Reasons people over the course of my life have said I’m a monster: An incomplete list.
(or, alternatively, why I’m “always the worst”)
- I did not want to go halvesies on the purchase of a bidet for the bathroom.
- I never use dryer sheets.
- I refused to stay for the encore because I was tired.
- If I open the mailbox and there’s only one piece of mail in there, and it isn’t for me, I just close it as if nothing has happened.
- I thought you were done with the cookie so I ate the rest of it.
“Monster Culture” is an essay I used to teach to college freshmen. I recently reread it with a student and found it unnecessarily dense and stilted, but the content is still excellent.
Final (ha! As Cohen says, “they always return”) thought on monsters: When will we as a culture settle on ONE monstrous explanation for electronics using up electricity even when not turned on/chargers that are plugged in but with no machines attached to them/devices that are turned on but not charging? We have “vampire power,” “ghost energy,” and “phantom load” dueling for the title role…and though all make sense metaphorically–sucking the energy/draining the life vs. invisible forces–I would like to propose, given that this phenomenon generally involves many tangled cords, throwing a monster with tentacles into the competition.
