Welcome to my new Netflix show!
It’s called:
CLUTTERING IS GOOD ACTUALLY: IT IS LIKE A NEST MADE OF STUFF BUILT TO PROTECT YOU FROM FEELING FEELINGS
It’s a 13-episode season, each with a vital lesson at its heart!
Lesson One:
If an object sparks nostalgic regret and instills you with a curious mix of shame and forbidden pleasure, that object goes on a special shelf and that special shelf is called “your bed.”
Lesson Two:
If you can’t remember where you got an item or why you even have it that’s an opportunity to become friends with this mystery object.
Keep it close!
No, closer.
NO, CLOSER.
whispers: let it touch your skin
whispers: let it inside you
Lesson Three:
If you throw out an object someone gave you, they’ll know.
They’ll fucking KNOW.
And they’ll STOP LOVING YOU.
Lesson Three-Point-Five:
Never throw away a child’s drawings.
Not even the shitty ones.
Every time you throw away a child’s artwork, a child’s pet dies.
Lesson Four:
You only have enough books when you can build a castle out of them.
Yes, with a moat.
OF COURSE A MOAT, JUDY, STOP ASKING STUPID QUESTIONS
Lesson Five:
Clothes naturally move toward the organic superstructure known as “a pile.”
This is science.
Nature abhors a vacuum but fucking loves a pile.
Lesson Six:
One day you will die and the best gift you can leave for your loved ones upon passing is a house full of dubious objects containing questionable value, the kind of objects that would earn a sour face from any curator on Antiques Roadshow. Collecting things is sometimes about creating a physical burden to pass along to your family members BECAUSE THEY DESERVE IT
THEY KNOW WHAT THEY DID
THAT’S RIGHT I’M TALKING ABOUT YOU, COUSIN MARY
WHERE’S MY CHAFING DISH YOU HARRIDAN
OH OH I’M NOT GETTING IT BACK
WELL FINE I JUST LEFT YOU 20 SHOEBOXES FULL OF CABLES COLLECTED WITH UNCERTAIN POINTS OF ORIGIN
THEY MIGHT BE PRINTER CABLES OR RCA VIDEO CABLES OR THE CHARGING CORD TO SOME KNOCKOFF PALM PILOT FROM 1998
MAYBE ONE OF THEM CHARGES A SEX TOY
YOU JUST DON’T KNOW
THAT’S FOR YOU TO SORT OUT, MARY
YOU RAT
Lesson Seven:
Oh, yeah, you’re going to need more skeletons.
Lesson Seven-Point-Five:
Remember, if you can’t afford skeletons?
You can always make them.
Your house is a home and your home is a trap to any wayward soul or feral animal that finds its way in there! All a tomb needs is four walls, after all.
Lesson Eight:
You’ll fit into that sweater someday.
Remember, we all become skeletons in the end, and skeletons can wear most clothing without concerns over size or fit. Death is slimming!
YES JUDY WE ARE TALKING A LOT ABOUT SKELETONS
SKELETONS ARE IMPORTANT JUDY
GODDAMNIT
Lesson Nine:
If you throw something out, that creates waste.
But if you keep it, it contains value.
As compost, eventually.
Eventually we all become compost, Judy.
Lesson Ten:
Yes, MORE books, who the fuck ever said to STOP buying books
Lesson Eleven:
No, don’t clean your desk that thing contains tax receipts from 1988.
And also dead crickets!
Which I don’t need to tell you are protein, Judy.
GOOD HEALTHY PROTEIN which we are going to need when the shit hits the fan. That time is coming, Judy. The dark times. The mad times. The times where those who survive are those who chose clutter, who chose to surround themselves with objects that can be uses as tools or food or gladiatorial weapons in the Wasteland.
Ha ha ha I’m just kidding, Judy.
Now use that barbed wire to bind these cat bones to that shovel.
Lesson Twelve:
The joy of purging? Ha ha no way Marie Kondo, we’re here to talk about the joy of binging! Binging my new Netflix show, of course. And also stuff. So much stuff. Binge all the stuff. Collect it. Eat it. Build with it. Build walls. Build towers. Build effigies to the ancient gods. The ancient gods who collected people the way you collect office supplies you’ll never need. Three staplers? Who the fuck needs three staplers? That’s right, Judy. You do. You do.
Lesson Thirteen:
Like the Pharaohs of old, you surround yourself in life and in death with a bevy of beloved objects, all of which are sealed up in your castle of books, your tomb of stuff, your temple of semi-beloved shame-stained garbage, and now you are protected from wolves and emotions and you have so much knowledge and nobody can hurt you now, Judy, nobody but Cousin Mary, now eat your crickets and clutch your Cat Bone Shovel tight, Judy, the hill mutants are coming, the hill mutants are coming
*static*
* * *
WANDERERS: A Novel, out July 2nd, 2019.
A decadent rock star. A deeply religious radio host. A disgraced scientist. And a teenage girl who may be the world’s last hope. An astonishing tapestry of humanity that Harlan Coben calls “a suspenseful, twisty, satisfying, surprising, thought-provoking epic.”
A sleepwalking phenomenon awakens terror and violence in America. The real danger may not be the epidemic, but the fear of it. With society collapsing—and an ultraviolent militia threatening to exterminate them—the fate of the sleepwalkers and the shepherds who guide them depends on unraveling the mystery behind the epidemic. The terrifying secret will either tear the nation apart—or bring the survivors together to remake a shattered world.
