My name is Jim Byrne, and this is the longest day of my life …

8:00:00 … 01 … 02

”IT’S THE FINALLL COUNTDOWWWWWN!” the cell phone’s alarm blared, shattering any last sense of morning calm …

“SHUT THAT THING UP!” Byrne yelled as he threw his blankets off and scrambled for the cell phone on the nightstand.

Clutching the phone in his hand, Byrne slammed his finger down on the keypad in attempt to get another five minutes of sleep. Instead of hitting “snooze,” though, he accidentally pressed the “eight,” “four” and “pound” buttons together, triggering the device to call “Vincenzo’s,” his favorite pizzeria.

“DAMMIT! I TOLD YOU TO SNOOZE, NOW SNOOZE!” he screamed as the phone began dialing up “Vincenzo’s.”

The phone eventually connected as Byrne inadvertently played Beethoven’s Fifth on its keypad, slapping it in a variety of fashions to try and stop it …

“Hey-ah, how you doin’? We’re a not in right-a now, but if you’d like a pepperoni pizza or some of my delicioso strombolis, please-a call-a us back between-a 10 and a 9 … Ciao! … BEEEEEP!“

“GOD DAMN YOU VINCENZO, IF I WANTED STROMBOLI TODAY I WOULD HAVE TOLD YOU LAST NIGHT WHEN I WAS PICKING UP THAT ORDER OF GARLIC KNOTS! … AND BY THE WAY, YOU FORGOT THE SIDE OF SAUCE, YOU SON OF A BITCH.”

Byrne spiked the phone against the wall in a fury, and then sat down on the bed, staring off into the distance of the room.

8:15:42 … 43 … 44

After he finished his staredown with the closet door, Byrne begrudgingly headed downstairs to the bathroom. He needed to take a piss, so he dropped his pajama pants and boxer shorts around his ankles, letting his bare, hairless, white ass hang out in the cool of the apartment morning.

After the urine flowed from his bladder, into his urethra and to the head of his pecker, it forked and fired in two directions. The first stream headed into the wastebasket, directly connecting with Nicole Richie’s emaciated torso on one of those “Save 20 percent on your next subscription of US Weekly” coupons.

Byrne let a “HEH” escape from his mouth as he watched this pseudo golden shower occur. The humorous moment was fleeting however, because he then realized that the other stream of piss was decorating his bathroom wall in an unsightly hue of yellow.

“DAMMIT! I SHOULD NOT HAVE WHACKED IT TO THAT GIRLS GONE WILD COMMERCIAL WITH THE SCHNAZZY JAMAICAN STEEL DRUMS IN THE BACKGROUND LAST NIGHT!” he said out loud. Finally, he corrected his piss, as the streams crossed and spiraled together into the bowl.

Byrne wiped his brow, averting any further crisis.

8:31:19 … 20 … 21

After brushing his teeth and wiping the wall down with a towel, Byrne stripped down and hopped in the shower.

Momentarily forgetting the extremely powerful flow of the showerhead, Byrne cranked it up and was met with an intense blast to the face that knocked him backwards.

“Garrrgh—DAM—argeglele—MIT!” he managed to mutter as he fell backwards, desperately flailing his arms in an attempt to grab a hold of something to stay upright. But a las, he began his fall backward, pulling the shower curtains off their tracks as he went down.

He finally hit ground zero, the last place he would want to be, he soon realized. When he landed on his ass, the showerhead stream was lined up with his nuts, delivering a cold, harsh reminder of reality at 8:34 in the morning.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!” he yelled, his eyes wide and full of agony, the gushing water connecting with his sack. In an attempt at personal salvation, he rolled to the left and out of the tub. Lying cold, wet and naked on his bathroom floor, he passed out from the excruciating ordeal he just went through.

8:38:07 … 08 … 09

Byrne was dreaming of Elliot, that fine ass blonde doctor from “Scrubs,” as a cool draft carried a foreign object and dropped it under his nose. It began to tickle Byrne’s nostrils, and eventually roused him. As his eyes came into focus, he realized what it was. The unmistakable black curl of a pube.

“DAMMIT! THAT’S DISGUSTING!” Byrne yelled as he wiped his nose repeatedly, a sour puss locked in as the expression on his face.

Sitting up, Byrne reached for the towel and dried himself off. As he reached down to his nether regions, he noticed something wrong.

“WHAT IS THIS RED DOT ON MY WEINER! DAMMIT, NO!”

Suddenly, the shower scene from moments earlier came flooding back to him. He closed his eyes and cringed as he thought of the punishment “his boys” took. That made him think of the terrible TBS show, “My Boys,” and his cringe turned into a grimace of despair. He realized that the dot must have been from the intense pressure of the shower teeing off on his twig and berries.

“I NEVER EVEN GOT TO MASSAGE MY SCALP WITH THAT DELIGHTFUL HERBAL ESSENCES SHAMPOO … , he remarked, wistfully.

Time was running short before he had to depart for work, leaving no room for the complete shower he had initially envisioned. There was still a chance for breakfast though.

8:47:56 … 57 … 58

After dressing himself, Byrne headed back downstairs to the kitchen for breakfast. On the way down however, something caught his eye from outside the window on the staircase. It was old man Rivers, his neighbor. As usual, Rivers was feeding the birds … if you can call them birds. Byrne had always thought of the pigeons that Rivers loved so as nothing more than rats with wings. This led to confrontations with Rivers on more than one occasion.

Byrne was in no mood for Rivers' shenanigans this morning, especially considering that Rivers was standing in Byrne’s garden while tending to the rat birds. He flung open the window and shouted out to his elderly neighbor.

“HEY OLD MAN RIVERS! YEAH, YOU HEARD ME! GET THE HELL OFF OF MY DAFFODILS! DAMMIT, MAN! NOW, BEFORE I THROW THIS EMPTY BOTTLE OF SNAPPLE AT YOU!”

Byrne waved the bottle menacingly, and Rivers finally retreated. The threat was over.

Finally, Byrne stepped down into the kitchen and prepared to make himself a bowl of cereal. A man of routine, Byrne always grabbed the box of cereal first, then the milk, then the bowl and finally, the spoon. So, he reached for his box of Boo Berry, grabbed it, and placed it on the counter. Next he opened the refrigerator and grabbed onto the handle of the gallon container of milk. Byrne preferred whole milk, his grandfather instilling in him as a child that anything less than whole was for sandy-vagina’d pussies and pregnant women. Byrne was neither.

He ripped the top off the box of Boo Berry, tore open the bag all the way, and began to pour the cereal into his bowl.

But something was wrong. Something was VERY wrong. Instead of the bright blue cereal that Byrne had come to know and love, a pink cereal found its way into his bowl, each piece bouncing around before resting still, mocking Byrne’s very existence.

Someone had fucked up at the factory. Someone had put a bag of Frankenberry in a box marked “Boo Berry.”

“DAMMIT, SOMEONE IS GOINT TO PAY FOR THIS! IT’S WRONG, IT’S ALL WRONG! I ONLY EAT BLUE THINGS BEFORE 9 A.M.!” he said.

The Frankenberry was pink, not blue. Byrne slapped the bowl away, hundreds of pink pieces of cereal and marshmallows going everywhere as the bowl careened off the counter, sailing end-over-end before ultimately shattering on the kitchen floor …

8:59:57 … 58 … 59

Questions or comments? E-mail Jim at BuffaloByrne@gmail.com