As I replay the movie 2017: State of Emergency in my head, I mostly just feel exhausted. For a year, news alerts have felt like the boy who cried wolf—if that boy was always right because wolves fucking everywhere.
To pick one example out of a million: Can you imagine a few years ago getting excited that a guy banned from a mall for preying on children barely lost an election? We found out that ONLY 49 percent of people in Alabama wanted a guy to pass bills who wasn’t allowed to pass a Sbarro, and that instantly made the highlight reel of 2017.
It was shocking. Even with the progress we made over the last few months led by the incredibly brave people who spoke out as part of the #MeToo movement, it made perfect sense to everybody that the two options for a man to avoid losing his job are (a) not sexually assaulting people or (b) running for office.
Because 2017. Fucking of course 2017.
That complicity is dangerous. The worst is almost certainly still ahead, and we’re going to need strength. So while I usually use this space to take aim at the most critical issues of the previous year, I’m going to use this end-of-year list of complaints and grievances to exclusively talk about stuff that isn’t important in the least.
Consider this a cheat day for your news-consuming brain.
Hopefully all these petty, carb-heavy jokes will help you recover your energy, because at some point we’re going to have to relocate all these goddamn wolves.
Getting Excited About a Baseball Team Coming to Portland
Just stop it, you guys. It’s not happening. Major League Baseball in Portland is like a comet: Every 8.5 years it comes whizzing by, and even when experts say it’s “close,” it’s a million miles away.
Winking
A barista winked at me as he handed me my coffee the other day, and it was very strange because I didn’t know what part of the transaction I wasn’t supposed to tell my mom about.