Ten Terrible Ideas

Someone online once listed ten things you absolutely must do this weekend, each one progressively more hostile than the last. It starts almost kind—go to a sake festival, drink cheap—and then immediately betrays you by getting absurdist. Sing the Pokémon theme at the start of every conversation, deadpan, no laughing. Marry the first M-named person you meet. Get yourself on the evening news by any means necessary.

By the time you reach the Berghain bit—stand in the queue and ask the bouncer the same stupid question three times—you’re watching performance art disguised as a weekend checklist. Sleep with your old math teacher, because apparently that’s something you both wanted anyway. Invent a time machine to go back and fix all of 2017 before it ruins you. The last one is just cruel: bow to anyone who buys you a drink, but don’t let them get you pregnant.

The specificity is what kills me. The M-names, the particular cultural nightmare of actually standing in that queue, the math teacher thing because almost everyone had that person. It’s the kind of writing that only happens at three in the morning in a group chat, where the best jokes are the ones that make no sense and sting a little bit.

I never did any of them. I don’t think anyone was ever meant to.