MR WRONG: Off the rack
Indignity Vol. 6, No. 24
NOW WAIT JUST ONE SECOND DEP'T.
Tom Scocca
The next chapter of Tom Scocca's serialized work of fiction THE STAIRS drops tomorrow, which means now's a great time for catch-up reading!
COLUMN DEP’T.
MR WRONG: They Took Away All the Supermarket Magazines and Crude Oil Is Next
I WENT TO the grocery store the other day and all the magazines were gone. At the checkout lanes, all the impulse-buy magazine racks, one of each side of each lane, empty. The other stuff was still there, all the candy and gum and Tastykake products and gift cards, still there.
All those magazines I would look at waiting in the checkout were gone, all the brands doing one-off editions about special seasonal recipes, or Prince, or a Royal English, or Jesus, Beyonce, etc., Better Homes & Gardens, People, Southern Living, Time, Mad, National Geographic, Newsweek, Martha Stewart, Delish, Country Living, Magnolia Journal, Parade, Victoria, Globe, Star, Closer, National Examiner, Life & Style, National Enquirer, Woman’s World, gone. Sometimes I would buy one, but I didn’t buy a lot, that’s for sure, I guess I didn’t buy enough!
Those names were just the ones near the registers. The big ten-tier rack in the middle of the store near the greeting cards, the one that carried Esquire, Garden & Gun, Essence, Forbes, Prepper, XXL, Town & Country, Vanity Fair, Hot Rod, Nylon, Car and Driver, Harper’s, Guitar World, Thrasher, Pro Wrestling Illustrated, Smithsonian, Food & Wine, Scientific American, Motor Trend, Wine Spectator, Maxim, Bon Appetit, Popular Mechanics, Baltimore, Washingtonian, Bazaar, Men’s Health, Cosmopolitan, Psychology Today: also completely empty. The only printed-on-paper publications left were on another shelf, children’s books, and coloring and activity books.
I am a graphic artist by trade, and the last OK-paying Day Jobs I had were at newspapers and magazines, printed on paper. I’m not kidding myself, I know what time it is, why do you think I am typing the Mr. Wrong column onto pixels and not a piece of paper anymore? However, I gotta admit, I have been applying for jobs to places that I think will go outta business, like the Washington Post, because I figure if I can get a job at a place like that, eventually I will get fired and severance-paid, right? Score! Look, I’m not lazy, if I get a job someplace I'll work hard, I’m just saying, you know? Why not think about that little escape pod the way the bigshots do, eh?
Anyway, I’m looking for more work, but I hope I don’t get a job where I have to drive my car, you know? Oof, oil is how much a barrel? I listen to Bloomberg on the radio in the morning and they are like “Oil is this many dollars a barrel for WTI so hurray for the Permian patch” or whatever, and then I hear “Oil is this many a barrel for the other kind of oil,” Brent oil? Brent crude? I can barely keep track of what kind of oil to buy to fry chicken, or tortilla chips to economize! I watch that LANDMAN show with Billy Bob on Paramount Plus, so I understand what the Permian Basin is, but they really talk some ignorant shit about wind turbine power on that teevee show.
Meanwhile, the gasoline costs how much now a gallon? $3.70 near my house, ouch! I have the “reward” points from my grocery store affinity card so I got 50¢ a gallon off, but it still costs more! Other oil goes through the Strait? Of Hormuz? Other oil for other countries, and so somehow in the United States of America, net-exporter of oil, we are getting jacked for a buck-three-eighty more a gallon? Couple two-three? That’s gouging, right? The Permian patch is happy! The wisdom of the market? I thought we were all supposed to have electric cars now! Where does the gas even come from?
The MR. WRONG COLUMN is a general-interest column appearing weekly. No refunds. Write Wrong: wrongcolumn@gmail.com.
WEATHER REVIEWS
New York City, March 15, 2026
★ A sky of loosely gathered clouds with blue between them became one of solid, smoothly rippled gray. Birdsong filled the cold air. The texture of the clouds grew less distinct and the color turned grayer. The sidewalks were surprisingly full of people but the Park was near deserted. New gold drooped from the willows, and a pair of people sat in chairs by the shore of the Pool, fully bundled up in winter gear, armed with a fishing rod. The elms had their dreary, withered-looking flowers out, and the sugar maples were pushing out their tiny red ones.
New York City, March 16, 2026
★★★ Big raindrops clung to the windows and fog clung to the apartment buildings. The drizzle broke for a while, the cloud cover got brighter to look at, and the buildings got their sharp edges back. It was calm in the avenue for the moment but a stiff breeze was advancing uphill on the cross street leading down to the Park. The air was tinseled with the overlapping metallic cries of jays and starlings. A red-tail glided by, tight along the treetops, its movements more knife than spatula; the robins' breasts were plush as velvet theater seats; a waxy shine was on the rocks. A bit after 3 in the afternoon came a buffeting and then a booming, with windchimes clanging in it, rising to a brief fluting howl. The wind settled and then came seething back, over and over. The sky was a near-featureless gray, so it took a moment to see that the gray had slight variations in it, and that those variations were speeding by. A bag of recycling had left the curb and come to rest in the shallow depression of an asphalt patch on the opposite side of the roadway. A loud, tapping rain began, with drops so large they looked white.
New York City, March 17, 2026
★★★★ After the uncanny howling and roaring of the windstorm through the night, the morning was conventionally clear and crisp, wintry but for the extra sparkle from the sun's extra height. A brilliant red door stood out from the dark brick superstructure of a midrise building. Little white clouds drifted over. The water pooled in the indentations on the lid of the trash can had become sheet ice that creaked to the touch. The clouds grew bigger and fluffier, but the sun poured down unimpeded, making the leafless twigs and branches so bright that it was hard to see the houses across the avenue through them. On a video call beside the window, the daylight cast a blue glow on the face mirrored in the screen.
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 Choice Recipes, by Order of Eastern Star, published circa 192o and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
CRAB CLUB SANDWICHES
Toast two slices of bread cut one fourth inch thick and spread with butter. Cook two slices of bacon until crisp and delicately brown. On one slice of toast put a layer of lettuce leaves, then a layer of sliced tomatoes or cucumber, next a layer of Namco crab meat separated in flakes and the bones removed, next a thin layer of mayonnaise dressing with two pieces of bacon. Cover with other slice of toast and cut in two diagonally. On top place two small leaves of lettuce arranged in cup shape, fill with mayonnaise dressing and put in a small piece of red crab meat in the center. Place on plate beside sandwich a small cucumber pickle cut in fan shape or sweet pickled cucumber cut in strips or rings. This may be served as an open sandwich by placing the two pieces of toast on a small platter and on each piece of toast arranging the ingredients as suggested above. Serve as the main dish for supper or luncheon.
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.
