Hard Digest July 4: Early Access Coworkers, Richard Gere, Christian Bale, and More

Nation’s Coworkers Announce Plans To Hold Long Conversation Directly Outside the Bathroom Where You’re Currently Taking a Dump

BY TIM SHEARD 

RICHMOND, Va. – The nation’s coworkers reportedly resolved to hold an extended conversation in the general area outside the employee bathroom at the exact time that you are taking a shit, horrified sources huddled inside bathroom stalls confirmed.

“It’s the official plan of this country’s coworkers that, just as you’ve finished your morning coffee and ducked into the bathroom in full view of us from the hallway, we will happen upon one another and proceed to engage in lengthy dialogues within full earshot of the goings-on of the bathroom we know you’re occupying,” said Ian O’Daly, spokesperson for the National Coworkers Alliance. “It’s common knowledge that the particularly echoey corridor outside the seldom-visited bathroom on the floor you don’t even work on is the best place to have a casual back-and-forth about our kids’ sports teams, the weather, or our recent car troubles.”

You expressed dismay at this recent policy, but due to gastrointestinal distress could not make it to the meeting to voice your opposition.

“It sucks that I couldn’t make it to the meeting yesterday,” you said while unwrapping your second 7-Eleven Three-Meat Breakfast Burrito. “I’m really not looking forward to timing my flushes to hide every sound emanating from my body, then avoiding eye contact while making some feeble comment about how it ‘smelled bad when I got in there’ as I’m exiting the bathroom. I hope the Coworkers Alliance reconsiders their policy and starts holding meetings in the back corner of the warehouse where the squirrel died in the wall. I don’t know how much longer I can live like this.”

Organizational psychologist Zara Milner noted that this is simply the latest in a progression of quickly evolving professional customs.

“Given the advent of meetings being held almost exclusively on Zoom or Microsoft Teams, it is now much more common for employees to feel genuine excitement upon seeing each other in person,” said Milner. “Unfortunately, that excitement can result in a lack of awareness of where they happen to be located with respect to their physical environments. With that being said it wouldn’t kill them to move their conversation just a little bit down the fucking hallway and let us shit in peace.”

At press time, the nation’s recent sexual partners also announced plans to sit in total silence without watching television or perusing their phones while you’re using the bathroom in the morning.

Life Has Been One Hell of a Ride (Guest Article by the Gerbil From Richard Gere’s Ass)

BY CASEY SMITH 

Most gerbils like myself spend their lives in modest clear plastic tubes or behind bars playing in soft wood chips content with their solitary life. Well, let me tell you, I am no ordinary gerbil. I lived fast, I took chances, and I threw caution to the wind. Did I make mistakes? Sure. Do I smell like Richard Gere’s asshole? You better believe it. Do I have regrets? Absolutely not. I grabbed the bull by the horns, the bull being Richard Gere and the horns being his sphincter, and brothers and sisters I’m here to tell you it’s been one hell of a ride.

What I’ve accomplished—living inside the asshole of Golden Globe-winning actor Richard Gere—is pretty much the gerbil equivalent of the moon landing. When my wheel stops squeaking, I’ll leave this world knowing I had a life well lived.

As I approach the winter of my not-so-humble gerbil life, I feel a need to set the record straight about a few things. Firstly, Sylvester Stallone is a fantastic asshole who has been making fairy tales since the ‘70s. I never died in Richard Gere’s ass and my living situation wasn’t for some kink. Rich said Stallone likely spread the rumor and I—the gerbil who was in his ass—am here to confirm it before this rumor spreads for another 50 years.

So as for how I got there, our handsome prince Richard Gere was sleeping. I was the one who climbed in his pajama pant leg, I was the one who entered his asshole, and I was the one who had the time of my life in there. It was completely my idea—and my own volition—that brought me to ass, but I never could have predicted just where that ass would take me.

For starters, I should mention there were roommates. It was a bit of a revolving door, but there was always warm food and good company regardless of who was living there. We held a potluck in there, birthdays, coke parties, you name it. I’m a bit of a lone wolf myself, but the ferret drifters who’d come and go were always great company with tall tales about the world outside of Richard Gere’s ass.

His ass also granted me the opportunity to do something I thought I’d never do, travel the globe. Richard Gere’s ass and The Richard Gere Foundation have unwittingly taken me to Tibet and Nepal. They’ve helped me understand the plight of the Palestinian people. I do recall hearing about him being banned from China due to his support of the people of Tibet, but please understand I was in his asshole and there’s only so much information I can get from the outside world.

As I mentioned, my coming to live in Richard Gere’s ass was entirely my decision and had nothing to do with kink, but that’s not to say there haven’t been some wild nights. Richard Gere has had many a conquest, and yours truly has had a back-row seat to each and every one.

What am I doing now that I’ve retired from Rich’s ass? Well, I’m fielding offers and looking at openings (no pun intended), but I plan on sticking with celebrity humanitarians because if you get caught they won’t have you euthanized.

Christian Bale’s Mother Admits His Real Accent Always Catches Her off Guard

BY KIMBERLY SCOTT

LOS ANGELES — Christian Bale’s mother Jenny James revealed that she’s constantly caught off guard when he uses his natural Welsh accent in conversation, confirmed sources who couldn’t relate more.

“I just can’t believe he was faking it the entire movie. At this point, his Welsh accent feels like a put-on,” James confessed. “Sure, I’ve been his mother for decades, but you try watching ‘American Psycho’ and thinking he doesn’t speak in an American accent all the time and loves Huey Lewis and the News. Turns out, he’s had a British accent this whole time and asks me to turn off the radio when ‘Hip to Be Square’ comes on. Thanks to method acting, I don’t even know him.”

Bale began lamenting the frustration of losing his identity to the characters he plays.

“After ‘The Machinist’ my family started requesting I use an American accent with them because that’s ‘the Christian they know and love.’ They even thought I weighed 120 pounds naturally,” Bale explained while speaking in an American accent to make everyone feel more comfortable. “One would think this would be the ultimate compliment, but it’s quite an inconvenience. Fans will stop me in the street, but when they hear my voice they get all weird, there was one time when a woman even screamed like she was scared for her life. But the worst thing of all is when people confuse me with Jared Leto. It’s very embarrassing.”

While Bale is willing to humor them, his manager worries he may create some unexpected problems.

“There are people out there who believe English accents are fake, and they’ve had their eye on Christian for years now. You know, hoping he’ll ‘slip up,’” said Bale’s manager Rory Tulane. “If he gets caught speaking with an American accent to his own family, they’ll have a field day in the press. Christian is less concerned about the tabloids, and more worried about maintaining his true sense of self, whatever that is. I am trying to find more English films for him to showcase his natural accent- but it may be too late to warm the public up to it. Once people believe a celebrity is from Indiana, it’s difficult to change that perception.”

At press time, Bale’s own dog reportedly didn’t recognize him in his natural accent and was seen issuing commands as Patrick Bateman, which onlookers agreed just fits.

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Animal Expert Reveals Little Guys in ‘Make Some Noise’ Interstitials Only Do That Under Extreme Stress

BY NIK THEORIN 

LOS ANGELES – Streaming service Dropout found itself in hot water after an animal expert pointed out that the little guys appearing in interstitials for Make Some Noise only behave that way under extreme stress, sources report.

“I’ve worked with these creatures before, and this is not how they should be acting,” said Jackson Alberta, who initially posted his observations on social media before they were picked up by Dropout fans just one week into the Great Game Changer to Make Some Noise Migration. “As humans, we like to anthropomorphize certain animal behaviors as ‘cute’, when the reality is far more complicated. What looks ‘heckin’ good’ to a human can be akin to torture for an animal. A dog with a contorted face? That’s a form of paralysis. A cat jumping away from a cucumber? Fear response. The bleating of the pink thing’s trumpet-mouth in time with the opening theme of Make Some Noise? Textbook distress.

“In the wild, these creatures rarely use vocalizations—only really with their young—and even then, it’s a soft, gentle trill. It wasn’t letting viewers know it’s happy or even calling for attention: it was suffering under the weight of massive psychological stress, comparable to PTSD in a human or Sam getting asked where he’s from. You wouldn’t wish that on a person. So why would you wish it on a species of two-dimensional expression-forms inhabiting geometric shapes like cancer inhabits a body?”

“Look, I get it, I’m a Dropout fan too,” continued Alberta. “I love Game Changer, and not like a poser who skips the Covid season. I watched that Hallmark movie with Vic Michaelis. I have detailed maps explaining the geological possibility of Mountport. I’ve seen Ally Beardsley through every conceivable haircut and I know Grant’s sex life better than my own. But I simply cannot tolerate mistreatment of such intelligent, aesthetically-pleasing creatures, especially when I see them transforming into a three-part balance board where the blue one acts as the board, the yellow as the fulcrum, and the pink one rolls perversely on top. That’s a clear dominance display. If you see that in the wild, making some noise will be the last thing you do.”

While many assume ignorance on the part of the show’s cast and crew, others are more skeptical, pointing to Dropout’s history of playing exotic animals for sight gags.

“It’s not talked about openly, but everyone remembers The Mouth,” said cast member Lily Du, referring to an episode in season one of Game Changer that most mistook for a fever dream. “I remember showing up on set that day and hearing Ash say something about a ‘surprise’ backstage, so obviously I’m getting excited thinking maybe it’s Finnegan or a weekend stay in Big Sur, California. Imagine my shock when they wheel out this creature that can’t even stand on its own without Ash supporting it. The whole time we’re feeding it, I’m looking at Tao like, ‘Are we really doing this?’ Sure, sometimes The Mouth would make yum yum sounds when we fed it the right objects, but more often it was gagging in disgust.”

“After the show, I read about how foods like gingerbread, oil, and a brick of cocaine offer almost no nutritional value and just fill up a Mouth’s stomach so it can’t eat as much,” continued Du, having slid almost halfway out of her chair. “I felt so awful.”

In the wake of controversy surrounding the treatment of the interstitial mascots, Dropout host and CEO Sam Reich came forward to dispute the allegations.

“If you can’t run a company ethically, you shouldn’t run it at all,” said Reich, whose progressive views on business and inflicting psychological torment on Brennan Lee Mulligan are widely known. “I’m grateful for a community that supports us while also holding us accountable when we fail to live up to our own standards. Does the question of ‘involuntary performers’ apply to animals? Yes. Is it possible to misinterpret certain behaviors? Of course. Was it a mistake to have the three geometric guys in Make Some Noise twist and morph into each other in rapid succession, the flickering torch of consciousness being passed between them so violently that the lines between the mind-self and the meat-self blur into nonbeing? Hell no. Most viewers don’t know this, but those guys are freaks. They like it. Who am I to deny what makes them happy?”

At press time, a joint statement released by cast members Erika Ishii and Becca Scott announced the pair’s intentions to adopt “the blue one”, which will make its final appearance during this season’s Make Some Noise finale, or whenever they manage to catch it.

Chess Developers Accused of Giving Queen a “Man Jaw”

BY MATT FRESH 

Enschede, Netherlands — DGT, the manufacturer of chess sets used in the ‘Tata Steel Chess Tournament’ is being accused online of changing the Queen piece to have a “man jaw”.

DGT recently revealed their newest set and a contingent of players in the Chess community are furious over what they are calling a “man jaw”

“This is an atrocious tragedy and a blatant attack on our game,” posted Twitter user WhitePiecePower. “I always figured our game was safe from DEI and ESG garbage but I guess I was wrong. They took our beautiful, sexy, and feminine Queen and gave her a blocky and defined man jaw. This is a pathetic move to appease the woke overlords and we must fight back.”

“Why would they do this,” posted KingMe69. “The Queen in the old set was an iconic sex symbol. She had poise and grace, a nice soft face. Now she’s much more striking with a defined square jawline like a man. Are they trying to make us gay?”

DGT has defended the new Queen piece and claims there is no woke conspiracy nor do they think the piece has a “man jaw”.

“To be honest we have no idea what these complaints are,” said Dirk Jansen, a piece designer at DGT. “When we first heard them we thought it was a prank but apparently these people are serious. We wanted to update our pieces and we thought this new Queen design was more striking but equally sexy. There are tons of real-life women we based this design on. Nobody made us change the Queen piece and we’ve never heard of this Sweet Baby Inc. we keep getting threatening messages about.”

Online personality Pawwnz, who is leading the charge against the new Queen piece believes that DGT isn’t telling the entire truth.

“There’s something they aren’t telling us, most likely because they can’t. There’s simply no way they willingly made this change without being strong-armed by some DEI ESG overseer demanding them to make the Queen masculine and ugly. I will get to the bottom of this and we will get the Queen changed back to the sexy woman she should be and the best way for you to support this cause is to become a paid subscriber to my account.”

At press time, Pawwnz and the other players have moved on from the Queen piece and have begun complaining about the use of the black pieces in the marketing of the new set