We walk down the street
hand in hand
on our mediocre date
when you explain that
not one, not two, but three!
of your friends have recently had appendicitis,
their organ bursting inside of them.
 
This is when I stop listening to you.
I start to worry about my own appendix,
realizing it could go
at any fuckin’ moment.
And this might be a good thing.
 
On a perfect date a street thug might run past us
snatching your purse with ease
and yeah, that sucks, but wait for the glorious part:
I whip out a Swiss Army Knife
and use it to cut open my left
no, my right
no, my left side,
taking out my appendix, a pathetic little pink thing,
and launching it in front of our down-on-his-luck-mugger,
where it lands on the concrete and explodes into a million little bits
of raw, bacon-like pieces,
knocking him off his feet.
Saving the day.
 
When I come back to our mediocre date you ask me if I was listening to what you were saying.
I lie and say yes and we continue on our walk, content to just be in one another’s company

———–

Mason Johnson has been a sales associate at Claire’s Boutique, karate instructor, ghost writer for Stan Lee’s ghost writer, and many other things. Currently, he works at CBS writing articles for their Chicago-based news websites. You can find out about his reading series at www.pissfanatics.net, which happens the second Sunday of every month in Chicago.