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He who rushes ahead doesn’t go far. He who tries to shine dims his own light. He who defines himself can’t know who he really is. He who has power over others can’t empower himself. He who clings to his work will create nothing that endures. —Tao Te Ching

zenmister

Zen Baggage

The purpose of a Zen practice is to find peace of mind. Buddha’s great insight is that through working with your mind you can find peace. The flip side of that insight is that the reason that you do not have peace of mind is because of your thought habits. Zen is a tradition of practitioners coming to realize what the Buddha realized. In the two and a half thousand years since Buddha, Zen has picked up a lot of baggage. It has travelled from India, through China into Japan, Korea, Vietnam and throughout the world. Zen has developed distinct practices in every country and in every practitioner. That is all baggage. The realization that Buddha had is the same simple realization today as it was when he had it. Put down all of your baggage and experience your essential nature.

The problem we encounter when we try to put down our baggage is that we don’t know how. When we feel the weight of our baggage and go to put it down, we can’t tell what is us and what is our baggage. We have spent a whole lifetime accumulating baggage and we can’t imagine ourselves without it. When we suffer from anxiety and depression, we become so identified with our baggage that we may think we don’t like ourselves. What we don’t like is our baggage. We don’t even know ourselves. If we knew ourselves apart from our baggage, we would not only like ourselves, we would love ourselves.

To put down our baggage, we practice meditation. That is the most basic Zen practice. The Zen devices that are designed to help practitioners put down their baggage, the koans, the robes, the shaved heads, the tea, the chanting, the paradox can become baggage too. Baggage is complicated that way. To cut through the complication of baggage, simplify things. Put all your baggage down. Don’t worry if you accidentally put yourself down in the process. Don’t worry.

Anytime you feel the weight of your worry, reorient yourself to your surroundings. You can take an hour, or three seconds, depending on how eager you are to pick your baggage up again. Simply breathe in and out and be absolutely perfect in that moment, no baggage. You will find peace right there in your mind. Even in your mind.

zenmister

Boring Through Boredom

Boredom is the pain of existence. When nothing interesting is happening to absorb our attention, it starts to hurt immediately. When we are actively engaged in anything, there is no boredom. When we disengage and begin to think that we would rather be doing something else, boredom has set in.

You could be actively doing something completely enjoyable, then your mind wanders and suddenly you are bored. All it takes to dislodge boredom is to engage with anything, even boredom, but boredom is so repulsive we generally prefer to writhe in its grips. In a vast world of possibilities there is nothing to do. Boredom completely zaps our creativity. The world not only fails to entertain us, but it punishes us with passing time, monotonous moments.

The incredible choice available to us is part of the pain of boredom. We can imagine a million things we would rather be doing that would be more fun than being bored, but we can do none of those things because we are stuck, bored, where we are. If we were to think about just one of those million things with focused attention, even though we couldn’t do it, our boredom would ease, but, in our boredom, all we can imagine is a nebulous cloud of better places to be, people to be with, and things to do. We feel the pain of where we are and our aversion to that pain holds us captive.

If you’ve read this far, you have either been engaged with these ideas, or fought though boredom, latching on to this verbal cause and remedy for your pain, hoping for some insight to make the drudgery worth it. Bad news, it gets worse here.

Meditation happens to be one of the most boring things you can do, and also the antidote to boredom. Sitting and doing absolutely nothing but engage a wandering mind with nothing but itself is the essence of meditation. Leg cramps, body aches, and sleepiness help to break up the boredom of meditation, but those are just more pain. The act of bringing your attention from all the possible ideas and insights you could be having, to your boring, monotonous breath and adjusting your posture to support a basic level of alertness focuses your mind and momentarily banishes boredom. Then your mind wanders and boredom pops up again. You refocus and it goes away. You do that until the bell rings and your mediation is over.

Regular mediation helps you practice refocusing your mind, which helps you in the rest of your life break free from the trap of boredom. Boredom will always find ways to seep through the cracks of your activities, but when you know what it is and how to deal with it, it doesn’t hurt so much or stay so long. The world of possibilities is open to you.

zenmister

Feeling Depressed?

Mindfulness and meditation can be helpful in dealing with depression. When your mind is working against you, you feel lousy. Your best tool for addressing your mind is your body. Like roll starting a car with a dead battery, your body can roll start your mind. Smile, go for walks, eat healthy, delicious foods and most importantly breathe. Look for beauty in sights, sounds, tastes and touches and thoughts. There is no beauty as beautiful as that seen through depression. If you are feeling depressed, I hope you start feeling better, today, now.

Here are some posts I’ve written on depression:

Turning Depression Into Humility

Mindfulness, Anxiety, Depression, Addiction, and Healing

Addressing Depression

Depression, Clinical Depression, and Self

zenmister

Finding Balance

If you are looking for balance in your life, stand up straight and breathe deeply. You will find that you are perfectly balanced. Your life may seem more complicated. You may be looking for balance between home and work, proteins and fats, alone time and social time, worry and wonder, serotonin and cortisol, or happiness and sadness. In many of these areas you have balance, in others you may need to create balance.

Creating balance requires changing your behavior and habits. If you begin your day by standing straight and taking a deep breath, you begin your day with balance. If you sit straight for 15-20 minutes and watch your breath, you will see where in your life that you need to create balance. You shouldn’t think about where you need to create balance, you should just focus on your breath. If you do this every day, maybe twice a day, other parts of your life will find their balance.

If you are walking on a tight rope, all you focus on is the rope. There is no room for other thoughts. The rope will hold you up. In you life, your breath is your rope. In anything that you do, you can focus on your breath and you will find balance.

zenmister

Compassionate Breathing

Anytime you are feeling out of sorts, you can practice compassionate breathing. To breathe compassionately, just remember compassion and breathe. You can take compassionate breaths anytime, anywhere. Nobody but you will notice, everybody will benefit.

Compassion begins with noticing suffering. If you have eyes or ears, you likely notice a fair amount of suffering in the course of your day. If you have ever seen or heard a news program, you will have heard of suffering. If you interact with other people, you will notice suffering in them. If you have feelings, you will notice suffering in yourself. Compassionate breathing can help with any of these situations.

When we encounter suffering in ourselves or others we are often at a loss because we don’t know what to do. We automatically think that there is nothing we can do, so we shut down. We turn away. We may get angry. There is always something we can do. Knowing just what to do begins with a compassionate breath.

When we take a compassionate breath we acknowledge the suffering we have encountered. We recognize that the suffering has touched us. We may see something we can do about it. We may just acknowledge it and breathe it out again.

As we walk down the street, sit in our cars, on our busses, or at our desks, we can practice compassionate breathing and spread peace through the world. Since we’re breathing anyway, we might as well add some compassion.

zenmister

How Can You Tell If Your Mindfulness Practice Is Working?

If you are paying attention to your breath, your mindfulness practice is working for you. Feeling sad, angry, scared, or nervous is not a sign that your practice is not working. It is a sign that you should check in with your breath and continue practicing. Noticing that you are having these feelings is a sign that your practice is working. Without a mindfulness practice, you could carry these distressing feelings for a long time, trying not to notice them, or imagining that they are embedded in your circumstances. If you are able to recognize a feeling and breathe consciously with the feeling, your practice is working well.

Practicing mindfulness works whenever you practice and it has a cumulative effect the more you practice. The end goal is not to stop feeling sad, scared, angry or nervous. The end goal is to feel what you are feeling when you feel it. The end goal is always being present, and engaging with what the present moment brings you.

As you practice engaging with each emotion as it arises, you will increase your resiliency. You will return to a baseline state of calm more quickly. Your baseline state of calm may also become more calm. Those are not the goals, those are the outcomes. The goal is always to be present where you are. Whenever you are present with your thoughts and feelings, breathing with awareness, evoking compassion, your practice is working beautifully.

zenmister

Ive reached at a point in which things don't excite me anymore. I get bored of everything. No I don't have clinical depression or anything.

Being bored is a painful way to shut down to the world. It is constantly wanting something better to be happening. What is actually happening is very different if you look at it through boredom, knowing it is dull, or if you look at it with wonder, not knowing what is going on.

If you look into the night sky and see the same old night sky, it is boring. If you look at the stars and wonder about their sizes, their distances, their movements, The amount of time it took for the light to get from a star to your eyeball, and space it travels through, you may get a taste of your relative size in the universe. As soon as you look beyond the boredom, a whole world opens up to you.

You don’t even have to look out into the universe, you can look into the depths of your own mind. Do the most boring thing you can imagine, sit meditation, just sit there doing nothing but looking into the depths of your mind. See what thoughts are there, see where they come from, see how they form boredom and how they form wonder. See how bored you can be. If you sat mediation for an hour, that would be more boring than 10 minutes. Two hours could be even more boring. With everything being so boring, you might not even know what boring really is.

Whenever you notice yourself being bored, don’t try to entertain yourself with another boring distraction, let yourself be bored. See what you don’t know about what is happening? Wonder about what could be interesting.

Whenever you find yourself interested in something, notice that too. Notice any moment that you are not bored, and see what it is about that that is not boring.

zenmister

Choose Wisely

There is a popular myth that we can choose to be happy. If that were true, there would be no problems in the world. Everybody, in every circumstance, would choose to be happy and peace and love would prevail. Asking somebody who is depressed to choose to be happy is like asking a drowning person to choose to swim. It is not an available choice.

When you are drowning you don’t have the capacity to breathe deeply, relax and let your body float. You’re lucky if you can use what air you have in your lungs to scream for help. When you are depressed, you are drowning in time. You are drowning in yourself. You don’t have the capacity to access happiness. You do have the ability to work toward happiness. That is what you can choose to do.

When you are depressed your most important job is addressing your mood. That is your full time job, regardless of what other jobs you have. When you choose to work toward happiness, you hire yourself as the only qualified project manager to deal with your emotional state. Then you go to work, day and night, until forever. When you choose to take on this task, you may need to bring in outside help. Friends, family and people in the community can all work with you on the very important task at hand. As project manager, your main job is to be especially kind to yourself and pay attention to your moods. You can see what thoughts are associated with which moods. You can see what time your moods like to come and go. You can see how activity, inactivity, people, sleep, foods, drugs, medications, and the weather interact with your moods. The information you gather will help you and those around you to assist you in your project. It will probably also assist your assistants in their secret (or not so secret) projects to live with their own moods.

Although you can’t choose to be happy, when you choose to stick with the task of taking care of yourself and addressing your moods, when you make that choice every day, or every minute, you will discover how to find the pockets of air within time and yourself. Whenever you find the air, breathe deeply. That will fuel your wisdom and allow you to keep making the right choices. When you are more comfortable in time and yourself, you will breathe easily and see happiness all around you. Then you can choose to show others the way. Peace and love will prevail.

theargylegargoyle

Reblog if you think it’s okay to platonically say “I Love You” to your friends

voxfeles

If you claim to worship Odin, but you are physically weak and do not try to change it, then you dishonor Odin.

Its that simple.

At least understand the gods you claim to honor.

If all you do is bend the gods to way you want to live your life then why pray to them? Pray to gods who favor your lifestyle. Seriously. That’s the idea. Live up and honor the gods who you understand, and who would respect how you honor them. (this is more too the more loose pagans. Asatru has even more direct things to say, I don’t follow Asatru directly)

gefdreamsofthesea

I’m sure Odin, who is disabled (missing an eye, associated with madness and frenzy, gets women to pick his warriors for him, can’t even do it himself), would appreciate being told that he’s disrespecting himself.

edderkopper

Sigh. Is it time to break out Havamal again? The words of wisdom attributed to Odin? (Quoting the Crawford translation since that’s what’s at hand.)

No one is totally wretched, even if his health is bad– some find happiness in their children, some in their kin, some in their money, some in work well done. Better to be alive, no matter what, than dead– only the living enjoy anything. I saw a rich man’s house, but it was on fire, and he lay dead outside the door.

A limping man can ride a horse, a handless man can herd, a deaf man can fight and win. It’s better even to be blind than fuel for the funeral pyre; what can a dead man do?

So, yeah, no. Odin doesn’t demand you fit some model of physical strength. That’s something that no one gets to keep, in the end. He just asks that you use whatever it is that you’ve got.

aelfcynn

i’m a loose pagan dishonouring Odin

deactivated985295892-deactivate

reblog if ur a loose pagan

ek-vitki

You Ergi fuck hiding behind false masculinity. Odin basically said “fuck your gender roles” when he learned seidr from Freya, which according to Norse values was a woman’s job. With the Vikings the women controlled the most powerful magic. You honor Odin by seeking wisdom, which is what Odin did. You honor Odin by traveling, which is what Odin did. You honor Odin wandering in nature. You honor Odin when you say “fuck everybody’s opinion, I’m doing my thing”. You honor Odin when you show courage. Not strength. It is not the strongest warriors in Valhalla, it’s the most courageous. YOU dishonor Odin when you hide behind outmoded false masculinity. The gods do not smile on such things.

systlin

^^^

GODDAMN RIGHT.

You dishonor Odin when you claim his name to justify your own hatreds and fears.

skadisman

I pray to a god who favours my lifestyle. A god who ripped out his eye and hanged himself on a tree for knowledge, a god who is portrayed not as a robust young man but as an elderly wanderer, a sorcerer who perverts gender boundries, a riddlemaster and strategist. A god who has much to do with war and victory, yes, but as a leader and manipulator and puller of strings.

If you want a god who’s all about physical prowess and martial arts, you might be seeking Tyr or Freya, not the one eyed old man.

(This is not to say that you can’t honour Odin via your own physical well being and skill, he absolutely gathers strong warriors to him, but there’s a good deal more to this mad poet god than just Valhalla and Ragnarok.)

thewitchofthenorse

I’m completely here for what everyone said.❤️ Please remember OP that not everyone worships a god for the same reason you do and it’s unfair to assume that they do. Even if Odin was a god of strength that doesn’t mean that’s why I’m working with him ya know? To be fair, I feel like your intention was honest but you worded it poorly and tumblr got angry. Sorry homie.

thewitchofthenorse

Yoooo, turns out OP is actually an alt-right piece of shit so my bad for thinking about defending you.

captainsnoop-deactivated2020041

The FCC voted to repeal Net Neutrality, but I would like to reiterate to all of you that now is not the time to panic. It’s time to get angry and active, but not time to panic.

Clickbait sites are painting today as the definitive “end” of it all, but it’s not. This shit’s still got to go through the courts.

The FCC has tried to repeal net neutrality twice before, and both times it got repealed by the courts.

The voting public’s support for Net Neutrality is overwhelming. Last I checked, 83% of polled voters nationwide are in support of Net Neutrality staying.

Republican politicians and lawmakers are aware of this overwhelming support and have been voicing their support as well.

Doug Jones victory in Alabama was a wake-up call for Republican politicians, letting them know they are not invincible.

Join the millions of Americans making their voices heard. Contact your representatives. Call them. Email them. Tweet at them. Anything you can do helps. Use the links provided on this website:

https://www.battleforthenet.com/

This is not a time for panic, it is a time for anger and for action. Let them know that this is not the end, only the beginning.

paramud

Just a gentle reminder

If you’re a Norse heathen and believe that “race mixing” is bad

remember that many of the gods are born from interracial pregnancies between the Aesir, Vanir, and Jotunns.

If you’re a Norse heathen and are transphobic or homophobic

remember that many of the gods will alter their forms drastically, the most notable being Loki changing into mare and being impregnated by a male horse, and later giving birth to Sleipnir

If you’re a Norse heathen and fascist

remember that vikings were largely democratic and would regularly hold votes to decide legal matters, and were incredibly accepting of other cultures

theasatrucommunity

Figured I’d make a shareable picture of my response to our little racist friend the other day. <3

sdrgiobhjkfdlbjreiug-deactivate

I hate that I laughed at this

kyraneko

“Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there,” and another one appears. And dodges the downward sweep of claws, darting to the side, bouncing off the pentagram’s barriers, and tripping over the demon’s tail. “In the Vatican!” she cries out as she moves, using the State Farm Agent summoning charm to modify the situation as she was taught, and mentally thanking her trainer for expecting her to be fast enough to do it on the first incantation.

Most State Farm agents, when they run into trouble, have to get the customer to do the jingle a second time. That guy with the buffalo was lucky.

The magic takes hold, and she materializes in the aisle of St. Peter’s Basilica, still holding the demon by the tail, in the middle of Sunday morning Mass. The music clatters unprofessionally to a halt as laypeople, deacons, priests, monks, nuns, and the Pope all turn their attention to the surprised demon whose fifth course of dinner has turned, unaccountably, into a visit to one of his least favorite places on Earth.

There is chanting in Latin, and vaguely cross-shaped gestures, and clouds of incense, and the demon vanishes in a puff of smoke, whether from the efforts of the clergy or of his own volition no one can say. The Agent doesn’t wait, fleeing towards the doors and escaping in the confusion.

She gains the exit and walks, purposefully, toward Rome proper; there, she ducks into the nearest alley. A burner cell phone comes out of one of the less-used pockets of her purse, and she dials a number from memory.

“Allstate,” says a smooth masculine voice after three rings.

“State Farm,” she answers. “I’m calling in a favor.”

“Yeah?” Interest. “What sort?”

As she talks she’s pulling out her smartphone, keying an app that was activated by the summoning, and pulling up the policyholder data that enabled the incantation to work.

“Insurance fraud,” she said, and can almost hear teeth sharpening on the other end of the line. She gives him the name, the address, the policy number. “Someone needs some mayhem.”

“That’s my name,” the man says.

She smiles. “Someone needs all the mayhem.”

He chuckles. Slow. Evil. Even with the echoes of demonic laughter ringing in her ears, she’s impressed. “Don’t worry,” he says, almost purring.

“You’re in good hands.”

thewinterotter

OH MY FUCKING GOD I just read insurance commercial fan fiction and it was so good, bless you, I’m going to remember this day forever.

kyraneko

IT COMES BACK TO ME! *preens*

Part 2:

It’s not too long later—State Farm will occasionally loan out their teleportation trick, though Heaven help anyone who tries to use it to compete with them—and the man they call Mayhem is squatting next to a demonic circle with tacky half-dried blood under the leather soles of his shoes. Whoever dispelled the circle didn’t do a good job of it; the ring is still faintly smoldering and Mayhem has already singed his fingers on the air above it. He’s in the basement of a house with a State Farm homeowner’s policy, waiting for his partner in, erm, crime, to show up.

“Oh, good heavens.” He smiles at the sound of someone hopping delicately back, then carefully tiptoeing through the mess. Demons are messy eaters, and Flo’s wearing all white.

She steps gingerly over what might be most of a femur, looks from circle to Mayhem to—is that half a skull on the floor? “Freaky. Whaddaya need?”

“Tech,” he says. “State Farm knows the homeowner summoned them, but the Agent reported at least five people present. Maybe six. She isn’t sure, what with being busy evading a demon inside a very small space with zappy walls.”

Flo’s already got a—where does she get those from anyway? a cardboard box in her hands. Mayhem watches as she unfolds it, refolds it, and ends up with something significantly bigger, shaped like a satellite dish. He tries to watch how she does it; they may be working together, but they’re still rivals and his own higher-ups will be very interested in the latest whatever-it-does that Progressive has come up with.

A blue glow lights up the concave side. Mayhem is pretty sure cardboard doesn’t work that way. Flo makes a pleased sound, and starts rattling off names, addresses, policy numbers.

Impressed, Mayhem asks, “How the fuck?” If Progressive is developing some sort of superspy technology, well, that’s kind of ominous.

Flo grins and looks embarrassed. “I, ah, have occasional dealings with a couple guys from That Other Insurance Company. One of them knows someone who knows someone who works in quality control for the Infernal Realms, and it turns out Hell monitors all their summoned manifestations for safety purposes. His contact got me the list of who was there.”

Mayhem nods. He’s had occasional encounters That Other Insurance Company himself. Bland, grey-suited, timid men who are even worse spies than they are insurance agents. “Wait, Hell has a quality control department?”

“And all other forms of administration,” Flo says. “I understand it’s to generate maximum paperwork. It is a place of punishment, after all.”

Mayhem actually winces. “That’s definitely hellish. All right. The Agent who called me in is flying back from Italy and should meet us in a few hours. Should give us plenty of time to plan an attack. Are they all State Farm customers?”

“Just the one,” Flo replies, folding her toy up, and Mayhem watches with vague envy as it becomes a giant sword. “One Allstate, one Progressive, one Geico, two Farmers. We gonna invite anyone else to the party?” She hopes so. Mayhem’s precision strikes on any sort of insurance fraud perpetrators are the stuff of legend, and the Farmers guys would bring in enough absurdity to make it a work of art.

Mayhem’s grin is something that ought to haunt her nightmares. Instead, she finds herself matching it. “Yes,” he says. “Let’s.”

kyraneko

Part 3:

The sun is just a suggestion behind the horizon, but the morning traffic jam is already clogging up the freeways by the time Mayhem and Flo leave the scene of the crime. Flo is driving, weaving her motorcycle expertly through the sea of zombie commuters, and already some jackass in a twenty-year-old Honda has rolled down his window to sneer at Mayhem for riding behind a woman and in the process taken his eyes off the road long enough to rear-end a state trooper.

By the time the sun is peeking over the edge of the world, the freeway has been exchanged for fast-food restaurants and traffic lights, and Mayhem is contemplating commercials. “I’m another motorist doing something you disapprove of” is warring with “I’m a state trooper,” and Mayhem is leaning toward the latter because it might give him an excuse to put on the uniform, when Flo erupts in giggles, jerking her head subtly to the right. Mayhem finds what she’s looking at and nearly pisses himself.

A van, the type that practically screams “covert surveillance,” is parked in the entrance to a Starbucks. Two men in bland gray suits and the sort of ties that give insult to all intelligent life are sitting in the front seat, coffee cups in hand. Mayhem sees the moment they set eyes on Flo—they both jerk upwards in their seats as if jabbed with a cattle prod—and then the moment where they realize who her passenger is. The one in the driver’s seat boggles and reflexively inhales half his coffee; the passenger reaches over to slap him on the back, sees Mayhem, and spills his own beverage all over the dashboard.

When Flo passes the driveway she gives a little wave to the men, and they both dive for cover. Mayhem would be surprised at the level of ineptitude That Other Insurance Company lets their agents display, but he’s seen one of them try to hide behind a stop sign. Surprise has long since left the station, leaving amusement and a hint of second-hand embarrassment which Mayhem relishes rather than winces at.

He’s jarred from his thoughts as Flo hits the brakes, neatly avoiding the SUV that has just moved into their lane without signaling on her way to the upcoming right-turn lane. The driver diverts attention from her cell phone long enough glare at Flo and stick a manicured middle finger in their general direction, and turns to the road just in time to watch as her car veers off the shoulder and makes intimate congress with a speed limit sign. And then the flashing lights come on from somewhere behind them and Mayhem’s faith in humanity is restored.

He revises. “I’m a middle-management commuter on a cell phone.”

Flo pulls over to let the cop car pass, and Mayhem sneaks a look back at the van. God have mercy, the one in the passenger seat has binoculars.

“Shall we lose them or let them follow us?” Flo’s voice interrupts his giggle-fit.

No question. Not like they’re a threat. “Let’s keep ‘em. They’re entertaining.”

Flo merges back into traffic and signals a move to the left lane. Since the lady in the SUV is still in view, glaring up at them as the police officer steps up to her window, Mayhem is extra gratified that she waits five whole blinks before merging into the next lane. It’s doubtless for the benefit of their pursuers, who otherwise might manage to keep with them if Mayhem draws a map and passes it to them at a stoplight, but his black and petty heart rejoices anyway.

It takes them awhile to get to the suburban park where Mayhem has arranged to meet the State Farm agent who called him in. Or rather, it takes them awhile to get there without losing their inept pursuers; twice, Flo has to double back and be found again, and once the van gets stuck behind a railroad crossing and Flo and Mayhem have to stop and pick up a box of donuts in order to still be there when the train finishes blocking the road. The park is a lovely little spot complete with playground equipment and a little waterfall, as completely removed from this business with demons and human sacrifice as a person could want. There’s one car in the lot already, a rental, and a figure in red shirt and khaki skirt standing beside it.

“Is that the Agent?” Flo asks, and Mayhem nods. The woman is short, dark, curvy—very pretty—and the two guys from That Other are in serious danger of twisting their heads off their shoulders as they drive past. Whether it’s for that reason, or because there’s now three insurance companies having a little meeting in a city park like some exceedingly bad spy thriller, Mayhem isn’t sure.

Flo parks the motorcycle and goes up to introduce herself; Mayhem stays put and watches the van make an awkward U-turn in the middle of the road and come back. The State Farm agent walks up to Mayhem and offers a hand, and he is distracted from the spectacle by a warm-toned “A pleasure to meet you” and a gaze and smile as predatory as a shark’s. It’s enough to distract his attention well and properly. This is the person to whom he’s promised vengeance, and this is the face of a person who has fought and outsmarted a demon.

Damn, he’s glad he picked up the phone.

“Pleasure’s all mine,” is what he says, and then Flo lets out a mirthful squeak. Mayhem and the Agent both follow her gaze, just in time to see the surveillance van leave the road, bouncing over the curb and smashing into a tree.

The Agent is staring, her lips curving into an amused smirk, and Mayhem composes another commercial. “I’m stupid, and I come in pairs.”