Catastrophe-Off

Darren called last night. I hadn’t spoken to him since high school, so after a confused and somewhat suspicious “hello,” I asked how he had gotten my phone number.

“Julien,” he said. “Did you hear about Christine? Man, she finally passed away.”

“Wow,” I said, not remembering for the life of me who Christine was. “What happened?”

“Well she was going through this really heavy Beatles phase.”

“I see. Drug overdose?”

“No, why would you say that?” There was a long and uncomfortable moment of silence from the other end before he went on. “She started to take that song “All You Need Is Love” way too seriously. Starved to death.”

“She starved to death?!?”

“That and a raging case of gonorrhea.”

“She starved to death? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“You obviously didn’t hear about Stephan.”

“Drug overdose?”

“No! Why are you… No, Stephan was hiking with his dominatrix when he was mauled by a bear; California black bear.”

“Yikes.” I looked towards the basement door where I could hear some scratching.

“Oh, he survived that. It was the woozy stumble into the patch of clover that got him. Highly allergic.”

“To clover?”

“Pretty rare, but it happens. Didya hear about Felicia?”

“Struck by lightening while drinking out of the bathroom faucet?” I asked, the scratching at the door became more intense.

“No, drug overdose. She was going through one of those Costco size bottles of Tums every other day. So what have you been up to?”

I was going to give a 'not a lot lately' speech, but the clawing at the door was becoming far too insistent.

“I’m gonna be honest with you Darren, I run a sweat shop of sorts. I abduct homeless runaways, chain them up, force them to listen to a lot of Bon Jovi while they work my basement meth lab. I feed them raccoons that I catch in the park and they sleep in piles of their own waste. Now it looks like I have to go. One of ‘em, I’m guessing the one I call Jelly Bean, has broken loose and is trying to get through the door. I got me a Louisville Slugger with nails in it that’s got Jelly Bean’s name all over it. Nice talking to you.”