A Load of Hooey (13 page)

“
A girl should be two things: classy and fabulous
. Oh, and shallow—really, really shallow.”

—Coco Chanel

SO YOU WANT TO GET A TATTOO!

“A tattoo is forever.” —Steven Hawkings
*

FIRST, PAUSE!

It's true: a tattoo, drawn in permanent ink, will stay on your body forever, so you need to make the RIGHT CHOICE. You need time to think about the possibilities, contemplate what has meaning for you, and consider how the image will age with you in time. With this in mind, we have the three criteria you should follow for tattoo hunting:

       
1.
    
Do Not Be in a Hurry.

       
2.
    
Do Not Be Drunk.

       
3.
    
Do Not Be Drunk and in a Hurry.

These are simple directives, but if you cannot follow them, we understand. It's very common for these simple rules to be discarded in the face of the notion of getting a permanent tattoo permanently drilled into your skin forever and ever.

So, you're set on it, are you? You are getting a tattoo, and you're drunk, and you have to do it right now? Fine. Glad I made that first list. Onward.

MAKE A LIST OF THINGS YOU LOVE!

You need to make a list of things you love. These cannot be things you love today, or this week, or even this year. These must be things you've loved for a long, long time. Below is an example list. This is not necessarily the list you would make, but it's close enough so that you can use it, since you're drunk and in a hurry.

Example Tattoo List:

       
1.
    
Mom (yours)

       
2.
    
Favorite movie (e.g.,
The Big Lebowski
)

       
3.
    
Girlfriend's name (e.g., “Jane”)

       
4.
    
Favorite rock band (e.g., “RUSH”)

       
5.
    
Favorite album/year (e.g.,
2112
)

       
6.
    
Celtic/yin-yang design

       
7.
    
Something you like, have always liked, and will always like (e.g., “A Piece of Chocolate Cake”)

Let's look closer at your list.

First of all, “Mom,” the classic, made popular by men who'd spent time in the trenches of WWI and its sequel,
WWII: Germany Doubles Down
. These men made wise choices, getting tattoos that reminded them of their mothers—the only women who truly loved them. Keep in mind, this was the early part of last century,
so these were stay-at-home moms. Nowadays Mom has to work to keep the family in two cars and wireless devices (and a house), so we justifiably feel far less affection for her. Scratch Mom off the list.

The second one—favorite movie. Here you might choose to get the name of the movie tattooed, or a character—like the popular character of the Dude from
The Big Lebowski
. This will always remind you of a lazy stoner guy who made you smile whenever he was on screen. Here's the rub; if you get this tattoo, then people will always be playing this movie for you—at every birthday, at your bachelor (or bachelorette) party, on Father's Day. No movie can withstand this kind of scrutiny, believe me. I know a guy with an image of
Napoleon Dynamite
on his forearm and he's constantly asked if he “still loves that movie,” to which he always grins and says, “Leave me alone.”

This same logic can be applied to the next two tattoo possibilities on your list: you favorite rock band and/or album. Your taste will change as you grow older. You may even stop listening to music completely as you turn fifty and become enamored of talk radio and the rantings of your favorite pundit, or when your “favorite” band reunites for “one last tour” and you pay too much to see them and they just sound like crap, and Neal Peart looks like the angry neighbor who called the cops on you when you were a teenager. I promise you will get sick of your favorite music right now, no matter how much you like it. However, you can always get a tattoo of “Weird Al” Yankovic, as he's a “perennial”—and thanks to his ironic dimension, he remains relevant forever.

Do not get a Celtic symbol or a yin-yang design. They just
become wallpaper. People won't even ask you about them. What good is a tattoo if it evokes nothing from people around you? It has to be a statement of some kind. You're not
that
drunk, are you?

Finally, something you love, always have, and always will. “A Piece of Chocolate Cake.” Is this a legit tattoo? I've never seen it done, but here's what I know. Everyone likes chocolate, and everyone likes cake. People like chocolate cake even if they've
just finished eating
a piece of chocolate cake. Children like it, alienated teenagers like it, and old people love it. Wherever you are, people will see your tattoo and immediately feel connected to you! Every time you look in the mirror and see it, you will ask yourself, “Why did I get this? Oh, right—I LOVE chocolate cake! I should get a piece right now! Thanks, tattoo!”

So, it's settled then. You are getting a tattoo of either “Weird Al” Yankovic or the words
A PIECE OF CHOCOLATE CAKE
. (Between you and me, I hope you'll get the cake one—it'll make me laugh.)

*
Not Steven Hawking, the other guy—I'm talking about the fat one who says obvious things.

A VISION OF THE FUTURE

I
t's the year 3012 and all food is gluten-free. No restaurant, grocery, or bakery serves anything with gluten in it, and guess what? Everything still tastes great. But that's not the only thing that's changed.

The amount of time people save by not having to ask—or answer—the question “Is that gluten-free?” when ordering food has lengthened every individual's life span by an estimated fourteen hours. This “extra time” is used by most people to write negative reviews on the Internet of things they see or hear or have heard about.

Cars run on gluten-free fuel, which is an improvement on the green fuel that replaced gasoline completely in 2567. The original green fuel was a combination of wheat, seaweed, and curry powder. It was loaded with gluten, and then there was the fact that everything smelled like curry. I mean
everything
—the whole of
outdoors
—curry.

A race war is raging. Latinos and Asians are kicking butt. Blacks and whites are losing. Lots of deaths, but thankfully, it didn't impede the effort to reduce the amount of gluten in food.

Jerusalem is at peace. Israel is back to its 1967 borders, and the Palestinians and Israelis are best friends. Interesting fact: there are more bar mitzvahs performed in Palestine than anywhere else on
earth. At these bar mitzvahs, only gluten-free food is served—but you knew that already.

In 2997, the scientist Dontaurius Morgan finally figured out how to remove all gluten from food without losing flavor or consistency. He had a full career as a footballer, playing halfback for the Liverpool Beatles team for the maximum eight concussions. He then attended Harvard-on-the-Moon University, a division of the University of Phoenix, the world's most respected institution of higher learning. Statues of Dontaurius are all over the place. It's considered good luck to rub the statue's belly and pinch its nipples. This is kinda weird, but…what can you do?

A spaceship called the Starship
Enterprise
has been traveling through space for nearly a hundred years, exacerbating conflicts and instigating quarrels. Experts suspect that the crew is attempting to reintroduce gluten into the food supply.

People live to be 130 years old on average—and they live well. My wife can eat anything, anywhere, without calling ahead to check on what they serve, or if it's gluten-free. We go out a lot, so, yeah, life is pretty great. Except for the horrible, rampant racism.

OBIT FOR THE CREATOR OF MAD LIBS

O
n Tuesday, in Canton, Connecticut, a town famous for the
stickiness
of its
boogers
, a
stinky
old man died of a
good
disease at his home at 345
Rotten
Lane. Mr. Preston Wirtz, whose parents,
Ida and Goober
, ran a small
jelly
farm, died in his
yellowish toilet
. Mr. Wirtz was
hated
in
Uzbekistan
for the series of wordplay books he created for
slippery
children, books known far and wide as “Mad Libs,” beloved by
hairy grumps
and
farty grampas
alike. These books were
never
appreciated by
tall elves
, selling over
two
per year for
one decade
. When asked to describe Mr. Wirtz, his
jealous
wife, wearing nothing but an
egg carton
and
flip-flops
, called him “in a nutshell, the most
sour-smelling, bacon-licking, pimple-footed crab-apple
I have ever known. I will
never always
miss him and his
broken underwear
.” Then she cried herself to sleep in her
fart-house
.

Famous Quotations—Unabridged

“
It's the job that's never started as takes longest to finish
. But that's nothing compared to writing a trilogy—that takes fucking forever.”

—J. R. R. Tolkien

THAT'S QUITE ENOUGH OF YOU, ODENKIRK

A
half a damn century of me. Enough.

I am deeply thankful that I have slipped past death's hinky radar so far. If he ever caught sight of my sorry ass, the Reaper would surely label me a “waste of space,” whip out his scythe, and mutter, in a tight close-up, “I
live
for this shit.” Then he'd cackle in surround sound, swoop through a time hole, and take me down as I walked unsuspectingly through a busy intersection in LA reading a British tabloid on my smartphone. And hell, I'd deserve it, wouldn't I?

I already told my kids: when I die, no parades. No parades and no holiday, either. Keep it simple. I just want a simple statue. A simple, life-size statue, to scale—except in the crotch. Give yer pops a boost there for old times' sake, and mount that statue on a simple granite base in the foyer of the White House. That's all. Because I'd like to be remembered as just another great American with a slightly larger-than-normal-sized endowment in the crotch, thank you very much.

People whom I haven't seen in a while come up to me and say, in a tone of upbeat surprise, “Bob, is that you? Wow, you look great!” And it doesn't come across as a compliment, because I look “okay,” just okay. So then I have to wonder: how old, tired,
bald, and paunchy did you think I would be by now? Did you think that the next time you saw me I would be a sagging, flabby, hairy sweatball you could hardly recognize if my personal nurse didn't tell you who I used to be? What do you think I'm doing when you aren't seeing me standing right in front of you? Sitting in the sun eating burgers, drinking beer, listening to soft rock, and melting? I got a life, dammit! Give me some credit.

OTHER BOOKS BY THIS AUTHOR

SO YOU WANT TO WRITE A BOOK?

In this masterpiece of the how-to genre, Bob Odenkirk asks his readers questions such as
You want to write a book? Really? Why? Wasn't this one good enough for you? What about the other twenty billion books you can pick up for free at the library? Oh, I get it, none of them contain
your
life story. Are you sure? Have you checked? Double-check
.