The Best Things and the Worst Things

A list of things I love and love to hate.

There is a certain amount of paradox to saying more than one thing is the best thing. I realize that. For me this notion is an exercise in creative, joyful hyperbole. Pressing the envelope, overflowing the cup, putting your thumb on the scale… other metaphors.

The Best Things

1. 5,6,7,8 and Elemenopee

2. Baby Laughs

3. Red Shells

4. Dog Teefs

5,6,7,8 and Elemenopee

There is just something satisfying about the phonetic stair-stepping of rattling off sounds that fit like a glove. My favorite number jaunt is 5, 6, 7, 8. Just say it. Let it flow out of you like a numerical boxing combo. 5 6 7 8. left right left right. up down space. Something like that.

My favorite is the OG of phonetic sequential eloquence: L M N O P in the alphabet song. Every kid just freaking loves getting to this part of the song and letting ‘er rip in one big breath like it was one mega letter. A B C D E F G… H I J K … Elemenopee! Every letter after this rush of letter slalom is just the tail end of the downhill rollercoaster that is LMNOP. They are an after thought until you smack the final Z like an emphatic defiance of illiteracy.

Baby Laughs

You are expecting me to post a clip of one - or all - of my daughters laughing here. I am - mid-sentence - contemplating the ramifications of this decision, and you may or may not get said-clip as I loosely revise this post. We will see later if I will appease you with the cherubim delight that is my girls laughing. But even the anticipation of this content is proving my point that baby laughs are the best. Point: Rob.

Red Shells

I rest my case. Low skill, easy destruction. Mean mugging possibilities abound.

Dog Teefs

Note: especially puppy teefs.

Exhibits A - Infinity:

The Worst Things

1. Words You Only Know From Books (WYOKFBs)

2. Baby Nails

3. Red Shells

4. Dog Hair

5. Sleep

Words You Only Know From Books

You know if you grew up as a heavy-reading introvert that there are some large words that you never heard and only read.

Hyperbole … does not sound like Hyper Bowl. WTF.

Don’t even get me started with Deer and Dear… which leads to Beer and Bear. English is bonkers, y’all. Bonkers and no amount of Rizz¹, LOL², Sus³, Cheugy⁴ is going to make it any worse than a millennia of alphabet soup⁵ by colonialism⁶ and war profiteering⁷ has made it. It is what it is, cut bait (I’ve been using this phrase copiously of late and I will not stop for you) on the language and let it be overrun by teen neologisms⁸.

Baby Nails

Exhibit A: this chart.

This is ironclad evidence and is in no way just a rough sketch I just made to prove my point. Baby nails are only matched in strength and destructive power by Wolverine’s claws and toddler tantrums. They tear flesh, bruise psyches, and grow like duckweed⁹.

Red Shells

So red shells are awesome and on the best list… if you are the one using them. There’s nothing more nerve-racking than to be on the verge of victory and the radar suddenly pinging with dread.

Yes, the red shell has found you. And there’s very little to avoid it unless you are packing an item that you can cover your butt with it (literally). From wahoo to oh no is little more than the difference between who is going to take that red shell hit to their race car.

Dog Hair

Dog teefs are cute. Dog hair is a nuisance of the highest order. Obviously, since it made the worst things list. You will always be vacuuming or sweeping your home with a dog in the house, and you will never quite be rid of the hair. And don’t even think of wearing black pants. Just don’t.

Sleep

Don’t get me wrong, I like sleep. I enjoy having experienced it. I wish we didn’t have to do it, and there never seems to be enough time in the day to accommodate my need for it. I’m never tired when I need to sleep, and when I feel tired and ready to sleep it’s never right moment.

I remember liking it as a younger man, but with the combination of full time work, kids, spouse, and a million-and-one different side hustles, it’s really just an obstacle to the to-do list to feel tired and need sleep.

Things I Love and Love to Hate

So there you have it: the best and the worst things. There will be more to come. And they will also be the BEST and the WORST things. So leave a comment with your best and worst things, and I’ll confirm or deny their entry into LOVE/HATE canon.

1. Don’t Ask.

2. C’mon.

3. Seriously? 🤨

4. If you are a millennial, you came down here to gauge how much pain you were already in. Everyone else takes 7 points of psionic damage.

5. My daughters believe this should be on the BEST list for soup at least. Jury still out for me.

6. I just like footnotes, and you can already tell where I was going with this.

7. Some of the oldest profiteering around, and probably would belong on this worst list by itself. See: Opium/Hundred Years/Cold/Hot/Lukewarm Wars, Africa land grab, India/Pakistan, Afghanistan, other -stans (including the Eminem song probably?)

8. This is an actual, honest-to-goodness word.

9. See Plant Wolffia, fastest growing plant known.