My Guide to Parenting, Relationships, Life, and Some Other Crap [Satire]

Congratulations! You have survived long enough to read this article. I don’t know how much longer you have left, so let’s just get right into it.

Imagine how much effort that would take

1. Know yourself

You must first know yourself, because everyone else here thinks you are an idiot. The first step to knowing you is to think about that word. Y-O-U. Inside you is another tiny ‘U’ trying to get out! That is the real you, the 1/3rd of your whole self. Be that ‘U’, own it, you are even less than you thought.

To get to know yourself experts recommend that you try answering a few questions.

1: Is the purpose of your life to only serve warning to others?
2: How little do you matter?
3: Is there still hope?
4: If happiness was a currency, how broke would you be?
5: Do you still have anything left to lose?

These are some great questions to get you started on the path of realization of how little importance you are to the rest of the world.

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Don't let go! You may end up having to watch the children full time.

2. Know your partner

You have just given your partner a replica of the Battlestar Galactica and you would think that she would know how much value this adds to the household’s wealth (especially since this was a limited edition run), and then you come to find out that she is now upset!

You have two options here: Sit down with her and watch the entire classic and remake back-to-back so she will realize how thoughtful you are to have found such a collectible in the first place, or you can take her to a restaurant such as Olive Garden – those breadsticks always calm an angry partner. It is your responsibility to do things to make your relationship work in harmony.

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Protip: When they are this small it is the hardest to tell which one is yours. Write your initials on them with a sharpie, that way you can always check you have the right one.

3. Know your children

In addition to being able to pick them out of a crowd of other tiny humans, it is a good idea to get to know what they like as you legally have to take care of them. When you find out these tidbits of information make sure you write it down and keep it with you. I can’t remember all this crap so I store them on my phone. On my phone I have lists of their interests, gift wishes, and special events.

Before the advent of technology I had to make do with magnet letters on the fridge and what little I could remember otherwise. Every day I take my phone out and thank it for watching over my children. You can also do this with your partner, but they are usually not as stupid as the children – so don’t let them catch you looking at your phone for answers to such things as “What day is our anniversary?”

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Strong support takes the load off

4. Build a support system

You have to find a way to share your little piece of hell with someone other than your partner, this is called ‘building a supportive network’. If you are lucky enough, your parents or other family live close by and you can sucker them into watching your spawn on occasion.

If not, then you will have to find some poor saps that live near to you and build a relationship with them. So that later on you can have a good chance to con them into watching your little nose-miners. Be wary though, they might be trying to do the same thing to you!

This will enable you and your partner enough time to enjoy activities together, such as spotting homeless people jacking off in the park, eating candy without having to hide it, talk to each other without have to S-P-E-L-L certain words out, or have enough time to both attend the same “my spouse is an ass” meetup group. The sky is the limit!

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You'll find another eventually

5. Be a good friend

True friends are hard to find, so you probably won’t find one. You will get transient friends at best. You never know when you will need to bitch to someone, so have a few you can talk with. To obtain friends remember that it isn’t who you are, it is who you can pretend to be while they are around. Let’s face it, you aren’t terribly interesting or have much to offer, so just fake it!

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Display greatness

6. Have fun

Just remember that we are all in this pit of life together, but a few of us are able to glimpse the stars. So push them out of the way and take their spot! Tell everyone how awesome you are. The more arrogant you are the more you distance yourself from your true self, and you create a sense of emptiness inside you. Be really arrogant and obnoxious and rude to other people, this allows you some fleeting moments of happiness as you steal whatever self-esteem those other people had.

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Look how long it lasts, 1862! Won't be wasting food here!

7. Eat

Food for some people is pleasure. That’s great if that is your thing. But that is expensive and can take a lot of effort. So just eat like back in history. Turnip stew is easy, just toss some turnips in water and let it cook, you can throw in an onion to fancy it up. Other things that are simple that we have moved away from is hard tack, which is just like flour and water, you can make a batch up and eat it every day for almost ever – hard tack lasts a long time. You could also only subsist on things like oatmeal, potatoes, gruel, or anything from McDonalds.

Eating food like this is as much as you deserve and will really make your partner happy when you take them to Olive Garden, and then snag you extra bonus points.

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The louder you become, the more right you are

8. Talk

You have realized that your life is pretty shit, and you are probably thinking all the time about it and telling other people how shitty you are. But those other people probably haven’t realized how shit their lives are! You have a duty to let them know, they can’t go through life ignorant of this basic fact. So I would say insult other people, because that brings them down and you might become equals then.

Not just some superficial insult too, not just about their job or something else they can change easy. No, you have to insult their core being. This could take some investigation, but in the end it is worth it.

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Relax

9. Live

Life isn’t all about work. In fact I hear to call to do nothing at all and I try really hard to answer it! Praise yourself for not doing those things you don’t want to do.

Look, there are two places to be in life, either doing things and enjoying doing them, or not doing things and enjoying not doing them. You might be in the middle not doing things but feeling shitty about it. So take a piece from each, feel good about not getting it done. In the end, procrastination shows us most things didn’t really need to be done anyways.

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See? It doesn't matter

You never know what is going to happen tomorrow, but things will probably go wrong. You might find some people that say you have to start treating yourself better, to respect yourself. To treat other people better and all that. Forget those people. You know your life and future is pretty bad, what do those people know?

Besides after you are dead it won’t matter how hard you worked or what things you owned. Your friends and family probably won’t remember you a month after you are dead. You partner has already moved on and is banging the neighbor, if they aren't already. So just don’t put too much effort into this whole thing called life, you don’t get to keep any of it.