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.

Book of Daze Regret That Tattoo Day

8 months philmaggitti bookof-daze

A man with a lot of tattoos on his back and arms. — “Does ‘regret’ have one ‘t’ ot two?”

Observed annually by anyone who’s ever wept in a bathroom stall over a Chinese character that actually means “dishwasher.”

Origin Story of Book of Daze Regret That Tattoo Day
This day began in 2007 when a disillusioned former tattoo artist named “Razor Dave” opened his own laser removal studio, Erasure Palace, after realizing he’d inked the wrong astrological symbol on more than four hundred clients. “Turns out Sagittarius doesn’t look like a saggy pair of gym socks after all,” he confessed in an open letter to Inked & Ashamed magazine. Razor Dave proposed a day of national reflection, where Americans could confront their dermal mistakes without judgment – or at least with better lighting.

Observance and Rituals of Book of Daze Regret That Tattoo Day
Today is a solemn occasion marked by group apology circles at mall kiosks, matching cover-up tattoos that say “Oops,” and dramatic Instagram captions like “Every scar tells a story. Mine just happens to be in Papyrus font.” Some observants commemorate the day by Googling “how to turn barbed wire into cherry blossoms,” while others simply cry into a loofah. Participation spikes around 3 a.m., typically after a few drinks and a deeply introspective scroll through old spring break photos.

Recommended Activities Include:
Holding a moment of silence for dolphins on ankles. Lighting a candle for the fallen tribal armbands of the early aughts. Sending a forgiveness text to the ex whose name is still on your tailbone

Record Holder for Book of Daze Regret That Tattoo Day
The official record for removing unfortunate tattoos belongs to Chad “Taz” Mancini, who holds the Guinness record for Most Regretted Tattoos in a Single Torso Region. Highlights include a back mural of the cast of Full House (misspelled “Full Horse”); a motivational quote in Comic Sans: “Luv Yourself, Even If No One Else Duz”; a QR code that used to link to his SoundCloud, now redirects to a porn phishing site. Chad began tattoo removal in 2022. He’s expected to finish by 2031, barring any more bad decisions.

Browse the full Book of Daze

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.