Art Imitating Life

Dammit, English! will be an occasional feature on this blog, in which I discuss annoying, lazy, confusing, unnecessary, and otherwise wrong bits of American English. Additionally, you can find the full collection of these posts at artallen.net/dammit-english.

Hyperbole is a sacred, even hilarious institution of the English language–when it is used effectively. While we all grant that Frank Sinatra very likely did get a kick from Champagne, cocaine, and (while he may in fact not get much thrill from a plane–who does any more?) flying too high with some gal in the sky, we also see that he is making a grand overstatement to win the affection of a woman (Luck, perhaps?). We begrudgingly accept its use in everything from chicken sandwich commercials to, now, nearly ever political campaign ever.* But what about whiny Internet assholes?

I won’t begin to try to attack all hyperbole on the Internet. Much of it does bother me, but really, when you say “fuck my life,” you had better mean it. In the context, we can take “fuck” to mean “destroy irrevocably,” the idea being that a problem was so unsolvable and life-consuming that no refuge could be found in any other, more positive aspect of the fuck-sayer’s life. I find this to be exceedingly whiny and unnecessary in almost every instance.

Don’t misunderstand me here: this is not a rant against saying “fuck my life” in any situation. But let’s be selective! Some major life-fucks deserve FML; others deserve less severe fucks. I will illustrate scenarios and accompany them with appropriate fuck/subject combinations:

• Today I farted in the conference room and everyone knew it was me. Fuck me.
• Today I needed to clean out fifty port-o-johns at the spiciest chili competition. Fuck that!
• Today everyone in the world died. But somehow all the radiation from all those H-bombs doesn’t give me radiation poisoning! I was finally able to read all the books in all the libraries in the world. But then my glasses broke. Fuck my life.

*I said “nearly;” therefore it is not hyperbole! Also, that the statement is a goddamn fact makes it not hyperbole.

See for yourself:

A favorite pastime of mine is to contemplate the thing I am using in the current moment in time and to consider its history and its future. This may sound profound (pretentious), and maybe it is (it isn’t), but that’s not the hook for me.

What entertains me about this consideration is the ability to postulate absolute statements. For (a crude) example, as I lie here in bed writing this, I can see hair on my belly. I don’t know how long those specific hairs have been there—perhaps three months. I know they will fall out within another three months to be replaced with indistinguishable other hairs. Knowing this, I can say with almost 100% certainty that not one of the hairs that I can see on my belly right now is ever going to be the cause of my death. I am also 100% certain that they will never ever make it as far as Africa and that they will not ever be used as an intended ingredient in a dinner (or breakfast, for that matter. Lunch—we’ll see).

The other major source of amusement in this exercise is then testing these postulated absolute statements and trying to construct a scenario in which they are proven false. An example, using the first example from above, is:

As a belly hair is shed, as happens every day, it drifts into my cat’s water bowl; she laps the hair up, causing it to tickle her throat. As she is momentarily confused, she jerks backwards, directly obstructing my walking path into the kitchen, tripping me, and causing me to flail somewhat clumsily onto some sharp knives, which Emily has inadvertently placed point-up in the dishwasher, which she has (uncharacteristically) left open. One impales my eye! Instant death. Thanks a lot, belly hair.

It works for other things, too.

Number of knowings where I live. There is a finite number of times coitus will be achieved in the apartment I’m living in—by me, by all previous tenants going back to the 1920s, and over the entire span of this building’s existence as a habitable domicile. (Counterexamples: is penetration without ultimate satisfaction considered coitus? Does oral pleasure count in this tally? What if the oral pleasure did not achieve ultimate satisfaction? What if it did, but was a prelude to bigger things?)

Places where I will ride my bike. I will never ride my bike underwater. (Counterexample: oh god! What horrible scenario must I have gotten myself into so that I am riding a bike underwater? Surely some sort of gangster has forced me to flee from him and this, in a state of panic, seems the best, most logical course of escape.)

You get the picture. This works on literally anything you can think of. (Counterexample: some badass temporally-independent thing whose fundamental characteristics change in order to prove jackass amateur philosophers wrong.)

*Please do not read this as bragging. This is a complaint, at best.
**Probably facts, as far as anyone knows.

For as much fun as summer can be with all its semi-nude women, patio beers, and “summer hours” (also known as skipping out early on Fridays), its lameness cannot be overstated. You see, I have a fall birthday, and that means after Christmas I go an entire ten months without presents.

Don’t get me wrong, having a fall birthday as had its advantages: I was among the first of my friends to turn 16, 18, and 21, and that carried with it extreme gloating rights. But, like time itself, gloating rights are fleeting; presents last forever.

This lack of gift giving in my direction isn’t really a problem in the first months of the new year, as at that time I am sufficiently satiated, for a while anyway, from the appetizer of my October birthday and the feast of Christmas. But now that the summer months have arrived I remember fondly the days of anticipation and hint dropping, and I miss them like one misses a discarded half-hotdog that was too much to eat at the time but would taste so good right about now.

The great expanse of presentlessness might be dealt with by simply getting things for myself without tribute to my birth as the stimulus. But I can’t be expected to buy a season of The Simpsons on DVD or an iTunes gift card on my own; if I did, what would other people get me? I must think of others before myself.

I have tried putting it out of mind, hibernating the desire for presents by distracting myself with the fleshy, naked things of summer. However, one tormenting factor stands in the way of this and all other possible solutions: my sister’s birthday. It falls on June 28^th, three days off from being on the exact opposite side of the year from Christmas. It just sits there, smack dab in the middle of summer, taunting me with its even distribution of presents for her.

But no! Not only does she get presents, I have to give her one! Imagine being a starving homeless man, cursed by destiny to sit in front of Burger King begging for whatever pittance the passing fat business executives will throw at you. Now, imagine being forced to go into the Burger King to order a delicious meal with the money you have scrounged together after many hours of begging in the hot sun. But this is not a meal for you. This is a meal for the fat executives, which you are then expected to hand to them personally with a smile on your face as they unwrap and enjoy their bounty right in front of you.

Yes, an October birthday is a wonderful yet cruel, cruel fate.

Since September of last year, Emily and I have participated in a handicapped bowling league. The premise is that everything is super laid back. You come, bowl three games with some friends, drink a pitcher or three of beer, and have something to look forward to every week. We play for modest cash prizes at the end of the 14 weeks, but otherwise there is nothing at stake, aside from (very unimpressive) bragging rights. It’s not even a sanctioned league!

My point is this: it’s supposed to be fun.

But there are some who seem to take no joy from this weekly recreation. There are a few people we bowl against who are paying $13 a week (plus $2 for shoes, if the don’t bring their own) to do nothing but scowl. They bowl a strike, and it’s a straight face: no jump, no arms raised in victory, no fist pump. They feel no joy.

DUDES! It’s bowling. You’re paying money to enjoy yourself. Smile one goddamn time. You’re bowling!

In my search for a suitable bag to carry my things, I have come across what is, apparently, a common dilemma for women: how big and how many pockets.

The problem is in the context of the LAPG Tactical Bail Out Gear Bag (Best Seller!). This bag is badass.

This bag is so badass, in fact, that this manly man made a three minute video describing it. It is at worst a hilarious juxtaposition of manliness and what is wrongly considered “femininity” due to the fact that he concerns himself with a bag and its color and pockets, and at best an informative tour of a useful bag:

I want this bag. I want this bag so hard.

But the problem I find is that I already have a bag of this depth and length, but it adds extra width and a lot of extra pockets. It will be useful, but in what scenario? Will it really help me achieve my goal of wanting something smaller than a messenger bag or a computer bag?

Ladies and Enlightened Gentlemen, help me out here. Is it wrong to

A) Have a true carryall
B) Have more than one bag