Plays and random stuff

1. Live through your children. Pressure them to be every thing you wanted to be. Didn’t make your high school baseball team? Buy a batting cage and don’t let your boy eat until he’s taken 2000 swings. Always wanted to be on Broadway? Bombard your girl with singing lessons until her vocal cords spontaneously combust. Make her tap ’til her feet bleed (or him if you always wanted a little Tommy Tune of your very own!). And document every second of it. Post pictures of the kids struggling in vain not to disappoint you, adding captions like “Future Star!” “The Next Albert Pujols!” and “Broadway Bound!” Be tough. No one ever got to the top going halfway, better to learn that early in life. Think of yourself as more of a life coach than a parent. Carry a whistle and use it to wake your child up for pre-school practice. They’ll love you for it later. If you don’t have kids, use your pets!
2. Be happy in your work. Pick a profession that fulfills you and makes your heart swell with joy when you get up in the morning. Who cares what your dream job pays, contentment is its own reward. Unless you have a family. Or you buy a house and want to avoid foreclosure. Or you just HAVE to have the $800 stereo in your brand new car, and now the payments are kicking your butt. Or you smoke and have to make sure you set aside at least $1500 a week for that purpose. Or you are responsible for a college loan. Or a combination of any of the above. Then you must abandon your dreams and take whatever tedious, soul-killing, monotonous drudgery that happens your way. And even though you’re so overqualified your nose starts bleeding as soon as you punch in, and you are surrounded by brainless, inept fellow employees who lack the imagination to even be depressed, be secure in the knowledge that fulfillment can be found in other ways. Community theater! Bowling leagues! Model trains! Cooking! Sunday morning softball! Religion! Local politics! Adult education! The latest electronics! X-Box 360! Living through your children (see #1)! The possibilities are endless to balance the 40-60 hours of mind-numbing torture with a few stolen moments of “you time” before you fall asleep on the couch and dream of the life you could have had if you just smoked less weed in high school/college/grad school/beauty school/correspondence course/rehab. Wake up, you’re late for work!
3. Take a moment to just sit back a laugh for a while. At the misfortune of people you don’t know. There are many, many ways to do this. Youtube is a wonderful source. If there’s footage of anyone in the known world taking a shot in the nuts since 1985, you can find it there. TV shows like Tosh.O take the searching out of your hands and scour the internet for you. Daniel Tosh makes snarky comments while a guy poops in a potted plant or some idiot falls out of a moving car while mooning. Laugh! You’re allowed! None of these people are blood relatives. They would laugh at you if they had the chance! (Honestly, if you’re not watching Tosh.O you’re not going to be truly happy. The guy’s hysterical.)
4. This one might be a little narrow but stick with me, I really think it works. Repeat after me: “Anne Hathaway is a talentless rat-face.” Bip, bip, bip, Rachel Getting Married, whatever…just say the words out loud. Anne. Hathaway. Is a. Talentless. Rat. Face. Now tell me you aren’t happier.
5. Eat well. Bake pies. Have a bowl of candy within reaching distance at all times. Get a deep fryer if you don’t have one already—you could stick a shoe in there and would end up tasting good. Don’t eat bread unless it’s hot out of the oven and smeared with a stick of butter. Add cheese to everything. Get a blender for banana smoothies. Add salt. Get a coffee maker that starts brewing before you wake up. Have Chinese food weekly. Bury your disappointment with your children (#1), depression cause by underemployment (#2), or your thinly-veiled contempt for bad acting (#4) with a lasagna and a few pints of Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia. Who cares if your backside is roughly the size of North Dakota or sometimes you swear you can feel your heart stop for a second while eating a Big Mac, what are you gonna do, live forever! Who needs those last few years, stuck in some stinkin’ rest home with tubes up your nose. If you get big enough you can always get that gastric bypass thing. Fat is the new skinny anyway. Nothing will ever fill that gaping, endless hole of darkness in your soul…but you can go down swinging! Monja, mine sweet potato!
6. This is the real one. Get a new shower-head with all the settings. How much is it, $40, $50? Best money you’ll ever spend. Trust me.