Backup Needed

I'm not saying my girlfriend is promiscuous, but when she goes to the gynecologist, it's a two man job.

CHOCOLATE

Chocolate is God's way of reminding men how inadequate they are. I am vividly confronted with this fact every time my wife and I go out to a restaurant. When it gets to dessert, my wife usually orders the most chocolate-saturated dessert possible. It's the one called "Unstoppable Double-Fudge Chocolate Mudslide Explosion" or some such thing. I always wonder why anyone would want to eat anything that promises a catastrophic natural disaster in your mouth. The dark brown monstrosity arrives at the table, and my wife takes the first bite. Before the fork is even removed from her mouth, a small moan escapes her lips. Her eyes, previously perfectly aligned, first cross slightly and then faze completely, pupils dilating in pure chocolate pleasure before the eyelids clamp down in ecstasy. The hand not holding the fork clenches into a fist and starts pounding the table. The silverware rattles. After about six minutes of this, she finally manages to swallow the bite, realign her eyes, and take the next shuttle back from whatever transcendental plane she's been visiting. Slowly, her sphere of consciousness expands to include me, her husband, her life-long mate, her presumed partner in all things ecstatic. "Hey, this is pretty good," she'll say. "You want some?" No, I don't. I want nothing to do with an object that does to my wife in one bite what I've worked for an entire relationship to achieve. It wouldn't do any good, anyway. Men just don't have the same relationship with chocolate that women do. It's not even close. I wandered around the office today and asked men -- "Chocolate. Your thoughts?" -- and the result was always the same. First, a confused look as to why they're being asked about something so trivial, and then some lame, obvious statement: "Uh...it's brown?" Ask women the same question, and you get responses like "The ONLY food group," "ESSENTIAL to life as we know it," and the ultimate casual swipe at every member of the Y-chromosome brigade, "better than sex." Ouch. Some women will try to make up for that last one by quickly adding that chocolate is supposed to be an aphrodisiac. Uh-huh. Chocolate certainly increases desire; problem is the desire is usually for more chocolate. The best a guy can do is buy a box of chocolates and hope he'll be considered somewhere between the cherry truffle and the strawberry nougat. Don't get me wrong. Guys like chocolate just fine; it's just not essential to life as we know it. Respiration is essential to life as we know it; chocolate is simply one of those nice little bonuses you get. We won't usually pass it up if it's offered, but I don't know too many guys who would get substantially worked up if it were to suddenly disappear from the face of the earth (ironic in a way, as back in the days of the Aztecs, only men were allowed to have the stuff). When I eat a chocolate dessert, I enjoy it, yes. My world view doesn't narrow to include only the plate that it's on. Maybe we're missing something. On the other hand, we don't have to pick up our silverware from the floor after we're done with our tiramisu. Life is about trade-offs like that. All I know is that come Valentine's Day, chocolate will be among the things I offer my wife. I can't truly appreciate it, but I can truly appreciate what it does for her. Which is close enough.
copyright(c) John Scalzi John Scalzi is a columnist and humorist living in Virginia. For more columns and essays, visit his website: www.scalzi.com

Late Payment Letter

Gentlemen:
I have just received your letter in regards to the bill I owe you. You said the bill should have been paid long ago and you don't understand why it wasn't. Well, I will enlighten you.

• In 1957 I bought a sawmill on credit.
• In 1959 I bought an ox team, a timber cart and two ponies; a shotgun, a wine tester, a Colt revolver and five razorback hogs all on credit.
• In 1960 the sawmill burned down. One of my ponies died and the other I loaned to a son-of-a-bitch who starved him to death.
• In 1961 my father died and my mother was hung for horse rustling. A mechanic named Joe knocked up my daughter and I had to pay the doctor $88.32 to keep the bastard from becoming a relative of mine.
• In 1963 my son had the mumps and they went down on him; the doctor had to castrate him to save his life. That summer I went fishing and the boat turned over and I lost the biggest catfish you ever saw, and one of my sons drowned (not the castrated one).
• In 1966 my wife ran away with another feller and left me with the three small children as a souvenir. I married the hired girl to keep down expenses, but I had trouble getting her off, and the doctor told me to try to create some excitement just as she was beginning to get aroused. That night I pointed the shotgun out the window while we were in bed and just as she was beginning to orgasm I pulled the trigger. Well, she shit the bed, I ruptured myself and killed the best damn milk cow I ever had.
• The next year my troubles really started. My wife caught the clap from the ice man, my son wiped his ass with a corn cob with poison ivy on it, and someone de-nutted my best bull.
• In 1970 I decided to go into another business on my own. I ordered six bee hives from Sears, Roebuck, and Company. I bought a swarm of bees and a queen bee all on credit on the installment plan. The queen bee died and I ordered another one. She turned out to be a whore and started running around with a horsefly. The honey tasted like shit so I couldn't sell it.

So now, gentlemen, you say if I do not pay you, you will cause me trouble. Right now if it costs two cents to shit, I'd have to puke. Getting money out of me would be like trying to poke butter up a wildcat's ass with a hot trowel, but you are welcome to try.
Yours for more credit,
Max