I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom

by Jason Pargin

“Never challenge a man in a Buick. He’s got nothin’ to lose.”

“Instead of just saying what you’d prefer, you off-load the choice to someone or something else. Instead of ‘I don’t want to hang out with you,’ it’s ‘I have work that night’ or ‘I’m not feeling well.’ Nothing is ever expressed as your own needs and wants, so you never have to defend your choices or own the consequences later. I used to do it all the time.”

Sure, you don’t want to do the work right now, during the hard part. Nobody does! But the real ‘you’ doesn’t exist in the moment; you exist in the long term. That you, the whole you, will be glad you did this.”

As Patrick used to say, we’re all just babies trapped in God’s hot parked car.

On the opposite wall were pinned dozens of whimsical trucker caps bearing slogans like ALL TRASH, NO TRAILER; OLD FART; and, bafflingly, THE BIGGER THE FUPA, THE TASTIER THE CHALUPA.

The wrong friends can make you lonelier than being alone.”

There’s an old saying that a child not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth. I’d update it to say the child not sufficiently entertained by the village will burn it down for the spectacle.”