*I regret to inform you that this one is a "you really had to be there" piece, since this was written around a character. So the performance was arguably 80% portrayal, and the remainder was the script. But I'll tell you what. This piece got me one of my favorite complements, ever. The comic who went up after me said "How am I supposed to follow someone who just murdered you all without saying. anything. in English!?" Y'all, I died of happy.

Paper Machete 7/27/19: Le Tour de France
As the character “Your High School French Teacher”, this piece is delivered as a French class, complete with call & response expected from the audience. Emphases retained for delivery's sake.

*Enter, singing to the tune of “Bicycle Race” by Queen, wearing a biking helmet, miming riding a bicycle*:

Biiii-cyclette! Biiii-cyclette! b!-cyclette!!!
Je veux fai-re ma bicyclette,
Je veux faire mon vélo.
Je veux fai-re ma bicyclette,
Je veux fai-re le tour de Fraaaaaance.

*mimes ringing bicycle bell* Tsing-tsing!
*Dismounts*
Bonjour Class! DITEZ MOI: “bonjour madame” <audience response>

Au jour'dhui, le leçon est: Tout des Bicyclettes!

ALORS! *gestures to mimed bicycle* Voici MA bicyclette!

Une bicyclette, ou un vélo, c'est le meme choses, n'est-ce pas? Tu comprenez? <audience response>

Voici MA bicyclette! *gestures to mimed bicycle*
Voici MON vélo! *gestures to mimed bicycle*
Bicyclette, vélo, 
Vèlo, bicyclette
C'est la meme choses.

DITEZ MOI:
LA BICYCLETTE  <audience response>
LE VÉLO <audience response>

FRANCAIS!!!

Voici ma clochette! <tsing tsing!!> *mimes ringing bicycle bell*
Voici ma klaxon! <eh-hnk!> *mimes squeezing rubber bulb of a bicycle horn*

DITEZ MOI:
LA CLOCHETTE <audience response> <tsing tsing!!>
LE KLAXON <audience response> <eh-hnk!>

Tres bien!

*Reveals sports water bottle prop* Voici ma bidon! PAS DE LA BIDET!!!! NON, NON, NON!
*Points to bicycle helmet* Voici mon casque! 
Ce’st un casque du Amontillado? <slowly growing desperate for "student" audience response> NON! 
Cest un casque pour la tete? OUI!

DITEZ MOI:
LE CASQUE! <audience response>
LA BIDON! <audience response>

*heaves a sigh of relief, as if her job is safe for one more day* FRANCAIS!!!

MAINTENANT! 

Pour faire la bicyclette a un competition, c'est un sport. 

Quest-ce que çe "un sport"? <desperate for an answer from a typically uninterested high school class> Personne!?

Un Sport! <mimes tennis> 
Un Sport! <mimes basketball>
Un Sport! <mimes golf> eh, comme ci, comme ca un sport...

Pour faire la bicyclette a une competition, c'est un sport. Et la grande competition de velo
… c'est quoi?

<overcompensates for audience response, desperately happy that someone in the "class" is following>
Tres bien, vous avez raison, c'est le Tour de Fraaaaaaaance! 

<doubles over and whispers to self in English>
"It's ok, it's ok, you're only one year away from being fully vested, you can do this!"

Le Tour de France, c’est une competition tres LONG. *throws arms wide* Pas de court *shows hands close together*, comme le vision de Rahm Immanuel qui ferme notres ecoles. Pas de court, comme le attencion de la Presidente Stupide. Heh he. Non! Le Tour de France, il est loooong. 

Le Tour de France est vingt-deux-cent miles. Vingt-deux, Quest-ce que çe?
Personne?
<more desperate> Personne?
<Oh god> Personne? 

<passive-aggressively reviewing day 1 of French class>
OK, repetez a moi: <counts off on fingers along with audience response>
Un
Deux
Trois
Quatre
Cinq
Six
Sept
Huit
Neuf
Dix
Onze
Douze 
Treize
Quatorze
Quinze
Seize
Dix-sept
Dix-huit
Dix-neuf--<yells at a fictional student>pas de la "Deez Nuts" STEVEN!!
Vingt
Vingt-et-un
Vingt-deux

******QU’ESCE QUE C’EST: VINGT-DEUX!!!******

<exasperated, in English> IT’S TWENTY-TWO HUNDRED MILES LONG. JFC, people, that was day one of class, DAY. ONE!

ALORS! Et Le competition dure vingt-trois jours!

******QU’ESCE QUE C’EST: VINGT-TROIS!!!******

VINGT-TROIS JOURS!!!

COMBIEN EN ENGLAIS?? <hopefully someone in audience yells out 23 DAYS>

<back to being a teacher>
SACRE BLEU!! FAIRE DU BICYCLETTE POUR VINGT-TROIS JOUR, ET POUR VINGT-DEUX CENT MILES?!?!?! 

<With mounting exhaustion, mimes each of the below>
FAIRER LA CASQUE!!
FAIRER LA BICYCLETTE!!
FAIRER LE VELO!!
FAIRER LA CLOCHETTE!! <TSING TSING>
FAIRER LE KLAXON! <EHN-HINK>
FAIRER LE BIDON! --<wags finger> PAS D'UN BIDEEEETT!!

<pulls out prop money to "make it rain", and a fake brick of cocaine>
***FAIRER L’ARGENTS POUR LES DROGUES
ET POUR LES BONBONS DU NEZ***

FAIRER LE CONCENTRACION!! 

ET DANS LE FINIS
FAIRER LE CASQUE, ET VOMIR!! *mimes vomiting into helmet as if having bicycled until ill*

LA TOUR DE FRAAAAAAANCE!! EN FRANCAIS!!!
<exits on "bicycle">

​

WRITE CLUB 03.24.17
Steppenwolf Performance
Bout: Persist vs. Relent
My Topic: Relent
My Opponent: Bob Stockfish, Persist

Yes, by all means, persist. Don’t give up. Push. Encourage each other, keep on keepin’ on, don’t get weary, keep on truckin’, lift each other up, follow up, follow through, take it to the limit, persevere, stick it out, stick to your guns, see it through, tough it out, and leave no stone unturned. But when exactly do you plan to sleep?

“Oh I’ll sleep when I’m dead"

Yeah, ok, but actually you *do* go home and put on the jim-jams and get some shut-eye. You have to. Or your body will break down and you will die. No work can be literally constant, you gotta take a break. You have to pace yourself. You can’t bench press nonstop. Between sets you have to check in with​ your body: How are you feeling? Add some weights? Take some off​? Are you feeling sufficiently swole??

Persist, yes. But when the time is right, relent.

To relent is not to quit. Quitting is a full stop, a complete relinquishing of power.
Relenting is a shrewd strategy, wherein you yield no power, you simply back off and look for a way to redirect it, it’s how you bind down an opponent’s blade in fencing, or use the bully’s own weight against him in a schoolyard fight.

To relent is to abate your offensive maneuvers, to reassess, and regroup--to gain perspective in order to make more informed choices. You create space for crucial reflection. To persist without reflection is to push on irrespective of the surrounding circumstances, which can change. Persistence without reflection can turn a spurned lover into a stalker, can turn a well-meaning cross-fit enthusiast into an insufferable asshole. Persistence without reflection is why we now have the term “Alternative Facts” AND the human garbage known as Sean Spicer.

PERSIST is banging your head against a locked door until you bleed, RELENT is stopping long enough to notice the window is open, dummy.

Push, yes, don't give up, obviously, but pick your battles, man.

There are lots of Famous Relenters out there, lots of people who knew when to walk away, so they could come back stronger. Case in point: JESUS. A three-day spa vacay and he was good as new.

You know who else understood the value of RELENT? Titus Andronicus. A decorated war hero, he knew all about offense. All about ATTACK, ATTACK, ATTACK. His enemy has two of his sons beheaded, another one banished, and his daughter ravaged, they cut off both her hands and cut out her tongue--I could go on, the play averages 5.2 atrocities per Act. But what did he do? He bided his time, he calculated and planned. He learned his enemy. And when the time was right: WHAT. A. DINNER PARTY.

And let’s just cut straight to it shall we? ELIZABETH WARREN, YES? Nevertheless she persisted, yes? Indeed! In reading Coretta Scott King’s letter, she persisted like a badass. But when she was told to take a seat and was further prohibited from speaking during the Sessions confirmation debate, did they have to drag her from the podium, heels digging into the carpet, hands clamped on the lectern, nails digging through the soft wood finish, while screeching her dissent? No.

Once it was made clear that she would not be permitted to finish-- and argument after argument was nullified: she relented. She went outside the chambers, she regrouped, she weighed her options, and then she went live, and melted Mitch McConnell’s fucking face, publicly, on every social media platform like a boss bitch hero.

Relenting is powerful. It gives you time to breathe. To survey the scene, to customize your attack and to go for the jugular.

My opponent might try to sell you on the NOBILITY and the ROMANCE of pure persistence. You know who persisted nobly for the sake of romance and didn’t stop to think? Romeo & Juliet. And all it got them was dead.

Persistence is noble only in so far as it is wise. Know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, my friends. Lose a battle in order to clear your head so you can win the war. We can’t push all the time. A tired warrior is a dead warrior. And we really need warriors right now.

We can’t afford limitless persistence--because we can’t afford burnout. When you feel weary, when you feel stretched so thin that despair is winning out over joy. RELENT. For a moment. Take Care. Breathe deep. Regroup. Reach Out. And when you are ready, dive back into the fray.

We can only afford wise persistence, which comes in waves of determined, helping hands; each wave allowing the previous one a brief respite, a stronger network because it regenerates itself by taking turns, because it knows when to stop for the weary. It knows when to stop and remember that joy can still exist. It knows when to stop and reassess for maximum impact. It knows there are times to relent.

Persist, yes. But when the time is right: RELENT.

​

*This is the first (and so far only) essay I've ever written that directly centers scatological humor, so...
you have officially been warned.*

In 1937, historians were excavating a manor house in the city of Aalborg, in northern Denmark, when they discovered a box. Not just any box: a BOX BELONGING TO A BISHOP from 300 years ago. And not just any box belonging to a Bishop from 300 years ago, a box that contained his daily personal...brown tithings, shall we say...his prayerful pellets...his heavenly hershey squirts --I’m talking about his shit.
The Danish manor being excavated belonged to Bishop Yens Bircherod (who lived from 1658-1708), so the whole site and everything in it is centuries old. Including this box, and inside this box, perfectly preserved lumps of the Bishop's holy hot snakes. And for soooome reason, everything else that was discovered at the site during that 1937 dig was catalogued and studied, and that lonely lil’ shit box just sat in cold storage, untouched by human hands--or cheeks--until late November 2016.
BUT(T)! Once scientists got elbow deep in there, and cracked off several shards of semi-fossilized feces, they found to their delight, that it contained piles of valuable data. Valuable because normally any latrine in a given household from that time period has multiple users, but this one was the Bishop's private dropbox, kn'amean? So all the biological info was coming from the same leather cheerio.
It's as close to a "controlled environment" as you can get for 300 year old shit, which makes it historically & ethnographically significant. Each little dookie was a gift from the past, a perfectly packed parcel deposited by the most blessed loaf pincher in the manor, thanks be to God.
And from  these humble bundles, sprang knowledge heretofore unknown about our friend, Bishop Yens Bircherod and the city he resided in. For One: He was a bomb-ass foodie!
The usual staples of the Danish diet back then were cabbage, pork and rye bread. Not so for our holy homeboy. There were traces of buckwheat, a local specialty, sure, but also spices, berries, nuts and fruits that his neighbors didn’t have access to. Scientists not only identified super rare and fancy foods in his clergy clumps they found matching entries in his diaries where he talks about the dope food he ate, so we know:
- what he ate, 
-when he ate it, 
-and within a 24 hour window of that, we know when his mortal prison was done with the meal, and pushed out some miracle marbles! 
WHO'S GOT TWO FINGERS AND KEEPS A FOOD DIARY IN THE 1600’s?? Ah-this son of Christ. *makes cross sign with two fingers*
But hold up, how’d he get that fancy food? Our boy Yens was born smack in the middle of Denmark’s second war in a row with Sweden, which was a total disaster for his country. Luckily for them Sweden’s king dropped dead in the middle of planning an invasion and everyone made peace in the Treaty of Copenhagen. Awesome.
But the war had ravaged Denmark. Nobles had to give up some of their power and yield exemptions from taxes and fees to help build the nation back up again. They were not in very good shape.
Unlike the Dutch East India company, which was rich as fuck and ushering the Netherlands into the a "Golden Age",
The Danish East India Company was a nightmare. Ships packed with silver sunk, and war decimated all the valuable trade holdings the company had except for one satellite port city. Trade was an absolute shitshow!
But Yens, our Sacred Taste Master had a penchant for these finer things, berries, nuts, spices...How did this Godly Glutton get his hands on Michelin-worthy dishes when trade was so abysmal across the country? Thanks to science, we know it was three main factors:

1. Aalborg’s location. The city sits right on the Limfjord, the waters of which feed directly from:
   1. Aalborg Bay of the Kattegat to the East and 
   2. Out to the North Sea on the West, so any trading ships coming in from either side, regardless of how few, automatically stop in at this city’s naturally well-situated harbor to do business,--
2. Secondly, scientists dug deep and cross-referenced the local history: Jette Linaa, an expert from the Moesgard Museum, who is studying the *SACRED STOOL SAMPLES--THANKS BE TO GOD* remarked that high profile products were apparently traded by some very specialized merchants in the city, and Aalborg was special because there was a class of very prosperous merchants who were all migrants from southern countries, namely Germany or the Netherlands, and where those countries didn’t have such great trade with Denmark, those individual merchants did, because of their connections back home. So Aalborg would have been screwed without them. “IMMIGRANTS, [THEY] GET THE JOB DONE.” Those merchants brought their connections with them, and those connections were in countries that had BETTER trade than Denmark, so this all led to Aalbourg getting the inside scoop.
3. And finally Yens was a Bishop. Bishop means status. Sure Denmark waged an internal war on Catholicism and wiped the fuck out of the Franciscans for corruption, so everybody’s Lutheran now and TOOOOOTALLY corruption-free y'all, but if being Bishop means you get a free table at ALINEA, its hard to say no!

So this dude had access to the pure shit back then: We’re talking peppercorns from India, we’re talking cloudberries from Norway--what’s a cloudberry? Good question.

Anyway, this dude had the fanciest poo in all of northern Denmark because of location, immigration and status, and science can prove it by cross-referencing his hipster tasting journal with historical documents and corroborating all of that with particulate of the actual food found in the Bishop’s sin bin. Because the great thing about having these RIGHTEOUS COLON BOULDERS is that it is like an isolated time capsule that perfectly summed up specifically unique moments in time--which helped scientists prove beyond any doubt several facts about that time, about that city and about that person.
The emphasis here is unique. You’d have to be able to triangulate several independent sources that all verify the same PRECISE facts in a way that is indisputable--It would be like everyone here simultaneously posting “I’m at the Historic Green Mill, looking at Christopher Piatt (show host) RIGHT NOW.” and then we all post “CHRISTOPHER PIATT JUST DUCKED INTO THE BATHROOM AND WAS IN THERE FOR LIKE 10 MINUTES!!” Then Christopher posts, “I just took the most Historic shit, at the Historic Green Mill” but then instead of flushing it we SAVED it and BURIED it for future scientists to find. THAT’S HOW CLEAR CUT IT WOULD HAVE TO BE, TO MAKE THIS KIND OF HISTORY, RIGHT? GREAT, OK! EVERYBODY GET OUT YOUR PHONES
CHRISTOPHER! [I pull out a huge ziploc bag]: MEET ME IN THE BATHROOM!!

WRITE CLUB 09/15/15
Bout: Teacher's Pet vs. Class Clown
My Topic: Teacher's Pet
My Opponent: Ranee Zaporski, Class Clown
Charity competing on behalf of: Pediatric AIDS Chicago Prevention Initiative (PACPI)

We were all sitting down from the pledge of allegiance when Mrs. Garrett, our 3rd grade teacher, started handing back our spelling tests from Friday. Usually the beginning of our Monday mornings hummed with a baseline of books thumping onto desks, the screeching of seats scooting in, the swishing of our backpacks sliding under our chairs and the shushing Mrs. Garrett doling out our spelling tests.

Across the room there were some murmurs and some giggling--in that way that means a classmate is being made fun of. Keisha, of the always-wearing-frilly-dresses-to -school; Keisha of the thin, dainty piano fingers; Keisha of the black patent leather shoes and flawless hair; Keisha, the perfect example of the chronic teacher’s pet, was crying. Alone. No one had pulled a prank on her. No one had called her any names. Yet tears were rolling down her smooth face, her lashes clumping with moisture. In moments, the rolling tide of giggles made it to all four corners of the room: Keisha was crying because she had gotten a B on her spelling test.

                                                                         *               *               * 

This is a really smart crowd. I’d wager several of you have at least tasted the teacher’s pet status once or twice. Do you remember how that warm glow of approval felt? How it washed over you and instinctively made you smile? How you wanted to feel that good about your hard work all the time? Can we begrudge anyone that feeling? It’s so fleeting! SO fleeting, that it can’t possibly be the end-game. That’s not the real “win” that any given chronic teacher's pet is looking for. She’s not thinking “Maybe if I crush all my classmates, I will win the affection of this bespectacled, floral-patterned giant who pairs ankle-dresses with new balance sneakers.” No.

She’s thinking maybe if she proves that she’s a good child, that she is smart and dependable, maybe her parents will get back together. Or maybe she’s thinking if she works hard and gets good grades, she’ll get a scholarship that takes her away from the house where her brother finds her in the middle of the night. Or maybe she wants to challenge herself, because she’s sick of being told she’s “just a girl” as though that isn’t a powerful, ass-kicking thing to be in this world. Maybe she’s just trying to get as much education as possible before Rahm turns another blind eye and closes her school, too.

Her reasons are none of our business, but her goals probably don’t end at Get A Pat On The Head From Teacher. The teacher’s pet status is a byproduct; a side-effect of her goals and larger ambitions.

Is she jealous of the class clown? Probably! She’d probably love to crack jokes! She’d love to relax, she’d love to be liked. She doesn't know that the class clown does what he does for the same reasons: Coping. Surviving. Same goals, different methods.

What stakes could be so high that a B would bring Keisha to tears? Who set that bar that she felt her last finger was slipping from?

The teacher’s pet is an easy target--a lazy target for ridicule. Most of them are just trying to show up and do their best; they’re not trying to hurt anybody. (To be clear, I’m not talking about the ones who rub your face in it, those kids are assholes and they can die in a fire.) I’m talking about the kids with the inexplicable drive, who are fighting not only to succeed but to understand what it is that drives them, whether it is need, or fear, or love.

Keisha moved away after 3rd grade. I think her family was military? I have no idea what happened to her. But it is my firm hope that 10 years after that day, somewhere in her first year of college, we might’ve found her burrowed in a homemade foxhole of primary and secondary sources, her upper lip lifted in a sneer of determination and the sharp focus of her gaze illuminated by the soft glow of a single desk lamp--she may be rationing her sleep, she may be greedily draining the last few precious kisses of Red Bull from a can that she mercilessly crushes in her young fist, she may be hearing voices in the pocket, she may be moments away from collapse…

But may she be surrounded by a thick coterie of supportive, like-minded contemporaries. May she be immersed in fellowship, in acceptance, in the knowledge that she is not alone, that is it ok to want success, but that any grade less than an A will never make her less of a human being. Her eyelids may droop, her hands may get heavy--but the task is not yet done--she bites off another ½ a caffeine pill, chases it with a fresh Mountain Dew and howls a rallying cry from her corner of the study group. Her fellow scholars cheer in equal parts exhaustion and exhilaration, toasting her with their diverse anti-dozing beverages of choice: This History of Linguistics group project will be OFF THE FUCKING CHAIN. They buoy each other up, slapping shoulders, offering ideas, each gladly taking their part, each barely conscious that this all-night collaborative rite of passage will make for a glowing touchstone of their college experience someday.

May she be surrounded by such equals.

Expectations are a razor’s edge. The desire to learn, at any level, should always be encouraged, always be rewarded. And if the teacher notices you it can be so, so awesome. And so, so addicting. Because it is so, so rare. But it costs nothing to encourage another human being. Instead of faulting someone for gaining that encouragement elsewhere, we should be giving it to each other. Freely. There is plenty of room in the class. There is plenty of room in life. There is plenty of room in the goddamn sun for everyone.

There have been many extinction events in our earth’s 4.54 billion year life. And though the term “event” makes it sound like a party, it's more like that dark, desolate, suffocating wasteland you get inside when you hear they are making another Fantastic Four movie, and instead of feeling that disappointment for a few hours, it lasts millions of years.

The worst extinction event to ever happen was 252 Million years ago: the Permian-Triassic Event, when 90% of all species were wiped out. The estimated loss was so devastating, scientists nicknamed it “The Great Dying." Vertebrates would take 30 Million years to adequately recover--and another 222 million for them to legalize gay marriage, but you know, baby steps.

There have been five major extinction events in the world’s history, and rumor is we’re in the midst of the 6th right now. It already has a name: The Holocene Extinction Event. 72 species have gone extinct since 1800. If that doesn’t sound like a lot, that’s because it is only 0.0008% of the Earth’s estimated 8.7 million species. But guys, that’s like 360,000 species per million years--which is 4% of our species in the first million years of this Event--and extinction events can last as long 20 million years! Losing 4% every million years for 20 million years (assuming a steady rate) is an 80% loss. Only 10% away from The Great Dying, the worst extinction event the Earth has ever experienced.

Cool, cool.

Luckily, this dude Edward O. Wilson, Harvard Biologist, has an idea. What is unique about the Holocene Event is that most of it is caused directly by us landscaping, shaping and manicuring the planet to fit our needs, rather than let it follow its own natural progression. Wilson wants to clear humans away from half the land surface of the planet in strategic areas, and allow it to “re-wild” itself.

Now that is a gorgeous idea. One half of the planet converted into globally-protected wilderness. Endangered species restoring and thriving, indigenous flora replenishing and blooming, letting Mother Nature grow that bush out. No more obligatory ladyscaping, because hell yes down with the patriarchy, right?

EXCEPT.

How do we pick who's going to move? Not everyone has to move to someplace new, in his proposal some humans can stay where they are as land custodians and wilderness caretakers; but once the re-wilding areas are chosen most are going to have to kick rocks in order to clear that land, and go live in hyper-concentrated areas.

Wilson hasn’t explicitly provided his whole proposed solution yet, it comes out in book form in 2016. But for our purposes (looking at just North America) assuming we capitalize on the areas most likely to replenish with the most rapidity and yield the best returns:

• The Great Appalachian Valley to the east stretches from Quebec to Alabama for 1,300 miles. 
• The Western Wildway creeps down the west coast from Canada through to Mexico and should be 6,000 miles of uninterrupted woods. 
• The Boreal Forest (the world’s most vast natural biome) chases across the top of Canada and Alaska, covering over 3 million square kilometers (kilometers because Canada). Covering 60% of Canadian land.

So what group in these geographical areas really owes one to the human race? What group in general has spent most of history crushing, suborning, colonizing, enslaving, imperializing, murdering, displacing & objectifying other groups?

Attention white people: Please form an orderly line.

It is long past time for a comeuppance. We simply don’t deserve to stay. The Earth needs that land. It is her destiny. She might even say it is so obvious a destiny as to be...Manifest?

The “Krispy Kreme Shuffle” is upon us! (Protip, make it sound like a trendy 5k run and fewer of us will resist.)

We must walk away from our homes--we must walk because A) Trail of Tears karma; and B) millions of soccer Moms & Dads across North America freaking out in their unnecessary SUVs, all choking the roads at once would punch a hole in the Ozone layer the size of Donald Trump’s ego-- we must walk with only what we can carry (so we cause as little caucasian damage to our surroundings as possible) to the designated settlements that have been carefully selected for us. Everyone outside that designated area, everyone who gets to keep as they are, is going to be setting up the live streams, getting their fantasy teams rolling and placing their Survivor bets: Caspers vs. Snowflakes, Mormons vs. Hipsters. Because they know--they KNOW--without all our privilege, we’re gonna get cranky. And when White People get cranky we get hella selfish. Put us in there on Sunday, we’ll be cannibalizing each other by Wednesday. There isn’t a food shortage or anything, we’re just that shitty to each other.

Meanwhile, with the most annoying 46.2% of the entire continent's population contained, we are helping the planet slowly take her first deep breaths. Years pass. To the East, the grasses are flourishing, the lakes are clearing. To the West the birds are singing, and the wolves have returned to boost the ecosystem. To the North the forest is compounding its lush life and stretching its sinewy arms, the canopy aglow, leaves twinkling in the afternoon sunlight. The susurration of wind through branches, the natural symphony of the Earth, restoring.

And her caretakers, returning after a long beautiful day among the flora and fauna, kick the dust or the dirt, the ice or the sand from their heels; and they sit down with their families, safe and warm. And they’ll sometimes think back on the Legend of the Great Krispy Kreme Shuffle of 2015; and they’ll reflect on the fact that it was indeed a difficult time for humanity. But then they will rejoice. Because in all those years since, no one will have made another Fantastic Four movie. So all truly will be right with the world.