Do Over Tip Sheet
Posted by Robin Hemley on April 8, 2009 10:34 PM
Do-Over Tip Sheet
1. It's unwise to attempt certain types of do-overs, such as failed marriages and circumcisions.
2. Attempting a do over will not actually turn back the hands of time. You will never be ten or twenty again, so remember this simple fact or else you might simply come across as a creep. You are not allowed to ask actual sixteen year olds to the prom, okay?
3. Nonetheless, there will be moments during your do-overs when you might need to pause and remember your age, such as in art class when all your ten year old classmates' checker boards look nicer than yours, suppress the urge to tell them how much more money you make than them in a year.
4. Bone up on your multiplication tables and quadratic equations. There WILL be tests.
5. When playing Zombie Death Ray at recess, don't worry if the rules are a little more fluid than you're used to at work (where Zombie Death Ray goes by the name of Office Politics). You don't make the rules here. A boy named Glen makes them up as he goes along.
6. If your do over involves a performance, such as reprising your role as the Heavenly Messenger in "The Littlest Angel," understand that you're probably in for more than you bargained. What you remember as a one-line part will magically morph into a dozen, with intricate blocking and musical numbers. Yes, musical numbers. In other words, public humiliation is to a do over what carbon dioxide is to the combustion engine. By the way, this kind of comparison is called a ____________. If you don't know, go back to number 4. There WILL be tests.
7. If your do-over involves calling up someone you haven't seen in thirty years, you might want to take things slow. Best not to start off with, "Hi, Michelle. I'm back!" Be friendly and non-threatening and back off if he/she doesn't want to participate. The subtitle of this book is not, "How to be a Successful Stalker."
8. If you fail a do-over, then that's too bad. You really ARE a loser!
9. Sorry. Let me do over #8
8. You should probably limit do over attempts to one. You don't want to be caught in a perpetual cycle of do-overs for all eternity. The point isn't to succeed necessarily. It's to gain perspective.
9/10. Speaking of perspective, I'm not sure if this should be 9, 10, or maybe a footnote.
10. Learn to let go.
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