Mel Brooks takes extremely negative, frightening, even detestable things and surrounds them with so much absolute absurdity that they become funny. You see it in The Producers, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, History of the World, Part I—again and again.

Before I learned that it was sitting in the bed of his pickup, I had visions of this man pulling a full-size guillotine around behind him in one of those little red wagons we had as children.

According to a recent news story, a black bear in Colorado climbed into an unlocked SUV. The door closed behind him, trapping him inside. In his understandable desire to escape, he managed to lean on the horn. Repeatedly.

The name comes from Philippine mythology. Bakunawa is a giant sea serpent said to swallow the moon, causing eclipses.

From what I've read, kangaroos in the wild don't spend their entire lives standing under one tree. They travel. They explore. They cover a surprising amount of territory.

We spend our mornings drinking coffee, reading headlines on our respective glowing devices, and discussing whatever bizarre thing the Internet has coughed up overnight.

Every automobile manufacturer seems to have its own ideas about where everything should go.

Unfortunately, insurance does not simply hand you a machine and say, “Congratulations on your commitment to oxygen. Sleep well.”

Last summer I would take my coffee out to the porch and watch the sun come up before starting my workday. It felt like getting ahead of things. Quiet, ordered, slightly smug.

We live in the country. Snakes are a fact of life. I appreciate their presence, actually, living under our home, hopefully keeping the wild rodents out of our house. Rodents eat people food and are quite destructive about it. Snakes do not. Snakes eat those pesky rodents.

A few days ago, for instance, there was a lightning bolt along the left side of my vision. Not metaphorically. I mean an honest-to-goodness jagged streak of light, as though Zeus had taken a small personal interest in my optic nerve.

We’ve been trying to decide what to do about Valentine’s Day.

It was a small wedding. They had both been married before and didn’t see any reason to make a big affair of it. Family and a few close friends. Maybe fifty people, including children. They asked me to do a reading at the ceremony, which was quite an honor.

I don’t know what, precisely, Milk of Magnesia is made of, but I’m fairly certain it was discovered after someone dropped a pebble into a volcano and said, “Ah yes, this will definitely rearrange the internal architecture of a human being.”

Then I thought about other things in life we wish we could tell our younger selves. I can see 30-year-old me so clearly — busy, determined, and already harder on herself than anyone else would ever dare to be. If I could sit with her for just a minute, long enough for a cup of coffee and a deep breath, here’s what I’d want her to hear.

Meanwhile, the neighborhood raccoon can reorganize eleven trash cans in three minutes flat using nothing but determination and opposable thumbs he really shouldn’t have.

Yes, we still have two wonderful dogs, but the emptiness is there — the holes in my psyche that need to be filled. I feel like my pet road is full of potholes right now.

I’m not asking for a bespoke culinary experience or a deviation that requires staff consultation. I simply want the same burger everyone else is ordering—prepared the same way—minus the bread.

And they’ve got me pegged, too. You know how algorithms work: you click on one thing, and suddenly there are eighty-seven versions of it chasing you across the internet, day and night.

When was the last time you had to leave your house to... take care of business? Not while camping, mind you. I mean, real life. Monday-morning, neighbors-can-see-you life. Exactly.