Book of Daze Archives - Page 5 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.

A humorous illustration showing a frustrated man trying to assemble a collapsed chair while holding a confusing manual. The scene includes a disgruntled cartoon instruction manual and a cheerful garden gnome. Above them, a banner reads “READ THE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST,” highlighting the chaos that ensues when the advice is ignored.

Emotional bracket my foot…

Book of Daze

Book of Daze: Read the Instructions First Day

philmaggitti bookof-daze 7 months

Read the Instructions First was written by an unemployed Sentient Blender with a Dual Ph.D. in Astrophysics and Italian Literature, and Self-Confidence Issues. The Read… Read More

On Take Your Emotional Support Houseplant to Work Day a weary office worker pushes a tall leafy ficus strapped into a yellow rolling desk chair with a seatbelt and visitor badge, while surprised coworkers peek over cubicle walls beneath harsh fluorescent lights.

Do not talk to me until I have had my photosynthesis.

Book of Daze

Book of Daze: Take Your Emotional Support Houseplant to Work

philmaggitti bookof-daze 7 months

Human beings are not the only ones who suffer in silence at the office. On take your emotional supporth houseplant to work, we honor the… Read More

A cheerful parade to remember 1969 set against a bright white background with pastel confetti falling. A silvery Apollo lunar-module float rolls by, flanked by fringe-vested marchers tossing lavender love beads. A Mets-cap marching band in faded denim carries a banner with a heart, peace sign, and baseball symbol. Nearby, a creamy fondue pot on a pedestal wears a golden tiara. Children on the curb wave tiny shag-carpet swatches in celebration of the groovy year.

"All you need is love ..."

Book of Daze

Book of Daze: Remember 1969 Day

philmaggitti bookof-daze 7 months

Let us raise a chipped jelly-jar glass and remember 1969, that lawless commune of twelve months when mankind went to the Moon, but most of… Read More

A cartoon car circles an impossible cloverleaf highway for National Take the Wrong Turn Day, with the driver gripping the wheel and the passenger holding an upside-down map as a man at a gas station points in three directions at once.

Lost but defiant, he insists this loop is definitely the shortcut.

Book of Daze

Book of Daze: Take the Wrong Turn Day

philmaggitti bookof-daze, top ten lists 7 months

For centuries, we humans have been rushing to take the wrong turn, driven by the hubris that we know a better way–over mountains, through deserts,… Read More

A rumpled man in a bathrobe sniffs a questionable tub of yogurt in front of an open refrigerator while his Labrador waits expectantly below, a humorous scene for Book of Daze: Ignore the Expiration Date.

He calls it a taste-test. The Labrador calls it dinner.

Book of Daze

Book of Daze: Ignore the Expiration Date

philmaggitti bookof-daze 7 months

We imagine that Ignore the Expiration Date was born in the 1970s when big grocery chains in the United States and the U.K. introduced “open… Read More

Excuse exchange day oil-painting-of an indoor market scene lit by golden chiaroscuro: a bearded merchant in 17th-century garb weighs a scroll labeled “Car Would Not Start” on a brass balance while a feather-hatted lady examines a glass-domed excuse marked “Bridge Was Up”; nearby jars display “Wi-Fi Died,” a young boy rummages in a wicker basket of discarded excuses, and a greyhound dozes at their feet beneath rustic wooden beams.

The wages of sin paid in excuses.

Book of Daze

Book of Daze: Pre-Owned Excuse Exchange Day

philmaggitti bookof-daze 7 months

Human beings, like parrots and hand-me-down sweaters, thrive on recycling. Why keep inventing brand-new alibis when the planet is choking on perfectly serviceable old ones?… Read More

Mushroom Port-a-Potty cartoon: a port-a-potty topped with a giant mushroom cap, white mycelium roots spreading into the soil, a tie-dyed fan juggling glow sticks beside it under a bright sky.

“Best seat in the house—hope it’s not tripping too.”

Book of Daze

Book of Daze: Mushroom Port-a-Potty Day

philmaggitti bookof-daze 7 months

Move over, composting toilets. Step aside, blue-chemical porta-johns that smell like a Smurf’s hangover. The future of human waste management has sprouted in a plastic… Read More

Lose Your Remote day illustration of a cartoon-realistic living-room battlefield: a frazzled adult on all fours pries up a sofa cushion with one hand, flashlight in the other; popcorn kernels tumble out like relics; a smug cat perches on the armrest with tail curled around the missing remote, pretending to nap.

The cat knows exactly where the remote is. It is enjoying your suffering almost as much as the popcorn crumbs.

Book of Daze

Book of Daze: Lose Your Remote Day

philmaggitti bookof-daze 7 months

Once upon a time, the remote control was a badge of household sovereignty. Today it is a fugitive. On National Lose Your Remote Day, we… 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.