Ten years, you guys. This October, Defenestration will be ten years old!

Have any of you ever read slush? Have you ever read slush for ten years straight? After so long a time, Eileen’s lucky to still have her sanity, and I’m lucky to still have my sanity and my rakish good looks. But the slush is wearing us down, and we’re quickly becoming editors on the edge. We don’t sleep well. We don’t eat well. Our nerves have been rubbed raw. I have literally—literally—seen Eileen turn into a Tyrannosaurus over seemingly insignificant things. The other day she almost leveled an IHOP after finding an uneven distribution of blueberries in her blueberry pancakes. This sort of destruction cannot continue no matter how awesome and no matter how many views the resulting videos on YouTube attain.

Vicugna pacos

Everywhere I go, my alpacas come with me. How many alpacas can fit into a car? I can tell you from experience that the answer is five, unless an alpaca is driving. Unlike children, taking alpacas to the supermarket is enchanting. They want to help me reach the highest box of breadcrumbs and offer the ripest bunch of bananas pinched between their toes. With gentle nodding, they encourage me to select the high-fiber cereal for my health. When my crew of beatific quadrupeds parades the sidewalk behind me, people turn their heads and smile. Cheeky children reevaluate their Christmas lists and tug daddy’s arm. My enemies from high school cannot disguise their envy.

On June 5th, 2004, at approximately 2109 hours Zulu Time, Ronald Wilson Reagan III was killed in a targeted operation conducted by United States forces. His termination with extreme prejudice was the capstone to a 9 ½-hour firefight involving multiple law enforcement, intelligence, and military agencies, including the “Night Stalkers” of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) and the “Sunshine Division” of the 40th Infantry (Mechanized).

When the world’s fuel infrastructure fully switched over from oil to “love,” people who once could not afford to drive (or buy) cars were zipping along the abandoned highways. Government agents confiscated the old pollution machines from the driveways. Those who neglected their children, spouses, and friends were stuck. Applications in the mail arrived, offering bailouts. They told us that you could apply for “love stamps,” suspected by skeptics to be Xanax or unfortunate tattoos. People on the outskirts that were born unloved, lived without love, and could not believe in the word to begin with were as crazy as those who once doubted the energy crisis. When I heard the news, I called my parents. They didn’t answer. Then I saw them drive by my window in a Lustang convertible. I knew that thing wasn’t burning any fossil fuels.

It started with a toe. Well, the three big toes on the left foot. You see, Hadrian (pronounced Adrian, the H is silent) wanted to make a down-payment on an engagement ring for his girlfriend, Hanna. Hanna’s name too possessed a silent H. She said her name like Anna, and had spent her life resenting the fact that her mother decided to spell her name with a silent H. This was the reason that Hadrian and Hanna began to date, but it was not the reason that they fell in love.