My sister and I were at the Los Angeles International Airport, and while waiting for our flight we decided to loiter in the “Duty Free” store. If you’ve ever been to a “Duty Free,” then you know that the largest displays are always the ones for liquor and cigarettes. And those displays are typically at the front of the entrance, so that every potential customer has to walk past gigantic “Couvoisier” bottles and “Malboro” boxes before they get to the tiny rack of neck pillows (which do not work and should be avoided at all costs).

Anyway, while my sister and I were walking around the store, unable to avoid the intrusive liquor and cigarette towers, I noticed something interesting: most of the items sold at “Duty Free” cost a lot more than they would at other stores, which made the tax-free perk pretty unperky—unless you were purchasing liquor or cigarettes. Those were actually underpriced, and some of them even had deals. On that particular day, the store had a promotion where you could get a free carry-on suitcase if you bought two cartons of cigarettes. And it a pretty nice suitcase too.

Although I’m not a smoker and I don’t drink very often, the cigarettes and liquor were so cheap that I was actually tempted to buy some (and then get my free carry-on). What if I suddenly became a chain-smoker and alcoholic? The sale could be over by then! I had to take advantage of it now, right now, before it was too—

…Wait? What? Did I just freak out over deciding whether to buy liquor and cigarettes? Okay, maybe the booze wouldn’t necessarily be a waste of money, but the cigarettes? I don’t even smoke! So why was I so bothered about missing out on a deal to buy some?

And that was when it occurred to me: “Duty Free” was up to some sort of trickeration! It was trying to kill us all with tax-free, underpriced, cigarettes in hopes that we would be duty-free-of-life!

See, I even have proof of “Duty Free’s” evil intentions:

Bow Chickah Cough Cough!

“Smokers die younger”! Clearly, this is evidence of the “Duty Free” plot to kill us…and apparently, while we are young!

But what about those of us who are strong and can withstand lung damage in our youth? I’m sorry, but your health cannot save you because “Duty Free” has those people covered too:

(The funny part about the display was that the “Senior Service” cartons were located right below the “smoker’s die younger” “Davidoff” ones.)

Behold! The Holy Grail!

Yes, the Holy Grail is an orange-colored plastic kiddie cup from “Sea World”! Come and get it, Indiana Jones! Mwaha!

The Holy Grail is my favorite cup. I use it for all my thirst-quenching needs because it holds the perfect amount of liquid, is easy to hold, and, best of all, it has a “Shamu” logo on it! Shamu! That is probably the key behind the Grail’s miraculous ability to turn “7-UP” into “Heaven-UP.” I just know it!

Given that it’s my favorite cup, you’d think I’d be super selfish and keep its awesomeness all to myself—but haha! The joke’s on you! In a show of unrivaled generosity, I always let my V.I.P-guests use the Holy Grail while I take one for the team and drink from one of the ugly “Tiffany & Co.” crystal glasses I won at a raffle.

Oddly enough, the guests were never nearly as enthusiastic about using the Holy Grail as I was. I was giving them an opportunity to be more invincible, but they were too busy complaining about how the cup made beverages look very unappealing and taste a little like plastic! Pfft!

Honestly, what cup would you prefer to drink ice cold “Fresca” from? Hands down you’re going to choose the Holy Grail instead of the hot chunky mess pictured on the right…right?

In an academic setting, raising your hand means one of two things:

1. You have to ask a question, or

2. You want to answer a question.

Everyone is able to predict what your raised hand means before you even open your mouth: if the professor has asked a question, raising your hand means you have an answer; if the professor has not asked a question—i.e., he is just lecturing—your raised hand means you want to ask something.

Considering how basic this is, it is surprising how many people have managed to be annoying even when doing something as simple as asking or answering a question. And their annoyingness results from a bad habit all of them share: beginning every question or answer with an unnecessary preface no one wants to hear.

    I. Annoying Question Prefacing

As I said, there are only two reasons why a person would raise his or her hand: you either want to ask or answer a question. There isn’t a third option here…so why, then, do so many people feel the need to preface their question with this:

Thank you for clarifying that! This whole time I was thinking you raised your hand because you were going to strip down naked and let us beat you with sticks of salami, or that you wanted to draw our attention to the huge pimple on your right cheek that had somehow exploded in the middle of class. I would never have guessed that when you raised your hand you wanted to ask a question!

I’ll bet you’re also someone who writes “loves to laugh” on an “e-Harmony” or “Match.com” application since, you know, most people hate laughing.

Oh, and I really love how some students try to avoid sounding lame by prefacing with “quick question” instead of “I have a question.” Right, because reassuring everyone that you weren’t going to ask a slow question makes a world of difference.

Here’s a question for you: instead of telling us the obvious, why don’t you just ask the freaking question?

    II. Annoying Answer Prefacing

There is a guy in my class who always begins all of his answers with: “I’m not sure if this is correct, but I’m going to give it a reasonable shot…but I might be wrong because I’m not sure, but I think…” He always gives this speech before answering a professor’s question, and then finishes up with, “but I might be wrong.”

I know he spews this crap as a way to protect himself from embarrassment in case his response turns out to be incorrect, but if he really thought his answer was that bad then he shouldn’t have volunteered. Personally, unless I’m 100% sure I know the answer, I won’t raise my hand. Somehow, I don’t think I’ll get any points for blabbing nonsense that doesn’t contribute to the class discussion. If professors did base participation on quantity instead of quality, then I’d be raising my hand at every chance I got:

It’s too bad that’s just not the way participation points are awarded.

To be fair, the guy’s answers are always correct—but, after hearing his speech about how unsure he is, I just want to beat him over the head with a sock full of quarters while screaming, “Homie don’t play that! Grow a pair!” If someone is questioning the existence of your testicles because you can’t answer a question without being annoying, then you seriously suck total ass.

I want to learn how to armpit fart.

The armpit fart is the only reason why we have armpits. Therefore, when you fail to learn the art of hand + sweaty pit + flapping elbow = fart noise, you also fail as a human being.

I, for one, am not content with being a subpar human, so remedying this unacceptable status is a top priority. And I plan to do this by not only learning how to armpit fart, but also mastering it. Scoff all you want, haters, but I’ll show you. I’m going to be so kick-ass at armpit farting that I won’t even need to use my pits—all I’ll have to do is imagine myself doing the motions and a fart sound will magically come out from under my arms.

So bad ass!

I will be the “Kwai Chang Caine” of armpit farting! And then I will open up my own dojo atop some mountain and train the next generation’s masters of the armpit fart, and everyone will look at me as proof that even the biggest dreams can come true!

So…umm…how do you do it? I’ve realized through trial and error that merely putting my hand under my arm and waving my elbow is not enough. There is something more to it than that—some kind of secret. Does it have to do with level of sweat buildup? Curvature of the hand? Elbow angle? What is it?!