MINNEAPOLIS—Looking glumly at the mess of candies and royal icing, local 44-year-old Anthony Renton told reporters Thursday that building a shitty gingerbread house was just making his depression worse. “Nothing will stick—the gumdrops, the Twizzlers, the candy canes, the Hershey’s kisses—they all reject the frosting, just as life has rejected me,” said Renton, who stared into the dead confectionary eyes of the smiling gingerbread man that lay flat on its back outside the smeared, ramshackle creation he had begun building in a misguided attempt to conjure some holiday cheer. “What’s the point? I’m not even going to eat it when I’m done. It’s just going to sit here on this table until it grows stale and starts to rot or, worse, is devoured by animals.” At press time, Renton was reportedly feeling much better after deciding to give up on trying to do anything ever again.
