I think it’s weird to call laptops notebooks. For one thing, no one ever knows what I’m talking about when I just say notebook. And then when I tell them, it seems like I’m trying to establish a subtle gap between us in regards to tech savvy – or that’s how they react, at least. Like they’re not up on the lingo but I am. Which always makes me feel a little strange because while I know a little about computers, I don’t know much compared to programmers and 12 year olds.

You know what? No. Forget it. I take it all back. I do know a lot about computers. I know everything about computers.

In fact, let’s just say I know everything. Because I do.

Well, no, of course I don’t, but does that really matter? I am constantly second-guessing my knowledge and deferring to others who claim to know what they’re talking about and it is always a disappointment. Because the secret truth about everyone is that they’re all morons.

I mean, sure, my insecurity is warranted in the sense that I have no real training in anything, my collegiate experience can be summed up with the phrases “incomplete” and “drug-addled,” and I have weak intuition when it comes to common sense as it relates to social norms.

But why should that stop me from pretending like I know everything?

If there is one thing I learned from the Bush administration it’s the power of confidence, headstrong confidence, confidence with a faint but discernable undercurrent of belligerence. The ability to look in another person’s eyes and tell them what’s what, regardless of whether or not you know what you’re talking about, heedless of the potential repercussions. And they are less likely to contradict you, because the masked aggression in your delivery suggests that agreement is the wisest option. After all, being right isn’t about being right. It’s about defeating the world – standing alone as the one final word in a sea of final words. And the way to achieve that is not to be right, it is to affect a manner that precludes the possibility that you could ever be wrong.

Like anything in life, it’s just a matter of pretending.

I was reading Cosmo the other day a few years ago, and the focus of the article was how to bring up your ex-girlfriend to your current girlfriend with no hassle. Or, more accurately, how to trick your current girlfriend into thinking you don’t still want to do it with your ex. Even though you do. Even though you really really do. Just one more time. Because what the hell, you know? Might as well do it again – you’ve done it before, after all. But you cannot say this to your current girlfriend. The trick is to ease her mind by “lying” to her.

Now, I’m not talking about a moustache-twisting, yeah-that’s-the-ticket kind of lie. That’s monkey business. It’s the future now, and as humanity evolves, so must our ways of deceiving one another. Cosmo suggests bringing it up off-the-cuff, as though it were just a passing thought, and not something you have devoted any time to whatsoever. For example, maybe you ran into your ex and want to have dinner with her. The way to tell your girlfriend is to say it distractedly, pleasantly, matter-of-factly - I ran into so and so and we’re going to get dinner some night this week, off-the cuff, it was good to run into her but what do I care, there’s really no discussion.

That’s the thing: there’s no discussion. That’s how you get taken seriously in this world.

What if they want to discuss it? Well, okay, that’s fine, you can oblige them, but in the end obliging is all you’ll be doing because there’s no discussion, dig? Seeing your ex is so inconsequential that you’ll happily talk about it, even though there is nothing to say, all the while you’re wondering how you can arrange it so you can convince your ex to skip out on dinner and find a place to do it instead, and have it all over and done with in the time it would take for an inconsequential dinner to occur. Three hours tops. No more.

What? I didn’t say I do things like this. I don’t think thoughts like that. I’m referring to People In General.

You know, now that I think about it, it makes sense that I know everything. We spend so much time focused on the virtues of education that we’ve completely overlooked the power of anger and lies. So the next time you find yourself reading and learning maybe what you should really do is put the book down, pick up a Cosmo, and listen to your President.

I have to stop making eyes at desperate, presumably homeless, junkie girls. What’s the phrase? Something about writing a check your butt can’t cash (although I have always had an obvious logistical/ aesthetic objection to the second half of that).

My problem is twofold. First of all, I’m endlessly attracted to people who, when you look into their eyes, it is immediately evident that they are no stranger to the bottom of the well. People who see the glass not as half-empty, but half-full of a liquid that appears to be water, but is, in reality, some sort of corrosive acid, and the person holding the cup is luring them ever closer with the promise of a half-glass of delicious and refreshing water, only to splash them in the face with a cold heart and a vicious cackle. And while I certainly share a kindred perspective, I have retained a firm grip on how to behave reasonably, and that is not true for most glass-is-half-acid types. Oftentimes they’re downright nuts. Who knew.

The second problem I have is that my fashion sense evolves drastically depending on what trend mandates and what free clothes I am able to score. Because of this, I view clothing very much as a decoration or costume to reflect my shifting moods and fascinations. For example, thanks to the current climate of fear and misery in this country, I have been able to get my hands on a lot of clothes that are black and camo and feature skulls. I wear these things because it (sort of) fulfills a lifelong dream to look scary and evil, and also because my mom wouldn’t let me wear skulls when I was a kid. Now, strictly between the mirror and me I am a dark crow-demon spat out of the most hateful depths of fiery hell, although in reality I realize that it would take a very thin and squeamish individual indeed to look at me and experience fear. I think I wear it reasonably well, though, at least from a distance, as evidenced by the fact that a girl I recently dated (briefly) first took me for an in-your-face rocker type, and was none too thrilled to discover that what she mistook as tattoos down my arms were really camo sleeves, and what she perceived as an irrepressible bad-boy persona was, in actuality, my displeasure at a too-dirty martini.

This is a very long way of saying that I have lost all sense of wearing clothing for any reason other than vanity and superficiality, and when I see someone who looks like a pretty cute and potentially homeless junkie, I naturally just assume we’ve hopped the same trend, and that, on the next sunny day, we will both likely be sporting our newest pink and white combo with maybe a light blazer if there is a breeze in the air. This is literally never the case. How do I know? Something about the way she crumples into weary sleep on her graffitied backpack, and the discoloration of her dirty socks against the bruisy pink of her soft and toneless legs, both things I failed to notice when I was singularly intent on catching her glazy eye. All signs point to desperation, you know?

And it’s not like these girls ever give me a hassle or anything. Most of the time they don’t even see me, or if they do, they couldn’t care less. It’s just that a certain amount of edge in a person can be a very alluring thing, but there is a line, and beyond it lies sorrow and misfortune beyond anything I know, and in it I take evidence of a cruel and unfeeling world reflecting a prominent ugliness in human nature, and to go from wanting to fuck someone to wanting to shelter them is a gloomy thing to reconcile.

For those of you around NYC who want to come see me perform on Wednesday. Admission is free, it runs an hour and it is very funny.

“Why are there cookie crumbs on your underwear?”
“Oh, I had some cookies earlier.”
“And?”
“That must be the reason.”
“How did they get on your underwear?”
“I probably had to go to the bathroom right after I ate them.”
“So…what? You went to the bathroom with cookies on your hands?”
“Yes.”
“Why would you do something like that?”
“Well what do you expect me to do? Wash them both before and after I go to the bathroom?”
“Yes. Yes, that’s exactly what I expect you to do.”
“Twice.”
“Yes.”
“You expect me to wash my hands twice when I go to the bathroom.”
“In this instance, yes.”
“Well I didn’t.”
“I’m really not comfortable with that.”
“Why on earth would that make you uncomfortable?”
“I don’t think I could be with anyone who pees where he eats.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“That’s not…it’s not even…chronologically speaking…”
“Oh, don’t try to slough this off to space-time. What you did was disgusting.”
"..."
"..."
“What can I do to make it right?”
“First throw up-”
“Ha ha.”
“I’m serious.”
“What does that have to do with-”
“Well maybe if you’d let me finish you would have seen where I was going with it.”
“Okay. Sorry.”
“It’s okay, but interrupting is not a good way to impress people.”
“Neither is making them throw up as an apology.”
“Listen, it’s late…”
“No no no no. Just tell me.”
“First throw up what you ate today, then take a shower, put on new clothes, eat some cookies-”
“What are you, crazy?”
“You have a real affinity for interrupting, you know that?”
“I’m sorry. It’s-”
“Beep.”
“What?”
“I was showing you how it felt.”
“I know how it feels. I’ve been interrupted bef-”
“Beep.”
“Stop-”
“Beep.”
“Look, maybe this isn’t-”
“Beep. I don’t think this is working out.”
“But that’s what I was just say-”
“Beep.”
“Stop it!”
“Call me a cab.”
“Get your own damned cab!”
“You’re a real gentleman, you know it? First you mix bodily functions with food, then the interrupting thing, and now I’m out on my own in the big city in the middle of the night.”
“But it’s only nine-”
“Beep. Goodbye.”
“Wait.”
“What?”
“Can I still call you in a few days?”
“Are you desperate or kidding?”
“I just think we might hit it off better under different circumstances. I certainly wouldn’t want to waste our potential because of this misunderstanding.”
“Yeah, okay. We can go out again.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, good. I will think up something fun for us to do.”
“You can take me to Chez Toilette and we can have ‘sausages.’”
“Ew…that was just…ew.”
“Well now you know how it feels.”
“I mean you could have just said-”
“Beep.”

but it's funny.

Gwen and I are leaving the restaruant, me jumpjiving about her as she frowns in mock bewilderment at how stupid I am. We come out the doors, glancing around for potential drama because Gwen is involved in some, and I am a drama magnet/factory. And it's funny that we’re looking for some, because we find it, although it isn’t the pissed off, bristling and completely satisfying social drama that we were hoping for. It’s real drama. And it’s aimed at her.

Someone is coming, and he is the sort of someone who requires no explanation or back-story, because he is a dark product of the city and his malady of soul is evident in all aspects of his manner. The man is wrong because he is all wrong. His eyes are bright with dimness. Behind his open mouth it’s black, in his too-wide nostrils it’s black, in the cracks of his skin and the follicles of his unshave-scruff it’s black, as though he were composed on a background of negative, empty space, but sloppily, and the darkness shows through all the cracks. He reaches for Gwen.

I am a real blanche-at-danger kind of guy, and when tense situations come up I always keep silent and mind my manners, and I rue it bitterly every time. But when I see him advance on Gwen I think no thought, there is only the urgency of placing myself in his path and sparing her the encounter. Because I’m not going to let this happen to her.

There is an awkward collision of our bodies and he becomes instantly outraged and unquestionably dangerous. There is a crowd, although his wrath is focused solely upon me, and no one dares encroach upon the bubble of space around us. I catch Gwen’s eye and urge her away in a glance.

I don’t make a real effort to talk him down because I know it is useless. Some people just don’t listen because they’re stupid or scared, and this man is incommunicable. I see something sharp in his hand and he is upon me and I feel it in and out of my neck, I feel it slip through the surface of skin and penetrate through softness, and I feel it go, trailing a gagging stream of hot liquid into the warm light of the afternoon, the light of a beautiful and relaxing afternoon, an afternoon in which I was heading down the street with Gwen and having a great time.

It is warm and wet and my shirt is growing heavy with it. The stream has finally found the ends of my fingers and I can sense the drops begin to fall from the tips. Something big is cut. My life might very well be over in moments.

I quickly slap my hand to my neck, but the cut is a mess and the flow is strong. In my initial clumsiness I become convinced that any attempt is futile, that I am beaten, that this was it and that all I feared about such a situation was rendered moot now that I was in the midst of it, and how unspectacular it was by comparison. Hopefully Gwen would find her way away from all this, or all would be lost.

And then it occurs to me that it might be effective if I forget about everything else, my aspiring assassin, the crowd, Gwen, all the world, and just focus on the wound. And so I close my eyes and push my hand to my neck, and try as best I can to imbue the force with the intent of repairing it all the way down to the vascular level – of applying such even and delicate pressure that I set the wound as right as it could be and do not let up.

He hits me and I feel the blows. The first two are thankfully at the torso, but the third was right on the side of my head, I do the best I can to ignore it, the abruptness of it and keep my neck as relaxed as I can, to breathe and keep still, just breathe and keep still, and through it all to keep the pressure even and strong.

There is a moment of silence. I know that he is up to something but I pay it no mind. It is this immediate stillness that requires the dearest and most consistent pressure. An extended moment in which to heal. I envision myself in a golden light and allow my eyes a moment of calm as the pressure on my neck remains true. I breathe into it warmly.

I open my eyes and see his silhouette blackened by the sun directly behind him and he is winding up to swing, for he has found some kind of pipe at his immediate disposal and he means to take me out. 2 thoughts in a millisecond. One is that’s it, go to sleep, let it happen, close your eyes and the other is put the palm of your left hand exactly in the trajectory of that pipe and that is the thought I obey, blindly, with the confidence of one who knows that 6 times 8 is 48.

It hits my palm and I catch it because it never occurred to me not to and because none of this occurred to him. I keep my right hand firm to my neck and with my left I smash in the side of his right knee with a fast and decisive blow. He falls in shrieks, spasming all over but for one errant limb. The pain has immobilized him.

I stand straight and focus my eyes, keeping the pressure on my neck. I look around for Gwen and see her. We share a look that could shudder down through the earth and split the ground at our feet.

I remove my hand from my neck as she shakes her head faintly and rolls her eyes at me the way she does when I am being an idiot. And then she smiles that way she smiles and every time she does it is a spotlight on the world, and although it is brief, it lingers with me for almost as long as it takes her to smile again.

Never. Under any circumstances. It's going to be weird living life with my closet in a heap on the floor, but you have to draw the line somewhere, and whatever heckling little prank-elf is in charge of throwing me hassles at midnight on the day before I'm leaving town for the weekend has gone one prank too far.

And yes, I have a sock monkey in my closet. My mom likes to make sock monkeys. She had a kit.

Oh, and incidentally, if you look at the laundry bag off to the left, you'll notice a yellow pair of boxers with monkeys on them that are playing the bongos.

(You should probably read this one closely and not give into any suspicion you might have that it is lame. I had a freakin laugh-riot when I was writing this.)

Dear Vonage Representative:

I just want to start out by saying that the tone of this message is meant to be light but weary, for I am a reasonable and intelligent person, and I know when I am being unreasonably jerked around by a company, and you guys need to fix my problem without any further hassle.

I was sent a Linksys router. It didn’t work. I called customer care. Talked to a guy for a half an hour. He sent me through many troubleshooting routines. Everything seemed to be working fine except for the phone which simply didn’t. The first guy then transferred me to a second guy who I talked to for another half hour. He kept telling me that it wasn't connecting on his end so he couldn't do anything for me and he was going to send me to a technician who would presumably help me better understand that the router was broke. I wondered what new troubleshooting options this guy might have for me, and then I started picturing myself with a screwdriver taking apart this router – this cheap little wired router that couldn’t have cost Vonage more than five dollars (and even that guess probably belies my corporate naïveté). I'll never know because I got disconnected after being on hold for five minutes.

Then I called back and explained myself to the next person. I told her the whole above story but in a really nice and cool way - I wanted her to know I wasn’t mad at her, but also that I was a tired man in need of rest. Then she told me she was going to transfer me and that she would keep me on hold so she made sure it went through.

And then I got disconnected again. I don’t think she did it on purpose. This ordeal has been a strain on my cell phone. It's very hot and has to remain plugged in. Not ideal calling conditions, you know? It probably just punked out from the sheer exhaustion of it all.

What a call that might have been, though, eh? Maybe I would have gotten everything I wanted. And maybe Vonage could have gotten a little out of it too. Maybe Vonage could learn a thing or two from me, even. Who knows? For instance, maybe the manager I might have talked to was just one of those too-good-to-be-true people who really want to help their customers, and I felt comfortable enough to suggest what I thought the real problem with my situation was. Here is what that conversation might have been like:

Me: Vonage seems to be built – like all its procedures as far as where to send calls and how to handle them – it seems to be built in direct contrast to what would actually make customers feel happy, see?

Vonage Representative and Customer Service Champion: I do see. It’s abundantly clear from everything I know about your situation, Mr. Yeager.

Me: Say you’re sorry.

Vonage Rep: I’m sorry.

Me: No, I meant say Vonage is sorry.

Vonage Rep: Vonage is so sorry.

Me: But it was nice to have your personal apology.

Vonage Rep: Well, I meant it. After you told me your story I realized that what we did to you…well, it’s just not right, it isn’t.

Me: Tut tut. Water under the bridge, pal.

Something tells me that your company has already spent more money than the router cost you in the first place, just dealing with my calls and email (assuming this is actually being read by a person and that the people I talked to were actually people and not some form of pretty annoying Vonage Robots).

So, please, for your sake and mine, just send me a new router. For free. And please have someone get it out by the end of this business day. I can't imagine that could really be that hard for someone in your company to do. In fact, there is probably someone who just does that, who just sends routers to customers. If so, I would be grateful to you, whoever is reading this, human being or Vonage Robot, if you could find that person (or robot), who sends out the routers, and tell them to send one Matt's way. ‘Cause his router rides the short bus to router school, and he simply can’t dedicate his time to a special-needs router.

Oh great. There is a guy sitting adjacent to me on the subway and he’s sleeping and his leg is touching my knee.

And normally that wouldn’t be the end of the world, but the further he drifts off to sleep, the more his leg presses against my knee, and I can’t help but think it’s the instinct that occurs in sleep, mostly with men, I think, that makes a person grind, grind into whatever they’re sleeping on top of or next to. I don’t know why it happens. Sleep must somehow be a turn-on. Your body says it’s time to do your dirty business and because you’re asleep you don’t consider the inappropriateness of it, you just grind and push and hopefully some orifice will give.

That is why I’m not entirely comfortable with that guy’s leg pushing up against mine. It’s just so animal, you know? I don’t like it when people do things that are animal.

I know, I know. We’re all animals. People are animals, right? No use fighting nature. You are what you are. All I have to say about that is that’s animal talk, pal.

Because maybe it’s true that we’re animals on an organic level, but intelligence reigns supreme – mankind has been manipulating/ desecrating nature and playing God for so long now that perversion is intrinsic to our species and I would frankly prefer to align myself with the machines. So you can hang from branches and throw your feces if you want. I’ll be evolving into a cybernetic hybrid.

Aw, and his stupid face. Sometimes people look so foul when they’re asleep that I can’t help but stare at them and let the hatred wash over me in crimson and fire. Like this guy. He looks like a tragedy mask, with his pointy beak nose and his open mouth like an upside down banana. God, what a hideous image. Funny how satisfying it is to hate people over things they can’t help! It really is, though.

I was going to take a picture of him but then I thought that would be going too far. I imagined him seeing himself displayed unflatteringly on the internet and mocked for his hideousness, and how that might make him feel ashamed (to say nothing about how he might decide to murder me), and all of a sudden I got really sad for him and what I was considering doing. So I don’t have a picture, but if you want a visual, just think of the Halloween mask from the movie Scream, only Asian.

Out of consideration for the rest of humankind, I think everyone ought to come up with a neutral sleep position and actively practice it every time they sleep in public. For example, sit up straight and close your eyes and see how well you can balance sleeping with not moving. It’s possible, trust me. Really close your mouth tight, too, that’s the important part. Vacuum-seal it and keep it closed. Everyone knows how to vacuum seal their mouth, it’s innate – you just suck all the air and spit out and leave it closed up and sealed. Really, I can’t stress the vacuum mouth enough. Keeping your mouth closed is the most important part about not looking hideous.

And sure, sometimes people laugh at me when they see me sleeping on the subway or in a car because I never move and I sit up straight. And while it might seem funny to sleep so militantly, one thing it is not is fucking disgusting like banana mouth over here.

If I start smelling his breath, I’m going to wake him up. By throwing up all over him. There’s only just so much I can take.

I'm sure it's some weightloss lifeforce-devouring cancer chemical (or herb as it were), but I like to think that Hoodia Gordonii is the name of a country where Trimspa is particularly big.

Normally I would think that a country with that kind of name is somewhere I should move immediately, if not for the fact that everyone there uses Trimspa, so they're probably all hungry and bitchy.

(The title is not quite right for this as I make no mention of Vietnamese prostitutes, but I couldn’t bring myself to change it. On the other hand, sex and terrorists abound, so perhaps it’s not too far off the mark.)

--

I just passed a woman who was going into a 5-hour training session and she gave me the conspiracy-eye and said, “I’d rather have sex with Osama bin Laden than go into this training.” And that really struck me as a weird thing for a person to say.

Like, it’s a weird thought to just jump to, you know? Why that?

I mean sure, maybe she had what she thought was a real zinger of a training session critique and was just bursting to tell someone – she can’t hold out much longer, she’s about to call up her husband or something, just so she can get it out, when Lucky Me comes on the scene.

“…than go to this training.”

“Yeah well…” I don’t know what my responses are sometimes. The expectant pause signals it’s time for me to speak but I can’t think anything clever up, so I just start saying words until I realize I have formed a complete sentence and I can cap it with a period. “Maybe there will be an opportunity to discuss that in the training session.”

And we both laugh. Wonderful. Now just turn around and walk - don’t run - away.

I get that she was excited about her quip. I just think it’s curious that she thinks enough about having sex with Osama to craft it into a one-liner for public consumption. It makes me think she wasn’t being entirely truthful when she compared sex with Osama to something she didn’t want to do. Something tells me that she does, in fact, want to have sex with him. Like when she’s making dinner (I know, what a secretary stereotype, but stereotypes are always true) and she hears his name on the news, does she get the slightest tingle amidst her outrage at the thought of all Osama stands for? And you don’t need me to tell you what’s doin’ the tinglin’.

Maybe she even pictures being captured by him and his cronies. And what a sexy scene that might be, huh?

“If your country doesn’t pay up, we will cut your pig head off.”

“Ooh. Sounds dirty.”

“Bloody, yes.”

“How are you going to…do it to me?”

“With blade.”

“Tell me more about your…blade.”

“Is rusty.”

“Put it in me."

But I suppose that shouldn’t surprise me, it’s not like I don’t hear about hot terrorists all the time from Jack. My friend Jack is basically in love with all terrorists, which I can identify with pretty readily. When I consider Middle Eastern girls…man oh man, my eyes glaze over just thinking about how hot they are. I could go on for hours about them, and I frequently do. But not today.

In any case, Jack couldn’t get enough of the post 9-11 newspaper coverage. At least once a day he would unfold the paper and direct my attention to their mug shots.

“Look at them.”

“I see the terrorists.”

“Yeah but look at them. They’re so hot. Too bad they all had to die.”

And what if the plane had 14 (was it 14? I don’t know) hot Saudi girls on it? Would I be pitching a tent through my patriotic fury? For that matter, what if the majority of terrorists were hot Middle Eastern girls? If that were the case, I have the feeling I would never shut up about terrorists. I might even change careers so that I could work in a field that puts me closer to terrorists. Not aiding and abetting, mind you. More of a gawking and ogling-related field.

Now that I think about it, it doesn’t seem strange at all that that secretary has Osama’s hot bod on the brain. I bet a lot of women want to have sex with him. Why wouldn’t they? He’s attractive and he’s the world’s worst bad boy. Cripes. I bet all women want to have sex with him.

I wonder if he has any daughters.

There is something very tiring and disappointing when the bathroom I’m in doesn’t have soap or, worse yet, when they have the scum-cloudy hull of an empty soap bottle that just sprays dry and wobbles to the touch. No soap in there, the grimy bastards.

So what am I supposed to do then? Not wash? Okay maybe, if my hands are still relatively unsoiled since my last washing. For example if I can still smell the soap from earlier on my hands then I might be inclined to skip this hand wash. I have clean privates, after all, so I’m not too concerned about doing the world a disservice by spreading them around on my hands. Don’t get me wrong, though. If it’s a sweaty day I’ll definitely wash my hands. But when it’s chilly out sometimes you’re just smooth and clean. It’s okay to shake someone’s hand after that. But only if you’re me. Not if you’re anyone else.

But if there is no soapy scent on my hands and if they are starting to get gummy-slick the way unclean hands do, there’s just no question – it’s time to wash my hands. And if there’s no soap on the sink, odds are it’s in the shower. Good lord, they better have something in the shower, even if it’s just shampoo.

As I open the shower curtain (discreetly now, so that no one in the other rooms can hear what I’m up to in here), judgment comes quick and reflexive. There is a sewing-circle instinct in me that kicks in when I’m snooping where I shouldn’t, and all of a sudden I’m the nosy gossip searching for evidence, and because the only person I run to tell is myself, and since I myself am right there in the room, it makes the whole gossip experience more satisfying in a way. Because odds are I’m going to emphatically agree with my own gossip, and what a laugh we will have then!

“Look at the scummy porcelain and the hair in the drain.”

“I know! Remind me to bring shower shoes if we ever stay here.”

“We’ll have to bring more than that. They use VO5.”

“Even conditioner?”

“Even conditioner.”

At which point I roll my eyes for the both of me, decide I have been in the bathroom too long, and reach for any cleaning agent I can find.

Which always just happens to be some kind of gummy Irish Spring mountain scent soap-gunk that is shaped like the inside of a clenched fist. I don’t know what would possess a person to do this to their soap, but a lot of people do (I have last-resorted to a lot of showers). My soap keeps the ghost of the DIAL stamp almost down to the sliver, but other people prefer to smash theirs in their fists like a stress ball that calms as it cleans. Who knows. It’s a diverse world.

And so I use their grody little soap, wincing at what pubic molecules I may be massaging deep into my skin, transported there on the soothing lie of “antibacterial.”

You know what would make me really happy as a guest in someone’s bathroom?

If they had stacks and stacks of soap displayed so that you really got the sense that their soap was expendable, that you could grab your own brand new cake and throw it away when you were done if you wanted to – so that it would only be you who used the soap. It might give their guests a greater sense of comfort and security if their guests knew they could have a soap that was touched only by them. It might make them more talkative and lively because the act of going to the bathroom would be restorative and not a hassle. I know I would like it. If it were me, I would probably come out giggling.

Dress it up in the slutly cash-stained rags of a diseased and filthy ad-whore.