Fewer Than One Percent
I’ve only got two goals left. I’ve
lost hundreds of others, having found them uninteresting or unachievable
and occasionally unbearable. Unfortunately, the two I still cling to are
decidedly unhelpful. First, my continual respect for the work and abilities
of my older brother has resulted in my wanting to be very much like him.
Unfortunately, my brother is an alcoholic who surrounds himself with chewed
pieces of Nicorette gum and Gatorade bottles full of dip spit. My second
enduring goal, which I have held since middle school, is to be different
from 99% of people in as many ways as possible.
For example, when I discovered that fewer than 1% of men have long nails
exclusively on their pinky fingers I grew my pinky fingernails and didn’t
cut them except for safety reasons for over 5 years. I intuitively knew
that fewer than 1% of people lose more money from the lottery than they
win. I bought one ticket, won two dollars, and, to this day, have never
bought another ticket. I read that 99% of people watch television, I tried,
and failed, to stop. Fewer than 1% of people hide money in public places.
Fewer than 1% of middle school students try LSD. Fewer than 1% of people
can spin a pillow on their finger for an entire hour. I practiced during
Star Trek every day for a year until I finally spun the pillow all the
way through. More than 1% of middle school students have sex, which was
probably good, since nobody seemed to like me anyway.
This obsession with being different has stuck with me, and has led to
some of the more interesting events in my life. I did eventually quit
watching TV, and was able to accomplish peculiar things in my much enlarged
free time. Of course, I was never able to apply these actions toward a
specific goal, but they come in handy while writing columns for newspapers.
My obsession with oddity led me to turn normal drug use patterns on their
heads. I began with heavy use of LSD and then I experimented a little
with Pot. I’ve never smoked a cigarette. My passion for peculiarity
became very unhelpful when I read that “fewer than one percent of
condoms fail.” This led me to become one of the relatively few virgins
in their twenties, because really, if they were going to fail for anyone,
it would be me.
Through college I stayed weird and, socially, it finally started to pay
off. People thought I was terribly interesting, even if, or maybe because,
I smelled weird after a day of dumpster diving. I ate only the marshmallows
from my Lucky Charms, I swam in the pond people feared would become a
Superfund site someday, I wore pantyhose to the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Girls loved this. Eventually I gave up on the condom’s warnings
and joined the majority…without incident.
But now that I’m officially in my mid-twenties, my desire to be
weird wanes. I cut my fingernails, I drink beer with friends, I even bought
a TV (though it still doesn’t get any channels). I seem to have
given up everything I wanted to be - from the ultra specific ‘biochemist
for NASA’ to the entirely general ‘different from other people.’
Oh Lord, what will become of me? More to the point, what will I become?
But even if I don’t want to be weird anymore, I still have that
other goal left. So I guess I’m off to the drug store to pick up
some booze and Nicorette gum. Did I mention my brother is a writer?
For a full year I wrote a weekly column for a daily paper in Boulder CO. I wrote about being young, poor and green, and the column was widely loved throughout the city. It remains one of the most rewarding things I've ever done.
If you've got some time on your hands...check 'em out.
Colder than the Hinges of Hell
Four More Ounces of Responsibility