Wait For It… a blog by Andy Ross

Quick Tour Of Hell

Hello! Welcome to Hell. Let me give you folks a quick tour. Oh, I’m sorry, can you take off your shoes? Thanks. I know, it’s totally anal and gross, but we just prefer no shoes. There’s a mat over by the door.

Okay, so this is the front entryway. It’s filled with people who haven’t seen important movies yet. They’re constantly complaining about overhearing spoilers. Super annoying. So, we punish them by revealing the endings in code. Like, remember how in The Usual Suspects, Limpy McSourpuss goes all mug-breaky?

Then, this is the second circle. (Hell’s concentric circles, by the way. That was in vogue when we built it, but hanging pictures is a drag, and it’s way leaky when it rains.) This is all the people too into internet porn. What a cliché. We punish them with dial-up connections and malware.

Here’s the third circle. This is for the people who read New York Magazine or Travel and Leisure. We figured we’d put the lifestyle porn people next to the porn porn people. We don’t really torture these people, because they're already doing it, themselves.

Moving on, this next circle is where we put the old ladies in line at Walgreens. Y’know, the ones who try to use expired coupons for junk food? What we do is have one cashier who seems like she’s open, but she’s really just counting cash. So, the lines get all messed up, and then the old ladies fight it out over who was there first.

This fifth circle is for teenage girls. We try not to get involved with their punishment, because it’s not worth the screaming or, worse, the pouting. Essentially, though, it’s that there’s a really cool pool party going on somewhere that none of them got invited to.

Ooh, this is the Stygian Marsh. Next year this is all gonna be condos.

The sixth circle is for the people who don’t own a TV. We get it; you have more important things to do with your life than watch Lost. Shut up and don’t ruin things for everyone else. We cram them all into a tiny Starbucks with only one outlet for all their laptops. Try to finish writing your freelance articles now, assholes.

So, this is the seventh circle. This one’s my favorite. It’s for the gays. Not that being gay is a sin; that’s a total myth. There are tons of awesome homos in Heaven. This is just for the ones who think that being gay automatically makes you witty. Enough with the strained wordplay, already! The punishment here is that it’s a loud dinner party, where you have to keep repeating your lame, half-heard puns, thus taking all the fun out of it.

(We’re almost done, I promise. I know it’s huge, and if I had my choice, we’d downsize to a much smaller Hell. But, you just acquire so many souls when you’ve stayed in the same place this long.)

Then, this is the eighth circle. This is where all the state senators end up. So, this is where the majority of sins have been committed—pandering, hypocrisy, thievery, counterfeiting, sowing of discord—standard state politics. This circle is where we pull out all the classic torture stuff. I’d get into it, but it’s honestly pretty gross and flesh-rippy. Totally deserved, though.

Okay, the ninth circle. This is for this one girl, Beth, who totally pretended to be my friend in Junior High. (This was back in Heaven, before I fell from grace.) One day in line for lunch, she yells, “Hey, everybody, check this out!” And, she yanks down my pants. She pantsed me in front of the entire Heaven! I never lived that down. I think it might be why I eventually became so rebellious and ended up down here. Anyway, Beth is frozen up to her face in ice now, and sometimes I flick my boogers at her.

So, you’ve finally made it! Here’s the end of the tour. My bedroom. This is where the magic happens. I’m just kidding. Can I get you a Coke or water or anything? What do you want to do? We could fire up the Wii or play Bananagrams. I’m cool with whatever.