News of the Ordinary

I haven’t posted much here of late, at least compared to my normal output, not because there hasn’t been anything to write about but rather because I have been distracted by other pursuits. Business has been brisk, and the novel I’ve been working on for nearly two years now has been pouring out of my head in torrents after having been reduced to a trickle for months. Last night I wrote a lot because Pam was at a meeting with friends, leaving me on my own for dinner. Since I didn’t feel like going out anywhere I opened the fridge and threw some things together…

There was ham left over from Easter dinner. Accordingly, I opted for a ham sandwich on a toasted English muffin with cheese. To this I added three left over deviled eggs and a helping of Fritos. To round out the meal I decided on heating up three flour tortillas, spreading peanut butter and marshmallow fluff meticulously throughout and rolling them up to resemble cigars…for dessert, washing it all down with a Stone IPA. I’m not sure where this meal would have landed on the food pyramid, or whether of not there was any nutritional value involved, but it was delightful.

What was not delightful was what greeted me this morning on the Drudge Report:

These are the news stories deemed of most interest by this famous aggregator. Take a close look. Not a word about the ongoing war in Ukraine, but everything you could possibly want to know about a washed up actor’s defamation trial. There’s a breathless update about the British Prime Minister’s latest troubles, and the disturbing news that Prince Harry has decided that what America needs is the most pampered and entitled refugee in history. 

It is easy to look at this and come to the conclusion that you live in the most unserious nation on Earth. But the truth is that the vast majority of my fellow citizens never read the Drudge Report. Although more of them know who Johnny Depp is than can name their Senators, the fact is that most of us are not the deranged narcissists that social media tells us we are. We are busy working, raising our families, volunteering our time, buying groceries, bringing all the plants inside the garage to protect them from a late frost, and helping our grown kids move into their first house. But can you imagine how boring it would be to pull up a news aggregator site with those stories splashed across the headlines?