A perfect crime? 🦹‍♀️ LinkMeIn 🖇 Funny Graffiti 🖌 After Twitter 🐣

Hey there, situation normies! I know you’re used to jumping right into the story, but that format feels stale, so I’m changing things up by opening with a quick introduction. I’m back from Bali (you can read about that adventure here), back on Pacific Standard Time, and back on my healthyish eating plan after Thanksgiving.

Here’s what we’ve got in store for this edition of Situation Normal:

1. Christina was nosy (and she almost got away with it)

2. LinkedIn connects ME to ME

3. A stand-up graffiti submission

4. What comes after Twitter?

Christina was nosy (and she almost got away with it)

Despite the best efforts of Philippine Airlines, we made it back from Bali on the Monday before Thanksgiving. In order to adjust to the local time in Los Angeles, we spent the first day back puttering around the house like zombies, resisting the urge to go to bed at noon. It was rough, but we made it through Monday.

Then came Tuesday, which turned out to be a real fucking doozy.

My plan was to wake up early, attack a massive backlog of laundry, clean the house, pick up my new glasses at the optometrist, hit the bank to exchange my leftover Indonesian rupiah and deposit unspent U.S. currency, visit the dispensary to buy some organic sugar-free cannabis gummies, call my sister in New York so she could walk me through her recipe for cornbread stuffing, buy the good cornbread at a local bakery, go to the market for the rest of my Thanksgiving shopping, and if possible, start prepping the Thanksgiving meal.

Unfortunately, I slept in until noon because jet lag is a motherfucker.

“I feel like I wrecked myself,” I told Christina.

“Maybe you should’ve checked yourself before you wrecked yourself,” she said. “Also, what are we doing for food? I’m starving, but the fridge is empty.”

“I’m calling an audible. Let’s go get breakfast. Then I’ll drop you off and head for the market.”

“Great. I’ll handle the laundry.”

We broke our huddle with confidence, then went to breakfast. After breakfast, I dropped Christina off at home, then went to the market.

Shopping during Thanksgiving week isn’t for amateurs, but that’s exactly who shows up—amateurs.

Right out of the gate, these amateurs turn the parking lot into a moron convention with their janky parking jobs and a sense of entitlement that tells them it’s OK to leave their shopping carts everywhere, except for the cart return.

Inside the market, the situation is even worse. The produce section is overrun with amateurs who can’t tell mint from sage, and scream out questions like, “which potatoes are the ones you’re supposed to mash?” Over by the butcher, the amateurs are out in force, fondling every turkey in sight, looking for the perfect bird, knowing full well that they’re just going to stick that sucker in the oven, baste the day away, then call the Butterball hotline to ask what temperature is best for cooking a turkey after seven hours of roasting. Then there’s the dairy section, where I shit you not, I had to explain to a grown man that whipping cream—if you channel your inner Devo and whip it real good—will become—wait for it—whipped cream.

By the time I hit the checkout line, I had lost my damn mind dealing with these amateurs. But little did I know that the shit was about to hit the fan.

As I watched the checker bag my groceries, my phone rang. It was Christina, but I sent her call to voicemail because I planned to call her back just as soon as I left the market. Then the phone rang again. That worried me. This time, I picked up.

“I think I broke my nose,” Christina said.

“What!? How!? What happened!?”

Christina started to explain, but her voice sounded like she had stuffed an entire turkey up her nose, so I told her to sit tight.

“I’ll be home in ten minutes,” I said.

I hung up, helped the checker finish bagging the groceries, booked it to my car, put the groceries in the trunk, returned the shopping cart because we live in a society, then hauled ass back home. I made it in nine minutes flat.

“There was a lot of blood,” Christina said. “But I think the bleeding stopped.”

Christina removed the compress from her nose.

“No bleeding, but it looks like you got punched in the face.”

“It was the fucking step ladder. I was putting away our luggage in the garage, and it fell on my head.”

“Ouch.”

We both agreed that our next stop, just as soon as I put away the perishables in the fridge and put out some fresh water for Mortimer, was the hospital. Three minutes later, we were on the road to urgent care. But as it turned out, our definition of “urgent” isn’t shared by the medical community.

“They said it’ll take three hours,” Christina said. “Maybe we should just leave.”

“I’d feel better if you got it checked out.”

“I’m fine. I have a high tolerance for pain.”

“I know. That’s why I want you to get it checked out, honey. You come from tough-as-nails Scotch-Irish stock. I’m talking real Braveheart shit. Some fancy English knight probably cut off your ancestor’s head, but I’ll bet he said it was ‘just a scratch’ that could be cured by rubbing some dirt on it, eating Haggis, and kicking some English ass.”

Christina shrugged.

“Maybe you’re right. You would’ve lost your shit, but I held onto my shit.”

“Congratulations on being a badass.”

“I even cleaned up all the blood,” Christina said. “How badass is that?”

“Very badass.”

“The entire crime scene is pristine.”

“Um… I hate to break it to you, honey, but they say that when you commit a crime, you always make a mistake.”

“Not me. I cleaned up all the blood. There’s no trace of what went down.”

We killed time in the urgent care waiting room by joking about the “crime scene” back at our place.

After X-rays, an exam, and two co-pays, we found out that Christina’s nose wasn’t broken. That was good news, but I was too busy plotting my revenge to celebrate.

“When I get my hands on that step ladder, I’m gonna murder ‘em.”

Christina still thought the crime bit had legs, but she asked me to stop because her nose hurt like hell every time she laughed.

Back at home, Christina curled up on the couch with Mortimer. I went into the garage, grabbed the step ladder, and hurled it against the wall.

“You like punching my lady in the nose?” I asked. “I’m gonna punch you in the nose, fella!”

But I couldn’t find the step ladder’s nose. So, I channeled my inner Macho Man Randy Savage. I picked the step ladder up off the ground by its hair, raised it over my head my head like a trophy, then I threw it to the ground.

The step ladder writhed in pain, but that didn’t stop me from stomping on it over and over again. When I got tired of stomping on the step ladder, I spat on it. Then I stomped on it some more. The step ladder’s pain was my fuel.

When I was done stomping, I went over to my tool box, grabbed a hammer, then went to work on the step ladder. That was good fun, but I didn’t want to kill the step ladder before giving it a chance to beg for it’s life.

“Ask me to spare you, fuck nuts!”

The step ladder gurgled something about sparing its life because it was “just a kid” and had plans to grow up to be a real ladder someday. I just laughed in its face.

“You’re going down for the dirt nap because of what you did to my lady,” I said. “But I like you, kid, you got guts. I’m still gonna kill you, but I’ll kill you quick.”

I used some bungee cords to tie up the step ladder because I’ve seen enough movies to know that you don’t fuck in these situations. Then I went into the kitchen, grabbed a Ginsu knife that cuts cans, and returned to the garage, where I carved up that step ladder like a Thanksgiving turkey.

“What are you doing, honey?” Christina called out from the living room.

“I’m doing crimes!”

Then I opened the garage door, picked up the hulking carcass of the step ladder, and threw its remains in the trash.

“You sleep with the fishes,” I said. “Also, Michael Corleone says hello.”

Having done crime, I decided I didn’t want to do time. So, I went back into the house to clean up the crime scene.

Thankfully, the step ladder wasn’t a bleeder. Also, Christina was right about cleaning up after the step ladder attack. There wasn’t a drop of her blood in the garage. All I had to do was wash my hands. But in the bathroom this farce ran headlong into Macbeth territory.

“Honey, you know how you said you didn’t leave a drop of blood anywhere?” I called out from the bathroom.

“That’s right. I committed the perfect crime.”

“Better come in the bathroom,” I said.

Christina left Mortimer on the couch and joined me in the bathroom.

“Look,” I said, pointing to the problem.

There was the evidence of the crime, plain as day. The white sink was the perfect canvass for Christina’s bloody red handprint.

“Jesus! I left behind blood, DNA, and fingerprints all in one place,” she said. “Wowsers.”

“Perfect crime my ass, Lady Macbeth.”

I found myself! Actually, Michael Estrin found me!

Astute Situation Normal readers will recall that I often receive job offers for the other Michael Estrin, a man with a great name and an even better resume for an era characterized by endless technological disruption and ridiculous salaries for those who do the disrupting. Sometimes I amuse myself (and you) by messing with the job recruiters who rely on bad LinkedIn data, but I never considered the possibility that LinkedIn might actually help me connect with my namesake. Thankfully, the other Michael Estrin is a LinkedIn power user. I hope to interview him soon.

Good John Mulaney graffiti

A reader who goes by the handle Claus von Chürro spotted this graffiti in their neighborhood. Like all good graffiti, it tells a story. Sure, this story starts out kinda rough, but by the end you’re a small business owner.

Life after Twitter

I’m still on Twitter, where I try to post jokes and resist trolling fascist goons. Frankly, I don’t think I’m all that interesting on Twitter. But I hope to be more interesting on Post.News, which is one of thirty-six thousand platforms currently vying for the title of The Next Twitter.

Post.News is still in beta, so the community is small and there’s a waitlist. But I got in, which means you can get in too, because I’m always the last guy they let into da club. If you want to connect with me on Post.News, I’m right here.

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Stick around and chat!

You know the drill. I’ve got questions, you may or may not have answers.

1. Are you investigating Twitter alternatives, or are you one of those enlightened people who never used Twitter in the first place?

2. What’s the most money you’ve ever spent on a thing you ended up breaking because you never really understood it to begin with? Was it less than $44 billion?

3. If you had $44 billion burning a hole in your pocket, what would you do with it, after paying off all your debts, funding your retirement, and throwing a pizza party for Situation Normal readers?

4. If I land an interview with the other Michael Estrin, what should I ask him?

5. I know you’ve never committed the perfect crime because there’s no such thing. But if the statute of limitations has run, can you share a little about a crime you got away with?

Until next Sunday, when I’ll have an un-fucking-believable true crime story for you, as well as some questions that could change the course of my life…

One last thing! Hit that ❤️ button🙏👇