My wife can’t stand me now because whenever I try dirty talk, she hears the sounds of bald eagles and monster trucks, which is really epic and gets me thinking about patriotism, but does not turn her on. Even worse, whenever I get naked, I hear FDR doing a fireside chat about my medical problems. This is how I found out about my cancer diagnosis.

Conversations are hard these days because every time I want to talk about paleobiogeography, a loud dinosaur roars over every single one of my words, which would suck if that was something I talked about often. But what really ticks me off is the deafening sounds of Mughal economic growth whenever I talk about the reign of Akbar the Great, which I unfortunately do talk about on a daily basis.

I also have crippling anxiety, so it is very inconvenient that every afternoon I hear the sounds of a ticking time bomb. Whenever it goes off, I either get attacked by wolves or become a millionaire. I have never become a millionaire.

But I would say that the worst part of my condition is the sound. After the war, I developed this terrible condition where sound effects terrorize my everyday life. I can never wake up on time because whenever my alarm goes off, silence plays over it. And whenever I want peace and quiet, alarm noises go off.