Quietly Hostile

by Samantha Irby

You can use “I like it!” (the exclamation point is necessary) any time some freak questions a regular-ass thing you enjoy, and it’ll swipe their legs out from under them every single time, and you can stand over their quivering body with your subpar tastes and laugh your face off. Deploy it whenever you want, then sit back and watch your judgmental friend splutter and try to choke out a response, because what people like that really want is to show off how much more cultured and evolved they are than you, and saying “I like it!” (include the exclamation point, I mean it!) robs them of that opportunity.

So here’s the thing, women of a certain age (forty-three years old, to be precise), who no longer get their period and can’t eat dairy anymore, need romantic music to vibe to.

It was my first-ever everyone-in-attendance-is-at-least-thirty-nine-years-old concert, and can I say I never want to see a young-people show again? Dude started right on time at 7:00 p.m. and played for two and a half solid hours and then everyone quietly filed out to their minivans in an orderly fashion.

I crank in some salt and pepper, and ten-plus dashes of Cholula while playing air saxophone. I played the saxophone in marching band in middle and high school, so my fake saxophoning is extremely realistic.

I love dip dinner. It’s my favorite of all the novelty meals, mostly because I don’t know anyone who isn’t downright delighted when presented with a steaming bowl of cheese-mixed-with-other-shit-but-pretty-much-just-cheese to dunk a sturdy chip in. There’s a Southwest-style, vaguely Mexican spicy corn dip; an inscrutable tomato-based concoction that is very scrumptious; and the Alison Roman labneh with fried scallions dip that tastes like fancy ranch dressing.

QUIETLY HOSTILE is how I would describe my public personality; I am mild-mannered and super polite, but just beneath the surface of my skin, my blood is electrified and I am one inconsiderate driver away from a full Falling Down–style emotional collapse.

The first daycare I called had a waitlist several months long, and the second one didn’t even answer the phone, which is a business model I honestly respect. The third one said they’d be happy to have him, on a trial basis, which they could revoke at any time.

This is exactly like parenting a child, right? Threatening a small creature with limited cognition into doing what you want, ostensibly for their own good?

It triggered the crushing realization that I was not going to be young and lubricated for much longer and caused my brain to fry like a Partnership for a Drug-Free America egg: “Wait a minute, my lower back aches? I should probably start paying my bills on time.”

Underwire helps separate your breasts, making the twins stand out more and giving your cleavage a helpful boost at the same time. The twins!!!!!!!!!! Distant relatives, more like, at best.

My regular brain knows that no one is clocking your nails when you have, you know, a head and tits and a face, but it’s never the real mind that causes me agony, now is it? Diseased Brain is louder and meaner—and, if we’re being honest, funnier—than Regular Brain,

I made them even more disgusting by taking a big toenail clipper and chomping through the many layers of shellac to make the infant-sized nails I prefer when tapping out my lil feelings.

Our rearing was much more “blood is thicker than water, but water tastes better” than “I got all my sisters and me.”

What was I gonna say? “How much of a psycho was Daddy when you knew him? Want to compare our parallel traumas?”