Book of Daze Archives - Page 16 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.

Large orange prescription pill bottle crossed out by a red prohibition circle and slash, symbolizing Skip Your Medication Day on a light background.”

“Because what could possibly go wrong?”

Book of Daze

Book of Daze: Ban CBD Forever Day℠

philmaggitti bookof-daze 6 years

Regarding CBD oil, never has so much been swallowed by so many at such great cost to so little effect. Consequently, Postcards from the Pug… Read More

Book of Daze

Book of Daze: Driver Recall Day℠

philmaggitti bookof-daze 6 years

NEW YORK–Concerned about the increasing rate of “irresponsible, negligent, and thoughtless behavior” exhibited by too many drivers, Toyota announced today that it is recalling 250,000… Read More

Book of Daze

Book of Daze: Pot Is Dead Day℠

philmaggitti bookof-daze 6 years

WEST GOSHEN TWP, Pa.–Pot is dead. Deader than a pile of stinking roaches in a dirty ashtray. Deader than Jerry Garcia. Deader than phone booths… Read More

Book of Daze

Book of Daze: Load-Managing Jesus Day℠

philmaggitti bookof-daze 6 years

EAST OPP, Ala.—The Lord God Almighty announced via Snapchat, Twitter, and Gab yesterday that he is going to load-manage Jesus during the next Hebrew year,… Read More

schrodinger's cat breaking out of its box

"There isn't any litter in here."

Book of Daze

Book of Daze: Trompe L’Oeil Day

philmaggitti bookof-daze 6 years

Trompe L’Oeil (tromp LOY) or “trick of the eye”en franÃ§aisis the technique of using realistic imagery to create an optical illusion of depth and thereby… Read More

Book of Daze

Book of Daze: Enough with All the Hugging Day℠

philmaggitti bookof-daze 6 years

Pascal was on to something when he wrote inPensÃ©es, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” That… Read More

Book of Daze

Book of Daze: What Other Calendars Tell Us About America Day℠

philmaggitti bookof-daze 6 years

If a nation can be judged by what it celebrates, the United States is messed up six ways to Sunday and back. To point a… Read More

Book of Daze

Book of Daze: National White Van Day℠

philmaggitti bookof-daze 6 years

Baltimore, MD—Mayor Bernard “Jack” Young urged citizens not to park near white vans because “evil, evil people in white vans” are trolling the city searching… 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.