A lesson learned for every year lived

Now that I am a ripe old 29 years old, I am beginning to understand the compulsion of old people to impart their wisdom to any and all people surrounding them (willing or unwilling). Here are my 29 lessons learned, thus far).

1. Boiled egg + microwave + biting into it = burned lip and exploded egg on walls and up nose.

2. Button flies are not good in emergency bathroom situations. (never an actual accident, just a few frustrating, foot tapping close calls).

3. When you’re a kid who has been spinning on a swing and encounter the largest bumble bee on the face of the earth don’t try to run across a bridge in your escape. (dizzy and fell off and my knee was impaled by a stick)

4. Australian Spiders work for Satan. Necrotizing venom takes a missionary away from the work.

5. When you light a Blackcat firecracker to throw it, and the fuse burns out 2 mm away from the end, don’t light it to throw it again.

6. After said Blackcat has exploded in your hand and next to your ear, and your fingers are burned, don’t stick them on the inside of a freezer to cool them off.

7. When your burned fingers are stuck to a freezer, it works better to run water over them than to rip them off.

8. Making lists of your lessons learned may make you sound like a bit of an idiot.

9. When you see a large woman, play it safe and don’t ask her when her due date is.

10. When in Mexico, and the taco stand guy says “take it easy on the salsa, it’s pretty hot” you should listen to him.

11. When your mouth is on fire from the super nova salsa at the Mexico taco stand, drink water instead of super carbonated Coca-Cola…holy crap!

12. When you have food poisoning and traveling by bus in South America and the bus window only goes down 8 inches, if you were covering your mouth when sticking your head out, there will be nowhere for your hand to go, and you'll be unable to retract it in time, and it’ll be covered with vomit.

13. Never, EVER, under any circumstances, enter a water drinking contest. Winning does not make up for how incredibly terrible you will feel, or how much sleep you will lose going to the bathroom 15,000 times.

14. When you and your friends have a water drinking contest, and you all have to go to the bathroom 15,000 times in the night, not flushing to toilet the whole night “just to see” is not the brightest idea. (1/2 a mm away from urine overflow!)

15. When competing in a triathlon, you should do your best not to punch your friend in the face on your first swim stroke. The ensuing anger and laughter puts you behind the pack. (We still finished 2^nd and 3^rd in our age group-but he beat me by 20 or so seconds-sweet revenge).

16. When you go to the college football national championship game and a guy offers you $800 for your ticket, maybe you should take it rather than laugh at him. (Although, if the Buckeyes won, it would have been worth twice that to be there, and this wouldn’t be on the list)

17. When your 40 something Ironman brother invites you to go out with his 40 something year old Ironman buddies on a bike ride and says you’ll be fine because you’re 26, you may want to consider going out on your own. (75 miles including a 9 mile long hill and being left in the dust = humility)

18. When changing a diaper, move the diaper clear of the baby’s reach.

19. When your baby girl grabs the poop from the diaper you placed too close to her and puts poop in her mouth, take a picture and use it to ward off unwanted suitors when your baby girl’s all grown up.

20. Avoiding problems creates more problems, especially when it’s a people problem.

21. When you are extracting a tooth for the first time, and the person asks you how many times you’ve done this before, lie like your pants are on fire. (I really suck at lying).

22. If you are an extremely sarcastic personality, you have to ease people into it when you first meet them, otherwise they think you are a huge jerk. Although I’ve learned this to be true, I have a VERY hard time implementing this wisdom. In fact, I don’t know if I have ever been able to do it.

23. If you get the opportunity to marry your best friend, you are the luckiest person in the world. Life is so much more fun and marriage is that much easier.

24. If your best friend is smoking hot…bonus.

25. When you are a pediatric dentist, and working with a student assistant you need to tell her before the kid is in your chair to never, ever say the words “needle, poke, stick, etc.” I actually had her ask, “Now did you want the extra long needle or just the regular one?” If I were Superman I would have burned her mouth off with my eyes. I really just could never had anticipated the lack of common sense this girl had.

26. Don’t compare yourself to other people, it will always be to your detriment. Either you will be content in your mediocrity, or you’ll beat yourself up and feel your best isn’t enough.

27. The mottos of “Roll with the punches” and “Life’s too short, and friend’s too few (to get upset about small things)” have served me well.

28. You need more than 3 months to train for a Marathon. (4 months at least!)

29. If your wife lets you watch Six Months of football, three, sometimes four days a week, you can tolerate two nights of “So you think you can dance,” for three months. (I can’t actually; I just do other stuff, like write this post).