Meldraw’s Five Tips for Daily Living

1. Never go to the Humane Society on your lunch break.
No good can come of it. At best, you come away liking the human race a whole lot less. At worst, you wind up falling frantically in love with an irresistible face still filled with fuzzy innocence despite exposure to the worst of humanity. Finding yourself in this heartbreaking position presents you with only two choices: a) look into those sad eyes, pleading at you with diminishing hope from a tiny glass prison, and walk away with a new guilt complex; or b) take him home, cat lady.

Let’s say you just want to donate some stuff. Maybe you have some milk replacement formula for kittens (from when your youngest cat adopted you, still a little bit too young) and an assortment of birdcage equipment (from when you tried desperately to keep your grandmother’s canary alive after your grandmother died, and failed). My advice to you is to just drop these things off at the donations desk and WALK OUT. If you see a few cute kittens in the window and notice that you have a few minutes left to kill on your lunch break, GO THE OTHER WAY.

2. It’s 2007. Speak like it.
The English language is in an admittedly precarious state right now. UrbanDictionary.com informs us that words are being reused, recycled, and repurposed for all sorts of dubious reasons—sometimes we should embrace them, sometimes we should not. (I’m greatly amused by the term “iPerbole,” for example, to describe the inexplicable hype surrounding new Apple products, and I continue to use the term “yoink” to mean “a transference of ownership from one person to another,” even though I know it’s a ridiculous word, because I simply cannot find a more concise way to describe a “delightfully light-hearted theft.”) English is a fairly elastic language; one might effectively create one’s own words or play with grammatical format for comic effect or to simply pinpoint an exact feeling that doesn’t quite have a label yet.

But while vernacular evolution is to be expected and even encouraged, we generally do not pull antiquated turns of phrase back into the mainstream. Retro is one thing—medieval role-playing is another. It’s annoying and unnecessary, and truthfully, a little geeky. The contractions “ ‘Twas” and “ ‘tis” are so over. “Methinks,” while occasionally successful as an ironic aside, should not be used in daily conversation unless you are an Elizabethan playwright or a pirate. A good rule of thumb is: if you can’t speak the phrase aloud in a sentence without the aid of full period dress, find a thesaurus.

3. When lighting a propane grill, start the flame on your lighter before you turn on the gas.
Otherwise, during the five seconds it takes you to realize that your lighter won’t start when it’s being smothered by gas, pull the lighter out, light it, and shove it back in there, a small but kickin’ gas cloud will have collected, which will then become a fireball, which will then remove all of your arm hair.

4. Guys, if you want to buy a girl a drink, make sure the bartender is paying attention.
Bartenders work fast, and it may be that he has already taken her debit card from her. He may be only half-listening when you tell him to put her drink on your tab, and then he may disappear with her debit card, without taking your own. When he comes back with a bill for her, she may find herself paying not only for her own frozen margarita, but also your Bloody Mary with your side of potstickers, and you may find yourself with no cash, and…awkward.

This might, however, be an excellent opportunity for you to offer to take her out later to “make up for it.” My advice to you would be to go ahead and make that offer, instead of leaving her feeling like the First National Bank. A First National Bank without a date.

5. A lab coat does not give a person medical authority.
Witness: the Clinique counter. If you know you are allergic to Benzoil Peroxide, do not let these ladies in white coats tell you otherwise. They work on commission, and they prey on insecurities. They’ve mastered that careful study of your face as they inspect your skin, followed by a perfectly calibrated “huh” that makes three things very clear: a) they think you’re very brave for having walked around with your features all your life, b) they’re trying to be polite about how to break your flaws to you, and c) they know exactly how to fix you, and may they show you some revolutionary new products?

Now, they may actually be able to help you, because Clinique products are pretty good. But you should draw the line at letting them convince you that there is “so little” Benzoil Peroxide in a particular cream that your allergy will magically disappear. It won’t. And you’ll just have spent $36 investing in a way to make yourself miserable the next day, when you’ll want go all Face/Off and leave your skin in the freezer for the afternoon.

Luckily, the lab coats do bring a 100% satisfaction guarantee, so you can return the stuff and get your money back. Just be careful going back to that counter, because they’re going to look very closely at you again.