So why did I choose that. Well, like Christmas. That's the day Jesus was born on and shit, and that meant everybody gets to go to heaven. So, like it was I met her and that meant I was going to be all better, and go to heaven. And a partridge. I chose that because all the other birds have being taken up. Like a crow means death and an eagle means freedom and that kind of shit. Same with a pear tree. Apples mean sin and the garden of Eden, and oranges mean health and California and shit like that.

Goddamn loser. Maybe I should explain that too. I was one. I used to like to drink beers. I mean a lot. I mean I really really liked to drink beers. I mean I liked beer more than Henry Weinhardt or Samuel Adams hisself. I wasn't no alcoholic. I didn't drink whiskey or vodka or wine coolers or wine or that Zima shit. Just beers. But it was ruining my life. I mean I was, like, drunk all the time. That wasn't why I drank beers. I just liked them. If I could have drank them and not got drunk, I would have. But I got drunk, and I got in trouble because you could always smell the beer on me. And young punks would try to beat me up and steal my wallet and shit just because they thought I was drunk, even if it was just three in the afternoon. I mean it's not my fault that beers make you stink like beer and make you drunk. That's why I was goddamned. And I couldn't do anything about it, either. That's why I was a loser.

I was barely living down at the trailer park, working at the UPS for seven fifty an hour part time to pay for my rent and my beers and my fucked up car. I should have let them just repossess that piece of shit, it didn't run anyway. But I had, you know, like, my pride and shit. If I wasn't riding the bus to work I was riding it home or sitting at a bar trying to work up the nerve to say no to the transvestite whores or sitting on my couch trying to decide whether to take a piss or drink another beer. I'm telling you I was a goddamn loser, no shit.

And now look at me. Look at us. We got this great big house, and this big old car that could run over your grandma and you wouldn't even know it, and, like, I'm using this computer and shit. She sure turned me around.

I was at O'Malley's which is a piece of shit but I drank there sometimes anyway and this guy I know Earl asked me to drive him home since he was all fucked up on shots of tequila. What an asshole. Anyway, I said allright but we got pulled over and the cop busted me. It's not like I was driving bad or anything. I mean I wasn't even drunk. But the cop took me down and they got my piss and I was like at .043 or some such shit. The judge says, pay the fine or do the time, and the dipshit lawyer they gave me said, that's elitism, you mean if my client was rich he wouldn't have to got jail? And the judge say that's right, you little prick. And the lawyer said, how about counseling, and the judge said what the fuck, and so I had to go to group counseling for alcoholics and drunk drivers, which is shit since I'm wasn't an alcoholic and didn't even have a car that runs to drive drunk in anyways.

But that's where she was, running the show. I'm telling you if she was counseling gay men who eat their own shit I would've porked the nearest faggot and dived for the can with my mouth open wide. She was beautiful. Goddamn. She had hips. Those hips would look you right in the eye and yell at you, "Get over hear and put your hands on me, man!" And you would, too, you'd go right over there and put your hands on her hips and she'd rock them back and forth and that was the goddamnest nicest thing you ever felt in your life. The rest of her body was nice too. She had real nice, uh, breasts, and a great pair of legs and a great, uh, rear end. All that was the fucking partridge, man.

I asked her all kinds of question 'bout therapy and remorse and regret and shit like that, and she would look me in the eyes and say, "Dell, we're all strong on the inside. Find your strength, Dell, find it." Goddamn. That was the pear tree. And when she gave them to me it was Christmas day.

And smart, too. You think I paid for this house? Shit. She was a volunteer at the clinic at nights, and in the day she worked rich housewives out of the menopause blues so's they could go back home and fuck their husbands. She was goddamn brilliant is what she was, gifted and shit. And they paid her. Paid her well. That ain't a fucked up Chevy Nova in the garage, that's a Lexus. This ain't no Sony Trinitron that I stole from the back of a Goodwill five years ago. This here's an IBM PC with megabytes out your ass and RAM fit to choke you and all manner of doodads to write papers and look at the internet and that kind of shit. Yeah, we're rich. Rich and happy.

I'm telling you , it was that pear tree. Love at first sight. I'm not talking no porno talk, nobody was sopping their panties or that kind of shit. I'm talking love with your fucking heart. It's in the eyes. That other kind of nasty go-for-it-in-the-nearest-bathroom shit is like a birthday. But this was Christmas. Right away I knew I wouldn't drink no more beers. And I didn't. I cleaned up my trailer, my boss said he'd give me a raise If I wasn't fucking union and shit, I even started watching that Discovery channel. Usually put me to sleep but it was better than passing out drunk on my couch or getting rolled by some niggers at O'Malleys. I went to those goddamn counseling groups every Thursday, man. Sometimes I'd get there early and we'd do some small talk and shit, you know, I'd tell her how fucked up UPS is and she's tell me about going to Italy with her mom.

I called her up one night and told her how I felt. I told her that when I was always drinking beers and pissing out my back door I didn't have the confidence to kill a fly. But now that she was in my life I felt like I could take on a month of Sundays. She was pretty impressed with that. She didn't say so, but I could tell. She said it was unethical for her to date her patients, but I was getting better and maybe I could quit the group soon? I told her flat out. I'm gonna see you one way or the other, either in that group or sitting next to me at a real nice restaurant. She said call me back in one month.

Like to tell you that it was the longest month of my life, but it wasn't. Flew by like sneeze, truth be told. I was sincere, too, and I called her back exactly thirty days later. We shot the shit for a while about how I was staying away from beers and about how she was helping the suicide teens now. I asked her to meet me at a French place close to downtown and she said yes.

The rest is the other eleven days. We went out a few times and then we started hanging out on weekends. She taught me how to cook chicken and shit like that. I taught her to belch and maybe cut a fart when no one was watching. We eventually had sex. I'm telling you I don't know if I was using my dick or my heart, as faggoty as that sounds. She cried a few times, and I was crying too, it was so fucking beautiful, but we would go get ice cream and puppy love shit like that afterwards. She said she liked my big hands and the way I was sincere about everything. I found out later she asked for that month because she was breaking up with some kind of professor asshole who was a real phony. He taught English or some such shit.

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me: Twelve drummers drumming, and all that other shit. She asked me to marry her. Can you believe that shit? She gave me the whole fucking world. She said I should keep my job, since she knew I felt like I was doing something worthwhile, even though the job was a piece of shit. And I still make payments on that fucking Nova, even though it's at the dump. But I moved out of the trailer, and we got married- that was a year ago. She's pregnant and whenever she waddles around the house reading psychology journals and eating pickles and shit I can't help but putting my hands on her hips and holding her till we both start to giggle like little kids. We had a baby announcement party last week. There's some left over beers in the fridge. I figure one won't hurt, right? Things are all in control now, right?