ScotchSquatch

Everyone I know takes Zinc.

Or magnesium or Ashwaganda. And no one can definitively tell me what it does.

It helps with sleep maybe? Or cortisol? But even then, I don’t know what cortisol is or what it does. Is it bad? Someone please tell me. The only people I see talking about it online don’t seem like they wash their hair, so I don’t know if I believe them. And my most trusted source, Dr. Phil, won’t answer any of my dms.

I can tell you one thing though, that whatever these things are doing, they aren’t making anyone happier.

We’ve never been more supplemented, hydrated, and optimized to perform at our peak… yet as a whole we are fucking miserable.

We’re waking up at 4am with tape on our mouths and then we stare into a bright red light for some reason. After that we put on our glasses that filter out blue light. Red light good, blue light bad, got it.

You know what we really need?

A fucking break.

A cigarette break.

Picture this. You had a shit day. Let’s pretend your red light died and you couldn’t find your blue light glasses, so your heads all wonky from taking in the wrong colors all day. You can’t meditate because your neighbor is blasting Kid Rock. And your favorite restaurant was all out of your favorite mustard. It’s hell. Life is hell and you’re living in it.

And just then, you remember the pack of American Spirits hidden in your suitcase from your last boy’s trip.

You grab the pack and your grill lighter, then hide behind the house ripping darts and listening to Free Bird.

This is what life is supposed to feel like.

It’s not supposed to feel like freezing your balls off in ice water, then steaming them like clams in a sauna.

We’ve spent the last few decades developing apps and social media websites designed to bring people together, and all they’ve done is tear us apart. Most of the things people post belong outside with a cigarette, where the wind can carry them away before the rest of us have to hear them.

Every time I open my phone someone is demanding accountability for something that could have been handled by a Marlboro and and seven minutes leaning up against a building.

Someone’s dog was barking, gotta post about it on a community page.

I went out to eat and I only got 17 fries and my wife got 19 fries, gotta post about it on a community page.

A kid walked on my curb, better go complain about kids being disrespectful on a community page. Don’t forget to post the Ring footage too, maybe we can embarrass their parents while we’re at it.

You know where we all got along? Outside of the bar as we ripped cigarettes.

It didn’t matter who you voted for, what you looked like, where you lived, what kind of music you liked. If you needed a lighter, someone had your back.

You could walk outside knowing no one and walk in ten minutes later with two new best friends.

Instead, I know my neighbors political affiliations, how they feel about the school budget, and I do my best to never make eye contact with them.

We gave everyone a platform when all we really needed was an ashtray.