Leave a bunch of unopened bills lying around.
Replace the bathroom scale with a broken one that’s always ten pounds over.
Swap household bulbs with flickering ones that look like they need replacing.
Put out a sound machine that mimics a leaky, dripping pipe.
Hang up a fake jury duty summons scheduled on your significant other’s birthday.
Turn on a sound device in the fireplace that imitates a trapped bird in the chimney.
Leave on the counter a pseudo-invite to an unaffordable destination wedding of a close family friend.
On the kitchen’s monthly calendar, write down your daughter’s six-days a week junior soccer league schedule.
In the garage, play on loop a recording of a car that won’t start.
Get gag-trash bag liners with the illusion of the trash being incessantly full.
In the household battery drawer, put a bunch of empty battery containers above well-stocked ones.
Remove the bottles from the wine cabinet to make it look like you’re all out.
Put a bunch of overgrown fake grass and faux weeds over the real grass on your lawn to make it look like it needs prompt maintenance.
Replace the upscale artisanal coffee you buy with a clearance sale basic blend from Walgreens that tastes like it smells: burnt toast.
Keep in the fridge a large empty whole milk container and one egg left in the carton.
Leave out a twenty-plus item grocery list and printed ChatGPT list of bankruptcy filing steps.
Leave out the teacher’s instructions for your child’s neglected posterboard book report that’s due in a few days.
Replace all gourmet cheeses with Cheez Whiz.
Adjust clocks in the house to run ahead so that you think you’re always running late and a constant failure in life, as an adult, and as a parent/role-model.
Litter the house with fake dog poop so it looks like you always have cleanup doodie.
Remove all satiating junk-food snacks from the pantry and relocate ice cream from the kitchen freezer to the one at the back of the garage so that it’s like there’s nothing close by to give yourself “a little treat.”
Put a sticker on your phone that looks like your boss is calling you.
Send yourself a fake FB friend request from an old high school acquaintance you’d rather avoid in perpetuity.
Have a cardboard cutout of your awkward neighbor placed near your driveway’s property line so it feels like you have to make mundane conversation while walking to your car in the mornings.
On Halloween night, after all the trick-or-treaters have gone to bed and you’re exhausted from working, parenting, cooking dinner, and handing out candy to a bunch of sugar-hyped kids, play a recording of your child’s soccer coach’s overly-enthused high-pitched shouting during an intense match as you get ready for much-needed nightmare-less rest.
