Behave Badly, Please.

Why is the incubus of adulthood such an alluring concept to children? As we grow, we witness the adults in our lives working, stressing, working, cooking, cleaning, working, and otherwise behaving the way "grown-ups" are supposed to behave. Society expects adults to make it through an entire day NOT playing, NOT coloring, NOT pretending, NOT shirking responsibility, NOT eating an entire summer sausage, and NOT repeatedly karate chopping the air all around them. In fact, it would be possible to define an adult as one who has fundamentally extinguished the incandescent vitality of youth. Why do we hold adults to such a stodgy standard? My memory is filled with rapscallion adventures, skinned knees, and ninja battles that last until lunch time. I can't figure out why I ever gave that up. Sure, an argument could be made that if the world were run by kids everything would be a disaster, and if there were no adults nothing important would ever get done. But who really cares about all that? So, I call out to all the children of the land, "DON'T GROW UP!" At least I know I ain't gonna.

Blue Jean Samurai

What Calvin Klein and DKNY don't want any of us to know is how much R&D actually goes into the process of cutting holes in jeans BEFORE we buy them. We can all recognize how this "torn jean" trend has invaded our society, but what most of us have not considered is, who actually cuts those holes? How do they do it? The answer is simple. Samurai. A very discreet career aspiration for many out-of-work Samurai warriors is a position at the finishing table for designer jean companies. Not too long ago, a designer from Levi Strauss was having lunch with a buddy from Japan, who mentioned a group of warrior friends looking for work after the de-feudalization of certain regions of Asia. After an intense brainstorming session, the designer took the group of noble warriors to the testing lab, where they commenced a demonstration of their ability to maim the jeans without destroying them. Market research testers went ballistic. A trend was born. With as much pomp and ceremony as their previous station, a Samurai can effortlessly place slashes and tears in a pair of denim pants like nobody's business. Still afforded a certain amount of anonymity with a very decent compensation package (in comparison to a few pounds of rice), the Blue Jean Samurai can take pride in their duty like nothing they have done since the early 1400's. Of course, Ninjas have also applied for the same and similar jobs with Dockers and Haggar, but the trend of torn slacks never made it past the product testing phase. All efforts to verify the validity of this awkward method will be adamantly denied by all designers...so just take my word for it.

Rules

George awkwardly scuttles into the office bathroom. Because he knows Rule No. 2, he checks the toilet paper supply before sitting down. Instantly recognizing that the available supply of toilet paper on the roll is not sufficient for the task at hand, he retrieves a new roll from under the sink. Dilemma. Should George change the rolls now, before he sits down? Uncomfortably squirming while contemplating this perplexing situation creates an urgency in the decision making and subsequent movement. YES! Change the roll...HURRY! Plop. George drops the toilet paper roll insert into the toilet. Dilemma. Should George fish the insert from the bowl with his hands or should he find a retrieval tool of some kind? Splash go his fingers into the water and then straight to the sink for a quick lather with generic anti-bacterial liquid soap. Now, finally, when it seems that further delay would be catastrophic, George sits down, confident that he has shown a great deal of foresight in following Rule No. 2, even in the face of disaster.

Dancing

She wants to watch the Vikings' game. He wants to watch Keira Knightly in "Pride and Prejudice" for the third time this week. After the first few minutes of dancing around the conflict, they remember the lesson in conflict resolution given by the husband of his sister's hairdresser, Gregorio. Compromise. They could choose to watch their preferred programming in separate rooms. They could watch the game and then the movie. They could record the game and watch it the next night. They could decide on something completely different to agree on, like say, reruns of Moonlighting. But after the second few minutes of dancing around the decision to compromise, she starts to get upset because he only wants to watch theatrical renditions of Jane Austen novels. In turn, he gets tiffy because Brett Favre shouldn't be playing for Minnesota in any case. The whole idea of compromise is out the window. After the third few minutes of bickering about completely immaterial issues, they decide to go dancing. They separate to get dressed for the festivities. He walks into the hallway wearing a tuxedo humming his favorite waltz, and she skips out, nearly bumping into him wearing cowboy boots and jeans. After the fifth few minutes of staring tight lipped at each other, he suggests they forget about dancing and just stay home to order a pizza. She agrees thinking this might be the best idea he has had all night. Smiling to himself while he calls Domino's, he doesn't seem to notice her triumphant laugh as she pulls a Pizza Hut coupon out of the junk mail pile. Its gonna be a loooooong night.

Stargazer

Why does looking straight up at the stars make me dizzy? If I look at an angle, its not really that much of a problem, but tilt my head back just enough and WHAMO. Dizzy. Maybe WHAMO isn't really a "dizzy" sound...how about something like ZOOM or WIZZ? Those don't sound quite right either. I guess just use your imagination for what it sounds like in your head when you get dizzy. That's not the important part of the story anyway. Who really cares what the correct sound for "dizzy" is? So, an alternative to tilting your head back is to actually lie down in the grass and stare straight up, but then guess what happens. Chiggers. Ants. Grass Stains. Dirt. All sorts of unpleasantness. Thats why I usually choose to stare straight up, while I am standing. When I get dizzy (forget about the sound already) and feel like I am about to fall over (remember all the bad stuff that happens once you hit the ground...?) I just bring my head back to the normal position very slowly. I can probably repeat this stare-straight-up-and-return-to-normal process about 100 times before I get dizzy anyway, or just fall asleep. Thats why I want to learn as much about Ergoastronomics as possible. Then I can be a real, honest-to-goodness Stargazer.

Honest Farming

If I were an honest-to-goodness Farmer, as a job and a lifestyle (not just on the computer), you might think picking which plants to grow would be a very important and difficult decision. For example, depending on your climate and soil type, you might choose from several plants that grow well in those particular conditions, more than likely focusing on those that have the highest sale value. After all, we are in this to make money, right? Now, probably the plants that have the highest sale value are the most popular and delicious (we will just call them "cool" for simplicity): tomatoes, watermelon, cucumbers, marshmallows, peas, corn, potatoes, etc. So, if all the farmers only grew the most popular and delicious plants, in an effort to maximize their profit, why would anyone choose to grow the most unpopular and disgusting plants (we will just call them "nerdy" for simplicity): Brussels sprouts, rutabaga, anchovies, kale, etc. It is truly a mystery how so many of the "nerdy" plants have managed to remain in existence. If I were an honest-to-goodness Farmer, I would grow tomatoes because I like them the best. Plus I would vote that Farmers who chose to grow "nerdy" plants had to change to something "cool" as soon as possible.

Fixing It

Try to print a label. Label printer won't turn on. Its broke. Is it plugged in? Yep. Are all the cords hooked up right? Yep. Its broke. The boss'll buy a new one. Disconnect the old one. Its broke. Hook up the new one at the front desk. Take the old one back to the office. Its broke. Fix it. Solve the mystery, fix the label printer, print the label. Eat a banana.