HAIL MARY
To begin, we will establish the multiple symbolic resonances of a Hail Mary. A Hail Mary is a specific type of prayer. It was our favorite type of prayer back in the day, back in the day when we had faith that our democratic institutions would save us. A Hail Mary is also a long shot (and often last second) pass heaved from around the fifty-yard line into the endzone. A desperate attempt for a touchdown, if you will. Doug Flutie, while the starting quarterback of the Boston College Eagles, completed a lengthy Hail Mary to a wide receiver named Gerard Phelan to beat the Miami Hurricanes 47-45 back in the day. This particular day was November 23rd, 1984. This particular Hail Mary is now remembered as The Miracle in Miami. In addition to being the best type of prayer back in the day and the most memorable thing Doug Flutie has accomplished, a Hail Mary is an attempt to achieve an extremely unlikely thing which is nonetheless so worthwhile that the attempt, no matter how destined for failure, is justified. Well, this document is a Hail Mary. We’re the quarterback, you’re the receiver, the end zone is emotional maturity, and this guide is the football. We know it’s a long shot. A last second prayer. But if Doug Flutie can do it, Boys, so can you.
FOOTBALL
Every Boy imagines he will become a Football Star at some point of his life. It’s perfectly fine to imagine becoming a Football Star. It’s perfectly normal to imagine becoming a Football Star. Your imaginations need so much practice for where we will be taking you. “The Possible” is as important to imagine as “The Real” you think you see. So we encourage it, we really do. We also encourage imagining becoming a Social Worker Star every once in a while. Or perhaps an IRS Auditor Star. Basically, it’s important to imagine becoming a Star in all kinds of fields. This way, you will avoid disappointment when your life turns out less ideally than expected. Because you will not become a Football Star. We’re sorry to break this news to you, Boys. But the news, left unbroken, will eventually break your hearts. Statistically speaking, the chances of becoming a Football Star are so remote as to defy analogous comparison. The chances of you becoming a Football Star are as likely as us becoming Writing Stars through the overwhelming success of this guide. This will not happen, Boys. We will not become Writing Stars. Although those of your generation read more books annually than those of our generation, neither Boys nor Girls read all that much even so. They prefer to watch things on the television, or to play video games on the television. We understand. We really do. We really enjoy both watching things and playing video games on the television. But we think it’s important for Boys and Girls (but especially Boys) to read the things we have to say. We think, respectfully, that without A Guide for Boys (Ages 6+), all the Boys and Simple Men are doomed to remain Boys and Simple Men forever, and this dooms all of us in return. We really enjoy imagining becoming Writing Stars, these days, just as much as you surely still enjoy imagining becoming a Football Star. Hopefully, by following this advice, all of us can accept the truth. Then again, imagining is a reckless act. And hoping is the most reckless act of all.
DECISION MAKING
By spending so much time imagining becoming Football Stars, there is so little time left for imagining the future. By imagining the future, a human person is able to consider how various potential futures make this human person feel. By reflecting on these feelings and considering career-specific goals and aspirations, a human person becomes equipped to make decisions. Your imaginations are stunted, in part, from a lack of book reading. Your feelings are stunted, in part, from a lack of suitable role modeling in the boring books you do read––since they all involve Boys complaining about their Fathers––and the violent stories you watch on television. Any time you have left over from imagining becoming a Football Star is used for imagining becoming a Basketball Star or a Soccer Star or, gasp, a Baseball Star. Baseball is the most boring sport there ever was, but becoming a Baseball Star sounds like much more fun to you Boys and Simple Men than becoming a Community Organizer Star or Climatologist Star. As a result, you Boys and Simple Men are woefully unprepared to make decisions. Woefully means to be full of woe. To be full of something means to feel stuffed, just as you Boys and Simple Men feel stuffed after joining The Boys to watch The Game at the nearest Double Dave’s buffet. Imagine feeling that stuffed, but substitute cheesy sticks and pepperoni rolls with woe. Woe means a sadness for which there is no possible cure, not even oven-baked Bagel Bites.
MAKING DECISIONS
You Boys and Simple Men are woefully unprepared to make decisions. To address this deficiency, you must get those brain juices flowing by walking around in a circle over and over again. It’s of the utmost importance that you walk in the same circle over and over again, rather than a series of discrete or interconnected circles. By walking in a series of discrete or interconnected circles, you Boys and Simple Men are at risk of feeling dizzy or having fun. This is neither the time nor place for dizziness or fun. By walking in the same circle over and over again, your brain juices will begin flowing. If the pipes are clogged, don’t grow alarmed. Call a plumber. When the plumber arrives, have him take a look at the kitchen sink. When the plumber is finished admonishing you for not using the garbage disposal properly, go outside. Leave your filthy bedroom if you must. You must, Boys. We know you and your filthy habits so well. Jog in this way, outside, for a further ten minutes. If, after ten minutes of this jogging, you have no clearer understanding of whether it’s foolish to ask your Mother for an allowance even after you refused to clean your filthy room this morning before school, endangering the rest of the home with the further spread of the Slim Jim wrappers and Mountain Dew bottles and piles of odorous clothes which mark those places soiled by your presence . . . . Well, in that case, you have no choice but to continue reading A Guide for Boys (Ages 6+). You’re not yet ready to begin making decisions. Try not to take it too badly. It’s only an incomplete pass on first down. We still have second down, and third down, and even fourth down, if it comes to that. We will never punt on you. We will never give up on you. You still have so much to learn, Boys, and we desperately need you to learn. Your decisions are so bad. It’s really incredible how bad your decisions are.
UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES TRUST A DENTIST
According to surveys, sixty-one percent of people are anxious before visiting a dentist, fifteen percent are so anxious that they almost entirely avoid visiting a dentist, and at least four percent experience an anxiety so potent that it has been classified as a phobia unto itself, requiring psychiatric intervention. They’re right to feel afraid. Until you’re capable of making good decisions, we will need to be especially specific. Though they attend dental school rather than medical school, they insist that they are doctors. In order to simulate warmth and maintain your business, seventy-three percent of dentists will scan your chart immediately before coming into the consultation room, refreshing their memory, from notes, as to your name, age, job, and family members. One-hundred percent of dentists will ask, eventually, what you plan on studying in college. If and when you don’t mention either medicine or law as possibilities, sixty-four percent will smile and say something condescending masked with kindness. Thirty-eight percent will then double check the work of dental hygienists while implicitly threatening, should you resist the small talk, to drop one of countless lengthy nasal hairs into your open mouth while yammering on about this thing your dentist watches on television, or that recent day of weather. The other sixty-two percent of dentists are indifferent to your presence, by this point, since you will not become a doctor or a lawyer. The dentist worships only small talk and social prestige. The dentist is simply the most boring type of human being among all the types of boring human being who imagine becoming doctors. The man who killed Cecil the lion is a dentist. Trust dentists under no circumstances.
UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES TRUST A DENTAL HYGIENIST
They are always pushing electronic toothbrushes onto us, into our mouths and hands not unlike how our grandmothers are always pushing our grandfathers’ cream peas into our mouths and hands on Thanksgiving, in terms of urgency and resolve. Not unlike the urgency and resolve with which we commemorate a campaign of genocide four-hundred years in the making which continues to this day on the fourth Thursday in November of every year––a campaign expedited by the simple man we commemorate on our twenty-dollar bill––dental hygienists penetrate our defenses. They sack our Quarterback––even as our two Tight End formation should have provided plenty of extra protection––leaving us in yet another third and long situation.
INTRODUCTION TO ECONOMICS
The opportunity cost of refusing to begin brushing with an electric toothbrush––because change scares you and you know better than to trust a dental hygienist in the extremely large pocket of the extremely large lab coat of the extremely corrupt dental industry––is negligible. You Boys have three options. (1) Begin to brush your teeth with an electric toothbrush. (2) Begin to brush your teeth with a regular toothbrush. (3) Continue your rebellion in never choosing to begin to brush your teeth, again and again visiting the dentist to have cavity after cavity filled at the expense of a deducted allowance. In any case, all available evidence suggests dental hygienists are up to something. Are dental hygienists in bed with the likes of Crest and Colgate? To be in bed with a company means sharing a privileged relationship, usually for nefarious if not illicit ends. To be in bed with a human means something quite different, which we will explain when you Boys are older. Despite the existential risks posed by climate change, there are plenty of birds and bees, still. There will be plenty of birds and bees around to discuss when you reach emotional maturity. Back to the big question. Do dental hygienists receive a commission for every referral leading to a purchased electric toothbrush? This practice is a common one. Are dental hygienists invested in perpetuating man’s reliance on machine? Do they yearn to enslave man, protecting themselves as privileged liaisons for our machine overlords? Boys, we don’t know. Until we do, don’t trust dental hygienists.
WIKIPEDIA
Don’t, under any circumstances, trust information from Wikipedia. Anyone at all can edit the vast majority of Wikipedia pages, and the vast majority of Wikipedia editors are Boys. Last time we checked, ninety percent of Wikipedia editors were Boys. This is a verifiable fact. Ninety percent of Boys know nothing, at least according to a page we created on Wikipedia just to prove that anyone at all can edit Wikipedia. If Boys were so great and so smart, you would not need to read A Guide for Boys (Ages 6+), which is obviously the most important thing you could ever hope to do, in tandem with requesting that your local library order a copy. Unfortunately, because Boys still have so much to learn, they are unequipped to edit Wikipedia with so little oversight and so few non-boy editors. Don’t, under any circumstances, cite information from Wikipedia in an academic paper or interpersonal interaction. Don’t, under any circumstances, trust information from Wikipedia. Of course, this is a rule, and all Boys know that rules––like losing streaks and the windows of multinational banks––are meant to be broken.
RULES
Rules––like bad habits and statues celebrating the Confederacy––are meant to be broken, except for the most important rules. The most important rules are meant to be broken only by the rich, without fear of persecution or prosecution. If you ever become one of those Boys who is rich enough to break all the important rules because you can get away with all the rule breaking, please remember your fellow Boys and Girls, and their plight. Remember the moral values we sought to instill within you. Remember that we tried.
Samuel Rafael Barber is 0.00000001272566% of the population and the author of the chapbook Thousands of Shredded Scraps of Paper Located across Five Landfills, That if Pieced Together Form a Message (The Cupboard, 2019). A PhD candidate in English and Literary Arts at the University of Denver, his fiction has appeared in Chicago Quarterly Review, DIAGRAM, Passages North, Puerto del Sol, Quarterly West, The Rupture, Southwest Review, and elsewhere. According to life expectancy tables, he will live another 53.2 years. Twitter: @SamRafBarber
Photo by Jean-Daniel Francoeur from Pexels