Santa. He 'knows when you've been bad or good'. That's quite an accomplishment, Santa, thanks very much. Good to know someone is keeping a watchful eye on me. But then again maybe, if you pay too much attention to what a man is doing in his private life, you might get a bit distracted and accidentally tumble down a flight of stairs. , , I'm only looking out for you, Santa.
I know that Christmas has traditionally been about department stores making money but I've always hoped it might one day become a holiday for children. For some reason people assume I'm cynical but I've always liked children: they're funny, and they remind me of how each of us used to be - truthful, spontaneous, amoral and interesting. No child has ever once bored me with talk of mortgages or promotions. So our first Christmas wrongcard is for the children.
Never play with fire, they say, but that's no way to win at monopoly. I've started three fires during games of monopoly and went on to win each game. I think of fire as the God of Winning.
I'm going to go ahead and admit that there aren't many Family Wrongcards yet. Ever since my own family died in an unsuspicious fire that happened while I was on the other side of town making a speech in front of several eyewitnesses, I don't like to think about family. Still, you have to admit it's an institution. And it's incredibly beautiful, the way it dances. Sometimes I think fire is a god.
On Wednesdays in December I like to post an older card, then I meditate backwards through time and space. Once I traveled back to '02 and had coffee with myself. I tried to convince me that gum boots would be fashionable in 10 years but I didn't believe me. Actually, I haven't believed anything my Future Self has said for about a decade now.
What is Christmas about, anyway? For me it's about inspiring others to be better. As an inspirational figure I want to remind you all that there are people in the world who, for reasons of ethnicity, don't celebrate Christmas. You should reach out to them and make them feel bad about that, so maybe next year they WILL celebrate Christmas, and maybe buy us both presents. Man that'd be cool.
On re-hash Wednesday we nostalgically re-visit a card from days of yore. This was published on April 13, 2008, back when Wrongcards was a weekend project that I ran to stress-test the patience of Harvard's Department of Human Resources. BTW I told them that, there being only 20 million Australians, I was therefore a minority. 'You can't fire minorities', I said. Logic is my superpower.
On Wednesdays I like to post an older card and then spend the rest of the day listening to Rush Limbaugh. Not really. No I don't do that. It's not often that Wrongcards goes too far and posts something that tasteless on the internet but it happened right there a second ago and I'm sorry. It's a good thing Mother doesn't know about Wrongcards.
Like most people I had parents. They ran a complex experiment on me called 'raising a child without reading a book or consulting anybody who has done it before'. But they must have done something right because God says he prefers me to just about everybody else in the world. In fact I could become a prophet but I suffer from a phobia of beards. Today's card is about families.
On Wednesdays I like to post an older card and then spend the rest of the day serving my community. Now, you can't really save the world on your own, but what you CAN do is pick one issue or cause and focus on that. Me? I work to raise awareness of clowns. I'm just trying to make a difference.
After I realized that I had mastered Workplace Behavior, Norms and Etiquette, I realized it would be selfish of me not to share my knowledge with others. So I started to encode subtle Workplace Survival Tips into certain cards - today's card, for example. There's no need to thank me ... I do it for the glory.
You all know me as a staunch defender of family values. Although Genghis Khan is not closely connected with Thanksgiving he DID father thousands of children and set them up with a dynastic empire. You don't get more family-oriented than that. Did your parents do as much for you? Doubt it. Ask them why not this holiday season.
I'm not American but I live in Boston. Thanksgiving is a lovely holiday that celebrates family life with good food and confusing games of football. I don't like the tradition of forcing foreign male guests to sleep with all the old ladies present but it's your holiday and I respect local customs even when I don't understand them.
You know what bugs me? Being told I have pathological problems with authority. I just don't see it, man. And besides, why I should be subjected to psycho-babble just because I rightly understand that if I don't terrorize a middle-manager every day the entire world will fall into a thousand years of darkness, with pestilence and giant clowns? I'm a bit disappointed in psychiatry, too, obviously.
On Wednesdays I like to post an older card like this and then spend the rest of the day writing letters to various newspaper editors requesting more coverage of the small African nation of Bunwabe. I sign the letters 'concerned'. Bunwabe is a country I completely made up. I believe that one day I'll know why I do this.