Gone.

Today, I was awakened by a knock at my door. Thinking that my roommate had locked himself out, I flung myself out of bed and, partially nekkid and crusty from a night's slumber, I peeked through the peep-hole.

A man with hoses snaking around his body peered through, trying to get a glimpse (no doubt) of my hairy ape-man body. Much more slowly than I usually grasp things, I realized that it was the carpet-shampooer dude, who had come to remove the crime-scene stains that I had called about. These stains had appeared, like the face of the Virgin Mary on a yam of a Central American peasant, from our rug several weeks back, and rather than my roommate and I speculating about who had been slaughtering livestock in the living room again, I just made a maintenance call. I threw my bathrobe on and let the man in. He looked around my apartment and smiled. "You guys are college kids, aren't you?"

I think that, at that moment, I lost it. No, not my mental faculties: those I lost long ago. No, it was my last shred of human charity. OK, what about my apartment made a man I had known for mere moments think that two college guys live in it? I mean, granted, the exhausted keg that we use as our "kitchen table" and the posters of naked chicks plastered to our walls with Scotch tape and chewing gum might have been a clue. No, I keep a clean, odor free and (I feel) fairly sophisticatedly decorated abode. We only have to bomb for roaches twice a month now and I haven't killed a kitten-sized silverfish in absolute weeks. I could hear my own heart beating in my ears; normally the robust pounding of that, my greatest muscle, it was now the sound of autumnal wind passing through a gleaned field. My heart has turned into a husk. It was only a matter of time. I told him that yes, we were both students, but that we were both nontraditional: I, as a grad student, and Tony, as a 27 year-old bachelor's degree-seeking junior. His eyes raised at that one, and I told him how Tony had been in the Navy and then had served as a policeman in Memphis. In that instant, the shampoo-dude realized two things:

1) The bearded one has a crescent-emblazoned, five-foot-long flag hanging in his room; he's only moments away from taking out his scimitar and slicing my Hoosier head off my pimply neck whilst shouting "Allahu akbar."

2) The tall Aryan one could probably blow the top of my skull off from 800 yards away like he was tying his boots.

He shampooed the rug in silence and left, warning me through my screen door that I shouldn't walk on the rug for a couple hours. I have never seen anyone coil that much hose so quickly.

Then, I got an email from my coworker/partner in crime/good friend Brooke, who is one of my most devoted readers. She sent me an email that had been a response to a rather heart-warming, and indeed, important email that our office sent to all of our internationals. Basically, the responder stated that s/he didn't care about the email, and that s/he would be much happier if we would (instead of sending nice emails) fix his/her bursar bill instead so that s/he could "finally pay the correct amount" s/he owed. (Like all of those non-gendered pronouns?)

I responded to this to Brooke at her (obviously) personal email address:

I hope XXXXX enjoys being sodomized by Asiatic elephants sans lubrication; that's what (pronoun) is going to be getting a lot when (pronoun) goes straight to hell. You should respond to (pronoun) and tell (pronoun) that (pronoun) is a goat-blowing mandrill-raping pile of weasel sperm.

It was then that I realized that I had truly lost my charity. Now I can make jokes without fear; hey, how about this one!

How are the Taliban and Mother Theresa similar? The beards.

SEE? What is wrong with me? Mother Theresa was an angel and needs merely one more miracle to be attributed to her name to be canonized! I would have loved to have met her before she went straight to heaven! I know now what's happening:

Curled up in my skull like a napping kitten, my unborn twin--possessed of a nervous system and a spine and several poorly formed teeth--has finally asserted his independence from my altar-boy p.c. love-everyone optimism. Whispering with breath that smells like overcooked pasta, he tells me that my reign is over. There is no Domonic, there is only... only... Demonic. Yes. Demonic Potato.

Hide your children, take your elderly off the street, and for the love of the weeping baby Jesus in the manger, lock up your livestock.

I remain (for the time being),

Domonic (Demir)