Be very afraid.

All the Republican politicians and Fox News pundits are 150% right when they call Chicago a crime-infested, corrupt, leftist, sleazebag hellhole. And it’s even worse in the summer, when we’re even sleazier and hellhole-ier, so definitely stay away right now if you value your life.

I pity people who come to visit over the summer months, because everything the right-wingers say about us is true, true and true. Every single person living within the city limits is killed each night and we just ship in new people to be killed the next night. Every black person is a murderous gang thug and every homeless person is planning to burn down the next building they see. And don’t think you’ll be safe around the white people, either, because they’ll grab your children and make them gay or trans or bi- or tri- or quadruple.

We completely de-funded the police and we give looters frequent flier miles for the value of their stolen goods. Nobody speaks English, of course, because the only people you’ll find out in public are illegal aliens who would steal all our jobs, if we had any businesses that were still operating.

Apologists for the city will claim that it’s really safe here and tourists should come and visit in the summer. They’ll try to lure outa towners with stories about outdoor dining and neighborhood festivals and zoos and culture. They’ll brag about restaurants with Michelin stars and the highest-rated museums in the world. They'll try to trick you with baseball and hot dogs—the real ones, not those skinny tubes of fat they sell in New York—and all that other claptrap.

They might even try to confuse you with "facts" and "truth," but don't be fooled. It’s a crime-infested, corrupt, leftist, sleazebag hellhole here and it’s especially dangerous now that there’s a fatwa against suburbanites who venture east of Harlem. (Especially you, Schaumburgians!!)

There’s a bounty on the heads of all the conventioneers who get lost in the most-logical street grid on earth and there’s a shoot-on-sight order for anyone who comes for that stupid NASCAR thing over Fourth of July weekend. It’s a combination of The Purge and Saw, but all day every day, all summer long.

Whatever you do, stay away from Chicago this summer. No matter how careful you are, you will absolutely be murdered, assuming you weren’t carjacked and left for dead on the way into town.

If you’re still feeling lucky, punk, you should definitely wait to come here after Labor Day, or maybe November, just to be safe. By then, all the gang leaders will have moved down to their mansions in Cuba and the immigrants will be at their vacation homes in Texas and Florida. Businesses will be operating again and we’ll have at least 50 people on the police force. Granted, all of them will be named Fife, but we do the best we can. According to the actuaries, you’ll have a 74% chance of surviving your visit here if you show up after summer is over; and up to 78% if you don’t leave your hotel room.

Just remember, you’ve been warned. There’s nothing worse than being a tourist in Chicago in the summer, so stay out of our toddlin’ town if you know what’s good for you. Those of us who already live here will try, ever so bravely, to make the most of our summertime agony, and we’ll let you know when/if it’s safe to pay us a visit. Definitely not until after Labor Day, though. We'll let you know.

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Adapting to life’s challenges, mastering the club sandwich and the exciting world of fountain pens, because we only write about the most important stuff..

1. Chipotle recently reported a gigantic jump in quarterly earnings, thanks largely to a sharp drop in the price of the avocados that are included in roughly HALF their transactions. Meanwhile, egg prices dropped 28% from January to March. As a result, we can expect all the restaurants that were adding a 3% inflation fee to every bill to shift to a 3% refund from now on.
   
2. I spent a few years with sinus problems that caused me to lose my sense of smell. When I finally recovered, I was disappointed to rediscover all the noxious odors in the city. I’ve had a similar experience as I’ve returned to the real world after Covid and encountered more of my fellow humans in public. Not the smells, so much, as the noxious part.
   
3. Who was the genius who decided that club sandwiches should be cut into quarters so that the middle falls out and you end up with mayo stains on your shirt and pants? I don’t know for a certainty, but I kinda suspect it was a dry-cleaner.
   
4. Weathermen predict 20 of every 3 snowstorms, economists predict 8 of every one recession, and conspiracy theorists predict 500 of every one conspiracy. It’s not surprising that the only predictions they talk about are the ones that come to pass; the surprising part is when people accept, “I told you so,” as a statement of fact.
   
5. This guy spent about 15 minutes telling me about his collection of fountain pens and I found the whole thing fascinating. I was never that interested in pens and I cannot say he convinced me to take up the hobby, but his own passion for the topic rubbed off just a bit. And while I was learning more than I ever thought I wanted to know, it occurred to me that you don’t have these conversations on Zoom calls or via text. You have to get out into the real world with real people, in 3D and Technicolor, if you’re ever going to expand your horizons.
   
6. Life challenges don’t seem to bother me as much as they did when I was younger. Does that mean I’m getting wiser, or have I just run out of energy? In the same vein, when I think some new development is ill-advised or downright stupid, am I demonstrating the wisdom of my years or simply being a cranky old codger?
   
7. I have found the secret to eternal life and it turns out it is easier than I ever dreamed possible. Every morning I go to social media and there’s another list of 100 places to go before you die, 83 life hacks to know before you die, 50 meals to eat before you die...and I just realized if I don’t read any of these posts, I’ll never die. So far so good.
   
8. Every so often I’ll walk into a furniture store and the saleswoman will tell me to make myself at home. Then they get mad when I take them up on the suggestion.
   

 
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The speech that every new college graduate needs to hear, but they won’t, because the international educational conspiracy has cancelled me once again.

On behalf of the trustees, the faculty and our staff, and especially on behalf of our sponsor, Subway, I extend my warmest welcome and congratulations to all of our graduates, your families, your friends, and your emotional support gerbils.

Today’s graduation ceremony is unlike any other in the history of our university, because yours is a graduation class that is unique. You began your journey in these ivied halls in 2019, gaining the wisdom passed down through generations and enjoying the opportunity to study together at one of the many Subway restaurants that we are so proud to host on our campus.

Your time on campus was interrupted in 2020 and 2021 as the Covid crisis forced us to shift to remote learning and required so many of you to make the difficult adjustment to ordering your Subway sandwiches delivered to your parent’s basements.

I should note here that the university makes no judgments regarding Covid, whether it was real or not, whether it came from a lab or an animal, assuming it existed at all, or whether the university truly deserved the $22 billion we received in emergency funding from the federal government. We are quite justifiably proud of our ability to continue providing the valuable educational enrichment that is our hallmark and for our success in rejecting refunds for the campus housing you paid for before we sent you home.

All’s well that ends well, though—as you might have learned if we still taught the writings of dead, white, foreign men—because you were able to return to campus for this, your final year of studies, and enjoy the camaraderie of friends and colleagues, especially during study sessions at Subway.

Beyond the disruptions caused by Covid, which might or might not have been real or justified, your class is unique in many other ways. Yours is the first graduating class to spend four years without ever having to listen to a any speakers you disagreed with or take classes with any instructors whose opinions did not match yours 100%. As you move forward into the working world, we know this singular focus on your needs, your sensitivities and your triggers will serve you well in your dealings with co-workers and employers.

Of course, your advancement into the working world will also be unique, since 94 percent of your jobs have already been replaced by the same artificial intelligence you’ve all been using to write your term papers. Whether you planned to enter the field of marketing, law, accounting, or pretty much anything else, your skills became obsolete on day three of your junior year.

Yes, we were aware of it at the time and we did not tell you or change our curriculum, but you all clicked “agree” on our Terms of Service and there will be no refunds. I know this will disappoint some of you, but we like to think of it as one final lesson that we can provide in our continuing and often thankless mission to give you the kind of education you so richly deserve.

I know that many of you are already feeling nostalgic for the university experience, or at least that’s what it says in the speech draft that I ordered from Chat GPT, so let’s go with that idea. Even as you must depart our hallowed halls, after paying the full damage deposit for the dorm room you might or might not have occupied, we offer you a special opportunity to continue your education through our new graduate degree program.

Our new Masters of Adulthood program is a forward-looking, multi-discipline amalgamation of educational opportunities that have not been available to you until now. Through our unique curriculum, you will learn how to balance a checkbook, mail a letter, repay your student loans, distinguish between real people and deep fakes in both print and 3D, move out of your parents’ basements, and repurpose your Subway sandwich wrappers to make eco-friendly underwear.

Tuition for our new graduate program is payable in advance, in cash, because we know you’ve all maxed out your student loan limits and you really have no job prospects at this point. Think of this as your first important lesson in being an adult, and it is totally free to you to gain this tiny morsel of wisdom.

Also totally free, we have created a lifetime membership for each of you in our alumni association, so that we can stay connected and you can maintain your support of our fine institution in this life and beyond. Just to be clear, you will have to pay the full costs of membership for the rest of your life, but we did not charge any administration fees for enrolling you and clicking “agree” on the Terms of Service. You are so very, very welcome.

Finally, in closing, and accordance with our consent decree, I must say is has been a pleasure and an honor to provide you with an invaluable educational opportunity here. As you continue your life’s journey, I know we will always be connected by our shared mission and values, as well as your alumni association membership. I know we can rely on you to represent our university with pride, with integrity, and with donations, and that you will always, always remember to Eat Fresh.

Now that all the university presidents have read this speech, I know I’ll be busy making appearances at hundreds of campuses next year. I’ll provide a sneak peak at my 2024 invocation for subscribers, so click here and you’ll be the first to know.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I turned 70 yesterday and I recognized my actual birthday for the first time in a decade.

It’s not that I’ve been pretending to be young for the last bunch of years, as if anyone would be fooled by my futile imitation of youth. Instead, I opted ten years ago to move my officially sanctioned birthday from May to June, forsaking the day that mom chose to toss me into the world.

Mostly, it’s been a nice shift. I get to pay lots of attention to all the moms on my roster on Mother’s Day and I have my own little moment for celebration that I don’t have to share with anyone else. There have been complications, though, including the fact that I can’t always remember exactly which date I picked for my new birthday observance. So, when people ask me to remind them of my new date, I have to stop and look it up. As I get older, this situation is not likely to improve.

Then there’s the issue of social media, with Facebook inviting people to send me greetings on my actual nativity date and declining my attempts to change their records to acknowledge my new benchmark. I suspect they’d allow me to change my gender at this point, but birthdays are absolutely non-fluid. So, on May 13, I get B-Day wishes from some people and questions about the “real” date from others and I get the feeling people think I am even weirder than they thought before. As if that was possible.

And it has become just a bit uncomfortable when I exchange greetings with people who have the same birthday as me, including one of my cousins. They all know I’ve deserted them and, TBH, I’ve started to feel just a bit guilty about my betrayal.

The final straw, though, is the aging process itself. I’m not quite at the point where George Burns announced, “At my age, I don’t buy green bananas,” but I’m getting closer all the time. The idea of delaying a birthday celebration, even if only for a few weeks, just keeps getting dumber and dumber.

So it’s back to Friday the 13th and conflicts with Mothers’ Day and weather that isn’t nearly as warm as it is in June and restaurants that haven’t opened their patios yet, because this is my day of infamy and I can rely on Facebook to remind me when it arrives.  

Of course, my reversal of my reversal is turning a lot of people into really bad friends. If you didn’t wish me a happy birthday yesterday, you are seriously late and there is no excuse for your failure to remember my very special day. Yeah, you’re going to whine that you didn’t know and I just told you today, but the truth is that you were never a good person to begin with and you’ve let me down yet again. Honestly, I don’t know what I ever saw in you.

Of course, you can make it up to me with a belated birthday gift that reflects the level of your remorse at your transgression. Just as a reminder, I wear a size 42 Armani or a 911 Porsche.
 

Avoid the embarrassment of missing the news if/when I change my birthday again by clicking here to subscribe to future posts.
 
 
 

Leaning in to the boycott market, the new biggest lies in business, and the Olympic sport where I’d win gold…among other ramblings this week.

1. On average, men earn more money, do less housework, and never need to strain themselves to poop out any babies…and we still die five years sooner than the average woman.  Apparently, we wouldn’t get past the age of seven without the Patriarchy.
2. The owner of the diner was complaining that the price of a dozen eggs had more than doubled over the past year, jumping from about $1.50 to more than $3.00, and I felt bad about it, at first. Then I did the math. A dozen eggs at $3.00 is 25 cents per egg, so the two eggs in my breakfast order cost him 50 cents. Yeah, that’s up from 25 cents a year ago, but I’m paying $11 for my Sunrise Special and that doesn't include the coffee.
   
3. I have a friend who’s still trying to unload a ton of excess face masks and hand sanitizer from 2021, but help is on the way. I convinced him to send samples to a couple of trans influencers and the backlash will start in three…two…one… All his inventory will fly off the shelves as boycotters snap it up to burn it, run it over with tractors and, most photogenic of all, shoot it. I just hope he remembers to double the prices before the boycotts begin.
   
4. Why do people waste their time posting about things that will never happen, as if they’re adding some deep insight in the process? We aren’t going to abolish the Electoral College, since too many states benefit from it to vote against their own interest. We aren’t going to rerun the 2020 election. We aren’t going to outlaw guns. I wonder sometimes if people really think any of this is even possible, of if they’re looking for an excuse not to do anything real.
   
5. Why do they put warning signs on the floor or on the highway to alert us that surfaces are slippery when wet? Exactly what isn’t slippery when wet, and isn’t that the whole point of wet in the first place?
6. The biggest lies in business used to include, “The check is in the mail,” and "The cab will be there in two minutes,” but times change and lies must evolve to reflect our brave new world. Now, the top signs that your vendors are lying to you will come in the form of emails that begin “In order to serve you better…,“ “Giving you more of what you want…,” or “Your points just got much more valuable,” Then, it’s pretty much guaranteed we won’t be served better, we’ll be getting less of what we want, and all our points are worthless. Is it even doublespeak anymore if the meanings are 100% clear?
   
7. It turns out that talking is great exercise for the lungs and the more you talk, the less you need to do any of that aerobic crap. It will come as a surprise to no one that I am almost an Olympian.
   
8. All of us were getting 25 miles per gallon in sedans, but gas was cheap, so we traded for SUVs that get only 17 mpg. When gas prices rose last year, we didn’t kick ourselves for buying less efficient cars, though. We blamed Joe Biden, or oil company profiteering, or both.  
   

 
We’re all about giving you more of what you want at Dad Writes and we’ll be serving you even better if you click here to subscribe. In complete candor, though, there won’t be any check in the mail.
 
 

Tax time is just around the corner and, once again, Dad Writes is here to save our readers $trillions in unnecessary payments to the evil jackbooted thugs at the Internal Revenue Service.

Don’t be intimidated by the impenetrable forms and rules that the government puts out to cower us into compliance, and ignore all the so-called “experts” like “certified” public accountants. We’re just as certifiable as any of them and we know what the mainstream media won’t tell you.

Everyone knows there are two sets of rules in terms of tax liability. One is for the poor schlubs who pay all the bills and the other is for the ultra-rich, the people who can afford yachts and islands and an entire Disney+ bundle. The ultra-rich have their own tax code, which is how they pay 0.07% of their income in taxes while the rest of us are tossing back a quarter for every buck we earn. Never fear, though, because there are plenty of special tax tricks for regular folks, if you know where to look.

We hacked the IRS system, or, um, we heard from a friend of a friend that someone else—not us—might have hacked into the IRS system, and we might have found some super-secret tax breaks just lying on the street. Yes, that’s it. But now that we found those tax breaks, quite by accident and with no hacking whatsoever, we are exercising our First Amendment Rights to share them with our readers.

For instance, did you know…

1. If the Air Force shot down one of your weather balloons, it’s a fully deductible casualty loss. If your balloon was destroyed and unidentifiable, no worries. Just send in a photo of a balloon and tell the IRS how much it was worth.
   
   
2. If your self-driving car ran off the road and killed a moose, you can deduct the cost of the car, but you must recognize the moose as income. However, if you only grazed the moose, you can claim it as a dependent.
   
   
3. If you’re one of the countless Americans with classified documents taking space in your guest bedroom, the cost of storage is fully deductible, as long as you’ve filed Form 4546 with the FBI.
   
   
4. If you’re being forced back into the office, but you still work at home sometimes, you can deduct the cost of your travel from one “office” to another. You’re not commuting anymore so it’s inter-office travel and fully deductible. Well, we think that’s the new rule. Try it out and let us know how it goes.
   
   
5. If you lost money on an investment tip from George Santos, the loss is not deductible because, seriously, you should have known better.
   
   
6. If you bought a bunch of flag lapel pins to show you’re a true American, but now you have to replace them with AR-15 lapel pins, you can deduct 50 times the cost of the originals, one for each star. However, this deduction only applies if the pin was made in the USA and not China, so forget it.
   
   
7. If you sent a politician an emergency donation of $7 before midnight, but you still didn’t get your country back, you might be able to write off the payment, since it was really a loss due to fraud and not a political contribution.
   
   
8. If you did get your country back, you must declare the entire value of the United States as a capital gain, minus our national debt and, of course, the $7 you sent by midnight.
   
   
9. If you lost 100% of your investment in crypto currency, it’s fully deductible, assuming you can prove that crypto had any real value to begin with.
   
   
10. If you lost 100% of your investment in a Non-Fungible Token, it’s fully deductible, assuming you can prove that NFTs had any real value to begin with.
    
    
11. If you lost 100% of your investment in meme stocks…you get the idea.
    
    
12. If you won a bet after getting into an argument with someone on Twitter and they actually conceded that you were right and they were wrong, you owe no taxes on your winnings. That’s because the tax code doesn’t apply when you are clearly living in a parallel universe.
    
    
13. If you spent $500,000 entertaining a "friend" you met after he or she became a Supreme Court Justice, you must pay a 35% gift tax on your expenditure. If you consider it a marketing or lobbying expense, you may deduct the full cost. The Supreme Court Justice does not need to declare anything.
    

 
There’s much more, of course, including the special tax credit for defaulting on your student loans, the 150% deduction for hosting a banned book bonfire, and the always popular “cash receipts” switcheroo. Unfortunately, we can’t divulge all the secrets here, so you’ll have to ask your tax professional about those other tax-saving techniques.

We’re not allowed to disclose how many trillions of dollars our subscribers have saved by following our unique tax advice, but let’s just say it’s well worth the price of clicking here to subscribe.