My Mission Statement

Goals:

• To slap life like a bitch and say, "Hey, life, watch it! The Captain's back in town."
• To treat every woman like the goddess she is, and every man like a potential time bomb.
• To generously sprinkle love and kindness over every situation I'm in, so I can follow the love-and-kindness trail back to my house when I'm too coked up to find it myself.
• To make every woman feel guilty because I treat them like goddesses.
• To single-handedly eradicate racism, sexism, homophobia, poverty, and hatred (time permitting).

Steps:

1. I will edit together the most inspirational moments of Tom Cruise's film career onto a comprehensive 6-hour tape. Re-watching snippets from Born on the 4th of July, Top Gun, and Legend will most likely get me in touch with the "Jerry Maguire within."
2. I will spend more time with my family, and this time it will be relatively porn-free.
3. I will eat healthy, exercise, and treat my body as a Taoist temple, and I will invite all my Asian friends to meditate inside me.
4. I will cure an obscure Third World disease, and give my cure a cool name like "Funkafly" or "The Funkinator." (Note: Remember to use the word "funk" in it.)
5. I will drink fourteen glasses of cranberry juice a day, so that if my kidneys ever fail, I can curse God for so clearly hating me.
6. I will climb a mountain I've always wanted to climb, swim a river I've always wanted to swim, and spelunk a cave I've always wanted to spelunk. I will also bed a woman I've always had the hots for, assuming my wife gives me the OK on that. (Note: Remember to only telepathically ask her, since the out-loud option will create unnecessary grief for all.)
7. I will spend copious amounts of money on frivolous things until it runs out, because you can't take it with you to the grave. Then I will re-build my fortune the old-fashioned way--from loans and petty crimes.
8. I will remove the word "can't" from my vocabulary, and replace it with the word "funk't."
9. I will write an operetta that makes people cry. Then I'll write one that makes them think. Finally, I'll write one that makes them think about crying, but for some reason ends up making them laugh. That should cover the emotional bases. Grand slam!
10. I will learn to think outside the box. I will also learn to stop giggling when I hear someone say that. Not everything is a double entendre, Christopher.
11. I will make my home a microcosm of The United States of America, in order to give my daughter a grounded sense of her country and history. I will play the part of The Man, and I will make sure to "keep her down."
12. I will stop switching "adult" videotapes with Disney movies at the local videostore. It was funny in my 20s and early 30s, but something tells me I need a new outlet for my sadistic pleasures when I hit the big 4-0.
13. I will adopt a pet. I will adopt a child. And assuming my wife can't have one of her own, I will adopt a highway. I might put a moat around my stretch of highway, to keep other people the hell away from my property.
14. I will stop telling people that George Burns was the antichrist. It was just a movie, and I've really got to get over it. I will start telling people that Bill Cosby is the antichrist.
15. I will look up all my old friends from high school, and call them on the telephone. I will arrange times to meet them for drinks and talk about old times. I will spend fourteen minutes with each, exhausting every inside joke and mildly entertaining reminiscence. I will spend twenty-nine minutes pondering what I ever had in common with these people. I will go home with shattered ideals and a broken heart. I will wake up in the middle of the night and read some classic Ziggy cartoons. I will fall asleep with a smile on my face.
16. I will volunteer at a homeless shelter, as long as it's not a stinky one.
17. I will take my daughter to Disney World three times a year, and remind her that it is the happiest place on Earth. If she doesn't believe me, I will make home the saddest place on Earth, so she will learn not to doubt me.
18. I will tell my boss what I really think of him, to his face, because I can't live my life as a meek brown-noser. (Note: Remember to say it in falsetto, since everybody loves baby voices)
19. I will talk the talk and walk the walk. I will also drink the drink and smoke the smokes. I will not, however, pork the porks. That hardly makes sense.
20. I will live each day like it's my last. Then I'll get disappointed each subsequent day, as I've already done all the cool stuff.

My wife thinks I've done irreparable damage to our daughter for "snatching away her pink little birthday dreams and replacing them with more narcissistic bullshit." I don't expect her to understand. Not yet, anyway. As I said before, this list is intended for you--fair reader--most especially. I hope you will see the changes you need to make in your life, in order to make this world a better place for the rest of us. I know a three-year-old girl who's depending on it, so please don't disappoint. That's "Daddy's job," as she says.