In 1990, the Australian rock band Divinyls released their hit single “I Touch Myself,” best known for the chorus, “I don’t want anybody else/When I think about you I touch myself.” Monogamy must be interpreted much more narrowly in Australia.
“I didn’t know that ants ever ate people! Oh God, the pain! All I wanted to do was share my life experiences with the world and instead I’m literally being eaten alive by ants.”
“If they continue to gnaw on my fingers, I may not be able to type and I’ll never be able to finish writing this book.”
“I think they’re secreting some kind of acid back into the bite wounds because it stings horribly. It feels like I rubbed up against a cheese grater and then went swimming in lemon juice.”
“I’m pretty sure this isn’t covered by my renter’s insurance.”
“I want to call a pest company but I don’t think they could come before the ants finish devouring the rest of my body. Holy hell, they’re eating my phone now so I couldn’t call even if it would help! These wretched insects are unstoppable.”
“Phew, thank God those horrible ants went away. I don’t know how or why they came nor what made them leave and I frankly don’t care. Now I can tell the world about my life. I grew up in New Jersey. Before you made some wisecrack about Snooki and The Situation, I feel obliged to say that I’m from a very nice town (over an hour from the Shore, I might add). It was quiet and not exactly ‘happening,’ but it was just right for me and shaped my into the pers–what the??!!?–They’re back! My precious flesh! They’re eating what’s left of it!”
Whenever I hear the lyrics “He led them down the streets of town, right to the traffic cop; / And he only paused a moment when he heard him holler, ‘Stop!'” I always find myself thinking that the song “Frosty the Snowman” must have been a PSA about crossing the street that was changed to be a children’s song at the last moment.
When someone confuses metaphor with semaphore, it’s a red flag.
Have you been a little too naughty this year? Cheated on your taxes? Taken your family for granted? Coveted your neighbor’s goods and/or wife? Nothing is more important to us at the Vatican than the wellbeing of your eternal soul. So if you don’t want to suffer temporal punishment, all you have to do is confess, find the package for you, and shell out some blessed greenbacks. If you do want to suffer temporal punishment, then you are a perverted masochist so you’re going to need it even more.
Economy Package: Covers turning backpacks inside out, tapping someone on the opposite shoulder so they look and you’re not there and then trying to convince them that nothing happened so they think they’re going a little crazy, tying a coworker’s shoes together, taking stuff from the lost and found that you didn’t actually lose, scratching a domestic car, proliferating bawdy or ribald humor, thoughts involving scantily clad people, eating your roommate’s food out of the fridge, and publicly displaying cleavage.
Bronze Package: Covers lying about getting STD tests, secretly slipping meat into a vegetarian’s food, scratching an imported car, downloading a virus on a borrowed computer so that when they go on they’re swamped with ads for online gambling venues until they have to get the Geek Squad to restore the factory settings, thoughts involving nude people, punching someone over 18, eating meat on a Friday.
Silver Package: Pleasureless masturbation, hunting a neighbor’s dog for sport, punching someone over 8, stealing a car, murdering a non-celebrity, throwing a rager while your parents are in the Poconos and letting your friends drink half a bottle of 25 year old scotch and then filling it with flat cream soda so your poor father humiliates himself in front of his colleagues after talking up the bottle for weeks, cursing on national television, watching and enjoying the movie Love Actually, counterfeiting non-American currency.
Gold Package: Pleasurable masturbation, hunting humans for sport, somehow stealing a house, murdering a celebrity, punching a baby or young child, counterfeiting American currency, burning a building for the insurance money and then using the money to plan a brilliant heist from an orphanage and then using the heist money to kill a family member for the life insurance, extincting a species.
Platinum Package: Not being Catholic.
January 17th – PIAOR welcomes their newest member, Zack the intern, by explaining that his will be an unpaid position.
February 8th – Jordy uploads his homemade “#SELFIE” music video.
February 21st – The musical group Kidz Bop sues Jordy for ripping off several aspects of their “#SELFIE” music video.
March 2nd – Ellen DeGeneres’ Oscar selfie goes viral, breaking records by becoming the first picture River hasn’t been able to find Waldo in.
April 11th – News reports about the Heartbleed bug cause Melissa to update the PIAOR password from “password1234” to “password12345.”
May 4th – Someone hacks the PIAOR administrative account. The staff decides to blame Zack the intern and lower his pay to him paying them minimum wage.
May 26th – PIAOR remembers those who gave their lives for our country by writing a heartfelt Memorial Day elegy and then posting a piece called “Kermit the Frog’s First Prostate Exam” instead.
June 20th – Zack the intern misses his one-year anniversary dinner with his girlfriend because Lincoln doesn’t know how to use the color printer.
July 19th – After the U.S. bans several Russians for human rights abuses, Russia bans 13 Americans, and the Victoria’s Secret on 13th and Main bans Lincoln for unrelated reasons.
August 23rd – All PIAOR pieces published in the previous three weeks subpoenaed by federal judge.
September 4th – Jordy panics upon realizing that the party he went to wasn’t actually supposed to be murder-mystery themed. He immediately apologizes to the family of the victim.
October 29th – Reports that Fireball whiskey contains an ingredient also used in antifreeze cause Melissa to postpone the PIAOR Halloween party so that there’s time to get more Fireball for it.
November 7th – Samsung releases the Gear S, a smartwatch which has been called one of the worst gadgets of 2014, which makes the PIAOR staff pretty grateful we never tried to patent our own invention, the potato-battery-powered life-support machine.
December 29th – Zack the intern misses the PIAOR holiday party because the staff tells him he has to copy-edit this piece instead. Dickheads.
-Jordy Greenblatt and Lincoln Sedlacek
Resolution: Quit smoking.
Reason for failure: Forgot to start smoking in time for this resolution to be meaningful.
Resolution: Stop chewing ice.
Reason for failure: Competed on game show where I had to save several children trapped under a collapsed igloo without using my hands.
Resolution: Finally replicate my Great-Aunt Henrietta’s Chili-Cheese Stew.
Reason for failure: New health and safety regulations instituted by the FDA.
Resolution: Develop rockin’ six-pack abs.
Reason for failure: Repeated attempts to replicate Great-Aunt Henrietta’s Chili-Cheese Stew.
Resolution: Seduce George Clooney.
Reason for failure: Inability to replicate Chili-Cheese Stew.
Resolution: Volunteer at a local soup kitchen.
Reason for failure: The only available volunteer hours conflicted with The Mindy Project.
Resolution: Take a trip to Italy.
Reason for failure: My tendency to part my hair on the same side as internationally-wanted man Tore Alesio.
Resolution: Drink less.
Reason for failure: Alcohol.
PUT IT ALL ON RED 