ArcaMax

Mother, why do you gaze out the window so forlornly?

Because your father has gone to fight in the war, and I don't know when he might return.

Which war, Mother? The war in Ukraine? The war in the Middle East?

No, child.

Is it the immigration war raging in American streets? Or has Father gone to help with troubles in Venezuela...Read more

"Can you pick up some more tissues at the supermarket?" I asked my husband.

"I'm not going out right now," he replied. "Just use toilet paper."

I looked at him aghast.

"I can't do that," I said. "It'll scratch my nose."

"Does it scratch your butt?"

"No."

"Then why would it scratch your nose?" he asked.

"Hmmph," I hmmphed.

I shook my ...Read more

One day my son was visiting, and he needed to go to the bank, so I offered to drive him. We had just gotten down our street when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. It was descending on a thread from the roof of my car just left of the steering wheel.

"SPIDER!!!! There's a spider in the car!" I shrieked, jerking the steering ...Read more

Allow me, a moderately cluttered person whose Christmas tree may still be up by next Festivus, to espouse the benefits of a reset.

A reset is not a deep clean, not an all-day parade of squeegees. It simply means taking an hour-ish for basic tidying, dishes, laundry, fluffing. It means pulling the home back from the brink of "SEC frat house ...Read more

My scale and my alarm clock are in cahoots.

It started when both our old scale and clock suddenly died. They'd had good, long electronic lives but finally gave up the ghost and went to that great appliance resting place in the sky. They had been analog, and we thought maybe the time had come to catch up with the times and get a digital alarm ...Read more

Dear journal,

I, a T.J. Maxx price sticker, will know my own value, not just the value of name-brand designer merchandise at discounted prices.

I will stick boldly and blatantly in the middle of all products, especially the ones people intended to give as gifts. I will not be innocuously placed along the side of a box of holiday OPI nail ...Read more

Having a birthday on a holiday can either be very cool, or a real drag ... depending on the holiday. My brother's birthday usually falls on Columbus Day, which doesn't really affect his celebration at all, except for the fact that the banks and post offices are closed, so he can neither cash a check nor mail a letter on his birthday. This is ...Read more

The holidays always bear a certain layer of heaviness. That's why so many people try to tap into their best selves this time of year, donating gifts, opening their homes to wayward friends.

But no small acts of kindness can reverse the acutely cynical darkness of 2025, a corrupt year of pernicious, calculated coldness. This year, the haves ...Read more

I am a scarf person, but I am married to a non-scarf person. Conversely, my husband is a hat person, and I am not a hat person. He says scarves are itchy and make him look like he has no chin. I say hats ruin my hair and make my head look like Charlie Brown's. So whenever it gets cold out, he tells me to put on a hat, I tell him to put on a ...Read more

Marco Rubio, secretary of state, has taken a brave stance on a prudent matter ripping at the fabric of American life: sans serif typeface.

This week, Rubio put an abrupt end to the State Department's use of Calibri, a screamingly liberal font akin to a beanie-clad barista serving oat milk to a drag performer while Bon Iver twinkles from the ...Read more

One of the things I find to be a complete waste of time is shaving my legs. It's not that I don't need it, it's just that the shave lasts all of about eight hours before the werewolf in me begins to reemerge. Additionally, with the vast acreage of hairy body parts that need to be attended to, it takes half the day to remove it all. It is ...Read more

Happy Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Buy Now Pay Later Sunday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday, Insolvency Wednesday, Reckoning With Capitalism Thursday, Debt Consolidation Loan Friday, Moving Back In With Mom Saturday and back to Clean Slate Sunday!

The entire website is 80% off. All you have to do is provide your email address, ATM PIN...Read more

"The squirrels ate my pumpkins," I moaned to my husband.

"Is that a secret code for something?" he wondered aloud.

"NO! I had a whole bunch of pumpkins on the front stoop, and the squirrels massacred them. Look!"

I pointed out the window to our front lawn. There lay three pumpkins ... or what was left of them. They were strewn about the ...Read more