Writer: You said Modern Family’s writing staff is looking for spec scripts, right? I wrote a great one! It’s really funny.

Agent: Give me an outline for it.

Writer: Well the family decides to-

Agent: No, I mean give me a written outline, 8-12 pages long, detailing all the plot points. Nobody reads full scripts.

Writer: Just an outline with the plot points and jokes?

Agent: No jokes. Just plot points.

Writer: You don’t want me to write anything? How will you know if my work is funny?

Agent: Plot points can be funny. Like those classic sitcom episodes where a guy has two dates on the same night, and has to run back and forth between them. You should write an outline where Manny has two dates on the same night!

Writer: Jesus Christ.

Agent: No religious stuff. It clashes with all the jokes about characters accidentally drinking semen.

Writer: Are we still talking about Modern Family?

Agent: Not yet, but probably around season five.

Writer: So if they like the outline, they’ll have me write a full script?

Agent: Nah. The staff writers for the show will flesh it out themselves.

Writer: There’s not a lot of passion for good writing out here, is there?

Agent: Nah. Takes too long to read.

Writer: Yeah, but ideas are a dime a dozen. Good execution is where the talent lies: Clever dialogue, funny jokes, unique characters. Anyone can think up a useable premise. So what’s the purpose? Why am I even bothering with this?

Agent: (writes down a number on a sheet of paper) Here’s how much you’ll get paid if they use your outline.

Writer: (eyes bulge out of his head) I’ll have an outline for you within the hour.

Production Assistant: Thirty minutes until we shoot.

Actress: I love acting. I love the process. You study the character, become the character, live the character’s life until you’re one with them.

Production Assistant: I don’t care. The studio pays me in coupons.

Actress: I’ve spent the past two months becoming this troubled mahjong addict. I learned to speak Japanese. I studied calligraphy. I memorized all 10,000 characters of all three script sets of the Japanese alphabet. I drank my own pee so I’d know how the character felt when she does it.

Production Assistant: (looks at phone) Coordinator says they just did a rewrite of your scene. Your character is now a Canadian gymnast.

Actress: I have twenty minutes. I will become a Canadian-

Production Assistant: (looks at phone) Whoops, never mind. They rewrote it again. Now you’re an obese Mormon who can smell the AIDS virus.

Actress: Are you making this up?

Production Assistant: Nope. There’s like 700 executives at this studio, and they all give multiple pages of notes. Sometimes the writers have to get creative to keep everyone happy.

Actress: Well, I’ve still got some time. I could do some internet research. Are Mormons the ones who dress up in furry costumes to get aroused?

Production Assistant: (looks at phone) Sometimes, but it doesn’t matter. They changed it again. You’re now a slut.

Actress: I can do that. I’ve been an actress in Hollywood for years.

Production Assistant: Good thing. It’s only two minutes before we shoot. (looks at phone) Scratch that. The final script just came out, and you’re now a nuclear physicist who specializes in the reaction theory of light clusters on heavy nuclei.

Actress: Well then, I guess I’ll just totally bullshit my way through this entire role.

Production Assistant: Yeah, that’s how it usually goes.

Director: I’ve maxed out ten credit cards and borrowed over $80,000 from my relatives and close personal friends just so I can shoot this independent film. My friends and family have disowned me. I can’t remember the last time I slept or had a sit-down meal. Now I’m going to mail the final product to every agent in town, and they’ll all be blown away by my creativity and talent!

***Two weeks later***

Agent: A DVD? What the hell? I don’t have time for this shit.

The agent tosses the DVD on his assistant’s desk.

Assistant: Ugh. I get 40 of these a day and they’re all shitty.

The agent tosses the DVD on the intern’s desk. The intern puts the DVD in his computer.

Intern: Ninety minutes?! It’s a full-length film? Fuck this.

The intern throws the DVD in the garbage.

Also, he did not retweet my reality TV show pitch, wherein David Sedaris and The Muppets live in an apartment together, which makes me question whether he’s truly compassionate or just all talk.

Why would I ever go on a date with a vegetarian, when I’m not a vegetarian myself? Well, because guys will date anyone who’s pretty. If a woman is attractive enough, she can literally get away with anything: Public tantrums, infidelity, lack of knowledge about anything of importance, stupid-looking dogs that no man would ever own voluntarily, vegetarianism, murder. It’s not news that if walruses had nice tits, guys would mainly date walruses. Only physical characteristics matter to us at first. It’s not until a woman poisons our breakfast cereal or smashes our windshield with a baseball bat that we realize maybe our penises shouldn’t be making major life decisions for us.

I’ve dated three vegetarians over the course of my life, and each experience has followed the same basic route. The first date with a vegetarian is very pleasant. She assures you that she’s “not one of those vegetarians. You can eat whatever you want,” and so you pick a neutral food place that offers both vegetarian and meaty options. When you order chicken alfredo, she doesn’t comment on your choice.

On the second date, when you order a hamburger, she will flinch slightly, as if a gnat just flew in her nose. She won’t say anything, but there will be an oddness in the air the entire evening that you’re both aware of, but neither of you want to discuss.

On the third date, you’ll order french dip with au jus sauce and she’ll launch into a 40-minute rant about the animal that had its face pulled out through its anus by a death robot in order to produce your sandwich. In your mind, you’ll be saying, “Death robot? Oh man, that sounds so cool”, but outwardly you’ll be staring blankly at this deranged yet attractive woman, realizing she has pulled the world’s most obvious bait-and-switch on you.

If you choose to go on a fourth date, you’ll need to either agree to become a vegetarian yourself, or treat it as a “hate date” vengeance opportunity in which you order prime rib and make caveman sounds as you eat it. No matter which option you choose, both of you will feel miserable and alone at the end of the evening.

Assuming her breasts are immaculate enough to cause you to convert to vegetarianism, please keep in mind that by doing so, you are essentially agreeing to two weeks of horrid, life altering diarrhea. The human body doesn’t care for drastic changes in diet, and when you switch from your usual daily intake of lukewarm Hot Pockets and stale beef jerky to sandwiches with actual vegetables in them and meals made almost entirely out of weird cheeses, your body will display its disapproval so bluntly that it will ruin any chance of you being intimate with your new girlfriend for a considerable period of time. Months later, when she dumps you for an authentic beatnik who looks like Anthony Kiedis with amusing facial hair, your bowels will go through the same torture when you switch back.

You’ll also get fatter. Much fatter. You’d think being a vegetarian would make you healthier and therefore skinnier, but when you don’t have meat to fill you up and your food options are limited, one tends to turn to sugary things like potato chips, cupcakes or just entire tubes of frosting.

Also be warned that the changes your new girlfriend requires won’t just be culinary. You’ll be prodded to rely on weird hippie ways of giving yourself energy, like exercise and proper nutrition. You’ll be encouraged to start actually recycling things instead of just chucking everything in the garbage and letting the hobos sort it out. You’ll be expected to spread vegetarianism to everyone you hold dear, like a missionary saving others from a terrible imaginary fate.

And god help you if she’s vegan, because that’s when things get really weird. You’ll start using laundry detergent that doesn’t smell nice and deodorant that doesn’t work. You’ll start bringing old lady tote bags to the grocery store and paying money to hear Ed Begley Jr. speak. You’ll humiliate yourself and everyone around you by asking waiters if their veggie burgers are cooked on the same grill as meat burgers. You’ll become the sort of douche that over the years always made you ponder, “How does one become such a douche?”

Then one day, you’ll wake up and notice the smell of patchouli, and realize it’s you. In a moment of panic, you’ll dump your girlfriend, shave your ironic facial hair, replace your vegetarian food with things that don’t leave you hungry, and remove your preachy Twitter updates and start posting normal ones about how you’re worried that the success of “Game of Thrones” will cause it to only feature three pairs of tits per episode instead of 14.

And then you’ll be free again. Sweet, sweet meaty freedom.

Why did the old man cross the road? I don’t know either, but your grandfather’s closed casket funeral will be held this Saturday.

A priest, a rabbit and a shaved monkey walk into a bar. Nothing amusing happens. They all have a very pleasant and uneventful time. I’m not sure why you had your hopes up. People in this world can be quite civilized, you know.

Q: What’s black and white and red all over?
A: Selena Gomez masturbating.

Q: How many Frenchmen does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: No entiendo. ¿Qué es esto?

Q: How man Polacks does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Cuatro, señor? Es que la respuesta aceptable? Por favor, déjame salir.

Q: How many Mexicans does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Puedo ir a casa ahora? Por favor no me mates.

Erwin Schrodinger’s cat walks into a bar, but doesn’t, because this joke is as old and boring as Erwin Schrodinger’s dick.

Q: Why couldn’t the pony talk?
A: Because the cognitive skills of horses are not as advanced as humans, so while they can pick up on some visual and auditory cues, they’re unable to mimic or process the English language like a human being. Like most animals, horses also have a different shape and arrangement of their vocal chords, making advanced noises and pitches more difficult for them to produce than humans. Even chimpanzees, who share 98.4 percent of our genetic coding, are unable to speak our language because their vocal chords are located slightly higher in their throats than humans and cannot be controlled as well. Anatomy is a fascinating subject that I highly recommend, as it teaches us so much about the power of subtle differences, and how even the slightest adjustment in intelligent design can alter the entire universe as we know it. Also, the pony couldn’t talk because he was a little hoarse.

Q: What did the traffic light say to the car?
A: No one cares. Even children don’t care. No one likes you, Uncle Larry. You only visit us when you need to borrow money.

Q: What’s black and white and red all over?
A: Selena Gomez masturbating with a steak knife.

Q: What is 2,000 miles long, three centuries old and purple?
A: My cock.

Q: What’s brown, hairy and wears sunglasses?
A: My cock.

Q: What has two humps and is at the North Pole?
A: My cock.

Q: What is big, green, fuzzy and could hurt you if it fell out of a tree?
A: My cock.

Q: What do ghosts eat on Halloween?
A: My cock.

Q: Why did Dracula flunk art class?
A: My cock.

Q: What’s the most musical bone?
A: The trombone. The answer is “the trombone.”

Guy #1: penis.
Guy #2: Penis.
Guy #1: Penis!
Guy #2: PENIS!
Guy #1: PENIS!!!
Guy #2: AARDVARK!!!
Guy #1: Goddamn it, man. That’s not how the penis game works.

A blonde was walking down the road with a healthy looking pig under her arm. As she passed a bus stop, someone asked, “Where did you get that?” The pig replied, “A whorehouse.”

Q: What’s black and white and red all over?
A: A bi-racial Selena Gomez fan writing me an angry letter about that joke I wrote.

The Packers lost to the Giants on Sunday. That’s not a joke. I just wanted to point it out because the misery of Wisconsinites brings me tremendous joy.

Q: Speaking of football, what’s the difference between Tim Tebow and a wet fart that everyone couldn’t help but notice for a few seconds?
A: Absolutely nothing.

Guy: Knock knock.
Girl: Who’s there?
Guy: Paul Ryan.
Girl: You’re violating the restraining order.
Guy: Knock knock.
Girl: I’m calling the police.
Guy: You still have my Playstation 3, you bitch!
GIrl: I use it to watch movies!
Guy: That’s not what it’s for!
Police: Excuse me, sir. You’re not allowed to be here. She has a restraining order against you.
Guy: She has my Playstation 3.
Police: She’s a gamer? Hot.
Guy: No, she watches movies on it.
Police: Oh, that’s some bullshit. Give him back his Playstation 3, you bitch!

A blonde, a brunette and a redhead walked into a bar. But no one noticed because they had average-sized breasts.

Snooki’s worn out, meaty, beaten vagina, its tangled guts bulging out, then in, then out again like an out of breath octopus. The joke here is that I can print this horrible sentence in the Reader Weekly, and no one on the entire staff will so much as blink.

Q: What’s black and white and thrown away almost immediately?
A: This newspaper, as long as it keeps printing my columns.

Hmm. It says here that this is the Reader Weekly’s 666th issue. The mark of the beast. I guess it’s time to start up the apocalypse, but really, who has the energy anymore? I’ve been so worn out lately that my normally flaccid penis is doubly flaccid. It’s literally hiding inside my own scrotum, which is in turn hiding inside my own anus. It feels incredible.

Oh, hello everyone! I didn’t see you there. My name’s Kirk Cameron, and I was once the star of “Growing Pains”, television’s eighth most popular sitcom in 1988, and 75th most popular sitcom in 1991! There is a photo of me on Wikipedia holding up a duck! Go ahead and check! I’ll wait.

These days I’m mainly known for being Christian. Really Christian. The type of Christian who stands outside Miley Cyrus concerts handing out leaflets accusing everyone of sodomy. The type who goes on national talk shows and says evolution isn’t real because nature never combined a pelican and a fart. The type of Christian who would be rambling incoherently on the subway if he hadn’t been on a TV show once.

Yep. I’m in charge of the apocalypse. You’d think the devil would be in charge of that, but he’s busy executive producing the current season of “Glee”. It’s understandable. This year they broke records by ruining a good song every three seconds. So the apocalypse is up to us evangelicals, because other than the devil, there’s really no one on Earth who wants to see this happen more than us.

I dunno, though. Lately I’ve just been sluggish. Yesterday I saw a teenager queef on a homeless person, and rather than chase him down and lecture him about Where Jesus Would Vaginally Fart (WJWVF), I just continued eating my sandwich. “The hobo was asleep,” I said to myself, “and he probably appreciates the warmth.” But that’s not really the point, is it? The point is morals, and respect for God and yourself. I could have shit in the mouth of that homeless man and he probably would have ate it like a sandwich, but it wouldn’t trick God into thinking I’m a chef.

I should use that analogy in my next sermon. It’s good. Almost too good.

It’s really hard to get up the energy to start the apocalypse these days. The economy’s bad, so we’re all kinda used to just sitting at home and spacing out, and I still have a ton of weed left but every time it gets low I buy more because I forget that I’m supposed to cast all the heathens and gays and people who vote for Mitt Romney into hell. Maybe going to the gym would help? Y’know, baby steps: I get the ambition to go to the gym, then maybe pilates thrice a week, perhaps I’m commissioner of a fantasy baseball league for a while, and then I’ll have the moxie to pull off an apocalypse.

Tomorrow. I’ll start tomorrow. Maybe the next day. Possibly next week. There’s a potluck dinner coming up Saturday, then my wife and I are playing Boggle on Monday, because that’s our Boggle day. Oh crap, y’know what? New episodes of Archer start this week. I don’t want to miss that. Let’s put this thing off until summer. Definitely in the summer though, because 2012 will be half over and it’s going to take some time to go through the locusts and plagues and Emmys for that blonde chick from “2 Broke Girls”. We don’t want to miss our Mayan window.

I can assure you though, I will cast you all into hell. Eventually. I have some things to do. I’m very busy. I’ll get to it. Take this blessing of extra time to do some confessions, earn some brownie points by sitting in the front pew every Sunday, upgrade your standing with the Big Guy by not blowing everyone who walks into the bathroom at a Black Keys concert. Focus on that, and rest assured that I’ll be with you momentarily.

Oh man, is that a new Pepsi? Did they make a new Pepsi? A mid-calorie one, with fewer calories than regular Pepsi but more than Diet Pepsi? Oh man, I’ve been waiting forever for that. When is it coming out? Late spring? Shit. Wait, Wisconsin has had it for a year? Well that’s not fair. That’s not fair at all. It doesn’t seem right that others would get to enjoy a Pepsi that I have not enjoyed yet, and then the apocalypse happens.

Damn it! No! I need to do this. I need to apocalypse. It’s 2012, damn it. Enough with the distractions. I have to put aside my own desires for the good of people’s souls. The Mormons haven’t had the new soft drink yet either, so we’re good. I’m a little pissed that all those Lutherans in La Crosse got it first, but so be it. It was God’s will. Let’s apocalypse. Apocalypse time. I gots to apocalypse. Let’s go.

Seriously though, it’s such a waste. Fucking Pepsi, man. I gotta think about this for a while. I’ll get back to you on this whole apocalypse thing. There are more important things on my mind at the moment.

I’m really hungover, so let’s get the meat and potatoes of my usual comedy routine over with: Poop, fart, penis, anus, Miley Cyrus, twat, douche, jizz, diarrhea, vaginas shaped like astronauts. There. This week’s column is finished.

What? Is that not enough? Seriously, I’m really hungover from drinking whiskey in a hallway closet by myself, and I woke up with the bottle jammed in my armpit like I thought deodorant was going to come out of it. Every inch of my body is sore. I have to hunt-and-peck this column on my laptop from the floor because I’m afraid if I sit up I might vomit all over everything I’ve ever known or loved.

Meanwhile, I left the TV on last night and the morning infomercials have come on, which means at least six playings per hour of that goddamn Sarah McLaughlin commercial with the sad-looking animals and that shitty angel song she wrote 15 years ago. Can you write a new song, Sarah? Maybe one about fucking or doing blow, so we can all feel a little more upbeat? Eazy-E may be dead, but that doesn’t seem to keep him from being more fun that you.

Speaking of dead, I’ve been listening to my heart beat against the floor for the past two or three hours, and I’m pretty sure it’s skipping beats every few minutes. This is when I wish I had roommates, so if I die, one of them could carry me downstairs and throw me in the trash before the stench of my corpse starts bothering people.

What day is today? Am I supposed to be at work? I seriously don’t remember whether New Year’s was on a Saturday or Sunday. Will football eventually come on this channel, or is it a weekday with endless shows where very serious adults interview teenage sluts? Will The Price is Right be on soon? Maybe an infomercial where Mr. T has discovered an improved system for cooking meat? Oh God, my head hurts. Is this what it feels like to die of hepatitis? It has to be close, right?

Jesus, shit, Jesus shit! Stop talking so loud. I don’t care if it’s your normal voice and isn’t actually loud at all. Shut the hell up.

People say the best cure for a hangover is to start drinking again, but I learned my lesson with that one in college. Spoiler alert: It ends with you throwing up twice as long as you normally would.

In my refrigerator, I have a peanut butter cup with weed baked into it. If I eat it and successfully keep it down, I’ll feel fantastic the rest of the day. The chances of me keeping it down are about one in a hundred. The floor is nice and cold against my face though, so I’ll just stay here.

Waking up with a hangover is a terrifying feeling. You feel mentally and physically exhausted, with a really dry throat and an odd sense of alarm, like you just came back to your senses after being hypnotized. It’s very much what Taylor Momsen feels like each weekday when she wakes up in a van in Williamsburg with some bearded dude putting his pants back on.

Every time I flip past that Gossip Girl show she’s on – which is often, since I can’t afford cable and only have five channels – her skeezy raccoon eye makeup causes a reaction in me that is equal parts hatred of youth culture and me inadvertently popping a boner. I should probably develop better taste in women. And social habits, since I’m currently lying face-first on the floor at 10am, attempting to blindly type out my writing quota for the day.

Meanwhile, the girl downstairs is smoking cigarettes again, which is annoying. I’ve told her numerous times that the smoke rises through my floor, which is where I like to collapse when I get plastered and pass out, so it’s very rude for her to not smoke outside.

I ate some Kix cereal a minute ago. It was under the couch. So far, so good. No pukies yet. If things keep up this way, I may be able to stand up properly in a few hours, followed by eating an actual meal at 8pm, and then the hangover finally being gone by the time I go to bed at midnight.

Remember that Taylor Momsen paragraph I wrote a little ways back? Just forget that part. Don’t read it. It was in poor taste. I’d erase it myself before submitting this column to the Reader Weekly, but it’s hard to see the word processor cursor from this angle on the floor. Also, the thought of replacing those 23 words and having to think up 23 new ones is a little too much for me to deal with right now.

If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to crawl into the shower with my clothes on and sit under the spray of water until I sober up. I know it’s weird, like a scene out of some overly-dramatic movie where a girl gets assaulted or sees a man getting shot in the face for the first time and needs somewhere to cry, but I assure you that this is my best option right now. You’ll do the same someday, because the fact that you’re even reading this column means you’re just as horribly flawed in your judgements as I am.

- I will only watch porn on an airplane when I’m not in the middle seat. Also, I will use headphones, as the flight attendants on Sun Country Airlines recently recommended.

- I will get a job. A real, full-time job that doesn’t involve creatively twirling signs for open houses or Subway sandwich shops. A job where “I really like this hooker, and I’d like to buy her breakfast” is not a valid excuse for coming in an hour late. A job that will provide an actual W2 form during tax season instead of labeling me as an “independent contractor”, a title which allows the crooked City of Los Angeles to blackmail me into paying $300 each year for a “business license”. A job that provides health benefits I will rarely use and a 401k plan that, in the end, will pay for half of one month’s rent 70 years from now when I’m forced to retire at the age of 102. A job where my co-workers are not allowed to wear bicycle shorts that show off the shape of their penis.

- I will no longer be afraid of bears, even though I suspect they’re secretly learning to speak Japanese and drive mopeds in some grand scheme to humiliate and/or eat me.

- I will stop drinking tap water, because my skin is developing an odd glow to it. The lady at the Water and Power Company said she heard it’s a side effect from masturbating too often, but she said it kind of sarcastically and I think she either doesn’t get paid enough to care or is trying to cover up a massive conspiracy to test X-Men style powers on poor people.

- I will save the environment by taking the bus more often, even though everyone who rides the bus smells like dog shit.

- I will stop shouting “You’re not Tina Fey, you’re just ugly!” at women who wear cat-eye glasses. Sadly, the epidemic is so widespread that half the women wearing these glasses don’t even know Tiny Fey exists.

- I will refer to future girlfriends as “the girlfriend” rather than “that lady who keeps sleeping with me.”

- In an effort to get laid more than once per year, I’ll stop refusing to sleep with women who wear bras and panties that don’t match.

- I will stop putting my lips on drinking fountains, and will count three bouts of hepatitis in one year as a lesson learned.

- I will stop making fun of men named “Elton”, and gifting them sequined outfits for Christmas.

- I will stop harassing farmer’s market stands that sell bananas, even though they deserve it because bananas don’t grow here and they obviously bought them from the supermarket.

- I will dedicate more time to charity, as long as “Charity” is the name of a soon to be released first-person shooter for the Playstation 3.

- I will stop going to the bathroom with the door open, even though it’s my apartment and guests should adjust to my lifestyle, not the other way around.

- I will kiss with my eyes open, just to freak women out.

- I will read an actual book all the way through, without complaining about the tediousness of such a task to people around me.

- I will stop trying to impress women by claiming to be Magic Johnson of the Los Angeles Lakers. It never worked very well anyway.

- I will stop telling children that pregnancy is caused by not going to the bathroom often enough.

- I will stop trying to marry Regina Spektor and start trying to marry that woman from Florence and the Machine. It’s a bit of a downgrade, but it’s important to stay current in Hollywood.

- I will only wear jeans to funerals if the deceased was an asshole.

- I will stop telling people I used to write scripts for the TV show “Maude”.

- I will live each day as if everyone were trying to steal my possessions and my semen were about to expire, just like Ernest Hemingway.

- I will stop telling lies about my publisher, Bob Boone.

- Bob Boone used to fuck penguins.

- A half-empty box of kleenex. It’s practical and useful. If they don’t like it, then maybe they should find some better friends who don’t drink so much.

- A fart enclosed in a sandwich bag. My brother doesn’t realize it, but I gift him this item each year when I visit his house. It takes many hours to fill all the sandwich bags in his cupboard.

- A “free blowjob” coupon that you meant to give to your boyfriend but accidentally put in a box addressed to your father. Comedy is better than sincerity.

- This column, cut out of the paper. My photo – which I’m pretty sure was taken eight years ago – is so handsome that they won’t even notice how dull and poorly executed my writing is. And how often I end sentences with prepositions and begin sentences with conjunctions.

- A holiday photo greeting card where you actually write a note or at least sign your name, for Christ’s sake. This entry is not in any way passive aggressively aimed at the four friends this year who sent me impersonal photo cards.

- A shitty portrait you painted of the recipient that they now have to hang in their home and stare at for the rest of their lives, or at least until you’re dead and can’t be offended by its removal.

- A plaster mold of your penis and testicles, painted to show your wife what it would be like if she had married a black dude.

- A live rat sewn inside an afghan. “Afghan” meaning a blanket, not a person from Afghanistan.

- A live rat sewn inside a person from Afghanistan.

- One of those styles of underwear that make your penis look really huge. Has that been invented yet? No? Well, why the hell not? Women with a “B” cup get to trick us into thinking they’re a “C”, so why can’t I trick women into thinking I have a “C” cup penis? I swear to god, I will cancel Christmas.

- Episodes of “To Catch a Predator” that you recorded on a VHS tape, with the last fifteen minutes of the excellent Brian Dennehy film “Gorky Park” at the end of the tape.

- A Fedex package full of drugs that you mailed to yourself so you won’t go crazy when you fly home to spend a week with your parents.

- A peanut butter, marshmallow creme and banana sandwich on toasted bread. Once the recipient stops being pissed off long enough to taste it, they’ll never doubt you again. Make sure you use lots of marshmallow, otherwise they won’t be able to taste that part and you will be shitty at making sandwiches.

- A two-terabyte hard drive full of the best internet pornography you have found over the past decade.

- A gift certificate to a brewery that sells growlers so you can stumble around public areas loudly cursing and shouting lines from the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

- A vasectomy. Especially if you live in Superior. It’s like a present for the whole world!

- A burrito you found in the street. If your loved ones don’t like burritos, then perhaps they don’t deserve to be loved.

- The book I published in 1993, titled, “Thomas Friedman: A Mustache’s Tale”.

- The book I published in 1994, titled, “Thomas Friedman: Mustache Ahoy!”

- The book I published in 1995, titled, “Thomas Friedman: A Litigious Son of a Bitch”.

- Nude photos. Even if you’re just sending them privately, ladies, they’re still a present for me because someday the person you’re dating will stop liking you and upload them to the internet.

- A promise from Minnesota Vikings coach Leslie Frazier that the entire team will be released into free agency at the end of this season, including all the coaches.

- The most valuable thing of all: Your friendship. Ironically, you being such a cheap piece of shit will probably make them not want to be your friend anymore.

- Good ideas for column topics, because clearly I’ve run out.

Phil: I’m an idiot, because mainstream audiences can’t handle subtle forms of comedy like sarcasm or clever wordplay. See Michael from The Office, Homer from The Simpsons, Peter from Family Guy, and pretty much every classic character in television history.

Claire: I’m a huge bitch, as are 99.9 percent of wives on television.

Mitchell: I’m gay! Look how gay I am! It’s impossible for a gay person to not be flamboyant and high-strung! Gay! GAY! GAAAAAAY!

Cameron: There are only two types of gay people: Skinny gay and fat gay. I’m fat gay, which makes me sassy instead of neurotic.

Jay: I’m Al Bundy. No one’s ever going to see me as anything else, so you might as well just write the character as Al Bundy with a different name.

Gloria: I’m from South America, which means I have huge boobs, a comically thick accent and I sometimes threaten to stab people.

Luke: There are only two types of kids: “Way too smart and mature for their age” kids and “adorable idiot” kids. I’m the latter.

Alex: I’m the first kind of kid. I have glasses, so that way you know I’m the smart and mature one.

Haley: I’m dumb, which makes me the second kind of kid, but since I’m a teenage girl, “adorable” has been upgraded to “extremely attractive.” Pedophilia is all the rage in modern media, and 21-year-old girls who look 14 are pop culture queens.

Manny: I’m the first kind of kid, but extra sophisticated and snooty so I stand out from Alex. I’m mainly on the show because they needed an Hispanic character.

Lily: Speaking of missing ethnicities, I’m an adopted Asian baby. Yay! We collected all the ethnicities!

Mike and Molly

Mike: I’m fat, which would be a refreshing change for television if it weren’t just used as an excuse to tell fat jokes without being criticized.

Molly: See above. I’m basically the same character as Mike. There is zero difference in our personalities. We both talk about farts and pooping with the same frequencency.

New Girl

Jess: “She’s Zooey Deschanel. She’s a celebrity. People will watch her.” That’s the entire transcript of the development meeting for this show. The meeting lasted five minutes, and they were correct. It’s a top rated show, and will remain so for at least five years, when the hipster trend starts to die off and middle-aged men stop fantasizing about banging a hipster girl.

Two Broke Girls

Max: I have huge boobs. Also, I was in a movie once, so people will watch me.

Caroline: I’m blonde, because some guys prefer blondes. I don’t have huge boobs, but I’m dumb enough where guys imagine they could probably talk me into doing anal.

Chuck

Chuck: I’m a regular dude thrown into an extraordinary situation. Guys imagine themselves as me. Or they would, if anyone actually watched this terrible show.

Sarah: I’m hot in a generic sort of way. People are supposed to imagine themselves banging me, but nobody does because there are so many other attractive women who look exactly like me that it’s hard to tell any of us apart.

90210

Annie: I’m a whore. It’s fun.

Dixon: I’m a whore. It’s fun.

Naomi: I’m a whore. It’s fun.

Erin: I’m a whore. It’s fun.

Adrianna: I’m a whore. It’s fun.

How I Met Your Mother

Ted: I’m whiny and boring. I was meant to be the main character, but everyone who watches this show hates me, so now I’m more of a sidekick to other characters. I am a mistake the producers are unable to remove.

Barney: I’m the reason this show exists. No one would watch it otherwise. People want to be me, so they watch me. I’m proof that whores are golden and basically print money for studios, no matter their gender.

Marshall: In contrast to Barney, I’m what most people are like in real life: Normal, but a little goofy. People relate to me, so they like me. However, people wouldn’t watch a show just to see me. I’m just a nice bonus.

Robin: I’m pretty in a way that makes men think they’d have a shot with me in real life. I’m also very independent and representative of a modern day working woman, which attracts a certain kind of female viewer. Much like Marshall, people like me but wouldn’t watch the show just to see me.

Lily: I’m also pretty in a way that makes men think they’d have a shot with me in real life. I’m also very mom-like, which attracts a certain kind of female viewer. Much like Marshall, people like me but wouldn’t watch the show just to see me.

Hart of Dixie

Zoe: Rachel Bilson is a doctor? Who the hell wrote this horseshit? Everyone who had a hand in green-lighting this show needs to be put to sleep.

I do this because I hate asking for presents. I’m an adult, so when I want something, I just buy it. If a new music album or movie I like comes out, I don’t hold off so someone else can buy it for me later. I’m an American, damn it. I want everything now. So when Christmas comes, I find myself with little to ask for other than gift cards and extremely specific sexual favors.

This is a trait I inherited from my dad. Every year my mom asks him for a list of things he wants for Christmas, and every year he writes “socks and underwear and nothing” on a sheet of paper and hands it back to her. It’s gotten to the point where we pretty much give him the exact same gifts every year: A golf calendar, golf balls and a flannel shirt that is identical to the other ones he owns. He then complains about the shirt being “a weird color” or “too flashy” and returns it.

This seems to make him tremendously happy. These simple gifts aren’t exciting, but as he says, “It’s things I’ll use.” Over the years, I’ve found myself agreeing with that theory more and more. There’s almost nothing worse than receiving a rogue present you don’t want or need. I’m sure Tom Brokaw writes great novels about elderly generations, and I’m sure this homemade jar of maple syrup is delicious and in no way has spiders hiding in it like I fear, but these unapproved gifts will only sit on a shelf in my apartment, making me feel guilty for not using them.

Back when I was a cute little kid and my relatives still felt obligated to send me gifts or acknowledge me in some way, their Christmas gifts would mostly be things I’d never use: Weird sweaters, Jesus-themed VHS tapes, Keanu Reeves movies that Target had on sale at the time, gift certificates to obscure movie theater chains that only have locations on the East Coast. These items would sit in my room for months until I finally got the nerve to throw them away.

All of a sudden, my dad’s mantra of “don’t gift me a bunch of horseshit” makes sense. If my gifts under the tree this year are postage stamps, batteries, discounted laundry detergent and rolls of toilet paper, I’m not sure that I’d be upset. It would be a whole bunch of necessities that I wouldn’t have to pay for on my own.

Especially if it’s two-ply toilet paper. I can’t afford that fancy stuff. A gift like that would be like a hug for my buttocks.

My mom, of course, has a slightly different opinion on all this. When my dad asks for socks and underwear each year, my mom responds with, “Socks and underwear aren’t fun! They’re not Christmas gifts!” The only sensible gift she approves of are amusing ones, like when I bought my dad a box of Depends adult diapers for Christmas a few years back.

Ironically, those adult diapers are still sitting in a closet somewhere in my parents’ house, because like most other “creative” Christmas gifts, my parents have no use for Depends but believe it would be wasteful to throw them out. There was a period of roughly two years where my father and I would take turns hiding the diapers in odd places throughout the house, such as the bottom of the laundry hamper for my mom to find or in the drawer with loaves of bread. Many nights my father would retire to bed, and a few moments later I’d hear him grumble “Goddamn it” as he found the diapers stuffed into his pillowcase.

I still enjoy some fun gifts like video games, blowjobs and autographed photos of Woodrow Wilson (and in that order, thank you very much), but immense poverty and general dullness that one earns with age have turned me mostly toward sensible, useful gifts. Assuming my financial situation continues to worsen, within a few years I’ll likely just ask for loaves of bread, government cheese and packing tape that I can use to reinforce the cardboard box in which I live. Also, heroin.

I’m not quite at that level yet, but I’m on my way. This year I asked for a pair of shoes, bedsheets and a grocery store gift card. Granted, I also asked for “Yakuza 4″, a video game where you can earn trophies by picking up a guy and slamming his groin into a railing, but I’m making progress.

I learned a lesson that day. Not just because I was verbally disciplined, but also because my mother took the rifle I brought her and shot me in the leg. Even today, my slight limp serves as a daily reminder of who’s in charge.

My mother’s birthday is this week. I’m not sure of her exact age, but I think she’s somewhere in her nineties or early hundreds. She can’t get around like she used to, so she spends most of her day cleaning the rifle she still uses to wing people who displease her. Everyone from the mailman to Smuckers (her pet monkey) to her shemale yoga instructor has at least a few pieces of lead in their leg. Yet everyone still adores or politely fears my mother. She is the sweetest and most deadly woman we know.

One time she took me to a petting zoo. One of the goats refused to eat the food I offered it. My mother rounded up the goat’s parents and lit them on fire, making sure the goat watched as they melted. She then made an unattractive-looking hat out of the remains and forced the goat to wear it.

Another time, a kid who lived down the street ripped me off by trading me baseball cards with fake autographs on them. She called his mother and made him trade back all my original cards. A year later, when their family went on vacation, she happily offered to bring in their mail. When they returned, they found that she had pooped in every single envelope, ruining the contents forever.

Yet another time, we went to the mall to get Tommy Kramer’s autograph. The former Vikings quarterback showed up drunk, wearing a cutoff “Who farted?” t-shirt and rather provocative jean shorts. The autograph he signed for me was personalized with, “I love tits! You have big ears. best wishes, Tommy Kramer”. My mother politely thanked him for the autograph, walked out to the parking lot and smashed the windshield of his car with a tire iron. When he got the windshield fixed a day later, my mother drove to his house and smashed it again. She still continues to smash his new windshields today, 20 years later. She will not stop until he’s dead.

She’s also a very kind and affectionate person. She always gives an extra loaf of bread at Christmas to the butler at our house, in additional to the loaf of bread he normally earns each week as his salary. She’s also donated many powerful roosters to the local underground cockfighting league.

Robert Frost once wrote a poem about my mother. It was titled, “Boner Lunch”. I’d reprint it here, but the content is a bit too graphic and risque for this publication.

My mother was once a contestant on “The Price is Right”. She won a snowblower and free Arby’s roast beef sandwiches for life. However, these prizes were useless because we already had a snowblower and my mom has always received free Arby’s sandwiches because she’s naturally charming.

Perhaps the greatest thing about my mom is that I write fake, insulting and possibly litigious columns like this about her quite often and she has yet to disown me, as any sane mother would have done years ago. To be honest, if I ever have children who pull the nonsense I do, I’ll waterboard the hell out of them until they become too weak to annoy anyone.

I’m assuming my mom just rolls with it because she’s used to it. It’s probably hard to be surprised by anything when you have a kid who once almost lit an alleyway on fire and threw up on the floor during the Pledge of Allegiance in kindergarten. Still, it’s mighty nice of her to have not killed me by now. Especially after that time whereI posted a picture of her in hair rollers on the internet. I’m pretty sure she’s still pissed about that.

I supposed I should be fair and point out that she’s never actually shot me in the leg, participated in illegal cockfighting, or set a goat on fire. She also doesn’t drink whiskey. The stories about Tommy Kramer and pooping in people’s mail are true, though.

For Christmas, I’m going to buy her something really nice, like one of those mechanical chairs that help people get up the stairs, like that old lady had in the movie “Gremlins”. I may also draw her a picture of former Twins utility infielder Al Newman, because I know she finds him unnervingly hunky. Or perhaps I’ll just give her the greatest present of all: Not embarrassing her for an entire day.

No promises on that one.