Postcards from The Pug Bus

Lifting a satirical leg on popular culture

Persons in the Ether

Question of the Week

Passion or stability?

MD

Mavis Drouk, emotional escrow officer

Believed to be near Harrisburg, PA

Stability. Passion is what people choose when they still believe a staircase can be made entirely of sparks. Stability may not sing outside your window, but it does remember where the insurance cards are.

RC

Rufus Clenn, freelance thunder consultant

Last reported west of Tulsa, OK

Passion, obviously. Stability is just boredom wearing shoes with arch support. I want life to arrive late, smell faintly of lightning, and explain nothing until several lamps have been broken.

NV

Nora Vell, deputy curator of small regrets

Possibly sheltering in Eugene, OR

Passion is useful for beginnings, stability for the paperwork afterward. I prefer both in moderation, which is another way of saying I would like to be ruined briefly and then driven home safely.

Hot Happening Horoscopes, 09/13

8 months philmaggitti horoscopes

A baby curiously touching a man's face while he lies on grass. — When the stars stop whispering and start trolling.

(Sinning the cosmic wheel of nonsense, gathering up the crumbs, and serving with a side of existential dread and zero refunds: in Hot Stuff Horoscopes)

â™ˆï¸ Aries * You believe you are in charge today, Aries, but the universe has secretly replaced your steering wheel with a frisbee. Do not throw it.

â™‰ï¸ Taurus * Someone will compliment your “chill vibe,” Taurus. It is not a compliment. It is a warning that you may soon be mistaken for lawn furniture.

â™Šï¸ Gemini * Your dual nature will try to negotiate peace today. Unfortunately, both sides hired lawyers. Prepare for depositions and popcorn.

â™‹ï¸ Cancer * You will receive a mysterious message, Cancer. It will be from you. Sadly, you will still not understand what you meant.

â™Œï¸ Leo * Your dramatic entrance will be upstaged by a dog with a squeaky toy. Take the loss gracefully or challenge the dog to a rematch.

â™ï¸ Virgo * You will attempt to organize your thoughts today. Your thoughts will unionize. Expect work stoppages and unreasonable snack breaks.

â™Žï¸ Libra * Your quest for balance will lead you to buy two identical objects. Congratulations, you have achieved symmetry and bankruptcy.

â™ï¸ Scorpio * You will sense betrayal from a friend, Scorpio. Plot revenge carefully. You do not want to waste a perfectly good voodoo doll.

â™ï¸ Sagittarius â¬›You will feel the urge to travel, Sagittarius. Unfortunately, so will your car’s transmission fluid. Pack sneakers.

â™‘ï¸ Capricorn * Your productivity streak ends when you accidentally open a new tab and fall into a twelve-hour rabbit hole about medieval plumbing.

â™’ï¸ Aquarius * Today you will have a brilliant idea. Sadly, so will three other Aquarians, and they will post it on X before you finish typing.

â™“ï¸ Pisces * You are the emotional tidepool of the zodiac today. Someone will drop a rock in you. Make it fashion.

For additional horoscopes from hell slide over to our cosmic archive and keep punishing yourself.

The preceding is satire. Straight up, Skippy. No warranties are expressed or implied. For life advice, try a professional. For investment tips, try a dart board. For salvation, the gentleman in the robe has been handling that portfolio for 2,000 years.

The Pug Bus Breaking News

The Pug Bus Breaking News requires no email address, no mother's maiden name, no first pet's nickname, and no DNA sample. You simply mash the link below and read.

Deliver It

⚡ Scholars at the Royal Institute for the Advancement of Obvious Things have concluded, after eleven years of exhaustive inquiry, that people who speak at great length in meetings do not thereby become more correct. The findings have been submitted to a committee for review.

⚡ It has been determined by authorities in several jurisdictions that the phrase "I just want to be honest with you" reliably precedes the portion of the conversation one would most prefer not to have. Legislation is pending.

⚡ The Bureau of Perpetual Reassessment has announced that this is not, in fact, the most divided the nation has ever been, a distinction that continues to belong to a prior era when the disagreements concerned rather more consequential matters and people occasionally died over them.

Adverse Effects

The following lines of prose cleverly arranged as poetry may induce brief clarity, misplaced certainty, and the sense that something has already been decided without your approval ...

By seventy you know which doors you walked past without opening,
can name the rooms you never entered,
hear the echoes anyway.

Read It All

By seventy you know which doors you walked past without opening,
can name the rooms you never entered,
hear the echoes anyway.

The years do not accuse.
They simply pile up like newspapers you meant to read,
each one carrying news that is no longer news.

You think: I should have said that differently.
I should have stayed. I should have gone.
The mind is efficient this way,
filing the same cases under the same wrong headings,
finding them again at 3 a.m. in perfect order.

What surprises is not the weight of it
but the patience —
how regret waits,
how it has nowhere else to be,
how it sits across from you at breakfast
and asks for nothing,
knowing you will offer it everything
on your own.

The body slows.
The catalog does not.
You carry the unlived lives
the way old houses carry
the smell of people who are gone —
not haunting exactly,
just present,
just there,
just refusing
the simple courtesy
of leaving.