like sands through the hour glass

At birth, I cried before emerging from the womb.

At one, I learned to drive stick.

At two, I ate calamari for the first time.

At three, I traveled to Rome as the Canadian attache in charge of naval affairs.

At four, I stopped wetting my bed with the help of electroshock treatment.

At five, I suffered a nervous breakdown.

At six, I wrote a novel entitled "Where Garden Gnomes Fear to Tread"

At seven, I accidentally wet the bed while staying a weekend at the Hilton. The concierge beat me with a telephone receiver.

At eight, I won ten thousand dollars playing blackjack.

At nine, I was a guest on the Dick Cavett Show.

At ten, I read Gibbons's "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire."

At eleven, I burned a bag of dog shit on the porch of a grouchy old man.

At twelve, I watched the movie "Shane" for the first time.

At thirteen, I jumped off a bridge. Later that week, all my friends jumped off a bridge, too.

At fourteen, I burned ants with matches. Later that week, I burned my dog with a blow torch.

At fifteen, I sat on Santa's lap and asked for an aircraft carrier.

At sixteen, I stole a box of wheat crackers from a bag lady who lived in a cardboard box under a bridge.

At seventeen, I punched a kid at church in the balls for saying the word "yowza." I'd warned him.

At eighteen, I joined the circus and grew a second penis.

At nineteen, I learned how to play bocce ball.

At twenty, I swam with translucent jellyfish on a tropical island in the Pacific.

At twenty-one, I served three months in prison for hit and run.

At twenty-two, I rejoined the circus and grew a third penis.

At twenty-three, I traveled as a roadie with the Rolling Stones.

At twenty-four, I voluntarily admitted myself into a mental health facility.

At twenty-five, I learned sign language.

At twenty-six, I took a dump in a grocery store parking lot and cleaned myself with a brown paper bag.

At twenty-seven, my pet turtle, Chester, drowned in a swimming pool.

At twenty-eight, I embezzled three million dollars from a teachers' pension fund.

At twenty-nine, I read the Bible from beginning to end.

At thirty, I readmitted myself into a mental health facility.

At thirty-one, I joined the Peace Corps.

At thirty-two, I beat and robbed travelers and left them for the lions while on safari in the Serengeti.

At thirty-three, I became a Jehovah's Witness. At thirty-three and a half, I became a former Jehovah's Witness.

At thirty-four, in a drunken stupor, I fell and knocked my head and received a serious concussion.

At thirty-five, I rejoined the Jehovah's Witnesses and took a job demonstrating carpet shampooers door to door.

At thirty-six, I had my third penis removed and placed in a glass jar.

At thirty-seven, I completed the Sunday New York Times crossword and celebrated by jumping off a bridge. Several days later, all my friends jumped off a bridge, too.

At thirty-eight, I entered law school and worked nights grooming camels.

At thirty-nine, after losing a race for Congress on the revived Bull Moose Party ticket, I wandered into a Brazilian jungle wearing nothing but a rubber raincoat and saltwater sandals.