The other day my newsfeed app had a story about someone whose spouse had done something bad, and she retaliated, and wanted to know if she was the villain in this situation. Or, in the parlance of the internet, AITA? The story, I saw, was indeed sounded from Reddit.

If you’ve been on Reddit you know these stories. Basically, this, every time:

Sorry for formatting I’m on mobile lol, so I need to know if AITA? I (27F)have been married to Jeff (29M) (not his real name, on a throwaway for obvious reasons) for six years, together for nine, and recently he has started to insist I join him when he paints his Warhammer figurines. He will swagger around and say “it’s paintin’ time” or sometimes “git over here woman and paint with your man,” and it was funny at first but lately he says it with an edge, super serious, and the thing is he doesn’t even want me to paint but to sit with my hands folded and watch him.

Let me translate. IATA = Am I The (posterior aperture).

(27F) and (29M) indicate age and sex. Or gender, as they’d say. It’s a standard Reddit format.

Throwaway for obvious reasons - I created a new account so my partner does not connect me to this highly specific story whose details can apply to no one else and will surely be seen by the other person

Paint his Warhammer figurines. Some men as a hobby play tabletop war-games with little dolls. They take pleasure in painting them, and they are immersed in Lore. The backstory of the imaginary civilization.

Now that we’re caught up to speed, let’s continue with the made-up example of the AITA post.

So the other night he was painting one of his little guys and I said I was getting a cramp just sitting and needed to stand up for a while to practice self-care lol, and he got huffy and said I wasn’t attentive to his needs and never had been, and he threw a toy at the cat and left the house. After he didn’t come back for a half an hour I put all his warhammers down the garbage disposal and then went to his shelf of Star Wars figures, they’re all in unopened boxes, and opened them up and piled them outside the front door. AITA?

At this point you wonder whether everyone under 40 is a stunted adolescent, and how these people ever got together in the first place, and how they surely conform to your visual cliches about the seriously Redditcentric - but then you think no, no, this didn’t happen. This was written by AI. At this point I assume every story on Reddit is AI.

The villains always align to the dislikes of the readers. In the example above you’d like to think the Redditors would be sympathetic to a guy who painted toys and collected Star Wars, but they’re going to white-knight for Milady, and tell her to get out. (Redditors tell everyone to get out of relationships.) In the stories told by hotel desk clerks, the villains are always boomer ladies. (Redditors hate boomers.) The engagement bait on this one pits the white-knighters vs. the dorks who wince at the idea of someone opening up an original-condition Star Wars toy box.

This is where we end up, a few years into AI: automatically generated stories, or feelies, if you will, providing temporary diversion for people glued to telescreens.

You can ask your always-listening digital assistant to write one for you, of course.

We live in a very mild version of the famous dystopian novels, all mashed up. Brave New 198451.

After a rote lunch of round-formed protein, I whisked up the bottle of hot sauce. It made a very distinctive sound that made me think immediately of another distinctive sound that followed right away.

What am I thinking of? What's the second sound?

Answer on Monday.

Waiting at the DMV to get license tabs.

I think it will be a long wait. Usually there are more people working. They asked if I had an appointment, and I did not; thought that was a relic of the COVID times. The people in line before me had the following needs: something about citizenship that seemed unlikely to be settled here, a middle-aged man who needed a driver's license, a young person who needed a state ID, a young fellow who needed tabs, and a courier who spoke with exaggerated theatricality, as if every moment out in the world was an audition for some play in which he would, at a perfect moment, step into the spotlight and sing a song of yearning and defiance. He had to register a folder full of car titles.

So there is much to be done before it is my time. Well, I can always write the

AND THEN I was called. Got right up. As the clerk explained, she was a trainee, and they only do tab renewals. We had a pleasant time talking about the weather, the return of the grey and the cold. I overheard the guy who needed a driver’s license having a problem, since he was from Indiana, and just wanted to swap out his old driver’s license for a local one. Couldn’t do it without some documentation from the home state. Sorry. No, they couldn’t pull up his Indiana record. He seemed surprised by this: why not? The prospect of doing this by mail seemed monumentally daunting. Where do you even start?

Meanwhile, to my right, the Jim-Anchower-type guy is explaining that he needs the new tabs because he was going to sell his car but then the evap system went out so he couldn’t, and he had to spend “a sweet fourteen hundred dollars” to fix it and now he was going to keep it so he needed the tabs. I hadn't heard a dude with longish stringy dishwater hair and a knit cap with a ball on top say "sweet" in a long time.

I did a quick work out, then went to Home Depot to get into a car accident.

		I was turning left with a green arrow. The northbound traffic, also turning left, has an arrow at the same time. No one else can advance. I've visited this intersection monthly, at the least, for two decades.
		A truck comes out of the left-turn late and goes straight. This I realize at the very moment he is upon me. Well!

Sometimes your instinct, upon realizing that collision is imminent, is to STOP, because if everything STOPS, nothing bad happens. My instinct was to punch it, and brace for impact. While laying on the horn, of course.

Cleared him by inches. No crunch. Okay then! Let us continue with our day.

I wonder if people who drive for a living go through this every day.

Anyway, I got a light bulb for the front stairs post. Replacing it requires putting the ladder (rickety) on the steps, )which are stone, uneven, the gaps filled with pebbles) and trying to reach down into the lamp to screw out the dead bulb without falling over and breaking a hip on the handrail. This I did. Seems I didn't use up all of today's luck while driving, after all.

Massive work in the building lobby, including the gym. What was notable was that Arnold Schwarzenegger had agreed to prank some tourists by standing in the lobby, dressed in rags, advising them not to come to America lest they too become impoverished.

I walked into the gym and tried to find a locker, but there weren’t any that were easily accessible. I gave up and went upstairs to the office, where a fellow showed me my new desk and treated me with amused condescension, as if I was an intern. Whereupon I told him that, actually, my family owned the business. His tone shifted seamlessly to casual banter about the industry.

The simplest things. It's always the simplest things.

Your answer is here.

They were out there having fun. Where? In the warm California sun, of course.

Now we're done. Thanks for your visits this week! Substack up at 10 AM.