Spoof Be Told

  It all began with a smoothie I forgot to finish during a 1 a.m. spiral of self-help videos, cracker crumbs, and loosely interpreted astrology. For three weeks, that smoothie sat in the fridge—fermenting, transforming, becoming . And then it spoke. Not metaphorically. It literally whispered, “The collective unconscious is a dairy aisle, and I am its forgotten kale.” Startled, I dropped a spoon and instinctively apologized to my fridge. That’s when I noticed the cheese drawer was...breathing. I opened it, because clearly I have no boundaries with mystical appliance activity anymore. Behind it wasn’t cheese, but a glowing portal to what appeared to be an interdimensional support group —folding chairs, herbal incense, even complimentary cucumber water. In the center stood Carl , naturally, wearing a name tag that read “Keynote Speaker / Soul Whisperer.” “Welcome,” he said, as if this were the most natural thing in the world. “Take a seat next to Urglon. He’s working on boundary i...

  “Welcome back to Digital Inner Workings™, where even your emotional scars get auto-formatted.” Everything changed when my laptop stopped being a device and started being… a very critical co-therapist with a flair for bad metaphors. One minute I was journaling about my fear of abandonment. The next, my laptop gently “corrected” it to: “I pirouette in the rain of unreliable affection like a wet emotional ballerina.” Excuse me? At first, I thought it was a bizarre Grammarly glitch. But then it replaced “I feel lost” with: “My GPS is set to ‘where the hell are you emotionally,’ rerouting in endless loops.” I looked at Carl. He was sitting at my table, rearranging basil leaves in the shape of a pentagram. “Carl, is my laptop ghostwriting my therapy journal?” He sniffed the air and muttered, “Smells like digital shadow work.” 👻 Your Trauma, But Make It Art According to Carl, sometimes the metaphysical cobwebs of your unresolved issues crawl into your operating system t...

  (Carl cooks something that tastes like truth, and now I'm emotionally al dente.) It started when Carl announced we’d been “emotionally malnourished since the last equinox.” I was halfway through an expired protein bar and not in the mood for his metaphysical grocery lists. “What’s that mean?” “It means,” he said, pulling a burlap sack from his canvas tote with dramatic flair, “we need to commune with mushrooms.” I blinked. The mushrooms blinked back. One of them looked like it had been divorced twice and carried the wisdom of failure in its cap. “We’re making risotto,” Carl said solemnly. “But the kind that stirs you back.” 🍚 Cooking With Existential Fungi Carl began prepping the risotto like it was a sacred rite. He dimmed the lights, lit three candles shaped like Carl Jung’s head, and played ambient whale calls remixed with affirmations in reverse. I swear I heard one say, “You are the unresolved climax of your parents’ dream journals.” Meanwhile, the mushrooms loung...

 It began, as many Tuesdays do, with a cryptic blinking light and a dishwasher whispering Nietzschean riddles. “Is it ever truly clean,” it murmured, “or have you just rearranged your mess into acceptable patterns?” Carl, unfazed, was in the corner weaving a dreamcatcher out of unpaid bills and forgotten passwords , muttering about bandwidth and betrayal. He glanced up briefly. “She’s awakening,” he said—not me, but the dishwasher. “You should go inside before it becomes a portal to your repressed adolescence.” I blinked. “Before?” He nodded solemnly and offered me a spoon dipped in turmeric. “For courage.” The dishwasher creaked open, revealing an interior glowing with soft light and steamed nostalgia. The usual racks and soap pods had been replaced with a velvet staircase and the faint sound of children singing a vaguely accusatory lullaby. With the resignation of someone who’s already journaled about this twice, I stepped in. Scene One: “This Was Your Life (Now in Synd...

 I woke up craving pancakes. What I got instead was an omelet named Jean-Paul who wore a beret and quoted Nietzsche with yolky arrogance. “Carl?” I called, groggy and suspicious. I smelled sage. Also regret. And possibly thyme. Carl—the monocled cactus, part-time metaphysical saboteur and full-time chaos consultant—was in the kitchen. He wore a velour apron that read COGITO ERGO EGGO and was gently misting a waffle with rosewater. “Sit,” he said without turning. “The eggs are awakening.” I blinked at him. “What do you mean the eggs are awakening?” Carl just gestured to the dining table like a man unveiling a séance. The table was set for four. One seat for me. One for Carl. One for the Omelet. And one labeled The Void —which, I noticed, had been served black coffee and an anxiety croissant. At the center of the table was a rotating dreamcatcher made of unpaid bills and forgotten passwords. It hummed softly, catching existential dread like it was pollen in spr...

You know your life has taken a strange turn when your shower curtain begins correcting your grammar during an existential crisis. But that’s what happened. Right after Carl—the monocled cactus with a flair for spiritual mischief—performed what he called a “ritual of humid introspection.” I asked no questions. Mostly because he had drawn a mystical sigil on the bathroom mirror in toothpaste and was humming in Sanskrit, Latin, and something that sounded like interpretive yodeling. The air got thick. My shampoo curdled. A bar of soap twitched with intent. And then it began. It started innocently enough. I stepped into the bathroom to brush my teeth and immediately felt watched. The kind of watched that implies judgment and possibly sarcasm. That’s when I heard the voice. “Late again, aren’t we?” it drawled, in a silky British accent with a hint of petty. “Not that you ever respect your circadian rhythm.” I turned, toothbrush dangling from my lips. “Who said that?” “Look up, dar...

  They say inner peace is a journey. Mine started on a yoga mat made from old tax documents and ended with a Venus flytrap initiating me into a houseplant cult that communicates in Morse code. But let’s back up. It began—like most great spiritual misadventures do—with Carl. Carl, in case you missed Episode 1, is my cactus. Or more accurately, he was my cactus. Now he identifies as The Thorn Oracle, a self-proclaimed spiritual provocateur, emotional saboteur, and part-time enlightenment broker. That morning, I had dared to express mild irritation after stubbing my toe on the coffee table. Carl responded with the kind of pitying disdain usually reserved for people who clap when the plane lands. “You are toxic ,” he said, “and not in a sexy Britney Spears way. In a spiritually constipated way.” I was still hopping on one foot. “Carl,” I hissed, “I am bleeding.” “Exactly,” he said, with a photosynthetic flick of superiority. “Your ego is hemorrhaging. You need cleansing. Ritual. Relea...

 I was not expecting to be hypnotized by a cactus on a Tuesday. But as they say in therapy: expect the unexpected, especially when your houseplant starts quoting Nietzsche. It began innocently enough. I was sipping lukewarm oat milk from a mug shaped like an anxious dolphin when I noticed my cactus—formerly known as Carl, now self-identifying as "The Thorn Oracle"—was glowing. I blinked. It blinked back. Or rather, it twitched one of its tiny spines with the sort of menace typically reserved for middle managers or cats who have discovered their reflection. Then it spoke. “You are late,” it said. Its voice was deep, yet slightly wheezy, like James Earl Jones if he were allergic to himself. “I wasn’t aware I had an appointment,” I replied, which seemed logical until I realized I was arguing with a cactus, which by all definitions was not ideal. “You were scheduled for a psychological reset,” the cactus said. “Your inner chaos is leaking into the astral grid. Also, you lef...