Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir

by Jenny Lawson

pretending to be a rattlesnake in front of an armed mother is basically like waving a fake gun in front of a cop.

the type of self-harm affair that only imaginative children with limited supervision can ever fully achieve.

He implied that our response to the quail was probably just an indication of our own guilty consciences, and my mother implied that he probably needed to be stabbed repeatedly with a fork in the thigh, but she said it more with her eyes than with her mouth, and my father seldom paid enough attention to either.

The beauty of marijuana is that it instantly brings people together. Two minutes earlier you’re standing with strangers in awkward silence because you brought up dildos, and then someone whispers that the hostess’s brother died in a dildo accident, and you feel terrible about bringing up such a sensitive issue, but also really curious, because how does someone die from a dildo accident?

(Note: proffer. It’s not “offer” or “prefer.” It’s a combination of them, and it’s a real word that you can use in Scrabble.

I think he’d actually taken a hit of acid himself, because he seemed to be melting, and it’s been my experience that most sober people don’t do that.

Victor frowned and pointed out that most people don’t own entire pieces of furniture dedicated to weapons, and I began to suspect Victor was not actually from Texas.

Still, in spite of everything, Victor seemed to love me in a strange and bizarre way

I wanted to cheer him up, but it felt weird wanting to cheer up someone who was possibly depressed because they didn’t murder you correctly, and that’s when I thought, “This must be what love is. When you want to make it less difficult for someone to murder you.” And that’s when I realized that I was far too in love with him for my own good, and also that I probably needed therapy.

There are three types of people who choose a career in HR: sadistic assholes who were probably all tattletales in school, empathetic (and soon-to-be-disillusioned) idealists who think they can make a difference in the lives of others, and those who of us who stick around because it gives you the best view of all the most entertaining train wrecks happening in the rest of the company.

She’s starting to get paranoid and jumpy about it, but there’s really nothing she can do, because she can’t complain about me wishing her a wonderful day without sounding totally insane. This is why you should never mess with nonconfrontational people. Because they’re too unstable to second-guess.

“I don’t like mimes. I don’t like the fact that they fake a disability.” “Right? Why stop at mimicking the mute? Where are the clowns pretending to have polio?”

As far as I’m concerned, a house should look lived-in, and I consider it clean as long as I don’t stick to it and it doesn’t give me cholera.

Basically it’s like being stabbed in the neck to take your mind off your stubbed toe.

Because you are defined not by life’s imperfect moments, but by your reaction to them. Because there is joy in embracing—rather than running screaming from—the utter absurdity of life.

“Problemly” is a real word. (Definition: Something that will probably be a problem.) It is unchallengeable in Scrabble.