Best Way to Approach Life?

Lowbrow Answer: Happy
Stop smiling all the time. What are you, a golden retriever? Happy people blow. I hope those kids who go out to bars every night of the weekend and party like they're still at their frat houses in college get hit by a bus. A big bus with AIDS and Cancer smeared all over the front of it. Cheerful pricks.

You never see happy people getting anything done. They're always just lying around on the couch, stoned and watching Golden Girls re-runs. And they're too busy enjoying themselves with their friends and family to have edcucated themselves. You try and talk to them about Adorno or Marx and they just regale you with stories about riding jet-skis with their cousins last Friday.


Middlebrow Answer: Denial
Denial can be fun. It's like a Get Out of Jail Free card. Have abusive parents? Just forget about them! Your wife having an affair with your dog? No she isn't! Have a cancerous lump in your back? Ignore it! It's not happening! It's the magic eraser for everything bad in your life!

Denial is lame though because it turns your friends into unstable emotional timebombs. You'll offer your buddy a powdered donut one day and she'll suddenly burst into tears. Little did you know that her father was eating a powdered donut the day he molested her, or something horrific like that. You were just trying to share your pastry and now you've accidently unearthed 15 years of trauma. Nice going.


Highbrow Answer: Bitter Resentment
Life is shit. Nuclear bombs are dropped on Japanese cities, Holocausts happen, and Arrested Development gets canceled. The only way to deal with such tragedies is to be fucking miserable. All the time. It's not much fun, but it's not supposed to be. This is life, not a tea party in Barbados with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

Look at how much bitter people accomplish. They write poetry, they compose symphonies, and they paint beautiful art. Sure, a lot of them kill themselves before they reach 40, but who wants to live past 40 anyway? I say get in, create some epic art, and get out. Fuck being elderly; I'm more content to end up as a blood spatter pattern on my curtains when I'm 39.

Best Pet?

Lowbrow Answer: A Dog
Owning a dog is like having a child that never gets older than two. Newsflash: two-year-old children suck ass. They run into stuff, they poop in your yard, and they can't be left alone. I don't get it. Is having a golden retriever bring you back a tennis ball every time you throw it really that rewarding? If I threw a tennis ball and he brought me back a 17th century oil painting, then maybe I'd be impressed.

I'm also not down with the whole eternal optimism thing. You come home, the dog is happy. You turn on the TV, the dog is happy. Your father's face melts off in a horrible mining accident, the dog is happy. Sorry pooch, but the world is not full of smiles and rainbows and ice cream. It's full of suffering and disease and circus clowns with AK47's. Have the sense to be depressed once in a while. Dumb dog.


Middlebrow Answer: A Box Turtle
Reptiles rule. You don't think so? I'm sorry, are your ancestors dinosaurs? Is anyone on your family tree three stories tall with jaws that could crush a Buick? I didn't think so. These guys are low maintenance, they look pretty, and they spend most of their time chilling in the sun. Man, that actually sounds pretty good. I should start dating a Box Turtle.

Box Turtles are, however, a little wimpy. If shit goes bad, they just hide in their shell and hope it all works out? Fuck that. I want a pet that will fight for my honor when bullies call me names, not one that will retreat inside his shell while I get wedgied and noogied by the lacrosse team. Grow a pair, Box Turtle.


Highbrow Answer: A Slow Loris
This, my friends, is a pet. You can only really get them in Southeast Asia, so pack your bags for Jakarta. They're pre-evolutionary chimpanzees that hang out in trees and slowly eat oranges. And their defense mechanism is something called Dynamic Locomotion, which is when they move with the same pace and rhythm as the leaves around them to blend in and go unseen by predators. So, basically, they're Mini Monkey Ninjas. I want one. Or twelve.

They're also endangered, which makes having one illegal in most places. But having a pet Loris is like owning artifacts that were plundered from The Pyramids: you shouldn't really have it, but it's kinda cool that you do.