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Weak VIII

20 February 2026

No. 8,799 (cartoon)

Art is whatever is hanging on the wall behind the couch.

No, art is anything you didn’t have to do.

That’s what I just said, only different.

21 February 2026

News Flash: We’re Doomed!

Here’s my favorite headline d’jour:

Historians Confirm: Tomorrow Won’t Be Better Than Today.

I would have had to pay The New York Times to read Ian Buruma’s piece, but I saved my money, since other historians confirm that tomorrow will be better than today. With millennia of data and anecdotes, there’s enough history to support any proposition. The only universal belief among historians is that there is no universal belief among historians.

Mark Twain had the best take on the subject: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”

22 February 2026

I Ain’t No Entomologist (Hospital Notes I)

Buzz had to have a procedure. A medical procedure. You know, one of those procedures. He doesn’t want to talk about it, and I don’t want to write about it, so let’s skip ahead to the hospital waiting room.

“Thank you for your patience.”

That’s how the doctor greeted us when she walked in almost an hour late.

“I’m an entomologist,” I replied, “so I know that’s why we’re called patients.”

She laughed and said that made sense.

I was disappointed that she didn’t get my hilarious joke: I said “entomologist” instead of “etymologist.”

Ha. Ha. Ha.

23 February 2026

Filicidal Fantasy (Hospital Notes II)

An old woman parked on a gurney in the hallway of the crowded emergency room loudly complained that she had been parked there since six in the morning, and announced that she was going home. She seemed coherent and righteously indignant, so I agreed with her.

Two nurses disagreed and got into a long exchange with her. The impatient patient kept repeating “Oh yes I am,” and the nurses responding “Oh no you’re not.”

A security guard stepped in to end the stalemate and asked the woman if she was still planning on suicide.

“I’m not going to kill myself,” she assured him.

Right answer!

“I’m going to kill my goddamned fucking kids who dumped me here,” she explained.

Wrong answer!

24 February 2026

Potty Tantrum (Hospital Notes III)

I was walking down the hospital corridor after a bathroom break when a nurse stopped me.

“The doctor wanted to talk with you about your friend,” she announced, “but you were on the potty.”

“Thank you,” I replied, biting my lip at the top of my lungs.

I wanted to tell Florence Nightingale to never ever never ever use the word “potty” outside the preemie ward, and even then only with patients who were born within the last six days.

When someone tells me they “need to go potty,” I occasionally ask if they mean a wee-wee or a poo-poo. Yahweh, what’s wrong with these people?!

It’s even worse when people talk to their dogs. “Rover gotta go potty?” Kristi Noem is a cruel, evil simpleton, but at least she treated her puppy like a mature dog when she blew its head off with a shotgun because it was “untrainable.” No potty nonsense for that bad dog!

And speaking of potty, I could go on and on, but I’m going to go off and off instead. This potty rant is devolving into a tirade—or perhaps vice versa—so quickly that I’m even annoying myself.

25 February 2026

Salmon and Tuna Packets Revealed (Diptych)

A few months, ago I picked up a couple of foil packets of fish at a display at an art school. I think the food was intended for the stereotypical starving artist, but I grabbed ’em anyway since I planned on using them for aesthetic exploration as well as sandwiches.

I like the piece I made, Salmon and Tuna Packets Revealed (Diptych). Magnificent ocean creatures reduced to fish pulp made for great images if you like that sort of thing. (And I do.)

As always, I dislike the reproduction quality on the Internet. The words in what appear to be black boxes are completely illegible, so here are the missing words:

Chicken of the Sea, Wild Caught Alaskan Pink Salmon, Skinned and Boneless, In Spring Water (seventy grams)

StarKist E.V.O.O. Wild Yellowfin Tuna, in Extra Virgin Olive Oil (seventy-four grams)

Fish on my dish was my wish, so it all all worked out quite tastily.

Coming next weak: more of the same.

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©2026 David Glenn Rinehart