Dear Mom,

I really wanted to make it home for Easter, or at the very least, I really wanted to have some very good reasons for not making it home. It appears, thus far, I have failed on both fronts. However, if there is one thing I have learned as a thirty-year-old deadbeat, it’s that it’s never too late for a good excuse, or at least a list of moderately decent partially true excuses. So here goes… I’m gonna make you proud!

.

BERNARD’S TOP-TEN SOMEWHAT TRUE REASONS FOR NOT MAKING IT HOME THIS EASTER:

10) I WAS VERY BUSY MOCKING A MAN DIEING OF CANCER. This is probably, and unfortunately, the most true excuse on this list (proof). It’s not that I intended to make fun of someone with a potentially terminally ill disease, or that I thought that mocking cancerous folk would be more fun than spending a religious holiday with my family, it’s just that I didn’t know what I was doing. This tends to happen (that is, the “not knowing what I’m doing” thing, not the “mocking cancerous folk” thing). You’d think that, given my position as sometime Editor and Chief of the most informative fake magazine on the internet, I would have some inside knowledge, or at least basic knowledge, when it comes to celebrities, cancer, and the intersection of said topics, but you would be wrong, and most anybody who knows me would be laughing at you. I, in fact, have a personal vendetta against insight, research, and knowing stuff. This keeps me quirky, offensive, and generally unreadable - the three legged stool on which RM? parks its reputation/ass. However, even I must admit that there are boundaries that should be maintained when it comes to making fun of people who might die whilst one exercises the right to ridicule folks, the first of which is “don’t so it”. Whoops. For the record, Steve Jobs is reportedly doing well (for the moment anyway), and I wasn’t really making fun of him, I was just being a jackass (let’s pretend that’s something new).

9) I RAN OUT OF MONEY. While technically true, this is not much of an excuse, as you offered to pay for my trip back to Philly. Nevertheless, this excuse sounds fairly reasonable, and I suggest you focus on that part.

8) EASTER IS SCARY AND UNHEALHY. I think you once told me that the best defense is a good offense (it was either you, or some satin voiced TV announcer - I can’t remember which). Anyway, with that in mind, I present to you the terror that is a man-sized bunny rabbit, not named “Bugs”, who likes delivering candy to little children, and/or a guy who bled to death while hanging from a cross 2000 years ago, whose blood millions of people consume on Sundays. I’m no health expert, but I’d be willing to bet that the only thing less healthy than a chocolate egg filled with trans-fats and buttered cream, is a chocolate egg filled trans-fats, buttered cream and really old Jesus blood. “Vintage 30 A.D. anyone?” No thanks, I’ll stick with the plain-old artery clogging variety.

7) WHERE’S THE MUSIC AT? Most important spiritual days are celebrated with great songs. Not Easter. How can you expect me to take a holiday seriously if Mariah Carrey hasn’t cashed in on it? Even Barbara Streisand recorded a Christmas album (and I’m pretty certain she’s not a Christian)! Everybody who ever appeared on American Idol has too (and they’re all Satanists, obviously). But I don’t even think Christian Rock groups release Easter albums, and that’s saying something, because those folks are contractually obligated to mention “Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior” and “feeling bad for enjoying stuff”, so Easter really should be an excellent fit. My theory: maybe Jesus ascended into heaven on some other day, some day with more music, say… Mardi Gras. That’s the only conceivable explanation. And, you know, I would come home for Mardi Gras… but that’s just way too weird.

6) THE LIFE OF A PART-TIME AMATEUR BLOGGER THAT NOBODY READS IS A SCHEDULING NIGHTMARE. A typical day: After rolling out of bed at the crack of afternoon, there is opening imaginary fan mail (extolling the virtues of my artistic endeavors — including but not limited to viral videos that cover a wide selection of meaningful topics, such as Rush Limbaugh’s generosity, Sylvester Stallone’s shamefully overlooked presidential bid (I) (II), and things that really have no explanation). Next I have to drink a few buckets of coffee in order to stay awake long enough to convince myself that sleep was a long time ago. Finally I have to empty my mind of any lingering thoughts that may have crept back in from my days of school and critical thinking, so that I can efficiently write strings of words with smatterings of absurdist punctuation that inspire people to feel educated and informed. Upon completion, I like to pass out and then drool a brownish coffee/saliva mixture onto my keyboard. It’s a crazy 10 minutes.

5) I WAS SO BUSY PLANNING TO GO TO NEXT YEAR’S EASTER PARTY, I MISSED THIS YEAR’S. You can’t prove this didn’t happen.

4) AS A MAN, I GET THESE FEELINGS (about girls). Obviously, I use the term “man” loosely here, but the fact remains that I get them, and you can’t know about them. On a regular day, it’s not so hard to pretend I’m a eunuch, but with the copious amounts of chocolate/caffeine/sugar/Jesus wine flowing, combined with the classic religious guilt thing, I just can’t trust myself to keep you (or Jesus) completely in the dark about how much fun I had doing that thing you can’t know about. In fact, let’s never talk again!

3) I WAS CAPTURED BY PIRATES. It’s CRAZY that none of this made it into the news (I guess pirates just aren’t in vogue right now), but I was kidnapped somewhere near where there is water in New York, and thrown into the bottom part of a sea vessel that actually had the Jolly Roger flag, wooden barrels filled with something very alcoholic, and a parrot that learned my name and eventually took pity on me and flew me to freedom (the parrot’s name was “Sparrow” which really threw me off the entire time, but that’s beside the point). It was a terribly awesome experience, and I swear there was this incredible orchestra, just out of view, that kept playing this rousing song over and over again, making me feel cooler and cooler the entire 2 hours I was there. So, I was really busy.

2) I’M SO RELIGIOUS I ONLY CELEBRATE EASTER THE DAY AND YEAR IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED. I feel like there is logic somewhere in that sentence; I ask you to find it.

1) DOESN’T IT SUCK THAT THE NUMBER ONE REASON IS ALWAYS THE WORST? WOULDN’T IT BE BETTER TO JUST PICK YOUR PERSONAL FAVORITE AND REPEAT IT HERE WITH THE ADDITION OF THE PHRASE “WITH MY PANTS OFF” IN BOTH THE TITLE AND LAST SENTENCE? WELL STOP COMPLAINING AND TRY IT YOURSELF. HERE’S MINE:

I WAS CAPTURED BY PIRATES WITH MY PANTS OFF. It’s CRAZY that none of this made it into the news (I guess pirates just aren’t in vogue right now), but I was kidnapped somewhere near where there is water in New York, and thrown into the bottom part of a sea vessel that actually had the Jolly Roger flag, wooden barrels filled with something very alcoholic, and a parrot that learned my name and eventually took pity on me and flew me to freedom (the parrot’s name was “Sparrow” which really threw me off the entire time, but that’s beside the point). It was a terribly awesome experience, and I swear there was this incredible orchestra, just out of view, that kept playing this rousing song over and over again, making me feel cooler and cooler the entire 2 hours I was there. So, I was really busy with my pants off.

Well, mom, I hope you can find it in your imagination to believe one of these totally fabricated stories.  You must at least confess that I went to great lengths to lie to you; please consider that when you consider how great I am.

Love,

Your eldest son (Bernard)