Free Love in the Time of Climate Change by Brian Adams

so Jolly. I’d ask her to scrape the barnacles off of me rudder in an instant.”
    â€œGod, that is so wrong. Will you please get off that page!”
    â€œShe is so hot! How do you hide your hard-on in front of the class?”
    â€œStop!” I tried to grab the laptop from him.
    â€œNot so fast. Not so fast. Notice anything different?”
    â€œNo. What. Tell me.”
    â€œLook carefully.”
    Even though I could have stared all day, there wasn’t a whole lot of material to work with. Just a few images.
    â€œI’m not seeing it,” I said. “What?”
    â€œNo more lezbo shot.”
    â€œJesus, will you stop already with that. You are so …”
    â€œSeriously, dude. The woman she was holding hands with—gone.”
    â€œYou know, if it wasn’t funny the first time then you can pretty much guarantee it’s not going to be funny the tenth.”
    â€œGone. Disappeared. This is good news, dude. I’d even call it great news. From lesbian to pirate. You must be working your magic. It’s quite a switch! Unless, of course, she’s a lesbian pirate, and in that case.…”
    â€œShut up!”
    I got up, stormed out, stomped into my room and loudlyslammed the door behind me. Christ, it was middle school all over again.
    I lay on my bed, buried my face in my pillow and cursed my eternal adolescence, cursed my lame, thirteen-year-old brain trapped in a thirty-two-year-old body, cursed the squeaking goddamn hamster wheel that was my life, endlessly cycling through the fucking seventh grade. After all these years, I would have thought the bearings would have rusted, the wheel torn asunder, the metal chewed apart … but no,
squeak, squeak, squeak
, on and on it went, around and around and around, until all that was left were twenty-nine-year-old pirates glaring, snarling, laughing at what a loser I was.
    Seriously, it was enough to make one piss on one’s own two feet.

10
    I T WAS A W EDNESDAY NIGHT and the Roommate had done it again. In all of my thirty-two years, I had never known anyone who could clog a toilet the way that he could.
    â€œChrist!” I groaned. “I’ve heard of wanting to be regular but enough already. What is this, the third time this month?”
    â€œFifth,” he said. “If you count the ones at work.”
    â€œWork? For God’s sake, don’t tell me you did it in one of those mega-industrial flushers?”
    â€œTwice in one day, thank you very much.”
    â€œYou’re like a freak of nature,” I told him. “How do you keep doing this?”
    â€œOh, so you’ve never clogged a toilet before?”
    â€œActually, no, I can’t remember the last time I did such a thing.”
    â€œThat’s because you’re always full of shit.”
    â€œVery funny,” I said, trying not to smile.
    â€œAnyway, we have a problem.”
    â€œNo, you have a problem.”
    â€œActually, we do. I broke the plunger.”
    â€œYou what?” I asked.
    â€œYou heard me.”
    â€œHow can you break a toilet plunger?”
    â€œNo clue. It snapped right in half.”
    â€œYou’ve got to be kidding me. Jesus, you’re amazing. Is there like a Guinness Book of World Record for this kind of shit? If so, you’re there bro. Your claim to fame—number one on number two!”
    â€œThanks for the vote.”
    I groaned again.
    â€œSo, do you mind?”
    â€œMind what?”
    â€œGoing out and getting one?” Jesse asked.
    â€œNo, no, no, no, no. He who breaks it, gets it.”
    â€œCome on, you know I hate to drive at night. And my stomach is still a little on the queasy side from these three burritos I had for lunch.”
    â€œJesus, no wonder you clogged the damn toilet! You ever heard of self-control?”
    â€œYou know my motto. Everything in moderation, including moderation.”
    â€œI’m not