....to NOT CARE!

Being aloof, ignoring fasion and fads, acting like you're living in a world soooo cooool that nothing can affect you; it's like poop to flies!

Would 'The Fonz' have even cared? Of course not! That's why he was COOL!

Maybe that's what Todays Youth needs (or do they have one; I'm 'old', so I don't know these things anymore) is a 'new Fonz' - or even a Vinnie Barbarino (Sorry Travolta; I've heard that such references are like going Nanu Nanu to Robin Williams! Or, "Snake! Snake Pliskin! I heard you was DEAD" to Kurt Russell - though I almost tried un Starbucks one day! He'd probably have PUNCHED ME!)

... the key to high school popularity is giving away free mind-altering substances.

100% TRUE life story to relate about this - in high school, I played football but was only of middling popularity - I was an overweight offensive lineman who didn't know how to talk to girls. And oh yeah, I got straight A's and hung out in the computer room every day before practice.

However - by virtue of my overwhelming fatness I was voted as a reserve on the league football all-star team, to play an benefit game against a rival league. And better yet, the game was to be held while all the rest of my family was away on vacation.

Naturally, the first thing that sprung to mind for me was... "Now I have an entirely new peer group of temporary friends for three weeks who don't know anything about me other than that I am a reasonably competent football player... and I have the entire house to myself. Now is my chance... to be popular!" So what did I do?

KEG PARTY. Of course!

And it worked. There were cute girls. Nobody got arrested. A couple people passed out on the floor but responded well to black coffee a few hours later. Someone spilled beer on the rugs so I steam cleaned the carpets before my family got back from vacation. Everyone had a rockin good time and wished me well in college and promised to drop me a line again one of these days, and then I never heard a word from any of them again.

MORAL: I finally knew what it felt like to be popular, and was then able to peacefully return to my life of nerdy obscurity. Now I am living happily ever after.

The end.

Then you'll never know

(w/ apologies to RHCP)

I always thought I was the only one who, when tripping on a step, would run up the rest, to "save face"

Then I saw someone else do it.

I always thought I was the only one who would ruminate on the fact that I needed better shirts to be more popular.

Then I read it in this comic.

I don't know whether to feel comforted or whether to feel creeped out.

What else do other people do, that I do, thinking "I must be the only person in the world who does this?"

Updated for today's generation:

Hey, anyone want to follow me on Twitter?

Read my blog?

Read my fan-fiction?

Be friends on Facebook?

Join my guild?

Guys? Anyone?

And the only reason I'm still alive, and this brother of Donald Maltby of Brothers fame, is still alive, is that we're just trying to spite God.

...handing out my mom's Valium.