Costco, You Beautiful Bastard

People ask me all the time why I, a single woman working at a company that provides 10-14 free gourmet meals per week, has any need for a membership at a bulk superstore.

Personally, I'd like to know why any person, single or coupled, would opt out, assuming there's a Costco location within a 100 mile radius.  Where else can you find an eight person inflatable raft, 2 carat diamond earrings, and a case of coconut water all in the same place?  The moment I step foot into this big beautiful bastard's entryway, my adrenaline starts pumping.  I flash my membership card to the retiree at the door, lock a cool grip on that school bus of a shopping cart, and I’m off.   I navigate my way through aisles of appliances, produce, paper goods, and freezer food.  Bulk bargains! Organics! Luxury! Consumerism, hooray! And long after I'm home, and I've found the last nook or cranny in which to squeeze my wholesale haul, the savings satisfaction still courses through my veins.

Not sold?  Let me share with you what it is I buy, and why it's worth it.

Shampoo/Conditioner: The Kirkland brand is top grade.   I have been to enough shi shi salons to know this stuff is the real deal, and it costs nearly the same per ounce as most Suave products.  It’s like having the choice between the McDonalds Dollar menu, and dinner at Le Cirque, for $1.15.

Q-tips: When I was little, my mom used to tell me the generic brand of Q-tips, ("cotton swabs" for those of you who wouldn't even know what the hell to call those things if it weren't for the name brand) were just as good as the box with the capital Q.  This was, of course, a bold faced lie, but my therapist tells me this is something I should stop holding against her, so let's assume some consumer report fabricated the claim.  My own inability to avert penny pinching left me with substandard swabs for many a year.  That is, until Costco entered my life.  If you come to my home today, in need of ear canal cleansing, you'll be swabbing with the good stuff.  You're welcome.

Booze: If you're looking for premium vodka, find the Grey Goose at Costco, then shift your gaze two feet to the left.  There should be a tall bottle of Kirkland signature premium distilled.  Put that in your cart and never look back.  If you're looking for microbrew beer, pick any variety case, then find a friend who likes the 4 bottles of stout that come in it  (or I guess you could just like stouts....).  If you're looking for party drink, (Bud Light, Coors Light, Miller Light) grab a 36 pack and scoff at the thought of paying eight more dollars for six fewer cans anywhere else.

Cupboard staples: You don't need a quart of vanilla extract, or a pound of bread yeast?  Who cares?  Even if you throw half of it away, it's STILL one quarter the price you’re paying the McCormick Mafia.  Consider cooking from scratch more frequently, or reverse cup-of-sugar your neighbors.  Just start knocking on doors asking if people need baking soda for anything.  Clarify that it's baking soda and not cocaine.  Maybe reserve this activity for when the cable goes out.  Actually, this sounds potentially dangerous.  On the record, I don't recommend this.  Off the record, I don't even have cable so if you want to do this, record it, and send me a link to the video, that'd be swell.

Organic Spinach:  Spinach is the only thing at Costco that is actually sold in a week supply container for my household of 1, which confuses me.  The spinach tub cooks down to about 4 servings.  Based on literally every other consumable good, I would expect them to sell the stuff in garbage bags, but they don't.  And it's still 75% cheaper than the grocery store, go figure.  

Active Apparel: Spending a ton of money on clothes you sweat in is stupid.  Sporting dumpy schweaties next to the one straight man in your spin class is a wasted opportunity.  Throwing a fashionable, though brandless zip jacket into your cart next to the 30 pack of toilet paper is nothing more than logical.

Underwear: I get how parents dragging their screaming tiny humans might forgo the socks and undies aisle at Costco, opting for the extra five minutes in line for a dollar ice cream cone the size of their tot's head because 1.  it's delicious, and 2.  these aisles are narrower and more prone to product/tiny human avalanches.  Single people, however, have no excuse.  I own Costco camisoles in every color of the rainbow, and my underpants drawer is quickly rotating toward Felina, a brand I've never heard of but that rivals Victoria's poorly kept secrets at one fifth the price.

It should be noted that I am in no way affiliated with, or compensated by Costco Wholesale. Additionally, it occurs to me that I have more to say about a store than I do the environment, world politics and modern medicine combined, which makes me question whether a reassessment of my life choices may be in order.  

Vienna Waits

“Slow down you crazy child.  You’re so ambitious for a juvenile” It’s like Billy Joel knew what a hot mess we’d be by the year 2013, and he wanted to make sure there would be an epic song about it to provide future 20 somethings with some perspective.  Or, more likely, we’re the latest in a long line of generations hell bent on pissing their youth away, and not even one of the worlds greatest musicians can teach us to take a beat.

In the last couple of months I’ve read every numbered list about all the things I, as a 28 year old single woman in America, am doing wrong.  "7 things to make you happier at work", "21 things single women need to stop doing", "25 things single women need to start doing", "40 reasons my generation is terrible", "100 people in my generation who are ragingly more successful/happier/prettier/smarter/funnier than me".  I can’t stop myself from scanning these lists and suffering the exact opposite of their intended publication.  I don’t feel empowered or relaxed, or content.  I feel like a big fat failure.  But, when Mr. Joel kindly tells me I’m “doing fine”  somehow I get it, and the world is not such an overwhelming place.  So, please ignore the other lists and join me in acknowledging these simple truths:

• You can't be everything you want to be before your time
• Only fools are satisfied
• Dream on, but don't imagine they'll all come true

And above all, before anything else, Vienna waits for you.

Lyrics from Billy Joel’s “Vienna”, 1977

Slow down, you crazy child

you're so ambitious for a juvenile

But then if you're so smart, tell me

Why are you still so afraid?

Where's the fire, what's the hurry about?

You'd better cool it off before you burn it out

You've got so much to do and

Only so many hours in a day

But you know that when the truth is told..

That you can get what you want or you can just get old

You're gonna kick off before you even

Get halfway through

When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?

Slow down, you're doing fine

You can't be everything you want to be

Before your time

Although it's so romantic on the borderline tonight

Tonight,...

Too bad but it's the life you lead

you're so ahead of yourself that you forgot what you need

Though you can see when you're wrong, you know

You can't always see when you're right. you're right

You've got your passion, you've got your pride

but don't you know that only fools are satisfied?

Dream on, but don't imagine they'll all come true

When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?

Slow down, you crazy child

and take the phone off the hook and disappear for awhile

it's all right, you can afford to lose a day or two

When will you realize,..Vienna waits for you?

And you know that when the truth is told

that you can get what you want or you can just get old

You're gonna kick off before you even get halfway through

Why don't you realize,. Vienna waits for you

When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?

   

Come Fly With Me

Have you ever thought while at the airport “Wow this process is enjoyable, well organized, and reasonably executed!”?  Of course not.   I have a theory that what we know as modern day air travel was originally designed by the military as some form of psychological torture, the blueprints for which accidentally landed on someone’s desk at the department of transportation. Let’s address the current situation and my recommended adjustments, shall we? “Oh yes, let’s!”, you say and we hold hands and skip over to a picnic in the park*

The check-in counter: I don’t care where I’m going; Paris!  Rome! Sheboygan! How lovely it would be for the ticket agent to feign, for the briefest of moments, a shred of excitement.  “Oh Isn’t that nice, you’ll  have so much fun”! would be a pleasant way to start me on my journey but alas the robot behind the desk only offers a grunt and the briefest of gestures toward the gate.

The security line: Off to a not so great start, I next approach the security line.   The gate agents screaming instructions on loop seem not to have noticed that I am two feet away and fully prepared.  My shoes are removed! Do you not see the well organized 1 quart Zip-Loc bag in my hand?  If anyone out there associated with the TSA is reading this, please be informed that we are not all deaf. I don’t know how you got this impression.  Is there a morning meeting where you’re fed this lie?  “hey by the way, again today, every single person coming to this airport is deaf, every last one.  So, go ahead and continue to scream at them when they are directly in front of you”.  This is inaccurate and you should really check your sources.  

Oh but perhaps my theory is wrong.  Maybe the security agents are shouting so that, at some point during the 30 minute wait, even the least observant nitwit will realize that bottle of Fiji water is not making it through the checkpoint.  I’ve got a solution for that too.  Airports should start charging an idiot tax for anyone who’s unprepared by the time they reach the front of the line.  It could even be fun for the rest of us.  Picture it; once the non-compliant is standing on the yellow foot markers for the body scan, a voice announces their ineptitude over an intercom.  We fellow travelers waiting our turn can sing along to a catchy tune about the perils of burdening society as the belt-wearing, liquids-over-3-ounces carrying fool is directed to the idiot tax payment booth.  

Airport Food: I’m past security, my shoes are tied and the next thing that greets me is a great hall of neon signage and the wafting scent of meat by-products sizzling in vats of oil.  It’s a never ending sea of overpriced, refined starch, binge-inducing garbage calling my name. In the perfect world my solution would be to have Jillian Michaels standing in front of the Auntie Anne’s counter yelling “Don’t do it, you’re gonna regret it in like 5 minutes” and, when I buy that butter laden caloric endeavor anyway, running to the other end of the counter to  tackle me before I can take a bite. I realize that Jillian is only one woman and this is obviously not a scalable solution, which is why I propose installing Jillian Michaels life size plasma screens in front of every Auntie Anne’s.  

Strangely enough, missing from the menu of every airport I’ve ever been to, is coffee.  Airports don’t have coffee.  They have vats of hot dark swill that they pour into coffee cups but no actual liquid I’d define as the stuff.  I’m sorry but airport coffee is the Taco Bell ground beef of hot caffeinated beverages.  It’s disgusting, but we still consume it while lying to ourselves about what’s really inside, clinging to a thin veil of ignorance that’s just one 20/20 special away from being ripped to shreds.  My solution is to not watch that exposé when it comes out.  I just can’t risk a confined space for an extended amount of time with no caffeine.

On-board the aircraft: As for the experience once I’m actually on the plane, I think we could all spend the better part of the next decade commiserating, but that’s not a great use of anyone’s time. So, in rapid succession, just the actionable items that will contribute to the general sanity of travelers in society:

• Leave the cologne/perfume out of your morning routine on travel day, I know you think it smells nice in a “subtle” way and people like it but it doesn’t, and we don’t.
• Gentleman, I can say with scientific certainty that, whatever you may be carrying between your legs, it does not require you to spread your knees halfway into the seat to either side.  I paid for all of my seat, I expect to be able to use all of it.
• I get that your sweet Johnny is a wee little one, and he’s not accustomed to confined spaces but perhaps you could refrain from allowing him to run up and down the aisles arms flailing.  The first five seconds of his menacingly gleeful squeal were cute but the twenty minutes following had me wondering whether my insurance would pay to get my tubes tied, and I’ve spent the last ten reminding myself that binding and gagging a toddler is simply not the Christian thing to do.

I think that about does it. I strongly encourage the forwarding of this information to any fellow travelers you may know, leaders in the aviation industry, or Kinkos for mass order lamination and distribution at your local airport.  Thanks for flying.

* yaaaa about that, there’s no picnic.  I’m not even sitting next to you...ya weirdo.

Kids These Days: The early twenty-somethings

Let’s take some time to talk about what self obsessed, media guzzling mooches these little bastards are, and why I have no use for them.

First of all, kids in their early 20’s remind me I’m no longer in mine, which immediately makes them horrible little beasts.  Secondly they have essentially no knowledge of a world without internet which means they are not only disinclined, but more or less incapable of forming original thoughts or functioning without a constant stream of validation.  Still, I wouldn’t really mind them were it not for the societal burden these attention seeking, uber indulgent monsters force us to bear. You see, they’re not content living exclusively in their culturally void filth.  They frequently mingle with the rest of us in the most uncouth of ways.  They’ve derived a sub-language intended to reduce everyone’s IQ by a minimum of 20 points, and they openly carry on conversations with the rest of us, carlessely flinging these pollutants out at whim as casually as if they were saying hello.   I find this abhorrent.  

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, it’s likely you yourself have recently exited your teens.  I’ve compiled a short list of examples for your education:

“Presh”: There is nothing precious about your idiocy.

“YOLO”: You’re going to live short if I hear you yell this one more time, particularly when paired with a sideways peace sign. That hipster garb came from Nordstrom, you’re fooling no one.

“Def”: I wish I was deaf so I could definitely avoid hearing you lazily shorten this word.

“Bestie”: As in your “bestie” is totally about to steal your boyfriend AND your favorite shoes AND never talk to you again, which you deserve.

“Totes”: If I had a tote full of rocks I would totally swing it at you right now.

Additionally, I’m sorry your company’s stock went down 10% but you’re 22, you barely know what stock is.  Really, what impact does this have on your life?  You’ll have to order the Bud Light instead of the microbrew?  This is not cause for concern.  And I’ve heard you singing those songs of self-praise given you’re a trilingual ivy league graduate, but I got that email you accidentally cc’ed EVERYONE YOU KNOW on, and I recall you not being able to figure out how to change the little light bulb in your refrigerator so I’m going to have to ask you to sit down and shut the hell up.

Yep, kids these days are horrible foolish dimwits.  They juice cleanse and then binge on Jack in the Box.  They post environmental rants via one of the 8 devices sucking electricity out of their wall. They whine and obsess and mope and complain, and they think the world owes them something.  Basically they’re me with faster metabolisms and better skin... and I hate them for it.

10 Reasons I Didn’t Go to My Ten Year Reunion

Ah the high school reunion, a time when grown adults flock to their hometowns in a last ditch effort to relive glory days that weren’t really all that glorious, and reconnect with people they purposely lost touch with during college.   

Ten years ago, I walked across a stage and accepted a diploma from the state of New york, slightly perturbed the half-wit at the podium couldn’t pronounce my name, but otherwise pretty jazzed I’d made it through without any form of nervous breakdown, incarceration, pregnancy scare or regrettable piercing.  And every day of the last decade has more or less been a celebration of the closure of that chapter of my life. Still, when I got the invite to my ten year reunion, I considered going.  Maybe it would be nice to reconnect after all, perhaps I’d forgotten some glory days I was in need of remembering.  So, I hopped online to check airfare to good ‘ole hometown USA and, after wondering what one of my kidneys would fetch on the black market, decided it just wasn’t worth the holiday weekend airfare.  I did my due diligence though, and came up with as many reasons not to go, as there are years since I graduated.  Without further ado, I give you:

10 Reasons I Didn’t Go to My Ten Year Reunion

1.  I wasn’t really popular.  I didn’t run track or organize school dances or run for student body president. There weren’t an overwhelming number of people to reminisce with.

2.  I wasn’t really unpopular: I don’t have anything to prove.  I can’t recall a single person in whose face I’d like to rub my general success.  They’re probably out there, but I’ve long since forgotten them.  Which brings me to my next point.

3.  I don’t remember people:  Of my entire graduating class I think I can list 20 people.  Even if you put my yearbook in front of me I think I might be able to string a memory to a face with another 10.   Dear people I’ve forgotten:  It’s not that you’re forgettable per se, I have just forgotten you.  I doubt this fact impacts you in any meaningful way.  

4.  I hate pretending I do remember people. There are only so many times I can call people “hun” and glance at their nametag before someone catches on.  Which doesn’t matter anyway because after cocktail four I’d  just start telling people I had no idea who they were.  That’s not a good look for me.

5.  I don’t care about your kids:  This one is going to sting a little, but I don’t.  Please don’t misunderstand,  If we are currently friends, I care about your kids.  I’m not completely heartless, but if we were lab partners 12 years ago, I don’t care that little Johnny just took his first steps, I just don’t.  8 photos in I am not suddenly going to realize what a miracle he has been in your life.  

6.  I”m not a raging success:  I  won't lie to you, if I actually had invented Post-Its, hell yes I would be at that reunion because who doesn’t love a moment of celebrity?  As it stands I’m doing fairly well for myself. I’ve lost some weight, my credit score is in the pre-qualified-for-lots-of-stuff-I-don’t-need range , and I finally figured out what to do with my hair.  But none of these changes really qualifies for a FOX reality tv special.  If there aren’t going to be any spotlights or velvet curtains really, what’s the point?

7.  There are too many potential drinking games: “I can’t believe it’s been ten years” heard 20 or so times becomes necessarily acknowledged with tequila shots.  Strangers become friends, friends become enemies, someone calls the cops, and it’s all my fault for starting the whole damn thing.   I have made it 28 years without so much as a parking ticket.  I’d like to keep that streak going.  

8.  There’s no long lost love I was hoping to rekindle: No high school sweetheart, no unspoken crush, no “special friend” I was looking to go all Dawson’s Creek on.  Kids, if you’re reading this, the CW has been lying to you.  You have a better chance of getting hit by lightening than experiencing any of these scenarios.  

9.  I’m still a little afraid of being a grown up: I don’t have a mortgage, or a husband, or children siphoning off the lion’s share of my shoe fund, and out here in sunny California that’s pretty normal for someone my age, but at my reunion there would be, lying in waiting, a concentrated group of people my EXACT AGE who have all of these things, and I am terrified of facing them.  

10.  There wasn’t any dancing The modern sitcom has taught us that reunions include a Saturday night dance ala high school standard procedure but it turns out almost no one does this anymore and this point  just put me over the edge.  Reasons 1-9 I could maybe get over, but If I couldn’t spend too much money on a cocktail dress I may never wear again for the sole purpose of looking good in front of people I couldn’t even remember, while dancing to music I most likely now hate, then I just couldn’t justify going to a reunion.

For all my fellow 2003 graduates, congratulations on making it through a decade of the real world.  With any luck, I’ll find 20 reasons I should go to our 20 year reunion, and I’ll see ya then.

October and November: I Was Busy

I'm going to stop starting these posts with “sorry it’s been awhile since I’ve posted” apologies.  The truth is, it typically takes at least a month for me to come up with something I think anyone would find entertaining to read about.  Actually, you should be grateful I'm not filling the internet with yet another daily blog that rambles on about being single or cookie baking or “going green”.  That’s 5 more minutes a day I'm giving you to stalk your ex on facebook or wrack up another 28% interest credit card payment via online shopping.  You’re welcome, America.  

Truth be told a lot has happened in the past couple of months.  I flew back east for a friend’s wedding, I spent a weekend in Vegas, I went on a vacation to Barcelona and I got promoted.  I get how a normal person would give a general overview of those events.  I prefer the drive by observations I'm about to spit out.  It focuses on none of the important aspects of any of those events:

• When you’re drunk and the lighting is really low sometimes a ball of butter NEXT to your salad looks like one of those mini mozzarella balls IN your salad.  No amount of wine will get the taste out of your mouth OR erase the humiliation when the person across from you, who is only slightly less drunk, decides to point your error out to the entire table.  Thanks random girl, thanks a million.
• No matter how many times you casually mention it, people on the dance floor at a wedding will NOT request Super Bass on your behalf.  This is something you cannot outsource.
• Sometimes you have to trust your friends when they say it’s a good idea to leave the strip and take a $30 cab ride to Old Vegas.  Sometimes you have to tell them ‘no you do not want to go downstairs at 3am to play black jack, yes you do know you’re in Las Vegas, and won't they please shut the hell up and get the hell out of your room’.
• Confetti is ALWAYS AWESOME.  I don’t care how many countries you’ve visited, how cool your car is or what you do for a living.  Someone throws a shit ton of confetti into the air, you will throw your hands up, stare at the sky and spin like you’re freakin Julie Andrews.  
• People in Europe smoke like chimneys, drink like fish and eat cheese, basically nonstop.  It’s not a stereotype, it’s the real deal over there.  They’re still living longer and looking better than us.  I have no explanation for this.
• When you get promoted, in your head you meet your gal pals for $20 martinis wearing a cocktail dress and stilettos.  In real life you high five over draft beers.  You’re wearing sweatpants.
• Also, when you get a promotion, everything becomes more expensive in direct proportion to the raise you just got.  Suddenly it makes sense to buy clothes, shoes, and wine that are that percentage more expensive.  Pre-made PB and J sandwiches continue to be an idiotic waste of money.  (Seriously who is buying those things?  I don’t get it)

Life Lessons with Lea: Rich People

By now you're well aware I'm the product and current member of Middle Class America.  (If not, my Target wardrobe and base model hatchback should have been clues). And given my formidable years were spent with fellow austerity budgeters it's taken me several years to understand how the wealthier world functions. Below are a few Do's and Don'ts I've compiled  regarding the affluent.   Alrighty, here we go....

Life Lessons with Lea, RE:  Rich People

Rich people don't think they're rich:  Average rich people don't think they're rich, they think the obscenely, disgustingly rich people are rich and they're just upper middle class.  Let me paint a scenario for you:  A dog burglar has sent the family dog's collar in the mail telling you the ransom is $500,000 or Fido goes to the fire hydrant in the sky.  If there is even the remote possibility of you being able to liquidiate assets and pay that ransom (or call your parents for the cash) you are a rich person.  Stop trying to rub elbows with us middle classers.  

If that first lesson just provided you with the revelation you are in fact a rich person, you can stop reading now.  

Never joke about trust funds: The idea of actually having a trust fund is, in my mind,  so hilarious  it never occurred to me NOT to use the concept outside of sarcasm.  Turns out Scrooge McDuck isn't the only one with enough money to swim in and mocking that particular form of income is actually frowned upon by those advantaging from one.

Never ask "where did you get that?": I shop at TJ Maxx and Target and outlet stores, so it took me a really long time to get this one down because when someone says they like my dress I have the uncontrollable urge to tell that person I got it for $14.99 and if they hurry they can probably get it too.  This is the opposite of how you interact with rich people.  You're not supposed to ask, you're supposed to know who the designer is and whether it came from Saks, Bloomingdales or a boutique shop.  If say, you're just curious, or you want to splurge or oh, gee I dont know you plan on winning the lottery, and you do ask "Wherever did you get that coat?",a rich person will not tell you.  They will say they don't remember, which is a lie.  Rich people won't tell you where their clothes come from because in that moment of being asked they realize how ridiculous it is they've spent so much money on a sweater and they don't want to own up to it in the face of reality... or maybe they just don't want to be assholes and rub it in your face... I think it depends on the rich person.

Raising children is something the help does:  When a rich person has a baby, you're suposed to say congratulations and then ask them if they "have help".  Seriously, I'm not joking,  Everyone who knows rich people will ask this question.  If they say yes, it is followed by several details.  There's the nanny, the day nurse, the night nurse, daycare and  a gammot of credentials to match.  You're supposed to respond saying how great it is that this person is paying other people to raise their child.  If they say no they don't have help and have actually braved the frontier of raising the offspring they've born, you're supposed to throw them a parade.  

Trailers, above ground pools and coupons are off limits:  You cannot mention these things in front of rich people.  If you do, they'll look at you momentarily like you're some sort of crazy homeless person and then they'll change the subject to something completely irrelevant to the conversation. It's really too bad because I know lots of people who live/have lived in trailers and have/d lovely homes.  I grew up with an above ground pool that was AWESOME (and I'm willing to bet no less fun than my in-ground pool counterparts') and coupons, well coupons are free money, which you would think rich people would be ALL ABOUT but apparently not so much.  I'd consider launching a campaign to end the stigma behind these things but rich people obviously wouldn't donate to the cause, and I'm guessing most everyone else would be averse to paying for the upper class to understand what middle class living actually consists of. 

On the off-chance I someday find myself in the trust-fund-designer-clothing-nanny-employing-in-ground-pool-owning tax bracket, you can rest assured I won't forget that that's not how most of the world is living.  For now, I'm off to clip some coupons.

Life Lessons with Lea: What Lea Needs to Learn

Occasionally I throw out these Life Lessons with Lea posts but I was thinking maybe the tone of them is starting to sound a little holier-than-thou.  Like maybe you're just going about your day, you see my update via whatever technology doo-dad you use, and you're thinking "Shucks I sure could use a pick-me-up tell-tale sign of the times from Miss Giametta.  Maybe she'll retell that story of the woman shitting her pants. That post sure was a doosy". (You speak like this because everyone is from Nebraska circa 1953 in their mind's eye, yes?)  But instead of my Wal-Mart heyday or my latest dating debacle you get yet another kick in the pants about all the things you don't do well.  And maybe you don't like that.

I am, after all, a people pleaser so I figured I'd turn the tables and share some of the lessons I still haven't learned.  Chances are you already know most of these.  If that bitch from Romper Room taught us anything it's that people are watching.  But just in case you don't, and to prove I'm a good sport, I give you:

The Life Lessons Lea Needs to Learn:

1.  Remembering peoples' names:  People out there whose names I know; I guarantee you it took me no fewer than 3 times being introduced, reminded, or referenced via electronic communication for me to remember what your parents named you.  If I had even a sip of an alcoholic beverage on any of those occasions, the number doubles.  I am genuinely horrific at retaining this information. 

2.  Reading Maps: I cannot find my way out of a  cardboard box.  I have zero sense of direction.  On the upside I think I would survive were I dropped in the middle of the Sahara.  You know how they say humans have an inherent tendency to travel in circles in the desert?  I would find a way to mess that up.

3.  Sorting through mail:  How hard is this?  You collect the mail from the box.  Open the stuff you care about, recycle the junk, pay the bills and you're done right?  I don't know how to do this.  I only know how to let the paper grow to a beastly heap before finding the time to pare it down half way, i then wander away and let it double again. 


4.  Putting away laundry:  I don't actually mind washing, drying, or folding laundry but that's where the process dead ends.  I bring the fresh basket to my bedroom, set it on the floor, and leave it there until all of the clean clothes have been worn and I need to wash them again. I own a dresser.  It's functionality is completely lost on me.


5.  Driving aggressively:  You read aggressively, NOT dangerously, which is not a lesson anyone should learn.  Which reminds me, to all the motorists I share the road with; I beg of you, please learn what a signal light is.  You're going to love it.  But back to my lesson, I'm not an aggressive driver.  Look, I'm from a small town.  The only "traffic" we ever experienced was when the fireworks on the 4th of July ended and everyone had to rush home to either put the kids to bed or put on their fancy Carharts and swing over to the local bar.  Lanes didn't merge, metering lights were never on and the only traffic report we ever got was a drunk on a tractor directing vehicles at the intersection of one rural route and another.  That said I'm fully aware most rural transplants learn to adjust in suburbia.  I'm working on it. In the mean time just factor an extra few minutes of transit time if I'm driving.


Obviously there are several lifetimes of things I still need to learn.  These five just seem to create the most critical and prevalent hinderance to me functioning normally in modern society. Please do not add additional suggestions.  Another lesson I've yet to learn is handling criticism well.