MR WRONG: Clocked out
Indignity Vol. 6, No. 20
BEFORE WE BEGIN DEP'T.
Tom Scocca
The next chapter drops tomorrow, which means now's the time to take a trip down THE STAIRS, Tom Scocca's serialized work of fiction!
Also: we can't say weather or not you might want to scroll way down today, but you might, just saying, not making typos.
COLUMN DEP’T.
MR WRONG: Save Me From This Daylight Business
STUPID FUCKING DAYLIGHT Saving Time starts next week, urgh! I am going to address Daylight and the Savings in a minute, but I am in a hurry this week, and I have to discuss the War for a moment. I did not vote for this new War and I did not vote for the last one, in Iraq, and I think we are in the same bullshit-agenda situation, with the so-called nukes this time instead of the Mass Destruction Weapons, of which there weren’t any, plus, before that last one, with Saddam, he tried some shit on Kuwait, and Bush 41 got some nations together for a response, and the Coalition of the Gulf War or something like that, I forget the exact brand, beat Saddam’s raggedy army back to a line in the sand, and then it was over, and then we sent a bucha people over to put out the fires on the oil wells. Measured response or whatever.
We (as in U.S) had Saddam in a box for years, with the no-fly thing, but then we had September 11 and all bets were off for logical and measured military anything, so we fucked Iraq up, and we fucked Afghanistan up—made the exact same mistake that the Soviet Russians made, which was the same mistake the British made, and the Afghans fucked us up the same way they fucked up the British and the Soviet Russians—and along the way we started secret torture prisons and they made that completely horseshit Zero-Dark movie about all the stuff leading up to the (factual) wasting of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, which was not Afghanistan. Anyway, now Dear Leader is setting parts of the world on fire, but next week it’s still Daylight Saving Time.
Daylight Saving Time! I don’t even know what I think about it anymore! There’s no Saving, there’s more Daylight because of the angle of the Earth flying through space and stuff, but people want to say they “gained” or “lost” an hour of sleep, it’s a time-travel paradox! Starting Sunday!
So we are ending the week with Saving. I think we should start the week that way, right? Not end it? I always feel like Sunday is the last day of the week, but it is the Lord’s day, right? Domingo? Shouldn’t that be the first? Or like are all the days supposed to lead up to the Lord’s Day? I don’t know, I just know that Sunday always seems like the last day of the week, and even though I don’t have a Day Job where I would go to an office space, I still have it well-grooved into the clefts and crevasses of my brain that Monday is the first day of the week.
I never remember what time Daylight Saving time is, exactly, because I’m usually asleep when it happens, but according to my favorite website that knows what time it is, timeanddate dot com, at exactly 2 a.m., on Sunday, it’s gonna be time for Daylight and Saving.
People in areas that observe Daylight Saving Time (DST) will set their clocks forward one hour, from 02:00 (2 am) to 03:00 (3 am) local time on March 8, 2026. DST always starts on the second Sunday in March in the US. This year, it falls on the earliest possible date, March 8. Standard time, also known as winter time, will resume on Sunday, November 1, 2026.
Anyway, like I said, I am in a hurry, so I’m glad I helped solve the War, and now I am leaving my desk to go and see the semi-new Frankenstein movie on a big screen in a movie theater, as G-d intended. They started this movie in the theaters but only for a fucking week, and then they yanked it and put it on Netflix, but I wanted to see it in a fucking movie theater on account of it is a fuckin’ movie! Big screen! Also, I want to see the movie The Bride!—and that exclamation point is in the title, I didn’t do that one, one must use the exclamation mark sparingly, I am told, har!—but I wanted to see Frankenstein first, and don't fucking tell me it doesn’t matter because they aren’t in the same universe or whatever, don’t yuck my Frankensteins!
UPDATE-INTERRUPTION: I just got back from the Frankenstein movie (very good, you should see on real big screen) and there’s a chunk in there that kinda popped, right after Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) is introduced to Elizabeth (Mia Goth), his brother’s fiancee. I found it in a transcript:
[Elizabeth] Ideas are not worthwhile by themselves, I don’t believe.
[Victor] Enlighten me, please.
[Elizabeth] Take the war, for example.
[Harlander] William, cigar and brandy in my study? Surely you’ve heard my niece expound on the matter before. You’ll excuse us.
[Victor] Pray, carry on. Ideas.
[Elizabeth] Well… honor, country, valor. These surely are worthwhile, elevated ideas by themselves, wouldn’t you agree?
[Victor] Mmhmm.
[Elizabeth] And nevertheless, men are dying for them. In a decidedly unelevated way, face down in the mud, choking on blood, screaming in pain. Men that were fathers, brothers or sons to someone out there. Men that were fed, cleaned and nursed and schooled into this world by their mothers, only to fall on a battlefield far away, far from those that provoke these tragedies. Those men remain at home, untouched by blood or bayonet, their skin unpierced, their blankets warm and clean. That is what happens when ideas are pursued by fools.
OK, yeah, right, so like I was saying, Daylight Saving Time starts at 2 a.m., Eastern Standard Time, aka 3 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, on Sunday, but it's 2 a.m., so it'll still seem like it's Saturday, you know? Agh! My brain! That concludes this Service Journalism part of the Mr. Wrong column, thank you.
The MR. WRONG COLUMN is a general-interest column appearing weekly. No refunds. Write Wrong: wrongcolumn@gmail.com.
WEATHER REVIEWS
New York City, March 1, 2026
★★★ Flowing over a thick mound of bedclothes, the damp air from the window brought dreams of a warm spring day blowing through a wide-open apartment. Outside the covers, though, it was raw, and when the blinds went up, fat snowflakes were crisscrossing each other's paths, some floating in under the overhang of the balcony. Behind that flurry came a cloudless day. The slow flow from the melting snowbanks revealed a usually unnoticeable tilt to the sidewalk. Along the stairs up into the Park, snow lay slumped at the foot of the rocks with leaves and twigs tangled in it. Puddles were easier to distinguish from a few strides off, with bright blue mirrored on them, than right underfoot with the sun cutting through the clear meltwater. With the sun at the viewer's back, the landscape was more brown than white; the view facing into the sun found the shade-side slopes still white. The gutter by the path was stuffed with sweetgum balls.
New York City, March 2, 2026
★★★ An extra-yellow patch of snow had a beverage cup spilling sideways on it. Thin clouds left the sky bluish in the west and glaring white with scattered sun in the east. Where the old ice had retreated from the shore of the Pool, the briefly open water had skinned over anew, the fresh ice clear and seamed into irregular polygons. The baseball fields were infested with geese, scores or possibly hundreds of them, creaking and grunting and honking as they foraged, with slow trudging steps, in the dark exposed dirt. A thick sheet of ice spanned the path where it passed by a storm drain. The sky turned something closer to gray, but the sun still cast shadows.
New York City, March 3, 2026
★★ The forecast snow showers didn't show up as flakes, but to judge by the loud crackling outside, the first round was coming down as something more frozen than rain. Then came just rain. The ribs needed wine and the wine required a walk outside, into a shower that was light but unignorable. I'm the ambassador to the United Nations, said the other customer in the plexiglas-lined vestibule, pointing out single-serving liquor bottles and paying cash. His orange knit athletic suit was somehow barely rain-touched at all.
EASY LISTENING DEP'T.
Here is the Indignity Morning Podcast archive!
TOM SCOCCA
SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.
WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS for the assembly of sandwiches selected from Child's Recipes for Cooking and Preparing, by Childs Company, published in 1913 and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
CREAM CHEESE AND WALNUT.
3 cream cheese
4 oz. English walnuts
Chop walnuts fine and mix with cream cheese. Trim off the hard crust of the bread; spread with butter, cream cheese, and walnuts. Cut diagonally across and wrap in wax paper.
EGG.
Fry an egg on both sides and place between two pieces of buttered bread.
HAM.
Butter 2 pieces of bread. Place between them 1 slice of cold ham (about 1/2 oz.). Wrap in wax paper.
HOT ROAST BEEF.
1 1/2 oz. roast sirloin of beef
2 pieces of bread
2 large spoonfuls of gravy
Slice meat thin and place between bread with gravy over all.
If you are inspired to prepare a sandwich inspired by these offerings, be sure to send your thoughts and a picture to indignity@indignity.net.
SELF-SERVING SELF-PROMOTION DEP'T.
