Hi, and welcome to Cracke- mmmmmy very original article with a very original format (with parenthesis that I didn’t steal from anyone)™.

People like to like themselves. To do this, they have to pretend that they’re better than other people. Maybe they work very hard to get promoted at work so they can shove it in their stupid sister Leslie’s face because she’s staying home to raise her kids and that’s not even a real job. Maybe they make snide comments about strangers to their friends/on twitter because they think judging someone retroactively gives them the authority to judge. Maybe they decide to believe that the government’s poisoning our water supply to control us, so they feel better than all the sheeple drinking tap water like stupid suckers.

Whatever little mental trick you use to inflate yourself with the confidence to leave the house without crying, I guarantee that there’s something you think, deep in the secret corners of your mind, that makes you feel good about being you.

I’m here to coax out that little thought and kick it in its stupid head, because you’re not that great. I’m not that great. Nobody’s that great, and here are three insanely annoying things that we all do, all the time, that prove it.

NUMBER ONE: NECK-BREATHING

You know the situation. You’re walking down the street, minding your own business, checking yourself out in shop windows and imagining what you’d say if you were Sylvester Stallone and you had Barack Obama and Dr Harry from Harry’s Practice over for a beer.

You’ve just mentally delivered a hilariously tongue-in-cheek jab about those long gloves vets wear when they have to stick their arm up a cow’s butt when you realise that as you were daydreaming, you drifted into someone else’s personal space.

They were walking in front of you, similarly looking in shop windows or maybe at their phone, playing some kind of smartphone game that your phone can’t play because you got the Nokia like an idiot and no one will play Draw Something with you on your Etch-A-Sketch. So this person was walking, and they’ve slowed down, and now you’re only a couple of steps behind them.

You can’t slow down yourself because you’ve forgotten how your legs work and you’re scared that experimenting with muscle control in that area will cause you to loosen your bowels. You can’t walk around the stranger because you read somewhere that it’s possible to read a person’s mind by staring at their back and Greg said it was bullshit but Greg doesn’t know everything so you’d rather not take that chance.

All you can do is keep walking in a straight line and then before you know it, BAM. You’re all up in their space, chest to back, nose in their hair, breathing on the nape of their neck and hugging them from behind because you forgot how warm and glorious the sweet sweet touch of another human being could be. They’re shouting and struggling to get away, but you just cling on harder and try to sear this moment into your memory forever and not choke on their scarf.

All too soon it’s over and you have bruises you don’t even remember getting. You remember it as a fleeting but beautiful experience of human contact. But really, for them, it was probably kind of annoying.

NUMBER TWO: SPACE WHEELS

You’re at a dinner party. You’re a little uncomfortable because you don’t know anyone except the host, and everyone else is in couples so you’re perched at the end of the table with no one to talk to because everyone’s pairing off into conversational even numbers. A bottle of wine appears in front of you and brings your salvation. You sip casually and nod at nothing in particular, so that it doesn’t seem so obvious that you’re being left out and slipping cutlery into your napkin to take home later for when you feel like pretending to be someone in a slightly higher middle-class income bracket than yourself.

You’re not sure how long has passed, but you realise that your vision is getting a little blurry and you’re halfway through a sentence you don’t remember starting. Oh, that must mean people are talking to you! They’re definitely looking in your direction. Fabulous! This night doesn’t have to be a downer after all! You take another enthusiastic swig of wine and then casually suck on your sleeve where most of it spilled.

There’s something you like to do at parties. Something that’s fun and makes everyone laugh; or at least they all laughed that one time that you can’t remember clearly right now but people definitely laughed. What was it? God, if you could remember it right now it would be so awesome and everyone would remember you as the life of the part-

“SPACE WHEELS!” you scream, leaping onto the table and whirling yourself in a violent spin that sends plates and glassware flying.

“SPACE WHEELS!” you reiterate, slipping and falling onto one of the other guests.

“SPACE WHEELS!” you manage, realising that you’d forgotten how dangerous Space Wheels was on a full stomach.

“Space Wheels,” you offer by way of apology, using the other guest’s napkin to help sponge wine-coloured vomit off his shirt.

Ah, Space Wheels. We all do it, at one time or another, but it’s probably only fun for the Space Wheeler.

NUMBER THREE: GIVING DIRECTIONS

Everyone has their own way of seeing the world orienting themselves within it. Some people instinctively know which way is North, even in the middle of a starless night. Others will remember landmarks they passed at 100km on a freeway. Others, like me, will get lost and confused when they walk into a revolving door then suddenly find themselves outside again.

When you’re giving directions, unless you are dealing with someone whose brain works in exactly the same way as yours, it’s going to get frustrating, for both parties. I’m sure this has happened to everyone:

“Hey, do you know how to get to the Immigration Museum from here?” a hapless tourist asks you, clutching their free Information Centre map to their bosom.

“Verily I do!” you cry, happy to assist. “First, you go Sorth down Plimbington Way, veering slightly to the meridian to avoid the roadworks. Then, triple-spin to the right of your left, which takes you in a West-Easterly direction.”

“Um-“ says the tourist, so eager to thank you that they don’t realise you haven’t finished yet.

“Then,” you continue as if they haven’t spoken, because you weren’t finished yet, “You should see three pigeons under the seventh tree, but if one of the pigeons is blind in one eye then you’ve gone a block too far. Turn Noust in two directions until you see the tallest building on the upper-east quadrant, then follow the smoothest patch of pavement for six furlongs. The Immigration Museum will be the third building on your dominant side, if you’re looking directly at the sun.”

See, to you and me, those are perfectly clear instructions. But the tourist guy will look at you all alarmed then wander off in completely the wrong direction, like you were some asshole who just said, “Oh yeah, keep going straight until you see a 7/11.” Yeah, you’re welcome, douchebag. At least you TRIED to be helpful! What a dick. I don’t know how they do it in Uzebekistan or whereverthefuck that guy was from, but screw him. If he can’t be polite and thank you for doing a nice thing, then he deserves to be lost.

People suck. Fuck ‘em. I’m way cooler than them anyway.