I am turning 47 years old in a couple days, which is hard
for my brain to accept, since it regularly tells my body I’m still 25. My knees,
my back, and my hamstrings, however, agree with the calendar.
They say with age, comes wisdom. I wish that were more true.
Nonetheless, in honor of living through another trip around the sun, I have
added to my list of thoughts, observations, and acquired “wisdom.”
Here it is - one for each year. You’re welcome, America.
1. There are two
kinds of people in the world. Those who prefer the toilet paper to come off the
top of the roll, and those who are wrong.
2. If beds were
advertised the same way as tents, a queen-size mattress would “sleep nine
adults comfortably.”
3. The three-second
rule has a lot of leeway depending on if what you dropped was the last one.
4. People who say
things like, “We’re going to cross-functionalize and parallel task your
mission-critical bandwidth,” don’t understand what they’re saying any more than
you do.
5. And I don’t understand why disappointed is
not the opposite of appointed.
6. Pi and the
circumference of a circle have a similar relationship to pie and the
circumference of a person.
7. Here’s the main difference
between men and women: Men can look at an ad for women's underwear and get
excited. I’m not talking about women in
underwear, just the underwear itself. Women do not get excited looking at
pictures of boxer shorts.
8. You are
wholeheartedly fooling yourself if you think the government is efficient at
anything except taking your money.
9. The clearest
evidence that capitalism beats communism is that the Red Bull beverage company
put a man in space. Take that, North Korea. Anheuser-Busch can probably shoot
down your nukes.
10. If you give
enough money to the right charities, you will never have to buy address labels
again.
11. Owning a pool in
the winter is like making payments on your new snowmobiles all summer.
12. You cannot use
the phrase, “To be honest with you...” without giving the listener the impression you
aren’t always being honest.
13. When pulling out
a stump with your truck, make sure the roots don’t have ahold of your water
main. Trust me.
14. When packing
thirteen suitcases into the car for your wife, is it impossible to have ten of
them be “on top” so she can get to them easily.
15. If one of my boys
saw their brother in a fight, I'm certain they would jump in and help. I'm just
not sure which side they'd be on.
16. You can ask
someone to do something, or you can tell them how you want it done, but you can’t
do both.
17. A good indicator
of where you are in life is this: Does the advertisement of free food still
affect your decision making?
18. Fabric softener
sheets go in the dryer, not the washer. Just FYI. I’m not saying I didn’t know
that.
19. There is no “t”
or “t” sound in the word across. There is no “b” or “b” sound in the word
supposedly. Please pronounce accordingly.
20. Men are far more
likely to clean things with spit than women are.
21. Money and toilet
paper have something in common – They’re both easy to take for granted until
you run out. Also, in totally opposite, but equally dire situations, they can
be substituted for each other.
22. Drive while
driving. Always.
23. If you ask any
guy to tell you a story about a time he almost died, he will have four stories
just off the top of his head, and one will be from this year. If you ask women
the same question, most of them will look at you like you’re crazy.
24. One sure sign of
getting old – When you start sitting down to put on your pants.
25. Children and
ceiling fans are simply incompatible. It’s science.
26. In life, it is
very important to remember where you are and why you're there. That way, when
your podiatrist tells you to drop your shorts, you’ll ask some questions first.
27. Your dog thinks
it has saved you from being murdered at least a thousand times by barking at
the front window, yet you remain completely ungrateful.
28. Hold out as long
as you can before putting on your first pair of magnifying “reader” glasses.
The second you do, your eyes give up like a marathoner crossing the finish
line.
29. People who don’t
use their cruise control on the freeway should be pulled over and water-boarded.
30. There are 21
words in the English language that need to be used more. They are: bailiwick, hootenanny,
skullduggery, scofflaw, ballyhoo, shenanigans, donnybrook, catawampus, chicanery,
cajoled, hullabaloo, besmirch, boondoggle, haberdashery, melee, befuddled, flummoxed,
hoosegow, wiseacre, tomfoolery, and kerfuffle. Please begin immediately.
31. Pointing out that
Van Gogh’s “girlfriend” was actually a prostitute during a fifth-grade art
docent lesson is not helpful for anyone involved. Again, I’m not saying I did
this; I just want you to know.
32. You cannot claim
to be a grown woman, fully capable of taking care of yourself, and also claim
that you do not know how to operate a toilet seat.
33. We, as humans,
all share a universal reaction – the automatic flinch when the driver hits the
button and starts rolling up the car window under your arm.
34. Don’t waste your
time trying to have a logical conversation with a teenager. Their brains are
physically incapable of sustained logic. Instead, just give them healthy food
in large quantities and cross your fingers that they leave your house at some
point in your lifetime.
35. To be or not to
be is not the question. The real question is, which towel in the guest bathroom
am I allowed to use to dry my hands?
36. Give a boy enough
time with any object, whether it be a stale Cheerio, a bouncy ball, a doll, or
a book, and he will eventually turn it into a weapon.
37. Getting passport
photos taken at Walmart seems ironic.
38. In order to
properly keep up with the hair from a shedding dog, you should own enough
Roomba robotic vacuum cleaners to equal the dog’s weight. For instance, a seventy-pound
Lab requires six Roombas (running twenty-four hours a day).
39. The idiots who
wear their pants down below their butts and have to waddle with their legs
spread to keep their pants from simply falling to the ground are also the idiots
who are most likely to try to run from the police at some point. That makes me
smile.
40. The people of
Earth can be easily divided into two categories: People you would let watch your
kids for five minutes, and people you wouldn’t.
41. The person who
invented the hotel shower curtain rod that curves out away from the tub so the
shower curtain doesn’t stick to your arm should receive the Nobel prize.
42. The problem with
trying to raise independent, strong-willed children is that if you are succeeding,
you have to live with independent, strong-willed children.
43. Guys, do you ever
have trouble figuring out if you’ve had too much to drink? Here’s a handy
guideline:
“There is no way I can scratch that itch on my ankle while I’m
standing here peeing, so I will not try.” – You’re still OK
“I can totally do it without peeing on myself.” – You are
drunk
44. A kid’s
definition of “pool toy” is different than an adult’s. We think of pool toys as
something designed to be played with in a pool. They define “pool toy” as
anything they own, if it happens to be brought into the pool. Like a bike or a
sandwich.
45. No matter who you
are, no matter where you're from, there is one shared experience that binds us
all together as one people: The sheer horror of the ketchup or mustard water
falling from the unshaken bottle and contaminating your food forever. I feel
your pain.
46. I just said, “I
don’t want you two on top of each other on the couch. Find something else to
do,” to two of my sons. I guess I should be grateful, because it probably won’t
be too long before I’ll need to say that to one of them and his girlfriend.
47. If you have to
choose, it makes more sense to become a strong swimmer than a strong runner.
You don’t automatically die when you stop running.
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2019 Marc Schmatjen
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