When I die, Bury me in Reno
Have you waged a war with termites? Yeah me neither, but from what I’ve heard it is a treacherous process. See, if you kill a small group of termites in your home, the rest of the termites can sense their death. Recognizing their crew has taken a hit, they begin to breed at a rate far greater than normal. In fact, they intentionally push out twice as many termites as they believe they had lost. Your minor genocide only produced more termites, idiot. To fully eradicate their population, you have to feed them slow-acting poison. This poison has to be so delicious and slow-acting that the scavenger termites leave their home and gather up as much of it as possible to feed to the entire population. This means that for a few days, the termites seem to be completely overtaking the house. They leave their home and come out in droves. They gather up the poison and take it back to the entire colony. And that, my friends, is their last act. Your genocide is complete.
By my best estimate, we’re roughly 2 months from the majority of the country being able to go back to life as normal. This means I’m making some tough decisions. Being frozen in place has felt like a minor death. Nothing happens at all. We sit at home and interact with a fake universe through our porn machines.
When the deep state sets us free, I’m going to gorge myself on their delicious poison. Unlike poor termites, I have my choice of poison. Capitalism has provided me with poison in every shape, variety, and color imaginable. This is how I found myself comparing the merits of a Cartier tank and a new life in Nevada.
The Cartier Tank, which made its first debut in 1917 is, by my standards, the best watch of all time. I do not care if some Rolex model has a more consistent timing method or whatever the fuck. Shut up. I don't care. The tank is like The Strokes, Carbonara or doggy style-- you can argue about its merits all you want, but it never has and never will get old. Worn by the Kennedys the Coppolas, Warhol, and Steve FUCKING McQueen, the tank is the undeafeated time piece. Today you can cop one yourself for somewhere between three and six thousand dollars. My bookmark tab is currently full of options.
On the other hand, with that same amount of hard earned capital I could shave my head (20 dollars), change my name (roughly one thousand dollars) and move to Reno, Nevada. According to craigslist, I can rent a 3 bedroom home in Reno for 1200 dollars a month. As an east coaster, this number seems fake. You can rent a home for the amount of a monthly parking fee out there? Reno has mountains, legal weed, legal gambling, and a massive Patagonia outlet. One could reasonably even buy a used kayak, and some fishing poles, and become the outdoor moodboard god.
I don’t know if Quarantine will ever end-- maybe it won’t. Maybe we all died 7 weeks ago and we’re sharing a particularly boring simulation. But if it does, I’m heading out for some poison that’s a little more tasty than a new Noah pocket tee or a pair of Jordan’s. They want us to come out of our isolation holes, to get back to the old capitalist, consumerist ways that pit us against each other with competitive vitriol of who has what. Maybe I won’t pick up and move to Nevada. Maybe I will. But if I’m going back to play Their game of extended-release self-poison, you can believe I’m gonna do it with the best watch ever made.
