MR WRONG: No exit
Indignity Vol. 6, No. 36
BEFORE WE BEGIN DEP'T.
Tom Scocca
The next chapter drops Friday, so it's a great time to get caught up on THE STAIRS, Tom Scocca's serialized work of fiction!
COLUMN DEP’T.
MR WRONG: Our Planet Has Too Many Greedy Computers and Not Enough Legroom
EARTH DAY WAS yesterday, and so I am writing my Earth Day column today, because every day is Earth Day, because we live on it, the Earth, and people need more than one day to be reminded how bad the human beings are fucking this planet up, especially now with the whole Data Centers crapola, and all these Silicon Valley lizards scrambling around paying each other for computer chips made outta heavy metals for the Artificial Intellects that need the Data Center and then they need more electricity for the warehouses fulla computer chips, and then each one will have its own atomic power plant because there isn’t enough coal or oil or household waste to burn to make the power for the data, for fuck’s sake.
I keep trying to turn off the AI whenever I can, I don’t like it, the AI, mostly because it’s a remorseless unfeeling machine that doesn’t tell the truth, because it doesn’t care, because nobody’s in charge of it. Like the Earth right now! Nobody’s in charge of even trying to not shit all over it!
Meanwhile, I don’t like the stupid AI, and I have to go check the answer from the AI and it’s not real, it’s Virtual facts or something. It’s a big fucking waste of time and of electricity! And it’s getting more expensive trying to get more electricity, because the computer-boxes for the robots are slurping it all! All the juice! Especially when the President of The United States of America is afraid of windmills! Because the windmills and the solar panels fuck up the profits for the oil and the atomics and the coal, we're not gonna stop with the coal until it’s gone, seriously. Anyway, yesterday was Earth Day.
I feel kinda bad this year about Earth Day, because today I am getting on an airplane to go to Las Vegas, for entertainment. I feel bad about all the carbon and the debt. I don’t fly a lot, but basically it’s nuts to fly in an airplane, and not just because it is a giant metal tube with rockets stuck on the side, it’s bad because it doesn’t cost enough. Air travel is a Modern Miracle, and it’s too easy, even right now. It cost me about $300 to fly to Vegas each way, to fly thousands of miles, to go so fast that you penetrate Space and Time Zones, and you get “jet lag,” because you got there too fast! It is Unnatural. Plus, I am flying on Southwest.
They are bad! They changed up how you buy a seat, you used to just buy a ticket and then hope you’d get a good seat if you checked in quick, but now you have to pick a seat, and they set it up so that any seat with more legroom than one of their normal not-enough-legroom seats costs more dough.
Also, the thing about Southwest doing assigned seats now, is, in order to get you to pay for more legroom they need to show you how empty the plane is. I just checked my flight and here are the opportunities to get more legroom or an aisle or whatever. Look at this bullshit “upgrade” seating!
This diagram indicates there’s nobody on the starboard side near the emergency hatch! Who are they going to swear in to agree to be responsible? For eighty-nine dollars and no cents, plus tax and airport fee and Sept. 11? I thought I was paying for the people to check my luggage to make sure I’m not going to blow up the plane? How are these people who check the luggage and look at me all creepy when I show my ID ending up in this jackpot where they don’t get paid? I thought there was a Global War on Terror, before the Global War we’re doing right now, and the one we’re doing to stop the one we started? I pay for this stuff, for the Transportation people! Don’t get the money streams crossed with the Brownshirts funding! I do not want that, no goons! I want to get on the fucking plane!
In conclusion, on my flight to Vegas, if there’s nobody in those fucking empty $89 seats in the diagram, who’s gonna open the emergency hatch on the starboard side? NOT ME, not if I gotta pay 89 extra bucks! You should pay me! People who sit in those seats are Designated Heroes! With legroom!
Also the fucking seats should not tilt back unless they remove three rows of seats and we all get more goddamn legroom! 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, April 19, 2026
★ The doves kept up a rhythmic moaning as night gave way indistinctly to a disappointing daytime. The new-spread leaves fluttered in a cold breeze. Sodden pink petals lay on the ground, blown in from a tree nowhere in view, and now beyond all further traveling. The lilac blossoms still leaned out over the sidewalk but their cloud of scent was lost on the chilly air. Late in the afternoon, too late, a wash of light filled the greenery. The sudden brightness outdoors amounted to nothing more than a reminder to get the plants back inside before the temperature fell into the 30s.
New York City, April 20, 2026
★★ An inviting glow came through the bedroom windowshade. The sun came in near flat to cast shadows of the street trees' leaves on the faces of the townhouses. By the time the morning routine was underway, though, the light had died out. The heavy shirt was wrinkled from having been folded and stowed up on the shelf on the mistaken assumption it wouldn't be needed for months. Out on the street in Midtown it was dim enough to require reading glasses for the phone screen. Hour by hour, though, the light grew stronger and cleaner as the clouds pulled apart. The late light shone through the layers of glass at the top of the escalators. Wind seethed through the tulips and daffodils.
VISUAL CONSCIOUSNESS DEP'T.
A Visit to the New York International Auto Show
More consciousness at Instagram.
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 from Choice Selection of Tested Recipes from Many Households, published in 1907 for The Ladies' Aid Society of The Baptist Church, Wallingford, Vermont by Wm. H. Nichols Cook Book Pub. Co., Morrisville, VT, and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
BREAD FOR SANDWICHES should be one day old. Use white, graham or brown bread. Cut the bread as thin as possible and have the butter soft enough not to tear the bread. Remove the crusts and cut in squares or triangles.
FILLINGS
Anchovy — Rub yolks of hard boiled eggs to a paste, moisten with oil or butter and anchovy essence to taste.
Chicken — Cold boiled chicken may be sliced thin and sprinkled with pepper and salt, or cold chicken may be chopped and mixed with mayonnaise.
Cheese — Mix equal parts of cream cheese and chopped walnut meats with French dressing.
Cheese — Stir grated cheese into mayonnaise.
Cucumber — Chop medium sized cucumbers rather fine, add a little salt, drain and mix with mayonnaise.
Egg — Chop hard boiled eggs with a silver knife, mix with French dressing or mayonnaise.
Ham — Chop the ham very fine and season with mustard, make into a paste with melted butler.
Lettuce— Shred lettuce and mix with mayonnaise.
Nut — Peanuts or walnuts chopped very fine are an addition to almost any sandwiches. The chopped nuts may be mixed with French dressing or mayonnaise.
Olive — Pimolas are most used, chop quite fine and mix with mayonnaise.
Sardine — Mash sardines with salt, cayenne and lemon juice.
Tongue — Thin slices of boiled tongue and spread with mustard.
CLUB SANDWICHES
On slice of bread put a lettuce leaf, next slices of thin crisp bacon, next slices of chicken and mayonnaise, cover with slice of bread, and toast lightly on either side.
If you are inspired to prepare a sandwich inspired by these offerings, be sure to send your experience and a picture to indignity@indignity.net.
SELF-SERVING SELF-PROMOTION DEP'T.
