We Heart Hot Moms

There was a teenage boy at the roller rink wearing an “I Heart Hot Moms” t-shirt, so I motioned him over and unzipped my jacket to show him that I was wearing the exact same t-shirt as him.

“We’re twins,” I said. “We both heart hot moms.”

I worked at a puzzle room that was about to go out of business and I’d come to the roller rink straight after work. I only had one customer over my entire shift, a regular named Todd. He was in his late-fifties and every couple of days he brought a new early-twenties date along with him. Since Todd had been through the puzzle room multiple times he’d solve it in like 14 minutes and his dates would think he was smart and his dick still worked.

“I’m wearing this shirt because I lost a bet,” the teenager told me.

I hadn’t spoken to very many people in the last few days. I’d spent most of my waking hours watching YouTube videos about how to train bees to sting your enemies. Most insect experts believed that with enough time and the right attitude you could train bees to exact revenge on people you hated. For instance my very allergic former best friend, Trent, who’d recently stolen my wife, Gabbi.

“Wait, are you wearing that shirt unironically?” the teenager asked me.

I hadn’t laced up my roller skates yet. I was holding them in one hand and in the other hand I was holding my cooler full of revenge bees. I scanned the rink for Trent, but didn’t see him.
“Have you ever seen this guy skating here?” I asked the teen, pointing to the picture of Trent I’d taped to the top of my cooler.

“Everyone knows Trent,” he says. “He comes a couple of nights a week along with this really beautiful blonde woman, Gabbi, and they make out while they skate. It’s incredibly sensual and everyone can see that they are total soulmates.”

I laced up my skates and took a couple of laps around the rink to clear my head. It was nice to feel a cool breeze in my hair and have the glassy light of the disco ball in my eyes. That said, it was a bit tricky skating around holding my cooler. At one point, I spun around to avoid a slower skater and my skate got clipped and I went ass over teakettle. The cooler hit the cement floor and flew open.

If you asked me if my revenge bees were well trained at that point, even I would’ve admitted that their training was a little haphazard and hurried. Also I might have underestimated the trauma they’d gone through when I’d stolen them from my neighbors’ backyard hive. And also probably largely brushed aside the fact that the one time I’d attempted to train them to attack Trent, they’d attacked me.

“Abort mission, abort mission!” I yelled to the bees, “Abort!”
Instead of returning to the cooler like they should have, they swarmed me. They stung me over and over until I managed to escape into the bathroom. By then I’d already been bitten so many times I was having trouble breathing. I had to lie down on the bathroom floor so I didn’t faint.

And the bathroom floor was where the paramedics found me. I ended up getting wheeled out of the roller rink on a gurney. Near the doorway I saw the teen standing there with his arm around a girl. It was someone his age, someone that probably didn’t care how fast he solved a puzzle room. I gave him a little nod when I rolled past, and jesus the gall of this kid, instead of reciprocating my nod or saying he was rooting for me, or even a simple fucking thumbs up, instead of any of these helpful things that one might need to help them to start to heal, he asked me once again – was I wearing my hot mom shirt unironically?

“Why does it matter?” I yelled at him as they loaded me into the ambulance.

“Because it fucking does,” he yelled back before the paramedics shut the doors.

John Jodzio’s work has been featured in a variety of places including This American Life, McSweeney’s, and New York Magazine. He’s the author of the short story collections, Knockout, Get In If You Want To Live and If You Lived Here You’d Already Be Home. He lives in Minneapolis.