An Ode to Having Some Fun With It

May as well.

I’ll tell you some things I’ll never stop doing:

Saying, “Hey friend,” to every dog that crosses my path — because it’s both gender neutral and a way of my attempting to speak into existence the notion that we will fast become thick as thieves — and then going in for some pets, if they seem into it after a brief vibe check, beginning beneath their lil’ chin, like a damn pro.

Answering my phone, no matter who rings me up, with a different salutation every single time. Maybe you’ll get “Go for Scott.” Or “I’m livin’ the dream today, please don’t turn it into a night terrror.” I’ll fire off a “What’s really good, baby?” Occasionally a “Scotty Muska, comin in hot and ready to do it live.” Stuff like that. The list is endless. I have my go-to’s and the lines I improv on the spot, when I feel a little feisty and want to shoot from the hip. And I sure ain’t above throwing in an obscure quote from a classic movie that many won’t notice or get — but I tell ya what, if they do, it’s a real treat.

Speaking of shooting shots: I’ll never stop shooting off finger guns willy-nilly. Never gonna wear a holster for those things. I’ve got endless ammo and it’s part of my morning routine to reload. Gotta let ’em fly, come what may.

Oh, and I’ll keep on telling people I love them and always have when I hang up the phone. Ditto for signing off emails. And if “love” isn’t appropriate for the audience, the last line before my signature’s damn sure gonna be something cordial, even if I don’t necessarily mean it and have been rage-typing as I feel like I’m slowly dying on the inside. Because even if many don’t read or care about the ending, I still want to make as many of them as I can into good ones.

If you think I’m going to cease treating password generation like a sport, or a full-blown creative exercise with a twisted bent to it, well, I hate to tell you that you are completely wrong. I don’t have the short term recall of a steel trap, so I gotta make those things memorable. If I’m tasked with putting a symbol in there I’m gonna get a little weird with it. That password is gonna look like WingDings, a language all its own. And of course at least one interrobang will be included, because that punctuation rules and is wildly undervalued.

Then there’s chatting up the people I encounter in my day-to-day life. Doormen? They get daps every morning and every evening and every time I see them in between. I eschew the self-checkout at the grocery store for some of that good old one-on-one human interaction with employees at my local who started out as strangers but after a few weeks scanning my various wares become people who know they’re about to get hit with some pleasantries, and often welcome it with glee, unless they’re having a rough one, which they’ll tell me all about once we’ve reached a certain level of comfort. You should see it, the already brightly lit area lighting up even more with the energy of shared human kindness. Makes me wanna go out to buy something, anything, maybe just a bottle of ranch (a nectar I’ll never stop consuming, by the way), right fucking now.

Or, when I’m out for my customary morning Hot Scott Walks along the lake, you bet the finger guns ever-so-briefly transform into an open palm so i can high five several random runners who are out there doing the best they can, something I truly admire.

Because, you know, I have recently accepted that I’m here mostly to entertain myself and hopefully others. To enjoy what I can as a salve for being unable to deal with what I can’t. And whoever else wants to buy the ticket is more than welcome to come along for the ride, feeling free to get off whenever they want to. It’s your life, after all, and, to a certain extent, you get the pleasure of living it the way you choose.

But I mean, if you’re not having some fun with it, what even is the point?