From My Perspective

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      From My Perspective    By    Doug DeMuro   

Copyright © Doug DeMuro, 2013    Atlanta, Georgia 

            For Rufus the Tapir,    who is still searching for a party hat in his size.   

Table of Contents 1. Mascots and Denver 2. The Great Road Line Experiment 3. The Amazing Blue Whale 4. Banking and the Stuffed Tapir 5. The Ocean’s Unexplained Noises 6. The Joys of a Fine Neighborhood 7. Printer Problems 8. A Trip to the Grocery Store 9. An American History Lesson 10. On College 11. Remote Controls and Light Bulbs 12. Furniture Shopping

13. Carelessness in Chicago 14. Interns and Office Work 15. The World’s Most Remote Islands 16. To the Landlords of Craigslist 17. A Trip to Europe 18. One-Uppers 19. Switching Sides 20. People Who Talk Too Much 21. Moving the Colts 22. A Trip to the Arcade 23. How About Electronic Road Signs? 24. Investing in Weather  

1. Mascots and Denver Looking back, growing up in Denver was very unconventional. Was it because of the mountains, which loomed nearby, reminding the less intelligent residents exactly which direction was west? Or the altitude, on which locals blame every single unusual event? (“Damn, got a flat tire. Must be the altitude!”) No, it was for an entirely different reason: the mascots. When I was a kid, sports mascots didn’t faze me because I thought they were all supposed to be weird. But as I’ve grown up and visited other, mountainless cities, I’ve noticed that Denver-area sports teams really have some of the strangest mascots in existence. Take, for instance, the University of Colorado’s football team. (Yes, I know the University of Colorado is located in Boulder. According to the mountains, this is north of Denver.) The mascot’s name is Ralphie, which sounds like the kind of cuddly creature you might talk to in a baby voice as it purrs on your lap. But it’s actually a living, breathing North American Bison, which – for those of you who haven’t seen Dances With Wolves – is approximately the size of Armenia.

If that’s not crazy enough, try this: Ralphie actually hangs out on the sidelines during the game. Occasionally, she (and it’s always a “she,” apparently because having a male North American Bison would really be crazy) goes for a run around the field, like when there’s a touchdown, or when it’s halftime, or when she breaks free of her handlers and begins eating the opposing players. While Ralphie is weird, Colorado possesses an even stranger live mascot: a falcon. This is courtesy of the Air Force Academy, which is located well south of Denver but suffers from the same altitude-related problems. (Namely: “Damn, I lost cell service. Must be the altitude!”) When I say the Air Force has a falcon for a mascot, I don’t mean a large stuffed bird costume that contains a work-study student who shows up to every game thinking: I hope it isn’t hot today. Of course, they have one of those too. And they’ve named it, quite creatively, “The Bird.” But in addition to The Bird, Air Force has an actual falcon, which flies around the stadium at approximately the same intervals as Ralphie: halftime, touchdowns, and whenever it feels like getting away. A couple of years ago, during an Air Force bowl game in Louisiana, it actually got away. They found it a few hours later on a roof in downtown Shreveport. This actually occurred. So Colorado’s live animal mascots are unusual. But they’ve got nothing on the mascot for the Colorado Rockies baseball team. That would be Dinger,

a huge purple triceratops, which is a type of dinosaur that probably went extinct due to the altitude. Like all mascots, Dinger dances around, steals cotton candy, and shoots people with squirt guns. Unlike all mascots, Dinger wears a shirt and shoes, but no pants. This may be an attempt to slyly subvert the rules at those fast food restaurants that insist on “no shirt, no shoes, no service.” While it’s clear Denver’s mascots are among the most bizarre, there are a few teams out there that give my hometown a run for its money. Wichita State University, for example, uses “WuShock,” which is a very angry stalk of corn. And Stanford University continues the “we’re vegetation, and we believe in you!” theme with The Tree, which is a tree with a face. If that’s not odd enough, try this: The Tree recently had a brush with the law. Really. It was cited for public drunkenness a few years ago after police spotted it drinking from a flask during a basketball game. The female student inside the tree surrendered the costume, and probably breathed an enormous sigh of relief. (Presumably, into a breathalyzer.) Perhaps the best part is that Stanford band spokesman Sam Urmy announced he was surprised police managed to catch The Tree because – this is a real quote, as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle – “The Tree’s movement is usually consistent with that of someone who’s had something to drink.”

Beyond plant life, there’s also Sammy the Banana Slug, which is an enormous yellow slug that hails from the University of California at Santa Cruz; the Blue Blob, which comes from Xavier University; and the Fighting Okra, which doesn’t cheer for Whole Foods but rather Delta State University in Mississippi. But from my perspective, Denver takes the cake. And in addition to the live animals and the purple dinosaur, we also have Rocky, a mountain lion who cheers on the Denver Nuggets basketball team in some very strange ways. For example: he jumps off a trampoline to dunk basketballs, and he takes shots from half court without looking. But perhaps his most unusual feature is a tail shaped like a lightning bolt. This has never been explained, but I have a theory: it must be the altitude.

2. The Great Road Line Experiment Today, I’m going to discuss the highly important matter of road lines. This is a topic that we as a society do not devote enough attention to, considering it costs us about $48 billion annually. Yes, you guessed it: I made that number up. But construction projects always seem to cost far more than you’d think, as indicated by constant local news stories about how some minor section of street will soon join some other minor section of street at a cost that’s similar to flying a hot air balloon around the world for two years with a live beluga whale in its basket. I assume this is primarily because they have to pay for those men who hold up the “STOP” and “SLOW” signs. Whatever road lines actually cost, it isn’t cheap. I know this because they recently repaved my street, and painting it afterwards took eleven men the better part of October to complete. And only two of those men held the “STOP” and “SLOW” signs, which meant the other nine were actively working on placing strips of paint on the ground. But the act of creating road lines isn’t my main focus here. Instead, I’m more concerned with how the human race would get by if we didn’t have road lines. Do you think we’d go around crashing into each other if there

wasn’t a strip of yellow paint in the middle of the street urging us not to? I have to believe the answer is no. Unfortunately, we’ll never be able to test this theory. That’s because each of us are so used to driving on lined roads that if you removed the lines, we’d simply revert to our old lined-roads habits of not crashing into each other. So there’s no way to know how we’d behave in a world without lines. And even if we removed all the lines tomorrow and brought up our children linelessly as a giant social experiment, they would simply learn their driving behavior from their lined-roads parents. Simply put, the situation is hopeless. Fortunately, we have one last chance to discover our lineless behavior: the Sentinelese. The Sentinelese, you see, are a tribe that lives on a small island somewhere between India and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which are very real even though they sound like the kind of place a James Bond villain might stash a machine that shoots enormous chunks of ice. The Sentinelese are the world’s last uncontacted people. What do I mean by uncontacted? I mean the Sentinelese have never been visited, examined, or exposed to the outside world. (We would probably just kill them anyway, what with disease and fumes from road line paint.) In other words: they have lived on their small island, totally untouched, since the dawn of time.

Of course, they aren’t totally uncontacted. They see planes fly overhead, for example, and probably assume it’s either an enormous bird or aliens moving from one sky quadrant to another. And sometimes, fisherman approach the island, which is illegal. The Sentinelese remind the fisherman of this by killing them, which actually happened in 2006. When a helicopter showed up to get the bodies, the Sentinelese threw spears at it. So we don’t go there much anymore. We do, however, know a little bit about the Sentinelese – technically part of India’s territory – aside from the fact that they wish to kill anyone who comes close. Of course, we know they have weapons. We also know they build huts and eat coconuts. We know they fish, and we know they’ve created fire in order to cook food. Most importantly, we know they have canoes. I say “most importantly” because canoes mean the Sentinelese can imagine movement using some conveyance aside from their own two legs. You probably see where I’m going with this. Since they’ve never seen a street, or even a car, the Sentinelese would be great test drivers for roads without lines. We could put them in vehicles on some desolate stretch of de-lined road and watch to see how they cope. Assuming they don’t crash into each other, our government could save huge amounts of money on road painting, which could be diverted to dozens of

far more important pursuits such as actually flying a hot-air balloon around the world with a beluga whale in its basket. Unfortunately, carrying out this road lines experiment is rather unlikely. For one, tribe members would have to learn to drive cars, though they would quickly master this better than most Italians. But most importantly, we’d have to disturb the fragile world of the Sentinelese. If that alone won’t stop you, their spears probably will.

3. The Amazing Blue Whale I’m from Colorado, which means that I ride horses to work. Or at least I do on the rare days when I don’t arrive at the office on skis. This is all according to some of the people I’ve met while living in Georgia, who apparently view Colorado as some snowy mountain hideaway possibly occupied by a horseback-riding James Bond villain. In reality, Colorado is similar to any other place, except that everyone drives a Subaru. At this point, it isn’t even optional: you must drive a Subaru or risk being labeled a “transplant,” which is Colorado-speak for: someone from out of state who’s screwing up how it used to be. All new residents are transplants until they buy a Subaru, at which point they are legally allowed to reminisce about how good it was back when they arrived in 2006, before all the transplants screwed it up. Admittedly, a few other things distinguish Colorado from everywhere else. For example: marijuana is legal. In fact, announcing I’m from Colorado is a great way to identify pot smokers, which is a tactic that should be employed by police forces across the country. Seriously: the second “Colorado” escapes my mouth, pot smokers get all excited and say things like: “Whoa! You must smoke all the time!” as if making pot legal means making it mandatory. This would be like asking every man I meet from Massachusetts when he plans on having a gay wedding.

It’s not just pot. We also have altitude. In fact, Colorado’s lowest point is higher than the highest point in 18 states. If you’ve met someone from Colorado, chances are good that you already know this because Coloradoans are required by state law to brag about mountains, in the same way that a drunken frat guy might recall his female conquests at a party. (“See that one over there? Climbed it. And it was eeeeeeasy.”) Fortunately, this is still less annoying than listening to people brag about their iPhones. I found out just how different Colorado is when I went to college. It happened when I was approached by a wide-eyed New Yorker, who asked: “So, did you … like … visit the ocean?” Initially, I thought this was stupid. But upon further research, I’ve discovered that I have, in fact, missed out on a large degree of highly important ocean information by growing up in the landlocked Mountain West. So I’ve been reading up. And now, dear readers, I will share my newfound knowledge with you. After much studying (this involved browsing Wikipedia in my underwear), I’ve decided my favorite sea creature is the blue whale. In grade school you probably learned these were huge, but I’ve recently discovered they’re quite a bit bigger than that. Imagine, if you will, the largest thing you’ve ever conceptualized. Now, double it. Do you have that size in mind? OK: a blue whale is six times bigger than that.

Here are the particulars. For one, a blue whale is 100 feet long. I could make the obvious comparison here and say that makes it 17 times longer than an average person. And I’ve done that, for the feeble-minded among us. But here’s a better one: a blue whale is longer than a regulation basketball court. That means you could rebound the ball at its baleen-filled mouth, dribble past the half-court blowhole, dunk on the other end, and still not be out of tail. In fact, I believe this is how all basketball games should be played, next to an officiating blue whale who sprays everyone if there’s a foul. If its length doesn’t impress you, how about this: each blue whale weighs 375,000 pounds. This is equivalent to 110 Subarus, which is probably enough to open a dealership, even if you’re in Colorado. But it gets crazier. In today’s world, there are about 7,000 blue whales swimming around like enormous underwater shopping malls. That means the ocean is full of 2.7 billion pounds of blue whale, or twice the weight of every Subaru sold last year in the entire United States added together. What’s more: before whaling, there were 250,000 blue whales out there. That’s 100 billion pounds of whale, which is probably more cars than Subaru could ever sell, even if the entire country started smoking pot and bragging about mountains. Given the size of blue whales, you might wonder exactly what they eat. Slow-moving, dim-witted fish? Shipwrecks? The entire cast of Finding

Nemo, including production staff? Islands? Seriously: is a pod of hungry blue whales responsible for the disappearance of Atlantis? It turns out that blue whales sustain almost entirely on a fish called krill, which exist in such large numbers that it’s a good thing they don’t have iPhones, or else we’d never hear the end of it. Krill are eaten by whales, seals, penguins, squid, dolphins and humans – and yet, each year, they keep coming back for more, sort of like spectators would if NBA games were officiated by a blue whale. Take note, David Stern. In other words, the world’s largest animal eats the world’s most plentiful animal – and so goes the cycle of life. It turns out the ocean is a pretty cool place. I should … like … visit sometime. If only I wasn’t stuck in traffic behind a bunch of skiers on their way to work.

4. Banking and the Stuffed Tapir Recently, there was some fraudulent activity on my credit card. Of course, there wasn’t any actual fraud. It’s just an exciting game my bank likes to play whenever I’m paying for an important meal or running on empty at a gas station. My bank views these as opportunities to suspend my card, usually for questionable transactions like getting a haircut. This time, I was lucky to be informed of the fraud when I woke up to an email sent at 4 a.m. – a rare late shift for a modern bank, whose branch locations are open from approximately 11 a.m. to 11:25 a.m. Monday through Tuesday, barring an 11:10 to 11:20 lunch break where only one teller is working. They’re also open Thursdays, but only if you know the manager. The e-mail prompted me to check my account for fraudulent charges, but I found only one that was out of the ordinary: $42 to Amazon.com. But this was no fraud. Instead, it was a twelve-inch stuffed tapir I bought as a Valentine’s Day present for my girlfriend. I know what you’re thinking: you got your girlfriend a stuffed tapir for Valentine’s Day? Or possibly: you spent $42 on a stuffed tapir? The answer to both questions is yes. She’s a lucky lady. And soon to be a lucky lady with a stuffed Asian mammal the size of a handbag.

But the fraud e-mail worried me. That’s because, on this Valentine’s Day – like all prior Valentine’s Days, and birthdays, and anniversaries – I had noted the impending holiday and ignored it, possibly under the uniquely male theory that doing so would delay it indefinitely. By February 12, sensing this wouldn’t work, I started calling restaurants. Unfortunately, it seemed every restaurant in Atlanta had been booked by men who realized the inevitability of Valentine’s Day sooner than me. Not that it mattered, since I knew exactly how the perfect dinner would go. We’d go to one of those revolving restaurants high above the city, since everyone knows motion sickness is an aphrodisiac. We’d talk. We’d laugh. We’d share tasty bites of each other’s desserts. And when the bill came, my credit card would be rejected due to fraudulent activity. So, I had to turn to Plan B: the tapir. Because nothing says I love you like a prehensile snout. If my bank rejected the charge and the tapir wasn’t shipped, I would be stuck giving one of those lame coupons for “one free massage” written on the back of a note card. Like every other year. I called my bank to explain the situation to a real person, which is slightly easier than calling the White House and reaching the President, but slightly harder than channeling the dead. After dialing my social security number, then my account number, then my credit card number, then my account number, then the VIN number of every car I’ve ever owned and then,

finally, my account number, I reached an operator. Her opening line: Thank you for calling, Mr. DeMuro. Can I have your account number? Fortunately, after I provided that, along with my favorite color and birth weight, she was very helpful. I explained that the $42 charge wasn’t fraudulent, but rather a genuine purchase of a stuffed tapir. Suddenly, I was no longer talking to a bank employee, but rather my mother: You paid how much for a stuffed what? You bought a stuffed anteater for Valentine’s Day? Questioning over, she informed me it wasn’t actually the tapir that caused the e-mail. “But,” she asked, in her best detective voice, “what’s this $20 charge I see to Great Clips?”

5. The Ocean’s Unexplained Noises My neighbors recently installed a wind chime that happens to be directly across from my bedroom window. Although I’ve never really understood wind chimes, I must assume my neighbors had a reason for installing it. I can think of two. One is they wanted to be totally sure at all times that the wind does, in fact, still exist. That’s an important concern, especially at 2 a.m., which is when the wind chime seems to be loudest. Number two is they wanted to drive me out of the neighborhood, the Atlanta metropolitan area, and possibly the entire state of Georgia, at which point I will only be able to hear the wind chime half as loudly as I do today. If the disappearance of wind is my neighbor’s concern, they shouldn’t worry. Thanks to their wind chime, I’ve discovered that Atlanta is unequivocally the single windiest place on earth. I’ve also discovered Atlanta is windiest when I need sleep the most. The Friday night before a lazy Saturday, for example, is perfectly still. But just before an early flight? CLANG CLANG CLANG all night, like a vaguely melodious fire truck. Because of the wind chime’s volume, I assume my neighbor’s true motive for installing it was to drive me away. I imagine him sitting in his living room laughing maniacally every time the wind blows while I cover my ears and turn on my vacuum cleaner to drown out the noise. I’m also working a

theory that he personally controls the wind, and he installed the chime just to admire his own handiwork. The wind chime especially disturbs my girlfriend, who will fall asleep on an eight-minute car ride but requires an eye mask and roughly seven-eighths of my bed to sleep through the night. She can’t stand the wind chime and frequently complains about its volume. In this sense, the wind chime is actually a good thing, since it helps delay her desire to move in with me. I would go over and shake my neighbor’s hand if only I wouldn’t go deaf from all the chiming. So the wind chime is loud. But it hardly compares to Bloop. Bloop, you see, is a mysterious sound that took place underwater back in 1997. Yes, you read that correctly: I’m writing about a noise that, if human, would be old enough to drive a car with parental supervision. But this is no ordinary noise. In fact, if you ask me, it remains one of the most important mysteries currently facing today’s scientific community, right after the inexplicable lack of baby pigeons. And, obviously, Bigfoot. Bloop was heard by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, which is apparently putting your tax dollars to good use by monitoring noises in the ocean. Before you angrily write your senator about this, hopefully including a sentence about how wind chimes should be outlawed in residential neighborhoods, a little background. While NOAA is, in fact, monitoring the ocean, the large recording devices it uses for this

purpose were already there. The military installed them in the 1950s for the same reason the military did virtually everything in the 1950s: to spy on the Russians. When the Soviet Empire fell, almost certainly due to the US military’s ocean-based recording capabilities, our government had no more use for the project. That’s when NOAA stepped in and said something to the effect of “We want to listen to the ocean!” Of course, the military was all too happy to cede the scientists its large listening devices, which I like to imagine as enormous ears glued to the ocean floor. A few years after taking over the listening devices, NOAA heard Bloop. To the unrefined ocean-monitoring ear like, for instance, yours, Bloop sounds a lot like the rest of the ocean. But to the skilled, lab coat-wearing, ocean-listening teams at NOAA, it’s a clear aberration, the source of which is totally unknown. This is an oddity, since Bloop is five times louder than a blue whale, which is the loudest known animal on earth. Presumably, it was named Bloop to be taken as seriously as possible by the scientific community. Once Bloop was heard, NOAA stepped up the ocean listening and heard a few more sounds. Later in 1997, there were “Train,” “Whistle,” and “Slow Down.” And while the entirety of 1998 went by without a single weird ocean noise, 1999 brought “Julia.” Each time, scientists were baffled by the

sounds, while casual listeners reported being totally unable to hear anything beyond static and treasure hunters looting the Titanic. In the years since the noises were heard, most scientists have come to agree that they stem from icebergs colliding, or maybe “ice calving,” which occurs when ice breaks up in the arctic. But there are a few fringe scientists who believe the noises could be coming from an unknown creature located somewhere in the murky depths. And if a few fringe scientists think it’s possible, we should clearly devote considerable resources to it. Right after we get rid of all the wind chimes.

 

6. The Joys of a Fine Neighborhood I live in a very nice neighborhood. When I say this, what I actually mean is: I rent a small, one-bedroom apartment on the outskirts of a very nice neighborhood. And since I sit around all day “writing” and not wearing pants, I’ve had the opportunity to observe the behavior of our society’s elite. This is what I’ve learned. To start, it’s important to establish that my neighborhood isn’t wealthy like Beverly Hills or, say, Dubai, where people walk around with handbags that cost the same as the GDP of West Africa. Instead, people in my neighborhood are classy, or so they’ll repeatedly tell you without actually saying anything at all. This is done by driving very old Mercedes station wagons with very old license plates that have the smallest possible amount of numbers and letters. The classiness became clear a few weeks ago when I walked out to my Nissan Cube. If you don’t know, the Cube is the ugliest thing ever manufactured, possibly except for those high-fashion runway dresses that have wings. I received the Cube when my brother moved to Southern California and decided under no circumstances did he want to be seen driving around Hollywood in a Nissan Cube.

Anyway, I walked out to the Cube after it spent a few days sitting in unrestricted street parking in front of a neighbor’s house. There, tucked under its windshield wiper, was a note asking me to Please move this car from in front of my house. This actually occurred. Surely, if it had been a Mercedes wagon with license plate number 9, it would’ve had a different note: I live four houses down. Can you park this in front of my house? Please? My neighbors will be so jealous. Unfortunately, the Cube’s license plate has a decidedly uncool six characters. And based on the comments I get when I’m driving it (“Hey man, did you put wheels on your toaster?”), it’s no Mercedes. Fortunately, not everyone in my neighborhood is so snobbish. OK, maybe they are – but boy do they know how to throw a good party. This was proven when the neighborhood country club (Of course there’s a country club. Its logo is – truly – a rocking chair.) recently held its centennial celebration, and at least one guest arrived wearing a top hat. I know this because I drove past in my Cube and they told me to park around back so I could unload the pastries. But the country club parties pale in comparison to neighborhood shindigs. On Halloween, the police shut down our streets so the fire department could bring by a fire truck and demonstrate the hose to neighborhood children. (This would’ve excited me as a child, since my usual answer to “What do you want to be when you grow up?” was “A fire truck.”) You’d think the fire department would be on call during Halloween, rather than letting six-

year-olds try out the fire truck’s siren. But fires always happen over there. Where people have seven-digit license plates. Halloween was nothing compared to Labor Day. That weekend, the police – always eager to please the children of wealthy taxpayers – did a flyby in a patrol helicopter. And you can hardly talk about holidays without mentioning Easter, when local parents hid hundreds of eggs in a neighborhood park for neighborhood children to find. Non-neighborhood children – identified because their parents arrived wearing baseball caps, if you can imagine such a faux pas – were given dirty looks. And how did I find out about these things? Why, the neighborhood newsletter, of course. I can’t actually attend a children’s event, since – as a single man often not wearing pants – I would be asked to leave by neighborhood parents whose helicopter skills surpass the police pilot’s. I love the neighborhood newsletter for many reasons. Sure, it keeps me informed of gatherings that bring together civil servants and small children. But it also shines a spotlight on two issues of major importance: gardening tips and neighborhood crime. Both are reported with similar gravity. For example: a story in the October 2012 issue begins: “Continue seeding fescue all month. This is your ONLY chance to get a good fescue lawn going.” Later in the same issue, another article starts: “On Friday, security patrol was flagged down by a resident who spotted a loose chicken in a yard. Security patrol investigated and, sure enough, there was a chicken in

the yard.” Clearly, these are amateur journalists, because it wasn’t even reported whether the yard had any fescue. Security patrol, I should mention, is a terrific neighborhood resource that employs off-duty police officers to sit in their cars and play Words With Friends on their iPhones. Just kidding! In reality, they do a great job keeping us safe from Atlanta’s criminal element, also known as people from other neighborhoods. And, of course, that guy with the laptop who sits on his porch all day without any pants. I hear they’re close to catching him. Right after they get that chicken.

7. Printer Problems I recently made the mistake of needing to print something. Today’s young people will agree this is unusual, as our digital-age lives rarely require printing. This shocks my parents, who still rely on printed MapQuest directions even though they have smart phones and in-car navigation systems, and they’re just going to the grocery store. Although I’ve tried to avoid printing as long as possible, it couldn’t be ignored this time: I had to print a tax document for the sole purpose of signing it with a pen. Then I would have to scan it, because the recipient – also a member of the digital age – wanted it electronically. This rendered obsolete another parental favorite: the forever stamp, likely named after how long it will sit unused in my desk. Numerous attempts to fake a pen signature in Microsoft Paint proved futile, just like everything in Microsoft Paint except for opening it and disappointedly closing it minutes later. So I would not only need a printer, but a printer-scanner combo. I figured this would run about eighty bucks. This was my thought process: you can get a laptop for $400 and a live three-toed sloth for about a grand. So $80 should easily handle a printer-scanner combo, except possibly for

my parents who need a heavy-duty model to handle all the MapQuest directions. Plus, the last printer I bought – as a college freshman – was around $80. Back then, I still had to print things like my reading list for each course, which I’d bring to the bookstore in order to carefully purchase my books, knowing full well I’d never actually open any of them. At the end of each term, I returned to the bookstore and discovered that a book that cost $180 in September was now, three months later, worth enough in store credit to buy roughly one USB stick. Arriving at Best Buy, I surprised employees by being the first customer in months who wanted to purchase something rather than test it out in the store and later buy it online for 20 percent less. I asked for the printers and was directed to a row of them, which – like the rest of the store, and really all Best Buys nationwide – was devoid of customers. I found out why after seeing the prices. Printer-scanners, it seems, are not $80. Instead, they start around $150 and go up from there. And by “up,” I mean really far up. One of these things cost $400, though it didn’t seem to offer any benefit over its rivals aside from a bunch of acronyms known only to printer enthusiasts. It also claimed a capacity of up to 22 pages per minute, which was largely overkill since I only needed to print one page and it could be done any time this week.

I walked back and forth among the printer-scanners for some time, trying to choose between one with a color touchscreen and another that looked like it had a protruding lower jaw. Predictably, I settled on the cheapest one. But when I arrived at the register, the cashier reminded me I had forgotten something: ink. “It doesn’t come with much,” she cautioned, “so you’ll want some backup cartridges for when you run out.” Fine. I returned to the printer section for the ink, passing a computer manned by several blue-shirted employees who were probably checking out jobs on monster.com. There, I was once again hit with sticker shock. Thirty bucks? For an ink cartridge? Are you crazy?! Sensing my annoyance, an employee came by to tell me I was actually saving money. The printer I chose, she explained, was wireless – but if it wasn’t, I would also need to buy the cord separately. I assume the job-hunting Best Buy employees were thinking of entering the printer business. Printer in tow, I returned home with my wallet $170 lighter than before. There was only one problem: the printer I bought was too big for my desk. And while the cashier reminded me about ink, we both forgot the most important component in the whole process: paper. At this point, you can probably guess why I left the business world. Weeks later, I told my friend Joe about my printer-shopping experiences. Before I finished, he chuckled at my 20th century stupidity and mentioned a

program that lets you electronically sign PDFs without printing them. Finally, a solution for us digital-agers who need to sign things! I just wish I had learned about it before I bought that end table for my new printer.

8. A Trip to the Grocery Store There are now at least a hundred different kinds of everything. I base this highly scientific fact on a recent trip to the grocery store cereal aisle, which is a common place to find a writer who otherwise sits alone at home all day counting down the hours until the mailman’s arrival and occasionally bathing. Stop me if this sounds like your dog. I visited the cereal aisle to purchase Frosted Mini Wheats, mainly because this is, in fact, the finest cereal known to man. But also because the box said that Looney Tunes magnets would be inside. I pictured myself carefully arranging Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny on my fridge, which – I later found out – is a tremendously enthralling activity to take on while you’re waiting for the mailman. But despite the allure of cartoon character magnets, I almost passed up my beloved Mini Wheats in favor of something else. Why? Because the cereal aisle contained roughly six thousand other cereals, all of which had highly appealing, bright orange boxes that depicted very satisfied cartoon characters. Some of the cereals even played with my deepest desires by also offering magnets. Minutes later, I encountered a similar problem when trying to buy toothpaste. The toothpaste aisle – which should probably include no more

than twelve different toothpastes from three or four brands – is nine feet long and seven feet tall. That means my local grocery store contains roughly 63 square feet of toothpaste, which is about the size of my friend Simon’s apartment in New York City. Looking closer, I discovered the problem: there is now a toothpaste for every conceivable situation, whether mouth-related or not. For example, these are just a few of Crest’s 42 different toothpaste offerings: - Crest 3D White - Crest 3D White Advanced Vivid Stain Protection - Crest Pro-Health Clinical Gum Protection with Invigorating Clean Mint - Crest for Pregnant Women in their Second Trimester Unsure about Whether they want to Marry the Father - Crest for People Who Wear Overalls Despite Clear Societal Conventions Faced with so many choices, I eventually settled on “Crest for Writers Who Work from Home,” which runs out after three uses so there will be an excuse to return to the store tomorrow, thereby delaying actual productivity for as long as possible.

Based on my experiences with toothpaste and cereal, I’ve developed a theory that we as a society would have more free time if there were fewer types of everything. Think of it: the grocery store would only have maybe three aisles, so we wouldn’t waste hours needlessly pushing a cart from one aisle to another trying to find non-allergenic pork rinds. I’ve considered writing to the food manufacturers and sharing this idea, but they ignored my last letter that requested all packaged foods include Looney Tunes magnets. Of course, this problem is not confined to the grocery store. I discovered this recently when I bought a bicycle, which I thought would be an enjoyable way to exercise but actually turns out to be nothing more than a nice wall hanging for the garage. When I was seven, the process was easy: Go to the bike store. Pick out a yellow one. Mommy hands a plastic card to the man behind the counter. Go home. Skin my knee. Years later, it’s more difficult. There are yellow ones, sure, but there are also mountain bikes, road bikes and “hybrids” which look nothing like a Prius but may be faster. There’s also a heavily tattooed man behind the counter who uses terms like “index shifting” and “wheel retention,” which I assume are known only to him. And this time I’m the one handing over the plastic card. Of course, I could go on listing retail goods that offer too many choices. We all know how I feel about printers, for example. And don’t get me started on vacuum cleaners, which offer 80 different varieties for 80 different

scenarios, when all I really want to do is get the spilled Mini Wheats off my floor. But while I could go on, I won’t. Because I’m only one bowl away from the bottom of the cereal box, and I can already see Daffy Duck’s face.

9. An American History Lesson Your high school history book is a big fat liar. Of course, if you went to an inner-city public high school like me, you’re probably already aware of this. For example: I realized the fallibility of my history textbook when it mentioned “the uncertainty of the upcoming Carter administration,” even though I graduated in 2006. If you went to a religious private school, you may have also faced the fact that your textbooks weren’t perfect. Specifically your biology book, which was inexplicably missing about 80 pages somewhere in the middle. You knew it was Chapter 9, but your teacher was contractually obligated to make sure you didn’t find out any more than that. But I’m not talking about outdated textbooks, and I’m certainly not going to invite the barrage of angry e-mails that would come from a discussion of evolution. Not that it matters, since my inbox is probably full of messages from Crest reminding me that there’s no toothpaste for people who wear overalls, but there may be one for writers facing a lawsuit if I don’t stop making fun of their products. Instead, I’m going to discuss something that I think we all can agree is a lie: the Transcontinental Railroad. Yes, I know what you’re thinking. The Transcontinental Railroad can’t be a lie! It’s the only generally acceptable

way for stand-up comedians to make fun of Asians! And I must concede that the idea behind the Transcontinental Railroad is, in fact, very true. And the Chinese did a great job with it, setting the stage for many other exemplary Chinese-made products, such as those wooden paddles with a bouncy ball attached on a string. But if your schooling was like mine, you’ve probably been unknowingly living with a Transcontinental Railroad-related lie. Also, you’re unaware the Clinton presidency ever occurred. As you may remember, the story told by the “history” books is that one group worked very hard laying rail from the east, and another group worked very hard laying rail from the west, and they decided to meet up in Utah, probably in the middle of the day, because nothing there is open past 6 p.m. When the two groups finally did meet in the middle, a mass spectacle was arranged and presumably well-attended by Mormon elders with both top hats and pocket watches. Two locomotives were positioned facing each other on either side of the tracks, and an enormous crowd gathered to watch the “Golden Spike” be driven into the ground. And so it was driven into the ground, only to be pulled up moments later and replaced by a normal spike for fear of theft. And the track couldn’t be used for weeks, since those two locomotives were still facing each other because everyone had forgotten that trains don’t have a reverse gear. Really, it was a mess.

Nevertheless, the Transcontinental Railroad was completed. But this is where the lie comes in: the Transcontinental Railroad wasn’t completed. What the history books fail to mention is this only linked California with Omaha, Nebraska, which doesn’t fit anyone’s definition of “transcontinental.” It would be over a year before there was an actual transcontinental railroad that crossed the Mississippi River. Before that, you had to do something silly, like caulk the wagon and float. Because of this lie – and because today’s children don’t much care for trains anyway, unless of course they’re at the zoo – I propose we remove the Transcontinental Railroad in its entirety from our history books. Instead, we should focus on the Interstate Highway’s version of the Golden Spike ceremony, which occurred on September 15, 1991, in Wallace, Idaho. I am talking, of course, about the removal of the Interstate System’s last traffic light, which annoyed travelers passing through Wallace for decades until the federal government finally stepped in and built a bypass around the entire town. Wallace no longer needed the traffic light when the bypass was finished, so it came down with the sort of pomp and circumstance rarely seen when government workers remove a piece of electronic road signage. While there weren’t two locomotives, there was a horse-drawn hearse. It carried the traffic light in a specially-designed casket with green, yellow and red circles painted on the sides.

The traffic light remains in that casket to this day. Except now it’s surrounded by a “wreath” that consists of a car tire covered with flowers. It’s in the Wallace District Mining Museum, which is run by a woman named Peggy who keeps the museum open Monday through Friday, 9 to 5, unless she isn’t feeling well or has to go to the bank. Admit it: a horse-drawn traffic light funeral is way more exciting than a fallacy about railroads. The history books should be rewritten immediately.

10. On College

Part 1: The Beginning I recently graduated from college. This may surprise you, but probably not as much as my parents. Or my professors. But it’s true: in the not so distant past, I donned a graduation gown, walked across a temporary stage erected on the quad and picked up a grand blue and gold slab of cardboard that contained a note reading: “DIPLOMA TO BE MAILED AT A LATER DATE.” For me, college was an exceptional time for growth and learning. I know what you’re thinking: now that I have that out of the way, I’m going to devote the next few pages to bragging about all the fun I had while I was drunk and 20 years old. After all, Tucker Max did it, and now he’s a highly respected writer in the same way that Barry Bonds is a highly respected baseball player. But you won’t find that here. Once again, I know what you’re thinking: how can I get a refund for buying this book? But really, there’s more to college than drinking. And partying. And strippers. And the official sport of most college fraternities: drawing on your friends with Sharpie when they pass out drunk. So prepare to learn about the other side of college. You know: the one that involves classes. Admissions Process

Let’s start at the beginning: the admissions process. Actually, it starts long before that. You should begin thinking about the admissions process as a seven-year-old, when – if you want to go to a top college, and you should know this when you’re seven – you should’ve already started a non-profit that simultaneously helps underprivileged children and sick animals. By age 13, you should be the captain of every sport you can play, and some that you’ve invented. (It would be best if these sports also help underprivileged children and sick animals.) You see, getting good grades isn’t enough anymore. Obviously, they’re important. In fact, all good colleges require a grade-point average that isn’t technically possible and will cause adults to give you a confused look. (“Four point seven? Out of four point oh?”) This will also be true of your test scores. (“You got a 2000? On the SAT?”) But you really need to do things outside of school, or else you will be forced to attend a local community college where your first class will be “The Basics of Algebra,” taught by a man whose prior experience was working at an Apple Store. There is, however, one exception: Brown University. Brown is willing to accept celebrities, the children of celebrities, or the children of lawmakers, regardless of their grade point average, test scores, or the number of underprivileged animals their non-profit has helped. This may be your ticket to an Ivy League education, since reality television has made it possible to become a celebrity by partaking in activities such as owning pets. The only downside: you have to live in Rhode Island. Bring a jacket.

Choosing a Roommate At most of today’s universities, there are three ways to find a roommate. One: you can room with someone you know from high school who’s attending the same college as you. This is a great idea if you want to find out some of the more disgusting habits of your high school friends. Two: you can use Facebook to select your roommate. I like this one because it lets you research your potential roommate to find out if he or she is a Satanist, or worse: from Long Island. There’s also a third option: you can sign up to take the university’s “roommate match” test, which was probably developed by an “education consultant” who charged the school $2.4 million for his work. In spite of this, it will pair you with a foreign student who speaks little English and listens to death metal. No matter which method you select, all three are vast improvements over my dad’s experience at the University of Michigan in the 1960s, when the roommate match test consisted of a single question: “Do you smoke?” Moving In There is nothing worse than freshman move-in day. I moved in to my Atlanta dorm room in mid-August, which meant the temperature was somewhere between “solar surface” and “accidentally touching the seat belt

buckle after your car has been parked outside all day.” Because of this, I don’t recommend going to college in any state south of, say, Massachusetts. Actually, it doesn’t matter where you choose to go to school. Move-in days are cursed to either have blazing heat or driving rain, regardless of your geographical location. The sole exception is Pepperdine University, located in Malibu, California, which at all times has both a) beautiful weather, and b) students driving Range Rovers. Anyway, I know what you’re thinking. My move-in won’t be so bad! I have an elevator in my dorm! Well, your mind will change as 600 students are calling the elevator at once, while a father from Highland Park, Illinois, holds the doors open so his daughter can get her orthopedic back chair up to the ninth floor. Besides allowing everyone to get their stuff inside the dorms, move-in days serve one major purpose: they’re the only day each year when everyone is jealous of commuter students. Saying Goodbye At some point, you will have to say goodbye to your parents. If you’re like most college students, this will be harder on your parents than it is on you. In fact, these situations usually involve crying parents crying reminiscing about how their child has finally grown up, while the son or daughter feigns sadness and thinks: “Can I get them to pay for one last meal?”

My advice to new college students: remember to call your parents occasionally. My advice to parents: don’t expect your children to call. Unless, of course, they want money. For, uh … food. Yeah. That’s it.

Part 2: Academic Life So you’ve managed to get into your dream college, or at least some crappy second-choice school that took you in spite of the fact that you aren’t the Mother Teresa of Children and Animals With a 4.7 GPA. You’ve moved in. Your parents are gone. You’re sitting all alone the first night in your dorm, wide awake, thinking: Crap. Am I really in Georgia? Oh, wait: that was my experience. Yours may be different. For example, you could be thinking: If only my dad was a senator. Then I’d be at Brown! Or, if you go to Boston University: Why the hell didn’t anyone tell me they’re called the SCOTTIES? If I had known that, I definitely would’ve taken that gap year to build mud huts for the pets of poor Nicaraguans. But you can’t change the past. I know this because I once kept my front porch door open all morning to let the breeze to come inside. Instead, a wasp came inside. Although I shut the door, the damage had been done. I had to move. Anyway, forget about the past, because you must focus on the future, and that involves – first and foremost – your classes. Here’s a walkthrough all of the class-related basics you’ll need to know.

Choosing Classes Choosing classes is one of the first things a new student does. To this point, I have two suggestions. The first is: by any means possible, take care of your required classes immediately. There’s nothing more embarrassing than realizing six months before graduation that you still haven’t completed your requirements, which makes you the only senior in a class called “Introduction to Fitness.” It’s possible that I’m speaking from experience. My second recommendation is to keep all of your options open. Here, I once again speak from experience. I spent one year as a resident advisor in a freshman dorm, which gave me a free room on campus, though it meant I also occasionally had to deal with freshmen who wet themselves and passed out in the common room. I remember one of the students on my hall swore up and down that he planned to graduate pre-med with a business degree, which is difficult and borderline impossible. But he was certain. I later found out he ended up with a sociology degree and spent most of his time smoking pot. My point: you never know where your life will bring you. Also, if you wet yourself in the common room, photos will be taken. Class Participation There are two types of professors in college: those that grade class participation and those that don’t. Undoubtedly, you’ll find a few other

differences between your professors, such as: some are OK with being called “Dave,” while others will insist on “Doctor Stevens” even though their doctorate is a PhD in Latin American History from a university in Colombia that has since been converted into a cocaine factory. If a professor grades you on class participation, my advice is to speak loudly and authoritatively even if you have no idea what you’re talking about, which is a tried-and-true strategy that’s been employed by most US presidents to get elected. If you’re not graded on participation, feel free to bring your laptop to class and zone out watching cat videos and animated GIFs. Except, of course, for… Tests and Homework Annoyingly, there are still tests in college, and you actually have to study for them. Or, if you’re like most of the people I went to school with, you can wait until the day before the exam and ask, in the most obnoxious voice possible: “Is this going to be on the test?” The answer to this question, of course, should be: “The next person who asks that question has to help out with next year’s move-in day.” Instead, the professors calmly explain precisely what questions will and won’t be on the test, until everyone has a pretty good knowledge of exactly what to study, except for me, who has been sitting in the back watching cat videos and animated GIFs.

Worse than tests, there’s also homework, and you actually have to do that, too. The exception is if you’re an attractive woman, in which case you simply e-mail the rest of the class the night before it’s due and suggest “checking your answers,” which really involves copying down the other person’s. NOTE: this only works one time per male student, or possibly twice if it’s an engineering class. Grades There are two reasons why grades are highly important in college. One is graduate school. Applying to graduate school is nowhere near as touchyfeely as applying to undergrad. For instance, instead of an essay question like: “What is your greatest strength?” they’ll ask: “Why the hell did you take Introduction to Fitness as a senior?” The other reason grades are important is because some potential employers are fanatical about them. Once, when applying for a consulting job, I was even asked for my SAT score, which is a nice way of saying: We don’t want to actually interview you. Can we rely on a number to determine if you’re any good? Fortunately, this is actually a benefit for those of you with grades like mine, since it dramatically narrows your job search and allows you to spend time doing more important things, like thinking up new ways to ask your parents for money. The Library

The library at any college is an enormous collection of books, tables, computers and people who are generally doing anything but studying. Truly: the library is one of the best places on a college campus, unless you plan on actually working. Then you’re better off in your dorm room, even if the death metal is making it hard to focus. Picking a Major At some point, you will have to pick a major. I strongly suggest not choosing my major, economics, unless you want to spend the entirety of college thinking: When is this class going to end? Instead, consider a major that’s more exciting, like Library Science or Botany. Just kidding. In reality, you’ll want a major that guarantees you a job after college. That rules out virtually every option except for business, which will earn you a spot as a file clerk in the finance industry, provided your father knows one of the executives. Ah, the rewards of an expensive college education.

Part 3: Campus Life Don’t let anyone fool you: the most important part about college is your social life. I know this because that’s certainly how I felt, and I am now an unemployed writer who is highly skilled at sitting on the porch with a box of Frosted Mini Wheats and gossiping with the mailman. I had friends who wasted time on pursuits like grades and test scores, but I no longer consider them friends because for some reason they never answer the phone when I call at 11 a.m. on a Wednesday to invite them for a game of Frisbee golf. Since I found campus life so important, I’m the perfect person to guide you through it, as I will now demonstrate unless the mailman interrupts me. Dorm Life Dorm life is an important part of the college experience, except of course for move-in day, which is instead an important part of the “days you can look back on if you ever get really depressed and need a reminder of just how bad it can be” experience. Dorm life is great because there won’t be another time when, without fear of repercussions, you can:

1) light your shorts on fire while trying to clean them, resulting in the arrival of the fire department; 2) light your microwave on fire while trying to make popcorn, resulting in the arrival of the fire department; or, 3) pass out drunk in the common room, resulting in the arrival of the fire department. Yes, all of these things happened when I lived in a dorm. Needless to say, the fire department didn’t have much else going on. Dorm life is also exciting because you get to examine the lifestyles of your fellow man. For example: while I personally wouldn’t walk around the halls naked, some people do. This is one of those life learning experiences that happen so often in college, according to your parents. Campus Food Campus food is a low point, regardless of where you go to college, how much tuition you pay, and how many students are killed annually by oncampus salmonella outbreaks. Fortunately, most college campuses are surrounded by restaurants whose primary source of revenue comes from delivering boneless chicken wings in a beat-up Hyundai at 3 a.m. This is where you eat. But no matter what you do, don’t attempt to cook anything. This will result in the arrival of the fire department.

Friends Friends are an important part of the college experience. This is true even if you’re one of those people who has a boyfriend back home and isn’t going to break up because distance isn’t going to keep us apart and I don’t need friends because we have us. Friends are even important for those who come to college with a World of Warcraft hobby, which is about as time-sucking as a long-distance boyfriend. The difference, of course, is that World of Warcraft won’t cheat on you. But it can impact your academic success. In my freshman hall, we had a kid who never went to class and instead played World of Warcraft all day. Eventually, he grew a beard and dropped out of school. There’s a moral in here somewhere. Oh yeah: friends. Make them. At no other time in life will you be around so many young, like-minded people, all of whom are looking for pot. Partying There will always be time and energy to devote to partying. I know this because I threw many parties as a Resident Advisor, all of which had themes like: Let’s make paper airplanes! Interestingly, they weren’t very well attended.

On my campus, there was an active fraternity scene that mainly consisted of teenage frat guys yelling things while sitting on lawn chairs in front of a large house that hadn’t been cleaned since about 1997, unless one of the boys’ moms came to visit. At night, they sat in these lawn chairs and played loud music, which constituted “partying.” Anyone who mocked this lifestyle was labeled a “Greek hater” and was loudly insulted by all members, as long as they didn’t have to get out of their lawn chairs. Parking In spite of all the tests, and all the grades, and all the office hours, and all the human cadavers being ripped apart by medical students who look like they’re 13, and all the science labs with green liquid oozing from a test tube, the single most challenging thing about campus life is parking your car. If, by any means, you can avoid bringing an automobile to a college, or anywhere near a college, then for God’s sake, do that. Parking is absolutely impossible at every college in North America, including schools in the middle of Iowa where they could build more parking, but choose not to because it would disturb the habitat of the red-breasted garbanzo bean. Really: when added together, I believe I spent more time in college searching for a parking spot than studying for finals. And I believe I spent more money on parking passes than books. My only suggestion is that if you must have a car, try parking illegally. A year’s worth of tickets rarely

equals the cost of a parking pass. But whatever you do, for God’s sake, don’t block the fire lanes. Sports At some universities, the campus revolves around sporting events. This was not true at my school, where the students might consider going to a baseball game if the weather is nice and they’re one of the player’s mothers. As a result, I can’t speak authoritatively about college sports, though – not surprisingly – I have some rather strong opinions on the subject. Namely: if there weren’t so damn many athletes, maybe it wouldn’t be so hard to find a parking spot. Leaving Someday, you’ll have to leave college, which involves wearing a large robe and walking across the stage to get your diploma-to-be-mailed-later. Many of you will find this to be a happy event, since it’s the beginning of something totally new. But believe me when I say that you’ll always look back fondly on your college days. The fire department may feel differently.

11. Remote Controls and Light Bulbs There’s no better feeling than sitting down to watch TV – possibly with a full bag of chips and a bowl of nacho cheese – and realizing that every single remote is within reach. By “every single remote,” I am talking about the large number of remotes we have for our television and its ever-increasing array of accessories. There’s a remote to change the channel, which happens to be the same remote you use to change the volume. There’s another remote to change the source in case you want to watch a DVD, or – if you’re my parents – a VHS tape. And once you’ve switched sources, you control the video with one remote and the volume with another. Personally, I’m very confused by the whole thing. My parents are even more confused and often call me with questions like: “I just pressed the Netflix button on the remote, and now it’s on a weird screen. Do we have to wait for you to come home at Christmas to watch TV again?” These calls are very frequent. So frequent, in fact, that I’m fairly certain 25 percent of all telephone calls placed in the last year were parents asking children how to use the TV. A further 15 percent were computer-related,

and included the words: “Just turn it off and turn it back on. Did that work? Great.” If you have a video game console, you get even more remotes. They’re called “controllers,” but their function is the same: you press a button, and something happens on the screen. This is a far cry from when I was a kid and controllers were attached to the video game console using long cords. I miss those days, largely because you could use the cord to strangle your opponent. Now you have to throw the controller at him. TV remotes are also rapidly advancing. Originally, they had just two buttons: channel up and channel down. Volume wasn’t included, since you were really just changing the loudness of static that, at times, bore a slight resemblance to Bob Hope. Plus, volume wasn’t important in the old days, since everyone lived very far from everyone else and couldn’t hear each other’s TVs. Back then, a common topic for phone conversations between parents and their children was: “Son, the electric light just went out. What do we do?” And you can’t solve that one with “turn it off and turn it back on again.” These days, remotes do have a volume button. Actually, they have a button for virtually everything. I know this because – in a consistent effort to bring you all the facts – I have assembled all three of my remotes on my desk and counted the buttons.

And the total number of buttons between the three remotes? 147. This includes buttons like “DAY +/-” and no fewer than four buttons labeled “EXIT.” There are also buttons labeled “SLEEP,” “TOOLS,” “LIVE” and “REPEAT,” none of which I ever plan to use in any capacity. So remotes have made huge leaps forward over the years. But if you’re the kind of person who likes simplicity, you’ll be pleased to know there are a few other things that have stayed exactly the same. For instance: the Centennial Light. I know what you’re thinking: Oh no! He’s going to talk about Jesus! But I promise this isn’t about Jesus, or any higher power, but rather a light bulb that’s been burning in a Livermore, California fire station since the early 1900s. Again, I know what you’re thinking: Really? A story about Jesus sounds more exciting. But really, the Centennial Light is a modern marvel, and you should appreciate its power. Evidence suggests it’s been burning non-stop since maybe 1901, except for a few minutes in 1976. That’s when the fire station moved. But they didn’t want to damage the light bulb, so they unscrewed it, ran as fast as they could to the new fire station, and screwed it back in, sort of like you might do for a hospital patient on life support. Except the Centennial Light isn’t a hospital patient on life support, but rather, as its name suggests, a light bulb. Try telling that to the California State Senate, US Senator Barbara Boxer and President George W. Bush, all

of whom have sent it letters of acknowledgement. Yes: they mailed letters… to a light bulb. My question is: how the hell do you mail that letter? In my imagination, President Bush addressed the letter to “Light Bulb at Fire Station; Livermore, CA” and then gave it to Dick Cheney with the hushed instruction: “Please make sure it sees this.” This, ladies and gentlemen, is how we know America is in trouble: we’re sending letters to light bulbs and calling our children about the television. All of this makes me want to lie on the couch, grab my nacho cheese, and fall asleep to a good movie. Too bad I left the remotes on my desk.

12. Furniture Shopping I recently moved, which involves three major tasks. The first is, of course, actually moving my things. This takes approximately five percent of the total time spent moving. The next is packing up unused items in my closet, moving them, and unpacking them at the new place, where I will continue to not use them. This takes another five percent. The final 90 percent of any move is spent on the phone with Comcast. For the unenlightened, Comcast is a cable and Internet provider that employs about 125,000 people. Of these, approximately 124,500 are telephone operators that have been trained by the Marine Corps Drill Instructors Association. The remaining 500 are technicians who visit your home to provide helpful advice such as “You’re going to need a new TV” sometime between the hours of 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. on Tuesday, which usually means late Thursday afternoon. For this reason, I think Comcast might actually be a giant psychological experiment designed to test the limits of our tempers. I believe it’s sort of like that MTV hidden camera show Boiling Points, where random people were put into deliberately annoying situations and paid $100 if they kept their cool. Except with Comcast, you pay them, and your reward is television and Internet that works, just not simultaneously.

But while Comcast was the most time-consuming part of the move, it wasn’t the most expensive. That honor goes to the furniture. My new place is much bigger than my old one. This means, as an American, that I must fill each room with furniture, even if its sole purpose is to give me with a new place to stub my toe when I get up at night to use the bathroom. This would not be true in Europe. I have stayed in expensive European hotel rooms that consisted entirely of a bed, a shower, and two towels, which doubled as a blanket and a pillow. And even they had better Internet than Comcast. I started out looking for furniture at various “fashionable” stores, which are located on the “edgy” side of town. This is code for train tracks and homeless people, or as realtors call it, “a great place to raise a young family.” Provided, of course, that you don’t let your children drink the water. Or go outside. Once, while walking down a street in this area, a man – a hipster, or possibly a homeless person (it’s gotten hard to tell) – stopped me and asked: “Excuse me sir, do you know what day it is?” Not the time. The day. It’s that edgy. Considering all this, I thought furniture pricing would be about as low as the area’s literacy rate. This, however, was not to be. Even the furniture store next to the bail bonds place had couches that cost as much as a warehouse forklift. Dining room tables were similarly expensive, and

bizarrely did not come with chairs. I asked one of the shop owners about this, and he replied – in a tone that would’ve suited the Comcast customer service hotline – that “most customers” buy tables without chairs. Presumably, this is because the only seating they can afford is a couch. He then shooed a homeless person out of the store. Eventually, I gave in and bought a couch and table (plus chairs) at prices that can only be described as the furniture version of an Apple store. I know what you’re thinking: Why didn’t you just go to IKEA? You could’ve bought a couch for a hundred bucks AND had delicious Swedish meatballs. This, of course, is true – though I prefer stuffed salmon. But buying from IKEA also means assembling the furniture, which is the single most stressful act a human can endure. Seriously: drug runners getting pulled over on I-95 in rural South Carolina by a K-9 cop are calmer than me putting together an IKEA loveseat. After hours of staring at a 37page Swedish pictogram, I start to think: do I really need a place to sit down? I now believe this is why people buy beanbag chairs. What I realized too late is that I really should’ve bought my furniture on Craigslist. I know Craigslist from searching for used cars, which are sharply discounted compared to their new counterparts but also may, at any second, collapse into a pile of rust and fake fender portholes. This isn’t true of Craigslist furniture. Instead, it’s the place where suckers like me – who bought new furniture – go when the time comes to downsize.

This was proven when my girlfriend went searching for a dresser. On a smaller budget, she skipped the edgy furniture stores and went directly to Craigslist, where she found a lightly used dresser in a nice neighborhood where people don’t ask you what day it is but rather what the hell you’re doing there. Original value: $500. Her price: $80. Now, if only Craigslist offered cable and Internet.

13. Carelessness in Chicago Some of us are very absentminded. My girlfriend Joanna, for example, occasionally forgets the location of her car keys while she’s driving. But I never lose anything. Really, I get a new jacket every winter because I wanted that ski lift to have my old one. OK, fine. Even I can be absentminded sometimes. In fact, one time stands out above the rest. It happened on a trip to Italy during the summer of 2010, when Joanna and I rented some tiny car that felt like it was powered by a cyclist who wasn’t on steroids. One of our stops was Venice, which – as you may be aware – does not allow cars. Only boats and young Italian boys who try to sell you plastic things that glow in the dark. Despite its no-car policy, Venice has one of the largest parking garages in history. It’s rivaled only by the Mall of America’s garage, which hosts roving gangs of people who got lost looking for their cars in the late 1990s. Here’s how Venice is supposed to work: you park your car and get on the bus, which is actually a boat. Then you walk to your hotel. Here’s how it actually works: you park your car and get on the bus-boat, then spend the next several hours searching for your hotel because Venice is actually a

giant corn maze with buildings. The roving gangs here are descendants of people who got lost in the 1500s. For us, it worked a little differently: we parked and got on the bus-boat, then meandered our way to the hotel, at which point I realized that I had left my passport on top of the car in the parking garage. So we very quickly meandered our way to a water taxi, which was also a boat. Sensing our desperation, the boat-taxi driver showed concern by insisting on randomly increasing fare amounts just to see if we’d pay them. I agreed, largely because the Amanda Knox trial had just ended, and I didn’t want to find out what the Italian justice system had in store for someone caught without a passport. Fortunately, the passport was still sitting there, right where I had left it, on top of the car. I haven’t done an absent-minded thing since, assuming you don’t count the time I put my iPod through the wash. Which I don’t, because it was really the washing machine’s fault for being wet. So that was bad. But at least I didn’t forget an airport. The year was 1909. A mere six years earlier, the Wright Brothers had taken flight in Kitty Hawk, a fact that North Carolina has announced on every single license plate ever since. This could be because the state’s only other bragging rights come from grits and being the filming location for Dawson’s Creek.

Anyway: in 1909, as Chicago laid out its city plan, it committed possibly the ultimate act of absentmindedness: omitting an airport. This would be the equivalent of a modern city forgetting to install charging stations for electric cars, or not having a Twitter account, if you can imagine such a glaring error. Of course, one could argue that only six years after the Wright Brothers’ flight wasn’t enough time to realize the future benefits of air travel. But considering the amount of kickbacks that building an airport would’ve generated, you’d think Chicago would’ve been all over it. For years, Chicago used Grant Park as a de facto airport, which probably explains the condition of the grass today. But by the 1930s, municipal softball teams were getting annoyed with having to stop their games due to powered flight. The city had to build an actual airport. At the time, most cities were building airports far away from people so that no one was disrupted by the noise. Chicago decided to buck this trend. It would build its airport directly next to downtown on a peninsula into Lake Michigan that, during the planning phase, didn’t even exist. Presumably, this was done so construction companies would have to create the peninsula and then build the airport, which would double the kickbacks. The result was Merrill C. Meigs Field, which was completed on December 10, 1948. Of course, being a single-runway airport surrounded by water on all four sides, Meigs was deemed too small for Chicago after about a

weekend. Eventually, they built a second airport away from people, and then – enjoying the freedom of flight so much – a third airport, until city leaders finally decided to stop building airports and get back to fixing parking tickets for their extended family members. Things quickly became quiet at Meigs Field, which was only being used by rich people with private planes. This angered local government, as it had been years since they were able to use the space to generate kickbacks. And so, in the middle of the night on March 30, 2003, they tore it down. Yes, that’s really what happened. Mayor Richard Daley, known primarily for yelling at people, and – of course – the time his son pulled a shotgun on partygoers at a family beach house, told a construction crew to enter the airport in the middle of the night and demolish the runway piece by piece. He later explained this would save the city years of litigation and “great expense,” which is sort of like Saddam Hussein’s argument for doing away with pesky little things like voting. The airport’s demolition left planes stranded and drew the ire of the FAA, who hadn’t been informed there was now one less airport in existence. Eventually, they fined the city for the stunt. The planes took off on the taxiway. And Meigs became a park, with its man-made peninsula serving as a reminder of the time Chicago’s city planners pulled off the ultimate act of absentmindedness.

14. Interns and Office Work Before I became a writer, I worked in the business world. This primarily involved waking up early so I could browse Facebook somewhere besides my home. I would probably still be working there today if not for the waking up early bit, mostly because the Internet was faster. Now that I have some perspective on the working world, I’m capable of providing an in-depth analysis of its high points and low points. They are: High Points - Health insurance. Most importantly, the fact that it’s automatically deducted from your paycheck so you never have to worry about actually paying it. That’s helpful, since I currently have on my desk a bill from my health insurer for $1.79, along with a check for $1.79. This cannot be explained by anyone, including the insurance company. - Free office supplies. In fact, when I was hired, I was specifically asked: “Have you ever stolen anything from an employer aside from office supplies?” This led me to believe that it’s completely acceptable to steal office supplies. So I did. The fax machine works great, by the way.

- Car washes. Our building had a car wash guy stationed in the bottom floor of the garage, far from any visible, natural light. Sometimes, he returned my car without taking out a concrete support post. Those were the days I tipped big. Low Points - Gray cubicles. I’ve come to learn it’s not actually possible for a modern corporation to exist without gray cubicles. While they’re ugly, I admit they have at least one benefit: they provide an incentive for hard work. That’s because higher-level employees get a real office complete with fake plants, which are definitely office supplies and can be stolen. - Dress code. Sometimes, I avoided Facebook and actually did real work – occasionally up to 13 hours in a day, not including my usual two-hour lunch. Despite this, I would still be openly mocked if my shirt had even the slightest wrinkle. This is contrary to my current dress code, which mostly consists of anything I can find that’s clean. - Clock punching. In my office, it was considered an unwritten rule that you didn’t leave before 5 p.m. So, if I finished my day’s work by 4:30, I played Flash games until leaving around 6, when I would be hailed as a hard worker. This could also be a high point. In addition to those office life highs and lows, there was also one major perk that’s even better than free office supplies: interns. Not for the Bill

Clinton reasons you’re thinking, but because having an intern was as close as an office-bound twentysomething could come to management. Also, they provided competition for the Flash games. The first step to successfully hiring an intern was to solicit resumes. This was easy. Atlanta has dozens of college students, and they were all hungry for internships. Once HR submitted our posting to college websites, the resumes began to trickle in. And by trickle, of course I mean gush with uncontrollable velocity and occasionally include university staff. When I was searching for an intern, all I needed was someone who could handle basic administrative skills. Photocopying, for example. Also typing. But most importantly, to listen to my vague directions and create PowerPoint slides, only to re-do it when it hadn’t been exactly as I had imagined it in my mind. In other words: this was the most boring position in existence, except for a job I once had at the Denver Zoo that involved spending five-hour shifts standing outside the mongoose enclosure to ensure they didn’t escape. This actually happened. Unfortunately, the applicants didn’t reflect my basic needs. Most of the students who applied seemed to disregard the fact that the only experience they would gain was learning to refill an electric stapler. (Unplug first, steal later.) As a result, they submitted cover letters that one might write if applying to be a chief executive, or possibly an astronaut.

The resumes further confirmed that the applicants were overqualified. Several had perfect grade-point averages. Some applied from Georgia Tech, one of the nation’s leading engineering schools, with nearly-complete degrees in aerospace engineering, or biomedical engineering, or some other form of engineering that was far beyond the realm of three-hole punching and looking busy. Occasionally, I wanted to write back to these students and announce: Do not apply for this job. Instead, go solve the world’s problems. Eventually, we would get a couple of applicants who were qualified for the position, which was usually determined when we visited their Facebook and found pictures of them doing a keg stand. They would, of course, be great employees – mostly because the kind of person who applies for a job with public photos of keg stand participation is the kind of person who is utterly unwilling to devise any new ideas. And in big business, that’s exactly what everyone wants from an intern. That, and ironed shirts.

15. The World’s Most Remote Islands I recently visited Austin, Texas, which is quite possibly the world’s remotest island. Austin, you see, is weird. But it’s weird in an endearing sort of way, like a third-party political candidate, or someone who wears face paint at an NFL game. In other words: you might look at Austin funny, but you’ll never feel threatened. As an example, let’s say you’re walking down the street in any other major US city and you encounter someone who isn’t wearing any clothes. Your first thought would be: Danger! Then you’d do what any quick-thinking 21st century citizen would do, namely: keep back, whip out your cell phone video camera, and repeatedly scream “Oh my God! I’m putting this on YouTube!” as you hold your phone in portrait mode with the steadiness of someone standing on a belt sander. None of this would happen in Austin. A naked man walking down the street there would be treated as another facet of daily life. In fact, he would be allowed to carry on his business, which may involve actually being a thirdparty political candidate. Eventually, someone might stop and offer him some clothes, or – more likely – some pot.

To further prove Austin’s weirdness, I must turn to bats. Austin’s Ann Richards Bridge contains the world’s largest urban bat colony, which numbers up to 1.5 million during the summer. This means that during “peak bat season,” Austin has more bat residents than human residents. There’s even an annual Bat Fest, which almost certainly involves normally naked third-party political candidates dressing up in large bat costumes. But Austin’s weirdness exists only within its 300-square-mile city limits. Outside those boundaries, you quickly return to the rest of Texas, which surrounds Austin like an enormous sea of gun-totin’ capitalism. Mere miles from Austin, any rancher would shoot someone dressed in a bat costume just as quickly as they’d shoot an actual bat. Undoubtedly, the rancher’s reasoning would be that both look an awful lot like Mexicans. So Austin is pretty isolated. But it’s got nothing on Tristan da Cunha. Tristan da Cunha is a small island in the middle of the South Atlantic. And I don’t mean “middle of the South Atlantic” like teenagers say “Wal-Mart is in the middle of nowhere” when it’s really 13 minutes away by car. I mean it’s smack dab in the middle of the South Atlantic, equidistant from South Africa or South America, and nearly 2,000 miles from both. Naturally, it’s inhabited, proving that no matter how bizarre or inaccessible a place, there will always be people who want to live there. Which explains life in Mississippi.

Before we get into life on Tristan, a little history. It was discovered in 1506 by an explorer who didn’t even bother to stop there, but named the island after himself anyway. No one returned until 1810, when a guy from Massachusetts arrived and claimed it for himself. Given that he was 2,000 miles from civilization, I have no idea how he did this. Not surprisingly, his claim wasn’t challenged. He died a few years later and the British put a settlement on the island in 1817. Once again, no one challenged this claim, and the island has been British ever since. But there have been a few notable events along the way. One came when the British Navy established a small weather and radio station in Tristan during World War II. That’s when the Brits realized just how remote their 120-year-old territory was. While its population had “swelled” to triple digits, the sole form of currency was the potato. An even larger event came in the 1960s. That’s when the volcano that made up the island was poised to explode. So, in October 1961, the British government evacuated all of Tristan, whose population was then a mighty 300. For two years, Tristan’s residents lived in the UK, periodically returning to check on their island. And in the fall of 1963, with the volcano erupted, more than two-thirds of the islanders turned their backs on Britain’s “Swinging Sixties,” The Beatles, and the beginning of the James Bond film series to return to an 80-square-mile island more than 6,000 miles from London.

In the 60 years since the volcano erupted, virtually nothing has happened in Tristan da Cunha. The island’s website (yes, there’s a website) chronicles this nothing quite comprehensively, reporting major news events like “Jenny Green’s 40th Birthday” and “New photograph of elite 37 Degrees South knitting team.” Sadly, given Tristan’s location, the knitters may never get to prove their elite status. But you can judge for yourself, as the website sells their wares. Tristan’s most interesting aspect is its population. Still numbering around 300, the islanders all share eight last names, which makes Tristan something of a downsized West Virginia. But despite close quarters – and the fact that everyone is, quite literally, family – the islanders are known for a strong sense of community. Needless to say, visiting Tristan is an unusual and difficult process. You can’t just fly in, because there’s no airport. Instead, you have to secure passage on a vessel arriving from South Africa, which happens rarely. Undoubtedly, the vessel’s arrival – and yours – will be front page news on the website, assuming the local bridge game isn’t going on that night. Visiting Tristan also requires making a formal request to the island administrator, typically an Englishman who probably pissed off someone connected to the Queen. Assuming he approves your passage, and your South African freighter doesn’t encounter rough seas, you’re safe to travel

to the remotest island in the world. Or, at least, the remotest island that’s surrounded by water.

16. To the Landlords of Craigslist Craigslist is a lot of things to a lot of people. For instance, to my friend Dan, it’s a place to find used cars, all of which either break down or catch fire within six hours of purchase. Fortunately, not one of these cars is ever over $800, nor do they include annoying accessories that are easy to lose, like the title. Or keys. Inspired by positive stories like these, I use Craigslist to find apartments. Over time, I’ve had varying degrees of success. Each place I’ve found has included keys, for example, though the fire risk seems to mirror Dan’s cars. As I’ve grown more familiar with Craigslist, I’ve become increasingly frustrated with its apartment listings, most of which are written by people who find the exclamation point and the caps lock key more useful than the comma. So, for all you landlords out there, I’ve decided to provide a few helpful pointers that will assure you end up with the best apartment listing possible. They are: 1. For God’s sake, take pictures of the actual apartment. This is possibly the most annoying thing that occurs on the Internet, aside from virtually everything that happens on Twitter. Why, oh why, do apartment managers find it appropriate to post photos of the pool, the gym, a nearby park, a stock photo of a couple playing with a dog, and their own headshot

taken when they attempted a career in acting, but not one single photo of the actual apartment they’re trying to get people to rent? 2. Yes, It’s necessary to post an actual address. And yes, I will use the address to look up the apartment on Google Street View and peruse the area for drug deals caught on camera. But there’s an upside: some prospective tenants will view this as a selling point. 3. The listing for the apartment should be longer than the tenant requirements. In other words, you can’t say something like “two bedroom house near good schools, $1,800 per month” and then go into a fiveparagraph diatribe about how your tenant must not have pets, or smoke, or drink, or put anything on the walls, or sing, because he may disturb the house’s beautiful aura. NOTE: This is not true in New York City. In New York City, you can list a 97-square-foot apartment for $3800 and require your tenant to a) present you with a stuffed giraffe at the viewing, b) hula hoop for nine consecutive minutes, and c) earn $300,000 per year. Such requirements will generate 400 replies, even if the only photos are the broker’s headshot and a picture of Central Park, despite the fact that the apartment is in Brooklyn. 4. The description must be mildly accurate. This means “realtor speak” needs to be kept to a minimum. It’s perfectly fine, for example, to describe a place with a sunroom by saying “Lots of light.” Calling a ground floor unit in a dangerous neighborhood “easily accessible” or “close to

everything” is a little less tolerable. But I’m moving on if the word “opportunity” is used to describe a home where the previous tenant took up all the flooring because he wanted to be closer to the earth. (This is the kind of things bad tenants do, according to my landlord friends who keep headshots handy for Craigslist postings.) 5. No symbols of any kind. I find it hard to believe I’m the only prospective Craigslist tenant who is immediately turned off when I see GREAT LIVING!!!!!!!!!! @*@*@&@* (or that awful alternate capitalization, like: AwSuM pLaCe*!*!*!*!) in the title. In fact, the kind of tenants who aren’t turned off by this are probably credit risks, or at least stupid, and they will probably take up all the flooring. The only symbol should be a dollar sign, which brings us to… 6. Post the price in the listing. Why is this so challenging? Am I supposed to guess what your unit is renting for? If so, I will guess zero and claim squatter’s rights. To evict me, you’ll need a court order, which – in most states – does not involve ampersands, exclamation points, or asterisks. In other words: I might be there forever. Provided that you landlords can meet the above criteria, I’m prepared to be an exceptionally good tenant, which will involve sipping lemonade on the porch in the summer heat as you mow the lawn. Also, I promise I won’t even touch the flooring.

17. A Trip to Europe Atlanta to Germany “Let’s go to Europe!” This has been the battle cry of white, upper-middle-class Americans since the founding of America. Seriously: the first pilgrims stepped off the Mayflower on November 11, 1620, looked around, and said to each other: “If we leave right now, we can spend the summer on the Mediterranean.” White, upper-middle-class Americans love Europe. I believe this affection is drilled into our minds when we go to college and mingle with other students who have spent time there. They’re quick to point out how much better it is than America, and how much cleaner it is, and how the people are more cultured, and how the food is nicer, and they know all this because they went there on a family vacation when they were 11. I’ve been on two trips to Europe with my girlfriend, Joanna. On the first trip, we realized most of that stuff wasn’t true. For instance: it isn’t cleaner. I know this because the official pastime of Europe appears to be smoking, while the official sport is something along the lines of “throwing used cigarettes into the street.” (If this was a sport, the French would be world champions.)

Speaking of the French, we also discovered Europeans aren’t necessarily more cultured than us lowly Americans. When we were there, for example, the French were busily banning every possible Muslim thing, up to and including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. We later watched a news report about this wherein a French interior minister said: “Ze Lakers in zee eighties? Zey are dead to me.” This was stated, of course, in between cigarette puffs. Nonetheless, in spite of all the problems, we decided to return to Europe two years later. Because, as white, upper-middle-class Americans, we had to fulfill our God-given destiny. Our trip started in Germany. Actually, my trip started in Germany. Joanna had to fly into Zurich for complicated reasons not worth explaining (she is a wanted fugitive in Germany for starting an anti-littering campaign). I flew into Stuttgart, in southern Germany, a rather industrial city whose motto is: One time, the sun came out! We have pictures to prove it! Actually, this could be the motto of most of Germany. Germany, in my opinion, offers the world precisely two things: food and highways. I know what you’re thinking: But Germany gave us so many things! Also, the food there is awful! And you’re right: Germany did provide the world with many important inventions. For instance: where would we be without the glue stick? But I think Germany’s inventing prowess is over, largely because residents are now too pre-occupied with other things, such as the International Cigarette Butt Throwing Contest.

The food, however, is damn good. That’s because it’s all red meat, and did I mention I’m a white, upper-middle-class American? Red meat is one of our primary food groups, along with beer, and Germany has that too. But Germany’s main contribution to our world is its highways. Many of them have no speed limits, presumably so that you can get out of Germany as quickly as possible. And, after renting a convertible at Stuttgart airport, that’s precisely what I did. Here’s a basic summary of driving on the autobahn. You’re cruising along at the speed limit, which is something like 100 kph. (As an American, I have no idea how fast this is in miles per hour, and I’m unwilling to learn.) Suddenly, there’s a white sign with a slash through it. This apparently means “no speed limit,” because every single car on the road immediately takes off like greyhounds chasing the mechanical rabbit. You then cruise at approximately 135 mph for the next fifteen minutes, occasionally getting passed by tiny hatchbacks doing 140. Eventually, after about a half-hour, there’s another speed limit sign, which causes every single car on the road to slam on its brakes at the last possible moment. This process is then repeated, over and over, until you reach… Zurich, Switzerland Since Joanna flew into Zurich, we decided to spend the first few days of our trip in Switzerland. This will be unusual to anyone who has spent time in Switzerland, because it’s possibly the least romantic place in history.

Seriously: instead of flowers, stuffed animals and chocolate, Swiss couples exchange presents like well-built lamps, oddly-shaped stainless steel kitchen utensils, and … chocolate. Then they shake hands and sleep in two separate very sturdy beds. Driving in Switzerland, I was warned, is a bit different from driving in Germany. For example: you can be cited for going even one mile per hour above the speed limit. You might think, as I did, that you can ignore any citation if you’re from a foreign country, but TripAdvisor is full of stories from people who did just that and, years later, were detained at the Swiss airport until they paid up. So I drove slowly until I reached the Zurich Airport, where Joanna was awaiting my arrival. Our first day in Switzerland was spent in Zurich. As I understand it, there are precisely two things to do in Zurich, both of which I will explain now: 1. Shop. There’s a street in the center of the city called the Banhofstrasse, which was named under the famous Berlin Convention on Naming Things, which states, quite explicitly: Every single German word must be as complicated as humanly possible. Presumably, in the German version of Scrabble, you get 25 tiles and the board is the size of a hotel room. Anyway, back to Zurich. The Banhofstrasse is full of some of the most upscale stores in the world, which meant that we planned to spend the day a) walking inside, and b) receiving dirty looks from employees. Unfortunately, our plan was thwarted because we arrived on a Sunday.

Apparently, every single thing in Zurich is closed on Sundays, which means we walked around a completely empty Banhofstrasse and merely looked in the store windows from outside. This didn’t garner dirty looks from anyone except passersby, who probably wondered: “Do these people expect to shop on a Sunday?” If you can imagine such a crazy idea. The truth is it didn’t matter if everything was closed, because it isn’t like we could afford anything anyway. At one point, we looked in a store window to discover a coat hanger was 22 Swiss francs, marked down from 45 Swiss francs. The conversion rate with dollars, by the way, was roughly one-toone. On our previous Europe trip, Joanna and I had spent eight euros on a bottle of water in Monaco. By the time we left Switzerland, we were clamoring for such reasonable prices. 2. Climb the Grossmunster. Yes, this is the name of an actual thing. More specifically, it’s a church that towers over the city, which is quite common in Europe. Actually, it’s more than common: I’m starting to believe that every single European city built a towering church in about 1000 AD, just knowing that one day Americans would pay 30 Swiss francs to climb 275 tiny stairs to reach the top. Of course, we did just that, along with every other American who was there that day, all so we could arrive at the viewing platform, look out over the city, and awkwardly ask strangers to take our picture.

Beyond shopping and the Grossmunster, there are a few other things to do in Zurich. For example: the plastic paddle boats on nearby Lake Zurich are limited to about nine miles per hour, which makes them about as fast as the Swiss national speed limit. Also, you can walk around Zurich and marvel at the fact that every building is perfectly constructed, every lawn is perfectly manicured, and every cigarette butt is discarded in a proper receptacle. But don’t try to use a public toilet, because it costs several Swiss francs and is probably closed on Sunday. Lucerne, Switzerland After Zurich, we visited the nearby town of Lucerne, which is approximately 30 miles away, or – due to Swiss speed limits – a full day’s drive. Lucerne is highly similar to Zurich in several ways. For example: it also sits on a lake. And it, too, is full of well-manicured parks and perfect buildings. Most importantly, however, it’s also constantly under cloud cover, as are all German-speaking nations, presumably as a punishment by God for not being able to understand what the hell they’re saying. The highlight of Lucerne is an old wooden bridge called the Kapellbrücke, which burned down in 1993 due to – I swear – errant cigarette butts. Presumably, the person responsible wasn’t representing Switzerland in the International Cigarette Butt Throwing Contest. The Kapellbrücke is actually really cool in the way that only a 20-year-old bridge built to look like a 680-year-old bridge can be. Namely: you enter,

you walk across while trying desperately not to get in the way of people taking photos, and, eventually, you exit. Fortunately, they don’t charge admission, though if they did it would probably be about 40 Swiss francs, and we would gladly pay it. Since we couldn’t do any shopping in Zurich, we decided to instead buy things in Lucerne. So we went to the main shopping district, where we quickly discovered precisely two goods are sold: postcards and chocolate. Really: there were so many chocolate shops that I’m now certain that the Swiss economy is based solely on chocolate, with occasional boosts from charging people to use public bathrooms. Eventually, we left Lucerne and headed towards Italy. This involved driving through the Gotthard Road Tunnel, which, as the name suggests, is a road tunnel. What the name doesn’t suggest is that it’s ten miles long, something we didn’t realize until we saw signs at the entrance that announced: “GOTTHARD TUNNEL – 16.2 KM.” As Americans, we had no idea what this meant, but we believed the tunnel was either 50 miles long or 25 degrees Celsius. The other side of the tunnel was the Italian portion of Switzerland, where the sun was shining for the first time on our entire trip. Seriously: I’ve since done this drive several times, and each time, no matter how bad the weather is on the German side of Switzerland, it’s always beautiful on the Italian side. Presumably, this is because God favors Italy, which is a scary thought

considering this is the country that prosecuted scientists for failing to predict a deadly earthquake. (This actually happened, not during the Dark Ages, but in 2011.) Lake Como, Italy Lake Como is the single most beautiful place on earth. I know what you’re thinking: “But I went to blahblahblah last year, and it was the most beautiful place on earth.” Well, you’re wrong. I know this because I have now been to approximately nine countries, which, by cable news standards, makes me an expert on world travel. Here’s a basic description of the area. To get there, you drive through beautiful valleys surrounded on each side by mountains. You think: This is pretty cool! But then, you arrive at Lake Como, which is a narrow, winding lake as it cuts through tree-covered mountains with tiny, red-roofed Italian villages dotting the landscape below. And on the shore, every few hundred yards, is an ornate villa with beautifully manicured gardens and at least four marble statues of naked people. The area’s beauty helps you overlook its occasional problems. Like, for instance, the roads. The only road to Bellagio, the lake’s main tourist town, is a curvy and narrow street that seemingly goes on for miles. Let me clarify “curvy” and “narrow” for those of you who haven’t been to Italy. By “curvy,” I mean: it’s situated on the side of a mountain, not one portion is straight, and the “guardrail” is a new fad that’s slowly sweeping Italy,

though not this area. Meanwhile, by “narrow,” I mean: the road is wide enough for approximately one car, and, on the other side, one desk lamp. The Italians, therefore, use it to transport heavy machinery. At this point, you may be wondering: Why the hell did you rent a car? Europe is known for train travel! And this is a question I can only answer with: because renting a car in Europe is unbelievably cheap. See, the rental car companies have to compete with the trains, which means they practically give the cars away. I once rented a tiny Volkswagen in Germany for $19 per day including full insurance with no deductible. Also: driving in Europe is incredibly exciting, once you get over the fear of death. The other problem with Bellagio is a problem we experienced all over Italy. Namely: the food service is awful. I don’t just mean “bad,” like that time you went to Chili’s and the waitress rolled her eyes when you said “no onions.” I mean awful. The reason for this is that Europeans don’t tip servers, which means the servers have no real incentive to do their job with any sense of purpose. As a result, this is a typical dinner anywhere in Europe: 8 p.m.: You sit down to eat. 8:15 p.m.: Server arrives and pours you water, which costs six euros. Tap water is unheard of in Europe.

8:30 p.m.: Server returns to take your order. At this point, you have not received a menu. But since you know you will never see him again, you point at other diners’ plates and say: “I’ll have that.” 8:50 p.m.: Food arrives. It doesn’t resemble what you ordered. It may be fish. 8:56 p.m.: Server asks you to vacate the table to make room for more guests. This is the scene in virtually every European restaurant, except McDonald’s, where they’re very friendly, assuming that you can indicate the combo meal you want by holding up the appropriate number of fingers. Anyway, beyond the food and the roads, Lake Como really is a gem. This is proven by the fact that dozens of celebrities have lakeside villas there, including Sylvester Stallone, Richard Branson, David Beckham, and – famously – George Clooney. We vowed to one day return as we got in the car and made our way down the narrow, curvy road to… Cinque Terre, Italy You know Cinque Terre. You may have never been to Cinque Terre, but you know of it, provided you’ve been to an arts festival, or seen a few paintings, or gone to a poorly-made travel website with stereotypical photos of exotic destinations from all over the world.

Cinque Terre, which literally means “five earths” is a collection of five brightly-colored Italian towns that sit precariously on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea. It’s a requirement that novice artists paint Cinque Terre, even if their medium is sculpture and they only do busts. Seriously: when you arrive at art school, the registrar looks you up and down before saying: “Name and painting of Cinque Terre?” The problem with Cinque Terre is that, because it’s immortalized on mouse pads and featured in virtually every in-flight magazine, there’s a nearconstant stream of visiting tourists. So these small towns, which were initially isolated fishing villages, are now full of Mediterranean cruise-goers who can be heard saying things like: “I’m not getting 4G here.” To us, the whole thing seemed a bit inauthentic. But there were a few signs that this was still “old Italy.” The first came when we set out for dinner on our first night. We stayed in Riomaggiore, one of the smaller towns, and passed through a town square on the way to the restaurant. The square contained the following things: 1. Neighborhood children playing soccer just before the sun went down. 2. A clothesline suspended from a nearby window. 3. A mother leaning out a window yelling to her soccer-playing son that it was time for dinner.

4. A separate mother leaning out a separate window yelling – this is totally true – “Mamma Mia!” It was like every image of Italy I ever had was coming true in one location. Imagine, if you will, the most American scene possible: standing in front of the US Capitol just as a bald eagle swoops down and is promptly shot by a hunter in a pickup truck. This was the Italian version of that. Unfortunately, our second glimpse of “authentic Italy” was a little more sinister: Joanna’s camera was pickpocketed from her purse. Although this was a sad occasion, it wasn’t entirely surprising, since pickpocketing recently surpassed cigarette sales as the number one contributor to Italy’s GDP. We also remembered we were in “real Italy” when, at every possible moment, a small child walked up and attempted to sell us flowers. Their persistence was alarming and sometimes, upon my refusal, included the words: “What? You don’t love her?” The constant sales pitch continued on the beach where, the moment we sat down, a woman walked up and offered a massage. Actually, she held off until we rented a beach towel and a chair, which commanded the same daily rate as our hotel room. Cinque Terre was a brave new world of high-dollar tourism colliding with old-school Italy. The contrast wasn’t so extreme in… Monaco

I love cars, which means Monaco is one of my favorite travel destinations. That’s because every third car is a Ferrari, every second car is a Porsche, and occasionally people in Bentleys crash into people in Rolls-Royces and have their chauffeurs fight it out to defend their honor. If you’re not into cars, Monaco isn’t the ideal destination. Yes, it’s incredibly wealthy – and for that reason alone, it’s very exciting to walk around for a couple of hours, if only just to see how the other half live. (And by “the other half,” I am referring to about 40 of the world’s richest billionaires.) But apparently, if you’re not into cars, it isn’t the kind of place where you could spend a week. Joanna informed me of this on our first trip there, when I made her sit on a railing with me in front of the Casino Monte Carlo as I watched the exotic cars go by. I remember that her words were something along the lines of: “This is the most boring thing in human history.” and also “My butt hurts.” This time, I vowed it would be different: we would actually see Monaco. That wouldn’t be difficult since the entire country is just 499 acres in size, which makes it slightly smaller than our college campus, but slightly larger than a German Scrabble board. We arrived in the evening and soon had dinner, which I ran away from after 30 minutes to chase a rare Ferrari that drove by. This actually happened. Fortunately, at that point, we still hadn’t received our menus.

The next day, we woke up early and visited our hotel’s breakfast. This turned out to be a big mistake. That’s because breakfast was outside, as were the single most aggressive seagulls ever to exist. Here’s a summary of what happened. I walked outside with a full plate of food. Seconds later, a seagull landed on the plate – the plate that I was holding in my hands – and grabbed a croissant. Then he flew away, presumably to alert the other gulls: Hey, this guy’s a softie. Joanna and I spent the entire meal defending our food from seagulls, which often involved standing up and flapping our arms in an effort to convince the seagulls that we were, in fact, even larger seagulls. While this may sound strange, we got the idea from the other guests – though they were French, so they may have simply been going about their usual business. This wasn’t a great start to the day, and the phone call that came to our room a few minutes later didn’t help. Apparently, our car had been broken into sometime during the night. We were summoned to the parking garage to survey the damage, which involved a slashed convertible top and a trashed car. The only missing item was my iPod, which was virtually worthless since it mainly contained songs by Jimmy Eat World. Even though we saw nothing, we had to go to the police station to give a statement. This involved meeting with a detective, who treated the investigation like the Secret Service might respond to the murder of the president. He asked every single detail of what we saw (which we answered

with: “Nothing. But you may want to question the seagulls.”) and began taking our statements. During the statement, the detective – who barely spoke English – became extremely excited every time I used an English word he didn’t know. To commemorate the event, he would briefly stop taking our statement to search his desk for a scrap piece of paper. On it, he wrote down the word I had used. Then he would resume taking our statement. This happened four or five times and involved four or five scrap pieces of paper, none of which contained the word’s definition or any other relevant remarks. Eventually, he took us into another room, and – this is totally true – took our fingerprints. Keep in mind, we’re talking about a car break-in that netted a $100 iPod. The detective said his plan was to dust the entire car for prints, and he wanted to eliminate ours. I considered reminding him this was a rental car, and there would be hundreds of prints, but it seemed like the Monaco Police didn’t have very much going on and I figured he would enjoy the challenge. Despite the criminal element, we still enjoyed our day in Monaco. I especially enjoyed walking through Monaco-Ville, the city’s old town, wherein every single shop – regardless of purpose – sells Ferrari memorabilia. Truly: You want to visit the dentist? Fine! And you can buy a model Formula 1 car as you wait.

We also took a dip in the Mediterranean, which involved going to Monaco’s beach. I know what you’re thinking: A beach in Monaco? That sounds glamorous! And is it topless?! It was indeed glamorous, provided you could get over the fact that, instead of soft, white sand, they had rocks. Yes: the entire beach was covered in pebbles. Oddly, the locals didn’t seem to have a problem with this, and happily laid on their towel, which was placed directly next to someone else’s towel, for hours at a time. And no: it wasn’t topless, which may be due to fear that the local seagull population would steal someone’s nipple. Our day in Monaco ended with a trip to the famed Casino Monte Carlo, where Joanna had to drag me because I didn’t feel like I fit in. I’m glad she did, because I’ve never seen a grander group of people, dressed in tuxedos and floor-length gowns, sitting next to expensive art under golden-colored ceilings with intricate moldings, all playing low-limit blackjack. Apparently, the high-stakes tables were in the back. They’d have to be. The next day, we left Monaco and brought an end to our trip. We were also presented with an entirely new problem: our car had a hole in its roof that was cut right above the driver’s seat. The resulting flap hanging in my face gave me tremendous insight into the life of a sheepdog. But we made it back to Germany, and eventually back to Atlanta, short only one iPod, one camera, and – thanks to the secondhand smoke – a little lung capacity.

There is, however, a happy ending to all this crime. Months after returning home, I got a package from the Monaco Police. It seemed they had found the iPod thief, and were inviting me to come back to Monaco and testify in court. A few weeks later, another package arrived: it was a blue iPod. I plugged it into my iHome, eager to hear the soothing sounds of Jimmy Eat World, and instead heard… French rap. It was the wrong iPod. In other words, after an undoubtedly thorough investigation requiring the use of many scraps of paper, the Monaco Police probably jailed the wrong person. They would’ve been better off arresting the seagulls.

18. One-Uppers I once got seven traffic tickets in one year. I know what you’re thinking: How is that possible? Or maybe: Do you live in my city? I need to know if I should get my children helmets. But I can assure you that it is possible, thanks to alert patrolmen in three separate US states and two just-as-alert speed cameras in Germany. And I can assure you that there’s no need for any extra safety precautions, since I now drive as if I’m balancing a full jar of tomato juice on my lap. Which sounds like something I would get a ticket for. My first ticket came when I was minding my own business, driving along like a normal individual with the flow of traffic. At least that’s what I told the cop, who then informed me I was being cited for making a left turn from the center lane. This was true: I had made a left turn from the center lane, but only because the left turn lane had been annoyingly placed on the left side of the road, and I was in the middle of the road. Strangely, this argument didn’t pass the cop’s muster. My next ticket was also for an illegal left turn, though it was at an entirely different intersection where there wasn’t even a left turn lane. As I think back, that may have been the problem. After this, I stopped turning left

completely, an inconvenience which I apparently compensated for by speeding. Indeed, the following four months yielded me four speeding tickets. To be fair, two were issued by speed cameras in Germany, a nation that lures you in with the false promise of roads with no speed limit only to place strict speed cameras on every street that does have a speed limit, which is most of them. Frankly, it’s a good thing they didn’t have cameras on the left turn lanes. The other two were issued in North Carolina and Kansas. In fact, I got the ticket in Kansas on the court date for my ticket in North Carolina. There was also another North Carolina ticket in there somewhere for “unsafe movement,” which is code for: we didn’t clock you on radar, but you were probably breaking the law because you have a very fast car. Seven tickets in a year. Since it’s been a few ticket-free years since then, I usually tell this story at parties, where it provokes a few chuckles and the occasional “No way!” Except, of course, from the worst person of all: the one-upper. Most people know how the one-upper operates, but I’ll explain for those of you lucky enough to live a happy, mythical life devoid of the bastard. Here’s what happens: you’re in a group of people. You say something. Anything. It could be something as simple as “I just bought a new lamp!” The one-upper will then make it his conversational goal to beat you at

whatever you just said. For example, he might announce “Yeah? Well I bought a new couch! And a pet reindeer!” It doesn’t even have to be a subject where it’s possible to compete: the oneupper will still rear his ugly head. For example, you could announce: “Today is my mom’s birthday!” The one-upper will respond with something along the lines of: “Today is my mom’s birthday and my sister’s birthday!” Essentially, the one-upper believes the conversation is a game that he must always win. In the case of the tickets, the one-upper will say something like “Yeah, well I got nine tickets one year. And I got arrested!” Apparently, this is designed to make anyone listening to the conversation become enamored with the one-upper. Champagne and streamers will drop from the sky, and the one-upper will be rewarded with his pick of beautiful women, wealth, and, of course, experiences that are slightly better than everyone else’s. The best one-upper situation is when two one-uppers meet. Of course, neither is ever willing to back down. They continue going and going, each with a better experience than the last. It doesn’t even matter if everyone else tunes out the conversation, or leaves completely: they must win. Sometimes, this goes on all night, like when two people just have to have the same $50 painting at an estate auction. They usually view this as a personal vendetta and end up bidding to something like $12,500, at which point the local papers report on it.

Of course, the people who do that are probably one-uppers themselves. Eventually, one of them finally backs down, and the other one “wins.” But in the future, if the conversation should ever turn to auctions, they both get an experience they can use to beat everyone else.

19. Switching Sides Yesterday, the phone company dropped off a new supply of phone books. I’m sure you would view this as an annoyance. In fact, you probably think the only phone book-related activity Google can’t do is throw them away. But you are very, very misguided. Using my typical can-do spirit, I’ve invented eight new uses for phone books. Unfortunately, I can only share four with you, as the rest are patent pending and certain to be an amazing success, according to one of those inventor companies that advertises in the middle of the day. They are: 1. Protection from gunfire. I once saw a movie where a would-be murder victim used a phone book to shield himself from bullets. So, like any good inventor, I stole the idea and am passing it off as my own. Problem: this is most useful in Detroit, where the phone books no longer have enough pages to stop bullets. 2. Injuring others. A major issue missing from today’s gun control debates is that modern phone books, when thrown, are just as deadly as guns, and far more common. And really, they’re worse, because you can kill a person with the very same phone book you used to find out where he lives. Guns, it should be noted, do not have directories.

3. Determining what phone numbers used to be. Let’s say you’re sitting around with some friends and you want to order a pizza. Obviously, you Google the number of the restaurant and place an order. But then a fight starts about what the pizza place’s phone number was three years ago. Boom! Phone book to the rescue, with all of the latest information as of 2009ish. 4. Enormous paperweight. There’s nothing like a good paperweight. I can’t begin to explain how often I’m sitting at my desk and – POOF! – a helicopter flies through my living room, completely rearranging all the lunch receipts I had planned to use as questionable tax deductions. Fortunately, a phone book paperweight completely eliminates this problem. Now, you may have noticed that none of my uses require accurate, current information. But the phone book is full of such information, which means there must be actual humans using actual phone books to look up actual addresses and phone numbers. This is a group that no doubt consists of people who still think Crocs are cool. And to them I say: it’s time to get on the Internet. Sure, leaving behind the ol’ yellow and black may sound daunting. But bigger transformations have occurred. Take, for instance, Sweden’s “Dagen H,” which translates from Swedish into “H Day.” This was the day that all Swedish traffic switched from driving on the left side of the road to driving on the right. This actually

occurred. No, it didn’t happen in the 1920s, or even in the 19th century when the Swedes used wagons drawn by whatever animals they have in Scandinavia (probably Norwegians). It happened on September 3, 1967. Here’s what went down. From 1 a.m. to 6 a.m. on the morning of Dagen H, all “non-essential traffic” was banned from driving in Sweden. That meant no road use unless you were an ambulance, or maybe a moose. At precisely 4:50 a.m., everyone was required to come to a complete stop on the left side of the road, which was, until that moment, the correct side. Moose were exempted from this activity. Ambulances were not. Cars were then instructed to remain stopped for ten minutes until precisely 5 a.m. Yes: for ten minutes, they were supposed to just sit there. And then, at 5 a.m., they were to change directions and move to the other side of the road, where they would continue to drive forever, or at least until they ran into someone who forgot about the new rules. I imagine 5 to 5:30 that morning was probably the most unnerving 30 minutes in Sweden’s history, especially for all the moose. During the five hours when non-essential traffic was banned, Swedish road crews frantically removed coverings over signs that had been installed in the months leading up to Dagen H. In other words: by the time most people woke up that Sunday morning, the entire country was driving on the other side of the road.

As you can imagine, there was mass panic in Sweden during the months leading up to this event. To ease the pain and difficulty of changing sides, the Swedish government launched a huge marketing campaign based around Dagen H that included the creation of a rock song called “Keep to the Right, Svensson.” Truly. Imagine Alabama switching sides with a rock song called “Keep to the Left, Billy Bob.” Interestingly, accident rates dropped sharply in the few weeks following Dagen H because of a heightened state of driver alert. But once the Swedes settled into their new routines on the right side of the road, crashes went right back to normal. Fortunately, everyone in Sweden has a Volvo, so they haven’t recorded a traffic fatality since 1951. (This sounds like the kind of statistic North Korea might make up in a news release of “facts” about the Dear Leader.) It may surprise you to learn Sweden isn’t the only country to switch driving sides in the recent past. Iceland moved right the following spring, while Samoa moved to the left on September 7, 2009, for no apparent reason other than to commemorate the 32nd anniversary of Sweden’s switch. Each time, the switches were marked by a) accident rates that dropped, then went right back up, and b) thousands of people who complained about how their steering wheels were now on the wrong side of the car. There’s a point to all of this: if countries can switch sides of the road, surely we can get everyone to use the Internet. That will free up all the phone

books for more important things, like those of us who don’t have bulletproof vests.

20. People Who Talk Too Much I’ve recently come to the realization that all humans have dozens of flaws. One of my biggest involves making eBay purchases late at night when my girlfriend isn’t around to say things like: “Doug, we don’t need a beach towel with the Mercedes-Benz logo on it.” Of course, being human, my girlfriend has flaws of her own. The worst is that she possesses an outfit for every single occasion, none of which she can put on in under four hours. If I saw a shooting star, I would scream: “Joanna! Shooting star!” to which she would reply: “Hang on! I have to put on my shooting star outfit!” She would then miss the shooting star, and probably walk outside sometime the following afternoon. This is totally contrary to my style of dress, which can be summed up with one single question: Is it warm enough to wear shorts? But while Joanna and I have our imperfections, we were lucky enough to avoid the biggest flaw humans can possess: talking too much. I was recently on the phone with someone who talks too much, and the conversation lasted so long that even Joanna would’ve had time to put on her phone conversation outfit.

Of course, I’m aware that there are various disorders that make people overly talkative. But there’s also a large portion of society that simply acts like everyone else is one giant ear hooked up to a repetitive “uh huh” soundtrack. They also believe that “One more thing and I’ll let you go” is an appropriate remark for a phone conversation. (Hint: if you have to let someone go, you’re in trouble.) Interestingly, these people seem to have no idea that they talk too much. In fact, they’ll often join in complaining about other people who talk too much, usually in a long tirade that doesn’t allow anyone else to speak. Fortunately, after several recent encounters with the overly talkative, I’ve devised – and tested – several strategies for dealing with them. I will now pass along this wisdom to you, dear reader, proving that this book was not a total waste of money. 1. Run away. This is a tried and true strategy used since our nation’s discovery, when Christopher Columbus ran away from the Queen of Spain as she babbled on about not being able to find her meeting with explorers outfit. Running away is by far the most successful strategy when it comes to dealing with people who talk too much. This solves two problems: number one, the conversation is over. And number two, you get exercise. But I’ve noticed it also causes problems, because some people find running away

from a conversation to be rude. And they don’t seem to accept “Christopher Columbus did it” as a legitimate defense. 2. Physical violence. You can always attempt to injure someone who engages you in an unending conversation. For women, I recommend a hair pull, while a shin kick will be fine for men. If the conversation is really dull, consider aiming for the groin. NOTE: choosing this method may also result in option number one. Unfortunately, I also can’t recommend physical violence. This is mostly because the victim will probably want to “talk it out” later, which defeats the entire purpose. 3. Play deaf. Another option is simply pretending that you can’t hear. Unfortunately, this one has the potential to backfire in a big way, particularly if you ever plan on seeing the other person again. Also, in researching this article, I attempted to play deaf during a dull conversation, only to find that the dull converser was fluent in sign language, and, presumably, equally as dull. But I adapted to the situation by quickly adopting another strategy, which was … 4. Play dead. Yes, that’s right: fall right to the floor and pretend like you’re no longer conscious. At the very least, this will end the conversation, as nearby people will rush to your aid. Unfortunately, this can only work about two times, or three if your conversation partner is very stupid.

There is, of course, also a downside to this. Namely: the dull talker may think they’ve murdered you with boredom. At this point, you should wake up, play deaf, use physical violence, and run away, all in that order. No matter which method you choose, you absolutely cannot tell another person that they talk too much. This would be a huge violation of societal rules on the issue, which were established at the 1984 Convention on You Have Something In Your Teeth: you must say nothing, but hope it goes away. Now, one more thing and I’ll let you go.

21. Moving the Colts I’m not very interested in sports. Yes, I know what this means: you’re now questioning my manhood. But at least I admit my apathy. It’s better than my friend Eric, who also hates sports but works in an office full of sports fans. So he listens to sports talk radio as he drives to work, and then, when he arrives, he repeats everything he’s just heard. The problem is that when the conversation goes beyond his newfound knowledge, he has to run into the bathroom and pretend he has diarrhea. Apparently, this is better than having your manhood questioned. My indifference to sports started during childhood, when my parents brought me to my brother’s baseball games. My brother was always a star athlete. I, on the other hand, was much more suited to activities that a politically correct elementary school teacher would describe as “different.” Like, for example, reading. Or playing with dirt. When it came time to start playing, I still wasn’t into sports. I can sum it up like this: Occasionally, I struck out in T-ball. I was a great shot in basketball, provided that I was aiming for the other team’s basket. And on the second hole of my golfing career, I hit a guy standing on the next tee. (It wasn’t the tee ahead of mine, which would’ve been impressive. It was a tee in a different direction, and possibly at a different golf course.)

Despite all of this, I still managed to be the captain of my high school baseball team, which probably says more about my high school than my athleticism. After high school, I stopped playing sports, and I stopped following sports. But I always tried to keep up with the general location of the sports teams so I would remain at least mildly in the loop. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is how I discovered the story behind the Baltimore Colts moving to Indianapolis. It all started in the 1970s. The Baltimore Colts (that’s a football team) and the Baltimore Orioles (that’s a baseball team) were sharing Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium, which, by all accounts, was absolute crap. So, the owner of the Colts – a man named Robert Irsay – requested that Baltimore build his team a new stadium. Unfortunately, this involved asking the taxpayers, who probably wouldn’t fund the construction of a cross if it meant the return of Jesus. (Seriously: my hometown of Denver, Colorado, was awarded the Winter Olympics in 1976. After years of effort by local leaders to create a proposal, make a bid, and campaign the International Olympic Committee to award Denver the games, the taxpayers rejected it. I bet the Olympics won’t be returning to Colorado anytime soon. And neither will Jesus.) Once the measure for a new stadium failed, Irsay asked Baltimore voters to pay for renovations to Memorial Stadium. This, too, was rejected, probably

under the theory that the stadium was at the end of a long list of things in Baltimore that needed serious work. So Irsay began shopping the Colts around to other cities. He entered into secret meetings with city governments in Phoenix and Indianapolis, both of whom desperately wanted a football team. They offered him big incentives and a stadium, while Baltimore’s top offer was a pat on the back and a reassuring “Better luck next year!” (Interestingly, this is the same nonguarantee that the Colts were giving to their fans by finishing at the bottom of their division every season.) The press eventually caught wind of the secret meetings, and Maryland realized they were in danger of losing their football team. Although nothing had been done until this point to show they wanted to keep the team, they decided to spring into action. And that action was eminent domain. Eminent domain, you may be aware, is typically used by the government when they want to buy your home so they can build a highway, or a park, or something else that’s in the best interest of the people. In this case, the Maryland House of Delegates (which is Maryland’s appropriately pretentious name for the state legislature) wanted to use eminent domain to buy the Colts, thus keeping them in Baltimore and away from Irsay. And so, on March 27, 1984, the House of Delegates passed legislation allowing the state of Maryland to do just that. All the governor had to do was sign it into law, and the team would be seized.

This is where it gets interesting. On March 28, 1984, Irsay and the mayor of Indianapolis agreed to terms that would move the Colts to Indiana. The only condition: the move had to be completed immediately, or else the team would be seized by eminent domain. Fortunately, it just so happened that the mayor of Indianapolis lived a few doors down from the chief executive officer of Mayflower. You know: the moving company. You can probably guess what happened next. Mayflower sent dozens of trucks from Indiana to Baltimore, with each one arriving at Memorial Stadium around 2am on the snowy, cold morning of March 29. Before the sun was up, every single possession of the Baltimore Colts was in a moving truck headed west. Each truck leaving Baltimore took a different route so they couldn’t be rounded up by the Maryland State Patrol. By the time the governor signed the eminent domain bill that morning, it was too late: the team was already the Indianapolis Colts. The team had moved, quite literally, in the middle of the night. Maryland residents were surprisingly upset at the loss of the Colts considering they had repeatedly turned down measures to improve Memorial Stadium. Fortunately, they still had the Orioles, who began a downward spiral that roughly mirrored the stadium’s condition. In 1988, for

example, they started the season with 21 straight losses, which remains a Major League Baseball record. Eventually, the Orioles moved to a new stadium and Baltimore got a new NFL team: the Ravens. Before they showed up, Maryland voters overwhelmingly approved the construction of an entirely new stadium. Hallelujah.

22. A Trip to the Arcade I recently visited an arcade. When you’re a kid, this is the most exciting thing in the world, mostly because you can win prizes. There’s no feeling on Earth like getting the skee ball into that middle ring, earning about twenty tickets, and trading them with the bored teenager at the counter for a bright pink bouncy ball. As a kid, you think: I’ve just won this for free! It was my amazing skee ball skills that got me this bouncy ball! That’s because when you’re seven, you don’t realize your parents paid $20 for the tokens you used to win the bouncy ball, thereby making it a slightly worse investment than Enron in 2003. Arcades also give kids a chance to try things they can’t do in real life. For example: the racing games let you sit in a racing seat, push the pedals yourself, and win races against other drivers, all in spite of repeatedly crashing your Ferrari into palm trees. Actually, adults can’t really do this either, though various drunk celebrities have tried. It’s not just the racing games that make you feel like an adult. Consider, for example, those video games that let you ride a motorcycle.

The first time I ever played one, I was at the arcade with my dad, who believes the pinnacle of mobility began and ended with the Toyota Camry. Because dad was only familiar with reliable Japanese sedans, he had no idea how to ride a motorcycle. And being about nine years old, neither did I. So when I climbed on the arcade bike, I sat there swiveling from side to side, pushing down on the foot pegs like a gas pedal, and wondering why I wasn’t going anywhere. Needless to say, I didn’t win any bouncy balls on that trip. Which is probably a good thing, because let’s be honest: you lose them about 40 minutes after you get home, and usually down your throat. My recent arcade visit, however, showed me that arcades lose a little luster once you become an adult. Let’s go back to the racing games. As an adult, I’ve discovered that these are the poorest excuses for video games in the history of time. Seriously: even the “most realistic” arcade racing games give you a steering wheel that locks in about a half a turn and a car that inexplicably contains both an “afterburner” and a roof-mounted rocket launcher. The games also require no driving skill, but instead 1) a heavy application of the gas pedal, and 2) actually, that’s basically it. Motorcycle games are nearly as awful. By now, I’ve figured out how to ride a motorcycle – not that it would matter in an arcade. That’s because swiveling an arcade motorcycle is a futile effort that provides only rough

guidance on where the bike should go. In fact, no matter how much swiveling you will do, you will hit many things. However, this does not preclude you from winning. It’s best that you just twist the grip and hold on for dear life, stopping only at the end to see high scores that are somehow 20 seconds faster than the laps you’ve just completed. This, ladies and gentlemen, is how the bored teenager at the counter spends his lunch breaks. But while today’s arcade games are bad, they used to be much worse. The arcade I visited had Whack-a-Mole, which is a 1970s-era game which may actually be the worst possible way a human being can have fun. For those unfamiliar, here’s a rough overview: you start with a rubber mallet. For some reason, this is attached on a wire to the game itself, presumably to thwart the large underground Whack-a-Mole mallet trade. You put your quarter in. (And if it costs more than a quarter, then for the love of God DO NOT PLAY IT.) Then you use the mallet to hit whichever moles pop up. This sounds fine except that hitting the moles has no major effect on them, despite sound effects that suggest otherwise. After roughly two minutes, your score is revealed to be 80 points behind the all-time record, even though you whacked every single mole less than a second after it appeared. The game offers no explanation for this. Eventually, you walk away with a greater understanding of why they had to develop video games.

So the allure of arcade games is completely lost on most adults. But there’s one game that still brings out the child in everyone: skee ball. It doesn’t matter how old you are. You still aim for that hard-to-reach center ring, even if you know the only thing you’ll get for your efforts is a bright pink bouncy ball.

23. How About Electronic Road Signs? Recently, and with great interest, I read an article on a new proposal for electronic license plates. For those of you who haven’t read it, and are therefore hopelessly behind the times, a quick summary: 1. The state of South Carolina, noted location of heavily armed backyard cookouts, is reportedly considering a proposal to switch to electronic license plates. 2. The proposal came from a company that no one’s heard of, presumably based in a split-level condominium located very far from South Carolina. 3. The company has not announced where all the screens will come from, though my personal recommendation is unsold inventory of the Barnes & Noble Nook. 4. The proposal hinges on the fact that – while the electronic license plates will cost something like 17 times more than the current, non-electronic ones – they will announce in huge letters if you haven’t paid your registration fees. This will generate revenue by shaming people into paying registration fees. 5. The state has not yet revealed exactly how the license plates will attach to cars, though we can be sure that, whichever method they choose, it will

have dangerous unintended consequences. 6. Eventually, the license plates will be hacked, the state will scrap the program, and the governor will flee to South America to visit his mistress. I, personally, am not in favor of electronic license plates. But it’s not for the reason you think. While many people are angry about the proposal because they fear government tracking (and by the way: nice timing, South Carolina), I don’t mind being tracked by the government. This stems from the fact that, if the government were to track me, they would quickly discover I am an unemployed writer who spends a lot of money on cookies. Instead, my disdain for the program largely stems from the fact that I am a license plate aficionado. Essentially, this means that every single license plate that has ever graced one of my cars is assembled on a wall in my home that is now highly reflective. If license plates became electronic, I could no longer do this, which means I would have to buy actual posters or something. This would give me less money for cookies. So electronic license plates are clearly a bad idea. Fortunately, I’ve devised something better to appease the South Carolina state government who, for the first time in history, wants to be on the cutting edge of something. And that something better is: electronic road signs. Before you dismiss my idea as unreasonable (and by the way, it is unreasonable), hear me out. Say you’re cruising along at 2 a.m. on a

highway where the speed limit is 55. It’s a clear night and there aren’t any cars around for miles, so they flip the switch and the speed limit jumps to 65. So you go a little faster, and they flip it back to 55 before rush hour the next morning. Alternatively, say you’re driving down a curvy stretch of country highway at 10 p.m. and it’s pouring. They flip the switch and the speed limit drops from 55 to 45, which tells you to slow down. Of course, carrying this to its logical conclusion, you could really do anything with electronic signs. For instance: you’re driving along on a normal road, going the speed limit, and suddenly an electronic sign flashes ahead of you that says: “SLOW DOWN: CHICKENS IN THE ROAD.” This is how you know you’re in South Carolina. Now, I know what you’re thinking: What’s to prevent the police from just changing the speed limit as you drive by? And the answer is: nothing. This would make driving even more exciting, as you constantly have to be aware of the speed limit. That’s completely different from today, when no one knows the speed limit, meaning they just drive at whatever speed they “feel comfortable.” Admittedly, some places already have rudimentary electronic signs. In Atlanta, for instance, they have enormous lighted billboards over the highway that read: “DISTANCE TO EXIT 222: 9 MILES. TRAVEL TIME: 9 MINUTES.” When you see these signs, you can be sure of precisely two

things: one is that reaching exit 222 will take some amount of time other than nine minutes. And two, exit 222 is somewhere between 10 and 14 miles away. But the signs are there, and when it comes to local government, the effort is what really counts. Still, these signs don’t control your speed, nor do they inform you of wildlife on the road. That’s a job for the South Carolina state legislature, who can have my tin license plate when they pry it from my cold, dead hands.

24. Investing in Weather I’ve recently developed a theory. I’m going to share this theory with you, dear reader, because I don’t believe it could be printed anywhere that’s even slightly concerned with the factual accuracy of its information. The theory is: Atlanta is the wettest place on earth. I developed this theory because I live in Atlanta, or at least I live under a rather large umbrella somewhere in the general vicinity of Atlanta. It’s raining today, just like it rained yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that, and practically every day since 1732 when General James Oglethorpe landed in Georgia and announced: Let’s grow some peaches! For proof, I turn to data that I discovered online after a painstaking research process that involved opening my Internet browser and going to Wikipedia. The data says: Average Annual Precipitation, Atlanta: 50.2 inches Average Annual Precipitation, Seattle: 38.3 inches That means Atlanta gets more rain than Seattle, which gets so much rain that an entire computer industry was started there by schoolchildren who never had the chance to play outside. Presumably, this is the same explanation for the rap music scene in Atlanta. Of course, Atlanta isn’t actually the wettest place on earth. (Shocking, I know.) In fact, Georgia had a rather severe drought just a few years ago. But

the governor put a stop to that. You know what he did? He invited citizens to a ceremony on the steps of the state capitol and prayed for rain. This can be readily found with Google for anyone who doesn’t believe me, which is a group consisting of people who have undoubtedly never lived in the South. Two rather interesting things came out of this whole rain prayer situation. One is that it happened in the first place. The other is that it actually seemed to work. The proof is that six years later, it hasn’t stopped raining, which has made it very easy to grow peaches, but very difficult to, say, go for a walk. Perhaps this is the reason for the South’s obesity problem. The constant rain has caused other problems, too. It’s hard to go to an amusement park, or an outdoor restaurant, and when you do, you’re there next to every single other Georgia resident who decided to take advantage of the only dry day this month. Surely, it has also contributed to a decline in sales of porch swings, barbecue grilles, and above-ground pools, all of which are highly important to the South’s GDP. But these businesses won’t suffer any ill effects if they’ve invested in the weather. Yes, that’s right: invested in the weather. You see, just as a normal person might trade stocks, or bonds, or – with the right pompous turtleneck – foreign currency, some people invest in the weather.

I’ll give you a basic rundown of how it works. Mind you, this is coming from someone who was an economics major, but spent most of his classes thinking: I hope this finishes up before it starts raining again. Therefore, I may have some of the details wrong, and if that’s the case, you have no one to blame but yourself for even attempting to find any accuracy within one of my stories. Anyway: let’s say you run an amusement park. That means your entire operation hinges on a) the teenage roller coaster operator not showing up high, and b) sunny skies. But after consulting the weather calendar, or maybe one of your psychics, who is requested to show up high, you decide August is going to be excessively rainy. So you invest in August rainfall futures, which essentially means you’re buying insurance against rain in August. The result: it rains in August and no one comes to the amusement park, but you still make money thanks to that investment. Also: the roller coaster operator is free to stay home and get high. Really, it’s a win-win for everyone. Commodities brokers have traded weather futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange since 1997, when someone wisely woke up one morning and said: We don’t have enough ways to earn money. Why not make one up? Just a few years later, it was an $8 billion per year business, largely driven by energy companies hedging against the possibility of an unusually warm winter or cold summer.

These days, trading weather derivatives remains an important part of the Mercantile Exchange’s business. It also ensures meteorologists will always have a job, even if the nightly news fires them for cursing when they thought their microphone wasn’t on. But most importantly, it’s highly profitable for everyone involved. Unless, of course, a crazy southern governor screws everything up by praying for rain.