There was probably a time in my life when I had not yet heard of the Rapture—the miraculous evacuation of Christians to heaven before God unleashes hell on earth—but I cannot remember such ignorance. “If the Lord tarries,” was tagged onto nearly every conversation my fundamentalist parents had about plans more than a week or so in the future. Every which way they looked they discovered signs the end was nigh. From the Gulf War to the “Kids First” Illinois license plates popular during my elementary school years, proof that the world was too corrupt to last much longer was seen everywhere. The most damning evidence that the Jesus’s return was imminent, though, was the utter lack of interest our small-town neighbors had in attending our church and listening to Papa preach at them about the sin of abandoning church in the weeks, maybe years, preceding the end of times.

My 7-year-old thinks this comic is hilarious. That’s the level of humor we’re dealing with today, folks!

It’s lunchtime on Thursday. The university commons room is abuzz. Students mill about, others dart their way to class. Blazer-wearing faculty walk to classes or offices. Administration rush around in an attempt to keep the whole operation from crashing. I weave through them with determination. I have a meeting with a vending machine.

Happy almost Valentine’s Day, everyone! I actually saw something that was exactly this: a man made out of chocolate claiming to be “the perfect man.” It was wrapped in a colorful box with a special 1950s flair, and it was so incredibly stupid that Reya’s dialogue here was almost exactly what was going through my head.

Capricorn Dec. 22—Jan. 19

Next week you’ll meet the man of your dreams at the deli counter in the supermarket. He’ll be wearing a white uniform and a papier-mâché hat and he will ask you if you want your bologna sliced thin. Smile demurely and ask him what he would recommend to people who like average-sized sandwiches. If he says, “I don’t give advice on matters like that, I just cut the meat the way the customer tells me to” he’s the wrong fellow. It’s the chap next to him who’s the man of your dreams.