Book of Daze Archives - Page 11 of 18 - Postcards from The Pug Bus

Postcards from The Pug Bus

Lifting a satirical leg on popular culture

Persons in the Ether

Question of the Week

Passion or stability?

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.

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.

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.

"Holy merde."

Book of Daze

Book of Daze Panicked Awakening Day

philmaggitti bookof-daze 9 months

“What time is it?! What day is it?! Who the hell am I?!” Welcome to Book of Daze Panicked Awakening Day. Historians trace the origin… Read More

"What's a special character?"

Book of Daze

Book of Daze Create a New Password Day

philmaggitti bookof-daze 9 months

“Strong. Secure. Immediately forgotten.” This frazzled holiday was born in 1997, when IT help desk technician Gerald Bunt of Richmond, Virginia, accidentally deleted an entire… Read More

a man near a fire alarm from which smoke is emanating

"Where there's smoke ..."

Book of Daze

Book of Daze Microwave Regret Day

philmaggitti bookof-daze 9 months

“It looked fine until it exploded.” The roots of Book of Daze Microwave Regret Day can be traced to 2003, when sophomore RenÃ©e “Hot Pocket”… Read More

two cavemen looking at a list on a cave wall

"You hand writing sucks."

Book of Daze

Book of Daze Make a To-Do List and Ignore It Day

philmaggitti bookof-daze 9 months

“If I write it down, does that count?” The to-do list, the last refuge of procrastinators, the first I will and testament of the recently conscripted,… Read More

"I’m not just sorry, I’m truly sorry."

Book of Daze

Book of Daze Apologize for Something You Didn’t Do Day

philmaggitti bookof-daze 9 months

“Sorry, I just … sorry.” No one is accusing you. Nothing went wrong. No sirens have gone off. Still, you feel the need to whisper… Read More

middle-aged man standing in fron of a sign that says Burma Shave

"Out shaves them all?"

Book of Daze

Book of Daze Forget People’s Names Day

philmaggitti bookof-daze 9 months

We are gathered here together to recall the better-forgotten times when we have died of embarrassment as names evaporated like dew on a hot sidewalk and… Read More

"A man's car is his castle."

Book of Daze

Book of Daze Sit in the Car in the Driveway Day

philmaggitti bookof-daze 9 months

Observed faithfully by introverts, overstimulated parents, and anyone who has trouble making eye contact with their own furniture, Book of Daze Sit in the Car… Read More

"Pretending to be not home."

Book of Daze

Book of Daze Pretend You’re Not Home Day

philmaggitti bookof-daze 9 months

A Celebration of Cowering in Silence Book of Daze Pretend You’re Not Home Day celebrates the ancient and sacred rite of hiding behind a couch… Read More

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.