What's IN/OUT this week

Happy Halloween, haters and ghouls. I have been overflowing with essay ideas lately and cannot wait to start pecking them out. I also cannot wait to learn how to do things like “working ahead” and “time management.”

IN: Regional terminology. I almost used the phrase “Devil’s Night” in some Chicago-centric work, but remembered that it is not a term this city is familiar with. Only a few areas in the country (including my hometown of Pittsburgh) use Devil’s Night to refer to Halloween Eve, when kids get to mischiefin’ — toiletpapering and egging homes, that kind of thing. I distinctly remember taking the jack-o'-lanterns inside as a kid, because pumpkin-smashing was a common hooligan activity. I didn’t know Devil’s Night was a regional thing until I took this quiz, which is SO FUN (go take the quiz! I’ll wait!). The main region that uses the term is Michigan, and I know I have Hater’s Guide fans there (Hater Aiders? we’ll workshop it), so — thumps chest — Hello to my brothers. OUT: My spooky-ass inbox. In between all of the horrendous headlines, I’m now getting pummeled with updates about needing to choose new health insurance for 2026 (luckily, I live in one of the states that created its own marketplace). I haven’t opened a single one of these emails yet; I’m way too scared to see how much my premiums are about to increase. That said, if you have great health insurance and are looking to support the arts by entering into a sexless marriage with me, my DMs are open!!!

IN: Home remedies. There is a trad wife pleasure that settles into my heart when DIY tricks actually work. We’ve had some fruit flies in the apartment, but I mixed up some dish soap and apple cider vinegar in a shallow dish, then covered it in plastic wrap with holes punched in it. This dumb solution works so well!! Every time I observe my killings, a different kind of pleasure settles into my Devil’s Night heart. OUT: Fruit flies, still. They’re not entirely eradicated. But we persist, blah blah.

IN: Finding those old checkout cards inside of library books. Ughhh (*knees creak*) remember borrowing a book from the library and seeing that your sister’s classmate had also checked it out in March of 1994??? Does gen Z know about this? Back when we were all breathing heavily into the home phone to call our crush, we were also able to see a list of everyone who sneezed into a book before you, too, got to take it home and gently defile its pages. OUT: Old-ass book stains. I know it could be anything — a crumb! A splash of rain from 1973! — but I am going to assume that any yellow, crusty stain in a library book is boogers. It’s fine, though. I’m no longer eligible for a COVID vaccine so I have to settle for the natural immunity provided by a book printed during the George H.W. Bush administration.

IN: Learning that my friend’s gen Z cousin thinks that hanging out with us (millennials) feels like “being on Broad City.” What does that mean?!? That we seem moderately unhinged but hilarious? That we’ll never really have it together but are, again, hilarious? That we’ll never find well-paying work but are hilarious despite it all?? I refuse to ever learn what she means by this, and I’ll laugh about it forever. OUT: Thinking about my age. Who cares! It’s Scorpio season — MY SEASON — and Scorpios don’t actually age (?). In any case, this is what I would be as a cheese plate.

Tell me what you hated this week!