Querulous
Adj. Complaining in a petulant, whining manner; peevish, fretful, or given to incessant grumbling, often over trivialities.
Derived from Latin querulus, from queri (to complain), with roots in Proto-Indo-European kwes– (to wheeze or sigh).  Late Middle English snatched it up around the 15th century, slapping it onto those who moan like a creaky floorboard under a fat man’s boot.

My office in the Safe House, where the Dissolute Desk sits, has become a bit derelict, maybe even ramshackle, lately.  It’s a literary warzone of crumpled manuscripts, half-empty bourbon bottles, and cigarette burns that map out my existential crises.  I’d been drowning in my own detritus – pizza boxes stacked like postmodern ziggurats, dust bunnies breeding with the ferocity of roaches in a California dumpster – so I hired a housekeeper.  Enter Mrs. Fingerbottom. 

She arrived, a wiry specter in a floral apron, her face a topographical map of disapproval, lips pursed like she’d just sucked a lemon through a straw.  I’d hoped for a stoic domestic warrior, a Mrs. Doubtfire with a broom and a can-do spirit.  Instead, I got this querulous old bat, her voice a nasal dirge that could make a saint chuck his halo and reach for the whiskey.  “The curtains are filthy,” she’d whine, brandishing her feather duster like some scepter of judgement.  “And these books – stacked like a hobo’s lean-to!  How do you live in this squalor?”  Each syllable dripped with the petulance of a dowager who’d found a fly in her vichyssoise. 

I tried to ignore her, barricading myself behind my typewriter, hammering out prose while she shuffled through my chaos, muttering dark imprecations about the state of my socks.  But her complaints were a sonic assault, a relentless drip-drip-drip of grievance that eroded my sanity faster than a three-day bender in Tijuana.  One day, she stood over my desk, clutching a moldy coffee mug like it was evidence in a war crimes trial.  “This,” she hissed, pissed off, “is an affront to hygiene!”  I wanted to set light to her.  I wanted to scream, to tell her to take her sanctimonious scrubbing and sit on it and spin, but I just grinned, and poured another shot.  Because I’ve come to understand that in this ridiculous existence, even a nagging witch like Mrs. Fingerbottom is just another character in the lunatic narrative I’m apparently doomed to write. 

N.P.: “My Love” – Die Symphony

Alrighty, then, dear reader…let’s get to it.  Today’s Word of the Day is caterwaul.

(verb) To make a shrill, wailing noise, like a cat in heat or your pathetic ex at 2 a.m. after three tequila shots too many.
(noun) A loud, unpleasant screeching sound, often associated with drama, chaos, or the unholy union of both.
This gem of a word slinks into English from the Middle Dutch cater (meaning “tomcat”) and waul (meaning “to yowl”).  Basically, it’s the linguistic lovechild of a feral alley cat and a banshee.

It was a Sunday morning in Brooklyn, the kind of morning where the air smells like burnt espresso and retribution.  I was nursing a hangover that felt like a symphony of jackhammers in my skull but MGMT had insisted I attend this “brunch for progressive thought leaders.”  Translation: a mimosa-fueled circle jerk of liberal white women in wide-brimmed hats and ethically sourced linen jumpsuits.
The café was called something insufferable like “Thyme & Privilege,” and the menu featured items like “deconstructed avocado toast” and “locally foraged mushroom foam.”  I was halfway through a Bloody Mary that tasted like spicy motor oil when the conversation turned to the topic of “allyship,” which, as per our usual arrangement, isn’t even a word, but I kept my mouth shut, because I knew it was only going to get worse, and I should keep my powder dry as long as I can.  That’s when it happened – The Caterwaul.
It started as a low hum, a kind of collective throat-clearing, and then crescendoed into a full-blown cacophony of performative wailing.  One woman, who introduced herself as “Moonbeam,” began sobbing about the emotional labor of explaining intersectionality to her yoga instructor.  Another, clutching a turmeric latte like it was a life raft, lamented the “violence” of being unfollowed on Instagram by her Reiki healer.
The shrieking reached its peak when a woman named Karen (yes, really) stood up and declared, “I just feel so seen right now,” before collapsing into a heap of organic cotton and crocodile tears.  It was like watching a Greek tragedy, but with more gluten-free pastries.  I left before the kombucha shots came out, but not before stealing a mason jar of artisanal honey labeled “Bee Kind.”  Because irony. 

N.P.: “White Rabbit” – Collide

Happy Sunday, dear reader.  Let me introduce you to rathskeller: a basement restaurant or tavern, typically one serving beer and hearty Germanic fare, where the lighting is dim, the atmosphere thick with the promise of shitty decisions, and the clientele ranges from the questionably employed to the aggressively unemployable.

We stole it from the German Ratskeller, literally “council cellar” – because apparently even medieval bureaucrats needed somewhere to drink themselves into legislative oblivion.  The word combines Rat (council) and Keller (cellar), though let’s be honest, the only council happening in most modern rathskellers involves debating whether that fifth shot of Jägermeister was a diplomatic triumph or an act of war against one’s liver.

Speaking of questionable decisions, I once found myself in such an establishment during what I’ll generously call my “young and stupid” phase (as opposed to my current “older and marginally less stupid” phase).  Picture this: It’s 2 AM, I’m three schnapps deep, and my date – a charming woman who claimed to be “between careers” but whose LinkedIn profile suggested she was between decades – decides we should order the house specialty.  Now, in any respectable rathskeller, you’d expect schnitzel or bratwurst.  But this place?  They brought us what can only be described as a crime against both German cuisine and the Geneva Convention: a pretzel the size of a steering wheel topped with what they optimistically called “artisanal cheese” but smelled suspiciously like corpse feet. 

My date took one bit, declared it “rustic,” and proceeded to eat the entire thing while maintaining eye contact.  It was weird.  I knew right then I was either witnessing true love or a serial killer testing my resolve.  It was neither.  She stuck me with the $47 tab and disappeared into the night like some sort of overpriced pretzel bandit.  For no good reason at all, I went back the next week.  Apparently, my standards for both food and romance had officially hit rock bottom, and they were serving it with a side of regret and mustard that definitely wasn’t Grey Poupon. 

N.P.: “Touch” – Wolfsheim

Today’s word is so delightful in its phonetic jaunt that you might be tempted to think it’s a term of endearment – it is not.  At its core, “hokum” is a linguistic middle finger dressed up in folksy clothing.  It’s the sweet-sounding assassin of shitty ideas, bad writing, and con-artist theatrics.  Merriam-Webster, may God have mercy on their stuffy woke souls, defines it as “nonsense” or “unsubstantial material presented as if it were significant.”  More pointedly for our purposes, it’s also a literary indictment – a tire iron to the knees of hacky prose and storytelling cliches.  I’m looking at you, James Patterson industrial complex?
It’s a term that slinks out of the American vernacular like a whiskey-soaked conman, promising truth but delivering a swift kick to the cerebral cortex with a steel-toed boot of bullshit.  The word dates back to 1917, birthed from the American theater scene.  It likely evolved from “hocus-pocus,” which itself is just medieval bullshit Latin for “I’m fooling your dumb ass.”  Hokum came to refer to the corny, manufactured sentimentality peddled on stage by second-rate vaudevillians.  Flash forward, and today we have hokum in chain bookstores, high-school drama productions, and at every Netflix-funded rom-com Bulgarian dump yard.

Hector Mengel was drunk in a way that would make Hemingway sit up in his grave, slack-jawed with secondhand liver pain.  The Mountain Lion Saloon was his temple, tequila the sacrament, and the congregation was a couple of barflies who hadn’t seen sobriety since Woodstock ’99.
“Writing’s gotta be real,” Hector slurred to Marty, the kind of tragically bald bartender who always looked like he just lost a fight to a squirrel.  “You start doing it for the clicks and the algorithms, you’re no better than those hokum-slinging MFA pricks who keep comparing their stepdads to the mists of Yorkshire.”
“Inspiring,” Marty droned as he chipped away at what could have either been line rind or unclaimed dental work.
Hector tipped his chair back – weightlessly at first, until gravity got possessive.  The crash was museum worthy.  Flat on his ass and buried under an avalanche of spilled booze and shame, Hector waved blindly toward a pack of peanuts someone kicked out of reach.  The crowd of zero laughed with gusto.
Just as he lumbered upward, muttering curses that would make sailors call HR, the door flung open.  Enter Brittney Stone, her reputation a howling storm known across two counties and recently defamed at the Yellow Pages Yelp party.
“Hector, you bigoted windbag!” she shouted, slapping a dog-eared printout of his latest op-ed on the bar top.  The title appeared to be “Is Dipshit the Only Flavor Modern Poetry Knows Anymore?  Discuss.”  She jabbed her toothbrush-thin finger at his use of the word “triteness.”  “Your metaphors are rotten cheese!”
“I’ll have you know,” Hector wheezed, retrieving his now-drenched fedora from the floor, “that my metaphors are artisanal cheese.  Funky by design but adored in Paris.”
“This?  This right here?”  She held up the printout like a preacher flaunting sins in the Psalms.  “It’s hokum – pure, cattle-grade, waffle-stomping hokum.”
Hector stood.  The bar stilled.  “Says the woman who rhymed ‘ablaze’ with ‘my gran-pappy’s malaise’ in Fecal Creek’s poetry mag.”
It devolved quickly after that.  A couple of punches were thrown, Brittney chugged someone else’s gin, and Hector left with both a black eye and four new haikus rattling in his whiskey-slick head. 

N.P.: “Camino” – Calva Louise

What it is, dear reader.  Today’s Word of the day is “triturate.”  Just saying the word summons memories of 10th-grade science classes I probably attended with a hangover from Bartles &James, trying to grind down some uncooperative substance in a mortar and pestle while wishing I could do the same to the pounding in my skull.  But I digress.  Today’s word is deceptively fancy for what it means:

Triturate (verb): 1) To crush, grind, or pulverize a substance into fine particles or powder, often for medicinal purposes.  2) Chew or grind (food) thoroughly.  Fancy word for smashing stuff to bits.
Comes from the Latin triturationem, which means rubbing or grinding, derived from tritura, the action of threshing corn.  Imagine some toga-clad Roman farmer grinding wheat into flour and muttering to himself, “Ah, triumphant trituration!”  Or not.  It’s your brain.

Well, here we go again…another weird event I don’t really want to be attending.  Mgmt gets free tickets for all sorts of shit, and then no one wants to go, so eventually, they say, “give the tickets to Jayson…he’ll go.”  Which is true, alas. 

Today’s weirdness is something called “Bayou by the Bay,” which is a bunch of New Orleans’/Cajun stuff (mostly food and music), brought to this purgatorially humid fairground, as if San Francisco didn’t have enough culture of its own and needed a bunch of live Zydeco from the swamplands.  Whatever…it’s free. 

After pre-gaming in the parking lot, I wanted to eat.  I wandered into the fairgrounds, the smell of deep-fried everything and the twang of accordion hitting me like a wall.  The air was thick, not just with the prenominated humidity but with the kind of indescribably energy that comes from people who are way too into crawfish.  We passed a guy in a sequined vest playing a washboard strapped to his chest, and I thought about returning to the parking lot for more strong drink. 

The food stalls were lined up with several species of southern weirdness.  Gumbo, jambalaya, po’boys, beignets – each on promising a little slice of Louisiana heaven.  I didn’t know what most of that shit was, so I made a beeline for the “Gator on a Stick” stand, because if I was going to commit to this experience, I might as well go all in.  Besides, I always enjoy eating animals who would otherwise be eating me. 

The guy behind the counter was a caricature of Cajun charm, complete with a straw hat and a thick accent I could barely understand.  Eventually he handed me three skewers of what I assumed was alligator meat, though it could’ve been anything, really.  It was grilled to a leathery brown and glistened with some kind of glaze that smelled vaguely of teriyaki. 

“Enjoy,” he said with a grin that suggested that he knew I wouldn’t. 

I found a picnic table under a sagging tent and took my first bite.  Or tried to. Dear God.  The texture was somewhere between chicken and rubber, leaning heavily toward the rubber end of the spectrum, and the flavor was mostly just the glaze.  I chewed.  And chewed.  And I chewed some more.  After a solid 15 minutes of attempted trituration of what was basically dinosaur meat, I realized I hadn’t actually made any progress…the gator seemed completely unaffected.  

The Zydeco band started up on the main stage, and crowd was eating it up – figuratively, of course, if they too were attempting to eat this rotten lizard meat.  People were dancing, clapping, and shouting happily at each other under a huge banner that said “Laissez les bon temps rouler!” which I assumed meant, “Let’s get sweaty and pretend this is fun.”  I ignored these people and kept chewing.  This was clearly no Cajun snack…this was a Sisyphean trial, a culinary gauntlet thrown down by some cruel, toothy deity.  My teeth gnashed, my temporomandibular joint screaming in protest, but the gator refused to submit.  Not a single fiber gave way, no matter how I chomped or cursed.  I imagined my saliva pooling uselessly, a pathetic attempt at softening what might as well have been vulcanized rubber. 

Two hours in, my mouth was a war zone, my pride a tattered flag.  But I didn’t quit.  Not because I’m noble, but because I’m too stubborn to let a dead lizard win.  The sun kept burning, and I kept chewing, chasing the faint hope that persistence might transmute this torture into triumph.  Spoiler: it didn’t.  But damn if I didn’t feel alive, locked in combat with that unyielding piece of prehistoric jerky, the world reduced to me, my teeth, and a fight I’d already lost. 

Eventually, I gave up.  Twenty-five dollars and two hours of my life, gone.  It lives on, though, in the part of my jaw that clicks now when I try to eat steak.  A little souvenir from the gator that refused to be ground down, bitten through, or tamed. 

There you have it, sexy reader. Triturate: grind it, crush it, make it submit—or, like me with that gator, learn to live with the ache. Now go forth and chew on something that fights back.

N.P.: “Rock Roll” – Executive Slacks

I hope you’re wearing your tux or ball gown today, dear reader, for you have found your lucky self at a World Premiere!  Today, I’m thrilled to unveil a brand new word to the world.  Ladies and gentlemen…behold!  I give you juridiculous (adj).  This term, coined by yrs. truly, is an adjective used to describe decisions, rulings, or verdicts so absurd, farcical, or patently nonsensical that they defy logic, reason, and the basic tenets of justice.  These rulings often arise from the political weaponization of the law, grotesque incompetence, or a toxic cocktail of both.  The word captures the Kafkaesque comedy of errors that unfolds when the judicial system becomes a theater of the absurd.
A portmanteau of juridical (from the Latin juridicus, meaning “of or relating to judicial proceedings”) and ridiculous (from the Latin ridiculus, meaning “laughable, absurd”).  Together, they form a linguistic Molotov cocktail hurled at the crumbling edifice of legal sanity.

It started, as these things often do, with a parking ticket.  Not just any parking ticket, but one issued for the crime of “parking with intent to loiter.”  Let that sink in, dear reader.  The car wasn’t double-parked, wasn’t blocking a hydrant, wasn’t even idling.  It was just there, existing in a metered space, minding its own goddamn business.  But apparently, in the eyes of the law – or at least the bloodshot eyes of Officer McCheese of the FCPD (not his real name…I’ve had enough trouble with this badge-carrying ballbag already, so I’m not going to dox him here), who looked like he’d been mainlining Red Bull and rage since 1997 – this was an act of premeditated vehicular loitering.
So there I was, standing in front of Judge Phatphuck (also not his real name), a man whose face resembled a half-melted candle and whose judicial robe looked like it had been tailored by a blind mortician.  He peered down at me over his bifocals, the kind of glasses that scream, I’m about to ruin your day for sport.
“How do you plead to the charge of parking with intent to loiter?” he asked, his voice dripping with the kind of smugness that only comes from a lifetime of never being punched in the face.
“Your Honor,” I sad, “with all due disrespect, this charge is – how do I put this delicately? – batshit crazy.”
Phatphuck’s jowls quivered.  “Watch your language in my courtroom!”
“Watch your courtroom in my language,” I shot back, because sometimes you have to go down swinging.
The prosecutor, a woman who look like she’d been raised by a pack of sentient spreadsheets, stood up and began reciting some obscure municipal code about “intentional misuse of public space.”  She spoke with the kind of monotone that could make a TED Talk on time travel sound like a eulogy for a goldfish.
“Your Honor,” I interrupted sexily, “this is juridiculous.”
The courtroom fell silent.  Even the stenographer stopped typing, her fingers hovering over the keys like she was trying to decide whether to record my outburst or just quit her job and join a commune.
“Excuse me?” Phatphuck said, his voice rising an octave.
“Juridiculous,” I repeated.  “Adjective.  Describing a judicial decision so absurd, so laughably detached from reality, that it makes Kafka look like a realist.  Example: this entire bullshit proceeding.”
Phatphuck’s face turned the color of a boiled lobster.  “One more outburst like that, and I’ll hold you in contempt.
“Hold this in contempt, jackass.  I’ve been swimming in contempt since the moment I walked in here.  You think I’m scared of a little extra?”
Ultimately, I was fined $500, sentenced to 20 hours of community service, and banned from parking within 500 feet of a courthouse for the next year.  But you know what, dear reader?  It was worth it.  Because somewhere out there, in the vast and chaotic universe of human language, juridiculous now exists.
And if that’s not justice, I don’t know what is. 

N.P.: “In Hell I’ll Be In Good Company – Metal Version” – Leo

Happy Saturday, dearest reader.  It’s time to sling some lexical filth into your booze-addled brains.  Today’s word is scrofulous, a term so gloriously grotesque it could make a vulture gag on its own carrion.  Let’s tear into it in our usual style: like a pack of rabid jackals on a three-day bender.

1. Of, relating to, or affected with scrofula, that old-timey tuberculous nightmare where your lymph nodes swell up like rotten fruit.
2. Having a diseased, run-down appearance, like you’ve been living in a dumpster behind a dive bar.
3. Morally contaminated, the kind of soul-rot that makes you want to shower with whiskey and self-loathing.

This gem slinks from the Middle English scrofules, rooted in the Latin scrofulae, meaning “swellings” or “little sows” (because those neck lumps looked like piglets to some medieval quack).  It’s tied to scrofa, Latin for “sow,” which is fitting, given the word’s grubby, wallowing vibe.  It’s like the linguistic gods knew it would one day describe the kind of people who drink boxed wine straight from the spout.  By the 15th century, it was slathered onto anything diseased or morally bankrupt, and it’s been festering in the language ever since.

The bar was a pulsating boil of humanity, smelling like sweat, stale beer, and urinal cakes.  I was  being my usual amazing self, three whiskeys deep, my notebook splayed open like a gutted fish, when this really ratty bastard, I mean we’re talking scrofulous, staggered in – face like a roadmap of shitty decisions, eyes like piss-holes in the snow, his soul so rank you could smell the moral decay over the cigarette haze.  He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him.  He had a Michael Scott vibe to him, if Michael Scott quit bathing and shaving and did a lot of cocaine.  He lurched toward the bar, barking for a double of something cheap enough to strip paint, and when the bartender – a woman with arms like a longshoreman and a stare that could castrate – told him to fuck off, he tried to charm her with a grin that showed teeth like a row of condemned tenements.  “You know I’m good for it,” this loser pleaded.  “Please…they’re closing in!  My whole family’s about to go to prison…all of our friends!  ‘Seditious treason,’ they’re saying!  Whatever the fuck that is.  Please!  I’m begging you!  Give me a drink!”
“Hunter, I told you to fuck OFF!” hollered the bartender, who then slugged a mouthful of whiskey, spit it all over this nebbish, pulled out her lighter, and lit him on fire.  The whole place erupted in laughter, a raw, hyena howl, as he ran out into the night, trailing a stench of failure and cheap, flaming whiskey.  I scribbled it all down, my pen moving like a switchblade, knowing this was the kind of night that’d leave scars. 

Now go forth, sexy reader, and wield “scrofulous” like a shotgun in your next ballroom rant.  Drop it in a sentence, scare the squares, and raise a glass to the glorious rot of language.

N.P.: “As Alive As You Need Me To Be” – Nine Inch Nails

What it is, dear reader.  I’m four whiskey’s in, scribbling this on a napkin in a bar that smells like regret and motor oil.  So let’s get to it.

Abecedarium is a word both pretentious enough to elevate your cocktail party small talk right past the threshold of the tolerable and yet charming enough to avoid being immediately escorted to the patio to smoke alone.  Using it won’t make you friends, but it will make your friends feel stupid, which, frankly, is its own reward.

An “abecedarium” is an alphabetically ordered list, typically used for teaching purposes.  Think kindergarten flashcards but set in Latin, so they’re basically the literary equivalent of drinking scotch in a leather chair.

Or – less commonly – a person who is just learning; in other words, a novice, the kind  of wide-eyed rookie who trips over their own ambition and thinks its progress.  Yes, you can call someone an abecedarium if they still need the training wheels on their intellectual bicycle.  Try it next time your friend can’t find the “any” key on their keyboard.  If someone accuses you of being an “abecedarium,” they’re either pointing out your obsession with ABCs or trying to start an elaborate bar fight in the guise of a Scrabble challenge.

The word comes to us from Latin, obviously – abecedarium comes from “ABCD,” the sound you make when you lose your train of thought mid-sentence and try to fake confidence.  The Romans, masters of turning fleeting brain farts into academic formality, slapped on the suffix
“-arium,” because everything sounds fancier with a suffix that implies archives, libraries, or conspiracy rooms.

So I’m in this shithole cantina in Tijuana, 2017, my liver screaming for mercy and my notebook a graveyard of half-baked poems.  The bartender, a grizzled idiot named Rico with a scar like a topographic map of hell, is pouring mezcal so cheap it could strip paint.  I’m dealing with this kid – call him Diego, a virgin if there ever was one, fresh off the bus from some nowhere pueblo, clutching a dog-eared copy of On The Road like it’s the goddamn Bible.  Diego’s got that novice glow, all earnestness and bad tattoos, yammering about how he’s gonna write the Great American Novel despite never finishing high school.  I’m half-drunk, half-amused, and I say, “Kid, you’re so green you make limes jealous. You don’t write the Great Anything till life kicks your teeth in…don’t worry…it’ll happen.”  He blinks, all doe-eyed, and orders us another round of this piss, thinking he can outdrink me.  Mistake.  Two hours later, he’s reciting his “poetry” – some godawful drivel about cacti and freedom – while I’m carving limericks into the bar with a switchblade.  Diego pukes on his shoes, passes out, and I’m left with his book, now sticky with mezcal and moronic verse.  I flip it open, write “Learn to live first, you dumbass” on the title page, sign it, and leave it next to his face.  Rico laughs, says I’m cruel.  I say I’m honest.  That abecedarium’s got a long road ahead, and I ain’t his Sherpa. 

Now go read, write, or burn something, you literary reprobates, or I’ll personally spike your coffee with iambic pentameter.

N.P.: “Uptown Funk” – Saints of Sin

A word so deceptively small and flippant it practically trips off the tongue, shedding responsibility like an unrepentant twit fleeing the consequences of a late-night bar tab.  At its core, “piffle” is a glorious noun (or occasionally a verb, if you’re feeling ballsy) that encapsulates nonsense, drivel, inane chatter – the auditory equivalent of someone smacking their gums over a lukewarm soda from a gas station in Reno.  A perfect linguistic tool when “horseshit” feels too crass (imagine that, I know) and “nonsense” lacks punch.

“Piffle” emerged straight out of the Victorian word machine, evidently.  It first slithered onto the scene in the late 19th century, likely as a child of onomatopoeic creativity – a linguistic fart noise, if you will, destined to embody foolish talk.  The Brits, drunk on empire and possibly gin, picked it up and ran with it.  It was once a polite way to call somebody’s bluff or dismiss their absurdity without looking too gauche (or drunk).  That said, there’s no definitive origin story – but isn’t that fitting for a term that basically means “pointless chatter”?  It came from somewhere or nowhere, just like half the things you think about in the shower.

Imagine it’s three in the morning, and you’re nursing what can only be described as the unholy spawn of caffeine overdose and existential dread while loitering in a 24-hour diner that smells vaguely of bleach and broken dreams.  Enter Boochie – your friend, nemesis, and someone who will definitely get you arrested someday.  Boochie slams down a mug of coffee as black as Satan’s eyeliner and starts in on one of his infamous “plans.”

“Listen,” he says, eyes darting like a ferret who’s just found out he’s one lottery ticket away from Easy Street.  “This time, it’s foolproof.  We invest in an alpaca farm in Costa Rica.  It’s sustainable.  It’s organic.  It’s sexy, dammit.”
You blink.  Twice.  Your brain struggles to process the sheer audacity of the nonsense pouring out of his mouth.  Finally, somewhere between pity and rage, you find the words. 

“Boochie, my dude,” you say, tapping a cigarette against an ashtray for dramatic effect, “that has got to be the biggest pile of piffle I’ve heard since your artisanal bong startup went under in ’22.”

And really, what more is there to say?  Boochie sulks.  You order pie.  The waitress gives you both a look that says she’s heard it all before, and the night rolls on, a relentless blur of terrible decisions and half-baked philosophies. 

“Piffle” is your friend when you need to dismiss absurdity with just the right mix of disdain and panache.  Unlike words like “hogwash” or balderdash,” which sound like they belong to some Dickensian dandy, “piffle” walks the line between sarcasm and outright dismissal.  Use it wisely – or don’t.  The world’s a mess anyway.

N.P.: “Night Fever” – Bee Gees