Important Observations About Everyday Life

Do you ever pretend to not understand things that you actually do understand, simply because you find them annoying and you’re really hungover? I do this all the time.

Today I was at the grocery store, and when I was at the cashier, the cashier asked me if I wanted a free bottle of juice from some gigantic pile of free juice. I told her I didn’t, and she asked me if I’d like to donate one for free.

Now, I comprehended the situation immediately: It’s some sort of thing where a customer has to technically volunteer the donation of the item, even though there is no cost. However, it’s also sort of weird, and the sort of thing that you can believably act confused about. When I said that I didn’t want to donate something to charity for free, she kind of gave me a look like I was a terrible person, but I just pretended like I didn’t really know what was going on and couldn’t hear her over my headphones.

But why did I do it? I’ll tell you why: Because I hate stupid technicalities, and I didn’t go to the grocery to be victimized by some strange by-law. Weird little things like this are the sorts of stuff that make me feel like time has been standing still for the last ten years in some weird purgatory loop of guilt-driven, ineffectual, white-bread adulthood. It’s the kind of bullshit that is really that same bullshit, if you know what I mean.

I swear: I just wanted to pick up all the juice and throw it through the fucking window, screaming, “Is this what you want? You want me to donate all the juice? I’m doing it! All the juice is free now! I gave all the juice away!”

So, all things considered, I think I did a pretty good deed by doing absolutely nothing. Do you ever attribute morality to your actions simply by virtue of the fact that you don’t do something really pointless and destructive, despite the fact that it entrenches and compounds your sense of dread and alienation from everyone and everything to not do it, because at least then you would feel alive for forty-five seconds before you were tackled by security guards and imprisoned, and also you’re really hungover?

I do this all the time.