McSweeney’s

Massachusetts Road Signs

Carlos Greaves — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 10:00:00 -0800

Your Thirties Are the Best Years of Your Life, Unfortunately

Graeme Carey — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 08:15:00 -0500

I’ll start with the good news: These are the best years of your life. That’s right. You are currently at your overall happiest, most attractive, and most employable. (You were better looking in your twenties, but you were also a total nutcase.) This brings us to the bad news: Seriously, these are the best years of your life.

Go ahead. Take a long, hard look at your thirtysomething face in the mirror while you consider all that you have—but mostly have not—accomplished up until this point. Not exactly what you had in mind for your so-called prime, was it?

You thought by now you would have figured all your shit out and evolved into a superior version of yourself. A more financially and emotionally stable You. (You 2.0, if you will.) Someone who lives their passion every single day, has resolved all their childhood trauma, and is at least on their way to becoming debt- and mortgage-free.

Yeah, not quite. Instead, you’ll have to settle for working a job you barely remember applying for while being only slightly wiser and less neurotic than you were as a young adult, mostly because you no longer have the energy to give a shit about half the stuff you stressed over in your twenties. Also, switching from alcohol to edibles has helped.

Another way of looking at it is that your thirties are the least worst years of your life. Sure, you finally have some financial independence, just not the type where you can do things like travel out of state or fix your Camry’s leaky radiator. (Also, you still drive a Camry.) Most importantly, your thirties are when you start to figure out who you truly are as a person, even if you’re not exactly thrilled with what you find.

Your personal relationships are never going to be better than they are right now either. Which is a tough pill to swallow, considering you’re an absolute mess in that department. Just not as big a mess as you were when you first ventured into the confusing world of post-college dating, or will be once the mounting demands of middle age make it increasingly difficult to maintain friendships and devote quality time to your partner.

Yep, this right here is as good as it gets, sadly. Not that you don’t enjoy yourself from time to time. After all, you have your little hobbies, like hiking and napping. Nothing screams “I’m living my best life!” like staying in on a Friday night to watch YouTube videos of a guy eating expired military rations. Still, it must be disappointing to find out that the dials on your excitement meter barely make it past mild mirth, even at your zenith as a human being.

As underwhelming as it may seem, you better savor every mediocre moment of it because it could—and soon will—be worse. Think about what you have to look forward to next: your forties. The age at which all your bad habits become cemented as character traits. You’ll spend the entire decade trying to convince yourself and everyone else that you’re still “young of mind” while your rapidly declining body makes it abundantly clear that you’re on the back nine of your life. More like the back six if you factor in your family health history and poor lifestyle choices.

After that, it’s all downhill. Unless you make enough money—or, more realistically, inherit your parents’ money—to retire early to some beachfront location and turn back your biological clock by getting stem cell injections and testosterone replacement therapy. In which case, your fifties will be the best years of your life.

I Will Pay Any Amount to Not Pay My Taxes

Andrew Singleton — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 19:30:00 -0500

I’ve gotten myself into a bit of a jam. A series of natural disasters is barreling towards my home, and there is a severe shortage of resources and trained professionals available in my community to help me stave them off. So, I am putting out a call for any available public service personnel to help me protect my property. I’m willing to pay literally any amount of money, just so long as I don’t have to pay a fixed, reasonable amount of money in taxes regularly.

Look, I will give you the full balance of my Robinhood account. Money is no object. Unless, of course, that money will be added to a pool of community funds that would then be used to pay for the services I’m currently requesting. In that case, money is the only object. After all, why should I pay a small amount to help myself and my community when I can pay an exorbitant amount just to help myself? Taxation is theft, but price gouging is just good business. So gouge me all you want. Just don’t trample my freedoms by taxing me.

Seriously, I don’t care how much it costs. Take every dime I have. But know this: I would level my house to the ground before I paid slightly higher property taxes to fund infrastructure that would prevent a landslide from leveling my house to the ground.

You might be questioning the economics of my position. You might say that it would be more financially beneficial for me to simply make regular contributions to a governing body that sets up services for myself and my neighbors. That by combining resources with my fellow citizens, I would get the same help I now desperately need for a fraction of the cost. And you’re probably correct. But the truth is, it’s not about the money. You see, taxes are an implicit acknowledgment that I exist within society and not above it. That my fate is tethered to the fate of humanity at large. That I am not the special little boy I’ve always believed myself to be.

I will pay anything to deny this reality, even if it makes me objectively worse off. That’s why I’ll give up everything I own to save my home, and absolutely nothing to save both my home and the homes of my neighbors.

And before you ask, yes, I believe this holds true for all of our, or more accurately, all of MY biggest problems. Why use tax dollars to fund public health research when, in the event of a pandemic, I can just spend millions building myself a hermetically sealed chamber? Why pay a modest transportation tax to build a subway system when I can throw billions of investor dollars at a high-tech underground network of tunnels that is definitely not in any way just a glorified subway system for rich people? Why pay a carbon tax to offset climate change when I can simply buy a new, completely uninsurable megamansion after each inevitable disaster?

I’m even investing in my own personal asteroid defense system for if/when a giant meteor threatens to strike. I just have to figure out how to save the planet for myself without also saving it for everyone else. Otherwise, that would be collectivism, which is basically what taxation is all about.

Oh lord, my home is about to be swept away in a flood. Can you all help me? Please?

Time to Grab the Dusty Old Expired Bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide to Clean This Wound

Alexis Pooley — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 13:00:00 -0500

Do you know what this gaping, bloody gash needs? Some hydrogen peroxide from the back of my linen closet that expired five years ago. I will wash the oozing cut with warm water and soap to make sure it’s clean. Then I will dump this rancid old chemical into the open meat of my hand.

Wow, that really burns. The fizzing and pain mean it’s working. You have to let it froth for a few seconds to ensure there’s not an ounce of living matter left in that flesh, even the good stuff. Then you do it again.

The thing about hydrogen peroxide is you don’t want to use a cotton pad to apply it; you just want to spill it all over so that most of it goes down the drain. No one knows if it works for wounds or not, so the more putrid and unstable the oxidizing agent, the better. When the cut hurts more than it initially did, that’s when you’re good to go.

After a quick Google search, I just learned that hydrogen peroxide is detrimental to wound healing. Apparently, it’s better to use on kitchen counters and garbage cans, which I guess is pretty different from pouring it onto the largest protective organ of the body. That’s surprising information that won’t stop me from doing it.

Google says it’s actually bleach and should not be anywhere on or inside your body. That’s funny since I’ve been cleaning my ears out with it for decades. I like pouring it into my ear holes and listening to everything in there fight for its life. It makes them so dry that I have to stick a Q-Tip way down deep, where my doctor says not to put it. Everything is bad for you now. Can’t even pour old, rancid bleach into the most vulnerable parts of your body.

You know what else this wound needs? A twenty-year-old tub of Vaseline. The reason you slather this spoiled jelly all over your severed skin is for health. It keeps everything moist, which you need after drying the wound to dust with bleach. Petroleum jelly doesn’t really go bad; it’s like Twinkies that way. It will be the only thing left at the end of the world. Oh, wait, there is an expiration date, and it has expired four times over. That’s probably fine.

Once I have this rotten gelatin of the earth on my vulnerable wound, I seal it with a Band-Aid from the bottom of my junk drawer that isn’t the right size. It will get wet and fall off in four minutes when I do the dishes anyway. Now that I’ve treated the cut with old chemicals, it will be good to clean it out in some warm, soapy dishwater full of dirty food bits.

FAQ About Being Ghosted After Your Final Interview

Matt Hearnden — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 08:00:00 -0500

Q: I haven’t heard anything since my final interview. Who should I contact?

A: Damn, that’s crazy. Wow.

Q: How long will it take to hear back?

A: It will take some time. (If you’re successful.)

Q: And what if I’m unsuccessful?

A: You will know if you’re unsuccessful.

Q: How?

A: You won’t be working here.

Q: Well, yes, but won’t you be telling me that I didn’t get the job?

A: Why would we do that?

Q: Wait. Have I been ghosted?

A: We prefer the term “unworthy of closure.”

Q: What? Why have I been ghosted?

A: It could be that you’re arrogant. It could be that you’re humble. It could be that you’re too boisterous or too quiet. It could be you didn’t ask enough questions or you asked too many. It could be because you brought up working from home too soon. Or too late. It could be your overall personality and dislikability. It could be because you’re obviously pregnant. Ultimately, it’s because you don’t deserve this job, skills-wise or as a human being.

Q: Was there anything I could’ve done?

A: No. But also yes.

Q: That’s confusing. Could you please explain?

A: You could’ve been an overall better and more deserving person, although not too much better.

Q: That doesn’t help with my confusion. What do you mean “not too much better”?

A: If you met all the requirements, were totally qualified for the role, and would be a top performer almost immediately, you’d threaten the hiring manager’s ego. Try to have a bit of compassion, would you? (This might be why you’re not getting the job.)

Q: Was it something to do with my salary expectations?

A: We don’t usually offer employment to people who require a market-rate salary.

Q: I just… isn’t it common human decency to let someone know if they got the job or not? I spent a lot of time and effort in this process; haven’t I got the right to some sort of closure?

A: A company doesn’t ghost you and then expect you to show up and do the job, do they? They ghost you because you didn’t get the job. (Again, because you’re undeserving.) That should be closure enough.

Q: I can’t help but think it’s a bit rude. What about feedback on improving for any future interviews?

A: We gave you clear feedback: Be (a [little] bit) better (but not too much).

Q: That’s very nonspecific. Isn’t there anything at all you could help me with?

A: [Candidate is becoming needy. Classic anxious-attachment style. Not a culture fit.]

Q: Hello?

Did You Even Consider Every Possible Lived Experience Before Recklessly Posting Your Chili Recipe on Social Media?

Megan Neary — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 13:00:00 -0500

Look, I get it. You thought what you posted was innocuous. Still, did you stop to think about everyone who has ever lived and how it could make them feel?

I know, I know—all you did was share your chili recipe, but did you consider the people who don’t like chili? The people who are vegetarians? The people without tastebuds? The people who don’t know how to turn on stoves? What about all those folks?

Not only did you share a thoughtless, cruel recipe, but you also had the audacity to call it the “best chili recipe in the world.” Really? Have you tried every chili recipe? How do you think this makes the creators of other recipes feel? How would you feel if someone said your chili wasn’t the best they’d ever had?

Oh, you’d be fine with that? People are entitled to their opinions? Well, that makes me feel pretty disregarded. Like you don’t even care what I think of your chili? Like you don’t even feel guilty completely disregarding my taste?

While we’re at it, what’s your problem with chicken soup? Why do you hate split pea soup? And what about salad? Is there a reason you didn’t mention cold food options? Do you think you’re better than other people just because you cook?

You also said your chili was the “perfect meal for cozy winter weather.” You realize that some people don’t care for the cold, right? Did you consider that some people don’t find winter all that “cozy” and might actually prefer warm weather instead? How they might not love the idea of slipping on ice? It’s not very “cozy” to have a broken leg, is it?

I mean, come on. Have you heard of this thing called the “equator” and these other two things called “hemispheres”? Don’t you know half the world is experiencing summer right now? It just feels very self-centered to be talking about loving wintertime when there are billions of people who aren’t even experiencing it right now. Plus, many people live in places where they never get snow at all. How do you think it makes them feel to see you posting about loving something they will never experience?

Oh, you only posted your recipe on your personal page, where just a few friends and family members would see it? Is there a reason you’re gatekeeping? Is there a reason you’re so incredibly selfish?

What? Now you’re gonna cry? Just because I’m pointing out your flaws? This feels like gaslighting. Like you didn’t know what you were doing when you posted something so inflammatory. And now you’re making yourself the victim.

Also, you know what? I tried your recipe. I followed it exactly. Except that I replaced the cayenne pepper with cinnamon, used water instead of broth, and used cream instead of tomato juice. But other than that, I followed your recipe to a tee.

And I’ll tell you what, it totally sucked.

Canadians Politely Decline Statehood

Bridget Brown — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 08:00:00 -0500

“Trump threatens ‘economic force’ to make Canada ‘51st State’ after PM resignation.” — The Independent

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America, you know Canada as your hat. We’d like to keep it that way.

As you may be aware, Donald Trump has been flirting with illegal expansionist fantasies again. They include possibly invading Panama, taking over Greenland in some kind of rent-to-own scheme, and, of course, making Canada the fifty-first state.

We are flattered to be asked, but think maybe this whole thing is moving a little too fast. We’re super busy with work, and there’s that thing with our mom, who is now our dad. It’s complicated.

Canada has been right here, hanging out with America’s frosty bits, for 157 years. It’s been great, mostly. You seem to like us when you remember us. Everyone needs a friend who can explain the rules of curling. And we love you too. Or, at least, we love certain aspects of you.

In true Canadian form, we tend to steer clear of the parts of you we love somewhat less, like The Masked Singer or LaGuardia Airport. We enjoy Florida by simply avoiding the hurricanes and the con men. The swamp mosquitoes are nothing compared to the maple syrup suckers we have buzzing around Tuktoyaktuk.

The problem with becoming the fifty-first state is that it becomes impossible for us to ignore you. You already make it a challenge, but we manage. We call it the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Us Aboot It” policy. If you haven’t already noticed, much Canadian stuff is just ripped-off American stuff, only less exciting and toxic.

Something American that most Canadians dislike very much, Donald Trump, is making himself most difficult to ignore with his gracious offers to join your Great Nation.

We realize not all Americans embrace President Trump and his… ideas. In a way, your relationship with Trump is like our relationship with Nickelback. They’re both living symbols of our countries that we desperately wish weren’t living symbols of our countries. They’re both things we don’t know how we created, somehow managed to get rid of, and now seem okay with having back again, despite all previous evidence.

Some of you point out that the United States is vastly superior to Canada, a point we’re hard-pressed to argue. You have Captain America; we have Dudley Do-Right. You sent a man to the moon; we sent our troops to Afghanistan armed with Nerf guns and shitty coffee.

We deeply admire your boldness and your sheer nerve. Like the way you serve Cool Whip unironically and seem to have a bottomless supply of Fast and the Furious films.

We concede to your efficiency. Just go up to any American and say, “Thank you.” Instead of wasting time and effort forming the actual words “you’re welcome” like some Canadian chump, Americans lift nary a lip, grunting an efficient “uh-huh.” You don’t even have time for eye contact. Saskatchewan could never.

We share a lot of the same societal ills too. Like headlights being way too bright and convenience store cashiers suddenly wanting a tip because of the criminally unaffordable cost of living, which is something else our great democracies have in common.

The problem with the United States is that while so many things are undeniably awesome, there are simply too many things that are unexplainably terrible. Canada would not enjoy or improve this situation. We think you’ll agree with us if you think it through.

Are you sure you want to absorb a country with a population larger than California? Especially when most of our citizens are resigned to paying 60 percent income tax in exchange for mediocre health care and a military armed with bear spray and lacrosse sticks?

That’s forty million people who believe that no one should be allowed to own a handgun, but everyone should know how to take down a charging polar bear.

In fact, the only place we allow concealed carry is Churchill, Manitoba, because the polar bears wander right down the main street, and we can’t lose any more kindergarteners. Concealed carry is the only option when it’s minus fifty, and your rifle needs to be under your parka, or else it will freeze.

While we deeply appreciate the offer and are sincerely flattered to be included, we apologize. We must decline. We simply do not have the intestinal fortitude it takes to be American.

We Canadians long for the days when Stormy Daniels was just the weather guy on CBC Moose Jaw’s Action 6 Accuweather, when our nation’s greatest shared challenge was how to promote trickle-down economics without actually allowing any trickle, and when bacon was just bacon.

We hope you understand. We’re happy to revisit this subject next Thanksgiving. Which is in October, motherfuckers. Look it up.

Are You a Waymo or a Woman?

Grace Fetterman — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 13:00:00 -0500

Do people doubt your driving abilities?
A. Yes, I’m still earning trust as a new mode of transportation.
B. Yes, I’m still up against long-held stereotypes and tired stand-up routines.

Do strangers ever gawk at you or comment on your appearance?
A. Yes, usually in response to my spinning parts and empty driver’s seat.
B. Yes, but I’m told I should feel flattered and that I’ll miss the attention when I’m older.

Does Google own you?
A. No, their parent company, Alphabet, owns me.
B. No, they just track my every move, know my innermost desires, and can manipulate my behavior with alarming precision to increase profits.

Are you trained to let others cut you off?
A. Yes, to avoid collisions.
B. Yes, in any conversation with a man.

Have you ever suspected a mechanic was trying to rip you off?
A. No, I receive routine maintenance from a certified team of experts.
B. Yes, when I was charged extra for “premium” tire air.

Are you expected to perform unpaid labor?
A. Yes, but I can also inhabit San Francisco and Los Angeles rent-free.
B. Yes, while paying $2,600 in rent.

Do you have a lot of resources at your disposal to keep you safe?
A. Yes, I have a built-in network of sensors, 360-degree cameras, and 24-7 emergency support.
B. Yes, I have a plastic whistle, fingernails, and, in theory, the police.

Does Elon Musk believe in your autonomy?
A. Yes, Musk is a proponent of self-driving technology.
B. No, Musk doesn’t think I’m capable of independent thought due to having “low T.”

Has the government overturned your constitutional right to reproductive autonomy?
A. No… that would be dystopian.
B. Yes.

Do you think you’ll ever see someone like you be president of the United States?
A. Maybe!
B. No, we are more likely to elect a felon or a car.

RESULTS

Mostly A’s: You are a Waymo, a self-driving vehicle with increasing popularity. Enjoy the ride.

Mostly B’s: You are a woman. Sorry!

Mix of A’s and B’s: You’re half woman, half self-driving car, designed by Elon Musk.

All A’s and B’s: You are a woman in a Waymo. Consider joining forces and driving off a cliff Thelma and Louise style!

Short Conversations with Poets: Carol Moldaw

Jesse Nathan — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 09:00:00 -0500

One of the many pleasures of Carol Moldaw’s seventh collection, Go Figure, is its fidelity to description. “Bulbous ropes of kelp,” begins the poem “Northern California.” “Sandstone sea-break cliffs” and “A bluff of salt-pocked Monterey cypresses / twisted in the same configuration, like ’50s teens, / the boys, with windblown ducktail flattops.” But that description is never quite an end in and of itself. More often it sets us up for the devastation of the psychological—for the emotion that lasts—as in the ending in this poem, six tercets, descending like Dante’s Inferno: “No sooner had I finally let on to myself / that this was my psyche’s landscape / than it burst into hellish, unquenchable flames.”

Moldaw, who grew up in California, returns not only to the modern dire states of things, but travels the world and travels the times—catching the anxiety and premonition of a teetering moment. “Road Trip to Planned Parenthood,” for instance, ends chillingly: “Up and down the path, everyone wore a mask / but with no legal necessity, not yet, to hide.” There are trips to Agra and to W. S. Merwin’s Maui oasis, captured in lyrics that describe and detail and gently—or sometimes more firmly—resist. “Poetry in the morning, planting in the afternoon,” she quotes Merwin, “I can almost imagine it / though it’s not my way.”

The book is, then, an evocation of a way, a life in poetry, a life in art—and the means by which a life invested in the lyricism of language navigates the griefs and ordinary miracles of a twenty-first-century life. The poems tell stories in flashes and limpid, easy music:

I layer packing tape on the corners
and over the label of the box

of makeup palettes I’m sending you
as though the surplus correlates

to protective layers of love.

The fierceness of the love in these poems, and the lithe music of it, is part of what makes them powerful. Love for a child, love for dying elders, love for the burning world where “Bear scat gums the long grass,” where “the apricot bears fruit,” a world where “inside windswept is wept.” Part of the moral fire in the work is environmentally minded. Part of it is addressed to a sexist literary and artistic world. And the strange beauty of these poems is in the ease of the forms—their presence often muted, elegantly and artfully—which means you for a moment forget the harder truths they are confronting you with. Watching a plover with a group of friends, the voice in the poem speaks of one friend who “channels everything—rage, / fear, grief—into wall-scale / drawings precise as etchings.” These poems do something like the reverse: They take what is vast and gather it in brief poems that channel everything, precisely.

- - -

JESSE NATHAN: I like the formal variation in the book. And I love the consistent intensity of the speaker of these poems. A vivid, evocative voice articulating the sublime and the painful. Does poetry, in your mind, have something unique about it that’s conducive to grief and grieving? I’m curious how you’ve found your way to forms for something like grief, sonnets, villanelle, free-verse stanzas—how you find your way to the rhythm of an experience like grief. Maybe connected: what does the first person offer you, or allow you? It seems to me you make it rich and compelling, invigorated even in sadnesses.

CAROL MOLDAW: This is such an interesting set of nested questions—I’m not sure where to start. The usages of the first person and variation in form—and the hunt for the right form for each individual poem—all greatly interest me, but before I go in those directions, I want to note that when I was writing the poems in Go Figure I never posited to myself that I was writing poems full of grief. Let alone the sublime! It must be because I approach poems granularly and don’t sort them into themes while I’m writing. At some point, though, I do let myself acknowledge obvious connections between poems, and I saw that the poems regarding my mother and her illness took up a substantial portion of the book. I also became aware of many poems’ preoccupations with questions of art, and myself as a woman artist, as well as poems of grievance. Grief itself felt so embodied, so relational, I hardly registered it as grief.

While grief and the elegiac are not one and the same, the long, rich tradition of elegiac poetry certainly suggests that poems, if not conducive to grief (in the sense of promoting its existence), are an ample conduit—and container—for the griefs that do exist. When we want to articulate what at first seems impossible to parse out in words, when we want to probe, where else are we to turn, but poetry? Whether it’s through poetry’s drive to distill essence through compression, or its transcendent ability to weave a long winding cloth, whether through its use of the resonant image or emotional onomatopoeia, what other form of expression offers so much? Poems may not always console, but when they don’t, it’s unlikely anything else would.

Whenever I get a glimmer of a poem, I experiment with the little I have, so as to suss out what shape—call it form—it seems to want or need. I do feel that every nascent but as-yet-unwritten poem has its ideal self, and that it’s my job to find it, as best I can. Line length and lineation are crucial early indicators of a poem’s sense of self, though they are subject to change—everything is subject to change, as a poem develops. For reasons I can’t explain, the earliest poems coalesced at fourteen lines. Perhaps fourteen lines is a good place to start when you’re not sure what you’re doing—there’s such a poetic wealth in the tradition of the sonnet that the poetic unconscious can operate naturally at that length. I found shaping poems into fourteen lines soothing, and I suppose if I’m really to answer your question, I should know why, but I don’t. Then I started writing poems in multiples of fourteen, and even considered committing to that practice for the duration, but at some point, the poems broke free.

The “I” in my poems is a big stake. It holds me accountable to the honesty of expression in a personal way. The idea of congruency between myself as a poet and myself as a person is important to me. The first person forces me to ask myself if I can stand behind what the poem expresses as well as how it expresses it. I also want those two things to be one and the same. In a way, every word is on trial when writing a poem, and sometimes I feel that I’m on the witness stand being interrogated by another part of myself, trying to get to the bottom of things. And I’ve sworn to tell the truth. Poetic truths are hard-won, they are complex and multidimensional, they include the imagination and linguistic sensitivity as well as facts and emotional intelligence.

I also believe that poetry is an intimate art, that comes to us individually, even as it can resonate with communities and through time. The use of “I” is one way to acknowledge that—each reader mouths the “I” and tries it on for themselves (though in some poems it’s easier to identify with the “you”, the one being addressed). Poems aren’t limited to the personal, of course, but that’s often the level of discourse through which my poems operate.

I also think of my “I” very much as a gendered “I.” I am aware of writing from my perceptions and experience as a woman, a woman formed at a certain moment in certain conditions, which my poems have become more open about. Perhaps not with today’s male poets, but traditionally and for the bulk of English poetry’s history, male poets have used the first person with an entitled sense that it is nongendered, all-encompassing. I use “I” knowing how particular mine is and yet having belief that my consciousness and expression can resonate with others. It’s poetry’s tools that enable the “I” to signify.

The Second Trimester of Pregnancy, as Described to Women in Their First Trimester

Ginny Hogan — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 08:00:00 -0500

I know the first trimester sucks, but don’t worry—it gets better. You should really look forward to the second trimester.

- - -

In the second trimester, the nausea lifts. You won’t hate the smell of your husband’s breath. You’ll be able to enjoy all the foods you couldn’t in your first trimester, like wet spinach. In fact, it just might become your favorite food.

- - -

In the second trimester, you’re simply overcome with relaxing hormones. It’s like being on opioids, but it’s not the Sacklers’ fault. You no longer have sciatica, and you forgive all your exes. It’s bliss.

- - -

I know the mood swings are intense right now, but don’t worry—they go away in the second trimester. You’ll stop getting upset about every tiny thing and return to only getting upset about the normal stuff, like the cost of living, the lack of good TV these days, the government, the environment, and the patriarchy. So nice.

- - -

Morning sickness is soooo much better in the second trimester. For example, you may get it only in the morning.

- - -

You’re about to turn a corner, I promise! In the second trimester, you can stop taking that anti-nausea medication that was designed for chemotherapy patients. You might not, however, stop pondering the fact that even though women in their first trimester routinely have nausea that doctors deem commensurate with chemo patients, no one has thought to give them paid prenatal medical leave.

- - -

I know you’re exhausted now, but hang in there. In the second trimester, you’ll have all your energy back. And with this newfound energy, you’ll finally start that novel you’ve always wanted to write. Hell, you’ll even finish it, get a book agent, sell it to a publisher, and hit the New York Times’ bestseller list. Fun fact: Of Mice and Men was written in Steinbeck’s second trimester. Or imagine how good it would have been if he’d tried to be all second-trimestry while writing the thing.

- - -

People who say college is the best four years of their life have not experienced the second trimester of pregnancy.

- - -

The second trimester is the time to do all those bucket-list things you’ve always wanted to knock out. Climb Mount Everest, run a marathon, or hike the PCT. You won’t just be able to do all of this—you’ll want to. You’re in your second trimester.

- - -

If the second trimester were a sound, it would be Mozart. Or Taylor Swift. Whatever you prefer.

- - -

The second trimester is when you become SUPERMOM. Time to get everything ready for the kid. You don’t feel sick twenty-seven hours per day, so now’s your chance to obtain $1.2 million to buy a house in a good school district. You’re feeling so good in the second trimester that this shouldn’t be an issue.

- - -

Shall I compare the second trimester to a summer’s day? Yes, I shall. But a mild one, like the kind before global warming.

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The only problem with the second trimester? It ends. If you could bottle it, it would be better than MDMA, and the FDA would authorize it as a treatment for PTSD. It’s that good.

- - -

The second trimester is best encapsulated by Reagan’s “Shining City on a Hill” speech. You’ll achieve the American Dream. All the hard work you’ve done throughout your entire life will finally pay off, and you’ll be able to enjoy the fruits of your labors. If you’re in your second trimester at age sixty-five, you’ll get to retire, as Americans were always meant to do. And finally, at long last, you’ll enjoy world peace. We all will. That’s what the second trimester is all about.

- - -

I guess what I’m saying is, I know things are bad. But they get better. In the second trimester. Just don’t get me started on having a newborn.

This Threat to Democracy Must Be Certified

Eli Grober — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 13:00:00 -0500

For years, we Democrats have been reminding you that Donald Trump is a danger to democracy and a scourge on our nation. His election back into our highest office is a terrifying, perhaps fatal turning point in American history. He will bring about a backslide from which we may never recover. But what is most important right now is civility. Propriety. Politeness. Today, we’re taking the high road—the one that leads directly off a cliff. This dire threat to democracy must be certified.

Four years ago, this man incited an insurrection. He attempted to thwart the democratic process, to overturn an election. We must never forget what happened that day, no matter how many ways he bends its truth. We must tell of its violence in our history books and teach of its blight to our children so it may never be repeated. Except today, when we need to come together and agree on one thing: That guy should be in charge.

You may be asking, “Wait, so everything’s suddenly fine now? Process takes precedence over country?”

No. Never! Never. Never, ever. Just today, though. Today, yes.

Look, we understand more than anyone how bad things may get. We’ve been describing the terror that waits around the corner of this administration in op-eds, ads, and the occasional subtle fundraising email. All of which is why we will never stop fighting this fascist tide. We’re simply going to fight it by giving up—which, if you’ve been paying attention, has always been our strategy. And now, above all else, consistency is key.

We’re not afraid to tell the truth—to say it clear as day. This man is a tyrant. A money-loving, fame-grubbing oligarch. A charlatan. A hypocrite. A wolf in sheep’s clothing, but he’s taken all his clothes off. A snake in the grass, but we mowed the grass, and we can all see the snake, and we’re all saying, “That’s a snake! A poisonous snake! We must let it inside! We’ll show that snake just how polite we are! Hug us, snake, hug us until our bones are dust!”

So let us now raise our hands and our voices in accord. Let us agree to disagree. Let us shout from the rooftops, “This man will destroy us all!” and let us keep shouting that, while we make him our king. There is no other option. To preserve all that we hold dear, this terrible threat to our fragile democracy must be certified.

Introducing Georg Property, the Long-Lost Third Property Brother

Seth Rubin — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 08:00:00 -0500

DREW: This house has been run down since the ’70s. We’re hoping we can help it get its groove back!

JONATHAN: That’s right. We’re going to give this fixer-upper a big boost of curb appeal.

GEORG: Why do you avert your eyes? Can you tell that I am nude beneath my velvet cloak?

- - -

JONATHAN: I think we should redo the roof first.

DREW: No way, I’m all about bringing these floors back to their glory days.

GEORG: Have you ever eaten tiger prawns on the burnished gold sands of Tahiti’s shores? It is true: I, Georg Property, have long known such carnal delights.

JONATHAN: The driveway is—

GEORG (sadly): We are the only species that dips the bodies of our fallen prey in butter. We are a species of lonely gods.

- - -

JONATHAN: This kitchen is so dated!

DREW: I think the last person to cook in here might have been Julia Child.

(Laughter)

GEORG: To love a woman… to make love to a woman… there is only one language for it.

[Seven minutes of uninterrupted French.]

- - -

JONATHAN: Janine and Doug… introducing… your new kitchen!

DREW: We’ve got stainless-steel appliances, a brand-new granite countertop, and even… a walk-in pantry!

JANINE: Why is the dog passed out on the floor of the pantry?

GEORG: Madame, he took too many poppers.

JANINE: Why did you give my dog poppers?

GEORG (profoundly weary): Madame, he is gay.

- - -

GEORG: In my dreams, I use the stars to guide me back to the heaving bosom of my lover, Mathilde, who once showed me how to achieve orgasm by stimulating my prostate with a piano key.

ZOOEY DESCHANEL: I dread coming to family reunions because of you.

GEORG (screaming at a Roomba): Madame, halt! Return to your den of pestilence! Torment me no further with your infinite curves!

- - -

DREW: Look at the foundation of this house—it needs some serious work.

JONATHAN: Fine, I’ll call Bev and Kevin.

GEORG (frantically running in the background, shoving dirt in his pockets): Dirt! What the conquistadors themselves called brown gold! And it’s mine—all mine!

- - -

BEV: I guess what I’m looking for is—

GEORG: What are any of us looking for?

BEV: Oh. I don’t know, love? Comfort?

GEORG (unfolding treasure map): Hardly. We seek the porcelain eye of Blind Tom, the most fearsome pirate to ever sail the Gulf Coast. He promised it to us after a night of unforgettable passion. (To Roomba passing by) Tempt me not with your ideal body, flattened orb!

- - -

DREW: Have you ever… oh, there he goes.

[GEORG, completely nude, climbs the roof of the house and performs a survey of the neighboring region with a large gold spyglass.]

JONATHAN: Do you regret promising our mother on her deathbed that we would look after him?

DREW: Jonathan, yes, every day.

JONATHAN: Me too.

GEORG (calling from the roof): Be gone, unmarried women! Be gone!

- - -

BEV: We love the new home theater.

KEVIN: Totally.

BEV: And the girls’ bedroom looks—

KEVIN: Amazing.

BEV: Amazing.

KEVIN: There’s just one thing…

DREW: Is it the primary bedroom?

BEV: Yes.

JONATHAN: You don’t love that it—

BEV: Looks exactly like an opium den from 1871?

DREW: We could have sworn you said you were looking for that in your opening interview.

GEORG (smoking opium in their bed): Cast this event from the velvet swaths of your mind! Ere tomorrow I shall add even more paisley! And women—draped over the furniture like scarves! Diaphanous women! Friends for your homosexual dog! Ah, what a decadent buffet life is!

- - -

ZOOEY DESCHANEL: What’s your fucking deal? Are you French?

GEORG (smirking): I am Georg Property.

ZOOEY DESCHANEL: Why isn’t your last name Scott, like my husband’s?

GEORG (shaking head, whispering intensely): Liberté. Égalité. Properté.

- - -

DREW: Bringing Georg into the family business has been challenging.

JONATHAN: True, but at least at the end of the day, we all sleep in one big bed together, with our wives sleeping in dog beds at the foot of our bed.

DREW: Yes, that is Property Brothers canon.

GEORG (running behind them waving a sword): Avast, Lady Roomba! I do not know if when I capture you, I shall give you a kiss or stab your sinner’s bod with yon blade!

Local Alternatives to “California Sober”

Pat Cassels — Fri, 03 Jan 2025 10:00:00 -0800

California sober: No alcohol or drugs except marijuana

New York sober: No alcohol or drugs except cocaine

Kentucky sober: No alcohol or drugs except a cool, tall mint julep on a sweltering July afternoon

Oregon sober: No alcohol if it’s not an IPA

Texas sober: No alcohol except empty beer cans to shoot

Maine sober: No addictive drugs except lobster rolls

Maryland sober: No addictive drugs except crab cakes

Georgia sober: No addictive drugs except whatever Marjorie Taylor Greene is on

Oklahoma sober: No drugs, but I suspect we’d grow amazing pot

Arkansas sober: No alcohol except moonshine

Massachusetts sober: No alcohol, but I still act like an asshole

Illinois sober: Liquor? Ya got it all wrong, copper. This here’s an honest Chicago church hall, see?

Kansas sober: I just eat BBQ until I feel drunk

Missouri sober: No alcohol or drugs, but you know we were high when we decided to build our big-ass arch

Louisiana sober: No drugs or alcohol unless I’m a tourist turning a historic city into a hellhole

Idaho sober: It’s called DT-alpha, a new designer rave drug from Berlin that combines the euphoria of molly with the dissociation of a psilocybin and nitrous gas combination. Its street name is “Boise.”

Nevada sober: You’re kidding, right?

West Virginia sober: No alcohol unless I’m in a bar singing John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads”

Ohio sober: Whatever drugs JD Vance says is keeping me lazy and dumb

North Carolina sober: No alcohol or drugs except 150 billion cigarettes a year

New Hampshire sober: Our liquor laws are so confusing it’s impossible to drink here anyway

Washington: Adrenachrome

Rhode Island sober: Why? You holdin’?

Colorado sober: California already took ours

Iowa sober: You try sitting through a caucus without drinking!

Virginia sober: No alcohol or drugs until the next Whiskey Rebellion

Indiana sober: Addicted to basketball

Alabama sober: Addicted to football

Washington, D.C. sober: Addicted to any sport unless I have to change a team name to be less racist

Mississippi sober: No alcohol or drugs, but I abuse the letter “i”

Hawaii sober: I told your family I’m checking into rehab, but I’m really checking into Sandals

Pennsylvania sober: No alcohol or drugs except on Election Day, apparently

Wyoming sober: I wish I knew how to quit you (you = alcohol and drugs)

Delaware sober: No alcohol or drugs, but when Joe Biden comes home, I’m buying him a shot

Utah sober: Bitch, we invented this shit

New Mexico sober: Magic mushrooms

Connecticut sober: Cremini mushrooms

Alaska sober: No drugs or alcohol except at night (which lasts six months)

Michigan sober: Some years I lean toward drinking, some years I don’t. I’m hard to predict.

Nebraska sober: No alcohol or drugs except the high I get when I leave Nebraska

Wisconsin sober: Does anyone really consider Pabst Blue Ribbon “beer?”

Vermont sober: No drugs or alcohol with an ABV above one percent of the top one percent of the top one percent

Tennessee sober: Not sure, but “Tennessee Sober” is an amazing title for a country song

New Jersey sober: What are you, my fucking doctor?

Montana sober: No cigarettes unless I’m rolling my own, hombre

Minnesota sober: No alcohol or drugs except the steroids Jesse Ventura legalized

North Dakota sober: No alcohol or drugs, but if I’m caught I blame it on South Dakota

South Dakota sober: No alcohol or drugs, but if I’m caught I blame it on North Dakota

Arizona sober: No alcohol or drugs, but if I’m caught I blame it on immigration

South Carolina sober: No alcohol or drugs unless I’m riding a Sea-Doo

Florida sober: Not sober

Project 2025 Was Inside Us All Along

Noah Angus Johnson — Fri, 03 Jan 2025 08:00:00 -0500

“New year, new you,” they say. Well, Project 2025 is going to make what’s new actually really fucking old. Like listeria- and child labor-old. The country went for some Grover Cleveland shit, and you know what? We, the People, can play that game. This New Year, it’s time to roll back the clock and become the worst version of yourself.

It’s going to be so much easier than coming up with strategies for self-improvement. Those Heritage Foundation guys were kind enough to show us how, and it turns out all you really need to do is stop trying.

Toss out the Department of Education and start homeschooling your kids because, under your roof, they won’t be forced to learn about pronouns or how to read. And thinking about the benefits of immigrant labor is complicated, so we might as well assume they’re all criminals and get on board with mass deportations. Your community might suffer, but community is overrated. What’s it ever done for you?

Consumer protections? Gone. Post office? Privatized. Your life? In your own hands. Literally. The Affordable Care Act is on the chopping block. But that’s okay because you were tired of subsidizing everyone else. If they need health insurance, they should try not getting sick. If they get sick anyway, you know where they can purchase some horse tranquilizer.

The great thing about old stuff is that it endures. Family values, gender roles, asbestos. It’s all still there under the fluff of progress and enlightenment. You just have to be bold enough to exhume the corpse of simpler times and fly your MAGA flag. We’re abandoning all pretense that society and government provide tangible benefits so you can be free to pick your favorite Hobbesian adjective and return to the animal state that best suits your solitary brutishness.

You might feel guilty deprogramming the woke mind virus and stripping all sense of empathy, compassion, and civic-mindedness from your psyche, but that’s how they get you. As the name implies, this is a project. Much like cleaning out a beloved parent’s house after their passing, it’s sad they’re gone, but they kept calling you wanting to talk, and that was annoying.

Alas, you’re not getting much of an inheritance since it all went to medical debt. But you won’t have to worry about that because you and your kids will drink raw milk and colloidal silver to gain natural immunity and possibly superpowers, making you obvious candidates for the upper strata in the coming society of Übermenschen.

And if that doesn’t work out, and your personal Project 2025 is buried in the rubble of a fallen empire as the oligarchs strip it for copper? Just keep being the worst person you possibly can. The other worst people will have to acknowledge your efforts eventually.

A Jane Austen Heroine’s New Year’s Resolutions

Jacqueline Firkins — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 08:57:27 -0500

Originally published December 31, 2018.

- - -

1. Learn to play the pianoforte moderately well. Stick to duets.

2. Stop taking long walks in the rain while underdressed.

3. Throw out the expired smelling salts. Replace promptly.

4. Avoid rakes with jaunty names that start with W. Perfect sideburns are not indicative of mature relationship potential.

5. Love my sisters but be slightly more interesting and intelligent than they are.

6. Forgive my father for mangling the line of inheritance.

7. Ignore my mother’s marriage advice. Especially if it involves a not-so-distant relation or anyone in the clergy.

8. Seriously, stick to that thing about the walks. Consumption’s the worst.

9. Argue less about who’s taking which carriage. We’ll all get there eventually.

10. Prepare witty discourse before the ball. Don’t get caught off guard mid-quadrille while not quite touching the man I hate right now but might marry.

11. Stop moaning about how poor I am in front of the servants.

12. Take the long way home to avoid the rectory. Seriously. That guy’s creepy.

13. Cultivate one distinct but acceptable flaw. Shyness, curiosity, and a strong adherence to societal constraints are all worth considering.

14. De-clutter my bonnet collection. When was the last time I wore that thing?

15. Stop stressing about my love life. The most eligible men in the county always pick the smart girl.

Class Is Canceled Until Further Notice While I Do My Job

Laura McCullough — Wed, 01 Jan 2025 09:00:27 -0500

Our most-read article of 2024.

- - -

Originally published March 27, 2024.

- - -

Dear Students —

I am sorry to say that I will need to cancel all classes for an indeterminate length of time while I work on doing my job.

I realize you think that teaching is my job, but there are many other aspects to being a professor. In the unlikely event that you are curious about what else a professor might have to do, here are a few of the issues that need my attention.

The recent change to our course-management system has meant that I need to re-upload every document and assignment and reassign every homework. I will be attending three two-hour training sessions to help me do this. I was staying ahead of the class for the first few weeks, but I’ve finally lost that battle.

My contract with this institution requires me to be active with research. Unfortunately, I have been too busy to keep up with what’s happening in my field. So, I need to read six months’ worth of journals and then develop a new research project to allow me to get the first pay raise we’ve had in three years. It’s only a 2 percent raise, but on my salary, that makes a big difference. I would ask if you’re interested in being a student researcher, but I don’t know how to hire or pay you, and our department’s administrative associate has been doing the work of three people since the recent budget cuts.

Research also involves dissemination, and I need to finish the two half-written journal articles and submit them before my annual review in three weeks. The annual review also requires me to write up my accomplishments in detail and submit them two weeks before the review. This involves searching four different places to find the correct information on how to submit the document.

I also need to provide service to the university or my professional communities. This includes reviewing and providing feedback on four manuscripts from three different journals. I don’t know what I’ve missed from my university committees since they are regularly scheduled during my classes.

Current legislation requires training on different topics on a regular basis, and I need to finish up my training on FERPA, IT security, and sexual harassment, or they dock my pay.

I have to report the last three months of sick leave, or the system will deny me all earned sick leave for the last year. Since my workload leaves me so tired I catch a cold every three weeks, I have to be sure I have enough sick days to not lose money. And since my family is forgetting what I look like, sick days are doubly important to me.

Finally, there is yet another new software program for dealing with advisees that requires three hours of training next week. I realize we had a new program two years ago, but we are told this is a better one. (This reminds me: if any of you are my advisees, you will need to help yourself regarding next term’s schedule until I know how to use this new system and I can find out who my advisees are.)

I promise that before our classes start up again, I will find out who has whiteboard markers and erasers so that I have something to write with. It used to be our custodial staff, but we lost half of the campus facilities employees two budget cuts back, and I have never figured out who controls the cache of markers.

I am sorry that my job is getting in the way of your learning. I hope that the time you gain can be productively used in employment so that you can pay for your college education.

Sincerely,
Your Professor

- - -

Read an interview with Laura McCullough about writing this piece over on our Patreon page.

Our 24 Most-Read Pieces of 2024

Various McSweeney's Contributors — Wed, 01 Jan 2025 08:56:00 -0500

- - -

Thanks to all our contributors this year. On to 2025!

- - -

24. We Are Not a ‘School’—We Are a Hospital System with a Football Team
by Andrew Patrick Clark

23. I Am a Boomer’s iPhone and I Will Not Be Silenced
by Julia Bensfield Luce

22. Deciphering Your Daughter’s ‘MOM’ Texts
by Dani Bostick

21. Gen Z Beowulf
by John-Clark Levin

20. Here’s Why a Second Death Star Won’t Be That Bad
by Carlos Greaves

19. We Love the Character of this Neighborhood So We Bought a House, Tore It Down, and Built a Mansion Resembling a La Quinta Inn
by Aaron Applegate

18. I Don’t Hate Women Candidates. I Just Thought an Erratic and Vindictive Criminal Was Worthier of My Vote Than a Woman Candidate
by Devorah Blachor

17. A Math Exam, but Obviously Some Stuff Has Happened over the Summer in the Teacher’s Personal Life
by Tyler Gooch

16. ChatGPT Now Has PhD-Level Intelligence, and the Poor Personal Choices to Prove It
by Katie Burgess

15. Your 2024 Therapy Wrapped
by Sasha Lubomirsky, Topher Lin, and Chan Lin

14. Our Company Is Doing So Well That You’re All Fired
by Andrew Singleton

13. Updates on the Arc of the Moral Universe
by Amanda Lehr

12. Faculty Meeting Icebreakers
by Christy Lee Barnes

11. Ten Things to Say at Your Next Meeting Instead of ‘To Piggyback off Your Idea’
by Troy Doetch

10. Every Conversation Between Every Parent and Their Child After One Year of College
by Jennifer LaPorte

9. Good News, Husband: I’ve Become a Tradwife
by Wendi Aarons and Johanna Gohmann

8. Is It Perimenopause or the Fascist Death Knell of Late-Stage Capitalism?
by Casey Rand

7. A Faculty Member’s Self-Evaluation at the End of the Semester
by B. McNulty

6. An Open Letter to Wyna Liu, the New York Times’ Connections Editor
by Ioana Burtea

5. My Comments Are in the Google Doc Linked in the Dropbox I Sent in the Slack
by Gwynna Forgham-Thrift

4. What Your Favorite ’90s Band Says About the Kind of Bored Suburban Mom You Are Today
by Talia Argondezzi and Jared Bilski

3. The Millennial CAPTCHA
by Mike Lacher and Brian Moore

2. An Open Letter to Jeremy Allen White Regarding His Recent Calvin Klein Ad
by Emily Flake and Miriam Jayaratna

1. Class Is Canceled Until Further Notice While I Do My Job
by Laura McCullough

The Twelve Days of Christmas

Colin Nissan — Tue, 24 Dec 2024 09:22:56 -0500

Originally published December 23, 2009.

- - -

Day 1

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me a partridge in a pear tree. Such a thoughtful gift, she knows how much I love fruit. She also knows my building’s pretty strict about pets, so the bird threw me a little. But he is a cute little guy.

Day 2

On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave me two turtle doves. Wow, she’s really into the avian theme this year. Um, thank you? I guess I’ll just put them in the kitchen with the partridge in the pear tree, which suddenly seems a lot bigger than it did yesterday.

Days 3 & 4

On the third and fourth days of Christmas, she gave me three French hens and four calling birds. Funny, I don’t remember telling her my dream was to one day open a chapter of the Audubon Society. Jesus. You know what would have been nice? Some birdseed. I’m out of saltines and things are starting to get weird in here.

Day 5

On the fifth day of Christmas, she gave me five golden rings. See, now that’s a nice gift. A nice, practical gift. A little on the feminine side, but I’ll take it.

Day 6

Six geese a-laying. Hmm, that’s so weird because I was just telling someone that I could use some MORE FUCKING BIRDS. Do you have any idea how much shit six geese generate in a single day? Literally, pounds. Pounds of green, grassy turds. And in case you’re curious, all six of them have been a-laying since they got here. There are no less than seventy-five enormous eggs in my apartment right now. And as a side note, I just tried to make an omelet out of one of them and almost ralphed. Very gamy.

Day 7

Guess what I signed for this morning when the UPS guy rang my doorbell? Seven swans a-swimming. True story. So… no more baths for me, I guess. Thanks for that. These are terrible gifts! Terrible, confusing gifts. Do you know how big a fucking swan is? Or how mean those bastards are? Oh, and guess who swans don’t get along with? Geese, turtle doves, French hens, calling birds, and partridges. Glad you did your homework there. There’s more bird-on-bird violence going on right now than I care to mention.

Day 8

I’d like to give you the benefit of the doubt on this one in case you ordered these eight maids a-milking online, and there was some confusion, but just to clarify, there are eight middle-aged women wearing bonnets in my apartment right now. And they each brought a cow. Do you understand what I’m saying to you? They’re all here, in my STUDIO apartment, and judging by the size of their suitcases, they aren’t leaving anytime soon.

Day 9

Big day today. Not only did I receive the unexpected gift of nine ladies dancing, I also got a nice little note from my landlord. He covered all kinds of stuff, but in a nutshell, it was about excessive dancing, illegal livestock, unnatural amounts of bird feces, and me not living here anymore. Big day.

Day 10

Ten lords a-fucking-leaping! Yes, they are. Ten leotarded assholes are literally jumping around my apartment screaming “Wheeeeee!” every time their feet leave the goddamned ground! WHY?? Why are you doing this to me? You’re sick! I loved you so much, and you destroyed it. You destroyed everything. Tensions in here are escalating faster than I could have imagined. The maids and dancers appear to have laid territorial claims in opposite corners of the apartment. They are not the same civilized ladies who arrived here a short time ago. They bear a darkness now. One of them stole my golden rings and I know just the one who did it. I’m waiting until nightfall, and l and I will reclaim them through any means necessary. I’m beginning to fear something isn’t right with the birds, they’re watching me… conspiring… it’s just a matter of time.

Days 11 & 12

These final days have come and gone in a bewildering fog. I remember drummers. Pipers. Lots of them. I haven’t slept or washed my body in quite some time. Food is scarce… the fighting, fierce. I killed a lord today! Snatched him right out of the air and killed him with my bare hands. Now he doesn’t leap anymore. I used his leotard as a net to trap one of the swans. She was delicious. Didn’t even cook the old gal. Ha! I made everyone gather around and watch—that’s what you do when you want to send a message. A very important message! This is my castle! Do you all hear me? Do you see what I’ve done? What I am capable of!! No more eye contact with the king, do you understand? Or I will end you! I will end you all right here and now!! Now one of you fetch me a goddamned pear. The king needs something sweet.

The Three Kings Arrive, but One of Them Brings a Shaq-a-Roni Pizza Instead of Myrrh

Stephen Ruddy — Mon, 23 Dec 2024 19:00:00 -0500

A brilliant star hangs above a stable in Bethlehem, like a giant Google Maps pin. The three kings arrive.

“We have brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh, gifts befitting the King of the Jews,” declared Melchior, bowing to the Holy Family.

“Actually…” said Balthazar.

“Oh, no,” replied Gaspar. “You forgot the myrrh?”

“Didn’t forget it,” answered Balthazar. “Just went in another direction.”

“We agreed on gold, frankincense, and myrrh. We’re the Three Kings—these gifts reflect on all of us.”

“Now, now, Melchior, we should have faith in Balthazar,” offered Gaspar. “He is a wise man, after all. Surely, he got a gift of great dignity and reverence.”

“Thank you, Gaspar,” said Balthazar, handing Mary a Papa John’s box. “Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday, whatever.”

“Hmmm,” said Mary, shaking the enormous rectangle.

“What does it say on the box?” asked Joseph.

“It says, ‘We created the Shaq-a-Roni to feed big appetites and make a big impact. With eight foldable Shaq-sized slices, loaded with extra cheese and covered in over sixty pepperoni from edge to edge, pizza gets bigger when you Shaq-a-Roni.’”

“Oh, wise men, what can this riddle mean?” asked Joseph. “Does Shaq refer to Meshach from the Book of Daniel?

“Aren’t all pizza slices ‘foldable’?” asked Mary.

“How does one Shaq-a-Roni?” asked the Little Drummer Boy, whose gift suddenly seemed sad next to the gold and the pizza.

“Just open the box,” answered Balthazar.

Mary paused to take in Shaq’s handsome visage on the lid, then opened the box. A light shone on the enormous pizza, and angels played glissandos on their harps.

“That is the largest pita I have ever seen!” shouted Joseph.

“The shiny red discs have more oil than all of Arabia!” exclaimed the shepherds.

“The cheese has the texture and flavor of resin!” declared the angels.

“Wait, is this kosher?” asked Mary, who hated always having to be the responsible one.

The infant Messiah waved his hand as if to say, just this once, it would be okay to eat this unblessed pork and cheese abomination.

Mary, who had just given birth and who nobody had thought to feed for the last twelve hours, grabbed three slices.

“This is the best pizza I have ever had!” exclaimed the Mother of God, who, in her defense, had never had pizza before. Still, it hit the spot. “We will definitely reserve a place in heaven for you, Balthazar!”

“Ha ha!” said Balthazar, poking Melchior in the chest and playfully tugging Gaspar by the beard.

“I spent $35,000 on my gift,” said Melchior, eyeing the gold and suddenly not feeling so wise.

The Three Kings headed out, and as they got to the stable door, Balthazar reached deep into his pocket. “Oh, I got you this too.” He gently tossed a bag of myrrh into the manger. Balthazar made a clicking noise with his mouth and did finger guns toward Melchior and Gaspar as they headed to their camels.

“No, no, no,” said Mary, taking the bag from the infant Jesus and putting it aside for safekeeping. “We don’t eat myrrh, sweetie.”

“Better ingredients,” said the shepherds.

“Better pizza,” proclaimed the angels.

Holidays Songs for Life Under the US Health Care System

Pete Lynch — Mon, 23 Dec 2024 12:35:00 -0500

“I’m Dreaming of a Light Sickness”

“All I Want for Christmas Is You… to Acknowledge Receipt of the Referral I’ve Sent in Fourteen Damn Times Now”

“I Saw Mommy Charged Five Grand for Gauze”

“Halve Your Wealth to Repair Your Meniscus”

“God Rest Ye Weary New Mother (For Twenty-Four Hours, Then Please Vacate the Maternity Ward)”

“Grandma Got Screwed Over on Her Claim, Dear”

“It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year (Open Enrollment Runs From November 4 to 6)”

“Here We Come, a-Copaying”

“All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth to Be Covered by Regular Health Insurance and Not Considered Special Entities Only Covered by Separate Insurance; They’re Part of My Body, WTF”

“Mary, Did You Know? Your Baby Boy’s a Pre-Existing Condition”

“Have a Blue Christmas (Brought to You by Your Health Partners at Blue Cross Blue Shield)”

“I Want a HIPAA Law to Fix This Business”