issue 17 // volume 43

humour // no. 23

 

First week of new Cold War

‘going fairly okay’

> Threats of nuclear annihilation aside, everything seems pretty chill

Rebecca Peterson
Humour Editor

 

he unthinkable has happened, and

the verdict is in—we've entered a new
Cold War period, and as far as looming
portents of doom go, it has all been rather
mild. As far as any new organization is
reporting, in the face of almost certain
global war, many Canadians have
elected to simply shrug their shoulders
and continue on with their days.

“Tt’s all just kind of been business
as usual, actually,’ said local shopkeeper
and first Cold War veteran Sol Serviver.
“Schools are still open, buses are still
running—well, about as well as they ever
do—and we're all just patiently going
about our days. It’s like they always say,
you know: ‘Hope for the best; prepare for
a nuclear holocaust? Like any prudent
citizen, I’ve got my bunker ready, and
that’s really all you need, isn’t it?”
It seems as though the global

population has gone through all five stages
of grief throughout these last few months,

as an orange tyrant was elected to power,
even after proving himself to be a horrible
shitstain on the face of humanity time
and time again; as the CIA proved that
Russia hacked the election only to be told
that they were lying and the attack on
democracy wasn‘ really all that important
anyway; as the free press has been
threatened by the new administration and
called “liars” by people who can’t even tell
the truth about established facts, such as
what the weather is doing on any given day;
as the world took to the streets to march
against all this, against racism and sexism
and homophobia and xenophobia and all
the -isms and phobias that should really
have been eradicated by now; through

all of this, the world mourned, shouted,
wrote angry op-eds and probably cried
over, and now, finally, an eerie sense of
calm has descended upon the populace.

“T think we've all just kind of
accepted that the end is nigh,” said
Douglas student Katja Scavenger, in
an interview with the Other Press on
Tuesday. “The most anyone can hope

 

for at this point is that we get to punch a
Nazi or two on this crazy ride down the
black hole into a bottomless infinity.”

“I wouldn't say it’s as dark as all
that,” said another student, Ian Crimson.
“Things aren't getting better, sure, and

Illustration by Ed Appleby

things are definitely getting worse, but I
mean, so far it all seems pretty calm. If]
were to say anything about the current
state of things, I’d say it’s all going fairly
okay, and at this point the best we can
do is strive for adequacy, right?”

Retail worker asks how customer 1s
doing, receives murder confession

> Colloquial greeting of ‘how are you’ reaped unexpected and alarming results

Rebecca Peterson
Humour Editor

 

dollar store employee received

bit of a shock on Sunday when
one of her customers confessed to
multiple counts of murder at her till.

“Tt was unreal,” said 19-year-old cashier
Pheobe Wright in a phone interview with
the Other Press. “Just totally unreal.”

The incident occurred just after
2:00 p.m., half an hour after Wright
returned from her lunch break. The
customer cannot be named at this time,
but is described as being an “impeccably-
dressed man in his early thirties, with
small glasses and jaw-length brown hair.”

“All I said was ‘how are you,” said
Wright. “I mean, I say that to every
customer. At most, I was expecting a mild
‘eh, not bad, how are you in response. I
don't actually want to hear anyone’s life
story, you know? But this guy clearly had
something he wanted to get off his chest.”

According to Wright and various
witnesses, the customer began by
saying “not bad,” then added “not
great though,” and continued with
“actually, | might have killed a guy, do
you have some time to talk about it?”

“T figured I should probably keep him _ new priests of the world, and the till has
talking, so I was like, ‘yeah, sure,” said
Wright. “I mean, that and it was a really
slow day in the store. Like, terminally
boring. And then bam! Murderer! Right

at my till! Really helped speed things up
a bit, even if I was kind of terrified”

“Tt’s strangely not an uncommon
occurrence,” said Officer Simone
Blackwell, of the New Westminster Police
Department. “T think there’s an irresistible
urge inside every criminal, a yearning to
confess to their crimes. Unfortunately,
retail workers seem to get the brunt
of spur-of-the-moment confessions.

Less and less people are going to actual
churchy confession these days, after all,
so retail workers have kind of become the

become the new confessional. Just two
weeks ago I had a case where a grocery
store clerk asked a customer if they were
finding everything okay, and the customer

broke down and admitted to embezzling
large amounts of charitable funds
from a local orphanage. It’s really quite
remarkable, the power of a single question.”
When asked how this
might affect Wright’s work going
forward, she just laughed.
“Honestly, I wish I could say that’s
the weirdest thing that’s ever happened
to me at this job,” said Wright. “The fact
of the matter is, retail is just not for the
faint of heart. Humans are complete and
total unpredictable whack jobs, the whole
lot of us. If anything, I just wish retail
workers were paid more and given a little
more credit for all the wild bullshit we put
up with on the front lines of humanity.

 

CMON YOU HAVE TO EAT
YOUR ALPHABET SOUP!

 

 

 

 

 

YOU SAID YOU'D
FINISH IT!

NOW DONT START \ |
PUTTING WORDS IN

   

MY MOUTH! ’

 

 

 

—
th

 

om

 

Tir Wr

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