Because they're so small, it took weeks for me to notice, but there I was, in the bathroom pooping, and there they were. Hadn't brought a magazine or a book, so I was simply sitting and grunting and looking around. Not much to look at in a bathroom, so eventually I looked down, and saw all the tiny, almost invisible bugs.

Intrigued, I watched half a dozen of them wandering across the floor tiles. After wiping and flushing, I came back with my reading glasses to get a better look.

The bugs have disgusting little pincers in front of their disgusting little faces, and you gotta wonder what they're picking up and eating with those pincers. Are these bugs biting me and my flatmates and eating tiny chunks of our flesh? I've noticed no wounds or itching.

Thought it would be easy to gross you out by finding a picture of our bugs online, but all the pincer-equipped bugs at Google Images are much, much larger than our uninvited guests. They're barely the size of a speck of dust, so small that if they weren't black and crawling across beige floor tiles, you'd never know they're there.

In an abstract sense it's kinda cool that the bugs are surviving and thriving in our little bathroom. Much as I love nature, though, a can of generic Raid is coming for them soon.

The same bugs are probably in my bedroom, too, but the room's carpeted, and in a dark shade of green, so I can't see them. And if I can't see them they don't exist, y'know?

This morning I'm wondering what I'd be doing, if I lived in Ukraine and my town was being bombed daily, people I knew and loved were dying, Russian soldiers were everywhere, and Russian puppets were running the local government.

Would I be shooting at tanks, or involved with some underground resistance... or would I be cooperating, doing whatever the Russians asked of me, an old man hoping to die of old age instead of a bullet through the skull?

After staying with my sister and mom for a while when I first got back to Seattle, I offered to take them to dinner, any place they'd like. They both said Applebee's, and they said it with a smile, so to Applebee's we went.

I'm not going to bother writing about the meal and service and atmosphere. It was exactly what you and I and my Mom and sister expected it to be. Never before had I eaten at Applebee's, and it'll never happen again, unless again it's someone else's choice.

Being only technically part of the species, I'm generally clueless about the humans and their behaviors, so for me it's a news flash to learn that many or most or maybe all of them except me sincerely enjoy eating at Applebee's and Denny's and Red Lobster and such. They choose it, prefer it.

I don't understand the appeal of Applebee's et al, but my revulsion is such a basic tenet to me, it's an instinct, more than a decision. I will briefly try, though, to explain it:

Even if dinner at Applebee's was both tastier and less expensive than at a real restaurant (and it was not, of course) I would still prefer eating in a place that's not exactly like hundreds or thousands of other places, where the menu and recipes come from one or two people's creativity, not from a well-funded test kitchen and millions of dollars in market research. If I'm paying to have a meal made for me, I'd like the food to be prepared by a person, not a corporation.

Jeez, Doug, you're so weird.

Judging from worried reports in the media, fentanyl is the drug America's supposed to panic about in 2022, following all the previous panics — demon rum, opium, marijuana, LSD, heroin, crack cocaine, meth, MDMA, etc.

There's no smoking on the bus, but once in a while people puff marijuana, and a few times I've seen people smoking fentanyl. I'm guessing it was fentanyl because it didn't smell like either tobacco or marijuana. I could hardly smell it at all, even when it was being smoked only two seats in front of me.

As a matter of good manners, if people must smoke on the bus, please make it fentanyl, just because it doesn't seem to stink.

There might or might not be something fresh on this site tomorrow. Depends on whether anything pops into my head, so probably not.

Expect nothing from me on Monday, though. It'll be Memorial Day, so no internet access — all the libraries and most of the coffee shops will be closed.

And now, the news you need, whether you know it or not...

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The city promised them a crosswalk, but years went by and no crosswalk was painted. So someone painted a crosswalk themselves. The city promptly came out to sandblast it away.

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Manufacturer of guns used in Uvalde massacre featured photo of toddler handling gun on its Twitter feed, citing Bible verse

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One-word newscast, because it's the same news every time...

• climate

• cops • cops • cops • cops • cops

• Republicans • Republicans • Republicans

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The End

• Julie Beckett

• Colin Cantwell

• Hazel Henderson

5/28/2022
Tip 'o the hat to All Hat No Cattle, Linden Arden, ye olde AVA, BoingBoing, Breakfast at Ralf's, Captain Hampockets, CaptCreate's Log, John the Basket, LiarTownUSA, Meme City, National Zero, Ran Prieur, Voenix Rising, and anyone else whose work I've stolen without saying thanks.
Extra special thanks to Becky Jo, Name Withheld, Dave S, Wynn Bruce, and always Stephanie...