The inventory is going stale because the air conditioner is broken

The lead guitarist bought the world's tiniest mandolin at an auction

When I see what are meant to be temporary displays of in-group signaling like "I voted" stickers or forehead ashes on Ash Wednesday, or tiny ribbons supporting various causes, my reaction is contingent on what mood I'm on, and is sometimes a simultaneous reaction in opposite directions.

On the one hand, my generous interpretation is something like "Hey, that's nice, this must be important to you, I'm glad you just went and did that thing and now you're walking around with a label that lets everyone know you did that thing, and maybe they'll think about it more or something, how swell". My cynical reaction is like "Sweet muffins, you need to get over yourself and get your act together and stop showing off and bragging about your bullshit ceremony; we get it, your a person and you do stuff, take it down a notch now!"

Both are probably valid reactions and I've long since become comfortable believing contradictory things, it just makes things easier in the face of a conceptual mess.

There is one Power Move that I would really respect from these people though, and that is that if someone got a permanent tattoo of their thing on their skin and just displayed it year round. How great would it be to see a lady with some "I voted" ink on her shoulder in the middle of July in a non-election year where there was nothing she possibly could have voted on? It'd be pretty great.

If we sew all of our clothes together we can make a big blanket

Here's something that would be fun to do if you have a friend who sort of prides themselves on their taste and has recently constructed a new dwelling where they had some input with the architect and are sort of flying high on the success of the completed project.

Ideally you can follow their progress from afar, maybe on the social media or something. When it looks like the building is about to be completed, you send them an email somewhat out of the blue, and say it'd be great to get together sometime soon, and what are they up to these days. In their reply, they will almost certainly invite you to come see their house once it's finished.

After the building is done and you go to visit, make sure you're there in mid morning or mid afternoon, where the light will be coming in at some sort of angle to make shapes on the walls. The home owner person will inevitably say something like "Oh, wow, I never noticed this ... isn't it interesting how the light slices up the room like this?!"

Their excitement will be goddamn unbearable because there are people with actual problems in the world and here they are talking about light, but this is what you prepared for, and you are ready for this moment. After they say that you come back with something like "Yeah that's cool ... oh wait a second, you didn't use a light lines modeling planner tool?!" You will then act completely incredulous and launch into a description of a (fictional...I think?) piece of software which is used specifically for this purpose, and while you'll stay on the polite side, it will be pretty clear to them that you think the entire project is a big failure because they forgot to do this.

Later that night when their spouse comes home and you've left for the day, they'll sit, dejected, and whisper "We're tearing it down".

The paranoia was real but the fruit basket was just decorative

In circles where people talk about things, there is a concept called an "Overton Window", which is also known as the "window of discourse" and describes the set of ideas and policies which are in a zone of general acceptance and might seriously be proposed or discussed. For example, if you said "wow this part of the city is crowded, lets put some more buildings over here" that's inside the window, but if you said "let's get rid of these people using any means available to us" or "lets build a mars colony", you've probably strayed outside the window.

If my last name was Overton and I worked in an office where I had a private room with a window that faced a hallway, I'd find a bunch of horrific news clippings and zany conspiracy theories and put them in my window, just to screw with people.