Here in Tallahassee, we’ve been grazed.

But many residents of the Caribbean, Florida, and Western North Carolina have lost everything to hurricanes Helene and Milton. I’ve never seen a hurricane season like this, but it isn’t an anomaly: most scientists now agree that climate change will produce more frequent and more powerful storms.

“I can take one action—one inspiring action—that just might resonate with my audience”

I, for one, have decided I can’t just sit here behind my computer and wait for a miracle to save us. I may not be able to stop climate change, but I can take one action—one inspiring action—that just might resonate with my audience.

I’ve decided to tackle the most obvious driver of the climate crisis: fossil fuels. I knew that if I could eliminate the gas consumption of just one of my subscribers, I could make a small, meaningful difference in my world.

It was easy to choose the recipient. I hired a team of private detectives to follow my seventeen subscribers and determine who among them drove the least fuel-efficient vehicle. I would then replace that vehicle with two Tesla Cybertrucks.

Follow me to Richmond, Virginia, while I deliver this amazing gift.

Franklin St, Richmond, VA, 2024, Oct 13., 5:13 pm

An explosion shatters the stained-glass windows of the St. James Episcopal Church—Melchizedek, Elijah, David, and Christ himself crumble to the granite steps. Smoke rolls over them.

A new breeze rolls the smoke away. Car alarms shriek up and down the street. A tire rings a plane tree’s lowest limb. Thirty feet away stands the vehicle that tossed this ring: a 2003 Jeep Grand Cherokee. Eight pounds of Tannerite and eighteen inches of time-delay fuse have turned this gas guzzler inside out.

Greg Patterson arrives immediately, sprinting and tearing his mustache.

 “What the fu-hu-hu-uuuuuck!” he says.

“I’m so sorry, Greg,” I say. He doesn’t yet see the cameras glinting down at him from the top of the parking garage. I drape my arm over him.

“Thank God you weren’t in it,” I say.

Greg replies that, if he had been in the Jeep when the bomb went off, he would be saved the trouble of killing himself now. And it’s just at this dark juncture when the Cybertrucks prowl down the middle of Franklin. They disrespect the speed humps and park obliquely to us.

“What the fuck is going on,” Greg says.

“Those new Cybertrucks have Elon Musk’s new AI. It must have driven them straight to you, man. Isn’t that cool?”

“Fuck.” Greg melts to the sidewalk. “I knew this would happen today. Fuck me-he-heeeee. Camryn told me that the AI wouldn’t find me today, and I knew that was bullshit.”

“Shut up, Greg,” I authorize. “This is the best thing to happen to you all year. Those are your new Cybertrucks, man. Forget about that Jeep. Let’s get your name on these two titles.”

Greg cries for a long time. Then—I’m pretty sure, it was hard to understand him—he asks me why I have done this.

“Your Jeep Grand Cherokee,” I say, “gets three miles to the gallon in the city of Richmond, which is pretty much the only place you ever drive it. Most Jeeps get more like sixteen in the city, but you’ve had that faulty MAP sensor for about a year now, and it’s really tanked your mileage. That and your tires. They’re completely bald, man. That’s dangerous.”

“They weren’t even that bad,” he says.

“The one on the tree is really shitty,” I say.

Then, as I explain my gesture on behalf of the environment, the police and a few ambulances show up.

“Get in the Cybertruck, Greg.” I say.

He clearly, however, cannot drive. That doesn’t matter. I’ve armed every seat of the Cybertrucks with the finest Buna rubber whoopie cushions money can buy.

As the sirens wail on, I steer my victim into the Cybertruck.

To Be Continued in Whoopie Cushion pt. 4: The Afterblow.