April 21, 2010

My Recommendations For People Who Are, At This Very Moment, On Fire

1. Find something else to think about. Are the birds singing? Don't you just love apple pie? Let your mind take you away from the burning of your flesh.

2. Stay away from valuable paintings in museums. Fire will damage most canvases by the great masters. You don't want that guilt hanging over you during your potential recovery.

3. Don't run! Walk casually so as to not attract embarrassing levels of attention. There's no need to turn physical pain into social discomfort.

4. If inside, make sure that you are in a properly ventilated room. This will help you to avoid legal liability for violating provisions of your state's clean indoor air act.

5. Don't re-invent the wheel! Many people have been on fire before. Learn from their examples and fine-tune only where necessary.

6. Stop blaming others for your fire. Own your burning, or your burning will own you, or at least the epidermal parts of you.

7. The human body is mostly water. Knowing that most of you will eventually put out the fire on a small portion of you, feel free to relax.

8. Is it a prescribed burn? Overgrown skin is more prone to natural burning and regrowth cycles. Nature has ways of making room for healthy new cells.

9. Admit that you are powerless over fire; so sit and do nothing.

10. Make sure that it is not a superpower with which you have just been invested. You would feel quite dumb if you extinguished a blossoming superpower, wouldn't you?

11. Learn to overcome your fear of water very quickly.

12. Document the fire so as to learn from it. Also, so you don't forget about it with all you have to do today.

13. Stop whining! You think other people don't have problems? Of course they do. Your complaining just makes your burning more insufferable for those unfortunate enough to be around you at the time.

14. Check with your health insurance provider to see if "on fire" is a pre-existing condition and if there are any specialists in-network.

15. Be sure to update your social networking accounts with a witty status like, "Is it hot in here, or is it just me on fire?" or "I'm a hunka, hunka burnin' flesh!" or "Goodness! Gracious! Great balls o' fire! Literally!" or "Need a light?" People will laugh!

16. Remember, it could be worse. You could be on fire and stupid. Count your blessings.

17. It may be tempting, but don't hold a grudge against fire. The anger will only burn you up on the inside, and the fire will win again.

1 comment:

Myrna CG Mibus said...

Perhaps blog about being on fire while on fire? Thanks Brendon - really enjoyed your list today. You made me laugh and you know that since I cry a lot making me laugh is really a good thing.