MR WRONG: Lettuce? Pray!
Indignity Vol. 6, No. 60
LITERATURE DEP'T.
Tom Scocca
CHAPTER 36 of Tom Scocca's serialized work of fiction appears tomorrow, so right now is a good time to get caught up on THE STAIRS!
COLUMN DEP’T.
MR WRONG: Nobody Warns You About the Explosive Logorrhea
LAST WEEK WE—and by “we” I mean the “Royal We” of me—ended the Mr. Wrong column with the typist of the Mr. Wrong column (again, me, but not as Royally) saying I would try to find something nice to talk about this week, but, I dunno!
JOE MACLEOD
Thank you, and I promise I will talk about nice things next week, I will try.
I mean, jeepers, look at that, I started bailing out at the end of the fucking sentence! I couldn’t get through one closing sentence designed to encourage the Gentle Reader to come back next week for more fun and more thrills! “I will talk about nice things,” err-ah, “I will try.” Har! I should be in Politics, eh? The next part of the degeneration of my “promise” would be, like, “How is anybody expected to be able to talk about nice things in this Economy?”
Anyway, I decided to have a coupla proper cocktails before I got going on this week’s episode of the Mr. Wrong column. I figured it might make me happier! I do not want this to be a thing about drinking, I only had a coupla martinis, I did not get loaded, just a li’l something to take the edge off, OK?
Have you heard about the explosive diarrhea, the exploding diarrhea, the recent explosion of explosive diarrhea? Seriously, as many times as I make sure I am spelling “diarrhea” correctly, I gotta double check. Dire straits! I like how the English British spell it though, DIARRHOEA, that looks super scientific! I wanted to google it to back up the spelling, and because the search engine kept correcting the spelling to American English, I had to put “DIARRHOEA UK,” and so I am happy to announce that is the name of my new band, which is a tribute band of this band.
Anyway, look, c’mon, wash your fruits and veg, I dunno what else to say, don’t blame that shit on Taco Bell! Every time there’s any kinda sick-poops discourse, Taco Bell gets dragged in, even though they were in the News Cycle seriously trying to be all “hey errbody in an abundance of caution” and stuff. Har!
Look, the Mr. Wrong column is a Journalist, so we did the due diligence and googled “taco bell diarrhea,” umkay? We are digging down deep into this Current Event! Muckraking!
Personally, I enjoy Taco Bell, and getting back to the Promise of today’s column, Taco Bell is a Nice Thing. Wow, that could be a Vertical Enterprise for the Mr. Wrong column! NICE THINGS! Or did Martha Stewart already do that? I am not googling Martha Stewart, no offense, I am worried about my Algorithm, I can’t be typing “diarrhea exploding martha stewart nice thing” into my Google and not have some fucked-up shit come out!
Why’s it “explosive” all the time now, through, huh? It’s all the time “explosive diarrhea”, like “massive stroke,” nobody ever seems to just have a stroke, right? Oh wow, Diarrhea Stroke, game over.
The media does that! I am part of the media, and so are you, probably, if you are on the internet, right? I mean, what even is the Media anymore with errbody doing their takes and stuff, don’t get mad at the message, you are the Media, OK? I am trying to talk about nice things and I’m in this diarrhea cycle, I apologize. It’s kinda funny though, right? That’s good, to have laugh, though? I mean, a big part of the Mission of the Mr. Wrong column is a little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants!
Gadzooks, I just did a word count, and I am at approximately 550 words, oy.
The Mr. Wrong column is ABC:
A-Always
B-Be
C-Columning, and back when the Mr. Wrong column appeared in a printed-on-paper newspaper, we established a Minimum Weekly Requirement of like 650-900 words, but I feel like I am running out of gas here, which is why I have stopped using contractions! That just got me to over 600 words!
Okay, look, we didn’t talk about Politics in this week’s column, that’s nice, right, in this Economy? Wowee, I am exhausted, trying to keep it nice! Look, I know we broke the record for putting the word “diarrhea” in the column this week, and if you are still reading, you might have a new Personal Best for reading that word, and I am just gonna say, again, as a Public Service, wash your fruits and your vegetables, and thank you for reading the Mr. Wrong column, and I hope you don’t have diarrhea.
The MR. WRONG COLUMN is a general-interest column appearing weekly. No refunds. Write Wrong: wrongcolumn@gmail.com.
WEATHER REVIEWS
Taipei, July 14, 2026
★★ The window of the plane fogged up on the way to the gate in the dark. By the time the missing bags had been properly reported, there was golden sun angling over the outdoors. Long-necked and -legged white birds browsed the roadside embankment. Clouds clung to the mountains; morning mist floated above mirror-smooth water; light traced the edges of stacked shipping containers. The silhouette of Taipei 101 grew larger and its undulating edges became three-dimensional contours. No one had put sunscreen into a carry-on, and it was already hot out on the walk to a 24-hour pharmacy. By midmorning the sun was scalding. The blue tiles atop the outer wall and roof of Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall gleamed. A row of oblongs and circles of blue and white shone from the identically skyward-angled mirrors of parked scooters packed together in the shade between buildings. The partly opened mouth of the Adidas store in Ximendeng breathed out a healing gust of air conditioning onto the sweltering corner. A smooth throw-blanket of cloud in the midafternoon sky outside the wide hotel window grew dark gray and rough to the north and to the south. Cloud shadow covered the cars and motorbikes neatly lining up where dozens of lanes met in a not-quite-right-angled intersection. At 4 the sheet of clouds was covering everything, and the hope that the opened umbrellas were just leftover parasols was quashed by the sprinkling rain on the Uber windshield and a roar of thunder. But the rain never intensified past a soft shower, nor was it enough to break the heat.
Taipei, July 15, 2026
★★ Insects buzzed loudly from one of the small trees by the big road, sounding like a power substation. The ground inside the campus gate was strewn with broken wax apples, and a new one came thumping down from the laden branches high above. The clouds over the ride to the Palace Museum were gray enough and thick enough to make it seem as if the afternoon showers would be coming sooner, but after lunch, sun came blasting down from the zenith onto the vast forecourt hard enough to make the nose run. The gardens looked lovely from the elevation and shade of the very first available pavilion, reachable by crossing only a few yards of direct sun. Huge koi in assorted colors drifted in the water across the way and down below, a vignette on a scroll painting to be enjoyed in miniature. Going closer was appalling to contemplate; the hot plant smells were like vapors from herbal tea. On the ride back, thuds and booms of skateboards sounded from a skatepark built down in the shelter of a graffiti-pillared elevated roadway. The first drops of rain hit the windshield at the same time they had the day before, but this time they were followed by clear sun cutting in from the side. Wind gusted outside the Japanese electronics-and-toys mall and a yellow light spread from the west, strengthening to shine golden on the buildings above the dark streets. Out the windows of the restaurant, people were covering their heads and scurrying, as the rain made one parting rally.
SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.
WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS for the assembly of sandwiches selected from Cookery: Choice Recipes Collected by the Woman's Club of Palo Alto, published in 1903 and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
Cucumber Sandwiches.
Chop or slice cucumbers very thin; add a little onion juice, a dash of red pepper, and a little mayonnaise, and spread between thin slices of bread.
—Mrs. G. B. Littee.
Baked Bean Sandwiches.
Mash cold baked beans to a paste, season with mustard, add some finely chopped celery leaves or parsley, and spread between white or brown bread. Serve with cheese.
If you are inspired to prepare a sandwich inspired by our continued offerings, be sure to send along a description of your experience and a photo or three to us here: indignity@indignity.net.
EASY LISTENING DEP'T.
Here is the Indignity Morning Podcast archive!
TOM SCOCCA
SELF-SERVING SELF-PROMOTION DEP'T.
