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Dear graduating seniors,
It seems like only yesterday that you were sucking your thumbs, eating mashed peas, and laughing at your parents for making weird “I think I’m going to pass out because of this disgusting diaper” faces.
Well, those “it’s a wonder we survived” years are long gone, and now it’s time for you to head out into the big blue world to fix all the things that we didn’t have time to fix, that we couldn’t fix because we weren’t part of the “No Child Left Behind” regime like you are, which probably made the difference.
So, since you’re going to be out there setting the world on fire, I have a list of 10 items I’d like you to consider fixing before I die. They are as follows:
1. Make it illegal for anyone to jazz up “The Star Spangled Banner,” and you know what I mean. No warbling, no crooning, no endless arpeggios on a single note until we feel like we’re about to pass out, and no starting in one key and changing to a different key when the notes start to get a little high. Our National Anthem should only be sung by a war-hardened U.S. Marine tenor who wouldn’t dare think of warbling or emitting emotions.
2. Change our National Anthem to something that is easier to sing and understand. I vote for “God Bless America,” or “This Land is Your Land.” They have catchy tunes, they’re easy to remember, and they never use the word “o’er.”
3. Please, oh please, make Peanut M&Ms an important part of our daily-recommended diet.
4. Declare the banjo Our National Instrument. Banjos promote goodwill, laughter, and a chance to experience the good old days before “reality TV” and Ryan Seacrest. I dare say that if everyone had a banjo in their home, children would listen to their parents, parents would always make the “right” decisions, bosses would put up suggestion boxes and actually read what their workers suggested, governments would place the need for banjo strings above the need for nuclear weapons, and the world would spin just a wee bit easier, bringing melody and harmony to the universe.
5. If anyone suggests that the banjo is a sub-par instrument, played only by hicks who don’t know the difference between good music and the sounds of a cow being turned into ground beef, I say those people should disappear to a secret government prison and not be allowed to return until some guard named Bruno “The Enforcer” has a chance to reconfigure their attitudes.
6. Design a hands-free telephone receiver that fits all the way up a person’s ear canal so the rest of us don’t have to see those stupid devices attached to the outside of a person’s ear, which makes them look like Robby the Robot.
7. Ban all uses of fossil fuels. Not only will that clean up our planet, but it will also rid us of polyester–an added bonus.
8. Hurry up and develop the Star Trek Replicator so we can have anything we want without working for it. While you’re at it, develop the Star Trek Transporter so we can go anywhere we want without having to sit for eight hours in coach behind a fussy baby whose parents are desensitized to the smell of poopy diapers.
9. Be an advocate of a four-day workweek so we can finally get rid of those “Monday Morning Blues.” Of course, we’ll then have “Tuesday Morning Blues,” so we might as well go with a three-day workweek. Nobody would dare have “Wednesday Morning Blues,” and if they did, we’d label them a communist–for old time’s sake.
10. Adults must successfully care for a herd of goats before having children. Pass “The Goat Test” and you’re prepared for anything a child will throw up at you.
So, graduating seniors, it’s your time, it’s your world to do with as you see fit, and I know you will do what’s right and make us all proud. If, on the other hand, accomplishing all 10 of these items is too ambitious, we’ll chalk it up to the fact that you came from a school that just “taught the test” and you slept right through it.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Class of 2010!
