Things I don't really understand: Part I

I like to think of myself as a reasonably intelligent bloke. I try to read the newspaper, I like Wes Anderson movies, and I speak two languages. Three if you count l33t. But, as awesome as I am, there are a lot of things that come up of which I have no understanding. I'm not talking about things like why we care about Paris Hilton or how come people keep letting Larry the Cable Guy make movies. I mean simpler things. I'd like this to be a continuing series, but looking back at other potential continuing series, like Invented by Terrorists, I don't really have that many. Luckily, I haven't come across too many things that have the evil fingerprints of terrorists on them lately. Good news, everybody.

I will discuss a few of them that have been on my mind lately. Feel free to include some of your own.

• Smoking. I hear it gives you a buzz and helps keep fat people thin, but think about the costs. It's expensive, makes you smell bad, and gives you cancer. The expensive and cancer part doesn't really affect me, so that's your business, but if you smell bad and get near me, I have to smell you. I don't want that. So, the moral of the story is don't smoke because I'd have to smell your stank.
• Motorcycles. These are supposed to be fun and fuel efficient, but they're loud and the people who drive them drive like drunken chickens. You might be saying something like, "I have a motorcycle and I resent that!" If that's the case, I'm not talking about you. Unless you drive like a drunken chicken, in which case you should have been called out by someone else by now, jerk. Anyway, there are a lot of things you can do that are fun that doesn't impede me getting to the grocery store to buy milk and ribs. Boy, do I love milk and ribs.
• Bumper stickers. Do you have a bumper sticker on your car? Why? Are you going to convince me to change my opinion on abortion with a line on the back of your Stratus? Or maybe you are proclaiming your support of the gay rights movement. A lot of folks like to put up the rainbow or the blue equal sign. That's all well and good, but what's the point in advertising that to people on the whom you're never going to see again on the interstate? Rarely do I have revolutionary socio-political realizations while driving. I'm usually trying to pass motorcycles.