Perfect World

In case you didn't notice, the world is not a perfect place. There's war, pollution, hunger, injustice, and of course Jessica Simpson. Even little things don't make sense: rush hour traffic not going anywhere, boxing at the Goodwill Games, DVDs showing us highlights of movies THAT WE'RE ABOUT TO WATCH.

One night, after being flagrantly overserved by a bartender, I scribbled on cocktail napkins a list of world improvements. I called it "If I Were God," then, as the beer wore on, "What Happened to My Childhood" and finally "Gibbledy Gobbledy Goo."

We'll stick with the editor-friendly, "In a Perfect World." The unabridged list is, unfortunately, swirling above a local landfill, but here are some napkins that survived the ride home.

Ahem.

In a perfect world...

• pug dogs would have a reasonable amount of skin on their face.
  
• boot would rhyme with foot.
  
• we'd get paid for the time we spend preparing for, commuting to, talking about, and unwinding from work.
  
• radio stations would keep their contest money and play some bloody music.
  
• all of a woman's issues could be fixed with WD-40 and duct tape.
  
• answering machines would come with a get-to-the-point button.
  
• breeding laws would limit couples to one child per 75 IQ points.
  
• athletes would retire only once.
  
• no man, including the husband, would ever be invited to a baby shower.
  
• traffic lights would change when we honk at them.
  
• O.J. Simpson would have married Lorena Bobbitt.
  
• priests who hear confessions would get paid the same as shrinks.
  
• our TV's brightness control would turn up the intelligence.
  
• if an officer has to tackle the suspect to make an arrest, the officer would be entitled to three free punches.
  
• when people graduate high school, they'd also graduate high school mentality.
  
• the game of "peekaboo" would have an official end.
  
• decaf coffee would come in a different color.
  
• political speech writers would deliver the speeches.
  
• freeways would grow at the same rate as the population.
  
• somebody would confiscate Dennis Miller's thesaurus.
  
• all movies would be formatted to fit your screen without apology or explanation.
  
• when a woman gets a permanent, that's it -- no changing.
  
• lawyers would speak a language that humans understand.
  
• walkie-talkie cell phones would exist only in hell, where they were invented.
  
• sick days would include when you're sick of work.
  
• when teams lose on Fan Appreciation Day, spectators would get their money back.
  
• naming your son Sandy would qualify as child abuse.
  
• weight gain would be caused not by food but by some undelicious thing like televangelism.
  
• the Meyers would get together with the Myers would settle the spelling once and for all.
  
• the calf bone would have more meat on it.
  
• every driver would understand the Merge Concept.
  
• a man and woman would never know which one will end up pregnant.
  
• football games would never end on a field goal.
  
• we could surgically remove that part of our brain that plays the same snippet of music over and over and over.
  
• everyone would die on their one-hundredth birthday while having sex.
  

But the world is not perfect, so we have storms and train wrecks and Jessica Simpson, left to wonder about a God who would have it this way. It would be too much to handle but for a gift from this same Creator, something to iron out the wrinkles and put the whole world back in perspective. And that is lots of beer.

So it goes.