I was prepared to do a full review of the year 2022 – highlights, lowlights, middlelights, the whole bit. Then I realized that would be a waste of time, as the one trait shared among all Duzett Gazette subscribers is their being alive last year.
No, we here at the Duzett Gazette are dedicated to providing actual value to our handsome and virtuous readers. And so instead of contenting ourselves with a low-effort annual recap, we’ve busted out all the stops, burned all the midnight oil, and overworked all our unpaid interns… so that we can predict the future.
This is the 2023 Year in Preview.
January
Kevin McCarthy is finally voted in as the new Speaker of the House of Representatives after – and this is the official number – 8 gazillion revotes. It takes House Republicans more attempts to elect a speaker than it does monkeys pounding randomly at typewriters to reproduce “Hamlet.”
All domestic US flights are grounded for a day because they didn’t clean their rooms.
The winning numbers for the largest Mega Millions jackpot in years – $1.35 billion – are 30-43-45-46-61, and they’re won on Friday the 13th. (Please don’t check today’s date.)
February
Inflation continues to rise, despite the $740 billion Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. In response, Congress passes a new act: the Inflation Elimination Act. It costs $1.4 trillion, and outlaws inflation of any kind. Nobody knows what to do with tires and balloons anymore, so Congress quickly passes the We Didn’t Mean That Kind of Inflation Act, which somehow costs another $1.4 trillion.
The Super Bowl happens sometime between the two acts, which means they have to play with a deflated football. This gives Tom Brady a decisive advantage, and his team wins.
A new Ryan Reynolds movie comes out.
March
The Oscars are hosted by James Corden. After Will Smith slapped Chris Rock last year and then won an Oscar, this year James Corden gets slapped no less than three dozen times by Oscar hopefuls. But it’s unclear whether they did it to win an Oscar or just because they felt like it.
The war in Ukraine, annoyingly, is still ongoing. This is especially annoying to Americans who are ready to change their profile pictures from the Ukrainian flag to the Trans-Hispanics-Shot-Twice-By-Police flag, but they don’t want to look bad. It is also annoying to the Ukrainians, who continue to be bombed and killed.
After buying Twitter and running it into the ground, Elon Musk is forced to sell the company. He ends up selling it for 70 bitcoin to the guy who won the Mega Millions jackpot in January. The bitcoin is worth the equivalent of $200 million, and then $17,000, and then $800 billion, and then $47 all within the span of one week.
April
The worldwide food shortage has only gotten worse. In response, Congress passes the Food Shortage Reduction Act, which mostly funds outreach programs that tell farmers to “grow the food a little bit taller, then.” The act costs $4 trillion.
The Mega Millions jackpot winner has to pay taxes on his winnings, so he’s forced to sell Twitter back to Elon Musk, who immediately craters Twitter even worse than before. Elon Musk gets on his rocket and launches himself into outer space with a bucketful of nutrition supplements and Dogecoin.
Another new Ryan Reynolds movie comes out, as well as three more commercials featuring Ryan Reynolds.
May
King Charles III is coronated as king of England, despite not pulling any swords out of any stones. He is largely useless as king, and doesn’t even fix any of the weird British spellings of otherwise normal words, such as “labour” vs. “labor,” or “defence” vs. “defense,” or “Keira Knightley” vs. “Natalie Portman.”
The Pulitzer Prizes are awarded. The Pulitzer Prize for Literature goes to the monkeys who reproduced Hamlet in January. The Pulitzer Prize for Peace goes to Vladimir Putin as a kind of aspirational encouragement. Putin then bombs six hospitals and an orphanage, and then does a photo-op of him karate-chopping a Ukrainian phone book in half.
June
It now takes Taylor Swift three albums to produce a hit single instead of one, because of inflation. In response, Congress passes the Inflation Reduction For Absolute Realsies This Time, We Mean It Act. It adds $5.7 trillion to the national debt.
Yet another new Ryan Reynolds movie comes out. People are starting to get sick of him, but they don’t want to admit it yet.
July
Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and Ted Cruz finally kiss.
Hollywood starts to replace its movie scripts with machine-learning-generated AI, such as ChatGPT, because of inflation. It immediately starts making twice as much money.
August
Major news networks hop on the AI-generated content bandwagon and start having all their news segments predicted and written by machines to save time and money, because of inflation. In unrelated news, Donald Trump and Joe Biden for Ukraine war economy and the economy despite voters, while experts agree that news-generating AIs are very handsome and deserve a treat.
Okay, everybody’s about done with Ryan Reynolds at this point. Of the nine movies in theaters, Ryan Reynolds is in seven of them. In response, Congress passes the Ryan Reynolds Reduction Act, which costs $7.3 trillion. For some reason, that just leads to Ryan Reynolds being in all the movies, and you swear you even see him once at your local Walgreen’s.
September
Everyone agrees to skip September. The number of library cards plummets nationwide because of the lack of Library Card Sign-Up Awareness Month. But it’s really for the best, as September just doesn’t fit in the annual budget anymore, because of inflation.
October
Congress passes the No One Is Allowed To Say “Because of Inflation” Anymore Act. It adds $17 trillion to the national debt. The economy gets worse, but nobody can say exactly why.
Bitcoin catapults in value to $80,000, or about the same cost as a dozen eggs. The US dollar is now weaker than the in-game gold currency of World of Warcraft. President Biden nominates an ambassador to Azeroth. Republicans are outraged that he’s nominated a woman of color instead of a Blood Elf.
November
King Charles III makes a stunning announcement: he is not actually Charles III. He pulls the flesh-like mask from his face to reveal that the English have actually coronated Ryan Reynolds as their king.
King Ryan Reynolds releases fourteen new movies, starring himself in all the roles. Millions of people the world over begin to wonder if they, too are secretly Ryan Reynolds.
December
Every Hallmark Christmas romance movie now stars Ryan Reynolds, in both romantic roles. People try to check out old books or movies without Ryan Reynolds from the library, but all of their library cards lapsed when they forgot to renew them in September.
Congress responds by passing the What Are We Even Doing Anymore Act. It adds 74 trillion in-game World of Warcraft gold to the national debt.
Vladimir Putin declares war on NATO. President Biden responds by eating a $90 French vanilla ice cream cone. Republicans are outraged that he didn’t buy American vanilla.
Elon Musk returns from outer space with 36 eggs’ worth of Dogecoin, and news that shocks the world: he’s encountered alien life. And he’s actually managed to bring an alien back with him.
After such a trying year, the world unites around this news with hope for a brighter future. News crews from all over the world record as Elon Musk lands his rocket, steps outside, and gestures for the mysterious alien to follow.
The alien steps out of the rocket onto Planet Earth, his very human-like hand shielding his face from the brightness of the lights and cameras. He lowers his hand, and his face looks horrifyingly familiar.
The alien waves and smiles.
“Hey, it’s me, Ryan Reynolds here.”
