Why I am Needed

Sometimes I'm barely out of the store with stuff
before I break it and have to buy more.

First off, there's the economy.  What is the economy, you ask, how does it work, and what is your place in it?  Basically, the economy works because some people make stuff and sell it to other people who need stuff.  The reason these other people need stuff in the first place is because they used up or broke the stuff they already had.

That's where I come in.

I am pretty much a master when it comes to using up and/or breaking stuff.  "Where's the ice cream?" Nancy asks.  "I ate it all," I reply.  "But we just got it," Nancy says, and goes to the store to buy more.  When it gets home, I use that up, too.  And American Economic Might grinds forward another day.  And when it comes to breaking stuff, forget about it.  Many times I've barely left the store with stuff before I've broken it and have to go back for another.

Then there's fashion.  What is fashion?  Fashion is a way for some people to look stylish compared to other people.  There is simply no way for everyone to be stylish.  There must be a baseline of non-stylishness as a basis of comparison.  Again, enter Yours Truly.  I am the person beside whom anyone will look more stylish.

And lastly, there's the arts.  "The arts" is a broad category that includes everything from Adorable Kitten Videos on Facebook to Adorable Baby Goats on Facebook.  I am a patron of all that stuff - why, my viewership alone probably accounts for the wild success of an Adorable Hamster Eating a Miniature Burrito on Facebook.  But it's not enough to be a patron of the arts, oh no.  One must be an artist oneself.  But what kind of artist is most needed?  Do we need another Robert Rauschenberg cluttering up gallery walls with collages?  Come Charles Wright creating one damn poem chock-full of buzz saws and fish and moonlight and scraps of cloth?  Another dang New York Times bestselling author?

No.

What is really needed is an unselfish crafts-person who will labor unceasingly at projects that will never see the light of day, thus leaving room in the American psyche for more pressing work, such as the next Adorable Donkey who Sings Along to the Violin Video.  Again, don't bother to thank me, but I've stepped in to fill the need.  I have an unpublished novel with an editor right this moment, who's promised to look at it "the very next thing."  He's had it since June.  Meanwhile, I'm knee-deep working on another novel, which I should probably just re-title, "Honestly, I Don't Even Know Why I Bother."

Don't ever tell me I'm not needed.