Hard Digest August 5: Early Access Garth Brooks, Rock Bottom, ICE, and More

Man Who Still Thinks Garth Brooks and Chris Gaines Are Different People Worried About Children’s Media Literacy

By Cody Arbor

IOWA CITY, Iowa — Suburban father Tyler Rainey expressed frustration over children’s lack of media literacy, despite firmly believing country singer Garth Brooks and his fictional persona Chris Gaines are different people, confirmed sources.

“The fact that these kids believe the lamestream news media or that the earth is round is alarming,” said Rainey without breaking eye contact from Fox News on his television. “This is just like back in the day when that Chris Gaines guy showed up and tried to steal the thunder from Garth Brooks, the greatest country-music-rock-n-roll crossover musician to ever live. This Gaines guy was just riding the coattails of his own series of unlikely, horrific personal tragedies to try and get famous. Now if you’ll excuse me. The DMV just texted asking for my Social Security number and credit card information. Better get that ready for them.”

The man’s son Cole Rainey was unsurprised about this newest declaration.

“Dad’s really needed something to occupy his time since the whole ‘Snyder Cut’ debacle. I mean there’s only so many times you can watch a four and a half hour long movie that probably could have been a Wikipedia article,” said the 11-year-old making sure to keep his tone steady as contradiction was a quick trip to another rant from his father. “I tried to explain things like ‘context’ and ‘themes,’ but he was too preoccupied with an image of a crop circle in the shape of Jesus he saw on Facebook. AI slop is going to destroy that generation.”

Child psychologist Dr. Barkha Jailili was still ultimately optimistic.

“Sometimes in a child’s life, he realizes that his dad’s the kind of guy who thinks ‘Robocop’ is a movie about how awesome robot cops are or that Homelander is the ‘real hero’ of ‘The Boys,’” said Dr. Jailili. “I don’t know Cole’s father, but I’d imagine he’s the type to loudly threaten a fictional character like Chris Gaines, and once you put aside that he owns three guns, you just hope he’ll lose interest because Billy Ray Cyrus did another collaboration with Lil Nas X. People like him give themselves questions they think only they can answer, but Cole’s a good kid. He’ll bounce back from this after around five years of intense therapy. Maybe three years, if he finds an understanding, supportive partner!”

As of writing, Mr. Rainey said he firmly believed that one of the Property Brothers wasn’t real and a hoax created to sell ad space.

Rock Bottom or Peak Performance? This Dad Just Ate All the Uncrustables at Kid’s Birthday Party

By John Adkins

Local Dad Matt Fredricksen was recently busted for eating all the Uncrustables at his daughter Kayla’s 5th birthday. Naturally, Matt’s antics have left the people divided — did he finally hit rock bottom? Or is this peak performance? Let’s investigate.

One thing’s for sure, Matt worked up a crazy appetite whilst on “balloon duty” (literally his only job during party prep). And let’s be honest, blowing up an overly-expensive “happy birthday” balloon banner from Target would make any 45-year-old man ravenous. Especially if you’re Matt. Which means you try to rawdog the balloons (no instructions, no pump), only to accidentally pop the “R” and the “Y.” So naturally, you crash out and destroy the whole goddamn banner while your father-in-law insults your disorganized garage (which equates to, you guessed it, not being a man). So yeah. Matt might’ve deserved to drown his complex feelings of masculinity with a snack designed for children. Maybe it’s peak performance after all.

Also, Matt would like to argue that he was doing a public service by eating all of the Uncrustables. How could this be? Well, because according to Matt, there was already a metric fuck-ton of sugar on the menu. Oh! You wanted to throw a birthday party for a bunch of first graders where the food consists entirely of watermelon, Capri-Suns, birthday cake, and ICE CREAM? What a fucking shit show! So, Matt basically saved all of the parents from the sugar crash of the century by eliminating the UnCrustables. A far-fetched and ineffective justification? Perhaps. But I kinda like where Matt’s head was at. Another point for “peak performance.”

And yet, there’s a solid case to be made on the Rock Bottom front. When Matt’s peanut butter-encrusted mustache (which he claims isn’t inspired by Benson Boone but totally is) was caught red-handed, Matt made the crucial error of blaming it on one of the kids at the party. More specifically, he blamed it on a homeschooler named Bran whose mom never lets him eat sugar. And Bran would’ve been the perfect kid to pin it on, because that kid loves to hammer sugar when his mom isn’t looking. But alas, Bran wasn’t even at the party. And blaming your Uncrustables gorge-fest on a kid who wasn’t even at the party is objectively bad optics.

So yeah. The jury’s still out on whether this is rock bottom or peak performance for Matt. But one thing’s for certain — Matt’s gonna have some crazy bowel movements and nightmares tonight.

ICE Agent Gets Wounded Veteran License Plates After His Feelings Are Hurt

By Justin Cummings

STOCKTON, Calif. — Local ICE agent Tony Stockton added wounded veteran plates to his Ford F150 after getting his feelings hurt in what he referred to as “the Battle of San Bernadino,” confirmed sources who were pointing and laughing.

“We were just following orders and trying to catch a couple of farm worker ladies. They were leaving an alfalfa field to allegedly pick up their toddlers and we were told they might be undocumented,” said Stockton. “The women went into a building decorated with primary colors and we followed. We were planning to send them to an internment camp, but then a pre-school teacher referred to us as the modern day gestapo and gave us a double middle finger. It’s almost like the general public despises us. I tried calling the VA to talk to them about my PTSD and they hung up. My wife said I should go to therapy, but I don’t believe in it.”

Sofia Villanova was working at a local daycare and pre-school when four masked men with guns and flak jackets kicked in the school’s front door.

“The children were screaming. The men burst in and they were pointing their guns at everybody. I walked up to the one man and looked him straight in his eyes. I told him that his mother and grandmother should be ashamed of themselves and that they were bootlicking scum,” said Villanova. “I saw a scared hurt look in his eye like a little boy, so I yelled even louder, ‘not today, you fascist stormtrooper motherfucking virgin.’ I saw him start to tear up and he ran away. It felt great.”

Amy Anderson from the California DMV said that she has been seeing an increase in wounded veteran plates in the past few months.

“Because of the massive cuts to the VA system, the VA’s process for specialty license plates approval has been streamlined to automatically approve all applicants,” said Anderson. “They are eventually just going to approve plates for somebody losing Call of Duty or a cop who got his feelings hurt by a protester. It is absolutely ridiculous.”

At press time, Stockton also checked to see if he qualified for a handicap parking space after getting his feelings hurt by an 80-year-old grandmother.

So-Called “Sapiosexual” Not Even Turned On by My Encyclopedic Knowledge of Elder Scrolls Lore

BY Steve Packosky

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Tinder date Kyla Erwin showed no discernible sign of arousal at my impressive display of Elder Scrolls knowledge despite being a professed sapiosexual, sources report.

“I definitely am attracted to intelligence,” Erwin said. “However, when I identify as a sapiosexual, I’m referring to things like problem solving skills and a long reading history. I’m not talking about your ability to mindlessly rattle off the ‘nine provinces of Tamriel’ from some video game I’ve never even heard of when the conversation hasn’t even come close to warranting it. Honestly, we had just introduced ourselves when you went into it, and when I asked if this was some Lord of the Rings thing, you snorted like I had told a joke. I’m definitely going to make some clarifications to my Tinder description tonight.”

I had a bone to pick about Erwin’s supposed sapiosexuality.

“I honed in on that part of her description when we matched,” I told reporters. “So I came to Ruby Tuesday ready to discuss my comprehensive understanding of magic, from its origin as raw energy flowing into Aetherius through the sun and stars, to its uses in spellcasting and spellmaking. I didn’t even have a chance to get into it, though, because she said she ‘wasn’t really interested in all of that’ while I was describing the history of the Nords’ use of Thu’um. I’m sorry, but what sapiosexual wouldn’t be into this? If she doesn’t think I’m smart, I can name countless people on r/ElderScrolls who think otherwise.”

Sociologist Gareth Ng has experience with these situations.

“It is true that a large portion of the population is turned on by intelligence,” Ng noted. “However, it’s exceedingly rare that video game knowledge qualifies as such. Comprehensive grasps on literature or mathematics are usually closer to what sapiosexuals like, but gamers struggle to grasp this idea. I recommend they become more acquainted with what their dates are into before meeting in person, if at all possible.”

At press time, I attempted to salvage our date by giving Kyla unsolicited advice on building a powerful deck in Slay the Spire.