Enter your email Address

ENTROPY
  • About
    • About
    • Masthead
    • Advertising
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Info on Book Reviews
  • Essays
    • All Introspection
      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      The Animal Form

      January 22, 2021

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      On Fantasy and Artifice

      January 19, 2021

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      Tales From the End of the Bus Line: Aging Ungraciously

      January 18, 2021

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      Salt and Sleep

      January 15, 2021

      Introspection

      The Birds: A Special Providence in the Fall of a Sparrow

      January 2, 2020

      Introspection

      Returning Home with Ross McElwee

      December 13, 2019

      Introspection

      The Birds: In Our Piety

      November 14, 2019

      Introspection

      Variations: Landslide

      June 12, 2019

  • Fiction
    • Fiction

      The Birds: Little Birds

      December 11, 2020

      Fiction

      The Birds: Perdix and a Pear Tree

      December 9, 2020

      Fiction

      The Birds: A Glimmer of Blue

      November 23, 2020

      Fiction

      The Birds: Circling for Home

      November 13, 2020

      Fiction

      The Birds: The Guest

      November 9, 2020

  • Reviews
    • All Collaborative Review Video Review
      Review

      Review: Dear Marshall, Language is Our Only Wilderness by Heather Sweeney

      January 21, 2021

      Review

      Review: Shrapnel Maps by Philip Metres

      January 18, 2021

      Review

      Perceived Realities: A Review of M-Theory by Tiffany Cates

      January 14, 2021

      Review

      Review: Danger Days by Catherine Pierce

      January 11, 2021

      Collaborative Review

      Attention to the Real: A Conversation

      September 3, 2020

      Collaborative Review

      A Street Car Named Whatever

      February 22, 2016

      Collaborative Review

      Black Gum: A Conversational Review

      August 7, 2015

      Collaborative Review

      Lords of Waterdeep in Conversation

      February 25, 2015

      Video Review

      Entropy’s Super Mario Level

      September 15, 2015

      Video Review

      Flash Portraits of Link: Part 7 – In Weakness, Find Strength

      January 2, 2015

      Video Review

      Basal Ganglia by Matthew Revert

      March 31, 2014

      Video Review

      The Desert Places by Amber Sparks and Robert Kloss, Illustrated by Matt Kish

      March 21, 2014

  • Small Press
    • Small Press

      Gordon Hill Press

      December 8, 2020

      Small Press

      Evidence House

      November 24, 2020

      Small Press

      death of workers whilst building skyscrapers

      November 10, 2020

      Small Press

      Slate Roof Press

      September 15, 2020

      Small Press

      Ellipsis Press

      September 1, 2020

  • Where to Submit
  • More
    • Poetry
    • Interviews
    • Games
      • All Board Games Video Games
        Creative Nonfiction / Essay

        How Zelda Saved Me: The Inspiration, Feminism, and Empowerment of Hyrule

        November 2, 2020

        Board Games

        Session Report: Victoriana and Optimism

        December 14, 2019

        Games

        Best of 2019: Video Games

        December 13, 2019

        Games

        Hunt A Killer, Earthbreak, and Empty Faces: Escapism for the Post-Truth Era

        September 21, 2019

        Board Games

        Session Report: Victoriana and Optimism

        December 14, 2019

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: Lady of the West

        July 27, 2019

        Board Games

        Session Report: Paperback and Anomia

        July 27, 2019

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: The Real Leeds Part 12 (Once in a Lifetime)

        November 10, 2018

        Video Games

        How Zelda Saved Me: The Inspiration, Feminism, and Empowerment of Hyrule

        November 2, 2020

        Video Games

        Best of 2019: Video Games

        December 13, 2019

        Video Games

        Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the Spirit of Generosity

        December 31, 2018

        Video Games

        Best of 2018: Video Games

        December 17, 2018

    • Food
    • Small Press Releases
    • Film
    • Music
    • Paranormal
    • Travel
    • Art
    • Graphic Novels
    • Comics
    • Current Events
    • Astrology
    • Random
  • RESOURCES
  • The Accomplices
    • THE ACCOMPLICES
    • Enclave
    • Trumpwatch

ENTROPY

  • About
    • About
    • Masthead
    • Advertising
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Info on Book Reviews
  • Essays
    • All Introspection
      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      The Animal Form

      January 22, 2021

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      On Fantasy and Artifice

      January 19, 2021

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      Tales From the End of the Bus Line: Aging Ungraciously

      January 18, 2021

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      Salt and Sleep

      January 15, 2021

      Introspection

      The Birds: A Special Providence in the Fall of a Sparrow

      January 2, 2020

      Introspection

      Returning Home with Ross McElwee

      December 13, 2019

      Introspection

      The Birds: In Our Piety

      November 14, 2019

      Introspection

      Variations: Landslide

      June 12, 2019

  • Fiction
    • Fiction

      The Birds: Little Birds

      December 11, 2020

      Fiction

      The Birds: Perdix and a Pear Tree

      December 9, 2020

      Fiction

      The Birds: A Glimmer of Blue

      November 23, 2020

      Fiction

      The Birds: Circling for Home

      November 13, 2020

      Fiction

      The Birds: The Guest

      November 9, 2020

  • Reviews
    • All Collaborative Review Video Review
      Review

      Review: Dear Marshall, Language is Our Only Wilderness by Heather Sweeney

      January 21, 2021

      Review

      Review: Shrapnel Maps by Philip Metres

      January 18, 2021

      Review

      Perceived Realities: A Review of M-Theory by Tiffany Cates

      January 14, 2021

      Review

      Review: Danger Days by Catherine Pierce

      January 11, 2021

      Collaborative Review

      Attention to the Real: A Conversation

      September 3, 2020

      Collaborative Review

      A Street Car Named Whatever

      February 22, 2016

      Collaborative Review

      Black Gum: A Conversational Review

      August 7, 2015

      Collaborative Review

      Lords of Waterdeep in Conversation

      February 25, 2015

      Video Review

      Entropy’s Super Mario Level

      September 15, 2015

      Video Review

      Flash Portraits of Link: Part 7 – In Weakness, Find Strength

      January 2, 2015

      Video Review

      Basal Ganglia by Matthew Revert

      March 31, 2014

      Video Review

      The Desert Places by Amber Sparks and Robert Kloss, Illustrated by Matt Kish

      March 21, 2014

  • Small Press
    • Small Press

      Gordon Hill Press

      December 8, 2020

      Small Press

      Evidence House

      November 24, 2020

      Small Press

      death of workers whilst building skyscrapers

      November 10, 2020

      Small Press

      Slate Roof Press

      September 15, 2020

      Small Press

      Ellipsis Press

      September 1, 2020

  • Where to Submit
  • More
    • Poetry
    • Interviews
    • Games
      • All Board Games Video Games
        Creative Nonfiction / Essay

        How Zelda Saved Me: The Inspiration, Feminism, and Empowerment of Hyrule

        November 2, 2020

        Board Games

        Session Report: Victoriana and Optimism

        December 14, 2019

        Games

        Best of 2019: Video Games

        December 13, 2019

        Games

        Hunt A Killer, Earthbreak, and Empty Faces: Escapism for the Post-Truth Era

        September 21, 2019

        Board Games

        Session Report: Victoriana and Optimism

        December 14, 2019

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: Lady of the West

        July 27, 2019

        Board Games

        Session Report: Paperback and Anomia

        July 27, 2019

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: The Real Leeds Part 12 (Once in a Lifetime)

        November 10, 2018

        Video Games

        How Zelda Saved Me: The Inspiration, Feminism, and Empowerment of Hyrule

        November 2, 2020

        Video Games

        Best of 2019: Video Games

        December 13, 2019

        Video Games

        Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the Spirit of Generosity

        December 31, 2018

        Video Games

        Best of 2018: Video Games

        December 17, 2018

    • Food
    • Small Press Releases
    • Film
    • Music
    • Paranormal
    • Travel
    • Art
    • Graphic Novels
    • Comics
    • Current Events
    • Astrology
    • Random
  • RESOURCES
  • The Accomplices
    • THE ACCOMPLICES
    • Enclave
    • Trumpwatch
Fiction

BLACKCACKLE: Life with Thad

written by Guest Contributor October 11, 2019

As an older millennial, I find it impossible to date anyone who isn’t named Thad. It’s become so dire that I assign them nicknames: Trucker Hat Thad, Clown Thad, and, as we’ve aged, Bald Thad.

Inevitably the Thads work as craft chocolate makers, professional students, or carpenters with a PhD in semiotics — careers that will not get me the house in the suburbs I’ve been denying I want. And I’m fully booked with my 12 hours a week at the flower shop and my feminist food web series.

The Thads never seem to be interested in a serious relationship either, which is natural, since monogamy is for old people. Unless you had someone you wanted to fix me up with? I’m always game for a date, and I’ve realized I thrive on my attraction to the underdog.

That’s why when Bald Thad recently asked if I wanted to grab a yoga class and then tacos, I said yes. A self-made digital nomad, he lived in a co-dwelling space on the East Side and exhibited a certain troubled aloofness. He was practically perfect.

But our Velvet Underground-themed wedding wasn’t to be. A few weeks in, Bald Thad told me he was having “doubts about the seriousness of our relationship.” He reassured me he still liked my poetry, and that he would get back to me in a few days.

A FEW DAYS? I That’s 857 Tinder years. I was just a girl standing in front of every boy age 25 to 40, asking him to love her and have a baby immediately because my doctor told me it would already be considered a geriatric pregnancy.

Within an hour I’d found another Thad: He was into Malaysian food, Instagram, and Arcade Fire. I knew it was fate. I nicknamed him Tuba Thad, because he played tuba in an alternative marching band.

We decided to meet at a bar near his house the next morning, and I arrived bright and early at 1 PM, dressed in my best flouncy prairie dress. Tuba Thad looked just like his photos: dark curls, black threadbare tee, inner bicep tattoo of an unreadable but clearly philosophic motto. It might have been in Sanskrit or Cyrillic, but I’d forgotten my Eastern Linguistics course materials.

We immediately started discussing how to bake with local gluten-free flours. This Thad got me: I hadn’t told him my plan to open the first cricket-flour bakery, but I had intimated that I was different than most girls because I was obsessed with dessert.

“If you want to come over to my house, I can teach you how to make a pie with oat butter,” he said, putting his hand on my left breast. I giggled like my mother always told me not to, then whispered, “Maybe later” as I removed his hand, because that’s how Beyoncé would do. I appreciate a romantic gesture as much as the next gal, but we hadn’t talked about being exclusive, plus it wasn’t Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday after brunch.

Suddenly, I felt an awkward stare coming from the shuffleboard court. It was Bald Thad and his brother, Almost-Bald Brad. I froze. Tuba Thad noticed our mutual stare and shouted, “What up, my brother?” to Almost-Bald Brad, because you can’t swing a Lone Star without running into someone you lived with in a vegetarian co-op ten years ago. The dome-headed brothers stood up simultaneously and came to sit with us.

As I watched their conversation unfold, I zoned out more than during savasana at Yoga Chandi. Their dharma talk? The superiority of switchel over kombucha, how to take balance to the next level, milk-washed whiskey, who got more woke after reading Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the hegemony of narrow bike lanes.

This continued for what seemed like 45 animal-shenanigan videos on YouTube, but all at once the tone shifted, I saw the sky had darkened, and the brothers told us they were leaving to open for their friend’s band, Dead Pencil Kings, at the Mysterious Barber. Flabbergasted, Tuba Thad said he’d been planning to hit that up next. What was Bald Thad’s chosen instrument? he wondered.

“Theremin,” Bald Thad said, air-playing … well, the air, since you don’t actually touch anything when you play the theremin.

The Thads and Almost-Bald Brad nodded solemnly, then walked off into the dusk like three riders in a storm of smog and air pollution because we really need to focus on the environment, you guys. Meanwhile I walked home bumping into this person and that pole as I watched Live Stories of them bumping into this pole and that person, and wait, that’s Karli, Bald Thad’s ex-partner — oh, no his current partner it seems from the taco emojis and ellipses plastered across her face as mine fell into the concentration known to creatives as flowing.


Image Credit: Salvador Dalí “A Trombone and a Sofa Fashioned Out of Saliva” (1936)  


Megan Giller is the author of Bean-to-Bar Chocolate: America’s Craft Chocolate Revolution, and her work has appeared in Slate, The New York Times, and Texas Monthly, among other publications. A native Texan, she lives in New York City with her husband and dog. Follow her chocolate escapades on Instagram @chocolatenoise.

BLACKCACKLE: Life with Thad was last modified: October 10th, 2019 by Guest Contributor
BLACKCACKLEfictionhumor
0 comment
0
Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
Avatar
Guest Contributor

Entropy posts are often submitted to us by our fantastic readers & guest contributors. We'd love to receive a contribution from you too. Submission Guidelines.

previous post
mini-syllabus: IMMORAL, INCORRIGIBLE, DELINQUENT:  GIRLS IN THE JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM
next post
Words, Women, & Wilderness: An Interview with Abi Andrews

You may also like

Their Days Are Numbered XIX

May 12, 2015

OF MONSTERS: Candy House by Kelly Magee & Maria Ridley

May 23, 2016

Their Days Are Numbered XX

May 19, 2015

BLACKCACKLE: Cross Words

April 19, 2019
Facebook Twitter Instagram

Recent Comments

  • Lei Yu wow so beautifully written!

    Review – : once teeth bones coral : by Kimberly Alidio ·  January 18, 2021

  • Lisa S Thank you so much for your kind words and your feedback. I can only hope my story is able to help someone who needs it.

    WOVEN: This isn’t love ·  January 8, 2021

  • Ann Guy Thank you, Josh. And glad you didn’t get tetanus at band camp on that misguided day.

    A Way Back Home ·  December 24, 2020

Featured Columns & Series

  • The Birds
  • Dinnerview
  • WOVEN
  • Variations on a Theme
  • BLACKCACKLE
  • Literacy Narrative
  • COVID-19
  • Mini-Syllabus
  • Their Days Are Numbered
  • On Weather
  • Disarticulations
  • The Waters
  • Session Report series
  • Birdwolf
  • Comics I've Been Geeking Out On
  • Small Press Releases
  • Books I Hate (and Also Some I Like)
  • The Poetics of Spaces
  • Fog or a Cloud
  • Tales From the End of the Bus Line
  • 30 Years of Ghibli
  • Cooking Origin Stories
  • YOU MAKE ME FEEL
  • Ludic Writing
  • Best of 2019
  • The Talking Cure
  • Stars to Stories
  • DRAGONS ARE REAL OR THEY ARE DEAD
  • Foster Care
  • Food and Covid-19
  • LEAKY CULTURE
  • Jem and the Holographic Feminisms
  • D&D with Entropy

Find Us On Facebook

Entropy
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram

©2014-2020 The Accomplices LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Read our updated Privacy Policy.


Back To Top