Heaven's Shit List

First of all, I’d like to start by saying that my friends and I are not horrible people. We’re actually wonderful people, just not the kinds of friends who spend a lot of time talking about sunshine and teddy bears. Don’t get me wrong, we’re not morbid, and we’re definitely there for each other whenever one of us needs it, but hugs and Kleenex are usually pretty short-lived as we’re quickly on to ragging on each other for crying and/or whining and subsequently coming up with random, off-the-wall ways in which the other person’s situation could have been worse – for example:
“At least MFP wasn’t there.”
“Yeah that sucks, but you look really hot today”
“It could totally be worse, Em, you could have no legs.”
“I’m really sorry you broke up with your girlfriend, but think of it this way: you are now a member of the hottest single group of friends EVER.”

For a little back-story, I need to tell you about the Wonder Twins. If our group of friends was a sitcom, we would be called the Wonder Twins. Don’t let the name fool you into thinking it’s just two people – it’s all of us: Tim, Charles, Blake, me, Nate’ and Mike. It started as a joke because Chollie and Timmy seem to always find themselves in situations with the drama at work that you couldn’t make up if you were a mind/body hybrid of Stephen King and David Sedaris. Seriously. The stories slowly started leaking out to the rest of us, and before you know it all six of us were contributing authors to such masterpieces as the Did You Really Just… list and the Great Questions list. Examples include: “Did you really just move desks and take everything but a cloth cap and you have a massive scalp infection, which means you left a spongy headgear of highly contagious germs for the next rep to use your desk?” And (suddenly standing up out of his cube to ask) “Do they sell beer at Chuck E Cheese’s?” And “Is Iraq in Africa?”

We are fully aware that we shouldn’t be laughing at these questions, but we just can’t help it. That started a dialogue at lunch today on whether or not God is going to forgive us as we stand in front of the pearly gates. The overwhelming conclusion was: absolutely not. To which most of us shrugged and collectively said, “at least y’all will be there too!” and then we started to make another list comprised of good things we could do to negate the proverbial “shit list” Saint Peter would have waiting for us. That would more closely resemble a To-Do list and would have things like,
- Help an old lady load her groceries into her trunk. Not complain that she’s slow as hell and you just want the parking spot already
- Be a Candy-Striper. Not mess with the candy-striper by asking her to locate the room of your relative who is not checked into that hospital
- Smile unexpectedly at somebody today. Not laugh at somebody unexpectedly today
- Don’t add anything to the “Did You Really Just..” list
You know, simple things….

I don’t know how it happened, but the six of us are somehow the perfect mix of personalities to breed dysfunctional conversations, and they are always hilarious. Take, for example, the following conversation. Topic: Symmetry in double amputees. If you’re a double amputee of the lower extremities, wouldn’t you rather go for symmetry? I mean, if you’ve gotta do it wouldn’t you rather have two hips or two knees, or would you allow them to give you one of each – a hip and a knee. Just seems a little off, doesn’t it? What’s the point of having the knee? You still can’t play kickball. This launched the conversation to a whole new level. The point was quickly made that you can’t blanket the symmetry option because it doesn’t apply to arms. Why? Well, think of the simple tasks that can still be completed quite effectively with an elbow, but that would be significantly more difficult and awkward with just a shoulder: ringing a doorbell, indicating a direction (pointing), rubbing someone’s arm in consolation. You get the point – all much easier with at least an elbow.

I’m going to pause here and just say, God, I’m sorry – and I know my To-Do list needs to be much, much longer. I will also follow with: in no way, shape, or form were we trying to make fun of amputees. The point of my description is that these are the kinds of topics we often find ourselves debating - not the important international topics that one would expect young, intelligent professionals to have on the forefronts of their minds, like world hunger, big oil, how many points the DOW was up/down the previous day, etc.

All I can say is that my friends make me happy, and I love them. And regardless of how long our To-Do list gets I can at least rest assured that when/if we do make it to the pearly gates we’ll most definitely have St. Peter rolling with the story as to how we got there.

OOH! Guys, there’s another good one: “did you really just try to get into Heaven by telling Saint Peter: no really, I totally had a To-Do list!”