Saturdays with Satan: Desperately Seeking Evil

“Grow some fucking balls, Satan!”

Did I just say that? To the prince of darkness?

Yes. Yes, I did. Let me back up.



It was around 10:30 Saturday morning when the phone rang. I recognized the caller id.

“Hi, Satan,” I said as I picked it up.

“How did you know it was me?” he asked.

Silly, forgetful Satan. Every time he calls, I see the number. Every time he asks.

“Don't forget I can read your thoughts!” he yelled over the phone.

Caught. Temporarily disabled.

“Um... Sorry. It's just that I've told you about caller-id like 7 times. I just think it's kinda funny.”

“It's not funny,” he said. “I've got other more important things to remember than your silly human phone stuff.”

“Okay.”

“Anyway...” he started. “I have a favor to ask. You busy?”

“No.” Remember.  He could read my thoughts.

“Can you come here and help me with something?”

“Okay. What is it?” I hoped it wasn't cleaning the snake pit. Snake shit and shed skin is disgusting after the first ten minutes.

“Not. It's not the snake pit. It's something rather... delicate. Prefer not to discuss over the phone. You know...”

You see... Satan was...

“Yes... I'm paranoid!” he said, finishing my thought for me.

So I got in my car and drove to his house. It was only two miles down the road, but I was lazy and he wanted help now.

I got there and went up the gravel driveway to the steps. Up the three steps and saw the note on the door.

“Door bell broken. Open door and yell.”

Too lazy to fix the doorbell. Clear my thoughts.

I opened the door and yelled. “Ahhh! Anybody home?”

“Come in” from a distant room. “Help yourself to a drink.”

Vodka on the counter. Vermouth. Olives. Glass chilling. He can read my thoughts.

I mixed a drink and sipped it on the way through the kitchen to the computer room. Satan was sitting in his chair, hunched over his laptop on the desk.

I saw him quickly X out the browser. ChristianMingles.com. The browser was not exiting as it should. I saw the title bar: Not Responding.

“What's up?” I asked, pretending not to notice.

“Computer's not working. It's stuck. Again. Can you help me?”

“Sure.”

“But you gotta promise. You can't say anything about what you see here. I've got a reputation to protect.”

“I promise.”

“All right. Sit down.”

I sat.

“I'm... um... I'm on this... uh... dating site.”

“I see. Interesting choice,” I said.

“Um... yeah... Well, it's locking up when I try to change my profile picture.”

I looked at the screen again, following his gaze.

His profile picture: a goofy grin, yellow shirt.

“I can see why.”

“That's the new one,” he said.  His eyebrows furrowed. “Anyway, it keeps locking up. And I keep turning it off and on and it's always locked up.”

“Hmm. How do you turn it off?”

“I close it. I open it to turn it on. And it always shows this. It's still locked up.”

I explained the magic of the laptop. Sleep mode vs. off. I showed Satan how to hold the power button and count to two.

Powered it back on. He had to log in. Password was 5 letters.

“You shouldn't use your name as the password,” I said.

“How did you know?”

“Wild guess.”

He logged back in and started talking about his dating life.

“Dull,” he said. “Who understands women these days?”

“Not me.”

“It was easy in Hell. I was in power. I was at the top. All the hot demons were all over me. Now I'm here. I'm nobody. I'm 5000 years old. Nobody wants me.”

And that's when I told him to grow some balls.

“Stop being such a pussy, Satan. Women won't respect that.”

“What do women want?” he asked.

“Fuck if I know. I don't know much about women, but I know what I like.”

“You're no help.”

“Have you tried reading their thoughts?”

“Yeah. I had a migraine for a week. It was all

'He hasn't said anything about my nails.'

'He didn't notice my earrings.'

'He didn't say anything when I said “my butt's getting big”.'

'Does he know his goatee is uneven?'

'When's the last time he trimmed his nose hairs?

'Those socks do not go with that belt.'

“I wanted to discuss philosophy,” he continued. “Get 'em hooked on evil. Nuttin'. So I'm trying to look elsewhere. Different kind of women.”

“You know what the women you'll find there?" I asked. "The ones who want to shove a hot poker up your ass.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. You want a hot poker up your ass?”

“No way. We used to do that back in Hell. Fred, from accounting, came up with it. You would have never guess it by looking at him, but Fred was fucked up. Always came up with interesting ideas, though. Outside the box. Good accountant. Saved us billions in taxes before he retired. Hell of a golfer, too.

“We used to use the hot poker for torture," he continued. "Pretty soon, we had people lining up for it. They begged to be tortured. Fucking masochists. We had so many one decade, that the whole office smelled of burnt ass hair. We stopped doing it after that. Had to get a dozen dead skunks to get it back to normal.”

“So what do you want?” I asked. “You want to get married?”

“Fuck no!” he said. “Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. And the fucking in court. Mother Theresa is one heck of a lawyer. You guys on the surface didn't now it, but she was one of our agents. She's a shark in the courtroom. Killer in the sack, too. I'm still reeling from that hot poker. Ain't gonna do that again.”

“There's something Jesus used to say about marriage,” he continued. “People don't believe me when I tell them this, but it's true. I overheard it when he was out wandering the desert. I was keeping an eye on him as a vulture. He said, and this is exactly what he said, I shit you not.  He said, 'The fucking you get ain't worth the fucking you get.' That's why I'm not getting married again.”

“So... What do you want?” I asked again.

“Someone to spend time with. Do stuff with when I want company. Someone who'll leave me alone when I want to be alone. Not gonna touch my stuff, rearrange things. Make me change my socks because of my belt. Someone not afraid of snakes. Someone... adventurous,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.

“You're not gonna find her there,” I said, pointing to the screen.

“Well... where then?”