Fury Toad’s Guide to Self Improvement

Learn How to Cook – You only think you know how to cook.  In reality, no one gives a rip about the weird ingredient in your secret chili recipe.  Take the time to learn how to cook lobster or something else that’s mildly tricky to prepare but also super-tasty if well executed.  Nailing a seafood entrée at home in Dallas TX would drastically reduce the frequency at which you resort to drowning your guests in boxed wine to compensate for the shoe-leather tough fajitas you’re feeding them.  Even a philistine like you can wrap a dove breast with par cooked bacon & grill it.  Hone your skills until the main course is still breathing an hour before it’s delivered to the table.  Your kids will learn about the real circle of life and you might even rekindle some of the spice that left your relationship when Magic Mike was released on Blu-Ray.

Stop Dressing Like You Live Under a Bridge – I know your Jackson County Biscuit Festival t-shirt is practically a family heirloom, but it needs to be burned.  While you’re at it, throw your 2002 Masters polo on the sacrificial pyre too, since anyone else who wears a shirt soaked in that much wing sauce is almost obligated to have a Big Ten podcast.  I’m not suggesting that you channel Beau Brummell via seance, but raising the minimum standard for what you’re comfortable wearing in public wouldn’t hurt.  Wear undershirts, shine your shoes periodically and do your part for the Chinese economy by investing in a tuxedo.  A sharper mode of dress will do more than disguise your warmed-over political views and plummeting liver function.  Much more.

Read a Book – Is your knowledge of world history limited to the plots of Marky Mark films?  Is David Copperfield just a magician to you?  Are you a proud Texan who has no clue in what year the Battle of the Alamo was fought (Hint: This month marked the 180th anniversary)?  If you answer yes to any of these questions, fear not, as the solution to your intellectual abyss is within arm’s reach.  How about Eric Schlosser’s Command and Control?  It’s about when that nutty Air Force of ours nearly cooked off a Titan II nuclear missile in its silo about 400 miles northeast of here in 1980.  Maybe Blackhawk Down or Secrets of the Temple?  Why not A Brief History of Time to see what all the fuss is about?  If, by the end of my quest, there’s just one more geezer who doesn’t speak like he grew up swimming in industrial runoff, then my efforts will not have been in vain.

Write a Letter – Relax, I’m not asking you to play the opening riff of Stranglehold in downtown, Riyadh, just to pick up a pen & paper every now and then.  I’ve run the numbers and a handwritten note is exactly ten million times more meaningful than an email or warm Twitter mention.  There are too many positives to list.  A well placed note to a relative might get you written into a will.  It’s a great barometer for the progress of your delirium tremens.  Best of all, writing letters gives you the opportunity to include anatomically correct illustrations on the complaint that you send to the airlines when First Class is a ghost town but you’re still stuck next to the couple with 2 lap children.  Face it, it’s a mark in the plus column and you need all the help you can get.

Call a Grandparent – I’ve seen you whipping the people in line at Starbucks with tales of your son’s 3rd grade basketball game.  “Sir, before you tell me what the referee said, could I step out and head butt the sidewalk for 10-15 minutes to warm up?  Thanks a heap.”   Why subject your fellow mammal to such a bludgeoning when you could take those precious moments to beam joy into Pa-Paw’s life in the last few years before your parents start hiding his car keys from him? Grandpa is full of great tidbits of intelligence like mail route schedules, small engine repair and the cost of a prostitute by state in the years 1947-1955 inclusive.  Sure, you’ll have to sit front row for the details of his lingering lung ailment and you run the risk of being asked to call customer service on his behalf, but those are minor issues.  Give gramps a call and reacquaint yourself with a living breathing link to America’s wholesome, hard-working, moderately-racist past.

There’s more, but this is a good start.


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