The Suppertime of Jules Verne’s 178th Birthday

Diary Entry: February 9 (as dictated to the secretary, Charles, who writes very slowly)
14 knocks on my door.  I counted each one.  Some were in cadences familiar to everyone.  Five of those and then nine in a steady manner.  I waited for the fifteenth one but it never came.  When I got to the door and peeped through the hole, I saw a delivery guy holding a bag.  It was my dinner. So, I opened the door and the guy held the bag up.  It didn’t say Spice on the bag as it usually does.  The guy moved his other hand from his waist to behind the bag.  A moment to gasp and then he shot at me through the bag.  If it weren’t for my copy of The Green Gable Show I would have passed away immediately, barely missing my 178th birthday dinner. The man had only one bullet and his eyes got big and full of tears as he fired.  And he didn’t even have a true food delivery.  It was an empty bag!  I grabbed his gun.  I smacked him across the cheek with my book.  I handed him back his revolver. I offered him a second bullet to try again, always keeping one in my pocket like one would keep a lucky rabbit’s foot. He was too shaky (but not from anger as I was) to put it in and kept leaving the key chain on it, so I did it for him and handed it back. He shot me in the face this time and I got madder than hell.  He hit my face!  I went to my desk, bleeding all over the place (I’d just bought a white shag rug for $200 at a popular store to impress some girl who use to be special) and rummaged for another bullet, finding one more.  I put it in the gun myself as I was walking back to the door with my face dripping blood.  He was gone.  I was angry. I tantrum-stomped and bled all over that stupid rug.  Finally, my real dinner came and I fibbed to the real delivery guy and said “You must have the wrong address” because I’d lost my appetite from all the cheek blood that was bleeding inside my mouth.  Then, I got hungry again.