By Josh Gardner, living through his second matcha phase

My unc landlord gave me some sus news today. He’s learned there are bigger numbers than the one he’s currently charging me for rent and is upping payments accordingly. I’m chopped.

My box-room six-person-houseshare swag life is unaffordable. My Patreon, for my work review and ranking Youtube reaction videos, isn’t turning a profit. I’ve got no choice but to crash out.

I’m lowkey shitting myself. Where would I go? The only space where I’ve really built a community of like-minded souls is the Beyblade X fan-fiction forum, and they all live at home.

I fired up Rightmove and started looking for spare rooms. Sadly they were all high-maintenance and demanded a stable income. I was getting less action than when unconvincingly playing a dom on Feeld.

I briefly thought about hopping on a freight train and becoming a beatnik like in On the Road, which I’ve seen summarised on TikTok. My brain ratio’d this idea when I found out they don’t have Wi-Fi. How did Dean Moriarty watch Wednesday fan edits?

Then I remembered my parents still exist, despite being left for dead by popular culture around the era of the Skibidi toilet. And so does my spare room even if it is a disused gym.

It took all of my courage to contact them in their preferred way: a phone call. I struggled to understand what they were saying without memes – such an efficient way of communicating, to put captions on screengrabs – but they were not bussin about the idea.

‘But it’s hard out here on the streets of late-stage capitalism,’ I whined. ‘Come on dad, is it my fault you f**ked up the housing market?’ ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ll claim carers’ allowance and let you have it,’ I said. ‘Done,’ he said.

Mission accomplished, as George Bush said when he did 9-11. I’m back in their place, back vaping CBD and back on three pumpkin spice lattes a day. Also Palestine can go recognise itself; my new cause is abolishing inheritance tax.