The Book of Awesome (5 page)

 

Bottom line: Know your tastes, size up the game, and dig in quickly. Mastering that perfect pick is a valuable life skill.

Now go grab life by the nachos.

AWESOME!

You go early, you grab a drink, you
buy a T-shirt
, you find your seat or you edge up to the stage, you listen to the opening act, you people watch, you watch watch, you talk to your friends, you guess what songs they might play, and then the moment finally arrives: The background music fades down,
all the lights suddenly go out
, and there’s total blackness.

You feel a massive wave of anticipation sweep across the crowd, people stand up, raise their arms and scream, and everyone clamors for that first view of the band walking onstage.

AWESOME!

Planning those Wednesday birthdays is tough.

Do you
party-back
on the weekend before or
party-forward
to the weekend after? Either way, you’ll get a lot of “So wait, when’s your actual birthday?” questions, and you’ll be forced to take a sip of your drink, smile pleasantly, and casually say, “Oh, just a couple days from now,” or worse, “Oh, you know . . . two Wednesdays ago.”

That’s just no fun.

So if you’re as
self-centered as I am
and the first thing you do when you get your greasy paws on a crisp, new calendar is flip right to your birthday, then you sure are loving it when that big day hits the
Friday or Saturday Jackpot
. Now it’s on for so many reasons:

Yes, you know as well as I do that when that big day lands right on a Friday or Saturday, it opens up a world of celebration possibilities. Because now your birthday’s going on,
your birthday’s going long
, and your birthday’s going strong, fool.

Awwwwwww, yeah.

AWESOME!

My room was above the kitchen growing up.

Late at night, lying in bed, I would listen to the creaks and cracks through the vents and floorboards. Oven burners wobbled and popped, distant thumps echoed from the
furnace room
, and the fridge cranked its whirring motor on and off whenever it pleased.

It was always funny to me that during the day that fridge didn’t put up much of a fight. If it started clinking and whirring, you just pounded it with your fist and it would stop. One hard
punch to the kidneys
of the thing and it just sort of whimpered and stayed quiet.

Like The Fonz kicking the jukebox on
Happy Days
, Grandpa smacking the TV during
Wheel of Fortune
, or a bandana-clad mom shaking the washer when the heavy towel load gets it rocking, there is something great about fixing electronics by smacking them.

I mean, for once
our instincts work
. That doesn’t always happen in nature. Slap a bear on the snout when it’s picking through your trash and you might get a friendly mauling. Pull your brother’s hair when he steals your Xbox controller and you could find your toothbrush tossed in the toilet. But when the CD is skipping in the car, a friendly smack might do the trick, so how about that?

Also, it kind of
makes you feel handy
. I don’t know about you, but I don’t know much about electronics. I have no understanding of how telephones work, how airplanes take off, or how radio signals go about their day. I have trouble putting the chain back on my bicycle,
resetting the microwave clock
, or starting the barbecue. You should see me out there, turning the gas on and off, tossing in matches and jumping away, half-expecting the whole thing to blow up.

But I’m not bad at smacking things. I can smack a computer, I can smack a dishwasher, and I’ve got a lot of experience if your fridge seems to be giving you trouble. So listen, if you’re with me on this one, throw your hand up for a smacking high five and give cheers to your inner handyman.

AWESOME!

I used to drive home from my friend Mike’s basement apartment on this lonely
two-lane road
. It was always late at night and I’d roll down the windows so that the cold country-time air could help keep me awake. The air smelled like a cologne
Beetlejuice
might wear—a tangy combination of fresh manure, foggy dew, and
squashed skunk
.

Yes, I’d say it was a nice, quiet way to end an evening, a relaxing and peaceful drive home on those late nights.

But then they came.

The big-box stores gobbled up that cheap farmer land and dropped in a
concrete paradise
full of parking lots, neon signs, and a never-ending series of traffic lights that completely clogged up the roads. The cold farm air was replaced by a new smell, a thick, heady mix of car exhaust and fried chicken.

And, you know, I understand.

Every massive parking lot really does need its own traffic light. I mean, without them, you’d be stuck trying to make a left turn out of
Home Depot
for half an hour. You buy those two-by-fours, you want to go build that deck, am I right? No really, I get it. I’ve been there too, and I get the lights.

But let’s be honest:
The resulting gauntlet
is no good either.

On that old drive home from Mike’s basement apartment they built up more than ten traffic lights in a row, each only about a couple hundred feet apart. There was traffic light after traffic light after traffic light, a sort of slow death march through the
jungle of progress
.

And the lights never lined up. You’d hit two greens, then two reds. You’d race through a couple of last-second yellows and then get your comeuppance with five reds in a row. Yes, it was a frustratingly, fuel-wastingly,
stop-and-go-to-slow
ordeal.

Now, one night I was driving home from Mike’s place a little later than usual. We started a movie when we should’ve called it a night, and I was trucking home at
three in the morning on a Tuesday
. I approached The Gauntlet groggily and hit the first few green lights in a row, no problem. Nothing special, I figured, probably just a tease. After all,
The Gauntlet had never lost
.

But then, before I knew it, I had made a couple more.

Then a couple more.

Then a couple more.

Suddenly I was two lights away from the finish line and I couldn’t believe my luck. Looking ahead I could see that both lights were green, tempting me, showing me what might be possible.

So I gunned it.

I blew through the second-to-last green and saw that final one turn to yellow. There was no way I was going to get that close without making it through, so I punched the gas and barely squeezed by as the light turned red.

Although almost running a red wasn’t the smartest move in the book, making it through The Gauntlet was one of the greatest accomplishments of my life. I was
buzzing huge
that night and smiling ear to ear. And really, just tell me the truth—if you’ve ever blown through a string of green lights in a row, how does it make you feel?

I’ve got just one guess.

AWESOME!

Ding!

AWESOME!

Bakery air is that
steaming hot front
of thick, buttery fumes waiting for you just inside the door of a bakery. And I am just going to tell you straight up:
That is some fine air.

Bakery air immediately fills you up with the sickly sweet smell of rising cupcakes,
crisping croissants
, and the distinct aroma of globby oatmeal turning into a delicious tray of sugary-brown cookies.

It’s a powerful and intoxicating smell that rivals some of the best smells out there: late night summer barbecue, new car smell, gasoline, fresh baby, or even, dare I say it, campfire in the woods. Yes, I went there.

Now, is it just me, or do you ever feel sorry for the people working in the bakery? You know, because they might just
get used to the smell
and stop enjoying those hot bakery whiffs all the time? I really hope it’s not like that. I really hope working in a bakery never turns into a regular job full of early mornings,
oven-scorched eyebrows
, varicose veins, and floury underwear. No, bakery air is just too good for that. It can’t become another day at the office, it just can’t. So let’s make sure we all enjoy it.

Catch some of those sugary vapors next time you’re running past a
cinnamon bun
place at the train station. Suck back a noseful of hot fumes when you walk the dog by an open bakery door on Saturday morning. And make sure when you stop to smell the roses, you stop to smell the croissants and cookies too.

AWESOME!

Babies take a while to walk.

If you’ve seen it happen, you know there is plenty of falling, crawling, and bawling. Hey, there’s a reason most two-year-olds are covered in fat lips, skinned knees, and
coffee-table-dented foreheads
.

Learning to walk ain’t easy.

Sure, you did it and I did it but we probably couldn’t do it again. Like learning anything tough and life-altering, learning to walk is a
messy process
that takes time and patience.

First, there is rolling. That cute little
baby-powder ball
of flabby arms and puffy diapers twists and shimmies on the cold linoleum with a big smile on her face. This marks a major step as baby is learning to move on her own. Don’t laugh because you were once a flabby, wiggling diaper ball too.

Once that’s nailed, it’s time to
sit up
and
start crawling
. This turns the house into a carpeted jungle full of discovery and adventure. Curiosity helps little ones discover pantry shelves, cat litter trays, and toilets. Some people have an adorable
Crab Baby
at this stage, also known as a one-year-old who crawls backward or sideways instead of forward. Watch out for pinchy claws grabbing at your hair and glasses.

Next up:
teetering!
White-knuckled, apricot-sized hands grip staircase railings and kitchen table legs with furrowed brows and steely determination. The side benefit of diapers comes into play here, as handy ass-padding for the vast number of harrowing, thunderous falls. Eventually, with immense focus and concentration, most of them manage to find their center of gravity and balance the baby chub on their two teeny-tiny tootsies.

After this point, it’s just a matter of time. There’s some nervous balancing without the railing and then lopsided running with occasional face-plants in the front hallway. But soon baby nails it, and after that she’s probably flying pretty high.

Unfortunately, the bad news is that practice doesn’t always make perfect. Even though we’ve been mastering the art of standing tall for years and years and years, everyone slips and falls now and then. Just ask your local small-claims court.

So next time your shoe catches on the top step at work, you trip stepping off the airport’s
moving sidewalk
, or you bail on a patch of ice outside your front door, remember that not too long ago you couldn’t walk at all.