Sarcastic Soul's Inferno

So a few minutes ago I was tinkering with the layout of my blog, attempting to add in some permanent fashion a notice to let you all know that my new official update days are Wednesdays. As I tried to go about doing this, however, I realized that Blogger's customization and layout options have an extremely irritating flaw: Without the use of HTML editing, there is absolutely no way to center-space anything. Not pictures, not lines of text, nothing. Everything is automatically left-aligned, which looks like crap. I finally gave up my attempts to beat this failure in the system and typed out a bunch of extra words (as you can now see above). As I did so, however, I found myself thinking surely there was a special circle of Hell reserved for people who create garbage user interfaces. And then I was struck with a brilliant idea for a blog post. In The Divine Comedy, Dante created his own hell in which he took some extremely offensive pot shots at basically all of Italy at the time. He put everyone he wanted to be in hell into his "Inferno" and granted them nasty hellish punishments according to the sin he accused them of.

So you know what? I'm gonna take a page from Dante's book, in a manner of speaking. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you:

The Sarcastic Soul's Inferno(*).

For those of you who are unaware or unfamiliar with the original piece of literature, Dante's Inferno was divided into nine individual circles of hell. The deeper into hell you got, the more heinous the sin committed, and the more severe the punishment. Dante assigned each type of sinner their own unique punishment which served as an ironic poetic justice, depending on what type of sin they were being punished for. So here's my spin on it.
  
* Disclaimer: The following blog post is a humorous satire. It does not in any way reflect the author's religious views, political views, or any feeling toward other human beings which is to be taken seriously. It merely reflects an unhealthy amount of sarcasm, a remedial knowledge of 14th century epic poetry, and a crude attempt at humor. Send all hate-mail courtesy of The Sarcastic Soul at ssoul.dmsdiscretion@gmail.com, or your nearest trash can.

Circle One -Limbo
In Dante's version, Limbo was reserved for the virtuous pagans, or those who were never taught the ways of Christ, but lived goodly, virtuous lives. Their punishment was eternal life devoid of the presence of God. In MY Inferno, however, Limbo is reserved for the Unfortunately Unintelligent. These people aren't necessarily guilty of any sin or crime, they were just born a few eggs short of a dozen. Without access to the guiding light of intellectualism, they stumble through life oblivious to their follies, or the fact that the vast majority of the time, they're being really, really annoying. The punishment originally assigned to this circle by Dante wasn't really a punishment, but in my Limbo it may very well be. The Limbo occupants must spend eternity in a library. An actual, educational, well-stocked library. Without a children's book section. Or computers with crappy games from the 90's on them. Not even Minesweeper.

Circle Two - YouTube Commenters
We all knew these guys were going to make it into this list, but it's a shock even to me that they're only in the second circle. However, after weighing the options in the list I planned to use, they just fit here best. Also, because the circles of hell decrease in size as they descend deeper, if I'd planted these idiots any further down they'd probably have ruptured their circle with overcrowding. The sin they committed will become blindingly obvious if you check the comment section of almost any video on the entire website. There are many, many subdivisions of this category, many of which landed themselves in deeper circles, but almost nothing positive or constructive is accomplished in YouTube comments. If you took a hundred thousand people, blindfolded all of them and gave each one a hockey stick and a megaphone, then penned them all up in an open room and told them the last man standing got his opinion plated in gold and stamped onto Mount Rushmore's Washington head, that would be the most accurate physical representation I can think of for YouTube comment boxes.
The Punishment: They're forced to spend the rest of eternity trapped in a small, dark room while the sounds of every single stupid, pointless argument ever had is blasted at them at an unbearable volume. And they're able to understand every single word of it.

Circle Three - Hipsters
I respect originality. I really do. In fact, I pride myself on it and have a habit of holding others to the same standard. I also understand the frustration of people assuming you're only doing something because everyone else is doing it. But when you've reached the point where you're doing, saying, using and consuming things for the sole purpose of being able to say it's not "mainstream," you've gone too far. When you're lurking around Hastings, wearing a shirt with a v-neck so low a prostitute wouldn't wear it, rambling about obscure indie band lyrics on your MySpace while you murder your liver and taste buds with Pabst Blue Ribbon, there is absolutely no way in any hell that you are enjoying your life. You are absolutely wasting every minute of every day trying to convince the world that you've transcended their "mainstream" or whatever instead of just enjoying life. And you can go ahead and claim that you don't care what people think, but if that was any kind of true you WOULDN'T BE A HIPSTER.
The Punishment: They're forced to spend eternity living among every other former hipster, wearing the exact same gray jumpsuit, eating the exact same foods, and robbed of any kind of originality. Meanwhile, a crappy tabloid news station plays over and over on a monstrous flat screen to report what's "popular" and "in" in the mainstream. And they're forced to emulate whatever that behavior is. Forever.

Circle Four - Stupid Drivers
You know when you're driving down the freeway, and some guy in a shiny new muscle car or a gigantic fume-spewing truck jacked up on ridiculous wheels rockets past you? And you watch them go past, look at your own speedometer and and realize they're easily doing over 90 in a 65 mph zone? And you watch them fly down the road, dodging and weaving and darting between other vehicles, scaring the piss out of the drivers and acting like morons? Well, what about those people who just cannot drive to save their lives, but insist they're the best drivers ever and continue to put the lives of themselves and everyone else on the road at risk? Well, let me tell you where those people end up, in case you didn't know. You know those massive 5+ car pileups, vehicle bonfires or dramatic rollovers that back up traffic for three cities and tack an extra three hours onto your trip? Guess who's responsible for that garbage the vast majority of the time? You guessed it. The speeders, drunks and flat out terrible drivers. God never intended these people to get behind the wheel of any vehicle that wasn't a matchbox car, and they've defied His will. Now you're stuck on the interstate, moving at the speed of parking lot while they call in the jaws of life to pry open the wreckage of that pretty blue mustang. And y'know, just a hunch, but they probably aren't just looking to see if her phone managed to send that really important text message to her boyfriend.
The Punishment: These people are forced to drive an endless loop in a junky, ancient vehicle without air conditioning, radio or functioning dials, in an endless traffic jam under fiery heat. To make things more fitting, they also have to pee like it's no tomorrow. They can wet themselves all they want, but it'll never bring any relief. If they try to leave their cars, some of hell's nastier residents are waiting to skewer them with spears and plant them right back into their respective vehicles.

Circle Five - "Gangstas"
When I say gangstas here, I'm covering a very wide array of people which includes both the serious gang members who shoot each other and act like morons, as well as the people who wish they were serious gang members who shoot each other and act like even bigger morons. The people I'm primarily referring to here, however, are the people who dress as if they checked their clothes in a fun-house mirror, speak as if they have zero understanding of how English (or language in general) works, and walk everywhere as if one leg were shorter than the other. These people have probably never owned or even fired a gun of any kind, listen to rap with lyrics that are 80% cursing and 20% abusing women, and wear backpacks that have Cookie Monster and Elmo on them. Because y'know. That's gangsta. They also seem to have mistaken those elastic book covers for headgear.
The Punishment: These special people are forced dress like Steve Urkel for eternity. Also, because of their affinity for backpacks and other clothing items intended for elementary school students, they're forced to listen to tracks from Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers and Barney, as well as the most irritating bubblegum J-pop music imaginable, on loop, forever.

Circle Six - Call of Duty Players
In all honesty, I probably could have just given this circle to "pretentious, elitist pricks" but Call of Duty players are the elite of the elitist, and the prickliest of the pricks. They operate every day under the assumption that their CoD scores, levels and records are their greatest achievements, that they are great and amazing people because they're good at CoD, and that all of us simpletons who don't play CoD are inferior as human beings in general because of it. There is no game, no activity and no achievement we can partake of or gain which can measure up to their amazingness, because it isn't CoD. These aggravating tryhards are the cream of the crop when it comes to people who give gaming, geeks and gamer society a terrible name.
The Punishment: The CoD players will be eternally trapped in a repeating warzone and given plastic toy weapons while they're hunted, fought and shot to pieces over and over again by unkillable denizens of hell armed with actual firearms and infinite ammunition.

Circle Seven - Hackers
In Dante's original Inferno, the seventh circle, The Violent, was divided into three rings. Each descending ring was more severe than the last, and each had a unique punishment. Sticking with the original layout, I'll do the same with mine.

Outer Ring - Bot Programmers
These are the people who are responsible for you having to decipher a blotchy, cryptic string of nonsensical letters and numbers to inevitably fail to type in correctly when you're trying to sign up for or post anything. Those programs, called Recaptcha programs, are designed to prevent the programs designed by these idiots from making a bajillion accounts on sites like Hotmail, Facebook and Neopets for the sole purpose of spamming you and all of your friends with ads for Viagra, pyramid schemes and "natural male enhancement."   
The Punishment: Forced to decipher an endless stream of Recaptcha codes, all of which are inevitably wrong every single time. For eternity.


Middle Ring - Identity Thieves
These lovely people use their gifted knowledge of technology and coding to hack into your email addresses, personal information and Facebook accounts to gain as much financial information about you as they can, and then proceed to impersonate you and use your credit card numbers, social security number and other information to spend all of your money and leave you more broke than a confetti egg in a blender. What's more is that they can be nearly impossible to catch once they have your things, so there's a really good chance you'll never have the satisfaction of seeing them caught while you spend the rest of your mortal life cleaning up their mess and giving the last rites to your mortally wounded credit score.
The Punishment: Dante already gives a punishment for thieves in which they're pursued and bitten by vicious lizards and snakes, which causes them to change, lose and trade shapes with the animals and each other. I've taken a different route with mine, however. Because the identity thieves are so obsessed with becoming other people, they're chained to walls while creatures with knives carve their faces off, and then replace them by stitching on someone else's. Which is then sliced off and replaced with another one. Ad infinitum.

Inner Ring - Malware/Virus Programmers
In life, these detriments to society write and program malicious software designed to attack and destroy other people's personal computers. The reasons behind this are their own, but I'd wager that most of the time it's just the giggles they get knowing that something they made is wrecking something that belongs to somebody else. Even if they can't see it. There is literally no good reason or purpose for this kind of thing, and it costs people between hundreds and thousands of dollars in repair costs.
The Punishment: Permanently attached to chairs and placed in front of computers where they're forced to create endless, pointless lines of code which are interrupted every so often by blue screens of death, at which point they're forced to start over in a Sisyphean struggle against the malicious fruits of their own labor. (Heh. Sisyphean. See what I did there? Classical references for everybody!)

Circle Eight - Trolls
Much like circle seven, Dante's original eighth circle was divided into 10 subsections called Bolgias, each pertaining to a different variant of the given sin. Again, I'm gonna stick to his blueprint and do the same with mine.
Bolgia 1 - Spammers: As old as the internet itself, these idiots spend all their time in cyberspace spewing forth useless gibberish for the rest of us to sort through to find actual content.
Punishment: Forced to constantly vomit a lovely potpourri of random things, just like they did with their comments.
Bolgia 2 - Ragers: Like all trolls, these people have nothing constructive to offer the world. Their sole purpose is to just rage and rant nonsense at everything. Mostly, they just do it to piss people off.
Punishment: Forced to spend eternity arguing. With an angry swarm of hornets.
Bolgia 3 - Chain Linkers: Exist to inform you that once upon a time there was a girl in a house who died and if you repost this retarded message twenty times in the next five minutes and say "Mecha-lecha-hi-mecha-hiney-ho" over and over the person you love's name will appear on the screen but if you don't the girl will kill you in three days for real this works my friend did it lolololol.
Punishment: Murdered repeatedly by a creepy little girl.
Bolgia 4 - Instigators: You know that guy who started the massive flamewar over religion in the comments section under the Cat Stevens video when he called him a muslim terrorist from china? That guy.
Punishment: Murdered repeatedly by muslim terrorists from china who are also Cat Stevens fans.
Bolgia 5 - Trash Talkers: Exist to inform you of just how much you suck at everything you do, and how much better they are, and how this one time they did [x activity] 100 times better than you ever could with their eyes closed.
Punishment: Repeatedly forced to do everything they claimed to do, exactly as well as they claimed to do it, with impossible-to-achieve expectations. Beaten furiously when they fail.
Bolgia 6 - Gaydars: Unbelievably adept at detecting things which are homosexual, referring to everything and everyone as "gay" or "fag."
Punishment: Eternally tormented, put down and hated on by extremely flamboyant homosexual demons.
Bolgia 7 - Thirteen-year-olds with gaming headsets: ...Thirteen-year-olds with gaming headsets.
Punishment: Placed into overtight straight jackets, and have headphones welded to their heads so they can eternally listen to a chorus of ten to thirteen-year-olds scream at them and tell them what gay loser homofags they are.
Bolgia 8 - Mythbusters: Comment on every video, forum post or news story to inform the world of just how incredibly fake it is, for X list of reasons, and more for the sole purpose of seeming smarter than they are.
Punishment: Spend eternity reliving every role in every experiment played by Buster the crash dummy from the Mythbusters show.
Bolgia 9 - Beggars: Every time they comment, it contains the words "like this if," "thumbs up if," or "+1 this if."
Punishment: Branded, instantly healed and branded again and again with thumbs-down, dislike, -1 and flag-for-spam images.
Bolgia 10 - Sympathy Seekers: Constantly sell sob stories about how they broke up with their significant other or their mom died or their [X important person] was [Y tragic outcome] because/by [Z tragic occurrence]. It's 100% BS, but they feel the need to share it with everyone in Life Issues threads, Off-Topic threads, and the comment sections of love songs.
Punishment: Forced to watch [X important person] be [Y tragic outcome] by [Z traumatically tragic occurrence] over and over.

Circle 9 - The Space Cadets
For a final time, in the original Inferno, Dante divides the ninth circle of hell (which is frozen, by the way) into 4 sections called Rounds. I'll do the same. These are the Space Cadets, or the people who are so far gone to the world that they have completely lost contact with reality and replaced it with their own twisted, stupid versions. Which they proceed to inflict upon everyone else.

Round 1 - Japanophiles: I cannot express with words how much these people irritate me. Even in college, they exist. They walk around with Naruto headbands they bought at Hot Topic, fox tails tied to their pants, etc. I think I've ranted about these idiots in enough posts already that you get the basic idea. You know how I feel about them.
The Punishment: Forced to commit Hara-Kiri over and over and over again. With a blade as dull as a butter knife.

Round 2 - Twilight Fanatics: You'd think that by now, this crap would have died off. But no. I blame all of these people for ruining the image of one of my favorite fantasy creatures.
The Punishment: Spend eternity fleeing from and being subsequently caught, attacked and killed over and over by REAL vampires. Y'know, the kind that don't sparkle or fall in love with unattractive girls with the personalities of bricks.

Round 3 - Tabloid News Reporters/Magazine Writers: Believe it or not, I know very, VERY few people who care to know who was best dressed or worst dressed at whatever event, or who cheated on whom, or what he said she said or whatever. And yet, these people continue to fill our lives with pointless drivel nobody important cares about.
The Punishment: Forced to report actual news. You know, the important, boring things that don't involve celebrities or scandal. Gasp.

Round 4 - The Entire Cast of The Jersey Shore: I am thoroughly convinced that somehow, in some way, this show is the root of all evil. Why else would a show about a bunch of brainless spray-tanned douchenozzles still be on the air with a nauseating number of faithful viewers? They alone can probably account for most if not all of the sins listed in Dante's original inferno. So what do we do? Televise them so they can be idolized and copied... Yay, society...
The Punishment: Forced to eternally lead unpaid, unrewarded, sub-average lives accomplishing nothing as productive, hard-working members of a society that cares nothing about them and doesn't give a rat's ass who they are, what they call themselves, or what they put in their hair.

So there you have it, folks. The Sarcastic Soul's Inferno, the not-so-spiritual non-successor to a 14th century epic poem by an angry Italian. As written by a 21st century angry American. You know where to send the hate-mail, and I look forward to your letters.

-The Sarcastic Soul-

Hold on to your pants, kids, 'cause it's about to get political up in here.

So, remember way back in my very first real blog post how I said I was going to try and keep this away from controversy and politics?

Yeah... Good times.

Now I'm going to completely pretend I never said that for a little while, because I'd like to bring to light a particular piece from what I assume was a newspaper. Just some good old fashioned American sentiment. Who doesn't love that? Right? Here's the picture:

Now, I got this image off of Facebook when a friend of mine shared it. Because it was published, name and all, over one of the largest and most active social networks in existence, I think it might be safe to assume I'm allowed to use it here in a nameless blog nobody reads. However, because I'm not entirely sure about that, I've taken the precaution of blacking out the author's name and home town.

Because I'm not the type to slander or otherwise demean people in ways that I might be sued over, for the sake of this post we're going to pretend this article wasn't written by a real person. Instead, we're all going to pretend that this letter/article thing was written by an imaginary character of my own creation. I'm allowed to slander my own creations without legal repercussions, and I can always work out the psychological repercussions later with my therapist. So now we need a name for my imaginary person so that I can accurately refer to him throughout the rest of this post. I'd like to call him Captain Douchenozzle McPointyfingers, but since that's probably going to get old about the third time I type it out, we're just going to refer to him as Skippy. Why Skippy? Because Skippy is the name I would give to a small dog. The kind of dog that acts tough behind a fence or a window, barks at anything that moves, and really, truly seems to think that if he makes that barking sound just one or two more times, it will change anything at all about his current situation.

So Skippy here makes a whole lot of comparisons in this little letter which are a little bit on the monstrously biased and ungrounded side. I could literally sit here and pick apart his entire letter comparison by comparison, so I think I'm going to proceed to do exactly that. Now, I'm going to make one thing clear here which I'm fairly sure I've mentioned before. My political naivete is astounding. Politics can be fun to discuss, but I tend to avoid the nitty-gritty, and I don't really actively keep up with issues. So instead of pretending to be a political mind, I'm just gonna go ahead and flat out say that I suck at politics. Fortunately, Skippy has given me plenty of material to work with here which is less political and more just flat out ignorant.

Let's start with this one: "If we [meaning white people, I guess] dislike a black person, we're racist and if a black dislikes whites, it's their 1st Amendment right;"

Well, actually, a white person disliking a black person isn't racist. It's just a person disliking a person. I mean, I dislike my neighbor for blasting crappy rap music through my walls, talking loudly on the phone and going out to check his mail in a wifebeater and a pair of basketball shorts that are three sizes too big. And he's white. The important thing to note here (and it's a common misconception) is that just because a black person tells you you're being racist, it doesn't necessarily mean you're being racist. In today's world, "racist" has become a term which means "you and I are different colors and you are doing something that inconveniences or otherwise does not make me happy." It's used by people of all races, and it's kind of lost a lot of meaning. As for a black person disliking whites, that's actually racism. I don't really know where Skippy pulled that whole 1st Amendment thing from, but I'm fairly sure being racist doesn't have anything to do with freedom of religion, speech or the right to gather in peaceful protest, unless there's a fire hose involved. I mean, I've read over it a few times, but I guess I'm just missing the part where it says "And also, black people have the right to hate all white people without being racist. We're cool now, right?"

Moving on, here's another of my favorites: "the government spends millions to re-habilitate criminals and they do almost nothing for the victims;"

Skippy, let me explain this one by taking an example from the wonderful world of nature, and the workings of predators and prey. Let's take a good predator, like a big venomous snake. Now, our snake is hungry and since he isn't fortunate enough to live in a tank at Petco, he's actually gonna have to go hunt for food. Today he's feeling rabbit because he's had shrew the past four times and he's getting a little tired of it, so he finds himself a nice rabbit burrow. Now, do you think he goes in to tangle with Momma rabbit? I mean, he's big enough to eat her, sure. Might not even be hungry for a really long time if he does. But no, of course he doesn't do that. He waits for Momma rabbit to leave the burrow and hop away for some alone time, so she can drink a pool of fermented berry water and drunkenly curse the name of Daddy rabbit for leaving her alone with twenty-something babies for that skanky hare from across the meadow. Once she's gone, the snake slips in and noms on some baby rabbits before making his escape. Why does the snake eat the little morsel baby rabbits instead of the big drunken momma rabbit? Because if he eats the momma rabbit, he's gonna have to find a new rabbit hole because this one won't be filled with delicious bite-sized baby rabbits anymore. See, the same applies to the government's spending in terms of dealing with criminals. In a country that's already so deep in a debt hole that we're about to hit China (who will promptly ask where all of their money is that we owe them) we don't exactly have a lot of money to be slinging around. Yes, they spend millions on dealing with criminals and don't do much to help the victims. They can only afford to focus on one side of that coin. They can spend it to help the victims, but that's like the snake eating the baby rabbits. There will always be more. Without an end. It's treating the symptoms, not the disease. And I wouldn't feel too bad about the victims, because we live in America, and in case you haven't ever watched television on any given channel for more than ten minutes, we're practically swimming in independent insurance companies. Y'know, those people whose job it is to help victims of crime? Yeah, those people.

Here's another shiny one: "in public schools you can teach that homosexuality is OK, but you better not use the word God in the process;"

First of all, Skippers, if you're teaching that homosexuality is okay, you probably won't be using the word God in the process. Last time I checked, every version of the Bible (including the fake ones like the Jehovah's Witness book) pretty much states that homosexuality isn't cool. So unless what you're telling the students is "God totally isn't cool with this, but you can go ahead and do it anyway," it isn't likely you'll be facing this issue. Second of all, I really don't remember anyone ever even mentioning whether homosexuality is or isn't okay in school. In case you haven't noticed, it's kind of a hot-button topic. There are a lot of people who disagree on the subject, so for public school teachers to say one way or the other is kind of grounds for having their employment status re-examined. What they can teach, however, is that bullying people for being homosexual is wrong. Thirdly, if Rick Perry's politically suicidal campaign ad on YouTube taught us anything, it's that Rick Perry really shouldn't be allowed on YouTube. But what it also taught us is that there is some kind of wide-spread belief that all religion is banned from public schools. Except it's not. While directly teaching religious material might not be okay, students are still allowed (and encouraged) to celebrate religious holidays, pray before meals, and other things of that nature.

Living a matter of blocks away from the Walls unit where the executions take place in Texas, this next line is topically relevant to my life! "you can kill an unborn child, but its wrong to execute a mass murderer;"

Before I even start on this one, I'd just like to point out that in this case, the "its" needs an apostrophe. Slight fail on both the author and the editor's parts. Grammar aside, I was up until this point under the impression that this was written about America as a whole. Not about roughly half of America while the other half either disagrees or are on the fence about it. I guess that wouldn't have made as snappy a title. Killing an unborn child... Hoo boy. Here we go. Everybody's favorite topic. Okay, so this is the part of the show where I get a little bit opiniony, so if you're easily offended by views on the topic of abortion that probably don't match up with yours... you probably shouldn't have even read this far, actually. So, using the term "kill an unborn child" is kind of making a whole lot of assumptions here. And we all know what assume means. Makes an ass of "u" and "me." It assumes that everyone either agrees or should agree with your opinion that a fetus is, from the moment of conception, a child. Or even human, for that matter. But here's the rub, sports fans: Until the 26th week of pregnancy, a fetus is incapable of thought. It may have a heartbeat, and it may have a somewhat human-esque shape, and it might even have fingernails. But it can't think. It's alive, yes. But it's only alive in the same sense as any other organ in the woman's body. I mean, think about it. It's a little collection of cells which feeds off of its host's nutrients and is only "alive" as long as she is. And so is her appendix, assuming she still has one. Both can be removed, and neither one will care. I think I've provided a valid enough exception to the dichotomy that I can stop before I offend any more people. Now moving on to the mass murderer thing... since when? Now, I may have been hallucinating from lack of sleep, but I'm fairly sure that on the night that Seal Team 6 (trademarked by Disney, Lord have mercy) put a bullet in the brain of Osama Bin Laden, I saw news footage and livestream video footage of a MASSIVE crowd of people cheering, waving American flags and chanting "USA! USA!" in the streets of many major cities across the country. You know what they were doing? Celebrating the execution of a mass-murderer. Yep.

And moving into the radical side of things: "if you protest against President Obama's policies you're a terrorist, but if you burned an American flag or George Bush in effigy, it was your 1st Amendment right."

Uh. What? I'm really curious as to when exactly protesting against a president's policies has been considered terrorism. I mean, unless your preferred method of protesting is setting off car bombs or mailing off envelopes full of anthrax. More than likely, this statement was directed at one specific incident, and that's not really enough to base a statement like that on unless you directly reference said incident. Also, yes. It's legal to burn an American flag. Because it falls under freedom of (symbolic) speech. And yeah, it's messed up. This actually might have been a good point if it weren't paired up with one that made no sense. Half credit for this one, Skippy. I mean, the audacity. People doing things which are morally wrong just because they're technically not illegal. How utterly uncharacteristic of the entire human race. ...Oh, wait.

"we have eliminated all criminals in America, they are now called sick people;"

Well, actually they're not. They're still called criminals. How do I know this? I attend school at Sam Houston State University. Which is a school primarily focused in Criminal Justice. It isn't focused in "Sick People Justice." It's Criminal Justice. People who go to hospitals and doctor's offices are sick people. But even people who go to hospitals for crimes they committed because of illnesses are still called criminals. They're called "criminally insane." Keyword: Criminal.

Here's one of my personal absolute favorite parts of this letter: "parenting has been replaced by Ritalin and video games;"

You're kidding, right? Oh, Skipperdoodle. You poor, naive little person. Parenting has not been replaced by Ritalin and video games. Parenting hasn't been replaced. It's just degraded on a large scale. I mean, I feel like you were close to being on to something here, but you're aiming at the wrong target on this issue. Parenting isn't the root of the problem here. The parents are. I mean, let's face it. In a country were over 50% of all marriages end in divorce and most of those divorces leave unhappy kids, it's already not a good situation. But when you throw in the part where most of the people we're expecting to raise these kids (or for us cynics, expecting to ultimately fail horribly at raising them) are a generation of selfish, entitled brats who didn't grow up beyond sexual maturity, it's kind of a no-brainer. But that's one group. I know for a fact that there is still an enormously large number of families who are strong, functional family units raising good, functional kids without the use of drugs. Blanket statements are a no-no, Skippy.

Next up: "the similarity between Hurricane Katrina and the gulf oil spill is that neither president did anything to help."

Yeah. Okay, so instead of commenting on what the presidents did or didn't do, because I know nothing I try to justify or point out will satisfy you, here's what I'll say instead. Skippy, let's assume you're right on this one. And you know what? You're so right, that the next time Mother Nature decides that her period is especially bad this week and she's just gonna curb-stomp some poor part of the country, we're not gonna wait for the president to do anything. Instead, we're gonna pick up our shiny red emergency phone, and we're gonna call you, Skippy. And we're gonna say, "Skippy! Come quick! A nuclear earthquakesplosionicane just vomited Godzilla all over New Orleans and California at the same time! Use your infinite wisdom of how our presidents don't do anything and save us, Skippy!" Oh, what's that? A nuclear earthquakesplosionicane and Godzilla sounds a little more extreme than an oil spill or a hurricane? Well, when the entire country suddenly turns its eyes to you and waits for you to do something about a natural disaster going on RIGHT NOW, I'd imagine it feels pretty much the same. So good luck to you when that call comes in, Skippy.

So in conclusion, yeah. You know what? There is a lot wrong with this country. And you were almost really good at pointing it all out for us there, Skippy. It isn't perfect here. In fact, it's pretty heavily flawed. But you know what else? I'm gonna go ahead and wager that when you had to take a dump this morning, you didn't have to wipe your ass with your hand before heading off to a job that paid less than five dollars a day. And I'm also willing to bet that you don't regularly go two or three days at a time without eating 'cause that's just not something you can afford to do right now. But judging by the fact that for a whole lot of places in the world these are daily challenges, we're doing pretty damn well despite the flaws. Though, I would gladly invite you to go spend some time in one of those less fortunate countries, if you're still not convinced. Just don't die from Malaria or anything 'cause y'know... we could have fixed that over here. Just sayin'.

-The Sarcastic Soul-

Dungeons and Dragons - College Edition

So as I was staring blankly at the pages of a textbook in my attempts to study for my finals, I realized something. Most if not all college students fall under certain archetypes with their roles in classes. As a geek, I’m fairly sure I’ve developed portions of my brain which are specifically dedicated to relating almost literally anything to D&D or Star Wars, so naturally I applied these archetypes to classes from Dungeons and Dragons. The results were terrifyingly accurate.

The Grunting Gym Mirror Addict - Barbarian.
There are many, many reasons I could list to explain why I don’t go to the gym. I mean, I live on a college campus. I have a student ID. I get into the damn thing for free and I have full access. But there are so many reasons why I’d rather spend an hour slamming my head in a door that I can hardly count them. One of the foremost reasons is because I am a short, skinny white kid who probably has no idea how three fourths of the machines in that gym function. (I stick to the rock wall. It’s easy enough to figure out how that works, and at least I don’t embarrass myself there.) Another primary reason, however, is this guy. The guy who never leaves the weight area, but makes extra sure that nobody forgets he’s there. I honestly don’t understand why every gym has to have at least one of these types, but at the same time, I kind of do. I mean, what’s the purpose of maintaining a body that screams “I probably drive a big truck and think I’m better than you” if you can’t use it to demoralize all the unfit losers who are trying to use the gym to better their own lives? I mean, there’s nothing wrong with being fit. And there’s nothing wrong with being fit and being strong. Any guy who says he doesn’t want visible abs at least a little bit is probably lying. But I’m talking about the kind of guy who probably consumes nothing but protein shakes, supplements and children so he can go to the gym and grunt at his reflection. Loudly. Listen, guy. Nobody cares. I totally understand that if I slighted you, you could probably break my spine. But I’ll be the one laughing when you can’t reach to scratch your own head.

The Class Clown - Bard.
Everybody knows this guy. This is the guy who always has some witty, comical and ultimately derailing comment to make about almost everything that comes out of his professor’s mouth. It’s nearly impossible to go a semester without at least one of them unless your major is incredibly boring and full of incredibly boring people. Always going out of their way to be the center of attention (when it isn’t going to get them in trouble, usually) these kinds of people adore the spotlight. I am that guy. Here’s an example. In my creative writing class this semester, one of my classmates wrote a short fiction piece that had their character waking up with a head injury in the middle of the school’s body farm, and no clue how they got there. In case you don’t know what a body farm is, it’s a secluded tract of land where rotting corpses of real human beings are left out in various conditions, positions and containers so that criminal justice and forensic analysis students can study how the body decomposes in different ways. It’s a place where therapy will never make you okay again. So anyway, my professor was fascinated by this story and had us all do a spontaneous activity where we closed our eyes and imagined that we had just woken up. We were in a forest with no idea how we came to be there or where exactly we were, and the first thing we see is a rotting human corpse. “Now what is the first thing that comes to your mind?” she asked. Without missing a beat, I immediately answered “I’m a werewolf.” Class derailed. Laughter ensued. Everybody. Knows that guy.

Campus Evangelist / Christian Frat/Sorority Recruiter - Cleric.
In every semester I’ve suffered thr- erm, attended, I’ve met at least one of these people. Now, bear in mind when I say “Campus Evangelist,” I am in fact not referring to that guy who shows up in robes with a plywood cross affixed to the top of a curtain rod who loudly informs everyone that they’re all going to hell. Nobody likes that guy. If there were a D&D class called “Shouty Obnoxious Asshole,” sure. He’d make the list. That class would probably include features like a 60 foot Aura of Projected Embarrassment, and the “Summon Unintimidating Bodyguard” spell. Basically conjures a dude in a cheap suit with sunglasses and a King James version who’s programmed to nod stoically every few words or so. But no, I’m not talking about that guy. I’m talking about that person who’s absolutely convinced you don’t have enough Jesus in your life today. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m a Christian, and I’ll state that proudly and firmly. But I’m also of the mindset that not every single sentence that comes out of my mouth has to be about my faith, or the apparent lack thereof in the person I’m conversing with. These are the people you don’t want to be Facebook friends with because they’ll make damn sure you never see what your friends are up to, because they’re too busy transcribing the book of Psalms verse by verse in their status updates every ten minutes. That is, unless they’re pausing to become a fan of Jesus, which will end up in your feed as well. They’re also usually blessed with an uncanny lack of a sense of humor, killing all of your own humorous statuses with the precision of a sniper using scripture for ammunition.

The Pothead/NORML Representative - Druid.
The population of (real) hippies and flower children may have dwindled to near extinction since the seventies, but one thing that definitely hasn’t is pot. You would honestly think that in a town with a state university that focuses primarily on criminal justice, and where almost every third citizen either is or knows a cop, the weed usage would be a little less… everywhere. But it isn’t. While most potheads are smart enough to keep it relatively discreet, there’s always that one dude who wakes up, gets stoned and then comes to class. They’re easily recognizable by their vacant stare, inability to answer any question (or sometimes even speak) and, if the class is after lunch, the five Chic-Fil-A chicken sandwiches they arrive at class with. While moderately irritating to some professors, I personally find them somewhat amusing. Maybe that’s just my bitter, cynical side enjoying the impending failure of yet another idiot (even if they really don’t care). The really annoying ones, however, are the NORML crowd. NORML, or the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, has found a comfortable home on college campuses. Especially those at state universities where the vast majority of the student body is only there because mommy and daddy told them to, and would rather be doing literally anything that isn’t productive. The NORML guys, however, are predominately vocal about their affiliation, and will take any opportunity to talk to you about it. No matter how much you don’t care. And no matter how much you clearly state that you don’t care. And no matter how often you interrupt them to restate that you don’t care. And no matter if you ask them if they’re high right now, and you could have fooled me, and I’m not signing your stupid petition, and no I’m not joining your damned group, and I don’t care if I get a free t-shirt will you PLEASE JUST LEAVE ME ALONE YOU POTHEAD CRETIN I HAVE A CLASS TO GET TO.

Idiot Japanophile - Monk
These guys have been around since high school for most of us, and they’ll probably carry on into adulthood until they realize that nobody takes them seriously and they have no friends. I’ve intentionally forgone adding Fighter as its own archetype here because the weeaboo community sort of makes up for both. College is a time of (relative) freedom for people in this country. A lot of people get tattoos, or drive tricked out cars, or dye their hair. Other people wear fox tails, ridiculous leather outfits and claim to have mastered martial arts styles which I’m fairly sure don’t exist. From what I’ve observed, there are three types of weeaboo skulking around my college campus. Firstly, there’s the fighty guy. This is the guy who probably goes home after class every day to binge on way too much Naruto. He probably owns at least one katana, claims to know multiple styles of martial arts, and will aggressively argue with you until the cows come home whether the last season of Bleach was better than your favorite movie or sitcom. They tend to attempt to emulate the stoic, uncaring nature of their favorite anime badass and usually end up coming across as extremely creepy because of it. Second, there’s the sage. This is the guy who’s like a walking fortune cookie. He likes to think he’s wise and knowledgeable because he can rattle off trite, blathering prattle that he thinks sounds like Asian proverbs. Here’s a hint. Google any one piece of proverb-esque advice he gives you, and it’ll probably come up as an inner monologue line from some obscure, poorly translated anime series. Lastly, there’s the full-out weeaboo. These idiots have usually completely lost touch with reality. They’re the guys wearing collections of faux fox tails on the backs of their pants. They probably speak mangled Japanese, definitely own more than one katana, and think that pulling a lower eyelid down while sticking their tongue out is going to insult you somehow. Dude. For the last time, your name isn’t Yushimaro. It’s Carl. And if you tack the word “san” on to my name one more time I’m going to beat you. If you’re that obsessed with being Japanese, you should probably look into what real Japanese warriors had to do with their katana collections when their fathers hated them.

Teacher’s Pet - Paladin
You know that person who sits in the front row of every class, always seems eerily into whatever is being taught, and always has the right answer? That person who’s always just a little bit too eager to helpfully remind people they shouldn’t be texting in class? You would think that the desire to win every teacher’s affection would have died off around maybe middle school, but evidently it persists. And it’s only downhill from there. Found most commonly in groups of freshmen who haven’t yet been spirit-broken and corrupted by the college world, these types tend to get along more with professors and faculty members than other students. Fortunately, these delusions only last until around the end of their second year when they suddenly realize that they have very few friends, and competing for the professor’s affection is pointless because literally nobody else is trying.

Health Nut/Outdoorsman - Ranger
While grunty annoying gym guy can be extremely irritating, he’s not the only type who turns physical fitness or healthy lifestyles into a thorn in my side. The health nut or outdoorsy types can be equally as frustrating to be around, but for entirely different reasons. These are the types of people you frequently see jogging the nature trails in the local park, or hanging around the sign-up sheet for the upcoming rock-climbing trip. They eat, live and look so healthy that you’d swear they weren’t actually in college or taking any classes. While they aren’t the grunty narcissistic kind of annoying that grunty gym mirror guy is, they have an uncanny ability to effortlessly make you feel terrible about the way you live your life. While you’re living in a small dark space surrounded by clutter with a kitchen full of frozen meals and starch, this dude probably lives on trail mix and organic powdered essence of healthy lifestyle. While you get most of your social interaction through the internet and the occasional trading card tournament at the card shop down the road, that guy probably strums a chord on his campy guitar and summons his woodland animal friends to lead him off to the nearest gathering of hot girls who think he’s the most sensitive, amazing guy ever. Screw that guy.

The Cheater/Walking Blackmarket - Rogue
The punishments and consequences of academic dishonesty have always been fairly strong, but they’re only getting stronger as the years go by. To even think about cheating, you have to be a complete and total idiot or self-destructively desperate. Or, you have to be this guy. The perfect balance of resourceful, bold and lazy, every campus has at least one of these types. Whether it’s plagiarizing an essay, reusing old projects from past classes or just flat out sneaking a study guide into the exam, these are the types who somehow manage to get away with it. Before the final banning of the use of cell phones as calculators, I had a math class with a guy who spent the entire semester using his iphone for one. After the final exam which I ultimately failed horribly, he informed me that the “calculator app” he’d been using all semester was actually an app for a universal math problem solver which showed work and everything. He aced the class. Another side of this type is the guy who hangs around on test day with a backpack full of scantrons and bluebooks to sell for an unreasonable fee. In almost every class, at almost every level of college, there is always a group of students who are unpleasantly surprised to learn that they have an exam today. And where those people are, the rogue is there to sell them overpriced scantrons at upwards of a dollar fifty apiece. And even though on any other day they’d rage at paying the price of two packages for one sheet, a desperate student and his money are easily parted on exam day.

Mister Serendipity Himself - Sorcerer.
So it’s the first day of class, and you’ve just met a person who seems pretty awesome to you. Funny, charismatic, great conversationalist, attractive. Pretty cool person, right? Watch that person. Because throughout the remainder of the semester, you will watch him sleep or goof off in every class he doesn’t skip, do a grand total of zero studying, and still somehow manage to pass the class with a better grade than yours. How? I don’t even think he knows. He’s just that guy. He’s just naturally good at whatever he picks up, and hardly has to put any effort into anything to achieve results which are probably better than what you got after two weeks of study or practice or whatever. And you know that girl you’ve been hitting on for months? The one who’s been flirting back and you’re planning to ask out this weekend? Yeah, he just noticed her, so you can pack it in and walk home because you’re done there. She’ll choose him every time, and most of the time she can’t even explain why. He’s like a vampire, except he probably doesn’t kill people and he doesn’t have to supernaturally hypnotize women to make them love him. …So he’s like a Twilight vampire. So he’s really not like a vampire at all.

The Bookworm / 4.0 Student - Wizard
For some people, it doesn’t all come easy. For some people, every accomplishment takes work, focus, determination and lots of study. I have one of these in almost every class, not just one every semester or so. These types of people follow a path in college I can’t even fathom. They have a neurotic, obsessive NEED to maintain a flawless 4.0 GPA or their entire world will melt down. Frequently perfectionist types (or just people who have chosen to pursue an extremely competitive or narrow job field) these people study harder and longer than anyone else around them. They pull off miracle A’s in classes I struggled for B’s in, and they still somehow find time to be social and not go insane during the process. They’re the people who know the entire syllabus for every class, the entire schedule (and all the updated and changed ones afterwards) by heart, they keep their every single action of every day in a planner and they seem to be succeeding at a plate-spinning act which would make circus performers gawk. That might be because most circus performers never went to college, but that’s just a minor technicality. I honestly envy these people for their drive, but I can’t imagine pouring so much effort into every single class for a perfect 4.0 every semester. I find it difficult enough to put that much effort into a couple of classes, much less all of them. And it’s not even because I don’t care or I don’t try hard enough. It’s absolutely baffling. As I’ve found, however, these people are some of the most fun to pick on. Here’s a little experiment for you college people to try out. Anytime you have a class in a big auditorium, and you know one of the people around you is one of these neurotic types, walk into class on any random day and slap a scantron and a pencil down on your desk. You’ll likely get worried murmers from people around you and other people starting to pull out scantrons as well, and when 4.0 or Bust notices what’s going on, be prepared for a psychotic break. Make sure you call the joke off before they hurt themselves, though. 

 

-The Sarcastic Soul-

When you play with fire, you usually don't get burned, but it does frequently end in property damage.

I recently dug up this little gem from a book project I was working on which shared the name of my blog. I plan to eventually publish many of these little posts and anecdotes into a humor book called “Letters From a Geek,” and this is one of the earlier entries into the project files. The rest were unfortunately lost to my hard drive crashes, but this one survived. I realize I have completely failed in my quest to post an update every day this week, but hey. Three posts in a week is better than I’ve done in months, so there’s that. I honestly think after this, the blog is going to become a once-or-twice weekly thing. But anyway! Here’s another fun tale from my childhood.

   

  It has become evident to me that in families containing at least two or more male children, at least one of them will be a pyromaniac. Even though I am a man, I cannot explain the kind of seductive power an open flame has on the psyche of a young boy. However, I do know it exists and that the only thing between that boy and arson is a clear plastic wall labeled “Common Sense.” It has also become evident to me that with any male children at all, common sense is anything but common. This observation is better displayed by my own immediate family than any other that I’ve met except maybe for my younger cousin, but we’ll get to him later.

    

 Even though common sense is something I’ve had a firm grasp on since early childhood, the same can’t be said for my younger brother Evan. From the beginning, he never seemed to grasp the concept that certain things were against the rules because we might actually get hurt or hurt something, and not just because our parents had some sort of rule-making quota to fill. This is probably the single aspect of life where the difference between us is most prevalent. If given a rule to follow, I will follow the rule. I may question the rule’s purpose, or the amount of sense it makes, or if we could be better off without it, but I follow it nonetheless. Evan, on the other hand, has always been of the mindset that if a rule didn’t make sense to him (or maybe just prohibited something he thought seemed fun) it really didn’t apply to him. And when you couple that mindset with his innate love of fire and the aforementioned male-child-pyromania syndrome, it’s a recipe for unfortunate experimentation. (Actually, unfortunate experimentation is a label which can be applied to the vast majority of a boy’s youth.)

   

  Fortunately for all of us, he didn’t take the douse-and-burn or the major criminal offense path. Unfortunately, I can’t count the number of times I walked into our bedroom to be greeted by the smell of the melting plastic remains of what was inevitably some small object which used to be mine (much to the dismay of his pet lizard whose heating lamp was being borrowed for other purposes). He did start with his own belongings, of course, but it wasn’t long before he melted through his own box of 24 crayons and realized he was out of his own stuff he was willing to experiment with. He swore up and down he never burned anything of mine, however. It was just a convenient coincidence that he happened to own a plastic army man exactly like the one that vanished from my drawer, or any number of rubber erasers which I’d obviously somehow misplaced from the plastic box on my desk. He eventually got over melting things on a heat lamp bulb which didn’t actually provide any visible open flame, but rather the somehow satisfactory feeling of destroying something, and thus moved on to the next best thing: aerosol combustibles.

  

   While requesting it under the deceptively innocent guise of keeping up their appearances at school, my brother and cousin spent many an hour spraying down their hands, feet, clothing, skateboards and in one particularly impulsive instance their heads with Axe body spray, and then lighting the respective areas on fire. Yes, folks, when one has run out of things to light on fire, the next logical step is to light oneself on fire. I quickly became accustomed to the smell of burning deodorant and justified my apathy and ignorance of the activity by assuring myself that at least they weren’t huffing it.

  

   I will never forget the day, however, when I walked out of my bedroom after a two hour-long session of Super Smash Brothers to find that the familiar burning smell from my brother’s room was a bit stronger than usual. Ignoring it at first, I proceeded to the kitchen where in the middle of fixing myself some lunch, I happened to look up and noticed a slight haze in the room. Upon further investigation, the haze was actually sweeping the entire house and seemed to be coming from the hall. As I entered the hallway on the way back to my bedroom (which for some reason provided a false sense that my brother’s activities would not affect me) I was greeted by my brother’s panicked face. He bolted from his bedroom and slammed the door shut as more of the haze poured from his doorway. We traded looks over a long moment, and in a decision which I both understand and regret, I chose not to ask why the house smelled like impending disaster and instead walked into my room and shut the door. That peace lasted all of fifteen minutes before without a word my brother opened my door, turned my ceiling fan to high and opened my window, then exited.

  

   With my last safe haven of blissful ignorance invaded, I decided to go and survey the damage to make sure that there was absolutely no way I was going to be blamed for anything in the coming storm when my parents got home. I found him running through the house with every can of air freshener he could find, spraying them liberally. It ultimately resulted in the house smelling as if someone had mistaken a potpourri arrangement for a fire pit. When I finally asked him exactly what was going on, his entire explanation consisted of “I burned something.” It was only when I decided to investigate his bedroom and found his entire bed flipped upside down that he decided to inform me that what he had burned was the entire underside of his bed. He had been using body spray to light little flash-fires on his skateboard when the flame followed the sinking aerosol fumes beneath his bed and ignited the fuzzy underside of the box. I said nothing, and returned to my room.

  

   Later, when my father arrived home and the house was still under a slight haze and still smelled like a Bath and Bodyworks warehouse fire, Evan explained the situation away by stating that he had “lit a piece of paper on fire with a candle”. Brilliant move there, explaining the smog, burned smell and the overlapping aroma of eight cans of air freshener. Either way though, even with knowledge of the obvious lie, my father decided he didn’t really want to know exactly what had happened and didn’t press the matter further.

   

  I learned two lessons that day: The first was that our smoke detector needed new batteries, and the second was that the instant he learned that the glass-bottle variety of body sprays could be turned into Molotov cocktails, I was moving out.

                                                                                                                                   -The Sarcastic Soul-

Jellyfish - An Episode From My Childhood

Ah, youth. A man’s boyhood is an important time of learning and developing of character to shape and determine the kind of man he’ll grow to be.

Unfortunately, my childhood is a large portion of my life which I would be happier to repress and never visit again. It still comes back to haunt me in quiet hours like some kind of vengeful spirit. However, as much as I hate to look back on it out of sheer embarrassment, I’m forced to admit that in retrospect, many of these somewhat traumatic events are actually pretty comical. This is one of them.

If you’ve never been to Surfside beach, anyone who has can tell you that you aren’t really missing much. It’s really only a beach in the basest sense of the word. It’s a place where ocean meets land, so it earns the title by default. A single visit would be enough to show you however that it’s really not much more than a glorified mud hole. The sand is really more like really gritty mud, and the water year-round is a lovely shade of dirty mop-water. I mean, I wouldn’t go so far as to ask to see my feet when I’m waist-deep in the waves or anything, but it would kind of be nice to see my ankles when I’m only ankle-deep. Regardless of the lack of visibility and sanitation, however, people still splash right out into those waves every year. I was one of those people until one fateful day in my youth.

I must have been in second or third grade, I can’t really remember which. My fruitless attempts to drive these memories from my mind have really only succeeded in scrambling my sense of age or time regarding when they happened, but the actual events remain clear as crystal. Anyway, the family had decided to take a beach day, so we packed up into the car with our sunscreen, various sand toys and beach chairs and headed out to the ancient wooden monstrosity that was Stahlman Park. The term “park” there is used fairly lightly.
There was a barbecue area off to one side, and there were a couple of playgrounds, but the actual facility itself was a large open room which was used primarily for weddings and church picnics. Most people really only used it for the showers and the easy beach access. It had been rotting in the sea breeze there since the 70’s, so the entire thing might as well have been one giant splinter.

Once we had gotten out to the beach and scraped aside enough seaweed to set our towels and chairs up, my brother and cousin and I began our usual beach day routine. First order of business was to dig a giant hole. Why? Because we were boys. There are few things more fascinating to young boys than digging giant holes to see what you can unearth, but since most fathers (including mine) frown on the idea of grabbing shovels and digging gigantic lawnmower-swallowing pits in the yard, the only place we were allowed to have at it was the beach. Once we hit the water table, we used the goopy slurry of groundwater, tar and sand to create all sorts of things like drizzle sandcastles and mudballs. …Actually, drizzle castles and mudballs are the only things you can make from it.

The next order of business is to try for the perfect balance of surface sand and water table muck to create the most stable mudball. The object was to make one that would bake solid in the sun and not break apart when you threw it at sandpipers and seagulls who got too close. At least until you got tired of waiting for them to get too close and started chasing after them instead. This game was always short-lived, however, because the parents would always put an end to it before much progress was made. I can only imagine their reasons behind it, but I’d imagine it had something to do with a combination of not wanting flying sand near their faces, and the knowledge that our mudballs would eventually and inevitably be turned on each other. I can’t help but imagine that it might also be the fear of what might happen if we actually did manage to pelt a sandpiper with a baseball-sized mudball and what exactly we would go about doing with it afterwards.
Naturally, the only thing left to do with a giant hole filled with something akin to quicksand is to bury someone in it. It was a process which left everyone involved covered in muddy sand and tar, and at least one of us buried waist-deep in a hole, trying to figure out how best to escape without losing his swimtrunks to the sandpit.

Now, as a child, I was somewhat more logical than my siblings and cousins. Their beach fun came unimpeded because they typically didn’t think too hard about their choices. I, however, thought about them a little too much. While I loved the idea of the beach just as much as the next kid, I was also unable to escape the knowledge that the beach was a giant collection of potentially painful hazards. First and foremost was the sun, which always managed to burn me no matter how much SPF Infinity sunscreen I was slathered with every twenty or so minutes, but somehow that danger was overshadowed by the many other hazards. The Surfside area is notorious for burrs in its grasses which are the size of playground gravel. One trip barefoot through the grass anywhere near the beach and your foot will look like you’ve been playing soccer barefoot with a cactus. Other hazards include the scalding hot pavement littered with shards of beer bottles and upturned crown bottlecaps, and of course, snakes in the saltgrass. However, aside from the constant worry over sharks, I’d never been too concerned over playing in the surf.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I was never really comfortable in the water out there. Something about the inability to see any part of my body was slightly unsettling, but I had a younger brother and cousin to keep up with and an image to maintain, being the oldest of the three. What I wasn’t prepared for that afternoon, however, was my first and most memorable encounter with a creature who has become one of my greatest nemeses on this earth:

The jellyfish.

A man o’ war jellyfish, to be exact. For those of you not familiar with your beachside demonology, the Portuguese Man o’ War or Bluebottle is not actually a jellyfish, but something known as a “siphonophore,” which is technically a collection of separate organisms which are incapable of surviving independently of the others. Regardless of technicalities, however, the little floating masses of goo and hatred look enough like jellyfish to me. Furthermore, in my encounter with one, I didn’t give a rat’s ass if it was or wasn’t really a jellyfish. Here’s how it went down.

I was swimming along, actually headed in to shore so I could get a coke out of the ice chest when all of a sudden, I felt something stringy wrapped around my upper thigh on my left leg. I figured I’d either managed to swim through a clump of sea weed, or my swimsuit was threading at the bottom, so I kicked around a little and it let go. As I got closer to shore, however, I noticed a particular burning sensation beginning to well up around my leg in that area. “Okay,” I remember thinking to myself, “I got stung by a jellyfish. I’ll just get out of the water. It doesn’t hurt that bad… Okay it hurts now… Okay, it really, really hurts now.” And before I knew it, my leg felt like it was on fire. When I reached the shore I was screaming and in tears, and I yanked up the leg of my swim trunks to find that the tentacles had clearly wrapped all the way around my leg at least twice.

Now, when I was regaling my elementary school secretary with this story on my daily trip to the principal’s office, I seem to recall some parts which may or may not have been true about how I battled an evil jellyfish while tossing around one-liners with all the wit my second-grade brain could muster. I believe it ended with me pulling it off of my leg (because in my mind, it was more like a stinging octopus thing) and throwing it as far away from me as I could. Then I showed her where it stung me and she gave me a hug and a coupon for the school store, like she did every day. She told me I gave the best hugs. I was proud of the fact back then, but in retrospect I’m fairly certain she thought I rode the short bus.

One part I definitely did manage to leave out of that version, however, was the part where I spent the next hour and a half in the Stahlman Park parking lot screaming bloody murder like a little girl as the salty air burned the living piss out of my already excruciatingly painful wound. Meanwhile, my father did his best to treat it. The first solution was naturally to pour some cold bottled water over it. While this seems logical at first, cold water actually intensifies the pain while hot water nullifies it. In addition to this, while salt water helps to relieve the pain and stop the venom, fresh water, such as the water found in water bottles, actually makes it worse. After learning that the bottled water wasn’t helping at all, the next step was to try vinegar which was oh so helpfully offered by a passing beachgoer. Now, vinegar is actually a fairly common treatment for jellyfish stings because it kills the stinging toxins. The Portuguese Man o’ War, however, is not a jellyfish. Pouring vinegar on a Man o’ War sting actually increases the delivery of the toxins and ultimately makes everything about it worse.

I was now in extreme pain.

Knowing of only one other remedy for jellyfish stings, my father set off to scour the beach for a bottle of meat tenderizer. Meanwhile, I was left standing by the car in the ever-blowing salt air screaming like a banshee and attracting the attention of just about everyone in the parking lot. Now, you can’t really fault my dad for leaving me there while he went for the meat tenderizer. He had the option of leaving his hysterical screaming child by the car, or carrying his hysterical screaming child around with him while he searched, which easily could have been misinterpreted as anything from child abuse to abduction.

Eventually the meat tenderizer was found and applied, and I wailed and sniffled the entire way home to the point of near hyperventilation.

Since then, I have been stung by at least one jellyfish every single time I have entered that water. Countless times on the legs, at least three times around the waist, once under my left arm, and at least twice on my neck. While I have yet to encounter a second Portuguese Man o’ War, I know they’re out there. Waiting. Looking to finish the job they started all those years ago.
Stupid siphonophores.

                                                                                                                                   -The Sarcastic Soul-

Leisure Activities.

In a new attempt to develop a habit of updating this thing more frequently, I’m going to try and post at least something every day this week (excluding Sunday, obviously.) For today’s post, here’s a look at what I do with my free time at home.

My upstairs neighbor has a very old bed with aging wooden slats, loose joints and an old box-spring mattress. How do I have such an intimate hypothetical knowledge of what this person’s bed is like? Because my upstairs neighbor has girlfriend or wife, and a hobby. And that hobby is to see how vigorously and borderline violently they can engage in certain bedroom activities. Very. Very. Frequently. And unfortunately for me, his bedroom is situated just above my living room.
Now, I’ve watched enough trashy daytime talk shows and Dr. Phil-type televised carnival freakshows to know that according to most people, a healthy sex life is key to a functioning, happy relationship. And I can respect that. But honestly, when it gets to the point where their leisure activities are more annoying to me than my beer-guzzling Broheim of a next-door neighbor’s rave music, there’s a problem. The only thing I have to be really thankful for is that my ceiling is evidently thick enough that I only get the creaking, and none of the “vocalizations” if there are any. (There probably aren’t any.) Though, quite honestly, given the amount of noise coming from that bed, I can’t be entirely sure he isn’t just stomping his mattress or vigorously practicing CPR.

However! As my therapists have told me I should try to do in potentially irritating situations, I’m trying my best to make the best of it. So recently I’ve begun developing a series of little games I like to call “Super Considerate Upstairs Neighbor Happy Fun Time Challenges.” Also, in case you didn’t pick it up innately, there is so much sarcasm dripping from that name that you could probably drown someone in it. Basically the way this works is, every time they decide it’s time to punish that poor mattress for existing, I try to complete a timed or score-based challenge before they finish. Probably not the most original idea ever, but it’s entertaining enough.

Here are a few of my Super Considerate Upstairs Neighbor Happy Fun Time Challenge games I’ve come up with so far:

Nerf Gun Shooting Gallery! The point of this game is fairly straight-forward. As soon I hear their bed start crying in agony, I grab my Nerf gun off the couch and quickly set up a series of targets (mostly empty Dr. Pepper cans) in various locations around my apartment. Using three clips of ammunition, each clip holding five darts, I try to see how many times I can take out all fifteen cans, reload all the darts into the clips, reset the targets and repeat the process before it ends. My record so far is about five. It probably would have been better, but I lost one of my darts and had to spend a long time looking for it.

Saints Row the Third Pedestrian Hunt! In this challenge, I load up my Saints Row the Third game on my Xbox and try to kill as many innocent civilians as I can before they’re finished. I honestly don’t have a high score memorized for this one because I typically lose count when I start using the chainsaw.

YouTube Comments Argument Challenge! In this super productive challenge, I use a mule YouTube account and head on over to any video containing religion, politics or someone’s favorite trashy song and try to stir up as much YouTube troll rage as I possibly can. I haven’t actually come up with a scoring system for this one yet, but it still counts. Popular strategies in this game consist of usage of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, trolling atheists, asserting that the content of the video is “fake and/or gay” and of course, claiming that a nonexistent indie band’s electronica remix of their favorite power ballad is so much better than the original.

Account Banning! In this thrilling event the goal is to log into a popular site such as Neopets and hit the forums to see how many accounts you can get banned by the site’s auto-filter bot before the end of the glorified death-throes from the upstairs apartment. Unfortunately, as I’ve learned, Neopets is a bit of a spoil-sport for this one because they force new accounts to wait for 24 hours before they’re allowed to post anything in the forums. What they don’t prevent, however, is the creation of large amounts of mule accounts in preparation for this event which are all cataloged in an Excel document by password and associated email address for quick logins. It’s not the most time-efficient challenge, but it’s entertaining none the less.

Random Object Roof Pong! In this fun and interactive challenge, the goal is to throw, jab or slam increasingly large and disruptive objects against the ceiling to see exactly how far you can go before they pause for the sound. Start with something like a pen or a marble, and slowly progress to things like broom handles, beanbags, books, empty 2-liter soda bottles, filled 2-liter soda bottles, miscellaneous plastic items and more. It’s important to note that if you’re planning to play this particular game, I’d advise you to first lock your door, close your blinds and turn all of your lights off in case they come downstairs to ask what the hell you’re doing. In the event that this actually happens, simply creep to the back of the apartment and sit silently until they go away.

And finally, Mood-Killer Music Roulette! Many people use music to help set the mood when planning to torture their mattresses. In this challenge, you do exactly the opposite by creating Pandora radio stations to try for the most mood-killing music you can think of. While soft rock, smooth jazz or The Fray might be easy or pleasant to make love to, I would imagine that death metal, hardcore screamo and the soundtrack to the children’s show Yo Gabba Gabba might be slightly more off-putting. When you find a track you think is good enough to do the trick, blast that noise as loudly as you can until the squeaking stops. This method also encourages the aforementioned precautions of keeping the lights off, door locked and blinds closed. It’s also important to note how many noise violations your complex allows before you get into trouble.

I’m sure I’ll come up with more of these in the future, because I don’t forsee an end to this cycle anytime soon, but for now I’ll make the best of what I’ve got. My therapists would be proud.

                                                                                                                                   -The Sarcastic Soul-

Or maybe it's just me...

There are few things in this world which are more special and magical than a trip to the grocery store on a Tuesday night. Especially one like your local HEB or Walmart, because you meet the most special people and challenges in these kinds of places. And because I’ve been experimenting a lot with the second person point of view in my writing, I would now like to present to you:

How to Survive a Trip to H-E-B, by The Sarcastic Soul.

It begins with the initiative. This will be arguably one of the more difficult issues you will face in this endeavor. You’ll likely look at the clock, see that the store closes in two hours, and figure that rather than give yourself thirty more minutes to do literally anything that isn’t grocery shopping, you’ll go grocery shopping and get it over with. Assuming that you’ve managed to remember to unhook your battery from your car (whose obvious alternator problems you’ve been pretending not to notice) and it actually manages to start, you’re on your way to what will assuredly be a memorable evening.

When you arrive at the store, especially if it is either of the two aforementioned locations, you will be faced with your first real challenge: the parking lot. You will eventually come to accept as fact that no matter how obvious or simple it may seem to you, no grocery shopper in the world knows exactly how a parking lot works. You will of course possess what seems to you should be common knowledge that when turning into a single lane in a parking lot, one should first make sure that the cars are parked in a way that their rear ends are facing your front end. This should assure you that when it comes time to park, you must merely make a slight turn and coast comfortably into your chosen spot. However, the rest of the world’s shopping population of soccer moms, cell-phone users and men driving trucks they’ve taken every precaution to make sure is bigger than what you’re driving have all inevitably failed to grasp this concept. And sure enough as you turn you will almost always be faced with an irritated person who, already frustrated by the fact that they must evidently be expected to make a nearly 180 degree turn to use these parking spaces, will proceed to glare angrily at you because you have further inconvenienced them. Before you back up to let them go on their way, however, it is important to remember to check your rear-view mirror for the agitated truck owner behind you who, regardless of space available to them, will not be backing up to allow you such luxury. Another circle around the parking lot should do the trick.

Another important parking lot hazard to watch for is what I like to call the “20-yard line buzzard.” This is that shopper who will do absolutely anything to obtain a parking spot as closed to handicapped parking as they can get without actually handicapping themselves. Notorious especially in Walmart parking lots, these determined detriments to society are well known for their signature technique of backing up the line of waiting cars into the interstate while they wait for the suburban in the spot they want to vacate the premises so they can usurp the position. Minor details, such as the suburban’s obvious lack of room to move without hitting the buzzard’s car, or the deafening chorus of car horns behind them are irrelevant to this shopper’s agenda because obviously, these are other people’s problems. They’ll be damned if they have to park far enough from the door that they’re winded by the time they get there. These not-so-gentle giants frequently weigh in excess of three hundred pounds, and live primarily on a diet of empty carbs, daytime TV dramas and the souls of the innocent. They aren’t dangerous until provoked, however, so when attempting to maneuver around them after they’ve parked, it’s often best to allow these land-manatees to shuffle on through into the air-conditioning.

Once you’ve finally located your parking spot which is usually somewhere between the parking lot’s filling station and Narnia, you will encounter your next challenge: Cart selection. You will eventually come to accept a simple fact of life when it comes to shopping carts, and that fact is that there are three types of carts which exist at grocery stores: Carts with broken wheels, carts with broken wheels that make irritating noises you will never be able to fix, and carts which other shoppers have gotten to before you. You will always end up with the broken cart, despite all precautions. This is something you must accept. So when choosing your wire-frame nemesis for each new shopping adventure, there are some important features you must take into consideration. Feature number one to check for is child-seat basket condition. This small fold-out compartment at the front of the cart is actually intended for children, however the majority of shoppers with children have long since learned that it’s much easier to blatantly ignore their child’s screams of undisciplined fury when they aren’t positioned directly in front of their faces. As such, the seat has become more widely known as the spot you use for bread and eggs. It is therefore important to make sure that this compartment opens and shuts easily, and that both the wire frame and the plastic cover aren’t harboring any foreign sticky substances of questionable origin.

The second most important feature to check your cart for is maneuverability. When deep within the reaches of the produce sections or razor-thin aisles, it’s important that you be able to avoid obstacles as you shop. A shopper’s cart is constantly threatened by a menagerie of hazards such as spilled or toppled products, upended cereal boxes, or other people’s children. It’s important that your cart not have a severe pull to one side or the other, and must be able to make a complete 180 degree turn in the space of a store aisle for that inevitable moment when you realize that you’re not going to exit that side because the Brady Bunch has decided to occupy the entire width of your aisle, and the next two over. It is also important to note that, while not particularly threatening while on foot, the aforementioned land manatees have now gained possession of the store’s entire fleet of scooter carts and are mobile. Pushing top speeds of between three to five miles an hour, these cart-commanding cannonballs of sweat and bitterness won’t stop for any reason that doesn’t involve placing food into the cart, so prepare for evasive maneuvers.

Now that your cart is selected, you’re ready to go. Once you realize that you’ve once again forgotten to make a shopping list, you’ll probably decide that it isn’t worth it to battle the parking lot again and press on from memory. Now, when it comes to actually choosing which groceries to purchase and how many of each item, there’s a bit of confusion involved. There’s an old saying that you shouldn’t grocery shop while you’re hungry, because you’ll either buy too much or you’ll get nothing but junk food. While there is more than likely some truth in this, you’ll also find that when you shop when you aren’t hungry, you’ll bring home a bunch of food which you’ll later look at when you’re famished and wonder why the hell you bought all this crap. Either that, or you’ll underestimate your weekly or bi-weekly needs in terms of food and run out by the weekend (but never before you’ve managed to spend all that money you thought you’d saved on thrifty shopping). Instead, always shop on a mildly empty stomach. If you’re hungry, you know what you’re hungry for and what you actually want.

This is where things get interesting. Do you want pasta on Wednesday night, or do you want the lower-effort instant gratification of a Hungry Man TV dinner? Should Thursday be seasoned chicken breast with steamed vegetables, or should you buy four boxes of Tony Chachere’s Jambalaya mix and a stick of summer sausage? What exactly is the difference between Oscar Meyer and the bologna with the wax ring you have to peel off the sides, and why does the wax stuff cost so much less? All important questions. It’s best to take it aisle by aisle and decide as you go along. The dairy aisle. You need sandwich meat and milk. Preferably a gallon with an expiration date which isn’t conveniently set to four days before you actually need it for something. Canned food aisle? Canned soup is a trap. Half of a meal for the price of dinner with leftovers. No, you don’t need the Dr. Pepper 20-can pack. How did you get to the snack aisle? Might as well choose some chips. Maybe later, though, because right now the girl who’s stocking the drinks on the other side of the aisle is judging you for being here. Back to the pasta aisle. Keep walking, you still don’t need the Dr. Pepper 20-pack. Pasta sauce is expensive, boxed rice dinners are cheap. Decision made. Bread aisle time. Always choose store brand, with the thin slices. You get more sandwiches, and they don’t expect people to buy the store brand so they’re jacked up with enough preservatives that they could probably be survive a deep-space exploration mission before they mold. Bypass meats for now because a motor-cart is lurking nearby. Maybe you do need that Dr. Pepper 20-pack. How are you back in the snack aisle again? Oh well, the judgmental stocker girl is gone now. Grab your Doritos quickly and move on. Also, swallow your pride and pick up that buy one get one free coupon hanging there. There’s nothing undignified about getting a free bag of chips. And you’d better get one now, because when the scooter-cart pilot stops by here she’s going to pluck the whole stack so she can haggle with the cashier.

As you can clearly see, there are a lot of complicated thought processes that occur whilst shopping. However, none of these are quite as important a decision to your weekly life than the decision you will make in the cereal aisle. Choosing which box or boxes of cereal to purchase is a decision which will alter both your satisfaction in your morning meals, and those you choose to have while watching Top Gear reruns on History Channel at two in the morning. Once you have chosen, however, there is no going back on that decision and you’re stuck with it. You could throw it out, but that stuff is expensive. You have to ask yourself important questions. Brand-name, or store brand? Box, or bag? Should you go the mature route and just buy some raisin bran or corn flakes? Will the woman down the aisle judge you when you pass by with a box of Cookie Crisp in your cart? Can you muster a poker face at the register as the cashier lifts a brow at the “Kid Tested, Mother Approved!” branded brightly on the front of your box of Kix Berries? Is there a good enough excuse to buy Lucky Charms while the child next to you wails like a banshee because her mother just turned down that same box?

Finally, make your way to the check-out line. In Walmart stores, with the regular influx of people being so large, they have invested in self-check stations. The lines for these are rarely as long, if there are lines at all, and one might be deceived into thinking that they’re simply a faster way to check out. Or perhaps it’s that each check station area is assigned its very own self-check Nazi, usually a particularly disgruntled employee who wasn’t blessed with the social skills to be a greeter. The truth of the matter, however, is that these machines are evil. They scan poorly, they insist you touch everything to a plastic pad which rarely manages to deactivate the security device in whatever is in your bag that’s about to make you the center of everyone’s attention, and heaven forbid you’ve decided on a selection of produce, because now you have codes to punch in (which are usually wrong). It’s like a phone number, except more complicated because if it were a phone number it would likely be 1-800-Just-Scan-My-Damn-Canteloupe.

H-E-B, however, has no such luxury. They don’t believe in that do-it-yourself nonsense, and are determined to provide you with face-to-face customer service. So it’s time to find a lane and prepare to wait. One thing you will learn quickly is that, in the check out lane, there are few safe places to leave your gaze. While waiting for the person in line ahead of you to fish stacks of coupons which may or may not be outdated from their purse or wallet, you can’t just stare at them. So you must find another place to look. Unfortunately, due to some kind of poor design flaw, the majority of the box which makes up the lane is wallpapered with trashy tabloid magazines with a wide array of poor choices on their covers. Also, unfortunately for you, judgmental stocker girl from the snack aisle has returned and is now your cashier, so the last thing you want to do is solidify her preconceived image of you by letting her catch you accidentally catching up on the latest Hollywood divorce gossip or staring at a picture of some actress or model’s half-exposed boobs. Staring straight ahead is rarely a good option either, because aside from adding that look of impatience, it’s rude to stare at the total amount being shelled out by the customer in front of you. Decide it’s best to appear very contemplative about what kind of candy bar or pack of gum you’d like to purchase. She was already on your case about chips, it shouldn’t make matters too much worse to tack a Hershey bar or pack of Trident on top of that. Especially since you have no intention of purchasing candy, so when you decide not to it’ll just look that much better. Make little eye-contact as she scans your items, looking somewhere between bored, irritated and shoot me. Pretend to be very interested in how much you’ve spent, as if you have a ridiculously tight budget.

When all that’s over and the cart is loaded up with your bags, return to your car. Remember that the law which gives pedestrians the sanctity of a crosswalk is only a myth in parking lots. Assuming you reach your car safely, head back to the safety of your house/apartment/den/man cave and store them away. Make the decision not to go back for whatever you’ve inevitably forgotten. It’s not that important anyway. Crack open a Dr. Pepper and enjoy what’s left of your evening.

                                                                                                                                   -The Sarcastic Soul-

Happy New Year!

So a while back I ran across an interesting little fact. Statistically speaking, the seventeenth of January is the most depressing day of the year. Normally that would only be of minor interest and I’d glaze over it and file it away in that vault of useless information in my brain. But, as it happens, January the seventeenth is my birthday. So I had to find out if there was any correlation, because it really wouldn’t shock me if there was.

So I did some digging.

Turns out, among other things, the reason that January the seventeenth is statistically the most depressing day of the year is because that’s the point by which the vast majority of New Years resolutions have failed and people are just feeling pretty down about that. Now, about three years ago I made a New Years resolution to stop making New Years resolutions and it’s worked out pretty fantastically for me, but I can see how this can be very true of folks who lack my gifts of foresight and realism. New Years resolutions, as everyone knows, are little promises we make to ourselves that, beginning on the first, will help to alter our lives and ultimately make us better, happier people. Why we have to wait for the first of the year to do these things is beyond me, because as far as I’m concerned, if you’ve never been to the gym a day of your life or you’ve been binging on some addiction you’re planning to stop, the first of the year doesn’t make your slate any cleaner than it was the day before. Just sayin’.

Despite all that, however, it got me to thinking. People continue to make these things every new year, and every new year they continue to fail to keep them up for very long (say, about the seventeenth of January). So I decided to come up with a fun little list. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you…

The Top 3 Reasons Your New Years Resolution Will Ultimately Fail!

Number One: The first of the year is just the first of the year. It’s just another day, just like all the other days you didn’t kick your habit, go to the gym, lose thirty pounds or act nicer to your boss you hate. There seems to be some sort of misconception that the transition from the 31st of December to the 1st of January is some kind of mystical cosmic event that will empower you to change your life for the better in ways which you have been previously unable to. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case. I understand the reasoning behind dedicating yourself to something like this because it’s a new year, and that Thursday in March the last time you thought about it was too far in to really count (or something, I guess) but the fact of the matter is, your body will still hate you for exercise, and it will still crave starch and unhealthy crap all the time. Your addiction will still be there and you’ll still be addicted to it, and your boss will still be an ass (unless his resolution was to be nicer to his employees, in which case you have a seventeen day grace period). There is no little mechanism in your body that’s going to say, “Oh, well y’know, since it’s the new year and all, I guess I can stop building up lactic acid that tortures you for working out, and maybe I can stop demanding McNuggets and Coke every day at lunchtime.” I’m not saying it isn’t possible for these goals to be attained. People do it all the time. But most people who make this kind of thing their resolution for the new year are under the subconscious impression that it will be easier to dedicate themselves to because it’s a resolution. It’s a crutch that will always snap beneath them and kick them in the face on the way down out of spite.

Number Two: New Years resolutions are the worst repeat offenders of the cardinal sin in changing lifestyles: Unreasonable goals. There’s an old idiom that goes something like “Always shoot for the moon, because if you miss, you’ll always land among the stars,” which essentially means “always aim really, really high because even if you fail, you’ll feel better for having tried.” Well, there’s a reason that “idiom” is only a single letter difference from “idiot” and while that reason is probably something more to do with a judgment lapse on the linguistics, I like to think it’s because idioms are a terrible way to live your life. More realistically, if you shoot for the moon, it just means that there’s a very long and painful fall below you when you miss before you crash resoundingly into the cement floor of reality. And you’ll probably hit a few trees on the way down, too. Let’s look at an example. A woman decides she’s had enough of being the human double-wide clogging traffic in the Wal-mart aisles, so she sets herself a goal to lose two hundred pounds. In a single year. As her resolution. Is this possible? Well, in today’s medical world where we have things like liposuction, companies that send you dietary meal plans with reasonable portions and an ever-expanding list of snake oil placebo- er, “dietary supplement weightloss pills,” sure. I’ll go out on a limb here and say that’s possible. Is it probable, though? Absolutely not. Chances are, our imaginary example woman will order some of those pre-made meal plan things, maybe pick up some placebo pills from her local GNC, go to the gym a couple of times in the month, and meanwhile she’ll continue to eat whatever she wants to outside of her meal plan. Because it’s what she’s programmed herself to do. Meanwhile, the days roll on and several outcomes arrive. Firstly, she probably won’t make it past the 17th on those pre-made meal plans because as anyone who’s tried them will tell you, they’re nasty. Real food (probably meaning the usual unhealthy junk she’s used to) tastes far better and costs far less. Second, if she does reach the end of the month, she’ll weigh herself and more than likely find that she’s lost a rather insignificant amount of weight. Discouragement will settle in and deliver the final coup de grace to her new years goals. The success of this goal will then ultimately fall to her income, because liposuction is really freaking expensive. And still isn’t a guaranteed success.

Number Three: The simple truth of the matter, regardless of what your resolution was, is that lifestyle changes are hard. And that’s what resolutions are. They’re lifestyle changes. Most of these decisions are made with the best intentions and usually backed by a little bit of alcohol, but the fact of the matter is it’s just so much easier to settle right back into the way we’re used to living. With new years resolutions, they tend to last as long as the excitement of the new year does. Which is about two weeks. Or a little under 17 days. When that’s over with, we’ve come to the realization I mentioned earlier that it’s just another year of our lives and whether we realize it or not, we fall right out of our resolution habits and back into our old habits. And when we realize that we’ve strayed from our resolutions, we sometimes try and run back to them but for the most part we just write them off as failures and go right on living the way we have been.
So when that magic seventeenth day of January comes around and you realize you’ve betrayed your resolution three times before the proverbial cock crowed, try not to sweat it so much. At least there’s next year. Unless you’re a Mayan, in which case you probably believe the world made a resolution this year to stop existing.

                                                                                                                                   -The Sarcastic Soul-