Rather foolishly I’ve already written “Important Life Lessons” in the mistaken presumption that it was an exhaustive list. However, life keeps throwing more things to remember. And I don’t just mean other people’s birthdays.
So, until Life stops, Life lessons will be a recurring feature of my work. The main problem will be looking for further titles: More Life Lessons, Even more, Life Lessons. Yup, more Life Lessons I’m afraid…So
1. When writing a blog post, don’t entitle it Life Lessons. You’ll be stuck for future titles
2. Be aware of where you are in life. Timing is everything. If you stand by a pedestrian crossing do not be surprised if cars stop
3. When abroad, always speak French, they’ll think it’s the French that has been too rude to learn the local lingo
4. Do not spend too long writing your novel or you won’t remember parts of it. There are jokes in mine I’ve never heard before
5. Being a parent basically legitimizes listing things that you can see aloud, often in a soft, patronizing voice. ‘A tree’ ‘a bus.’ On days without children, you still do this but it’s best to keep it to yourself.
6. The chances of the driver in an SUV towing a trailer with jet-skis is likely to rate very highly on the Twat scale.
8. Continuing on this tip, Audi Q7 drivers can actually save money, while achieving the same effect, by wearing a sandwich board reading ‘I’m an arrogant dick who needs a car too big to park to compensate for my diminished sense of self-worth’.
7. The quickest way to work is likely to be the same route that you rush home.
8. At the risk of upsetting his fans, you can never leave it too long not to play ‘Are you gonna go my way?’ by Lenny Kravitz
9. One of the most important things a middle-aged man can learn is when it’s time to stop wearing T-shirts
10. One of the most important things a woman can learn is how to tell a man he’s too old for a t-shirt emblazoned with a band no one under 30 has heard of.
11. Another sign of being a parent is when seeing the phrase Ninja Turtles. The cool part of you recalls the cool hip-hop and soul label Ninja Tunes, but you’re mostly preoccupied with how the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are inexplicably still-surviving, to make scriptless, unwatchable films, and undoing any 5-a day advice by surviving entirely on pizza.
12. As a parent, you end up saying things you’d have never imagined, such as ‘stop throwing crisps at me.’
13. Nothing is the same anymore. There are even under-stimulated rocket scientists sitting around in laboratories moaning ‘well, it’s just not rocket science.’
14. The most important tip here is if you are having a BBQ, but can’t be bothered to cook. Light the BBQ, get the meat ready, hold some of those large scissor “clampy” things for turning, and stand there. Within 5 seconds an ‘expert’ will come up and start giving advice. Subtlety hands him the tongs (I knew I’d name them eventually) and slope off. Any BBQ is always surrounded by at least 4 ‘experts’ who think they can do a better job than you- so let them.
15. If your knife is too blunt to cut hot cross buns it’s time for a new knife.
16. Unless you want to spend your entire marriage with the pressure of being interesting and charming, do not drink alcohol on your first date.
17. When a blog annoys you, such as hopefully not this one, a good suggestion is that they blog on.
18. Never go camp. There’s no good weather for it.
19. The best way to find any missing sunglasses is to sell your car. You’ll find more sunglasses than you remember buying, and some you clearly didn’t and that would be better suited to Timmy Mallet’s holiday.
20. Always dilute your children’s fruit juice. It lasts longer, and when they leave home they’ll be spun out by the pure intensity of unadulterated Copella ™ apple juice, replacing the need for any class A narcotics for at least the 1st year of independence.
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Originally published on Idle blogs of an idle fellow
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