If you buy a pork pie hat, try to get one that is not made of pork pie. Otherwise it is worth investing in a fly swatter and some sort of anti-seagull measure.
When my mom told me I had to go on this Outward Bound trip or go to boarding school, I was like, ok, sure, I’ll spend a few weeks in the wilderness with some losers and learn to kill a deer with my bare hands. If I had known that, 15 days in, I would be at 0 deer kills and 22 conversations about what responsibility means, I might have chosen differently.
What I have learned from these conversations: responsibility means keeping promises and building trust. What I have not learned from these conversations: how a quick severing of a deer’s cervical spinal cord with a knife fashioned out of flint ensures a rapid and relatively painless death. When I asked Brock, our trip leader and renowned responsibility expert, when we would learn to filter and drink our own urine, he told me maybe I should think more about why I was here and how my actions have hurt the people I love. I said it sounded like someone was scared of drinking his own urine.
Brock does not like me.
The other people on this trip do a whole lot of journaling and crying. My tentmate, Kylie, told me she’s here because she doesn’t get along with her stepmom and that she really misses her younger sister. I told her that I’m here because I want to take down a bear, construct a cape from its bloody fur, and then saunter around the forest, challenging other bears to fight and inevitably climbing the bear dominance hierarchy. Kylie then revealed that her sister’s favorite animal is a bear, at which point she started sobbing. I patted her arm gently and told her that once the bears accept me as one of their own, she and her sister could come visit any time, she just needs to give me, like, two day’s notice.
My mom sent me on this trip because I have trouble expressing myself in a productive way. I would much rather be productive by training a wild falcon to do my bidding than by drawing how I’m feeling on a piece of paper to share with the group (for the record, it was a sketch of a wild falcon doing my bidding). Imagine how proud my mom will be when I show up at her front door, slathered in ursine fat and bearing gifts of fresh deer meat.
I told Brock he has T-24 hours to start teaching us some hardcore wilderness skills or else I’m striking out on my own, Into–the–Wild style. He said it was obvious I had neither read the book nor seen the movie.
I said it was obvious he hadn’t noticed the bear bait I put in his tent.
Most states don’t recognize Party in the USA as an official national anthem, although it is generally considered an acceptable substitute for the Star Spangled Banner at baseball games.
Best,
Pros: Safe and innocuous. The vanilla ice cream of email sign-offs.
Cons: Nondescript and underwhelming. Demonstrates an utter void of personality.
Regards,
Pros: Slightly warmer and more genial. Has a vintage feel recalling the days when letters were handwritten and delivered by horses.
Cons: Can come off as sarcastic. Unclear whether the regards are positive or negative.
Best regards,
Pros: More specific than either. Unambiguously positive.
Cons: Shows you are not decisive enough to choose between “Best” and “Regards.” Generally understood as a sign of weakness and cowardice.
All the best,
Pros: Strong and clear. Unambiguously positive.
Cons: Nobody will believe you want them to have all the best.
Sincerely,
Pros: Very classy. Makes you sound older and more mature. And more sincere.
Cons: Makes you sound too much older, like someone who would call a computer a “flashing picture machine” and think Obama is a Muslim.
Later,
Pros: Simple and concise. Tells them you are unpretentious and laid back.
Cons: Low brow. Commits you to future communication. Cajoles them into future communication.
XOXO,
Pros: Reminds family of their importance. Good for love letters.
Cons: Loses it’s sincerity if you electronically hug and kiss too many people. Terrible for office memos.
Cheers,
Pros: Upbeat and classy while suggesting a propensity for drink and mischief.
Cons: Reinforces American cultural inferiority complex to Britain. Spits in faces of Founding Fathers.
Thanks,
Pros: Polite. Makes them feel appreciated and eager to open your next email.
Cons: Weak. Very weak. Two emails in a row signed “Thanks” sends the message, “if you kick me and call me a worthless sack of shit I’ll still come back and thank you for it like a golden retriever puppy.”
Peace,
Pros: Amicable but dispassionate. Conveys awareness of youth culture.
Cons: Lazy and generic. Implies a lack of intelligence and basic hygiene as well as a strong preference for hemp garments.
Adieu,
Pros: Suggests membership in high society and allows for the possibility that you know a foreign language.
Cons: Patronizing. Very embarrassing if the recipient knows French and you don’t.
I was 14 years old when I flew on an airplane for the first time and my mother went out and bought me a suit for the trip. In those days, they wouldn’t let you on a plane without a suit. It was double breasted because only pimps and dope peddlers wore single breasted suits. And a woman wearing anything cheaper than her wedding dress was rightfully assumed to be a two bit harlot. I also got a cane and top hat for the flight because we couldn’t afford a proper monocle and golden pocket watch. Hell, times were tough but we managed to conduct ourselves with dignity anyway. Nowadays you get on a plane and the men all have their toes exposed and their Hawaiian shirts and the women have the midriff and the crotchless womanpanties.
And when was the last time you saw someone dressed appropriately to go to the pictures? People go in wearing their jeans and their t-shirts and their hacky-sacks and their wrist bongs. Not like the old days, no sir. If someone walked into a theater today wearing a tuxedo, people would assume he was going to the goddamn opera. And don’t even get me started on the garbage people wear to the opera.
It’s an epidemic that’s hit everyone in our society from the spiffiest big cheese to the least spiffy little cheese. Even our gangsters dress like a bunch of fish-smellin’ hobos! When I was a boy I’d go every day to deposit my eight cent wage from my after school job as a taste tester for the lead paint factory even though there was a five cent charge for the deposit and only Jews collected interest in those days. Why? Just to get a sliver of a chance to witness the spectacle of a robbery. One time in ‘aught four or some crazy old year like that I got the privilege to be there first hand.
My, did those robbers came in dressed to the nines! Each of the rascals had a different colored seer sucker suit with a matching pocket squares. And every man of them carried an extra square matching the boss’ suit because in those days people had heard of a little thing called loyalty and a related little thing called respect. Each tommy gun was painstakingly monogrammed in 24 karat gold lettering with the initials of the owner, his mother, his wife, his children, and his mistress if applicable.
Nowadays the thieves’ fedoras aren’t even made of felt; they’re cotton and elastic and they cover the whole face like they’re going skiing after. Hell I’d hide my face too if I had planned such a tacky robbery.
I know how young people feel about us old timers. They just roll their eyes every time we complain about them being lazy and having no idea how to deal with prairie measles or orphanhood. So I know it’s a long shot, but if I can convince just one youngster to avoid being seen in public in a shirt costing less than his parents’ house, then I can die a marginally less embittered man.
PUT IT ALL ON RED 