M.S. Bellows, Jr.I hope that when John Roberts got home from work tonight, he was juggling his briefcase and a couple loose books and a bottle of wine someone gave him and managed to awkwardly get his right middle finger in the way as he slammed the heavy door of his Mercedes and it damn near broke it and at least jammed the joint, and now it's substantially swollen and turning purple and the whole thing throbs with pain with every pulse over and over and over even though he's taken too much ibuprofen and is applying ice, and he might lose his fingernail, and also he dropped the wine when he klutzed out and the bottle broke on his driveway and despite his pain he really needs to go sweep it up.
Today I hope that, yep, John Roberts is losing that fingernail because of the giant blood clot that formed, painfully, underneath it last night.
I hope that this morning John Roberts awakens pleasantly horny and happy because Saturday mornings traditionally are when he and his wife make love and then she makes her special super-hot, super-fluffy waffles, and before he even opens his eyes he extends a gently probing foot to touch her lovely warm body and initiate a cuddle but his foot finds only a cold empty bed, and then he gets up and wanders downstairs to a cold empty kitchen because his wife is at a #NoKings protest, and she didn't even set up the coffeemaker for him.
I hope that last night John Roberts' wife didn't come home from yesterday's #NoKings protest until 3:00 a.m., and that when John awoke and saw her with her clothes rumpled, her hair disheveled, and her makeup smeared, he exclaimed, oh my God, did the protest turn violent?and she answered icily, my God, could you be more naive? and headed for the shower.
I hope that last night John Roberts had insomnia and couldn't fall asleep until 6 a.m. and then his alarm went off at 6:30, and he's pretty sure the "decaf" his wife served after dinner accidentally wasn't decaf, and then he remembers that (unusually for her) she had Sleepytime tea instead of coffee, and now he's wondering whether it was really accidental.
I hope that someone keys John Roberts' car today, and not just shallowly so that it'll buff but all the way through the clear coat into the paint.
I hope nothing bad whatsoever happens to John Roberts today!
Ha ha April fools no seriously I actually hope he slips on a banana peel and breaks his elbow and has to be taken to the emergency department and today's oral argument on birthright citizenship has to be rescheduled for sometime in the next term of court and Trump's illegal order remains stayed until then.
I hope that this morning, as he transitioned through that productive, liminal state halfway between sleeping and waking, John Roberts was struck with the unpromped insight that all his success as a student and lawyer was born of a pathological need to please his overdemanding, vicariously ambitious father, and that he stumbles through the rest of the day with a surprisingly strong, even pathetic feeling of sadness that he actually should have been a professional sailor or large animal vet.
I hope today John Roberts realizes that Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito probably will retire before the end of T's term so T can attempt to name their replacements the way Obama never got to because RBG was too stubborn, and that that makes him sad because them leaving literally will eliminate half of the friendships he's had in his entire miserable life.
Today I hope that John Roberts decides to get out the stepladder and clean that one leaf-filled gutter over the garage and he doesn't fall or anything but as he scoops the half-decayed leaves out of the gutter he tosses them onto the driveway below and when he's done with the first section he climbs back down to move the ladder over a few feet and when he has one foot on the bottom rung he puts the other one on the ground covered with leaves and that foot slips out so his legs straddle and he pulls his groin painfully and also the other foot slips awkwardly between the rungs which scrapes his shin all the way up and as he's lying on the ground the ladder topples comedically over on top of him so when he finally extricates himself and hobbles into the house he's bleeding from his shin and also his forehead where the falling ladder hit him and when he gets inside some of his blood drips onto the entryway and then he feels even worse because he knows his wife is going to scold him for being clumsy and making a mess.
Today I hope that when John Roberts's wife awakens he's already up and because it's #Easter he says sincerely and joyfully, "Good morning! He is Risen!" and she looks pointedly at his pajamas crotch and replies dolefully, "at least someone is," and then they go to church and the scabbed shin scrape he received yesterday makes it painful every time he needs to kneel on the tilt-down genuflexorium, which let's be honest Catholic services require worshippers to do a lot.
Today I hope John Roberts is starting to wonder whether he made the right decision spending his spare time last weekend working to clear the way for Steve Bannon's conviction to be reversed on Trump's whim instead of what he really wanted to do, which is just hang out following updates about the Artemis mission because when he was young Apollo really was important to him.
I hope that this morning John Roberts chose shoes he hasn't worn in a while that are a little narrow in the toe box, and also that his left fourth toenail has a sharp corner that he should have rounded off last time he trimmed them and all day long that toenail corner just grinds into the third toe next to it so that by the end of the day he actually has an open sore there that's annoying and makes him limp.
I hope this morning John Roberts has a meeting somewhere other than the Supreme Court building and traffic is bad and at one point he has to brake so suddenly that he spits coffee onto the front of his silk tie (dry clean only) and white shirt, and then he has trouble finding parking, and when he finally arrives disheveled at the meeting host's offices he can see that the glass-walled conference room is empty and then the receptionist looks up and says, "but sir, that meeting is by Zoom, and they've already started."
I hope today all the U.S. Supreme Court justices had a conference and John Roberts was just trying to get through it efficiently but Clarence Thomas kept derailing the conversation by perseverating about the cost of RV repairs and the unavailability of a type of hose connector needed to supply the obscure brand of Latvian plumbing fixtures he got a great deal on on Facebook Marketplace, and the meeting didn't wrap up until over an hour after it was scheduled to.
I hope today John Roberts has trouble getting his tie tied correctly for some reason so that he spends 10 minutes just standing in front of the mirror tying and re-tying it because it keeps coming out too short or too long and when he finally gets the length right the knot lands at a slightly too narrow part of the tie so it comes out sort of small and the dimple is a little to the side and then all day it just keeps twisting and twisting until the knot is sort of sideways and it just looks like he's some kid who's never tied a tie before and he stops thinking about it eventually because he can't see it but everyone else in his chambers notices and thinks that despite his two Harvard degrees maybe he is not as sophisticated as they thought he was.
This morning I hope John Roberts goes out to a really good breakfast diner with nice waitresses and the food is delicious and the portions are *really* large so he puts two-thirds of his plate into a to go box to enjoy later and in general it feels like the first really good day he's had since, what, January? and then as he's walking back out to his car he stumbles for no reason besides inattention and drops his to-go clamshell which pops open and the French toast and bacon and flimsy little container of real maple syrup all just smear across the sidewalk and instead of being happy today he becomes sad again.
This morning for breakfast I hope John Roberts' wife makes him grits (which he loathes) and overcooked scrambled eggs (which make him nauseated), and now he's *extra* sad he dropped yesterday's delicious breakfast leftovers on the sidewalk.
I hope that on his way to work today John Roberts stops at a new coffee place for a medium latte with one sugar but when the girl (?) with three nose rings hands him his cup he doesn't notice that it has "Omar" written on the side and he's already driven away before he takes his first sip and realizes what she (?) gave him was unsweetened black tea and he doesn't like black tea because to him it tastes like dirt and the tannins give him an upset stomach.
I hope today in front of the Supreme Court building a protester throws a rubber dildo at John Roberts like folks elsewhere are doing to ICE and it bounces off the building's marble cladding and lands right at his feet and ofc he doesn't want to touch it but also he doesn't want to just leave it lying there sullying the dignity of the Court and because he's an orderly person he decides to do the right thing and dispose of it and the instant he bends over and has it in his hand yep, you guessed it, 163 different protesters and tourists all take and post photos of the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court with his butt stuck out holding a dildo and before he even reaches his chambers everyone has seen it and his law clerks are snickering and he feels gullible and foolish so he decides maybe he can deflect some of his embarrassment with more humor so he puts it in Clarence Thomas's inbox, but Clarence doesn't think that's funny either and chews him out so John's whole day is basically shot.
https://www.closertotheedge.net/p/the-dildo-distribution-delegation
https://www.closertotheedge.net/p/the-dildo-distribution-delegation
Today I hope several of the justices go out for lunch to a little restaurant serving South American food and the meal includes a plate of deep fried savory meat pies that John Roberts finds delicious and praises several times out loud except he calls them empañadas, carefully rolling the tilde ~ to show he's erudite, instead of empanadas, which they're actually called, until finally Sonia Sotomayor corrects him in front of everyone, and then he's embarrassed.
Today I hope that John Roberts remembers that he completely forgot about what would have been Antonin Scalia's 90th birthday last month, and in contrition and fondness he decides to try mortification of the flesh in Scalia's honor and so he digs out the cilice Scalia once gave him to celebrate Josemaría Escrivá's birthday and straps it tightly around his upper thigh under his slacks, with the points digging painfully into the soft skin there, but he doesn't realize that Opus Dei associates are only supposed to wear the punishment device two hours a day and instead John wears it all day and that night when he finally goes to take it off it's bled in several places and scabbed itself into his skin and hurts and bleeds more when he pulls it loose and he wipes the whole area with alcohol for safety which also hurts like hell and wraps it in gauze and quickly pulls on his PJs so his wife won't see and honestly he doesn't feel any closer to God at all. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/06/opus-dei-gareth-gore-pope-leo
Today I hope two very serious men appear at John Roberts' home and inform him that a sentimentally and esthetically pleasing painting he bought for cheap at a swap meet during law school and that hangs in his bedroom where he looks happily at it every single day actually was stolen by Nazis from a Jewish family and must be returned.
This morning I hope that as he's soaping his legs in the shower John Roberts encounters a couple painful places on his upper thigh and so he gets a mirror to look more closely and discovers that two of the sores left by the cilice he foolishly wore all day last Thursday have evolved into abscesses, and he also can see that on the skin above one of them is a red stripe running upward towards the lymph gland in his groin indicating that the infection has reached his lymphatic system, and so on this beautiful warm spring Saturday instead of going for a nice walk along the Tidal Basin to see if any cherry blossoms are left he has to go to an urgent care clinic and have the abscesses drained and be given strong antibiotics for what otherwise could become a life-threatening sepsis.
Today I hope John Roberts develops diarrhea from the antibiotics he was given yesterday for his infected upper-thigh abscesses, and then as he's sitting on the toilet for the fifth time he finds himself having uncharitable thoughts about his old friend Antonin Scalia for giving him that damned cilice and then he feels guilty and disloyal on top of, you know, having diarrhea.
This morning I hope John Roberts is sad. He has no idea why. Just: really sad.
This morning I hope John Roberts gets the disturbing news that one of his grandchildren is sick with food poisoning, I mean scary sick, and it makes him even sadder than he was yesterday but also makes him think twice as he heads into the oral arguments today of a case that asks the Court to rule that federal regulatory agencies like the FDA don't have the power to enforce their own rules.
(P.S.: I also hope the grandchild gets better immediately after the conference where the justices cast their votes, and then is given delicious ice cream.)
I hope that this afternoon after lunch John Roberts gets sleepy and nods off at his desk and when he awakens he discovers that the fairies have caused him to grow a long beard and braided it densely with periwinkles.
(Edit: add illustrative photo.)
I hope that this morning when John Roberts wakes up the fairy beard has grown back.
I hope John Roberts' pleasure today in his former law clerk William Baude's hagiographic drivel in today's NY Times is undercut by the memory that even back then Baude was a smarmy, asskissing toady that no one liked, not even Roberts. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/24/opinion/shadow-docket-supreme-court-john-roberts.html
Today I hope John Roberts decides to clean out his nightstand drawer and notices that the small bottle of lube he and his wife use every time they make love has a 2021 expiration date, and it's still 2/3 full, and it wasn't a very big bottle to start with.
This morning as he's leaving the shower I hope John Roberts isn't paying attention where he's walking because he's engrossed in a Rambo daydream fantasy about bravely saving everyone from a crazed assassin at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, and he accidentally steps barefoot on a Lego left on the floor by one of his visiting grandchildren and with the sudden surprising pain his emotions well up unexpectedly and he finds himself lying naked on the wet linoleum floor holding his hurt foot and sobbing because he hates and misses his daddy so, so much.
I hope John Roberts woke up this morning with a really stuffy nose.
This morning I hope that as usual John Roberts put on one sock and then one Florsheim wingtip and tied its laces (because that's how he does it, one shoe at a time like Meathead on "All in the Family"), and then when he stood up to push his other heel into the other shoe something squished underfoot and when he took the shoe back off to look there was a green, melon flavored, sweet-bean-curd-filled mochi completely mushed into his sock and the crevices inside his shoe, and he has absolutely no idea how a melon mochi got into his shoe, and also he was wearing his favorite socks that feel really silky against his feet and now he has to change them.
I hope John Roberts has a blister on one heel today because he didn't get to wear his better socks yesterday.
My meanest #IHopeJohnRoberts to date, for good reason:
This morning I hope John Roberts can't find any matched pairs of socks because his Black housekeeper hid one sock from every pair before she left yesterday, and then that on his way to work this morning he stopped at a drive-through for coffee and his Black barista put seven pink packets of saccharine in it instead of two sugars and then the Supreme Court building's Black doorman noticed he had dog slobber on his pants and didn't tell him and then today he goes out for lunch and the Black cook spits in his gumbo and then his waiter does too and this evening on his way home he stops for a cocktail with a friend and his Black bartender slyly pisses just a little in his Manhattan and the white ally cocktail waitress adds a cherry she dropped on the floor and things like this keep happening all day today and every single other day for the rest of his privileged, racist, godforsaken life, right up to the very end when his immigrant Latina ICU nurse will see he has soiled himself in bed and just ignores it and leaves him festering in his own shit for three more hours and that's how he passes away.
John Roberts’ effort to gut the Voting Rights Act is complete | CNN Politics https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/30/politics/john-roberts-voting-rights-act-race-protections
John Roberts’ effort to gut the Voting Rights Act is complete
The Supreme Court’s decision Wednesday rolling back protections for Black and Latino voters marks another dramatic turn in the long-fought effort by conservative justices to reverse measures vital to overcoming America’s legacy of race discrimination.
Chris Nelson@msbellows but how do you * really* feel about john roberts?
@chrisnelsonsdog I... I don't actually like him very much, surprisingly.
@msbellows I would have never guessed. . .
@msbellows I wouldn't be too concerned, it's a natural reaction to be repulsed by a festering bag of pus walking about on its own. . .