MacDonald Mike - Choose Your Own Misery

Do not read this book straight through from beginning to end! These pages contain too many different forms of misery for any one person to experience end to end. And it will feel like all your choices are meaningless if you do it that way, since theyll lead, inexorably, to existential absurdity, and while thats basically true of both life and this book, thats a pretty grim way to read.

The shit that happens to you in this tome of endless, unavoidable misery is still your choice, on some fundamentally meaningless level. You are responsible because you choose, and frankly, youre too old to keep blaming how things turned out on your parents. After you make your choice, live with your shit. The rest of us have to.

Think carefully before you make a moveor dont. Frankly, it wont make much of a difference. None of what we do makes much of a difference. Were all just programmed to die.

But for all the endings in this book, this isnt the end for Choose Your Own Misery. Save up your booze money and keep your eyes peeled for the next installment in the Choose Your Own Misery series, coming soon to wherever books (and maybe booze) are sold.

In the meantime, keep mainlining misery straight into your eyeballs by following the authors online:

Follow Mike on Twitter @theonald

Follow Jilly on Twitter @jillygagnon

Get new, horrible adventures and updates sent straight to your inbox by signing up for the newsletter: www.chooseyourownmisery.wordpress.com

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And be sure to follow Diversion Books, which apparently decided that publishing this book was a good idea:

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BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!

The shriek of your alarm clock bores straight through the front of your skull into the softest, most sensitive part of your brain.

How in gods name did you get here? What has happened to you?

Doing your best not to move the throbbing wreck of your head, you examine your surroundings.

You try to open your eyes, but are immediately stabbed by icepicks of light, and close them again, groaning.

Youre going to have to Helen Keller your way around your bed.

You seem to be alone. But that means theres no one to blame for the piss spot pooling around your crotch. Fuck.

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!

Portions of last night are coming back in flashes. All of them are of you, alone, plus vodka, with reruns of Perfect Strangers playing on the television.

You start searching for the alarm, eyes still closed, knocking over a glass of something liquid in the process.

It has to be around here somewhere.

You squeeze your eyes shut as sweat beads roll down your forehead. You can taste vodka on your breath.

Stop thinking about vodka. Think of anything else in this world but vodka.

You immediately think of every single vodka drink you had last night.

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!

You actually want to die. Getting up for work is not an option at the moment.

If you want to call in sick,

If you want to hit the snooze button on your alarm clock,

In fact, going into work at all today isnt an option

You fumble on your nightstand for your phone. No one should be in the office for almost two hours. You know its a cop out, and itll probably make your manager ask questions tomorrow, but right now, the idea of actually speaking to a real person is impossible to wrap your shattered head around. By tomorrow youll have a good enough answer for her.

You tap in the office number.

Hello?

Shit, no one was supposed to answer.

Uh, whos this?

What do you want?

The fog over your brain clears momentarily. You recognize this creaking, wavery voice. Its Betsy, the ancient receptionist. Who apparently sleeps under her desk.

Uh, sorry, I didnt expect anyone would be in at this hour. I was just calling because Ive been up all night sick and I really dont think

You dont have any sick days left, she says sharply.

Well, I guessjust use one of my vacation days, then, please.

You know youve already used nine out of your ten vacation days.

I understand that, but Im too ill to

And its only March.

If you want to use your last vacation day,

If you want to backtrack and go into the office,

You hit the snooze button and roll over.

Seconds later the alarm blares again.

Trying to crack through the crust on your eyelashes, you squint at the clock. 7:36 AM. If you dont get up now theres no way youre going to fit in a shower.

You could just skip the shower altogether and rely on the cloaking device of perfume. If you did that you could get anotherthirty minutes of sleep?

Leaning up on your elbow is making you nauseous. Grasping at the clock feebly, you reset the alarm for 8:00 and roll over.

You open your eyes, feeling marginally better. Good thing you squeezed in that extrathree hours of sleep? SHIT. How did it get to be 10:30?

Slipping out of your still-damp underwear and stepping into the pair of pants near your bed, you pick up the alarm, shaking it, as though that will somehow flip the numbers back.

Apparently you never hit the on button when you had your brilliant idea about resetting the alarm. Pants still tangling around your legs, you shuffle as quickly as you can over to your closet. Unfortunately, your depth perception is still off, and you pound your knee into the doorjamb.

Screaming in pain, you bend over to clutch your knee, hitting your forehead against the edge of the open door. Eyes tearing up, you grab at the nearest shirt and shrug into it.

You just have to hope that no one at work has noticed your absence, yet.

If you sign your laptop into the work server and start working from home,

If you call a cab you cant really afford and race into the office,

You think about it. If you go in, youll still have that vacation day. Lord knows youre going to need it at some point, possibly even worse than you need it right now.

But at this point, even if you do go in, Betsy will probably tell your boss that you tried to call out. And then youll have to have a talk about your attitude lately.

Screw it. If you need another day off, youll just take it unpaid.

I guess Ive just been having a really unlucky year, Betsy, you say. You try to make your voice sound more mucousy. I just wouldnt feel right coming in until I get an all-clear from my doctor.

A doctor? I thought you just had the Irish flu, she wheezes. Whats wrong with you?

Shit, you hadnt thought of that. Whats serious enough that youd need to see a doctor, but not so bad that youll have to start digging into unpaid time tomorrow just to keep up the ruse? Your brain feels like its packed with cotton-wool. Rubbing-alcohol soaked cotton-wool. Think. THINK.

UmitsI think itsbronchitis? You cough weakly for emphasis.

You hear a sort of muffled, strained shriek coming out of the phone, sort of like the sound youd expect manatees to make when mating. Maybe she misheard you? Or saw a mouse? You thought youd picked something just-this-side of innocuous.

Betsy? Are you there?

How could you bring that into our office? Youve probably contaminated the whole place already! Oh lord, Oh lord, and you brought me coffee yesterday, oh Jesus Christ