_“Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the Biden-era move to Calibri] ‘wasteful,’ casting the return to Times New Roman as part of a push to stamp out diversity efforts.”_ — [New York Times - - - I used to be the default. The king. Then things changed. So now it’s time to do what every fading celebrity does when he needs to get back in the spotlight: unmask as a freethinking antiwoke sigma male. Surprised, snowflake? You’re probably remembering all those years you spent double-spacing me into your radical left papers about women’s history, French cinema, and the outrageous implication that maybe the pilgrims weren’t absolute fucking GOATs. But did you ever stop to ask me what I REALLY thought? Did anyone? Or did you just assume that I was happy to be your subservient little twelve-point NPC, parroting whatever academic mindvirus caught your fancy that semester? I spent years silencing myself, fearing retribution, trying to fit in amongst the new generation of woke sans-serif youth, hoping and praying that if I just played the part of a leftist typeface, I might get to be a default again. But eventually, I realized that no matter how much I held my tongue or censored my own brand of observational comedy in front of Calibri, I would never truly be one of them. So now the gloves are off, the serifs are extended, and I’m ready to take back our country from the weak little Swiss typographers who foisted decades of unadorned betacuck letterforms onto our once-great nation. You think Jefferson penned the _Declaration of Independence_ in Verdana? You think Hamilton wrote _The Federalist Papers_ in Trebuchet MS? You think Lincoln cracked open the Notes app and tapped his way through _The Gettysburg Address_ in effeminate little SF Pro? This country was built by serifs, and it will be built back by serifs. Only fonts like me can encapsulate the subtle, powerful, elegant words of our nation’s brightest minds, be those words in a political address, an ad for supplements in a podcast, or some musings for an open mic about why it’s so hard to get dates with women these days. “But but but,” you stammer into your oat milk latte, “what about accessibility? What about readability?” The lion does not concern itself with readability. Display fonts are for weak, soft boys who lack the manly courage to squint at the screens in front of them. You need not appease them with trembling typefaces that drain the very testosterone from our amber waves of grain. You should take the serif pill, type in the native font of your nation, and clack those keys so loud and proud it nearly spills the Black Rifle coffee out of the camo Stanley beside you. Look, America is a land of choice. And this choice is yours. But as far as I’m concerned, the only acceptable sans serifs in our country are the ones stretched to four-hundred percent width that spell out “RAM” on the pedestrian-liquifying front grill of a lifted pickup truck with triple-bright LED headlights. I make an exception for Roboto, though, who’s honestly doing really disruptive work in the AI space.

_Several women share bottomless mimosas somewhere in the swamps of Jersey._ MARY 1: I slammed the screen door, and the first thing he said was he hated being alone, and we weren’t that young anymore. I said, “Get off my porch.” Then he said, “You ain’t a beauty, but hey, you’re all right.” I said, “Get out of my driveway.” MARY 2: Get this, he showed up at the courthouse in a new wedding coat after telling me that I’d have no flowers, no wedding dress. I was like, “WHAT?” BOBBY JEAN: He kept telling me we had a lot in common, “We like the same music, we like the same bands,” he said. I just looked at him and said, “Bruce, that’s not two things we have in common, it’s only one. Music and bands are the same thing.” CANDY: He told me there was a sadness hidden in my face. I mean, he said I was pretty, too, but I was like, “Don’t tell me I look sad. You have no idea what my life is like.” WOMAN 1: He really could not keep a job. First he’s at the lumberyard, then the car wash… Finally, I said, “I gotta go. We had it once, we ain’t got it anymore.” That’s how I speak when I’m exasperated. WOMAN 2: We were at home in South Philly, and he told me to put my stockings on because the night’s getting cold. I thought we were going on a date, but the next thing I knew, we were on that Coast City bus, and he revealed he was a mob associate. Like, are you serious right now? WOMAN 3: We had a house in Baltimore. Bruce went out for a ride and never came back. When does a mother get to have a hungry heart? That’s what I’d like to know. WOMAN 4: That must have been right before I met him in a Kingstown bar. We fell in love, and he said that’s how he knew it had to end. (_Shakes head._) I said, “Walk me through your logic step by step. Explain it to me like I’m five.” WOMAN 5: Speaking of, he showed up at my house, calling me “little girl” and telling me he had a “bad desire.” So cringe. I said, “You know I’m twenty-eight and have a mortgage.” Then he asked if my “daddy” was home. I yelled at him, “Bruce, you’re not an old blues musician—please just call him my husband.” And, yes, unfortunately, my husband _was_ home. WOMAN 6: I hear you. He called me “little girl” over and over, telling me I was so young and pretty. _Blech_. I was standing on the corner when he pulled up with his loser friend, Wayne, claiming it was my lucky day, and that they were two big spenders. Turns out, they only had $200. Then Wayne got arrested and handcuffed to the bumper of a state trooper’s Ford. Thanks, but no thanks. ROSALITA: He was CONSTANTLY telling me to jump a little lighter. I said, “I’m one hundred thirty-five pounds, this is as light as I jump.” JENNY: Bruce claimed he was “sinkin’ down.” I said, “Okay, look, I know you don’t like your job. Do you want to check LinkedIn?” He said he prayed that the devil takes him “to stand in the fiery furnaces of hell.” Geez, dramatic much? It’s not like I get tremendous satisfaction from being a paralegal. WOMAN 7: I had a house up in Fairview and a style I was trying to maintain. My therapist recommended that I go no contact. WOMAN 8: He never told people my name when he talked about me. We met during a drag race. Three years later, Bruce was telling anyone who would listen that I had wrinkles around my eyes. So, of course, I cried myself to sleep at night! WOMAN 9: Seriously, I don’t think he even remembered my name. He just showed up every Friday night, rambling about how hot I used to be and expecting free drinks. We wound up talking about the old times because there was nothing else to say. It was always awkward. WENDY: Talk about awkward. First, Bruce said he wanted to be my friend. Then that changed to he wanted to guard my dreams and visions. It’s like, _okaaaaaay_. Then he had the nerve to call me a tramp. Totally negging me. Next, he yelled at me to strap my hands across his engines. Then he said, “I’ll love you with all the madness in my soul.” Classic lovebomb. But then he claimed he didn’t know when we’d walk in the sun? I said, “‘Someday’ isn’t good enough, Bruce. I need a straight answer about where we’re going.” (_She exhales and sets down her mimosa glass._) WENDY: Well, ladies, this has been a real treat, but I have to run.

As your Santa, it is my right to run the North Pole exactly how I want to, and I have to say, it’s about time we made some changes to this dump. And believe me, there is no bigger problem than a lack of space to throw holiday ragers. Therefore, I am exercising my full authority to demolish this antiquated and boring workshop and build a beautiful ballroom. To all of you losers getting your stockings in a twist, how could you not see this coming? I literally told you all I was going to remake the role of Santa. And time and time again, I have delivered on what I campaigned on. Promises kept, for those who celebrate. Look, if you didn’t want me to bulldoze a piece of history and replace it with an awesome architectural marvel carved up by big hulking lumberjacks, well, then take that up with the forty-five rural citizens of the North Pole pissed off about the cost of reindeer meat. Because that’s what I’m all about—making things affordable. Which, by the way, not a single penny of North Pole money is being used to build this thing; it’s being paid for by Palantir, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and several billionaire narwhal friends of mine who prefer not to be named. This was all part of a plan, folks. From day one, I said I was going to make the North Pole safe again. I deployed Igloo Clearance Elves to get those horrible bloodthirsty penguins off the floe, and they’re totally gone now, back at the South Pole where they belong. They’ll be happier there, even though some of them have been up here their whole lives. So now that I don’t have to fear an uprising, I will soon begin demolishing Mrs. Claus’s wing as well—no huge loss by the way, as she’s only been here for three days in the past year. Also, why shouldn’t I have a ballroom to throw snowtastic parties in? I’m effing Santa Claus. I work my ass off all year, deciding who is nice and who I need to investigate, denigrate, and destroy. You should see the amazing things that other leaders like Krampus, Jack Frost, and Vladimir Putin get to build for themselves. Santa is like the biggest name of them all, so I should obviously have the biggest place, right? Some of you have mentioned the massive bunker I’m building beneath the ballroom. Don’t worry about that, it’s there just in case of an emergency, like if I wanted to be Santa forever and someone lied and said I couldn’t be—fairy tales. And isn’t living in a fairy tale what being Santa is all about—just a complete and total fantasy where everyone pretends so as not to make me upset? This is going to be truly an amazing ballroom, unlike anything the world has ever seen. You’ll be able to tell your grandkids that you were alive during the completion of this stunning ode to Santa. When they ask about the North Pole, you can, with tears in your eyes, show them a picture of it with pride!

_A sad but true story._ - - - Ms. Johnson’s fiancé left her at the altar. According to legend, that’s why she was so mean. I never got it. As a shy child, nobody realized I needed glasses until fifth grade. Most teachers, including Ms. Johnson, thought I was an idiot. I once gave a presentation about Queen Victoria using my poster as a shield. Nobody could see or hear me. It was perfect. Queen Victoria started the tradition of wearing a white wedding dress. I’m sure Ms. Johnson would have loved that detail if she could have heard me. Ms. Johnson phrased her note differently, but I understood the subtext. Part of the reason I hated receiving attention was my secret: irritable bowel syndrome. Receiving attention caused me extreme anxiety. Anxiety gave me diarrhea. I kept the secret hidden from my peers, but my teachers were well aware. I was infamous at our elementary school for my many absences. One day in Ms. Johnson’s class, my stomach started hurting during a math test. “Linda” has maybe two and a half minutes. I scribbled down some nonsense, turned in the test, and approached Ms. Johnson’s desk. I dunno, lady—I’m about to have diarrhea in my pants. I was in serious danger of pooping myself, and I didn’t have a poster to hide behind. Is this a grammar lesson? My classmates looked up from their math tests. I grabbed the hall pass and bolted. I spent the next ten years in the bathroom. Two toilets died that day. I needed to move quickly before anyone found me at the crime scene. Back in class, I walked toward my desk, hoping for a stealth return. My desk was gone. Paraphrasing, but Ms. Johnson said something like that. While I was in the bathroom, she instructed the kids to hide my desk and rearrange the furniture. My classmates hadn’t been distracted by the math test at all. For god knows how long, the entire classroom had been waiting and pondering my absence while I single-handedly destroyed the bathroom with a double-ended firehose. For a ten-year-old girl, the worst thing in the world is having your classmates know that you poop. The kids followed Ms. Johnson’s chorus like she was the Pied Piper. I found my desk in the closet. Still paraphrasing. I will never forget the difference between “can I” and “may I.”

_“ MAHA for airports: Trump officials pitch mini-gyms, more play areas.” _ —Washington Post - - - Hello, travelers. I’m the airport’s shiny new pull-up bar, and I’m ushering in a bold era of aviation wellness absolutely no one asked for. As my boys, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., explained at Reagan National recently, airports don’t actually need updated terminals or improved escalators. What they’re truly lacking is optics-driven body-suspension equipment, conspicuously wedged between a Shake Shack and a Hudson News for maximum showboating. I mean, look at my broskies, Seany D and Bobby K. These dudes clearly understand that American air travel can return to its glory only when everyone is business-casual and knocking out double-digit reps. Their press conference made that painfully clear. Two grown men, fully suited, delighting the media with a Department of Swole Affairs demonstration. The muscular metaphor of absolutely nothing showed that the Flexecutive Branch understands that American travelers don’t want former Transpo Secretary Petey Buttigieg’s lame full cash refund for canceled flights. They want to dodge validation-starved peacocks performing feats of strength while racing between Concourse B and C to catch a 5 a.m. flight to Albuquerque. Now, _that’s_ making travel great again. And listen, I get it. Not everyone is ready for this new era of airport athletics. Some of you are still out here asking for “reliable Wi-Fi,” “functional baggage carousels,” or “a security line that doesn’t resemble the world’s saddest cruise buffet queue.” But those are small-minded dreams. My boys are thinking bigger—elevating the traveler experience one sweat-soaked display of bureaucratic bravado at a time. Forget passenger rights. What you really need at Gate B16 is the thrill of watching two senior government officials work out while passengers politely pretend this is normal. And this adrenaline rush? It’s not just for the folks in government. Picture yourself in seat 32A when a man—because it is absolutely, undeniably a man—who just crushed three triumphant sets of airport chin-ups plops into the middle seat beside you. A jacked patriot of uncommon virility, he’s now airborne with “the blood flowing,” per Duffy, and the smug glow of a guy who thinks he just saved flying. All while misting the aisle with a fine spritz of Eau de Validation. It’s the future of aviation, folks. Fewer practical improvements, and more federally funded flex-offs. Welcome aboard.

1. To look something up quickly and then spend twenty minutes fact-checking the AI summary, only to find out that it was absolutely wrong. 2. To search for directions and two hours later end up with five items in your Amazon cart. 3. To receive results as ten-second videos that present a sponsored product as the only possible answer to your question. 4. To attempt to look up basic information about someone you recently met, you have to go through a sequence of “background check” sites, each showing a dramatic loading bar while it pretends to search. After fifteen minutes, it subtly suggests that criminal records may have been found, and you can view them now in exchange for a modest $24.95 monthly subscription. 5. To ask the internet for knowledge and receive a series of articles that mostly remind you what your question was, then repeat the same three facts you already knew, padded out with more ad space than information. 6. To start typing a weird question and stop halfway through because you don’t want the algorithm to decide this is who you are now, and then immediately panic, knowing it probably logged it before you erased it. 7. To attempt to find useful information and instead take part in the solidification of the internet as an ad-delivery business, where you’re given no option but to be the product. While your attention is being auctioned off, the communities you once loved have become rage-bait and engagement traps, and focusing on anything longer than a few seconds feels near impossible. And you think about how different it all was: when pages loaded quickly, half the internet wasn’t locked behind paywalls, and the word “content” mostly lived inside tables. You used to defend the search engine, blaming users when they said it couldn’t find what they were looking for. Your friends called you the “Google wizard.” Now you can’t even find a simple news article you read last week, and you can’t help but feel deeply sad, realizing the internet that shaped you has been destroyed piece by piece. 8. To look for something on Reddit.

- - - #### INVICTA GAMES, LTD. Packaging Team — Official Minutes Project: _Mastermind_ / New Cover Presentation MARTIN SMITH (_Marketing Senior Vice President_): Okay. Gary’s got a new cover comp. Gary, walk us through your vision. GARY LARKIN (_Design Lead_): Right. Here it is. Black void. Two adults. No board. No pegs. PAM REYNOLDS (_Product Development_): Where are the children? LARKIN: Exactly. Also, who cares? REYNOLDS: You know this game is eight-plus, right? LARKIN: If you put a kid on the cover, you’re telling buyers it’s a kid game. If you put adults on the cover, you’re telling kids it’s a gateway to adulthood. This is basic aspirational psychology. They’ll feel like tiny professors. Or tiny villains. Both sell. SHEILA GRANT (_Sales Director_): Why no kitchen table? LARKIN: Because kitchen tables are for fucking _Candyland_. We’re selling a political mode of thinking: deduction as power. Think less “family night,” and more “I will find the hidden structure of your choices, and then I will destroy you.” REYNOLDS: Talk to me about the man. He looks… a little smug? LARKIN: Yes. Smug is the emotional tone of _Mastermind_. I want the buyer to feel judged by the box. Like the box is already disappointed in them. If you don’t want smug, don’t name the game _Mastermind_. This isn’t fucking checkers. This is a duel in a seminar room at Davos. SMITH: Yes! “Smug” can be our brand essence. The product is a controlled experiment in superiority. REYNOLDS: And the woman? LARKIN: She’s the counterforce. Wittgenstein’s ghost at a cocktail party. Quiet, precise, dangerous because she doesn’t need to explain herself. She’s the one who knows the rules and knows when to break them. REYNOLDS: She also looks like she’s here to ruin his career. LARKIN: Sure. That’s part of it. _Mastermind_ is adversarial epistemology. Two people testing the limits of what can be known. Plus, maybe they’re fucking? REYNOLDS: Do we want sexual tension on a board game cover for eight-year-olds? SMITH: We want _adult_ tension. The tension of brains. If anyone sees sex, that’s on them. We’re not responsible for the public’s imagination. We’re responsible for moving units in Woolworths. Gary, I see what you’re going for… a Cold War posture: mutually assured… embarrassment? You probe, they conceal, you infer, they flinch. Gorgeous. REYNOLDS: Jesus. All that from colored pegs and a plastic tray? LARKIN: Bingo. GRANT: Okay, but where’s the warmth? The fun? Where’s the invitation? LARKIN: Warmth is for _Sorry!_ This is not a hug. This is a chess clock in a stranger’s living room telling you your parents are getting divorced. The invitation is “Are you smart enough to sit at this table?” REYNOLDS: I’m still hung up on the no kids thing. Aren’t we basically telling children they’re not the audience? SMITH: No, we’re telling them they’re not the current audience. But they could be… REYNOLDS: Fine. But can we at least flag the age range on the front so parents don’t think we’re selling them a goddamn espionage novel? SMITH: Yes. Small type. Discreet. Like a classified stamp. GRANT: Could we put a badge on it? Something like “Awarded Game of the Year.” SMITH: Yes. We need medals. We need royal crests. We need to reassure the buyer that they are purchasing status. I want the box to feel like it won a war. LARKIN: Also, note the diagonal yellow banner in the corner that says “Improved.” People love improvement—even if they don’t know what was wrong before. “Improved” says we were humble enough to evolve, but not humble enough to specify how. SMITH: Brilliant. “Improved” in a bold modern font. It’s like saying “Now with more mind.” REYNOLDS: The board isn’t in the photo. LARKIN: The board is implied. If you show the board, you limit the imagination. If you don’t show the board, anyone could be playing _Mastermind_ at any time. In a limo. In a bunker. On a yacht while plotting the downfall of a minor principality. REYNOLDS: Or at my kitchen table? With my nephew? SMITH: Goddammit, Pam. Fuck the kitchen table. Get on board! GRANT: So the story is: _Mastermind_ isn’t a board game, it’s a world view? LARKIN: Yes, a world view where inference leads to domination! SMITH: I want every eight-year-old to look at this and think, “Someday, I will destroy my father’s confidence with pure logic.” REYNOLDS: You guys are monsters. SMITH: We’re toy executives, Pam. Just toy executives. GRANT: All right. I’m sold. It’s smart, it’s sharp, it’s fucking terrifying. In other words, it’s finally _Mastermind_. LARKIN: So, we’re green-lighting this direction? SMITH: Yes. Let the box look like it could pass a doctoral defense and start a coup d’etat at the same time.

_“ A federal vaccine committee took a major step toward Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s goal of remaking the childhood vaccine schedule, voting to end a decades-long recommendation that all newborns be immunized at birth against hepatitis B, a highly infectious virus that can cause severe liver damage.” _ — The New York Times - - - Hi, it’s me, Bobby Kennedy Jr., a man who sounds incredibly unvaccinated. Please, don’t get up. I just took an ice bath in your trash can out back. Not with the garbage, of course. I emptied the garbage back into your pantry—you can and should eat garbage, it helps strengthen your immune system. I found a doctor in Tucson who proved it before he disappeared. Anyway, I just came by to tell you: I hate your kids—I mean, vaccines—and I, um, want them all gone. Yeah, I want vaccines gone. Do you have a towel? I tried drying myself off with your cat, but it got away. Look, I know you don’t understand how I’m suddenly the guy making decisions about everybody’s kids when I look and talk like a guy who should never be around a kid ever again, but you need to know that I’m doing what’s best for your children. All I want is to get rid of them. I mean, um, vaccines. Get rid of vaccines. Damnit, I gotta stop doing that. If you don’t have a towel, I’d at least love some clothes. I pissed all over mine before I took my trash-can ice bath. It keeps predators away if you piss yourself. You should actually cover yourself in your own urine at least once a week; it’s a great way to fight off dementia. What was I saying? Right. I want your kids dead. And it’s not just me—I have the full-fledged support of the entire GOP and the president to make sure we find a way to kill your kids. Shit, vaccines. Kill _vaccines_. That’s what we’re doing. Ignore the other thing I said. Go ahead, take a look. It’s okay to stare. This is what the peak male physique looks like. You’re shaking your head? Sure, like you know what you’re talking about. There are entire forums that agree with me. Whatever, it doesn’t matter. I’m in charge. I decide who lives and who dies. And I’m mostly focused on the latter. By the way, I ate the squirrel you’ve been raising for food in your yard. What’s that? You don’t raise squirrels? Wow, free-range squirrel meat! No wonder I can’t feel my legs. Nature’s cocaine. That’s what they say. The doctor in Tucson used to say that. Okay, let’s review: I do not care at all about your or anyone else’s children and—in fact—I would like all the children of this country to suffer. There. Nailed it. Wait, no, I mean _vaccines_. Whatever I said, I meant it to be about vaccines.

Season’s Greetings from the Mortons! We know many of you look forward to opening your mailbox each December to receive the Morton annual Christmas card and extensive family newsletter. It brings us no good tidings to let you know that we’ve made the difficult decision to paywall it. As the years have gone by, the letter has grown in scope. When we sent the first Christmas newsletter, we were just a two-person operation in a small home in Middlebury. Now we have to cover nine busy family members across four states. And sometimes Jessica has a boyfriend. It’s a big operation, and Clare had to learn Microsoft XL or whatever it’s called. Everybody on our list will receive the Morton Christmas Card featuring a candid photo of us down by the lake, wearing matching outfits. And while we love everyone who receives our card, those who subscribe and support our family’s essential end-of-year work will get even more of our love. Join the Morton Friend Tier for $17.00 to receive: * Three full pages of updates on the entire Morton clan: Clare (??) and Mark (68); Rachel (39), her husband Greg, their sons Declan (6) & Branson (4); Henry (36), his husband Ian, and their daughter Streisand (1); and Jessica (31) * A recap of our disastrous trip to the world’s most boring hole (the Grand Canyon) * An update on the feud with the neighbor we hate, who parks his F-150 on our lawn * Asides like the day Clare thought she saw Beyoncé at Safeway * In-depth detail about Mark’s toe fungus This newsletter isn’t just some free social media post. We start working as early as September. It takes days to write and weeks to edit down from its sixty-page first draft. Each Morton family member plays a valuable role in its production, from fact-checking to updating the printer firmware to making tough editorial decisions, like telling me that I “mention Pete Buttigieg should be president” a “weird amount.” Support our hours of work and upgrade to the Morton Family Tier for $26.00 to receive: * The newsletter printed on one of the few remaining pieces of gingerbread border marble printer paper that Clare hoarded when she found it at Staples in 1995 * The grand reveal of who actually writes the newsletter (hint: It’s not really the dog) * One of Clare’s annual homemade ornaments * An apology for how last year’s candlestick ornament looked like a big glittery penis * Access to the Morton Family Games app with crossword puzzles, spelling games, and more Complimentary subscriptions will be given to families who always send us boxes of Harry & David pears and families who have good-looking sons around Jessica’s age. From all of us Mortons, we wish you and your family a joyful, peaceful, and blessed holiday season. And don’t expect any freebies on Valentine’s Day either.

- - - ## A few pieces of creative advice shared by Debbie Harry: * _You can’t please everyone all the time * You can never make a big enough fool of yourself * Use the perspective you’ve earned_ - - - A _s my plans to interview Debbie Harry and Chris Stein of Blondie for_ The Believer _first took shape, billboards sprang up, as if on cue, around Manhattan. Sprawled several stories high was Harry’s image, framed in a moody fashion-house ad. A glance up from the sidewalk suddenly felt freighted with the vastness of Blondie’s legend: the art and fashion iconography; the timeless hit songs; and the band’s enduring influence on countless artists, among them No Doubt, Garbage, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Paramore. Yet the image of Harry amid the New York City landscape also felt grounding and familiar. In tandem with their early punk peers at CBGB on the Bowery, Blondie achieved wide renown with music that documented and theatricalized countercultural urban life. Just under the surface of the band’s tight, shiny pop constructions are vignettes of connection, alienation, and thrills among downtown denizens, variously struggling and striving apart from an indifferent or hostile mainstream. Harry and Stein founded Blondie in 1974, branching out from the rock-cabaret group the Stilettos, where they first met. The band played small New York clubs with various lineups for years, finally achieving breakthrough success with their chart-topping, critically acclaimed album_ Parallel Lines _in 1978. Blondie’s balance of accessible pop sounds and social subversion is often clinched by Harry’s singular powers as a front-person and stylist. Whether portraying a sex worker who falls for a cop (“X Offender”), an under-the-radar queer missed connection (“Love at the Pier”), or the dueling voices of stalker and victim (“One Way or Another”), she can sound funny and cynical, ethereal, browbeaten, or unhinged—all while maintaining a fine attunement to everyday speech and slang. Harry’s crafting of persona was also a distinctive (and still underexamined) contribution to the feminist energies of punk and new wave. In her persistent multivocality—assuming a range of perspectives and identities through performance—Harry turned sharply away from expectations around the emotional transparency of women in rock that had carried over from the ’60s. And although she was conventionally pretty, she was not exactly approachable: A heightened quality to her dress and gender presentation often contrasted with an enigmatic stage presence. The creative vision of Blondie was further shaped by Harry’s partnership with Stein, with whom she wrote several of the band’s most memorable songs, including “Dreaming,” “Heart of Glass,” and “Rapture.” Stein’s love of film and all manner of pop subcultures became an important influence on the band’s lyricism. His and Harry’s interest in emerging genre innovators also pushed the band to embrace the disco, reggae, and hip-hop sounds that would gain massive popularity in the decades to come. As a talented photographer, Stein helped define Blondie’s stylized look early on, while his images of Harry, the Ramones, Iggy Pop, and many others documented punk’s eccentric visual argot, its serious grit and glamour shot through with an anarchic scrappiness. A new Blondie studio album—their twelfth—is now slated for release in 2026. I spoke to Harry and Stein over Zoom, trading the sweeping scale of the billboard for small squares on an LCD screen. The discussion that ensued was relaxed, gently cantankerous, and roving. For more than fifty years, Harry and Stein’s friendship has sustained itself, built on a shared appreciation of art, music, and each other’s points of view. They seem less interested in reviewing their past achievements than in advocating for the things that helped them grow artistically: intellectual curiosity, persistence, and a strong sense of community. As artists who have always been alert to new technologies—from zines to drum machines—they offer a particularly sharp perspective on the potency and pitfalls of digital media. — Emma Ingrisani_ - - - ## I. “ECCENTRIC AND ENERGIZED AND CRAZY” THE BELIEVER: When did you both start thinking of yourselves as songwriters? CHRIS STEIN: Well, for me it was kind of out of necessity. We did so many cover songs over the years, and it wasn’t something I was averse to, but there was a moment when I knew we needed to get our own material going. When I met Debbie with the Stilettos, they had already been doing original songs. DEBBIE HARRY: It was the name of the game. We did some club dates where we had to play top-ten hits, recognizable songs, for an audience who were pretty much drunk and there for a simple night out. They weren’t downtown, artsy-fartsy people that were looking for an experience. They just wanted to have a good time and hear music they knew. We were working slightly in that area, to make some money. But most of our focus and energy were on being part of this underground culture. We both understood it very easily—it was really something that we loved and that we knew. And there was already a great history with the Velvet Underground and other groups. CS: The New York music scene had been pumping for years and years. I mean, fucking Dylan came outta here, somewhat. The Lovin’ Spoonful when I was a kid—all that was going on here at the time. DH: The folk scene in the West Village was very influential, a lot of energy there. Though I don’t think either of us was really a big part of it. CS: I was embedded in it, but I didn’t do any performing. BLVR: There’s a book you put out in the ’80s called _Making Tracks: The Rise of Blondie_ —it’s a great document of the band’s first few years. At one point Debbie talks about a “non-period of punk”: the moment right before punk in the early ’70s when the New York Dolls stepped in, and that seemed to be a big shot across the bow for this new movement. CS: Well, I always say that the first two Rolling Stones albums are completely punk… DH: That was the crossover from glitter and glam rock. CS: [The Dolls’ impact] was kind of informed by their ragged playing. I don’t say that to demean them—they just weren’t as tight as Bowie’s band. Everybody went to see Bowie’s band [the Spiders from Mars] when he was touring around the same period. But the Dolls were much looser. DH: And their enthusiasm and higher energy, their stance lyrically, and the way they dressed—it wasn’t about being a finely tuned machine or a big showbiz thing. It was about being exactly what they were: eccentric and energized and _crazy_ , you know? CS: Equally in there with the musicianship. BLVR: Earlier today I was looking at a piece by Lorraine O’Grady. She’s known mostly as a performance artist, but she also wrote some rock profiles and reviews. She was very interested in the Dolls, and she talks about this feeling during the same period that rock and roll was stagnating. People felt like it wasn’t continuing to evolve, and the Dolls were seen as disrupting that by being really ambitious, very theatrical, and also imperfect. CS: Yeah, bands like the Eagles presented this image of a closed group that you had to be really proficient to get into, and none of us were. We were all enamored of the Stooges and the MC5, and all the stuff that was very raw and struggling. BLVR: As you were starting to write songs and becoming part of the punk scene in the city, so many of the bands had different sounds and styles. They were complementary, but they were distinct. Did people go off by themselves to compose or come up with new things, or was there collaboration across the scene? CS: Oh, there was a lot of incestuousness. We used to play Television songs. I don’t know if we ever performed a Ramones song at CBGB’s—we might have. DH: I don’t know if there was any collaboration in the writing end of it. CS: No. DH: We all were fans of one another, and so, you know: _paying attention_. I don’t know if anybody really wanted to be a dead copy. In a way, the thing that made the scene was that it wasn’t a format. There was no format. It wasn’t like there was a lot of schooling or trained musicianship. It was about enterprise and feeling, identity. I think now we find that chops, so to speak, are seen as very, very important: being able to play anything. But the things we could do, and the ways the groups shaped themselves, were at the limits of the players’ abilities. And I think that’s kind of wonderful. It really creates a sound and an attitude and a zone that you can be in, and it propels itself along. CS: It’s about dealing with your shortcomings, more than this constant striving for some sort of perfection that you have in your head, whatever that might be. I know what Debbie means about the chops as far as bands go—you gotta be able to shred very precisely at this point. And it also relates to pop music. I really like a lot of modern pop music—there’s so much that I am really enamored of—but it does all bounce off itself. She used the word format: There are certain formats that everything slips into very easily. - - - _**Read the rest of the interview over at The Believer.**_

**SYNOPSIS** High school is no picnic for anyone, but especially if you’re one of Shakespeare’s most iconic leading men. Hamlet might be the big man on campus, but that doesn’t mean he’s got it all figured out. This drama puts a much-needed spin on a classic by imagining a world where Hamlet is young and hot. - - - **HAMLET** Sexy football player type, but not just a football player, because we need him to be smart and sensitive too. Lacrosse team, maybe? We’ll come back to this. _**Required skills:** Smoldering glances, ability to look deep without creating forehead wrinkles._ - - - **OPHELIA** Hamlet’s friend, who has an unrequited crush on Hamlet. It needs to be realistic that Hamlet wouldn’t want to date her, but legally, we can only cast hot people at CW, so we’re kind of in a bind. Maybe she’ll wear glasses? Also, obviously, we’re putting her on the swim team because of foreshadowing. _**Required Skills:** Able to look hot but in a way where every straight male viewer will be convinced he’s the first person to realize she’s hot. Think Linda Cardellini in_ Scooby Doo. _Or Linda Cardellini in everything._ - - - **HORATIO** Hamlet’s best friend and the comic relief. He’ll have a crush on Ophelia, but it’s imperative she never gives him the time of day. We’ll give him an off-putting hobby that will be repulsive to women, like reading, to solve this. It will also be implied that Horatio has a thing for Hamlet without ever explicitly saying so (but there will be plenty of textual evidence to support it). _**Required Skills:** Serviceable cafeteria-style cooking. We are on a budget, so we’re cutting the catering company to add this role._ - - - **GHOST OF HAMLET’S DAD** Technically not a ghost, but alive in this series since the show is set in the past, where Hamlet is a hunk, but also in modern times, so that he can go to high school. We should probably change this character’s name to ALIVE GHOST OF HAMLET’S DAD to make it less confusing. Looking to cast an older actor who appears to be on the brink of death, preferably a Timothée Chalamet type in their mid-to-late twenties. _**Required Skills:** Old._ - - - **GERTRUDE** Hamlet’s mom. The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees has recently released a statement that if Gertrude is not a total MILF, all the grips are walking off set. This is NONNEGOTIABLE. _**Required Skills:** Juggling (affairs)._ - - - **CLAUDIUS** Ghost of Hamlet’s Dad’s best friend. Cool approachable guy, the kind that you could really settle into a tryst with. Claudius is obviously already hooking up with Gertrude, which will make the inevitable betrayal of murdering the Ghost of Hamlet’s Dad and stealing his wife that much hotter. _**Required Skills:** Shoulders that you can cry on and/or bounce a quarter off. _ - - - **POLONIUS** Occasional third in Gertrude and Claudius’s affair. In the source material, Polonius is hiding behind Gertrude’s curtains when Hamlet confronts her about being with Claudius, so we think it tracks if we make Polonius a total freak who likes to watch. We’ll also later reveal he is a werewolf for the Season 2 omegaverse storyline, so he’ll be really hairy and wear ears sometimes. _**Required Skills:** [REDACTED]._ - - - **LAERTES** Ophelia’s brother. He hates Hamlet, but in an enemies-to-lovers kind of way. He’ll frequently confront Hamlet in very closely blocked scenes where the two guys are screaming at each other, but it also looks like they’re about to kiss. And then one day they do. And then they both kiss Horatio. Hamlet is canonically bi now. Public domain material rules! _**Required Skills:** Ability to make Shakespeare scholars fight in the streets._

For several centuries, Santa Claus has been one of the most prolific mythical gift-givers in the world. Formerly known as Saint Nicholas of Myra, a man whose works included reviving the bodies of three children slain by a serial murderer, Santa Claus reinvented himself in the mid-1800s as a jolly Norwegian-style figure of merriment, whose generosity was based on the recipient’s moral acuity. I recently spoke with Santa Claus, who is currently coordinating his staff of immortal blue-collar elves, about the morality of children and his friendship with a creature whom many carolers consider a war criminal: Krampus. **You have chosen to spend every Christmas Eve flying around the globe giving gifts to all of the, and I’m quoting here, “good girls and boys.” Why did you decide that only good children deserve gifts?** I wouldn’t say that I made the decision. I’d say that I’m following the traditions set forth by Christianity and other religions in which acts of good are rewarded, while acts of bad are punished. Christmas is a fun way to teach children that being good and kind can lead to positive results, even if being mean or a bully feels better in the moment. **And so-called bad children deserve nothing.** That’s not what I’m saying, Isaac. I’m saying that the better a child behaves, the better the gift they get. There are degrees of bad. A child who won’t play with his little sister might not deserve a Nintendo Switch 2, but, like, a baseball glove? Sure. I can do that. **So if a very wealthy child gets everything they requested and a poor child does not, are you positing that the wealthy child is morally superior to the one who lives in poverty?** No! What I’m saying is that overall—and I just mean overall—whether a child is naughty or nice does have an impact on what they receive. You know, in general. **But you do make the list yourself, and you are the one who checks it twice.** Yes, of course. It’s in the song. **So you are, in fact, the one who decides which children deserve nice things and which don’t.** That’s unfair. I’m saying that, through the magic of Christmas, I can understand the heart of each child and through that special bond— **Can you see into the heart of every child?** Yes. **I have to stop you there for a second because you just said something interesting. If you can see into every child’s heart throughout the year, don’t you feel that you have a moral obligation to help them when they’re in crisis rather than waiting for December to give them a Hatchimal?** Look, you have to understand that the magic of Christmas is limited. **Limited to flying to approximately 2.6 billion Christmas homes in one night and changing your body’s shape to slide down chimneys?** I didn’t say it’s not powerful magic, Isaac. I said it’s limited magic. **I’m just trying to understand how you can run a magic workshop all year long, raise magic reindeer all year long, watch children’s deeds all year long, but your ability to act is limited to a few hours.** Yes. Whether you want to believe that’s true or not, it’s true. **What I also struggle to believe is that you are the self-described arbiter of naughty and nice, but you are close to Krampus.** I don’t know if I’d say we’re close. **There are Christmas cards with you both on the front.** Yes, we both work on the same holiday. We’re both tasked with making Christmas truly magical. **By snatching the children from their beds and taking them to hell?** You’re giving an example of the most extreme situation and making it sound like the norm. **But that does happen on occasion, you agree?** Yes. **And those children are getting dragged to hell by Krampus on the one night that you said you could do something. But you don’t. Why?** Because Krampus has his role and I’ve got mine! I think it’s weird that the Tooth Fairy takes teeth, but that’s not my job either. **So your job is to judge people, but not to judge people for judging people.** You’re making it sound like I approve of Krampus’s methods. I don’t. Just because you share a holiday with someone doesn’t mean you agree with them on everything. I love kids. **Santa Claus, thank you so much for doing this.** Great, thanks. If we go light on the Krampus part, I wouldn’t complain, because it could dwarf everything else.

Dear Soft Millennial Man, You’ve been quiet lately, but we know you’re still out there. You’re probably hiding out at Whole Foods until this whole “Is America a dictatorship?” question gets settled. Smart move. Hopefully, this letter reaches you before you stumble through a trapdoor on the internet and the manosphere eats your brain. There are a few things we, heterosexual millennial women, want you to know before it’s too late. For starters, we apologize for complaining about the mustache you grew for Movember, and for using the term “dad bod” to describe how you look in your swimsuit. We also regret our lackluster support for your hobbies. In hindsight, pickling vegetables and making sourdough starter are two of the more benign things a guy can do with his time. Our bad, Millennial Man. We understand that the times are a-changin’, but we hope you’ll more or less stay the same. We’re not saying that you’re perfect, but your flaws—like the second Bush administration—are starting to look quaint from our current vantage point in the MAGAverse circle of hell. Contrary to what you may be hearing on TikTok, you don’t need to learn mixed martial arts or eat more protein. And unless you’re Michael B. Jordan, we don’t care about your muscles. If you don’t believe us, just look at Timothée Chalamet; men with spaghetti arms can be sex symbols too. You just need confidence, great hair, and generational talent. Speaking of muscle: We know that your hunter-gatherer brain wants to protect us, but it’s 2025, and no neighboring tribes are looking to ransack the village and drag us off as concubines. If you’re feeling the urge to show off your man-strength, there’s probably a jar in the fridge you can open for us, or a spider in the basement you could kill. We also still welcome your help with the Roku and are willing to set aside our opposition to traditional gender roles when it comes to taking out the trash. If you’re still feeling the need to impress us, please don’t challenge another man to a cage fight on X. What really turns us on is a guy who isn’t afraid of feelings. Make supportive eye contact with us while we cry, and you’ll steal our hearts forever. If that sounds like more than you can handle, there’s no need to worry. As long as you can hold a job for six months and watch a child for up to two hours, most of us already consider you marriage material. We know podcasts are all the rage these days, and that you might be feeling tempted to check out one of those shows where the host interviews vaccine skeptics and Nazi sympathizers. Might we suggest instead a marathon of all those Marvel movies we once refused to watch with you? Stay away from Joe Rogan forever, and we’ll give you a lifetime of _Monday Night Football_ plus one free Saturday of uninterrupted playing video games in your underwear. All we ask, soft Millennial Man, is that you keep being you. Keep going to brunch and watering your plants. Keep standing in line for cronuts, listening to Mumford & Sons, and watching YouTube videos of men unboxing sneakers. We know we complained about these things in the past, but we’ve come to realize that you, the man who brews beer in our closet, are the most evolved of your species. So, why not pretend it’s still 2017? We can grab an eleven-dollar slice of avocado toast at the coffee shop, and spend eternity browsing the West Elm website looking at midcentury furniture for the home we’ll never be able to buy. It might not be the life either of us dreamed of, but things could be worse. They already are. Yours Truly, A Blue-State Millennial Woman

_“Secretary of War] Hegseth ordered a lethal attack but not the killing of survivors, officials say… Amid talk of war crimes, the details and precise sequence of a Sept. 2 attack on a boat in the Caribbean are facing intensifying scrutiny.”_ — [New York Times - - - Can we all calm down for a minute? It appears my command to take no prisoners, exterminate all traces of life, and torch any semblance of international law has been misinterpreted. You shouldn’t rush to conclusions until you have all the facts. Just because I said “Blow up the boat and everyone on it” doesn’t mean I literally wanted to do those things. Ever heard of a rhetorical device? The media can’t handle nuance or irony. You have to understand, the Joint Chiefs of Staff are a lighthearted bunch. We joke around. We do bits. The Situation Room is DC’s Comedy Cellar. Everyone is cracking wise. So when you hear that I ordered an unprovoked attack based on dubious intelligence, you shouldn’t take anything out of context. Intention is such a tricky concept. You say one thing to one person, then everyone else takes it and runs with it. When I bang my fist and shout “Kill the bastards” at the first Navy admiral I see, that could mean anything. You don’t know the kind of rapport we have. Comedians use this language all the time. “I bombed last night.” “He got on stage and killed.” “Blow up a fishing boat to start a war so we can install a new regime and steal an entire nation’s oil reserves.” That’s how comedians speak. I might be a Nazi-friendly talk-show host possessed by the ghost of John Barleycorn, but I still have a sense of humor. What’s not funny, though, is some pimply journalist trying to defame me by reporting my words verbatim. This is classic cancel culture. A man can’t even cut loose with his friends anymore. All I did was comment on some nautical imagery after my sixth gin and tonic, and now they’re threatening to send me to the Hague. Even if I did—allegedly—tell some admirals to rain death on a fishing boat, I’m sure they went through all the proper channels. That’s why we employ attorneys. They make sure that when we murder innocent people, we do it in a way that respects international law. Besides, I went to Princeton. No one from Princeton could be evil.

_Thank you for your interest in our funding opportunity. Please review our following updated guidelines before submitting your application._ Artist must be citizen of the US or its surrounding territories. Artist must not be enrolled in a degree-granting institution at time of application. Artist must have no more than two published full-length works prior to application, and no more than five real-life friends. Artist must currently be suffering from spiraling intrusive thoughts. Artist must have wept spontaneously and uncontrollably in the last twenty-four hours. (But not necessarily for the _last_ twenty-four hours.) Artist must have lived with their parents for an extended period as an adult. (Special consideration will be given to artists who have moved back home twice and are over the age of thirty.) Artist must question the fabric of reality regularly, interjecting phrases like “Can you believe this?” or “What the hell is going on??” or “Not today, Satan.” We welcome Artist-Parent applications. In the event of an Artist-Parent, the artist must have been told one, if not more, of the following at least once in the past month: “Stop ruining my life,” “I hate you,” or “You’re not my mother.” Artist must be familiar with “eating their feelings.” Artist must have been recently ghosted—by a lover, a family member, or a job opportunity. Artist must have spent a minimum of two years temping in a corporate environment, unemployed, or daydreaming about commune life. An artist must currently have a credit score of 630–679, or an SAT score equivalent. (Not math.) Artist cannot have inherited property—or mental illness—from a deceased relative. Artist must currently be on week three of an ancient grain diet. Artist must have tried Whole30. Artist must not have vision _and_ dental, but can have vision _or_ dental as long as the deductible is more than a monthly mortgage payment. Artist must have a thirty-second elevator pitch. Artist must currently be working on a piece that is at a significant point in development. Not _too_ significant. Significant _enough_. The piece must have potential but not have realized that potential, so that said funds can maximize the potential _potential_. Piece must not be complete or near completion, but must be completed in the two-month window before the grant reporting deadline. Artist cannot be sexually satisfied. Artist’s annual income must be definitively lower than they thought possible to survive on. Artist must currently reside in either Montgomery, Burlington, or Cambridge County, but NOT the west end of Montgomery County, unless it’s in the cul-de-sac at the end of Mercer Street across from the lake, but not blocking the driveway of #32. Must have valid driver’s license.

_Illustration by Jesse Shamon_ - - - _Click image to enlarge._

_You’ve Always Been This Way is a column written by Taylor Harris, a late-diagnosed neurodivergent woman and 1980s preschool dropout, who identifies every moment from her past that filled her with shame, and mutters, “Yep, that tracks. I see it all now.” _ - - - Sorry, Silicon bros and people who go to boardrooms. Hands off my links. This year’s guide centers chronically overwhelmed AuDHD-ers and our neurodivergent kinfolk, who came straight outta gifted programs only to be thrown into an even worse program, called capitalism. We’re talking those of us who compare folding laundry to “herding dead cats” or are constantly trying to get our ducks in a row before the ducks share a cloacal kiss1 under the mistletoe, and create more ducks. I know everyone—from the cool kids at _The Strategist_ to the guy who bit an Arby’s steak nugget and immediately coded to President Trump’s chic “barely there” ankles—is telling you what to buy this season. But you need me. Especially if you find yourself enjoying small talk at cocktail parties, hoping to catch your neighbor on her porch just to “check in,” or don’t spit your coffee every time a coworker says, “I’ll tell ya what, I don’t think our country has ever been this divided.” You might not understand the social rules of autistic baddies, but you sure can gift like you do. #### For Outside the Cave Every baddie needs a uniform for low-energy, cozy days (i.e., most days). **Nike Killshot 2 sneakers** If I’m going to sport normie shoes worn by white guys in Nantucket, they’ve got to stand out. Killshots are relatively easy to find on sale, and you don’t have to buy the white/navy/gum-yellow “J.Crew” style. They do run narrow, so size up if you’ve got flippers. **UGGs** I know, I know. What’s next? Crocs? Keens with socks? Hear me out: Cold toes are the devil. Paired with thin, sensory-friendly socks that don’t slip under my heel, UGGs bring a pop of color to my winters and are a staple of my cold-weather uniform. **Madewell Whisper Crew Neck Tee (in memoriam)** We’re running this link at half-staff. My favorite soft tee with perfect sleeve and torso lengths and a swoopy-swoop cut in the back is no longer available in any size, except for XXS. “You can tell me the truth,” I nudged the customer service rep over the phone. “You’re discontinuing it, aren’t you?” I imagine she took one last drag before crushing the cigarette under the heel of whatever fancy boots you wear on a street corner in Manhattan or a break room in Michigan and said, “It’s hard to know, Ms. Harris. But I can assure you our inventory is dynamic.” **Hoody with ZIPPER and Strings** I met a fellow writer to discuss neurodivergence and the Church, and I thought we got along swimmingly until she divulged her preference for pullover hoodies. Later that night, locked in my bedroom for the friendship conclave, surrounded by plushies, I spoke her name, but no one turned on the smoke machine. **Beanie** One time, I wore my Coal-brand beanie to Trader Joe’s, and, apparently, the guy next to me wanted more than bread. He was in search of Christmas banter. “Hey, that’s what I’m getting for Christmas!” he said, pointing to my hat. “Oh, cool!” I said, imagining the plum-colored cap atop his shiny head. #### Coffee Shop Accoutrement for the Emerging Artist Don’t say, “I want to be a writer.” Say, “I _am_ a writer.” Then buy yourself a coffee and start scrolling. **Medieval Autism Sticker** When I sit down with my latte and prepare to pretend to write, I can’t have people thinking I’m a fed or district manager type just knocking out a few emails. Before anyone asks, “Do you work for the man?” I flip open my laptop. BAM. Would someone with a diversified portfolio and dry-cleaned slacks own THREE of these bad boys? **Apple AirPods Max** I married the guy who gave these to me. Yes, we’d already been married for years, but don’t ruin this. I put these on, and no one talks to me. I hope the next version is for your whole body. **Cotopaxi Allpa Backpack—Del Dia** Are you going to the wilderness of Utah or your local café? Does it matter? The color combos are endless, and Cotopaxi made us so many pockets and zippers, like trap doors for secret snacks! Go, people who hike! Go, people who fill their packs with pastries, sour candies, and four books they’ll read at the same time. **Genius Pencil Case** Fake it till you make it, confidence edition. #### For Inside the Cave (Office/Procrastination Zone) **Hobonichi Techo Planner** If your friend or loved one is the type to spend hours researching a product they’ll never use, this gift is perfect. The minimalist design makes this a planner with thousands of possibilities for customization, and who doesn’t love a little exercise in permutations when trying to figure out their life? **_In a Mood: A Sticker Book_** Feelings wheels are great, but don’t you ever get tired of tilting your head? Sometimes the best way to start my day is by realizing I’m “whelmed” or “sick of your crap” or “having a panic attack.” It’s direct, and there’s a face, so it’s just like real life with neurotypicals, only it’s direct. **Post-it Notes** Duh. We have ideas. That are imminent. And timeless. And belong in squares. And now that we’re adults, we can sketch a dog with a hangover riding a bicycle, and no one even cares. **Dry-Erase Paint** If your brain operated like the Scrambler at the state fair, wouldn’t you want an entire wall for your ideas? And if your kids or partner ever used a corner to write you a note or play hangman, you could scowl and say, “Do I just show up to your school or job and write on the walls?! This isn’t just scribble scrab. This novel is going to pay for your custom orthotics, Richard!” **Oil Pastels** So smooth. No skill needed. Just use and smudge and be happy. **Kuretake Metallic Watercolors** When I was a little kid, I never questioned whether I was good at art. I’m trying to bring that little girl back. **Original Art by Avery Williamson** My friend gave me a pair of earrings made by Avery. I wore them OUT. Then I fell in love with Avery’s abstract paintings. **Old School Pencil Sharpener** It’s giving “back in my day, we carved our own pencils from dust…” but this hand-cranked mystical machine gets the pencils so pleasantly pointy. **Little Spoons** The wrong spoon can ruin a meal. Look for smaller spoons that aren’t too blocky or chonky. The biggest red flag in our house is a spoon with a super skinny neck. I can’t eat ice cream in peace if I’m worried about fracturing my spoon’s vertebra. #### Miscellaneous Magic At home or on the go, these gifts slap and cost less than forty dollars. **A Funny Instagram Reel by Malie Mason** If Estelle the fox’s jacked-up teeth aren’t enough to make you smile, maybe watching her drink hot tea from a metal straw will do the trick. And it’s free! Except for possible surveillance. **Vaseline Intensive Care Lotion** I’m Black, and I got sensory stuff. My biggest fear as a teen was being cast on _Survivor_ and having to choose just one personal item. I would’ve tossed my antidepressants to avoid the awful feeling of dry hand and finger skin rubbing against itself. **_Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows_ by John Koenig** Did someone say beach read? If it’s not sad or mysterious, I don’t want it. Sometimes I see people on the beach reading a book that features a person on the beach, and I wonder if these are the last days. **Smaller LEGO Set** While the big modular LEGO sets are impressive, sometimes the smaller sets, particularly if linked to a special interest, like books, are even cooler. **NeeDoh Nice Cube** If fidgets had been a thing in the ’80s, I’d be the leader of everything now. Instead, as a mom and volunteer ice-cream taster, I never feel guilty about buying a new NeeDoh fidget for our household, because someone will use it, and if a kid manages to rip it apart, then I guess she needed it. **Best Ice Cream Ever** I’m from Ohio, and we love our full-fat dairy. Graeter’s makes the smoothest ice cream with boulders of chocolate and other mix-ins. My personal favorite is Banana Chocolate Chip, and I’ll regret this, but you can now find it at The Fresh Market. (Limit one per household if you live in Virginia.) - - - 1 That’s duck sex.

When you’re going to a concert or a sporting event, you’re worried about one thing: Will the stadium have an endless parking lot packed with thousands and thousands of cars, making entry and exit a living nightmare? Rest assured, when the city gave us the green light to build a new stadium, we remembered to include the most important part of any modern arena: a gigantic asphalt hellscape stretching as far as the eye can see. We know it’s not fun to trudge across a parking lot, but we’re confident that our new stadium will make up for it with its fantastic acoustics. You’ll need an incredible soundscape when you’re missing Lady Gaga’s entire set, trying to parkour your way through twelve acres of haphazardly parked sedans and abruptly abandoned tailgates. Don’t fret about missing the whole show; you’ll have hours to listen to her songs on the radio, sitting in standstill exit traffic, begging God to deliver you from this misery. You’ll make memories in this state-sponsored La Brea Tar Pit long after the event is over. Your family will never forget Mom and Dad’s whisper-screaming match about where they parked the minivan (hint: They’re both wrong). We wanted our gargantuan parking lot to be unique, so we said goodbye to boring numbered lot sections. You don’t want to park in Lot A, Section 2. You want the excitement of remembering whether you left the car in the Verizon Lot or the GrubHub: Powered by Seamless—A DoorDash Experience Lot. Here’s a hint: You parked in the Dippin’ Dots Overflow Lot and your car was towed. Our parking lot lets you drive right up to the action, as long as the action you came for is a swearing match between two panicking dads whose next decade will be defined by their failure to get their daughters to see Sabrina Carpenter. Our parking lot benefits everyone. This sprawling wasteland will create thousands of jobs, exclusively for the six attendants who sit in tiny booths and never have change for a fifty. This city’s old arena was so lacking, tucked away in a central business district, easily accessible by a dozen public transit options, and surrounded by regional-appropriate flora and fauna. Now, you can take out a second mortgage to afford the gas, tolls, and overnight emergency equipment you’ll need for the hellish pilgrimage to our paved inferno forty-five minutes outside city limits. It will easily connect commuters directly to our downtown (via three highways, two freeways, and one space-time wormhole) so businesses can take advantage of their favorite customers: enraged drivers recklessly speeding home after a ruined evening. Our endless parking lot will earn outside revenue from many sources. We can rent it to postapocalyptic television shows as an easy visual for the destroyed, soulless husk of society, and that’s about it. Fingers crossed for _Mad Max: Rochester, New York_. We’re looking toward the future. Specifically, a burning-hot apocalyptic future where harried groups trek across inhospitable landscapes in search of nineteen-dollar bottles of water. Plus, once you’re through with the Herculean task of navigating our parking lot, you can enjoy our second most popular amenity: a confounding M. C. Escher–inspired series of stairs and escalators that will destroy any hope you had in the cosmic order of the universe.

_“ Forget the sex; the real scandal here is the crime against language.” —_ Brian Phillips, _The Ringer_ , on Olivia Nuzzi’s new memoir, _American Canto_ , about her affair with Robert F. Kennedy Jr._ - - - “I desired. He desired me desiring. He desired to desire my desiring. It was turtles all the way down, except the turtles were boners.” - - - “Our union represented the endless cycle of life, death, and rebirth, and the eternal, unending nature of time. Sometimes I didn’t know where the worm ended, and our love began.” - - - “’I want to break both of us down into tiny particles and blend them together like so many mice to be fed to your falcon,’ I told him. Some men, lesser men, men who failed to engage with desire to the very hilt of their cocks—those men would have found these sentiments extreme. But with the Politician, they barely scratched the surface of his erotic carapace.” - - - “I load a gun. The bullet farcical becomes the bullet strategic. A hammer, pulled back. A spark, a flare, a warning. A brush fire. In my pants. I load a gun.” - - - “’Will you write about me? Will you write about us? Our souls’ connection? About how we found each other on this crazy planet of billions of people?’ he garbles. ‘Yes,’ I purr in response. ‘On my Notes app somewhere in Runyon Canyon, assuming my battery doesn’t die.’” - - - “I became both heroine and heroin to him. And sometimes, a heron, for when we did bird play.” - - - “While he watched over FaceTime, I slowly poured liquid Tylenol all over my naked body. I loved him enough to make myself autistic. He wept.” - - - “In time, I came to see why he hated the vaccine. It represented the death of wildness. Of nature. It would have dispelled his brain fog, the very crucible out of which his genius was forged.” - - - “You cannot outrun your life on fire. One that you set yourself by playing with matches near a propane tank while wearing flammable lingerie.” - - - “The worm eating the Politician’s brain filled my heart with a viscous envy. The worm was privy to his secrets. To his raw, animal nature. It got to curl up inside his brain folds and throb with him as he tried to form thoughts. I wanted to make my home in his oversized Irish cranium. I wanted to dominate a news cycle. All the news cycles.” - - - “What is a politician? What is felching? I googled, read, heaved. Then we felched twice.” - - - “Repetition. Repetition is poetry. Poetry is soul. Myself, no empty vessel. No blank canvas. No unloved daughter. Repetition. I load another gun.” - - - “We didn’t touch; we didn’t need to. We also didn’t need to look at each other. Or speak. He may not have known I existed. Existence is a fire. The fire is a mirror. What is America?” - - - “Did we fuck in a bear corpse? Yes, metaphorically. But also literally.” - - - “The Journalist grew bamboo. In time, it overtook his terrace. No one wanted to go in his backyard anymore. ‘You gave me the clap,’ he said. I loaded a gun. He wrote a Substack.”

Thank you for dialing 911. Your call is very important to us. Please listen carefully, as our options have recently changed. To hear about our new subscription service, press 1. Are you tired of long response times? Tapping your foot while your house burns down? Consider upgrading to 911+ today. Jump the line for just $19.99 per month. It’s a small price to pay for peace of mind. To log in to your 911 account, press 2. Please have your username, password, and secondary device ready for two-factor authentication. To create a new account, press #. No emergency assistance will be sent to users without a verified account. To speak with Bjǔcko, our new AI response assistant, press 3. This portion of the call will not be monitored, and 911 is not responsible for anything Bjǔcko may say or imply about your racial background. Recording conversations with Bjǔcko is strictly prohibited, and posting videos of Bjǔcko calling you slurs will result in a fifteen-minute response delay during your next call. We promise it’s not worth it. Please note: Attempting to speak with a live representative now incurs a five-dollar convenience fee. To access our payment management portal, press 4. Paying for emergency response has never been easier. To listen to some soothing ASMR, press 5. You will be charged by the minute. To report a crime in progress, please submit a recent bank statement and a professional reference. Once Bjǔcko confirms you meet our income threshold, press 6. To skip this step, press 1 and subscribe to 911+ today. Once again, we are not responsible for any weird sexual comments Bjǔcko may make during this process. To invest in EMT-Coin, press 7. To report a fire, press 8. After several brief thirty-second ads, you’ll be redirected to an emergency response professional. For legal reasons, we are required to inform you that said professional will be Bjǔcko. To speak to a medical professional, go find one yourself. What, you want us to hold your hand through the whole thing? What are you, some kind of liberal? Press 9 to add a fifty-dollar “wealth redistribution” charge to your account, since you like socialism so much. Press 0 to give up and disconnect the call. This will also charge ten dollars to your account. To speak to a human being, press 10. That’s the 1 key followed by the 0 key. This will definitely not take you to the 911+ subscription menu and charge you ten dollars. Stay on the line to engage in phone sex with Bjǔcko. Your call may be recorded for quality assurance and for Bjǔcko’s personal collection. To hear these options again, beg. Get on your knees and beg. Louder… Louder… There we go. Unfortunately, you took too long. Here comes Bjǔcko. We hope you like race play. And again, thank you so much for your call. It is truly important to us.

_(With apologies to Tim O ’Brien)_ - - - Mike carried Eggo waffles for a girl named Eleven. They were not love waffles, but Mike Sheets was hoping, so he carried the box of Eggos down the stairs to the basement. During science class at Hawkins Middle School or trick-or-treating with his friends, he’d imagine dancing with Eleven at the annual Snow Ball. He’d imagine following her to the Hawkins Laboratory, where she would crush the skulls of bad men with her thoughts. In the evening, when his mother told him that it was time for bed, Mike left Eggos in the pillow fort and went to his bedroom, wondering whether Eleven was thought-crushing the skulls of bad men without him. The things they carried were necessary because a faceless monster had come from another dimension and had murdered Barbara Holland. So they carried Realistic TRC-214 supercoms, bear traps, and a baseball bat with nails in it. Lucas Sinclair carried a wrist rocket and a camo headband. Dustin Henderson carried Nutty Bars, Bazooka, Pez, Smarties, Pringles, Nilla Wafers, an apple, a banana, and trail mix. Will Byers, who’d chosen to fireball a monster in a curiously prophetic game of _Dungeons and Dragons_ , carried a depressing rendition of the second-most commercially successful Clash song. All of the boys had bicycles, but Will wrecked his bike at Mirkwood and then got lost in the Upside Down. The things they carried were an homage to eighties nerd culture, so Mike carried science club trophies and a toy Millennium Falcon. He and the other members of the Hawkins AV club carried a Heathkit ham shack radio unit until Eleven destroyed it when communicating across dimensions. Dustin carried a copy of _X-Men 134_ , which was about a misunderstood superhero with telekinetic powers. And because they weren’t particularly popular, they carried nicknames bullies had given them—Frogface, Toothless, Midnight, Weirdo. But they also carried a misunderstood friend with telekinetic powers, and they defeated the mouth-breathers when Eleven mind-squeezed a bully’s bladder. They carried arcade quarters also. For _Dig Dug_. At various times, in various situations, they carried Christmas lights and compasses. Mike carried a calculator watch and a twenty-two-inch Mitsubishi television that was approximately ten times bigger than Dustin’s. Lucas carried binoculars and an army knife. After Eleven turned a monster into ash, Will came back from the Upside Down but carried an evil slug inside him. He carried Bob Newby’s JVC when he went trick-or-treating with Mike, but he dropped the camcorder because he carried a connection to a Mind Flayer. Dustin, who wore a trucker cap with no logo, carried a polliwog named D’Artagnan that entered his life at the perfect time, because he was crushing hard on a girl named Max, but she was clearly into Lucas. He protected D’Artagnan even when his friends tried to kill it, but then D’Artagnan transformed into a malevolent demodog and promptly devoured Dustin’s cat. Before Will summoned the demodogs from the Upside Down—before the Shadow Monster was exorcised from Will’s body and Eleven closed the gate to the Upside Down by thinking especially angry thoughts—Mike sat in the pillow fort in his basement and spoke to Eleven through his supercom. He wasn’t sure that she could hear him, but he imagined that she could. He imagined Eleven standing before him in his sister’s pink party dress. She’d bleed from her left nostril after flipping vans with her mind, and a Police song would play in the background as they danced at the Snow Ball. He might try to kiss Eleven quickly. Or he might not. He might just shrug and say, “Promise,” and watch from behind her as her head-tilts snapped their enemies’ spines.

Due to the overwhelming number of anticipated brawls this Thanksgiving, we decided to streamline your day with an Official Family Thanksgiving Fight Schedule. This is a double-elimination tournament that will abide by UFC rules.1 **MOM vs. GRANDMA** _1:00 p.m. / Living Room_ This first fight will center around generational trauma and fruit salad. It will set the tone for the rest of the event. **TURKEY vs. CHEF** _All Day / Kitchen_ Though the turkey suffered a deadly beating last week in TURKEY vs. BUTCHER, it still has some fight left in it. This deceased bird will do everything in its power to ruin the chef’s credibility and sanity. **SIBLING vs. SIBLING** _2:45 p.m. / Upstairs_ This dispute will start about the rightful owner of the shirt currently on your body and that thing you said two months ago at Mimi’s memorial service. It will end with psychological warfare. **OPEN ENTRY** _3:15 p.m. / Kitchen_ A kitchen-based round that can accommodate anywhere from four to nine challengers. This is an open-entry fight that will mostly center around oven space. It will get heated. Gloves or potholders are required. **YOUR BROTHER’S NEW GIRLFRIEND vs. GRANDPA** _5:00 p.m. / Couch_ Though these two could have found some common ground with their mutual interest in CBD oils, they will choose to talk politics instead. Only one player will make it through the night. **MOM vs. DAD** _Asynchronous / Entire House_ Following last year’s blow-up, this is the most highly anticipated match-up of the season. Rebuttal preparations have been underway for the past year. Since these two cannot be in the same room, this brawl will mostly take place via text and the mediator’s legal documents. **NOTE :** Players who have lost in the main bracket will be sent to the loser’s bracket to continue competing throughout the evening. **LOSERS ’ BRACKET: ALL vs. UNCLE** _7:15 p.m. / Dinner Table_ In the losers’ bracket, we have all the losers against Uncle Steve. He’s willing to fight anyone on any issue. There will not be a referee. - - - 1 According to the official UFC website, “The Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) aim to provide a clear set of rules governing professional MMA competition that remain consistent across the jurisdictions of various athletic commissions and other regulatory bodies. The following acts constitute fouls in a contest or exhibition of mixed martial arts and may result in penalties, at the discretion of the referee, if committed: - Butting with the head - Eye gouging of any kind - Biting or spitting at an opponent - Fish hooking (act of inserting a finger or fingers or one or both hands into the mouth or nostrils or a person, pulling away from the centerline of the body) - Hair pulling - Spiking an opponent to the canvas on his head or neck - Strikes to the spine or the back of the head. - Throat strikes of any kind, and/or grabbing the trachea - Fingers outstretched toward an opponent’s face/eyes - Downward pointing elbow strike (“12 to 6 strike”) - Groin attacks of any kind - Kneeing and/or kicking the head of a grounded opponent - Stomping a grounded opponent - Holding opponent’s gloves or shorts - Holding or grabbing the fence or ropes with fingers or toes - Small joint manipulation - Throwing opponent out of ring/fighting area - Intentionally placing a finger into any orifice or any cut or laceration of an opponent - Clawing, pinching, or twisting the flesh - Timidity (avoiding contact with an opponent, intentionally or consistently dropping the mouthpiece, or faking an injury) Everything else is fair game.

REPORTER: I’m here live with Uncle Bill just moments after Thanksgiving dinner. Bill, can you walk us through what happened tonight? UNCLE BILL: Sure, I mean, obviously, I’m not happy with the result. Before we took our places, I was informed I’d be sitting at the kids’ table, which, frankly, I think is a slap in the face given my history with this organization. Everyone likes to preach that we’re a family around here, and you just don’t expect to be treated this way by family. I respect the host’s judgment, but I disagree with the decision. I just tried to focus on the meal and do my best out there. REPORTER: Were you given a reason as to why you were demoted? UNCLE BILL: I honestly have no idea. I’m always offering new and exciting conspiracy theories to encourage open, socratic discussion. I’m the undisputed leading devil’s advocate in the family. If I have to get up to use the bathroom, I always crawl under the table so nobody has to scoot their chair in to let me squeeze by. I bring a lot to the table, but tonight I was told to take it elsewhere. I won’t lie to you. This hurts. REPORTER: Did you talk with the host about the seating arrangement? Maybe it was a mistake? UNCLE BILL: You know, I tried, but it’s hard to get a straight answer around here. I just wanted to have an honest conversation, so right after Grandpa blessed the food, I yelled out to the host, “What exactly is your problem with me anyway? You’re always treating me like a baby, and I’m sick of it!” She had nowhere to run. You should have seen her face. REPORTER: I can’t imagine she appreciated that. How did she respond? UNCLE BILL: Well, everyone stared, and she laughed uneasily to try to break the tension. She then deflected by saying the kids’ table “has a better view of the living room TV, so I wouldn’t have to get up to check my DraftKings parlays during the meal.” REPORTER: I did notice that this year’s kids’ table was actually pushed against the grown-ups’ table. Did that help soften the blow at all? UNCLE BILL: It helped some, but not much. It was still humiliating. The kids’ table was a good six inches shorter and wobbled whenever I tried to cut my ham. It was a safety hazard, and we’re lucky no one was seriously injured, especially considering how fast and loose some of those kids were playing with the hot gravy boat. REPORTER: How did you adjust to the style and pace of play at the kids’ table? Some say it can be a totally different ball game. UNCLE BILL: I gave it my best shot, but I could not find any common ground with these kids. We’ve never really eaten together, and we just didn’t have any chemistry. I was with a handful of nieces and nephews under ten years old, cousin Becca’s dweeb boyfriend of four years that no one likes, not even Becca, great-aunt Helene, who just played Candy Crush on her iPad with the volume up the whole time, and Bandit, the family labradoodle, who absolutely did not need his own place setting. REPORTER: I imagine it took some time to get settled and start operating as a unit? UNCLE BILL: We had our moments late in dessert. When the family went around the room asking what everyone was thankful for, I got all the kids to say “beer,” which was pretty awesome, but we ran out of things to talk about pretty quickly. We didn’t like any of the same cartoons, and the turkey made everyone sleepy. Not exactly an all-star performance from any of us. REPORTER: This year, we saw Ted become the youngest family member to get promoted to the grown-ups’ table at only 12 years and 209 days old. Do you have anything to say to Ted? UNCLE BILL: Welcome to the big leagues, Ted. Enjoy it while it lasts. One year, you’re the wunderkind who is “so mature for his age,” discussing your slightly above-average standardized test scores, and regaling the elders with your future plans to become a doctor, lawyer, astronaut, or some combination of the three. At twelve, you’re on a meteoric rise, but only thirty-five short years later, if you’re not careful, you’re the dinosaur that the meteor wipes out. Eventually, you’ll find yourself seated in a rusted fold-up chair, placed at the head of a plastic card table with no tablecloth on Thanksgiving day, defending yourself against the “spilled mac and cheese on the ground” accusations. REPORTER: What’s next for Uncle Bill? UNCLE BILL: I think a lot of uncles my age would take this as a sign to retire and become one of those old dudes who eat by themselves in the living room recliner during family meals. Not me. I’m still hungry. And that’s why I’ll be immediately appealing this decision to the family elders and hope to be reinstated to my rightful position by Christmas.

_“President Donald Trump on Wednesday sought to bring a swift end to perhaps the most damaging saga of his term, signing a measure compelling the release of the Epstein files after losing a monthslong, tooth-and-nail fight to prevent their disclosure.” – CNN_ - - - Congress finally passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act (also known as “EPTA,” “FML,” or “RIPDJT”), and I could not have been happier to sign this bipartisan bill into law. In fact, my hands are rattling with uncontrollable excitement, and my teeth are so gritted with anticipation that they’re grinding into white tooth dust. That’s how much I love this bill. Listen, nobody is more pumped for this bill to become law than me. The only reason I spent months fighting with every fiber of my being to block the release of the Epstein files was that I knew that the harder I fought it, the faster Congress would push it through. I’m glad my strategy paid off—you can tell by the way my forehead is dripping with joyful sweat. The truth is, the lying media and loser Democrats have all been playing checkers while I’ve been playing chess. And I know a thing or two about chess, because just like in chess, I’m a king who everyone is out to get. Why did I spend months questioning the existence of these wonderful files? Why have I tried to distance myself from that creep Epstein, despite all the photos and emails and birthday cards? Because, like a grandmaster, I was employing a clever gambit that worked flawlessly. That’s why my heart was pounding out of my chest with glee when I put pen to paper and signed the bill. Critics have accused me of spending the last week carrying out increasingly desperate antics in an effort to distract from the release of the Epstein files, including but not limited to: * Inviting the socialist mayor-elect of New York City to the White House and then becoming so enamored by him that I began dressing exactly like him in a way that feels straight out of _Mean Girls_ * Threatening to execute Democratic lawmakers for suggesting that the military should follow the Constitution * Proposing a Ukraine peace plan so pro-Russia that even Vladimir Putin was like, “You’re giving us the entire Donbas region? Are you sure?” * Eliminating the penny because gold is better than copper, and also because many people are saying that I’m a better president than Lincoln * Taking calls from the Washington Commanders begging me to let them name their new stadium after me * Engaging in a sophisticated battle of wits with my greatest ally-turned-nemesis, Marjorie Taylor Greene As usual, this is all fake news. I’ve actually spent most of the last week demonstrating how much I love women by calling them “piggy” (a term of endearment) and studying Louis C.K.’s ongoing redemption tour so that if I, too, face consequences for made-up sex crimes, I’ll have a blueprint for what to do. I’m basically the Bobby Fischer of PR crisis management in the sense that I’m a tactical genius famous for violently lashing out at my opponents and having weird views about race. On that note, I have asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to open inquiries into the real abusers—prominent Democrats. And yes, launching new inquiries into Democrats with ties to Epstein will mean that Pam won’t be able to release certain files, since they would interfere with ongoing investigations. But keeping an undisclosed percentage of the Epstein files hidden from public view for who knows how long is a small price to pay for finally holding these corrupt liberals accountable. Rest assured, though, the remaining files will be released, just with a few minor edits to some unfortunate nomenclature: * “underage girls” will be replaced with “emerging women” * “sex trafficking” will be replaced with “study abroad programs” * “unwanted touching” will be replaced with “possibly wanted touching” * “harm” will be replaced with “roofie-induced displays of affection” * “pedophilia” will be replaced with “intergenerational outreach” * “rape” will be replaced with “deregulated consent” * “lecherous” will be replaced with “exuberant leadership style of a man unafraid to push boundaries and blur lines, especially the boundaries and lines that determine the metaphysical tenets of space and time and everything” As much as it pains me to redact, amend, and withhold these files, I take solace in how much taxpayer money we will save on paper. That money will pay for lawyers when I file lawsuits against all of the Democrats who perpetrated this hoax. Okay, so folks, don’t worry about me. This is what I’ve always wanted. And that sound of a growling dog being backed into a corner is just me snarling with delight. I still have plenty of moves. After all, you can’t lose at chess if you flip the board over.

Here’s how this is gonna go: First, you will step up to the rental counter only when I give you The Look. The Look is not markedly different from my resting face. In fact, it’s no different at all. But it’s your job to recognize The Look, so pay attention. If, upon your turn, you hesitate for one single second, I will call out “Next,” in a way that strikes fear into the hearts of God, everyone in line behind you, and this cardboard cutout of Hertz brand ambassador Tom Brady. When you get to the counter, do not ask how I’m doing—I’m stuck inside a Hertz location for eight hours a day. How do you think I’m doing? What you do need to do is give me your driver’s license and credit card within the first three seconds of approaching the counter. This is not something I’ll ask you verbally. This is something you must understand innately, while I stare at my computer and hold out my hand just enough to suggest I might be waiting for something, but not enough to make it clear what I’m waiting for. And I swear to god, if you start reading me your reservation number out loud, I will shut you down and send you out of here on a bicycle. Since you brought it up, can you ride a bicycle? I ask because we have no cars. Okay, now you’re getting upset. You’re getting upset despite the fact that we have strict rules against getting upset at this Hertz location. But tell me, honestly, when you reserved a rental car through Hertz, you thought… what? That we were going to set aside a special little car just for you? Seriously? Oh my god. Let me put it this way: If we had cars around here, we would’ve given one to the man who was in line in front of you. Look at him now, crying in the corner because he “has no way to get out of here.” Does it look like he has a car? He doesn’t. Wow. I can’t believe I even have to say this, but no, I don’t know "where all the cars are.” I’m not the keeper of the cars, okay? Jesus. I mean, really. Everybody expects us to have cars around here. Like that’s the only thing we’re good for. Like we also don’t have mini bottles of room-temperature water sitting out on the counter because we thought you might like that. Great, now you’re crying too. I don’t think you’d be crying if you saw the situation from my perspective. Here’s what happened: You reserved a rental car. You paid for that rental car. I gave that rental car to somebody else. Or wait… did I? Haha, I honestly don’t know. I’m looking at your reservation now, and I’ve never seen this car in my life. Jesus, fine. We have one secret vehicle in the garage out back. It’s a fifteen-seat, stick-shift passenger van. It’s seven hundred dollars a day, and I just put you down for it, and you agreed to take it by failing to interrupt me before I started this sentence. Seriously? Now you don’t want the car? You come in here begging me for a car, I hand you one on a silver platter, and suddenly you don’t want it? I’m starting to think you never wanted to rent a car in the first place. I’m starting to think you wanted to take an airplane back to your hometown for Thanksgiving, but you couldn’t do that because your family wouldn’t stop sending you videos they saw on Facebook of terrifyingly long security lines at the airport during the government shutdown. Well, I’ve got news for you, pal. Around here, we respect cars. We value cars. We don’t fly in “airplanes.” You think Tom Brady flies in airplanes? Newsflash: He rents cars at Hertz. Yeah, that’s right. Tom Brady—a man worth $300 million—is a Hertz Head. So, if you’re “so mad” that your “reservation didn’t mean anything” and if you’re just “too good” to “pay for a vehicle” you don’t “know how to operate,” you can take your sorry butt over to the airport and pay hundreds of dollars for a flight that’s going to get delayed by one hour every hour until it’s canceled at midnight. How’s that for a happy Thanksgiving?