Brian Graden

            Early Wednesday morning, while I was still in bed, I reached around and squished a bedbug on my back. 

            I finished memorizing "Ohio" by Serge Gainsbourg and searched for the chords. I didn't find any under Gainsbourg's name but there was a set for Isabelle Adjani's recording of the song. I started working them out for the intro. 

            I weighed 83.8 kilos before breakfast. 

            My daughter's package was supposed to get to Montreal on Monday but I figured that since I sent it in the snow storm there might be a delay. I asked her by text this morning if it had arrived yet but it hadn't. I'd thrown out the receipt with the tracking number and so I went out on the deck to go through my garbage and it didn't take long to find it. But as soon as I came back inside, my daughter texted that it had arrived. 

            I went to the hardware store where I bought a 900 millilitre container of Polyfilla. I filled in a lot of the cracks on and around the old exit door at the head of my bed where I see most of the bedbugs. I found one bedbug on the door while I was spackling. I let my neighbour Benji know that I have plenty to share if he needs to fill any holes in his place. 

            I worked on my bedbug timeline and added another twelve days. 

            I weighed 84.3 kilos before lunch. I had a toasted Montreal style bagel with Mexican salami and old English cheddar with a glass of half lemonade and half cranberry juice. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown, wearing my new Samsonite backpack for the first time. It's pretty comfortable but the lower edge of the padding is against a different part of my back than the old backpack, so it might be just a matter of getting used to it. I stopped at Freshco on the way home where I bought three bags of grapes. 

            I weighed 83.8 kilos at 17:25. 

            I killed a bedbug in the middle of the old exit door at the head of my bed. It was full of fresh blood. It was probably looking for a way into one of the cracks that I'd filled up earlier in the day. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:30. 

            I worked on my bedbug timeline and added two and a half months. There's just a year and a month left until I'm up to the present. 

            I fried three strips of bacon and an egg, and toasted a Montreal style bagel. I had them with a beer while watching season 25, episodes 5 and 6 of South Park. 

            In the first story the boys acquire Airsoft guns and go to an Airsoft field for their first battle. But the opposing team consists entirely of teenagers and so the officials split the two age groups up so that each boy is teamed up with one teenager. 

            Later, Kyle's teenager comes over to show him how to clean his Airsoft gun but he begins to treat Kyle like his parent and wants to be taken care of. Stan's teenager calls him up to ask how to make ramen. Stan tells him he has to boil it but the teen doesn't even know where water comes from in the kitchen. Cartman's teen spends a lot of time in the bathroom with a bottle of lotion but Cartman doesn't understand why he wants his hands to be so soft. Kenny has similar problems with his teen. About the teenagers, Stan asks, "What the hell are these things?" The teens are all depressed and keep saying, "You don't even know me!" Stan's teen calls him up to tell him he's holding his hand over a lighter and he's surprised that he's burnt himself. The boys discuss their teenagers the way parents discuss their teenagers. 

            Stan's, Kyle's, and Kenney's fathers' plus Stan's redneck uncle Jimbo decide to team up with the boys against the teenagers on the airsoft field. When they go to buy their guns Randy asks Gerald what if the police think the guns are real. Gerald says as long as your gun has a red tip and you're white the police won't shoot you. Randy uses his weed as bait to draw the teens in the open to be fired upon. Cartman busts open the bathroom door while his teen is masturbating and shoots him repeatedly. The adults look forward to their kids becoming teenagers so they can take them out. 

            The second story is a St Patrick's Day special. Randy Marsh is dressed like a leprechaun and ready for his big marijuana sale but Steve Black across the road has the same idea and is also selling his crop while dressed as a leprechaun. Randy accuses him of cultural appropriation and robbing white people of the only day when they can celebrate being white. 

            Meanwhile Butters is dressed in green and goes to school looking for someone who isn't so he can pinch them. One girl appears to not be wearing green and so he pinches her. Next the police arrive and he is charged with sexual assault and thrown in jail. 

            Randy gets into a fight with Steve and is arrested. Steve receives an order for two and a half tons of weed from Farty O'Cool's pub. He doesn't have that much and so he buys Randy's entire supply at half price from Towelie and labels it as his own. 

            Randy somehow gets leprechaun powers and busts himself and Butters out of jail. Everyone is in a panic upon seeing that a dangerous sexual predator like Butters is on the loose. Butters' patron Saint Patrick descends from heaven to start pinching people. 

            Along with Trey Parker and Matt Stone, both of these stories are co-written by Brian Graden. After Harvard he started out as a vice president at Fox where he developed the shows Cops, America's Most Wanted and STUDS. He commissioned Trey Parker and Matt Stone to create the short feature The Spirit of Christmas which became a hit. This led to South Park, the first season of which he was the executive producer. He produced Jersey Shore, The Osbournes and Jackass. His production company won its first Emmy for the show HitRECord. 

            I searched for bedbugs and didn't find any. Since I filled up the cracks on the door there are fewer places to look.