Apocalypse, baby!

Welcome to the apocalypse, July 2026 edition.

As I type this, this is what’s happening in New Jersey and the country. For brevity’s sake, I’m not even going to mention war, famine, genocide, the climate, the deficit, the border, the courts, the guy who cut me off on 295 and then had the nerve to honk, AI coming for your job, AI coming for my job, potholes, property taxes, NJ Transit, NJ Transit, NJ Transit, the opioid thing, the fentanyl thing, the loneliness epidemic, the fact that a starter home in New Jersey now costs what a small island cost in 1997, the deductible, the copay, self-checkout asking me for a tip, the deer, the geese, the geese in particular, the geese know what they did, tariffs, and the slow creeping suspicion that we have all collectively agreed to stop reading past the headline (if you made it this far congratulations).

So what’s left?

Plenty.

SMOKE: Canadian wildfires have resulted in blanketing a good chunk of the eastern half of the country in a Marlboro haze. It’s smoky. The NOAA weather report for today is a single word, and I am not making this up. The word is smoke.

This is not bothering me on a day-to-day level, as I’m still sitting outside in the sun and such, but it is aggravating because I quit smoking 20 years ago or so and still crave cigarettes but I don’t smoke because it’s bad for me. You know what else is also bad for me? Sucking in Ontario’s forests. Bad job, Canada. Keep this up, I’ll get behind Trump’s plan to annex you.

TRUMP: This guy, man. Goes on live TV the other night to say he won the 2020 election, which, frankly, I wish he did as that would mean we’d A) either be done with him or B) we’d have slipped into a full-blown authoritarian state as he’d be serving a third term. Honestly, either is preferable to what’s going on now, which is him and his 37% approval rating setting the stage to cause confusion when the 2026 midterms slap him in his juicy butt.

Can’t we just stop being dumb? Of course there’s going to be some election tomfoolery. Always has been. But this “if my guy wins it’s legit if the other guy wins it’s rigged” nonsense is nonsense. I can’t believe anyone believes a word that comes out of this guy’s mouth. It’s pure verbal diarrhea.

ACTUAL DIARRHEA: Taco Bell is now officially linked to the explosive diarrhea outbreak running rampant through this great country of ours. Incredibly, it’s the lettuce that is the culprit, and not the meat. This may be the cause of the entire cyclospora situation. The whole world has turned upside down.

As an aside, I love the word “cyclospora.” Just roll it around your tongue for a minute. It’s nice. Sounds less like a parasite and more like something sold behind the counter at a gas station, in a bottle shaped like a grenade, promising to make you a man again.

TESTOSTERONE: Speaking of which. Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of War of the United States of America, went on social media Wednesday to announce that the military will now be screening troops 30 and older for testosterone deficiency. Mandatory test, optional treatment. He says it’s necessary so our troops can operate at their best. He also says it’s not about artificial enhancement, which is a sentence you only have to say if it’s a little bit about artificial enhancement.

And listen, I’m 50-something. I quit smoking 20 years ago and I’ve spent this week huffing a burning Ontario. I have a mortgage, a copay and a deductible. I have geese in my life. If anyone has earned a free vial of government testosterone it’s me, and yet here I am, running on nothing but coffee and anxiety, and whatever my body can still cook up on its own. Which, given the week, is mostly sweat.

THE HEAT: It’s hot. I don’t mind it, but people do. It’s been really, really, biblically hot.

That’s the whole apocalypse, July 2026 edition.

Anyway. It’s smoky out. I’m going to go sit in it.