Twist Street

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Adults hated their jobs, felt bulldozed in their relationships, marinated in guilt and shame and despair, died unfulfilled, and were buried under self-loathing tombstones. And these things were so universal they weren’t even really unfair. Binky, to his one-eared son, Bongo: “You’re afraid there’s no heaven. But look on the bright side — there’s no hell, either. Except this one … No matter who you are, you gotta die. And we all get to be dead the same amount of time: forever.” I understood instinctively that these were ideas you weren’t supposed to joke about, and therefore that joking about them was a basic life skill I’d have to develop.