People have accused me of publishing essays that are too intimate. How dare I, they say, write about my orgasms, massive therapy failures, or unsuccessful attempt to break up with myself?

What they fail to appreciate are all the experiences I have refrained from writing about. My restraint, ladylike deportment, and diplomacy deserve to be universally celebrated, as noted in the following inventory of true (and shocking!) events I have never breathed a word of to anyone.

Don’t let just the tip of the melting iceberg of the already begun and by every conceivable method of analysis only getting a lot worse in the near future global climate apocalypse stop you from having children. But since there’s a pretty good chance they’ll die from a climate-induced calamity, why not give them a better chance of survival in the Mad Maxwellian near future by bestowing on them a name fit for the head of a cannibalistic death cult that almost certainty awaits them!

Ever since I can remember, I wanted to be North American.

Goodfellas references aside, the reason behind this rebellion against my Brazilian nationality was very specific, and I will get to it in a second, but the impulse to feel that way came from my fellow citizens often pointing out that I didn’t look quite as Brazilian as some of them. Which let me tell you, doesn’t make any sense.

They both cleared some space for the runner to pass by them and looked down the path waiting for them to round a corner of thick forest. But what rounded the corner was no jogger. Or, technically it was, because it was jogging. But it was no human jogger. No, instead it was a 25-foot great white shark. The massive white shark was propelled swiftly down the path on two very toned human legs clad in running shorts and Nike sneakers. Both of their eyes grew wide with terror. Chet’s darkest dreams had come to pass.

We all wondered what in the world when a spaceship materialized over the cul-de-sac, unfurling a rope ladder like a foreign flag, both sturdy and friendly.