GOODNIGHT FUCKERS #482: WELCOME TO THE END TIMES. FOR REAL.

 I saw this Tweet earlier today, and my first reaction was to think, GOOD. But then another horrifying thought occurred to me. I'm sure you know exactly what that thought is, but indulge me for a moment.

When I was younger I had a list of the world's ten most powerful dictators. Each and every time one died, it made me smile. So long, asshole. (It should be noted that I never wondered who would take the tenth spot when everyone moved up to fill the gap. It probably should have concerned me a bit more.)

I no longer have that list (I don't think), but I'm pretty sure if I consulted it now, the last dick standing would be this son of a bitch. Long have I wished to see the headline proclaiming his death, and long have I been disappointed.

However.

For a brief moment, when reading this Tweet, I thought, "It's finally happening." The world will soon be rid of Vladimir S. Putin. (I'm pretty sure Shit is his middle name.) That would put an end to the war in Ukraine that no one but he wants. It would also free the Russian people from a yoke they've been chained to for decades. It would, dare I say it, make the world a much better place.

But.

What if he really is dying? Do you see him going quietly into the night? Or do you see him jamming his finger down on the button? "Fuck this. If I'm dying, I'm taking the goddam world with me."

And that's the horrifying thought. What if his impending death means that the Doomsday Clock finally strikes midnight?

"It's time to get familiar with cannibalism." Hunter S. Thompson said that, but holy shit, we won't have any time for that business. Even if there are some people unlucky enough to survive a planet wide nuclear holocaust, and even if they were free of radiation poisoning, how long would they last when resorting to cannibalism?

I guess if there's a lesson in tonight's Goodnight, Fuckers, it's this: if you plan on becoming a cannibal, now is the time to do it. Don't wait until it's too late.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #448: FUCK THE SICKNESS

 It's been a while since I got sick. And by getting sick, I mean an actual cold or the flu or something that lasts more than a day of crud. I used to get sick once every year for about a week or so (and then the gunk would stay with me for a couple more weeks), and it was usually around the first week of February. Then my body stopped getting sick a few years back. I suspect it was because my organs started failing me around then, and I guess my body took some kind of pity on me because it must have decided that being in and out of the ER for that kind of thing was probably enough misery for me to deal with.

But this motherfucker swept in on me on January 3, and it didn't let go of me fully until this morning. It was fucking merciless. I couldn't stand up without feeling woozy. Every night one nostril would close up on me until I turned on my other side, and I'd get a few seconds of relief until the other nostril closed instead. I hacked and coughed and gagged. And then, just when I thought I was in the clear, the diarrhea showed up and had me going back and forth to the bathroom.

Holy fuck, this one was rough. With the specter of Covid hanging over us all, I naturally got paranoid about having it. I could still taste and smell things, so I suspected it wasn't it, but I started looking around for places I could get tested without standing outside in the freezing cold for more than a half an hour. Naturally, there was nowhere I could go for that. And I can barely stand up for ten minutes, what with the bad leg and all, so going elsewhere wasn't an option.

(Here's a tip if you find yourself in such a situation and you have good insurance. Go to the ER sick as a dog, and maybe exaggerate your symptoms a little. You'll get tested. Fair warning, though: if you test positive, they might not let you leave to self quarantine at home, which is what I did.)

I poured all sorts of shit into me. All the Quils I could get my hands on. Cannabis. Even Unisom for when I was trying to sleep, which was almost all the time. And I got desperate enough to see if I could drink the sick away. If you catch it early enough, that usually works, but I was already balls deep into this illness and tried it anyway. No dice.

And I drank a ton of Tang. That was my only real pleasure at the time. Because when I'm sick I can't write or read or even jerk off. All I can do is watch TV, so I did a lot of that while waiting to pass out from medications.

But goddammit, it's done with. Except the gunk. I'll have the snot dribblies for another week or so, but that's not so bad, all things considered. I feel strong enough to resume my usual daily rituals. I got some writing done, some reading. Meditation and some upper body exercises. So things are looking much better now.

Welcome to 2022. Hopefully it's not time to get familiar with cannibalism. Yet.