If David Letterman can do it every night, why can’t I? Given my dry, satirical wit, I see no reason why I won’t eventually have my own late-night show anyway, so I ought to start practicing now because the call could come any day. And you know me, I’m not one to fantasize.
In keeping with the tradition that Letterman established, my list will start at the bottom and work its way up to No. 1.
No. 10: Getting out of bed in the morning.
I was born with a gene that causes extreme laziness. When the alarm clock sounds, I translate the ringing into words I don’t want to hear, like “You will have to go to work, which means you will have to tie your shoelaces.” Pain is the message. For some reason that I cannot explain, my alarm clocks (all two of them) have been incredibly durable, and though I have attempted to destroy them by various methods, including hurling the things into a wall at 70 mph and keeping them in the freezer for a day. Nothing has worked.
No. 9: Opening bills.
I hate this, because once you open a bill, you feel obligated to pay it. My solution to the problem is to keep them stacked in a neat pile among other things that mean nothing, like old newspapers, or letters from family members I despise. Usually, I forget where I have put them, so it is not a rare occurrence to accidentally stumble on a pile of bills that date back to the 1990s.
No. 8: Washing dishes.
It is not difficult to figure out how I can remove the dish I need without toppling the entire pile. I was always good at the game “Pick Up Sticks” as a child. Female friends who visit have heart fibrillations when they see my sink, and some actually do the dishes.
No. 7: Gardening.
First of all, I do not like dirt and gardening also requires me to work on my knees, which invariably results in pain. My primary problem with this activity is that it requires me to follow too many rules. I can’t just drop seeds willy-nilly wherever I want and expect anything to grow. Some people spend hours removing crabgrass. I don’t know why. It looks fine to me.
No. 6: “… Oops, we’re sorry.”
There is a long list I can add to the Bill Cosby routine about the brain surgeon, but my favorite is the one when my computer manufacturer sends a message regarding an error that occurred at 3:45 a.m., while I was sleeping.
“Due to a program fault, some or all of your documents may have been deleted. We apologize for the inconvenience.” Inconvenience? The technical people at Dell must think World War II was an “inconvenience.” This is pure conjecture on my part, but they obviously don’t see it as a major problem when I have to re-type 30 pages of text from memory.
No. 5: Income tax returns.
The only justification for the existence of the IRS is to create employment for people that couldn’t hold their jobs at thousands of motor vehicle bureaus across the country. Generally speaking, these are individuals who scored in the “homicidal” range on personality inventories. The sum of the taxes collected from returns probably equals less than one half the cost to run the IRS, which means the poorest people in the country pay additional taxes just to keep this bungled institution afloat. They certainly don’t collect anything from the wealthy, since they have created loopholes you could slide a yacht through without a scratch. It gets worse when you consider the fact that the taxes you pay in returns are spent on things you don’t want or need, like war, for instance.
Every time I file a return, I know I am forking up money that will be used to kill someone … a person I am supposed to hate or perhaps the son of my neighbor. There is something absurdly sick about that.
No. 4: Japanese pharmaceuticals.
I still cannot rid myself of the irrational belief that the Japanese harbor some resentment toward us ever since we chose them as test dummies for our new atomic toys. I know it’s insane to think this way, but what if they are looking for ways to get even? Last year, I had some prolonged periods of insomnia and my doctor prescribed a Japanese-made sleep aid called Rozarem. I took it for a week, during which time I built 300 digital cameras. I was too busy to sleep.
No. 3: Hospital emergency rooms.
If you are a criminal on the run, look for your nearest ER. You can stay there forever. If you are seriously ill, you can die there.
“Sign the list and have a seat.” I wait for two hours, gasping for air (asthma) and then, lo and behold, I am summoned to the triage area, a four-by-six room where an ex-IRS employee questions me while a hospital tech sticks a thermometer in my mouth. I can’t answer the questions because I can’t breathe and there is a thermometer in your mouth, so I grab a pen and write on a scrap of paper – “I can’t breathe – please help me!” Amazingly, she responds to that.
An orderly brings you into the promised land and tells me to put on one of those stupid gowns designed for no other purpose than to make you submissive. You’d be surprised how much abuse you are willing to tolerate when you are virtually naked.
The last time I went, they sent a respiratory specialist to do the blood work. He didn’t know the difference between an artery and a vein, but he was persistent. By the time he was finished, my arm was black and blue. I begged him for a breathing treatment, but he told me I had to wait for permission from the doctor, who I had not seen yet.
Don’t be surprised if you never see a doctor. Chances are a physician’s assistant will stop by, listen to your chest and say something you can’t understand, like “Soun’ ly’ you habbaleetle whiz.” You may ask him for that breathing treatment, but he won’t understand. You’ll get a pat on the back and a prescription for Prednisone. Three days later, you will breathe once again, if you live that long.
No. 2: Herbal remedies.
Stay away from them. There is no evidence, scientific or otherwise, that these bizarre concoctions help with anything. You might just as well eat dirt. The products are grossly overpriced and dangerous. How can people who profess to care about their bodies ingest tree bark or dried snails? There must be some masochistic element to this.
No. 1: Insurance.
My No. 1 selection is clearly the most corrupt institution on the face of the earth. Broken down to its basic components, insurance of any kind is an obscenely morbid form of legalized gambling, where only the insurance companies are permitted to profit from the wagers, known as premiums. It is the same old line – “heads we win, tails you lose.”