Volume 1, Issue 16

OTTAWA, ON - Local teachers Julia and Reginald Smith have paused their ongoing marital discord for the summer, attributing the truce to improved weather conditions rather than resolving deep-seated issues. The couple plans to spend the season day-drinking, avoiding students, and embracing denial to overlook their underlying marital tensions.

MUDD reporter Michelle April caught up with the couple during a recent trip to Ottawa. "I don’t know, we just stopped fighting as soon as school ended and the weather improved," Julia explained.

When asked if they were simply sweeping their problems under the rug, Reginald replied, "What rug?"

Real themes. Fake news.

Volume 1, Issue 15

SAULT STE. MARIE, ON - In an aggressive display of confusion over his child’s recent declaration of their non-binary status, Calogero “Lillo” Schillaci accidentally transforms into an unexpected identity.

"I didn't know what to do! My perfetto girl Lucia... she wants to be called Lux. Lux! She wants to be ‘they/them.’ And I show her. I put on a nice sundress! Ha! How you like that, huh?!" Lillo smiles devilishly and iterates while adjusting his dress strap.

Lillo’s wife Concetta, while slightly more supportive of Lux from the start, is at a loss about Lillo’s change of identity. “It started with the dress. I find it a little funny. ‘Lillo,’ I say, ‘What are you doing? You look like a little girl.’ He says, ‘I show Lucia that two people play this game. I show her. You watch.’”

“And then, I put on the dress. Ah. The dress is very nice. I feel very free. You know. I can wear the pants, I can wear the dress. I can wear what I like. Especially when it’s hot. The dress is better when it's hot,” Lillo says.

Neighbour, witness, and friend of the Schillaci family Nino Greco says, “I watched Lillo transform from a very uptight, traditional father into a freedom-loving, dress-wearing ‘Bibi.’ Am I saying that right?” Nino asked while hose-spraying the dust from his driveway. “He... er, they seem happy. It makes me think about all these labels we put on ourselves. Yep, it makes me think.”

When asked about how this change of identity affects the marriage, Concetta said, “I think it’s okay. I like the new Lillo much better now. ‘They’ look happy. They aren't trying to be ‘the boss’ anymore. Just to BE. Everything else is the same. They still make the good tomatoes in the garden. They make the dog house. Nothing changes. Except Lillo’s mood is better. He even forgive his own father for some reason.” Concetta made the sign of the cross on her chest in memory of her late father-in-law.

Lux says about their Bibi, “I mean, it’s a lot. I just wanted them to use my pronouns, and now I have to wait for them to finish picking their outfit before we can go to the hardware store. I’m happy for them, but it’s definitely a weird way to lose an argument.”

Real themes. Fake news.

Volume 1, Issue 14

SAULT STE. MARIE, ON - Local couple Phillip Prompt and Mari Dumore attended a scheduled 50-minute couples therapy session on Tuesday, effectively concluding the appointment at the 35-minute mark following a lifetime of untreated childhood trauma and 27 subsequent years of mutual verbal warfare.

Upon exiting the office, Mr. Prompt reportedly dusted off his hands. “Thank God that’s over,” he uttered to no one in particular.

His partner, Mari Dumore, was of a different mind. “I feel as though we need more time with the therapist,” she said as she tucked her notepad, ballpoint pens, and highlighters into her purse.

When reached for comment, Registered Psychotherapist Eleanor Davenworthington-Smythe expressed bewilderment. “Despite the clear message at the beginning that this takes time, Phillip and Mari came to therapy, fought exactly as they do at home, and angrily marched off at the 35-minute mark," Davenworthington-Smythe stated. “Phillip returned at the 37-minute mark to say, ‘Thanks. I’m so glad we did therapy.’ I was not able to get a word in edgewise to indicate, ‘That was not therapy.’”

Reached later for an interview, Mari was at her mother’s house. “I don’t know what Phillip thinks that was, but I do not feel better after that therapy. I bet he thinks I’m at home right now.”

The MUDD ventured to the couple's residence where Phillip spoke from his recliner chair as he watched the Blue Jays game. “Therapy was really hard. I’m glad we did it,” he said as he cracked open a beer. “I think Mari and I are better off because of it.” When asked where Mari was, he said, “I think she’s downstairs watching her shows.”

Real themes. Fake news.

Volume 1, Issue 13

SAULT STE. MARIE, ON - Married for 66 years, local grandfather of seven Milton Bradley successfully continued breathing until exactly 30 seconds after his wife passed away, ensuring she would not get the last word in their relationship.

At the ARCH Hospice facility in SSM, the couple’s adult children ensured the two could spend their final days right beside each other. It quickly became apparent, however, that the room had transformed into a final contest of wills. Esther uttered her final words: “Will you die already?” To which Milton responded with a faint chuckle, “Not a chance.”

Moments after Esther’s final breath, Milton checked the room, smiled, and muttered, “Checkmate, Esther. See you soon,” before finally surrendering his own final breath as the cheeky smile gently faded.

The couple’s adult son, Keith Bradley, sighed heavily, displaying a mix of grief and profound exhaustion. “Honestly, we’re just glad the noise has stopped,” Keith summarized. “My parents have always been like this. They bickered through the Cold War, they bickered through my wedding, and they bickered through the births of all four of my children. It’s quiet now. They had a legal pact that whoever died first forfeited their half of the family inheritance to a charity the other hated. My kids lost half of their college fund. But Dad won.”

Keith aggressively punched the air in a flash of pure, long-held frustration. He then walked away shaking his head and muttering under his breath, “Idiot.”

Real themes. Fake news.

Volume 1, Issue 12

SILICON VALLEY, CA - The Mudd ventured deep into the heart of Silicon Valley to interview the founder of a new dating app capturing the market with a vengeance. The app is called “Sensitive,” and its tagline cuts straight to the core: “Dating for the 20%.”

Highly Sensitive People (HSPs) comprise roughly 20 percent of the population. Founder and CEO Rick Spanking insists this group is grossly misunderstood. “We hardly constitute a pathological crowd,” Spanking said, his eyes glistening. “I’m just... really proud of this safe dating space.”

When asked how the groundbreaking app works, Spanking highlighted a feature designed to replace the cruelty of ghosting with gentle let-downs. “When a user feels the urge to abruptly cut contact, they don’t just vanish,” Spanking explained. “They press our signature button: ‘It’s not you, it’s my nervous system.’ It instantly alerts the other party that you aren't rejecting them; you are simply experiencing a sympathetic nervous system hijack.”

The app features several other instant-feedback buttons for complex modern dating dilemmas:

*The Situationship: If a casual situationship triggers an anxious attachment style, users can bypass a vulnerable conversation by pressing: “I am currently experiencing a localized ego death and require immediate reassurance.”

*Post-Hookup Panic: For moments where physical intimacy accidentally incites feelings of attachment, users can instantly send: “I think I heart you beyond the physical dimension, please send me some reassurance.” 

To combat the devastating emotional toll of "vulnerability fatigue," the app offers a unique sabbatical mode. Instead of deleting the app in a fit of exhaustion, the user can hit a button that transforms their profile into a butterfly featuring the user's actual human face embedded onto the insect's thorax.

“When people see the butterfly, they know exactly what it means,” Spanking said, blowing his nose. “It says: ‘I am currently cocooning in my safe space. It’s not personal.’”

Real themes. Fake News

Volume 1, Issue 11

SAULT STE. MARIE, ON - After realizing they shared similar relationship histories of ghosting others, a local pair has made a verbal pact to ghost each other by Sunday evening.

To preserve the element of surprise for their future dating targets, both parties strictly withheld their names, occupations, and social media handles during the forty-five-minute interaction.

"We're just too compatible to risk getting hurt," one anonymous partner stated on the record.

Neither was available for comment, as both have already archived the chat thread.

Real themes. Fake news.

Volume 1, Issue 10

SAULT STE. MARIE, ON – Merge and Velcro Amalga (pseudonyms) wanted to tell their story to echo each other's thoughts on what it truly means to be connected.

Merge met Velcro at a time when she felt abandoned by a former partner who described her as “too frickin’ much.” Velcro had also just been destructively abandoned by his ex-wife for being, as he describes it, “aggressively sticky” according to his ex.

Upon meeting, Merge and Velcro fell madly in love, though with a degree of caution after years of being labeled needy. Once they discovered they possessed identical temperaments and matching degrees of neediness, they opted for elective respiratory surgery so they could breathe from a single, shared respiratory system to unite them permanently.

Surgeon Dr. B. Y-Guy says of the procedure, “It was just a standard windpipe split with a heavy-duty, unbreakable Y-valve that went from Merge’s left lung to Velcro’s right lung. Easy peasy. What was neat is Velcro’s right ear is his best ear, and Merge’s left ear is her best ear. I could not make up that synchronicity.”

“This autonomy thing is so overrated,” says Merge and Velcro simultaneously. Continuing in unison, they add, “I mean, I respect people who need space, but that never did work for us.” Both shook their heads in unison.

Together, the adjoined couple sighed deeply with their shared wind-pipe while looking longingly into each other’s eyes.

Real themes. Fake News

Volume 1, Issue 9

GOULAIS RIVER, ON - After the couples therapist recommended connecting through a routine date night that is all about them, sans kids, Gail and Wayne Andrews found a way to connect by meticulously planning to do nothing at all.

After the couple had inventoried the dates they have had in their 12 years of marriage and realized that all the dates they ever had occurred in the first year of their union, they decided there was no point in returning to that more romantic, idealistic time.

After sending the kids packing to have a sleepover at Wayne’s mom’s, their non-date-date-night looked like this:

6:02 PM: Wayne pulls out his laptop to observe the pool of restaurants each has inputted for review that he has entered in his Numbers spreadsheet.

6:03 PM: They look at Arturos as a possible Italian restaurant to go to. Each looks down at their "daytime track pants" and decides that Arturos will be too much work to get ready for. Wayne puts an "x" in the yay/nay column.

6:12 PM: The couple decides to watch Season 2, Episode 12 of Shrinking before returning to the date list.

6:56 PM: Gail asks Wayne if he wants a "wee little snack" to tide the couple over while they decide where to go on their date night. Wayne enthusiastically agrees that a "tide-me-over" is a sound idea.

7:10 PM: The couple eats grilled cheese sandwiches. Gail eats hers with ketchup. Wayne says, "That’s gross," about the ketchup and eats his sandwich carte blanche.

7:30 PM: Wayne snaps the laptop shut, cracks open a Corona and says, "Do we want to go bowling, since we have already eaten?" To which Gail responds, "That’s gross," referring to having to wear shoes that many strangers have worn.

7:32 PM: The couple watches Season 3, Episode 1 of Shrinking.

8:35 PM: Wayne leaves the couch to go urinate.

8:38 PM: Wayne returns to Gail and flops down beside her. "Well?" he asks.

"Well what?" she responds.

"Read books?" Wayne returns.

"Yep," she says.

8:39 PM: Gail and Wayne are brushing their teeth at the double bathroom sinks and make eye contact in the mirror with a devilish grin as if to say, "We beat the system."

8:42 PM: Gail opens The Passion by Jeanette Winterson to see if it is as good as back in the '90s. Wayne opens his reading: The Ontario Drainage Act: A Comprehensive Guide to Culvert Maintenance in Unorganized Townships.

8:44 PM: Gail switches her bedside lamp off.

8:57 PM: Wayne switches his light off. The room goes dark.
​
Wayne can hear Gail lightly snoring and can’t help but think, My relationship is perfect. I would change nothing.

Real themes. Fake News

Volume 1, Issue 8

ELLIOT LAKE, ON - Javed Khan of Elliot Lake finally settled a matter in his own mind about the faulty thing his wife said back in July 2012. He was gleefully able to remind Sana Khan of it just before she decided to walk out the door for good.

When interviewed, Sana said, “Ask Javed about the ‘crime’ I committed way back then that he so happily rubbed in my face.” She turned back to her new dating profile. “Is this the best picture, or this one? Never mind, I’ll tell you. In 2012, I told Javed that the blueberry muffins we bought at Scotchal Bakery were the ‘best on earth’. He told me I was speaking in hyperbole. I thought that was the end of it.”

Unknown to Sana, Javed had spent the next 14 years quietly building a case. He began by secretly sending a Scotchal Bakery muffin to a lab for testing. Over the years, Javed spent thousands of dollars covertly sourcing muffin samples from across the globe and submitting them for identical analysis to determine the best muffin on earth. “He waited until he had enough data to win,” Sana said. “But I was done. He had been gathering evidence against me for over a decade.”

Javed was not available for comment.

Javed’s mother, Nasreen Khan, was later reached. When asked about her son’s secret project, she responded, “I don’t know exactly what Javed was tracking, but I know he holds grudges and needs to be right about everything. He is still mad at me for not buying him Ding Dong Bubble Gum at the grocery store in 1982. He likely has a file on that too.”

“It was exhausting being married to Javed,” Sana said as she deleted the “I’m not crazy” file off her desktop. “I can see him now, gloating to his friends about the 'muffin metrics' and now about my ‘low integrity’ for not honouring my marriage vows. ‘To death do we part,’ he’ll say. I’m okay being wrong about that one.”

Real themes. Fake News.

Volume 1, Issue 7

HEYDEN, ON - Local couple May Spark and Sally Callingtonstead recently made a pact to deny the existence of emotional triggers entirely. In doing so, they ignored the advice of their couples therapist, Cynthia McGregor of Sault Ste. Marie, whom they fired in favour of a "proctological approach" to relationships.

“We decided against any acknowledgement of triggers at all because, despite all our efforts, they get ignored anyway,” Sally reflects. “I mean, we have spent countless hours trying to ‘name and tame’ feelings, but in the heat of the moment, they just send us into a fight. So, what’s the point?”

“Now, when one of us feels triggered and says, ‘I feel triggered by that,’ the other says something to the effect of, ‘You can stick your trigger where the sun doesn’t shine because it’s not real!’” May explains. “With this approach, there are no visible triggers because they are shoved into a deep orifice.”

While the couple is thrilled with their innovation,  McGregor warns that this “denies old wounds that are sensitive to the touch.” She claims that “go shove it” has not been peer-reviewed and therefore cannot be deemed a healthy intervention.

May expands, “I mean, when Sally says, 'Shove it up your butt'…”

Sally interrupts, “When one of us says 'shove it,' the other laughs and then all of the pain disappears because we are laughing. Isn’t that brilliant?”

“For f@&k's sake, Sally! You did it again. You interrupted me. You know that's my trigger!” May revolted.

“Shove your trigger up your a$$, May!”

The two walked off in opposite directions, leaving no room for further questions. However, the origin of their innovation is coming from an honest place close to home. Reached for comment, Sally’s mother, Maureen Callingtonstead, was quick to claim the intellectual property.

“I think this is actually my idea,” Maureen gloated. “One time I told Sally to 'stick her trigger up her a$$' when she claimed she felt triggered by my motherin’ her at her so called 'ripe age'. It’s about time they listened to me.”

Real themes. Fake News.