Spend months devising a revolutionary squirrel-free design for your bird feeder
React like Brick Top would if anyone has the impertinence to suggest that you have faults just like everyone else on the planet
Buy a handy home blood pressure monitor and take it with you everywhere you go. Take your blood pressure every thirty minutes and worry like hell all the time that you are going to have a stroke. This will serve to raise your blood pressure even higher and make you more alert.
When giving cash gifts to loved ones or close friends be sure to monitor the way in which the cash is spent. React in a negative, childlike manner if it is spent on “unauthorized items.” Gifts should be used as a method of controlling and manipulating those around you.
When serving red meat always cook it until it resembles shoe leather or a lump of coal. Remember, microbes are everywhere and you don’t want to be sued for making someone sick. Besides, you know better than others how they should consume their food.
Always go to church every Sunday in order to keep up appearances, but don’t take the sermons too seriously. Stick with the blood-drenched Old Testament for useful hints on culture and society. Helping the downtrodden and accepting those who are different from you is for weak-minded twits.
Serial killers have given sociopathy a bad name. Compassion and empathy for our fellow human beings is for liberals and losers. Try to stay within the framework of the law, but be as ruthless in your daily life as Commodore Vanderbilt or Jay Gould
Always trust the advice of strangers over that of loved ones. Remember, strangers are completely neutral whereas relatives have malevolent ulterior motives.
Sex should strictly be for procreation and not pleasure. However, if you are pressured into having sex with your long-term mate, just after you are finished, leap up, take a shower, and put new linen on the bed. You never know what kind of germs your partner may be harboring even though you watch him like a hawk all the time. Better safe than sorry.
If you are forced to participate in the messy and unhygienic act of making love to your partner, for God’s sake stick to a tried-and-true church-approved position and get the unpleasant act over with as quickly as possible. Remember, for every minute you experience pleasure, that’s ten years in purgatory!
If you are unfortunate enough to reproduce in your lifetime set up a set of rules and regulations for your spawn similar in size and scope to the U.S. tax code. Any deviation from these guidelines should always be met with exaggerated disgust and harsh punishment. This will turn your heinous kids into prosperous, well-adjusted adults. It will also guarantee a nice quiet funeral for you without all that ridiculous crying and sobbing.
Always take yourself as seriously as a suicide bomber preparing to detonate in a crowd of schoolchildren. Remember, anyone who disagrees with your thoughts or actions is an insane heretic and should be treated as such.
Once you get to know them well enough, boss around new acquaintances as if their life depended on staying in your good graces. People love this and will appreciate your guidance in their meaningless lives.
If by some miracle you find someone who will tolerate your phobias and obsessions and you have kids, pick out a good role model to emulate as a parent. A good example would be Ruth Carson, Johnny’s mom, who never thought he was funny, did not understand his success, and never failed to mention it in numerous interviews.
Express your insecurity by reacting like an angry bull rhinoceros if others fail to adopt your daily schedule and working hours. For example, if someone sleeps an hour later than you do, try your best to make that person feel lazy and worthless. Remember, senseless and continuous childlike criticism is great motivator
Express your particular disorder by showing a complete ignorance of concepts like metaphor and hyperbole. Take everything everyone says literally and show a lack of understanding of satire and other forms of comedy.
Keep a sharp eye out for shiftless and lazy relatives who don’t want to join in on your obsessive and near-continuous cleaning and reorganizing. They’ll try anything to buck your tried and true system of twittering your life away with details. Research shows that most rattlesnake bites and chain-saw accidents are self-inflicted injuries used by lazy bastards just to try to take a day off work. Remember, you are the only person alive who is allowed to be sick.
If you spawn more than one offspring, pick out a favorite and stick with him or her. Remember, equal treatment only confuses children. Everyone in the family should be well aware of the pecking order. This makes for smooth interpersonal relations and well-adjusted teenagers.
Management tip of the week: Force incredulous Latin American yard workers to remove all life-giving organic matter from your yard once every two weeks. Replace it with harsh man-made chemical fertilizers that will eventually be carried away by rainwater into the aquifer from which you get your drinking water. Remember, 1950’s technology and ideas are always the best choice!
Tips for Bad Living are reprinted by permission from OCD Magazine, another quality publication of Anal Industries, a wholly owned subsidiary of Control Freak Ltd., London.
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