Your hipster tip of the day
If you want to impress your kids and/or random surly teenagers you see at the skateboard park when you’re out feeding the pigeons, say “chya” any time someone utters something obvious. I’ve done the etymological research on this cool new word (I asked a kid at the skateboard park while I was out feeding pigeons) and the translation seems to be: “Why, yes indeed, my friend. That is something with which I ardently agree.” Also, if you don’t spit on everybody within 5 feet of you, you’re not saying “chya” correctly.

Things the grocery store is out of Part XVV
Lightly salted, store brand peanuts. Gone. Just gone. If you’re a wise shopper like myself, you’ll buy a jar of fully salted peanuts, a jar of unsalted peanuts, and put them into a third jar to violently mix the nuts together. Viola! Lightly salted nuts, with only a few dozen scattered across the floor during the mixing process! Pro tip: Don’t do this while you’re still in the grocery store. They get all weird about it.

Black Eye Friday
On the day in question, due to a dangerous lack of tactical planning, I actually went into Kohl’s in order to exchange an item I’d bought on Amazon. I made it. I’m OK. If this had been any other year, I would have been mutilated or worse, I’m sure. Typically, I don’t go into the stores at all on Black Friday, and haven’t since the TJMaxx incident of ’96. I don’t care what you say, that mannequin looked real!

Mark Trail and Nancy gone berserk
A concerned reader has been writing me to express his wariness about drastic changes that have occurred in these two beloved comic strips in recent weeks. The changes are so striking, he says, that it may be a sign of the End Times. “Next thing ya know,” my troubled friend writes, “Mr. Wilson will be having Dennis over for milk and cookies!” It’s worse than that, bub. Have you heard what’s been going on at the Bumstead household? Let’s just say that Dagwood has turned to the bottle and Blondie has been consoling herself by stepping out with a certain flightless sea bird over in Bloom County. It’s all very sordid, but these are the times in which we live.