To the Swim Lesson Parent Who Complains that His Child Should Pass this Level:*

Your little bundle of genetic material is clearly the best. For whatever reason, your DNA, combined with your egg donor’s DNA, formed a unique superchild with fearsome abilities. Your child, unlike every other child in the pool, somehow does not need to practice or even listen to the instructor. Your child, unlike every other child in the pool, has the benefit of supergenes that bestow him with the kind of infinite strength and ability that has elevated his back crawl to epic proportions. Truly, only idiots rely on the slow process of constructing muscle memory. Idiots like… every other child in the pool.

Your wrath at your child’s swimmy report card is of course justified. We swim instructors do not know what it’s like to deal with a prodigy; after all, we have only years of collective experience to rely upon. Perhaps even a decade’s worth of experience is not enough to truly grasp the level of talent that your child possesses.

If your child has not literally–literally–blazed a path of glory through that pool’s water, the swim instructor must take full responsibility for her failure. Some questions to ask: Has the swim instructor properly showed your child attention to the exclusion of other children? Has the swim instructor explained the principles of behaviorism to your child, forcing him to understand the dynamics of learning? Has your swim instructor stood over your child and corrected every single lapse into bad habit (even though your child does have bad habits)? Has your swim instructor repeatedly shouted your child’s name and, when the child pretends not to hear, jumped into the water and forcefully corrected that child’s front crawl? Has your swim instructor tried psychotherapy?

You cannot blame a parent or a child for a failure such as this, the failure to pass on the the next level. After all, discipline is an over-rated virtue, and passé besides. Why should your child have to deign to listen carefully to his instructor and apply what she has said? Why should you have to create a stable home environment? Most importantly, why should you have to take precious effort to deal with your child’s bad behavior? We as a society need not place these heavy saddlebags upon parents, the most important members of society, bar none. Truly, all parents deserve to have as much power as The President of the United States. Yes, The President of The United States.

You–special, wonderful parent, executive operator of all that should be, had no other options left. You simply had to verbally abuse a worker paid below the poverty line, to let her know just how poor a job she did with your flawless mishmash of DNA that you call a child. Congratulations on your forceful show of opinion!

*Mothers often have this same reaction, it’s not just Dads. In general, most swim instructors appear to be women.

I Dream of Simple

When I planned this wedding, I knew that I needed Mason jars–beautiful, simple, non-wasteful. I dreamt of those jars. Cosmopolitan’s wedding magazine, “Locked Down,” had a five-page spread about Mason jars.

Of course, I purchased them, but that didn’t mean that the planning was done. We still had so many things to do in order to achieve a tastefully simple wedding. There was the color palette, the sub-color palette, the guests, and the sub-guests. At least in terms of food, the decision was easy; “Locked Down” featured a picture of a lobster in a wedding girdle, and I knew that I needed it, our guests needed it.

I ordered that lobster. Sometimes, you just have to follow your dreams. I dream of simple. A beautifully planned party beneath a summer sky–what could be less complicated than that?

Perhaps eloping.

In any case, we sent out invitations made of thrice-recycled paper, and most everyone responded. A couple of friends completely ignored the wedding check boxes, and instead drew a picture of themselves eating corn. I knew that meant ‘yes’, and also, ‘would you please serve us corn at your wedding.’ And yes, we accommodated them, somewhat gladly.

In any case, the actual day was a blur. It was literally a blur, because it started to rain, and all of our beautiful chalk drawings ran. Also, someone left our tiered wedding cake outside. In effect, the rain upon the frosting only served to streamline the look of the cake, which my husband and I preferred. When the reception had petered out, we had our DJ spin Willie Nelson as a polite way of asking everyone to leave.

Comedy Definitions

A friend of mine, B.D., invented a couple of phrases helpful for thinking about performance.

Kaufmaning: To perform in a manner characteristic of Andy Kaufman, by 1. purposefully elevating one’s comedy beyond the audience’s ability to grasp the humor 2. pushing the boundary of what is considered comedy. Can cause extreme confusion and discomfort among audience members.

I don’t care how good of a job you did Kaufmaning, you will still be prosecuted for performing open heart surgery without a license.

The Corporate Laugh: A huge amount of laughter elicited from one or more unremarkable jokes told by a popular individual, esp. the CEO of a company. The audience exhibits over-appreciation for a number of reasons, including sycophantic stooging, inebriation or extremely low standards.

Did you hear that corporate laugh? Everyone really liked that joke about mortgages.

Feminists Agree: Reddit Troll was Right

In an overwhelmingly unified response, the vast majority of contemporary Feminists have agreed that Reddit user BigD560789 has cracked the code of modern-day, academic feminism. His opinions, originally published on the popular site, Reddit.com, include phrases such as, “What about the men?” “Women are breed sows”, and, most succinct, “Women suck”. The public’s attention has ignited around the labeling of an entire social movement as a non-issue.

BigD560789’s brief but powerful body of work rapidly gained credibility as social media sites including Buzzfeed and Gawker endorsed his collection of sentences. Within hours of the publication of BigD560789’s canon, Wikipedia’s definition of feminism changed simply to: BigD560789. Repudiated news source The New York Times ran a front page spread announcing, “Experts Agree: Feminism Extinct”. CNN wrote, “Feminism is Dead, and BigD560789 Has Killed It.” Most notably, Correspondents on Fox News Media have earnestly, doggedly advocated the designation of a national holiday in the name of this memorable event, as well as the nomination of the Reddit user to the status of national hero.

Less importantly, individual feminists have begun to weigh in on the rapid resolution of this age-old problem. Says previously-renowned ex-feminist Gloria Steinem, “When I read that peerless phrase, ‘Women should just get back in the kitchen’, I was floored. BigD560789 has stumbled upon the one true solution; we women simply need to stay at home and take care of our husbands and our husbands’ progeny. Years ago, if we had silently put down our signs and walked back into our kitchens, we might have spared ourselves from countless hours demonstrating.”

Feministing.com, one of the nation’s most heavily-trafficked site devoted to feminism, has shut down in acquiescence to the end of the movement. Says Lori Adelman, the site’s executive director, “Why bother any more? It’s all been said, namely by BigD560789. We should accept our clear and apparent inferiority and discover ways to contribute to society while sustaining positions of little to no power.”

Recites radical feminist Jessica Valenti, “BigD560789 famously wrote: ‘Compared to men, women clearly make equal money for the same work–but even if women didn’t receive the same, they deserve it.’ His statement has opened my eyes to the truth,” she said, sitting in silence for a number of seconds. “It all makes sense now. I can finally stop speaking drivel that no one listened to anyway.”

A Special Prayer

While driving today, I passed by a Privilege Road, meaning that someone at some point in time thought that Privilege Road was an appropriate name for a street.

Inspired by that discovery, and inspired by a thousand insipid Facebook posts, I have developed a Prayer for the Better People.

May others celebrate the amount of vegetables that you consume.

May a curator for the local gallery contact your instagram pics of your meals.

Upon completion of your daily exercise, may someone hand you a free tote bag.

Upon gaining possession of your new baby, may the entire world contact you with words of celebration. Not some of the world, but literally the entire world.

May your connections lift you up and place you exactly where you belong, on eagles’ wings.

Things You Fear but Secretly Want

Tell me that you wouldn’t secretly like one of these things to happen:

• Zombie Abraham Lincoln re-animating, stumbling along and quoting The Ghettysburg Address. Because if you can only meet Lincoln that way, then you will take the opportunity.

• Civil War re-enactors loading their guns with real pellet ammunition. Can those wimpy bullets could do any damage?

• The March of Dimes occurring with actual marching dimes.

• Reading actual sociological studies.

• All of the hippest cities succeeding at one time in order to form a mega-cool country–Austin, TX; Portland, OR; Portland, ME; Brooklyn, NY; Any City Where Pot is Legal.

• George Bush admitting that, during the years of 2001-2009, he just thought he was playing a really complicated board game.

• Witnessing Mitt Romney getting carjacked.

Heartbeat

My body lets me know that you’re the one. My body gives me unmistakable signs.

When I kiss your beautiful, adorable face, my heart starts beating fast. The beating induces a panic attack that typically lasts 20 minutes. I want to keep making out, but you usually make us stop.

When I see you walk into the room, I sometimes get the feeling of little tingles in my arms and legs, the kind that usually precedes a heart attack. I get so nervous about my vital signs that I experience another panic attack. You convince me not to call the ambulance.

Once in a while, when we make love, I see the world in an entire new way. I feel exhilarated, and my vision becomes clearer than usual. It’s almost like I’m high, in a spiritual sense. Then, the amount of oxygen that I swallow induces another panic attack. The sex actually becomes more harrowing, but you just try to finish as fast as you can.

Job Markets

When I was your age and no job market existed, we went ahead and created one out of sheer hard work. We scaffolded it, molded it, and erected it. We toiled, with grunts and groans, with bubbling callouses and deep, bloody scrapes. Upon completion, our job market stood alone in all of its glory, a sort of Eiffel Tower, if the French had made the Eiffel Tower out of money and insurance paperwork.

You, a Millennial, might not like to hear what I have to say. You might even complain about the accuracy of my advice, saying: Your description does not actually tell us how to build a job market. A job market doesn’t physically exist. To that, I will say that you need push your rolly chair away from the computer, stick your nose into your own armpits, and inhale the acrid stench of mediocrity.

And after that, you should go out and get a job.

Worst Writer of the Year Award

It’s only early 2014, and already I’m going to give myself the “Worst Writer of the Year” award. Seriously.

Most writers might covet it, because most writers hate their writing and would secretly love the satisfaction of knowing exactly how bad their writing is. However, I already won it, so everyone else can just try to content themselves with the title of “Second Worst Writer of the Year”, or even “Fifth Worst Writer of the Year”.

In a special ceremony taking place in Someone’s Mom’s Basement, Leo DiCap, worst actor ever, will present this year’s awards.

Comedy Doctors

Researchers have discovered that sham surgeries performed by improvisational comedians have little to no positive effect on medical problems. A group of scientists from Columbia University studied a local New York group named The River Shits, viewing a series of over 100 improvisational surgeries upon real-life medical patients from Columbia University Hospital. The River Shits called this series an ‘improvathon,’ spending over 10 hours conducting medical procedures with absolutely no medical tools or incisions. Reportedly, The River Shits botched over 90% of the procedures, and used invisible car mechanics’ tools in over 10% of the surgeries.

The research study, entitled “Laughter is Emphatically Not The Best Form of Medicine,” revealed that the total healing effects of these quasi-surgeries upon the illnesses, ranging from malignant tumors to spinal growths, was about .01%. The head researcher, Tom Johnson, admits, “At first, it appeared that one of the surgeries actually had a positive effect on one of the patients. He came out of the surgery looking much healthier, with greatly diminished symptoms. However, after running some stats, we now attribute the patient’s upswing in health to a statistically insignificant trend–in layman’s terms, it was a crock of shit.”

In its findings, the study also noted that many of the patients reported feelings of euphoria and relaxed drowsiness. The study’s conclusion urged future investigation into the potential use of improvisational comedy as a substitute for nitrous oxide.