What Stupid Thing Is Trending Now? (7/23/2017)

What is everyone on your social media feed up in arms about today? Right now, it's this:

After a woman claimed her father was the famed ocelot husbandry expert Salvador Dali, a court ordered his body exhumed for DNA testing. The man who had embalmed Dali, Narcis Bardalet, says his mustache has remained intact. "Salvador Dali is forever," he said, although that's a bit of an odd assumption. Was the mustache itself in control of Dali? Is this a Frosty the Snowman situation where the mustache could be placed upon another person or lump of clay, giving life to Dali again? Or is there an even more sinister ending to this story? The woman alleging to be his daughter, Pilar Abel, has stated that she looks strikingly like the dead painter, saying, "The only thing missing is the mustache." Ominous words, given the claim his mustache is in fact not missing, and could in fact be grafted to her upper lift, causing her body to become possessed by Dali's restless spirit. I'm not saying we should do this, just that we could, I mean I'm just spitballing here but like if anybody has any skills in grave robbing, uh, hit me up for unrelated reasons.

Trump, after being seated next to the Japanese First Lady Akie Abe at G20, is claiming that she didn't speak English. The small problem with this theory is that she does demonstrably speak English just fine. So what could possibly explain this discrepancy? There's really only one conclusion you can draw here: the First Lady completely forgot how to speak English in Trump's presence. Yes it's speculation, but I really think I'm onto something here. There's a phenomenon in psychology called a fugue state, where a person suffers temporary amnesia. Typically it's in response to war or trauma, but I propose that the glorious presence of President Trump was simply too intense for her consciousness to handle. The only other explanation I can think of is that she didn't want to speak to him, which is simply out of the question.

Editor's note: Our graphics team, while looking for photos of First Lady Abe, found images of her greeting and laughing along with the Bushes, Obamas, and Cheneys. Make of that what you will.

What seems like a simple story of a van called "Le Pimp Mobile," painted pink with voluptuous lip decals, is actually a tale of a small village in turmoil. The contentious van, parked near a street in North Devon, has drawn scathing criticism. A warning: the harsh language quoted ahead may cause more sensitive readers to pass out or vomit. And since this is happening in the UK, imagine them being spoken in the most British voice you can possibly imagine.

"It's not very nice at all," said the chairman of the village council. "It seems like a very odd thing to do," he continued. Ooooh snap, can you believe he just said that? This fracas has officially been upgraded to "brouhaha" levels of intensity.

"Not a nice view entering our beautiful village," said another resident. Jesus Christ, the kid gloves are coming off. One neighbor brought the conflict to a whole new level, saying, "It's degrading to women and nobody wants to see this foul van when driving into any village." My god, it's a miracle this village isn't swimming in its own blood as people take to the streets to bludgeon each other to death.

The owner of the van fired back with a vengeance, calling those offended "complaining do-gooders," then cackled loudly to the flash of lighting and boom of thunder, riding atop his pink van while manning a machine gun. In his defense, he claims the van is a protest not only against the poorly managed traffic near his home, but that the UK is the only country in the EU to ban prostitution. His ultimatum is that he'll remove the "hookers welcome" from the van if the traffic speed improves, but he's keeping "Le Pimp Mobile," because according to him, "that's just a laugh." It's just a laugh, until he mysteriously ends up stabbed to death the exact number of times as there are people living in the town.

I'm not naive. When someone claims that 15 pounds of frozen Italian sausage crash landed on their roof, I'm a tad skeptical. But if this sausage story is lies, how did they know the media would latch onto it so eagerly? Did the head of the family interrupt dinner to propose, "You know what will make us rich and famous? We buy 15 pounds of frozen Italian sausage, tie it up in bags labeled 'William Land Service,' and scatter them around our yard and roof. We alert the media, and then all we do is wait for that sweet sausage money to start rolling in." And yes, that detail about the bags being from "William Land Service" is what was alleged by the family. It would almost be disappointing if it turned out this wasn't a hoax, that there isn't someone creative enough to come up with this zany plot that blows Wes Anderson out of the water. Although, if there really is a merciful Sausage God raining mechanically separated pork products down upon us, may He reign eternal.

As far as sick burns go, telling someone they look like Winnie the Pooh is somewhere between a bad "Yo' mama" joke and yelling "I'm rubber and you're glue" before vomiting on your own jeans. But don't go throwing around any Hundred Acre disses towards President Xi Jinping, or your Pooh jokes will get blacklisted online. Really though, if you're going to end up committing light treason for memeing children's cartoons, there's plenty of options beyond a portly bear whose name sounds like poop. For example, you could compare Xi Jinping to Pumba from the Lion King, a fat pig who babbles nonsense and has trouble managing his carbon emissions. Or use Garfield, a heavy-set cat who loves lasagna and hates enforcing sanctions on the North Koreans over nuclear weapons. Don't be too mean, though. President Xi Jinping hates the freedom to criticize leaders as much as Garfield hates Mondays.

Contact lenses are one of those deal-with-the-devil sorts of things. Sure, they help you see, and evade the damaging stigma of looking like a sexy librarian. But they are a nigh invisible tiny disk you put directly onto your eye juices, letting it swim around there with the hope that you'll be able to retrieve that sucker and unstick it from your cornea. But what happens if you can't find it? What happens if they start to glob together, melting onto your eye like a horrible Symbiote? Then you end up with a "blueish mass bound together by mucus," and some horrified surgeon has to pull that monstrosity from your delicate eyeball. Maybe sexy librarian isn't such a bad look.