1. Be born, and given an unremarkable name with some slight variation that makes it difficult to spell or pronounce.
2. Have a birthday party at a young age in which you’re the centre of attention. Crave this attention for the rest of your life.
3. Endure family issues throughout your childhood, preferably with your father.
Sprightly: Good afternoon, this is Robin from XYZ Insurance. I’m sorry I’ve missed you. Interested in saving some of that hard-earned cash? Well XYZ can help. Give me a moment to explain.
In a hushed whisper: I’m supposed to be asking you to agree to a competitive insurance quote but I’m just so burned out on this job I can’t even go through the spiel. I mean really, WHO CARES? Insurance companies are such self -serving rip-off artists. And my boss is an obese cootie who drops everything to watch me make coffee. Gives me the creeps. If he makes one more joke about insuring my body parts, I swear I’ll call the Better Business Bureau. Freak.
Dear Friend,
Let me first thank you for coming to my party. We don’t hang out enough, and we should. Sadly, as you may already know, when I get drunk, things that may seem amusing to me at the time reveal themselves, upon sober reflection, to have been in poor taste. With that in mind, and for expediency’s sake, please, fill out and present to yourself this abject apology with my deepest regrets. I look forward to putting this unfortunate business behind us.
There was probably a time in my life when I had not yet heard of the Rapture—the miraculous evacuation of Christians to heaven before God unleashes hell on earth—but I cannot remember such ignorance. “If the Lord tarries,” was tagged onto nearly every conversation my fundamentalist parents had about plans more than a week or so in the future. Every which way they looked they discovered signs the end was nigh. From the Gulf War to the “Kids First” Illinois license plates popular during my elementary school years, proof that the world was too corrupt to last much longer was seen everywhere. The most damning evidence that the Jesus’s return was imminent, though, was the utter lack of interest our small-town neighbors had in attending our church and listening to Papa preach at them about the sin of abandoning church in the weeks, maybe years, preceding the end of times.
It’s lunchtime on Thursday. The university commons room is abuzz. Students mill about, others dart their way to class. Blazer-wearing faculty walk to classes or offices. Administration rush around in an attempt to keep the whole operation from crashing. I weave through them with determination. I have a meeting with a vending machine.