Wow, No Thank You - Samantha Irby Page 0,31

have my real dinner (Triscuits and pimento cheese from Zingerman’s) at midnight.

I’m up writing this at 1 a.m. on a Thursday, with nothing but the drone of a couple fans and a white-noise machine whirring in the distance for company. Four hours ago I stood in the assembly line outside the bathroom waiting to double cleanse, pat some drops of antiaging serum into my cheeks, brush my teeth a little, dab on some moisturizer, and get into my PJs. As everyone completed the routine by settling into bed, I turned on the recorded episode of Real Housewives of New York they wouldn’t allow me to watch uninterrupted when it aired a few hours ago.

You either have to let it go or quit your job. Or maybe get them a pair of fancy headphones so Wendy Williams reruns aren’t filtering into your dreams. Now that that’s out of the way, what is this I’m reading about a “bedroom couch”? What exactly is that, and how can I get one?

My husband of many years has an offensive eating habit. When finishing his meal, he takes the plate or bowl, puts it up to his mouth as one would a drinking glass, and shovels the remains into his mouth. As he does it, he makes little sucking movements with his lips like an animal lapping food from a bowl. I find it revolting, but how can I address it without offending him?

I do this. Everyone does this. How the fuck else are you supposed to get all the liquid part of the stew? Tell me how to finish my entire bowl of Corn Chex in under an hour without tipping the last of it from the bowl directly down my throat. If I have to eat room-temperature soup with you at four in the afternoon, I want to be able to eat all of it. You can’t insist I try gazpacho, and then make me scoop out the last bit one-eighth of a teaspoon at a fucking time. Don’t address it, you monster. Just let him eat his runny oatmeal and unsalted broth in peace.

are you familiar with my work?

You don’t have to cry for me, but listen: trying to make new friends as an adult is the hardest thing I have ever attempted to do. Harder than multiple colonoscopies? Yes. Harder than listening to the dentist pry my tooth bone away from my jawbone while I lie there wide awake? Also yes!

When I moved to Kalamazoo from Chicago, I thought for sure that I was going to be happy being in the house and never going outside. And, for the most part, I am. I get to travel and work in fancy cities with mass transit and Ethiopian food, then come back and pay $1.87 for a gallon of gas for the car that I can park anywhere on my sprawling 2,000 acres of land that were practically free. Okay, I’m exaggerating, but I used to pay $850 a month for 350 square feet of living space, which is $2.43 per foot, and now I pay $2.39 a foot for 1,700 square feet. Yes, I probably fucked up the math, but my point is FUCK THE CITY.

But, how does one make friends without an office to go to? Or a club to participate in? Or various PTA meetings to grimace at each other through? Are you just supposed to walk up to an interesting-looking person on the street and ask them to be your friend? I don’t know if this is some kind of reverse profiling, but I can usually glance at a person and know at first sight that we’re probably going to get along. I don’t have it down to a science (I’m not researching shit, dude), but here are some dead giveaways:

interesting, alternative, “cool person” hair

visible armpit hair

hip glasses

dumb tattoos, because people with serious tattoos are exhausting

carrying a book, multiplied by a factor of ten if it happens to be one I wrote (I’m sorry—I am an egomaniac)

fat

mean

has an old-ass cell phone

eating something gross, with fervor

feline

But