HOW I STAY SO CHEERY AND CAREFREE

People always ask me how I maintain such a cheery, carefree attitude and the answer is simple: I always wear an award or have an award near me.

An award is a validation of one’s skills manifested in the form of a medallion, trophy, taxidermied creature, ring, or other. Some awards are meant to be worn, like an Olympic medal for example. Other awards, like trophies, are meant to rest on shelves or desks. There are also framed awards like diplomas or certificates. An urn is not an award.

Oftentimes a person wearing an award that they haven’t just received can be perceived as pretentious and that is exactly the point. I’ll be the first person in a long line of people (and dogs) raising their hands to say that the cold, rigid, mortal shell I inhabit isn’t interesting enough, so a shiny, gold, first-place-something really makes-do. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that arguing with someone is better than not talking to anyone at all. And if there’s a second thing I’ve learned it’s “Ramble On” by Led Zeppelin on clarinet.

I have a wide array of awards and things that I consider to be awards that I carry with me on a daily basis. The first award I usually adorn myself is my first place medallion. First place for what? Exactly. It rests comfortably on my chest on the end of a red, white, and blue ribbon. In winter I wear this medal under my jacket. You should see people’s eyes and hear their gasps and smell their gasps when I take off my winter coat and my medal is there, on my bare chest. I tell everyone in the Starbucks that I won it at a muscles competition, but the real reason I don’t wear anything under my jackets is because shirts and sweaters make my soul scream because it thinks it’s trapped.

Another award I like to carry with me is my father’s tooth. I keep this award in my mouth, where it belongs and will forever stay.

At home my mantel is full of awards. Sports awards, singing awards, riddle solving awards, riddle writing awards, most lightnings photographed in a single evening awards, wrestling awards, and so on. There are so many awards on my mantel that I’ve had to install 15 extra fireplaces so I can top them with more mantels to hold my awards. Mantel is also the name of my award-winning pet fish, Mantel. In 2006 she broke a floating record and most recently she was awarded worst smelling dead pet in New York. Pee-ew, but good job, Mantel!

If I don’t have an award on me, I position myself within an award’s radius. Of course, the radius of an award’s power is calculated by its weight over time plus its height divided by the number of awardees it’s attributed to. Even being near an award gives me the power of wearing one. For example: the office building lobby where I loiter on weekdays is full of highly-decorated businesses, including the car maker GMC. This particular lobby is also full of potted plants, so not only do I have a great place to hide my riddles, I’m imbued with the confidence that they’re solvable thanks for the 40-odd JD Power & Associates Awards residing in the GMC corporate office on the second floor. It’s a win-win…win.

Whether I’m on the playground, in a lobby, or standing on my favorite chair at the Starbucks on Varick and Spring, wearing or being around an award gives me the confidence to be the best me I’m deserving of being, beholden to absolutely noone, pure of body and mind, master riddler, so good at riddles and fighting, so, so good and pure that I could wear the entire earth on a gold chain around my neck, cheery and carefree.