Epigraph:

Fuck the man.

Everybody

Note: This is a poem called Terms and Conditions Apply.

It started, as these things sometimes do, with a phrase that had annoyed me one too many times.

Terms and conditions apply.

Of course they do.

They apply at the bank. They apply at the pub. They apply on the train. They apply at the airport. They apply when the coffee machine steals your money. Apparently they apply to fathers, daughters, sperm banks, Houston, love, abandonment, driving home and every other human activity.

Eventually the phrase stopped sounding like corporate boilerplate and started sounding like a philosophy.

So I wrote it a song. Or a poem. Or whatever the hell this is.

The epigraph is by everybody. Fuck the man. Oh and also dude, fuck terms and conditions. Big time.

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I went down to the sperm bank

To make a little I

They said, “Terms and conditions apply.”

I gave up on my baby daughter because terms and conditions apply

I left my baby daughter in a pub I did spy

It just said, “Terms and conditions apply.”

I went in anyway and asked Mac behind the bar

Mac said, “Baby, what’s with the polo? Why oh why?”

As I chugged my second brewski

I knew I wouldn’t get that far

And Mac said, “Terms and conditions apply.”

I left the pub with my baby o’ mine

Caught the last slow train at a quarter to nine

The conductor punched my ticket and looked me dead in the eye

“Ride anywhere you want, baby

Still terms and conditions apply.”

I left my baby daughter down by the riverside.

I said, “Hon, honey bun—terms and conditions apply.”

She looked at me once and she looked at the sky.

Then she said, “Daddy, everybody leaves. They just tell you different reasons why.”

I went down to the airport. To Houston I would fly.

The stewardess was out of sorts. I never did learn why.

I said, “Baby, I’ve heard that all day. If I hear it again, I’m gonna cry.”

She said, “Well, there’s really nothing I can say except

terms and conditions apply.”

I landed down in Houston underneath a Texas sky.

Bought a coffee from a machine that took my money twice.

I kicked it once. It kicked me back. A little red light blinked nearby:

Terms and conditions apply

So I walked out toward the highway with no particular place in mind

My baby called from somewhere. I said, “Baby, are you all right?”

She said, “I’m fine. But if you’re coming home, you better come tonight.”

I said, “Baby, I’m coming.”

She said, “All right any yet”

Terms and conditions apply.

Of course they do dude. Always.