Photograph by Jim Goldberg / Magnum

It seems like everything is bad now. Every day, it’s the same story—there used to be a good thing, but that thing is now a bad thing.

The Internet was good once, but now it’s bad. Facebook was for friends; now it’s for Russia. Twitter was for fun commentary; now it’s for mean bots. Remember, back in the mid-two-thousands, when your dad made a Web site? It was a place to post vacation photos and keep everyone updated on the latest family news. Now that site is InfoWars, and your dad is Alex Jones.

All good things are now bad things. That’s just the way it is. Your favorite athlete is a big-time homophobe, and your favorite actor believes in the “deep state.”

Before, there were flowers and rainbows and babies’ smiles, and they were all good things. They’re still around today, but now they’re bad things. Flowers now smell like off-brand yogurt. Rainbows now have pre-roll videos. And babies still smile, but they’re smiling because they approve of efforts to dismantle our country’s social safety net.

If it feels like everything is bad now, it’s because it is.

Puppies are now racist. Kitties are now militant fundamentalists. And bear cubs? Hate to break it to you, but they’re Nazis.

It’s starting to seem like everyone is a Nazi.

The smell of grass after rain—that’s not a Nazi, but it does cause diabetes. The warmth of a crocheted blanket on a snowy winter’s eve? That’s not warmth at all—that’s your Social Security number being sold on the dark Web. Birthday cakes now come with mandatory scary birthday clowns, and trips to Disney World now must begin and end with a trip to the dentist.

And LeBron James, well, he’s Marco Rubio now, and he sucks at dunks.

All good things are bad, and bad things are also bad. In fact, they’re worse. Bees sting you—and they call you names while they do it. The flu is now sponsored by Halliburton. And no one is really sure how this happened, but you know how when you walk on a carpet while wearing socks you get a static shock? Turns out the Koch brothers are behind that, and, let me tell you, pal, you’d better get ready for it to happen, like, all the time.

Good things are bad. Bad things are also bad. And things that were neutral—like milk, the color beige—are now the worst of them all!

Milk now comes from ISIS. So the next time you pour yourself a big glass for dunking your cookies (which, sorry, now support repealing and replacing Obamacare) you’re giving money directly to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Oh, and beige? Just forget about it, friend. Beige is no longer a color. It’s the feeling that you get when you wrong a loved one, that feeling of disappointment that lives not in your mind but in your heart. A physical weight, a mass of regret, remorse, and the knowledge that you have caused damage that can never truly be repaired. Sure, you’ll still laugh together. You’ll smile when you see each other across the room, but it won’t be the same. You’ll know it. The loved one will know it. Neither of you will speak of it, but it will remain hanging over you like thick, invisible smog.

Anyway, that’s beige now.

The world is full of bad things because that’s the world we live in. But even in this world there’s still one thing that isn’t bad—turkey sandwiches. Turkey sandwiches are great.

No, wait. Turkey sandwiches are beige. Sorry.