Profound thought: whether brown of skin, agility of limb or invisibility of hair, we humans are all basically the same. I have drawn this stunning conclusion based on a careful review of my regular habits and exquisite moves and I pronounce them as universal as lint.

Go ahead, tell me this isn’t you:

• Someone calls in the middle of the night and asks if they woke you up. Being true to yourself, you say “Of course you did, you inconsiderate boob. It’s 3 a.m. Do you think I’m just hanging around at 3 a.m. waiting for you to call?” You hear a gasp, a sniffle, a trembling, tearful voice of shame begging your pardon. Begging! Being true to the universal practice of feeling guilty for being true to your undeserving self, you say “Hey, just joking. In fact I was hanging around wishing you’d call. So how’s your enormous ass?”

• After pulling on your jammy pants at bedtime, you scoop your shorts up from the floor with your foot, you kick-toss them over your head and you catch them one handed as they float down behind your back. You can do this solo or while conducting a serious conversation with someone else in the house about Radon or the Teapot Dome scandal or why they don’t make dishes out of Melmac anymore.

• In the morning, you step into the shower. In that momentary shock of hot water you squeal “Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo,” like Curly of the Three Stooges. Shemp, a poor substitute for Curly, did the same, but his woos always felt forced.

• Out driving, you come upon a road sign, a billboard, a building name, a protester holding up a “Stop Leaving The Seat Up!” sign. You announce the words aloud with the gravity of an announcer on a truck commercial. Someone else in the car eventually says “Knock it off.” You do, but impishly you announce the next set of roadside words silently. Loudly silently. Someone else in the car knows exactly what you’re doing. When she repeats “Knock it off!” you say “What?” with the gravity of an announcer on a truck commercial.

• You finally decide to clip your toenails, not because of the four-inch blade restriction of the TSA, but because you realize you’ve marginalized your toes by ignoring them. Consequently, you’ve left them with feelings of worthlessness, while ironically living on the cutting edge. When you’ve finished clipping the last toe, you whisper “Sorry dudes. Let’s stay in touch.”

• When someone else in the house asks over supper “What’s new in your world today?” you can’t resist saying “All quiet on the planet Melmac.” The same someone else in the house shoots a withering stare your way and says “Just once, I’d like to have an adult conversation.” You respond “Very well. I was hoping to keep this from you, but the planet Melmac got too close to the sun today and melted.” To which the same someone else person in the house says “Wait, I thought that happened yesterday.”

©Patrick A. McGuire and A Hint of Light 2013-2014, all rights reserved.