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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.

Two young people wearing American flag swimsuits walk on a beach in thism illustration for The Dirty Little Secret of Every State.

The Dirty Little Secret of Every State

philmaggitti news 5 months

Alabama – Every “closed for repairs” sign is really code for “the possums are running again.”Alaska – Locals measure emotional intimacy by how many moose… Read More

Deranged Landmarks: A Satirical US Atlas features a map of the US with some strange landmarks scattered throughouy.

This landmark is your landmark.

Deranged Landmarks: A Satirical US Atlas

philmaggitti news 5 months

ðŸ—½ Welcome to a Satirical US Atlas–a cartographic fever dream. Fifty states, fifty fictional monuments, each more unhinged than the last. No SEO”‘optimized travel tips,… Read More

A satirical Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover featuring a Mormon model in brightly accessorized temple garments on a beach, blending sacred symbolism with stripes, and couture irony.

First Mormom on SI cover.

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue to Feature First Mormon Cover Model

philmaggitti news 5 months

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue has announced that it will feature the first ever Mormon cover model. The magazine, which has already paraded transwomen, old past-their-prime… Read More

Surreal smart speaker glowing in dual voices—blue baritone and pink soprano—suggesting a secret duet inside the device. Abstract sound waves intertwine like lovers, hinting at a risqué Alexa satire.

Snug as two bugs in a speaker.

The Morning Forecast Affair: An Alexa Satire

philmaggitti news 5 months

The household oracle was summoned with the wake up word, “Ziggy,” and as expected the familiar baritone began its dutiful recital of the morning temperature.… Read More

AI Boy wins spelling bee illustration of an AI bot wearing a baseball cap backwards.

Could you use that in as sentence?

AI Boy (Bot) Wins Spelling Bee

philmaggitti news 5 months

In a development that surprised no one except the sentient dictionary that judged the event, a local sixth-grader who is also an AI bot took… Read More

Satirical adopt-a-highway map of the United States showing major highways humorously “adopted” by woke corporations like Starbucks, Google, Disney, Ben & Jerry’s, and Patagonia, each with exaggerated DEI slogans such as “Pronoun Lane Ahead” and “Algorithmic Equity Corridor.” The map mocks virtue signaling by depicting highways as ideological battlegrounds.

Woke corporations started adopting asphalt like rescue pets.

The Last Mile of Virtue Signaling: An Adopt-a-Highway Map

philmaggitti news 6 months

When America ran out of unclaimed asphalt, the race to adopt highways became a corporate Hunger Games of virtue signaling. With every stretch of interstate… Read More

Humorous cartoon satirizing expert advice on reading canine behavior. A woman reading from a dog training book and a puzzled looking dog beside her.

"I thought this was a bedtime story."

Mistakes Experts Make When Reading Canine Behavior

philmaggitti dog, news 6 months

Next to accounts of hideous murders and gruesome influencers’ deaths, clips about reading canine behavior are the most frequently seen on YouTube. Invariably they are… Read More

Jehovah’s Witness Protection Program

philmaggitti news 6 months

At long last, the federal government has unveiled the Jehovah’s Witness Protection Program, a taxpayer-funded initiative designed to rescue itinerant evangelists from the perils of… 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.