The Meaning Of Life, To Me, Tonight

By Bub


Life’s meaning is relative to whatever and whoever you are. That is because life is inherently meaningless. Please don’t take that as nihilistic or cynical. The fact is that it just objectively has no inherent meaning. That’s OK though because we project meaning onto our own existence, because that is all we can do. We exist. And we have to justify to ourselves why we continue to exist everyday instead of not existing. Sometimes it is a very hard endeavor. But most days it does not enter into the equation. The following is an inexhaustive list of the meaning of life to me:

Watching the Thursday night line up on NBC, save ‘Whitney’

Checking Facebook to see what people have thought enough of me to make an interaction

Picking up my daughter from kindergarten and trying to make her laugh before we get home by suggesting that for show and tell she take a roll of toilet paper, and share with each classmate, one sheet

Checking in with my grandmother to assure her that I am still alive

Looking at exotic places on Google maps and concocting bizarre schemes of how I’d drive there

Buying a sack of 20 limes from the Mexican supermarket on my street for one dollar and feeling like I’ve won the lottery

Reading comedy that my friends write

Studying law and thinking how the accepted principles can be changed for the better

Watching Judge Judy and better understanding my follies than I would through studying law…

Watching Redtube whenever no one else is here

Eating the Indonesian instant noodles that I paid thirty cents for in Chicago by the Aragon Ballroom and feeling like I saved 8 dollars.

Throwing away the scraps of my daughter’s ‘projects’

Watching my daughter sleep and reflecting on how I can be a better parent

Re-reading Chekov or ‘Cruel Shoes’ when I should be doing my assigned school readings

Meeting an incredibly beautiful person I know I have no chance with

Realizing that everything is and always has been and always will be OK

Pissing a human in a car off for breaking for a squirrel

Trying to remember my ‘native’ Romanichal phrases for everyday expressions

Drinking Clover Valley diet soda

Helping friends whenever possible

Driving while listening to Earwolf podcasts

Listening to Bob Dylan and feeling morose

Smiling at everyone I have the strength to smile at

Beating my daughter mercilessly at Wii Mario Kart

Trying to love everything about this godforsaken world

Writing this

Falling asleep watching The Simpsons on dvd

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Existential Meditations

By Bub 


A lawyer in an office in an antiquated courthouse in Mississippi has sequestered himself in an un-airconditioned office. He's there over the weekend drinking glass after glass of mid-grade whiskey alternately laughing aloud, coughing, catatonically worrying wide-eyed, and crying silently. Monday morning the custodial staff knocks on the door to the office. The smell of whiskey-sweat and piss is stinging. The lawyer answers the door, retrieves the next week's supply of whiskey that the janitor brought, and locks himself back inside the room.




A sheep-herder stands on a hillock in his field staring at the clouds above the horizon. He sees a bright spot in the sky and becomes alarmed. 'The end of days,' he acknowledges to himself. He takes out his rifle and begins shooting, putting down his sheep one by one to save them from the horrors of the approaching apocalypse. Once he finishes off the last of his flock he is ready to turn the gun on himself. He takes one last look at the world he is about to leave, prepared to glance at the face of death from above, and notices the sun setting. He sits down on the knoll, lays his gun at his side and watches as the menace disappears below the horizon, taking his imminent doom with it into the night.




It was a cold March, and a retail manager waited anxiously for his girlfriend to return from McDonald's with a seasonal Shamrock shake. It was his favorite. She arrived at his apartment after an unusually long trip. "Did you get it?" he asked excitedly as she fought against the late winter wind to push the door shut. "Yea, it's your favorite..." she said, adding, "I had a miscarriage." They sat and consumed their Shamrock shakes in the heavy air of unrealized life and dreams.




Beau's bus approached and he gathered his bags. When the doors opened for him to board he was shocked to see that the driver was not a human but a giant fish in a transit authority uniform. Not wanting to appear prejudiced, Beau reluctantly boarded. As soon as the bus left Beau realized he had made a terrible mistake. Everyone on the bus was crying and wincing, and every other seat was filled with explosives. The giant fish was not a bus driver - it was a terrorist.




"Gary! Put that damn rock down and get inside for supper!" Gary caressed the rock with his thumb, put it down, and went inside to eat. As soon as he had finished, Gary rushed back outside, picked up the rock and began petting it again. "Gary! What the hell is wrong with you? You're supposed to do the dishes, why the fuck are you out here with that damned rock again? What is THE MATTER with you?" "Nothing ma, I just like rocks." Gary didn't just like rocks. He loved rocks. And that particular rock happened to requite Gary's affection.




An elderly homeless gentleman staggers down the street, pantless. A police car pulls up along side him and stops. The police officer motions the gentleman over to the car. When the pantless gentleman approaches the vehicle he looks inside and notices the police officer, too, has no pants. The homeless gentleman looks up at the police officer, and they both begin to weep.




Two teenagers are driving through the woods at night in rural northern Wisconsin. They come upon a bridge that is ablaze. The driver slows down and reaches for the stick to down-shift. The passenger intercepts his hand and squeezes it lovingly. They come to agreement through passionate gaze and proceed to drive to their deaths on the burning bridge.

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