Heeb

Greedy Wi-Fi Owners
Do you sleep better knowing your less fortunate neighbors and the patron at the downstairs café can’t get their claws on your personal stash of the World Wide Web? Why else would you opt to require a password to enter your network? Well, hopefully one of these nights, The Ghost of Internet Past will pay you a visit and choke you with a modem cable. As if seven out of ten times the password isn’t “password” anyway.

OLIVER NOBLE

My Belly
Hello, hairy stranger. I don’t recall inviting you to block my view of my penis for the past decade. Yes, I know that nobody pointed a gun to my head and forced me to march to the all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet. But it’s just too easy to bloat up in this starchy, sugary, Netflix-y modern world. Or maybe it’s genetics. Or evolution. Or that perfect, creamy goop at the center of a Twinkie. Aw, fuck it.

BYRON KERMAN

Baby Bumps
When Mr. Show dreamt up the cynical notion of a prenatal fashion show, the targets were rednecks in the post-JonBenet era. But in fact, the Hollywood elite and their parasitic tabloid culture have become the serial fetus fetishizers. If I read one more creepy headline about Nicole Kidman or Jessica Alba finally showing off her “baby bump”—as if the offspring’s in-utero development is the equivalent of a fleshy handbag—I might kidnap said celebrity and induce a miscarriage for the child’s own good.
KENNY HERZOG

Horror Remakes
For the love of Romero, stop with the scary movie remakes before I kill somebody. Was it really necessary to crank out another When a Stranger Calls just because we now have cell phones? Did we need that douche from Van Wilder to lead the way for yet another Amityville installment? After watching Paris Hilton gallivant through House of Wax, I wanted to wax suicidal.
JUSTIN POWERS

“Just a Tweak”
Many words should be struck from the Hollywood lexicon (“passion” comes to mind), but nothing makes me wince like the use of “tweak.” If you want a page-one rewrite, just say so and stop giving me this “We love it! We’d just like a couple tweaks” crap. Do you think my self-esteem is so fragile that I can’t handle you asking for a revision? Do me a favor and save the tweaking for nipples and acid trips.

JACOB FORMAN

Clipboard People
Soliciting for a cause outside cafés where poor writers with left-leaning ideologies and hair-trigger guilt complexes go to eke out existences? No thanks, I’ll skip the gut punch to my self-worth as I shake my head, put my hands in my pockets and slink back to my apartment to call my disappointed mother to beg for 500 bucks for rent. Maybe try a shop that goes after disposable income totaling more than a buck eighty-seven and make my life as a writer a little less depressing.
ALEX HOLRIDGE

“I Might Make It”
The response that frequently oozes from the mouths of self-centered social-climbers who are unable to confirm their Sunday plans on Saturday. Perhaps I’m just being petty. After all, how can I possibly expect the assistant to the publicist who knows the casting agent behind Tim Burton’s latest project to make a guest appearance at my Earth Day cookout? Especially when you promised your parents you’d clean your room that day.
GAYLE KIRSCHENBAUM

Hotel Key Cards
Yes, my key card did go near “a cell phone and/or credit card.” I guess that’s why it got de-magnetized, forcing me to trudge through the 50-degree casino in flip-flops and a sopping wet bathing suit all the way to the front desk. Thanks for sparing me the inconvenience of twisting a four-ounce, metal door-opener.
IRA SILVERSTEIN
MIAMI, FLORIDA
(READER SUBMITTED)