That one picture of Helly: REID #234
Persistence is key
SHORT:
This week, America’s top military leaders accidentally invited Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, into their secret group chat about bombing Yemen.
In response, The Atlantic fired off a piece titled “Gender: More Dangerous Than Ballistic Missiles?” (hilarious reference to The Atlantic’s famed alarmist reporting on trans issues).
Looking forward to dying in a nuclear misunderstanding because Pete Hegseth replied “k” to the wrong thread 💜
MEDIUM:
I’m writing this (very quickly) in a cat café that I didn't realize was a cat café until I sat down. I entered in a panic, shouted, “WHAT TIME DO YOU CLOSE?” at the barista, and immediately sat down to take a call about how to make our Going Down piece about fascism “a little more fun throughout”—only to look up and see… so many cats.
I was already frazzled after butchering Sondheim at a show honoring his 95th birthday. The café I planned to visit right after the show is usually open until 10, but today it had a handwritten sign on the door saying, “Closing at 6,” which was exactly fifteen minutes away. My call was also scheduled for 6. So I panicked, sprinted down the block, and burst into this unexpected feline haven.
There is a woman here LOVING that they serve “Meownies” (cat brownies). I love that she loves that.
Many people think if I keep living the way I'm living, operating at the speed I'm operating at, I'm going to get stomach ulcers.
Perf life!
LONG:
There’s a screenshot going around of the character Helly from Severance, leaning attentively into her computer screen as she “refines data.”
It’s also exactly how my mom looked, peering through the window of a Carvel ice cream shop that was supposed to open on July 14, 2006. But didn’t.
She’d been waiting since the big sign went up. She grew up on Fudgie the Whale, Flying Saucers, and what she calls “the little amazing chocolate crunchies”—with the same tone people use for “the day we brought him home from the NICU.”
In early May, a sheet of paper appeared on the shop door: GRAND OPENING — JULY 14. My mother treated it like prophecy. She marked it on the calendar, started referencing it in casual conversation (“That’ll be after Carvel opens,” she’d say about dentist appointments), and adjusted her mood accordingly.
The way I’m telling this makes it sound like she’s dead. She’s not. She texted me today:
“I LITERALLY counted down the days ‘til that Carvel opened. Tell them that.”
So I’m telling you. You, specifically—the stranger reading this in a Brooklyn coffee shop pretending not to cry.
Anyway. July 14 arrived. Bright. Sunny. Full of promise. We walked over as a family. I wore flip-flops. My mom wore “a shirt that’d be okay to get crunchies on.” We were ready.
But then (of course): disaster.
A locked door.
Dim lights.
NOT. OPEN.
My mom went silent. And then very calmly pressed her face against the glass to evaluate “what was going on.”
She spotted a few employees inside unpacking boxes and decided to knock. Loudly. Repeatedly.
We screamed: OH MY GOD NO MOM PLEASE STOP. WE CAN GO TO YOGURTLAND. IT’S FINE.
But she was undeterred. Knock-knock-knock.
Eventually, a young man cracked the door open.
“Hi. Um. We’re not open yet,” he said gently. “The soft serve machines aren’t here. There’s no ice cream.”
“But you’re inside,” my mom said, like she’d caught him in a sting operation.
“Right,” he said. “But there’s nothing to serve you.”
Then, possibly out of pity, or fear for his own safety, he added: “But if you come back in three days, we’ll give you some free samples.”
So she did. And was rewarded with a paper cup of vanilla soft serve and what she later described as “a real connection” with the owner, who I’m almost certain still wakes up thinking about her.
“I was a regular. One of their best customers until it closed,” my mom says, in the tone of a woman discussing a husband she lost to war.
Years later, she still peers longingly through the now-Post Office window, chasing the ghost of crunchies past.
The lesson here, I think, is… persistence is key? Unless it’s not. In which case, standing outside a locked building and knocking repeatedly is just harassment.
But every now and then, it’ll get you a free sample. Which is all any of us want, really—a little taste of something, a moment to savor before it melts away. In this economy, that’s basically love, right?
I dunno.
See you next Tuesday.
Thank you for subscribing to this newsletter. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s not [it’s a lot like when people slip on ice].
If this is your first time reading, pls check out the archives.
Sincerely,
Reid Pope
Bonus Jonas Zone:
Snack Of The Week: Carvel, of course. Haven’t actually had it in a bit, but this is sort of a manifestation-style SOTW.