THE ISSUE: I AM LINTY

And you may be, too.

There are two kinds of people in the world: Linty people and not-linty people.

Six O’Clock News installation sculpted in lint by artist Slater Barron. #LintLife

Fresh from the dryer, lint is weirdly l’intimate.

What is a linty person?

Linty people naturally attract lint. There’s often lint on them or there’s just something linty about them. It’s a relaxed aesthetic that’s attractive to many people and animals and their hair or fur.

Linty people get very nervous staying at the houses of the Not-Linty because they know they’re going to mess something up.

Not-linty people wear clothing that seems to magically stay ironed. They have no qualms about buying a white sofa. Their cars don’t have Cheerios or crud in the cracks. They never have crumbs on their boobs or in their beards.

It may be something genetic or electromagnetic but as far as I can tell it hasn’t yet been studied.  Science cannot or will not explain the linty v. not-linty phenomenon.

How is it possible? How has this trait that bifurcates all of civilization for all time never been discussed?

It’s crucial to see the linty in the world because linty-ness (or non) can create a never-before-experienced international sense of kinship.

We can transcend old divisions and find new alliances.

If people took the time to identify lint-wise, they would recognize the affection for each other that goes beyond religion, gender, language, nationality, age, skin color, height, taste in music, aversion or non-aversion to meat, or any of the just-as-random things we use to divide us.

There is nothing inherently superior or inferior about being linty or not-linty. And, anyway, there’s nothing you can do to control it or change it.

It’s just the way you are and you’ll never switch from one to the other until the day you die. (And when you die they will make you look non-linty even if you never were. This is weird and should stop.)

I am linty. And now that I’ve told you about it, you’ll begin to see how central it is to your identity to be or not to be linty.

Robert Oppenheimer, Amal Clooney, Mitt Romney, Kamala Harris, Paul Lynde, Ali Wong: NOT LINTY.

Bette Midler, Questlove, Billie Eilish, Margaret Cho, Kurt Vonnegut, Ozzy Osbourne, Bernie Sanders, Fred Flintstone: LINTY.

We are linty. Or we are not linty.

Let’s embrace it. Let’s roll each other all over with lint rollers. Let’s feel the magnetic attraction!

Imagine: the world’s divisions, obliterated and replaced by one warm and fuzzy binary.

ARE YOU LINTY?

Little bits of fluff and stuff seem drawn to me. Y/N

There is often something on my shirt, in my hair, or on my face. Y/N

I feel linty. Y/N

I am attracted to linty people, almost as though we share a religion. Y/N

My heart is at ease in linty places. Y/N

I like linty yoga places more than non-linty yoga places. Y/N

I enjoy eating in linty restaurants. Y/N

I might wish I could become not-linty but I know I never will. Y/N

If you answered YES to any of these questions, you are one linty individual. If you’re Not Linty, congratulations and how do you manage to be so repellent, lint-wise?

Are you, perchance, linty?

#Lintlife