7 But Have You Tried Eating All The Babies Takes

Well, this seems like it’s been a long week, how ‘bout some takes.
One
This is really discouraging and bad. There was an attack on a base in Mali and something like 60 people are missing. The group taking responsibility, Ansarul al-Islam, seems to have a real foothold in northern Mali and Burkina. If you feel like praying, especially remember isolated Christians who are often singled out.

Two
Someone should tell Africa where their real threat lies—global climate change. We only have a few months left so, for sure, let’s eat all the babies.

https://twitter.com/realsaavedra/status/1179908480322289664?s=21

I cannot imagine that this is not some kind of hoax. And honestly, I know everyone is bagging on AOC—she can’t even say we shouldn’t Eat All The Babies!—but I have so been in this place when someone crazy wanders into a bible study or the soup kitchen and just goes for it. You never quite know what you’re dealing with. Sometimes, if you say to the person who definitely wants to Eat All The Babies that you shouldn’t Eat All The Babies, that person gets really upset and comes to your window at 2 am on a full moon to explain how you’re so wrong, we should definitely always Eat All The Babies. I feel like AOC handled it pretty well in the circumstances. “We have a lot of options before we have to Eat All The Babies” seems like a very measured and sane response to the person who thinks it will also help to Bomb Russia. Still, this has to be a hoax. I mean, I never thought I would be the kind of person who would beg God for a hoax, but that seems like the best of all the options here.

Three
I mean, for real, when confronted with the appalling reality that the world will totally end in just a couple of months, obviously the first response—the very first response—should be cannibalism. What else are you going to do? There is really nothing else. Better get out your knife and fork and have at it.

Four
I feel like the world is kind of ending for me. I mean, I know it’s not, but either I sinned, or my parents sinned, to bring me to this terrible point of suffering. In the space of a week I lost all functional technological devices and my health, both of which losses are very appalling to me. I finally have a little tiny keyboard which is working ok and a heavy duty antibiotic, but the specter of a root canal, through the blinding self-pity of an overpowering cold, is making me pretty sure that the universe has fallen off of its course. Is this global climate change? Or the apocalypse? Have I offended God? Something is terribly wrong. Maybe it’s that I haven’t yet Eaten All The Babies.

Five
I did return my very first item to Amazon in my whole life though, speaking of the apocalypse. I ordered the wrong kind of keyboard, because of not having my act together, and when it came I was most alarmed and really couldn’t just sort of shove it in a cupboard to “cope with it later” as is my posture when I acquire the wrong thing. I really needed the money back so that I could order the right kind of keyboard. So I sucked it up and read the directions on Amazon and followed them, and it turned out to be sort of hideously easy. You just print a label and take it over to the UPS people who leer at you as if you are thinking about Eating All The Babies but take the package out of your hands anyway, and give you a little slip of paper with a tracking number on it, and so of course you feel this great chasm open up at your feet between you and all the other people in the universe who seem to sort of intuitively get the idea of retuning things through the mail, who look across that great expanse at you and wonder what your problem is.

I think the problem is—and why we go from Everything Is Fine to Eat All The Babies in one insanity addled moment, and stay with me here, because I’m sure I’m right—uneven amounts of convenience. Like, it only takes me 30 seconds to do an Amazon return and yet it’s terribly hard to keep track of cords with which to charge any of the wretched devices Amazon delivers in a single day. All charging options are all pieces of garbage that break as soon as you take them out of the package, so that you wander around your house never able to charge anything. Or, it’s terribly hard to find a doctor who will speak sensibly and plainly without resorting to weird innuendo and flights of metaphorical fancy, who refuses to say, “You should take Sudafed,” and instead wanders into an extended version of, “When I have a cold I have so many options, sometimes I like to just rest and drink plenty but other times I find that certain kinds of nose sprays work really well, but really, you know, the common cold…” at which point you begin to wonder if anyone has messaged you for any reason or will you die in this windowless office, listening to someone describe in detail what they like to do with their cold, behind a mask, no less, which is so comforting. But did they try Eating All The Babies? Probably not, probably not.

Six
Of course, I don’t really want Amazon to run my healthcare. They sell too much stuff that immediately breaks, even if you can send it back with no trouble to yourself.

Seven
Well, I’ve gotta go figure out what I’m supposed to be doing today. Go check out more takes!