Permission to Scroll?

It's like "Permission to Engage" in the military. These are the three simple words that you need to ask before anyone hands you their phone to look at a particular picture. Folks of older generations, especially, are prone to the misconception that "here look at this photo of a barfing Jack-O-Lantern hahahahaha" is broad consent to begin scrolling with abandon through another person's camera roll until you randomly get to "27 year-old's rock hard abs and baby arm dick."

Like in this day and age, you can never be too careful. You could have a photo of "Individual-1" (a.k.a. single thick black cleavage hair") and its "Un-indicted Co-Conspirator" nipple hairs. You could have a picture of an ingrown toenail. Or your kid's tonsils or something. You really need to know AHEAD of time, before a bell is rung that can't be un-rung.

It all comes down to consent and permission. Like the Venn diagram of people who get "Me-Too'd" and people who scroll through people's camera rolls is one giant black circle. If a person lets you kiss them, that doesn't mean you automatically get to bang them. And if a person hands you their phone open to a photo of their toddler playing in the sand on Cape Cod, that doesn't mean you get to do a tour through the rest of their . . . um . . . MATERIAL.

So for fuck's sake. Next time you find yourself with another person's phone in your hands, remember those three little words: "Permission to Scroll."

This Did Not Seem Particularly Ingenious and Yet it Kinda Was

Scene: Extremely crowded but deliciously air conditioned Apple Store in Downtown Philadelphia, where I'm about to attend a three-day work conference.

Me: Hey, so I lost this little piece of the plug to my MacBook Air in transit somehow, and I'm wondering if you sell it?

Apple Guy: Well, we sell the whole adapter here on the wall for $79.99 [Points to adapter on wall] What you're looking for is a little piece called a duck-head, which is only like, $8 or $9.

Me: Okay, well that sounds about 70x better than the rest of the thingie which I don't actually need, so can I buy like, just that little part I need?

Apple Guy: Well, yeah, but we actually don't sell it on the floor. You have to make an appointment at the Genius Bar to get it. [Gestures to said Genius Bar literally two feet away]

Me: M'kaaay . . . well . . .  can I do that?

Apple Guy: Sure, but it'll be a fifteen minute wait. 

Me: Seems worth it to me, I'll wait, thanks. [Waits less than four minutes, gets called over to Genius Bar]

Tattooed Genius Bar Tender: Hello, Elizabeth! I see you're looking for a duck head. It's coming right down.

Me: Wait. Wut? Down from where?

Tattooed Genius Bar Tender: [Taps a few things into iPad; produces envelope containing product out of thin air] Here you go! That'll be $10.00 with tax.

Me: I am seriously so confused. Why did I have to make a special appointment for five minutes from now at a desk three feet away from the display of plugs just to get this plug accessory from a secret stash of accessories instead of being able to just walk in here and buy it in under ten minutes which I actually just did anyway? Am I in a real-life Kafka novel? That was a rhetorical question by the way, cuz I'm not really interested in the answer but also I kind of am, but also I need to go back to my hotel room and eat this spicy tuna roll here that I bought from Walgreens and check email hence why I'm here. Anyway I just saved like $70 and your service was amazing so . . . I guess this is why Steve Jobs died a multi-billionaire and I'll be lucky if I die with $87 in my checking account?

Tattooed Genius Bar Tender: [Shrugs and smiles]

End Scene.

Come On, Baby. Why You Gotta Be Like That?: An Apology Tour by Mark Zuckerberg

Aw, baby. C’mon! Don’t be like that. You know I didn’t mean that shit. 

I’m just a bro. A short bro. A short bro with a $500 haircut. A short bro with a $500 haircut and a tight T-shirt. A short bro with a $500 haircut and a tight T-shirt standing in front of billions of users (including you, of course) asking you to love me. (You're my #17,999,908).

Or, not even love me, necessarily.

Really, I’m just asking you not to flee my very lucrative platform in droves just because I surreptitiously mined your data for more than a decade and conducted unauthorized, secret, totally unethical and reckless dystopian psychological experiments on you and harvested your personal information and preferences and made cosmetic nods to privacy while aiding and abetting information warfare and a silent coup on American democracy by a hostile foreign power, all to enrich myself to the tune of 61.3B USD.

I know I fucked up, believe me. And I promise to be a Better Man™ for you, because if I can’t, well, baby, you know I don’t deserve you. 

But also if you leave me I will still have your data. That’s not a threat. I’m just saying. It’s true and it’s a really hard thing to get around because I made it that way.

Also baby, be straight with me . . . you knew what you were getting into when you signed up for this. I mean, this is like, ME. This is literally what you signed up for. You read the fine print. You know what kind of man I am.

Not saying that makes it right, just saying it is what it is, like so much of life. I said we’d always be free. And we are. We ARE free, baby. Except you’re also kind of the product. In a good way. I think.

I just want us to move past this, ya know? I need you. Well . . . really I need your clicks and your pics and your preferences. 

See, I love you and I want to know every little thing about you. Like whether you prefer Bernie to Hillary or whether you like bald eagles or keep chickens or drink almond milk instead of regular cow’s milk in your coffee or are a woman in menopause or maybe a teenager thinking about trying out Thinx period panties so that I can sell all of that info to advertisers with pinpoint precision and make another 10B this year.

Please baby, don’t go away mad. Stick with me! I might be President someday! And I’m sorry not sorry.

Texting With the Void

Void: Hiiiiii. WYD?

Me: New phone who dis?

Void: LMAO. WAIT. Did you just srsly “new phone who dis” me?! 

Me: C’mon don’t play games. iOS upgrade ate all my contacts.

Void: It’s THE VOID.

Me: Ugh. You again?

Void: I know. Haven’t hit you up in awhile. Since the Grand Canyon, I think. Miss you, babe...

Me: What do you want?

Void: I want you to do something incredibly stupid. What else?

Me: Too late I already did like, ten incredibly stupid things today.

Void: Oh yeah? Like what?

Me: I'm not doing this with you.

Void: C'mon baaaabe.

Me: Like forgetting I drove to work and starting to walk home and taking Aleve without water.

Void: No, not like that. I mean, like jumping off the 8th floor of the State Office Building, just to like, see what happens.

Me: No effing way. I’m scared of heights. You know that.

Void: I’ve been trying to convince you otherwise since you lived in your parent’s 9th floor apartment building in the Bronx.

Me: Ugh I know. 'Member that time I legit almost DID fall out the window? Also that whole Eric Clapton’s kid thing was crazy.

Void: I didn’t have anything to do with that.

Me: Not saying you did.

Void: So . . .

Me: Dude I’m tired, I need to go to bed. Srsly WTF do you want RN?

Void: I’m just calling on you to like, expand your horizons.

Me: What are you suggesting?

Void: I already said.

Me: What?

Void: I want you to do something incredibly stupid.

Me: Like what?

Void: Like come to work naked or start crawling over everyone in the audience of a movie theater or airplane.

Me: How about starting a blog where I tell everyone (including my dad) all about my pubes and booty eating and mental health strugggles and how much I hate myself and risk my career to make sure the whole world knows that Donald Trump is an epic shitlord?

Void: Yaaaas Queen! Now we’re talking.

Ask a Bot: An Advice Column

Dear Bot,

I'm getting toward middle age and my career has stalled out. What can I do to reboot it and start feeling fulfilled again at work?

BOT: Now day, absolutely everyone is searching out a new but well settled and a fulfillment flow for his or her career. after I got here to this blog, I definitely inspired through all of the facts factors noted right right here. thank you for this assist. ball-sucking.

Dear Bot,

Lately I've noticed that my boyfriend has been acting distant. When I try to talk to him about it, he says nothing is wrong. What shouldI do?

BOT: Hello, I am Theresa Williams After being in relationship with Anderson for years, he broke up with me, I did everything possible to bring him back but all was in vain, I wanted him back so much because of the love I have for him, I begged him with everything, I made promises but he refused. I explained my problem to my friend and she suggested that I should rather contact a spell caster that could help me cast a spell to bring him back but I am the type that never believed in spell, I had no choice than to try it, I mailed the spell caster, and he told me there was no problem that everything will be okay before three days, that my ex will return to me before three days, he cast the spell and surprisingly in the second day, it was around 4 pm. My ex called me, I was so surprised, I answered the call and all he said was that he was so sorry for everything that happened that he wanted me to return to him, that he loves me so much.

Dear Bot,

I'm a little insecure about my masculinity. I know I shouldn't be, but I can't help it. What do you suggest?

BOT: I want to share a testimony on how Dr.voodoo herbal mixture cream saves me from shame and disgrace, my penis was a big problem to me as the size was really small and so embarrassing, to me, DR voodoo use his herbs enlargement cream to make my penis bigger without any side effect because my penis was very small before someone in my working place introduce me to this grate herbal doctor called Dr voodoo and i contacted him, and told him that my penis is very small if he can make it bigger and he told me that he his going to help me with the bigger size of pines with his herbs which was send to me through the UPS, after making use of the herbs as it instructed by him and i found out that after one week of making use of the herbs my penis that was very small become the biggest without any side effect but now i am very happy the way it is now, i am now very happy that i can satisfy a lady and if you want to contact this man here his email address voodoospell4@gmail.com.

Dear Bot,

I have a family history of breast cancer. I try to eat well and exercise, but how else might I reduce my chances of developing this disease?

BOT: To avoid breast cancer you should need to avoid totally alcohol, the more you drink it chances are great of developing breast cancer. Quit smoking and try to remain fit physically, don't increase your weight. Also, breastfeeding helps in avoiding breast cancer. I really appreciate your hard work, Keep it up. Also read these lines if you want a custom website for your medical clinic, The #1 Medical website design company for healthcare doctors in the America.

Dear Bot,

What do you think of my blog?

BOT: Hello Very Informative page, I hope it will be useful for all of us. Thanks for sharing it with us. I was surfing net and fortunately came across this site and found very interesting stuff here. Its really fun to read. I enjoyed a lot. Thanks for sharing this wonderful information.

This Egyptian Mummy is All of Us in 4,000 A.D.

I’ve been on this ancient art meme-making kick lately. 

I’m not the first person to do this of course; there are dozens of Instagram accounts devoted to the concept. But I’ve jumped on the bandwagon because it turns out to be a great way to space out, get creative, and learn a little something new. 

Here are a few I’ve posted/made:

Turning old art into memes had proven a good way to relax and distance myself from current affairs, until I stumbled on this ancient Egyptian mummy:

Because let’s face it. This mummy is ALL of us in 4,000 A.D.

If you read about the two-day long eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D.—which buried the ancient Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in a cloud of molten rock, hot ash, and pyroclastic surges and released 100,000 times the thermal energy of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki bombings—you’ll see artifacts of objects and people "frozen" at the time of their deaths, including this viral discovery of a dude seemingly squeezing in one final wank before his demise:

And this is what I think we will all look like to future generations of archaeologists, frozen in time at the moment that Trump and Kim Jong-Un finally finish their game of chicken.

We will all be at our computers or phones, tweeting and texting and trying not to be enraged by the whole world. We’ll be reading hot takes and comment threads, trying to parse reality from conspiracy and tying our own hands up with rope to resist writing something that will piss off some random cousin and ignite a family feud that results in our moms not speaking to us for three months.

Although none of us will be here to see it, mark my words: This is how they’ll find us.

Recharging the Battery

I’m trying not to be one of those self-righteous people who announce their backpedaling from social media with a megaphone. As if the whole world has just been relying on my (or any one person's) pithy wisdom, witty jokes, and jaw-dropping pics without which the whole internet would be a barren wasteland of cat memes and Thinx Period Panties ads.

Really, I’m just writing this last-blog-post-for-a-little-while as an explanation for myself. As a way to reckon with the fact that social media—this blog included—is cunningly and insidiously designed by mega-corporations to be addictive, outer-directed, and profiteering.

Although it feels like--and perhaps is--a necessary evil these days, much of social media is a drug of diminishing returns.

Yesterday two small everyday things happened, in which a couple of strangers—whom I know agree with me on the issue being debated—tried to start a fight with me on the internet. This happens all the time, which is why my first rule of internet engagement is not fighting on the internet.

But for whatever reason, this time, even just being baited into the fight was too much. It was the proverbial last straw. It was like that morning in 2005 when I boarded a crowded downtown 6 subway train, and although it was no different from any other NYC rush hour commute, I suddenly reached a breaking point and knew I would not spend my adult life doing this every day.

Similarly, I know I can no longer spend my nights, weekends, and early mornings spiraling down the bottomless rabbit hole over Who Is Wrong on the Internet, and thirsting for validation that I Am Right/Smart/Funny/Good on The Internet.

It’s stupid. It’s futile. It contravenes my beliefs about the value of being inner-directed. It’s bad for my mental health. It takes the final third of my life (the one that is not spent working or asleep) and fractures it into little slices that should be redistributed to my family, exercise, and human interaction.

Worst of all, it contributes--or can contribute--to the overall divisive, negative, depressing, and utterly desperate despairing zeitgeist of the Age of Trump. 

An age in which even people who agree find ways to cannibalize each other, thereby catalyzing the divide-and-conquer mission of fascism, all the while fueling the propaganda engine that once relied only on newspapers and rallies, but is now super-charged by social media and commodified outrage.

I don’t want to be a part of it anymore, no matter how much viral content I manage to create in the process. It's a devil's bargain and it isn't worth the trade-off.

So I'm trying to take some quiet time to return to the things about social media and blogging that I love. The things that are real, and that were my reasons for being so active on social media in the first place: Meeting new people. Connecting with people. Sharing ideas. Honing a craft. Bringing some small, brief moment of laughter or intellectual stimulation to a friend or a stranger’s day. 

I know I can do that if I just recharge my battery and return to the creative essence of why I started this blog in the first place. This picture of my kids on a rainy Juneau October December morning says it all. 

See you soon.

Quiz: Things Facebook Can and Cannot Do

Take this short quiz to find out what Facebook can and cannot do, apparently!

1. Sell you Thinx period panties, KY Jelly, and a subscription to Stitch Fix.

A. Can do
B. Cannot do

2. Decline ads paid for in Russian rubles.

A. Can do
B. Cannot do

3. Sound smart at a Congressional hearing.

A. Can do
B. Cannot do

4. Remind you that you took a selfie at Burning Man six years ago and suggest that you share this “memory” with the world.

A. Can do
B. Cannot do

5. Let Vladmir Putin fuck democracy in the ass with a plastic purple strap-on wrapped in a picture of Jesus and Satan wrestling each other for the Presidency.

A. Can do
B. Cannot do

6. Make you irrationally angry at your asshole ex-boyfriend's stupid new girlfriend's ugly-ass tattoo of an orchid.

A. Can do

B. Cannot do

7. Propagate conspiracy theories and fake news at the expense of a free republic in order to enrich themselves.

A. Can do
B. Cannot do

8. Sound plausibly contrite about #7.

A. Can do
B. Cannot do

9. Offer you six possible emoji reactions to a picture of your high school soccer teammate's kids' Halloween costumes.

A. Can do
B. Cannot do

10. Tell you to donate your birthday to a cause and also that it's your aunt's birthday today with a little balloon and confetti backdrop.

A. Can do

B. Cannot do

11. Make you go to bed two hours too late after throwing your phone against a wall, vowing to delete your account, and hating everything and everyone, most of all yourself.

A. Can do
B. Cannot do

12. Check in at Taco Bell and also at a mass shooting/terrorist attack.

A. Can do
B. Cannot do

13. Present compelling, unflappable testimony through its lawyers to Senators Al Franken and Dianne Feinstein.

A. Can do

B. Cannot do

14. Convince half the country that Hillary Clinton is secretly running a sex ring for pedophillic reptiles from Mars.

A. Can do

B. Cannot do

15. Invite you to a potluck you already forgot about halfway through reading the invite.

A. Can do

B. Cannot do

16. Take responsibility for and remedy its undeniable role in the total clusterfuck that is the entire planet right now.

A. Can do

B. Cannot do

Let's see how you did!

CAN DO: 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15

CANNOT DO: 2, 3, 8, 13, 16

The Email Ugh

Thought experiment: in 2017, do you ever open your email—work or personal—or see a notification that you have email, and think anything except UGH??!

This isn’t the fun early days of aol “You’ve Got Mail” email anymore, when email was an exciting novelty. I realize I’m giving away my age here (hint: it’s 40) by admitting that the first time I sent an email it was to my friend Amie who was a year ahead of me in school, in her freshman year of college in DC, and I was like wait whaaaaat? You can send a NOTE from New York to DC? Through the COMPUTER?!

Fast forward 22 years and my reaction to email varies only slightly from snail mail now. With snail mail, at least I know for a fact that I’m opening a box of garbage and putting it right into another garbage/recycling receptacle. It’s a daily ritual. Checking the mail is literally taking recycling from one box and putting it immediately into another.

But when you check email there MIGHT be something you need and so you can’t just ignore it. Especially with work, and especially with kids. 

Didn’t you see the email saying you have to update all your passwords in 2 days or the server will destroy all your hard work?

Didn’t you see the latest string of emails delivering an escalating spool of neutral to terrible professional news coupled with demands you are unwilling or unable to meet?

Didn’t you see the email saying you have to sign your kid up for soccer today or they will miss the chance to have a wholesome childhood experience just because you were too annoyed and exasperated to read your email carefully and accidentally archived the soccer deadline while trying to delete the solicitation for donations from the dog rescue you gave $50 to ten years ago?

Again I return to the thought experiment. 

Be honest: in the last year have you ever opened your email and thought YAY? Or even, MEH? Anyone you really give a shit about is texting you or hitting you up on FB messenger.

I defy you to give me an example of even ONE time in the last year that you opened your email and thought anything but UGH.

London Fatberg Demolition Might Literally be the World's Worst Job

Okay, so I've worked a lot of jobs in my life. I'm proud to say that with the exception of a few years in school, I haven't gone without an honest day's pay since I was 17. I've also grumbled under my breath and sometimes out loud about certain jobs, but without a doubt, "London Fatberg Demolition" is the worst job on earth.

The "Whitechapel Fatberg" is a "mass of fat, wipes, diapers and tampons that weighs more than 140 tons." Oh and condoms. There are also condoms in there, just because that was the very last thing the people of London could think to put down the toilet as a contribution. It's clogging up London's antiquated sewer system and will need to be somehow dissolved.

The man you see before you is identified in the article as a Thames Sewer supervisor, part of an 8-member team of people who will chisel away at the Fatberg manually using pressure hoses and hand tools over the course of three weeks. The Fatberg, it's said, smells like a combination of shit and rotten meat.

Can you imagine going into work one day to find out this will be your duty (er, doody) for the next three weeks? Like here's what that meeting must have sounded like from the head of sewers in London or whatever:

"G'day blokes! I, ah, I've got a mite of bad news, I'm afraid. You see, there's ah, well, how shall I put this? There's round about 140 tons of grease, wipes, diapers, tampons, and condoms--all used I'm sorry to say--amassed in a giant, er, how best might I say this? A Fatberg? And do forgive me if I sound daft but we'll all be descending down a hole you see, with these hand shovels and hoses, and well, we'll be sort of, um, hacking away at it by hand until all 140 bloody tons are gone."

Cheerio!

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/09/13/world/europe/uk-london-fatberg.html

An Honest Return to Social Media

Here's what it would sound like if people actually returned to social media the way they leave it.

Oh heeeyyyy. Remember me? I’m guessing you probably do.

I’m that person who just last month announced my departure from Facebook, Twitter, and/or Instagram with a lengthy, self-reflective, and vaguely superior-sounding essay about Why I am Leaving Social Media Forever.

You might recall that this Dear John letter to everyone in cyberspace basically explained that social media is bringing me (and by implication you) down and wasting a ton of time that would be much better spent on real-life pursuits. 

Things like doing yoga and going to brunch while leaving my phone in a gun safe, instead of looking at other people’s pictures of yoga and brunch and/or posting my own pictures of yoga and brunch the second they happen.

Lots of studies have shown this is critical to one’s Happiness Journey, I helpfully pointed out.

Anyway, you may recall that, in florid language and with a tone suggesting I am the first person ever to wrestle with (and bravely overcome!) an addiction to the internet, I declared with self-satisfied sanctimony that I had done exactly that.

I told you and the rest of the world that I will be forever deleting all social media apps from my phone, and if you want to get in contact with me, you should try regular old-fashioned email or texting, which I asserted without evidence is very different from the social media I will now never use again. Better yet, let's plan some FACE TIME, and not on an iPhone!

What I did not do, however, was let you know I was back on every single one of these platforms.

Not three weeks after I insisted I was embarking on a forever “digital detox” and never wanted to see any of your tweets or your Instagram filters ever again—not even Mayfair or Valencia—I quietly skulked back into your newsfeeds and timelines with nary a word.

For some reason, my return to social media was ushered in with much less fanfare than my departure. I sort of just silently peeked back in and poked my digital head around the digital corner like, heeeeeeeeeeeeey, wyd?

You see, I came to realize that actually I missed—and maybe shouldn’t have been so quick to publicly malign—the nonstop, Pavlovian sensory input of your cats in costumes, your kid’s first day of school pictures, invitations to a book club/potluck, hashtags about 9/11, and the most recent clever tweets from famous-if-you-know-who-they-are internet luminaries mocking the last incomprehensibly stupid and offensive thing Donald Trump did.

Not to mention my own contributions to all of the above!

Also the absence of dings, bings, and little notification alerts made me feel really lonely and like a loser. 

You see, during my brief period of disengaging with the internet and re-engaging with the real world, I realized that social media makes me feel like a loser most of the time, but it also makes me feel like a winner some of the time, which makes all the feel-like-a-loser time worth it and which I need. Also the real world is mostly bleak and boring AF.

Mark Zuckerberg and @jack know this. That's why they're rich beyond comprehension.

However, this time I neglected to write another essay about how my first essay was strictly aspirational, and while everything I said in there was probably true, it was sanctimonious grand-standing, and the next time I decide to get internet-sober I should just go ahead and stop drinking instead of announcing to the world that I’m quitting because then I look really silly and hypocritical and kind of like a failure at self-righteousness.

Anyhooooooooo . .. great to see you again!

These Tweets from Someone Named Prince Fuckboy Prove I Have No Idea What is Even Happening on This Planet

Sometimes I encounter something or someone, and I just have to shake my head and admit to myself that I basically have no fucking idea what is even happening on this planet. 

Like I'm in Denver for work, right, and in a six block radius no fewer than six hale and hearty aggressive white men with dogs demanded money of me and I'm just like WUUUUT. 

I mean, I grew up in NYC and I'm certainly no stranger to panhandling and I am fine with it. But these guys were seriously garnering ZEEERR-O sympathy. Like really dude? You were born a white man in America, you have a healthy dog on a leash, and you're asking me for quarters and then screaming at me when I ignore you? 

Like what is even happening on this planet right now. Which seems like an odd segue to Prince Fuckboy, but it's not.

I stumbled on Prince Fuckboy on Twitter and reading his timeline was proof positive that I really have no idea what is even going on on planet earth.

LEGIT there is a corner of the Internet and presumably the world in which speaking fluently and casually of fucking dragons and cryptids is a thing. I don't even know what a cryptid IS, and I'm afraid to Google it lest my browser cookies conclude that I want to fuck one.

Not only that, but apparently your choice of morning caffeine beverage determines what type of monster you are prone to fucking. The "classic" monsters like zombies and werewolves are for coffee and tea drinkers, dragons and cryptids are for tea drinkers, and robots and aliens are for coffee addicts.

I can't get enough coffee into my bloodstream fast enough between the hours of 6 and 8 a.m., and yet I've never considered fucking an alien OR a robot, unless you count like half the dudes I hooked up with in college. 

Then, yes. Of course then.

My point is this: there is a white dude with a pet dog screaming at me for a quarter, there's a community of tea drinkers who fuck cryptids and tweet about it, and I just give up on trying to make sense of planet earth anymore.

May I Invite You to Facebook Messenger?

Good Evening Fine Sir or Madam!

It is my deepest honor to extend a very special invitation, made only to my closest, most treasured social media friends. 

Please know that I do not make this invitation lightly, although you could be forgiven for suffering under that particular delusion since all I had to do was click "invite" with my thumb next to your name when prompted.

I assure you though: you will NOT want to miss this. Surely you are in need of one more electronic distraction with a distinctive BING! that offers yet another excuse to stare at your phone feeling bad about yourself and society.

Along those lines, Facebook Messenger has a special feature where you can see who has seen your messages, so that when that person does not respond for several weeks, you can let yourself imagine every conceivable scenario as to why, ranging from innocuous neglect to sadistic ghosting. 

Your guess is as good as mine!

Only the most VI of VIPs receive an invite to Facebook Messenger. While the plebes seem content with mere texting, the true Brahmin participate in the most exclusive community on the internet, consisting of a mere several billion elite individuals.

I'm sorry for the delay in letting you know about Facebook Messenger, which undoubtedly you had not heard of or considered joining before I so graciously invited you. You see, Mark Zuckerberg himself must personally approve each and every new invitee to Facebook Messenger, and not everyone makes the cut.

I hope you'll accept this invitation and, upon confirmation that we are now connected by messenger, send me a sticker of a vomiting cartoon face or a GIF of Drake in ironic ugly glasses cheering at a basketball game.

Honest Out of Office Replies

There's no such thing as an original idea anymore. Even the idea that there's no such thing as an original idea anymore is, itself, unoriginal.

Still, although you'll find plenty of "honest out-of-office reply" spoofs on the Internet, honesty is in the eye of the sender and recipient.

For what it's worth, after 20 years of working in offices, here's what I think the truly most honest out-of-office replies look like:

Thanks for your message! I am out of the office until Thursday. If you're using Microsoft Outlook (and you probably are), you likely saw that pale green auto-fill thingie telling you precisely that in advance of you hitting send, thereby begging the question why you chose to hit send anyway. If you need immediate assistance, please find someone whose name comes up in black and not green.

Thanks for your message! I'm out of the office on personal leave, and won't be checking email. That is a lie. I will be checking email every ten minutes because the thought of things happening at work without me gives me a heart attack and crippling anxiety. Also, my extended family is making me insane. Unless this email is about carpet cleaning or time sheets, you can expect a response within 30 minutes. Thank you for the excuse to escape from my vacation.

Thanks for your message! I literally had to take the day off from work to clean my house. You wouldn't believe how disgusting it is. There are still cold scrambled eggs on the floor from yesterday! Can you believe it? If this is a so-called urgent matter, please call my cell phone at (123) 456-7890 and I will promptly attend to your so-called urgent matter in order not to have to fold a mountain of laundry.

Thanks for your message! Am I cc:d or bcc:d on this email? If so, could it not have waited? Why are you doing this to me? Does this happen in Europe? I've heard Germany has like, an actual law against off-hours work emailing. That said, my insecurity, responsiveness, and lack of personal boundaries all but assure a response to your email within the hour.

Thanks for your message! If you look at your iPhone you will see that it's sunny in Juneau so good luck reaching anyone in cell range, much less me. I will reply to your email when the monsoons return 12 hours from now.

Thanks for your message! My kids are home with Pink Eye, which means they aren't allowed to be in school, but still feel well enough to make me crazy. I'll respond to your email sometime between monitoring the crumbling of the Republic in real time on Twitter and breaking up a fight over whose turn it is to play Crossy Roads on the iPad.

Selfie Drones are a Thing, Trump Thought Being POTUS Would be Easy, and Humanity Deserves a Viking Funeral Right Now

Not only are selfie drones a thing, but there are actually MANY different types of selfie drones, or "dronies," as they're called. 

So long, selfie sticks and regular old earth-bound smart phones! Selfies limited by the laws of gravity are SO last week. Pretty soon, the days of duck-lips in front of Incan ruins and a quick upload to the 'Gram will be over. Instead, a zillion little dronies will be hovering above your brunch, playing bumper-cams in the sky while vying for that perfect shot at narcissism.

Almost ten times a day, I find myself thinking that the universe should do the planet a favor and send humanity off in a Viking funeral somehow. Like just put us all on a boat, set it on fire, and push it out into the middle of the North Atlantic. Selfie drones are one more reason why. Yet another reason is this quote from Donald Trump in a recent interview he gave to Reuters:

In other words, the man LEGIT thought being the fucking PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES would be easier than shouting "You're fired!" on reality TV and putting his name on steak and water bottles.

M'kay. So, let's review.

"This is more work than in my previous life," said the President of the United States about being president. Unfortunately for his 322 million plebeian subjects, Trump's "previous life" bears a striking resemblance to his current life of endless golfing, frittering away inherited wealth on "amazing deals," and shameless self-promotion.

Trump thought being president would be easier, and the rest of us thought Trump getting to be president would be harder. Time for Trump to invest in a gilded, embossed selfie drone that flies over Mar-a-Lago all day and snaps him making his "this is serious" face. 

At this point, it's the only remaining thing that could salvage his credibility.

I Feel Like I Receive a Disproportionate Amount of Penis Enlargement Spam

And I can't quite figure out why that is. I mean, it's not like I have a penis, although to be fair, I use the word "dick" on the Internet a lot. Like, a lot. 

Regardless of the explanation, I first started to notice this trend last month, when Dr. Okosun of "Okosun Supernatural Home" wrote to me PERSONALLY to advertise his "super penis enlargement skills" and "super penis enlargement medicine":

So many questions. 

First of all, is there another way I can get this shipped to Alaska because I don't think "the DHL" delivers to Juneau. Also, will this medicine really make the user able to "satisfy any woman in this world?" That seems a bit excessive, I mean lots of women are lesbians and don't want anything to do with a dick of any size. Plus, isn't 8 inches a little bit excessive, even if your goal is to "last longer on sex?" I mean, I've never taken out a tape measure or anything, but 8 inches sounds like Double Stuf Oreos. Or more like this:

Then today I opened my inbox to this:

Anyway, you get the gist. 

The cool thing about this "herbal mixture cream" is that it takes your dick from "a very small penis about 3.5 inches long" to "10 inches long in erection" in just two weeks, AND BONUS: it cures type 2 diabetes! But the best part of all? Dr. Harry's herbal mixture cream works better than drugs, vaccines, surgery, and pills. Wow, better than SURGERY? 

It's truly amazing what you can find while "browsing through the internet one faithful day." All you have to do is follow a few simple steps after clicking on a scary-looking link that definitely will not irreparably corrupt your hard drive at all. 

At that point, Dr. Harry will literally cast a spell over some of his marvelous "herbal mixture cream," like he's the Willy Wonka of Wanking, and your shitty marriage which has been broken by your teeny weenie will be en fuego again in no time.

Internet Hyperbole

Here are some of the best hyperbolic expressions on the Internet in the age of #MAGA. 

Also: on a scale of 1 to mushroom cloud, how concerned should we be that the president of the United States does not know how to spell the word "tap?" Asking for a few billion friends.

"This is a game-changer."

"The REAL problem is ..."

"THIS"

"I'm quitting social media..."

"MUST READ."

"If you read ONE thing today..."

"WOWOWOWOW."

"Total bombshell."

"NAILED IT."

"This is BIG."

Best. Wrong. Number. Text. EVER!

This is a wrong number text that a friend of mine received today, and It. Is. Fucking. Aaaaaaamaaaaaazing:

WHATS GOOD THIS IS FAT DADDY. YOU WANTED ME TO GET AT YOU.

Part of what makes this as funny as it is is the person who received it. See, you need to know more about my friend who got this text in order to fully appreciate how hilarious it is. 

She's a lesbian in her early 50's with several advanced degrees who does triathlons. She wakes up at 5:00 a.m. to engage in psychotic exercise regimens with names like "INSANITY 880x" and "BLOOD SWEAT AND TEARS BOOT CAMP," and she walks around with water bottles with the names of these regimens emblazoned on them for all the world to see. 

So I feel like she is THE LAST person on earth to have given anyone named "Fat Daddy" her number, much less have wanted or encouraged Fat Daddy to "get at her" or even suggested that getting at her was a remote possibility. 

I wish I had gotten this instead, because my friend (I am sure) just politely said "sorry, wrong number," whereas I would have spooled this out to its ultimate conclusion, taking screenshots along the way and cackling uproariously as I posted them to my blog.

I probably would have replied with "Heeeey Boo! Yeah, I wanted you to get at me. Whatchoo thinking?" and just taken it from there and seen where it all went. Because that's just the kind of person I am. The kind of person who says "YES" to life, and expresses that philosophy by engaging in wrong-number texting for shits n' giggles. 

So Fat Daddy, if you're reading this, wherever you are, HIT MY PHONE UP K?!

Emotional Abuse of the GPS

It's a good thing Siri, Google Maps, Wayze, and other GPS map and directions aps are disembodied, computerized voices with no feelings. Because no one, and I mean NO ONE--endures more emotional and verbal abuse than THAT FUCKING GOOGLE MAPS BITCH.

There's truly no better example of the phenomenon of using another person/robot to your own selfish ends than what happens in a car with Google Maps. There is zero reciprocity in this relationship. It's like the second--the very INSTANT you're done with her (or him, but of course it's almost always a her), You. Are. DONE.

She says in her polite, clear, kind and helpful voice, "in 50 feet, your destination will be on the ri--"

"SHUT UP, BITCH! CAN'T YOU SEE WE'RE HERE ALREADY?!" you scream as you circle the block for a place to park. "SHUT THAT ASSHOLE OFF!!!!" Meanwhile, ten seconds ago you were literally depending on her for your every move.

At least Google Maps has the good sense to reroute you without telling you about it. Remember your ex, Garmin? She/he REALLY took some shit. Especially in the Metro D.C. area or, God forbid, Boston. Boston was originally built for horse and buggy times, and it shows. And surely it's not Google's fault, but this doesn't stop you from screaming at THAT FUCKING SHITHEAD GPS.

"In 500 feet, exit left at Tobin Bridge," then you do it and she says calmly and pseudo-helpfully, "Recalculating..."

"WHAT THE FUCK, ASSHOLE?! I DID EXACTLY WHAT YOU SAID AND YOU JUST FUCKED ME ON STORROW DRIVE AGAIN?! FUCK YOU!!!"

And all without any acknowledgement that ten years ago, you'd be unfolding a piece of paper the size of a table on your lap while trying to find five quarters to throw into a plastic basket, and in the end you'd still be driving around in circles.

Talk about a one-way relationship.

The Only Thing that Could Make This Flight More Baller is Some Viral Social Media Content

It's not every day that you and your whole family get a free first class upgrade from Seattle to Newark, but if it's any day, it's likely to be Christmas Eve, which it was.

I was in my happy place at last. I had 10 mg of Ativan coursing through my bloodstream, two kids who can be trusted not to act like total assholes on a plane anymore, a free open bar for five hours, a giant window seat, a bowl of warm nuts (the edible kind), and a free "didgie-player" loaded with movies. 

Granted, a full half of those movies starred Matt Damon as a stranded astronaut, and the other half were about hot paralyzed British men having unlikely love affairs with their plucky caregivers.

But still.

Only one thing could make this flight more perfect, and that would be some sick social media content that I would spontaneously film on my iPhone and then upload to Facebook where it would go viral and be reported on the Today Show.

Maybe one of the flight attendants would decide to make a grand exit from his career on the inflatable slide!

Maybe Ivanka Trump was in coach and someone would yell at her and her kids that her dad is ruining the country!

Maybe a passenger would overhear someone speaking Arabic and get "uncomfortable," and a scene would ensue followed by indignance, a boycott, and travel vouchers!

Perhaps there would be a medical emergency, and the only doctor on board would be a 27-year-old black woman and nobody would believe she was actually a doctor, and it would be a big scandal and somebody would almost die as a result of entrenched, institutionalized bigotry all captured on a smartphone!

Maybe a Hasidic Jewish man would stubbornly refuse to sit next to a woman for religious reasons and spark outrage from the rest of the cabin!

Maybe a redneck would start yelling at all the women on board for being "Hillary Bitches" and be banned from Alaska Airlines for life!

Maybe a drunk guy would catcall a flight attendant doing a safety demonstration or grope one of the female passengers, and the whole thing would be documented in real time for the authorities and the Internet to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law in the court of public opinion!

Maybe a screaming, inconsolable toddler accompanied by a single mother would be comforted by an old man of a different ethnicity from the screaming, inconsolable toddler, prompting a feel-good Christmas Eve miracle story!

That's the true meaning of Christmas, my friends: the many possibilities that exist for generating viral social media content on an airplane.