Ten Missions, Zero Promises
Friday is theoretically everyone’s favorite day. You spend the week constructing ambitious weekend plans—elaborate, reckless, possibly illegal—and then Saturday arrives and you’re in yesterday’s clothes on the couch, eating something delivered by a stranger, watching something you’ve already seen. This is fine. This is the shape of modern life. But on the off chance you’d prefer otherwise, here are ten missions.
One: dump your partner and spend the money saved on an iPad and whatever novelty peripheral you’ve been too self-conscious to search for in normal browsing mode. Economically rational in the long run. Two: write an emotional hate letter to this dispatch—really commit to it, insults and grievances and ancient scores, something attached that shouldn’t be. Send it. Three: compose a series of tweets making fun of America, circulate them widely, then spend the following weekend explaining yourself to a border agent at JFK.
Four: go through your recent flash photos and check whether you have only one red eye. Two red eyes is a camera problem. One red eye is potentially leukocoria, which can indicate a tumor behind the retina. Enjoy that information going into the weekend. Five: Community needs saving. You may not have watched it yet—get loud about it anyway. Six: someone has edited a version of Steve Jobs back to life, more or less, and the four minutes are worth it.
Seven: at some point this weekend a friend will drink past all reasonable threshold. This is when you insert fireworks somewhere they shouldn’t be inserted. Know in advance that this is an actionable civil offense and your friend will, in fact, pursue it. Eight: acquire a new hobby. Affixing strange stickers to strangers without their knowledge. Collecting hair ties sorted by color. Getting a GIF tattooed on your forearm. Any of these will do. Nine: there’s snow outside—go be in it before it turns to brown slush. Build something, throw something, stand in it until going back inside feels earned. Ten: buy your daughter SpongeBob tampons for her birthday. Somebody has to introduce her to both concepts eventually. It might as well be you, and it might as well be simultaneously.