NEW YORK—Following the quick identification and arrest of a suspect in this weekend’s series of bombings in New York and New Jersey that injured 29 people, the American public sought to make it clear Monday that their rational, measured response to this act of terrorism did not preclude them from having a panicked overreaction to any future threat. “Sure, we did a pretty good job of staying calm this time around, but that doesn’t mean we won’t fly completely off the handle and descend into a destructive paranoia with the next one,” said Philadelphia resident Derek Kelly, echoing the sentiments of tens of millions of other Americans who stated that they had not ruled out following their levelheaded response to this weekend’s events by blowing the next report of an explosion way out of proportion and letting it affect every aspect of their daily lives. “Just because we didn’t spend the past two days regarding everyone around us with unfounded suspicion, obsessively watching hour after hour of cable news coverage for the latest updates, and fretting on social media about how it’s not safe to live in America anymore, that’s no guarantee the next attack—or even just the possibility of an attack—won’t have us freaking the fuck out and calling for radical changes to our laws. And if the next incident isn’t resolved as rapidly or if it targets some iconic American monument, keep in mind that we’ve got carte blanche to go completely off the deep end.” Kelly added that neither he nor any of the nation’s other 320 million citizens had ruled out retroactively losing their mind over this attack once the alleged bomber’s motivations were made clear.

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