Half Past Awesome

The Dirtbag & Me, Circa 2030

In 5 days it’s officially over. By over, I mean my youth. May 15th is the day that I hit 36, and from there it’s a hop, skip and a shuffle to assisted living. Yesterday I heard Pearl Jam being played on the classic rock station; if that’s not a sign from The Flying Spaghetti Monster that the springtime of my life is past, then I just don’t know what is.

By 36, Jesus of Nazareth had been dead for something like three years. Bob Marley wouldn’t live to see 37 (ps- 29 nine years ago tomorrow!). Princess Diana and Marylin Monroe both checked out at age 36. Eric “Eazy-E” Wright of NWA infamy had been dead for 5 years by the time he would’ve hit 3-6. Even Mozart only made it to 35. And I’ve got one year left if I want to beat van Gogh to the graveyard.

Hardly my contemporaries, I grant you that much.

Still.

The incoming Prime Minister of Great Britain is only 43.  At age 36, Benjamin Franklin invented the Franklin Stove and Robert Jarvik invented a pneumatically powered heart.

I managed to remember to take the trash out to the street tonight.

WHAT. THE. HELL. HAPPENED?

And from this statement, I follow it up with this theory: the last time the world really was your oyster was at your high school graduation. Seriously. Think about it.

Set aside how the Class of ’92 was THE best class EVER!! and all that other bilge that you endured at your graduation about how your high school would never see the likes of a class like this again. And think about this: never again in your life will you be afforded any opportunity like this. You can really do whatever it is you want, and people will applaud you for “following your own path”. You want to be an astronaut? Get your ass in gear and brush up on your physics in college, next thing you know, you’re guzzling Tang in lunar orbit. You wanna get stoned all day long and live under the pier? People will admire you for “finding yourself” before you dedicate your life to living in dumpsters. There really are no limits.

Take your 30′s: you’re expected to do your job, and do it competently. No one looks at a 32 year old machinist and says “hey look at Bobby. Can you believe it? Only 32 and he shows up to work every single day!” And Bobby silently seethes each night as he cracks open an Old Milwaukee, wondering how in the hell he ended up making cylinder heads for a living. I can’t just up and tell my family tomorrow “I think I shall be a mathematician, starting around lunchtime.” They would verbally lynch me and tell me to get my ass into the firehouse and back on the ladder truck. My path is set, to a certain degree, and so is yours.

B.B. King is universally hailed as the King of The Blues, and I’m 67% sure he plotted that course much earlier than 36. And while his music has more and more appeal to me every day, his path is one that never occurred for me to take, except for a short period of time in high school. My stepdad pointed out to me “yeah, I can see you like playing music; so did I. And so do thousands of starving musicians. Keep studying.” And I listened. And I’m not starving, so there’s that. But I abandoned my nutty ideals and wayfaring dreams somewhere along the way. So did most people I know.

Now lofty flights of fancy like owning a tugboat with The Dirtbag and plying the mighty Columbia River are little more than front porch mumblings into my cocktail tumbler. And I look at the Heathens playing in the yard and envy them not the pain they’ll endure at life’s hands, but rather, the opportunities they’ll be given as they approach double digits. I see it as my job to help them embrace their dreams and encourage their risk-taking. Heathen #1 told me the other day he wants to be a volcano scientist, and I was stoked. I told him that was the coolest thing I’d ever heard, and I’m sure when he changes his mind next week, I’ll like that idea too. I might be hitting middle age, but I refuse to let my enthusiasm for their dreams be dimmed by my crotchety outlook on other aspects of this life. That, now, is my job.

Of course, Julia Child began cooking at 36.

I think I’ll start looking on Craigslist for a good deal on a tugboat.

You Get The Idea

It’s all shades of gray, really. Often-times folks from the coastal community ask me how in the world you could stand to live in the Ozarks, home of cousin-fornication and three teeth per capita. People in the Ozarks ask how could someone stand to live in California, home of such insane luminaries as San Fran Gran Nan Pelosi and 800 square foot homes that retail for $800,000. Both sides are correct, of course. And both are horribly mistaken.

I have no cousins here in the Midwest, so I suppose that option is out. I have all my teeth and an affordable mortgage on some acreage. I love the coast, and grew up living there, despite the cost of living and without bestowing voting rights on my goldfish. The humidity here sucks, the cost there sucks. The seafood there is fresh and plentiful and here people seem to have a concern for others beyond the bare narcissistic minimums. And they have Starbucks in both locations.

One place I don’t know if I could ever really adjust to is the desert locales through which I-40 rambles from here to there. NOTHING is out there. If dirt and lizards are your thing, you’ll not be disappointed, but I was struck how lonesome and desolate most of the communities are along the way. People who lived along the corridor displayed an affinity for gathering old buses, trailers, busted minutiae and detritus they could scatter around their dwellings. It seems like an awfully hardscrabble way to make it through life. No greenery, no trees, no rain, nothing but bitter dust and wind always, the wind. When population monitors screech like howler monkeys about the number of people on this planet, I often wonder if they’ve ever been out in New Mexico or Arizona and gazed into the desolation. I’m pretty sure Mars has better lawns.

I have several friends who love to travel to the desert. These are people who, in my opinion, need to be institutionalized. Brewing soup in my shorts while admiring rocks and far-off mesas seems catastrophic at best. I’ve come to love the wild swings in weather we have out here in Missouri, if for no other reason than they parallel the inconsistency with which I approach each day. To know that tomorrow’s forecast will be “hot, again. Hot and dry. Really, really, really hot and exceptionally dry, to be honest” is akin to a death sentence of monotony.

My hyper-caffeinated brain needs constant short-attention span stimulation, whereas the desert highways are a lesson in long sessions of isolated monotony. This might work if I was a Buddhist trying to calm my soul, but the fact remains that I function in a different shade of gray. So a trip across the high plains with me is a spectacle of watching me thrash around the cab of the car, mumbling and rambling and throwing items all over. Spazing my way across I-40, that’s how my family witnessed it.

We really should do this vacation thing more often.

Last night I hung up my firefighting gear for the foreseeable future. And by “foreseeable future” I mean “the next two weeks” since I have the attention span of a fly and two weeks into the future may as well be two decades. The family is heading out of Missouri, as mentioned in this post, the nerve-wracking, make-me-sweat-like-a-whore-in-church experience known as emceeing the Blogaronis is over, and Hotwire has been put in charge of maintaining the compound while we drive like mad bastards to my home state. All is good on the horizon.

Sometimes it feels like a royal pain in the a-double snakes to be a government employee – the bureaucracy, the constant cycle of loathing/admiration/hating/envy that the citizens feel towards public safety (pension problems, anyone?), the feeling of being a cog in a blue shirt, replaceable within about 5 minutes or less. The bureaucracy – yeah, I gotta mention that twice, and if you work in government service, you can appreciate this.

But on top of that, I feel really lucky. Lucky that I’ve found the career that makes sense to me. The fire service is loaded with all kinds of wayward issues, but really, what job isn’t? Anytime you have more than two employees, you have politics. Any time you answer to the citizens, there’s gonna be one old grouch out there who wants to kick you in the balls just because he got a speeding ticket once. So we accept where we’re at, but that doesn’t always translate into appreciating it.

Every third day I spend in the company of 5-7 others who endure my lies and copious bull. I drink ungodly amounts of coffee, I get to tinker with a three-quarter million dollar ladder truck and generally when people dial 911, they’re happy/relieved to see us arrive. Little kids never, ever fail to wave up at the truck, little old ladies always coo when we change their smoke detectors and our spouses are generally happy to get rid of us for one day out of three. When the economy is down, our business seems to pick up, not necessarily a good thing in terms of public safety, but it makes for interesting times. We operate on a level of maturity with one another that you may have last witnessed in sixth grade.

And still, we bitch about it.

For the next couple of weeks, I’ll hopefully sleep through the night. There will be no phantom alarms at 3am, no loudly lamenting the empty coffee pot, no staring off at the rest of the world going home at 5pm while we have a whole 14 more hours of gilded cage time. No staring at a giant truck knowing that there’s really several hours of checking it that need to get done. No arguing over what channel to watch. I’ll need to keep my mouth in check, since firehouse humor doesn’t necessarily translate smoothly outside the station. It won’t go well, and I’ll end up saying stuff I regret. The Pimp and The Pirate won’t be around to berate me, and tales of JoBoo’s adventures into Oklahoma will have to wait. I won’t think about funding issues, staffing issues, pension issues, rookie issues or the plain ol’ business of fighting fires.

The Heathens will spend time on the beach, time at Disneyland, and time on my nerves. The Wife will pass judgment on my driving skills and my brothers will point out how great it is to see us and how old I’m looking. The Lyin’ Dutchman will probably make some sort of appearance, trying to ambush Buns and me through a meeting that Bones will have unknowingly set up. I’ll spend an inordinate amount of time missing living on the coast. I’ll watch Barbara get married and lament losing time with my family. I’ll secretly wish for a return to a life that really never was. Hopefully The Author and I will have time to meet up and we can wax idiotic on classmates from twenty years ago.

And in two weeks? Putting on the turnouts and climbing on to Truck 2 will seem like a damn fine way to make a living. Even if the coffee pot is empty.

The Doctor Will See You Now

This past week a man was charged with performing illegal adult circumcisions in his home.

I repeat:

This past week a man was charged with performing illegal adult circumcisions in his home.

This is not a story I made up, nor is it one I found on Fair City News. This story is real, and it took place in Sparta, Michigan. And if you still don’t believe me, you can find a link to the news story here. Let’s take a moment to observe just how creepy this whole scenario really is.

According to local law enforcement, Thomas Huegel had “a makeshift operating room in his house”. Oh, okay, so this doesn’t sound weird at all. Continuing, the story indicates the amateur scalper would find his “patients” on sites such as Craigslist and Adam4Adam (which sounds suspiciously like a dude for dude kinda site. I should work for CSI with such sharp instincts). So far they have only been able to identify three “victims” but have ample evidence that there is a greater number of people who’ve been under Huegel’s knife.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?

And, more importantly, would you people be willing to sit down and talk with me for a minute? Because I’d really, really, really like to know your thought process as you entered into this whole bowl of creep sauce. When did you come to terms with the fact that you were considering a circumcision performed by an untrained and unlicensed individual?

Look, I’m not here to judge. Actually, that’s totally a lie -  if you’re one of this clown’s “victims” there’s a pretty good chance you deserve his cut-rate services. I’m just beyond shocked that somehow this seemed like ” a pretty good idea” to you or anyone. Even though “he quite often wore a doctor’s uniform that really left the impression he was a medical doctor” according to one Lt. Kevin Kelley, did it never occur to you that this was taking place IN A HOUSE? Who in their ever-loving mind thinks to look to Craigslist for medical procedures?

Don’t answer that if I know you and you’ve done this.

I wouldn’t want it to get, you know, weird.

Next Time We Meet

Dear Moron,

Yeah, you. In the gold Mercury Topaz. The one that cut me off in the nearly-empty parking lot of a nasty West side Subway sandwich joint last night. There was just you and I looking to enter the place when you felt the need to punch it and swipe a spot near the front door. No big deal. I can park in front of the shady check cashing place, I’m not scared. Then, from behind your emo-boy wispy hair your little bug eyes popped out when you saw I was going to enter Subway, maybe before you could! Horror! You jumped out and sprinted like you were being chased by The Heat in order to make sure you got to the door first. I really don’t care. No, it’s all good. I had time.

But then, when you flung open the door and waltzed inside, skinny pants clinging tight like a tick to your chicken legs you got smug. You, with the whole whipping strands of hair around like a triumphant ice dancer, you couldn’t be bothered to at least hold the door, say “excuse me” or look me in the face; you went too far you little snot-faced bastard. I don’t give a crap if you had to put your Dungeons & Dragons game on hold so you could bolt from your mothers basement and grab some eats, YOU DID NOT WIN. STOP LOOKING SO RIGHTEOUS, DUMBASS!!

I was tired from a workout and just looking to grab some dinner on the way to the fire station. I’m too old to engage in spinning tires in a parking lot – not even a busted ass Topaz being run into the red line is tempting. Just order your meal and get out of my way, clown.

Wait. What’s that?

You want to order six sandwiches so you and your pubescent little friends can pretend you’re wizards and merlins well into the night while watching Highlander six times in a row? You want to hear what all the possible menu options are from the irritated minimum wage slave with a mustard-laden knife in his hands? I hope he slices you with it. You, sir, are a grade-A turd. I could take you to the State Fair and win blue ribbons for your prize-turd status. And I know you heard me when I expressed my disbelief at your inability to read a menu.

You’re what’s wrong with this country.

I hope a level 19 Taco Supreme Imperial Warlock beat the bejeezus out of you that night back in Mother’s basement.

Me? I was the one too lazy to follow through with my plans to torch the Topaz.  I had to settle for glaring and muttering and a cold sandwich.

Unlike revenge, it wasn’t a dish best served cold.

"This? Is my biblical pimp-hand"

There’s little that’s more frustrating than obstacles, especially the ones we lay out in front of ourselves. Think about it: how many opportunities have we squandered based on nothing more than a sense of insecurity? No, I’m not good enough for that job/girl/chance to win the lottery. We idle around in the harbors of our own minds, convinced that the seas are far too stormy for safe passage. We tie up to complacency and pretty soon you find yourself thinking that somehow life has short-changed you. And in the meantime, you are convinced that everyone else out there is hard-charging, getting ahead and chasing these wild dreams and aspirations – it’s the same theory that convinces you to change lanes in gridlocked traffic, just knowing the other lane is somehow screwing you over and moving faster.

I’m as guilty as the rest when it comes to toeing the line of opportunity. I almost joined the Air National Guard when offered an opportunity to go to navigator school – no go. I almost went to school out of state when I was accepted at a small university in Washington State. I almost wasn’t a career fireman here in Springburg when I was turned down after my first application; had someone not washed out of the background checks, I’d never have known this life, since I wasn’t ready to try again after initial rejection. It’s enough to make someone grind their teeth down to nubs when we ponder our almostabilities.

Motivational posters outside of nearly every cubicle farm declare the need to forge onward in the face of adversity, and I suppose these work for the same kind of people that are inspired by daily work cheers that you might encounter in a Sam’s Club or a timeshare sales company. Personally, I found this motivational technique to be ineffective beyond seventh grade, but that’s just the cynicism talking. I’m more interested in seeing how our flawed champions rebound….will Tiger emerge from the shadows of his rampant sexuality to rise to the top again? Can Jim Bakker revive his ability to shake down naive religious followers with the promise of salvation via “love gifts” and tearful sermons? What sort of chance does Milli Vanilli have of ever putting out another hit song?

So I find myself at the same precipice of yet another almostability, and it deals with what you’re reading right now. In a month, you and I are gonna have our first anniversary. I started Half Past Awesome 11 months ago as a way to both find out if I still had the chops to amuse through writing and to function as a creative outlet for my insanity-addled mindset. I now feel like I want to kick it up to the next step, submit some stuff to the print world or at the least, grow the readership of the site. And yet. Yet I seem reluctant to make the next move, because I don’t know what the next move IS. Plus, the abject terror of rejection lingers. The best part of the safe harbor of this site is that there is no boss, no money and little chance of rejecting myself too terribly often. Outside of the one reader/patron of Patton Alley Pub who delighted in telling me the site was “um… a little self-absorbed”, I’ve been very happy with the interactions you and I have had over the past year.

I guess I just don’t want to let the opportunity to write at a higher level become another casualty of my own insecurities. An almostability.

Perhaps I’ll slide on down to Sam’s Club and see if I can muster up some courage after a rousing work-team cheer. Maybe they’re onto something.

Motivation. Where do we find it? Some people say it has to come from within. I’d like to hit those people with a brick pillow. Of course, that’s just the jealousy talking, but I stand by that statement. Somewhat like hearing how my brothers et al are enduring “horrible” weather in Southern California when it drops to 50 degrees, I tend to discount motivational philosophy that comes from the fabulously successful; although this seems counter intuitive,  when you see people who are already wealthy talk about how motivated they are to earn more wealth, this just comes across as hoarding behavior to me.

I think we find motivation in the most unlikely of places.

• Observe the fellow on the highway off-ramp who glares at you with the intensity of a thousand white hot suns while holding out a can and demanding you help him. This guy has a 999% failure rate, rejected by the masses and dismissed by most as a lazy bum, but really, he is the penultimate salesman. If he can convince you to give him money and said money really is helping towards filling a mysteriously absent gas tank, he could easily sell ketchup popsicles to women in white gloves.

• The meteorologists here in the Midwest take a near-Biblical level beating every time they predict the next maelstrom of death and destruction. But yet, there they are, weather system after weather system, driven by unseen forces to work you into a lather over the coming apocalypse. They’re playing the odds, and they always get screwed by the house, and still, they keep plugging away with little more than a shrug of the shoulders each time the storm misses by just that much.

• I have a neighbor who is literally living in his shop with approximately 1.4 million 45 records. That’s not an exaggeration I’m employing here, that’s the real number by his own exhaustive count. I’ve seen it. Coupled with 13 jukeboxes (six of which are functional), Wild Bill spends his “free time” (of which there is no limit) sorting and organizing his albums and is the closest thing I know to a uber-rural millionaire. Yes, he eats expired food from vending machines and wears softball cleats as casual footwear, but he is motivated by the belief that there is intrinsic value in 45′s. He is also motivated to bang metal off of wood while sporting a butchers’ hard hat; as well he collects old election posters and empty pop cans , but that is beside the point.

• Year after year Eddie Murphy takes part in some sort of cinematic train wreck that we’re supposed to buy into due to it’s rating as “family friendly”. Gone are the days of “Raw” and “Trading Places” and instead we’re treated to “The Nutty Professor 7: Revenge Of The Flubber”. I think it all began with “Coming To America” or his foray into pop radio with “(My Girl Wants To) Party All The Time”, but nonetheless he has gone from being the funniest son of a gun in comedy to a guy who’s next step will be doing local ads for ambulance-chasing lawyers. And he’s still out there, churning out one flaming turd of a movie after another. One word: motivated.

• And for the last word in motivation? One need look no further than the zealots of this world. No matter their cause, be it proving that the President is a Kansas-born terrorist without a birth certificate or that dinosaurs are the creation of the liberal-media sponsored devil himself, few are as passionate and driven to launch out of bed each day as those residents of the lunatic fringe. We could all learn a lesson from the maniacal despots and nut-job conspiracy theorists of the world. And that lesson would be to never, ever give up, even in the face of logic and fact.

Something to think about the next time you’re not so inclined to do what needs to be done. Now go carpe the crap outta that diem.

Hello, comrade.

In the past year, you’ve taken to writing to me, or more specifically, my site here, in order to establish some sort of relationship. For reasons unknown, all of your correspondence comes to the spam section of Half Past Awesome, but believe you me, I’m getting all of your letters. EVERY SINGLE ONE. While I’m so flattered that you want to be my digital pen-pal, there’s just one small hitch. I DON’T SPEAK RUSSIAN, YOU SOVIET CHOWDERHEAD!

Sorry, I shouldn’t have yelled like that. You’re just trying to talk to me about God Knows What, and here I am screeching at you because of my inability to embrace the silky Russian dialect. I regret to inform you, that while you’re being relegated to the spam filter of cyberspace, you’re in pretty shady company. Apparently there are several people with names with no vowels out there sending me messages about whitening my teeth and increasing my penis size. I’m not sure who DR.XRFlyWE&67@dentalisme.com is, but he seems a little less than genuine in his communiques. How am I to know if he really cares about my dental well being or he’s just saying that to anyone who dwells out here in cyberspace? I’m not putting him on the Christmas Card list this year, not until I see some more sincerity out of him, that much is certain.

No, he’s not like you my Bolshevik “моя родруга”, what with your fancy Cyrillic alphabet and lots of underlined words as you try and reach out to me here in the middle of America, desperate for international flavor here in the Ozarks. What’s your name? I can’t decipher it beyond a series of mismatched consonants and numbers. Is it Irina? Are you picturing us in coffee shops on opposite sides of the world, connecting over a series of philosophies and worldviews, becoming soul mates despite the miles and apparent language barrier? My little babushka, you do know I’m married, right? The Wife cannot ever find out about our forbidden exchanges. But you already know this don’t you? THAT must be why every entry is sent to my spam box. Oh, you’re a crafty little Russian fox, no? Wait. I just checked over in the mailbox, and there’s not ONE SINGLE MESSAGE, much less 14, waiting for me, from you. WHAT THE HELL, YOU TWO TIMING COSSACK TRAMP? ARE YOU SENDING MESSAGES TO OTHER GUYS TOO? YOU SIBERIAN SLUT!!

Again, a thousand apologies, I just thought that we really…….I dunno…..connected. I’m waiting here, patiently, my Irina. I’m holding out against hope that what you really want is to be my special friend, that beneath all of that Soviet-style psychobabble, you’re not trying to hawk homeopathic alternatives to Valium. I’d be devestated. Crushed. My hopes for a tawdry forbidden affair would go to my own private gulag.

I only have one question left for you to answer, my sweet little Muscovite. After your last message, I hastily looked up what you’d written to me…..and it turns out that  “Вы имеете большие сиськи” translates into “you have big boobs”. So I’m left with the burning question – how did you get a picture of me without a shirt on, you filthy bird?

Lovingly yours,

me

“Dude, you’ve GOT to see Avatar! Best movie, ever! Make sure you see it in 3-D, dude, it’s sooooo much better that way!”

This is a statement a friend made to me recently. He took my raised eyebrow to mean I wanted to debate the merits of watching said new movie in 3-D versus 2-D. Nothing could’ve been further from reality, however. The odds of me seeing a science fiction flick in 3D on an IMAX screen in the near future are reasonably nil, a fact that baffled him. It was tantamount to missing The Resurrection as far as he was concerned, but then again, he has no kids. In all likelihood, I’ll see Avatar around the same time as I become a full fledged cocaine-cartel boss.

On the incredibly rare opportunity that I find three hours waiting to be pissed away, I find it hard to walk into a theater and plop down $13 dollars for a ticket $79.43 for popcorn and a small Sprite and sit still. Don’t get me wrong….I love the movies, and there is hardly a better guilty indulgence than to escape into a wild world of cinematic mindlessness. But I’m overwhelmed by the fact that three hours of my life will ebb into the abyss and I’ll have wasted time I could’ve spent on Facebook.

The actual truth is a few blocks down from that statement. The fact is that I’m a dad with two boys under the age of ten. If I’m going to waste a weeks’ pay on a cinematic experience, it better be one that they choose. I can’t see anything that can’t be purchased in toy form at a McDonalds. I cannot name the provinces of Iraq that my brothers served in, but I seem to know the Transformer characters by name, and have cursed their names in vain as I smashed them against a wall in an futile attempt to convert them. I’ve never given a second thought to how moronic it is that a robot would want to transform into a semi truck (I mean, really. What’s he gonna do in everyday life? Haul produce and lounge around in truck stops, only to have his driver seduce prostitutes on an hourly basis?) No, I gladly submit to the hell that is one million parts of Chinese plastic in an attempt to remain relevant in this household.

Those without children use me as an example of the pity they feel. They don’t know the depth of the unspoken, unconditional love that keeps me motivated to engage in thirty light-saber battles a day, always willing to lose for the cause. I wouldn’t do this for your kids, and you wouldn’t do it for mine, but something happens when you’re this invested. Hare-brained schemes like leaving it all to join a Bob Marley & The Wailers tribute band take a back seat, and you’ve become that guy. The one who gets mocked in a silent way when he leaves the party, stone cold sober and eager to catch the 763rd reading of “I Stink” before bed time.

Someday, I’ll be able to join in on discussions about the impact of the latest Hollywood blockbuster on pop culture, but, by then, I probably just won’t care. In the meantime, I’ll still build Lego spacestations and create forts of blankets and pillows to stave off attacks from the Imperial Mom. I can only hope they might want to catch Transformers 12 with me down at the cineplex in a couple of years; at least I’ll know all the characters’ names.

It’s time to kick -aught nine to the curb and usher in the new decade. We’ll probably start with the host of false promises known as  New Years’ Resolutions. I thought that for a different perspective, my resolutions would be things that I would NOT do 2010 to the best of my abilities. This post also marks the 100th installment of Half Past Awesome, and I’d like to thank those of you who take the time to read my insane rants; at the least, I hope I can amuse you from time to time. So here you have it, 20 things that I intend to not to do in ’10. I’ll talk to you next year, amigos. Enjoy!

20 Things I Resolve To Not Do In 2010

I will not:

1.) Get any neck tattoos. While these may elevate your status in prison, they are somewhat off-putting and remind people on the outside not to trust you very much.

2.) Be featured on the A&E television show Hoarders. To avoid becoming one, I may have to set fire to my many random pieces of plywood and lumber that litter the shop. Nobody gets a birdhouse, but then, I don’t become one of those nutjobs. Bittersweet, I suppose.

3.) Let the hair on my back grow to any length. This is disgusting and requires only two words: consistent waxing. The pain is well worth the avoidance of the back sweater blues.

4.) Develop any sort of Ponzi schemes that might defraud hapless hedge fund managers. Those poor slobs have been through enough already, don’t you think? They deserve our deepest sympathy.

5.) Fall in love with Penelope Cruz. This is going to prove tougher as time goes by, but we must get over one another.

6.) Join a motorcycle gang. As tempting as it sounds, riding around all hopped up and psychotic, I don’t even own a motorcycle, so this should be an attainable goal. No promises on not wearing the leather vest, though.

7.) Ever, EVER, wear skinny jeans. This trend is stupid enough that I envision the next step will be wearing a wetsuit bottom around, and after that, just straight up tights. Way to go, Robin Hood wannabes.

8.) Be swayed by the hypnotic qualities of Dyson products. Whether it’s the vacuum ball or air-blade hand dryer, I must control the urge to fork out $1600 to dry my hands. But damn, their devices look so good, and when that Dyson guys pitches his inventions? His accent alone makes me want to purchase. But I won’t. Not this year.

9.) Mock Steven Seagal. This has become too easy, and he’s inches away from becoming a character on Reno 911, so I just gotta let them have it. Take care, Steven, I’ll miss haranguing you.

10.) Attempt a mustache. Previous mustaches I have worn always result in my looking like either a failed porn star or some sort of international sex predator, neither of which I can really feel comfortable sporting. No to the ‘stache.

11.) Purchase Crocs. Not unless I need some fancy footwear while shopping down at “The Wal-Marts”.

12.) Take sides, nor participate in the Edward vs. Jacob conversation. You ladies are all either necrophiliacs or pedophiles, and it’s more than creepy. Ps- vampires and werewolves don’t really exist, so this whole debate makes as much sense as arguing about who’s hotter: Jessica Rabbit or Betty Boop?

13.) Purchase a Member’s Only jacket. I don’t think I need to give a reason here.

14.) Challenge The Lyin’ Dutchman to a cage fight. To the death. Much as I am tempted to lure him into the Octagon, there can only be one result of such a fight; the winner would have to take on Aunt Viper, and we know who wins in that scenario.

15.) Go to Arkansas for any reason – it never ends well. Just ask Hillary.

16.) Insist that Christopher Walken play the role of me, on the off-chance that an epic movie be made about my shenanigans and debauchery.

17.) Accept Sarah Palin’s invitation into her tour bus the next time she rolls into Springfield – she only wants one thing, the dirty little minx. I learned my lesson last time, and I won’t be treated like that again.

18.) Beat up young boys who wear make-up and iron their hair. This one will be tough to uphold, as those kids need a decent slapping and a mirror shoved into their face. When you wear more make-up than most girls and you spend more than 10 seconds on your hair, then your sexual ambiguity should meet the back of my hand.

19.) Walk away from everything I know in order to be a roadie for Mariah Carey. Despite her proclivity for wearing stiletto heels 24 hours a day (which shows dedication!), I suspect that she may be just a little high maintenance.  We’d have issues.

20.) Use the phrase “I’m going to sell you for parts” as a threat to my children when they misbehave. Some people in the Division of Family Services might want an explanation for that one, and I get the sense that they are institutionally devoid of any humor. It’s incredibly effective, but I’ll try my best to threaten to sell them as whole entities instead.