Camels.

A metaphor for our times.

Goddamn it, I am sick of reading about Jeffrey Epstein, and all the terrible, disgusting things he did. And all the rich and powerful friends he had, because apparently nothing bonds people like doing terrible, disgusting things together.

They could’ve just gone to some Big Ten-themed bar in Chicago and done shots of Malört. Nobody would’ve gotten hurt except the poor SOB who cleans the bathroom.

By any measure, Epstein’s pals, from Trump to Prince Andrew, had won the game of Life. With the vista of human existence thrown wide open to them, they chose to do this incredibly harmful shit. Why? And now some not-inconsequential portion of the Ruling Class is using the entire government of the most powerful country in the history of humanity, not for libraries or feeding people or curing cancer—they’ve gotten rid of all that—but for hiding this horrible, awful thing all of us already know they did.

Why? Why would someone like Larry Summers need to do any of this crap?

The only answer is, I think, addiction. And I have something to say about that.

Hello.

Being around a person with an addiction is like having a friend with a pet camel. No offense to camels, camels are great I’m sure. But there are lots of places they shouldn’t be. Most jobs. The maternity ward of a hospital. CERN. Imagine you roll over late at night expecting to find your husband, and instead there’s a big, smelly, farty camel in between you. It’s not optimal!

(This being a humor column on Substack, I’m now obligated to make some crack about how husbands are also big, smelly, and farty. But I believe my readers are funny enough to do that themselves.)

I don’t know how people get these camels, I don’t think anybody knows. Maybe it’s bad luck, or a genetic attraction to humped animals. (What place do dromedaries have in this metaphor? More research is necessary.) I think a certain type of person meets a baby camel when they’re a teenager, and they seem so fun and cute, and what possible harm can it cause?

Then it grows. And grows. And learns to spit. Do camels spit? They look like spitters.

By the time you’re an adult, that camel is fucking HUGE. It follows you everywhere, honking and shitting, and even when it’s very good, it takes up a ton of room. You can be sitting by yourself watching TV on a Saturday night, and it’s right there with you. You look at it laying there breathing and think, “My life is a mess, and I don’t know why. Could it be this…camel? My ex-wife hated it, but she was a bitch. Still—maybe I should get rid of it. But how? We’ve been together for so long. What would it do without me? What would I do without it? I can’t even imagine life without my camel!

Sigh. Maybe it will stop destroying shit. If I give my landlord extra security deposit, maybe—oh, Betty, what are you braying at? Please stop braying! It’s two a.m.!”

[Voice from outside] “Some of us are trying to sleep!”

“FUCK YOU!” you yell back, and then get down on the floor and curl up next to Betty in that very particular way that she likes. Your back will hurt like crazy tomorrow and your doctor says you shouldn’t do it, but this always calms her down.

And it works again this time, thank God, and she stops chittering and whining and, with a prodigious fart, goes to sleep (for now).

And you stare at the TV screen, trying to get into the story, but during every scene—in the corners, popping up behind sofas, standing in infinity pools—you see camels, because the creator of the show and most of the writers and actors have camels, too.

The grip doesn’t, unlucky bastard. He’s gonna get fired, nobody likes him. Because nothing bonds people like doing terrible, disgusting things together.

• • •

Now if you know me, and you’re reading this, you might be thinking, “Shit! He’s talking about me!” and hastily throw a blanket over your camel. Now you’re leaning against it, whistling. Stop. Stop inspecting your nails. You’re not hiding anything. It’s a FUCKING CAMEL.

I’m not even talking about you, anyway. I have determined that roughly 91% of the people I am close to, have camels. I probably have a camel, too, and you’re reading it. I’ve been writing pieces like this since the Fall of 198-fucking-6, and what has it gotten me? Not very much. Not nearly as much as, say, getting interested in…really anything else. Bees. LIBOR. How to help families that are fucking crawling with camels.

Those things are jobs. Writing short humor is probably just a camel.

I guess enough years of accommodating other people camels sometimes makes you think, “I should adopt a camel of my own. A little baby one.” And before you know it, there’s this braying, slobbering beast in your own apartment, kicking in your TV set and chewing the top of the bookcase. “Get down, Samir! GET DOWN!…Veneer is not for eating!”

But I don’t know, and I wouldn’t know. Because the toughest thing about it — the worst thing of all — is how being surrounded by camels all the time makes it so difficult to see you’ve got a camel of your own.

Oh, I’m great at camel-spotting in others. The best. I can talk to a person on the phone—first time, never exchanged a syllable before—and I can hear a camel, bellowing faintly in the background.

And then I think, “This person and me, we’re going to be great friends.”

Pity me. I’m 56 and spend most of every dollar I earn on camel chow. And double pity me, because anybody who has a camel of their own, spends most of their money on camel chow, too, and if you say, “Hey man, I’ve spent a shitload feeding your camel over the years, not to mention paying to get your carpet professionally cleaned fourteen times, or sending apology gifts to all the people at my wedding when your camel ate some ganache and went fucking berserk, how about a little for the effort?” they get very mad. They get this “how-dare-you” look on their face, and say things like, “I can’t believe you’d ask me that. Don’t you see I have this camel? Do you have any idea how much it costs to keep a camel, especially one as old and big and digestively challenged as Clarence? And now you come around with your fucking hand out! Well, FUCK YOU!”

After they storm out of the restaurant, the owner comes over and says, “Uh, your buddy’s camel…”

“Clarence,” you say wearily.

“On the way out, Clarence kicked the vitrine.”

“The what?”

“The glass case. For the cakes,” the owner says. “It’s cracked.”

You put your head in your hands. Can you run? Nah. Can you pretend you’re crazy? The cops would get involved, and anyway this guy shouldn’t have to pay for your buddy’s camel. Why are you buddies with this person again? How did this happen?

You look up wearily. “How much?”

• • •

I think the metaphor works. Anyway, there’s not much hope for me, not at this age; my life has more camels than Ryan Murphy’s all-male reboot of Lawrence of Arabia. Maybe I can join a Friends of Camel-Owners support group. That works sometimes, though it seems to consist mostly of tired-looking people sharing tips on how to get camel spit out of drapes. Useful, but not as useful as NO MORE FUCKING CAMELS, PLEASE.

Could my camel be people with camels? God grant me the serenity to accept the people around me who for some unknown goddamn reason have decided to own camels, A WILD ANIMAL, who belongs IN THE DESERT, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know that one is me. Or, failing that, God please I’m begging you, SEND SOME CAMEL REPELLENT.

Maybe I could learn to ride? “Hut, HUT!”◊

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MICHAEL GERBER is the Editor & Publisher of The American Bystander. He has no opinion on Llamas, alpacas, vicuñas, or guanacos.