...special announcement: the day all holidays were NULLED

Expensive gift giving (credit: www.parenbonjour.com)

Celebrating gets expensive. Especially when you feel the pressure to surpass the price tag of the last gift you received. Don’t deny it – it’s an awkward moment when you feebly present someone a handwritten ‘massage coupon’, and they give you a shiny, new SLR camera (much to my horror last Christmas). And so the process starts. You find yourself unconsciously stuck in the ‘unwritten’ social norm of upward-gift-giving.

Fast forward several years and you find yourself wandering aimlessly in a gift store – perplexed and stressed – and looking at purchases you really can’t afford. Whether it be designer clothes (because you crossed the ‘non-designer’ line last year), puppies (teddy bears just don’t cut it), jewellery that sparkles (semi-precious was so two birthdays ago), or that new flat screen television you always wanted (I mean, they always wanted).

How do you stop the upward trend of gift giving? For those who freak at the thought of backing down, I discovered a list of mathematical equations (in my head) that devise the year you are acceptably allowed to scratch the gift-giving back to BASE ZERO. Do it – before you go insane and/or bankrupt.

How it works: it’s scientific fact based on unexplainable mathematics involving the day, month and year of each holiday. It arrives at the year you are not expected to give gifts, or other nonsense facts.

Valentine’s Day: no need to apologise for forgetting yesterday, it didn’t exist!

14 – 02 – 12 = 0

Easter: give yourself this many Easter eggs this year (held on April 8).

08 + 04 + 12 = 24

Check how many eggs you must eat every year here to abide by this highly accurate equation.

(image: wikipedia)

Christmas: you can afford to spend big this year, ‘cos next year’s Christmas is back to base zero. Just in time for Europe’s crisis.

25 – 12 – 13 = 0

Your parent’s birthdays: to be fair, the permanent record is set at base zero, except in the following situations…

(The year they were born) – (the year they were born) + 40 = 40

Interchangeable with +50, +60, +70 +80, +90, +100 (unless they turn senile, then you’re off the hook).

Birthday of your loved one:

(Amount of years you’ve been dating/married) – (Amount of years you’ve been dating/married – 1) = one year of exchanging presents while you’re still trying to impress each other.

After that, you clue on that ‘coupons’, ‘home cooking’, or ‘sexual favours’ are cheaper and happily accepted.

Your child’s birthday: is allowed to be forgotten before their conscious thought becomes ‘memories’. Gift giving can acceptably stop once they first declare ‘i hate you’, ‘you’re so annoying’, ‘i wish you weren’t my parents’ and so on (usually in teenage years).

To avoid extremely fucked up children, you should probably start gift-giving after the age of 20 when they forgive you and think you’re cool again.

base zero: >5 and 15< until >20

Friends:  

F+R+I+E+N+D = 6 – (minus the description of what they mean to you)

G+O+O+D = 4

B+A+D= 3

B+E+S+T = 4

FRIEND (6) – GOOD (4) = 2 presents

FRIEND (6) – BAD (3) = 3 presents

Yes, bad friends get more presents. Go figure, you try to suck up more (unless they are an E+N+E+M+Y or B+I+T+C+H).

Perfect it they’re a B+A+S+T+A+R+D – then they owe you a present.

Can also be used for F+A+M+I+L+Y.

The Queen’s Birthday

21 – 4 – 17 = 0

Yeh, sorry. You’ll be forced to keep celebrating that public holiday until 2017.

New Year’s Eve

31 – 12 – 19 = 0

By which year, you’ll hopefully be sick of all those fireworks, drinking, late nights, and…. crazy, stupid fun. Hell, hope there’s something good on television in 2019.

Your own birthday

(insert day) – (the month) – (year you were born) x 0 = 0

No matter how secretive you are, sending yourself birthday presents is sad. However, using someone else’s credit card to buy your presents is just genius. And highly acceptable.

Happy holidays!

...why your goldfish had to DIE

Here fishy fishy (credit: http://goldfish.ornamental-fishes.com/)

I’m as sorry as you are that this post had to happen. But I was thinking about everything’s purpose in life, and I stumbled across (in my mind) the Goldfish’s Purpose In Life. They are meant to die.

I’ll put it in ten easy points, just in case it gets too overwhelming and brings back childhood memories of ‘Goldie’ or ‘Fishy’ or ‘Goldie Fishy’.

But, he/she (not that you checked) died for a purpose…

1.  It taught you the concept of life and death. Now it’s swimming, now it’s floating, now it’s flushed. Particularly insightful for those who plan on floating dead relatives down the Ganges.
2. It’s easier to flush a goldfish down the toilet than a Labrador.
3. Cats don’t like water. Particularly, toilet water.
4. It taught you responsibility. And that your parents will pick up after your mess, just like they did when you never bothered to feed it.
5. That your parents have limits and eventually get sick of looking after your responsibilities**.
6. It introduced you to the power of persuasion. “But, daddy, I want another one! I promise I’ll feed Goldie Fishy the Eleventh this time.”
7. And handouts… “Dad, I need 20 bucks for a new goldfish.”
8. Because the girl Goldie Fishy met the boy Goldie Fishy and they made Little Goldie Fishies. And then the tank got crammed and they all died.
9.  You have to keep on swimming, keep on swimming, keep on swimming (there’s a life lesson hidden in there).
10. Because goldfish are boring. And you were always going to turn to boys or girls eventually.

**Also a good lesson in delegating blame, seeing they’re the ones who forgot to feed it/didn’t help you/let you down… All good phrases you’ll need later in life when you mess up.

…exposing the fundamental evils of the word ‘ALMOST’

Read on – you might almost enjoy this.

An almost jackpot doesn't let you retire

Analysing the word ‘almost’ brings a depressing discovery. Yes, we grow up believing it has positive associations, seeing adults constantly tell us as children that our clumsy skills ‘almost’ got us what we wanted. The praise is enough to divert our attention that we completely failed in our mission’s objective (even if that mission involves cramming a soggy biscuit into a key hole).

But do we ever grow out of this learned behaviour? Or do we continue to suck on the comfort of the word ‘almost’ throughout life?

Yes, yes we do. Just listen for the stream of ‘almost’ during your next (almost) success or achievement. Good for you, considering  ‘almost’ is really just a synonym for ‘not quite’, ‘nearly there’ and ‘you loose, loser’.

Face it. At a fundament level, ‘almost’ is just a feel-good word we reserve for losers. As in:

‘Congratulations! You almost got gold in your 100m Olympic sprint that you’ve been training for your whole life’. Yeh, but you didn’t.

‘OMG! I have five of the six numbers for the lotto jackpot! I almost won three zillion, billion, million dollars.’ Yeh, but you didn’t.

“I almost became President.” But you didn’t, did you Al Gore? Huh, John McCain?

You can see the predicament of pretending the word ‘almost’ is a positive thing. We use it as a Band-Aid to protect us from the tragic truth that we didn’t make it. It’s an emotional blanket that allows us to maintain the farce that we are really (almost) awesome.

Then again, life is about choices. And choosing how you define the word is entirely up to you.

Do you want the blue pill or the red pill?

I chose blue. And I feel really, really awesome.

Here’s why:

• I was almost discovered as the ‘hottest new actress’ when I played the lead role in a school play. I almost became a household name.
• I almost started a software company to rival Apple and Microsoft. I almost became richer than Bill Gates himself.
• I almost started the most successful blog ever created. I almost have too many followers to count.
• I almost discovered how life began on Earth. Darwin almost did too. We have a lot in common.
• I almost became a famous rock star. But I declined, given I had already suffered enough from almost becoming a famous actress.

And so, having so many ‘almost’ successful encounters in my life, I can say it’s a life worth living. The sense of achievement gives me that satisfaction feeling.

It’s nice knowing I’m almost, quite possibly, but not quite, the most awesome person in the world.

You too? You’re so freaking (almost) awesome.