So to anyone who says that my fear of nature is unfounded, that I’m a grown-ass man who lives in a city where the most dangerous wildlife are dog-sized cockroaches and rat kings, that your chances of getting bit by a radioactive spider or swept away in a tornado, especially in New York City, are far less than the chances of slipping in the shower as a result of dancing too hard to a Spice Girls song and trying to finish my sub sandwich, know that my terror is well-rooted in a history of what I consider dramatic near-deaths, and I’m lucky to be alive. You can take your outdoors propaganda to the next fool unfazed by the presence of vicious cyclones and bloodthirsty bears, and when he gets ripped apart and thrown to another state, I’ll be inside, under three layers of sheets and blankets, whispering over and over, “I told you so.”

ON TEENAGERS AND WHY THEY’RE THE WORST

There is no species on earth that strikes as much fear in my heart as the American teenager. And yes, I’m singling out Americans, because I’m pretty sure teenagers don’t even exist in other countries. In France, they go right from being babies to being cigarette-smoking, coffee-swilling adult men with lush chest hair, and that’s not even an offensive description, because everybody in France would agree with me. I have a friend who’s French and she says so. But we’re talking about America here, where babies grow up to be even bigger babies, and all we really get along the way is incurable anxiety and crippling student loan debt. We’re the only country in the world where children are coddled for a full twenty-five to forty years, and teenagers, falling right in the middle of that incubation period, are given free rein to wreak terror on society.