Sometimes I think about how many little things we probably do every day that would totally mess up the reasoning of a Sherlock-Holmes-style detective.
Like the other day we went to the cinema and I was wearing a shirt with no pockets so I put the ticket in my trouser pocket. The next day I was wearing the same trousers and I put my hand in my pocket and found the ticket there.
Now, I have a certain selection of things I always have in my trouser pockets and I don’t really like having anything else in there because it confuses my hands when I want to get something, so I took the ticket out. And I wasn’t near a rubbish bin, but I was wearing a shirt with a breast pocket. So I put the ticket in the shirt pocket.
And I thought: if I get interestingly murdered, the Sherlock-Holmes-style detective is going to deduce that I’m wearing the same shirt that I wore yesterday. Because it’s got a cinema ticket in the pocket with yesterday’s date on, and why on earth would anyone put a cinema ticket in the pocket of a shirt unless they were wearing the shirt when they went to the cinema?
Which is a bit of reasoning we would all find totally convincing if it came from a Sherlock-Holmes-style detective. But it would be wrong. Because actually there are so many other explanations for things once you take account of the fact that people are often slightly eccentric in completely trivial and unguessable ways.
“Samuel Vimes dreamed about Clues. He had a jaundiced view of Clues. He instinctively distrusted them. They got in the way. And he distrusted the kind of person who’d take one look at another man and say in a lordly voice to his companion, “Ah, my dear sir, I can tell you nothing except that he is a left-handed stonemason who has spent some years in the merchant navy and has recently fallen on hard times,” and then unroll a lot of supercilious commentary about calluses and stance and the state of a man’s boots, when exactly the same comments could apply to a man who was wearing his old clothes because he’d been doing a spot of home bricklaying for a new barbecue pit, and had been tattooed once when he was drunk and seventeen* and in fact got seasick on a wet pavement. What arrogance! What an insult to the rich and chaotic variety of the human experience!”
Does anyone else with anxiety get that thing where you just want everything to be quiet and when it’s not, you just get really agitated, and people’s voices just start driving you insane?
shortly after coming out there’s this thing called the deciding- the high elder gays and bi men assemble and a lock of your hair is thrown into a fire, if the fire turns green you’re a top, if it turns blue you’re a bottom and if it’s red you’re vers. It’s actually a really beautiful ceremony.
you know what i want?? a representation of the seven deadly sins where for once lust isnt the only woman and is instead a horny friendzone dudebro
holy shit
A frat house of deadly sins:
Lust, the guy who hits on everyone regardless of whether or not they seem inclined to reciprocate, also known as the guy who considers his own pleasure the endgame of any encounter, consistently failing to give a shit about other people’s comfort or satisfaction;
Gluttony, the guy who overindulges in everything regardless of whether or not it was offered in moderation or offered out of politeness, also known as the guy who’s always high off other people’s weed and drunk off other people’s beer, consistently failing to respect the unspoken standards of politeness;
Greed, the guy who lays claim to every object of ambiguous origin left behind after a party, also known as the guy who hoards things he’s fully aware he’ll never use before they expire or will simply never use at all, consistently failing to demonstrate an awareness of the basic concept of sharing;
Sloth, the guy who only demonstrates any agency when the possibility of getting someone else to do his work for him arises, also known as the guy who will actually expend more energy trying to get out of making a basic effort than the basic effort itself would have required, consistently failing to do much of anything;
Wrath, the guy who finds a way to pick a fight with anyone nearby regardless of the circumstances, also known as the guy who’s formed an elaborate system of self-justifications to excuse his violent behaviours rather than attempt to curb his temper, consistently failing to take responsibility for his actions;
Envy, the only nice guy in the house, also known as the guy who thinks the world and everyone in it owes him something regardless of whether or not he’s done anything to deserve it, consistently failing to recognize that basic acts of human decency do not entitle him to the regard and attentions of others;
and Pride, the guy whose stories keep getting longer every time you hear them, also known as the guy who can’t stand not to be the centre of attention and who only starts conversations with others in the interests of talking about himself, consistently failing to take into account the fact that literally no one likes a person who feels compelled to engage everyone around them in constant games of self-congratulatory one-upmanship.
They are insiduous people, these frat brothers, primarily because you know people exactly like them and could never quite put your finger on why they’re so goddamned infuriating.
the sons of the white suburban moms of the apocalypse
the white suburban moms of the apocalypse:
war: stands up at the pta meeting to remind everyone evolution is just a theory and shouldn’t be taught in science class
famine: invited you over for dinner but everything’s vegan and gluten-free
pestilence: didn’t vaccinate her fucking kids and now the whole neighborhood’s got measles
death: on the way to sign her divorce papers and you just put regular instead of sugar-free syrup in her half-caf no whip caramel latte
