Chapter 2 - Corpse Whisperer

Corpse Whisperer: Chapter 2.
All chapters here.

He came out of his daydreaming as they came near the graveyard.
His heart was laced with the acid adrenalin spike caused by the morning events. Nothing could distract him long enough to dislodge that one fact from his thoughts: he'd lost it, again.
And the pickles were mad, to the boot…
Maybe the place, familiar and, in a very literal sense, prone to resting, would offer a more peaceful environment to help his mind focus on something else.
It was immense.
People who where new to the town would always wonder how such a huge necropolis could have formed. The truth was hidden in history: several small villages had held the terrain as a the "common boneyard" for centuries. It had not been a problem until the tenants started complaining of leaks, and men who could handle a growing population of complaining revenants were suddenly needed.

Men like Norman Tronton.

Norman was the local corpsekeeper. A tough job if there was one, which consisted not only in keeping the awakened deads steady, but also in preventing them from forming unions. If Necrologists were engineers, corpsekeepers were their much needed artisan counterpart.

Tronton was at the main gate as they arrived, warmly greeting them.
"Good morning Doctor!"
- "Good morning, Norman! So, how are they today?"
"Pretty quiet if you ask me, sir. I'm a bit surprised actually. 'tis the angry season alright but they're all euthanasic… aenestitic… asthenic, that's the word!"

"Do you think", he asked, "that there's a cause for it, or could it be some abnormal behavior?"
Norman's expression changed to a thoughtful frown.
- "What I think is that you're doing a mighty good job, sir. The more you come, the quieter they get. Honest,  now I'm wondering if they could go dead a second time".
- "Only if you chop their head off. Plus, they are still picketing  at sunset aren't they?"
- "This picket thing, that's their only past-time sir, they won't stop until they find something better to do. I reckon you won't be needing to chop, sir. And it's tougher than it looks, really."
- "I wouldn't doubt you opinion, Norman… Now, tell me, where's my 4 o'clock?"
- "Ah, yes. I wouldn't know sir."
He looked at Norman's complexion, going increasingly redder. Norman was a very tall man. The only feature equaling his height was his weight. Fat Norman, as the residents would creatively call him, was momentarily looking like a tomato about to burst out of shame.
That incident was a first. The misplacement of a tenant meant extraordinary circumstances; Norman liked could sometimes be a tad heavy on the bottle, but he was not the careless type.

- "It's not like you to lose track of a corpse. How comes?". - "Well… say… You know, she hadn't been dead for long when she awoke, say, ehr… maybe a day or two. Still looking pretty green if you allow me the expression."
- "She tried to seduce you?" he asked, slightly disturbed by the thought.
- "Why, no! They'd do that sometimes, but look at me! 'Been doing the job for 27 years and shan't fall for beginner's tricks." With indignation in his voice, he continued. "When I say green, I say spry. She ran, see. Very, very fast. Now she's hidden in some mausoleum, but I'd be damned if I knew which one."

Trying to visualize Fat Norman running after a lively she-corpse was a horse short of an epic. Norman knew his trade, but wasn't of age anymore and his knees would have given-up after a couple of steps.

"That's alright, that's alright. Don't bother yourself too much. She'll be out at dusk along with all the others and I'll have a little chat with her."

A runner. Of all the thing, he'd have to go after a runner. Had he brought it with him instead of losing it, the matter would have been completely different. Getting to convince a runner while empty handed was an agonizing task.
Henri proposed to get on with helping the regulars as a warm-up. Dusk was still a couple of hours away and, in any case, the only other choice was a round of Norman's home-made grass alcohol.
After venturing a "Liquor or succor, dear sir?" Henri recovered from a heavy duty scowl and proceeded to fetch the remaining remains for his employer.

Said employer had a hard time focusing. The usual babble occurring during his consultations,  about the dead proletariat, peace for passed, and other gimmicks was getting under his skin. He found himself relieved when the sun ultimately set.
Nightfall woke the picketing corpses from their theoretically eternal rest  (actually a 6 hours slack break) and, as usual, they gathered toward the graveyard's gate to continue with the protests.
-"How do we rest?"
-"In peace!"
-"When do we want it?"
-"Forever!"
The same slogan went on and on, with infinite patience, hoping to get what they wanted by wearing-out any available listener. The heavy iron barrier they were standing near to had actually started to rust out of boredom, proof of their marginal yet increasing success.

The running dead girl was there, shouting with the others.
He approached the mass of protesters with the intent to deliver his usual speech. It would send a third of them back to their grave, another third back to work and irritate the remaining ones enough to give them a migraine.
Everything happened exactly as planned, save for the runner, who came at him with a dull look in her eyes.

CHAPTER 3 HERE

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Corpse Whisperer: Chapter 2 by Danny Hefer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Chapter 1 - Corpse whisperer

 CORPSE WHISPERER

The story of a man who, somehow, lost it.

(Featuring a thousand elephants and one big lie)
-DOWNLOAD THE WHOLE STORY AS A FREE EBOOK (PDF)-

CHAPTER 1 

He was staring at the content of his cupboard.
Four full hours had already passed, and he couldn't get himself  to acknowledge the fact that he'd lost it.

How, wasn't the problem. Things in cupboards disappear. Thieving  frog-rats, paper-mouthgaps, and other abducting or devouring pests see to it. The somehow dimension, where lighters, keys, and small change regularly transit, is also a usual suspect in case of spontaneous disappearance. Really, the means didn't matter.

"Why me, why now" was another question altogether. A question with an aftertaste of depletion.

It was his only one, hard earned, well kept, still in prime condition. And it was gone, gone, gone.
Once again, he let his gaze run along the wooden, narrow shelves, packed with a lifetime of collections.
23 pots of war pickles, neatly aligned on the top shelf, were answering his scrutiny with tiny muffled squeaks.
A pair of twin perpetual motion engines were occupying the two following rows. One had stopped working and its counterpart would sometimes intterupt its routine to point and laugh at it.
Then came the collectible underwater cheerleading cards, a fully operational defenestration kit and a medium-sized pile of heaps.

"It will durate again a long time?"
The question pulled him out of his trance.
The second most praised piece of his collection, Henri the French Corpse, was getting impatient and calling from the living room.

"You can drop the French accent now, Henri, I'm not in the mood"
- "Ah, sirah. Shall I then entertain you with a selection of amusing noises?", Henri replied, annoyed.
- "Cut it, dead man. I've lost it again and this time I'm not sure I can get it back. At least not before long"
The French carcass fell abashed. "Have you stared?"
- "I've been doing nothing but staring for hours, the pickles are on the verge of mutiny."
- "Merde… are you sure it hasn't fled to the kitchen like last time?"
- "I checked, no chairs are missing, so it's not there"
- "Indeed".

Silence loudly interrupted the conversation, to finally leave when he slammed the cupboard shut, in a firework of expletives from the pickles.

"Staring won't work. We should take a walk, in any case we're late" - And he was right. His 4 p.m. appointment was already waiting since 4 p.m.

Henri looked mortified. "I know not how you are going to make without it". His French accent was thickening and, this time, authentic.
"I know you're nervous, but with or without it we should carrion"
- "Oh so funny, as always"
- "As always. Now let's go."
And so they left. Unheartedly, they armed the door's spring trap before going downstairs and started pacing slowly toward his next appointment.

He was a necrologist, specialized in post mortem psychology, and was heading, as he did every Thursdays, to the town's cemetery for his routine evictions.
Corpses were particularly resilient when it came to leaving the graveyard's premises, and it always took all of his expertise to convince them that, yes, they could be once again productive members of society.
To many a commoner, their arguments against mingling with the living were sound: they had been working most of their lives and they wouldn't be deprived of a well deserved rest. But he knew better. A deceased should always contribute. They had spent years abusing other's resources and now that they had no need for food nor sleep and were ignoring weather conditions, it was a long overdue pay-back time.

A long preliminary walk was always necessary to empty his mind and stock enough patience to interact with his clients. "I Deal With Undeads" was written on his business card; it was more than a skill: it was a demanding calling.

As he passed the novelty shop, 4 block away from his flat, he remembered that place as the background for his first encounter with Henri.
That day, his routine afternoon walk had come to a stop before the shop's front window. Henri was there, on sale, a disgruntled look on his face and a discounted price tag pinned on his lapel.
"Companion Corpse, French breed, 5 years experience"

Once inside, he insisted to inspect the goods himself. Many companion and recreational bodies advertised as French were in reality cheap Canadian spin-offs or, worse, Swiss.
"Oui, non, la baguette, la tour Eiffel, go get intercoursed. That is enough as proof or you need again?"
A tart, snappy answer with a dash of vinaigrette and a rotten syntax. Genuine! It was a deal.

From that moment on, he and Henri became inseparable, united in a mutual hatred that soon became the driving force of the best Necrology office in town...


GO TO CHAPTER TWO!

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Corpse Whisperer, Chapter 1 by Danny Hefer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Legwork

No animal has been armed
during the production of this flash fiction
(source)

I've heard that I get carried away, sometimes.
What can I say? I got dragged-in.
Well.
I could say: "I don't particularly like it when my woman gets abducted by third grade thugs to be used as snuff material."
I could say: "If you're dumb enough to forget turning off her phone, I can track her GPS".
I could say a lot of things, really. But in this case I'd rather shut up and listen. That's not really me, I know. But I'm in front of their door right now, and the safety is off. Not a gun. A hand grenade. My brother brought some weird souvenirs back from Syria.

My girl? She's safe in the car. With snacks and water. Not that I'm thoughtful or anything, I keep them in my car anyway. Damn, when I'm done with this she's gonna cost me a fortune in therapy.

See, my girl gets in all sorts of trouble, what with her being really pretty and having a mouth twice as big as mine. But this time these lower life forms, these unwashed ethanol sacks, they've pushed it too far.
They really made it easy for me though. All I had to do was gear up and follow the directions. Didn't even have to look, I love talking gadgets. "In 4 miles, turn right", "In 1 mile, turn the place upside down and set it on fire".

I ended up in the middle of nowhere, in the parking lot of a motel so badly kept it looked about to collapse. I thought they would keep her in their bathroom or something. I realized they went a step further when I saw two rooms lit up, and only one other car in the lot. Later she told me they'd been waiting for someone to pick her up. They'd put her in the adjacent room to "keep the meat fresh", she heard one of them say. They hadn't met the tenderizer yet. 

From the car, I went directly to the front desk.
I'd though it'd take a while to get what I wanted; Sometimes you have to be patient to get things out of people. Not that time. The dude behind the counter was over a massive bong, higher than the space shuttle. "I'm here for the blonde my friends brought in, they have the keys, I need the spare". The pothead fumbled his hand into a drawer and presented them. Just like that. Dear President, please legalize weed.

I found her tied up, soaked in cold sweat, terrified. Someone was going to need prosthetic fingers to pick their broken teeth. I untied her, hugged her, and told her to keep the story for later, go to the car and get ready to start the engine.

Communicating room are fun. When the door is not locked, it opens up a world of possibilities. So here I am. Gauging. Eavesdropping.
They're as drunk as a bad marriage.
They're slamming something on a table. Cards. I'm surprised they are clever enough to remember the rules. And, sweet mother, they are loud.

"Yeah, just like my coffee, cold as death and stiff as a corpse, that's how I like them!"
That voice… at least 10 years of cheap booze and tobacco.
He sounds like he's about to throw up gravel.
"Yeah, spit it out, Teddy, you just like them dead!"
His partner doesn't sound much better. There's something more to it though. Smug.
"I don't like them dead! I like them… Submissive!".
Submissive. Three syllables, bravo, Teddy.
A third voice cracks a laugh that reminds me of an angry chimp.
Then he starts talking. He's pitched so high he could be a choir boy. And after the mass, he'd probably sell weed in the confession booth.

"If you want submissive, you've got to get yourself an amputee. Look, look, I got myself that one legged chick once. And she tells me 'be gentle, be gentle'. So I answer 'Or else what, you're gonna run away?'"
Another round of laughter. I've heard noises like that once. At an animal shelter.
"Yeah that's a good one. But when it comes to counting legs, Teddy's the winner. Right Ted?" That's Smug talking.
- "Shut up Marvin, I told you to forget that story! I was drunk okay?"
- "What'd he do, come on Marv!" The chimp gets all excited
- "He tried to fuck a golden retriever. Four legs at once."
Chimp gets hysterical. Calm down, don't choke now. I have plans for you.
Marvin's not done yet.
- "But now I think of it, his brother wins."
- "You can't beat four legs Marv" Chimp is half choking.
Then I hear a thump. That's Teddy getting up and his chair falling on the floor. They're getting busy, at last.

They don't hear me lowering the door handle. They don't see me pushing the door ajar.

They don't see the grenade slowly roll to the middle of the room. I don't see it either,  I've got five seconds before the rooms turns into splinters.

I never though I could make it to the car that fast. My girl start's the engine as soon as she sees me rushing out. I get in and just as I shut the door, like a bad movie cliche, the frag goes off.
As we leave the parking lot, I catch myself thinking. "Chimp, Marv, Teddy… that's six legs.
I win".

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Legwork by Danny Hefer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Walking Down The Dragon's Back

It was a dream.

I was in the mountain, in a jungle, in a village, in a tribe, my tribe. All of these.
I had been living with them for a while, I knew them and they knew me; we had, since a long time ago, accepted each other.  That noon, as the sun was high and burning, I was lead, among others, to a clearing at the start of a steep, short, downward path.
Where the rite of passage was performed.
Vested with no more than a short cloth covering us from the waist down to our thigh, barefoot, we gathered around the way, and they explained me.

You are now about to become a man, following out tribe's tradition.
You will simply have to, along with our young ones, walk the path, from end to end.
Just walk, do not run, do not jump.

I saw the first boy walk forward, and only then I noticed the ground under him, paved with stone scales similar to a giant snake's skin, pointing toward the entrance, slightly lifted... and sharpened. My turn came and in engaged myself, stepping on the scales.
As I went down, they bit into the sole of my feet. Lightly at first, leaving no more than shallow cuts.
But the further I went, the deeper they dug into my flesh, thanks to the steepness of the path.
It was a dream, that bears repeating, but I remember the pain as if it were real, digging, sharp, lancing up to my calves.
The last steps were a torture. Blood spilled from my feet when I finally managed to step out.
Then they told me

You felt the scales hurt you, and you know now that the last steps are the most difficult.
Yet you carried on, endured its whole length.
You just walked down the dragon's back.
You are now grown.

I woke up hurting and feeling my feet, with the dream still vivid in my mind, regretting that I was back in bed and missing the cheers of my fellow tribesmen.
But hey... as every morning usually greets me, that one said: welcome back to life. Stand! And keep on walking down, to grow up.


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Walking Down The Dragon's Back by Danny Hefer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Two Minds And A Cactus (Part Two)

Click here for part one!

After he woke up and got ready for work, Alfred processed to open the window and move Igor into the sunlight. "I'll be out now, I'll put you on the ledge because Victoria needs her sun, but don't you try being a naughty boy and -OUCH!"

Somehow, a spine had found its way deep into his finger.
"YOU PRICK! YOU LITERAL PRICK!"
He hadn't been that mad in years. He slammed Igor on the ledge and stormed out, raging. He didn't quite know how yet, but he would take care of this alter-ego problem as soon as he came back.

The day went by.

Returning from work and still fulminating, he was about to enter his studio when he heard rapid footsteps coming up the stairs. He was in no mood for small talks and had almost closed his door when an unknown woman hailed him.

"Wait!… Hi, I'm from the 3rd floor. I don't think we've met before. Look, earlier today I found something on the courtyard's floor. Since it was just down your window, I think it fell off…"
She was holding his cactus. Confused, he gently took it from her have closer look.
His face paled.
The poor thing had been badly damaged by the fall. Half of it was sunk-in, needles in disarray, and all the flowers were gone.
Noticing how flushed he looked, she added, "It was completely out of its pot when I found it, but don't worry, see, I put it back with all its soil and all."
He couldn't reply. His thoughts were racing to give the fall a logical explanation. No wind came in the room, the notion of a draft pushing the plant outside was preposterous…
Maybe he'd put it too close to the edge? No, even if he'd slammed it down, he'd never be that clumsy.

"Are you alright?" The stranger's voice brought him back.

"Yes...no. I really like this cactus. Thanks for your help… "
He closed the door even before finishing his sentence. Serious thinking was required.

Talking wouldn't help.
He couldn't even know Igor from Victoria now the plant was shapeless.
Igor.
Victoria.
Two minds, one cactus.
Which one was the dominant one anyway?
Igor, albeit clearly evil, had shown up pretty late in the relationship. Victoria would never hurt a fly, but she could stand her grounds when needed. They surely gave each other a hell of a time.

It dawned on him in an instant: they did give each other a hell of a time. They'd had fight. It had to be! Victoria had probably realized what Igor had done, and attempted to take over.
Igor, as the bellicose bastard he was, had then refused to give in. That's when Victoria leaped off the ledge, choosing to end it for both of them rather than further expose Alfred to her vile alter-ego.

What was now a shell empty of both personalities would dry-up and die soon. It wasn't important.
Victoria had sacrificed herself to protect him, and he was to honor that gesture the best he could - He'd move out of his rickety room, apply for another job and never again entertain his days at the price of a cactus' sanity.

The last day before moving out, he found a piece of paper slid under his door.
A handwritten message.
"Hi, Haven't been able to catch you, you look like you could do with more going-out. Here's my number if you need a friend, Mr. I'm-nice-to-potted-plants. Text Me.
-Vicky, 3rd floor."

Alfred immediately typed a reply.
"Free for dinner, tell me what time. PS: Cute name."

Sometimes, even small details can be life altering…

Fin.

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Two Minds And A Cactus by Danny Hefer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Two Minds And A Cactus (Part One)

(credits)

It hadn't been such a good month for Alfred.
All in all, the whole year hadn't been such a good experience.

First of, he should have never moved to a city he knew nothing about. New job or not.
Most importantly, he should have never rented a room in such a hurry. Bad lighting, scarce furnishing and four flights of stairs were not his idea of comfort.

It was alright, he thought, things would be better soon. New workplace, new life, his girlfriend supporting him…

By winter, things had gone from good to utter failure. After a couple of weeks behind his desk, the company employing him had filed for bankruptcy. The next job he took was lifeless and underpaid; If he could cover his expenses, his hope in acquiring new furniture vanished.
As the months passed, fatigue took its toll. Apathy slowly replaced his usual good mood and the change in his humor hadn't pleased his girlfriend at all. Fights became more and more frequent. Inevitably, they broke up.

His room was still a mix of Spartan comfort and forsaken Zen retreat when summer came back. One window, one curtain, one mattress, one table, one chair.
A new life indeed.

Something was needed to dissipate the gloom before his bad year turned into a bad decade.

A woman was out of the question. Too early.
A pet, would die of boredom after a couple of hours.
Maybe plants? Affordable, alive, fresh… Everything he wasn't. Perfect for motivation.

On his way back from the florist, he wondered why he was currently bringing a cactus back home.
True, you didn't have to water them too often. Also true, the one he had chosen was particularly cute; no bigger than his fist, round and fuzzy, freckled with a score of pretty purple flowers. Even truer, he couldn't afford anything else.
It was done, anyway; a little green patch now sat in his grey room.

Sometimes, even small details can be life altering.

The little cactus brought just enough life to Alfred's studio to let him start breathing again..
In the morning, he would greet the plant with a smile as soon as his eyes opened. Back from work, he would enquire about its mood. In a matter of days, he gave it a name.
"All those spines and flowers standing on your back look like they're cheering. You look victorious, my dear. Victoria! That will suit you well."


His window, opening above the building's inner courtyard, turned into a place of interest. He would gently put Victoria on the ledge, stroke its sharp fur with the back of his thumbnail and leave her in the sun until dusk. When in a talkative mood, he would share the ledge beside her to rest his elbows and tell her stories about his childhood, sometimes pretending to answer her questions.
Victoria soon came to assume many roles. As a pet, a friend, a confident. Or on some occasions, as a much needed therapist.

One day he was at the window, going on about his pet peeves and favorite topics, Alfred felt an unusual tension building up between them, for no apparent reason. Was he nervous? Or was Victoria upset?

"You look quiet today, Vic. It's almost like you're frowning. What's wrong with you?  Oh come on! Don't look at me like that, I'm not being annoying or anything."
The feeling didn't recede.

He tried a more playful approach. "Hey Vic, watchu want? Wanna fight? You sure you can win this one? Watchu gonna do anyway? Force me to hug you?"

He laughed at his own joke and stared at the sky. It would be dark soon. Time to close the window.
He was starting to pull the curtain when he gasped at a sudden, stinging pain in the palm of his right hand.
Victoria.
A whole handful of her needle sharp spines had gone straight through the curtain, straight into his flesh.
"OUCH VIC! That's not funny! Hiding behind the curtain like that!"
He untangled the cactus, stuck to the fabric like a strip of velcro, and moved her to his table, holding her carefully by the pot. This unruly behavior wouldn't go unpunished. There would be no ledge for her tomorrow. After all if she wanted to voice her concern about something she was free to do it without resorting to violence.
"It's really not like you, you know. Think about what you've done, while I tweeze-out your thorns!"

He took a moment to observe her. Something was definitely off. Maybe it was her color, slightly darker than usual. Maybe the little purple flowers had started to wilt.  Soon enough, he came to a gruesome realization.
"You have a problem don't you?
You… you're not Victoria, are you? She would never do something that armful. I can see it now. You're some sort of alter ego aren't you? Oh dear… So what shall I call you, dark side of my cactus?"
The plant seemed to assume an air of passive aggressive smugness.
"Oh alright then, you want to play it like a villain, I'll give you a villain name! Igor! Happy now?"
It was probably a trick of the decreasing daylight, but the plant's expression seemed to have shifted from smug to satisfied.
Alfred, not really enjoying his friend's new personality, left the conversation to be continued the next morning.

Click For Part Two


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Two Minds And A Cactus (part 1) by Danny Hefer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

5 Tips To Stop Being Invited At Parties

Social goiter: actually a symptom of
over partying. (source)

Has your popularity deprived you from the me-time you so badly need? Are you longing in nostalgia for these sweet evening spent softly crying yourself to sleep?

Our solution will restore your freedom by turning the act of inviting you to a party into a potent, disturbing mental disorder.






All you have to do is to slightly alter your behavior in the 5 following areas:

• Attire
• Hubris
• Overreaction
• Lethargy
• Exhibition

Let's get started.

1) Attire

If knowing that a bright green high heels won't ever match your beard and your size 19 feet is important, attire means more than mere fashion.
Choosing the right attire is about showing to your potential tribe that your ritual bone is going through the right nostril.

Of course, the message YOU want to deliver is: "My tribe will eat yours and pick their teeth with your tailbones".

If the host has issued flyers, the dress code is probably somewhere there; use it at your advantage.

"Casual chic"? Come in a tux.
"Dress to impress"? Bathrobe and hotel slippers will do.
"Formal"? Come in costume.

The shortcut

Always come in costume. On every occasion.
Even during a costumed event, showing up in a full Klu Klux Klan dress never fails, especially when they find out the swastika tattooed on your forehead when you remove the mask.

Viable alternative.
(credits)

2) Hubris

You've managed to look adequate enough to actually pass the door? All is not lost.

See, everyone there has one thing in common: they want to spend some good time, at least until they find out you've spiked the punch with Ruphilin.
To do so, they try staying polite, listen when talked to, share food and drink, needles… and all these little thing contributing to a lovely ambiance.

All this nancy-pamby good mood and social smoothness isn't what you're looking for.
It has to be about you, and will become so.

Move around, tell the crew who you are and how parties are done, intrude into conversation and one-up whoever is talking.
Driking from other's cups, eating from other's plates, do not forget keep the conversation going by repeatedly mentioning passion for dermatology, bring pictures.

The Shortcut:

Every time someone emits an opinion, pat them on the shoulder and say: "That's my boy!". If your condescending tone doesn't do the trick, your inability to differentiate genders will.

With Every.Single.Guest.
(source)

3) Overreaction

The crew was too drunk/high/tolerant to react to your overflowing ego? This, requires action.

Assuming you still have any friends, what they intend to do when throwing a party is to get things moving and, if possible, let their entourage interact-under-influence.
The social norm in such situations is to either take the temperature of the place and react accordingly, or discreetly observe the crowd of real people having fun from a corner of the kitchen. It's time to go full Hugh Laurie and take that temperate in a precise, rectal way.

Someone tells a joke? Jump up and down while spilling your drink, then apologize on your knee for soaking your interlocutor in light beer while babbling indistinct words about how 'Ma would be ashamed of your behavior and please not the phone book, not again.

Someone get vocal about the war? Give them a military salute, stop the music, and climb on a chair to deliver a 20 minutes speech about how right they are. Do not forget to point at them while mentioning their name through tears of pride.

The Shortcut:

Find a music instrument (or better: pry it away from whoever is using it) and amaze the crowd with your singing. "Tonight's gonna be a good night" is generally considered a good choice, and better sung at the very top of your voice.
Singing while playing is essential, especially if your newly acquired instrument is a saxophone.

Portrayed: "Out of pickles"
(credits)

4) Lethargy

Any party worth naming can be remembered by its hotspot. Like that couch where every single has been pretending to relax on at various times of the evening. They are, in fact, patiently waiting for their prey. After several hours of inebriated dancing, one is bound to finally stop caring about crooked teeth and haircuts from the 80's and collapse by their side, exhausted and ready for abduction.

Go occupy that couch right in the middle, assuming a prostrated position while playing an online RPG on your smartphone. It will allow you to prevent a good percentage of the crowd from getting even semi-intimate (or end up in a weird, razor sharp love triangle).

The Shortcut:

Mexican food ingested 30 minutes prior to the event will greatly enhance this already straightforward strategy.

[picture placeholder, to busy to upload ]

[caption: about to level up, leave me be]

5) Exhibition

If nothing else works, there is still the option of getting naked from the waist down. Make sure to proceed before the alcohol starts flowing. This strategy might result in some adverse side effect depending on your gender and environment.
Warning: Doesn't work with naturists,  or with anyone after 3 a.m.

The Shortcut:

You do not want anything either short or cut there, believe me, I talk from experience.

From the waist down.
Donate to scroll.

You are now set to recover your lost free time, read Proust and tell me how much help I need in the comment section.

More info, more cake and still no lemon at Without a Lemon's Facebook Page


5 Tips To Never Be Invited To Parties (excluding photos) by Danny Hefer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.