How to Write a Contest Winner Into Your Comic Strip, Like You Promised

It never occurred to me that a teenage girl might win the contest. I made a point of contacting her parents to make sure they knew what was going on and why some guy (who lived in Florida at the time; that can’t have helped) wanted pictures of their daughter.

I ended up asking for pictures of her father as well . . . which, in retrospect, didn’t make it any less weird.

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How to React When Someone's Beliefs Sound Crazy to You

The world and the observable universe around it are so amazing, surprising, and mind-bendingly weird that any set of beliefs that tries explain how it all works can be made to sound crazy, simply by stating those beliefs simply.

To prove it, I will now state something that I believe in such a way that they will sound crazy:

Solid matter is mostly empty space.

See? If you know how the atom is constructed, and the scale of the protons, neutrons, and electrons, then you know what I said is true. But to someone who doesn’t know those things, or doesn’t believe in atoms, telling them a solid chunk of granite mostly isn’t there at all will get you written off as a nut.

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How to Help a Friend Answer Deep, Troubling Questions

I don’t have a plan for Ric’s remains, or his funeral in general. I do have one for my own that involves Ric. For years I joked that I was going to be cremated in secret, then have my ashes caked into a giant, vaudeville-sized powder puff. Then, as a stipulation of my will, Ric would made to say “Make-up!” and hilarity would ensue.

I’m not going to do that.  I am thinking about requesting that in place of a eulogy, someone (Ric, if available) read, as if it were a poem, this slightly reworded version of the lyrics to the theme from Thunderball:

He’d always run while others walked;

He’d act while other men just talked.

They called him the winner who took all;

And he’d strike like Thunderball

He knew the meaning of success;

His needs were more so he gave less.

He’d look at this world and want it all;

Then he’d strike like Thunderball

Any woman he’d want, he'd get;

He’d break any heart without regret

His days of asking are all gone;

His fight goes on, and on, and on.

But he thought that the fight was worth it all;

So he strikes like Thunderball

Extra points if whoever reads it cries at the last line.

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How to Tell a Tale of Suspense

The only difference between the story as presented and the story as it happened is that I’m the one who spilled the grease, forgot I had a screen protector, and gouged it with a razor blade.

The only reason I can think of that I would have switched it to Ric is that I was embarrassed, which was clearly more than reason enough.

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How to Judge

In high school, I worked at a Pizza Hut. I don’t know how it works at Pizza Huts today, but back then the only equipment in the kitchen for cooking food was a hotplate for boiling huge batches of pasta, a microwave for defrosting things in a pinch, and a huge oven the size of a minivan where food rode past the heating elements on a treadmill. Every item on the menu—pizza, calzone, lasagna, pasta, sandwiches—all of it was prepared for the guests in that one oven. I have no problem with that. I actually admired the efficiency of it. There were markings on the side telling you where to insert various items so they would get enough heat, and it was impossible to burn anything.

Years later, when I was a stand-up comic, I played a comedy club where they offered a menu of hot sandwiches and nachos. When I went into the kitchen, I found a much smaller treadmill oven, this one about the size of a large microwave.

I’m kind of surprised we don’t all have treadmill ovens in our homes by now.

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How to Explain Something That is Hard to Explain

I’ll go out on a limb and say that this is not one of the more highbrow Basic Instructions strips I ever wrote.

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How to Help someone Through a Health Scare

Once again, this was based on an actual conversation. The guy’s uncle told him to call if he had chest pains and the uncle, who had suffered more than one heart attack, would tell him if he should go to the hospital.

I pointed out that heart attacks don’t present the same way for everyone, but that argument didn’t impress him. I did suggest that before he tell his uncle his symptoms, he should make it clear that his uncle is not a beneficiary in his will, and has no motive to want his nephew to die.

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Why I Make a Point of Telling People That I Don't Like Sports

Missy and I went on the JoCo Cruise many years ago. This was back before it got big enough to take over an entire ship, so the JoCo cruisers shared the ship with the people who just happened to have a cruise booked on that ship that week. Many of those people were alarmed to find the ship half populated by young people (forty and under, which, on that particular ship, seemed pretty young) who were celebrating being fans of things they’d never heard of, and proudly calling themselves “geeks.”

One day, Missy and I were on an elevator with a man riding alone and a pleasant older couple. The older lady was dressed very well and fully made up. The older gentleman wore slacks, a golf shirt, and a very expensive watch. The lady asked us what the JoCo Cruise was all about, and what kind of things we were all doing in our private events, and why we didn’t seem insulted by the term “geek.”

Missy named a bunch of things we were all into, and of all the examples, the only thing the older couple seemed to have heard of was Star Trek.

The very first time the doors opened, the man riding the elevator alone got off without saying a word, even though I’m pretty sure it was not his floor. I suspect the main reason he left at that point was that he was Wil Wheaton.

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How to Debunk a Frightening Myth

It’s also hard to buy enough ice to fill a tub without raising suspicion. Seriously. If the cashier doesn’t give you trouble, the other hotel guests who see you hauling all of that ice in will almost certainly complain to the lobby about the wild party you’re preparing. I’d bet if any perpetrators have been caught in the act of harvesting kidneys in a hotel, it was by police officers who showed up hoping to nab some under-aged drinkers.

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How to Get to the Root Cause of Your Irritation

When you work in a place that operates under a ridiculous and byzantine system, there’s a great deal of power in being the person that understands that system. I have, on two occasions, been around when such a system was replaced with a new, much simpler, easier to learn system, and I have seen the people who understood the old system fight tooth and nail to prevent the new system from being implemented.

Of course, they couldn’t really explain why the new system wasn’t as good, but they’d never really been able to explain the old system at all, so that didn’t trouble them much.

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