3B
Wednesday, March 22, 2017 // The Statement 

BY HARRISON KRINSKY, DAILY ARTS WRITER

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
FILE PHOTO/MICHIGAN DAILY

M

y dad used to read me Helen Palmer’s 
“Do You Know What I’m Going to 
Do Next Saturday” before bed. I 

remember falling asleep planning my own next 
Saturday. I guess I still do that today.

Do you know what I’m going to do next Saturday? 

Well sir … let me tell you. 

I’m gonna dive some dives no one ever dived before.
I’m going to walk up to a party and I’m gonna 

see a dude sitting on the porch smoking a Newport 
menthol cigarette. He will be tan and have a 
strong jaw line and an even stronger social media 
presence. In fact, right as I walk up, he will be 
checking the last of his available Snap stories.

I will march past him because confident people 

enter any party like they’re walking into their own 
living room. He’ll stop me.

Dude: “Who do you know here and what’s your 

favorite mid-2000s band?”

Me (with conviction): “Lagunitas Sucks, their 

Brown Sugga’ Substitute ale is so smooth.”

Dude: “What?”
Me: “It’s a craft beer brewed in California mainly. 

They have a distribution deal with Heineken, 
though, so they’re low-key selling out. I still fuck 
with the taste palate though.”

Dude: “That’s not what I as—”
Me: “Do you have a Juulpod I can borrow?”
The dude will be confused. He will politely 

brandish a Virginia Tobacco Juulpod. I will 
deny the juulpod with an exaggerated hand 
gesture.

Me: “I only rip coconut pods, sorry. Plus, I’m 

quitting. I shouldn’t.”

Dude: “Do you know anyone at this party?”
Me 
(suddenly 
flustered): 
“Umm, 
uhh, 

ummm.”

Me (no longer flustered, quoting Rust Cohle): 

“Look, man, this is a world where nothing is 
solved. You know, someone once told me time 
is a flat circle. Everything we’ve ever done 
or will do, we’re gonna do over and over and 
over again. So, yes, I know, and have known 
everyone in this party. Multiple times. Forever. 
Also, in this specific iteration of life, I know 
Steve. We were in psych discussion together, 
and my favorite band is Kanye. I don’t believe 
art is collaborative so you could say I’m morally 
opposed to bands. I like art though. Let me in 
the fucking party.”

Before he can say anything else I will use the 

lid of my PBR tall boy to push my glasses up the 
bridge of my nose and walk past him. I’m so 
disarming. I’ll see him later.

Then I’m going to ski on water

if I want to.
And I want to.
To my surprise, when I will walk past the 

dude I will come to a dusty red door, and when I 
walk past the dusty red door, with paint peeling 
off the bottom third of the frame, I will see a 
beautiful mural of an artistic interpretation 
of the cover of Shel Silverstein’s “The Giving 
Tree,” but with apples replaced with Redd’s 
Apple Ale. Also, to my surprise, when I open 
the red peeling door, I will realize that I have 
somehow traveled through a wormhole, and 
the wormhole has spit me out at Skeeps, on the 
third floor, and I am drinking a Corona and 
worrying about norovirus.

I will look down and see someone has spilled 

cranberry vodka on my mock turtleneck. It 
will likely have been that dude from before. I 
will not entirely understand who this guy is, 
but I still will make a mental note to punch 
him in the face the next time I see him. Then 
I will make a digital copy of that mental note. 
I’ll whip out my iPhone, which unfortunately 
sustained a pretty badly cracked screen 
somewhere in the wormhole, and will begin 
to type out “remember to punch handsome 
gatekeeper/arch nemesis/manifestation of self-
consciousness in the face.”

Coincidentally, in the exact moment, I finish 

typing my mental note into the notes section of 
my app titled “Thoughts to keep.” (A section that 
was stupidly placed right next to “Thoughts not 
to keep,” but that’s a problem for another time.) 
The same dude from the alternative dimension 
on the other side of the peeling red door will 
confront me. I didn’t know they made Henley’s 
that tight.

Dude: “What are you doing here?”
Did you ever box a United States Marine?
Well sir, I’m going to box a Marine next 

Saturday.

I won’t want to admit it, but part of me will 

know it’s time. You can’t run from yourself 
forever.

I will do a flying windmill kick and hit him in 

the face and as I do it the ninth song on More 
Life will come on, and we will both know I have 
won and the rest of my time at Skeeps will be 
pretty fun, and I’ll grab a slice of pizza on my 
way home.

A few hours later, I will wake up from a sleep 

so dark, it will feel like I was dead. My Twitter 
app will still be open and a dryness will run 
from the tip of my tongue to the back of my 
throat. Right before I fall back asleep I notice 
a slight tightness in my right thigh. I should 
stretch next time before I flying kick anyone.

Yes sir, that is what I’m going to do next Saturday.

Golden State Worrier: Next Saturday

