Life Lessons

After a successful 19 years of life, there are a few things I’ve learned about people, life, and humans in general, and I’d like to share them with you.

1. Telling someone to “calm down” usually has the opposite effect.

2. It will always rain after you hand-wash your car.

3. Doing push-ups makes your boobs like 10x better.

4. When it comes down to it, you really do get what you pay for.

5. Karma is real and it will get you.

6. If you work hard at a skill for a long time, and then take a break, you will be better when you pick it up again later.

7. Confidence is everything.

8. The power of the mind and your will is incredible.

9. When you can’t remember something, other people have a hard time remembering it too, even if they know exactly what they’re talking about.

10. When you realize something, the other person will realize it at the same time.

11. Stink bugs are demonic minions who have come to challenge us as humans.

12. Trying to be underground is now mainstream.

13. Paradoxes are awesome.

14. There will always be mysteries of the universe, and most of them shouldn’t be answered.

15. Don’t think too much.

16. Seriously, don’t think too much.

17. Turns out, you really will use that “shit” that you learned in math in middle school. How do you think I afford to go food shopping every week?

18. Babies like pretty people. If you’re ugly, babies won’t care about you.

19. Pretty people can do whatever they want. We pretend like they can’t, but they can.

20. Shoes, keys, phones, and wallets will always leave you when you most need them.

My name is Alex Morrison, and I approve the accuracy of this post.

The Real Ugly Truth

My mother has always been kind of a free spirit. She does deep breathing exercises, practices Buddhism, and practically swears by herbal tea. This attitude of hers lead her to make, and accept some pretty “eclectic” friends. When I was younger, my mom would have these friends over at the house all the time, one in particular. Her name was Gene. She was this massive black woman with a booming voice, and—as I had heard years later—quite a temper. (My father told me that she was arrested once for assaulting the local judge’s daughter with dinner plates. Charming.) Anyway, she would visit often and always make a scene about how “grown up” I was, or how “aDOOOHrable” I looked in a certain dress, etc. It was becoming too much to handle. So one day when I had caught wind that Gene was coming over to visit—again—I made the decision to rebel.

As Gene’s car pulled into the driveway, I ran inside, looking around desperately for a place to hide. I came into the living room where we had a big old-fashioned organ against the wall. Aha! I dropped to the floor and began to crawl over the pedals, making sure not to hit any of them and reveal myself. Once I was more or less comfortably concealed behind the organ, I began to listen for my mother. After a few minutes, the front door opened and the excited voices of my mom and her friend came tumbling into the living room. A beat of silence.

“ALEX!” my mother called for me. “COME SAY HELLO TO MS. GENE!”

I stayed stone still. Her voice lingered in the air as they waited for my reply. Obviously, it never came. Then, the real search began. My mother was up in arms, screaming for me. It was apparent that she was scared stiff. Soon, my dad, mom, Gene, and my sister were all running around the house looking for the M.I.A five-year-old. I knew I should have felt guilty, but I was actually very pleased with myself. I ended up staying behind the organ for about an hour until someone, Gene actually, had found me. I was immediately yanked from my hiding spot and passed to my mother, who hauled ass with me up the stairs to my room. After we were behind closed doors, she let me have it. It was the most traumatic experience of my life up to that point. Always having been a good kid, I never knew what it was like to get chewed out by your irate and recently scared-to-death mother. It wasn’t fun, I’ll tell you that.After my stern talking-to, I was marched back downstairs to make a formal apology to Gene. I was even forced into kissing her on the cheek. The horror.

All in all, it was not a successful ending to the day. However, everything up to that point was exhilarating; empowering, if you will. So, naturally, I got right back out there and found an even better hiding spot. It wasn’t because I was some demon child, or because I enjoyed scaring my mother, or that I was stupid. It was because I enjoyed pushing the limit, and also probably because I have never been good at associating consequences with actions.  So even though my mom, free spirit that she was, had put the fear of God into me that day, it didn’t stop me from continuing to act out. This leads me to the moral of the story: you should always beat your kids, because yelling at them doesn’t do a goddamned thing.

Lessons Learned

There was a boy named Tim in my fourth grade class. He was a short boy with flame red hair and freckles covered every inch of his skin. He was notoriously obnoxious and was categorized by his mischievous tendencies. It was just my luck that we were chosen to be lab partners for the year. Every time we were given a project, he would mess something up, or get the wrong answers. This bothered me to no end, so I would insist on doing all of the work, leaving him to his own devices.

One day about a month later, I was unfortunate enough to forget my lunch money. Luckily for me, it was Tim’s birthday. His mother brought in cupcakes to share with all of Tim’s class mates. What an opportune time to forget a lunch, I though. As she was passing them out, someone stopped her and asked her why Tim was covered in freckles. She smiled and said—in so many words—that every freckle was representative of an angle kiss. I laughed out loud. Naturally, I was sent to stand in the hallway for my less-than-graceful outburst.

 The year dragged on and I continued to work alone on our labs, but not grudgingly. Tim and I had become a team. He would talk endlessly about random subjects: firemen, power rangers, Jedi warriors. After a while, I started listening. He was actually very funny, and some of the things he had to say were quiet interesting. Needless to say, he started to grow on me.

            It was the middle of the school year, and the PTO had set up a school store in the cafeteria. It was filled with toys, school supplies, etc. So instead of buying a Twix bar that day, I bought a key chain. It was an orange flower with a yellow smiley face in the center. I displayed it proudly on my backpack for all to see. I got several compliments upon my return to class. We took our seats and I pulled off the key-chain and put it on my desk, gleaming with novelty. Then Tim came in. I watched his eyes light up when he found the key-chain. He sat down and asked if he could see it. I obliged him. Tim and I had established a friendship of sorts, and I trusted him with my things.  After playing with the flower for a few minutes, he asked if he could borrow it to show to his friend at home. I made him promise to return it to me the next day, and then naively let him take it home that afternoon. Unsurprisingly, I did not see it the next day, or the day after that. I asked Tim for it every day for about a month and never saw it. Was I devastated? Hardly. Rather, I was disappointed in Tim. I had been kind of rooting for him in my head, hoping that he would remember one day, and bring it back to me like the responsible boy I knew he could be. I had just about given up when one day, Tim came bounding into class with a big smile on his face. He marched right up to me, holding his hands behind his back. Neither of us said anything as he revealed the long-lost key-chain. I couldn’t believe it; Tim had brought it back perfectly intact, without a scratch on it. I was so overcome with pride that I jumped up and hugged him in front of the whole class. I realized later that I wasn’t just proud of him for remembering, I was proud of myself for believing in him—something that people rarely did with Tim.

To this day, I’m glad I met Tim, because he taught me a very valuable lesson: sometimes, it can actually be safe to trust a ginger.