I survived the cyberpunk end times, and never got to assemble my own Mad Max warrior tribe. I got my COVID shots and never got weird mutant superpowers. I ventured out of my survivalist seclusion and found out the world is going to keep going.
Recently we’ve all emerged from COVID quarantine, and my household bravely ventured out to public life again. My first time dining out at an actual restaurant took some adjustment.
My darling wife of 30 years, Mrs. Penguin, could not afford to lose her cool. She is a patient woman, and I speak here as a man who is an expert at being impossible to take out in public. She sat in Felix & Oscars enjoying her personal pizza and margarita, happily munching and slurping away. I was eating too, but nervously. My sweaty hands gripped the table. My eyes scanning madly from side to side around the room. I assured her that I too, was having fun.
But inside my dumpster of a neurotic brain, I was screaming: “AAAAAAAAAAHHHH! I’M SURROUNDED BY PEOPLE!!!!”