It’s All My Fault
Midterm Morning Sickness
By Duane Scott Cerny
PERHAPS THE REALITY REMAINS that to become upbeat, one must still feel the pain of being beat up. Photo courtesy of the author’s collection.
Sometimes our friends are bellwethers to the times, a communal finger held up to the wind of opinion, breaking or not. It can be an unexpected indicator of things to come, perhaps even fortuitous things. But the wind can sometimes resemble the twisted faces of disaster that rarely match those found in better police lineups.
Let me provide my inconclusive self as an example. Lately, my television obsessions are as follows: “Air Disasters” on the Smithsonian Channel, “Engineering Catastrophes” on the Science Channel, and the extremely popular “Hoarders” on A&E. Now, is “Hoarders” art or entertainment? If you can’t find your remote control underneath a cat or the disarray of your own life’s clutter, you be the judge.
At first, I didn’t sense a theme. With disastrous topics coming and going so quickly these days, somehow I must have missed it. Apparently, I have a minor addiction to doom porn, channel surfing, slogging through spots for social media mega monster Meta(Musil), commercials for Trump’s $1,000-per-child give-away (they may want to work on that tag line), and Pete Hegseth’s testosterone-powered video game promos for WWIII, LLC.
By combining the collective depression of nearly every friend with my latest foray into the depths of televised/internet gloom, perhaps it’s time to face the music. Or the firing squad.
Like many folks these days, I’m not so much falling apart as seemingly holding it all together with metaphorical strapping tape, safety pins, and unsniffed glue. Optimism is a battered concept as of late, a word sorely secreted in our consciousness like a birthday wish rarely granted. (Where’s my flying neon rainbow-colored pony?) Still, optimism remains, hanging around, feeling useless, looking for the last available seat in a world of musical chairs without music.
Perhaps the reality remains that to become upbeat, one must still feel the pain of being beat up.
To compensate for my spiraling self, I’ve returned to my drug of choice: despising technology. For example, I hate wireless keyboards and the mice they menace. I’m certain I’ve gone through half a dozen wireless mouses/mice, and everyone died without the need for a glue trap. In this, I’ve also discovered something important about myself: I’d rather have my related things attached, or at least nearby and functional. A key that opens a door, for example. I won’t be needing a chip in my head to open a door or to order a latte or to tell my Uber driver he missed my exit, regardless of what the chip in his headed indicated.
Consider salt and pepper, sold together, used together. Sure, Pepper attempted a solo career, spiraling into lesser casinos in the northeast of nowhere. Often, she was the opening act for a psychic vegan ventriloquist who specialized in speaking to dead animals she hadn’t eaten. The fuzzy hologram of a growling chihuahua was a unique bit that still had no bite. And how could Pepper ever follow an act like that? Sadly, it was sodium free.
Salt was another story. You see, Salt’s father, Salt, Sr., held all the salt contracts with the city. Salt never had a worry in his life as he often commented, “Every time it snows, my father plowed himself to the bank.”
My point: Some sets you can’t break up. And who is perhaps the greatest breakup artist on this glib globe? Donald Drumpf. Consider the countless people who’ve passed through his life, the cadre of cadavers who’ve sold their souls to snag the inside stock market skinny. He’s had more use of his personal revolving door than the test spinners at the revolving door factory. Curious, too, that women are ejected more frequently than men, be they late wives, ex-wives, other men’s wives, girlfriends or future Epstein witnesses.
Best you don’t confuse your spouse with the president again … and I’m talking to you, JD Vivian Vance.
Yes, in retrospect, if former press secretary Katie Zacharia had an old queen (insert author here) glued to her ear, Zacharia’s first performance before the press would not have been her last ─ if she said something like this: “Thank you for welcoming me as President for Life Trump’s prettiest new press secretary — the president’s words, not mine. Everything about our President Trump is unbelievable. This economy, numbers no one has ever seen before — unbelievable. Food and gas prices — unbelievable. And this war — everyone said it couldn’t be done — unbelievable. He’s truly put the U.S. back in the USSR. And now, as the president’s personally chosen, fully vetted choice as press secretary, I need to make one quick announcement to all major media outlets and especially our newest podcasters from C-SPANISH-ISH: “I’m pregnant… with the president’s baby!”
Follow on Substack! Duane Scott Cerny takes the blame for most everything in his monthly satirical column, “It’s All My Fault.” Best-selling author of “Selling Dead People’s Things” and “Vintage Confidential,” he is the co-owner of Chicago’s Broadway Antique Market. Send queries/podcast invites to ThanklessGreetings@yahoo.com.
