Dave T's Pros and Cons of Stuff Everyone Has: Mistakes

Installing the track for the drawer of your IKEA desk backwards so that the drawer opens in toward the wall and not out toward you.

Picking up a prostitute that you thought was a woman but turned out to be a tranny.

Picking up a prostitute that you thought was a tranny but turned out to be a regular old boring chick.

Removing a patient's right leg during surgery when it was actually the left leg that needed amputating.

Joining the Church of Scientology.

Giving Dr. Phil a TV show.

These are MISTAKES.

Don’t know what they are?

Mistakes are things we do wrong that we didn’t intend to do.

Things we do wrong that we intended are sins and crimes.

Pros:

• We learn from our mistakes, and this may be the only way we can grow as human beings.

I have learned so much from my mistakes.

For example: if you sleep with a gun under your pillow at night because you’re afraid of being alone in your apartment when Freddy Kruegers might exist, do NOT play Grand Theft Auto: Vice City all night and then go right to sleep. If you do, you will likely wake up in the middle of the night with a self-inflicted bullet hole in your right calf.

Also, if after accidentally shooting yourself in the calf you decide to sew yourself shut, don’t bite down on a cinnamon stick as you do it. (In movies, I always saw guys biting down on what I thought was a cinnamon stick. Turns out it’s just a piece of wood to bite down on for the pain. I thought it was a treat to make you feel better.) Having raw cinnamon in your mouth will make you sneeze, and you’ll accidentally stick the needle into your kneecap.

Also, if you sew yourself shut after shooting yourself, use sterilized thread and burn the needle with a lighter first.

Also, dig the bullet out before you sew yourself shut. If you don’t, you will go into sepsis and have to be rushed to the hospital, have your stitches cut out, have the bullet dug out, and then have to be sewn shut again.

• Many mistakes are funny. Verbal mistakes, for instance.

My friend and coworker Jamie brought cookies to the cafeteria at work once. She said, “I was feeling homely, so I decided to bake some cookies.” Obviously, she meant that she was feeling homey, but her mistake made everyone laugh. It also made Jamie laugh, so everyone was a winner. AND THEN WE ATE COOKIES!

• Unwanted pregnancies are considered mistakes, and those can lead to the birth of some really cool people. Like my cousin Oops Terruso. And her brother Condom Hole Terruso. And her sister Botched Vasectomy.

• Mistakes are often the only thing that can humble extremely conceited people. And those people need to be humbled as much as possible.

• Without mistakes, most things would go exactly as we planned. That would make life a whole lot less interesting. It would also make books and movies and TV episodes really short and boring.

• Many mistakes lead to important discoveries.

Some scientist accidentally mixes the wrong beakers in a lab and finds a cure for a disease.

Back in long ago, some clumsy lover stuck his Punxsutawney Phil in the wrong hole and discovered an amazing new way to have sex with a woman. He probably also saw his shadow.

(The place where Phil makes his weather prediction every year is called Gobbler’s Knob. HOW CAN THAT BE A COINCIDENCE?!)

Total Pros: 6

Cons:

• Mistakes can never be taken back. They can lead to a lifetime of regret. Guilt. Depression. Embarrassment. Drug abuse. Suicide.

• Sometimes adults make mistakes in their pants. This is always bad news.

• Some mistakes can hurt people. Some mistakes can kill people.

• Without mistakes, most things would go exactly as we planned. That would make all of us a heck of a lot happier.

• When a mistake leads to a positive result, sometimes people get fooled into thinking that what they did wrong was a good thing and then they keep doing that bad thing, to disastrous results.

Like the time my cousin Condom Hole farted and then sneezed on a pretty girl who had just given him her number. He thought that was the key to picking up hot women.

He only went on one date with that hot chick, who had decided to give him the benefit of the doubt despite his flatulence and allergies and then realized she shoudn't have. (Why would you give a man named Condom Hole the benefit of the doubt?)

Condom Hole trying to fart and sneeze on pretty women led to several slaps and more than one adult mistake in his pants.

Total Cons: 5

So, 6 Pros, 5 Cons. The Pros were much longer and funnier. I can say without hesitation that mistakes are here to stay.

There won’t be a next time, so this is Ciao! forever. I hope you’ve enjoyed the inside of my brain.

Dave T