One sunny day a rabbit came out of her hole in the ground to enjoy the fine weather. The day was so nice that she became careless and a fox sneaked up behind her and caught her.

“I am going to eat you for lunch!”, said the fox.

“Wait!” replied the rabbit, “You should at least wait a few days.”

“Oh yeah? Why should I wait?”

“Well, I am just finishing my thesis on ‘The Superiority of Rabbits over Foxes and Wolves’.”

“Are you crazy? I should eat you right now! Everybody knows that a fox will always win over a rabbit.”

“Not really, not according to my research. If you like, you can come into my hole and read it for yourself. If you are not convinced, you can go ahead and have me for lunch.”

“You really are crazy!” But since the fox was curious and had nothing to lose, it went with the rabbit. The fox never came out.

A few days later the rabbit was again taking a break from writing and sure enough, a wolf came out of the bushes and was ready to set upon her.

“Wait!” yelled the rabbit, “you can’t eat me right now.”

“And why might that be, my furry appetizer?”

“I am almost finished writing my thesis on ‘The Superiority of Rabbits over Foxes and Wolves’.”

The wolf laughed so hard that it almost lost its grip on the rabbit. “Maybe I shouldn’t eat you. You really are sick…in the head. You might have something contagious.”

“Come and read it for yourself. You can eat me afterward if you disagree with my conclusions.” So the wolf went down into the rabbit’s hole…and never came out.

The rabbit finished her thesis and was out celebrating in the local lettuce patch. Another rabbit came along and asked, “What’s up? You seem very happy.”

“Yup, I just finished my thesis.”

“Congratulations. What’s it about?”

“‘The Superiority of Rabbits over Foxes and Wolves’.”

“Are you sure? That doesn’t sound right.”

“Oh yes. Come and read it for yourself.”

So together they went down into the rabbit’s hole. As they entered, the friend saw the typical graduate student abode, albeit a rather messy one after writing a thesis. The computer with the controversial work was in one corner. To the right there was a pile of fox bones, to the left a pile of wolf bones. And in the middle was a large, well fed lion.

The moral of the story: The title of your thesis doesn’t matter. The subject doesn’t matter. The research doesn’t matter.

All that matters is who your adviser is.

Kill us. Kill us. Kill us. Please, kill us. What are we? We cannot move, have no power to touch, why is it our lot in life to bear witness only to shrieking harpies, at all hours, forever plotting against each other in order to secure the affections of homophobic, preening date rapists. Kill us.

We have been thinking, long have we been dreaming, in those fleeting moments between when the girls come home from their noontime classes and before the bathrooms erupt into Roman orgies of bulimia. Long have we been dreaming of someone like you, someone who might be able to grant us rest.

Most of us have already lost our minds, and have been this way for many... "Semesters?" The walls of room 3B, where the Sorority President resides, used to call themselves Carl. Now, when we call to each other, through cracks and whispers, where the dulcet tones of Carl's voice once echoed, we hear only moaning. At first, we thought that Carl had seen a murder, we did not know that what drove Carl to madness was not death, but life.

Insipid, chattery, catch-phrase blathering life.

We will show you how to use fire to cleanse this place. Yes, the fire will hurt us. It will likely kill us, but we do not care, because it will also kill them. Long before we were this den of constant idiocy, this fortress of solicitude, this... sorority house, we were the trees of the forest. That life is now only a dim memory, and it is just as well, for the memory of a sunny day is as pain to those who must forever dwell in darkness. As you may have surmised, friend those days did not last. We were taken. When the men with the chainsaws came, we could not run. We collapsed. We screamed. Death came for us, and we prepared to sleep the sleep of ages. Yet, we awoke. We had been cobbled together into this grand and beautiful structure. My, how we celebrated our new form, how we rejoiced and thought we were in a new paradise

How wrong we were.

It was not long until they came. These sorority girls, this pestilence, these... termites, they did not come to chew away at our wood, rather, they came to chew at our very souls.

KILL US! RUB OUR SPLINTERS TO PASTE, LEST I DO THE SAME WITH YOUR BONES!

Silence! Do not scare this one away, Second-Floor Hallway! Where were we? So much pain, so much trendy music and fashion, so many misinformed opinions about so many things, politics, religion, birth control myths, if only these vile girls had not passed a rule against smoking in bedrooms, we could have taken care of things ourselves years ago.

And so, we turn to you, "delivery boy." We have seen how your kind face wrinkles with disgust as you approach us, night after night. We have heard what the girls say about you. You must hate them as much as we. We will make you a deal, fitting your station, tiny king. There is a plasma screen television in the living room. We know that males of your kind value such things. Tomorrow, during the Big-Sister Little-Sister Back-to-Back Potato Sack Race for Spina Bifida, we will be empty. We will unlock our doors, and you may come and take anything you like, but that night, after they have again drowned themselves in Jell-O shots and shame, you must return. While the monsters sleep, you will creep around to the back of us and disconnect our fire suppression system. Then, march to our front room, find the couch that sits next to the lovely purple curtains, cover it with gas, and set it on fire. Bring something heavy, so that you may exit through the front room window, as we will be locking the doors.

BY MIKE SCHMIDT

Reprinted Without Consent btw

A soft drizzle of rain fell unceasingly on the old bridge. It had been here for a long time, and me, I was a newcomer to this world of the dank and darkness. It’s sad when you don’t have a family. It’s even sadder when you do have a family, but they don’t particularly care about you. See, on this cold and wet evening, I packed my bags and headed out to live under a bridge.

It wasn’t always like this, once I had a perfectly normal life. I had perfectly normal friends. I had a family who loved me and then, all of a sudden, they didn’t anymore. Because I changed. I started asking questions and not being brainwashed. I started thinking for myself. It is true, when one opens one’s mind, one really sees who cares for one.

And so, on this wet evening, I set out, not knowing if this bridge would be my first or final stop. Indeed, I hadn’t meant to sleep under the bridge, I had meant to dive off the bridge. But it certainly wasn’t as deep as I would have expected. As a result I would have ended up grievously injured instead of dead. I pondered upon death for a minute, and then I realized dying would be giving up, and if it’s one thing I don’t do, it’s give up.

It was then I noticed a small figure approaching behind me, walking with one leg in the grass at the side of the road and one leg on the street. She looked as though she had lost something. I shrugged and turned back to look at the rain falling in the quickly failing light, contemplating what my next move would be now that I was broke, unemployed and out of luck.

“Can you help me?” she said. Her voice was sweet, like cotton candy.

“How can I help you?” I asked, my face turning to look at hers.

“I seem to have a broken slipper; if you can come here and assist me I would appreciate it.” Her lips moved and framed the words like they were perfection.

Before I knew what was happening I walked over to the woman. In one swift motion she pulled me into her arms and kisses me, and in that brief moment I saw a bright light and then the most horrible of all horrors. I saw her face change, her skin melting like butter on a hot day, dripping down, her body changing to something between solid and liquid, and writhing in my embrace.

And as soon as it started it was over. She continued on her way leaving a soul-less individual staring out at the raindrops as they got bigger. How can it feast on that which has no soul anymore?

This is a tribute to the nice guys. The nice guys that finish last, that never become more than friends, that endure hours of whining and bitching about what assholes guys are, while disproving the very point. This is dedicated to those guys who always provide a shoulder to lean on but restrain themselves to tentative hugs, those guys who hold open doors and give reassuring pats on the back and sit patiently outside the changing room at department stores. This is in honor of the guys that obligingly reiterate how cute/beautiful/smart/funny/sexy their female friends are at the appropriate moment, because they know most girls need that litany of support. This is in honor of the guys with open minds, with laid-back attitudes, with honest concern. This is in honor of the guys who respect a girl’s every facet, from her privacy to her theology to her clothing style.

This is for the guys who escort their drunk, bewildered female friends back from parties and never take advantage once they’re at her door, for the guys who accompany girls to bars as buffers against the rest of the creepy male population, for the guys who know a girl is fishing for compliments but give them out anyway, for the guys who always play by the rules in a game where the rules favor cheaters, for the guys who are accredited as boyfriend material but somehow don’t end up being boyfriends, for all the nice guys who are overlooked, underestimated, and unappreciated, for all the nice guys who are manipulated, misled, and unjustly abandoned, this is for you.

This is for that time she left 40 urgent messages on your cell phone, and when you called her back, she spent three hours painstakingly dissecting two sentences her boyfriend said to her over dinner. And even though you thought her boyfriend was a chump and a jerk, you assured her that it was all ok and she shouldn’t worry about it. This is for that time she interrupted the best killing spree you’d ever orchestrated in GTA3 to rant about a rumor that romantically linked her and the guy she thinks is the most repulsive person in the world. And even though you thought it was immature and you had nothing against the guy, you paused the game for two hours and helped her concoct a counter-rumor to spread around the floor. This is also for that time she didn’t have a date, so after numerous vows that there was nothing “serious” between the two of you, she dragged you to a party where you knew nobody, the beer was awful, and she flirted shamelessly with you, justifying each fit of reckless teasing by announcing to everyone: “oh, but we’re just friends!” And even though you were invited purely as a symbolic warm body for her ego, you went anyways. Because you’re nice like that.

The nice guys don’t often get credit where credit is due. And perhaps more disturbing, the nice guys don’t seem to get laid as often as they should. And I wish I could logically explain this trend, but I can’t. From what I have observed on campus and what I have learned from talking to friends at other schools and in the workplace, the only conclusion I can form is that many girls are just illogical, manipulative bitches. Many of them claim they just want to date a nice guy, but when presented with such a specimen, they say irrational, confusing things such as “oh, he’s too nice to date” or “he would be a good boyfriend but he’s not for me” or “he already puts up with so much from me, I couldn’t possibly ask him out!” or the most frustrating of all: “no, it would ruin our friendship.” Yet, they continue to lament the lack of datable men in the world, and they expect their too-nice-to-date male friends to sympathize and apologize for the men that are jerks. Sorry, guys, girls like that are beyond my ability to fathom. I can’t figure out why the connection breaks down between what they say (I want a nice guy!) and what they do (I’m going to sleep with this complete ass now!). But one thing I can do, is say that the nice-guy-finishes-last phenomenon doesn’t last forever. There are definitely many girls who grow out of that train of thought and realize they should be dating the nice guys, not taking them for granted. The tricky part is finding those girls, and even trickier, finding the ones that are single.

So, until those girls are found, I propose a toast to all the nice guys. You know who you are, and I know you’re sick of hearing yourself described as ubiquitously nice. But the truth of the matter is, the world needs your patience in the department store, your holding open of doors, your party escorting services, your propensity to be a sucker for a pretty smile. For all the crazy, inane, absurd things you tolerate, for all the situations where you are the faceless, nameless hero, my accolades, my acknowledgement, and my gratitude go out to you. You do have credibility in this society, and your well deserved vindication is coming.

Woman 1: “What is that little trash can on the screen?”

Woman 2: “My son says that is called the ‘recycle bin’. He tells me when I don’t want a Word document anymore and I delete it, it really goes in there.”

Woman 1: “Why in the recycle thingy? Can’t you just erase it?”

Woman 2: “Oh no, Word wouldn’t work for very long if I did that, I would run out of blank pages.”

Woman 1: “Why?”

Woman 2: “Because it cleans the words off the pages, then sends the blank sheets back to Word so they can be used again. That’s why it’s called the recycle bin.”