Life Plan #356

You fail at something huge. Like your marriage, or feeding the baby, or your job managing the EZ-SQEZ Car Wash (cigarette break + gas leak).

89.6% of humans fail at something huge in their lifetimes (the other 10.4% are comatose, mute, or didn’t return our email survey). Of those who fail, only 0.02% will forgive themselves for it. (The irony of masking one failure with drinking/drugs/loud yelling escapes the 99.98% who try it).

No pressure, but—we have observed that the act of self-forgiveness, when executed properly, has the ability to rebuild whole car washes and scrub black tar from bricks.

Life Plan #355

Cockatoos live sixty-five years. Since you are a Canadian woman, your life expectancy is eighty-two. That means if you really want to do this whole growing old thing together, you should buy the cockatoo when you are seventeen years old. If neither of you take up smoking and you never have more than four drinks of whiskey per week (split between the two of you), and you always look both ways before you cross the street, you can expect that at roughly the same time one morning, you will look across the table at one another and say, “I’m ready.”

Life Plan #354

Do not bite the acrylic nails. Do not let the acrylic nails grow past the length of a post-it. Do not use the acrylic nails to dig in your nose. When your coworker leaves a note on your stapler that asks you to stop tapping the tips of your acrylic nails on the keys as you type reports, use one acrylic nail to flick the note into the wastebasket. Paint the acrylic nails purple, with tiny flecks of yellow, to remind you of nights from your childhood in Urbana, evenings spent cartwheeling under constellations. Do not bite the acrylic nails.

Life Plan #353

Waitresses must wear comfortable shoes because they walk an average of 1.4 miles per shift. This includes the shuffle between the coffee machine and the counter, the fast stride across the restaurant while balancing a tray full of BLTs and diet cokes, the gallop/leap across two chairs to catch a fellow waiter’s near spill of his own BLTs and sprites, and the pinched walk back to the kitchen to ask if table nine’s fries are ready yet, because they are loudly sighing and checking their watches every time the waitress sidles by with another tray destined for a different table.

Life Plan #352

How to Avoid a Shark Attack:

Swim in a group

Don’t swim after dark

Don’t swim in your sea bass costume

Don’t wear diamonds in the water

If you cut your foot on a shell on your way to the water and you look down and see the blood saturating the sand in a dinosaur-shaped pool, wave to your friends and say, “Hey guys, go on in without me, I’m not coming just yet, give me a day or two to let this wound heal over first.”

Stay fifty miles east of the Pacific at all times if possible

Life Plan #351

The worst part about being Celebrity A is that you fall in love with Celebrity B on the set of Action Movie C (late nights + flying harnesses), and you hit the red carpet together for the premiere, and the flash bulbs create a white haze that locks the two of you into a frozen moment in time (hand on Gucci belt + eyes together), and it’s this moment that you remember years later, after Celebrity B has run off with Celebrity D (sitcom pilot + guest spot) because it’s on the cover of every magazine at Convenience Store E.

Life Plan #350

Songs Your Cover Band is Going to Need to Learn Before the Gig on Sunday if They Don’t Want to Get Booed and Not Paid the Forty Bucks They Were Promised by the Club Manager, Who Totally Has a Reputation for Skipping Out During the Encore So He’s Not Around to Pay Up When the Set is Over and Then Not Answering His Phone For Three Weeks:

Free Bird
Mr. Tambourine Man
No Woman, No Cry
American Pie (special request from the manager to keep it under six minutes)
(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
Yesterday
Louie Louie
Ring of Fire

Life Plan #349

The average human releases 63 quarts of tears over the course of a lifetime. Ninety-eight percent of this liquid is wasted, either saturated in snotty tissues or scrubbed into the sleeve of a sweater. The other 2% is consumed after trickling into the mouth.
If you are looking to reduce the liquid your body produces, here are some tips: don’t fall in love. Don’t get a puppy. Don’t even look at puppies. Don’t watch Shirley MacLaine movies. Don’t have any friends who might one day make you proud or give you a thoughtful hand-knitted present. Drink cold water and frown.

Life Plan #348

buy car drive car like car spill ketchup on carpet
take care to take car to mechanic
race car wax car polish car
drive car to edge of lake for a picnic

crash car repair car make love in car
find ticket on car tune up car
spin car around parking lot, 7-11, 4:00 a.m.
scrape car against the lip of the garage

put car seat in car baby in car seat
drive car slowly brake car, stop
change tires on car
watch miles on car
change color of car
miss old color of car
sell car go home

Life Plan #347

Living in a commune in 2009 is way different than living in a commune in 1960. We’re not a bunch of free-loving hippies. Most of us take baths every day. Hardly any of us do drugs, or if we do, we do it quietly and with class. No smashing guitars or painting smiley faces on the insides of the tea cups. Really we’re just looking to form a large family. The larger the family, the less often you end up washing dishes on the Chore Rotation Wheel. Did you think of that? Your room already has a lamp in it.