To Whom It May Concern

Dear Rice Krispies,

  When you stopped selling Rice Krispies Treat Cereal in stores, you lost me as a customer. I don’t want to have to buy my cereal online. How am I supposed to get whatever 10 essential vitamins and minerals your incredible product replenished my body with now?

Dear Drivers,

  I am both amazed and terrified at your inept abilities in navigating a roundabout. It embarrasses me to be a part of the human race when you associate yourself with me and can’t maneuver a very simple traffic obstacle.

Dear Left Shoulder,

  Why are you slightly hairy, when my right shoulder is not at all?

Dear Right Shoulder,

  Get Left Shoulder back in line. He is acting completely out of control.

Dear Hair on my Head,

  It’s mind boggling that even though I lose upwards of 100 strands of you a day, you manage to replenish yourself. It’s like each hair follicle is a Kleenex dispenser for hair. Well played.

Dear BP,

  I am pretty sure it’s not a good idea to televise an attempt to fix your oil spill disaster, especially when you appear to be soliciting solutions from the Internet. If you’re listening, here are my top five solutions:

-          Giant tampon

-          Magic

-          Pay everyone to pretend nothing happened

-          Create a large vacuum to suck the water out, add vinegar and sell product to chip companies for a “BP Sea Salt and Oil and Vinegar” chip

-          Force Sarah Palin to speak on the subject in a Nationally televised event that will most definitely somehow end up having her say something that makes it look like it was her fault

Dear Lady Gaga,

  You’re embarrassing to listen to, so stop making music that I want to listen to in my car.

Dear Bed,

  Why do you seem so much more appealing to me at 7AM than 9PM?

Dear Animals,

  Thanks for racing each other and letting me gamble on it. I can’t imagine a group of trained animals I wouldn’t have interest in betting on/watching race. This applies to all animals; Not like animal fights. Sure dogs and cocks fight just fine, but I am not too sure you can get a gambling ring at your house that involves two horses fighting. Wrong animal activity Ron Mexico; you should have raced the dogs.

Dear Washington State University,

  Donations? It’s so nice of you that you remember me now that I have a degree and a job. I’m sure we will never forget the good times we once had. You know? Like when you waited until people purchased their meal plans and then jacked up the prices of food campus wide? Or when you used to send me the notices of delinquency that threatened to have the police evict me from my dorm during finals week every semester like clockwork for seven straight semesters? Yeah. Those were the days. I will be sure to support your programs now because you treated me so kindly. Keep those “How Coug Are You?” mailings coming my way. I haven’t forgotten to donate; I have just been really, really busy lately. I don’t tear them up and throw them away every time though. I swear.

Dear Wal-Mart,

  I know everyone hates you, but I am okay with you for two reasons. One, the type of people you attract to your store are website-worthy and, without your store, there wouldn’t be a dense population of these people to photograph in any one small location other than in parts West Virginia and Kentucky. And two, because I just went to the Kellogg’s cereal finder home page and found that you carry Rice Krispie Treats cereal!

Dear Target,

  I would like to thank you for being the only local carrier of Berry Berry Kix, which I also had to use an online cereal finder to locate.

Dear People Reading,

  Why are you reading something written by someone who has used online cereal finders before? “Finders.” Plural. Really?

Dear PlayStation 3,

  They say time is money. I am filing a class action law suit against you. You owe me a lot of money.

Dear Confidence,

  People tell me to have you. Sometimes I pretend to and it always ends badly. Women can smell fake confidence. It smells like urine running down one’s pant leg.

Dear Pedestrian,

  When I am driving and you are crossing the street, we don’t need to have the “go ahead, wait, you want me to go? No please go. No, you go. Alright, fine. Oh, wait, you went at the same time, let’s both stop. Go ahead,” charades, which stem from confusion about who should go first. How about you go when I tell you to because I am operating a lethal weapon. This isn’t a threat, I am just saying. If I had a gun and told you to go, I bet you would do it. Do you know why? Because the person with the upper hand has the final say. Deal with it and cross the damn street. *Honk*

Dear iPhone,

  No I didn’t mean “he’ll,” I meant “hell,” damn it. Stop correcting me. I can’t remember the last time I used the word “he’ll” in my writing.

Dear Teeth,

  I am 24 years old now. Under no circumstance should you be biting my lips. I have been chewing long enough that it shouldn’t happen. You make everything you’re attached to look uncoordinated and foolish. It’s embarrassing.

Dear Barney Stinson’s Doppelganger,

  I hate you.

Sincerely,

   Roy Vincent

My Religion

Any chance my Magic Sherpa came

early and dressed me like this so I

could one day form my own religious

faction and have this be the symbol?

Those of you who know me may know I have never been a religious man (Those of you who don’t, thanks for reading anyway!). That’s not to say that I am not a very moral and ethical person; I’m just not religious. I have always thought that maybe, just maybe, religion was created to explain the inexplicable. It would make sense. But this piece isn’t about being preachy or starting debates or resurrection, or mountain Gods or goat’s blood. I love religion. I think it helps everyone involved become who they are and, at the very least, it spreads (mostly) great morals. But through the years, I have become who I am by coming up with my own answers. My own theories. My own religion.

When picking a motto to live by, it is a horrible and bitter realization when you come across another cliché that acts as a contradictory statement.

Nice guys finish last.

“Hmm… Maybe I should be a dick, I don’t want to finish last.”

The good die young.

“Yep, no time to be good and die young while finishing last. Being nice and good sounds like an absolutely awful idea…”

He who hesitates is lost.

“Excellent. Act on impulse. I like it.”

Patience is a virtue.

“Wait… So which route do I take here? Man, does this count as hesitating?”

So, which do you pick? They say that your late teens to late twenties are the years you find yourself and figure out who you really are. I am 24 and have no idea who I am. I wake up in the mornings sometimes and think to myself, “When I grow up, I want to be a---,” then I snap back to reality when I notice, “Shit. I am grown up.” Do I have to actively search for myself? Or should I just hang out and hope he finds me? Not only do I secretly hope a Magic Sherpa shows up one night and tells me what to do for a career, but also that this Magic Sherpa might tell me who I am going to be as a person when I grow up. I have come to believe in this Magic Sherpa.

This girl's Sherpa was asked to leave shortly after this

heart-chilling display.

I wonder if this Magic Sherpa doesn’t guide me, but actually dictates who I become. In that case I really hope I don’t get the child molestation Sherpa. I mean, if this is the age where one is to find himself, it must be a very bitter realization for all of the creepers who wake up and realize a Magic Sherpa commandeered their personality and they think “Damn… I am going to be a serial killer.” Or “Damn… I like to eat people.” Or “Damn… I really like to wear my hair with a bump in the front so that it looks like I may have a severely misshapen head.” (Ladies, you know who you are.) There has to be something else to blame it on. Nay, someone. The Magic Sherpa.

Sometimes, in life, you do stupid things. Embarrassing things. Things that you hope never come back to haunt you. Some of these things might include: growing a moustache and chronicling it on the internet, wearing JNCO jeans, having a bowl cut, listening to copious amounts of gangster rap, listening to very girly music (like, really girly), liking Gilmore Girls, blow-drying a cat, eating a dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts right before you eat two foot-long meatball subs and then going swimming, rocking a fluorescent orange rat tail, wearing baggy sweat pants that looked like Lark Voorhies and Dustin Diamond were going to jump off of the pattern, etc. These are all things that Royligion can forgive and forget. The Magic Sherpa knows that was who you were, not who you are. He is here to guide you, hopefully down the right path.

Are you here to provide me with
creative writing advice? Or are 
you going to try to convince me I 

should be committing genocide
of some sort

I fathom my Sherpa is a bit of an ass, but has good intentions. He’s a bit loud, a bit self-deprecating, but all in all, he’s a pretty kick ass Sherpa.  Maybe my Sherpa has been around longer than most, but has failed to tell me who to become due to his nasty procrastination habit. Maybe he came to me when I was four and taught me to ride a bicycle. Maybe whenever I smell chicken noodle soup, he goes and checks to make sure it’s really soup and not someone with BO that smells like chicken noodle soup before I say “Mmm, that soup smells delicious.” Maybe in college, he brainwashed my entire University into thinking they should give me a degree in Mathematics. But, despite all of this, he knows his window of opportunity to enlighten me as to who I really am (and will remain) for the rest of my life is closing. And though he sounds ridiculous, and I imagine him to look a little like an ethnic Great Gazoo, he gives me something to believe in and something to look forward to; He gives me faith.

One day, when he decides it’s time, maybe then he will show me how to right my wrongs. He will teach me to play the guitar. He will show me how to write more better. He will show me what I really want to do when I grow up…