Wow, No Thank You - Samantha Irby Page 0,59

back as you mumble shit about “microaggressions” under your breath and hope that the Land Rover she left idling in the middle of the street has a ticket on it when she gets back. But I’m not yet ready for the kind of racism that screams: THE PERSON WEARING THIS RED HAT MIGHT HURT YOU. I don’t have a plan ready if he spray paints a swastika on my car or loses his shit on the Mexican woman at the apple orchard while I’m paying the real price for a half-peck of freshly picked Honeycrisps. If a “fiscal conservative” asked me what my hair feels like in downtown Chicago, I could recite some Ta-Nehisi Coates or whatever to deescalate the situation, but what should I do if an American Worker Who Loves Winning decides to fuck with me out in the wilderness for fun?

I don’t know—it’s not even that rural here. And it’s not like I’ve never seen a tree before, but I’ve definitely never spent a lot of time around people who say the words “family values” in earnest. I drove up north once to spend a week writing in solitude in a cold, dark room (read: watch whatever movies were on Amazon Prime because the place I rented had a complicated TV system, so please be on the lookout for my new horror novel, Help, This Airbnb Uses a PlayStation Instead of a Thing I Actually Know How to Fucking Use, in stores this spring). In a tiny town, on the side of U.S. 131, I saw a billboard featuring a smiling Trump giving a thumbs-up with something like “We’re so proud of our president!” emblazoned on it, and look, if you like borscht and economic depression, what do I care? Like who you want, do whatever the hell you want. But goddamn, that shit was chilling. I made a mental note not to stop there for gas.

Maybe I can just watch reality TV in the safety of my home and avoid eye contact with a newspaper for the next couple years. I mean, I talk a lot of shit and everything, but I’m a doughy creative, and I live with a lady who cans her own pickles and can’t fight. I can’t be out here defending the mainstream media against people wearing homemade “Lock Her Up” T-shirts. I mean, we just put a canoe rack on our Honda. I’m starting the paperwork to make our male cat an emotional support animal. There’s no way we’re getting out of a Freedom Headlock.

a guide to simple home repairs

what is that thing attached to the back of our house, a deck or a patio

what do gutters do

how do you clean a fucking screen

how many smoke detectors do you have to have? Like, is it a law or is it just up to your discretion

can I just try to step around the squeaky stair when I’m coming down, or is that the kind of thing that eventually needs to get looked at

what do you mean “store the hose”

sheesh, do I have to become a goddamn electrician to put this stupid Home Depot ceiling fan up

the dishwasher stinks—is that a real problem

what is that damp-looking shit on the ceiling

weatherstripping???

at what point can I just throw up my hands and concede this shredded chair to the cats

are houses supposed to be washed on the outside?

Over the last couple years I have had to learn to live in a house, and that is one of the hardest and most boring things I’ve ever had to do. There’s a lot of basic shit I absolutely DO NOT KNOW as I uncomfortably masquerade through life in the body of a human adult and the brain of one of the aliens from Earth Girls Are Easy. I’m not going to remind you yet again that I grew up in a trash-filled possum nest with intermittent basic cable, but in case you’re unfamiliar with the plight of my youth, let’s just say that the first time I had to work my own thermostat, I was thirty-five years old.

The house my