Super Klutz | Big Fudge Up | AI Surfer Eats It

Feb 15, 2023

At the end of the first quarter, with the Chiefs and Eagles tied at one touchdown apiece, Christina got up from the couch and announced that she had decided to take a bath.

“I have enough time before halftime, right? I wanna see Rihanna.”

“You’ve got plenty of time,” I said. “Each NFL-minute is the equivalent of five Earth-minutes.”

Christina went to the back of the house, leaving me and Mortimer alone in the living room. Little did Christina know that leaving the two of us unsupervised would prove to be a really bad idea.

At first, I tried to focus on the game. But that was difficult because Mortimer wouldn’t shut up about his Puppy Bowl glory days. Eventually, though, the edibles I had eaten earlier kicked in. Mortimer’s bragging faded into the background. The game faded into the foreground. And my mind drifted to some of the deeper questions raised by watching the Super Bowl broadcast.

Did anyone watching the Super Bowl broadcast actually point their phone at the screen to scan the commercial’s QR code?
How many of those QR codes loaded PDFs of outdated restaurant menus?
Why did Jesus buy so much Super Bowl ad time?1
Could a Super Bowl ad featuring Zeus and the Mount Olympus crew bring back polytheism?
Are polyamorous people cool with polytheists, or is that just too much of a good thing?
Are we paying too much attention to bread & circus distractions like the Super Bowl, when we should be focused on important stuff, like democracy, climate change, and figuring out what the deal is with those UFOs our government keeps shooting down?
Are the UFOs some sort of extraterrestrial earned media stunt timed to coincide with the Super Bowl?
When our aliens overlords finally get here, are they going to make us use their dumb QR codes, or have advanced alien civilizations figured out a better way to attribute their advertising dollars?
Is there a connection between hatred of the Philadelphia Eagles, hatred of the rock band called The Eagles, and America’s decimation of the actual eagle population?
Was it time to break out the popcorn?

The answers to the first nine questions escaped me. But the answer to the tenth question was a resounding yes. So, I got up from the couch and went into the kitchen.

Because I love popcorn, I had purchased a bag of organic popcorn with extra virgin olive oil from Trader Joe’s a few days before the big game. But because I really love popcorn, I had decided to hide that bag in the cabinet where we keep the fancy glasses that are reserved for when we have company over.

At the time I hid the bag, I thought I was playing it safe. But as I reached up to retrieve the popcorn, I knocked over a wine glass. As soon as the glass shattered into a thousand pieces, I realized that my idea of “safe” left a lot to be desired.

Thankfully, there weren’t any injuries like there were last time. But there was a lot of broken glass scattered across the kitchen floor. Also, I wasn’t wearing any shoes, and neither was Mortimer. I froze in place and told Mortimer to do the same.

“Hey honey,” I called out. “We need a rescue.”

“Are you OK?”

“Yeah, just a lot of broken glass. Can you put on your shoes? I need you to come in here and get Morty, then bring me my shoes.”

“OK. Give me a minute.”

As it turned out, Christina was using the standard NFL-minute. So for the next five minutes, I stood there barefoot, surrounded by broken glass, trying keep Mortimer from walking around by indulging his bullshit story about how some Chihuahua named Groucho Barks had robbed him of the 2012 Puppy Bowl MVP award.

Eventually, Christina entered the kitchen. She was wearing her underwear, and her hair was still wet. But she had her tennis shoes on, which was more than I could say for myself, or my four-legged friend.

“Are you OK?”

“Yeah, we’re fine. Grab Morty and put him in the bedroom.”

“Roger that.”

Christina scooped up Mortimer and carried him away to safety. Then she returned with my shoes, a broom, and a dust pan.

“Sorry I ruined your bath.”

“You didn’t ruin my bath. I was drying off when I heard the glass break.”

I put on my shoes, while Christina began to sweep.

“You’re going to write about this aren’t you?”

“Probably.”

For a moment, I thought about how I’d tell this story. For some reason, that scene at the end of Clerks where Silent Bob explains the meaning of love to Dante popped into my head.

There are a million fine looking women in the world, I told myself, but they don’t all come running in their underwear to rescue you and your dog from a mess of your own making.

That was true, but the Clerks reference felt a little random and a little dated. After all, this was Super Bowl Sunday 2023, not a random day in the 1990s, when two slackers, one of whom wasn’t even supposed to be there, closed the Quick Stop to play roller hockey on the roof. So, I decided then and there that when I did get around to writing about this dumb episode in the next Situation Normal, I’d cut the Clerks stuff, even though that movie totally holds up.

ANYWAY, it turned out, most of the broken glass was in the kitchen, but the blast radius extended into the living room and dining room, too. To be fair, however, that’s what we call an Open Floor Plan Problem, as opposed to a Stoner Hiding the Popcorn with the Wine Glasses Problem.

Together, we cleaned up my mess, then I vacuumed the area just be safe. The whole thing only took three NFL-minutes. After we were done, Christina dried her hair and got dressed. Then she joined me and Mortimer on the couch to eat some popcorn and watch Rihanna’s halftime performance.

Big Fudge Up

I’m just going to come out and say it: I fudged up.

Last Wednesday, I forgot to shout out the new paid subscribers to Situation Normal. I’m really, really sorry about that.

I’d like to make you a promise to never let a fudge up like this happen again, but I think we all know that promise is a lie. Situation Normal is a great newsletter, and it’s totally worth paying for, but let’s be honest, there’s a reason the internet’s 57th best humor newsletter, hasn’t cracked the top ten.

Please accept my apologies, situation normies. And if you’re one of the paid subscribers listed below, feel free to suggest an appropriate act of penance. And now, without further ado, here’s a list of awesome people who decided to pay for Situation Normal:

Bo, who knows newsletters.
Tab, who sometimes shares the charcuterie board ads that have haunted his web browsing experience ever since I wrote about going to a stranger’s home to buy cheese, and this community gently pointed out that what I’d really purchased was a charcuterie board.
Sherman Alexie, who appears to be the same Sherman Alexie who won the National Book Award for writing The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.
Bill, who is an Eagle Scout, according to his Substack profile, and is therefore in some position to shed light on the anti-Eagle agenda referenced above.
Mike, who took the time to write me a nice note about allocating a portion of his newsletter budget to Situation Normal.
Marlene, who left a lovely comment after my mom trolled me and my Situation Normal shout out policy.
Molly, who didn’t capitalize her name in her Substack profile, but nevertheless gets the capital M treatment here.
Jamie, whose profile says he moved to Austin in 1978 for the music and the girl, and who has been married for 44 years. Congrats!
Ruth, who wisely splurged on the founder subscription, which includes free rides to doctors appointments in Los Angeles County (easily the best subscriber deal in the newsletter game).
Marcelo, who is blessed with a really cool name.

AI Surfer Eats It

Like a lot of people, I’ve been playing around with some of the artificial intelligence tools that are all the rage these days. My dream is to outsource Situation Normal to an AI version of me, so that the real me can spend my days sitting on a beach with Diehard’s Alan Rickman, earning twenty percent on our bearer bonds.

Sadly, I don’t think my dream is going to happen. For one thing, Alan Rickman is no longer with us. Also, the bearer bonds in Diehard are a great MacGuffin, but in practice, they don’t make much financial sense. But the main obstacle to my dream of outsourcing myself to some naturally funny artificial intelligence is that the tech just isn’t there. Case in point: I asked an AI art tool to make me a picture of a surfer eating a taco, and here’s what it gave me.

Sometimes you eat the taco. Sometimes the taco rides a surf board that spears you through the heart.

ICYMI

I teamed up with

Dennard Dayle

and

Amran Gowani

to create some satirical Super Bowl ads for Vince McMahon, the Memphis Police Department, and the NFL. Our Super Bowl satire ran way too long, just like the real Super Bowl. But unlike the actual game of football, our ads don’t cause brain damage.

Stick around and chat!

Usually, I like to end these posts with some discussion questions. But my Super Bowl Sunday / broken glass story already has ten questions. Please take a crack at some of those, especially the polytheism and UFO questions👇