Buffalo, NY—”National Blame Someone Else Day” occurs on the first Friday the 13th of every new year and Harold Mantang, a thirty-nine year old production manager at the Ford Motor Plant received a combination of forty-seven texts, posts and face to face attacks blaming him for shit. He was called out by his neighbors, his son, his wife, and several ex-lovers. Even Bills legend Thurman Thomas had cause to rip him a new one.
The day started with his neighbor Foster Slurmwad pounding on his front door at 5am. When a sleepy Mantang answered, Slurmwad shoved the morning edition of the Buffalo News into his chest. The paper had accidentally been thrown on his porch for like the tenth time in the last month and woke up his insomniac wife, Norma. The last few times this happened Norma bitched at Slurmwad all day long and required constant attention because she hadn’t gotten her proper rest. Despite making several calls to the News to correct the situation it hadn’t stopped and he blamed Mantang. And while he was at his front door, Slurmwad also blamed him for the aesthetic decline of the neighborhood as a result of his stupid, ugly face.
At breakfast his ten-year old son Finn Mantang blamed him for making him feel like he wasn’t good enough or would never amount to anything. When Mantang asked where this was coming from his son told him it was all those comments he made at hockey about moving his feet and hustling. “Like I just stand there and don’t do anything.” the younger Mantang said angrily. “And last week against West Seneca, you told me if I had been in position I would have scored my third goal of the game. Why isn’t two goals good enough? My counselor at school told me maybe you should work on saying things in a different way, but what I really think she was saying is that you suck. If I end up in prison or being a dumb manager at Ford, it’ll be all your fault.”
After his son got on the bus for school Mantang explained the exchange he had with Slurmwad earlier that morning to his wife Alena, but she was unsympathetic and pointed out his face had become really stupid. She went on complaining that his face, which had been so handsome when they met, was now an embarrassment. She then blamed him for their diminished social life because she couldn’t stand being out in public with someone who had such a stupid face. She also blamed him for the death of their dog Frenchy. That if he hadn’t been so gung-ho about walks and throwing a ball to the Shepherd-Husky mix and just let the poor thing relax on the end of the couch it would have made it to fifteen instead of fourteen.
About lunch time he received a flurry of texts from his old girlfriend Roxanne Twazzole. Though Mantang lived with her and paid for her last two-years at UB she blamed him for her poor self-image, citing how he consistently rejected her amorous advances. One text read: “I know you were working like eighty-hours a week to pay for the apartment and my school, but would it have killed you to let me get on top and ride you? Your rejection crushed me.” He also received several texts from old girlfriends blaming him for no longer enjoying sex. That, in a world of inferior penises his sizable love wand was a revelation. It was a shame they said that such a well endowed man should have such a stupid face and the dumbest job in the world at the Ford plant.
Finally, Thurman Thomas reached out to him via social media and blamed Mantang for losing his helmet and his 10-carry, 13-yard performance at Super Bowl XXVI against the team formerly known as the Washington Redskins. According to Thomas he saw a nine-year old Mantang on TV the Friday before the Super Bowl when someone at Channel 4 news stuck a microphone in his face and asked him what he thought about the game and he soberly said: “I don’t see how the Bills win.” Thomas said he couldn’t shake that comment all weekend and it made him misplace his helmet and led to his horrible performance. In a direct message Thomas wrote, “That was my MVP season and you wrecked it with your restrained, insightful comment, you shithead. Fuck you.”
Mantang is always grateful when “National Blame Someone Else Day” is over and he can just live life with his stupid face and his dumb job at the Ford Plant.
