Excerpt: The Name Game

Jonathan was arguing with the toaster. Normally, he held no great grievance against appliances of any make or model. As long as they popped out toast or kept the beer cold or did whatever it was they did without burning down anything important, they were fine by him. But he had been waging a fierce battle against his liver for most of the day and against anything reflective for the rest of it.

The mirror on his closet door had lasted until about noon. It had been able to handle the rolled up socks, but not the cowboy boots. The pieces that had lasted the western assault fell prey to gravity. It had been a tense moment for the television. Luckily, Jonathan had chosen the remote as the projectile and turned it on by mistake before letting go. The screen, now covered with a wildebeest being torn apart, was safe for another day.

He had had enough sense not to mess with the bathroom mirror. Picking tiny shards of glass out of his feet every time he felt like puking was not an experience he wanted to have. Instead he ran a hot shower to both cover it and sober himself up. When the fog cleared, he layered shaving cream across it. But that eventually fell off and one shampoo bottle later he decided on just throwing up in the kitchen. That was where he found the toaster. It was just one of those sort of days.