An Apology to My Deceased Pet Eagle (or: a Typical Day at the Office)

Dear Uncle Jemimah,

I'm sorry I exploited your tragic death to get out of going to Subway with the new intern. I don’t know why I did it. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the six-inch veggie max or the sixty-two-inch intern.

Sure, he’s got an incredible range of motion in his neck that makes sharing my doublewide cube rather uncomfortable. That’s why we call him The Owl.

But it’s not like it’s his fault my concentration is so easily shattered by the pulsating stares emanating from his backward-facing head. Clearly I’m the one with the problem.

I tend to get a little self-conscious when gazed upon for extended periods of time, wondering: Is the Bosley spray-on hair I applied before my morning pole-vaulting class dripping down my neck? Do I have the tissue of a long-dead twin affixed to my cranial region that I need to get burned off like my older brother 'Purt did in Jr. High? And why am I still caught in the crosshairs of The Owl’s occular combat? Is he plotting to stroke me with his filoplumes?

These are not questions one should be confronted with whilst attempting to work in a professional office setting.

So, yes. Yes, I did lose my temper this morning. I know I shouldn’t have screamed at him. I should have just enjoyed my finely aged Crystal Pepsi pre-lunch pallet cleanser and ignored his visual cavity search of my starboard ear canal. But instead, I shouted:

“I am two seconds away from tossing a Tootsie Roll Pop at your crazy swivel neck! That way, you could focus on lollipop-lick counting. Because everyone knows that's all owls are good for: applying their Rainman OCD skills to candy on sticks whilst wearing pseudo-intellectual graduation hats and monocles! Stop rotating, Owl!”

But The Owl was unfazed. He simply said I was weird and spun 172 degrees back toward his monitor to watch midget wrestling on YouTube, another of his talents, which just disproved my theory that owls are only good at one thing – goddammit he is ruining my LIFE!

That’s not fair. He’s not a bad person. He showers. He takes an interest in my needs. He even swiveled back around and, in what seemed to be his attempt to make sure we were cool, asked what I don’t want for my birthday.

He listened patiently from his perch as I explained there are many things I don’t want: I don’t want a lap dance from Sweaty Dwayne in Corporate Services; I don’t want pink eye in either one or all of my eyeball sockets; I don’t want to birth a miniature albino centaur swaddled in placenta juice; I don’t want to fall off a very tall building onto a pterodactyl that cranes his neck back to vomit on my face then drops me into the vat of napalm where Newt Gingrich skinny dips.

And after detailing a dozen more scenarios that involved carnivorous plant life with a penchant for human nipples, a sharp hatchet at the end of a mayonnaise-covered Slip ‘n Slide, and “The Human Centipede,” he simply inquired whether I scared mall Santas as a child. I found his concern tender – if not misguided.

What Santa asks what you don’t want? Clearly he’d endured his share of sadism as a boy, sitting on the lap of some white-bearded freak, probably in the back of a windowless van. The least I could’ve done is not reject his third lunch invitation this week.

Had I simply said yes, I never would’ve had to use your name in vain, Uncle Jemimah. But, and you know this after our years of candlelit dinners together, I can be socially awkward at times: the hives, the nervous tic, the inexplicable urge to discuss Mob Wives. I couldn’t do it. Not even for six inches of freshly microwaved tofu patty.

Not even with the star of Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole 3-D.

I panicked, Uncle Jemimah. Before I knew it, I’d used your tragic passing to dodge basic sandwich consumption. I’m so sorry. If I could hold your talon right now and gaze into your beady eyes, I would. I can’t hide this secret from you any longer. So here, here’s everything. Please forgive me.

11:27 AM The Owl

what are you doing for lunch today

can u go 2 subway

11:28 AM Nikki Jacobs

Oh, I can’t today. I told Raul I’d go with him to Trader Joe’s for samples.

11:28 AM The Owl

yeah whatever just thought i would ask

11:29 AM Nikki Jacobs

So sassy!

Jeez.

I’m going to make you eat some leftover hummus with that attitude.

Look, I'd totally bring you but Raul hasn’t been himself for a while now.

He wears a falconer glove at all times.

It's just super embarrassing because our eagle died two years ago

in a freak garbage disposal accident.

11:30 AM The Owl

WHAT! is this a true story

11:30 AM Nikki Jacobs

Why do you think I never bring anyone with me when I leave for lunch?

It's humiliating!

11:31 AM The Owl

Wow. how did he die in a garbage disposal

11:31 AM Nikki Jacobs

We left him in the kitchen and didn’t realize there was some food in

the sink, like down in the drain. He stuck his little beak in there

and was trying to get a nibble, and he just had this incredible

wingspan, and his feathers brushed against the switch. Next thing we

knew he was caught in that goddamn Maytag death trap, spinning around

like an upside-down figure skater just twirling his little heart

out...quite literally I’m afraid.

11:33 AM The Owl

your a liar

11:33 AM Nikki Jacobs

I wish I were. Then I wouldn’t have to live with the thought of his

talons helicoptering, frantically clawing out, to grip a low-hanging

branch with no branch in reach. And the mess. It was a goddamn crime

scene, only without all the sperm. Can you even imagine coming home to

that? The sight of BBQ chicken still gives Raul a panic attack. He’s

convinced that if he hadn’t left those Saltines in the drain, Uncle

Jemimah would still be alive today.

11:35 AM The Owl

You named him Uncle Jemimah?

11:35 AM Nikki Jacobs

I don’t think that’s really at issues here, is it? No. No it’s not. And

anyway what would you deem acceptable, Mr. Buttersworth? Obviously

that would just be weird.

11:37 AM The Owl

it’s weird either way.

11:38 AM Nikki Jacobs

Your face is weird!

11:40 AM Nikki Jacobs

Look, I’m sorry. But naming a pet eagle after fictional spouses of

maple syrup mascots is only weird if you select the obvious wrong

choice.

11:41 AM The Owl

if you don’t want to go to subway with me you can just say no. i don’t

really care. i don’t even know what you’re talking about.

11:42 AM Nikki Jacobs

That’s because I’m not finished telling you the main problem.

Uncle Jemimah was the love of Raul’s life and he just never got over

the loss. The glove wouldn’t be a huge deal, but so much time has gone

by. It’s embarrassing that he can’t let go. I don’t really like to

have other people, especially coworkers, ask him questions. It brings

up all that raw emotion again and he starts sobbing, like almost

screaming sometimes once he gets going. it's dangerous.

not just because he swerves into oncoming traffic;

it's also very dehydrating.

11:45 AM The Owl

i’m sorry. that sounds terrible. i’m going to lunch now.

3:57 PM The Owl

i thought of what to get u for your bday. a glove that looks like a

regular arm that Raul can wear over his falcon glove. can you guys go to

lunch tomorrow?

Sorry, Hallmark. I’m Taken.

Something occurred to me earlier when I was contemplating how disgusting spawning is. And then I realized my epiphany would make a great baby shower card.

Dear Nancy,

Only two kinds of people have humans in their bellies: cannibals and pregnant women. 

Congratulations on being the latter!!

On the upside, you got an entire human into your gut legally. On the downside, it’s gonna hurt a whole lot worse when yours comes out.

Tenderness and whatnot,

Nikki

Like the Zamboni Operator who can’t Ride his Lawn Mower after Work

Damn it! I swore the anonymity of Bieber on a Unicorn would inspire the kinds of prolific ramblings my old site produced, but the truth is? I’m narcolepsy-status fried-dazzled by the end of the day.

It’s hard to blow nine straight hours writing exclamatory banner ads and editing jargon-laden, 40-page tech briefs only to come home and log in to Word again.

Good God, I’m like the overworked gynecologist who’s so burnt out on probing poontangs all day he can’t have sex with his hot trophy wife.

I’m sorry, Word, but I just can’t bone you tonight. Don’t look at me like that. We can still cuddle. You need a little handy? You want me to cup your nut satchel?

Well maybe you should have thought of that before you gave my typing finger "carpool" tunnel syndrome with that last virtualization white paper, you smug little paperclip-mascot bitch. You googly-eyed cartoon freak. Stop dancing at me, paperclip!

About Justin Bieber on a Unicorn

I’m “Nikki Jacobs,” a full-time copywriter and editor. I used to run what − I thought − was an anonymous blog about the myriad people, trends, and eyeball injuries that exasperate my anxiety disorder − until an exec at my work discovered it.

Let’s just say that overhearing Centrum Silver concur with my opinion on the state of inappropriate loofah-color choices in today’s rap videos freaked me the F out. Not just because he agreed Reh Dogg had selected a hue that was clearly an ironic homage to feminism in a misogynistic cultural landscape, but also because: How the hell had he stumbled across my Ambien-fueled rants?

Doing a six-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon type analysis, I concluded there were only two suspects who could have outed me. But which one had narc’ed? And how far had word spread? Who else had read my scathing critique of vejazzling replacing merkins as the new clitstache? How many coworkers were aware of my petition to elect Wolverine as the off-Broadway star of Fifty Shades of Gay? (God, that would be hot. But would it be as kinky as the book? That Christian Grey did more fisting than Jim Henson.) But wait, where was I? Oh yeah. The betrayal! The panic! The exposure paralyzed my typing finger, suspended my posts, and sent me spiraling down the dizzying neon-blue toilet flush of depression that occurs when I can’t process life by writing about it.

The more I shyness-censored myself into silence, the more Mob Wives reruns and Guinness I consumed. The constant influx of alcohol and Rene Graziano’s screams of rage led to feelings of nihilism and hearing impairment. Running low on beer and high on anxiety, I had to admit I had a problem; I had to bitchslap myself out of this funk before my liver and ear canals sustained irreparable damage.

I realized that, to maintain a modicum of sanity, I need to write without censorship, self-imposed or otherwise. To motivate myself to do that, I need to feel like I’m talking to just one person out there in the internet abyss who’s just like me. To open up and write to you, my imaginary friend, I need to know no one else is reading. And that no-one-else includes the sexy silver fox who cyberstalked me. I needed a new anonymous space. To create that space, to motivate myself to write, to talk to you alone, I needed what any sane adult requires: Bieber on a Unicorn.com.

As you can imagine, this wasn’t an easy decision. I had a lot of factors to consider, Venn diagrams to construct. Did the pros of Mr. T on a Pegasus outweigh the potential of Rihanna on the Luck Dragon? And what about Tom Cruise on a Centaur? I worried that may have a better ring to it; same with Unicorn Obesity Pandemic, which offered the added benefits of solving an international health crisis and synergizing my marketing efforts for my (cow)bell choir of the same name.

In the end, a prepubescent Canadian pop star riding a mythical uni-horned horse-ceratops was the only logical choice for a URL. And that’s really what this site is all about. Well, that and the myriad people, trends, and eyeball injuries that exasperate my guano crazy anxiety disorder.