Lists are important to us from an early age. It
oftentimes starts with a young child’s list to Santa Claus, stating their case
as to the ways in which they’ve been good this year and are deserving of the fifty
things they are asking to play with for twenty-five minutes and then never use again.
A bit later in life, the list is used as a kindergarten courtship version of an
OKCupid questionnaire featuring the single most important compatibility
question: Do You Like Me? Along with the four possible responses: Yes, No,
Maybe and Not Right Now Because We Just Ran Out Of Fruit Rollups At The House
And I’m Really Upset, But I Think My Mom Is Going Shopping Today So Please Come
Back Tomorrow Before That Kid Whose Diet Seems To Consist Mainly Of Boogers,
Insects And Paste Tries To Talk To Me Again, Please Don’t Let Him Talk To Me Again!
As any good parent should subject their child to, I
started receiving little chores and duties around the house as well. Saturday
mornings started with a pancake breakfast and then my brother and I were given
our chores for the afternoon which needed to be finished before making any
plans outside of the house. If you are a parent of a young child looking for age
appropriate chores and allowance amounts to start assigning, check out the list
completely made by parents who have reached their wits end and are absolutely
irate with where each subsequent generation’s children seems to be headed. The
list of chores has been made available online at GoFundYourself.com
I remember a time back when I was a child that we had
a gentleman come to paint our house. After several days of work in the blazing
sun, he had completed the job…..or so he thought. For confidentiality’s sake we
will just call the painter Picasso. The next morning, I noticed a piece of
paper on the dining room table entitled “Picasso’s Punch List.” The document
appeared to have several areas in which the work he had done turned out to be
less than satisfactory. I grew fearful for Picasso’s safety, as the only
“punch” I understood at that point in my life was a physical and harmful one.
Later on in college, a punch list became a list of alcohol needed for a party,
but that’s a story for another time. I was nervous that my dad planned to harm
Picasso. I figured it was one punch for every bullet point, much like when I
sat down for a meal, I had to eat one grape or one carrot for every year I was
old (a rule that my parents enforced but did not seem to follow themselves).
When Picasso arrived at the house the next morning, he appeared to be very
angry with my dad as he exited his truck and my theory grew stronger. He also
began speaking in an altogether different language than the plain English I had
heard him using just the day before, because most of the words he said on this
day I had never heard before.
A punch list is
defined as a document prepared
near the end of a construction project listing work not conforming to contract
specifications that the contractor must complete prior to final payment. The
work may include incomplete or incorrect installations or incidental damage to
existing finishes, material, and structures.
Most of my work as a
comedic writer is based off of observation. My “ultimate formula” for comedy
can be summed up as follows: Real Life Situation or Real Life Observation +
Slight to Major Exaggeration = Funny. Things make us laugh because we either
think “that is so true” or “I’m picturing what they are saying and it’s funny.”
With some of these observations I’ve come up with what I think we can call a
Societal Punch List. These are just things that we say or do that I believe
need to be reexamined or done away with completely. One of the many memorable
quotes from legendary UCLA Men’s basketball coach, John Wooden is “A
coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment.” So, as I
go through the following list please keep in mind that we are all on the same “team”
as we go through this game of life together and the first step to solving a
problem is being made aware of its existence.
There are three “L” words that I feel our use of needs
to be completely done away with or at least reexamined: Like, Literally and
Legit. You can like pizza, you can like the song “Flex” by Rich Homie Quan. I
wouldn’t recommend that one if you want people to take you seriously, but you
can if you so choose. You can’t however, spend like twenty hours in like a mile
long line to buy like a fifteen bajillion dollar Michael Kors bag. My Public
Speaking professor refers to words such as “like” and “ummm” as vocalized
pauses. In simpler terms, this is when the speed of the information processing
in your brain-dome is not keeping up with the information output of your
mouth-hole. Since we have grown uncomfortable with even a second of silence in
this day and age, we feel the need to close the gap of our journey from verbal
point A to verbal point B with something. But guess what? Silence, peace and quiet
and reflection time is OK. As any parent will tell you, there will be times in
your life when silence simply becomes an unattainable dream. So take your time,
think through what is prudent to say and convey your message in a clear concise
manner. Because for me, having a conversation is very similar to being at a
concert, I’ll remember the beginning and the end, but I will spend most of the
time in between wondering where I can get my hands on some fried dough.
The next word in this atrocious trio is literally. I
don’t know whether it was the implementation of freedom of speech or the
creation of Wikipedia that made us feel as though in order to prove a point we
had to drive it home with this all important “L” word. Does this mean that
everything we’ve said up to this point is open to personal interpretation?
Allow me to pose a question, when you tell someone to show up at your house at
11 and they show up at 11:30, is there a difference between these two apologies
“I’m sorry, I got here as soon as I could” and “I’m sorry, I literally got here
as fast as I could?” Yes, there is a difference. The person who literally got
to your house as quickly as they could had the gas pedal to the carpeting the
entire drive over, showing complete disregard for unimportant distractions such
as traffic signs, other vehicles and pedestrians. The person standing on your
front porch is most likely being pursued by authorities for dozens of traffic
violations and quite possibly murder and should not be welcome in your home.
The person who chooses to omit the word “literally” in the explanation for
their tardiness has a story that goes something like this: They got in their
car, picked up a few items from the grocery store, went to the dry cleaner,
dropped off some clothes at good will, grabbed a bite to eat with an old
college buddy, got their haircut, signed up for a gym membership with
absolutely no intention of going, sat in on a DIY class at the hardware store,
boarded a plane and went on an all-expenses paid week-long vacation to the
Bahamas with their family and then headed over to your house, time permitting.
Which one of these people you choose to hang out with is completely up to you.
Last on the list of outlawed “L” words is the word
legit. This is a derivative of words such as legitimate and legitimately that
sounds absolutely moronic and should not be used in any setting, professional
or casual. In fact, if you catch someone using the word legit, you now have my
expressed written permission to smack that person over the head with whatever
type of sports transportation board they have tucked under their arm. Do this
until the four brain cells they have fall out of their ear, bag these brain
cells up and have them given to someone who can put them to good use.
Another word that needs to disappear into the olden
times of our vernacular is this recent referencing to one’s boyfriend, girlfriend,
husband, wife or otherwise significant other as bae. I was fine with baby,
although the sentimental value of referring to a love interest in the same
likeness as an infant was a bit lost on me, it was fine. This was then
shortened to babe, referencing an early 20th cigar smoking, beer swigging
baseball player, or according to my early childhood filmography, this nickname
is a roundabout way of referring to your main squeeze as an obnoxious talking pig.
Here’s the deal, there’s a bay in San Francisco, there’s a bay in New York. There
is not one nervously sitting across from you at the Outback Steakhouse, who has
doused himself in cologne and is attempting a Jedi mind trick on you from across
the table to convince you that you need to get the cheapest thing on the menu,
but do not need to split a dessert. Fear not those of you who loved the flirtatious
farm animal pet name, because we are now just one letter drop and probably only
a few shorts years away from simply referring to that special someone as “ba.”
A group of stupidity-laced specimens that need to be called out for the damage that they are doing to society are those people who order water at restaurants by saying
“I’ll just have a water” in this snobby, snooty tone of voice as if they are
above everyone else at the table or shortchanging themselves in some way. Do
they have any idea the minimal percentage of the population on this planet that
has access to clean, drinkable water or has it readily available at a location
close to them? No, they don’t, but I think they are totally deserving of that
Miss Universe crown that Steve Harvey has accidentally adorned them with because
they displayed the superhuman willpower to shoot right passed the wine list and
the sody pop, way to go!
Next up on the list of our community criminals are the
people who take all of the pennies from the “leave a penny” pile that other
people have so kindly left behind for those times when a person is short on
change when they go to pay at the cash register. They pay, get their receipt
and proceed to shamelessly scoop up all six pennies into their greedy little
pockets, walking off as if they’d just “stuck it to the man” because they don’t
have to pay taxes on those six pennies and they are now six sinful cents closer
to retirement.
As a child, I hated
going to the grocery store because what was promised to me as a five item, ten
minute stop quickly turned our shopping cart into a lunch meat, lime beans, Land
O Lakes landfill. This suffocating experience was not at all hastened by the
fact that my mother seemed to know everyone in the entire store and felt the
need to connect with them each individually in a deep, meaningful and very time-consuming
way. I hate grocery shopping as an adult, aside from the knowledge that I have
to get, pay for and cook everything myself, because every time I pull into the
lot, 90% of the parking spaces are occupied by shopping carts that people are
too lazy to put away. This gives the parking lot the appearance of a poorly
constructed paintball course and while it does keep young boys busy at their
first job, it is a pain in the butt. Please make the already stressful search
for a parking space a little easier for everyone by returning the cart to one
of the corrals, thank you.
This next one is really quick and very simple,
it’s the use of the phrase "the other day" There are seven options,
which one is it? Where exactly on the timeline of my life between “yesterday”
and “one time at band camp” does this other day fall?
A coalition
of motor vehicle morons who have earned their way into the spotlight are those
people who get into a left turn lane and then decide they need to go straight
so they just go ahead and do it anyway. If someone needs to fly from Tampa to Detroit and several
hours and a layover in Amsterdam into their flight, they realize that they’ve
gotten on the wrong plane, is it then on the pilot to compensate for the fact that
the passenger wasn’t paying attention? I was always told if I get in the left
turn lane, follow through with my turn. When people get in the left turn lane
and go straight, everyone around them is forced to pull these moves out of The
Fast, The Flipping Off and the Furious. If you just take a left at the light
and find somewhere to turn around, everyone is safe. Heck, it may even look
like you did it on purpose and knew exactly what you were doing the whole time.
An almost
daily occurrence that I feel needs to vanish into extinction is guys like
Johnny Manziel being front-page news and top story on shows that claim to
discuss "athletes" i.e. people who actually play. When I was in the
hospital my freshman year of high school, Adalius Thomas, a linebacker for the
New England Patriots at the time, paid me a visit and do know where we were in
the newspaper? Page four! Why do we have to highlight the negative and brush
off the positive? I’m sick of being made to feel depressed all the time and I’m
tired of people that children are supposed to be able to look up to behaving
like children themselves. All I’m saying is that when you have to apologize for
the same type of behavior time and time again, it starts sound a little less
sincere. We all know how “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” ends. I’m sure Johnny doesn’t,
because he could throw a ball and couldn’t be bothered with something as trivial
as reading. To the next generation of athletes, it’s time that we put the word
professional back into the job description of professional athlete.
There’s a hotheaded group of people
out there who need to cool their jets. I’m addressing those who get mad at
people who “sneak” snacks and drinks into a movie theater. I’m paying for it
somewhere, I’m not stealing money from them, why should the location where it
was purchased be a concern to them? I found the same product for a better deal.
In practically any other scenario this is called being a smart consumer. Every
time in my life I’ve pulled out a five dollar bill in order to pay for a 20oz
soda, I can feel Honest Abe’s gaze shift up to me as he grumbles “I think we’re
being cheated.” Although, in all fairness, that theory can only go so far,
because I can’t get a burger from McDonald’s and then walk across the street
and get a table at Chili’s and have the waitress come over and say
“What can I get you?”
“No thank you, ma’am we are just here
for the table.”
Lastly, I wish to bandage up some
personal childhood trauma. If you’re against capital punishment that is
absolutely fine, but a mass of miscreants that I think need to be strapped to a
time out chair and never heard from again are the kids on Halloween who would
take all the candy from the bowl on the porch with the sign that clearly said
“Please Take One.” They’re not a capitalist, they’re a dorktator and they’re
taking complete advantage of a situation and being unfair to those arriving at
that house after them. However, there is a silver lining to this that will
allow us all to sleep soundly at night. That is the knowledge that this child
will go through life slipping on a lot of wet floors, accumulating a massive
amount of speeding tickets and ultimately having a lot of failed relationships,
simply because they taught themselves at a young age that it was OK to ignore
the signs.
I’d like to end with two quotes. The first is from a
man whose magnificent manly beard make his words an ultimate authority, our
sixteenth president, Abraham Lincoln. He said “If the people decide to turn
their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit
on their blisters.”
In conclusion, some words of wisdom from a big friggin' cartoon talking bear who I'm sure scared the crap out of all of us as child......."Only you can prevent forest fires!"
