#the united states healthcare system is a fucking joke

[lycanthre]

Hey capitalist dystopia fans here’s some new fodder for your next writing romp: Every time I call my insulin pump/pump supplies monopoly provider support line I am forced to sit through an unskippable, nearly 30 second advertisement for their newest product delivered by a robotic voice before I can so much as reach a menu that might allow me to connect to a representative, and on one occasion I had this ad play TWO TIMES, BEFORE BEING ABLE TO ACCESS TWO DIFFERENT MENUS, ONLY AFTER WHICH THE SAME VOICE INFORMED ME I HAD CALLED AFTER BUSINESS HOURS AND HUNG UP.

[troythecatfish]

[televisionenjoyer]

I love when united starters are like "making fun of the united states for it's education and health system is so fucked up 😭😭 have you no compassion 🤨" bitch you joke about third world countries all the time and like ur government is spending all the money they could spend on education and healthcare in OPPRESSING THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES AND MAKING WAR AND SHIT NOBODY ELSE WANTS THIS.

[redjennies]

your tooth troubles are so real I hate the way dental care is handled in the US!!!!!! my wisdom teeth have been sawing thru my gums at a weird angle for like a year but I'm uninsured and I straight up cannot do 2k PER TOOOOTH so?? anyway solidarity handshake

it's so fucking bullshit. like they literally know people need to be able to get their wisdom teeth removed to avoid pain like what you're going through but it's apparently a privilege of the wealthy to not live in pain that's going to possibly fuck up your other teeth. I'm not even in the minority of my friends who have lost teeth because it's too expensive to get a filling uninsured, and they make you jump through ridiculous hoops to get insurance that's still fucking expensive. honestly it's fucking criminal too because getting abscesses due to bad teeth can literally fuck up your heart and kill you but once again the American government continues prioritizing bombing families in foreign countries that ain't none of our business being in so the oil companies can stay rich and outlawing abortion so the working class can stay poor and desperate and docile over making sure its citizens have access to basic fucking health care. anyway no love for the United States government as always. no love to insurance companies as always. if there is a just god, all these bastards will rot in hell for their sins of greed and murder. I'm not even joking. I believe that. we have the wealth and knowledge and tools to avoid unnecessary health complications and we don't let our poor and working class access that healthcare because life is a privilege of the wealthy. it's fucking state sanctioned murder and we should consider the healthcare system (and the housing system, at that) just as violent through their inaction as the "justice" system and the military are through their actions.

[dragonwars2601]

PICK A CURSE (it’s still me I’m just switching up the format)

Despite not being a USAmerican, you will have to say the pledge of allegiance to the United States of America every morning and night. you have to be dressed and you need to purchase a code compliant American flag and pledge to it twice a day every day. if you get married your spouse will have to join you. if you have or adopt children they will, to. and their children’s children. you can however infect 3 people with the curse if you wish to suffer communally in the meantime (or I guess just fuck with them. Idk). at chains at businesses that are originally from America, you get a veteran’s discount. some of your clothes slowly becomes American flag printed. your accent is slowly becoming more and more american. if you leave food in the fridge for too long it becomes a burger. you are under the American healthcare system.

you live on the beach now!! all sand is now quicksand to you (if you walk fast enoug you will be okay), and the ocean seems to be calling you, but you cannot tell if it is violent or just passionate. do you take a swim? whenever you come home with something on your person, seagulls attempt to swoop down and steal it, and they are 100% successful anytime it is a delivery person. all your shoes are flip flops now. all your clothes…swimsuits. when did your house become “beach house” themed? sometimes at night you swear you see mermaids, but they have claws. sometimes they sing. it’s alluring, like sirens. do they want to hurt you? you attempt to sell this house, but everyone who comes to look at it is injured by the violent seagulls. the house is beautiful, though. like the mermaids in the water.

You, slowly, are turning into a clown. Everyone you love, too, turns into a clown. You hear that duhduhduhduhduhdufh circus theme playing in your head, constantly. It gives you headaches and it is louder at night. Every Tuesday every item in your house gets wrapped up in gift wrap and it takes hours to unwrap. Sometimes you don’t even bother, but then there will only be an extra layer coke next Tuesday. Anytime another clown is mad at you a pie is thrown at your face. It is tasty, to be fair, but always the same flavor.!All of your shoes are colorful and way too large. If you try to buy normal shoes they become like that as soon as you put them on. Your car is so tiny that your ability to fit in it defies the laws of physics. Clown makeup is permanently on your face and the face of everyone you love. It changes to different clown makeup archetypes (ie sad clown, scary clown, hapoy clown), depending on your mood. Every joke you make lands, but nobody seems to take you seriously. You can’t work anywhere but where a clown would. Your pets are now balloon animals. Why are all your old pictures of you magically clowns now? Were you always like this?

how long did this take you?

uhh 3 , I like jokes

[touka-the-fallen-angel]

Bernie dropped out of the democratic primary and I am honestly at a loss for words. He was the candidate that made me believe again that perhaps the United States could systematically improve for the better. As an undergrad poli sci major and current law student I lost hope in the US with every backwards step we took since 2016. It seemed like no matter what the US would always be against the health, safety, and best interests of its majority. Watching the news became unbearable. My NGO work equally so. My study in political science became a joke. Until Bernie and AOC and Omar came and presented to the public necessary reform platforms such as: healthcare for all, a redistributed tax system, job security, and social rights. These candidates were like a glimmer of hope in an otherwise stagnated political field that continued to fail the American populace.

But now ...

We are in the middle of a pandemic in an election year and the candidate that argued for healthcare reform and labor reform has dropped out. Leaving us with Biden who continues to deny that fundamental changes are needed during this pandemic and after. Oh and he is likely a sexual predator too. We are well and truly fucked this election cycle.

If Biden loses this election the democratic party has no one to blame but themselves. For pushing an agenda that a significant portion of their base will not benefit from. For pushing a candidate that a significant portion of their base can't ethically accept. For pushing a voter suppression strategy that a significant portion of their base were disenfranchised by. For pushing the same schemes that made a significant portion of their base disaffected voters in the first place.

Not me but us was the way to go.

[smithytw4666]

Oxygen Hydrogen Nobelium

O H No

Bad joke I know, but it reflects how I’m feeling when I take a look at the state of things at the current moment (5/31/2020).

I have not posted anything in ages. I think this is because I just don’t know how to engage with Tumblr very well. I hope to change that though.

I might go through my posts and delete a few things. Mostly things that are just mentally taxing (police brutality, murder, the president, politics, climate change, protests, and other unjust goings on). I am not doing this because these things aren’t important, they’re incredibly important and need attention and action. But the mental strain it has on me to see these things everywhere online is overwhelming. And I want my blog to be safe in the sense that it’s not overwhelming folks with waves and waves of injustice. That doesn’t mean I won’t post or reblog about these things at all, just less often. Less of a flow, and more of a trickle between dry spells.

So yeah expect some posts to go away and expect more posts about worldbuilding and creative stuff and other things I enjoy.

Anyway, here are the bad bad things.

Trump is trying to label antifa as a terrorist organization, which is stupid because antifa is short for anti-fascist and from my understanding antifa isn’t an organization, it’s just an ideology that’s against fascism. Like he’s literally declaring himself a fascist. Not only is it stupid, it’s dangerous, if he got what he wanted the government could label anyone united by an ideology of any kind as terrorists. Given who’s in the oval office now, that power would not be used for good.

Police all across the country are assaulting protesters who are invoking their right to assemble peacefully, but because the police don’t like what they’re assembling over, they feel the need to attack peaceful protesters who just want justice for the countless lives lost to police brutality. Reporters doing their job have been arrested and shot at. People on their front porch have been shot at with paint because they didn’t follow the orders of a group of police officers to go inside. And then you see all the stuff about undercover cops trying to mingle with protesters to rouse violent actions in the protesters so the cops can fight back (cops would fight back regardless) and arrest people.

Not to mention, this is all happening during a fucking pandemic!

Also there’s all the other shit that’s been happening. Trump putting kids in cages. Jeff Bezos existing and slowly making his way toward trillionaire status. The current healthcare system in the US being as dumb and expensive as it is. Climate change is a thing. Pollution. Corporations. Exploitation. Bigotry.

Just a dumpster full of shit set aflame. I hate this country. It just feels hopeless. I am going to stop typing here. Good luck everybody. Stay safe out there.

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #6- Rung Has a Friggin’ Day

It’s time for therapy.

Finally.

It turns out that Ratchet didn’t forget about Fortress Maximus’ acts of extreme violence in all the chaos that was last issue, and requested that Fort Max get set up with some mandatory counseling. Of course, because it’s been about a week in Fort Max-time since Garrus 9 went down, he’s not exactly thrilled to talk about what happened. And who can blame him? Garrus 9 sucked big time for everyone involved, even Overlord.

Fort Max claims to not remember what happened- he’s lying, and we’re treated to a flashback that sort of justifies his fib- and Rung suggests they get Chromedome involved, which seems perhaps a bit unethical? To just rip traumatic memories that may or may not be repressed out of a guy’s head? Like, I’m not super well-versed in psychiatry, but that seems a little off.

Rung, in an attempt to make Fort Max feel a little safer, tells him that Overlord- though he doesn’t say his name, because triggering Fort Max could literally get people killed- was neutralized about as efficiently as possible for their species.

I can’t believe Cybertron has a better veteran healthcare system than the United States.

Enough of Fortress Maximus’ impending implosion, it’s time for bar shenanigans!

Over at Swerve’s, Trailbreaker is proving to be completely incapable of keeping his drink in his glass, as Chromedome participates in a game where he has to guess who’s transforming into their alt-mode, based purely on the sound. He gets it in one, and everyone loses their shit. Chromedome, never one to hype himself, takes the opportunity to instead build Rewind up, because he just loves him that much.

Fortress Maximus gets brought up, and while Trailbreaker thinks the guy’s a little overrated, the others have heard about what happened on Delphi, and proceed to learn the wrong lesson from the whole thing. Tailgate enters the scene, after a rousing study session with everyone’s favorite giant neurotic.

Tailgate, you fool! It’ll be another 41 issues before Cyclonus is ready to even acknowledge his feelings!

It’s good to know that Tailgate doesn’t hold any grudges over the info dump Rewind gave him the other day. Also, that table looks like a nightmare to clean.

Ultra Magnus walks in, looking about as cheery as he possibly can considering who he is, promptly arrests Swerve for running the bar without taking bureaucracy into account, and whisks the little jabber jaw away in handcuffs, practically carrying him off by the scruff like a kitten.

Fort Max enters the room, having decided to grab a drink after the ordeal that is mandatory therapy.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a day on the Lost Light without something going just a little screwy.

This is a typical Wednesday for Pipes.

Fort Max proceeds to wreck several robots, seemingly at random, though he somehow manages to not actually kill any of them. Intentional or not? We still have several pages of this issue to get through, hold your horses! All will be revealed in time.

Which brings us to now. Fort Max has locked himself in Rung’s office, alongside Rung and the poor sap who was unlucky enough to have had an appointment when the big guy showed up. Rodimus and Drift are trying to figure out just what the hell to do with this current situation. Magnus enters, having just set Swerve up with his punishment, and berates Rodimus for letting Fort Max run around with a gun, as if 90% of the crew doesn’t also have massive weapons literally built into their bodies.

Blaster gets a video feed from one of the surveillance cameras going, and we get a good look at just how fucked this whole thing has become, because as it turns out, Rung’s appointment for this time slot was none other than Whirl, instigator extraordinaire, and being stabbed by some ship piping has done absolutely nothing to slow his suicidal roll.

That gun is positively ridiculous. Where were you even KEEPING that thing, Max?

It only takes a couple of face-mashings with the barrel of the BFG to get Whirl to back off, accomplishing what Rung simply cannot, because Whirl doesn’t play by the rules of anyone who values their life in any capacity. You’d think it’d take more than that to shut him up, but Whirl’s head is made of plot, so it’s a bit delicate.

Rung spots the camera, and decides to make himself useful by providing audio to this whole debacle, by way of his microphone thumb.

Now, a hostage situation just isn’t complete without some sort of demand in exchange for the safety of said hostages, and Fort Max has quite the doozy for Rodimus: he wants to go back to Cybertron, so he can confront Prowl on the slow response to the hell that was Garrus 9. Max was trapped there for over three years before the Wreckers came along, and it’s still pretty fresh for him because of the coma letting him skip a lot of time he could have spent healing.

Pro-tip: when handling a hostage situation, don’t get into a screaming match with the dude who’s about to shoot the only mental health specialist your race has ever managed to produce. Blaster gets it.

Rung is many things, but is no actor, as is made apparent by him holding his microphone thumb-bound hand in the most fucking conspicuous way possible. Fort Max notices- because how could he not?- and relieves Rung of this terrible burden.

Rung is really regretting not minoring in theatre right about now.

Hours later in the medibay, First Aid is proving to have gone mad with power, as he maintains some dangerously high snark levels while keeping the victims of Fort Max’s spree stable. Ratchet, whose hands are still Pharma-blue, is starting to piece together the reasoning behind who got shot.

That’s right, Fort Max was embarrassed that he showed up with the same color paint as all these guys, and tried to kill them to keep his fashion faux pas to a minimum.

Back in Rung’s office, Whirl’s dropped all pretense due to sheer boredom, and straight-up asks Fort Max to just get it over with and shoot them both. Having his thumb ripped off has made Rung a bit snippy, and he snaps at Whirl for the quip, before Max decides that he’s actually rather interested in just what Whirl’s appointment was going to cover. Rung tries to stymie this line of questioning, but he really ought to know not to get in the way of the plot progression at this point.

Whirl does decide to spill his beans, if only after Rung gets the obscenely large barrel of Max’s obscenely large gun pressed to one whole side of his face.

It turns out Whirl has depths to him, or at least he did, once upon a time. Before he got booted out of the Wreckers, before he was even in the Wreckers, he created as opposed to destroyed. More specifically, he was a watchmaker, good enough to find an audience in the time of Functionist Cybertron. Now, because he’s a helicopter, the guys up top weren’t too jazzed about Whirl not doing what he’d “been born to do,” on top of not giving them any of his sweet watch money, and decided to start fucking up his life to get him back in line. They started with tearing his shop to the ground.

But we’ll get to what the hell empurata is in a few issues.

Also, while Whirl’s been sharing his backstory, Rung managed to grab his model ship from off the floor.

I’m not sure how he managed to get ahold of his model without making a giant clumsy scene either, considering that’s his thumbless hand.

Rung, because he’s a clever man, is staring super hard at the camera and making kind of a weird face as he taps on the little windows of his model ship, signaling to Rodimus and crew to see what they can do with the windows outside of his office. He’s got three real big ones that let you see out- or in- the whole room. Rodimus makes a call, and we get a proper understanding of what Chromedome meant when he said Rewind was outside.

No kidding.

Rewind and Swerve are on rivet replacement duty, using rivet guns nearly as big as they are. Swerve’s passing the time idly chatting, because that’s his whole deal.

Knowing Swerve, that’s probably a joke, but given what we learn a few issues after this, on how exactly Cybertron handles those who don’t fall in line, I can’t help but wonder…

Okay, we know why Swerve’s out here, but what’s Rewind’s deal?

You remember those data discs Red Alert mentioned last issue, the ones Rewind was begging Chromedome to help him find? The ones he got from Swindle at the start of the series? Yeah, turns out those were chock-full of video footage of people dying.

Rodimus didn’t like the fact that Rewind had brought snuff films onto the Lost Light, and now here he is. We don’t get an explanation as to why he wanted the films in the first place, though he does integrate that it isn’t a pleasurable thing to watch. Rodimus calls, interrupting the conversation, and asks Rewind to take a walk.

Returning to the office, we find that Whirl’s really pouring it out now, giving us his whole life story.

Rung’s reaction here is equal parts sweet and sad. It’s like he’s never had a fucking friend in his entire life. Rung seems terribly lonely.

We also get the answer as to what exactly Whirl did to get kicked out of the Wreckers- he tried to mercy-kill Springer. After the events of Last Stand, Fort Max wasn’t the only one in a coma, and Whirl saw the writing on the wall in terms of Springer’s chances of recovery. He tried to put the guy out of his misery, but was caught and kicked to the curb before that could happen.

And that’s about where he stops. You know, if it weren’t for the whole “being held at gunpoint” thing, this would have been an amazing therapy session! Whirl really opened himself up today, I’m proud of him.

Fort Max realizes that the ship hasn’t turned around to head back to Cybertron, and that’s about the point where he decides it’s time to make good on his threat. Whirl volunteers as tribute, as Swerve and Rewind peek through the window, ready to enact the next phase of Rodimus’ plan.

Rung tries to deescalate, with Whirl reescalating in equal measures, because he is actively and violently suicidal at this point, bringing us to a standstill in negotiations as Ratchet finally gets ahold of Rodimus to tell him something very important.

Ratchet’s sussed out the central pin in this pegboard of PTSD, and it’s Overlord. Every guy Fort Max put in the ICU looked at least somewhat like that lippy bastard. Rung comes to a similar conclusion on his end, claiming that Fort Max is acting out because he went through hell at Overlord’s hand, and wants payback.

Outside the office, Rewind is lining up to shoot Fort Max with his rivet gun, though he has his reservations.

It’s a special kind of love that makes you want your husband to support you through sniping a guy five times bigger than you.

Rewind’s lining up the shot, when Fort Max moves behind a pillar. Time for Plan B.

Rodimus, you can’t just SAY that to him, he’s a married man.

Whirl’s egging Fort Max on, his eye flaring out in a way that one might consider to be crying, though if you asked him he’d absolutely deny it. Then Garrus 9 pays everyone a little visit, by way of Rewind’s camera projecting on the wall. This freezes Fort Max in his tracks, because of course it would. That shit’s terrifying. He breaks down, falling to the floor in a heap.

I suppose this is one way to handle a hostage situation. Rodimus, not wanting to take any chances, orders Swerve to take the shot anyway.

Safe to say, Swerve wasn’t top of his class at the military academy.

As Fort Max mourns the loss of Rung, Whirl yanks that pipe that’s been stabbed into his belly for the last several hours out, and returns the favor, getting Max right in the chest.

Shit.

All those fucking therapy appointments are going to have to be rescheduled. There are over 200 robots on this ship.

I sure hope Rung had a secretary to handle all that.

Later on, after the messy stuff’s been dealt with, Rodimus and Drift have a chat about Red Alert, and how he’s developing a potential to be a liability. As they talk, Red Alert is shown to be ripping the drill arm off that guy who got eaten by the quantum engine and using it to dig into the floor where he heard that super-slow voice. What does he find? I hope it’s treasure!

...That’s not treasure.

Hey, Rung?

Rung?

Buddy, I think someone might’ve been fibbing when they said that.

Nobody tell Fort Max about this.

[evilelitest2]

What is going on with Sanders and Cuba?

OH god, this is such a stupid fucking argument.  There are some legitimate critiques you can make of Sanders but this is a joke.  

Ok so super short version.  Cuba, unlike most of Latin America, didn’t manage to win its independence in the Spanish American Revolutions in the early 19th century, and Spain held unto Cuba as a colony until the end of the 19th century, which was a super brutal oppressive racist form of oppression.  In the 1890s, a native Cuban resistance started to fight against Spanish oppression and Spain got even more brutal in response.  Long story short, the United States fought a war with Spain in 1898 and “liberated” Cuba, the Philippines and Puerto Rico.  Technically speaking Cuba was an independent nation, but for all extent and purpose, Cuba was a colony of the United States in all but Name, as we propped up a series of brutal dictators.   This got worse with the Cold War and the need to fight against “The communist” which is a libel we used for anybody who thought maybe Cuba shouldn’t just be a puppet of the US.  

   Prior to the Cuban Revolution, the military tyrant at the moment was Fulgencio Batista, who had overthrown the democratically elected goverment in 1952, where he rejected the Constitution, outlawed the right to strike, basically ban freedom of speech and instituted an oppressive military regime.  Batista’s goverment basically made Cuba open to American companies and Cuba effectively becomes an example of modern day serfdom, as the wealth gap grew to obscene levels. To stay in power, he enacted some brutal policies that killed up to 20,000 people.   

This as you might imagine was not super popular with the the Cuban people, who overthrew him in a communist revolution in 1959, which allowed Castro to take power.

     Now Castro’s regime….was also a brutal dictatorship which oppressed the political rights of its people, was responsible for the deaths of thousands of people (the number is super disputed), and Cuba to this day is an authoritarian dictatorship with a pretty dismal human rights record.  However, Castro’s regime did manage to achieve some policies which secured his own popularity.  Literacy rates in Cuba are quite impressive, they have a pretty good healthcare system, as well as a far higher standard of living than under Batista’s regime.  Which is what Sanders was saying in the 1980s, Cuba’s goverment is still bad but they had some successful social programs.  And remember, this is the 1980s, the United States is supported some full out genocidal regimes in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Nicaragua, and El Salvatore, in some of the darkest chapters of Latin American history since independence.    So Castro’s regime looks pretty good by comparison, I mean look up what is happening in Haiti in the 80s, which Reagan happily supported.  

    Now there is a point to be made that a lot of leftists/socialist types tend to down play the atrocities of Catro’s regime in order to praise its good effects,and you can accuse Sanders of doing that a bit, but its pretty hypocritical coming from Folks like Joe Biden and Bloomberg.  There is a good faith version of the attack on Sanders one could make, namely that hte American left does have a bad tendency to romanticize and downplay the fact the regime which governs Cuba is a still an oppressive dictatorship with a brutal human rights record, but attacking Cuba for its literacy program is…not the take I would make.

Edit: I will say a more nuanced critique of Sanders could have been made regarding the quality of Castro’s regimes education btu that isn’t what is happening here 

[canadianastronaut]

As a Canadian who has lived in the United States for years now- the "haha we have free healthcare loser!" jokes aren't funny.

I see people so often here in need that refuse my care and transport because they know they can't afford it.

I see people constantly making gofundme posts for lifesaving treatments.

I see people lose everything over it.

It's not funny anymore. Believe it or not a lot of Americans want universal healthcare, but the classist system and influence of the wealthy makes it hard to bring that legislation in.

They are trying, and you don't get the end of the joke where people are dying because they can't obtain the money.

Just shut the fuck up and remember the fun issues Canada has because we aren't much far off lmao:) Thank you for reading this PSA.

Tl/dr: Americans are trying to get Healthcare but it's hard because capitalism and people are dying. Haha free healthcare isn't funny bye

[starfleetdoesntfirefirst]

Sunday, March 15 COVID-19 updates: TL;DR this is worse than we thought, people without symptoms can be carriers and infect others, and millions of people’s lives are at risk, but that also means that every act of hygiene + social isolation is both more important and more powerful in flattening the curve and saving lives.

Each source dated; because this situation is changing so quickly, I tried to use sources only from the last few days. (Somewhat, but not entirely, U.S.-centric as I live + am tapped into organizing networks here.)

[id: CNN article headline, March 14: Infected people without symptoms might be driving the spread of coronavirus more than we realized.]

“Several experts interviewed by CNN said while it's unclear exactly what percentage of the transmission in the outbreak is fueled by people who are obviously sick versus those who have no symptoms or very mild symptoms, it's become clear that transmission by people who are asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic is responsible for more transmission than previously thought.

"We now know that asymptomatic transmission likely [plays] an important role in spreading this virus," said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

Osterholm added that it's "absolutely clear" that asymptomatic infection "surely can fuel a pandemic like this in a way that's going to make it very difficult to control."

+ “Coronavirus is most contagious before and during the first week of symptoms”

In other words, instead of thinking in terms of avoiding getting sick, we need to think in terms of avoiding getting others sick. There’s a real and ever-increasing chance that, without necessarily knowing it, you could be a carrier.

[id: NPR article headline, March 13: Flattening A Pandemic’s Curve: Why Staying Home Now Can Save Lives. Image is of a chart with Number of Cases on the vertical axis and Time Since First Case on the horizontal axis. There’s a straight dotted line labelled Health Care System Capacity running horizontally through the chart. An orange curve labelled Without Protective Measures rises steeply at the beginning of the time axis, showing the number of cases bursting over the Health Care System Capacity line, while a blue curve marked With Protective Measures is spread out over time and and is less steep, staying under the Health Care System Capacity line.]

“As the coronavirus continues to spread in the U.S., more and more businesses are sending employees off to work from home. Public schools are closing, universities are holding classes online, major events are getting canceled, and cultural institutions are shutting their doors. Even Disney World and Disneyland are set to close. The disruption of daily life for many Americans is real and significant — but so are the potential life-saving benefits.

“It's all part of an effort to do what epidemiologists call flattening the curve of the pandemic. The idea is to increase social distancing in order to slow the spread of the virus, so that you don't get a huge spike in the number of people getting sick all at once. If that were to happen, there wouldn't be enough hospital beds or mechanical ventilators for everyone who needs them, and the U.S. hospital system would be overwhelmed. That's already happening in Italy.”

Flattening the curve with hygiene and social distancing isn’t just about the coronavirus. An intensive-care bed is an intensive-care bed, and as people catching a new virus that no one is immune to overwhelm the capacity of the healthcare system, more people are going to die more from all causes--heart attacks, tuberculosis, HIV, the flu, pregnancy complications, injuries from car crashes—because the system won’t have intensive-care capacity for them. Flattening the curve is about keeping coronavirus cases under the dotted line of what the healthcare system--and the rest of our infrastructure--can handle.

[id: Tweet by Don Moynihan @donmoyn (verified), Mar 15: Real-time evidence of flattening the curve. Lodi had the first Covid-19 case in Italy, and implemented a shutdown on Feb 23. Bergamo waited until March 8. Look at the difference. Incredible research by @drjenndowd, @melindacmills & co-authors. Image is a graph of daily total number of positive cases over time in the two cities, with Bergamo’s rising extremely steeply (approaching 1,000 on March 7 and 2,500 on March 13) and Lodi’s leveling off (approaching 1,000 on March 7 but at barely over 1,000 on March 13). Link in tweet. end id.]

[id: Tweet by cuddly but deadly! @HikeoftheMenrys, Mar 12: I keep thinking about South Korea’s Patient 31. South Korea was effectively managing the epidemic, and then one person – Patient 31 – infected over 1,000 people over the course of a few days, and caused a national pandemic in that country. Link to article in tweet. end id.]

People are currently using #ShutItDown to encourage U.S. event/bar/restaurant closures, and #StayTheFHome to encourage social distancing.

Stay The Fuck Home website (has many languages, and a SFW “Stay The F--- Home” option): staythefuckhome.com

[id: Tweet by Andy Slavitt @ASlavitt (verified), Mar 15: COVID-19 March 15Prep update: Every day brings vital new developments and I talked to leading epidemiologists, public health experts about what is happening & coming & what we should be doing. I learned a bunch. 1/ end id.]

Full Twitter thread here—lots of good info, including on the phenomenon of people taking preparation less seriously in a few weeks if the virus takes longer to hit our communities, and an endorsement of #StayHome/#StayTheFHome

[id: Tweet by Amanda Mull @amandamull (verified), Mar 12: i think the impulse for many people is to look at things closing down or events cancelling right now as a sign of doom, but for the most part i think it's cause for optimism—someone in charge of something is taking this seriously, and doing what they can to limit interactions. end id.]

BONUS ROUND: RESOURCES AND STUFF YOU CAN DO TO HELP OTHERS/RESOURCES TO USE IF YOU NEED ‘EM

- Donate to COVID-19 funds, and to the individual fundraisers of people trying to make it through the pandemic.

- Check in with your friends; offer emotional support if you have the capacity to; offer financial help if you have the capacity to. Can you offer to PayPal/Venmo your friends $5, or $20, or the equivalent of their daily or weekly pay so they can take time off? (If it feels awkward, I’ve found a simple acknowledgement “I hope this doesn’t feel awkward, but” can do wonders to allow awkward-feeling conversations to actually happen! I had the capacity to make one of these offers (hint: not the pricey one) to a friend, and he was not remotely offended.)

(And conversely, don’t be hesitant to ask for or accept others’ support! Text/call your friends if you need to talk to someone! In a time of physical isolation, we’ll get through this by staying emotionally connected.)

- Help others find accurate info. Struggling to talk to the older and/or Fox News-watching folks in your life? Buzzfeed has got ya covered.

- There’s organizing by medical schools and other groups to look out for of elderly, isolated and vulnerable people in many communities; check for (or begin) efforts in your own.

- In the U.S. (and UK and other countries, though again I’m only tapped into things here so this part is U.S.-centric, I’m sorry), there is a large population of people who can’t use hygiene or social distancing: people in immigration detention or incarcerated in jails and prisons.

Many people in ICE detention are already sick from medical neglect and hunger strikes, and many people in prisons and jails (which often overlap with ICE detention--there are county jails and other facilities being used as immigration detention centers in every state in the U.S.--are over the age of 60 and are disabled or have serious mental and physical health issues.

Coronavirus inevitable in prison-like US immigration centers, doctors say

Coronavirus: call to release UK immigration centre detainees

Explainer: Prisons And Jails Are Particularly Vulnerable to COVID-19 Outbreaks

Now is a very good time to donate to bail funds, and to look for and support (or begin) national efforts and grassroots efforts in your community to release people from prisons, jails, and immigration detention. “Iran temporarily released 54,000 people from prison in the wake of this global pandemic. The United States must also consider releasing as many people as possible, among other measures, including decreasing the numbers of people being sent into jails and prisons in the first place.” (Slate)

More asks, actions and links to efforts/mutual aid re: incarceration and the pandemic

The Justice Collaborative has a page and the beginnings of a tracker sheet of efforts to help incarcerated people and other vulnerable populations.

[id: Tweet by Kimberly Corban @Kimberly_Corban (verified), Mar 12: All joking aside, for those who are worried about quarantining during #COVID19 in a home where they do not feel safe, live help is available from the National Domestic Violence Hotline 24/7/365 at @ndvh by chat or by calling their hotline at 1-800-799-7233. end id.]

[id: Tweet by Joanne Starer @JoanneStarer, Mar 9: If you're not plugged into disability twitter, you may not realize that the hoarding of hand sanitizer, wipes, masks is keeping many immunosuppressed people from getting supplies they need. If you have extras, check in with your community to see if anyone could use them. end id.]

[id: Tweet by Clint Smith @ClintSmithIII (verified), Mar 9: A reminder that if public schools shut down, millions of children will lose their access to some of the only meals they receive each day. Food banks will become more important, and I've learned the best way to help is not to donate your spare canned goods, it's to donate money. end id.]

[southern-belle-outcasts]

@bothsidesofaquestion sent: 🎄 (Rogue)

Send 🎄 for a holiday headcanon

Okay soooo Rogue basically hates Fourth of July and sees it as a fucking joke. She’s a mutant. She isn’t blind to the marginalized groups in the United States, it’s fucked up healthcare system, it’s worship of capitalism. She just plain refuses to celebrate it until it’s actually free and equal for ALL. Even if that’s the most anti-redneck notion to ever cross a southerner’s mind, she is so non-patriotic. She’s an idealist, and none of those ideals are met by America. So literally the only thing she celebrates on the fourth is Steve’s birthday. And while yes, she can enjoy a fireworks display, she would much rather see one not associated with the fourth if she’s going to watch one.

[secret-diary-of-an-fa]

A Farewell to Tossers (Or ‘Trump is Out: Hooray!’)

TRIGGER WARNING: COVID; Discussion of Racism; ‘It’s the Great Rape Satsuma, Charlie Brown!’

Well then. Trump is no longer President Elect of the United States and the world breathes a sigh of relief. At last, we can all stop worrying that the increasingly unstable leader of the free world is going to blow us all up with nukes because he mistook the big red thermonuclear button for the ‘send’ button on fucking Twitter! It actually feels nice to go back to worrying about more nebulous threats that don’t come with a fuck-ugly face and a dubious web presence attached. This being space-year 2020, we still have to cower in fear of COVID, the collapse of the global economy and a slow, choking death courtesy of a climate and planetary ecology that are frankly sick of our bullshit, but it’s still good to celebrate the fact that there’s one less dangerous, narcissistic prick with serious political power. The last four years have felt like a deeply disturbing docudrama answering the question ‘What if the Annoying Orange Ever Got its Hands on Real Power’, but the nightmare is over now. Well, I say ‘Annoying Orange’. He’s really more of a Rapey Satsuma, but let’s not split hairs of semantics. The tosser’s on his way out and that’s a cause for delight.

Now, obviously, this blog is somewhat overdue. Sorry, humans, but I just haven’t had the time to compose snarky think-pieces on major news items in real time. I’ve been busy being in love with- and making love to- an amazing woman (who’s also my sometime glamorous assistant over on my Youtube channel where I post magic vids), writing four novels, playing through the recent rash of Crash Bandicoot games and trying weed for the first, last and only time in my life (the only effect it had on me was to make me crave Mars Bars, which happens to me on a semi-regular basis anyway). However, don’t mistake my taciturnity for ambiguity! I am overjoyed that America has finally gotten rid of the psychotic Cheesy Whatsit who spent not quite half a decade shitting on the poor and disenfranchised while stumbling disastrously around the international stage like a very stupid, ill-tempered bear that’s suddenly found itself in the middle of a production of The Importance of Being Earnest. Like most of my American readers and probably every sane, right-thinking person outside America, I greeted the news that he was on his way out with a fist-pump and a little dance of happiness. I might have twerked. I can neither confirm nor deny twerking.

But what lessons can we learn from this election and the fact that Trump clawed his way into power in the first place? Surely the last four years weren’t just the result of one nation’s collective brain-fart and their abrupt end nothing more than a spontaneous return to sanity? Well, no. The main reason Trump managed to grab hold of power was because he pretended to care about the American working classes. He didn’t, obviously: as soon as he got into power, he started taking away the social securities on which many of the poorest depend and dismantling their access to healthcare, because he’s a megalomaniacal rich dickhead. But he pretended to care well enough to convince an enormous quantity of people who felt alienated and disenfranchised by modern politics and- in particular- by a version of liberalism that seemed entirely focused on city-dwelling, self-consciously woke hipsters and regarded everyone else as a joke. A large part of the reason Joe Biden was able to wrest power back from the tantrum-throwing saveloy wanker was because he bothered to go out to the most impoverished parts of his country and remind that them that yes, the Democratic party did know they existed and did give a shit. Admittedly, he wasn’t the best candidate for working class voters- that would have been Bernie Sanders- but he was the best guy to get the message across in a way that wouldn’t seem patronising. So, Lesson One: ignore the gargantuan body of unskilled and menial labourers who power your country’s economy only at your own peril.

The second, related lesson should probably be something along the lines of ‘maybe prioritise rigorous analytical thinking as part of your country’s education strategy from a young age’. Seriously, it might seem obvious to you or I that Trump is a dangerous bullshit artist, but he hoodwinked a lot of people. And no, they’re not just naturally, randomly stupid. Okay, some of them are- nature bestows a fresh bounty of total fucking clods on the human race with every new generation, after all. But the point is that natural idiocy doesn’t adequately explain why so many people voted for a twat who clearly didn’t have their best interests at heart. The ability to recognise predatory charlatans is a subset of the ability to think critically about information with which you’re presented. Both the US and the UK education systems fail spectacularly to give people the mental tools they need to do this early on, with a heavier emphasis on learning rote facts and formulas which- while useful- only help to build crystallised intelligence not vital fluid intelligence (one is just stats and dry information, the other is the skills you need to navigate modern civilisation). Because fluid intelligence becomes harder and harder to acquire as one gets older, teaching people critical thinking skills early on is really important. Neither the UK nor US education systems really start to seriously teach it until pupils are almost adolescent, meaning that by the time they get to adulthood, they just don’t have the ability to peer through the miasma of obfuscating horseshit that surrounds most political candidates and accurately assess who is going to fuck them in the gall-bladder least. Biden was able to win this time round partly because he was really good at putting his message in a non-obfuscating way that helped to mobilise people regardless of their level of critical thinking. That’s great for him, and anything that helped oust Trump is a good thing, but it doesn’t address the underlying problem. The underlying problem, of course, is that, so long as education doesn’t take analytical skills seriously, the political system will always favour candidates with big, simple messages over more nuanced politicians with complex and ambiguous views, regardless of who the most qualified person is.

If Lessons One and Two were about understanding why people voted for Trump four years ago and why the didn’t this time, Lesson Three is our big ‘fuck humans’ moment, because one thing the election of Trump made is clear is that racism is alive and well in modern America. Yes, many of his voters were hoodwinked. Yes, many of them were legitimately alienated. But a significant percentage of them were also just xenophobic, racist arseholes who voted for him because they thought he’d get rid of some Mexicans for them. It’s tragic that these attitudes still persist in the modern world, but they do. Worse still, I’m not sure how you could easily address it. Fear and hatred of difference- even if it’s a superficial difference like skin colour or accent- seems to be hardwired into some people. While we can work to build a world where these attitudes aren’t acceptable, so long as we humans think of ourselves as belonging to different nations and groups, it’s almost impossible to extinguish them entirely. We’re just not at the point we need to be at: the point where we think of ourselves as a species with common goals and needs, not a disparate collection of tribes and interest groups. Trump and his election to power were symptomatic of this problem. His recent de-election might help alleviate it for awhile. However, only time and repeated, positive mutual interaction between different groups of people (on both the global and individual level) can ever cure the disease itself. And that shit’s going to take time. There’s years of genocide and exploitation and war and rivalry and mistrust to make up for and, frankly, it’s still going on, which just makes it harder to drag the human race in the right direction.

Fuck, that got deep. This was meant to be a funny, celebratory blog about how we no longer have to put up with that prat Trump, and instead it turned into a lengthy disquisition on the failure of education and the problems inherent in how humans relate to one another through Tajfel’s Social Identity Theory (that’s the whole in-group/out-group/fear-and-distrust-among-nations-and-peoples thing I was going on about). Sorry, folks, sometimes life is just like that: you tune in for laughs and get punched in the dick with a dry, depressing polemic on our failings as a species. Happy 2020, everyone! Anyway, tune in soon for a review of Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time, which I promise not to turn into a didactic on the role of Nietzsche’s hypothetical superman in a civilisation that relies on the suppression of certain, key choices… aaaaaalthough…

[westboast]

Homecoming

Chicago, Illinois

This city is not the epicenter of the virus. The epicenter is, according to the news, the Midwest at large, particularly Wisconsin, though boundaries between states are imaginary and movement is freely allowed across state lines. The virus is everywhere. The American “strategy” is no strategy. It is liberty to decide whether you want to catch the virus or not. Some people wear masks diligently, wash their hands, etc. Some do not. Restaurants are open not because it is safe for them to be open, but because their employees are desperate. The right has decided that masks are effeminate, gay. 

We are apparently in the “third wave” of the virus. Cases are up thirty percent from what they were fourteen days ago. And yet businesses remain open. The Biden campaign is slamming Trump for his mishandling of the virus, but at this point it is hard to imagine what can be done to make things better. The opportunity for slowing it down came and went in January. Now we are all coming to terms with the aftermath. That is, the present.

The streets are empty and yet not. Grocery stores are abandoned and yet not. Bars are closed and yet not. There is doublethink everywhere, contradiction everywhere. There is no coherence. There is no plan. There is no voice of authority. There is no trust, no sense of direction. There is a black hole and at the center is the virus, determining everything. The escape is referenced as “the vaccine” or “the cure.” When it comes everything will change, maybe. 

“The Bubble” is how Americans think they control the virus. Everyone inhabits a “bubble,” and who is in it determines what we can do, who we can see, where we can go. We can hang out with people if they are in our “bubble” and known to be Covid-negative. But the nature of the virus, a highly contagious airborne respiratory infection, makes “the bubble” illusory. The disease is so out of control that we must monitor our own behavior, because the government is too hobbled and incompetent to do it for us. But even this conception of control is delusional.

Politics everywhere. Biden flags everywhere. Circuitous, self-affirming conversations everywhere. “We have to vote.” “Things will get better with Biden.” “If you don’t vote, you don’t have the right to criticize.” The same pattern that has always been followed is now being followed again. “The left,” with Bernie on one side and Warren somewhere closer to the middle, has been neutralized. Now the election has been reduced to a simple binary, Trump vs. Biden. “He’s not perfect but he’s the best we’ve got.” “Are you saying we shouldn’t vote for Biden?” Think piece: the lesser of two evils. Meme: salvation from evil. Overlooked: Senator Joseph R. Biden, of Delaware, was a chief architect of the 1994 crime bill, the primary catalyst of the mass incarceration of Black men following its passage. Senator Joseph R. Biden, of Delaware, voted in favor of the ruinous Iraq War. The protests which swept America in 2020 are largely attributable to the 1994 bill. And yet its author has been offered to us as the country’s salvation. Coronavirus infects over seven million and kills over two hundred thousand Americans, and yet single-payer healthcare is still off the table. 

“I am the Democratic Party right now,” said Biden in his debate with President Trump.

My friend in Korea swiveled toward me in her office chair and said: “We weren’t in America for the lockdown, so we didn’t experience the collective trauma. We missed something that is going to be a part of American identity.”

Others: “Why did you leave Korea? It’s safe there.” But it isn’t my home. Living abroad creates a feeling of perpetual anxiety. This does not make sense to me; I do not belong here. 

Chinatown, Chicago, 11 PM. Dim sum restaurant, mirrored walls, sets of fine china, plexiglass, hand sanitizer. One circular table near ours, four people, early thirties, an Asian couple and a white couple, predictable racism. “I don’t like [redacted], it’s not like a hamburger.” “It looks [redacted], like a [redacted].” Camera, close-up, pivots to the other side of the table. “It’s pork and vegetables with a gravy over it.” “Gravy? What kind of gravy?” “Gravy!” Bystander training literature indicates that one should signal their presence but not escalate. Minutes later the restaurant has been overwhelmed by police, ostensibly here to enforce social distancing. The waiters spread the patrons as far apart as possible. Bathroom: three police officers. Two at urinals, one behind them. “Don’t worry, the toilets don’t [redacted].” “Can you stop looking at my ass?” “Never.”

Everything is so sickeningly predictable. I can guess what will be said to me during most conversations. Most people communicate in political and cultural sound bites. Not everyone, of course.

Benito Skinner, crying: “Sorry, y’all, I was just readin’ my own poetry.”

Me, reading Donatella’s romance novel: “Vanity was the sin for which Alek condemned Kenji, but in the bubbling, mirrored pool, he looked as much upon himself, all of those reflections.”

K, in Chicago, texted me the day after we met. He presents as confident but is actually insecure: “How did I look in person?” he said.

Me: “You looked great, very classic and handsome.”

K: “You looked good too.”

I’ll probably never see him again.

Donatella: “I’m beautiful, he thought. He wanted to touch Kenji. He wanted to be touched by Kenji. He wanted to be wanted by Kenji. He had never met Kenji.”

A bouquet of silk hydrangeas, covered in dust.

A concrete staircase in Seoul at 4 AM.

A folding metal chair surrounded by orange tape.

Donatella: “There were missions before this one and there would be missions after it. There were loves before this one and there would be loves after it.”

Korean Air flight KE037 lifts off.

The water bearer Aquarius and her pitchers.

Libra and her scales. Call her.

Man: “I call it an accident, but it was a suicide attempt.”

Humboldt Park: a gust of wind, a thousand dried leaves thrown into the air.

Woman: “I was pretty blindsided.”

Bank billboard: “At Fifth Third, racial discrimination is not tolerated in any form.”

Oversharing, honesty, vulnerability. At some point we sedated ourselves with images. “It looks like you were having so much fun.” Productivity: the internalized logic of neoliberalism— “a productive day,” “I’ve been so unproductive.” Production, branding, grinding, hustling, pedal on the floor, speeding into oblivion. Desperation, alienation, lies.

Issa: “I don’t cancel [redacted] left and right like you.”

Alternatively: “I want to be a ghost.” I want to be invisible. Secrets, the last real currency.

A stranger on the street: “A Black man has approached you, but don’t be alarmed. I want to tell you a joke. What do a dead cop and a live Klansman have in common? They’re both pigs in a blanket.”

New acquaintance: “The committee is just an extension of the marketing department.”

Foot Locker advertisement: “There is no us without you.”

North Korean patriotic song: “Without You, There Is No Us.” [See: Kim, Suki, Without You, There Is No Us, Broadway Books, 2015].

I check the Korea coronavirus stats against the United States stats every day. On October 15, the New York Times reported 59,751 new cases of Covid-19 within the United States. Meanwhile, 110 new cases were reported in Korea. When I was in Seoul these numbers infuriated me. Now I am submerged in the sensory deprivation tank of my own country. The line between hope and inevitability has blurred. I am still not afraid of this virus. I am still terrified of this virus. I am attempting to be less afraid of solitude. The vaccine will come one day. I am with C, my best friend, who understands me.

Issa: “I’m an American.”

R called me from California and said: “I just want to be American.”

Billboard on Armitage Avenue: “VOTE.”

C looked out the car window and said: “The system is working exactly how it is meant to work.”

Seoul, spring: I am sitting in a sterile, sealed room. Before me is a pair of large plastic gloves attached to a plexiglass wall. A doctor enters on the other side of the pane and slides his arms into the gloves. He is giving me instructions that I do not understand. He gestures for me to come closer. I take the swab out of the plastic and put it into his hand. I lean my head back. He shoves the swab down my throat and I gag. He takes it out and in a swift motion shoves it up my nose. I gasp and grab the edge of the seat. My eyes expand and begin to water. It feels like getting fucked, but it’s inside my head. I exit the room and drink Coca-Cola. I wait. “What did it feel like?” my coworker asks. But he wouldn’t know that feeling.

K: “Maybe Biden will win.”

C: “I’m so glad you’re here.”

There are heaps of fruit at the Puerto Rican grocery store near my new apartment. I gather peaches, come home, and bake them into a pie for my roommates. This, at least, is straightforward. Now, at least, there are no conditions. Cut, measure, bake, eat, sleep.

“Two things can be true at once,” I keep telling C.

I feel so much better.

I hadn’t seen H since January. I needed to see him before I left Korea. I ran to him on Sunday, the day before my flight. We spent the whole day together on his campus, under the trees. I held him and cried. “I can feel how much you love me,” he said. My sweatshirt is covered in dust from the door I was leaned against when he kissed me. I still haven’t washed it. I’ll probably never see him again.

Seattle, Japan, Korea, Chicago.

Peach, momo, bogsunga, durazno.

Resist. Accept. Go out. Stay home. Comply. Thrive. Die.

[bookofdan]

The Trump-Biden Debate

via Wait But Why (waitbutwhy.com)

In case you missed it, here’s a transcript of the first Trump-Biden Debate:

Chris Wallace: Good evening. I’m Chris Wallace and I welcome you to what I predict will be a very bad personal experience for me. There will be six 15-minute segments, each on a different topic. At the beginning of each segment, both candidates will get two uninterrupted minutes to respond. The remainder of the segment will be open discussion. The audience has agreed not to be trashy. Both campaigns have signed off on these rules, so for sure nothing will go wrong. And with that, let’s welcome the candidates.

[CANDIDATES ENTER]

Wallace: Let’s start with the Supreme Court. President Trump, you nominated Amy Coney Barrett to succeed the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the court. You say the Constitution is clear about your obligation to nominate someone to the court. Vice President Biden, you’ve called this an abuse of power. To start, why don’t you both explain your positions.

Trump: Amy Coney Barrett is a perfect nominee. Conservatives love her. Liberals love her. Chris Wallace loves her.

Biden: Amy Barrett would repeal the Affordable Care Act. And besides, the new thing is that you have to wait until after the election to nominate someone.

Trump: Not sure what you’re talking about, because last I checked a presidential term is four years, not three. You want to instate Communist medicine.

Biden: I don’t want to instate Communist medicine. I want to expand Obamacare.

Trump: Your party wants to instate Communist medicine, and you’re scared of them.

Biden: I may be scared of them but I am the Democrat Party now, so even if I was and still am scared of them, I’m not anymore. They’ll do what I say now. And how about Covid? The president killed 200,000 people. Roe v. Wade.

Trump: You would have killed 2 million people by not banning China. Not Roe v. Wade.

Wallace: K let’s go back to healthcare for a minute. Mr. President, over the past four years you have promised to replace and repeal Obamacare, but you have never in these four years come up—

Trump: Yes I have.

Wallace: with a plan—

Trump: Of course I have.

Wallace: to—

Trump: Of course I have.

Wallace: replace—

Trump: I got rid of the individual mandate.

Wallace: Oba—

Trump: The individual mandate was a joke.

Wallace: macare.

Trump: The individual mandate was the worst part of Obamacare.

Wallace: I am the moder—

Trump: The individual mandate sucks dick.

Wallace: I AM THE MODERATOR of this debate and I would like to be treated as such. You have never come up with a plan to replace Obamacare. So what is the Trump healthcare plan?

Trump: I’m cutting drug prices. Insulin is like water.

Wallace: Uh huh. How about you Joe? Why do you want to end private insurance?

Biden: I don’t want to end private insurance.

Trump: You’re literally friends with Bernie Sanders.

Biden: No I’m not. I want to—

Trump: You’re a piece of shit Joe.

Biden: I want to make sure—

Trump: A sad little man.

Wallace: Stop picking on Joe, Mr. President.

Trump: You care deeply about Bernie Sanders. You like Communist medicine. Anyway I asked the doctors and they said Obamacare is a disaster.

Biden: He doesn’t have a plan.

Wallace: Changing gears, Joe some of your colleagues are talking about ending the filibuster and packing the court. What’s your stance on that?

Biden: My stance is that voting is good. Americans should vote. It’s easy. You just go to the polling place, you wait in line, and then you go into the booth, and you push the little switch down for the candidate you want to vote for. Sometimes it’s not a switch.

Trump: You gonna pack the court, Joe? Tell us about how you’re gonna pack the court, Joe. The radical Left is pulling your puppet strings Joe. You and I both know it Joe.

Biden: Shut up, man.

Wallace: This is going well. Okay next segment. Covid-19. There have been more than 7 million cases in the United States and more than 200,000 have died. The question is, why should people trust you more than your opponent to handle this public health crisis?

Biden: 40,000 people a day contracting Covid. 200,000 people dead. He has no plan. He knew in February. He lied. He panicked. He complimented China. He has no plan. He’s playing golf.

Trump: I saved lives. It’s China’s fault. You wanted to let Chinese people come here. Dr. Fauci and all the Democrat governors said, “President Trump did a phenomenal job.” And they’re not the only ones. All of the other people said it too. “President Trump did a phenomenal job,” they all said. I did a phenomenal job. The gowns, the masks, the ventilators, you don’t know how to make a ventilator, the vaccine is here, any week now. You could never have done the job I did because you’re a random old man. You couldn’t even do swine flu. Swine flu is a disaster.

Biden: He panicked. People died. And more people are gonna die unless he gets a lot smarter—

Trump: Did you just use the word smart? You lied about going to college at Delaware State. You were the worst student at Delaware State. You’re a dumb fuck Joe. I know it. Chris Wallace knows it don’t you Chris.

Wallace:

Trump:

Biden:

Wallace: Mr. President, you have begun to increasingly question the effectiveness of masks. Are you not in favor of masks?

Trump: Masks are tremendous. I have a mask right here in my pocket. I wear masks when needed. Masks have said I’ve done a phenomenal job. Joe wears masks even when it makes no sense. He wears them when he’s 200 feet away from me. He wears a mask when he’s sleeping.

Wallace: Mr. Vice President, is that true?

Biden: If you wanna open a business, you gotta have a plan.

Wallace: Sir, I was asking about masks.

Biden: Oh masks? Sure, you gotta have a mask.

Wallace: Alright next segment. The economy. Mr. Trump, you go first.

Trump: It’s a big dick economy.

Biden: No.

Wallace: Okay how about taxes. Mr. President, apparently you pay $750 a year in taxes. There’s a girl my daughter knows who’s 15 and she works in a movie theater on Sundays and sells the candy. And she pays more than $750 a year in taxes. So is this true, Mr. President? How much did you pay in taxes in 2016 and 2017?

Trump: Miyyons.

Wallace: Miyyons, sir?

Trump: Miyyons and Biyyons. I don’t pay taxes because the Obama administration said I didn’t have to.

Wallace: Joe, what’s your plan for taxes?

Biden: I’m gonna build this economy. I’m gonna make jobs. We’re gonna buy American. We’re gonna buy American ships. American steel. American buildings. We handed him a booming economy and he blew it.

Wallace: But did you actually hand him a booming economy and did he actually blow it?

Biden: Sure, whatever. He talks about the art of the deal. China has perfected the art of the steal.

Trump: China buttered your son’s belly.

Biden: China did no such thing.

Trump: And then, Joe? You know what happened after that? Your son went to Moscow. And you know what happened there Joe? Moscow buttered your son’s belly.

Biden: Nothing happened there.

Trump: Sure did Joe. The mayor of Moscow’s wife. She buttered his belly slick.

Biden: You wanna talk about families Trump? How about your family. With their grease and their shoes. It’s not about families. It’s about the American people. It’s about families.

Trump: Oh and how about Ukraine?

Wallace: You know what? Time to move on to—

Trump: Ukraine buttered the shit out of—

Wallace: Mr. President.

Trump: Ukraine buttered him up real good.

Wallace: Mr. President.

Trump: Shut your mouth Chris. What about Ukraine Joe?

Wallace: VAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH

Trump:

Wallace: Now I’m gonna say something and I want you to listen right to me, Mr. President. I have had it up to here with you. Any more misbehaving and I will put you in timeout.

Trump: And you know what else—

Wallace: I will put you right in timeout, Mr. President. And then you’ll be sorry. Now I want you to stop being a bad boy, is that clear?

Trump: How about him? He should get timeout too.

Wallace: Well frankly, Mr. President, you’ve been the badder boy.

Trump: He’s been plenty bad.

Wallace: For the next segment, we’ll be talking about race. Why should voters trust you to deal with the race issues facing this country? Mr. Vice President, we’ll start with you.

Biden: I’m all for race. It’s about equity. About equality. About equanimity. Equilibrium. Equinox. We need to fix the systemic equity of racism and fragility in this country. And this president has done none of that. He wants to fix the systemic equity of the Nazis.

Trump: The blacks love me. Everyone knows that the blacks love me. I have blacks come up to me on the street all the time and tell me they love me. Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass and I have done more for the blacks than Joe could ever dream of. Joe won’t say law enforcement. Why won’t you say it Joe? Why are you such a puppet Joe? You’re the radical Left’s toy. You’re a yo-yo. The radical Left won’t let you say law enforcement because they bounce you like a yo-yo, Joe.

Wallace: I want to turn to the subject of protests. In many cities, things have turned violent. Portland, for instance, is a certifiable madhouse. Mr. Biden, have you ever called the mayor of Portland or the governor of Oregon and been like, “wtf?”

Biden: I don’t have their numbers. Otherwise I would have. Do you have their numbers Chris? If you do, text them to me. And besides, they’re taking care of things just fine.

Trump: Yeah Joe? They’re fine? They’re literally murdering people in the streets, which is a disaster, and no one in Portland cares.

Wallace: Mr. President do you like or not like white supremacists?

Trump: No of course not. I don’t not like, or don’t not not like any of the people.

Wallace:

Trump:

Wallace: Mr. President, what is your message to white supremacists?

Trump: Get your guns but don’t fire till I give the word. Anyway the Left is committing 99% of the violence right now.

Biden: Oh baloney. Antifa is an idea, not an organization. I heard it means anti-fascist, in which case heck, sign me up. And anyhow who hasn’t thrown urine at an old lady on a bad day? The Antifas are just like you and me.

Wallace: I’m having an awful time here. I’m really upset and I want to leave and I’m having a bad, bad time. For the next segment, let’s just go with “why should you be president over your opponent?”

Trump: There has never been a leader who has done more than I’ve done. And I don’t mean just U.S. presidents. Mandela. Attila the Hun. Caesar. King Tut. None of them did as much as I’ve done. I unified this country. For the first time in U.S. history, I ended division. I have the first 100% approval rating. And how about judges. I have 300 judges. I have judges up the ass, Chris. You know why? Because Obama and crazy Uncle Joe forgot to fill the seats. Who does that. No one does that. You forget your keys, sure I’ve forgotten my keys, I’m human, we all forget our keys, sometimes I leave my keys. But leaving judges is a disaster.

Biden: This man has made the country weaker, sicker, poorer, fatter, sloppier, and slipperier. When I was Vice President I went head-to-head with Putin, but Trump is Putin’s little puppy. His cuddle-bunny. His bushy-bushy-boo-boo.

Trump: At least Putin’s not my sugar daddy, like he is to your son.

Biden: K speaking of that, fuck off. Second, you talk about the military being losers—my son was in Iraq and he was no loser, he was a patriot.

Trump: Which son, the loser or the dead one?

Biden:

Wallace:

Trump: I don’t know the dead one, but if I recall, the loser got thrown out of the military, dishonorably discharged for having a nice time with his cocaine, only to then head off on his famous belly-buttering tour.

Biden: His belly is dry!

Wallace: Oh for fuck’s sake. Let’s move on to climate change. Mr. President, what do you believe about the science of climate change, and what is your plan to confront it?

Trump: I want clean water and air. As far as the California fires are concerned, the forest floors are full of dead trees and leaves.

Wallace: Okay but what do you believe about the science of climate change?

Trump: I want clean water and air. I’ve planted a biyyon trees. We’ve got to pick the leaves up in the forest in California. Every year I get the call. California’s burning again. Because again they didn’t pick up the fucking leaves. You know in Europe, they pick up leaves.

Wallace: Joe?

Biden: I want to get rid of fossil fuel plants and invest in renewable energy. I want to transition to electric cars and make green buildings and create millions of new jobs.

Trump: He’s talking about the Green New Deal. The 55 quadrillion dollar Green New Deal.

Biden: The Green New Deal is a plan that’ll pay for itself. It’ll work great.

Wallace: Do you support the Green New Deal?

Biden: Of course not. I’m talking about the Biden Plan. Who said anything about the Green New Deal?

Wallace: Mercifully, we’ve reached the final segment of my extremely awful night. Election integrity. How confident should we be that this will be a fair election?

Biden: There is no evidence that mail-in ballots are problematic. Trump is trying to convince people not to vote. Listen to me America. Get out there and vote. If I get enough votes, this whole thing is over and the bad man can’t hurt you. It doesn’t matter what he says, if I get enough votes he’s legit not in power anymore, how rad is that.

Wallace: Mr. President?

Trump: A squirrel’s ass, Chris. That’s where someone found a ballot the other day. A squirrel shit out a ballot in a park in Philadelphia and a man picked it up and guess what? It said Trump on the ballot. Big shocker there. This is what happens with mail-in ballots. They end up in a trash can in a river in the woods in the backcountry and then eventually the trash can gets caught up in an eddy, we both know how eddies work Chris, and it washes up on the bank, and then a squirrel gets into it and eats the ballots. Half the country’s ballots have already been found in eddies and in squirrels, and all of them were votes for me. Mail-in ballots are a fraud.

Wallace: One thing we all know for sure is that this election is going to be a shitshow. Will you accept the results of the shitshow and tell your supporters to accept the results peacefully?

Trump: If there’s no fraud, yes.

Wallace: Is there any foreseeable outcome where you lose and you don’t say it’s fraud?

Trump: No. I’ve already talked about the squirrels. If I lose, we’ll need to end the country.

Wallace: Biden?

Biden: The country can go on if I lose.

Wallace: And that concludes what will end up as a stain on my career even though it clearly wasn’t my fault. Thank you, and goodnight.

[queennicoleinboots]

Chapter 10 of Completely Out of Sync: Too Many Frustrations of the New Millennium – Not Found in Statham, GA (Joebear POV)

“GET INSIDE!” Blondie Black screamed from inside the house.

Ruby Black, Baby Black, and I ran toward the house as fast as we could to get out of the waterfall that descended from the sky. We could barely see in front of us as the rain water hit the hot ground below us. Gotta love this insane humidity. Mist choked the air.

Baby Black farted again as she ran ahead of me.

“Thank you for farting,” I said as I waved my paw in front of my face to avoid smelling it. “Again.”

Ruby Black started coughing behind me. She and I started laughing before we became trapped in the fart cloud. We were truly soaked before we finally entered the house. The wooden floor was becoming soaked. Baby Black, Ruby Black, and I shook the water out of our fur.

I guess I was stuck there until it was safe to call AAA to jump the battery in that piece of shit Nissan Versa. The worst part was AAA always took forever, and they are going to have a hell of a time finding me on this property. If it weren’t storming like mass hell outside, AAA would have a possible chance of finding me. But, I would rather be safe with these four dogs than to try to escape Statham, GA in this kind of weather. This kind of weather has literally blanketed this area all day, but it was horrible now. I swear that Hurricane Fuck Off was outside banging at the windows of this cottage. There was no way I was going to get my fur muddy by being out in that shit. There was no way Baby and Ruby Black were going to stay out in that weather. There was no way that BearBear and Blondie Black were even going to be able to stay on the ground if they went out there. Those two would be blown away by the wind. So, we were stuck in the cottage being battered by a hellstorm.

I took this moment to call my wife. I missed her.

“BAAAAAEEEEWHUHHHHHHHH!!!!!” she sang to greet me.  

“BaeBae!” I shouted out of excitement.

The dogs barked and howled to greet Xara.

“Oh hello, Blondie!” she shouted. “How are you doing?”

Blondie Black got on my phone and started blurting shit out. “Xara! Oh my God the craziest shit has been happening here! Goofy-looking dumbasses with typical lab coats were here at the house. One of them even looked like a clown posed as a doctor. How the fuck did this guy get this job? It seems that the Veterans Administration would hire anyone who can wipe his ass and not leave a skidmark in his underwear.”

We all fucking burst out laughing. Blondie Black definitely didn’t pull any punches. Ruby Black was rolling on the floor and literally laughing.

“Yeah, that’s typical of the Veterans Administration. Is your family okay?” she asked.

“Uhhhh yeah… about that. They were abducted-” Blondie Black started to say before BearBear Black cut her off by tackling her.

“ARRESTED! THEY WERE ARRESTED BY THE POLICE COMING STRAIGHT FROM THE UNDERGROUND!” BearBear Black shouted at my wife.

“WE GOT IT BAD BECAUSE WE’RE BROWN!” Ruby Black shouted.

Xara couldn’t help but crack up. “Arrested? For what?!” she asked.

“They were arrested for nudity,” I explained to her.

“Really? On their own property?” she asked with a bit of a laugh.

“Yes, it seems she had been indecently exposing herself again... on her own property,” I explained to her as I was actually confused by the logic. “The police really have gone overboard. It’s unreal. There is no privacy anywhere. You don’t own your own property. The banks still charge property taxes every year. The cops run wild on 'your' property. It’s all bullshit. I’ll be honest. I don’t even fully understand what’s going on.”

“Yeah, that’s ridiculous. Are they in prison?! And what happened to Lorraine Black’s phones?!” she asked as she sounded like she was getting irate.

“The Veterans Administration pulled rank and had the phones shut off,” I answered plainly. Baby Black barked in the background to affirm my statement.

“UGH! Fuck the VA! They strip every veteran of his rights!” she shouted.

“There are female veterans out there, ya know!” Blondie Black boldly corrected her.

‘Who the fuck cares?’ I thought.

“Okay. They strip every veteran of his or HER rights,” Xara said. “And don’t get me started on how shitty the healthcare system in the United, or should I say Divided States of America is. For the military nonetheless? Geez. No wonder I deal with sick dumbasses all day. These people don’t give a fuck about Veterans.”

Blondie Black howled to affirm her statement. “Yes, and they have clown doctors! Come on! This bullshit is medieval. I wish we would just evolve already. It’s 2020, and this is the best medical care available in the United States: clown doctors, pills that make us sicker instead of better, and bullshit vitamins that barely cover our essential nutritional needs. I don’t buy that. These people WANT US TO BE SICK AND DUMB!” she shouted with a series of barks.

BearBear Black, Ruby Black, and Baby Black barked like hell in agreement. I agreed with them, too, so I did what any bear would do if he strongly agreed with something: growl like King Bear. I growled so loudly that the cottage shook. I even started laughing hysterically as the cottage shook. I couldn’t breathe, and I couldn’t handle this world no more.

“Holy Shit!” BearBear Black said as her fur stood on edge as she stared at me with bewildered dark blue eyes.

Xara laughed maniacally. “Not to mention that most doctors are foreign because Americans apparently don’t know shit about the medical field at all. Think about it. When you go to college, most people that major in medicine are fucking foreign. Especially Indian, Spanish, or Asian. In fact, the Indian, Spanish, and I daresay the Chinese language has infiltrated its way into the vernacular here in America. English WAS supposed to be the official language in this country, but nope. Americans are too big of pussies to stick up for their own bullshit language, so they allow every Tom, Dick, and Harry to morph our language into something that not even Einstein can figure out! I wish the United States was united, but it's really not. The states all seem to be doing their own thing when it comes to handling COVID-19. We as a people are politically and religiously divided. The States of America just seem to have a smorgasbord of people who have nothing in common other than the fact that they live in North America. Some aren't even citizens. So yeah, we are more divided," she shouted over the phone. Uh oh. My wife was going on another rant again.

“The doctors don’t give a damn about your health. It’s all about the money,” I said flatly. “The Rothschilds and the Rockafellers have monopolized the insurance companies, and the insurance companies govern the way healthcare is done in this country. It’s an absolute fucking joke!”

The Black dogs all barked and howled in agreement to what I was saying. BearBear Black even farted as she jumped up and down and barked. That dog was pissed off and nothing to fuck with.

“It really is. It’s crazy. Even with home health care, you can work as hard as you can for four fucking years, but if you have a bad month, the coordinators don’t give a fuck. It’s all about money. It’s all about numbers. They don’t give a damn about the employees or the customers. Their mission statement is a fucking lie. By the way, one of their mission points is face-to-face conversations with everyone, but with COVID-19, that’s completely out the window. In other news, thank God I have my own cleaning company. Home health care agencies are absolute total bullshit at this point. And who the fuck wants anyone in their home anyway right now?” she ranted in a shaky voice. She was so pissed that she was starting to malfunction.

“Well, I wasn’t trying to upset you, baby,” I said to try to calm her down. I didn’t like seeing her upset.

The Black dogs were just going to town with the barking and howling. Baby Black got pissed and kicked a table leg. I was getting a headache from all of the noises.

This was one of those moments where I wished I had a juicy steak to share with these dogs. They were probably hungry. I got up to find them something to eat while Xara was just bitching about the status quo, Peter Wallace Parker (who can be a real fucking asshole sometimes), and how she had no coffee. She was hungry, too. She forgot her lunch AGAIN. I wanted to beat her ass for that, but this was not the time to tell her that. There were five angry bitches in my presence, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to survive.

“I’m fucking hungry!” Baby Black screamed.

“I’m fucking hungry, too. Come to think of it!” Blondie Black said as she was moving in and out of my legs.

“Stop! Lay down!” I screamed at Blondie Black. I was looking for dog food and finally found it in the last kitchen cabinet to the right. The balls of my feet were killing me. Probably from stress.

To tell you the truth, I was hungry, too, but not as hungry as these dogs. BearBear and Blondie Black were literally diving into the bag of food the minute I pulled it out of the cabinet.

“Goddammit! I’m trying to feed you!” I shouted as I scooped out the dog food with my bear hands and threw it at the bitches.

Baby and Ruby Black were eating like crazy. Meanwhile, my wife was still yammering on about something.

“Oh! I forgot my lunch goddammit!” Xara said loudly as she slapped herself on the forehead.

‘Are you serious?’ I thought. ‘Wow, my wife is braindead sometimes!’

“Order a pizza tonight,” I said. “I have no idea when the fuck I’m getting out of here. This storm actually has me locked in here with four hungry female dogs. And I’m hungry!”

“THERE’S HONEY IN THE CABINET SOMEWHERE!” Blondie Black yelled in between her munching in the bag.

“Thank you, Blondie,” I said as I ransacked the cabinets to find the honey. Once I did, I bit into the honey bottle and started eating the honey. Fuck table manners. Only pretentious people use those!

“You are strong, Joebear Campinelli!” Ruby Black said as she laughed a little bit.

Good Lord, this dog was horny. I took a deep breath and tried to resist the power of Ruby Black.

Meanwhile, I heard Peter Wallace Parker scream a blood-curdling scream on the other side of my wife’s phone. I cringed and asked, “Is everything okay, my love?”

“No, baby. Peter is having yet another meltdown. I need to tend to him,” she said.

“Okay, baby. Be careful,” I said. “Love you.”

“LOVE YOU, BOO!!!!” she shouted.

I hung up the phone and decided it was time to give Ruby Black the rub of her life. She was a dog, and dogs deserve to be petted. In fact, I planned to pet ALL of these bitches before the night was out.

“Okay, all done!” Blondie Black exclaimed as she rushed under me and started pawing at my knees.

I lifted Blondie Black and started petting her and kissing her cheeks. She was such a baby. She was whining and making grunts as I was scratching her back.

Ruby Black then came over and started pawing at my knees.

I put Blondie Black down and then kneeled down to pet both of those dogs. They both lied on their backs as I played with them and pet them.

BearBear and Baby Black were still eating while Blondie and Ruby Black were getting tons of affection from my bear paws.

There was a knock at the door. All four dogs rushed to the door and started barking their heads off.

I blinked and thought to myself, ‘What the fresh hell is going on here?’

“Fuck off!” BearBear Black shouted through the door.

“I could if I would, but I have been ordered to be here,” the man at the door said. “I need to speak to the head of household.”

“He’s not here,” Blondie Black said.

“Understood. Who is next in command?” the man at the door asked.

“I am!” BearBear Black shouted. “State your business!”

“Oh bullshit, BearBear! I am next in command,” Baby Black said as she pushed the door open to reveal herself. Her light blue eyes pierced through the clown in the white coat at the door. Her ears were pinned down as she was ready to fuck this guy up.

The other three dogs were baring their teeth at him as they almost pounced on that poor son of a bitch.

“What the fresh hell is going on here?” the clown man asked as he blinked.

Baby Black pounced on him and knocked him on his back against the wooden porch.

“Holy shit. I might faint!” the clown said as he stared fearfully into Baby Black’s blue eyes of death.

“We have the same question for you,” BearBear Black said as she scurried toward his face and started barking.

“I WAS SENT HERE TO DO A CENSUS FOR THE VETERANS ADMINISTRATION! PLEASE DON’T HURT ME!” the clown screamed as tears were going down his eyes.

“Fuck you,” BearBear Black shouted as she barked at him.

“The Veterans Administration is the same reason that I am the head of household AS A DOG!” Baby Black said in a low voice as she growled at him. Her teeth were sharp, and she was nothing to fuck with.

“Yes. What the fresh hell is going on here?” Blondie Black asked as she scurried over to the clown’s face. “How do you not know what’s going on?”

“Honestly, no one tells me anything. I have to come to the houses and confirm everything,” the clown said as he started crying.

“There, there,” Blondie Black said as she nuzzled up against him. “I can imagine that your job is very stressful.”

“It is… it is…,” the clown said as he literally started bawling. “All I wanted to do was provide city data for veterans who want to retire. They worked hard when they were in service. The least we could do is give them data to figure out the best place to live after going through the horrors of war…”

“Well, this place isn’t it,” BearBear Black said as she barked. “This place is a fucking hell hole. DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY TECHNOLOGY ON?!”

I waved my cell phone stupidly at BearBear Black. “You want me to turn this off, correct?” I asked.

“YEAHHHHHHHHHH,” BearBear Black said. “Why the fuck would you have that thing on anyway when the Veterans Administration is here?!”

“Excuse me, Princess,” I said as I turned my cell phone off. “I was in the middle of eating this ice cream.”

“WHO IS THAT MAN?!” the clown asked.

“None of your business!” Ruby Black shouted as she circled around his head. “He does not live here! He is visiting! IS VISITING NOW ILLEGAL BECAUSE OF COVID-19?! DO EVEN DOGS AND BEARS HAVE TO WEAR MASKS NOW?!”

The other three dogs barked in his face.

“I’m sorry. I’m just trying to gather data. Are there any humans here?” he asked.

BearBear Black shook her ass and just stared at him like he was a retard. “What kind of a retarded question is that?”

“A retarded question that all Veterans Administration census workers unfortunately have to ask. May I access a pen please? Are those allowed in this non-technological house?” the clown asked as he rolled his eyes. I could tell he was over these four dogs getting in his space.

Baby Black got off of him and sat down in front of him.

The clown sat up and reached his pen and pad.

“TURN OFF YOUR GODDAMN CELLPHONE OR WHATEVER TECHNOLOGICAL DEVICE YOU HAVE!” BearBear Black screamed at him as she was in his face and barking at him.

“All right. All right. Damn you’re insistent, dog woman,” the clown said as he turned his many technological devices off to appease this fucked-up dog.

“Thank you. Now you can start writing,” BearBear Black said.

Baby Black barked a strong bark as she still stared him down with her icy blue eyes.

“Is all of that barking really necessary?” the clown asked as he was writing down some answers to questions that he unfortunately already knew.

“Is that a question on your census?” BearBear Black asked.

“Son of a bitch, I actually have to look,” the clown said as he flipped through this book of questions to find it. A few minutes later, he actually found the damn question. “Actually, yes. It’s on the side questionnaire that’s in Section C for if the poor son of a bitch veteran has a dog.”

“Let me clarify that Diamond Black, Tim Black’s mother, was actually not a bitch at all. She was the sweetest and most intelligent woman of all time,” Blondie Black corrected. “Is that question still on your census?”

The clown scrolled down a couple pages before he looked at Blondie Black straight in the face and said, “Yes. It would have been horrible if you had mistaken Tim Black's mother for his father, ya know. We would have had to go through this process all over again.”

“Thar would have been a real bitch. In that case, we will be more than happy to answer your question. It is always necessary for a dog to bark. It is a form of communication, a way of life, a way of being. Without a bark, who is a dog?” Blondie Black stated.

“That’s beautiful. I wish I had room to put that,” the clown said.

“Do you have a ‘notes’ section?” Blondie Black asked.

“Jesus Christ this is going to take forever,” Ruby Black said as she laid down and sighed.

BearBear Black sat near the clown and looked at the answers he was writing on the questionnaire.

“I do,” the clown said as he went to the very last page and wrote down Blondie Black’s quote about barking. “What is your name, great dog?”

“Blondie Black!” she answered as she puffed out her small blonde chest in pride.

“You are appropriately named,” the clown said as he quoted Blondie Black. “Now to get back to the task at hand, I have to ask this retarded question again, and I expect a retarded answer. Do any humans live at this residence?”

BearBear Black growled at him. “No,” she said.

He wrote down the answer with wide eyes. “Are the people of the house deceased?”

“HOW THE FUCK SHOULD WE KNOW?! YOU WOULD KNOW MORE THAN WE WOULD?!” BearBear Black shouted at him.

Coyotes howled into the evening.

“Do the coyotes live here?” the clown asked.

“Yes, but they literally just moved in. We know nothing about them,” Baby Black answered.

The clown looked frantically through the questionnaire for about five minutes.

Ruby Black sighed and looked into the yard where her dog pen used to be. It was in shambles all over the yard. The storm fucked it up.

“Well, as long as anyone doesn’t live inside the house, I don’t have to question them. Thank God. I wasn’t in the mood to be eaten by coyotes,” the clown said.

“Neither are we. Can we get on with it!?” Baby Black asked.

“Yes ma’am,” the clown said. He then started asking a bunch of questions. The dogs answered them as honestly as they thought they could without the flood gates of hell opening upon their life.

I was literally eating the bag of chips after eating all of the chips before they finally finished answering the questions three hours later. It was dark outside. My wife was worried about me, I’m sure.

The clown then thanked the dogs and disappeared into the night. Apparently, everyone disappears in Statham, GA.

“You can turn your technology back on,” BearBear Black said as she approached me. She walked like a wind-up toy from the 80s.

“Thank you,” I said to BearBear Black as I turned my cell phone on. As soon as the screen loaded, I called my wife again.