Strangely Naked

As a latchkey kid, a lot of what I learned is from television and comic books. I thank the writers and producers of those shows and feel obligated to honor their vision as surrogate parents (not fair, my parents were great…and are likely reading this and I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to avoid unnecessary and tedious conversations) to share the knowledge I have accumulated bestowed upon me by television, movies shown on television during that era and the odd game show.

1) Explosions are like a forceful shove. I don’t know why we bother training bomb sniffing dogs, why countries bother combing for old land mines or why the movie The Hurt Locker was at all suspenseful because explosions don’t hurt people, they just sort of pick you up and throw you a few feet, or, if you have a great strut, the explosion will leave you alone because you look so cool.

2) Hetero marriage makes a man a bumbling dolt and a woman an overbearing, condescending force of malevolence with amazing hair. It’s weird. How does that happen? Are marriage vows some sort of voodoo chant that involves soul replacement? Does marriage awaken the couple to the patriarchal paradigm and their inadvertent roles in it and thus, they react in such a way that kind of counteracts that while still maintaining the male dominance while also giving the wife a perfect hairdo?

3) Bid a dollar and get your pets spayed/neutered, dummy.

4) An elderly black person will impart some wisdom and a young black man will talk like either a caricature of a ghettoized Jar Jar Binks or like what the average person thinks a person who wears a sweater around his neck and dates a woman named Mitsie sounds like, meanwhile a black woman will slap someone.

5) Vampires and really all undead things are super-great at kung-fu.

6) The well-meaning-idiot is integral. Not only will befriending one of those innocent mouth-breathing dolts get you into life-defining situations, his/her/non-binary defined person will sweetly and improbably lead the rest of the group to redemption. By-the-way, if you’re looking to fill that void, I am a sweet dummy open to whimsy, which may get us stranded on a desert isle or be delightfully oblivious enough to give you a give story to tell later…for a fee.

7) Alcoholics are only ever lovably comedic. 

8) When ambitious people encounter human obstacles, the number one solution is murder. People are murdering each other everywhere at all times. Are you a lawyer, politician, CEO, CFO, general person with aspirations, homeless person who wants to be Rat King, musician, sort-of vigilante, waiter, or person who wants to experience love? I hope you’re okay with straight-up murdering someone because that’s apparently what it takes to achieve your dreams.

Those are the important lessons. There are other non-essential lessons, like “if you wake up somewhere strange all alone, you were definitely kidnapped by aliens,” but those are for another day.