nonists rich and antonia crossed into the world of fiercely proud parenthood yesterday. we want to congratulate them and welcome their 1 day old baby boy, GianCarlo Copernicus, to planet earth. benvenuto alla terra del pianeta! i figure now would be an appropriate time for the rest of us to begin doling out our hard earned wisdom to young copernicus. he will likely ignore any and all advice his parents offer so it will be up to his many aunts and uncles here at the nonist and elsewhere to steer him right. i’ll get the ball rolling
1) on arch enemies.
in the course of your life you will undoubtedly find MANY people repellent, idiotic, and despicable. it’s only natural. unfortunately they will not ALL be total strangers who you make snap judgments on because of, say, the pace at which they walk, or the way they pronounce the word coupon, and then never see again. many of them will be people you are forced to interact with on a daily basis. these are the ones i wish to warn you about. your natural inclination will be to make grand pronouncements about your undying hatred for them, vowing perhaps to humiliate and destroy them. let me be the first to hazard you against the naming of arch enemies young copernicus. it is an extremely unsatisfying path. it is folly, that simple. now don’t misunderstand, there is nothing wrong with despising the numbskulls your forced to interact with. whether it is at school, or church, or work all of us have people around us who we’d like to spit on, but can’t, either because we are parched or they are on fire. i hazard you against it rather because it is inevitable that at some point you will find yourself, in an elevator, or narrow hallway, exchanging pleasantries with the very person whose existence you have railed against. it happens to the best of us. it feels awful and in my opinion is corrosive to the soul. in some rare cases you might even get past the empty pleasantries and have, against all odds, a real conversation with your arch enemy. this eventuality is in essence why i am warning you, because 8 times out of 10 you find he’s “not such a bad guy”, or that he’s actually a decent human being. a simple fact of life is that reconciling is a peculiarly potent pleasure for humans, and as such, naming an arch enemy is basically tempting fate to draw an annoying person straight toward you. so to put it simply young copernicus, despise as little and as quietly as you can manage.
2) on the insatiable urge to write poetry
four words: don’t bother writing it. two more words: yours stinks. sorry to be the one to break it to you champ. but don’t be too glum, everyone’s pretty much stinks nowadays. try short stories, or better yet, grant proposals.
3) on toilet side prayer.
when you get older you will do stupid things. it’s a fact of life. you might naively swallow 5 juice glasses full of johnny walker red. or you might let some kind of testosterone laden peer pressure drive you to keep filling plastic cups with cheap beer even though the very act of gripping a cup has long since become an impossible challenge to your motor skills. it has happened to me, and yes, it has even happened to your father (somewhere there is a video tape with some none too pretty proof of it). let me then make this ABSOLUTELY clear. praying to god when you are earth shakingly inebriated does not help you. it simply doesn’t. no matter what good deeds you attempt to barter with, no matter what improbable moral transformations you promise to make, it WILL NOT change anything. you have made your terrible mistake, and so you must live with it. so save your slurred and shaky promises to never drink again, and put all of your remaining energy into fending off your friends who will be coming at you with felt tipped markers and buzzing hair trimmers. you’ll thank me later.
4) on threatening letters from creditors
they can use all the bold type they want, threaten all kinds of outlandish punishments, but remember, creditors do not have the legal authority to administer lethal injection, and unless you received your loan as cash in a brown envelope in a back alley, they can’t do you physical harm. so pay when you are damn well ready. sure you may never be able to buy your own house or a car, but that’s o.k. your father is a big shot lawyer, he can hook you up.
5) on the rumors that your grandad is a mobster.
after many years of straddling the fence on this one, i am inclined, finally, to believe your parents. your father’s father is not a mafia don. he is a decent, hardworking, upstanding family man. ok?
6) on your middle name being found out
whilst you are being mercilessly administered indian burns and noogies by big kids with mustard stains on their shirts, just try and remember, you are named after a genius. that’s more than any tom, dick, or jaime can say! you might wonder “why would my infinitely cruel school chums ever find out my middle name?” well young copernicus, because at some point i will be in the same general vicinity as you and your cohorts, and though the name GianCarlo may make you sound moody and mysterious to all the little middle-school bitties, i, for one, will never call you by any other name than your astonishingly cool middle name. so get ready pal.
ok, youngest of all nonists, i’ll leave it there for now. i have more to share of course, but don’t want to hog the mic.
now readers, fellow nonists, honorary aunts and uncles, it’s your turn to offer some wisdom…
c’mon… offer wisdom i said!!
don’t make me give you all indian burns…