I have been ‘tagged with a meme’. This word’s popularity originally came from a book I admire, but has since morphed into a prime example of the tortuous geeky terminology of the self-publishing rage that I loathe with every fiber of my being am not such a big fan of. Just in case you’re not all hep to the new dizzle, to be ‘tagged’ with a ‘meme’ is like receiving a chain letter: respond or risk an improbably long run of bad hair days. Also like the dumbassed chain letter, you are supposed to exponentially pass on the nightmare game at the end of it. The logic goes that if the chain is unbroken, eventually every human on the planet will have answered the junior-high bullshit gripping questions contained in the ‘meme.’ Apparently having the entire planet writing about the same topic is considered by the internet to be a good thing. ‘Netiquette’ demands that you complain about being ‘tagged’ with a ‘meme’ no matter how you actually feel about it, whether the ‘meme’ gives you an interesting opportunity or, like this one, makes you want to gouge out your eyes with a grapefruit spoon contains less imaginative writing prompts.

So, since my bastard deadbeat moron esteemed colleague in Nashville of all places has ‘tagged’ me with this ‘meme’, I will grudgingly play along. I stress the ‘grudgingly’ part. And I reserve the right to violate both the letter and the spirit of the original questions, as well as to answer them as incompletely or obliquely as I see fit. First, the prompts, each of which calls for a list of five items:

  1. 5 JOBS YOU HAVE HAD IN YOUR LIFE
  2. 5 MOVIES YOU COULD WATCH OVER AND OVER (and probably have)
  3. 5 PLACES YOU’VE LIVED
  4. 5 TV SHOWS YOU LOVE TO WATCH
  5. 5 PLACES YOU’VE BEEN ON VACATION
  6. 5 WEBSITES YOU VISIT DAILY
  7. 5 OF YOUR FAVORITE FOODS
  8. 5 PLACES YOU WOULD RATHER BE
  9. 5 ALBUMS YOU CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT
  10. 5 PEOPLE YOU’D TAG TO PLAY THIS GAME

I find the number five completely arbitrary and will not strain myself for any arbitrary goal. Besides, I’ve answered many of these questions before on this site, and see no reason not to refer the ‘meme’ police to those entries. Finally, much as I like lists, this one just pisses me off, so I prefer to address this invasion of my quiet time challenge in disjointed paragraph form.

The summer I was eighteen, the first summer I lived [3] on Block Island, I had this job [1] title, which is the one of all the many more than five jobs I’ve had of which I am most proud: Salad Boy. I know, I know, it sounds like a superhero rather than an occupation, and in that spirit I decided that I would be the best damn Salad Boy that ever was, even learning to fly if necessary. Instead, over the course of that summer I managed to slice off all of my finger-tips. (This did not confer any special powers, unless you count the ability to gross out the Chowder Girl). Only one of my fingertips went unrecovered. To this day I am sure that it wound up in the cole slaw, but nobody ever actually ate the cole slaw anyway, so no harm, no foul.

Okay, a little bit foul, if my theory is correct.

One day, it was almost surely a Sunday if you think about it, I watched “Remains of the Day” [2] five times in a row. Then I drank an entire bottle of bleach and slit my wrists, but it didn’t take. Oh, like you’ve never done exactly the same thing.

As I mentioned quite recently, this is our second apartment in the same building. It’s a bit surreal to move without actually going anywhere but upstairs. One positive aspect of this is that our mailing address did not change one iota, so there was none of that hassle with the post office. Then again, this is the third place I’ve lived [3] in this town, and my original apartment is just down the street. A week ago an old friend wrote from Japan using the ancient address, and the postman still got the letter to us without any forwarding formalities, and despite the fact that she uses my mobile phone number in place of our post-code. I have now lived in this small town in Slovenia for over four years, longer than I have lived in any place since I can remember — an idea which still sort of surprises me. Before these three addresses I was in Argentina [3], and I’ve already mentioned Block Island [3] back in my salad days.

As a means of entertainment delivery, television [4] is dead. And if it weren’t, my answers would be so predictable that it would annoy even me. However, this may be the time to admit that Magda and I are all about “Razočarane Gospodinje“, which means “Disappointed Mistresses of the House”. I believe it is known as “Desperate Housewives” in English, and the local TV is a season behind so don’t go spoiling.

Vacation [5] stuff has been discussed here plenty. Pay attention, internet.

The next item [6] amuses me greatly. It assumes that I have the time to look at five websites every day. Ah, how merrily I laughed when I first read that!

Food [7], now, on the other hand, that’s a topic that does hold some allure. I have thought long and hard about this, and I am pretty sure that I could live on nothing but olives for as long as it took. Provided there were five different kinds of olives, just so I didn’t get bored.

Food entries: here and here and here and here and here. Now with the olives that’s SIX. That should get me some extra credit with the ‘meme’ people.

The next query [8] is, if you’ll forgive me, fuckwitted. First of all, if there were a place I’d rather be, wouldn’t I be there? It only stands to reason. Second, five places? If there were FIVE places I’d rather be than here, that would be a pretty sad excuse for a life. As I interpret it, the question is meant to provide frustrated cube-dwellers with an opportunity to bust out with their raddest rebellionia along the lines of “I would be motoring down Route 66 in my candy-apple turquoise double-hemi panhead snatch-dazzling vintage ‘66 Corvette, cranking the Hagar.” Not that I wouldn’t, but you can see that I object to this line of questioning. In all seriousness, Slovenia is my favorite place I’ve ever lived, and if I wanted to be elsewhere I would be.

Like television [4], the album [9] is dead. And if I had to, like really had to, list the albums that I “can’t live without”, they would be any works by Oxygen, Water, and Food (preferably their greatest hits).

The final question [10], the one that invites you to perform the moral equivalent of sneezing in the food of five friends just because you’ve got the flu, is one that actually warms my heart. This is because the wording leaves a loophole. It doesn’t ask for the people you will ‘tag to play this game’, but for who you ‘d tag. That’s a critical distinction. So, following the reasoning of the syntax in the question, if anything were possible I would tag John Quincy Adams, Mungo Park, Sir Kenneth Clark, Carrot Top, and Carl Weathers.

[Dusts hands, walks away]

Notes:

  • For a more comprehensive waste of time, consider the Memepool.
  • The Oxford don who started it all.
  • This person does nothing BUT form lists of five things that, while arbitrary, are at least entertaining.