Life Lessons
My mother calls me up to say, “Hasn’t it dawned on you that you are no longer a teenager?”
I say I must have missed this dawn. I woke up around noon.
“You’re 24, Maryam.”
Uhm.. actually ma, 24 is your other daughter’s age. I’m 3 months short of 21.
“Regardless, there are certain things that you should’ve learned by now.”
And I certainly have. What you are about to read is an incomplete collection of some of the things my life has taught me so far. Because I don’t have and don’t plan to have children, nor do I have younger siblings to pass on sage advice to and share life lessons with, I’m just going to put this out there. It isn’t much because we all know that I’m no Grand Maharishi of Wisdom of any kind. I’m still winging through most of the things that count. But it’s a start, I say.
- Action: Forging your parent’s signature on your school report card & other forms
I started forging my mom’s signature when I was 9 years old, in standard four. It was not so much done with the intention of deceit as it was out of convenience, at least it started out that way. Which kid could be arsed to remember to hand little things like report cards and permission slips over to their parents by a certain due date? I thought forgery was easier than coming up with an explanation. At 16, my mother realized that she hadn’t seen my report card in a long while and demanded that I show it to her, the very report card that contained four years of forged signatures. That was also the year where I failed 9 out of 10 subjects in school, which my parents, if they knew, would have been none too pleased about. So I spilled a jar of thick, black ink all over my report card and said it was an accident. So I had gone from committing fraud to destroying evidence to cover up the fact that I had committed fraud and then I provided false testimony to hide the fact that I destroyed evidence.
Possible consequences:
#1 – You grow up to lead a life of crime and end up in jail.
#2 – You grow up to lead a life of crime and end up a politician.
#3 – You grow up to lead a life of crime and become a politician that ends up in jail.
#3A – You end up a Communications student.
Lessons Learned
The good people were right. There is no big lie to end all lies. Deceit begets deceit and it feeds and grows within its own falsehood. Deceit is a perfect, self-contained creature.
- Action: Dumping your housemate’s wine in the freezer to make space for your shit in the fridge. Particularly if it is cheap wine that comes in foil packaging. It freezes. And your housemate’s special dinner guests are arriving in 2 minutes. And we’re not really sure if you can defrost wine in a microwave. No one we know ever had cause to place a bag of wine in the microwave.
Possible Consequences:
#1 – Winesicles become the culinary experience du jour. Like fondue was in the seventies.
#2 – The microwave explodes. None of you survive to promote your Winesicles and the explosion sets off a massive terrorist alert. Especially when the authorities find out that one of the people involved was one of ‘em, you know, “Mozz-lums”
#3 – Your housemate laughs it off, serves her guests water instead and prays that Jesus will drop by and turn it into wine.
Lessons Learned:
Only potato chips should come in foil packaging. Unless you live with two anorexics and an imaginary friend, get a bigger fridge. Miracles don’t usually happen – that’s precisely what makes them miraculous.
- Action: Snorting a mixture of pepper, chili paste, carbonated soda and grated ginger up your nose because you were bored, one day after class and your friends reckoned that you wouldn’t have the balls to do so.
Possible Consequences:
#1 – Your friends start to suspect that you’re not human because you barely shed a tear and did not have a painful reaction as expected. You would then have to go through the trouble of killing them now that they know your secret.
#2 – You develop a habit that could out-snort Pete Doherty and end up with a uni-nostril.
#3 – You permanently lose all sense of smell and forget the need for deodorant. You then spend the rest of your life wondering why no one wants to be around you.
#3a – You become an MTV reality star.
Lessons Learned:
It’s alright not to have balls, especially if you’re female.
- Action: Recreational Drug Use: Possible Consequences & Lessons Learned
(Coming Soon) I wrote a paragraph and then decided that this issue calls for its own blog entry and lots of deep, careful reflection.
- Action: Moving. Relocating.
