
“The reason I’m trying to talk to you,” she said, “is because I need a letter of reference for Mr. Porcupine.”
“The only kind of reference I can give you is a negative reference.”
“That’s fine.”
“Anything helps.”
“How does a negative reference help?”
“The courts are overwhelmed with paperwork,” she said. “They’ll probably read ‘To Whom It May Concern,’ assume concern was expressed, and keep moving.”
“So you don’t need a good reference.”
“No,” she said. “We need volume.”
“We need to make Mr. Porcupine look important enough that people took time out of their lives to write about their experiences with him.”
“But those experiences are negative.”
“That is still engagement.”
“We understand how the court system works,” she said.
“That is why, on the day of his trial, Mr. Porcupine will be wearing stilts.”
“To make himself appear taller.”
I stared at her in disbelief.
“Studies have shown that people are more likely to be lenient toward defendants who are tall and attractive.”
Mr. Porcupine is a menace wherever he goes.
This is the same porcupine who once woke up an entire neighborhood and demanded that everyone move their cars so he could parallel park on a narrow street.
Because he refuses to take driving lessons.
Mr. Porcupine is now claiming he plans to use animal abuse allegations to get out of his case.
According to him, Officer Cop committed animal abuse during the arrest. Apparently, he tightened the leash around Mr. Porcupine’s neck and nearly broke it.
What his lawyer and handler doesn’t know is that Mr. Porcupine already had a prior injury from a county fair.
He was watching the Olympigs (the pig race) got distracted, fell off the benches, and hurt his neck.
So no, Officer Cop did not injure Mr. Porcupine.
It certainly crossed Officer Cop’s mind.
But he couldn’t turn off his body camera.
Apparently, they are solar-powered now and can’t even be turned off during a bathroom break.
But as soon as the jury hears “police brutality,” they might sympathize with him.
The public may even try to turn him into a saint without a background check.
Do not be surprised if one day, at a Catholic church, they plaster his face over a lesser-known saint.
The lawyer told me that Governor Nuisance was considering pardoning Mr. Porcupine.
“And if none of that works?” I asked.
“Mr. Porcupine is also planning an escape from Alcatraz,” the lawyer said.
“Of course he is.”
“But for that, the cat’s iron claws need to grow back.”
“As you may know,” she continued, “the cat courageously used his iron claws to make a hole in that man’s garage door to extract your heart.”
“Is that why they requested that I send Flintstones iron gummies?”
“Yes,” she said. “To expedite the claw regeneration process.”
“He is protecting the claws.”
The lawyer looked down at her phone.
“Mr. Porcupine is doing everything he can to keep the black cat from accidentally breaking one of his new claws before the escape.”
“Don’t be fooled by Mr. Porcupine’s sudden concern for the black cat,” I said. “He is not protecting him out of kindness. He is protecting his ticket out of Alcatraz.”
“And knowing Mr. Porcupine,” I added, “he has probably already considered using the cat as a flotation device.”
“I saw nothing but remorse in his face,” the lawyer said.
“That is because he got his eyebrows tattooed that way,” I said.
“He tattooed sad eyebrows on his face. That is why he looks remorseful. He is not sorry. He is cosmetically remorseful.”
The Easy Way or the Heart Way
Mr. Porcupine pulled up in an oversized monster truck flying a Texas flag. Across the back was a giant sticker: EVERYTHING IS BIG IN TEXAS EXCEPT PORCUPINES.
The monster truck was so large that Mr. Porcupine couldn’t parallel-park it anywhere near the house.
He pulled alongside the curb.
Backed up.
Pulled forward.
Backed up again.
After several attempts, the truck was still sitting diagonally across the street.
Eventually, the entire crew had to climb out.
Mr. Porcupine sent the koala to knock on one of the neighbors’ doors.
A woman answered.
“Excuse me,” the koala said. “Would you mind moving your car forward?”
She looked past him at the monster truck occupying most of the street.
“How far?”
“Preferably into the next neighborhood.”
“We need enough room for him to parallel-park,” the koala explained.
The woman stared at the black cat holding a coil of rope.
“What exactly are you cute little creatures doing?”
“Heart repossession.”
The woman slowly closed the door.
A moment later, her car moved.
Once the monster truck was finally badly parked, Mr. Porcupine adjusted his shredded cowboy hat and strutted toward the house, the enormous heels of his pointed cowboy boots striking the pavement with every step.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
He planted himself on the porch, stretched as tall as the boots would allow, and knocked.
When the man opened the door, Mr. Porcupine lifted his chin and cleared his throat.
“Mr. Porcupine,” he said. “Texas Heart Repossession Division.”
“We’re here,” Mr. Porcupine said, “to repossess one witch’s heart and return it to its original owner. Her name is Cin.”
Cin?” the man said. “Is that short for cinnamon? cinematic?”
“Both,” said Mr. Porcupine.
“Doesn’t sound familiar at all.”
Mr. Porcupine showed him a photograph of the heart.
The man studied it closely.
“I’ve collected many hearts,” he said, “but I’ve never seen one like that.”
“That’s because it’s a witch’s heart,” Mr. Porcupine explained. “They’re extremely rare. There are only a few of them left in this dimension.”
“It’s understandable that you might not remember. Some people suffer from emotional amnesia. Fortunately, we have a locator.”
He pulled out a small device.
“The signal leads directly to this property.”
He pointed dramatically toward the garage.
“So,” he continued, “we can do this the easy way or the heart way.”
The koala shifted awkwardly.
“Boss,” he said, “we already did it the heart way.”
Mr. Porcupine turned.
Behind him, the black cat was emerging through a huge hole in the garage wall, dragging the witch’s heart across the floor with a rope while carrying a case of popsicles in his other paw.
The man stared in horror.
“You destroyed my garage just to take back that witch’s heart?”
Mr. Porcupine narrowed his eyes.
“Aha,” he said. “So you do know exactly whose heart this is.”
The crew loaded the heart into the monster truck.
“You’re going to pay for this damage,” the man said.
Mr. Porcupine looked over at the enormous hole in the garage.
“No, I’m not.”
“Your crew did that.”
“Exactly,” Mr. Porcupine said. “My crew did it. I didn’t.”
“They work for you.”
“That doesn’t make me responsible for everything they do.”
The man pointed at the ruined garage. “I’m pressing charges.”
Mr. Porcupine gave a small shrug.
“Then you’ll have to come to Texas.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s where I live.”
“And even if you do come,” Mr. Porcupine continued, “California has no jurisdiction over Texas. They’ll throw the whole thing out.”
“I merely traveled here from Texas to recover stolen emotional property.”
Mr. Porcupine turned and strutted back toward the monster truck in his pointed-toe cowboy boots.
“Good luck proving anything.”
“Wait,” the man said. “How much is she paying you to recover the heart?”
“You know what? Whatever she’s paying you, I’ll add another zero to it.”
Mr. Porcupine stared at him.
“If you could just give it back,” the man said.
Mr. Porcupine pulled out his calculator and added another zero.
“That works,” he said. “You owe me one hundred dollars.”
“That’s no problem.”
The man pulled out a roll of ten-dollar bills.
“You know what?” the man said. “I really don’t care about the garage anymore.”
Mr. Porcupine paused.
“You don’t?”
“I just remembered that I have rodent-damage insurance.”
“So thank you,” the man continued. “You’ve basically paid for the renovation of my garage door.”
Mr. Porcupine looked back at the enormous hole.
“We did?”
“Yes. You’ve been extremely helpful.”
The black cat started choking on the stolen popsicle.
The man smiled.
“Honestly, you’ve been a blessing sent from Texas.”
“And don’t tell her I bought the heart back because I care,” the man said. “It’s simply a rare specimen for my collection.”
Mr. Porcupine nodded while running a counterfeit pen across each ten-dollar bill.
One bill.
Then the next.
“If she wants the heart,” the man continued, “she can get on a plane or a boat and come claim it herself. I get airsick, carsick, and seasick.”
Mr. Porcupine held another bill up to the light.
“Understood.”
“Are you even listening to me?”
“Of course.”
“What did I just say?”
Once again, the thought of money had completely porcupied Mr. Porcupine’s mind.
He marked the final ten-dollar bill with the counterfeit pen and completely ignored the man.
Earlier, Mr. Porcupine had made one of the neighbors move her car so he could parallel-park the monster truck. But while he stood at the door negotiating the return of the heart, someone else had parked only inches behind him.
When Mr. Porcupine finally turned to leave, he stared at the tiny gap behind the monster truck.
“Who parks like this?” he demanded.
Then demanded that the man helped him keep watch while he back up.
Once the monster truck was clear, Mr. Porcupine lowered the window.
“How do I get to the freeway?”
“Go straight, follow the street around, and it’ll be on your left.”
By the time they finally reached the freeway, the koala had started muttering to himself.
“It still makes no sense,” he said. “Accepting one hundred dollars when the witch was going to pay you a thousand.”
Mr. Porcupine whipped around.
“What did you say?”
“She offered you a thousand dollars.”
“I don’t remember her saying any of that.”
The koala stared at him.
“She did say it.”
“When?”
“When she gave you the ten-dollar deposit.”
“How did I miss that?”
“She said she would pay you the remaining nine hundred and ninety dollars after you delivered the heart.”
“I would remember that.”
“You were distracted.”
“By what?”
“By checking every dollar for counterfeits.”
Mr. Porcupine blinked.
The koala leaned forward.
“While you were counting them, she explained that the ten dollars was only a deposit. She said she would pay the rest after delivery because she didn’t trust you.”
Mr. Porcupine looked offended.
“She didn’t trust me?”
“Exactly. She said you’d already stabbed her in the back once at some acupuncture place.”
Mr. Porcupine thought for a moment.
“I remember her talking.”
“That was the payment agreement.”
“You told us to stay out of all negotiations.”
“She gave us a gas card and even packed lunches for us” the koala said.
Mr. Porcupine turned toward him.
“What lunches?”
“For the drive to California. Lunches, snacks, and refreshments.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You didn’t ask.”
“Where are they?”
“They fell.”
“Where?”
“In our mouths.”
Mr. Porcupine looked toward the black cat.
“You gluttonous fat cat. Gluttony is a deadly sin!”
Then he turned back to the koala.
“So I lost nine hundred and ninety dollars?”
Mr. Porcupine pressed one tiny paw against the brake button on the controller.
The monster truck stopped.
Everyone flew forward.
The frozen popsicles shot from the backseat and punched through the windshield like projectiles.
One struck the hood of a nearby sedan.
A father ducked behind the steering wheel and pulled his son down with him.
“I didn’t know we were at war.”
His son looked out at the popsicles raining across traffic.
“America is always at war.”
Right after the popsicles went flying, Mr. Porcupine tried to make a getaway.
Unfortunately, California traffic was barely moving.
He pressed the controller forward, lurched ahead a few feet, and immediately stopped behind a line of cars.
Red and blue lights flashed behind him.
Mr. Porcupine looked in the mirror.
“Damn California,” he muttered. “You can’t even flee properly in this traffic.”
The officer approached the monster truck, practically rock-climbed his way up the side, and tapped on the door.
Mr. Porcupine lowered the window.
“License and registration.”
“Don’t you know who I am?”
“Are you a celebrity?”
“No. I’m a Texan. Ever heard ‘Don’t mess with Texas’?”
The officer nodded.
“Ever heard ‘Don’t trash California’?”
Mr. Porcupine frowned.
“We just watched frozen popsicles launch out of your vehicle and scatter across the freeway,” the officer said. “That’s littering.”
“As you may not know, Officer Cop, I happen to understand the law. I’ve spent enough time around courts to know my rights. Crimes committed by Texans in California cannot be prosecuted in Texas.”
“That may be true in Texas,” the officer said. “But here in California, crimes committed by Texans get double the penalty.”
Mr. Porcupine stared at him.
“And California loves overcrowding its prisons,” the officer said. “So everybody out. You’re all going to Alcatraz.”
“Wasn’t that prison condemned?” Mr. Porcupine asked.
“For everybody except Texan criminals.”
Mr. Porcupine demanded his phone call.
When they finally handed him the phone, he passed it to the koala.
“Call the witch,” he said. “Ask her how the weather is, then tell her we failed the mission and ask her to bail us out.”
The koala stared at him.
“But I don’t have the heart to tell her we don’t have her heart.”
“Just do it.”
A few minutes later, the koala hung up.
“What did she say?” Mr. Porcupine asked.
“She already knew we don’t have the heart.”
Mr. Porcupine froze.
“How does she know? Is she psychic?”
“No. She has access to the same app. She can see that the heart is back in the freezer and that he tossed a bag of frozen peas over it to hide it.”
Mr. Porcupine looked down.
“What else did she say?”
“She said she’s bringing the raven out of retirement to recover it.”
Mr. Porcupine gave a cautious nod.
“And she said he’s going to peck your eyes out.”
“His eyes?”
“Your eyes.”
Mr. Porcupine squealed like a pig and squeezed his eyes shut.
Telepathic Trespassing
Last updated 07/04/2026
After picking up my car from a tire alignment, I realized that all the stress of planning a major move had knocked my chakras out of alignment too.
Clearly, I needed a chakra alignment.
So I stopped at a new acupuncture and massage place on my way home.
A very small woman greeted me and asked how I wanted to be massaged.
“Hands, knees, elbows, or feet?” she asked. “Or would you rather spin the wheel and take your chances?”
So I gambled.
The wheel landed on knees.
Without introducing herself or explaining what was about to happen, the masseuse climbed onto the table like a ninja, positioned herself over my legs, and began massaging them with her knees.
Apparently, the technique was reserved exclusively for Westerners.
It had been completely banned in its country of origin.
She placed several hot stones along my back, then returned shortly afterward to remove them.
As she lifted them one by one, she told me the acupuncturist was very short and would be with me shortly.
That was when I heard what sounded like a small stool being dragged across the floor.
Then I heard his voice.
Mr. Porcupine!
He pointed the flashlight on his phone directly at my face. The room was pitch-black.
“What are you doing here?”
“I work here,” he said. “I’m in a court-ordered rehabilitation program.”
“So this is part of your rehabilitation?”
“I’m supposed to learn an honest profession and become another productive slave of the system. I was released from prison a few months ago after serving time for practicing medicine without a license.”
“I just received my certification,” he said, pulling a sheet of paper from inside his shredded white coat. “I printed it on my friend’s home printer.”
He handed it to me.
“It’s still warm.”
The certificate was from the Believe It or Not Shamanic School.
He had graduated with honors.
I turned it over.
His acupuncture license was printed on the back.
“You put both credentials on the same sheet of paper?”
“It saves trees and space in my wallet.”
“Do you really have to wear that white coat? Your quills have completely shredded the back.”
“I want people to take me seriously.” He adjusted what remained of the collar. “And white looks good on me.”
He pulled out his clipboard.
“Anyway, what brings you here?”
“I have this being stuck in my mind like that meow-meow song.”
“Like the song that never ends?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me about this mysterious being.”
“Where do I begin?”
“Did you exchange bodily fluids when you met him?”
“No!”
Mr. Porcupine looked surprised.
“You don’t smooch on the first date?”
“It wasn’t a date, and that is none of your business.”
“I’m trying to gather all the relevant details,” he said as he removed the hot stones from the warmer and poured a handful of popcorn kernels inside.
“Are you making popcorn?”
“I get the feeling this is going to be an interesting story.”
I continued with my story.
“Right after I met him, I felt all the energy drain out of me. I became spiritually weak. At first, I assumed I was simply exhausted from traveling.
“But a few weeks later, the thoughts intensified. Eventually, he began entering my dreams.
“He would flash signs at me so quickly that I couldn’t read what he was trying to say. So I started entering his dreams because I wanted to find out.”
Mr. Porcupine started typing on his phone while talking to me.
“It sounds to me like this has developed into a serious case of telepathy trespassing.”
“He entered my dreams first.” I said.
“That doesn’t give you permission to enter his.”
“I was investigating.”
“You were trespassing.”
“You see, humans are like computers. When two people stare meaningfully into each other’s eyes, they can begin transferring files.”
“Files?”
“Thoughts, bucket lists, passwords, dreams, emotional viruses. That sort of thing.”
“So he downloaded himself into my mind?”
“Possibly. Or you accidentally left your spiritual Bluetooth turned on.”
“Tell me, did you accept any food or drinks from him?”
“No.”
I paused.
“Wait. I did. He gave me a bottle of water, and I drank it.”
Mr. Porcupine lowered his eyebrows and shook his head.
“Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to accept drinks from strangers?”
“She told me not to accept candy from strangers. She never mentioned anything about drinks.”
“What he gave you was not water. It was a love potion, and the seal only made it more potent.”
“At first, I thought distance would dilute the thoughts, but it only made them stronger.
“Give me his ZIP code.”
I gave it to him.
Mr. Porcupine opened Google Maps on his phone and studied the distance.
“Aha!”
“What?”
“You’re still much too close. You’re only a few hours apart by plane.”
“That is not close.”
“To heartbreak, it is. You may as well live down the street from him and see him every day.”
“My body can still detect him?”
“Of course. That is why the potion hasn’t cleared from your system.”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
“Move to China.”
“China?”
“Within a week, he’ll be completely out of your system. You’ll be so busy trying to find your way around that there won’t be a single ounce of space left in your brain for him to occupy.”
He continued the treatment and informed me that he could perform a shamanic exorcism to temporarily evict him from my mind.
He pulled out a baby rattle, and began reciting what sounded like Hollywood Latin… the kind supernatural movies use whenever they want the audience to know that something demonic and poorly translated is happening.
Whatever Mr. Porcupine was saying was badly mispronounced. He was reading it directly from his phone.
He kept dragging the little stool around the massage table so he could reach me, shaking the baby rattle over every part of my body.
He finally stopped the ridiculous chanting and informed me that the treatment was only a temporary fix.
“If you want him completely flushed out of your system,” he said, “You’re going to have to flush the old blood out of your system three times a week,” he said. “I know a place that can help.”
“What place?”
“Dracula’s Mobile Blood Donation Center.”
“I know exactly where it is,” I said. “I was coerced into donating blood there once during a hospital stay.”
A few minutes later, he gathered his things and left the room.
“Mr. Porcupine!” I shouted. “Mr. Porcupine! Mr. Porcupine!”
He froze in the hallway.
It worked, he thought. I redirected the obsession toward myself.
He straightened the shredded remains of his white coat.
I have to tell her the truth. She deserves to know where she stands and what she’s up against.
Then he walked back into the room.
“I need to be honest with you,” he said. “I’m married. Shotgun wedding. Baby porcupine on the way.”
“Oh, Mr. Porcupine,” I said. “You have no idea how long I’ve prayed for a one-foot creature capable of shredding me into pieces and with baggage on top of it. At last, God or the demons have heard me.”
He lowered his eyes modestly.
“Mr. Porcupine, you’re a CERTIFIED IDIOT! You left one of your quills in my back, and I nearly impaled myself when I rolled over.”
“Oh.”
He reached over and pulled it out.
“I’m so sorry. I got distracted.”
“By what?”
“Calculating how much I was going to bill your insurance for all the unnecessary treatments I performed during this session.”
I suppose it was true what they said.
A porcupine never changes its quills.
My Heart Belongs to Me
Last updated 07/03/2026
I had already texted him to say I was running late because something had come up.
“Take all the time you need,” he replied.
I was late because I had offered to help an elderly woman cross the street. When we finally reached the other side… an expedition that took more than ten minutes… she confessed that she had not actually been waiting to cross the street.
She had been waiting for her Uber.
Apparently, no one had shown her kindness in such a long time that when I offered to help her, she didn’t have the heart to tell me no. So she allowed me to slowly escort her away from the exact location where her driver was coming to collect her.
By the time we reached the other side, she had missed the Uber.
Now I had to order her another one and help her cross the street again, returning her to the same shady spot where I had originally found her.
When I finally arrived at the restaurant, he came outside to meet me.
“I’m so sorry,” I said.
“Don’t worry. I’ve been having a great time talking to the fortune teller inside. I actually took the liberty of hiring her to do a reading for both of us. I thought you might enjoy it, since you’re into all that occult stuff.”
So while I had been outside reversing an act of kindness, he had been inside discussing our destiny with a fortune teller.
“That was thoughtful. Thank you.”
He led me back to the table, where the fortune teller introduced herself and held out her hands.
“Give me your palms.”
I placed both hands in hers.
She examined them for a moment.
“How strange,” she said. “You don’t have any lines.”
“A very small percentage of people are born without palm lines,” I told her. “It’s unusual, but it’s not supernatural.”
I looked down at my hands.
“I’ve considered having the lines tattooed on, but that would feel like predetermining my destiny.”
She looked at me.
“And where would the fun be in that?”
The fortune teller’s phone rang.
She answered it.
“I knew you would call.”
Then he told me he was looking for a good Christian woman, though he considered himself very open-minded.
“It’s always important to know exactly what you want,” I told him.
He had crosses tattooed all over his body, loved Jesus, and seemed deeply concerned about the precise nature of my relationship with Him.
Then he asked whether my heart belonged to Jesus.
“My heart belongs to me,” I said.
The fortune teller, who apparently had one ear on the phone and the other on our conversation, leaned over from the next table.
“The truth is, her heart is in California with a man she briefly met,” the fortune teller said.
“Not because I gave it to him out of romantic love,” I said. “He borrowed it for an exhibition. Apparently, people wanted to see what a witch’s heart looked like on display.”
“That was six months ago, though. The exhibition is over, the trend has died down, and everyone has already forgotten about the witch’s heart.”
“I suppose he put it in the freezer inside his garage and forgot all about it.”
“So now I’m just waiting for him to remember to mail it back.”
I looked back at him.
“But just so you know, I do have a heart.”
“Do you believe in Jesus?” he asked.
“I like the rebellious Jesus,” I told him. “The sharp-tongued one. The one who went face-to-face with the devil and essentially told him to f*** off. The one who healed people on the Sabbath and called hypocrites exactly what they were.”
“That’s the Jesus I like.”
“I believe heaven and hell are internal states, and that God is consciousness.”
“I respect your beliefs,” he said, “but that’s wrong.”
“You’re not like most Californians I’ve met. I actually really like you,” he said. “Texans value people. We still know how to treat each other. We’re nice. We care for one another. You’ll never see road rage here.”
“That’s because everyone is armed. You think twice before honking. I’ve seen people sit through an entire green light because they were too afraid to honk at the person sleeping through it.”
Then he complained about Californians.
“They come here, raise the prices, and take over our land.”
“You should’ve seen me when I arrived in my wagon and planted the California flag in Texas soil, like they did in that moon-landing commercial in 1969.”
“You’re funny,” he said.
Then he began listing everything he owned.
“I have a house here, another property over there, a vacation condo, a pool, a boat, and friends with boats.”
“Do you have a time machine or a teleportation portal?” I asked.
He paused.
“No.”
“Then I’m not impressed.”
“So tell me… why do you Californians say ‘like’ so much?”
“The same reason you say ‘y’all.’”
“I dare you to go twenty minutes without saying ‘like.’”
“Actually,” I said, standing up, “I can go much longer than that.”
And I fulfilled his wish by leaving the table.
I asked the waiter to box up my taro mochi and add a side of caviar.
My date apologized and followed me to the car.
When we reached my car, he looked through the window.
“Is that a chicken in your back seat?”
“Yeah. I’m trying to find him a home before I move.”
“Did that bird just flip me off?”
“He has free will.”
“You know, McDonald’s could probably take him off your hands.”
“Unless McDonald’s is the name of a farmer, he’s not ready to be consumed.”
“I have to go now,” I said. “I need to get home and feed my dog.”
“But you told me you didn’t have a dog.”
“I just ordered one. It’s on its way.”
A Yankee, a Foreigner, and the Texas Holy Trinity
There I was, taking the back roads toward New Braunfels with a newfound possible friend in the passenger seat.
I had known her for approximately thirty minutes.
I told her I was heading to New Braunfels to make some returns and could drop her off first.
“No, that’s okay,” she said. “I’ll go with you.”
And that was how she became my temporary passenger, possible new friend, and companion for every errand I had planned that late afternoon.
As we were driving, the wind suddenly threw open the door of a portable construction toilet sitting beside the busy road.
Fortunately, it was unoccupied.
The portable toilet had apparently grown tired of modesty and decided to expose itself to traffic.
We both jumped.
“What the fuck?”
Then we started laughing so hard that the exhibitionist toilet immediately became the first shared memory of our thirty-minute friendship.
We continued toward New Braunfels, surrounded by endless cornfields. She had never been there before, so I was giving her the scenic agricultural tour while we got to know each other.
That was when she told me that her boyfriend and one of his friends had once Robin Hooded corn from a field outside Dallas.
They worked their way around the outer edges, filled their trunks, kept some for themselves, and drove around distributing the rest to people who sold corn on the street.
It was theft, but with community outreach.
Funny how life works: one of the men they generously donated the stolen corn to turned out to be the owner of the very cornfield they had stolen it from.
They had unknowingly returned part of the harvest to its original source.
As we continued along the back roads, surrounded by rows and rows of corn, I looked over at her.
“Do you notice something or maybe something you don’t notice?”
“What?”
“There aren’t any scarecrows.”
She looked out the window.
“You’re right. There aren’t.”
It was strange. Miles of cornfields, but not a single scarecrow standing guard.
“You know what?” I said. “Now I really want to know why there aren’t any scarecrows.”
Out of excitement, I immediately spotted a farmer standing near one of the fields and violently swung the car to the right.
The farmer immediately ran to the left.
He thought I was going to hit him.
I was not trying to hit him. My excitement had simply taken control of the accelerator.
The car went slightly into the cornfield.
I parked, got out, and began removing pieces of corn husk from my windshield while the farmer stood there at a distance staring at me.
This was not the entrance I had planned.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Farmer. I’ll pay for all the corn I just ran over.”
“If you want to keep driving around like this is a NASCAR circuit, you’re welcome to,” he said. “I’ll bill you after your last lap.”
Then he began walking toward us.
“We’re armed,” I warned him.
“So am I!” he yelled back.
“What are two pretty ladies doing out here?” he asked. “Shouldn’t y’all be somewhere braiding a pony’s hair?”
“Farmer, we have so many questions we’re dying to ask you. We were hoping you could help us.”
“What kind of questions?”
“Well”
“You only get three.”
“First question: Are you a genie?”
“No.”
“That sounds exactly like something a genie would say. Although I was hoping you’d say, ‘I’ll grant you three wishes.’”
“Anyway, we want to know why there’s an exhibitionist toilet sitting beside a busy road and why none of these cornfields have scarecrows.”
“Well,” the farmer said, “the toilet is how the construction company keeps tabs on its employees.”
“Through the toilet?”
“It’s so windy here that they only have a few seconds before the door bursts open. That keeps them productive. They have to finish their business and get back to work before the entire highway sees their business.”
It was an outdoor employee-monitoring system.
“And the scarecrows?” I asked. “Why aren’t there even any of the mechanical Halloween kind?”
“Jeepers Creepers gave scarecrows a bad reputation,” he explained. “People became afraid they might actually be possessed, so the farmers stopped using them.”
Apparently, the agricultural industry had responded by replacing scarecrows with real human beings who clocked in, stood in the fields, and received a fifteen-minute break every few hours.
Then the union became involved.
It became too expensive, there were concerns about working conditions, and the farmers had to start respecting the constitutional rights of the people hired to frighten birds.
Eventually, it became far too much trouble.
“So now,” the farmer said, “we genetically modify the corn until the crows stay away on their own.”
The corn had apparently become so genetically modified that even the birds could smell the toxicity.
“I don’t really care about the corn around the edges,” the farmer said. “That’s the poisonous corn.”
“The poisonous corn?”
“That’s the corn people usually steal. Sometimes it takes years for the poison to kick in and do its job.”
My potential new friend’s eyes widened. The color drained from her face.
“Mr. Farmer, do I still have to pay for all that slow-acting poisonous corn I just ran over?
“Of course you do,” he said. “Somebody has to pay for all that karma.”
“So,” the farmer said, looking between us, “a Yankee and a foreigner.”
“You’re very observant for someone with only half an eye,” I replied.
“How long have y’all known each other?” he asked.
“About thirty minutes.”
“Aha! You got yourself a hitchhiker.”
“No…”
“Great,” he said. “A hitchhiker and a foreigner.”
“But she was born in this state,” I said. “She’s native to the land.”
He narrowed his eyes at her.
“Native?”
“Yes.”
“Prove it. Tell me the three-word code.”
“Whataburger. H-E-B. Buc-ee’s,” she said, annoyed.
The farmer seemed pleased.
Before we left, I told him, “Listen, I’m preparing to move out of Texas. Would you be interested in adopting a chicken?”
“I could use another worker,” he said. “What are his qualifications?”
“Well, he sings, he dances, and he knows his way around town.”
“An entertainer could raise morale among the other animals,” he said. “Then again, it might create jealousy. They could all start competing to outshine one another in their assigned fields.”
“It could lead to a farm civil war.”
He looked thoughtfully across the corn, as though reminiscing about the old South.
“Let me think about it.”
The Road Less Traveled by a Trash Can
My friend looked toward the house beside mine and said, “What is going on with your neighbor? Why isn’t he cutting the grass?”
“You mean the Jumanji house?”
“You call it the Jumanji house?”
Of course I do. The grass grows several feet tall, and a vine has completely swallowed the porch. One of the perks of living in a neighborhood without an HOA is that Tarzan is free to recreate his natural habitat on his own property.
To be fair, his yard has always looked like that. He eventually cuts the grass, but only after the ivy has nearly made it impossible for him to enter or exit the house.
The strange part is that I haven’t seen him in about five months. The last time I did, he seemed uneasy as he rummaged through the trunk of his car.
This is cartel country, after all. Those of us who are new to the neighborhood know better than to ask too many questions.
It’s all a mystery. Different cars still come to the house once in a blue moon, and someone occasionally moves the trash cans, so there are signs of life… just not necessarily his.
I don’t understand what the house could still be throwing away unless they think trash cans are like dogs and need to be taken for a walk.
“You don’t think he died, right?”
“No. I haven’t smelled anything strange. I also haven’t seen anyone carrying a shovel, planting a suspiciously beautiful garden while whistling ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm.’ Nor have I seen anyone struggling to lift several heavy-duty black trash bags into the bins.”
I still liked having him as a neighbor because he was quiet and minded his own business, just like I do… as you can probably tell by the amount of detail I know about the activity at his house.
Although it is possible that he never forgave me for kidnapping his trash can.
“How the hell do you always get involved in the most absurd incidents?”
“Remember that time you went to Houston and almost bought ice cream for the entire city?”
“Yes, I recall.”
“I got distracted talking to my little cousin about the Minions movie and accidentally left my credit card inside the payment terminal. I didn’t notice until I tried to pay somewhere else and realized it was missing.
“When I returned, the employees had saved it for me… along with a stack of receipts for all the ice cream it had purchased in my absence.”
If you must know about the accidental kidnapping of my neighbor’s trash can, it happened on a windy day. Nothing serious… just a casual 80 to 85 miles per hour.
My trash can spent the afternoon trailblazing back and forth across the street, according to my Ring camera, while I wasn’t home. In the past, it had always ended up in my neighbor’s yard. This time, however, it took the road less traveled, and I made the mistake of assuming it had once again landed on his property.
I got home and retrieved my trash can from my neighbor’s yard assuming it was mine.
The next day, I went outside to feed it. I opened the lid and found empty wrappers from unmistakably masculine snacks: Pickled Jalapeños & Sausage and Little Debbie Strawberry Shortcake Rolls.
I stared into the bin.
“This ain’t my trash can.”
Then I looked toward my neighbor’s fence.
His trash can was missing.
Or, more accurately, I had abducted it.
I analyzed the limited range of my Ring camera, but the footage ended before I could follow the trash can through the final leg of its journey.
I had no choice but to go door to door, ignoring a series of increasingly unwelcoming signs:
BEWARE OF ARMED DOG.
YOU KNOCK, WE SHOOT.
WE ARE NOT CONVERTING AGAIN.
KKK MEETING IN SESSION.
But the last sign was the most terrifying of all:
SHERIFF’S HOUSE.
So I knocked on the first door and asked my neighbor if she had seen my trash can.
“What does it look like?” she asked.
“It looks exactly like your trash can,” I said, “but with a different serial number.”
“I don’t know my serial number,” she said, “but you’re welcome to open my trash can and see if it stinks familiar.”
“I’ll keep checking,” I said, and moved on to the next house.
A man answered the door and immediately began firing questions at me as though he were a retired detective who had been waiting years for one final case.
By the time the interrogation ended, I had forgotten to ask whether he had seen my trash can.
As I was descending the steps from the previous house, the woman next door came outside and told me she hadn’t seen my trash can, but promised to let me know if she ever did. Then she added that God works in mysterious ways and perhaps this was a test meant specifically for me.
I skipped the next house because I was reckless, not stupid.
I knocked on the sheriff’s door.
He opened it and immediately asked, “Have you been drinking?”
Then he paused.
“Sorry. Habit. What seems to be the problem?”
“I lost my trash can.”
“You don’t know the serial number?”
“No.”
“Well, when you find it, spray-paint your house number on it. Make it very visible.”
“Isn’t that damaging community property? And technically graffiti?”
“I can neither confirm nor deny that,” he said.
Then I told him I could see an extra trash can over his fence.
“I think that one might be mine.”
It was.
My trash can had turned himself in for reckless driving through the neighborhood.
Porcupied with the Porcupine
The porcupine was crossing the street in a school zone, jaywalking, and carrying a small bouquet of flowers like he had somewhere romantic to be. A woman failed to brake in time and rolled right over his little foot. Not his whole body…just the foot.
I saw the whole thing and ran over to help. The porcupine was on the ground, furious, with one tiny foot still pinned beneath the tire.
Instead of backing up, the woman got out of the car and immediately started yelling at him.
“Could you at least move the car so he can pull his foot out?” I asked.
“No,” she snapped. “I want the cops to see exactly where he was. I’m making a citizen’s arrest.”
“A citizen’s arrest for what?”
“For jaywalking. And emotional damage to my morning.”
I looked at her. “You clearly saw him. This is a school zone. You were supposed to slow down.”
“I did see him, but I’m only required to stop for children and school staff,” she said. “Not for some romantic animal carrying flowers.”
At that, the porcupine pulled out one of his quills, reached up with shocking precision, and punctured her tire.
“There,” he said. “Now you have something to be porcupied with.”
Then I used the eyebrow tweezers from my purse to help pull his little foot out from under the tire.
As we waited for the police, the porcupine glanced at Mrs. Karen’s deflated tire.
“I happen to know a mobile tire-repair service that can come out and fix that right here,” he said. “And because of the circumstances, I can offer you a special price.”
Mrs. Karen narrowed her eyes. “You punctured it.”
“That is why you qualify for this limited-time offer.”
“I’m not paying you to repair the tire you damaged.”
“You wouldn’t be paying me,” he explained. “You would be paying the company. I would only receive a small commission.”
She stared at him.
“But you must act now,” he added. “This offer will not last.”
“We’re waiting for the police!”
“You work at a tire shop?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“On commission?”
The porcupine looked at the ground.
Mrs. Karen screamed, “I KNEW IT! HE’S GENERATING LEADS!”
The officer finally arrived, took one look at Mrs. Karen’s flat tire, and pointed at the porcupine.
“Hands behind your back.”
“I can’t.”
“Are you resisting?”
“No. My arms are too short.”
“Fine. Hands forward.”
The porcupine held out his tiny hands. The officer fastened a pair of regular human handcuffs around them, but they slipped straight off and fell onto the pavement.
The officer stared at the cuffs.
“So now you’re evading restraints.”
“Aren’t you at least going to hear my witness statement?” I asked.
“Actually,” the officer said, turning toward the porcupine, “let me have your anti-social security number.”
“How do you even know he has one of those?”
“I can tell,” the officer said, pointing at the tiny teardrop tattoo beneath the porcupine’s left eye.
The porcupine sighed. “One, two, three, four, five…”
He paused, momentarily forgetting the last digit.
“…six.”
The officer typed it into his system.
“Bingo! You have a rap sheet longer than Santa Claus’s naughty list.”
He turned to me. “You see? Just because he looks cuddly in the front”
The officer grabbed a handful of the porcupine’s soft little belly.
“doesn’t mean he’s a good guy.”
“Could you stop manually demonstrating your point?” I asked.
“He’s bad,” the officer continued. “Listen to this. Recently arrested for getting high on catnip and eucalyptus while associating with a black cat and a koala.”
“I was standing near them,” the porcupine said.
The officer kept reading. “Under the influence and in the company of known users.”
Then he looked at me.
“Ma’am, you seem awfully porcupied with this porcupine.”
“I’m trying to explain what happened.”
“We can switch you out,” he said. “Like a prisoner exchange. Legally.”
“How would that be legal?”
“The law requires a suspect. It doesn’t specify which one.”
“That cannot possibly be true.”
“Ma’am, please don’t make this more complicated. I already opened the ticket, and I can still alter it without leaving a trace.”
He turned back toward the porcupine.
“Have you ever considered changing your life?”
“I have a job.”
“At the tire shop. On commission.”
The porcupine looked away.
“You could become an acupuncturist,” the officer continued. “You already have the necessary tools.”
“Or a professional head scratcher,” Mrs. Karen added.
“Back scratcher,” the officer corrected. “There’s more surface area.”
“I am not changing careers because one woman failed to brake,” the porcupine said.
The officer pulled out his phone and handed it to me. Then he held the citation over one of the porcupine’s quills.
“Wait,” he said. “Take one now. I want a picture of the exact moment of service.”
“This feels unethical,” I said.
“Just move a little to the left so the sun doesn’t cast such a harsh shadow.” He turned toward the porcupine. “Now, Mr. Porcupine, open your mouth just a tiny bit and furrow your brow. Try to look remorseful, but dangerous.”
“Hold that pose.”
Click. Click.