Yeah, I know, some dude wrote a book with that same title several years ago, but I'm not really bothering to look the guy or his book up, because one of the things that they don't teach you in kindergarten? Is how to write. But I did happen randomly to think of that title the other day, which led me to consider some of the valuable lessons that I learned in my own not-so-illustrious kindergarten career (my parents were amazed that you even could flunk kindergarten; I'm proud to say that I have always brought the amazement like that). I am happy to share (as I was not in kindergarten) those lessons with you.

            Take naps. I have been agitating for corporate naptime since I first started white-collar jobs, more than 25 years ago. It hasn't happened, because late-stage capitalism sucks, so I've taken matters into my own hands. For the past week, every day at 3 I curl up on my desk and sack out for an hour or so, after changing into my footie pajamas. People were a little shocked at first, but I think they're coming to accept it, and I've seen a few envious glances thrown my way as I stretched myself awake afterward. Or maybe that was the day my backflap accidentally fell open.

            Piss in your pants; it gets people's attention. So, there I was, giving a presentation to 30 or so executives of my corporate client and that particular aircraft was spiraling out of control--like, death spiral, I canna hold her much longer, Cap'n, ah, Houston, we have a problem. (You understand: that was a metaphor; it was a meeting, not an aircraft, nor the USS Enterprise, nor an Apollo mission.) (Not least because any one of those would have been way cooler than that meeting.) People were shouting at one another, nobody was listening to anyone else, the original topic had long since been forgotten...and worst of all, I had to piss, and I mean badly. So, I figured, what the fuck? Ahhhh…blessed relief. The room quieted, and pretty soon the only sound was the dripping from the bottom of my pants into the carpet. Like heaven, I tell you. And everybody was much much nicer after that too.

            Once I used to fret and complain about how the El smelled like urine. Now? I'm one of the reasons. It's a great relief, really. Literally. And in all kinds of ways.

            Break other people's shit. The other day on the bus, we're on the express part of the ride, the part where we're heading down Lakeshore Drive. The guy next to me has his white earbuds in--and I can hear his music over the roar of that speeding bus, some crappy fratboy pop shit, as clearly as if those buds were in my own ears. So, smiling at him, I plucked the iPod from his shirt pocked, dropped it on the floorboards and smashed it with my hiking boot. At first he looked like he might get aggressive, and he was much bigger than me, but I think my gentle serene smile convinced him otherwise. I have a very calming smile. My eyes going off in two different unrelated directions tends to undermine the calming effect a little, so maybe he thought, I don't know, that I was crazy or something, and would like kill him right there and eat his liver. (Maybe I might have, you know, said something to that effect. Oh, like you remember everything you say.) Sure I'm crazy. Crazy like a fox. A psychopathic fox.

            Throw tantrums. So yesterday I’m in Whole Foods, and they're handing me they don't have avocados. You're fucking Whole Foods and what? You're out of avocados? The avocado stream has just, like, dried up? Soon we will be hoarding avocados and selling them to each other for houses and shit like during the Dutch tulip mania? Do I look like I was born yesterday? (Well, I am pretty wrinkly and red-faced, and I do have diaper rash.) (Q.v., supra, re pissing in my pants.) So I flung myself down on the floor, right there in the produce section, kicking and screaming and crying until I almost passed out. And sure enough, those fuckers had plenty of avocados, crates of them in the back. They brought 'em out pretty damn toot sweet too, I can tell you. And then the cops came and Tased me. (True story.) Listen: I will not apologize for my love of guacamole.

            All I have to say is, they'd better not be out of cilantro today.

            Drink juice. It's good for you. Sure, I like mine fermented, and in a brown paper bag, and it does taste a lot better when you're lying half in the gutter, but as I say: drink juice. It also helps with the pissing in your pants. Hey, you don't go into battle unarmed. I am, as always, just sayin'.

            Steal people's lunch money. Hey, when someone has left the restaurant and that money is just sitting there, I think that it's pretty much been removed from what the cop shows call "the chain of custody." Finders keepers, is my thinking, at that point.

            Play doctor. You will not believe the shit doctors get. Drugs, sex with nurses, paid healthcare…all of that and more. So after you've roofied a real doctor and stolen his ID, all you need is a pair of scrubs and an entitled attitude that indicates that you are pretty much a deity; hit the hospital, my friend, and all that shit will be yours. (Well, not the paid healthcare.) If you're lucky, you might get to cut someone open. Just remember to keep yelling, "Stat!" the way they do in all the medical shows on TV. Also, sometimes they expect you to do surgical shit once you've got the guy all cut open, or even sew him up, and we all know sewing is nowhere near as cool as cutting, so at that point, you should just run like hell.

             I'd never actually want to be back in kindergarten, because for one thing I'd probably flunk it again. (Kindergarten Floyd was right: sharing, my ass. Anyone touches my burnt umber Crayola, he's getting a fistful of flesh-color knuckles.) But if, like most of the adults I know, I act like I'm in kindergarten, well, the world is my oyster. And may I add:  ew, oysters. They look like boogers.