Floss to Remove Floss

I was driving in California last week where a billboard said: “Beer, Wine and Music Festival.” My first thought was, “What a dumb name!” But my second thought? “That sounds cool. I want to go.” This is why I could never work in sales or advertising.

On that same trip, I had to use floss to remove a strand of floss stuck in my teeth. In that moment, I understood “How the Universe works.” Now, days later, I still maintain that if you want to know the meaning of life, look no further than floss to remove floss.

Same trip, hours before my departure, I was a passenger in the backseat of a Lyft, when my driver went through a yellow to try and get on a crowded freeway ramp at rush hour, but ended up blocking an intersection. For the next ten minues cars honked and zoomed past us and flicked us off, and when I say “us,” I mean us. Welcome to the Gig economy, where you can be violently shamed for being a *passenger* in a Lyft because your hired freelancer is a selfish jerk.

The point of that trip was to hang with close, old friends, none of whom have kids. So I felt guilty on the flight home because when asked, “What’s it like having little kids?” I said, “It can suck. A lot. But they’re worth it, because you love them. Plus, I sucked as a kid, but now I’m cool, right? ...Right?” I’m still waiting for their reply.

Speaking of which, I was among the last kids to live before the Internet, 9/11, Covid, and AI, so I’m bracing for the day when all the people before me are gone and I’m one of the last ‘idiots’ left who doesn’t love what everyone else thinks is normal.

When we say we want our kids to outlive us, is that really selfless? Or are we trying to prevent the suffering we’d feel if we lost our child while alive? ...Is anything selfless?

You can make yourself smile by making someone smile because you made them smile.

Casinos make me hungry and judgmental.

Modern life often bums me out thanks to the proliferation of bragging. From the president to influencers to artists, our society now openly rewards people who make others jealous of them. We need a word for this! I nominate “Envy Economics.”

And while I pretend to shun the digital world, I don’t hate it as much as I think. Like, I barely use social media, but I still get addicted to apps. I even had to quit Duolingo because my obsession with the weekly competitions was making me late for work.

I know I’m supposed to be riveted by artificial intelligence, but what really blows my mind is how nearly all of us believe in an artificial economy. Ergo, it seems like the main thing AI is doing for society is proving just how fake most of the work we do is.

Snack companies are now hiring scientists to make junk food bypass the result of GLP-1s. The best part is they’re hiring the same people who developed GLP-1s.

I’m not trying to upset you. I just can’t stop noticing how often the Wizard is napping in front of his machine, in plain view. Put another way, life is like a magic show that slowly reveals how the trick was performed, and I’m not enjoying this part of the act.

When I was a kid, we used the phrase, “An embarrassment of riches.” But I haven’t heard it in at least twenty years. Am I wrong, or is this idiom extinct? This paragraph was brought to you by Online Betting 365, 420 gummies, and the Decadence4Ever app.

I went to get a haircut and the woman didn’t recognize or remember me, even though we had a 20 minute sesh a month prior that I would call “powerful.” This reminded me of something important: I’m not significant, except in my own head, where I’m the greatest protagonist ever. Now I just need to work on my character development.

If I could be any color, I’d choose yellow, because I love caution and looking ahead.

To end this diatribe, here’s a list of “Things That Make Me Go Hmmmmmmmmm:

-Climate change deniers who say Greenland is a great investment because Earth is heating up.

- The fact that the FCC considers subliminal messaging, “contrary to the public interest,” yet we have no law against it, because the FCC says that’s “a policy statement, not an enforceable regulation.”

- Baseball passed an “Infield Fly Rule” to stop teams from taking advantage of errors.

- We have robots, spaceships, and nuclear power, yet most of us still use a religious calendar that needs an extra day every four years to align with planetary motion.

- When my kid asks, “Why?”, 99/100 times the real answer is “It’s for advertising.”

I feel bad ending with a negative list, so I’d like to offer you some positive, prescient advice that my four-year-old gave to her two-year-old sister this week: “When you go pee pee, it’s like rain falling out of your vagina.” And if that doesn’t help you with whatever is bothering you right now, I suggest you stop reading and get some floss.

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This week on Coffin Talk: Russell Van Brocklen is a New York Senate-funded dyslexia researcher with severe dyslexia who was told he’d never read at grade level, but now not only reads at a graduate level, but he’s helping others do it too! LISTEN HERE.