OK, back to basics, Observer. Get hold of yourself. Give the people what they want, which is escapism! If you don’t, this column is eventually just going to devolve into The Prophecies of Hickstradamus at some point in the next four years: “The Orange Vulture perches in the fig tree. The great snake eats Moonpies and Royal Crown Cola by starlight …” That kind of thing. Nobody likes that. Too much deciphering and such.

So what to write about then?

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Surely not sleeping, as we’re not doing much of that, and what little we do get always ends with — and we’re not making this up — waking up thinking: “Thank God, it was only a dream!” before reality comes flooding back and we realize that, yes, we live in a time when a living cartoon who was such an asshole they didn’t have to tweak his personality at all to make him a heel on WWE wrasslin’ is now president-elect of the United States.

Can’t write about history, of course, because we are all immersed in it up to our eyeballs right now, with The Observer trying to remember every fleeting, terrible moment — every unhinged tweet, every proud bigot named to the Cabinet, every YouTube video featuring a newly emboldened Trumpie tripping the light Klantastic on a stranger (inevitably punctuated by “WHOOOOO!”). That way, years hence, when we sit around the campfire in our rags and look into the faces of the filthy, starving children who grew up in the ruins, we can recall for them how it all went down.

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Not social studies, because who gives two shits about that anymore, with all its boring talk of democracy and dictatorship and the siren’s cry of the racist demagogue, drawing grand ships of state onto the rocks? Not us! No siree. We will, however, talk about the Electoral College, if only to say: Please Red State Electors, we’ve got our differences, but for the love of God, do something before it’s too late. Can’t you see there’s something terribly wrong with this guy?

Can’t really talk about quantum physics, of course, as we’re fairly certain that some wayward time traveler caused all this mess, “Back to the Future II”-style, by rolling over and smushing a moth after unwittingly impregnating his own grandmother while on a jaunt back to witness the election of President Bernie Sanders. We’re trying to confirm that theory, but given that millions of people just cast a vote for president based on the Facebook equivalent of “Vanishing Hitchhiker” and “Hook-Handed Maniac Who Stalks Lovers’ Lane” stories (“And then Killary said … Wheeeere’s my golden serrrrrveeerrrrrrr?”), we might just make some shit up and call it true. Becoming a purveyor of assorted magical realism and more fragrant puckey seems to be a pretty good career path at this point. Who knew The Observer had been doing it wrong all these years with this “factual news reporting” stuff? What a fool we’ve been!

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Can’t write about math, given that Trump got on Twitter this week and swore and bedamned that he won the popular vote “if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” Which means, of course, that if you take Clinton’s 2 million-plus popular vote lead, then subtract the votes cast by invisible liberal Muslim Mexican Nargles, divide by seven and carry the two, you wind up with, yep, just as we suspected: Donald Trump is a dangerous moron who will soon have access to nukes, squared. Somebody check our math there, please.

Can’t rightly write about chemistry, either, given that it gave us whatever hellish chemical soup it is that keeps Trump’s hair that color, hovering somewhere between “cheddar biscuit dough” and “pus.” Chemistry is also, come to think of it, responsible for his ridiculous orange skin, a fact that makes The Observer realize, with horror, that at some point in the next few months, frowning workmen will come to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. with their measuring tapes and tool belts for the express purpose of installing a goddamn spray tan booth in the White House, so that for the next four years, a doughy septuagenarian in a speedo and a hair net can get his weekly dip in liquid Doritos dust while speaking to a white supremacist through a frosted glass door about the future of this nation. That’s a lovely image, ain’t it? You can have that one for free, with hearty condolences.

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So, what to talk about? The weather, maybe. Finally got some rain. That’s good, right? Can’t really complain about that.

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