The Fuck?

Allison Marie Conway

Jul 7

As I wander the tiny boutique shop off the main street of town, my eyes skim over all the various outrageously over-priced items: fancy stem ware, stuffed animals, books, candle holders, scented bath crystals, etc. I stop in front of a small table adorned with assorted charcuterie boards and tiny cheese slicing knives which are accompanied by a package of cocktail napkins (8 for one hundred thousand dollars). The napkins are white with bold black cursive lettering which reads - and I am not making this up - "Shut Up, Liver, You're Fine." Aside from being really stupid, the napkins make me cringe in another sense entirely. I find myself imagining actual people at an actual festive event, attempting to *party* around these pitiful napkins whilst trying not to think about their disgusting livers which are, apparently, speaking to them? Begging for mercy? It's so gross for so many reasons, not the least of which is that I guess we've now graduated to a next level kind of collectively kitchy suicidal alcoholism? Like literally on purpose offing ourselves in plain view at social events? Cool, cool, cool.

I've not had a lick of alcohol in 188 days. I run like the wind and sleep like heaven. But I still wake up and live in this same bizarre, ignorant world which makes so little sense to me, drunk or sober. I try to wrap my head around going back to the office and working as the country I live in descends further into absolutely horrific, chaotic madness. The thing is though it isn't totally chaotic in the sense that it is not uncalculated or random. Any semblance of a rational, sane society is willingly dismantling itself right before our very eyes. We take the lunacy and give it ammunition. We take the innocent and we make them weaker and blinder and dumber still. And idiotic we stand laughing and snacking and partying all around it.

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