A world with no consequences

When push comes to shove, when it's time to get down to brass tacks, when it's crunch-time, go-time, showtime, when one must kick the tires and light the fires, when my offense is in the red zone, when it's time to step up, etcetera, I adopt a pleasingly familiar psychological avoidance technique. Namely: I waste time by imagining all the amusingly inappropriate ways I could behave. And so, instead of properly preparing myself for something important and impending, I giggle to myself, my wee head filled with juvenile nonsense.

Mind you, none of this is particularly funny. But it makes me giggle, so I offer it in the spirit of universal brotherhood. Job interview: I wear nothing but roast beef, squat in the corner, and take a crap. Then I rise and offer my hand, speaking in a crisp British accent. "Good afternoon. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance." Speech in front of large audience: I carry a large box, and halfway through my speech, I open the box and release an swarm of angry bees. "Run! Bees!" I shriek. First date with woman: over dinner, I moan at the threshold of human hearing with my mouth closed. Etcetera.

This is on my mind because of these goddamned mutherfuking statements of porpoise I have to write for PhD program applications. There is nothing more odious, more pathetic, more hateful than a statement of purpose. And so instead of slogging through the process and regarding it as a necessary evil, engaging in the ritual self-aggrandizement and requisite false clarity, I instead imagine funny funny things I could write. Send help.