Chapter VII: Leaving The Mormon Roommates (Part I)

Note: this is a much-anticipated continuation of an epic several-part series chronicling one East Coast liberal’s swapping the tailored clothing of Jos. A Bank for the even dreamier blue eyes of Joseph Smith. The tale begins here.

The Mormon roommates were at breaking point.

But they didn’t say it. They let Selena Gomez.

The Mormon roommates never said they were angry. Theirs was a ceaseless, passive-aggressive simmer. They kept up their aww-shucks, “Leave It To Beaver” ways for a while. But little by little, it happened. The icy silences grew colder. The eye contact, more fleeting. Until they stopped sharing the Skittles. Stopped holding doors. And started cranking the Disney Channel full blast:

“I’M GOING TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!” the Evil Selena Gomez roared.

It didn’t used to be this way. But the parents nagged a little longer and, maybe, a little louder than they should have. And Selena Gomez grew so tired of the nagging. So fed up with the parental whining. She did what any pouty teen with magic powers would do: she split herself in two.

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Imprisonment, A National American Value

Don’t let this discourage you reality check discourage you; the state still invests in educational shackles: it’s called student loan debt.

A Not-So Fun Fact For Religious Zealots

Here you can find some much-necessary facts to whip out the next time your drunk fundie aunt tries to talk about the death of our Christian nation over Sunday brunch.

The Best Way To Ask For Money

Put on a robe, don a cross and talk about eternal damnation for those who most fear (and your listeners, too, if they don’t buy into your plan) for a bit, and you’ve got yourself a pretty sweet business model.

15 Amazing Motivational Workplace Posters From The ’20s And ’30s

In light of today’s polarized wealth and generally miserable, stuttering economy, it might seem a cruel joke to tell someone that as long as they are loyal, diligent, honest, hard-working and cooperative with their peers, they will succeed–and be duly rewarded for their efforts–in the work place. And given what awaited workers in the early 1930s after these posters were made, it was equally cruel to say then.

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Seizing on the fascination with efficiency and productivity brought on by the Second Industrial Revolution and the success of a previous World War One motivational poster campaign, Chicago-based printers Mather & Company created poster after poster that effectively tied one’s worth and sense of self with their relative output. In other words, Mather economized Frederick Douglass’s “self-made man” to scale. This proved a great mechanism when market optimism was high and futures seemed endlessly bright, but when the economy tanked a handful of years later and unemployment rates hit the roof, the posters proved little more than a blaring reminder to those formerly employed of their own inadequacy. Looking back on these posters now at a time of similar economic malaise, their quixotic sayings are pretty haunting.