M.S. Bellows, Jr.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.
Today I hope Ketanji Brown Jackson sees John Roberts' coffee mug sitting briefly unattended and spits in it too, just like all those other people did yesterday and even more people will do tomorrow. #IHopeJohnRoberts
Today I hope when John Roberts wakes up his wife isn't in bed with him and her car is gone and he realizes they haven't made love for months and it suddenly hits him that, with her being gone a lot lately, and the way she keeps biting back criticisms of him, and her attendance at #NoKings protests, and especially her face last week when she learned about his ruling destroying the Civil Rights Act – with all that, it hits him that their tradition of making tender love on Saturday mornings may be gone forever and he may never get to softly stroke her smooth, strong, beautiful, familiar body ever, ever again. #IHopeJohnRoberts
I hope John Roberts' wife slept in the guest bedroom last night and didn't even say why. #IHopeJohnRoberts
I hope John Roberts overhears some law clerks and the Democratic justices making an insiderey May the Fourth reference today and he doesn't understand and feels left out and so he asks Ketanji Brown Jackson to explain and she looks at him like he's a little slow but says helpfully and slowly, "May the 4th be with you?" but Roberts still doesn't get it and wonders if it's a Black thing. #IHopeJohnRoberts
Today I hope John Roberts hits a speed bump while driving to work and sloshes coffee down the front of his white shirt, which unbeknownst to him actually is sort of a good thing because it means he will drink less of the loogie his barista spat into his cup. #IHopeJohnRoberts
Today I hope that for a change John Roberts is personally writing a short opinion deciding a motion because the case is intellectually interesting to him and also two of his clerks are taking personal days, but he realizes legal research has evolved to be computerized instead of using the printed AmJur and Shepherd's books he used to use and he's not so good on the computer but someone has told him Grok is easy to use so he tries it and it's fascinating and he spends the day diving down that rabbit hole until he and Grok have drafted a really well-researched document that says exactly what he wanted it to say and rather than wait for his clerks to return and cite-check it he thinks to himself, "dammit, I'm still a damn fine lawyer and researcher in my own right!" and just posts it himself on the Court's public server, completely unaware that six of the thirteen cases Grok found for him are completely fictitious and three of the others stand for the opposite of what Grok said they did, and he goes to bed tonight blissfully ignorant of how embarrassed he's going to be when he gets to work tomorrow. #IHopeJohnRoberts #AI
Today I hope that when John Roberts gets to work everyone is agitated about the AI-hallucinated citations in the document he posted yesterday (see above) but no one has realized he's the one who did it because no one would ever think a CJ could be that foolish, so everyone is trying to figure out which clerk was stupid enough to (a) use Grok to write an opinion and (b) not even cite-check it before posting it online, and Alito is especially furious and has corned a Roberts clerk he's always suspected to have secret liberal tendencies and is dressing him down to the point that the clerk (who's not a bad guy for a Yalie) has tears streaming down his face, and Roberts normally would have come to his clerk's defense but he's so mortified by his own error and so terrified of being discovered that instead of doing the right thing he locks himself in his private washroom and bursts into tears himself, and by the end of the day that clerk and one other one have resigned (which is absolutely unheard of), and then at around 4pm a tech figures out which computer posted the flawed document and yes it's his and so everyone in the building goes home knowing that not only is the Chief Justice a befuddled fuckup who trusted Grok but also that he lacks the character to even admit when he's wrong, and just as he's leaving a secretary tells him seventeen reporters have left messages asking to speak with him and he just ignores her, gets in his car, and drives away, unsure whether he's going home or to a nearby bridge.
#IHopeJohnRoberts
#IHopeJohnRoberts
Today I hope John Roberts woke up in a drunk tank because last night he went to a bar instead of the other places I mentioned, and got completely hammered hoping to forget his embarrassment and cowardice yesterday, and got picked up by the police with a BAC of 0.18, and his wife had to come get him and didn't say a word as she drove him home to shower and change clothes, and then he Ubered to work because she said driving him would just be enabling, and when he finally got to work he walked silently past his disapproving colleagues and disappointed clerks, and now he's in his chamber alone, really hung over and miserable and he wants to disappear and also don't forget two of his clerks quit yesterday so suddenly he's behind on his work as well. #IHopeJohnRoberts
[OOC] OKAY I NEED TO START SCRIBING #IHopeJohnRoberts ON THIN SHEETS OF LEAD! https://www.history.com/articles/what-were-ancient-roman-curse-tablets
^ @evacide
Today I hope John Roberts woke up still feeling really bad about the events of the last couple days, but with a glimmer of hope in the fact that it's Saturday and he has a couple days out of the public eye to sort things out, and then he opens the paper (which he still has delivered on paper) and on the front page is a story about his drunk driving arrest, illustrated by that photograph of him taken back on February 4 when he accidentally drank a roofied Tequila Sunrise. #IHopeJohnRoberts
Today I hope John Roberts doesn't get to say "Happy Mother's Day" to his wife because last night both of their adult children called to announce that in light of his decisions making the president immune from responsibility for crimes and then gutting the Civil Rights Act, not to mention his very public drunk driving arrest (see above), they are so ashamed they can't bear to even be in the same house as him, so last night she spent the night with one of them and then this morning they're all having a fancy brunch then going antiquing without him. #IHopeJohnRoberts
Today I hope John Roberts has really bad heartburn and is even regurgitating a little stomach acid into his throat but he can't find any regular antacids so he takes a big gulp of Milk of Magnesia from the old bottle in the hall closet, forgetting that magnesium gives him the trots. #IHopeJohnRoberts
Today #IHopeJohnRoberts doesn't realize his wife's little dog threw up in his slippers until it's too late.
Today #IHopeJohnRoberts notices that his morning OJ has a sort of metallic taste, and then later feels like something's off somehow as he chews a slice of apple, and probes his teeth with his tongue but can't feel anything different, but the metallic taste persists and by the end of the day he realizes one of his old amalgam fillings has cracked and now he can even feel the little edge with his tongue.
Two words: crotch rot. #IHopeJohnRoberts
Last night #IHopeJohnRoberts got up in the middle of the night to urinate (because: prostate), and he didn't want to wake up his wife so he just left the bathroom light off and aimed at the toilet, except (as sometimes happens with enlarged prostates) the flow hadn't completely finished flowing when it felt like it had and so as he started to tuck his unit (that's what his dad taught him to call it as a boy) away he felt about half an ounce of pee trickle down his thigh inside his pajama leg, so (again blindly) had to sort of blot himself off with toilet paper and then wash his hands in the dark and then when he finally crawled back into bed he remembered his wife has been sleeping in the guest bedroom lately (and hasn't even told him why), so there was no reason to leave the light off in the first place.
This morning #IHopeJohnRoberts was alone in bed remembering the lazy romantic beautiful lovemaking he and his wife used to do on Saturday mornings but that they've stopped doing because even though she's conservative she refuses to sleep with (let alone fuck) an outright fascist, and just remembering how it used to be turns him on, and he decides to masturbate, but he suffers an older-male-style equipment malfunction no matter how much lotion he uses, and ofc she's not there to do that very private thing with her pinky that usually solves that problem like magic, so he has to go through the rest of the day not only lonely and sad but also horny and frustrated.
Today #IHopeJohnRoberts' tinea cruris flares up again, and so severely that it even oozes a little.
Today #IHopeJohnRoberts develops heat rash and his skin feels itchy and stingy all day and the starch he has them put in his shirts isn't helping.
jandi@msbellows Off-topic and I wish bad things happen to Roberts too (I follow these posts and fully endorse them), but does starch help with skin itches? I'm interested in that!
@jandi No, I was just imagining that stiff shirts might make the heat rash worse (and implying that Roberts is the kind of straight who would have heavy starch in his shirts). On the other hand, one of the benefits of a starched shirt is that it keeps the cloth from clinging to you as much, which can help keep you cooler. Wish I had a better answer!
@msbellows Haha, thank you, as it happens, my wife is having a bit of a rash right now and your post made me jump straight to the idea of starching the bed sheets lol.
With that out of the way, a big "fuck John Roberts!" from Spain, with a side of "fuck Mitch McConnell" and from there down, fuck all nazis and bigots!
@jandi ¡Igualmente, por supuesto! And I hope she feels better. I think I've heard that cornstarch sprinkled on skin is soothing, but I would do some research first.
@msbellows (seems like she fell asleep calmly, very good) I'll look into it, thanks!