Right About Now Hell Doesn't Seem That Bad

Let’s pretend for a minute that there is a Hell, that bad deeds actually do draw the

punishment promised by Scripture: Would you be going there? How great are your crimes? We’ll assume your sins against society are actually of the venial variety, mostly of omission and usually just because you’re worn out and it’s easier to get whatever it is you need done by cutting a few corners, morality-wise. Our putative judge in this scenario would probably be inclined to let you slip through either on points or because His basis for comparison offered such a dispiriting palette of depravity, detestation and downright disregard for the common courtesies that supposedly prove our superiority to animals that your occasional transgressions against the code of civility we have somehow agreed to adhere to pale by such an order of magnitude that it would be an abomination in its own right to deny you entrance to the Kingdom of Heaven for a few piddling trespasses. So you could skip out on Hell entirely, right? Not so fast! Hell might not exist in the terrible terms to which our religious testaments adhere, but there is something much, much worse than that, and it is listening to people complain about the weather over and over again even though you are well aware of what the temperature is and what it is going to be for the next week (SPOILER: cold). Guess what, this is New York City and it is the end of January. Until climate change finally works its magic, we spend this time of the year in winter. It shouldn’t be such a goddamn surprise.