.SOMETIMES RAW.

A Rock: Feel how solid it is. How smooth. How heavy. Like, really heavy. Good lord. Was your kid lugging it around all week? Is this the burden we all bear—lugging around rocks that we thought, for just a fleeting moment, were special? What rocks in our own backpack can we unload? And will your kid remember this particular rock and have a fit when they discover you threw it in the rockpile outside?

A Broken Stick: The stick is broken, barely hanging together. So is the world. You can take comfort in knowing that all things are broken. Your kid will probably not take such comfort. Is it better to conceal the broken stick or confront the reality of its brokenness? A difficult decision in much of life. But not here, since it’s just before dinner and your kid is already hangry.

Wet Bathing Suit: It is cool and damp. Let the coolness rest on your fingers. Let the vaguely moldy smell waft through your nostrils. Wonder whether this was the suit your kid wore Monday. How is it still in here? You have emptied the backpack completely twice and partially twice, so you couldn’t have missed it? Marvel at the mystery of the suit and the uncertainties of life. Wonder whether the mildewy smell will come out in the wash.

Gimp Bracelet (incomplete): Observe the twisting strands of color. Individually, they are weak and monochrome, but working together they are strong and vibrant. Ignore the clash of the colors and that one piece that’s braided incorrectly that could be fixed if you could just undo those last two stitches. Your kid would never know, and it would be fixed. But you would know. So you summon your strength to let the imperfection remain. (Probably.)

A Feather: Feel the feather’s softness between your fingers. Then feel the hand sanitizer you will need to remove the disgusting germs from them. What kind of bird was it? How high did it fly and what summits did it soar over? Was it covered in mites? The feather, in repeated motion, has allowed the bird to fly. It also, in repeated motion, has been thrown out by you and retrieved by your kid. You will remember to bury it deeper in the trash next time.

Half-Eaten Piece of Fruit: Observe the squishy peach. Or possibly apple. No, it’s definitely a peach. Your fingers squished through to the pit. Don’t we all have a solid core within our pliable exterior? Shouldn’t we all carry the seeds of the next generation within us? Shouldn’t this thing have been put back in its plastic bag or at least wrapped in a napkin? Ugh. Gross.

Crumpled “Important Updates” Info Sheet for Parents: Unfurl the ancient text bearing words of wisdom—about other kids’ severe nut allergies, important date changes, and payment schedules. Marvel at how the written word can transmit information across time. Note, disconcertingly, that this sheet is school letterhead, not camp, and that you are therefore reading it not days late, but weeks or months. Mull the passage of time. Do not mull the arguments that ensued due to the information you never received.

Another Rock: Feel the bumps and ridges on this second, less interesting rock, which was buried even deeper in the backpack. Feel less guilty about tossing this rock out, as you know it will land at least somewhat near its former backpack-mate in the rockpile outside.

Sand: Let the sand flow between your fingers. Consider how each sand particle, when seen up close, is its own intricate world. Ponder in amazement the vast number of these worlds making up every desert and beach. Ponder in even greater amazement the fact that your kid’s school is in the city, miles from any beach (or desert or other source of sand). How in the world did it get there? What the hell?

Empty Space (where a water bottle should be): Place your hand in the side pocket where your kid’s water bottle should be. Feel the emptiness. The lack. Practice non-attachment. Ponder getting a water bottle holder that will actually keep the water bottle attached to the backpack. Realize the futility of this and relax into the notion that at least a few of the water bottles will reappear in the lost and found.

You Guessed It, Another Goddamn Rock: Hurl that sucker right into the rockpile as hard as you can. Feels good.

Yay! You’ve been invited to a thing. But on the other hand: Shit! You’ve been invited to a thing. This is the eternal struggle: our desire to be included is in perpetual conflict with our desire to stay home and watch YouTube videos of guys going to every Rainforest Café in America. So here are a few tips about how to say no to a plan without saying goodbye to a friendship.

In a perfect world, try to be out of town when this event happens.

“Ahhhh, I’m out of town!” is by far the greatest excuse to miss anything. Implying that you would have attended a social event is basically just as good as actually attending that event. In fact, it might be even better, because then the host of this event is left to wonder what awesome and important things you could possibly be doing to justify being out of town. Now you’re an elusive jet setter instead of a deadbeat flake. So the next time you don’t want to spend an hour showing face at an acquaintance’s housewarming party, open up Google Flights and put your money where your anxiety is.

Respond promptly, or it will look like you’re stalling.

The last thing you want is for the inviter to think you have something to hide. So if you already have an excuse loaded up, send it as soon as you can. If you don’t know what you’ll be doing—or what you’ll claim to be doing—you can always say, “Sounds fun! Lemme check my calendar!” This implies that you’re the sort of person who is both popular and organized enough to keep a calendar. It will also buy you weeks, if not months, of time to come up with an excuse, because it seems to be universally accepted that this is how long it takes to check a calendar.

A vague excuse is better than a weak excuse.

Remember these four beautiful words: “I have a conflict.” When in doubt, that’s all you need to say. I’m a big believer in never lying in these scenarios—not even for ethical reasons, but for practical reasons. But just because you don’t want to lie doesn’t mean you should tell the truth. If you’re not careful, the excuse you give for not going to a function might actually be more hurtful than your lack of attendance. I have never told someone that I couldn’t go to their birthday party because I had improvised practice of splitting an atom. That would be humiliating for all parties. But you better believe I’ve used a lot of “I have to study with my son” at unavoidable prior obligation.

If you want to keep getting invited, just say so!

Nobody ever says anything that they actually think to anyone anymore. In lieu of this, we are left to try to conjure up meaning from what little communication we do offer each other. When I say, “Can’t make it, sorry!” how many exclamation marks do I need to put after “sorry” to indicate that I don’t hate this person, even though this is the third baptism in a row that I’ve declined to giddyup and attend?

Enough. When someone says no to hanging out with me, it saves me a whole lot of speculation and heartache if they tack on a quick “but let’s hang soon!”

Then again, you have to actually mean it. The phrase “let’s hang soon” has been appropriated by a dark underbelly of human society: people who do not actually want to hang soon. If you say, “We should grab coffee sometime!” and me reaching out to you to grab coffee would be a nightmare, know that nobody made you do that but you!

Don’t overdo it.

I know you’re reading a thousand-word essay about how to do this, but ultimately, you should be sending no more than like two sentences: the first to let them know you can’t make it, the second to express your regret and, if applicable, a desire to make it work some other time. Any more than that, and suddenly this chat about their event becomes about you. Remember: other people are not you, and therefore care 99.99 percent less about you than you.

The bigger the social obligation, the stronger your alibi must be.

Yes, the big, official-sounding, vague excuses work great most of the time—you’re out of town, you have a conflict, you’re all set. But like all other social rules, everything you know about how to decline an invitation goes out the window when it comes to a wedding.

As someone who values his privacy, I do believe, in theory, that nobody owes anyone an explanation about why they’re unavailable for any given outing. But as someone who got married, I know firsthand that your betrothed friends don’t give a shit about your privacy. They’ll wanna know exactly why you didn’t make it, and it had better be good, and they will remember whatever it was for the rest of their lives. (I specify their lives because they will kill you if it’s a bad excuse.)

Only a couple of events trump a wedding: a different wedding of someone you are unambiguously closer with or a funeral. But you may not have time to force a loved one to fall in love or into a manhole.

This is when you bring out the big one. The excuse that nobody loves to say, but the one that works every time: “I’ve been looking at flight and hotel prices, and I don’t think I can swing it.”

They will understand. If they don’t, it wasn’t a friendship worth keeping to begin with.

NOTE: This will not work if you are super rich. In that scenario, there is absolutely nothing you can say that will convince someone you have a good reason to miss their wedding. But there is something you can send. And that would be ten thousand euros for their registry. Or to me, for all this advice.

Employees:

I just thought it would be helpful to remind everyone of the rules we have in place for keeping food in our shared refrigerator. Please follow these guidelines to help ensure the fridge remains a sanitary and healthy space for everyone who works here:

– Our staff will throw out everything in the fridge each Friday by 6 p.m. If you don’t want your leftovers to end up in the trash, TAKE THEM HOME!

– Do NOT eat any food that isn’t yours, whether it’s a mostly full container of pad thai or a mysterious glowing paper bag that has been wedged in the back of the fridge since our company moved into this office on June 6, 2006. If you see someone else’s name on it, leave it alone. If you don’t see someone else’s name on it but know it isn’t yours, leave it alone. If the glowing seems to be getting more ominously radiant as your flesh inches closer and closer toward the bag, definitely leave it alone.

– If you accidentally eat someone else’s food, just own up to it. Do not pretend that you brought in the same meal or try to blame it on the glowing bag, as that generally just seems to make it angrier. Glen was the last person to try that, and we never saw him again.

– No, Glen was not fired. We honestly have no idea where he went and are pretty worried.

– If you see something in the fridge with a note on it that says FOR ANYONE, I guess you’re technically allowed to eat it, but keep in mind that this may just be the glowing bag trying to trick you into consuming something for sinister purposes. We’re pretty sure it gained the ability to write while we were all working from home and is using this skill to foster a false sense of trust among our employees.

– We know the fridge gets crowded, but try to keep your food at least a quarter-inch away from other people’s food—especially if it contains peanuts—and at least six inches away from the glowing bag. Stacy hasn’t been quite the same and is much more fluent in Aramaic since she left her salad right next to it all weekend. This is one of the reasons why we instituted the “food gets thrown out on Friday” rule, just FYI. That, and the smell was attracting flies.

– The glowing bag is exempt from that “food gets thrown out on Friday” rule, in case you didn’t already assume that. The last cleaning lady who tried to throw it away vanished soon after, and now the temperature instantly drops by twenty degrees whenever we say her name.

– Yes, we assume she and Glen are in the same place. We just don’t know where that place is.

– We really don’t like to ask about our employees’ religious beliefs, but we will say that one time a certain colleague put some sacramental wine in the fridge, and everything except the paper bag was covered in blood three minutes later. It totally spoiled the piece of pumpkin pie I had been looking forward to all day, so please don’t bring in any sacramental food items going forward. Also, please no fish.

– Make sure to always shut the fridge door completely. Leaving it open even just a crack could cause the food to spoil and allow the essence inside the glowing bag to escape its current confines and spread to all other parts of the office.

– Do not adjust the temperature settings. Also, do not touch the AC of the room where the refrigerator is in. We have confirmed with a sustainability expert and an exorcist that the fridge’s current temperature is optimized to be environmentally friendly and ward off evil spirits. Any adjustment could put both of those things at risk.

– Clean up all spills immediately, unless the spill comes from the glowing bag, in which case flee the office immediately.

– If you open the bag, you are subject to immediate termination. But you should let us know what’s in it before you leave. I’ve always assumed it was a demon, but Joe is convinced it’s just some really old egg salad.

Sincerely,
Dave from HR