Clothes that go out of style the year after you buy them
Books devoted to helping women find a husband
Car bombs
Slurry
Embarrassment
Not having a comeback
Having the perfect comeback an hour too late
Cafeteria food
Death row
The end of the world
Soggy cereal
Sleepwalking
Not having any privacy
The unbearable lightness of being
The agony of defeat
Thin ice
The Yakuza
General Sherman's scorched earth policy
Eating an entire roast chicken
Boutiques that go out of business
Hydrogenated fat
Oral fixations
Illegal immigrants working in slaughterhouses
Unpaid internships
Getting older but not wiser
Other people's birthdays
Chicago in winter
People who yawn while you're talking
Reading travel magazines about places you can't afford to visit
The price of organic food
Contractors
False inferences
Chain restaurants full of kitschy fake Americana
Fundraising
Holy war
Homeland Security
Widows
Widowers
People who track dirt onto your floor
Corporate hatchet men
Homeowners' associations
Termites
Difficult clients
Aftershocks
People who wear face masks to go outside
Additional taxes and fees
A $175 hamburger made with real gold (this actually exists)
Coffee snobs
Ill-fitting suits
Alligator attacks
Lindsay Lohan
Big oil
Bad sushi
Actors who think they can sing
The connection between obesity and global warming
People who get lung cancer even though they've never smoked
Monster truck rallies
Cars with poor gas mileage
The rising unemployment rate
Being overqualified for your job
Being underqualified for your job
Fidel Castro
Humiliation
Waterboarding
Energy bills
First-degree murder
Second-degree murder
Third-degree murder
Roundworms
Overeaters Anonymous
People who are paid for being attractive
Unattractive neighbors who get the mail in their underwear
People who sell their kidneys to make rent
People with insatiable cravings for attention
Unrealistic expectations
Disequilibrium
Hurricane Katrina
The federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina
Withering self-assessments
Punishments that don't fit the crime
Little boys who want to be assassins when they grow up
Overcrowded homeless shelters
Deflated soufflés
Your work/life balance
Diabetic cats
Nannies with advanced degrees
Exterminators
Women who enjoy making men fight over them
Boxers who are killed in the ring
Retinitis pigmentosas—a hereditary condition that leads to blindness
The ban on gay marriage
People who give away the endings of movies
Politicians who sleep with prostitutes
Disaster fatigue
Margarine
The banality of evil
Waiting for test results
Scabies
The high levels of potentially toxic chemicals found in household pets
Bad stand-up comics
Nonbiodegradable materials
Dissecting rats
Tobacco companies
Radiation leaks
Casualties
Airlines that charge for checked baggage
Hearing your neighbors having sex
The fact that you're more likely to be overweight if your friends are overweight
New York City public schools
Budget cuts
Eczema
Antibiotic resistance
Low birth weights
Dowdy clothes
Arrested development
Juntas
Men with too much testosterone
Men without enough testosterone
The Peter Pan mentality
Stop-gap measures
Predictions that oil prices are just going to keep going up
Rhinoviruses
The Taliban
Deflation
Soldiers with inadequate body armor
Contaminated toothpaste
The Victorian belief that sex with a virgin was a cure for STDs
Jury duty
Formal wear
Carpooling with annoying coworkers
Not carpooling with annoying coworkers but feeling guilty about it
Clutter
Government corruption in New Jersey
Not having a contingency plan
Parents who can't stop offering advice
Disorganization
Competition
Feeling overwhelmed
Untrained workers on mental health hotlines
To-do lists
The Safety Dance
Lima beans
Being hit on at church
Propane tank explosions
Mutants
People who blog about their sex lives
Pathogenic bacteria
Marrying a man with an awful last name
Tainted pet food
Mechanical bulls
Railroad apartments
Your boss finding you on Facebook
Your students finding you on Facebook
The morning after
The D-list
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
Iron lungs
Ice storms
Athlete's foot
Hookworm
The Trail of Tears
Egotists
The news
Death traps
People who mispronounce the names of foreign cities
The death of Robert Altman
"Toxic jock" behavior
Potentially toxic chemicals found in Nalgene bottles
Dweebs
Wasting hours on instant messenger
People who wear chain mail as a fashion statement
Televangelists
Bedazzlers
McMansions
Fossil fuels
Serfs
Being thrust into the spotlight
The link between eating red meat and an increased risk of colon cancer
The Mafia
Nuclear proliferation
Innocent people who are wrongly convicted
Chemtrails
Orphans
Teenage runaways
Finance charges
Fecal matter coming into contact with meat in slaughterhouses
People who do stupid things for shock value
Bubblegum pop
Fantasizing about people you will never have sex with
Court-ordered community service
Orlando Bloom as an action hero
Fitness magazines that remind you how out of shape you are
Feeding frenzies
Relapses
Trinkets
The fact that the U.S. Air Force accidentally shipped six nuclear-tipped missiles across the country without knowing it
Alcatraz
Malfunctioning toilets
Artillery
Choppy water
Hypochondria
Using a slow internet connection
The smell of hair dye
Cars with no air conditioning
Jealousy
Parents who outlive their children
Raw nerves
Rising beer prices
Buckshot
Getting your hair cut
Swallowing a bitter pill
Having to send a fax when you don't have a fax machine
Biblical theme parks
Waxing your bikini line
Not waxing your bikini line
People who have no limbs
The Kennedy curse
Vintage clothes that cost more than new clothes
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance
Wine that's been in the fridge too long
Vendor relations
Rising rates of STDs among senior citizens
Cruise ships illegally dumping hazardous wastes into the ocean
Chernobyl
Skinheads
The fact that the average employee has a one-in-three chance of being fired
Credit card companies
Debtors' prison
Slave ships
Ghost towns
People with multiple personalities
Megastores
Stagnant wages
Dick Cheney
Trying to figure out how to work your digital camera
Death spirals
Being transferred
Catholic guilt
Gas vapors
Formaldehyde
The link between hair dye and an increased risk of lymphoma
Germs on doorknobs
"Economy-class syndrome"—blood clots in the legs caused by sitting too long in a confined space
Contaminated dirt around construction sites
E. coli
Flatworms
People who sneeze on the salad bar
Stomach cramps
Bad dancers
Pinching pennies
Amnesia
Urine samples
Hand-me-downs
The caste system
Finding out that the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train
Over-limit fees
Universal default
People who get crushed by falling pianos
Mistaken identity
Stagflation
El Ni?o
Low approval ratings
Disappearing glaciers
Lunges
Squats
The plight of the American South during Reconstruction
Skipping dinner to save money for drinks
Coveting thy neighbor's wife
Coveting thy neighbor's salary
Being strip-searched
Ice queens
Dogs eating their own shit
Dogs eating other dogs' shit
Turf wars
Sani Abacha—leader of bloody Nigerian coups
Not being in the mood
Bullet wounds
Mercantilism
Bad eggs
Increasing rates of childhood obesity in developing countries
Metallic leggings
Wannabes
The cold shoulder
Maoist rebels
Children with a sense of entitlement
Politicians who try to play up their working-class credentials
Post-traumatic stress disorder
Karma
Crane accidents
The disappearance of the early settlers of Roanoke Island
The fact that 20 percent of U.S. households are without internet access
"Free trials" that automatically enroll you in an expensive plan that's difficult to cancel
Favoritism
Hype
Riots
Flabby arms
Leopard print accessories
Banana hammocks
Geometric proofs
Business trips
Hair on the soap
Text-message breakups
Routine
Not liking his friends
Not liking her friends
Workaholics
Deer that get hit by cars
Cars that get hit by deer
Four-hour erections
Prerequisites
Cops who commit suicide
The seven-year itch
Bad investments
Vitamin deficiency
Macular degeneration
Nuclear testing
Naugahyde boots
Immense restaurant portions
Upbeat celebrities battling cancer
International incidents
Not being able to afford a personal trainer
Keeping up appearances
Funerals
The death of Princess Diana
Mystery meat
Finding out what happened on your favorite show before you've watched it
Alopecia, or spot baldness
Polluted rivers
Pacemakers
Dubious distinctions
Clay Aiken
Championship horses that break their legs and have to be put to death
Middle management
Ted Kennedy's brain tumor
Infectious diseases
Tasers
The smell of chlorine
Wasps
WASPs
Red-eye flights
The War of 1812
Trying to get a mortgage
Righteous indignation
Updating your résumé
Self-promotion
Rituals of manhood that involve being staked to a red ant hill
Sounding stupid
Eugenics
People who cancel plans
People who are born with vestigial tails
Men who spend more on hair products than most women do
Forgotten biographers of minor statesmen
Drool
Alex Rodriguez's $28 million salary
People who think they can play guitar
Recent reports indicating that NASA
"marginalized or mischaracterized" global warming studies
Accidentally setting your hair on fire
Kidney stones
Brown recluse spiders
Long wedding ceremonies
Sleet
Fashion magazines that make you believe you can actually reinvent yourself
Waking up next to someone you don't remember going to bed with
Codependency
Ugly ties
PCP
The Hapsburgs and the Hohenzollerns
Lost luggage
People who wear too much perfume
Reverend Jeremiah Wright
Nightmares
Hearing loss
Volcanic activity
Mucus
Lime-flavored Jell-O
Filling out the same information on twenty different job applications
Deer that eat your flowers
Bleeding Kansas
The death of Yves Saint Laurent
The fact that the FDA inspects only about 1 percent of all U.S. food imports
Men who cheat while their wives are pregnant
People who fake their own deaths for life insurance money
Studies suggesting a link between cell phone use and brain cancer
Variety shows
Corey Haim
Desertification
Looking at your high school trophies for sports you don't play anymore
Swollen lymph nodes
Ashes
Secondhand cars that smell like stale cigarette smoke
The impossibility of ever completely understanding the universe
Monotony
Accidentally running over small animals
Store clerks who stare at you blankly when you ask them a question
Setting off the airport metal detector
Prosthetic limbs
Dental abscesses
Losing an expensive pair of sunglasses
Having a hole in your underwear
Yuppies
Doctors who say "the patient is experiencing unexpected complications" when they mean "the patient is going to die"
Writers who have mastered everything but writing
Bathing in someone else's dirty water
Screenwriters working as telemarketers
Assistants to minor celebrities
Working the late shift at 7-Eleven
People who go to your funeral to make sure you're really dead
Toddlers incapable of being potty trained
Grocery carts that cause car accidents
Hazardous material removers
Websites dedicated to pictures of vomit
Being the before model in the before and after picture
Falling in love due to dim lighting
Feeling relieved to learn that your children have been kidnapped
People who don't realize that there is more than one sexual position
People with abnormal attachments to their pets
Countries united by the prospect of lucrative foreign wars
Men with Jesus beards
Men whose sexual fantasies come from science fiction
People who are greedy at work and greedy in bed
People who assume that God is whatever gender and ethnicity they are
Living with a hypochondriac
Discovering too late that your boyfriend is a sadist
Boat people
Being mistaken for a boy
Being mistaken for a girl
Underfunded museums forced to close
Grocery prices at Whole Foods
Secret police forces
Rattlesnakes
Mutiny
Small children choking on toys
Hummers in suburbia
People who are perpetually trying to find themselves
Opportunistic infections
People who win the Darwin Awards
Visa regulations
Quicksand
Brothels
Children who die trying to re-create stunts from movies
Paying retail price
Atmospheric radiation
Narcolepsy
The vastness of space
Obsessive-compulsive disorder
Nasty tricks
Red eyes in photographs
Stepfathers
Cheap beer
Getting a crack in your windshield
Talking to yourself out loud in public
Sleeping in your car
Mildew
Wrinkly necks
Dirty glasses
Pep rallies
Recipes that call for obscure ingredients
Trauma wards
The suffering of Job
Bipolar disorder
Wanting to save the world but not knowing how
The Alamo
Booty calls
The Boston Massacre
The possibility that your husband would rather have sex with little girls
Beggars
Industrial pollutants
Organic chemistry
Getting evicted
Chain gangs
Road work
Drug dealers
Rehab
The possibility that a snake will make its way out of the sewer system and into your toilet
Warren S. Jeffs—leader of a controversial Mormon polygamist sect
Chronic wasting diseases
Condors with lead poisoning
Lethargy
Yog-Sothoth
Dysmenorrhea
The available job prospects for philosophy majors
Methane
Heteronormativity
The Middle East
Catheters
Drag racing
Fertilizers in the water supply
Snobs
Sodomized polar bears
Environmental groups that waste paper by sending out junk mail
Wondering whether the person you're with is the person you ought to marry
Getting hit on at gas stations
Soul patches
Children who asphyxiate themselves with plastic bags
People who wear the same clothes for several consecutive days
Cobwebs
Bimbos
Men who like bimbos
Ballyhoo
The bogeyman
Domestic servants
The assassination of Robert F. Kennedy
People who are over thirty and are still being supported by their parents
Group e-mail lists where people ceaselessly debate minor points to distract themselves from the monotony of their lives
Drowning
Senescence
Pirates
Movies of the week
Having the same arguments over and over
Having nothing better to do than watch movies of the week
Health risks associated with energy drinks
Hit and run accidents
Unsolved mysteries
Salad that's been in the fridge too long
Eating pizza out of the garbage can
Having a weird name
The extinction of millions of insect species due to pollution
The fact that despite the extinction of millions of insect species due to pollution, cockroaches are doing just fine
Sodium benzoate—a preservative linked to cell damage
Missed free throws
Nuclear meltdown
Hepatitis A
Hepatitis B
Hepatitis C
Facebook applications
Jumping through hoops
The sinking of the Andrea Doria
The fact that the U.S. has the highest STD rates of any country in the industrialized world
Nicotine
The link between weight gain and antidepressants
Blackwater
Perky animated animals
Overweight miniature dogs
Skunks
The difference between life and '80s movies
The near-extinction of California condors
Burnout
Tightrope walkers who fall off their tightropes and die
Scheduling conflicts
Scatological humor
Polemicists
Neanderthals
Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals
Plutocratic democracy
Raunch culture
The possibility that overuse of hand sanitizer will lead to new strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria
Subway poles
Attachment disorder
Being raped by hyenas
Being in the wrong place at the wrong time
Windows that don't open
Forgetting favors you owe others
Remembering favors you owe others
Forgetting favors others owe you
Scuzzy motels
Melted snowmen
Printing errors
Eulogies for gerbils
Dog breath
Willful misunderstandings
Blaming your parents for the person you've become
Nantucket red
Spending your life savings on whores
Hearing your mother say "tits"
Bidets used as drinking fountains
Dead opossums
Ravens blotting out the sunset
Overexposed film
The bends
Swingers
Ungrateful invalids
The heart of darkness
Richard Nixon
Greasy men in overalls
Mustaches
The Milgram Experiment
Neglected grandmothers
Popular culture
Celebrity baby photos sold for millions of dollars
Feverish sell-offs on Wall Street
Automobile safety before Ralph Nader
Soap operas
Nazi sympathizers
Heat-seeking missiles
Anhedonia—the inability to experience pleasure
Opponents of miscegenation
Children named after rock stars
Bad dialogue
Quaaludes
Queasiness
Dozing at dinner parties
Evolutionary dead ends
Sensible shoes
Human refuse
Longing for the womb
Noblesse oblige
Poor vaginal hygiene
Distant thunder
Nearby thunder
Newly discovered diseases
Blacking out
Opportunists
Self-hating short people
Short circuits
Sixty-five-year-olds with Dorothy Hamill haircuts
Pitch-correction software that makes people who can't sing into pop stars
Strip mall family restaurants
Guilt management seminars
Haikus by seventh graders
Dirty bombs
Dirty bathtubs
Poison oak
Crypts
Being told to obey the Golden Rule
The eighth cup of coffee
The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey fire of 1944
Lakefill
Men who have sex with only virgins
Realizing your order is wrong after the delivery man has left
The nonexistence of magic carpets
The assumption that midgets are funny
Third times that are not the charm
Vengeance
People who romanticize victimization
Charles Taylor—accused war criminal and former president of Liberia
Children who are molested by priests
Losing your umbrella
Bulging eyes
Civilized predators
Parents who have favorite children
Children who have favorite parents
Psychosomatic symptoms
Grippe
Toothbrushes in toilet bowls
The Charge of the Light
Brigade
Ballerinas turned strippers
Not owning a villa in Tuscany
Tomb raiders
Prostate exams
The patriarchy
Mental asylums
Nagasaki
Minor league baseball players who never make it to the majors
Rigged elections
Penal colonies
Schools with honor codes that no one follows
The smell of carrion
Dancing on graves
Dilettantism
Museums that steal Greek antiquities from innocent farmers
Delighting in perceived superiority
Being judged by your kitchen
Spit valves
Being a finalist but not winning
Chinchillas skinned alive for their fur
People who take one bite out of every piece in a box of chocolates
Being asked what your call is regarding
Gratuitous references to Foucault
Elitist cemeteries
The sunk costs error
Children who are accidentally locked in refrigerators
Corporate takeovers
Being stabbed to death with a butter knife
People who rip your clothes off when you're wearing nice clothes
Class warfare
The Hellmouth
Why God permits suffering
Always blinking in photographs
Electroshock therapy
Turkish soldiers who tossed babies on their bayonets in front of their parents
Low ink cartridges
Antiquarianism
Forgotten epiphanies
Deadly nightshade
Schizophrenia
People who inform you about their bodily functions
The fact that Russian characters in old movies are always named Boris and Natasha
Having the same last name as a famous person
Having the same phone number as a popular restaurant
Zoonotic diseases
Drug patents that prevent the production of generic versions of lifesaving medicines
Research breakthroughs that come too late
Frontiersmen who had to bury their own wives
Self-diagnosis based on internet research
Syncope—a temporary loss of consciousness
Malnutrition
Stunted growth
Cow-tipping
Allusions you don't understand
Books of lists
Cantaloupe-sized tumors
Painfully tight hugs
Being unable to drink the water in foreign countries
Starving dogs
Underfunded hospitals
Guy Fawkes
Nero fiddling while Rome burned
People with family money
Nondisclosure agreements
Apartheid
Shrinking payrolls
Deathwatch beetles
Your neighbor refusing to lend you a cup of sugar
Unpronounceable names
Discovering you have siblings
Pubic lice
Trade embargos that result in starvation
Misdirection of public funds
Outdoor showers
Opportunity costs
Testing new drugs on poor people
Skinny legs
"When the evening is spread out against the sky like a patient etherized upon a table"
Roads through rainforests
Brood parasitism
Northern latitudes
The Middle Passage
Airborne viruses
Climbing stairs
Haunted houses
Unsterilized needles
The projects
Chaff
The suicide of Ernest Hemingway
Glasses that fog up when you come inside
Feeling guilty about taking your allotted vacation days
Nosebleeds
Skeletons
Children whose parents can't afford school supplies
Molluscum contagiosum
Vitamin deficiencies
Wearing the same dress as someone else at the same party
Tila Tequila
Sole lifts
Machine guns
Bad movie adaptations of Hamlet
Celebrity sex tapes
Dead babies
No guts, no glory
Plus-size models who are thinner than normal people
Surgical masks
People who dress as Jesus for Halloween
Jokes that aren't funny anymore
Jokes that were never funny to begin with
Grandmothers in bikinis
Miracle diets that don't work
Breath that smells like rotting meat
Chartless deserts
Men who cheat on their wives with their nannies
Succubi
Getting to hell before the devil knows you're dead
Liver and onions
Being born to suffer
Training bras
Other people's babies vomiting on you
Toilets in third world countries
Slow-burning fires of hatred
People who club their families to death with baseball bats
Mattresses that ruin your back
Teachers who aren't as smart as you
Eating after you've brushed your teeth
Friends who never call
High rollers
Lobotomies
Aging courtesans
Your anaerobic threshold
Drinking wine from plastic cups
The Battle of Thermopylae
The Crimean War
Loneliness
Wagging the dog
"The Rachel" haircut
Malaria net shortages
Mail-order brides
Misleading product testimonials
Soft-core porn
Snapped ligaments
Self-sodomy with broomsticks
Belladonna
Cosseted wives
Cosseted husbands
Dying of exposure
Policemen who fire on protestors
Ceramic angels
Paralysis
Spoiled milk
Suspension of due process
Blood-borne illnesses
Old men delivering pizzas
Hundred-degree nights
Serial womanizers
Vibrating with fear
Costs that outweigh benefits
The Stanford Prison Experiment
In-flight magazines
Aging inmates
Going prematurely gray
Models who aren't dumb
Free radicals
Mariah
Carey's outfits
Self-immolation
Dolphins with missiles strapped to their noses
The N word
People who use the euphemism "do it" for sex
The homely and unloved
Campfires that turn into forest fires
Ailing old men in blizzards
Tired journalistic prose
Anal fungus
Congressional graft
Mussolini
Mania
Blaming the victim
Poets who dabble in politics
Politicians who dabble in poetry
Air conditioners that drip on your head when you're walking down the sidewalk
Escaping a war-torn nation at a young age on a flimsy raft
Children raised by polygamous sects
The Playboy Mansion
The Mexican-American War
Morphine addicts
Imperfect murders
The Red Scare
Betrayed constituencies
Long-lost identical twins
Double-dating with your widowed parent
Hipsters
Hippies
Plagiarism
The Khmer Rouge
Oxide of arsenic
Great orators with throat cancer
Ritalin addiction
Brutal fraternity hazing
Asperger's syndrome
Cardiomyopathy—a disease in which the heart muscle becomes weakened
American seamen who were compelled to serve in the British navy in 1807
Demonic possession
People who have "the third" or "the fourth" after their name
Bad professors with tenure
Fighter jets
Dog funerals
Religious vestments in hot weather
Male escorts
Prison guards
Refugee camps
Downward spirals
The dwindling social networks of the elderly
Visible panty lines
Untalented children of celebrities who become famous singers
Wearing braces for decades
Wandering through a dark labyrinth
Ethicists paid to condone the dubious decisions of large corporations
Diets described as revolutions
The irrelevance of modern academic philosophy
Fake logs that never burn
Inattentive lifeguards
Horse tripping—a rodeo sport based on tripping running horses
Demands presented as requests
Trivial distinctions
DEET—a toxic chemical in mosquito repellent
People who refer to war as an art
Termination of unemployment benefits
Men who eat meat off knives
Red ink
False accusations of rape
Melancholy angels
People who use Febreze as deodorant
The runs
Deaths of salesmen
Whiskey before noon
Novelists imprisoned for their political beliefs
Ethnic cleansing
Chicken jerky cutlets
Plantar fasciitis
Plantar warts
Compulsive paper shredding
Scylla and Charybdis
Special-interest money
Gloom
Pregnancy
FEMA trailers
Paranoia
Illiteracy
Criminal records
Exasperated relatives
Kind-hearted felons
Blistering criticism
Electric bills
Nutraloaf—a food loaf served as punishment to unruly American prisoners
The hottest day of the year
The coldest day of the year
Hearing voices
Religions with CEOs
Food stamps
Failed children of prominent parents
Having to smile repeatedly for family photographs
Picking up the wrong medication at the pharmacy
Hunger strikes
The amount of water used on golf courses
Rationing
Inept shoplifters
Caveats
Proctologists
Acidophilus milk
Water shortages in Florida and California
Vampire bats
Liquid diets
Sugarcoating
Troglodytes
Unanswered prayers
Vomiting on your lover
Getting your knickers in a twist
People who are convinced they're going to heaven
Armies destroyed in half an hour
Putrefying shellfish
Trampled flowers
Soggy hotdogs
Going astray in the darkness
Losing your charm
Overworked donkeys
Aging ballparks
Visiting your child on death row
Squeak toys
Armed bandits
Swaziland, the nation with the world's highest death rate
Good intentions lost on the way to the grocery store
Studies that suggest you're going to die in the near future
Photocopies of genitals
Losing a hand to a paper shredder
Intentionally stabbing yourself with a pencil to get disability pay
The quality of prose in TV Guide
Attributing every hot day to global warming
Scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency who fear retaliation from the Bush Administration if they speak about their work
Malfunctioning mirror neurons
Prefabricated homes made from war-surplus aluminum
The 13,411 golf cart injuries in 2006
Dreary early morning light
Sex with first cousins
Military parades
Having your tongue torn out
Doses strong enough to kill a horse
The red light district
Cloven hoofs
Ticks
Sharpened stakes at the bottom of deep pits
The voracity of oblivion
Fratricide
Sacrificial lambs
Cobalt 60
The weight of the unknown
The fall of the sparrow
Drowsiness caused by eating too much at lunch
Observing meaningless traditions
Prolonged incestuous violation by your father
Men who say "splendid"
Picnicking spectators at Civil War battles
Cockfighting
Disquieting beauty
Sunken galleons
The difference between life and romance novels
Ineffective social workers
Entanglements with cows
Inheriting your grandfather's wardrobe
Lampshades made out of human skin
Dying while waiting for the mail to come
Shirts soaked with blood
Musty wedding dresses
Winchester rifles
Sewing machine accidents
Abysses of regret
Muteness
Exaggerated vows of love
Tipping over backward in your chair
Chasing a greased pig
Specters from the past
Receding hairlines
The Salem witch trials
Soldiers quartered in civilian homes
Colombian assassins
Hiroshima
The misery of goldfish
Undertakers
Forgetting to celebrate Christmas
Identity politics
Terrible expiation
Economy class
Blood sports
Blood diamonds
Your grandfather's penis
Legalized atrocities
Losing a contact lens
The smell of gunpowder
Soldiers who miss killing people
Exploding inner organs
Suburban boredom
Being unable to remember the last time you had sex
Forgetting to wear sunscreen at the beach
Guerrilla warfare
Dialysis
Heel pain caused by flip-flops
Hyperhidrosis—abnormally increased perspiration
Treating gunshot wounds with prayer
DDT—a toxic pesticide
Corns
Tendinosis
Having a condition that stumps your doctors
Knowledge that is not power
Low blood pressure
Memory decline
Pesticide residues
New Year's resolutions
The London Blitz
Bombardment
Blowing your paycheck
Blowing your boss
Movie stars who appear not to age
Teachers who are mistaken for students
Cremation services
Drug smuggling
Human smuggling
Hidden cop cars
Apartment swaps gone wrong
Colorectal surgery
The link between vaccination and autism
The link between nonvaccination and death
Stool samples
The gall bladder
Meeting your husband's other wife
Ulcers
Income tax
Executives who expense prostitutes to corporate accounts
Remote controlled machine guns
Socially acceptable prejudices
Aging beauty queens
Glass ceilings
Zookeepers mauled by tigers
Rationales for murder
World War II–era bombs unearthed in European cities
Pets treated with psychoanalysis
Charismatic villains
Moments of reckoning
Oliver Cromwell
Castrating yourself
People who have more Facebook friends than you
The primrose path to the everlasting bonfire
Coyotes
Wrecking balls
Making a silk purse out of a sow's ear
Prenuptial agreements
Ash Wednesday
Accidentally sleeping on baby bunnies
Trolling the internet for sex
Lying about your height
Lying about your weight
Lying about your age
Robberies committed with pepper spray
Advertising budgets
Dead Girl Scouts
Wishing you'd had an abortion
Bodies found in rivers
Adolescent eye-rolling
Crimes against nature
Damaged goods
Ears popping on airplanes
Coffin-makers
Lynch mobs
Komodo dragons
Brutalist architecture
Dangerous undertows
The whereabouts of the Holy Grail
Slang terms your grandmother uses
Fear-based advertising
Con men
Middle school nerds stuffed in lockers
Ineffective over-the-counter pain relievers
Keyboards with one key that doesn't work
Expeditions to the North Pole in which everyone died
Value-added taxes
Yellow teeth
The loneliness of the long-distance runner
Bad fusion restaurants
Women who dye their eyebrows
Eating an entire gallon of ice cream
Babies who pull on your nose
Entry-level jobs
Overachievers
Underachievers
Mud-thick coffee
Celebrities with oversized heads
Companies that don't offer maternity leave
The Battle of Bull Run
Promiscuous nuns
Checking in with the office while on vacation
Apathy
Coming into work early and leaving late
Life coaches
German measles
The first year of medical school
Nostalgia for summer vacation
Getting the giggles at a funeral
Broken dams
Multitasking
Yeomen
Middle school girls who stuff their bras
Using reality TV shows to cast the leads in Broadway musicals
Useful fictions
Poisonous berries
Compulsory military service
Getting food poisoning on your wedding day
Drunken rednecks
Children who condescend to their parents
Being uninvited to a wedding
Rabid squirrels
Forgetting to think before speaking
Pathos
Bathos
Frozen carcasses
Toddlers who drink bleach
Finding out that there is no Tooth Fairy
The gruesome original endings of classic fairy tales
Indentured servants
Sex in socks
Teenage pregnancy
Being common as dirt
People who are gutted like fish
Plane crashes caused by moisture in sensors
Roll, pitch, and yaw
Being comforted in a language you don't understand
Murders in parking lots
Monsoons
Forgetting your crutches
Self-medication
Heat exhaustion
Representative Mark Foley
Ozymandias
The assassination of Benazir Bhutto
Bribery
Overly subtle innuendos
Insufficiently subtle innuendos
Teenage siblings forced to share a room
Mojave rattlesnakes
Making jokes other people don't understand
Ingratitude
Cruise missiles
Driving through raging blizzards
Having sex with your best friend's wife
Having sex with your best friend's husband
Stepping on broken glass with bare feet
Firewalking and getting burned
People who claim never to fight with their significant other
Copperhead snakes
Whiskey as a remedy for childhood illnesses
Voodoo
Chefs with tongue cancer
Accidentally eating pieces of eggshell
Beachcombing paupers
Gastric bypass surgery
The pathetic fallacy
Phone calls at 3 A.M.
Un–fair trade coffee
Ratty doormats
Novelizations
The winter of our discontent
Being scalded with hot oil
Public circumcisions
The West Memphis Three
Fashion shoots where models are dressed like homeless people
Death threats
Satanic rituals
Fucking the police
Getting lost in the woods
Drainage ditches
Hog-tying
Sweat behind the knees
Ugly minds
The decline of free range grazing
Waking up screaming
Being mounted by a stallion
Rusted tin roofs
Shotgun shacks
Impotence
The thirteenth fairy
Doing your laundry at a laundromat
Cockeyed optimists
People who are unable to afford lifesaving medical treatments
Damaged connective tissue
Relatives who don't come back from war
Thrill kills
Pencil stabbings
Sticky thighs
Mistaking vinegar for fruit juice
Bloating
Vacations that fail to rejuvenate you
Special education
Unreliable eyewitnesses
Getting friend requests from bands you have never heard of on MySpace
Glaring grammatical errors in your résumé
Parents who insist that their average children are gifted
People without teeth smiling
People who do bird calls
Sorting mail for eight hours a day
Not having an alibi
The American Express black card
Spending money you don't have
Bad sex that results in diseases
Good sex that results in diseases
Permanent injuries
Miscarriages
The waning of desire
Coercion
Slander
Pets with better health insurance than many people
Prison rape
Presidents who appoint their friends
Being followed by photographers
Not being followed by photographers
Gory details
Scratchy toilet paper
Twitching noses
Farting cats
Police ineptitude
Quick-rooting weeds
People thinking you're older than you actually are
Watching a cow die
Ear candling
The occult
Cotton Mather
Getting hit by a truck
Fried crickets
Getting stuck to the toilet seat
Lethal force
Endless winters
Babies with fangs
Cars that don't signal when they're turning
