I have come to accept that I was born without the gene that enables one to fold a fitted sheet.

Prohibition’s last holdout finally made it legal: Alabama’s homebrewers may now brew out in the open! As you emerge from those closets of clandestinity, take a moment to look behind you and size them up. Then go to Home Depot, buy some insulation, and build yourselves some fermentation chambers.

Congratulations, Alabama!

I represent a quiet minority that your store refuses to recognize and continues to marginalize. I have visited your downtown Denver location several times since its grand opening, and each time, I have left in disappointment and shame. It is time that our voices are heard.

I speak, of course, of the hidden, huddled masses who suffer from what are known as quadriceps and hamstrings, or, more commonly, “thighs.” These muscular miracles flex the knee and play a major role in such subversive activities as walking around, going up the stairs, coming back down the stairs, and crouching down to have a closer look. You may have even seen some of us engaged in these very acts as we browse your stores empty-handed.

Whether intentional or not, your designers have overlooked us, as your jeans would appear to have instead been manufactured for those whose lower body musculatures have fully adapted to the load-bearing requirements of low-earth orbit. It is further embarrassing to see such styles as slim and skinny displayed prominently–are we less valuable to you than even coke addicts?

Please consider devoting a line of styles to those of us whose lower limbs have a third dimension. Because we want hipster jeans, too. And we can actually get ourselves to your stores to buy them, thanks to thighs.

Here are a few standards I think we as a modern society ought to implement with urgency and without delay:

1. All coffee shops must have two lines. One of them shall be reserved for ordering coffee, and the other for any drink whose name involves adjectives and/or a trademark. Anyone attempting to order a complicated drink from the coffee line will be sent directly to the back of the adjective line. And they will be heckled until they leave the store.
2. On a similar note, all grocery and retail stores should immediately switch to the queue protocol preferred at banks and post offices, in which everyone has to just line the hell up in the order in which they arrive, and then an employee calls on you. First in, first out. It’s fair, and it keeps the asshole behind you from jumping ahead when the next register over opens up and the sales clerk screams, “I can help someone over here!”
3. The common practice of allowing patrons at fast casual and fast food restaurants to select and fill their own drink cups inevitably leads to endless dicking around at the drink station. Get in, fill your drink, and get the fuck out of the way. That’s how it works. Therefore we should either do away with the self-serve concept altogether or mandate that drinks proctors monitor the stations. Kind of like the people who watch over you at those self-checkout things that can’t figure out you brought your own bags.
4. All new cars should come equipped with a sophisticated ensemble of gyroscopes, accelerometers, and predictive logic algorithms that detect when you change lanes. Each time you do so without signaling, a governor kicks in and decreases the maximum speed of your vehicle by anywhere from 2 to 20 mph for the remainder of the day. The higher the curb weight of your vehicle, the higher the speed penalty. Also, at interstate highway speeds, you are allowed six lane changes  before you have to just stay in the right lane and wait for your exit.

It is rumored that there is a system to Band-Aids, in which the two white bits are meant to help ease the bandage onto your skin, like applying a brown, two-dimensional leach. But I believe this violates the second law of thermodynamics. Clearly the white bits are only too eager to stick to your skin, while the bandage prefers to curl up into a little plasticky wad.

You’ve always been confident in your ability to be ready for douchebaggery, but lately your inflated self-importance and disregard for others have become a touch flaccid. Luckily, there are concrete steps you can take right now that will boost your ass-wipeyness back to the level you deserve:

1. Grow ironic, 19th century style facial hair.
2. Leave your right pants leg rolled up to let everyone know you biked there.
3. Address anyone as “bro.”
4. Audibly discuss the relative merits and inadequacies of local brunch establishments whilst having already awaited a table at one for well over 90 minutes.
5. Pop your collar.
6. Tell me how you came to know Jesus.
7. Insist your off-leash dog never bites.
8. Claim that pot is No Big Deal, but make subtle (i.e., not subtle), chuckle-laden references to it at every possible opportunity.
9. Publicly and emotionally renounce gluten without actually having been medically diagnosed as intolerant or allergic.
10. Go ahead. Bust out that guitar.

The English language nurtures oodles of excellent words (e.g., oodles), and its relaxed, nimble grammar permits — indeed, encourages — expressions that simultaneously engage, entertain, and inform. At what point along the way did we throw up our hands and accept empty statements like this?

“I believe this transaction will open an exciting new chapter for Dell, our customers and team members,” Michael Dell said in a statement. “We can deliver immediate value to stockholders, while we continue the execution of our long-term strategy and focus on delivering best-in-class solutions to our customers as a private enterprise.” (Source: CNNMoney)

No wonder our increasingly information- and service-based economy likes to hide out in the shitter from time to time. None of us has a clue what any of us actually does anymore.

Here’s a quiz for you. Which of the following answers to the question, “What do you do for a living?” inspires the most confidence in you?

1. I bake bread.
2. I repair shoes.
3. I assemble motor vehicles.
4. I write software.
5. I deliver immediate value to our stockholders, while continuing the execution of our long-term strategy and focusing on delivering best-in-class solutions to our customers as a private enterprise.

I turn 35 this year. I thought I’d have things at least kind of figured out at this point. But nope, I’m still as confused as ever:

• When I sleep on my right side, just where the hell am I supposed to put my right forearm?
• When I order coffee to-go in a paper cup, why do I still have to jam a paperclip or pen into that little pinhole to get the coffee to come out? Did plastic lid technology reach its zenith in the early ’90s?
• Why is it that I can renew a piece of plastic that legally entitles me to propel 1.5 short tons of metal and internal combustion down the interstate at 75 miles per hour without so much as verifying that I continue to own a pulse, but I have to present this very piece of plastic if I wish to obtain decongestants?
• See the first bullet, replacing “right” with “left.”
• Why is it so irritating when the toilet paper plies get uneven? To the point that I will relentlessly unfurl the better part of a roll until the two (or three!) are once again realigned?
• What is this kind of magic that allows me to sit in a chair at home, inform Amazon that I wish to procure at least $25.00 in goods, and then have these very items hand delivered to my door, all without paying a single penny for the genuine pleasure of not having to go outside and retrieve them myself?
• Why do so many airplane passengers request such unorthodox beverages as tomato juice and ginger ale? I’ve never seen anyone order tomato juice in a restaurant.
• Will my sense of eager anticipation that immediately precedes unlocking the door and seeing a hotel room for the first time ever diminish?

This is the kind of crap my brain considers more or less continuously.

I only realized this morning that the jar claims to contain 14 servings. There are clearly too many digits in that figure.