D&D dropout, ranger danger & social insecurity
Dear Rachel,
I’m a big ass nerd. I got invited to a D&D campaign. I passed it off as if I’d done this plenty of times, but I have my own D&D: a Deep & Dark Secret. I’ve never played. I’m just not that kind of nerd. But everyone assumes I have, and I let them think so. Now I’m in too deep. How do I tell my fellow nerds that I might have misled them without losing my friends and without sinking my nerd creds?
– Deflected & Deceived
Dear Duped & Doomed,
You’re done for. No road left for you but the high one: getting all your friends high before you get real with them. By which I mean, of course, that you dump an even bigger lie on them. All your dice are cursed! (This is a thing, I swear.) So you dumped them all in the river, and the river nymph rose to tell you that in order to charm your new dice, you must adopt a beginner mind and re-learn D&D from scratch.
– Rolling another number, Rachel
Dear Rachel,
Last week was my first time on the Front Range in years. I’d forgotten just how far away it really is. Great. Keeps us remote and inaccessible over here. But everyone there gripes about Durango, “You’re so far away, you’re not even in the same state.” I want to say “Good!” but I don’t want to draw even that much attention to us. What’s an effective deflection so these Front Rangers can keep forgetting we even exist?
– Slippery Western Slope
Dear Worst Kept Secret,
The word is out about Durango. There’s no putting that dragon back in the dungeon, as it were. The more we try to hide it, the more enticing we will seem. I think it’s time we pivot course and start up an anti-branding campaign. Let’s do a 10-year celebration of the river turning orange and put it on all Front Range TikTok feeds. Take pictures of my friends’ five-roommates-in-a-house kitchen situation and slot them on Airbnb. Things like this. In other words, give ’em the full picture! And then walk away while they tell us how much better Boulder is anyway.
– Downhill from here, Rachel
Dear Rachel,
Per the Southern Poverty Law Center, unauthorized workers pay $13 billion into the Social Security system through payroll tax deductions even though they’re not eligible for benefits. Do you think that the regular dud and duchess will notify Social Security that it’s not their money and give back to the U.S. Treasury for all to use? What do you do, keep it and forget it or pass it on to the good of all?
– Lawn Mower and Flower Planter
Dear Things Kept in a Shed,
Who are this dud and duchess? Another D&D combo? They should roll their dice to discover just how dead and dismembered Social Security is anyway and how unlikely it is that us regular dudes and dudettes will ever see a dime of our dividends. The distribution of payroll deductions has never been divided democratically, so why deign to distribute them now?
– Dollars to donuts, Rachel
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