“I should cover these stickers in chocolate and sell them,” I mumble as I continue swiping my tongue along the bottom hem of my shirt that I hold up by my mouth.

Drew laughs and I stop the manic sticker-licking to glance up at him. I blink really hard and try to get him to come into focus but it's not working. It's like I'm looking at him through a pair of binoculars backward. He's really small and really, really far away. I can feel my head swaying from side to side and I keep making my eyes open really wide in an effort to see more clearly. It's not working. Take your hand and make a fist then hold it up to one eye. Open your hand just enough to let some light in and that’s the view I have right now.

Maybe that’s what the problem is. There’s someone walking around next to me holding their fists in front of my eyes.

I start flailing my arms all around my head to smack the hidden fists away until I start running into things and knocking shit off of the counters. I’m seventy-four percent positive the noise I make while doing this scares those assholes with their sneaky fists away.

“This chocolate is burning my hand! HOLY FUCK IT’S BURNING! WHY IS IT BURNING?!”

If I squint I can kind of see that Drew is holding his hand out from his body and it was dripping with hot, melted chocolate.

“Your hand looks delicious,” I tell him as I absently bring my shirt back up to my mouth and began chewing on it.

“This was the best idea EVER,” Jenny states as she helps Drew hold his chocolate hand over the sink so it won’t drip on the floor. “Everyone will love chocolate-covered Drew. Make sure you tell them during the interview that this was my idea. I want street cred for it.”

I feel my head bobbing up and down in agreement and watch the room go in and out of focus and wonder why the walls are moving closer to me all of a sudden. I look down and my feet aren’t moving. I look back up and scream because the wall is right against my nose.

HOW THE FUCK DID THE WALL GET ON MY NOSE?!

“Claire, stop sniffing the wall. It doesn’t have any flavor left,” Jenny tells me.

Stupid wall. It runs out of flavor too fast.

I step away from the wall and look up at the ceiling. There are marshmallows on my ceiling.

Marshmallows is a funny word.

“Mmmmmmaaaaaarrrrrssssshhhhhhmmmmaaaalllloooowwwwsssss. Who invented that word? It’s a great word. I wonder if they used to be called something else. Like shmashmoos. But people couldn’t say shmashmoos and babies were crying because they really wanted shmashmoos but couldn’t say the word and their mothers kept giving them cookies when all they really wanted were shmashmoos. Babies were crying, parents were crying, the streets were filled with people who just wanted shmashmoos. Total anarchy, dudes. I bet that was the real reason for World War II. It’s one big shmashmoo conspiracy the government doesn’t want us to know about.”

“Claire, you are so smart,” Jenny tells me seriously.

“I know, right?”

I should light a fire and make S’mores.

“Quick, someone get me a lighter, STAT!” I yell.

Drew jumps down off of the counter and with one hand, pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and started fiddling with the buttons while he holds his chocolate hand out from his body.

“Are you calling the cops? Oh shit! JENNY RUN! IT’S THE FUZZ!” I yell as I run in circles around the kitchen island.

Somewhere in the distance I hear Jenny crying. At least I think it' Jenny crying. It might have been me.

Am I crying? My face does feel kind of weird and wet. Like a wet fish.

“Give me that fiiiiiish. Give me that Filet-a-Fish fiiiiish, ooooh!”

I wish McDonald’s delivered. I want some ketchup.

Drew steps into my path and I slam into him. He shoves his phone in my hand and smiles. “You’re welcome. Now get in that kitchen and make me some S’mores, beotch!”

I clutch the phone to my chest and look up to thank him. But he isn’t up anymore, he's down. Down, down, down like a tiny little dwarf. I squint and bend down so I can see him better. He's jumping up and down, and I’m pretty sure he's trying to bite my ankles. He's like a little chocolate covered munchkin from the Land of Oz and he's angry.

Why are munchkins so angry all the time? They’re in a club called the Lollipop Guild. The mother f**king Lollipop Guild! All lollipops all the time. Munchkins are ungrateful little bastards. Those lollipops died so you could be happy. RESPECT THE LOLLIPOP!

“What in the mother f**king of all f**ks happened here?” Carter asks as he steps into the kitchen of the shop.

“Oh shit, the jig is up! HIDE THE COOKIES!” Drew yells as he belly flopped onto the floor and army crawls away as fast as he could.

15. Just Say No to Necrophilia

When my foreman had told me I could take the night off, I didn’t even take a breath or say a word to anyone. My work bag is slung over my shoulder and I'm racing through the plant before the guy even finishes his sentence. Being two people short, with Jim still on his honeymoon and Drew taking a vacation day, it's a rare thing to still have enough people to send someone home. There is no way I'm going to give anyone a chance to change their minds. All I can think about is going to see Claire.

Too many thoughts have been running through my head all week and I just want to put my arms around her and get some reassurance that everything is okay between us. She’s been saying some really strange things ever since Liz and Jim’s wedding, and I can’t stop thinking about them.

Does she really think marriage is stupid? Maybe her idea of happiness isn’t settling down with someone for the rest of her life. It’s not like her parents have given her any kind of good examples of finding the one you're meant to be with and spending forever loving them. They change spouses more than Drew changes his underwear. But I see her get misty eyed more than once while watching a wedding or a proposal on television when she thinks I'm not looking so I don’t think she's completely opposed to the concept.

Shit, maybe it's just me she opposed to. Maybe she just doesn’t want to marry me. The thought makes me sick to my stomach. Everything about her makes me happier than I have ever been in my life. Becoming a father overnight is something I never thought I wanted but now know I can never live without. Ever since the wedding this past weekend, all I can think about is the way Claire looked standing in the middle of the dance floor holding that bouquet of flowers she had just caught.

There had been a sparkle in her eyes and a smile on her face that lit up the room. It made me wish that it was our wedding we were at and that it was our celebration of love. I actually reached into my pocket to pull out the ring I always carried with me and panicked when I didn’t feel it in there. It took me a minute to realize I decided right before we walked out of the house that morning to leave it at home. I had been to enough weddings with Drew to know that there would be break dancing and tuxedo jackets swung around and didn’t want to chance losing the ring. After the way she reacted when she only thought Drew and Jenny might be getting engaged at the rehearsal dinner, I was glad I’d left the ring at home. Standing there and staring at her with a wedding bouquet in her hand had almost forced me to do something she’d hate, and I'd have no control over if that ring was in my pocket.

Claire seems genuinely happy, aside from the past few days and the weird, off-the-wall comments she makes about marriage. Could it be that seeing her best friends get married has made her realize she’ll never have that for herself? She's watching p**n in the middle of the night by herself while I'm at work. That’s either the sign of the apocalypse or I'm just not doing it for her. Jesus, maybe I need to up my game. She shouldn’t be watching p**n alone unless I’m not enough for her.

Am I not enough for her? WHY AREN’T I ENOUGH FOR HER? Why can’t she be happy with me instead of lusting after some actor on the television? Why, God, why? It’s not like those men are real anyway. Everything about them is fake, including their six pack abs and horse cocks. And seriously, who needs that much cock? Maybe she’s watching those men wishing I could learn some of those tricks. But come on, give me a break. No one is that bendy or has that much stamina. That’s what film editing is for. She probably thinks it’s not cheating since all she’s doing is watching them on TV but God dammit, she’s cheating with her MIND.

Oh my Jesus. I think I just grew a vagina.

I have to believe that if Claire is really that unhappy with me or my sexual prowess, she'd say something. Chicks like to tell you all the time what you’re doing wrong, don’t they? Why would Claire be any different? I’m acting like a giant pu**y over this. We’re fine, she’s fine, I love her more than anything in the world, and I WILL make this proposal happen. Enough with the chicken shit stuff.

I try calling Claire on the way out of work to see if she's still at the shop but her phone goes straight to voicemail. When I drive through town I see that her car is still parked out in front of the building, so I pull around back and go in through the back door that brings me into the kitchen.

The sight before me leaves me speechless and confused. I really don’t’ know where to look first. There is chocolate splattered everywhere and as I take a step into the room, something covered in chocolate dripped down from the ceiling in front of me and lands by my foot with a plop.

It's dead silent in the room which is my first clue that something is off; Claire always has music playing in the kitchen when she works.

Actually, my first inclination that something isn’t quiet right is seeing Jenny sitting in the sink crying. My eyes pass right over Drew lying on his stomach on the floor lapping up a puddle of chocolate like a dog. That’s not something I haven’t seen before unfortunately.

Since Jenny is closest to me, I start with her.

“Hey, what’s going on? Why are you crying? More importantly, why are you crying in the sink?” I ask her as I reach in and scoop her out of the big, stainless steel commercial sink like a baby. It takes a few minutes to steady her once I get her on her feet. She clutches onto my shoulders and stares up at me.

“I think Drew ate Claire,” she whispers. “She was sitting here a minute ago and then Drew said he was hungry and now she’s gone. He ate four batches of chocolate chip cookies and one batch of Claire.”

Jesus God what the f**k is going on?

I gently push Jenny away from me until her back is leaning up against the counter and I am certain she won’t fall. Turning around, I stare at the mess that has transformed this sparkling clean kitchen into a chocolate nightmare.

Are those chocolate covered Twinkies stuck to the wall?

I gingerly step around small puddles of melted chocolate on the floor, careful not to slip and fall, and make my way over to Drew who has given up sucking chocolate off of the floor and is now curled up in the fetal position asleep.

“Hey, ASSHOLE!” I yell. “Wake up!” I shove the toe of my shoe into his stomach and push until he rolls over onto his back and lazily opens his eyes to look at me.

“Duuuuuuuuude,” he says on an exhale of breath.

“Don’t dude me. What the f**k happened here? Claire sent me a text a few hours ago that you were going to help her frost cookies. Why does it look like a bomb exploded?”

Drew blinks a few times and shakes his head to clear out the cobwebs or whatever the f**k is in his brain right now sucking out all of the functioning parts.

“Help me up so I can think,” Drew says as he sticks his arm up towards me.

I shake my head in annoyance, grab onto his hand and yank him up off of the floor.

“You’re hands are so soft. Do you moisturize?” Drew questions as he pets the top of my hand like a kitten.

I rip my hand out of his grip and smack him upside the head.

“Cocksucker! Pay attention!”

Drew rubs the back of his head and glares at me.

“Don’t get your panties all in a twist. Claire is in her office. She’s fine. Her dad is in there with her.”

Okay, so it can’t be that bad if George is here.

I leave Drew with Jenny so I can go in search of Claire. Jenny isn’t going to stop crying until she sees Claire with her own eyes and realizes she hasn’t been eaten.

Only in MY life would those words make perfect sense.

Claire and Liz share an office and it is situated right in the middle of their connecting stores. They each have a door that leads into the office. It's really no bigger than a walk-in closet. It houses a computer table and chair, a loveseat, and two metal filing cabinets. I walk over to the closed door and press my ear against it trying to figure out if Claire and her father are in some deep discussion while all hell breaks loose in her kitchen. I’m pretty sure her father still plots fun and exciting ways to kill me so there is no way I'm going to interrupt them if that's the case. I don’t hear anything so I turn the knob and slowly open the door.

I had to do a double-take when I see George curled up in a ball on the loveseat. How he had managed to get his six foot frame wedged in between the arms of that thing I will never know. I decide to let sleeping dogs lie for the moment and turn in a full circle, my eyes finally coming to rest on Claire.

She's sitting on the floor behind the door with her knees pulled up to her chest. She has a spatula in one hand held out from her body with chocolate frosting dripping off of it and what looks like Drew’s iPhone pressed up against the wall with her other hand. Her eyes are glassy and vacant as she stares off into space, never once blinking as I walk up to her and crouch down in front of her.

I don’t know what I'm dealing with here so I speak in a soft, calming voice. “Hey there, Claire. How are you doing sweetie?”