“Don’t get me wrong, Davey. It’s a nice slide deck. Ginormous graphs. Crushing overall length. It’s the verbiage itself. It’s too—what’s the word?—too comprehensible.”

“It’s Dave, actually.”

“It’s a good first stab, David. But to be candid? The language is limp, sort of undynamic, like it’s obsessed with being plain. Borderline scrutable. What you want is to build a thick wall of text that’s so baffling it can’t be questioned. Your ideal end goal is a cognitive load heavy enough to smother any chance of cross-examination. It should fly right over everybody’s heads! And then you take your bow. And they’re like, Wowsers! Where’s this guy been my whole life?”

“If I remember rightly the neighbor’s lawn was being watered by a sprinkler.”

“Which sounded like… what?”

“Mr. Prosecutor, it sounded like a defibrillator.”

I am Michelangelo. The bridezilla is the Pope. That’s how I choose to look at it.

Is it pleasant to be the unfortunate baker tasked with making her wedding cake? No.

Ladies and gentlemen, esteemed members of the PTA, please lend me your rapt attention. I know you’ve already taken in a range of different issues tonight, some of which will no doubt have shocked you. Boys caught smoking in the toilet. Office staff siphoning off donations from deceased alumni. The rowing team recruiting local beggars into a bare-knuckle boxing league. But believe me when I tell you—none of that matters. Because the issue I’m about to raise with you is something infinitely graver.

An excited Professor Maxwell watched from behind his podium as the last Chemistry 101 students trickled into the lecture hall. Professor Maxwell wasn’t excited because today marked the start of another semester, or even because he loved teaching chemistry. Professor Maxwell was excited because he was an asshole. A fresh batch of doe-eyed pre-medical students meant another opportunity to give The Speech.