Dispatch #22: The Eighth Deadly Sin

You're reading Dispatches from East McJesus. Living in East Machias, Maine, can be a bit lonely, so I write to save my sanity. The mission may not succeed, but let’s try to enjoy it.

Festivus has come early for me this year, so buckle up, because I got a lot of problems with you people, and now you're gonna hear about it.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a commenter on social media in possession of sufficient self-righteousness, must be in want of a sense of humor. Right at the very moment I most need to feel camaraderie and the temporary relief provided by shared laughter, the giggle police have shot off in the opposite direction like a dog with a ham in its mouth. I seriously don’t know where everyone’s funny bones have disappeared to, but maybe I’ll find them just behind the unicorn stables and the dodo coop.

People. PEOPLE. What is going on?! I just unleashed the kraken on my Facebook page by partaking of some gallows humor regarding Luigi Mangione’s murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Apparently that makes me a morally bankrupt human being. Is it a monumental overask to expect intelligent people to understand that everyone has different ways of emotionally surviving as civilization collapses? I mean, if people in concentration camps in Nazi Germany could better cope with their atrocious conditions and maintain some iota of dignity by cracking jokes, who are we to berate each other for posting sarcastic memes about our Machiavellian overlords on social media? Humor has kept the human spirit alive during all kinds of trauma throughout history. I thought the Democrats understood that. Have some situational awareness while you clutch your pearls, oh righteous ones, because the call is coming from inside the house.

Here's what I most need to know: How did our side of the aisle become such a boring gaggle of scolds and nags yelling at clouds? This new hellish parade of butthurtness that has become our status quo is beneath us. Didn’t we used to be the funny ones? Because I can’t live in a country where half the liberal population has voluntarily had their funny bones amputated. Dark humor is my go-to coping mechanism and it cannot be pried from my cold, dead heart. Killjoys.

Somehow the shooting of Brian Thompson has become a Rorschach test for personal rectitude on the left, and if you emit a single rueful laugh about it you are just two steps away from becoming a murderer yourself. Hey, don’t believe everything you think. How about if the people who are always griping, “If you don’t like it, just scroll on by” would take their own advice? Because I’m not going to stop having fun at their expense. New liver, same eagles. Bring it.

Always look on the bright side of life. That isn’t my motto, being a born pessimist, but I nonetheless aspire to a life well-lived in the company of margaritas, French fries, gravity, and belly laughs. I refuse to take myself too seriously because that would be tedious. I grew up on Monty Python and Black Adder, so I have a passion for intellectual humor rooted in a basic knowledge of history. I do believe that ghost guns are the new guillotines, and if that idea entertains me and makes me forget about Donald Trump for two minutes, then shoot me because clearly I am a basket case already.

Dark humor is my lifestyle. I can find it in whatever you like. I’ll evolve like I’m a Galapagos finch being observed by Charles Darwin. And it’s easy. The jokes do, rather unfortunately, write themselves. Folks, can’t I just have this one nice thing? Not being a complete jackhole isn’t as hard as it seems. You just mind your own business like you want republicans to do. Please stop scrambling the jets of cancelation anytime someone is having more fun than you.

Here's an idea. Let’s add an eighth sin to the Seven Deadly Sins.

1. Lust

2. Gluttony

3. Greed

4. Sloth

5. Wrath

6. Envy

7. Pride

8. HUMORLESSNESS

End of rant. I can’t promise I won’t air anymore grievances in the next eleven months, but if I do, I’ll try to make it amusing.