Stupid and Contagious

by Caprice Crane

  I’ve been thinking I need a new career. I’ve always wanted to be an inventor like Uncle Stu. I’m always coming up with new ideas. Always have. And not pot-high-induced ideas that are remarkably stupid upon coming down. And yes, I’ve had my fair share of those, too. I’m talking knock-’em-outta-the-ballpark, great fuckin’ ideas. Ideas that would make me the millionaire I was born to be. But every time I come up with one, I do one of three things: a) I don’t act on it and eventually forget what the idea was; b) I don’t act on it and later come to see it invented by some other prick and get pissed off; or c) I store it away in the back of my mind until the day I decide to go for it.

  I had the idea for the toilet bowl brush with cleaner in the handle years ago. I let that slide and then one day . . . I’m cruisin’ down aisle five, and there’s my idea: The Ready Brush. Lysol Fuckers. Same thing happened with packaged foods with built-in Ziploc closures. Used to be—and still is sometimes—once you open some product you bought, it’s exposed to air. Then you either have to fold the plastic bag over and put the contents in something else, or say fuck it and just eat the whole thing. Nowadays, nuts, dried fruit, deli products, lettuce in a bag . . . they all come in bags that have the Ziploc option. That was also my idea. Come to think of it, there are still products that really need it and aren’t utilizing it. Like potato chips. Once you open the bag, what then? My Integrated Zippers would be supergenius and save many a person the trouble of eating the whole bag in one sitting. Which could also aid in solving this country’s obesity problem.

  Point is, I have all these great ideas, and I sit on them and watch other people make fortunes off them. I always say, “Someday . . .” and put it off.

  I think that day is here. And though the majority of my aforementioned million-dollar ideas have already been done, I still have a couple grand-fucking-slams.

  As for my day job, I am the proud owner of Sleestak Records along with my partner, Phil. We’re basically reshaping the music industry along with our very small staff. Which actually consists of Phil and me. My days used to be productive but have devolved into . . . well, let’s see. I listen to shitty demos, hoping and praying that one of the bands will excite me. I brood. I file e-mails. As if organizing them into categories will somehow make my life better. I call the same people I called the week before on behalf of my bands. I Google celebrities’ breasts. There’s something about celebrity boobs that’s better than regular ones. I go on Hotornot.com and give fat girls good scores to make them feel better about themselves. I drink coffee. I wait for the next big thing to happen. But mostly I check out celebrity boobs.

  I walk into the office and Phil is looking at an executable file he downloaded which shows President Bush’s head superimposed onto a lingerie-clad model, which then morphs through a series of lingerie-clad bodies and eventually turns into a monkey. All this to the background of “Freedom,” a George Michael song.

  “Is it wrong that I got a little aroused when I watched that?” he asks.

  “Yes. Yes it is.”

  “I’m just kidding,” he says and closes the file. We both know he’s not kidding.

  “You ever have an idea that you know is gonna make you a millionaire?” I ask, not because I think he has, but because I want him to hear mine.

  “Huh?”

  “Like an invention,” I say. “You ever think of something and think if you just got a patent on it and actually went for it, you’d be set for life?”

  “I don’t think that much.”

  “No, you don’t, do you?”

  “Nah,” he says. And this resonates for a second. He’s serious. And it breaks my heart because he’s so earnest. “I do like to draw, though,” he adds.

  “Well then, there’s that.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m looking into getting a patent.”

  “Yeah?” he says. “Cool. What does that mean?”

  “Means I own the idea.”

  “So what’s the idea?”

  I walk to the door and shut it even though I know nobody is listening to us. I do it for effect. Sometimes I do things like that because, as I’ve mentioned, my life is like a movie to me. And the songs I hear are, of course, my personal soundtrack. And my character in my movie would have shut the door. So I did, too.

  “Cinnamilk,” I say tersely.

  “Huh?”

  “Cinnamilk,” I say, just as tersely but louder in case he didn’t hear.

  “Which is?”

  “Exactly like it sounds. You ever eat Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal when you were a kid?”

  “Of course,” he says with what appears to be genuine pride.

  “What’s left in the bowl after you run out of cereal?”

  “I pour more cereal.”

  “Right,” I cut in. “But before you do that or after you’ve poured your second bowl, as it were, you’re left with the milk. The sweet cinnamon-laden goodness.”

  “Yeah, that is good,” he says, and I lose him for a minute to his cereal rumination.

  “I’m telling you! They have chocolate milk, strawberry milk—why, I don’t know—but no cinnamon milk. An untapped market—just dying to get out to the masses. And the name—Cinnamilk—rolls off the tongue.”

  “Cinnamilk,” he says, nodding slowly with a curious smile.

  “Cinnamilk,” I echo.

  Phil is killing me. We’ve worked together for seven years, but the last few months I feel like everything he does is a personal affront. Like right now he’s playing video games on his computer, and it’s pissing me off. He should be working. Granted, I’ve played my share of video games, but he does it all day long. I mean, even though we’re partners in this label, we started out with my inheritance from my uncle Stu. And we’ve been steadily losing money for the past three years. So it makes me think he needs to stop playing Pong. My life savings are going the way of the VCR, and he’s mocking me by playing. I’m already supposed to be rich.

  In addition to believing I was meant to be rich, I also think fame is inevitably in my future. I’ve always thought this, though there’s nothing I’m pursuing to achieve it—except, of course, my inventions. I don’t mean that in a lazy, I-deserve-fame-for-no-reason kind of way either. I mean that I am not really creative, nor have I ever been. Yet I know I’ll be famous for something. So much so that whenever I’ve broken up with someone in the past, my one comforting thought is always, “Boy, will she be sorry when I’m famous.” I also temper my behavior at times because of it. Not so much in day-to-day things, but big things. Like I always make certain if I make sex tapes with my girlfriends, that they never leave my house. The tapes, not the women. Christ, I’m not Rick James or anything. And I always record over them to be sure. All to make sure that when fame does come my way, the tapes don’t get out. Not that there’s anything really deviant on them. There’s not. Mostly, just your plain old run-of-the-mill sex stuff. That’s not to say I’m a boring lay either. I’m not. I’m quite fun, actually. The point is, I’m protecting my persona, as it were.

  “Even though this game is like a hundred years old, I still love it,” Phil says.

  “It’s not a hundred years old, Phil.”

  Then it hits him. “We should get a Ping-Pong table here.”

  “Ya think?” I say.

  “Totally!”

  “We’re not living in a dorm anymore.”

  “Ping-Pong!”

  “Phil?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What do you think I’m about to say?” I ask.

  “That I should stop playing video games because it’s making your ass itch.”

  “Very good.”

  “Brady?” he says.

  “Yeah, Phil.”

  “I think your milk idea really is good.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And if you make money with it,” he says, “I hope you’ll buy us a Ping-Pong table for the office.”

  “I’m sure you do, Phil.”

  Heaven
r />   I got my mold test kit in the mail today. Along with some other guy’s mail, which I opened. His name is Brady, and apparently he neglects his grandmother, because she says she never hears from him. She sent him a ten-dollar bill, which I left in the envelope, of course. He also has a psycho ex-girlfriend who sent him his toothbrush back, accompanied by a nasty note. I think the mail might be for my new retarded neighbor.

  I open my mold test kit and there’s not much to it. It’s a petri dish and some sticky honey-like stuff. I think it is honey. Weird. Supposedly I leave it out in the open for an hour, then seal and keep it in a dark place for three days. Then I mail it back to the lab, and they’ll give me my analysis in ten days to two weeks. For an extra five dollars, they’ll rush it.

  I pour the honey gunk into the dish and let it sit. It even smells like honey, and it’s making me crave something sweet, like a Krispy Kreme. After two minutes I’m desperate for a doughnut, and I’m scouring my entire apartment for loose change because I don’t have any cash to buy one. Seventy-three cents. Shit. Hmmm. I remember the ten-spot that Retardo’s grandmother sent him. What harm would there be in borrowing it? It’s for a good cause.

  Downstairs in the deli, the anticipation of the first bite of my tasty glazed doughnut is making my mouth water. I stand there looking at my three Krispy Kremes and large coffee, almost enjoying the moment, but I sense someone else’s gaze, which is ruining it. I look up to see some guy waiting in line with an egg-salad sandwich, staring at me and my three doughnuts, and he’s making me self-conscious.

  “They aren’t all for me,” I lie with a dismissive wave at the doughnuts. But my fingertip catches the chocolate icing on one of the Bavarian Cream Filled, so I lick the icing off my finger while I read his T-shirt. It says “667 . . . the neighbor of the beast.” “Funny shirt,” I say. He’s got really, really blue eyes.

  “You have an eyelash,” he says.

  “Hopefully, I have more than one,” I say in an attempt to be clever. But before either of us can enjoy my wit, he reaches up and wipes the eyelash off my face and smiles.

  “There,” he says. I’m boiling. I’m fuming. I could kill this egg-salad-eating asshole. I don’t care how blue his eyes are.

  “What did you just do?” I ask with all kinds of attitude.

  “I wiped off your eyelash,” he says with all of the nonchalance of . . . well, of any other day in the life of someone who just wipes an eyelash off someone’s face with complete disregard for the consequences. I look around, and I don’t see my lash anywhere.

  “And where is it?” I ask, knowing full well that he doesn’t know.

  “It’s off your face.”

  “That was a wish.”

  He furrows his brow and squints his eyes a little. “Pardon?”

  “A wish. You just stole a wish from me.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I really could have used that wish.”

  “Really, I’m sorry. I just thought . . .” he stammers. “I don’t know. It was stupid, I don’t even know you. It was just sitting there on your face and . . . I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

  “Well, you should be,” I snap.

  “I am. Jesus!” he says, suddenly all what’s your problem?

  “What, are you going to be mad at me now? I didn’t steal your wish.”

  “I wouldn’t care if you did.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t.”

  “Look, I’m sorry,” he says. “Okay? Really.” I start to feel bad about going off on him. A little.

  “It’s okay . . . wish stealer.” He laughs. I crack a smile, too, but secretly I am pissed.

  “You can have one of mine,” he says. “I’ll yank one out right now.”

  “No, that won’t count. It has to be a lash that naturally falls out.” He gets on his knees and starts looking for my lash.

  “Maybe I can find it,” he says.

  “Just forget it.”

  “No, maybe it’s here somewhere. I’ll bet I can find it. Here, look. I’ve already found a string bean and a Sprite cap. Your lash can’t be far behind.”

  “Okay, that’s just gross. Get up.”

  “No.”

  “Forget my lash.”

  “I feel bad,” he says as he scours the floor.

  “The floor looks a little sticky there. God only knows what you’re kneeling in.”

  “I’m standing up now,” he says. He wipes off his knees and comes face-to-face with me, and for the first time I really get a look at him. And he’s cute. Kind of. Hard to tell. I can’t see that well with my missing eyelash. But he does have those blue eyes. Looks like he has a good body. Not like a bodybuilder, but in shape. Cute smile.

  “I’m sorry about your lash,” he says. “Really, I am. And I’ve learned my lesson. I won’t ever be so careless with someone else’s wish again.”

  “Good,” I say, and I leave without looking back.

  Brady

  I met a cute girl today. Or at least she started out cute. Then she opened her mouth and her head all but spun around. Had the nerve to tell me I stole her wish, whatever the hell that was about. Talk about high maintenance. And psycho. She had like seventeen doughnuts in her hands. Nice ass, too. It’s probably expanding right this second.

  I sit on my couch in my otherwise empty apartment and take out my egg-salad sandwich. Just as I’m about to take my first bite, there’s a knock at my door.

  I open it. To my surprise—and horror—it’s her. The crazy doughnut-eating, eyelash-wishing girl from the deli downstairs.

  “Hi, I’m your neighbor, and I have some of your mail,” she says. Then she realizes it’s me. “You? You live here?”

  “Yes, I live here.”

  “You’re the retard?”

  “The what?”

  “Nothing.”

  “So, we’re neighbors?” I ask in a please-don’t-let-this-be-true kind of way.

  “Yeah. So . . . yeah. Here’s your mail,” she says. “You should pay more attention to your poor grandmother. And if I were you I wouldn’t use that toothbrush.”

  She opened my mail?

  “You opened my mail?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Yeah, looks that way.” She didn’t just open my mail. She tore it open. Wasn’t even careful about it. It looks like a dog went at it in search of a Milk-Bone. “That’s a federal offense, you know.”

  “Oh, and I borrowed a tenner,” she adds casually.

  “What?”

  “Your grandmother sent you ten dollars. And I borrowed it because I was famished. But I’ll pay you back. Promise.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m just a little shocked. You opened my mail and stole money from it?”

  “I didn’t steal it, I borrowed it. I said I’d give it back, didn’t I?” She’s got this entitled air, like it’s my fault for exposing her to the temptation of the tenner.

  I look over her shoulder, as if some explanation might be trailing just slightly behind her. “That’s just so odd,” I say.

  “Not really. It’s not that odd. If I took it out and peed on it and then gave it back to you, that would be odd. I simply borrowed it and will give it back. I can go to the ATM right now if you want.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “I even have a doughnut left. I’ll give you your ten bucks back and a doughnut’s worth of interest.”

  “You can keep your doughnut.”

  “Fine,” she says.

  “Fine,” I say back.

  “And you’re welcome for your mail.”

  And she storms back into her apartment, which happens to be right next door to mine. What a freak!

  Heaven

  What a creep! They say no good deed goes unpunished, and it’s true. That’s what I get for doing him the favor of delivering his mail. A bunch of attitude. Attitude from the jerk that stole my wish, I might add. The wish that very well could have been the most important wish of my life. I could have wished on that lash for the man I’m going to marry, a
nd maybe that was the lash that would have brought him. Now I’ll never know. Because of him. Or I could have wished for a root beer fountain in my apartment that would never run dry. He has some nerve getting mad at me.

  I notice my petri dish sitting on the table. It’s time to close it and hide it under the bed. The directions said to put it in a suitcase under my bed but I’m sure a shoe box will suffice. I’m reminded of “The Princess and the Pea” and get to thinking . . . What kind of a girl is going to feel a pea under her mattress? And furthermore, what kind of a man is going to find a girl who is so distressed by a measly little pea and think, “Now that is the woman for me.” I think if a man found himself a woman that tossed and turned all night because she had a pea under her mattress, he’d run for the hills. That is some high-maintenance woman right there. I myself can sleep with all kinds of things under me, or around me. Like a remote . . . or a book . . . or some recent magazines. Sometimes it’s easier to just leave things rather than move them. I remember one time I had so many things piled up all over my bed there was barely enough room for me to sleep in it. But I did it. Uncomfortably, sure. But I slept. And would have done it again the next night had Sydney not physically removed said items when she came over the next morning to drag me out of bed for coffee. She was mortified by my very few inches of sleeping room. The point is: I am not high maintenance. At least not in the pea sense. In fact, not in most senses. Sure, I like my share of attention, but I’m pretty easygoing. For the most part.

  Sydney and I go to Starbucks for our daily morning coffee get-together, and she is wearing a beret. This is Sydney’s newest attempt to deflect attention from what she perceives as a flat chest—some people have crosses to bear, this is Sydney’s.

  “What is on your head?” I ask.

  “Hair?” she quips.

  “Okay, Monica.”

  “Don’t give me that. I think it’s cute.”

  “It’s not. Berets don’t look good on anyone. They’re stupid.”