"Raccoons are eating my ass."

Excuse offered by my smarmy former landlord for grossly delinquent return of security deposit.

Greatest Hoaxers

In what continues to distract from meritorious scientific argument regarding the theory of anthropogenic global warming, experts from both sides of the debate are regularly outed as shills for biased industrial or political concerns. In 2006, IPCC panelists intent on downplaying the impact of global warming were connected to monies from fossil fuel companies. Now, two scientists predicting the gravest consequences of our warming world have likewise been found of dubious predilection.

soon to have company

Just then, a pebble found its way up Sal’s right nostril. It became, of course, the only thing he could think about.

It clung stubbornly to a patch of firm mucous riding the interior cartilaginous hump between "nose" and "sinus", clearly wanting to find purchase in the latter. Despite his desperate, forceful countersnorts, inhales rocked the object ever closer the cavity where, Sal feared, it would forever remain. In the unconscious nanomoment between in and out, he saw himself as an older man, sleeping in a bed he didn’t own with a wife he hadn’t met, snoring like a referee’s whistle. He saw her sleepless. He saw her divorcing him. He estimated the trespassing grit to be roughly the size of a racquetball.

One snarling puff nearly sent the interloper out of his irritated nosehole. He imagined, as he emptied his lungs with gale force, that he’d dislodged the beast and sent the bugger tumbling wildly across the asphalt, moshing among its pebbly peers. But he merely upturned these other potential intruders with whatever air snuck through—a predictable result given his position: face pressed against the greasy street, under the boot of a gunman intending to kill him. His jagged inhale brought in the pebble deeper.

no deal

, for theirs was an untamed love.

She had made the promise to herself at least a dozen times. After Mark. And Ty. And definitely after he-who-shall-not-be-named from the office. A lot of good it did her. She would forever succumb to her more primal instincts, bowing to the temptation transferred through heat of touch. Particularly his.

He was wild, he was animal, he was bound to have peed on the carpet eventually.