The Den of Filth

April 4, 2026

• A couple weeks ago, someone emailed me about the key used on this site's navigation area. This one:

  

  I got it at an estate sale in Cambridge, Minnesota, about a million years ago. I can't remember why I bought it. It's been in a trinket display in my dining room for the past three years.

  Anyway, the person who asked about it collects padlocks and believed my key may open a padlock in their collection. Naturally, I mailed it to them. I'm hoping they will let me know if it works!

  I thought it was pretty neat that a random passerby happened upon this website because of an old key collecting dust in my house. A fun reminder that the internet is a real place. You never know who might be walking down your proverbial street.

• At work I asked a person to send me a project called Money. They sent me a project called Time instead. Is there a joke in there somewhere? A hidden meaning? Time instead of Money... Maybe the universe is telling me I'm about to get my walking papers.

• I used to have a cat named Bella. For a while, we lived together in a small studio apartment. It was a shithole; my friends and I still refer to it as the Den of Filth. Think about the type of apartment you'd be able to afford making $12 an hour in 2015. Then add no small amount of extra holes in the walls, at least four screaming matches between your neighbors and the homeless people who keep barricading themselves in the laundry room, and whatever amount of house centipedes will make you cry.

  One night I got home from work around midnight, and Bella was staring at something I couldn't see. I was a little wary, remembering the time he oogled a house centipede as it crawled down the wall and onto my shoulder. But I couldn't see any bugs, so I settled into bed.

  Moments later, Bella hopped up carrying a mouse. My precious cat, my BFF, my son, brought a mouse onto my bed. I have never moved faster in my life.

  Of course, his ass immediately let it go. I stood helpless as the mouse raced into the bathroom, where I assume it had a nest in the cavernous hole behind the toilet that the landlord had stuffed with plastic grocery bags.

  The mouse was gone, and I was left with a stranger who had just moments ago held a wild animal in his mouth. Who was this man? I am not joking when I tell you I never looked at Bella the same way again.

  A couple weeks later, it was Saturday. I went grocery shopping, hoping the mouse traps I'd set up around the apartment would do their job. Sadly, they were empty when I got home. I put my groceries away and sat down on the little couch at the foot of my bed.

  Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw it. The mouse was inches away, poking its head out from between two couch cushions. I screamed and rushed to get the trash can, hoping I could usher the mouse into the place where it belonged.

  I could not. It got away again, this time under the front door and into the hallway. Bella stood by and did nothing. Thank Zurac, the mouse never returned.

  I often think back on that time in my life. Bella and I lived in the Den of Filth for almost three years. I do miss living there sometimes, and I really miss Bella despite his betrayal (he died in 2021). But it was a lonely time, and dealing with that fucking mouse on my own made it that much worse.

  Also, I never got my deposit back, which is hilarious given the amount of times the landlord came over unannounced to paint over the mold in my bathroom.

• I mentioned a while ago that I'm into playing Downwell. As in, it's the only game I play with any regularity.

  I've cut my time from around 20 minutes to a new best of 12:13. It turns out the trick is to just go down, and do it well. My new goal is to get my time under 10 minutes.

• I got a needlepoint kit as a Christmas gift and finally finished it last week. The website it came from said that it takes most people five or six hours to finish. That cannot possibly be right. It took me 14 years. Here it is:

  

  It was pretty fun. I like to have a mindless task as I watch TV. Maybe I'll do another one one day, when I've made my way through the ridiculous amount of sock yarn I have waiting to be knit.

• I lived in a small town in my teens, the kind of place with absolutely nothing to do. My friend and I used to wander around the dollar store for fun. It was a local spot, not a chain dollar store, so you could find some really strange stuff there.

  My best find was a greeting card that had a black-and-white illustration of Superman kissing a woman. The only color on the card was the red and orange fire that engulfed the woman's lips.

  The card's message is permanently etched on my memory. The front said this:

  In a tidal wave of super-passion, Man O Steel's first kiss goes horribly wrong...

  And then on the inside it said this:

  ...I'm so glad ours didn't!

  I did buy the card as a 15-year-old who had definitely never kissed anyone, and it remained one of my prized possessions for several years. (Actually, I traded it away to one of my coworkers at the restaurant I worked at in high school, in exchange for them to cover my shift.)

  I can't find the card anywhere online, but I would love to see it again. It was ridiculous. I am currently looking for a pencil, but if I ever find it, I may begin hunting for the card.