Wish It Was Cooler in Your House but Also That It Had More Bugs? Open a Window

Posted on by Zachary Wolf

As summer begins in earnest, many people are wondering how they can beat the heat; and also how to let more bugs into the house.

Temperatures are going up faster than the spiderwebs that already cover your windows, and a slight breeze from outside can be enough to fool oneself into thinking it makes any fucking difference. That’s why we recommend you open your window. Don’t worry about those webs either, the actual spiders are already inside.

Your friends with air conditioning already ditched your sweaty ass for the summer, but that’s okay. They never loved you anyway. Now you can not only cool off, but you can also hang out with flies, fire ants, hairy caterpillars, dragonflies, fruit flies, crickets, black widows, mosquitoes, gnats, horse flies, sand flies, wasps, flying cockroaches, bed bugs, ticks, termites, moths, beetles, and those gross little pincher ones. They are your friends now. And if you think your screen will keep them out, think again.

I hope you’re ready for a summer of seeing tiny masses skittering out of the corner of your eye, mistaking arm hair for spider legs, and wondering how many insects in your home are pregnant with more little antennas and thoraxes that will soon live hidden in your walls. You’ll be so preoccupied with all the bugs crawling over you and your stuff that you’ll simply forget to be hot!

And if you’re looking for something to do with your window open, why not reorganize that paperwork that the wind blew all over the place? The roaches are already under everything you own, so why not put them to work? Maybe it’s a good time to watch that silent movie you’ve been wanting to see because you won’t hear any dialogue over that loud-ass street noise. Plus the bugs will also get a kick out of it since a TV is basically a big square light bulb.

The best part is not only can you get rid of your air conditioner, but you can also toss out the vacuum too. The bugs will just naturally eat any crumbs off the floor for you. Roommates that clean? You can’t beat that!

Woman Asks Guy Wearing “This Is What a Feminist Looks Like” T-Shirt to Name Three Feminists

Posted on by Khadija Hassan

MEMPHIS — Local artisanal oil maker Lacy Timber demanded that a man wearing a “This Is What A Feminist Looks Like” T-shirt name three feminists on the spot, sources who aren’t posers confirmed.

“I encourage everyone to contribute to this scene, but I could tell just by looking at him that he probably got that shirt from his older sister and is now using it to get into the scene,” Timber recalled, of the shirt seen worn at a local anti-deportation rally. “He only knows the super well-known feminists like Angela Davis and he named Rebecca Solnit but her ‘Men Explain Things To Me’ blog was huge, so that’s a no-brainer. He couldn’t even name a third one and probably couldn’t name any 16th to 18th-century feminists, but he’s kind of hot in a dumb guy kind of way.”

Timber’s best friend Mary Heller adjusted her pussy hat while commenting in support of Timber.

“He didn’t even think of Hillary Clinton and she was just on the chopping block,” said Heller. “Honestly, men would rather wear a feminist T-shirt rather than work on their patriarchy through therapy, am I right? We were trying to educate him and have a conversation with him but he kept running behind the booths. It just goes to show that if you confront these kinds of posers, their true self comes to light.”

A local organizer at the demo, Slade Christianson, begged to differ.

“Yeah, I don’t know who those people are, but Adam [Flaust] has been volunteering at every demo event for the past four years that I’ve been a part of organizing it. He might have been here before me,” Christianson explained. “They’re berating a volunteer at a deportation demo. It reminds me of Patricia Hill Collins’ Matrix of Domination theory where we are all in the position of oppressor and oppressed depending on the context. At this moment, they seem oddly oppressive and just generally weird.”

At press time, Timber sent suggested reading materials to multiple members of the press as a means of “sharing some important information.”

Back in My Day, We Toured Year Round Because We Were Shitty Dads

Posted on by Robert John Scucci

I was looking at tour dates for one of those younger up-and-coming bands and I couldn’t help but notice that their tour was broken into a number of different legs. What are they even doing on those breaks? Spending time with their families? Maybe I’m just an old fuddy-duddy but that just doesn’t seem very rock n’ roll to me. When I was a young wild hog chasing the glory, we never fucking stopped. We toured year-round because we were shitty dads and I never felt more alive.

Nowadays I see all these wannabe rockstars going out on month-long tours, but that’s not how we used to do it. Back in my day, we redlined as many credit cards we could get our hands on, blew coke through the burnouts, got sent to the hospital out of state after starting fist fights in dive-bar parking lots, and sent the bills to our home address. And that would be the most correspondence we’d have with our families that year.

I’m not saying that kids these days are taking the easy way out, but I feel like they’re missing out on some of the best years of their life by not totally abandoning their responsibilities for months on end. Eventually, they’ll come home for another stint at rehab before going out and doing it all again. At first, I was so proud to see that my own son followed in my footsteps as a working musician. That is until I noticed how he was also balancing his time at home and on the road. He’s worrying about soccer practice instead of hanging out in a stranger’s hotel room at 3 a.m. like a real musician. For fuck’s sake, if family means so much to him, then how come he never calls his old man?

New High-End Goth Clothing Line Comes With Cat Hair Already on It

Posted on by Chris Taaffe

LOS ANGELES — A new clothing line known as Claw promotes itself as the first luxury brand specifically tailored for the goth market and sells all of its products pre-covered in cat hair, pale-skinned sources confirmed.

“I’ve been fully entrenched in the goth scene since I first saw ‘Addams Family Values’ when I was a child,” recalls Claw founder, Serena Nicholes. “The contrast of ghostly white skin with jet black clothes, the dark makeup, the shiny spikes and studs, and most importantly, loads of cat hair completely covering every inch of fabric. If I see a goth person with no cat hair on them I just think they are a complete poser. But I realized that a lot of members of the goth community had trouble finding high-quality clothing and had to painstakingly make alterations and add cat hair themselves, I saw an opportunity. That’s when Claw started.”

Customers of Claw have been raving about the craftsmanship and selection provided by the brand.

“I really love everything that Claw makes,” remarks frequent customer, Eric Lashley. “No more hunting through thrift stores or laying around with my cats for days in order to break in a new piece of clothing. These clothes are perfect right out of the box and it looks like a cat slept on every piece for at least 18 hours. You know that feeling you get when you try on a brand new outfit and it looks great on you? You’ll never feel that way with these! I put them on and just feel like a depressed creep right away. It’s very comforting.”

Fashion expert, Mariana Hampton, notes that when a clothing brand really understands its consumer base it’s a recipe for success.

“Designers need to understand the culture behind their target buyers if they expect to generate any sort of brand loyalty. Claw does this better than any company I’ve seen. Not only do they have the cat hair, but any customer that spends more than $100 gets a complimentary book of H.P. Lovecraft’s short stories,” said Hampton. “Some outsiders might think it’s ridiculous to buy clothes that desperately need to be cleaned, but people said the same thing about buying ripped jeans. It’s about making a statement and one of the core statements in the goth community is ‘I’m a sad person who never goes outside.’”

At press time, Claw is gearing up to release a summer line of pants and long-sleeved shirts that have sweat marks.

Nine-Day Vacation Referred To As “That Time I Lived In Brazil”

Posted on by John Danek

MADISON, Wis. — 24-year-old aspiring writer Ricky Trout is generously referring to a brief nine-day long spring break vacation as “that time I lived in Brazil,” irked friends report.

“When I lived in Brazil, I was really immersed in the Spanish language. I was basically fluent, but I already forgot it all again,” stated Trout, whose nine-day trip reportedly included two solely for travel to and from his home in Wisconsin. “It really changed my life. I stayed with this wonderful woman Antonia who was like a mother to me. I think everyone needs to spend a hearty amount of time outside the USA. As a bonus, it’s really inspired my writing.”

Friends claim Trout’s highly exaggerated stay in South America’s biggest country didn’t even include the typical perspective-widening experiences that come with living abroad.

“He’s technically not wrong, but he’s also technically an asshole,” declared friend Kelly Palzer, who declined to join Ricky’s trip due to already being on a semester abroad in Turkmenistan. “Yes, he did in fact ‘live there’ in the sense that his body existed within the country’s borders for a while, but that’s not what the implication of ‘live’ means. And according to his Instagram stories, he just got blackout drunk at the Jack Daniel’s Rock Bar. And Antonia? She was the maid at the Hilton hotel that his mom got for him. She probably cleaned up his puke no less than four times.”

Sociologists have varying theories on the rise in exaggerating the importance of brief international vacations.

“As time goes on, people realize that the United States of America is a dogshit third-world country, so any sort of cred one can accumulate elsewhere helps one’s image,” explained Dr. Eric Weathers, Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “But keep in mind that people can see right through more egregious overstatements. Don’t claim you ‘lived’ somewhere unless you had to account for rent back home. Even one month is pushing it. I’d say two months is a good general guideline, unless you were studying abroad, in which case go fuck yourself.”

Reports indicate that friends are growing increasingly irate with Trout, as he insists on ordering fajitas at Chili’s with a hyper-emphasized accent.

We Ranked Every Episode of “Law & Order: SVU” and Got Halfway Through Season Two Before We Lost the Will to Live

Posted on by Ella Gale

“Law & Order: SVU” spans so many hours of content, that watching it and ranking all of its episodes would take months, if not years. But we’re not afraid to feed the internet’s ravenous desire for numbered lists. Gird your noggins, Stabler enablers, we’re about to go for a very dark dive.

  1. Nocturne: Season 1, Episode 21. This episode really pushes all the buttons, including molestation, intergenerational trauma, and piano lessons.
  2. Confession: Season 2, Episode 1. Yes, I googled “Clockwork Orange eye holder thingy price” while watching it, because we all need a little help getting through the work day. But much like its first victim, this episode is on fire. Powerful people get their comeuppance, with classic Benson and Stabler along the way.
  3. Manhunt: Season 2, Episode 18. To be completely transparent, I didn’t watch this episode. What’s the point? Do you realize how many terrible things happen to human beings? Also, what’s the deal with all these child actors? Are their parents protecting them from the show’s sewage-steeped content? Some of them are pretty young! Maybe SVU should do an episode about a child star who later commits murder because when they were young they were traumatized by acting in an episode of “Law & Order: SVU.”

You know, it’s pretty unreasonable to expect me to rank these episodes. There are more than 300 assault-drenched hours of TV here, and it’s hard to watch more than a dozen a day now that I need sixteen hours of sleep a night for some reason. Not to mention the three boxes of Kraft mac and cheese that is suddenly the only thing my corroded guts will tolerate. Yesterday I peed neon orange, and it was so thick my toilet clogged.

Do you think SVU has an intern whose job it is to google “sex crimes”? Maybe they don’t even get called an intern. Maybe their business cards say “Sex Crime Googler,” and their floor is littered with tiny pieces of ripped headlines that they no longer have the will to vacuum away.

Maybe I’ll just read recaps of the other 20 seasons.

Hmm, for some reason all the recappers stopped after season 2.

Opinion: Quitting Drinking Was the Best Court-Mandated Decision I Ever Made

Posted on by Bobby Korec

Every sober person will tell you that quitting drinking was the greatest decision they’ve ever made. I didn’t believe them at first until out of nowhere some court made that decision for me three months ago. So far it’s been an involuntary blessing.

You just don’t know what it’s like to never wake up with a hangover until mandate stipulations clearly forbid you to. I’ve also never felt healthier, been more productive, or felt my free will gently slip away from me so quickly in my life. Cheers to that.

This isn’t the first court-mandated decision that’s been made for me either. One time the judicial system decided I shouldn’t have a driver’s license for a little while. Turns out you have to actually pay your traffic tickets in order to keep your license. Anyway, thanks to their decision I was forced to walk and bike everywhere. I lost a good 20 pounds from that court-mandated decision alone. Thanks, Judge Benedict. Or should I say, personal trainer Benedict?

The justice system has been crushing it so much with my decision-making that I’m thinking about letting them plan every single other part of my life too. Kind of like giving them power of attorney. After all, I’m clearly not very good at life choices.

Just last month I wasn’t sure if I wanted to take a vacation to France or Portugal. So when I asked the courts which one I should travel to, they quickly reminded me that I’m not allowed to leave the state because there were still nine months left of unrelated probation that didn’t allow me to. That made my decision super easy. I simply vacationed at my nearest convenient Dave and Busters instead. If you squint long enough in their prize store, it really feels like you’re in Paris.

Long story short, I learned the hard way that actions have consequences that can result in other people making decisions for you that improve the quality of your life. Thanks to the justice system I’ll never touch another drink ever again for the next eight months three weeks four days and nine hours.

Punk Wishes He And His Father Could Hate Biden For Same Reasons

Posted on by Stephen Bell

LANCASTER, Penn. — Local punk Jason Harris was disappointed that he is unable to bond with his father over their shared hatred of Joe Biden due to their diametrically opposed views they hold regarding the state of politics, confirmed several sources close to the father and son.

“When I heard my dad trashing Joe Biden I thought I might’ve finally found some common ground with the old man,” said the far-left Harris. “That piece of garbage hasn’t canceled student debt, he still sells arms to Saudi Arabia, and he licks the boots of cops so hard that his tongue is jet black. But my dad’s reasons for hating Joe Biden make no sense to me. Instead of shitting on the old dotard, I spent the entire conversation defending Joe Biden against weird accusations of coprophagia and explaining that he didn’t kill Princess Diana. What a waste of time!”

When asked for comment Jason’s father Josh Harris couldn’t believe how ignorant his son was about what made President Biden truly evil.

“I did some research and found out that he wakes up in the morning, eats several baby kidneys, and then changes the gas sign at the local gas station,” said the elder Harris who spends upwards of nine hours a day on Facebook. “I saw a video of him doing all these things on Telegram and my idiot son tried to convince me it was something called a ‘deep fake.’ The only faker around here is the lizard man Joe Biden! Have you seen the way his eyes shift between human and lizard? Pretty suspicious. It’s obvious to me it’s part of his communist plot to make us drive electric cars and reduce the nourishing gases that are released from our car’s exhaust pipes. Truly scary stuff.”

Family counselor Paul Mocarski thinks that if he truly wants to connect with his father, Jason should try to focus on the things they love, not hate.

“Hate just brings out the worst of us and isn’t a healthy way for people to bond,” explained Mocarski. “Find something innocuous to connect over. Why not play a nice game of cornhole or talk about the upcoming football season? If you constantly talk about politics and religion with your parents then you will eventually devolve into a Second Amendment argument and someone might end up getting shot in the foot, and nobody needs that.”

At press time, the father and son made some progress by agreeing that a Clinton personally killed Jeffrey Epstein, but vehemently disagreed about which one.

Mental Health Day No Match For Check Engine Light

Posted on by Zach Hudson

AKRON, Ohio — Local graphic designer Harper Staples’ rejuvenating mental health day took a devastating turn when their check engine light suddenly came on earlier today, confirmed sources sending thoughts and prayers.

“I had my whole day planned out perfectly. I slept in, I listened to a new podcast about The Red Ribbon Killer, I did yoga on my balcony, I was in the BEST mood,” said Staples. “I was on my way to the store to get the ingredients to make brownies and then a saw the dull orange glow of my check engine light turn on and I felt my soul leave my body. It was like all the negative energy in the world had a meeting and said ‘I know how we can fuck Harper over, let’s fuck with their car.’ I can’t even call out of work tomorrow and try again because of the quarterly sales meeting, which is like half the reason I needed this day in the first place.”

Staples remains hopeful that whatever was going on with their car was a quick, inexpensive fix, and promptly brought it to local mechanic Burt Gaines’ shop.

“One thing they teach you in automotive school is to have a good ‘bedside manner.’ I could tell this kid was in bad shape when they walked in and it will be tough delivering the news. It’s bad, like, really bad,” said Gaines. “I know Harper is hopeful that they can still make it to their favorite coffee shop to read on the patio later, but with these diagnostics, they’re certainly not getting there by car. And for this to happen on what was supposed to be their mental health day. How could anyone believe in God?”

Sarah Washman, an expert in self-care and author of several books on the subject including “Calm Apps and Afternoon Naps: Self-Care Tips for Millennials” couldn’t even offer any advice on how Staples could salvage this tragic attempt at a mental health day.

“Honestly, I’ve got nothing. There aren’t enough face masks and herbal teas in the world for a sudden onslaught of check engine light,” said Washman. “The trick to having a successful mental health day is to be able to turn off your problems and stressors beforehand. If a new problem of this magnitude presents itself, it’s best to just cut your losses and try again another time. I suppose they could try meditation, but that just seems laughable at this point.”

At press time, sources reported that Harper received a text from their boss while sitting at the mechanic, informing them that the entire board would now be attending the quarterly sales meeting.

How To Turn a Celebration of Community and Acceptance Into a Niche, Inter-Left Debate Nobody Wants To Have

Posted on by Colleen Nerney

Pride is the greatest of the highly symbolic months. A perfect time to attend a festival, get a second-degree burn, and maybe alcohol poisoning. But what would Pride be without the endless churning discourse machine of the modern Internet?

This is the time to take what in theory should be a communal celebration of identity and solidarity, and turn it into a micro-debate so niche that at the end of the day, the only winner is you. Here’s how to get that sweet clout in 7 easy steps.

1. Wrack your brain for something you can start shit about early!
First and foremost: it is NEVER too early to start thinking of ways to divide and irritate your so-called community. We suggest beginning to workshop ideas in January to make sure you have plenty of time to smooth out the finer points of your imaginary dialogue.

2. Start sowing the seeds of very strong opinions on Instagram
Once May starts, Pride will begin to creep into the public eye in Target ads and Instagram stories. Make it known that you have very strong convictions about whatever you’ve decided to stir up this year starting around May 15th or so to get a leg up on your competition.

3. Make it clear that those who disagree with you are either homophobes or don’t know their queer history.
Once the story replies and DMs start flooding in, be sure to repost screenshots of private conversations with long-winded and snarky replies. The two safest bets for shutting down any chance of a productive exchange are to either accuse your detractors of internalized homophobia or make it clear that they literally don’t know their own queer history. How embarrassing for them.

4. Mention children a lot for some reason.
Regardless of your in-fighting topic of choice, we’ve found that a surefire way to get your followers either angry or alienated as quickly as possible is to mention children a lot from any standpoint, even though almost no one involved has them and they’re pretty much irrelevant to your opponents.

5. Once parades and festivals start, don’t mention anything remotely positive about any of them.
We will not stand for pictures of Billy Porter with happy attendees or those nice ladies with the Free Mom Hugs signs when there are dozens of people deciding to be angry about [TEMPLATE: INSERT DISCOURSE HERE]!


6. Demand that your audience thank you monetarily for doing “the work.”
Listen, you’re the one speaking out against whatever it is you’re speaking out against here. Drop your Venmo handle every time you post as a subtle reminder that your audience literally owes you.

7. Repeat yearly until seasoned veterans stop attending Pride events altogether.
That’s what we wanted, right? Right?