The Book of Awesome (9 page)

When you finally find your keys after looking forever, you hear the audience hooting and hollering as the curtain closes on this perfect little scene of

AWESOME!

Hey, eating in the car is tough.

Weaving that
bulky clunk of metal
through highway traffic, off off-ramps, and into parallel parking spots is no small feat. And you know what makes it worse? Having a
hot, crumpled bag
of steamy drive-thru riding shotgun, that’s what.

Yes, resisting the temptation is tough, but then again unwrapping a
sloppy mustard-dripping burger
over the steering wheel probably isn’t good for anybody. So there’s really only one option to satisfy your urges to both
eat and live
.

That’s right: Dip your hand in the crinkly paper well and squeeze between cool packets of ketchup, big wads of napkins, and waxy-wrapped burgers until you find that treasure trove of fries at the bottom of the bag. It’s like panning for gold and is known as the
Pre-Lunch Munch
in some circles.

Also, we can’t forget the
Classic Afterburn
move. Yes, bag fries star again, but this time they’re the limp n’ salty chasers after your last slurp of bland watered-down cola. Yes, we both know you’ve got to finish that off with a
flavor-saving punch
, and bonus fries will do the job just fine.

So dig that hand in deep and pull out a nice little bite of

AWESOME!

Free your feet.

When you kick off your tight, suffocating shoes, peel off your
sweaty socks
, and just starting walking on the beach in bare feet, how good does that feel?

Man, it’s a million molecules of Earthbeads massaging your foot all at once. It’s a tickly, grippy sand sensation. It’s big piles of small cubes hugging and comforting your tired and
broken soles.

And yeah, sure, the sand wedges itself up into your toe-nails and coats the bottom of your feet like butter on toast. But whatever, because the feeling of scrunching sand in your feet when you walk on the beach is certifiably

AWESOME!

There’s something therapeutic about finger-peeling that
dark-gray-with-red-flecks
fuzz patch off the trap, rolling it into a ball, and tossing it in the trash. Yes, after you ditch that
hot, furry blanket
, both you and your dryer can finally breathe again.

AWESOME!

Cruising with our music cranked and our cell phones ringing, we sometimes find it hard to communicate with other drivers sharing the roads. When speeds are high and time’s a’ticking, we rely on silent gestures to get our points across.

Now, we all know the Thank-You Wave when you let someone merge in front of you is a great move. It’s
highway payment
for arriving at your destination
one car length later
whenever you let someone in.

But it doesn’t end there.

Sure, courtesy-wave etiquette may have started with the post-merge Thank-You Wave, but the magic has spread:

Proper courtesy-wave etiquette keeps two-way talking alive on our streets and prevents chaos from ruling the laneways. So when you do something generous keep watch for a wave, and when someone helps you out be sure to smile and wave right back.

AWESOME!

Hey, you know what’s even better than taking a nap on the couch? Well, I’ll tell you: that feeling you get
just before
you fall asleep on the couch.

Yes, that’s when you enter that blissful, semiconscious
Pre-Nap World
where your thoughts float and zoom around your brain and your muscles relax and detensify. The sun feels warm on your face, the radio in the background fades to a comforting white noise, and you know . . . you just know . . . that you’re about to fall asleep.

It feels great.

There are really only two things that can disturb you when you’re in the Pre-Nap World:

So that’s why it’s great whenever someone notices your dilemma and just quietly grabs a blanket from the closet and tosses it on your semiconscious self. If they’re really nice, they even
flap the blanket above you
and let it open up and softly land on you.

When that happens, you immediately feel the warmth radiating around you, a tiny smile curls itself on the corners of your lips, and you fall deeper and deeper into a nice, relaxing rest.

AWESOME!

Hey, sometimes you’re in the mood for a few drinks.

Big bottle of merlot over a romantic spaghetti dinner, clinking beers floating in an icy cooler beside the tent,
Jell-O shooters
before the bars in college, or bubbly flutes of champagne for the big New Year’s bash.

Whatever your pleasure, whatever your poison, that’s cool with us. But before you get down with the booze-filled pour, you need to get out that door and run down to the liquor store. Word to your sister.

Now, if you’re like me, you go through four distinct phases when you get your ID checked, and they go a little something like this:

Oh baby, when it hasn’t happened in years, getting your ID checked can be a
full body buzz
. You fish out your card excitedly, peeling its faded face and dog-eared corners from your bag, and your eyes twinkle as you take a sip from the fountain of youth.

Sometimes it even happens on your birthday.

AWESOME!

There’s just something about the smell of rain on a hot sidewalk. It’s sort of like the rain cleans the air—completely hammering all the dirt and grime particles down to the ground and releasing some hot
baked-in chemicals
from the pavement. It smells best if it hasn’t rained in a while and the sidewalk is scalding hot. Then it sort of
sizzles and steams
up into a big, hot, intoxicating whiff.

AWESOME!

Gliding down the bike path on a Saturday morning, you whip by somebody peddling in the opposite direction and give each other a nod. For a moment it’s like “Hey, we’re both doing the same thing. Let’s be friends for a second.”

Also applies to seeing someone driving the same car as you, walking their dog past you on Sunday morning, or squeezing the melon beside you in the grocery store.

AWESOME!

Found in dusty kitchen cupboards and dishwasher top shelves across this wide, great land, really, really old Tupperware is as handy today as it was twenty, thirty, forty years ago. That famous Tupperware
burping seal
still holds strong, and you can bet that banana bread will stay moist, those celery sticks crisp, and that leftover lasagna fresh. Yes, all is well in this tight vacuum-sealed
Chamber of Taste Preservation
.

Really, really old Tupperware is mostly found in three colors: Stovetop Green,
Traffic Cone Orange
, or The Core Of The Sun Yellow. Optional features include novelty 1950s floral patterns or deep tomato stains from that time someone put chili in there and shoved it in the back of the freezer for two years.

One thing I enjoy doing is thinking about all the different kinds of food a particular piece of Tupperware has Tupperwared shut over the years. Apparently Tupperware has been around since 1946, so we’re talking about the full tastebud time line—from lard burgers, creamed-corn casseroles, and
Jell-O salads
to hemp brownies, parsley soup, and tofu cookies to pizza pockets, TV dinner leftovers, and astronaut ice cream pellets.

Really, really old Tupperware has been there, sealed that, and lived to tell the tale. It’s a throwback to the simpler life, when things like airtight seals meant something. Something real. Something honest.

Something worth believing in.

AWESOME!