The Onion

Awkward scenes as local ‘Pro-Bono’ lawyer Jerry Fakeman has been forced to clarify to a potential client that he just means that he is a massive fan of the band U2.

Mr Fakeman said that his love for the started a decade ago when he was the only person in the world thankful for the ‘gift’ of an album being forced onto their iPod. This obsession has since led him to brand his entire legal practice as the ‘Pro-Bono lawyer, helping you get the Edge.’

“I don’t get why everyone keeps thinking that my services would be free up front?” said Jerry. “Why would my love of the album The Joshua Tree have any affect on how I am as a lawyer?”

“Whenever this mix-up happens, they keep telling me that my advertising is apparently ‘confusing’ and ‘not how you run a business’. But I always say that I will continue running the firm how I like, with or without you.”

“Regrettably, every time they do end up just choosing the ‘without’ option. If things don’t turn around soon, I might have to start saying that all I want is you.”

link: https://chaser.com.au/general-news/pro-bono-lawyer-clarifies-he-just-meant-that-he-is-a-big-fan-of-u2/

link: https://reductress.com/post/how-to-satisfy-your-sweet-tooth-without-making-your-bitchy-tooth-jealous/

In an impressive display of malpractice, Shoshanna Feldman self-diagnoses the complete mental breakdown she has at the end of each weekend as the “Sunday scaries”.

“We all know how Sundays can be,” says Shoshanna, who on past Sundays has stayed in bed until 4p.m., decided to cut her own bangs, and called her super under the guise of complaining about her water pressure but really just to cry on the phone with someone.

“It’s just that back-to-the-work-week feeling,” Shoshanna adds, while looking at one-way flights to Oslo online. “You know, Sunday rolls around and you’re like, ‘Wow, I really wish every part of my life was different and I’m not sure how much longer I can take it.’ That’s why they made a name for it: Sunday scaries.”

But not everyone is convinced that Shoshanna’s meltdowns constitute relatable end-of-the-weekend dread.

“Last weekend Shosh FaceTimed me crying from inside a Panera,” says close friend Gabe Wright. “She was like, ‘I honestly only went to law school because I felt lost after undergrad and I got in. This is not the career I want. If I could do the last ten years over I would not make a single decision the same.’”

“I am impressed by her ability to compartmentalize her major breakdowns to just one day of the week,” Gabe adds. “But I think this is bigger than Sunday scaries.”

Shoshanna, however, is incredulous.

“On Sundays I definitely tend be overcome with dread at having to continue the life I’ve created for myself,” she says. “For instance, I don’t really think I’m in love with my partner anymore, I have some major questions about my gender identity, I regret naming my cat Shellfish.”

“But by the time Monday rolls around, I just get swept up with the flow of the week and barely think about those things at all,” Shoshanna adds. “Until it’s Sunday again, and then all those compressed feelings get compounded like a trash compactor creating an unmovable block of my many sorrows.”

“Them’s the Sunday scaries for ya!” It was suggested that Shoshanna try therapy to begin sorting through some of these negative emotions, but she was resistant.

“I just don’t really have the time,” she says. “Sunday is basically my only free day, and we already know that’s blocked off for a nine-hour panic attack!”

Fair enough!

link: https://reductress.com/post/complete-mental-breakdown-self-diagnosed-each-week-as-sunday-scaries/

Just like taxes, laundry is a core but exasperating task we all must face so long as we are alive. Everything becomes meaningless social constructs when you do your laundry – time, reality, even states of being. I learned this the last time I did my laundry, and after putting it in the dryer for what seemed like a whole phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I took it out only to feel my clothes were still damp. Or maybe they were just cold. I still can’t tell which one it was.

I’m not sure how much more of this I can take.

Futilely, I wrung the fabric of the first sweater I grabbed with blind hopes that I could ascertain what state of being my laundry was in if I just squeezed hard enough. But alas, my palm only felt both possibly damp and slightly cold. My sweater was in a suspended state – somehow both potentially wet and potentially just a little cool without any means of confirmation for either, like some twisted, domestic version of Schrödinger’s cat.

I never saw this coming, and I still don’t know what I ever did to deserve this.

The world is filled with classic conundrums we all ask ourselves at some point – “What came first, the chicken or the egg?”, “Is free will an illusion?”, and “Is my laundry wet or just cold?” I was just one in a long line of laundry-goers plagued with the insoluble question and stuck wondering whether to put the laundry back in the dryer for a little longer, or hope that it would dry out (or warm up) once I started putting it away.

No one should ever have to go through something like this.

After debating my metaphysical dilemma for longer than necessary, I took the risk of putting it away, but even as I write this, my laundry still remains in that suspended state. And every morning when I put on my outfit, I embody that state, constantly wondering if I am now slightly wet or just a little cold. Maybe it’s both. Or maybe it’s neither? All I know is I’m just bringing my laundry the next time I visit home, so my mom has to deal with that perplexing quandary instead of me.

link: https://reductress.com/post/i-lived-it-i-couldnt-tell-if-my-laundry-was-wet-or-just-cold/

After Pierre Poilievre described an electrician as someone who “captures lightning from the sky and runs it through a copper wire to illuminate this room and light up the world” we sat down with him and asked him to describe how he thinks other kinds of workers do their job. Here are his responses:

Farmer: “A man, sturdy as an oak and just as powerful, enters upon his field and calls forth the crops from the bosom of the goddess Demeter, whom he cradles in his arms for 23 minutes before returning to his house to make love to his wife.”

Salesperson: “The humble servant travelling the land in order to bring his wares to those in need of them, whether it be knives or candy or a book of coupons for pizzas that you will inevitably forget to use next time you order a pizza.”

Accountant: “The wisened man of numbers, toiling day and night over his abacus, quill in hand as he summons deductions and write-offs from a dimension heretofore unknown to mortal beings such as us.”

Retail worker: “The shopkeep, televisions on in the window, their lights beckoning us in away from the cold and dark to a place of warmth and kindness and 25% savings on all floor models.”

Waiter: “A cherubic thing, younger than some of the samplings from the local vineyard, who transports any tasty morcel you could desire all the way from the ovens to your very presence, and then kindly asks if you’d like pepper with that. Always get the pepper.”

Architect: “A planner carefully crossing their Ts and checking their figures in order to conjure wonders into existence from their very imagination, be they Palladiums or Bazars or great Zeppelin Stations.”

Teacher: “Groomer.”

link: https://www.thebeaverton.com/2024/01/pierre-poilievre-describes-more-jobs/

An oldie, but a goodie - in honor of the news with that Max model losing its Window at high altitudes.

It turns out engineering is important. Who could have known? /s

link: https://reductress.com/post/woman-only-feeds-her-cat-three-times-a-day-because-she-is-mean/

Author Tina Caputo…hell, the entire staff of McSweeney's owe me what I spent on dry cleaning and sofa cushion replacement from pissing my pants laughing!

King Charles has spoken out following the release of court documents that confirmed Prince Andrew went to sex-trafficker Jeffery Epstein’s private island, with the King strongly condemning Meghan Markle for not stopping Prince Andrew from visiting the island.

“I understand that the news has today has hurt the reputation of my family for many,” said the King, “and that is why I am extremely disappointed in the actions of my daughter-in-law in not stopping this from ever occurring. When will her attacks on this family end?”

“Poor Prince Andrew, if you could see him now you would be devastated. Ever since he read in the news the documents would be released, he suddenly got over his inability to sweat.”

“We offered to get him an adult masseuse and he just burst into tears screaming ‘I miss Jeff’. The damage that Markle has done to this family, it’s just tragic.”

Following the announcement, royal correspondents at tabloids around the world have gone all in to focus all their coverage on a leak from a source within the palace talking about an incident wherein Meghan Markle allegedly didn’t say ‘bless you’ after someone sneezed.

link: https://chaser.com.au/world/royal-family-condemns-meghan-markles-failure-to-stop-prince-andrew-visiting-epsteins-island/

link: https://www.theonion.com/potholes-in-nice-part-of-town-filled-with-italian-marbl-1851115849

link: https://reductress.com/post/why-i-stopped-exfoliating-my-feet-and-started-hardening-them-into-weapons/