Luck of the Draw
My muse and I don't get along. We coexist. We're co-dependent. They say you can pick your friends, but you can't pick your family. Same goes for a muse; you don't get to choose. I certainly wouldn't pick my muse as a friend. I'd more likely pick him out of a police lineup. "That's the one," I'd say, "that’s the guy that's been terrorizing and harassing me all these years. Hang the bastard."
It’s odd that people, myself included, still anthropomorphize their muses, as if the original nine sister goddesses of Greek mythology still roam the earth, inspiring and endowing all they touch with creativity and joyous inspiration. My muse is not a beautiful Greek goddess, but a fat, balding behemoth with the likeness of Raymond Burr who – whenever he sees fit – will plop himself down on the easy chair near where I write, scratch his scraggly-ass beard and pass odoriferous gas until he sees fit to contribute a joke or reset the plot of a story. And then he's gone, leaving me on my own again, but not before heading downstairs to the kitchen and helping himself to whatever looks good.
That's my muse. You'd be welcome to the guy, but a muse is not transferable; you're issued one at birth and that's that. I imagine there is but one central clearinghouse for muses, and you get what's available (most of the truly outstanding muses having been taken over the centuries by the many great artists, philosophers and world leaders who came before me). As a humorist, it's depressing to think my muse came off the assembly line sandwiched between Garrison Keillor’s muse and Dave Barry’s muse, but there you are. Of course, my muse is stuck with me as well. He probably feels as though he drew a short straw. It’s not like my stories are appearing regularly in the New Yorker. It’s a bad situation, spiraling downward. We should be in therapy, my muse and I.
I haven’t seen my muse in about a month. I suspect he’s slouching on a bar stool in some retched pool hall selling out all the good jokes left in his quiver for the price of a Bud Lite and a bag of Cheetos. What’s a writer supposed to do when his muse refuses to turn up for work? I can’t even finish this story. It’s crying out for a good punch line, but it’s just not in me. That’s his job, for Christ’s sake. Ah, forget it. I gotta go.
3:55:50 PM 
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