Time for your weekly edition of the Defector Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. You can also read Drew over at SFGATE, and buy Drew’s books while you’re at it. Today, we're talking bunk beds, working from home, good moms, undershirts, and more.
Your letters:
Michael:
Could you ever see yourself going back to a phone with a physical keyboard? What incentive would be necessary for you to do so?
Let’s Remember Some Samsung Sidekicks. The only way I go back to a phone like that is if, at long last, the tech industry pioneers a smartphone killer. I don’t know what form a smartphone killer would take on (not my job), I just know that the iPhone is now almost 20 years old and those losers in Silicon Valley haven’t invented a useful fucking thing since. People in 2026 are buying dumbphones, they’re so worn out from this glaring lack of innovation. It really pisses me off. This is the future, man. We should already have flying cars and robots that fuck like wildcats, and we should definitely have some sort of hovering screen in front of us that obviates the need to keep a microwaving rectangle in your pocket all day long. I will shit directly into Sam Altman’s tea if I ever meet him.
Until that blessed day, I have no problem with a touchscreen phone. It’s touchscreens everywhere else that I can’t abide. I hate them in cars, at ATMs, on tablets, at point of sale … they even have touchscreen slot machines, for fuck’s sake. What good is losing money at the slots if I don’t get to pull a lever? Fuck THAT. The touchscreen-ing of America has been a crime on par with genocide (NOTE: It is not a crime on par with genocide). It kills your dexterity, fucks with your coordination, and has rendered our construction workers and adult film actors as the only people left who know how to use their hands properly. Tactile pleasures are being wrested from us, and I’m bitter about it. Imagine going your whole life without being able to push a button. Horrible life. Next question.
Brian:
Today my teenage children (one male, one female) were horrified when I advised them that the reason there are no TP rolls next to urinals is because men don’t wipe after peeing. They were scandalized and said I’m a filthy wretch. I can kinda understand my daughter not knowing, but my son has been around plenty of urinals. He said only pees in stalls and says he wipes his dong tip after. Now, I absolutely don’t care how he pisses, but he’s fucking with me, right? He’s 16 years old. I feel like I may have failed in some way I can’t fully comprehend or articulate.
I’ve had to dab after peeing. I don’t always have to, but sometimes a little wad of TP helps to clean up any dribbles that come out after the main event. This was especially true when my compulsive urinating—which I will not describe in any further detail, because you might be eating as you read this—was at its worst. This is why I’ve always loathed khakis; if you don’t catch those dribbles, they’ll make themselves publicly known the second you walk out of the men’s room. So I get why Brian’s son here picked up the dabbing habit early and made it part of his standard bathroom routine. You don’t have to make a Sebastian Maniscalco face at this discovery. In this column, we do not believe in pee shaming.
Also, I’m kinda intrigued by the idea of TP by a urinal. Sometimes I wanna blow my nose while I’m in the john, too. Or I could start a spitball fight with the man next to me! I bet he’d get a kick out of that!
Mark:
I just spent two lovely weeks touring Drew’s home continent of Australia and almost every restaurant or pub I went into very clearly stated that they add 10%-15% to every bill on a public holiday. How long until that practice makes it way across the Pacific?
Plenty of restaurants in the U.S. hand you a bill with the tip already included, especially for larger parties. Or the check includes those little calculated tip boxes at the bottom so you can decide how generous (or how much of a miserly prick) you’d like to be. I’m going by memory here, but the auto-added tip in the States is usually 20 percent. If you’re hoping that a lower percentage tip becomes the standard here, or you’re still hoping that we do away with tips altogether, you’ll be waiting until you’re in the grave. A bunch of notable American restauranteurs, Danny Meyer foremost among them, tried ditching the tip system in favor of paying their workers a proper salary. Their efforts never gained widespread traction, so now we’re right back where we started. But hey, thanks to DoorDash Grandma and President Shit For Brains, those tips are no longer taxed! BEST PRESIDENT EVER?
Nick:
You ever had to change the sheets on a bunk bed? Holy fuckin hell.
Oh fuck you Nick for bringing back that memory. Yes, I had to change the sheets on a bunk bed back when my kids were small and two of them shared a room. Due to my legitimate back problems, my wife would handle the fitted sheet on the top bunk most of the time. But sometimes I had to do it, and OH GOD, FUCK. The kids’ bunk bed was in the corner of their bedroom, so that far corner of the fitted sheet was the final boss. Agony. Pain. Misery. I tried to make it easier on myself by lying on the top mattress while securing the final corner, but A) that meant I had to climb up to the top bunk, which itself was awkward and painful, and B) fitted sheets are more difficult to maneuver when a 225-pound man is lying on top of one. I’m so glad we don’t have bunk beds anymore. Or cribs, or Pack-N-Plays, or car seats, or any other small child accessory designed to render you a permanent hunchback. If my kids expect to help with any of that shit when I’m a grandpa, they can go straight to hell. No passing GO.
Andrew:
I’m currently at a convention for nerd shit (MagicCon Las Vegas, I know there must be some other members of the Defectorate here because the game attracts lawyers like shit attracts flies), and when taking a dump at the convention center, the song “Danger Zone” came on the radio. I started cracking up in the stall and thought to ask: what’s the funniest song to take a dump in a public restroom to?
The answer is and will always be “Slow Ride,” by Foghat. And it can’t be at a low volume. Every public restroom keeps the music at ambient levels. But should “Slow Ride” ever come up in the rotation, the AI bathroom DJ needs to crank that shit up. I want Foghat to rock those turds right out of my body. Let their massive riffs do all of the work whilst I, the pooper, take it easy. Sleazay, even.
And if I’m at the urinal, my choice would be “Jetstream,” by Doves. If that came on, I’d stick around the urinal another few minutes to wipe my meatus.
Different Andrew:
My wife & I have been married for 16 years and have only rarely had points of appreciable disagreement. However, last week she got her hair cut and it's awful. Dreadful, frankly. Like, it's not a perfect 1:1 comparison, but it most-resembles Gary Oldman's hair in The Fifth Element. Our daughters and I all hate it. How, exactly, do I (or my children) go about begging her to never get her hair cut like this again?
In my personal experience, you never need to inform a woman that they got an ill-advised haircut. They figure that out on their own, mere minutes after walking out of the salon. I’ve seen a bad haircut put the women in my life down for weeks at a time. The hair grows back, but the scars never do.
You, the close observer, don’t need to interfere in this grief process. You might get a shovel to the face if you do. Or you might be in a healthy marriage where you can tell your wife it’s not the hairdresser’s best work and she won’t take your observation personally. But that’s not as funny as the thought of your wife killing you because you told her she looks like the lead singer of King’s X.
Ken:
Am I the only logical Vulcan mind that is bothered whenever the home crowd boos what is CLEARLY the correct call made by the officials? There are giant replays that show in 4K (or maybe even 8K) that the ref made the right call, but they still boo whenever it goes against their home team. Why? It's ILLOGICAL!!! Please tell me I'm not the only one that thinks it's stupid.
You’re probably the only one. What good is home-court advantage if the crowd RESPECTS the officials? As a fan, I am there to make sure that the other team, which also includes the refs, are as miserable as possible all game long. That’s why, even if I see a proper call being made, I will boo the unholy shit out of the ref that made it. I don’t want them to call the game fairly. I want every call to go in favor of my team, even if it’s the wrong one. I don’t care if the Jumbotron corrects my gut reaction, and I really don’t care if the officiating crew huddles for a 17-minute replay break to make sure they got everything exactly right. I’m there to stand by my team and scream FUCK YOU at anyone who won’t do the same, neutral observers included. I’ll boo a good call while watching the game on TV, that’s how dedicated I am to my craft. You think I’m gonna let the Packers have another call go their way and then say, “Actually OK, that was the right thing for Bill Vinovich to do.” Hell no. FUCKING BURN THEM ALL.
Kyle:
I'm a person who attends a lot of live baseball each summer. Everywhere I go, no matter the level of play, the seventh inning stretch routine is the same: a giant sing along to "Take Me Out To The Ballgame. Except, in place of the lyric "root root root for the HOME TEAM" as the song is traditionally sung, the lyrics are replaced with the actual name of the home team. I HATE THIS. I insist on always singing "HOME TEAM" because those are the lyrics to the fucking song! I know Americans can't agree on anything, but fucking hell it's an old Americana song about the joy of attending a live game, not a personalized karaoke list. Is this where the great divide in this country started? Am I crazy for being so mad about this, and am I correct to blame The Cubbies for this bastardization?
Like Ken, you are also wrong. Whoever wrote “Take Me Out To The Ballgame,” probably David Bowie, clearly put “home team” into the lyrics as a placeholder. Of course an actual home crowd is gonna swap in the name of their own team at a game. Why would they keep it genericized? Because it’s fair? When you sing along to “Eleanor Rigby,” Kyle, do you swap out her name and just sing, “Anonymous woman, picks up the rice in a church where a wedding has been?” Try to think about this issue as a practical matter.
Also, save your ire for when fans here in D.C. scream out the “O” in the final stanza of the national anthem. They do it for every team, in every sport. Motherfucker, this isn’t Baltimore. Why are you doing this shit at a Spirit game, anyway? Grow up, you fucking losers.
HALFTIME!
Aaron:
I work in an office and I usually wear nice, cotton, long-sleeve, button-down shirts. My problem is that my armpits get really sweaty by the end of the day, even in a cool office. So I usually wear undershirts. However, I never see any other male co-workers wearing undershirts and it makes me feel less professionally dressed, especially at events where everyone is wearing suits with no ties. If I took my jacket off in that situation, it would not be good. I try to wear undershirts in colors that match my dress shirts, which makes it seem nicer, I hope. But there's no solution for the white shirt and suit look. What's your advice?
Wait, what? No one else in your office wears undershirts? I may not have worked in a proper office in decades, but I have a hard time believing that undershirts ceased regular use in the intervening years. You’re supposed to wear one under a dress shirt to mitigate pitting. That’s why undershirts exist! That’s why they sell them in packs at TJ Maxx, and in like six different varieties! You can buy them in a crew neck, a V-neck, a tank top, and probably some sort of male camisole if you prefer. And they all come in white, so that they don’t show through your best Thomas Pink shirt. Who are all these magical, bone-dry men who no longer require the services of an undershirt? Did they spackle their pores shut? They’re the freaks Aaron, not you! Unless the email you’ve written me is entirely fabricated, in which case I will pull your nipples clean off.
If I take this question personally, it’s because I sweat as if my entire day is the 12th round of a boxing match. Even with an undershirt, I’ll pit out the dress shirt over it. I’ll pit out my hoodies, and not even in extreme heat. I’ll be comfortably ensconced in my home, with the thermostat at a nice 69 degrees, and my armpits will still gush fluid like a busted water main. Even if I wear anti-perspirant/deodorant, I’ll still sweat. It’ll just be sweat that smells like Arm & Hammer baking soda. If anything, I need to wear six undershirts at all times. And they need to be made out of the same sweat-wicking fibers that the Artemis crew probably had to wear under their spacesuits.
So if you’re one of these layer-shamers working inside Aaron’s office, you can go and eat my ass. After I’ve worked out.
Sue:
Last week, you wrote that you never want to see another musical biopic. I know Anthony Bourdain meant a lot to you. Are you planning to see the movie Tony? I just watched the trailer, and the way it ends—having Dominic Sessa (who was fantastic in "The Holdovers") look right into the camera and say the words "Anthony Bourdain"—didn't exactly get my hopes up.
Feels pointless, doesn’t it? There’s nothing about Anthony Bourdain’s life that wasn’t already documented, either in his writing, on his television show, or both. The man’s television show was his life, and any part of it that he strategically withheld from view has already been unearthed by his fellow journalists (especially me!) and on screen by documentary filmmakers. So I’m not seeing much intrinsic value in a Bourdain biopic, especially when he’s only been deceased for eight years. When it comes to pop history, Hollywood despises having to wait. That’s why they already made Kitchen Confidential into a TV show, and also why everyone hated it.
I’m sure Sessa will do a great job in Tony, and I’m sure the movie will be decent in the way that authorized biopics can often be. But there won’t be anything new on display. Tony will just be a rehash of things that you and I learned about the guy ages ago. If they really want to honor the gonzo spirit of Anthony Bourdain, they’d make an unauthorized biopic that has nothing but insane lies in it. He would’ve liked that more than a hip piece of Oscar bait.
Noe:
I'm not into watching golf on TV, but you've said that you are. Have you seen that TopGolf kind of competition on ESPN? The one where the pros are straight up hitting into a screen and playing a simulated game? They have a real green that I guess they drop balls into based on where the simulator said they landed. Are golf sickos into this stuff? I'm assuming people are gambling on this, of course, but does anyone actually enjoy watching this? It always grabs my attention at the bar because of how ridiculous it looks, so I guess it's eye catching.
I have never heard of this. This is a real thing, and not make believe like the office where no one wears an undershirt? Let me see what the hell is going on here:
What the fuck? Jesus Christ, this is worse than a LIV golf event. I would never watch this. Even if we live through another pandemic—we’re all counting you, hantavirus!—I’d never watch it. Even at my pandemic lowest in 2020, when I tuned into cornhole because there were no other sports on, I still only watched cornhole for minutes at a time before flipping over to a movie instead. Watching Rory McIlroy do battle with Adam Scott in video golf doesn’t even reach that meager level of entertainment. Fuck this shit.
Ross:
I somehow have been working remotely now for over six years, and it’s driving me crazy. I have come to despise waking up, working, and finishing work in the same general area and my house without seeing another human being all day. My wife also works remotely and has also claimed the spare bedroom of the house to be her working space, so I’m stuck in the living room, creating even less separation from “work” and “not work.” The obvious solution would be finding an in-person job, but we moved to a rural part of upstate NY three years ago with essentially zero opportunity to find work in my field within an hour drive. And I feel too old to totally start over and change careers again. I can’t do this forever, or even very much longer at all without going totally crazy. What’s my next move?
You’ve come to the right place, Ross. I’ve been working exclusively from home since 2009. Like you, I also got cabin fever being stuck at home all day. Like you, I also missed the ritual of leaving home every day and interacting with people outside of it, even if those people were irritating co-workers. But there is a path to sanity for the remote worker, and I will not rest until I have helped you find it.
First of all, no more working in your living room. If your wife yoinked the guest room for her office, find a designated spot that will serve the same purpose for you. Maybe it’s another room in your house, or maybe it’s outside of your house altogether. It can be a library, a local Panera (my old colleague Rob Harvilla swore by their Wi-Fi), a WeWork-style shared office, whatever. What matters is that it’s a space that you use exclusively for working, so that you can keep your work life and your off-hours life physically, and therefore mentally, separate. Report to that workspace at set hours every weekday, as if it were a regular office. That way, your remote work will follow the same circadian rhythms as your old, in-person work. If you start out just working anywhere in the house, at any time of day, you’ll feel unmoored and your mind will rebel, as it is presently rebelling right now.
I started out my remote working career by setting up a dedicated office space in our basement. If that ever proved too stifling, I would fuck off to our local library and set up my laptop in that library’s quiet study room. As the months passed, I grew more comfortable with this new routine (hitting the local gym at midday every day always helped). I also got shit done, including writing all of The Postmortal. When that book proved to be a hit, we were able to take an uninsulated room in our current house and renovate it into a proper office for me. I still work in that office to this day, with no regrets. I just needed time to adjust. Same goes for you. Best of luck, amigo.
Shane:
The next book you write is called “Furry With A Gun”. The cover art features a person dressed in an exquisite furry outfit, holding a gun. What is the beginning, middle and end of your story?
The beginning features our hero and his crew of furries attempting to rob BronyCon, but failing. Then a dedicated robbery/homicide detective catches onto the crew and makes it his personal mission to catch them when they attempt to rob the following year’s BronyCon. Then that detective, a real tightly wound fucker, realizes that furry culture appeals to him, even as he tries to deny it. He goes undercover as a Brony in preparation for the bust, and then falls in love with another Brony who’s working the con and supplying him with intel. When the robbers attempt to rob the ensuing convention, our hero cop and his new lover foil them and then, rather than turn the money over to the police, take it for themselves and run away together to Mexico. Fin.
NOTE: Bronies are not necessarily considered furries. This conflict will be addressed in the book through a series of humorous misunderstandings.
Email of the week!
Tarek:
In 1986 I loved LJN WWF wrestling figures. My parents didn't have much money, but they bought me toys that I wanted all the time as we had a hard time living as POC in Queens.
So we go to the Alexander’s department store on Queens Blvd to get me some LJN toys. The new series of figures were just out, and I badly wanted a Mr. Wonderful toy so that I could use him to beat up my Hulk Hogan doll.
We get there (and floor back of store) and it’s a madhouse. They are dumping figures into a bin as people are digging in. I go in and grab two figures, then I tell my mom, "Let me try one last time to get Mr. Wonderful." She waits. I run back in and find a Mr. Wonderful at the bottom of the bin!!!!
I pull him out and start walking to my mom, only for some some 1980s Karen tries to grab it from me. She starts yelling at me to let go, saying, "I grabbed it first." I'm a skinny and shy 12-year-old, so I quietly say, "No I grabbed it first, because no one saw it but me." She keeps pulling and yelling. My mom comes over from the register and says, "What’s happening?" This lady lies to my mom and says, "He took this from my hands!" My mom asks me, "Is this true?" I say, "No, I grabbed it first and the lady grabbed it while I was walking back to you" My mom says, “Take it to the register,” and then says to the lady, "My son doesn't lie to me. Get the fuck away from my boy.” My mom never curses. I walk to the register and my mom pays for the figures with the money she makes working six days a week, 40 hours a day as a waitress.
It’s been 40 years since that day. She turns 80 this coming Monday. Happy birthday Mom, and thanks for teaching me to always stand up for what’s right. I love you.
I love this woman, too. Good mom.
