The other night at Wolf Hound we were all outside smoking a joint, and these two guys with bad haircuts walked over and asked if they could take a drag. We said “Of course!” and passed the ghost chimney around while talking about nothing of consequence.

Then, out of nowhere, these two dudes started talking about their clothing company in Santa Cruz. They make “California-themed merch.” Oh boy.

They gave us three stickers (and told us how much they would have cost us otherwise). One of them was the shape of California with the California bear in the middle. Another was the exact same thing except it had . . . tree roots coming out of the bottom near San Diego. The last one was just this crappy vector drawing of the same California bear that was stamped over the other two stickers.

Later we were back in the bar sans Santa Cruz Cali Merch Bros, and a guy we were with said, “My inability to do what they did to us is probably the reason I’m going to be poor for the rest of my life.”

What else could I say except “Yup, me too.”

(At last call I would stumble down 56th Street and slap all three stickers onto a street sign.)