Climb on the counter, ignite the gas burner. The class quiets down, confused, alarmed. It’s their first day of eighth grade. It’s my thirty-eighth first day of eighth grade. I’m not as naive as I look.

Roll to my side, pull my left leg to my stomach like a can opener. The girls go stone-silent; the boys in the back snicker. Carmine — arched eyebrows; trouble — mutters, “This old bag’s lost the plot,” and his crew chuckles in deference to their leader.

But this is my home economics classroom and they’re about to find out why I’ve ruled unchallenged over this domain since before their parents were born. I gasp so hard I scare the girls; suck in mouthful after mouthful of air, swallowing until my apron knot strains against my inflated back. “Look at all these flames,” Carmine whispers, bouncing his shoulders and slicking back his long, black hair. “Might have to rip a big one into ’em and scare Grandma.” His boys bite their fists with wide-eyed shock, holding in their laughter at what, to them, seems an original idea.

I lean back, pull my right leg to my stomach, my LL Bean blue jeans well broken in for this stunt, assume the angle Dr. Stein taught me for delivering my seven children. I close my eyes, whisper three Hail Marys. Carmine murmurs, “Grandma’s snoozin’ up there,” and his boys howl, all of them with loam for brains, unware of their surroundings, of their place in the world, of what power and dominance look like. Oblivious to the lesson they will learn today and hold with them forever: that a woman of my stature must not be prejudged.

My stomach’s ready to burst and I hear Carmine crawl on top of the cooktop opposite mine. Girls whisper for him to get down, to stop it. His boys urge him on. “This dusty old crone has no idea what hell she’s in for with Big C in her class,” Carmine says, struggling to operate the stove. Hands on the knobs, he paws at something firm, something real, believing he’s gripping the throne. My eyes are shut but I see he approaches the guillotine.

Squeeze my eyes, bite my lip. Rip. I moan an exorcism’s growl as I push this demon from my bowels. A dirigible’s worth of hot methane squeals around every corner of my insides, exploding out through the worn-white seat of my blue jeans and making miraculous contact with the blue gas flame of the cooktop stove and firing laser-straight across the kitchen — girls leaping to the left, boys to the right — until the tip of the furthest orange flare kisses Carmine’s rotten, smug face, Satan’s fiery tongue licking the frightened boy’s eyebrows clean off, sparking his gel-slicked hair into a wicked blaze. He moans, groans, emits embarrassing noises of terror that will haunt him through high school as he races to the sink to extinguish his hair-do.

He emerges from the sink missing half his hair; odd patches gone, like a mean child’s doll. His boys point at his face and scream laughter. Carmine’s lip quivers and he says nothing.

“Welcome to home ec,” I say to the rapt class. “Sit down, zip your lips, and listen closely to learn the difference between a teaspoon and a tablespoon.”

All of them pull out their notebooks — Carmine, head still smoking, works the fastest — and write down every word. They understand now how this works. They know that in this classroom, I am the father, the son, and the holy spirit. I am ten steps ahead. Lord, king, and sovereign. Out there in their other classes, they can pull off juvenile stunts all day long. But in here, Mrs. Bunch is in charge.

After two years of dating, Jen and I move in together. My lease was up and her place is bigger and closer to both of our offices, so it makes sense.

We finish unpacking late and collapse into bed. “Hey,” I say, our noses touching. “Since I officially live here now, can I be honest about one thing?”

“Sure,” she says, apprehensive.

“Your mattress has always been a little firm for me. Maybe we could get one of those things you put on top?”

She stands, digs into the back of her closet, pulls out a rolled-up sheet of foam. “Like this?”

“Exactly,” I say, letting out a relieved laugh. “I was worried this was going to become a whole thing. This is amazing. You are amazing.”

We remove the sheets and she unrolls the blue memory foam topper. It’s a foot short on all sides, but she says we have to give it time to expand. I watch it grow before my eyes, stretching at all four corners as the air awakens it. There is an indentation on one side. A large crater crudely resembling a body in the simplest form, like the silhouette on a Men’s Restroom placard. It’s six and a half feet tall, wide as well.

“Oh,” she says, noticing me staring. “My ex, Todd, said the same thing about my mattress, so we used this together. Sorry. This is weird. I didn’t realize it would still have that impression. Let’s get rid of this and get a new topper tomorrow.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” I say. “We both have rich and varied pasts, and that’s all well and good. You have exes, I have exes. I feel no jealousy or competition with Todd. In fact, I thank him for breaking in this great foam topper for me.”

She smiles, relieved. We put the sheets back on, and I kiss her goodnight and lay down in the deep Todd-shaped crevasse. I float loose in his massive indent, a boy in his father’s suit. But the most apparent feature isn’t its height or width or depth at the chest or legs; it’s that as I lay on my stomach, my penis swings free in the air like a drawstring bridge severed on one side. It hangs loose, penis and scrotum pulled by gravity towards the floor in the void left by Todd’s Pringles-can piece; no resistance, no support. It’s as if a hole has been carved through the mattress; his huge and heavy penis bore a tunnel through this foam that the topper could never forget. Face-down in Todd’s snow angel, I picture his fat meat. I do not sleep.

*

“Thanks for getting me to bring that topper out,” Jen says as she steps into the light of the kitchen. “I slept so well.”

I force a smile. I’ve been sitting here for three hours after giving up on sleep last night, haunted by visions of Todd’s rod, like a can of tennis balls. “I actually didn’t love it. Maybe we find a different one?”

“I thought you liked that it was broken in? It was perfect for me.”

“Yeah, well, what isn’t perfect for you?” I snipe. “I tend to have higher standards.” The lack of sleep and uncontestable proof of my physical inferiority have soured me.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she says, staring me down with the fridge door open.

I roll my eyes. “Maybe I need a more high quality sleeping experience than Todd did.”

“Are you serious? What happened to we both have rich and varied pasts? Jesus. I let you move in here and am planning a future with you despite your inability to father a child, so I think I’m being pretty charitable here, pal, and don’t deserve the tantrum you’re throwing.”

I fold my arms, look away. She hit the nuclear button and there’s nothing I can say. We went to the fertility doctor together a month ago and found out my sperm count is too low to have a child. Jen wept in the office.

She says she has to go to work, and I do, too, and we both get ready and leave without speaking.

*

For days I’m in rough shape. I force myself into Todd’s dent each night, but I get no sleep. My penis and ballsack droop into his thick memory and I cannot get comfortable. Swinging in his gap like a thin jungle vine.

On night three I give up, taking my pillow to the couch. I lay on my stomach and consider moving out, feeling my penis and nuts smush against cushion like they’re supposed to. Full-body contact, all me, no bear-hug from Todd. I tell myself I’m happy. I tell myself this feels right. But after three hours I’m no closer to sleep. The pressure on my hose and beans is uncomfortable. Maybe even painful. What am I doing? Why am I dragging out this fight? What’s the point?

I crawl back into our bed. Jen stirs and I whisper that I’m sorry. She kisses my nose and I fall back into Todd’s embrace, rolling onto my stomach to let my penis and sack droop loose into the cave eroded by Todd’s two-liter cock. Accepting reality, I sleep soundly.

*

Feeling rested and vigorous and wanting some joy, I return to the fertility doctor alone during lunch. He tests my sample and enters the room beaming. “Your sperm count is through the roof,” he says, baffled. “Did you change something about your lifestyle? It’s almost like there’s no pressure whatsoever on your testicles for eight hours a day.”

*

Nine months from that day, our son, Todd, is born.

Each night as I roll onto my stomach and let my reedy pecker and little nuts drip down into the void, I say a prayer thanking the big guy who’s always got my back, my saint with the Pringles-can piece.

United Window and Door is announcing a recall on 80,000 vinyl windows sold between 2020 and 2022. These faulty units contain human-produced methane gas and splatters of diarrhea between the two panes of glass instead of the heat-insulating argon gas that was advertised.

I want to apologize to all of our customers for any confusion or inconvenience this may have caused. There was a communication error at our Ohio plant, which resulted in these windows being pumped full of liquid feces and awful, green flatulence before being shipped and installed in homes across the country. The instructions specified that the plant workers were to assemble a double-pane window and fill the gap with argon, a colorless, odorless gas that has been used by window manufacturers for years to help insulate a room and minimize the transfer of heat through the window glass. Unfortunately, one worker at the plant, Greg Cowdery, misunderstood and believed his assignment was to line up two panes of glass, pull his pants down, sit nude on top of the raw glass, and fill the gap with his own gas. Obviously this was wrong, and we should have caught it sooner, but Greg worked nights, often unsupervised. Windows shipped in the front half of 2020, when Greg began working with us, are noticeably less damaged than later units. These windows contain relatively clean gas and display a brown-green tint, which many customers may not notice. Rolling into 2021, however, Greg’s intestines and ass began to show signs of wear. By then, he’d farted into 15,000 windows, and his anus was no longer as tight and controlled as in the year prior. The 2021 units feature raw streaks of black-brown skids sandwiched between the glass. Select units host full turds. Workers on the morning shift reported that Greg began looking thin and sick during this period. In early 2022, there was no doubt Greg had made himself ill. Several customers complained about these windows, which are full of thin, watery diarrhea, corn, seeds, and blood. Many are full to the brim with blood. These units are the smoking gun that tipped us off, after Roberta Pleasance, of Hilton Head, South Carolina, had eighteen 35.75-inch windows installed in her new beach house and was upset when she stepped inside and discovered all her windows were stained red, with bits of undigested carrot floating in the brine.

After receiving the complaint, we conducted a swift but thorough investigation and identified Greg as the culprit, based on the trail of blood leading from the parking lot to his ass, as he sat his scabbed anus on another new window. I pulled him down, took him out back, and personally executed him with a bullet through the back of his skull.

Over the following weeks, though, productivity slowed at our Ohio plant. The windows were no longer filled with farts and shit and blood and grape stems, but instead of making 700 units a day, the crew was making 400. Greg regularly delivered 150 a day, so I asked the crew what explained the additional drop in their efficiency, and they told me it was Greg’s absence. They said his relentless work ethic was inspiring, and he encouraged them all to excel. They said he was always doing more than he believed he was supposed to do, to help the company: constantly researching foods to eat that would make him pass more gas, practicing air-swallowing techniques, and performing exercises to strengthen his butt cheeks and his butt hole. His ass would tear open and he’d start bleeding, the team told me, but Greg would keep on going, munching another cabbage, sitting on fresh windows, and filling them up with everything he had until the sun rose. Never complaining, never slowing down.

He may have misunderstood his assignment, but Greg Cowdery worked harder than anyone here, myself included. On a good day, I can force two bowel movements. Greg put in the work and was able to routinely squeeze some type of gas, liquid, or whole duke into our windows one hundred and fifty times a day. He was the most dedicated employee in the history of United Window and Door, and I regret burying my pistol into his dirty hair and squeezing the trigger. We are hereby renaming the company after Greg and I am proud to announce I am recalling the recall. Those shit-filled windows are monuments to a great man. You should be happy to have them in your home, and when the summer sun hits them and the heat passes straight through the glass, boiling the diarrhea they contain, I hope you think of Greg Cowdery’s shredded ass, and I hope that hot smell motivates you to give every task your all, whether you understand the assignment or not.