It’s Funday Monday!

What a douche.

A few years ago, my friend Barry and I saw this great movie called “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” Seeing this movie resulted in two things:

1. It started my own personal cold war with Matthew Broderick. It would have been a real war, but the stupid government wouldn’t let me get a gun because my background check wasn’t up to snuff. Apparently if you accidentally point a realistic looking toy gun at a flight attendant demanding peanuts “now or everyone on board’s going to get it!” one time, it sticks with you forever.
2. It made Barry and me realize that we weren’t really maximizing our potential and living life to its fullest. In fact, while Ferris was faking sick to stay away from school, we were doing everything we could to be at the school because nobody serves hotter, cheaper lunches this side of the soup kitchen, and neither of us likes soup.

So we decided we needed to do something to make our lives a little more fun. Not that Barry transcribing my thoughts that I’ve written on Wendy’s napkins in to blog posts isn’t fun, but sometimes you need a break from the daily grind and sometimes Wendy’s gets tired of you sitting in their dining room for six and a half hours a day without ordering anything.

That’s why we instituted Funday Monday. We were going to go with Monday Funday, but Barry’s brother, a disbarred attorney, told us he thought the senior center in town used that for their Monday bus trips to the fabric store and he didn’t want us to get sued for copyright infringement. We also thought about maybe having Fondue Friday, but that’s probably a bit much to take on until Funday Monday gets off the ground and I think we were both hoping that the other would actually know what Fondue is. I guessed that it was some kind of foreign car and Barry thinks it might be a type of tree.

So Funday Monday is our day of fun and living.

We decided that, from the minute we wake up until the minute the sun goes down, we would maximize every second of the day. That’s roughly 90 minutes, so we have to pack a lot in. Activities vary, but our favorites include:

• Cross-checking my spreadsheet of Bob Barker’s tie color with DVR’d episodes of The Price is Right.
• Running up and down the street alongside the neighborhood cats.
• Finding every book in the library about chickens and telling the lady at the check-out that we’re doing extensive research on cocks.
• Bare-knuckle boxing with homeless dudes over behind the liquor store.
• Taking bus trips to the fabric store with the local seniors.
• Playing a little game we like to call “See it, eat it” where we walk up and down the sidewalk and have to eat anything we see on the ground. (Editor’s note: Barry cheats because he walks with his eyes closed.)
• Head over to the lake and look for beached mermaids so we can bone them.
• Paying kids at the high school money in exchange for their tater tots, because Monday’s tater tots are the best.

I can’t tell you everything we do because “the man” is probably reading this, but I promised Barry my run for President wouldn’t interfere with Funday Monday, even if I got elected. I figure the President is pretty powerful and can take three-day weekends whenever he wants.

Matthew Broderick thinks he’s so much cooler than me

Have you ever seen the movie War Games? If so, consider yourself lucky to have gotten a glimpse into what my life is like.

Not so much the part where Matthew Broderick (played masterfully by Ferris Bueller) almost starts World War III. Or the part where he has a girl in his room. Those are two things I’ve never done. But the parts where he’s sitting around playing video games on his computer – that’s about right.

As an aside, on the subject of how awesome my life is, this video is also a lot like what my life is like:

Or, at least, that will always be the dream: to open up my own auto repair shop complete with singing, dancing and men wearing cut-off shirts. Though no way am I riding off on a motorcycle with my uptown girl. I’m deathly afraid of motorcycles.

(Editor’s note: I’m hoping my uptown girl is a mermaid.)

Regardless, you’re right, my life is pretty sweet, but my friend Barry seems convinced that Matthew Broderick is way cooler than I’ll ever be. What he doesn’t realize is that I’ve already started laying the groundwork to marry one of the actresses from Sex in the City and as soon as the “Please stop sending me mail” letters from Kim Cattrall turn into “I’d love to meet you for coffee some time” letters, Broderick and I will be on even footing.

Barry also doesn’t realize I had originally planned on running into Matthew Broderick in the street and having the following conversation with him:

ME: Hello. Shall we play a game?
BRODERICK: Love to. How about Global Thermonuclear War?

And while that conversation makes no sense whatsoever, I would have proceeded to beat him thoroughly at said game and, thus, I would have then been greater than Matthew Broderick, moving me up to 138th on the list of coolest people in the world.

(Editor’s note: Vin Diesel is at the top of the list.)

It hasn’t happened, though, and when I wake up every morning and look in the mirror, all I see looking back at me is a guy who’s still ranked behind Matthew Broderick on the list of coolest people in the world.

(Editor’s note: Sometimes I like to pretend my nipples are eyes.)

And I think that’s bullshit (the rankings, not the nipple eyes), because Matthew Broderick is married to someone from Sex in the City and that is so 2001.

(Editor’s note: If Kim Cattrall is reading this, you’re not so 2001. We can still get married. Also, are you a mermaid?)

And even though Matthew Broderick is a famous actor with millions of dollars (and a horse) and all I have is my failed mango farm and a high school diploma that may or may not actually belong to Gerald Lawson and I may or may not have run across the stage at graduation to punch him in the face and steal his diploma to roaring applause (and by “roaring applause” I mean “the horrified screams of his mother”) doesn’t mean a thing.

(Editor’s note: If you are currently a member of a jury of my peers sitting on my trial for assault, you should probably not have read that last paragraph.)

So I challenge Matthew Broderick to a contest. We shall bare knuckle box shirtless, preferably in a room with metal spikes on the walls, but if we can’t find a room with metal spikes on the walls I can settle for some broken beer bottles scattered about or if we can’t find a room with broken beer bottles scattered about maybe I can smash my watch on the floor before we fight because all the little gears and parts are pretty sharp and could hurt if you fall on them just right. Of course, it’s a digital watch, so there aren’t any gears, but when the alarm beeps, it gets kind of annoying and it hurts your ears a little, so maybe we can figure something out with that.

But I digress, Broderick. All you need to do is set a date, time and place. Though I’m not allowed to cross state lines at the moment, so keep that in mind. And I have a doctor’s appointment next Tuesday. So nothing before 3:30. I’ll tell you what, how about you just e-mail me your schedule and I’ll send you mine back and we’ll set up a time for our people to negotiate a time for us to fight.

(Editor’s note: I don’t have people. Also, I don’t know how to fight.)