The Definitive Field Guide to Everyday Malfunctions (and Other Forms of Organized Reality)

Topic 1 — The Urban Pigeon

The urban pigeon is distinguished by a deeply suspicious ability to remodel the bodywork of the most meticulously polished automobiles in its immediate vicinity. Meteorologists believe this is the result of an emotionally overloaded avian navigation system combined with a mixture of suspiciously random air currents. Vehicle owners, meanwhile, have spent several decades advancing the theory that pigeons regard shiny cars as a personal insult and respond in a manner that most civilizations would classify as diplomatically inappropriate.

The urban pigeon is most commonly found near crumbs of unknown origin and morally exhausted public squares.

Coincidence has been officially ruled out.

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Topic 2 — The School Presentation

School presentations are normally assigned to students who have, over an extended period of time, demonstrated a clear preference for sleep over the spectacularly inefficient memorization of words, numbers, and other information whose significance will be forgotten at approximately the same moment it disappears from the projector screen.

In such situations, the brain generally adopts a position of strict neutrality, declines further involvement in the affair, and leaves the problem to the individual who created it. From a biological perspective, this is considered an entirely reasonable policy.

A typical presentation consists of a low-quality template, several images acquired under circumstances copyright law would prefer not to remember, a polite but entirely insincere “Thank You for Your Attention” slide, and approximately twenty-three bullet points that nobody cares about but which must remain there for obscure administrative reasons.

It worked.

Theoretically.

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Topic 3 — The Phone Charger

The phone charger has been officially classified by the Statistical Office as “existentially slippery.” Most users agree with this assessment.

Under normal circumstances, chargers ought to be functional, reliable, and at least remotely willing to cooperate with the civilization that manufactures them. Practical results, however, have been somewhat less encouraging.

Chargers regularly express their attitude toward service through spectacularly inefficient charging times, sudden failures, and the creation of unpredictable knots that, according to some physicists, violate geometry, common sense, and several less important laws of nature.

Scientists maintain that this is a well-intentioned effort to protect users from excessive phone use. This theory is difficult to reconcile, however, with the growing number of people engaged in thermodynamically ambitious negotiations with technical support departments and repair services.

Chargers have so far declined to comment on whether this constitutes a rebellion.