-Wax the ceiling

-Rearrange political campaign signs

-Sharpen your teeth

-Play Houdini with one of your siblings

-Braid your dog’s hair

-Clean and polish your belly button

-Water your dog…see if he grows

-Wash a tree

-Knight yourself

-Name your child Edsel

-Scare Stephen King

-Give your cat a mohawk

-Purr

-Mow your carpet

-Play Pat Boone records backwards

-Vacuum your lawn

-Whine

-Rake your carpet

-Re-elect Richard Nixon

-Critique “Three’s Company”

-Listen to a painting

-Play with matches

-Buff your cat

-Race ferrets

-Paint your house…Day-Glo Orange

-Have a formal dinner at White Castle

-Read Homer in the original Greek

-Change your mind

-Change it back

-Learn Greek

-Watch the sun…see if it moves

-Stand on your head

-Stand on someone else’s head

-Build a pyramid

-See how long you can stay awake

-See how long you can sleep

-Spit shine your Nikes

-Paint your teeth

-Wear a salad

-Speak with a forked tongue

-Get your dog braces

-Shave a shrub

-Have a proton fight

-Watch a car rust

-Quiver

-Rotate your carpet

-Learn to type…with your toes

-Set up your Christmas tree in April

-Buy the Brooklyn Bridge

-Be someone special

-Mail it to a friend

-Go back to square one

-Factor your social security number

-Take the fifth

-Memorize a series of random numbers

-Read the 1962 Des Moines white pages

-Join the Foreign Legion

-Learn Sanskrit

-Exist…existentially, of course

-Print counterfeit Confederate money

-Kick a cabbage

-Take a picture

-Sandpaper a mushroom

-Put it back

-Play solitaire…for cash

-Abuse your patio furniture

-Run for Pope

-Count to a million…fast

-Make a schematic drawing…of a rock

-Commit seppuku…with a paper knife

-Revert

-Think shallow thoughts

-Sleep on a bed of nails

-Boil ice cream

-DON’T toss and turn

-Run around in squares

-Think of quadruple entendres

-Speak in acronyms

-Have your pillow X-rayed

-Drink straight shots…of water

-Calmly have a nervous breakdown

-Give your goldfish a perm

-Fly a brick

-Play tag…on 35W

-Exorcise a ghost

-Be blue

-Exercise a ghost

-Be red

-But don’t be orange

-Paint stripes on a lake

-Ski Kansas

-Sleep in freefall

-Kill a Joule

-Test thin ice…with a pogo stick

-Apply for a unicorn hunting license

-Do a good job

-Crawl

-Invite the Mansons over for dinner

-Paint your windows

-Watch a watch until it stops

-Flash your goldfish

-Paint

-Smile

-Paint a smile

-Flirt with an evergreen

-Rotate your garden…daily

-Shoot a fire hydrant

-Pretend you’re blind

-Apologize to it

-Plant a shoe

-Sweat

-Give a Rorschach test to your gerbil

-Turn

-Take your sofa for a walk

-Write a letter to Plato

-Mail it

-Start

-Stop

-Dial 911 and breathe heavily

-Go to a funeral…tell jokes

-Play the piano…with mittens on

-Starch your shoes

-Polish your Calvin’s

-Contemplate a cockroach

-Get a dog to chase your car

-Investigate the Czar

-Let him catch it

-Form a political party

-Climb a sidewalk

-Have a political party

-Get diagonal…with a good friend

-Ride a loaf of bread

-Sharpen a carrot

-Interrogate a gerbil

-Annoy yourself

-Get mad at yourself

-Stop speaking to yourself

-Be a side effect

-Ride a bicycle…up Mt. McKinley

-Duck

-Redecorate…your garage

-Develop a complex

-Join the Army…be someone simple

-Try harder

-Hit the deck

-Put leg warmers on your furniture

-Cut the deck

-Scheme

-Sit

-Water your family room

-Stay

-Cause a power failure

-Roll over

-Wriggle

-Play dead

-Donate your brother’s body to science

-Find a witch

-Ask why

-Burn her

-Regress

-Sleepwalk without sleeping

-Go bow hunting for Toyotas

-Kidnap Cabbage Patch Kids

-Jump back

-Play to lose

-Scalp a street light

-Have your car painted…plaid

-Read a tomato

-Sharpen your sleeping skills

-Watch a game show…take notes

-Put out a fire

-Interview a cloud

-If you can’t find a fire, make one

-Play tiddlywinks…go for blood

-Play basketball…in a minefield

-Crumple

-Translate Shakespeare into English

-Skydive to church

-Cheer up a potato

-Do aerobic exercises…in your head

-Play cards with your swimming pool

-Pinstripe your driveway

-Play Kick the Fire Hydrant

-Harness chipmunk power

-Build a house with ice cubes

-Call London for a cab

-Mug a stop sign

-Change your name…daily

-Go for a walk in your attic

-Challenge your neighbor to a duel

-Try to join Hell’s Angels by mail

-Wonder

-Be a square root

-Ask stupid questions

-Weld your car doors shut

-Spew

-Vacation at Three-Mile Island

-Surf Ohio

-Teach your pet rock to play dead

-Go bowling for small game

-Be a monk…for a day

-Wear a sweatband to your wedding

-Staple

-Run away

-Intimidate a piece of chalk

-Abuse the plumbing

-Bend a florescent light

-Bend a brick

-Annoy total strangers

-Don’t talk to things

-Draw Lewis structures on your ceiling

-Have your cat bronzed

-Have your gerbil gilded

-Write books about writing books

-Create random equations

-Misspell words

-Tell your feet a joke

-Throw a tomato into a fan

-Sing the ABC song backwards

-Pretend you’re a dog

-Dial-a-prayer and argue with it

-Grease the doorknobs

-String up a room

-Stack furniture

-Relive fond memories

-Tie your shoelaces together

-Gargle

-Count your teeth with your tongue

-Decay

-Find your half-life

-Build a house out of toothpicks

-Howl

-Wear a lampshade on your head

-Memorize the dictionary

-Stomp grapes in the bathtub

-Find a bug and chase it

-Make yourself a pair of wings

-Be immobile

-Dance ’til you drop

-Check under chairs for chewing gum

-Squish a loaf of bread

-Moo

-Bounce a potato

-Out maneuver your shadow

-Climb the walls

-Appreciate everything

-Challenge yourself to a duel

-Believe in Santa Claus

-Let the best man win

-Throw marshmallows against the wall

-Hold an ice cube as long as possible

-Adopt strange mannerisms

-Blow up a balloon until it pops

-Sing soft and sweet and clear

-Sing loud and sour and gravely

-Open everything

-Balance a pencil on your nose

-Pour milk in your shoes

-Write graffiti under the rug

-Embarrass yourself

-Grind your teeth

-Chew ice

-Count your belly button

-Sit in a row

-Stack crumbs

-Gesture

-Save your toenail clippings

-Make a pass at your blender

-Punt

-Make up words that start with X

-Make oatmeal in the bathtub

-Search for the Lost Chord

-Chew on a sofa cushion

-Sing a duet

-Balance a pillow on your head

-Hold your breath

-Faint

-Stretch

-Flash your mailman

-Teach your TA English

-Learn to speak Farsi

-Swear in Russian

-Use an eraser until it goes away

-Disassemble your car

-Put it together inside out

-Record your walls

-Interview your feet

-Make a list of your favorite fungi

-Sell formaldehyde

-Make napalm

-Tattoo your dresser

-Watch a bowling ball

-Buy some diapers

-Eat everything

-Begin

-Pour milk in the sink

-Make cottage cheese

-Tie-dye your sheets

-Hold your earlobes

-Carpet your ceiling

-Fold your earlobes

-Flap

-Squawk

-Read tea leaves

-Analyze the Koran

-Be Buddha

-Award yourself a Nobel Peace Prize

-Plug in the cat

-Turn on everything

-Drop pebbles down the chimney

-Turn off your neighbor

-Kill a plant

-Buy a 1931 Almanac

-Memorize the weather section

-Think lewd thoughts about yourself

-Peel grapes

-Make paper from the skins

-Send chills down your spine

-Blow bubbles

-Bloat

-Catch them with your radiator

-Get run over by a train of thought

-Make up famous sayings

-Bite your pinkie

-File your teeth

-Design a better toilet seat

-Shred a newspaper

-Scratch

-Have a headache

-Sniff

-Hatch an egg

-Play air guitar

-Spill

-Act profound

-Spell

-Stare

-Truncate

-Slouch

-Develop hearing problems

-Put your feet behind your head

-Tie bows in everything

-Hold your hand

-Watch the minute hand move

-Grow your fingernails

-Pretend you’re a telephone

-Radiate

-Ring

-Skip

-Play hopscotch…with real scotch

-Clock the velocity of your REMs

-Put your shoes on the opposite feet

-Cross your toes

-Roll your tongue

-Crystallize

-Baby oil the floor

-Hide

-Attack innocent bunnies

-Declare war

-Destroy a tree

-Hide the scrabble bag

-Seduce your stick shift

-Wink

-Memorize the periodic table

-Mummify

-Pretend you’re a roadie

-Buy a Ginsu knife

-Collect electrons

-Correct typos that aren’t there

-Polish your neck…use Pledge

-Repeat

-Ad lib

-Fade

-Loosen the lug nuts on your dad’s new car

-Drop your cat off the roof to see if it lands on all four feet

-Count the bags under Walter Mondale’s eyes

-Unscrew all the light bulbs and rearrange the furniture

-Found the Jim Jones School of Bartending

-Listen for non-satanic messages (i.e. “Drink milk”)

-Dress like Motley Crue…surprise your grandmother

-Dial-a-Prayer and tell them they’re wrong

-Go into a bar and ask for a Molotov Cocktail

-Learn everything there is to know about the Holy Roman Empire

-Make a drive-in window at your local bank where there wasn’t one before

-Walk on water…but don’t get caught

-Confess to a crime…that didn’t happen

-Be in the wrong place at the right time

-Plot the overthrow of your local School Board

-Request covert assistance from the CIA

-Discover the source of the Mississippi

-Search for buried treasure…in Nebraska

-Hot wax the bottom of your brother’s dress shoes

-Preach the philosophy of Marx…Groucho, that is

-Drink as much prune juice as you can

-Write a book about your previous life

-Serve ping-pong balls…as hors d’oeuvres

-Jump up and down…on your alarm clock

-Make a quilt out of used cocktail napkins

-Sterilize your stereo…with Jack Daniel’s

-Carve you and your girlfriend’s initials…in a marshmallow

-Drive the speed limit…in your garage

-Sing the national anthem…during your calculus final

-Wear a three-piece suit…in a sauna

-Pay off the national debt…with a bad check

-Go to a cemetery and verbally abuse dead people

-Give yourself a hernia…for Christmas

-Defend your neighborhood from roving Mongol hordes

-Recite romantic poetry…to your toaster

-See if you really can build a nuclear device in your own basement

-Go to McDonald’s and pretend you can’t speak English

-Write to your congressmen, senators, President, etc. to tell them what a good job they’re doing…On April 1st

-Find the heat capacity of your chemistry professor

-Take apart all your major kitchen appliances…mix and match them

-Turn your TV picture tube upside down

-Phone in a death threat on President Kennedy

-Put lighted EXIT signs on all your closets

-Carry a tune…drop it, see if it breaks

-Be planar…but don’t tell your parents

-Play hockey with your little cousin…as the puck

-Make a deal with the devil…but keep your fingers crossed

-Put instant concrete in your big brother’s waterbed

-Give a lecture on the historical significance of cream cheese

-Debate politics with a fern

-If you lose, stop watering it and try again.

-Increase your territorial holdings by force

-Find out how many ways there really are to skin a cat

-Boldly go where no man has gone before

-Be a threat to the American way of life

-Do research into the cause of World War III

-Be a threat to the Northwestern Tibetan way of life

-Re-establish the Roman Empire…in Pittsburgh

-See how small you can scrunch your face

-Sell firewood door to door…in Atlantis

-Found the TLO (Toledo Liberation Organization)

-Play nuclear chicken with a small third world nation

-Raise professional certified racing turnips

-Give your grandmother a raise and another day of paid vacation

-Lead an aerobics class…for patients of the I.C.U.

-Go to a drive-in movie in a tank

-Go to a non-drive-in movie in a tank and drive in anyway

-Send President Reagan an alarm clock…wind it up first

-Found a cockroach stable and stud ranch

-Send your goldfish to obedience school

-Free the oppressed toasters of America

-Weave a tablecloth out of copper tubing

-Give your cat a suntan…in the microwave

-Park your car…with a friend

-Park your car…with a group of friends

-Frame your first statement of bankruptcy

-Place it on the wall of your office

-Solve the population problem (x^2 + y^2 = population…solve for x)

-Contribute to the population problem

-Wear a T-shirt that says “I’ll walk on you to see The Who” and a peace sign

-Practice the Aztec method of heart removal on your professor

-Find out who made the super glue commercials and give them your Ginsu knife

-Get Ronco and K-tel to merge…they sell the same stuff anyway

-Sneak into a nuclear physics lab and stay the night

-Play with anything that looks interesting

-Drop piston engines on two people and see who squishes first

-See if your goldfish can live in Coors rather than water

-Try to ignite water…the Mississippi might work

-Draw Venn diagrams…screw them up

-State fallacies as fact (like, “peanuts grow on bushes”)

-Visit the Architecture building…loudly criticize its design

-Make a schematic drawing…of a rock

-Wallpaper your laundry room…with pages from books you don’t like

-See if diamonds really do cut glass…on everything in your neighbor’s house

-Tenderize your tongue…chew on it for a while

-See how long you can stare at a fluorescent light…try green

-Bronze your sister’s turtle

-See how long it takes for her to notice

-See what she does when she notices

-Bronze your sister

So you have received a credit card application? You know what it says, but do know what it really means?

What it says: “You have demonstrated financial responsibility…”
What it means: You’re breathing!

What it says: “Our membership is difficult to obtain…”
What it means: Death row prisoners are not eligible… in most states!

What it says: “We have shortened the application process…”
What it means: “We need lots of new members fast or we’ll go out of business!”

What it says: “You have no predetermined credit limit…”
What it means: “We’re not worried, we employ the Break Your Legs collection agency.”

What it says: “Exceptional Customer Service…”
What it means: Except when you need it!

What it says: “Trained customer representatives await your call…”
What it means: “This is the part you talk into, and this is where you listen. Any questions?”

What it says: “To apply for membership, fill out this short form…”
What it means: You’ll get the long form later.

What it says: “You may direct us not to share this information with anyone else…”
What it means: “Catch us, if you can!”

What it says: “We look forward to receiving your completed application…”
What it means: “We baited the hook, let’s see if anyone bites!”

What it says: “You’ve been pre-approved…”
What it means: “You’ve been pre-approved to be Rejected!” or “We’ve already prepared your letter of denial.”

In the beginning God created the heaven and the Earth. And the Earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

And the Devil said, “It doesn’t get any better than this.”

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit,” and God saw that it was good.

And the Devil said, “There goes the neighborhood.”

And God said, “Let us make Man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air and over the cattle, and over all the Earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the Earth.” And so God created Man in his own image; male and female created he them. And God looked upon Man and Woman and saw that they were lean and fit.

And the Devil said, “I know how I can get back in this game.”

And God populated the earth with broccoli and cauliflower and spinach, green and yellow vegetables of all kinds, so Man and Woman would live long and healthy lives.

And the Devil created McDonald’s. And McDonald’s brought forth the 99-cent double cheeseburger. And the Devil said to Man, “You want fries with that?” And Man said, “Supersize them.” And Man gained 5 pounds.

And God created the healthful yogurt, that woman might keep her figure that man found so fair. And the Devil brought forth chocolate. And Woman gained 5 pounds.

And God said, “Try my crispy fresh salad.” And the Devil brought forth Ben and Jerry’s. And Woman gained 10 pounds.

And God said, “I have sent thee heart-healthy vegetables and olive oil with which to cook them.” And the Devil brought forth chicken-fried steak so big it needed its own platter. And Man gained 10 pounds and his bad cholesterol went through the roof.

And God brought forth running shoes and Man resolved to lose those extra pounds. And the Devil brought forth cable TV with remote control so Man would not have to toil to change channels between ESPN and ESPN2. And Man gained another 20 pounds.

And God said, “You’re running up the score, Devil.” And God brought forth the potato, a vegetable naturally low in fat and brimming with nutrition. And the Devil peeled off the healthful skin and sliced the starchy center into chips and deep-fat fried them. And the Devil created sour cream dip. And Man clutched his remote control and ate the potato chips swaddled in cholesterol. And the Devil saw and said, “It is good.” And Man went into cardiac arrest.

And God sighed and created quadruple bypass surgery. And the Devil canceled Man’s health insurance.

Then God showed Woman how to peel the skin off chicken and cook the nourishing whole grain brown rice. And the Devil created light beer so Man could poison his body with alcohol while feeling righteous because he had to drink twice as much of the now-insipid brew to get the same buzz. And Man gained another ten pounds.

And God created the life-giving tofu. And Woman ventured forth into the land of Godiva Chocolate and upon returning asked Man, “Do I look fat?”

And the Devil said, “Always tell the truth.” And Man did. And Woman went out from the presence of Man and dwelt in the land of the divorce lawyer, East of the marriage counselor. And Woman put aside the seeds of the earth and took unto herself comfort food.

And God brought forth Weight Watchers. It didn’t help. And God created exercise machines with easy payments. And man brought forth his Visa at 21 percent. And the exercise machine went to dwell in the closet of Nod, east of the polyester leisure suit.

And in the fullness of time, Woman received the exercise machine from Man in the property settlement. It didn’t help her, either.

And God created the computer and the Internet so man and woman could invest in stocks, read the news, write emails to family and friends from around the world to keep in touch and God saw that it was good.

Thus the Devil invented computer games, and Internet chat rooms so that man and woman would stay plugged into the computer, meet some of his weirdest acolytes, and not exercise for hours, days, weeks on end. And the man and woman gained 25 pounds. And the Devil was happy