The Dow Is Over 50,000

I woke up this morning prepared to be a better person.

Not dramatically better. I wasn’t planning to run a marathon or forgive all my enemies. I just meant I would not get irritated by small things. I would glide through the day with maturity and perspective.

Then I stepped on a Lego.

It wasn’t even my Lego. I don’t own Legos. Which makes it worse.

I limped to the kitchen, where the coffee machine blinked at me with that passive-aggressive “Descale” light that has been blinking since late 2023. I have Googled how to descale it. I have purchased the solution. The solution sits under the sink like a quiet accusation.

Life, I’ve noticed, is mostly small blinking lights.

On the way to work, I thought about the word perspective. It’s what people recommend when you complain about something minor. Perspective is the adult voice that says, “In the grand scheme of things…” The grand scheme is always vague, but it’s apparently very calming.

Traffic was thick. A car in front of me had a bumper sticker that read Be Kind. The driver did not let anyone merge. I admired the clarity of the messaging strategy.

At the office, the printer refused to cooperate. It said “Paper Jam,” though there was no paper jam. I opened every tray and peered into its mechanical soul. Nothing. The printer and I stared at each other in a silent standoff. A coworker walked by and said, “Did you try turning it off and on?” which is modern civilization’s answer to every existential problem.

I did.

It worked.

There is probably a lesson in that, but I suspect it is less profound than we hope.

Around noon, I encountered a small moral crisis in the break room. There was one slice of pizza left in the box. It had clearly been sitting there long enough to develop a backstory. I stood over it longer than I’ve stood over major life decisions.

If I take it, I am selfish. If I leave it, it will fossilize and someone will throw it away tomorrow.

Is it more ethical to eat the pizza or to save it from landfill destiny?

I ate it.

I told myself I was reducing waste. This is how I maintain a positive self-image. I narrate my impulses as virtues.

Later, I called my sister. She asked if I was sleeping enough. I said yes, which was technically true if you define “enough” as “some.” She then updated me on three neighbors I have never met, two of whom are currently feuding about a tree branch.

The branch crosses a property line.

The branch, from what I gather, is thriving.

Lawyers may become involved.

This is how humans are. We can hold informed opinions about global markets and geopolitical stability, but we will absolutely go to war over a tree branch. We are majestic and ridiculous in equal measure.

In the afternoon, an email thread spiraled out of control. It began with a simple scheduling question. By reply-all number twelve, it contained a spreadsheet, two polite clarifications that were not entirely polite, and a philosophical disagreement about what the word “urgent” means.

I considered responding with a single thumbs-up emoji and moving to a cabin in the woods.

Instead, I wrote, “Thanks everyone, I think we’re aligned,” which is corporate for “Please let this end.”

On my walk home, I passed a man arguing loudly into his phone about the price of eggs. He used the phrase “This is a disaster” with real conviction. A few steps away, a child was trying to convince her father that pigeons are “just city chickens.” The father was losing the debate.

I found myself thinking about how much of life is composed of these tiny negotiations: with machines, with coworkers, with neighbors, with punctuation. We adjust expectations by half an inch all day long. We practice patience in teaspoons.

And we are not, if I may say so, especially rational about any of it.

We forget passwords we created yesterday. We stand in front of open refrigerators as if clarity might be hiding behind the mustard. We scroll through headlines about sweeping national questions while simultaneously googling “why does my house make that noise at night.”

My emotional range stretches from “the state of democracy” to “why was I billed twice for streaming?”

There is something tender about this scale mismatch. We are built for kitchens and sidewalks and small rooms with blinking appliances. We try to inflate ourselves to match the size of the world, and the seams show.

In the evening, I finally did the laundry. I carefully paired the socks before putting them in the wash, as if this might encourage loyalty. An hour later, one sock had vanished.

I stood there holding the survivor.

There is probably a scientific explanation for missing socks, but I prefer to imagine a parallel universe populated entirely by unmatched hosiery, gently confused.

I stared at the lone sock and felt, briefly, that this was a metaphor. For entropy. For loss. For the limits of control.

Or maybe it’s just a missing sock.

The coffee machine was still blinking.

I poured myself a cup anyway.

And at that very moment, I turned on the television.

There she was — the Attorney General, seated under bright lights in a Senate hearing, responding to a serious question with calm authority:

“The Dow is over 50,000. We should be talking about that. Nothing else.”

It was offered as reassurance. As perspective. As if a large enough number could gently sweep aside whatever inconvenient thing had just been asked.

I stood in my kitchen, holding a single, unmatched sock, the coffee machine blinking behind me like a patient witness.

And I chuckled.

Not because it was funny, exactly. But because it felt so perfectly human — this instinct to point at the biggest number in the room and hope it quiets everything smaller.

The tree branch is still crossing the property line. The printer will jam again. The pizza will tempt the next person.

And the coffee machine still needs to be descaled.