Fahrenheit-182: A Memoir

by Mark Hoppus

Our parents loved us both very much. They never wanted to hurt us, but they definitely wanted to hurt each other, and children are a handy cudgel.

I loved Tom from the first day I met him.

Im not crying, you are

Maybe 182 is the number lovingly painted on my childhood sled, long before I became a morally bankrupt newspaper tycoon, dying alone among my riches. Maybe it’s a blank canvas and everyone paints their own interpretation of 182. Maybe the real 182 is the number of friends we made along the way.

My deepest condolences to the editor who had to pixelate out my inappropriates.

I’ve seen “tomorrow holds such better days” tattooed on countless limbs. To this day fans come up to tell me the song saved their lives. Thank you, it saved mine, too.

So, when I met Skye it felt like I’d written her into existence. Like I’d found my Josie.

Plus, as a grown American man, it’s my duty to be fascinated by all things World War II.

My phone was killing the last remaining shreds of my sanity. “Hmm, why am I so unhappy lately?” I’d ask myself as I stared into a beam of pure concentrated negativity for the tenth consecutive hour. It was morbidly addicting. A new word was popularized that year: doomscrolling.