The Onion

CHICAGO—With a demolition crew arriving outside the building just as the final Sputnik chandelier was installed, a new luxury condominium building was reportedly demolished minutes after its completion Wednesday in order to build even fancier condos. “Though we are sorry to say goodbye to this high-rise after its storied six-minute history, we are confident the new high-rise will better meet the needs of this rapidly gentrifying neighborhood,” said developer Jonathan Delano, confirming the newly constructed One Walton Place would be replaced by a future building known simply as The Bell, which he estimated would take approximately 10 years to complete. “Residents will enjoy world-class amenities such as a concierge upgraded to a doorman, a dog run upgraded to a communal dog terrace, and a lap pool upgraded to a rooftop Olympic-sized swimming pool. There will be no changes to the previous blueprints for an entertainment catering theater, whatever the hell we mean by that.” At press time, Delano added that one-bedroom, no-bathroom floor plans started at just $1 million.

link: https://www.theonion.com/luxury-condos-demolished-minutes-after-completion-to-bu-1851143295

WILMETTE, IL—Telling the child not to peek as they walked into the backyard, local wealthy man Kenneth Schweitz reportedly surprised his son Tuesday with a tree house that the young boy could Airbnb for passive income. “It’s time you got your own little space that can be rented out for short-term stays and used to produce a reliable revenue stream,” a visibly excited Schweitz said as he took his hands off his son’s eyes to reveal the fully appointed structure built into the tree’s branches, stressing to the boy that he would not have to do any real work for the lodging to generate substantial returns. “Your mom and I can help you decorate it, but then it’s all up to you to decide how much to charge per night and which cleaning service to hire, bud. After that, you can sit back and collect thousands of dollars a month. How cool is that? You and your little friends are going to have so much fun building your little real estate empire. Enjoy!” At press time, sources reported Schweitz’s son was enthusiastically climbing into the tree house to serve an eviction notice to the low-income family currently living there.

link: https://www.theonion.com/wealthy-dad-surprises-child-with-tree-house-he-can-airb-1851112919

Here’s the deal, folks. Liberals can blame me for Israel’s disastrous war in Gaza, and conservatives can blame me for the runaway inflation this country has been experiencing, and you can bring up my son Hunter’s sketchy dealings and all sorts of wild conspiracy theories about me and China and Ukraine and Obama and whatever the hell else. Maybe you’re right, maybe you’re wrong, but regardless, the fact of the matter is I never asked to be the President.

Did I put the country in a bad place? Perhaps. Is my age becoming a serious liability? Sure, whatever. But if you want to point the finger at someone for this mess, don’t point it at me, man. Point it at the American people. They’re the ones who voted for me! You think I voted for me? Heck no, man. I voted for Trump. Why would I vote for myself? What kind of narcissistic egomaniac would do that? Who runs around thinking, “I want to be the leader of an entire country. I am smart and competent enough to do that”? I’ll tell you who: Weirdos! Not me. I never asked for this. I’m just a regular guy. I’m here because of YOU. YOU knew how old I was when you voted for me. I didn’t. I still don’t.

You people made me President AGAINST MY WILL. I would never do that to you, and yet you did it to me. It hurts. And here’s perhaps the most effed up part of all of this: You elected me VICE President TWICE before this, so you knew damn well based on my reaction back then that I did NOT want anything to do with politics or the life in the White House!!! Even my dog doesn’t want to be there! That’s why he keeps biting people.

This is a job I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, so why did you wish it on me? Where on EARTH did you people get the idea that I wanted to be President? Some signs on someone’s lawn? A cheesy, generic ad that played before a YouTube video about how to put Christmas lights or something? You saw a cheap cardboard sign in someone’s front yard that said I wanted to be President and that’s all it took for you to believe I did? Seriously?

From what I hear, I’m polling pretty poorly for 2024, which makes a lot of sense being that I didn’t ask to be President this time around, either. Do they ever report on how Brad Pitt and Martha Stewart are polling in the Presidential elections? No! Because those people DON’T WANT TO BE PRESIDENT. They are popular, well-known people. But you don’t see them getting a bunch of votes for President like I did. What the hell is even going on? There needs to be some sort of investigation into this.

I know a lot of people felt like choosing me over Trump was the lesser of two evils, but why was it only two evils? There are literally MILLIONS of evils you could have chosen from in this country, but for some bizarre reason you narrowed it down to just Trump and me? If I’m being frank, at least Trump clearly was actually asking to be President. So much so that he kept claiming that he won despite losing pretty badly. Personally, I was FINE with that. I was like, sure, sounds good, go for it, man. You won, if that’s what you really want.

So maybe this year, instead of voting for me, you can consider picking someone who is clearly interested in and excited about leading the United States. I don’t fit those criteria, but there’s gotta be somebody out there who does. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go sign some legislation that’s going to piss off a bunch of the people who voted for me. Sayonara, bitches.

link: https://clickhole.com/i-never-asked-to-be-president-by-joe-biden/

Awkward scenes as local ‘Pro-Bono’ lawyer Jerry Fakeman has been forced to clarify to a potential client that he just means that he is a massive fan of the band U2.

Mr Fakeman said that his love for the started a decade ago when he was the only person in the world thankful for the ‘gift’ of an album being forced onto their iPod. This obsession has since led him to brand his entire legal practice as the ‘Pro-Bono lawyer, helping you get the Edge.’

“I don’t get why everyone keeps thinking that my services would be free up front?” said Jerry. “Why would my love of the album The Joshua Tree have any affect on how I am as a lawyer?”

“Whenever this mix-up happens, they keep telling me that my advertising is apparently ‘confusing’ and ‘not how you run a business’. But I always say that I will continue running the firm how I like, with or without you.”

“Regrettably, every time they do end up just choosing the ‘without’ option. If things don’t turn around soon, I might have to start saying that all I want is you.”

link: https://chaser.com.au/general-news/pro-bono-lawyer-clarifies-he-just-meant-that-he-is-a-big-fan-of-u2/

link: https://reductress.com/post/how-to-satisfy-your-sweet-tooth-without-making-your-bitchy-tooth-jealous/

In an impressive display of malpractice, Shoshanna Feldman self-diagnoses the complete mental breakdown she has at the end of each weekend as the “Sunday scaries”.

“We all know how Sundays can be,” says Shoshanna, who on past Sundays has stayed in bed until 4p.m., decided to cut her own bangs, and called her super under the guise of complaining about her water pressure but really just to cry on the phone with someone.

“It’s just that back-to-the-work-week feeling,” Shoshanna adds, while looking at one-way flights to Oslo online. “You know, Sunday rolls around and you’re like, ‘Wow, I really wish every part of my life was different and I’m not sure how much longer I can take it.’ That’s why they made a name for it: Sunday scaries.”

But not everyone is convinced that Shoshanna’s meltdowns constitute relatable end-of-the-weekend dread.

“Last weekend Shosh FaceTimed me crying from inside a Panera,” says close friend Gabe Wright. “She was like, ‘I honestly only went to law school because I felt lost after undergrad and I got in. This is not the career I want. If I could do the last ten years over I would not make a single decision the same.’”

“I am impressed by her ability to compartmentalize her major breakdowns to just one day of the week,” Gabe adds. “But I think this is bigger than Sunday scaries.”

Shoshanna, however, is incredulous.

“On Sundays I definitely tend be overcome with dread at having to continue the life I’ve created for myself,” she says. “For instance, I don’t really think I’m in love with my partner anymore, I have some major questions about my gender identity, I regret naming my cat Shellfish.”

“But by the time Monday rolls around, I just get swept up with the flow of the week and barely think about those things at all,” Shoshanna adds. “Until it’s Sunday again, and then all those compressed feelings get compounded like a trash compactor creating an unmovable block of my many sorrows.”

“Them’s the Sunday scaries for ya!” It was suggested that Shoshanna try therapy to begin sorting through some of these negative emotions, but she was resistant.

“I just don’t really have the time,” she says. “Sunday is basically my only free day, and we already know that’s blocked off for a nine-hour panic attack!”

Fair enough!

link: https://reductress.com/post/complete-mental-breakdown-self-diagnosed-each-week-as-sunday-scaries/

Just like taxes, laundry is a core but exasperating task we all must face so long as we are alive. Everything becomes meaningless social constructs when you do your laundry – time, reality, even states of being. I learned this the last time I did my laundry, and after putting it in the dryer for what seemed like a whole phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I took it out only to feel my clothes were still damp. Or maybe they were just cold. I still can’t tell which one it was.

I’m not sure how much more of this I can take.

Futilely, I wrung the fabric of the first sweater I grabbed with blind hopes that I could ascertain what state of being my laundry was in if I just squeezed hard enough. But alas, my palm only felt both possibly damp and slightly cold. My sweater was in a suspended state – somehow both potentially wet and potentially just a little cool without any means of confirmation for either, like some twisted, domestic version of Schrödinger’s cat.

I never saw this coming, and I still don’t know what I ever did to deserve this.

The world is filled with classic conundrums we all ask ourselves at some point – “What came first, the chicken or the egg?”, “Is free will an illusion?”, and “Is my laundry wet or just cold?” I was just one in a long line of laundry-goers plagued with the insoluble question and stuck wondering whether to put the laundry back in the dryer for a little longer, or hope that it would dry out (or warm up) once I started putting it away.

No one should ever have to go through something like this.

After debating my metaphysical dilemma for longer than necessary, I took the risk of putting it away, but even as I write this, my laundry still remains in that suspended state. And every morning when I put on my outfit, I embody that state, constantly wondering if I am now slightly wet or just a little cold. Maybe it’s both. Or maybe it’s neither? All I know is I’m just bringing my laundry the next time I visit home, so my mom has to deal with that perplexing quandary instead of me.

link: https://reductress.com/post/i-lived-it-i-couldnt-tell-if-my-laundry-was-wet-or-just-cold/

After Pierre Poilievre described an electrician as someone who “captures lightning from the sky and runs it through a copper wire to illuminate this room and light up the world” we sat down with him and asked him to describe how he thinks other kinds of workers do their job. Here are his responses:

Farmer: “A man, sturdy as an oak and just as powerful, enters upon his field and calls forth the crops from the bosom of the goddess Demeter, whom he cradles in his arms for 23 minutes before returning to his house to make love to his wife.”

Salesperson: “The humble servant travelling the land in order to bring his wares to those in need of them, whether it be knives or candy or a book of coupons for pizzas that you will inevitably forget to use next time you order a pizza.”

Accountant: “The wisened man of numbers, toiling day and night over his abacus, quill in hand as he summons deductions and write-offs from a dimension heretofore unknown to mortal beings such as us.”

Retail worker: “The shopkeep, televisions on in the window, their lights beckoning us in away from the cold and dark to a place of warmth and kindness and 25% savings on all floor models.”

Waiter: “A cherubic thing, younger than some of the samplings from the local vineyard, who transports any tasty morcel you could desire all the way from the ovens to your very presence, and then kindly asks if you’d like pepper with that. Always get the pepper.”

Architect: “A planner carefully crossing their Ts and checking their figures in order to conjure wonders into existence from their very imagination, be they Palladiums or Bazars or great Zeppelin Stations.”

Teacher: “Groomer.”

link: https://www.thebeaverton.com/2024/01/pierre-poilievre-describes-more-jobs/

An oldie, but a goodie - in honor of the news with that Max model losing its Window at high altitudes.

It turns out engineering is important. Who could have known? /s

link: https://reductress.com/post/woman-only-feeds-her-cat-three-times-a-day-because-she-is-mean/