The Top Ten Things You Didn’t Expect To Happen To You In Your Life, But They Did

It’s cause I am today.

Hey, how are ya? I just got my weekly paycheck, so I’m going into the city to see Jackie-O Motherfucker at Tonic. Maybe I’ll snap a photograph or two, or maybe I won’t. You’ll just have to come back tomorrow to find out for certain.

Hey, you haven’t tried to buy anything of mine yet. Get to it!

I’m not getting any richer just sitting here, ya know…

THE TOP TEN THINGS YOU DIDN’T EXPECT TO HAPPEN TO YOU IN YOUR LIFE, BUT THEY DID!
(NOT MY LIFE, YOUR LIFE)

10) You got fat – Sure, dodgeball was fun in elementary school because you’d go all out in an attempt to break the kid-with-a-learning-disability’s glasses. And maybe you did. Maybe they shattered and the frames pinched his nose or glass got in his eye, and it was really funny at the time. Everyone laughed and hoisted you up onto their shoulders, parading you around the gymnasium or cafeteria–maybe they even called you “king of the ‘tards” for a day. I don’t really know–the story differs slightly for everybody. The last thing on your mind at the time was that you were engaged in physical activity. A few hours later when you ordered three slices of pizza at lunch, your active lifestyle prevented you from gaining weight. Well, now you’re in your 20s or 30s and most of the energy you exert comes from shitting or beating off. Meanwhile, the kid with the learning disability went to a big state school and got more pussy than you because he had to go to after school programs where he kept up with exercise and now he’s running marathons and looking trim and banging 7s 8s and 9s. You’re lucky if you date-rape a 4.

9) You started enjoying bland music – In high school, arena rock was pretty cool. There were bands like Smashing Pumpkins and Radiohead and Weezer, all of which wrote catchy pop songs and sold out basketball courts and hockey rinks across the globe. Maybe they played a festival together in the summer at an outdoor park or something, under a tent. Then, while some kids got bored with power chords and “structure,” and moved on to more experimental (and, naturally, more fulfilling) music, you stayed aboard the sinking ship and rode it all the way to Good Charlotte/Fall Out Boy hell! The shift seemed very subtle at first. Maybe your local alternative radio station started paying more attention to emerging artists than established artists. Maybe “Emo” became popular… I don’t know, I wasn’t there because I was getting high and listening to Peter Brotzmann. Anyway, all the music you like sucks, and it’s your own damn fault. You should get out while you can–put on that Blink 182 song about suicide and finish the job already, you twat!

8) You started enjoying talk radio… – Conversely, some people noticed this change in FM radio formats, or the blurring of lines between “Top 40″ and “Alternative” stations, and they switched the dial over to the Amplitude Modulation side (not me, I like NPR and the “found sound” shows on WFMU, cause they’re really high brow). “Ugh, what the hell kind of crap do they put on AM radio, anyway?” You wondered. Suddenly you came across a bunch of old white dudes yelling at younger white people about how they’re wrong, wrong wrong! All the damn time! They’ll twist words around until they turn, “I think the president has gone too far with this domestic spying agenda,” into a defiant, “I eat burning American flags and poop out George Bush’s stupid monkey face!” It was entertainment. You kept yourself tuned in to hear what the scary (probably overweight) white man would say next.

7) …And Before You Knew It, You Were A Registered Conservative – You couldn’t just think for yourself, could you? You had to let Sean Hannity and Michael Savage and those guys regale you with their stories about how “evil” everybody is and how if your last name so much as rhymes with Clinton you’re probably a terrorist. “Thanks a lot, mom and dad! Now I have to go through life fearing people are going to call me ‘Benedict Arnold’ or something on the street just because my last name is Plimpton! I DIDN’T ASK TO BE BORN!” (Sorry, I got off track) So yeah, you listen to those guys enough and you chuckle along with them and before you know it you’re voting a straight Line-B…Or Line-A…I don’t remember which one it is, because not voting is COOL. You were bound to turn from blue-stater to red-stater anyway–it’s the natural progression one makes in their life. Show me one person over the age of 65 that doesn’t vote Conservative and I’ll show you a dead guy I keep in my basement.

6) You like your parents – Shut the fuck up. I don’t want to hear about how you’re best friends and mom and you go shopping and dad and you play catch. Every Friday you have a Sabbath dinner or something, you might even go to movies together. It’s frightening and sickening and all other things ending in “ening.” Kids are supposed to be ashamed of their parents and rebel against them. You’re probably out of college by now, isn’t it time you just blow ‘em off and stop returning their calls? If you’re lucky, your parents aren’t together and you can hold that against them for the rest of their lives.

5) You got a pet – People who own pets are a billion times worse than anything PETA has ever rallied against. You go to work all day and your pet sits home alone on the couch with tear-stained fur and crust forming in the corners of its eyes–or worse, you keep it in a cage (not a “bed”), and it’s curled up in a ball crammed between four tight walls. It can’t get outside and play with squirrels or eat grass and take a shit (which is basically all it really wants to do anyway)…You’re basically torturing this helpless animal that never deserved to be stripped from its family on a farm in Virginia, anyway! You sicken me. Don’t even get me started on cats. If you own a cat you’re officially a psycho. The FBI should keep files solely on cat owners because those people are freaks.

4) You lost your hair (or, you grew more hair) – Girls on TV and in magazines are always saying, “Oh I like a man with hair. I like a manly man,” and “Hair doesn’t mean that much to us.” Yeah, right. Next thing you know it’s alright to have erectile dysfunction and chronic explosive diarrhea. “Oh, that’s natural. It’s real.” Then of course, the girl turns around and gets plastic surgery to plump up her lips or her hips or or tits, or thin down her waist or her wrinkles or her thighs. What a crock of shit! I guess the point I’m getting at is, don’t worry about it, guy. Growing more hair on your ass than on your head was gonna happen one day, anyway.

3) You fell in love – Yeah, right, sure you did champ! “No, seriously, I met this girl and–I think she’s the one.” And by “the one,” you mean, “she makes me feel really special and I’m totally infatuated with every aspect of her being!” Sure, for now you are. You’re comfortable, it’s alright to admit it. But don’t have any crazy delusions about it. The average person changes jobs seven times in their life (I think I heard that somewhere, although maybe it was that infomercial assignment I had to make in Radio Production class). Why shouldn’t they change relationships seven or eight times before they’re ready to call it quits and get hitched? How much can you know about yourself before you’ve had your dick in like, twenty different girls?

2) Your dick stopped working – “Oh, nice going, Evan. You told me I needed to get my dick wet more and now it’s not working! NOW WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?” I don’t know, don’t they make pills for that? Are you sure you’re even attracted to the girl? Are you sure you’re not just gay?

1) You got married - Ugh. Forget it. You’re totally lost. It’s not even worth talking to you anymore. You should’ve listened to me back in the day when I warned you about this shit. But noooooo, you had to run off and prove how “mature” you are. Have fun either a) never getting laid and dying like a worthless piece of shit, or b) losing all your money in divorce court and THEN dying like a worthless piece of shit.