If there is a hell, it is most certainly furnished with a Francescan hand-painted credenza complete with Monterosso ivory-encrusted round end tables, a Natalia mosaic nightstand with platinum hard-wicked candlestick, and Mosaic Bombe chest filled with hazelnuts and the heads of bald eagles. And there would, absolutely and without fail, be a tufted leather cocktail ottoman larger than my entire house that I would CONSTANTLY bang my shins into.

And there I was, standing in hell - or, as they liked to call themselves, Jollery - the insanely high priced furniture store that once “graced” Atlanta’s Buckhead district. And I was standing in Jollery because, like a moron, I’d agreed to go “pre-registry shopping” with one of my development team members, Daniel, and his girlfriend, whose name was very definitely not “Valerie”.

“It’s Mallory,” she demanded after I was introduced to her and misheard her name. She didn’t just correct me - she stamped her foot and stared at me with insistent, privileged-little-bitch eyes. “I don’t like to be called Valerie,” she insisted ex-post-facto.

Daniel leaned in and whispered to me, “Her rival in finishing school was named Valerie... She’s pretty sensitive about it.”

“Evidently,” I agreed.

Mallory looked at us with her jaw and eyes hung open, as if we’d just whispered about pissing in communion wine. “You’re damn right I’m sensitive about it!” she snapped. “I HATED that bitch... OOOOOOOOH...” She clinched her fists and marched off; the first of several times she’d do that that day (and, I’d wager, several hundred thousand times she’d do that the rest of her life).

And then we got in the car without any sort of explanation as to what it was that was so horrible about Valerie and headed up to hell, where it was all I could do to keep myself from just giving up on trying to build a bit of outside-of-work bonding with this young developer who, for whatever reason, looked up to me. But he was a good guy, and we had a lot in common (except, obviously, taste in women... Oh, and I had a spine, and the good sense to not shop at fucking Jollery).

“So uh...” I said, trying to spark up a conversation with Daniel. “What... Uh... Where’s the honeymoon?”

“Oh, we’re going to Madrid,” he replied.

“Wow, nice,” I said. “Beautiful area...”

“Yeah, her parents own a villa there,” he said.

“Oh, no shit,” I said, reaching down to grab an egg-like structure from some sort of hand-carved overly-lacquered table. “They, uh... Pretty well off, huh?”

“Oh yeah,” he said, sighing slightly. “Her father’s like 7th or 8th generation Carnegy or something--”

“9th,” Mallory said, walking toward us with her monstrous unnatural breasts bouncing unnecessarily under not enough clothing. “Daniel, honey, I need you to come look at this chaise lounge.”

“Yeah, okay,” he said, turning to face her as he walked in her direction.

I had no idea what to do, so I just played with my egg and watched Daniel walk over to some gold-fringed fainting couch and pretend to be interested. I felt kinda bad for the kid... Here, he’d landed a rich blonde socialite whose parents obviously loved her enough to spend a portion of their billions of dollars to send her to a school overseas for nearly ten years, then buy her various body augmentations when she came home. And he was, on the surface, happy about that fact. But deep down... I think he just wanted to play Everquest and drink beer. And occasionally write code - which he did with a certain amount of decency.

I shrugged my shoulders and decided to give ol’ Jollery a whirl and see what else they had in stock. No sooner had I taken one step that I’d, once again, slammed my left shin into yet another stupid oversized ottoman. I didn’t even bother cursing it; I felt like the upcoming onslaught of disdain over the fact that any of this overpriced crap existed would be more than enough to make up for the pain I currently felt.

I passed crystal sculptures of tribal African masks and jade-encrusted mirrors and 100% imported silk comforters and all sorts of crap that no human who is aware of the amount of starvation present in our world should ever buy with a clear conscience. I entertained fantasies of walking in and blatantly whipping a five pound sledgehammer around in one hand while throwing random rocks with the other. I thought about how glorious it would be to chainsaw any of the hundreds of couches you aren’t allowed to sit on.

But mostly, I thought of Daniel, and his upcoming life with Mallory and their multiple houses filled with this shit. I thought of spring social gatherings and summer polo matches and if I’d have the courage to actually dump a billionaire heiress with huge knockers just to preserve my dignity and live my life. And I was filled with solace when I looked across the store at her and laughed at just how absurd she was, knowing I’d never even bother to get entangled in that mess in the first place.

I was inspecting a rather strange lamp when Daniel reappeared.

“Yo,” Daniel said as he walked up.

“Hey man,” I answered. “Done evaluating chaise lounges?”

He sighed. “Done with this shit completely,” he replied. “This SUCKS...”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” I causally returned.

“Shit, yeah,” he said, patting me on the shoulder, “I am so sorry for this... I didn’t realize she was going to want to come here, I just thought we were going to hang out...”

“No sweat, man,” I said, trying to put him at ease. “Hey, check this thing out.” I pointed to the lamp I was examining.

“Uh... Wow,” he said. “What... What is it?”

“I think it’s some sort of dog,” I replied.

“A jackal?” he asked, touching it near the representative rump.

“Yeah, a very emaciated jackal,” I said with a sneer. “This thing is HAWNGRY.”

Daniel chuckled. “I don’t see how it has the power to light that bulb, honestly...”

I scanned the immediate area and found another one just like it. “Hey Daniel?”

“Yeah?”

“You know what’s better than one emaciated dog lamp?”

“What?” he asked with a smile.

“TWO emaciated dog lamps!” I said, grabbing up the lamp in front of me and walking over to the other one. “And you know what’s better than that?”

“What,” he said, laughing.

“When they GET IT ONNNNNN!” I said with a mock wrestling announcer voice. With an adolescent’s skill, I placed one emaciated dog lamp upon the hind quarters of the other emaciated dog lamp. Very casually, I began making the noises usually associated with emaciated dogs in that position.

Urnf... Urnf... Arf! ARF! ARF! AWWW YEAH, urnf-urnf-urnf-urnf-urnf! Awooo! AWWWOOOO! urnf*Tink*CLANG! CRASHHHHHHH-CLANGCLANG-CLACK-CLANG!

*Clink!*

*Tink*

“Shit.”

I examined the emaciated dog in my hand. It was still emaciated, and still a dog. The poor animal underneath it, however... Well, let’s just say that its world was definitely rocked. And then shattered.

Into lots and lots and lots of pieces.

“Ahem,” I heard from behind me.

I whipped around to face an extremely perturbed store clerk, dressed immaculately in a suit I couldn’t afford if I’d sold every organ in my body on the black market.

“HI!” I said, smiling wide.

The clerk coughed. “You have just shattered an authentic Italian Malovia lamp,” he said.

“Malovia?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Is that Italian for ‘hungry dog’?” I asked. Daniel laughed.

The clerk did not.

“Er... yes,” I said, “It was an accident...”

“You were simulating copulation with the lamps,” the clerk replied.

“Yeah, well... I mean... Copulation doesn’t actually END like that, you know?” I said, smiling.

The clerk did not.

“I mean, maybe it does for you... I dunno. I’m not going to judge your game, you know?”

“It was a twelve hundred dollar lamp,” he stated plainly.

“TWELVE... WHAT!?!” I asked calmly.

“Twelve hundred.”

“For a hungry dog lamp?!?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Wow... Um...”

“Is sir interested in purchasing this lamp?” he said plainly.

“Not even slightly,” I replied. “I mean... I can get a lamp with Garfield on it at Wal-Mart for $12.99... And he’s well fed, even...”

“Well, sir, I’m afraid we do have to settle the matter of the damaged lamp.”

I gasped, then looked at him incredulously. With mock offense taken, I stuttered, “You... you don’t think I can AFFORD this lamp? Is THAT it?”

He said nothing. He simply sneered.

“Well, I NEVER...” I said with a hiss. “I’ll have you know, I’m one of those dot-com guys. I mean... Why would I even be IN Jollery if I couldn’t afford anything in here... Hell, EVERYTHING in here! I could buy this whole store if I wanted...”

He said nothing.

“I mean, my startup just got it’s second round of funding. We’re sitting on 200 million. Hell, I can not only BUY the broken lamp, I can buy its partner some food!”

He stared at me. Daniel burst out laughing. Mallory began to walk up, a confused look displayed upon her face.

“Fine, you know what?” I said. “Let me go get my checkbook... We’ll settle this up right now. In fact, wrap up this other hungry dog.” I lightly tapped the other lamp I’d used to hump the broken and shattered mutt laying on the floor of the shop and left for dead.

“Very good sir,” he said bitterly.

“Yeah, you BET it’s very good... You stay right here, I’m going to go to the car and get my wallet. I’ll be right back.” I began walking past Daniel, who was bent over in hysterics, and his girlfriend, who was beginning to put two and two together.

“Uh... You’re going to...” she asked.

“Yes, I’ll return momentarily,” I replied, moving to - and then through the door.

The second I got outside, I began jogging - and then running - through the parking lot, and then past that up Piedmont to the Waffle House about a mile and a half away. I called Daniel on his cell once I got there and told him to pick me up at the Oxford Comic Shop, just down the road.

“Dude, that’s like two miles from where you’re at right now... You're going to walk that?” he asked, cracking up.

“I know... I’m trying to get as far as possible from that place.”


“Yeah, they’re pretty pissed,” he said.

“I dunno why,” I said.

“Because you broke their twelve hundred dollar lamp?!?” he said through his laughter.

“Shit... I put it out of its misery!” I said. “The Humane Society charges fifty bucks for that!”

Daniel hung up with me while cracking up. I walked on down to the comic store, where I began spending some of my super dot-com wealth on funnybooks while I waited for Daniel to finish his tenure as a Stepford husband-to-be for the afternoon.