How to Make People Think You're Absolutely Insane.

I like to think I have a lot of expertise when it comes to convincing people that there's something wrong with me. It amuses me to get the "How the hell did you escape your padded cell?" look from people; on the outside, I chuckle. On the inside, I'm shouting to myself, YOU GOT A REACTION! YES! OH MY GOD, THIS IS F***ING HILARIOUS! YOU ARE THE FUNNIEST PERSON THAT HAS EVER LIVED!


If you want a taste of this possibly self-deprecating source of humor, read on. I'll tell you the ways to obtain it. Many of them also involve driving others crazy, which makes the results twice as funny.


1. Deny everything
Say something, anything. It can be totally mundane and normal. Say it loud enough to make sure at least one person hears you, but quiet enough so that you can easily deny saying it.


About four years ago, I was hanging out with some of my friends, and I muttered something about tennis. My friend Andrea asked a few seconds later if somebody had said something about tennis; everybody vehemently denied it, especially me. Up until a few months ago, she tried on a nearly regular basis to prove that somebody said something about tennis. I had her thinking she was crazy for over three years, truly a personal best.


There are other things you can deny, as well. If someone points out a fact, like, "The sky sure is blue today!" or "People are human beings! They're typically born with opposable thumbs!", outright deny it. Bring up something contrary that makes no sense. "Uh, no? The sky is forest green. Are you freaking blind?" would be a good example. And it's not just enough to deny something once and let it go, your friend or boss or midwife will just think that you're weird. You have to deny things on multiple occasions, make it a habit. Do your very best to convince them. Pretty soon, you'll be dying from laughter every time you're around them.


2. Eat things that shouldn't be eaten
This one might take some planning to consistently have something on hand to eat that you shouldn't be eating. There are two ways you can go about this: stick with one snack and constantly proclaim how much you love it, or always be eating something different and make people think you can't control your urge to eat.


Some ideas include paper(sheets of paper, plates, whatever you have on hand. Eating a paper plate after having a meal on it would add another level of crazy, you can talk angrily about hating to waste anything!), plastic straws, toothpicks, or what could potentially be the easiest thing to eat, food scraps that people typically throw away. The last one could range from the easy-but-gross, things like citrus rinds, to the vomit-inducingly-disgusting eggshell. It all depends on your level of commitment and how much you care about your digestive tract. It could be worth it, though; imagine the look on your coworker's face as they round the corner into your cubicle and see you innocently peering up at them, munching away on a piece of printer paper. Bonus points if it's someone you don't like and they decide to walk away without saying a word to you.


3. Walk backward
Do this everywhere you go. If you live in a big city, the only people that will bat an eye at you will probably be tourists, and let's face it, they're amused by everything anyway. So unfortunately, you might not get the full comedic effect out of this tactic. However, if you're like me and live in a normal-sized city, or even a small town, you'll probably end up on the news or something. 


Also, don't quote me on this, but there might be a good chance that walking backward will work new muscles and maybe you'll get into shape! I mean, why would ellipticals have a setting to do it if it wasn't good exercise?


Having said that, I need to impose a rule on this tip: never tell people you're doing it as a new form of exercise. That's a potentially rational explanation. No, if someone asks, your answer should be some variation of, "I like it better this way," 'it' being walking.


4. Invent a language
I'm not saying to make incoherent noises 100% of the time, that requires way too much work, and you'd probably give up after maybe an hour. No, you need to throw in your own words into normal sentences every now and then, and don't even explain it. If somebody asks you what it means, change the subject as fast as possible, it will confuse them even more. For example:


Girl 1: Wow, I really love this (dress/skirt/top/cheese sculpture)!
Girl 2: Yeah! It's super vrogtiphia!
Girl 1: Wait, what? What did you say?
Girl 2: ...OMG, let's go get Chipotle!
Girl 1: Okay? You're just going to ignore my question?
Girl 2: I know, I love burritos too.


Try it, at least once. If you can, try to remember the context of at least a few words you've used, and reuse them any chance you get. It's something that you can continue for years, and you're bound to encounter the above scenario nearly every single time.


5. Dress in a completely normal way, except for one article of clothing
Pretty self explanatory. For example, wear a suit and then put a pair of underwear on the outside. Unfortunately, with the rise of the hipster population, it's become harder and harder to pair pieces of clothing together that will make people think you should be wearing a helmet, rather than impressing someone named Sebastien while he listens to Neutral Milk Hotel.


Be creative. Make a dress out of bedsheets and pair it with high heels, wear a blanket like a cape, use your dog's toys as jewelry. The possibilities are endless.




Those are all the ideas I could currently think of. If you have your own, leave them in the comments, I'm always looking for new ways to make those closest to me concerned about my mental health.

My Parents Are Weirder Than Your Parents. Unfortunately.

One of the joys of living at home past adulthood is realizing all the strange things your parents do that you didn't really notice as a kid. My mom, like many parents, is technologically illiterate, thus depends on me to show her how to do things like attach a picture to an email roughly six hundred times and explain that the computer running slowly is not because our internet speed is lacking, but because she doesn't seem to think having somewhere around 15 Internet Explorer windows open at one time should be a problem(I have multiple frustrations with this particular scenario. One, that she insists on using Internet Explorer, the browser equivalent of using a boat anchor to keep yourself afloat, and two, that in the year 2010, I have to constantly explain what the internet is). 


Based on the knowledge above, her computer habits should come as no surprise to me. Let me go down a short list of things she likes to do.


1. Go to her home page between every website.


2. Type "Google" into Yahoo! Search.


3. To further elaborate on the above scenario, she searches for absolutely everything, e.g. Macy's, Amazon, eBay, what have you. The concept of an address bar is completely nonexistent in her universe.


4. Bookmarks everything, because it's apparently impossible to return to a website through any other means.

This is after I spent an entire day with her, repeatedly demonstrating how to delete a file. I think she cleaned out somewhere around 1,000.

5. Turns the volume all the way up every time she gets on the computer, and then scares herself when something starts playing and asks why the volume is so loud.

6. Thinks you have to sign into an email account to access the internet, and becomes distraught when somebody signs her out because "she's going to lose her favorites."

But technology is not the only thing that brings out her quirks. My mom probably has severe OCD, because her penchant for cleanliness is unmatched by anybody else I've ever met. The amount of times she wipes down counters has turned into a drinking game for my family. Dinner parties usually turn into a drunken affair. Every time she realizes we're watching her wipe down the sink, she has this guilty look on her face like a kid that was just caught trying to sneak a cookie before dinner, or something equally cliche.

Note the dishrag. Also, in reality, there would NOT be a puddle of water on the floor because my mom's worst fear is getting water on the floor. This is a dramatization.

My dad is no champion of normalcy himself. Much more carefree than my mother, he tends to venture into the embarrassing territory of "I have no shame," making inappropriate jokes and changing lyrics to songs he feels better fit the current situation. The inspiration for this post actually occurred tonight; my parents and I are sick, just one of the many perks of living in a relatively small house with three people, and I eat breakfast food almost entirely when I'm ill, so I made some awesome French toast for us(come to think of it, I pretty much eat nothing but breakfast food, it's no longer exclusive to mornings and sickness. I just realized that if you read that sentence quickly, it would say something about morning sickness. I'm not pregnant.). While eating our French toast, my parents turned on Wheel of Fortune, because they love game shows in a way that is usually reserved for 80 year olds. 

Seriously, they analyze the hell out of game shows. My mom is usually visibly upset for the people that don't win anything. If you read through my posts and wonder why I'm so abnormal, this post should give you a few good reasons.

So anyway, we're watching Wheel of Fortune, and one puzzle is categorized under 'lyrics' and turns out to say "I've got sunshine on a cloudy day," a line from the song "My Girl" by The Temptations. Immediately, both my parents start singing the song, and trust me, neither of them should be singing. My mom takes this opportunity to direct her singing at our cat, who could not care less if she tried, while my dad decides to take artistic license and change the words "my girl" to "french toast." In case you're having a hard time thinking of how the lyrics go, and you really want to know how absurd it is, allow me to help you.

I've got sunshine

On a cloudy day.

When it's cold outside,

I've got the month of May.

Well, I guess you'll say

What can make me feel this way?

My girl. (My girl, my girl) French toast. (French toast, French toast)

Talkin' 'bout my girl. (My girl) French toast. (French toast)

I've got so much honey

The bees envy me.

I've got a sweeter song

Than the birds in the trees.

Well, I guess you'll say

What can make me feel this way?

My girl. (My girl, my girl) French toast. (French toast, French toast)

Talkin' 'bout my girl. (My girl) French toast. (French toast)

Ooooh, Hoooo.

Hey, hey, hey.

Hey, hey, hey.

I don't need no money,

Fortune or fame.

I've got all the riches, baby,

One man can claim.

Well, I guess you'll say

What can make me feel this way?

My girl. (My girl, my girl) French toast. (French toast, French toast)

Talkin' 'bout my girl. (My girl) French toast. (French toast)

Talkin' bout my girl. French toast.

I've got sushine on cloudy day

With my girl. French toast.

I've even got the month of May

With my girl French toast. 

He sang the whole song. This kind of insanity is what my daily life consists of. 

Live blogging moment: I'm currently listening to them analyze "What Not To Wear" in the living room, a show that could not be broken down any further if TLC hired Ernest Walton and John Cockroft, the first men to split the atom.

Live blogging moment #2: My dad just walked in the room, snapped his fingers at me, and in some kind of Solid Snake/Barry White impression, said "That's what I'm talking about." I don't know what, or why, or...why? What? I don't know what to think anymore.

I need my own place.

Update 12/11/10: My dad tried to convince me to go Christmas shopping with him today, despite the fact that both of us are completely done shopping for the season. When I told him I didn't want to go, and asked why he did, he just sang "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" and called me Ebenezer Meier.