Justin Altman

[Stunnianna.💋 @mshoney_J]

"you smell good"

I taste better.

[Blaxx🦇 @biggblaxxx]

“marijuana brings out the worst in people”

also marijuana:

[ً @artfuIchaos]

i hate how physical touch as a love language gets reduced to sex and kissing when it's more like... handholding, laying your head on their shoulder, putting your legs over their lap, tracing their palm, tucking your feet under their thighs. just touching for touching's sake.

[𝕊𝕒𝕞𝕞𝕪 @FromN5_]

Whoever came up with “lefty loosey, righty tighty” absolutely knocked it out of the park

[julia @juumelo_]

my body keeps telling me to stop drinking beers but I’m not gonna listen to a retard

[🪞 @allldiamonds]

while you're on twitter hating i'm getting my thighs rubbed under the table

[Rico 🔪 @RicosRevengev]

Niggas be losing all their hoes to prove to a girl they not a hoe just to find out she a hoe

[PB 💋 @PecanBeauty_]

I bought a nigga I was talking to a Christmas gift & he dropped a tear .. you bitches aint shit these men are traumatized 😂

[Terminally Online Leftist 🥂 @terminallyOL]

my grandma reveals that i am the smartest and most handsomest boy

[Thrilla the Gorilla @ThrillaRilla369]

“No way you wrote a 5 page essay without AI”

Buddy, we wrote them without even reading the book.

[~ @H3ll0KittyGal]

Still I rise fuck nigga

[ol’ stocky ⛳️ @oldstocky]

2 incomes is better than 1, make sure your girl has two jobs. Stay up kings 🥂

[Bytes @BytesVevo]

I gotta suck some boobs or kill myself or get a new job or something

[JB @JBTHEPLUG1]

I recently quit smoking weed and I feel like a changed man. All the little things that used to annoy me, now they piss me off.

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

I said goodbye to an American family at eight o'clock.

I left at 9:40.

Nothing went wrong. Nobody stopped me. I stood up, I said thank you, and then a ritual began, and I did not know it was a ritual until I was already inside it.

The first goodbye happens sitting down. This one is false. You say "well" and then you do not move. I moved. That was my first error.

The second goodbye happens standing. There is new conversation here. Better conversation. The finest stories of the entire evening are told after everyone has agreed to leave.

They save their best material for the retreat. This is a nation that fights hardest on the way out the door.

The third goodbye happens at the door. The door is open. Cold air is entering the house and nobody acknowledges the cold air. A woman named Deb told me about her sister's kitchen for eleven minutes with a screen door tapping against her shoulder the entire time.

Then the porch. Then the driveway.

At the driveway the husband got involved. He had barely spoken at dinner. In the driveway he became a different man entirely and told me about a tree.

I don't remember anything about the tree. I remember that he was happy.

Then leftovers arrived. At the car. Which means someone went back inside and made a plate while I stood in the dark, and nobody asked that person to do it.

Nobody ordered that. The supply train left on its own.

I got in the car. I believed I had won. My window was down because it was warm out. That was my final error.

Deb remembered one more thing.

Here is what I have learned since. You do not say goodbye. You say "I should get going," which starts a clock nobody looks at. Then, some time later, the host says "well, I'll let you go."

That is the permission. Only the host can grant it. I had been trying to leave without it, like a man walking out of a castle without being dismissed.

I now announce that I should get going one hour before I intend to get going.

An American friend confirmed this is correct procedure.

He also told me his grandmother once said "I'll let you go" and then talked for twenty more minutes, and he wanted me to understand that this is not a failure of the system.

That is the system.

[geeko suavé 2.0 🦎🇯🇲 @inadiffrntxone]

I can’t eat ts anymore without thinking of this genre of tweet

[Shiba @shibametax]

Remind of that one bro

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

I called a recommended electrician and he did not answer.

I called again the next day. He did not answer.

I mentioned this to the man who gave me the number, apologetically, assuming the man had died.

He said, "Oh yeah, he's terrible with the phone."

Then he said, "He's great though."

Terrible with the phone. Great though.

I asked how I am supposed to reach a man who does not answer his phone.

He said, "Just keep calling. He'll pick up eventually."

I called eleven times over six days. I left three messages of increasing formality. The third one was, I now realize, addressed to a dead man.

On day seven he answered and said, "Yeah?"

No apology. No acknowledgment of eleven calls. He answered as though we were mid-conversation.

I have since learned the rule, and the rule is upsetting.

The good ones do not answer.

The ones who answer immediately, who have a scheduling system, who send a confirmation text, who arrive in a branded vehicle within twenty-four hours, are the ones you should be afraid of.

Availability is the warning sign.

A man who can come tomorrow is a man with nothing to do tomorrow.

I said this out loud to an American and he nodded like I had recited scripture.

He said, "My guy took nine days to call me back. Best tile guy in the state."

Nine days. He said it with pride. He was bragging. He was bragging about being ignored.

I asked the electrician why he does not answer.

He said, "I'm in an attic."

That is the whole answer. He is in an attic. He is in an attic every day. The phone is in the truck and the truck is in the driveway and he is in the attic.

He said, "If I answered the phone I'd be a guy who answers phones."

He fixed my problem in thirty minutes and did not charge me for the trip.

I have his number. He will not answer it.

That is how I know it is a good number.

How long did your best guy take to call you back. Post the number of days. I want to see the correlation.

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

I needed to move a sofa.

I mentioned this to an American. He said, "You know anybody with a truck?"

I did not know anybody with a truck.

He looked at me with real concern. Not pity. Concern. The way you look at a man who has told you he does not have a name.

"You gotta know somebody with a truck."

I asked how one acquires such a person.

He said, "You just do."

This is the third time I have received that answer in this country. It is the answer to everything here. You just do. There is no process. There is only the eventual fact of having.

He said, "Ask Kevin."

I do not know a Kevin. He said Kevin like I should. He said it the way you say a shared uncle.

I met Kevin four days later. Kevin owns a truck. Kevin does not own a truck for himself. Nobody owns a truck for themselves. Kevin owns a truck for a fifteen mile radius.

Inside I said: THIS MAN HAS TAKEN A VOW. HE DID NOT ANNOUNCE IT. HE SIMPLY PURCHASED A BED AND ACCEPTED THE CONSEQUENCES.

Kevin arrived on Saturday. He brought the truck. He also brought a second man.

I had not asked for a second man.

The second man's name is Tony. Tony came because Kevin came. Tony did not know me. Tony did not ask what we were moving. Tony brought gloves.

They moved the sofa in eleven minutes.

I offered them money. Both of them laughed at the same time, which felt rehearsed and was not.

I asked what I owed them.

Kevin said, "Buy the pizza."

That is the price. That is the entire economy. The truck costs one pizza and the pizza is not negotiable and the pizza is also not expensive and everyone knows what size.

Inside I said: THE FEE IS FIXED ACROSS THE ENTIRE NATION AND WAS SET BY NO ONE.

We ate on the floor because the sofa was against the wall and none of us wanted to be the first to sit on it.

Tony told me his daughter plays soccer. I asked if she is good. He said, "She's aggressive."

I still think about that.

Three weeks later, Kevin texted me.

"You free Sunday? Helping Tony move a fridge."

He did not ask if I wanted to. He informed me of a fridge.

Inside I said: I HAVE BEEN CALLED UP. I DID NOT ENLIST. THE PAPERS WERE FILED ON MY BEHALF.

I went. I moved the fridge. I have no truck. I contributed only arms.

Afterward, a man I had never met asked me if I knew anybody with a truck.

I said, "Yeah, I got a guy."

I have a guy.

I am somebody's guy now, too. Tony has told two people about me.

He describes me as "the guy who's strong for his size."

I have never been prouder of a sentence in my life.