Today at work some dude asked me if they had parkas in the Wild West. I said I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t think so. He must have been really into the idea that there were, because he immediately kicked my ass. Thing is, I think he works with me. This means only one thing: revenge.

I’ve got it all planned out already. This Saturday, at 11 PM, I am going to go to his house and leaving an unopened tapioca pudding cup in the middle of his front stoop. If he’s home, he’ll see it Sunday morning. If he’s out doing something, he’ll see it when he gets home from wherever he is. He won’t get it, and he’ll probably just kick it into the bushes.

Then on Sunday night, I do it again. He definitely won’t see it until he goes to work Monday morning. He’ll probably assume that he didn’t actually kick it off the stoop, so he’ll kick it off the stoop on his way to work.

Monday night, same thing. This is where he starts to go insane. I predict he’ll look over his shoulder when he sees the new cup sitting on his porch, unless he comes from inside his house, in which case he’ll look left first, then right, at the surroundings outside. He’ll pick up the pudding, look at it, take it inside, and slam the door quickly.

On Tuesday night, more pudding. He watches his door all day for pudding, but it never comes. As soon as he stops watching, the pudding appears. He screams in annoyance at his fallibility.

Wednesday, pudding. While he sleeps, the pudding appears.

Thursday, pudding. He keeps staying up later, looking more haggard in the morning, trying to figure out who keeps leaving the pudding.

Friday, more pudding. He sleeps for an hour, checks the stoop, sleeps for another hour, checks again, all through the night. After the fifth hour of sleep, the pudding appears. He brews coffee and stares at the porch through the side window for the rest of the night.

Saturday, he doesn’t go out at all. He stares from that window while sitting in a rocking chair, a blanket on his legs. I have become a ninja of the night, climbing trees to get onto his roof, lowering the pudding onto his porch in a tiny basket the minute he starts to doze off. He doesn’t understand.

The next week is more of the same. He is losing his mind from lack of sleep, but the pudding keeps appearing, now at any time that he isn’t pay attention. He continues not to sleep.

Week after week I continue with the pudding, braving weather patterns, taking advantage of 2-for-1 sales and coupons. He hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in over two months.

I keep this up for a full six months, and then just as I started, I stop abruptly. By now he has honed his skill at staying up all night, waiting for the pudding. He watches all day, all night, for the pudding. He does not stop watching when the next night rolls around. He knows that pudding is going to show up, and he needs to stay awake, for the second he moves, the second he gets up, the second he closes his eyes, it’s going to come, and he is going to become even more depressed. But the pudding never comes. He stays awake, sitting motionless in the rocking chair by the window, watching his front stoop for the disloyal pudding. A week and a half passes before his body finally gives up, his brain’s neural networks fully degenerated, and he dies. His absence at work has been explained, since I got him fired for beating me up. No one misses him, no one wonders where he is. Justice is mine.

I have to buy a shitload of pudding tomorrow.