EVERYTHING'S COMING UP DEAD ROSES

I've got this New Year's Eve party, right?

A bunch of single people over 40 who want to hear the worst songs recorded during the 1970s.

They want the entire CARPENTERS catalog played ... that's how bad this party's going to be.

It gets worse.

I got a call yesterday telling me that I'll be setting up my stuff and playing my music in the garage while the party takes place inside this lady's house.

New Year's Eve.

In a cold garage by myself.

Wait.

It gets worse.

The owner of one of the most popular nightclubs in town who's an old acquaintance of mine called me last night.

He had a band scheduled for New Year's Eve that cancelled on him at the last minute and he needed some entertainment DESPERATELY.

He asked me how much I'd charge him at such late notice.

This is a guy that was going to pay a band upwards of $1,500 for the night.

I could have asked for a grand and he wouldn't have blinked.

Instead ... I'm making $500 in somebody's cold-assed garage playing "Yesterday Once More" to a crowd of cockroaches.

I had to turn him down.

This was the one gig that I needed more than any other this year. Specifically because it would have been a full house in one of the city's hottest clubs and I would have been able to prove myself as a premier DJ and would have most likely gotten more work in the future off this one gig than I could ever hope for out of a gig in a garage.

I HAD TO TURN HIM DOWN.

Yes ... every now and then, I like for a little something to come along that reminds me just how bad my life sucks.

But that??

That's just CRUEL, man.

He ran behind Susie and wouldn't finish unwrapping the paper.

The unopened box is sitting in the hall closet, per Andrew's request.

I need to take that back to Toys 'R Us today.

Well, yesterday afternoon, they had put a sign on the door that I walk through to pick up the specimens.

"NOBODY IS ALLOWED THROUGH THIS DOOR UNLESS ACCOMPANIED BY A STAFF MEMBER."

I know this meant me simply because most patients walk in, sign in and then take a seat in the waiting room ... not just barge through the second set of doors and wander freely in the back.

I felt like saying "Fine. I've seen the sign. Now you can take it down."

But I just smiled sweetly, asked if they had any lab specimens for me (they didn't) and left quietly.

Fuckers.

Your village has been devastated by earthquakes and tsunamis, leaving no building standing and killing thousands upon thousands of people.

...And you choose NOW to lay out and try to get a suntan?!?