Hell's Broke Loose and the Devil Deals it Hard

I blame my current condition on my friend’s bunny rabbit. See, last week I was over at his place and at the time, I was perfectly healthy. His wife however, was not. They both believe she got sick from their pet bunny, who had to go to the vet the preceding week. So, when I ended up getting sick, I drew up a little diagram to see if I had the origins of this virus correct. I’ll share it with you here:

Bunny --> My Friend --> His Wife --> Me

Yep, as you can see, with this evidence, it is without a doubt, that damned bunny’s fault that I am currently sick. So what am I going to do now? Nothing, that’s what. I’m going to lie in my bed, play my Nintendo DS, and blow my nose about 600 times every minute, just waiting and praying for the sickness to pass.

You’re probably wondering why I’m not trying to enact my revenge on the bunny for so obviously infecting me with this virus. Hey, come on, he’s a bunny . That’s just… that’s just mean. Why would you want to hurt a poor defenseless rabbit? There is absolutely no reason for me to do so. Well, next time I see the critter, I’ll probably poke it in its side a few times, maybe even give it a drop kick or two. But really, that’s pretty standard fair. Going anything beyond that is just not cool.

There is some sort of bug going around. Lots of people are getting sick, which is odd for the summertime, usually this doesn’t happen until winter. I think I heard someone say it was the work of the devil. You know, evil spirits and all that. Well, I can tell you with authority that it certainly isn’t the work of the devil. I actually talked to him a few days ago.

I assure you, I had a perfectly good reason for wanting to talk to the devil. As you may or may not know, the Stanley Cup Finals went to a game seven, which was this past Monday night. Over the weekend, I was desperately trying to find a ticket, without paying a crap-ton of cash (1 crap-ton = 100 regular tons), seeing as how I live about 20 minutes away from Raleigh where game seven was to be played (Carolina Hurricanes vs. Edmonton Oilers).

So I did what any other self-respecting man would do in my situation. I called up Satan and offered to sell my soul for some tickets. But I wanted some damn good tickets. I wanted two seats, next to the ice on the blue line. I figured, my soul may be immortal, but how often is Carolina going to win a Stanley Cup? They used to be known as the Hartford Whalers, after all (don’t worry if you’ve never heard of them before, the vast majority of humanity hasn’t, and that’s pretty much the point).

So, Satan took a look at what I wanted, and then came back with a counter offer. He agreed to give me two tickets for my soul. Unfortunately, these tickets were for ice-dancing! And the seats weren’t what I asked for either. I think he had me watching from a seat that was on top of the jumbotron. I have no idea how he got a seat put on top of the jumbotron, but hey, he’s Satan, that’s kind of his thing.

Obviously, I refused that offer. My immortal and everlasting soul may not be worth much, but it has definitely got to be worth more than some lousy seats for watching ice dancing. And the whole point was to watch the Carolina Hurricanes win Lord Stanley’s Cup. So, we were back to square one. Satan, being the busy fallen angel that he is, had to leave. I think he had a previous engagement with some of those Hollywood types. But he did promise to keep in touch with me about a possible arrangement.

Of course, I didn’t take the Prince of Darkness at his word. I mean, when a girl tells me she’ll call, she never does, so why should Lucifer be any better? But, as it turns out, he kept true to his word. Well, technically he did. On Sunday afternoon I got an email from one satan01@7thlayerofhell.com. Obviously, I figured it was one of those spammers trying to sell me Viagra or something. I’m 23 years old, jeeze. Call me back in about 20-30 years then we’ll talk. But as it turned out, it was an email from my business partner to be, Satan.

I opened up the email and was actually quite surprised. I didn’t expect to get a fair deal out of the guy, but he really was getting low and dirty. The email wanted me to send him my full name, Social Security Number, date of birth, mother’s maiden name, at least 2 credit card numbers (with expiration dates), and a complete set of dental records and then he might be able to do something for me. Like I said, low and dirty. He can’t even promise I’ll get what I want, only to see that it later somehow has extremely adverse effects on me and everyone I love forcing me to later lament my fated decision.

In the olden days, Satan used to corrupt mankind, steal our souls, and wreak havoc and destruction. Now, he’s just into identity theft. I think the Dark Prince has gotten very lazy. But then again, I can’t help but think he’s newest scheme is much more evil than his previous endeavors. Evil has many faces and many forms, you have to be careful.

Needless to say, I didn’t fill out Lucifer’s little questionnaire. I mean, if he’s not going to give me some hockey tickets in exchange for my soul, then I’m taking my business elsewhere. Unfortunately, Satan is the only guy around who trades favors for people’s souls. And he’s not even doing a whole lot of that lately. It seems ever since that whole Enron thing, people have just been giving their souls away for free. The Dark Prince throws a couple of stock options in the air, and he gets another dozen or so souls. So I think you can see why he wasn’t too anxious to give up some valuable tickets.

So I was here, at my own apartment, watching the hockey game on my little TV screen, sitting next to two trash bags full of used Kleenex. Being sick sucks. Not being able to go to the hockey game sucks worse. But watching the Carolina Hurricanes bring home the Stanley Cup for the first time in franchise history was pretty cool. Maybe next time they win the cup I’ll be there, front and center watching it all. Hey, it only took them 27 years to get their first Cup, it can’t be that much longer for the second.