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.

Haiku Horoscopes for July 5, 2025

10 months philmaggitti horoscopes

A baby curiously touching a man's face while he lies on grass. — “Way to burn the toast.”

â™‹ Cancer (June 21 – July 22)
Your tears taste like brine.
Not from sadness, but the soup
You spilled on your lap.

â™Œ Leo (July 23 – August 22)
Mirror says, “You slay.”
But your cat remains unmoved.
Seek less fickle praise.

â™ Virgo (August 23 – September 22)
You clean your inbox
Then weep when it refills fast.
Entropy wins, friend.

â™Ž Libra (September 23 – October 22)
You weigh two options.
Then make up a third, worse one.
Classic Libra move.

â™ Scorpio (October 23 – November 21)
You text your ex
To “check the astrology.”
Delete your birth chart.

â™ Sagittarius (November 22 – December 21)
Book a trip to Mars.
Pack one sock and a kazoo.
Elon Musk approves.

â™‘ Capricorn (December 22 – January 19)
You make a spreadsheet
To track your emotional
ROI. It’s bleak.

â™’ Aquarius (January 20 – February 18)
So you invent time.
Then forgot to patent it.
Uranus facepalms.

â™“ Pisces (February 19 – March 20)
Dream of a fish pope.
You soon crave absolution
And tartar sauce. Why?

â™ˆ Aries (March 21 – April 19)
You wake up swinging.
The toaster is not your foe.
Mars says, calm thy fists.

â™‰ Taurus (April 20 – May 20)
You crave soft cheeses
And emotional distance.
Indulge both today.

â™Š Gemini (May 21 – June 20)
Start twelve new things.
Forget what any are for.
Mercury shrugs. “Same.”

For additional horoscopes from hell, explore the full archive and see just how deep the cosmic rabbit hole goes.

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.