DIY Fall Centerpieces to Own the Patriarchy

A Father of Daughters,
Which is Actually Just a Jockstrap
Wrapped Around an AR-15, With Cinnamon

• Step 1: Tie an AR-15 into a knot, rendering it unusable, which is fine because no one actually needs an AR-15.
• Step 2: Tie a jockstrap into knots, which is fine, because, be honest, you don’t need one of those either.
• Step 3: Sprinkle cinnamon everywhere.
• Step 4: Light the whole thing on fire, along with the Patriarchy, because it’s bad and we need to start over.
• Step 5: Stand back and enjoy the glow of smoldering outdated gender roles and toasted cinnamon.

Ruth Bader Gourdsburg

• Step 1: Download a jack-o’-lantern stencil of a respected judge who was voted onto the Supreme Court by the Senate, 96-3, with no controversy or temper tantrums.
• Step 2: Trace the image onto a midsize, hollowed out pumpkin. Then carve with your sharpest knife.
• Step 3: Appreciate your festive justice gourd for another twenty years at least, as it will remain vital and sassy out of sheer spite.

The Birds From The Birds, and They’re Ovulating

• Step 1: Get a bunch of murderous birds to sit in the middle of your table.
• Step 2: Tell them they are laying eggs for the patriarchy.
• Step 3: Watch them peck away at their oppressors, a gathering of local craft cider brewers who thought they were coming over for a potluck.
• Step 4: As the cider bros get pecked to death, strum a lute while sing-yelling, “Caw, caw! The birds will decide when and how they’ll lay their own eggs from now on!”

The Statue of Liberty Spending $300 On a Self-Defense Class

• Step 1: Convince France that you are worthy of a giant copper statue.
• Step 2: Erect said statue in your dining room, being sure to illuminate her permanent resting bitch face from enduring over a century of being hissed at, demeaned, poked, prodded, and defiled by strange men confused by their attraction to her.
• Step 3: Use her torch to burn it all down and start over, starting with the highly flammable seasonal foliage, and ending with stubborn misogyny, which blooms year-round.

The Iceberg That Sunk the Titanic,
Melted Into the Shape of a Middle Finger

• Step 1: Find a massive frozen hunk of water from the ocean that destroyed an ocean liner in olden times. Stick it on the table.
• Step 2: As sea levels begin to rise due to fumes created by fueling the patriarchy, sculpt the giant floe into the shape of the last message left to Earth’s remaining inhabitants, who now have less than a decade to salvage what remains of the only known habitable planet. (This is a great conversation-starter.)
• Step 3: Make sure there are enough fucking lifeboats this time.
• Step 4: More cinnamon.

The Elevator Full of Blood From The Shining

• Step 1: Get out your favorite rustic wine crate.
• Step 2: For the blood part of this centerpiece, you can use your own. (You will only be able to do this once). Observe a news item depicting two judges reputed for sexual assault laughing and enjoying each other’s company at a swearing-in party thrown by the president. Spontaneously hemorrhage from every orifice of your body.
• Step 3: Fill the decorative crate with your outrage-blood, allowing it to spill all over the table in dramatic autumnal fashion.
• Step 4: Leave it there until Valentine’s Day, or whenever you throw out your Christmas tree, whichever comes first.

Some Antlers From an Endangered Animal
Shot By a Politician On a Continent Full of People
He Refuses to Help

• Step 1: Find the absolute worst people imaginable online.
• Step 2: Contact them and ask them to smuggle animal parts into the country for you on the way back from their next murder safari.
• Step 3: Alert customs to their imminent arrival.
• Step 4: While they are interrogated, pick up some fake antlers and a pumpkin spice candle at Target.
• Step 5: Everything is broken.

A Lady Scarecrow Who Lives In Ohio and Votes

• Step 1: Find some maternity clothes left over from your high-risk pregnancy and stuff them with hay. Feel free to give the scarecrow an extra flourish, like some dehydrated corn or body autonomy.
• Step 2: Make affordable health care almost unobtainable for her, but tell her that she must finish incubating her hay baby, subject to punishment by law.
• Step 3: After she’s billed $3k for pushing out a pile of hay in the hospital, wheelbarrow her over to the closest voting booth and offer to hold her hay pile while she votes.
• Step 4: Watch the election returns together while bonding over a case of cinnamon schnapps.