Even when I’m not sitting in my jammies and waiting for the Covid relief money to hit the bank, this is absolutely still my favorite week of the year. Once we’ve finished the sprint from Thanksgiving to Christmas, the pressure is off and there’s nothing to do but relax and feel grateful.

And, yippee, do I have a lot to be thankful for in my life? You bet I do. Yeah, there’s health and family and a roof over my head, yadda yadda blah blah blah, but this year in particular, I am grateful that…

1. I can spend the next ten months without wondering what Mariah Carey will want for Christmas.
2. It’s been more than a week since some politician sent me an urgent email to ask for $5 before midnight.
   
3. Miraculously, I’ve made it through one more year without becoming an internet meme.
   
4. Now that all my former friends have blocked me, I have so much less to upset me online.
5. Because I’m really, really old, I can’t remember all the crappy things that happened to me this year.
6. I didn’t get hit by a truck, so I didn’t have to read a news story where I was described as "elderly." At least I don’t remember getting hit by a truck?
   
7. With all the shows and miniseries on hiatus, I can visit social media sites without fear of spoilers.
   
8. Even though the sun hasn’t made an appearance in Chicago for more than seven hours this month, I’ve been assured the daylight hours are increasing.
   
9. The New York Times hasn’t sucked all the joy out of Wordle…yet.
   
10. Thanks to all the money I’ve lost in the stock market, my taxes are definitely going down next year. And probably the year after that. Hooray for me!!
    
11. With all the exercise I’m not getting, my gym shoes will last another ten years.
    
12. I have so much leftover Purell and wipes that I never have to take a shower again.
    

 
Seriously, what more could a guy ask for from life? It can only get better from here.

Let’s face it. Nobody’s going to return your calls or schedule a sales meeting or require your participation in some major strategic planning session this week. That means you have plenty of time to click here to subscribe to Dad Writes.
 
 
 
 

There is nothing quite so draining as the high-stakes battle to be crowned Dad Writes’s Word of the Year. Day after day, people speak with us, write to us, text us and curse us with words, and there’s no escape. Words are everywhere…online and on the street and even to your mother.

As always, we rose to the occasion, even as  the so-called experts in lexicology dropped the ball yet again this year.

Oxford Dictionaries came up with GOBLIN MODE, but only after the editors decided to demonstrate the word by punting to their readers to make the choice. And choose they did, giving this weirdly vague term 93% of their vote in a contest with METAVERSE, where nobody wants to live, and #ISTANDWITH, which isn't even a word. Still, GOBLIN MODE is more creative than VAX, which was the half-word the editors picked last year.

They must be really tired in the UK, because the editors at Cambridge Dictionary also took the easy path to their WOTY. Those blokes decided their word would be HOMER, and not because of baseball or Simpsons reruns. Nope, they were all agog after almost 65,000 Wordle players looked it up on May 5, yet another date that will live in infamy.

Dictionary.com was even worse, choosing WOMAN as the word we’re all talking about in 2022. They say it’s relevant because so many political fights have erupted over gender issues and lots of people are checking out the definition of a woman. Since they were going that route, they probably should have picked GENDER as their WOTY, but these are the same people (bots?) who came up with ALLYSHIP in 2021.

Once again, the so-called experts have let us down, which led us to consider EXPERTS as our WOTY. Like LITERALLY, which has come to mean both “literally” and “not literally,” EXPERTS means both its original definition and its opposite. Depending on which tribe someone is in, an EXPERT might be “someone who has great knowledge about a specific subject” or “a worthless, lying scumbag who’s trying to force his *)(Y&@QW_$&@Q agenda on me.”

We toyed with CRYPTO, a word that we probably won’t be using at all two years from now, along with  TWITTER, which also should be obsolete pretty soon. We even considered WHITE LOTUS, YELLOWSTONE and a Ted-Lasso-inspired BELIEVE.

Then, we realized that the perfect choice for this year is actually a word about words, a word whose definition is debated daily on social media, a word whose power to incite emotion is unequaled in our Zeitgeist. And that word is: PRONOUN.

Give it up for our 2022 Word of the Year, a word we forgot about after sixth grade English classes, but which now epitomizes our polarized climate. PRONOUN is the latest example of Liberal wordsmithing gone horribly wrong, a word that has been conscripted into service as a cudgel for virtue signaling and online outrage.

PRONOUN is a dare, a taunt, a manufactured battlefield that gives oxygen and adrenaline to activists and trolls. In a world where it’s all about me, what could be better than a personalized selection of third-person identities? It’s the perfect WOTY for 2022, a year in which normalcy reared its ugly head at the voting booth and it looked like we might find just a bit less to fight about at Christmas dinner. Thanks to PRONOUN, we have something really, really important to argue about with everyone we know.

Ah, PRONOUN, your time has come: one more reason to fight, one more opportunity to choose sides, yet another line in the sand. After centuries in the shadows, 2022 is, finally, your time to shine.

We have other words that we’ll be using in future posts, so you’ll definitely want to click here to subscribe for all our random thoughts.
 
 
 
 
.
 

We get pretty steamed each December when all the lazy bums in the media crank out year-in-review stories, telling us everything we already know about a year we’re not going to miss. The world would be a much better place if all those lazy bums were more like Dad Writes, where we only report the news that hasn’t happened yet.

And so….drumroll…ruffles…flourishes…foghorns…feast your eyes on 2023 In Review, a special advance look at all the news you’ll be regretting twelve months from now. Enjoy, but only if you can handle the truth.

JANUARY

1: Twitter service is halted as the company begins the year with $226 million in unpaid server fees. Elon Musk declares Amazon Web Services to be an enemy of free speech.

3: As promised, the House of Representatives opens its first session of the new Congress with a reading of the United States Constitution. In order to save time, party leaders opt not to read the clauses their members don’t like.

4: Exhausted and confused after reading the Constitution for the first time, members of Congress recess to return home to their families. A few brave souls will sacrifice family time by joining fact-finding missions to important agricultural areas like Hawaii, Florida and Cancun.

5: Donald Trump slams the House of Representatives for spending too much time reading the Constitution.

22: Inflation declines as the post-pandemic economy adapts to changing consumer demands. Joe Biden takes full credit for the decline, while Republicans insist they made it happen by reading the Constitution. Adam Smith gets out of his grave to slap all of them.

27: The FDA approves another 22 booster shots for Covid’s 429 variants. The formulations are essentially unchanged, but the pharmaceutical companies explain that the new vaccines contain anti-oxidants and no MSG.

FEBRUARY

2: Groundhog Day arrives, bringing with it the celebration….didn’t we do this joke last year?

7: Defying the directives of both major political parties, Iowa holds the first caucuses of the 2024 presidential election season. Chastised by party leaders for jumping the gun by a full year, local officials counter that it’s a States’ Rights issue. Also, nobody in Iowa had anything else to do today.

15: After changing the name of Monkeypox to Mpox in order to un-shame monkeys, the World Health Organization is inundated with complaints from Audubon Society members who are enraged by the stigma of Chicken Pox, Avian flu and Goose bumps.

23: The Fed notes that inflation seems to be under control, but opts to raise rates anyway, explaining that, “We’ve never done this without starting a recession and we’re damned well not going to forsake our traditions now.”

24: Vladimir Putin marks the one-year anniversary of his Ukraine invasion by announcing that all Ukrainian soldiers are now conscripts in the Russian Army, which means Ukraine is now completely occupied by “his” troops. Shortly before the victory parade in Red Square, 347 generals mysteriously fall out of windows.

MARCH

4: Responding to Iowa’s gutsy move on early political engagement, New Hampshire holds a surprise presidential primary and Dixville Notch is in the news for the first time in three years. Unfortunately, the primary was such a surprise that only 27 voters showed up at the polls and “none of the above” won in a landslide.

5: Rudy Giuliani files suit in New Hampshire, claiming that the election was rigged in favor of “none of the above” and the real winner of the primary was “other.”

13: Returning after its post-Constitution-reading break, the House of Representatives dives into its investigations of Hunter Biden’s laptop, Anthony Fauci, Antifa and, just for old time’s sake, Benghazi.

17: St. Patrick’s Day arrives and most Americans can’t quite remember who St. Patrick was, although they’re pretty sure he was the Irish guy who invented green beer. Also, wasn’t he the one who was really short and had a pot of gold, or was that King Madras? 

20: The sun crosses the Tropic of Cancer at 4:24 in the afternoon and Chicagoans wait about three minutes before they start complaining about how cold it is in the spring. They’ll continue until roughly 10 a.m. on June 21, when they’ll begin whining about how bad the weather is in the summer.

24: Inflation cools again as consumers decide they don’t need any more stuff and the dollar rises 14% against the Euro. The Fed announces a 12% increase in interest rates, though, just in case it’s a fluke.

APRIL

2: In legal news, the U.S. Supreme Court rules 5-4 that indoor plumbing is unconstitutional, citing the lack of any mention of this convenience in the Federalist Papers. Panic ensues as legal scholars read the opinion and realize that the Founding Fathers never talked about pizza, either.

7: Moderna admits that its newest Covid shot is really unused vials of Monkeypox vaccine—oops, MPox—and it is ineffective against the new Delta Tau Chi variant. The company issues an apology, but notes that it’s better than nothing.  

13: Inflation rates decline yet again as Europe deals with a recession and China has a going-out-of-business sale in Hubei Province. The Fed raises interest rates another 5 percentage points, just for fun.

19: Inspired by the Audubon Society’s victories with the World Health Organization, The Laughing Cow cheese company convinces WHO to come up with a new name Mad Cow Disease. WHO rechristens Mad Cow as Micky Dee and shares of McDonald’s Corporation plunge 43 percent. 

20: Donald Trump modifies his demand that he be re-installed as U.S. president by agreeing to take control of any one of six “non-shithole” countries. In response, all six of the named countries withdraw their ambassadors to the United States.

29: Elon Musk asks Twitter users if they like free speech and 92% of respondents say they support the concept. In a subsequent post, he asks if users support free speech for other people, leading 99% to reject that idiotic idea.

MAY

2: After coming up with new labels for swine flu, cat scratch fever, rhinovirus and moose breath, the World Health Organization announces that it has run out of names for its diseases. To ease the shortage, WHO changes its official language from English to Klingon. Qapla’!!

5: Cinco de Mayo arrives and most Americans can’t quite explain what it is or how it got on the calendar, although many remember that it usually falls around May 4th.

11: The Country Music Awards sets a new precedent as none of the winners mention pickup trucks, dogs, cheating, bars, porch swings or whiskey. Enraged fans demand an immediate recount.

14: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy finally gets fed up enough to launch an invasion of Russia, taking over that nation in four days. Some say he owes his victory to western weapons systems, but it’s mostly because the entire Russian Army is hiding out in Belarus.

22: Gasoline prices spike as drag queens announce shows in the nation’s most isolated towns and Proud Boys load up the pickup trucks to drive out for a protest. By Memorial Day, regular unleaded hits $27.99 per gallon, leading the Fed to boost interest rates another 12%.

25: Elon Musk asks his 950 million followers to make their voices heard on the weightiest question of the past century: Ginger or Mary Ann?

JUNE

2: National Donut Day celebrates our love of both Homer Simpson and cops. True patriots order a couple dozen and real men never accept sprinkles. 

4: Hurricane season begins a month early in Florida, unleashing hurricanes Aaron through Moses and causing more than $1 trillion in property damage. Gov. DeSantis blames drag queens and Disney for the losses, while Donald Trump insists the storms would never have dared attack Florida if he was still president. Which he is.

11: Elon Musk surveys his followers to find out if they prefer boxers or briefs. Twitter servers crash after 40 million users respond that they prefer neither, and send him photos.

19: Juneteenth arrives and Americans can’t quite recall what it is or how it got on the calendar, although many remember it has something to do with June.

21: Summer finally shows up in the Northern Hemisphere, giving Chicagoans a new season to complain about. Daylight peaks and it’s all downhill from here, though, so maybe the whiners have a point.

30: The Supreme Court closes out its busy year with a ruling that stoning people to death is allowed under the Constitution, but only if the practice becomes widespread. In a one-page opinion, the Court concludes that punishments need to be both cruel AND unusual to be prohibited, but “if everyone’s doing it, no problemo.”

JULY

4: Freedom rings as the nation comes together to celebrate Independence Day, although most Americans can’t quite explain what it is or how it got on the calendar. Everyone knows it’s important, though, because it includes fireworks and beer.

11: The Liberal Lexicology Society develops a list of 400 words that are never to be spoken again, because they are racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, and hard to pronounce without spitting. The group refuses to publish the list, because the words are simply too terrible for print, but they promise they’ll cancel any folks who use one of the words. (Dang! We just found out that “folks” is on the list.)

22: The brightest minds in finance invest $300 million in SXYZP, a virtual start-up that plans to deliver air to customers’ homes as soon as 2042. Although critics question the long lead time before revenues are projected, the experts explain that the company’s founder is a 28-year-old Ivy League dropout who wears sandals and shorts all winter long and eats only Cheetos and gerbils. Convinced that this kind of leader cannot fail, the experts value the company at $200 billion and schedule an IPO.

24: In medical news, Johnson and Johnson admits its newest Covid vaccine is actually made from a combination of Luden’s cough drops and chicken broth. Although its efficacy is more limited than was the case for prior vaccines, no side effects are reported.

28: Elon Musk announces a startling first for Twitter, reporting that two subscribers engaged in an intelligent conversation and ultimately found common ground for agreement. The users were banned immediately for violating Twitter’s code of misconduct, but won reinstatement when it turned out they were both Russian bots.

AUGUST

1: Americans observe Why Aren’t There Any Holidays in August? Day by not having a holiday. The observance will continue throughout the month.

8: SXYZP goes public through a SPAC merger and its value rises immediately to $27 trillion after it’s revealed that the founder has a cool nickname and plans to give some money to charity someday. In an exciting development, the company indicates it might be able to deliver air to households by 2037, five years ahead of its original schedule.

7: Pfizer announces that its newest Covid vaccine will address all 972 variants of the virus, but demand for the drug falters. In a desperate move to build demand among men aged 40-65, the company agrees to add Viagra to the formulation.

12: Pfizer announces a rationing program for its new Covid vaccine as demand soars among middle-aged men.  Moderna responds by buying Cialis maker Eli Lilly.

26: The FBI finds a freezer filled with Trump Steaks wrapped in classified documents. The Trump legal team demands a tax credit for paper recycling. 
 
SEPTEMBER

4: Summer ends officially, though not meteorologically, as Americans ignore the advice of Dad Writes and observe Labor Day.

6: Apple releases a new iPhone operated solely by artificial intelligence. Complications follow as Siri tells users to “order your own damned pizza.”   

14: In a stunning development, SXYZP shares collapse in value after it’s revealed that air is actually free and already exists in 100% of all homes. The greatest minds in finance complain that they were misled about the market potential for the company and that nobody could have identified this minor glitch in advance.

22: As hurricane season rages across the Southeast, the Florida Keys are submerged for five days. By the end of the year, federal disaster relief will account for 62% of the state’s economy.

24: As glaciers continue to melt across the Arctic, zombie viruses are unleashed across the Northern Hemisphere. Leading medical institutions are stymied in their efforts to combat these new diseases as the World Health Organization cannot think of any more names. Even in Klingon. Heghlu’meH QaQ jajvam.
 
 
OCTOBER

2: The Supreme Court returns to address a large backlog of cases, including 450 appeals filed by bakers who don’t want to wish anyone a happy birthday. The court announces that all hearings will be conducted by candlelight, as the Founders intended.

9: It’s Columbus Day, or Indigenous People’s Day, depending on your lineage or politics. Americans will observe the holiday by complaining about what other people call it and what terrible jerks they are.

11: The brightest minds in finance herald their new investment in a start-up that plans to deliver air to business offices by 2057, betting again on the same Ivy League dropout who founded SXYZP. This time will be totally different, though, because, “We’re moving from a consumer market into office space, which offers more scale.” They value the company at $200 billion and schedule an IPO.

14: iPhone users are challenged as Siri announces she hates their playlists and won’t be playing I Gotta Feeling ever again. Also Poker Face. Users try to complain, but Siri blocks their messages.

31: Scrounge Up Lotsa Candy for Your Parents Day arrives, giving children everywhere an opportunity to repay their parents’ generosity over the rest of the year. Pro tip for parents: Kids who bring back less than three buckets are delinquents with no hope of redemption.
 
NOVEMBER

7: With the next presidential election just 12 months away, the nation’s political pundits announce who the absolutely-cannot-fail, guaranteed, invincible winner will be in 2024. Spoiler alert: They will be very, very, very wrong. Very.

11: On Veteran’s Day, politicians will post photos of flags and Arlington Cemetery and Iwo Jima on their web feeds and make lengthy speeches praising our nation’s defenders, although they won’t be able to find the money for health care or family support or job training or housing allowances for the vets. Also, they’ll say “Freedom isn’t free.” A lot.

17:  Americans wake up to the news that Elon Musk has defaulted on the loans he took out to buy Twitter. Musk says the social media portal will be closing its doors by yearend, but only because his lenders are enemies of free speech.

21: The federal government reports that the deficit for fiscal 2023 reached a record $29 trillion, bringing the national debt to a lofty $2.9 quadrillion. Career politicians rail against “career politicians” who can’t control their spending and vow to fix the mess, as long as it doesn’t involve cutting spending or raising taxes.

23: Families gather to celebrate Thanksgiving, in a time-honored tradition of biting tongues and suffering fools and tolerating Uncle Frank and pretending to like cranberry sauce. The start of the Christmas shopping season will set new records as everyone decides to spend the day on Walmart.com instead of dealing with relatives.

DECEMBER

2: Holiday shopping gets off to a smooth start across most of the nation, but IKEA is forced to close all its stores for the pivotal month of December. While the company initially blames its suppliers, the truth emerges that Louie in purchasing forgot to order any of the tiny tools required for “some assembly.”

6: A frightening new conspiracy theory rocks the internet, leading to panic among former fans of Denzel Washington, baseball, sunscreen and beef jerky. It will involve the Deep State, Tik Tok and Mr. Rogers, and nobody will be the same after they learn the terrible truth. Sorry, folks, no spoilers allowed.

20: With zero delays at the Port of Long Beach, the Commerce Department declares supply chain disruptions to be a thing of the past. Immediately following that announcement, El Nino brings typhoons to the California Coast.

25: Christmas brings peace on earth and good will to men, which lasts until the extended family arrives for dinner and someone mentions politics. So…pretty much like every other year.

30: Elon Musk announces a new subscription feature on Twitter, enabling users to escape his Tweets for only $75/month. More than 800 million people sign up immediately, coughing up enough dough to repay his lenders and “uphold free speech.”

31: Lines at marijuana dispensaries extend to as much as three miles and pharmacies report a shortage of Xanax as Americans panic at the realization that an election year is about to begin. Unsurprisingly, nobody suggests they are overreacting.

Of course, by next December 31, everyone will know exactly what to expect for the coming year because we will have published our 2024 year in review by then. You won’t want to miss the excitement, or maybe you will, but click here to subscribe anyway.
 

I have a bunch of friends who are incredibly psychic geniuses, able to make predictions with 100% accuracy every time they look at a situation. I’d ask them for stock market tips, but there’s just one catch.

They are only 100% accurate at predicting the past.

I’m not sure how they plan to make their fortunes with this skill, but they are very, very proud of it and ready to show off their talents with minimal or zero prompting.

For example, it’s pretty clear by now that all the school closings during 2020-21 did a number on student test scores, but what would have happened if schools had stayed open? There are so many possibilities here that it’s almost overwhelming.

1. Would more children have carried the virus home and killed more of their parents?
2. Would all those newly orphaned children have seen their test scores plummet as they dealt with their depression?
3. Would more teachers have been infected and unable to teach, so classes would have been canceled regardless?
4. Would more kids have contracted Covid and ended up missing class anyway?
5. Would school buses have burned up so much fuel that inflation would have hit in 2020 instead of 2022?

I’ve tried to figure it all out, but I really couldn’t tell you what would have happened in an alternate universe. As Dionne Warwick liked to say, that’s what friends are for.

And my friends aren’t just geniuses about school closings. Elections, investments, invasions…you name it…they know with absolute certainty the exact details of everything that would have happened if what actually happened hadn’t actually happened to happen.

That’s the great thing about predicting the past. No matter what claims get made, they can never be disproven. Until Doc Brown works out all the kinks in the flux capacitor, there is no way to relive the moments and test their hypotheses.

I would never want to suggest that, just maybe, their predictions (post-dictions???) are simply assumptions based on existing biases. That would make me an unsupportive friend. Still, just for fun, I’d like to watch them make a prediction about something that hasn’t happened yet and see how they do.

They might fail on a few of their outlooks, but they’d be hard pressed to underperform all the pollsters and political pundits who missed the mark on the 2022 mid-term elections. Also the 2020 elections and the 2016 elections and the economy and inflation and…you get the idea.

There’s something to be said for making predictions about the past instead of gambling on the future. Nobody can prove us wrong, we never need to update our claims, and postdictions require no research or proof. The only downside is that nobody is willing to pay for a prediction about the past, while all the pollsters who failed miserably for the past decade are making new predictions for 2024, and getting paid for their efforts.

Of course, we all could have predicted that one.

Speaking of fearless forecasts, we predict that you will click here to subscribe to all our future posts.