Remembrance Day is the most literal holiday around next to Poland’s Throw Bread Day. It’s a bit misleading though because it wants us to remember only one thing, that being the big wars that were responsible for more skeletons than that first month after cavemen learned how to make swords.
After remembering how lucky I am to be living in a place with very little mud, I wanted to take this year’s Remembrance Day a step further by coming up with a hearty list things I’d like to accomplish before Remembrance Day 2018 arrives. By then my list will hopefully be littered with red check marks and fun little notes that say stuff like, “Great job on this one, dude.” Its successful completion should lessen the odds of me getting distracted again during the Remembrance Day parade, where I’m prone to wild fantasies about becoming a rogue-ish bagpiper who uses his instrument not only for dirges but as a bellows, a decent fake spider, and some sort of HD satellite.
I need to save money this year and to curb my addiction to “retail therapy” I finally want to sneak some fountain water out of the mall. I’ll then have the final ingredient in “mall tea” which is made by steeping soft pretzel in boiling fountain water. The scent will trick my brain into believing I’m in the mall, satiating my hunger for shopping when really I’m at home choking down the tea.
I’d like to get connect with my dad on an emotional level so I’ll finally have that talk with him to find out if my face and body is exactly the form he fantasized about when he found out his wife was pregnant with me.
I want to remember to try to meet my idols so hopefully I can track down one of those wonderful Stranger Things kids and talk them out of getting a tattoo that commemorates their time on Stranger Things.
Having fun is important so I gotta get around to pranking a friend by giving them a nickname, getting it to stick, then buying myself a vanity licence plate with that nickname stamped on. On the surface it will seem like I’m being a jerk but really I just want to give my friends something to talk about for once other than who got Chopped last night.
If I’m going to help out my friends I’d like to achieve balance by nailing my enemies. I’m definitely going to sew a pouch into every shirt I own to remind myself to fulfil last year’s mission of taking an extra square of toilet paper from every public washroom I visit to use as Christmas wrapping paper for the presents of my foes.
I need to take some time out for creative projects. It’ll take a lot of work but I’d like to find a fascinating story of true crime to make a podcast out of. When the first, critically acclaimed season is complete, I’ll meticulously take out snippets of my own voice and use them as samples on my new record–a lighthearted hip hop album about how to have fun living in Canada in your 30s.
Finally, I want to get into investing. My plan is to gather enough common beans that they are no longer common because I own most of them. Then I will sell them back to big beaners for a big payday, or retain them and be a Bean Lord for a bit.
GLENN W. MACAULAY 