PRO-TIP: subways are full of resources you can use to become a happier and more successful human. One time, I talked to a 90-year old veteran at my subway stop and he advised me to go into the Navy, because they would pay for school and I could “learn computers”, which is what you need these days. When I told him that not only had I already finished school, but I had explicitly “learned computers”, he seemed undeterred from his plan for me to go into the military and then back to college. He explained that the Navy was a good choice because the Marines are cannon fodder and the Army has to deal with land mines. (So true.) He warned me, though, if I ever become a radar repairman that I should avoid touching the capacitor, even if the radar was powered down. “It’s a good way to lose the use of your arm.” This dude spit truthfire. To this day, I avoid 1940’s-era radars altogether, powered up or not.

But if you really want to improve your life, the advertisements on subways are your best bet. Also, when I say improve your life, I mean become a stenographer, x-ray technician, or unlikely Rhodes Scholar by way of community college. See? Aren’t these good plans? Recently, I saw a program advertised that is perhaps even more exciting than learning English at my own pace, and that is The Flip Side, a revolutionary new personal training system by life coach Flip Flippen. Woah. Flip Flippen? For realsies? That’s your name and then you wrote a book called The Flip Side? I can’t even describe how much I love both you and the universe right now. I feel like I should write somebody a check this is so tight.

I’ve been trying to figure the chicken-and-egg scenario with this book, and I can’t. Did this guy write The Flip Side first, then change his name? Was he actually named Frank Flippen, and as a kid became known as Flip Flippen, then modeled his program after his name? Who knows. It might just have to stay a mystery. I like to imagine, though, that his given name is Flip Flippen, and he decided to write what he knows, which is things related to the word “flip”. Thanks to him having weird parents, Planet Earth was blessed with The Flip Side: Break Free of the Behaviors That Hold You Back, by Flip Flippen. But oh how I wish his name had been even tighter:

• Crackin’ the Code: How To Crack The Cycle of Cracking Up Your Life with Crack, by Crack McKracken
• Don’t Rock The Boat: Why Rockers Stay In Emotional Rocking Chairs When The Rock Stops, by Rock Rockington
• It’s A Trope That Popes Don’t Mope: How The Pope Rope-A-Doped The Proverbial Soap From A Bunch of Dopes Who Couldn’t Cope, by Dan Brown

Curveball! It’s like I’m running a clinic, folks.