Sticky Notes

All paper products are not created equal.

If it hadn’t been pouring down rain, I would have never picked up the man on the side of the road.  We made small talk until I pulled into a gas station where he could wait for a tow truck.  I chuckled when he said he sold Magic Sticky Notes for a living.  I said, “I’ve never heard of that brand.”  He said, “It’s not the brand name.  It’s their function.”

I just assumed the guy was pulling my leg.  As he got out of the car, he thanked me for the ride, then pulled a pad of notes out of his pocket.  He peeled one off of the top and handed it to me.

He said, “Write whatever you want on it, but be careful.  It only does what it can.  And you only get three chances.  If the request is impractical, you get nothing, but that still uses up one of your chances.”

I looked at the sticky note.  It was a completely ordinary square of yellow paper, with a bit of glue on the back.  I looked up to ask the guy, WTF?

But he was already gone.  I stashed the note in the glove compartment, put the car in gear, and got back on the road.

A few minutes later the phone rang and I spent twenty minutes on a work related phone call.  By the time that was done my mind was reeling and I had completely forgotten about the odd fellow I gave the ride to, and the so called magic sticky note.

It reared its head a few weeks later.  It started with a crazy phone call from my girlfriend.  She was almost in a panic.  It took a few minutes for me to get the whole story.  She had to go through it several times before I put everything together.

Yesterday she had stayed in the car while I went in the store to get beer and ice.  Bored, she opened the glove compartment and saw the sticky note.  She remembered she wanted to dye her hair blonde.  She was a natural brunette but liked to go blonde during the summertime.  She wrote “dye hair” on the note and stuffed it into her purse.

The next morning, she woke up, looked in the mirror, and her hair was blonde.  She hadn’t dyed it.  That’s when my phone rang.  The other thing that was freaking her out was the sticky note. She said she wrote the note in black ink.  When she looked at the note after seeing herself the mirror, the ink had turned bright red.

By then I had remembered the guy I gave the ride to.  I still couldn’t believe it.  But when I saw Sandra’s blonde hair, and the panicked look on her face, I knew the guy wasn’t kidding about the magic note.  After a couple of hours of wading through mental shock, it occurred to me, I had two wishes left.

First I considered writing “find one million dollars under my bed” on the note.  Most folks would think along those lines.  But I already had money.  I realized there was something that would give me more pleasure than money.  F*****g with Richard.

Richard is my sister’s husband.  And the biggest prick on the planet.  Each time I see Rachel wearing sunglasses after one of his beatings, I have fantasies about him breaking into my house so I can exercise my second Amendment rights in the middle of his chest. 

He and I have gone toe to toe a couple of times.  But Rachel has a tendency to not talk to me for a year or two after I give her husband a dose of his own medicine.  And she refuses to leave him.  She hasn’t helped much.

I remembered what the man said about the sticky note doing only what it can.  I ruled out “Richard has a heart attack” and “Richard gets struck by lightning”.   I settled for “Richard likes to eat.”  Everyone likes to eat, right?  Richard is a tall, skinny f****r like me.  He could use a few extra pounds.

I wrote those four words on the sticky note, and stuck it on the display on my alarm clock.  I wanted to see the note first thing in the morning.

When I woke up, the ink was red.

Later that morning, I called Rachel and said, “My boss just gave me coupons for the buffet at Golden Corral.  You and Richard got any plans this evening?”  I knew Richard was a cheap b*****d who never turned down anything free.  And the fried stuff at Golden Corral sure is tasty.

When I saw him sit down with two full plates of food, I knew the sticky note had done its job.  I pushed the napkin dispenser toward Richard.  On my next trip to the buffet I grabbed a stack of clean plates and set them next to my brother-in-law.

THREE YEARS LATER

It cost me six grand just for the custom casket.  The guy at the funeral home said it took four men to help with embalming.  We cut a hole in the side of the house to get Richard’s body out.  I took selfies with the firemen and the demolition crew.  Richard had spent his last two years in bed.  Made it easy for Rachel to avoid his fists.

Now, what to do with the last wish…

Reviews

[Kain Delo]

That was very dark humor, my friend. Quite possibly, the weirdest kind I've encountered in a while but it was stellar and really made me smirk in amusement in the end.

[Marie]

Very good, clever story. You have a feel for humour.