The Way Things Should Be

Hi!

All TVs should go into Aquarium Mode when they go to sleep.

Most people should not get veneers.

No bars should be loud.

Sunscreen should be bright blue when you first apply it so you know where you missed coverage, and it should only come in spray bottles, and those bottles should last longer.

Everyone should be familiar with the Trick Mirror chapter about the marriage industrial complex.

Jia Tolentino should publish her second book already.

I should accept I’m unlikely to develop the rigorous work ethic I fantasize about waking up with one day.

There should be more 8pm movies.

There should be a way to turn off the body keeping the score.

We should go back to Facebook circa 2013.

All photo booths should be film photos.

They should reinstall the photo booth in the Times Square M&M store.

Mars, Incorporated should make a peanut slash peanut butter M&M.

One of the M&M characters should be canonically trans.

Things should be easier, generally.

Most meals should be garlic-forward and come with fries.

The Fat Sal’s Glendale location (which, when it opens, will put me back in delivery range) should be open already — as promised.

Everyone should take a college performance art class in earnest.

Everyone should be further left than they are as a rule of thumb.

They should reboot It’s On with Alexa Chung.

Places other than the airport and the mall should have those moving walkways, mostly for fun.

You shouldn’t have to do any orthodontic upkeep after getting your braces off.

You shouldn’t have to ever make an unprotected left turn. 

You shouldn’t have to interact with another soul inside a dispensary. 

You shouldn’t have to sit through scary movie previews if you’re not seeing a scary movie.

You shouldn’t have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. 

More buildings should have hidden rooms/passageways.

There should be a Jimmy Awards feeder program in New Jersey.

People should be willing to play Scrabble with me.

Movie posters for book adaptations should look like the original book cover art, not the other way around.

All albums on vinyl should be one record. Flipping once is fine, but flip-switch-flip is asking a lot.

Bathtubs should be designed with 6’2 individuals in mind.

If we have to have Broadway musicals based on existing IP, there should be a Girls musical featuring the best needle drops from the show.

More things should be whimsical in the way these jelly beans are whimsical:

All Real Housewives should film with their children.

All Real Housewives should get three season contracts to start.

All Real Housewives should film with their therapist, but they should be their actual therapist, not a therapist they see once a year when it’s time to film with a therapist (all Real Housewives should be in mandatory therapy).

All Real Housewives should pursue singing careers.

No wedding vows should be funny.

No one reading this should think I’m referring to their wedding vows.

If we have to have intrusive thoughts, they should at least rhyme.

Someone should get me the Elphaba Wicked 40oz Stanley for my birthday, maybe, right? Like, if they want to get me something but weren’t going to get me something better than that. And feel confident that they’re the only person getting it for me. And can decide for me if I actually want this object or if I just saw Alicia post about it on her Instagram Story and got excited by the idea of it.

The casting team behind the Smile films should take into consideration this photo of me at a haunted hayride in 2009 when it’s time to start putting together the next one:

Cast irons should not intimidate me.

Going to a tailor should not intimidate me.

Teenagers should intimidate me, and they do.

Custom framing should not cost an arm and a leg. How about just an arm? Can we agree to that?

Joni Mitchell should skip “Big Yellow Taxi” and play “The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines” when my mom and I see her at the Hollywood Bowl in two weeks.

Everyone messing with AI should stop, period. Stop making it, stop using it, just stop. It’s stressing me outtttt.

If we have to have AI, there should be AI to make sure you’re not accidentally sending someone the screenshot of your conversation/the text talking shit about them.

No restaurants should serve American cheese.

Knowing Morse Code should have a practical application in my life.

There should be an unaired season two episode of Sex and the City in a vault somewhere that we get to enjoy now.

They should do that with every show: film a time capsule episode for future nostalgic audiences.

They should reboot Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List.

I should know how to shape my mustache.

I should have representation.

Spotify should have “Dull Tool” by Fiona Apple and the complete Original Broadway Cast recording of Rent.

At this point, AMC should pull the plug on the Nicole Kidman ads.

All catalytic converter thieves should go to jail.

All prisons should be abolished, but not until the catalytic converter thieves have served their time.

Someone should stop me the next time I go to add the exact same post-run mirror selfie to my Instagram story.

More books should be like Heartburn.

Concerts should start on time.

Ketchup should hit like it used to.

They should reboot U-Pick Live.