Ten Small Disasters, One Weekend

Weeks don’t go fast. That’s a myth for people with comfortable jobs. If you’re selling bubble tea or doing an internship at a nursing home, time dilates like taffy in August. Empirically verified. But it’s Friday, and whatever happened between Monday and now is officially archived, and the next two days are available for ruin.

Mission one: Burger King, a Whopper with a thousand extra slices of bacon, and a farewell letter written before the first bite. Brief. Dignified. Explanatory. Mission two: get the group together and completely blank one friend—full silence, zero eye contact, total social erasure—until he starts genuinely coming apart at the seams. Stand down before he visits a fortune teller and accidentally ends a hostage situation. Mission three: sit down with your parents and explain, in careful and thorough detail, where children come from.

Mission four: next available flight, destination unknown, personal rule that you may not return for ten years. Landing in Düsseldorf means God has formed a specific opinion about you. Mission five: eat more meat. Mission six: move everywhere on all fours. Announce to passing strangers that you are a new species of ape-man and no one can stop you now. Shopping centers work best for this. Mission seven: sunglasses—as many as possible. There is a universal truth that the right pair transforms any unremarkable man into someone who appears to have dark secrets and a complicated past. Corollary: the fewer friends you have, the more pairs you need.

Mission eight: name every pimple. When you run out of names, you have your answer. Mission nine: Power Rangers toys, unironically. The fun genuinely begins when the giant robots come out, and pretending otherwise is just denial. Mission ten: glow-in-the-dark paint on the genitals, optimal timing, and a loud "Surprise!" You might not still have a partner by morning. But you’ll have something to talk about.