as a youth, when faced with a difficult challenge that i saw as insurmountable, my dad would invariably say "can't means won't." and, i didn't... hence this blog i'm blogging. see, i'm incredibly stubborn, terribly lazy and a super fantastic, #1 quitter. so here's a list of all the things i can't/won't do for reasons and/or excuses ranging from too hard, not interested, too boring, too lame, too much work, not enough time, etc. oh, and for the sake of clarity: "can't" means unable to, while "won't" means the refusal to.
1. can't light a match/lighter: i've tried both to mixed/unsatisfactory results. as far as matches go, i just don't get how the unsturdiness of the flimsy wooden stick can withstand the strike against the phosphorous stuff. i've tried and i always break the match. as luck would have it, i have nary a use for a match anyway. i'm a straight dude, so i don't like candles. i don't share a bathroom, so i can let my stench linger. i'm a jehova's witness, so i don't celebrate birthdays. and, so on... then, there's lighters. during my ever so fleeting social pot usage phase, i could never light the pipe and/or bong and/or joint without practically burning my thumb off. i just couldn't work out the angles. i think this is one of the main reasons why i never really got into the marijuana; i just couldn't negotiate the paraphernalia.
2. won't play poker: i grew up playing card games like old maid, go fish, rummy, crazy eights, uno, solitaire and war. and now, as an adult, i can spend hours on end playing blackjack in casinos. so, why no poker? i think i was just such a late adapter i always saw the learning curve as too steep and i don't wanna be "that guy" who doesn't know what he's doing and holding up the game for everyone else. see, i'm just an inherently selfless dude. besides, those shade wearing, stoic poker guys on tv seem like the lamest, no-fun-party-guys EVER. there couldn't be less charismatic, less compelling ambassadors for their "sport." poker??? i just met her!!!
3. can't swim: this is maybe the one thing i can see myself learning sometime soon. i really want to be able to swim, i really do but i just never learned and have been relegated to laying out at pool parties and manning the chum bucket while on boats. however, i do occasionally jump in the wayer and treat everyone to my patented sidewinding, super splishy-splashy, doggie-paddle. i don't know what happened - i took swimming lessons as a kid but i guess it just never took. i think i had trouble figuring out how to dunk my head underwater without the water going up my nose. even as i blog this blog, i can't rightly wrap my head around how this is done. can a 27-year-old balding guys even take swimming lessons???
4. won't drive a stick shift: i bet i could learn how after a day of strenuous tutelage but why bother? i'm not a car dude AT ALL and hate driving as it is so i don't see why i'd want to extend any more superfluous attention towards driving than i need to. i remember when i was 15 and all the talk around the house was about me getting a car and my dad suggested the economic value of a stick shift and my mom said "no son of mine is driving a stick shift!" go, mom! just look at it this way: who would ever choose "manual" over "automatic" as an option for anything. it's just inefficient. besides, how would you text, hold hands with your gf/bf, eat and/or jo if you had to worry about shifting your stick all the time?
5 can't type: can you believe a blogger of my caliber only uses two fingers to type? crazy, huh? i somehow slipped through the cracks of 12 years of catholic school without ever learning to type. i don't even think it was ever really required of me. i remember at some point my parents bought me the "mavis beacon teaches typing" game for the computer but it was just too hard and i gave up. and i've logged TONS of hours typing too. i mean, i'm like a blogger! whenever people would ask me about it i'd usually just lie and tell them i broke my arm during typing class. then, i ended up taking a typing test for some city library job i applied to and found out i can type 45 words per minute while only using two fingers. now i don't have to lie because i'm like a typing champion and i have the certificate from the city of salinas to prove it. ba dum BLOG!!!
editor's note: ba dum BLOGger says this is "part one" of two because he has oodles more things he can't/won't do but, as it turns out, he now says he can't/won't do a part two.
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