THIS WAS SUPPOSED to be the Last-Minute Drugstore Gift Guide for 2020, however, I ran out of time, so there’s always next year, right? Har! Anyway, I kept part of the headline and then tacked on this week’s Mr. Wrong column to it, which is all about The Year Twenty Twenty and No Cents, Anno Dominos!
It’s still The Holidays, though, so I guess you could go read the one I did a coupla years ago, I think it holds up pretty well. Or, I dunno, what is Time? I took some good pictures of crappy gifts, maybe I’ll just write the stupid Gift Guide thing in February and it could be all in Past Tension, or Future Lateness!
Anyway, I don’t know about you—and you don’t want me to—but I am not a Retrospective type of person who thinks it’s so Important to unclog my pipes about The Year In Review, but this time I swear it’s not my fault, and I can prove it with the words I am making up right now.
A coupla weeks ago I got an email from somebody who said they (and you know who They are) were from a Web Site, and the email said they were:
“[O]nce again compiling our year-end wrap-up featuring some of the most thoughtful people on the Internet.”
—A THOUGHTFUL PERSON ON THE INTERNET
Now right away, wouldn’t you think this was a spam? I would take it as a compliment about being a Most Thoughtful on the Internet,” but the Mr. Wrong Column is not a place for Thought, it is a place for Action! Typing! Bold type-ing, even! And lots of it!
So I forgot about it, the thing from the Web Site, and then about a week later I got another email asking me if I wanted to do the thing, and I replied and told ‘em that “thoughtful” is not a word directed at me a whole bunch, and I apologized for not taking it seriously, and then I told the person from the Web Site, which I will not name, but the initials are https://themorningnews.org/, that I would think about it. Thought! So I thought, and then after I thought, I forgot, and then I thought about other stuff, and then I remembered, and by then it was past the Deadline. See? “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so,” exclamation point!
No offense to anybody emailing me about stuff, but nobody mentioned anything about Money, and it’s not a big deal, but if that email said WE WILL GIVE YOU A DOLLAR, I would be Thinking way harder about my Contribution to Thought on the Internet, you know? I’m not kidding, I could buy a scratch-off Lottery ticket with a dollar!
Seriously though, thanks, The Morning News Dot Com, and I am sorry I didn’t write a thing for your thing, but also thanks for making me Think, you know? I thought about the year and what was good and bad! What isn’t? It was mostly Bad, so I’m not gonna get crazy about it except to say this was the year that they discontinued the nasty fried taco at Burger King, and I miss it because I don’t live near a Jack-In-The-Box. Yeah, I know, there was lots of other Bad Shit that happened this year! I know! Go look at the Internet or out the fucking window!
Maybe I missed the Deadline because I don’t deal well with that kinda pressure, you know? Why does there have to be a List every Year, In Review? Couldn’t this year be a time where we just go “OK, maybe let’s skip this one, and look forward, in positivity?”
Another thing, what makes you think 2020 is gonna stop on Dec. 31 or whenever? All of a sudden it’s gonna stop being shitty and we will have freedom from Pestilence, Famine, War, and the other one? Ha! It’s gonna be 2020 for a big part of next year, right? You know, I apologized to the Morning site for asking me about 2020, but maybe they should sort of apologize to me, you know? It’s a lotta stress! 2020!
Here are the highlights of the year 2020, for me, A purportedly Thoughtful Person on The Internet, but mostly, the writer of the Mr. Wrong column.
Most recently, the hunk of leftover steak I microwaved just right, it was like one minute at Button Number 4 Power Level. I stabbed the piece of perfectly re-heated meat with a fork and sat at my desk and took bites out of it in the manner of consuming a Street Food item as I started working on this column. Originally it was steak I cooked on my new Combination Charcoal and Propane Gas Smoker Grill, which was a birthday present from my brother, so that’s another highlight, having a brother who would buy me a nutso grill like this. Also, he comes over to the house a lot more because I’m always cooking stuff on the grill, so that’s fun. I guess we are in a Pod against the Virus, which is a bad thing about 2020, having to be in a stupid Pod of People, no offense, I mean I’m in there too, and I ain’t no picnic, even with the bomb-ass grill on my deck. 2020!
Another highlight because of my brother, was that for Xmas he bought me some scratch-offs, and I racked up $215 in scratchings, so I went out and bought $215 worth of more scratch-offs! There is nothing as hope-inspiring as a buncha un-scratched scratch-offs. Hope for The Future, which is a big highlight of 2020, looking the fuck forward!
I also want to say that Spotify, the music thing, is a highlight of 2020, personally, but I see a lotta people talking about how Spotify doesn’t really trickle a lotta dough back to the Original Artists for their Original Recordings. That makes me feel bad because I thought if I paid money to Spotify it would be better than using it free, right, like more dough would go to the Artists? Plus I got Hulu for free with it, or I got Spotify for free with Hulu, who can remember? 2020!
A further 2020 Highlight is I finally finished eating all the Xmas Cookies so now I won’t eat any more. I ate, seriously, seven pounds of fat onto my body—I weighed myself—because of all the goddamn candy and cookies (and beer) that found its way into my castle! Now my back hurts, because I have a delicate frame and if I get a certain amount of too over-fat, for me, my back immediately goes on strike because my gut-flab does something to my spine. MY SPINE, AIEEE! You would think that’d be enough to keep me off the cookies, but I didn’t bring ‘em into the house.*
*I totally brought all of the beers into my house.
Also in Highlights of 2020, this year I got to track down the music in that salsa commercial that made me want that salsa, it was like NEER NA NEER-NEER NAH NEER-NEER AMIGA DATE CUENTA, which I couldn’t Bing-translate but my pal Maria at The Brick House Dot Com, who and which are also highlights of 2020, told me it means “figure it tf out.” That commercial made me want to listen to the wacky music that went with the salsa! For New Years Distant Eve, My wife and I are gonna go and buy a “taco kit” at a local restaurant, since we are lockdown-ed from dining within or without, and I am gonna get extra Herdez salsa at the supermarket to go with. My wife is also a total highlight of 2020, all year, seriously. Plus, every Friday since March of 2020, we have been going to a nearby parking lot and drinking beers. It was her idea, Crappy Hour™! Cheers!
One more Highlight of 2020 is You, the Gentle Reader, who might even read The Mr. Wrong Column, which is always its own Highlight! Everything else about 2020 is mostly stuff I don’t wanna Think about, even if you paid me.
Thank you and I sincerely hope you have a better one, yearwise. 2020!
