While irony was first conceived by Socrates around 410 BCE, it sprang fully formed from the skull of Cleanth Brooks and the New Critics in 1949. Rumors of its death were greatly exaggerated after the release of “Ironic” by Alanis Morissette in 1995, but it appears to have been struck a mortal blow in 2016.

It is with a heavy head and a heavy heart that I bring My Patience with White People to its final resting place. It has been a long relationship. My Patience with White People has been one of my best friends seeing me through hard times teaching me how to turn the other cheek. And the other cheek and the other cheek and the other….

“Oh, the wind, the wind is blowing. Through the graves, the wind is blowing. Freedom soon will come.” – The Partisan

Subdiaphragmatic pressure, he called it. The Heimlich maneuver, though, was how it came to be known—given his name because in the two months after a description was published, dozens of lives were saved. This was in 1974.

When the Chicago Cubs won the 2016 World Series, they ended the franchise’s 108-year streak of cruel futility. This year, the label of “lovable losers” died.

Fact was downed in battle, but the details stutter in, contradictory and strange. With no body, they tell me, closure is a challenge.

1. We are both standing on paddleboards.

It should come as no surprise that my permit picture is horrid. My hair looks too candyfloss and my eyes have gone pistachio and I can’t imagine anyone will take seriously my status as a newly minted adult.

We knew the clown was different by his business card, which advertised “Sensible Entertainment for the Betterment of Children.”

Soooo I'm stuck here at Dancing Dolphin Indoor Waterpark for, like, a million hours until my probation officer says I'm done.

 “Happy Thanksgiving,” Carl said.     
“Speak for yourself, scumbag,” a burly, bearded man in the front row replied.

My lovers strain and headache, all junkies,a midnight tightrope act in spurs, uncouth,feet suspended down into black, pinkiesup. Yours or mine? I want it in the mouth.

The big red nightmare dog terrorizes our town. We all despise and live in fear of this giant beast who blocks out the sun and deprives us of light. “The gargantuan mutt is everywhere,” the children ask, “but where is God?”

I used to think it was cool how good Uncle Rick was at skimboarding, how into it he was. He had a rap about it – Zen and the art of skimboarding.

“Uh-oh.”

“What—what is it?”

“I’ve travestied myself.”

“Umm…”