MR WRONG: Pay at the pump
Indignity Vol. 6, No. 70
COLUMN DEP’T.
MR WRONG: Getting Away From It All Is Nice, but the Real Goal Is Staying Away From It All
THE MR WRONG column is back from vacation! Arroooo! If you read last week’s column, then you already know how my vacation went, because that was the whole column!
JOE MACLEOD
Also here’s another I think very relaxing video clip from my vacation, this an experience of the rain while sitting on a screened-in porch in the beautiful and restful and relaxing Adirondacks:
Ahhhhhhh!
Ahh! You know all that Motivational Wisdom about how a good vacation is supposed to make you feel all rested and energized and ready to come back to the real world and get to work? Har! That’s complete crap! All a nice vacation ever does for me is make me want to be a Professional Vacationer! I want to go back to the lake and sit on the fuckin’ dock and look at the lake, and then if it’s sunny, I want to get all heated up and jump in said lake for invigorating refreshment! I don’t wanna go back to my desk!
The only mistake I made on my vacation was with my inflatable kayak, which I enjoyed very much, lakewise, during my vacation. I fucking forgot to bring my electric inflator, so I used the double-action hand pump, and I learned that “double action” means you are causing movement of compressed air—pumping, if you will—to occur in each direction, the up and the down, so when I went up for the downstroke, as it were, I was doing a movement that my Doctor specifically told me was proscribed! I completely screwed up my treacherous lumbar region! I was messed up for a few days, in terms of being able to stand up straight and walk and stuff, seriously, it would take like 20 minutes for me to stand up completely straight, I looked like a Question for about 20 minutes until I got into my normal Exclamation posture, ouch! Anyway, I recovered fully and was able to borrow an electrical pump and got my craft fully inflated, which is important when you are out on the water in a thing fulla air. Ahoy!
Besides how I should never use a double-action air pump to blow up my kayak—or anybody else’s for that matter—I learned something else while I was on vacation, and I can’t remember how I got to it, but I like to have fun saying stuff happened in Anno Domini, and the flip side of that is before-domini, as in BC, with respect to the appearance of Jesus the Christ, and Wikipedia learnt me this:
Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are conventions used in the Gregorian or Julian calendar to specify whether the year is before or after the epoch. They correspond exactly to Anno Domini (AD) and Before Christ (BC): "2026 CE" is the same year as "AD 2026", as are "400 BCE" and "400 BC". BCE/CE are used to avoid religious associations by not referring to Jesus as Dominus ('Lord').
So if you wanna leave JC out of it, you can go CE instead of AD when you want to refer to stuff that happened after BC, which you can call BCE, OK? Personally, I am more of a Vulgar Era type of guy anyway, see?
Furthermore and also, here within the wordcount of the Mr. Wrong column, we are gonna keep going Anno Dominos Pizza Domini Vobiscum, on account of it is funny, and there will always be a disclaimer about how I am a Lapsed Catholic and like, lighten up, Jesus H. Christ, we're all here to have a good time, even if we aren't on vacation anymore, fucking bullshit crap.
Anyway, I am back now! Goddammit! No more vacation! I am not on vacation and whatever, argh! However, be assured, that columnwise, in regard to you, the Gentle Reader of the Mr. Wrong column, or the person who was just minding your own business and made it all the way down to here, I am not gonna let the current lack of vacation bring me down! I am committed to pooping out a non-vacation version of the Mr. Wrong column any day now! 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, August 30, 2026
★★★ The morning sun was strong and warm but already being scattered by the clouds. Little strands of spiderweb glinted between the leaves of the plants on the balcony. The light faded out and faded back in again, in gradually darkening cycles, until the afternoon lay under gray cloud. Even then, though, a little more thinned-out sun appeared. The weather app had freckles of showers inbound, less discrete events than a tendency slowly advancing. The drafts coming through the windows had felt cooler than the stiller air outside did. In the shallows of the Pool, some piece of wood or a stone, filmed over with duckweed, heaved back and forth uncannily. Even when the heavy head on the long skinny neck broke the surface, the eye refused to accept it as a living thing, despite the rational mind's best efforts to ask how the duckweed would have even gotten up above the waterline onto some inanimate rock or chunk of log. Finally the tilted shape flattened out, assumed some properly turtleish symmetry, and swam a short way off. Away from the duckweed, the water was clear enough to show the full texture and color of the rocks and occasional bits of litter on the bottom. People were ignoring the dimness to get in a round of picnicking in less and more elaborate setups. A clattering like a too-loud pigeon taking off announced a red-tailed hawk flapping right across the narrow stairs out of the Park, so sudden and improbable that two out of three people on the spot exclaimed aloud and the third didn't catch what had happened at all.
New York City, August 31, 2026
★★★ Halfway sun shone down by 11 out of a sky that even had some blue in it, but the roar of power tools made the balcony impossible to use. Midday was reasonably bright and tolerably humid. The first gold-turned honeylocust leaflets lay sprinkled along Amsterdam. The gloom was back for late afternoon but there were still brighter or bluer spots on the sky. Up against some of that blue, near the truncated top of a twice broken-off but still flourishing hulk of a willow, the shape of a raccoon appeared, veiled in the shapes of the willow leaves. Further along, where the sky opened out some over the Pool, there was pink in with the gray, and the tiny darting specks of the swifts or swallows. A great blue heron stood not too far off shore but walled off from the path by the purpling, bending phragmites. Dark spots of unripe berries showed against the green of the hanging tupelo leaves where the diffuse glow from above came through the foliage. At the foot of an oak was a mass of fungus that looked like a cluster of tear-apart dinner rolls, browned on their individual tops and paler on the seams where one joined the next. A raggedy white-flowered weed thrust up around and through it, and a single separate fungal dinner roll lay off to one side. White puffballs the size of sporting equipment had come up in the woods, and a volleyball-sized one lay crushed on the stairs.
New York City, September 1, 2026
★ Rain sounded through the vents, not too loudly, and a careful look through the window could make out it falling. After it stopped, the air was thick and vegetal. Walking out the door of the market felt like stepping into some sealed and closely crowded room. The rain had not washed down the sidewalks, just left them slippery underfoot. The interludes of sun only made things hotter and filled the haze with glare. Thunder grumbled in the late afternoon but the handful of people in the park kept doing what they were doing: jogging on the roadway, sitting on the benches, even hunkering down on the wet lawn. The sky leaked drops onto the damp, dim streets. At last, in the blue of evening, the real rain came streaming down.
New York City, September 2, 2026
★★ The sky had stayed gray but the air had lost its terrible thickness and obscuring haze. It still didn't feel safe to head out into the morning without waterproof shoes and a rain jacket for insurance, even though the forecast said nothing about more showers. It was afternoon when the rain did come, as a background noise at first and then with a loudness and force that commanded attention and sent cold drafts into the room. Afterward it was chilly outside, too. A belated share of the rain fell under the shelter of the trees, as a breeze shook loose thick and heavy drops. Newly sawed-off trees and cut pokeweed lay with their leaves disheveled, as if they had been storm debris.
SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.
WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS for the assembly of sandwiches selected from Household Discoveries and Mrs. Curtis's Cookbook: An Encyclopaedia of Practical Recipes and Processes, by Sidney Morse, published by Success Company's Branch Offices in 1908 and now available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
Salmon Sandwiches.
1 can salmon.
Yolks 6 hard-boiled eggs.
Dash McIlhenny’s Tabasco Sauce,
2 tablespoonfuls lemon juice,
2 tablespoonfuls parsley,
1/2 cupful boiled salad dressing,
1/2 teaspoonful salt.
Drain the oil from salmon, remove the skin and bones, and mash fish fine. Add eggs, press through potato ricer, then salt, lemon juice, chopped parsley, Tabasco, and salad dressing. Spread between folds of white or entire-wheat bread.
Mock-Crab Sandwiches.
1/2 cupful grated cheese,
4 tablespoonfuls creamed butter,
1/2 teaspoonful salt,
1/2 teaspoonful paprika,
1/2 teaspoonful mustard,
1 teaspoonful anchovy paste,
1 teaspoonful vinegar,
2 tablespoonfuls chopped olives.
To cheese add butter, salt, paprika, mustard, paste, vinegar, and chopped olives. Spread between rounds of white bread. — Stella A. Downing.
Cheese Sandwiches.
1/2 cupful grated cheese,
1/2 cupful Roquefort cheese,
1/2 cupful cream,
Dash McIlhenny’s Tabasco Sauce.
To the grated cheese add Roquefort cheese rubbed to a paste; add sauce and cream. Beat till smooth and spread between slices of Graham bread.
If you are inspired to prepare a sandwich inspired by our continued offerings, be sure to send along a description of your experience and maybe a few photos to us here: indignity@indignity.net.
EASY LISTENING DEP'T.
Here is the Indignity Morning Podcast archive!
TOM SCOCCA
S_BST_CK IS BAD AND BAD FOR YOU DEP'T.
