If I had known then what I do know now … would I still have made the same stupid mistakes anyways???

It’s easy to say that we would’ve been smarter, given the wisdom of hindsight and the opportunity to do-over the biggest blunders of our past, but who are we really kidding?! Who among us has the discipline and the willpower to right our own wrongs, to stand a bit taller in the wake of our own shadows, and to be the bigger men and women that admittedly we probably just should’ve been in the first place?

I dunno. I might, and if I did, it might have looked a little something like this…

  • If I had known that my kids would be so receptive to being blackmailed into behaving simply by my pretending to call Santa Claus on my cell phone, would I have even bothered any other disciplinary measures at all in the last couple of years?!
  • If I had known that the likes of Apple and Google were going to essentially one day rule the world, I would’ve spent approximately 100% less time in college learning about the migratory patterns of birds in North America and instead spent some time coding apps.
  • If I had known that one day superheroes like Iron Man and the Incredible Hulk and the Avengers were going to be the biggest franchise in entertainment and absolutely anyone and everyone would be talking about them after seeing their movies … boy, would I have had so much more confidence in the 7th grade!
  • If I had known that sarcasm wasn’t necessarily the best way to make a good first impression and meet new people, I honestly probably wouldn’t have cared.
  • If I had known that eating endless amounts of pizza and potato chips and soda and cookies and candy while doing as little physical exercise as possible was going to make me overweight, maybe I would’ve done carryout instead of delivery on a few of those pizzas or something…
  • If I had known that my mom was going to end up being the #1 buyer of my first book, I would’ve put a lot more jokes about crocheting and dancing penguins in my second book.
  • If I had known that I would still be writing the same humor column twenty years later that I first started in the year 2000, I would’ve made more of an attempt to have been a little more consistent. Maybe.
  • If I had known that a Donald Trump Presidency was both A) an actual possibility, and B) going to be the horrific dumpster fire of American values that we’ve witnessed over the last three years, I would’ve flown my family to New Zealand on January 19, 2017 where I would give guided tours of Mount Doom while my kids ran around the Shire growing excessively hairy feet, but were nonetheless shielded from the political nonsense that we’ve otherwise endured every day since then.
  • If I had known that Baby Shark was going to be such a hit, I’d have taken say, a year, and done nothing but pound out catchy kids songs until I was up to my ears in diaper money and every mommy blogger just was begging me to retire!
  • And last but certainly not least, if I had known that I’d be doing a new humor column this week, I’d have written down those fart jokes that my son and I were giggling about in the grocery store last week…