Hard Times

In honor of Independence Day, I'd like to list a couple things that challenge my personal independence.

1. Lighters - I have a severe problem using just my thumb to create fire.

2. Geography - New Guinea, Austria, Zimbabwe ... these are all places to me that can be described as up, down or to the left of New Jersey. Similar to driving, where street names are not used, but big trees on the corner are great directional markers. Continents are irrelevant, like middle names -- it's more sentimental than practical in my opinion.

3. Cross town subways - Similar to the above, if it's not up or down, I'm confused. F, V, B, D trains: I can tell you every stop. Numbered trains: I'm taking a taxi.

4. Spam - If it's not cranberry sauce, a food item shouldn't have can marks. The fact that Spam is meat bothers me even more.

5. Stick shifts - If the only cars in the world were manual, I would be riding my bike a lot more.

That's not it, but I think that's enough information to illustrate I'm both uncoordinated and directionally challenged. So, on that note, have an amazing Fourth of July weekend!