It's a Terrible Life

The holidays are a time for joy, merriment, and fun. It's a time to forget all about the hustle and bustle of everyday life and relax with your family and loved ones. A time to rejoice in the birth of baby Christ, unless of course you are a filthy heathen. Unfortunately my friends, this is also a time for depression. It's a proven fact that the highest rate of suicide is during Christmas. It just so happens that your own little pookie bear "Frolixo" was one of those poor souls that was afflicted with crippling depression this holiday season. Yes I know this must come as a shock to you since I am normally such a gay and carefree chap, brimming with chuckles and mirth. However, underneath all that frivolity is a deep brooding pain that has tormented me since I was a small child living in Northern Ireland. Through therapy, I have traced the root of this depression to my abusive alcoholic father who was the village cobbler, and my overbearing mother who was thrown in jail by the oppressive English because she had red hair. Every Christmas I was beaten with a baby Jesus that my Pa had stolen from a nativity scene, and then I was sent to labor in the moors, harvesting peat until dawn. Even though I now know why the holidays depress me, it still does not make this time of year easier.

To make matters worse, the bank was going to foreclose on my farm, and had just repossessed all my piglets. This made me quite upset, and I quickly spiraled into an ever-consuming depression. I called everyone I knew, telling them about my plight, but nobody was in a position to help me financially. So there I sat, brooding in my barn, drinking eggnog and watching TNN. It is then that I decided to kill myself. This was a lonely world, with no place for gentleman of my sort. I quickly filled the kiddie pool with water in order to drown myself properly. "I wish I'd never been born," I cried, and then plunged my head under the water, waiting for the icy grip of death to take me away from this terrible existence. 

But then a hand grabbed the nape of my coat and yanked me out of the kiddie pool. I thrashed on the ground gasping for air. A kindly looking old man in an overcoat and cap was standing over me smiling. He knelt beside me, and handed me a towel for my soaked head. "Hello Frolixo," he spoke. "Why did you try to kill yourself?" Even though I was taken aback that this stranger knew my name and saved my life, I told him about my depression and how the bank was foreclosing on my farm. "Well Frolixo, killing yourself isn't the answer," he said gently, helping me to my feet. "Let's see what the world would be like if you got your wish and had never been born." I agreed to go with the strange old man under the stipulation that there would be no sex involved. I was in for the shock of my lifetime.

Touched by an angel. On my penis. :o

First we walked to my parent's house, but I did not recognize it. Instead of a dirty little hovel covered with rolls of barbed wire, it was a beautiful cottage flanked with dandelions and baby's breath. We peered inside the window, and to my surprise, I saw my mother and father dancing to old ragtime music. My father didn't look drunk at all and was nicely washed and groomed. My mother was wearing a face of pure joy, something I had not seen since a I was young child. My brother, Jacob, ran to my parents to hug them, and then they all danced in a circle. "But wait," I said to the old man, "my brother is crippled!" "Well Frolixo, since you were never born, you didn't push him down the stairs when he was six, and was never crippled for life," he explained. "Your father now owns his own shoe company and your mother runs a foundation for blind children. Oh my heavens, this did not turn out like I expected. Let us take a look somewhere else," he said as he led me away from the window, my eyes brimming with tears.

He then took me to see my girlfriend. Since she’d never met me when I broke into her apartment to steal her TV in 1998, her life was very different. She was married to a famous playwright, and had two small children. We could never have a baby before because she was always afraid that it wouldn't be safe during my fits of drunken shadow boxing. She looked very happy playing with the children in their large home, and I also noticed that she, too, was no longer crippled from when I jokingly pushed her down some escalator stairs at the mall. The old man looked at me with sorry eyes, and led me on, this time to the HQ of Something Awful. It seems that my comedy writing talents were the only things holding back SA from becoming the #1 site in the world. It was now a huge corporation that produced comedy goods by the ton. The writers were the toast of Tinseltown, making guest appearances on Jay Leno, and immortalized in action figure form. The Ben "Greasnin" Platt figure was a favorite with children, because of its kung fu grip and when you got him wet he would say, "Oh heavens, I'm soaked!” Lowtax and Zack Parsons each owned a really cool looking sports car and had hot girlfriends, like at the end of ‘Weird Science’. The old man shook his head in disappointment. "There must be something that turned out bad! Lets take a look at your hometown of Detroit," he said as I followed him into the city. I knew that we would not be disappointed since Detroit is the worst place on the planet.

A this point you're realizing that this tale makes no sense whatsoever.

I did not recognize it. Instead of burnt crack houses, rusted hulks of old Fords, and rotting crack babies in garbage cans, it was a beautiful picturesque city with looming skyscrapers and lush parks. People walked around in the open, going to work or the opera house with smiles on their faces. "Wait just a minute here! Are you trying to blame me for Detroit being a cesspool?" I questioned, grabbing the old man by his arm. "Well Frolixo," he explained, "even one person's life can affect the course of things. It looks like when you set fire to that church on Devil's Night in 1988, it started a chain reaction of racial violence that escalated out of control. All the business fled and the drug lords took over." I sat down on the curb, as depressed as ever.

"Wait now Frolixo, let's look at the rest of the world at large," the old man said as he pulled out his magic PDA. "Oh my!" he gasped. "Well, the US is at peace with the rest of the world, and the World Trade Center towers were never attacked by terrorists. Cancer rates are at their lowest ever, global warming has declined, and the band Creed was never formed. AIDS never came to pass because you never took that safari to Africa and molested that saucy chimp." "Hey, that chimp was asking for it!" I interjected. The old man ignored me and continued on. "Now that I look at history, WW2 never happened, as well as the Jewish holocaust," he said. "Wait a second here! I was born in the 70's, how could I affect WW2?" I questioned, now angry. 

The old man flinched and stepped a few paces away from me. "Time is a very fickle thing, and in this case it looks like your stain on this world is retroactive. It's time to tell you the truth, Frolixo. I am an angel sent from heaven with a mission to stop you from committing suicide so I can earn my wings. But with all this new information, you must go through with it!" the angel shouted adamantly. I tore away from the frantic angel. "What? Now you want me to kill myself?" "You must do it, Frolixo!" he pleaded, "for the good of the world! Think of all the suffering you will save! Here use my gun!" the angel said as he pulled a .38 out of his overcoat and handed it to me. The angel's words hurt me but maybe he was right for I had caused nothing but pain and heartache with my life. I looked down at the gun in my hands and though of all the misery that would be erased with one little bullet. I looked in the angel's eyes and he nodded that it must be. I raised the gun to my temple and cocked back the hammer. My decision was made.

I aimed the gun at the angel and pulled the trigger. The bullet pierced his heart, letting out a shower of rainbow colored sprinkles and gummy bears. Stumbling back in disbelief, the wingless angel fell over the highway railing and 50 feet to his demise. I then looked to the heavens and shouted, "I wish I was born you motherbitches!" Before I could finish shouting I was back in my barn, sitting next to the kiddie pool, my head still soaked from the attempted drowning. I let out a hoot of joy and did a jig with my blow up doll that I keep in the barn sometimes. I was alive once again, and here to stay. My new lease on life was driven by the spite burning inside of me, the fact that while I'm miserable, everybody else will suffer as well. It was enough to sustain me for now and I went inside to watch ‘Sanford and Son’ and eat Cookie Crisp.

I hope you enjoyed my Christmas tale and learned a little something from it. We all were born for a reason, and although the Christmas depression may seem too much at times, remember that your life touches many others, for good or bad. This tale is all true except the depression, attempted suicide, angel, and the Cookie Crisp. I wish you all the best holiday cheer, and please don't eat too much again this year fattypants. Happy Hanukkah!

– Reid "Frolixo" Paskiewicz