Is Divorce a Career Choice?

Until recently, Virginia’s Radford University was best known for being the alma mater of Glee actress Jayma Mays. Now, thanks to a recently released study conducted by the psychology department, they have become the undisputed leaders of “census-based statistical analysis of marriage dissolution by occupation” academic papers. 

Radford Alum Jayma Mays

The data, resulting from countless hours of student research that I can only assume was punishment for breaking curfew, correlates a person’s chosen profession with the frequency of divorce. The statistics were compiled by utilizing the 2000 Census Data and cross-referencing it with 449 common professions. The conclusion reached was as surprising as it was unnecessarily specific. The findings were as follows:

Highest Divorce Rates

·          Dancers & choreographers (43.05%)

·         Bartenders (38.43%)

·         Massage therapists (38.22%)

·         Gaming cage workers (34.66%)

·         Extruding machine operators (32.74%)

·         Gaming services workers (31.345)

·         Factory workers: Food & tobacco (29.78)

·         Telephone operators (29.30%)

·         Home Health Aides (28.95%)

·         Professional Sports Cheerleaders (28.49%)

·         Hotel Baggage Porters (28.49%)

·         Telemarketers (28. 10%)

·         Waiters/waitresses (27.12%)

·         Roofers (26.85%)

·         Maids & Housekeepers (26.38%)

Like all Americans, I was shocked when it was revealed that professions involving physically attractive people dancing intimately with other physically attractive people who are not their spouses could be detrimental to monogamy. Other professions, such as extruding machine operators, were not as surprising since the only thing less interesting than running an extruding machine is hearing someone talk about running an extruding machine while you are trying to eat dinner.

The inclusion of “hotel baggage porters” seemed surprising at first, but upon later reflection there may be a more direct correlation. Perhaps they get into the unfortunate habit of requesting a tip when their wives ask them to take out the garbage, or maybe it is the irresistible pick-up lines they use on attractive guests:

• You know, those mini-bar pistachios are only $9.50 with my employee discount…
• When I keep the hat on and change into a bathrobe I look like a young Hugh Hefner.
• My friends call me Samsonite because I am rugged, dependable, and easy to maneuver.
• The concierge didn’t tell me there was a modeling convention in town.
• Ring once for luggage and twice for a foot massage.
• Although I am sure you already noticed, this uniform is “athletic cut.”
• If you forgot to bring your boyfriend, I can provide a complimentary substitute.

A glaring flaw of the study is its exclusion of elected officials; former Mickey Mouse Club cast members, and women who said yes to Larry King. I am also curious as to where all of these telephone operators are employed since I cannot remember the last time I spoke to an actual human being when calling a business. 

Perhaps callers are so desperate for personal contact that when they finally navigate the gauntlet of synthesized voices they are afraid to let go of the one human they encounter. It should also be noted that telemarketers had a substantial divorce rate, presumably because someone kept calling and interrupting quality time with their family.

Lowest Divorce Rates

·         Media & communication equipment workers (0.0%)

·         Agricultural engineers (1.78%)

·         Optometrists (4.01%)

·         Transit and railroad police (5.26%)

·         Clergy (5.61%)

·         Directors, religious activities (5.88%)

·         Sales engineers (6.61%)

·         Podiatrists (6.81%)

·         Nuclear engineers (7.29%)

It is telling that the only profession that saw no divorces in the study was the media and communication equipment workers (translation: nerds.) As someone in that profession, I can assure you that we are painfully aware that the number of women willing to spend the rest of their life describing their spouses as “great with a motherboard” is few and far between. Just as telling, I have yet to see a “Hard-drive Hunks” calendar for sale since I doubt there are many ladies who fantasize about being seduced by a socially-awkward sun-deprived World of Warcraft enthusiast over a LED-lit dinner of off-brand Hot Pockets and room temperature Mountain Thunder.

I was, however, encouraged to see that clergy and directors of “religious activities” had a low divorce rate with podiatrists only slightly more likely to dissolve their union. I would have expected lower numbers from nuclear engineers but women love a “bad boy” and next to a podiatrist almost every other profession makes you look like a bad boy (except media and communication equipment workers.)

I am still searching for statistics concerning the divorce rates of statisticians…….

Parking: The Rules of Engagement

The building I work in happens to be equipped with a basement parking garage, and about 70% of the spaces are reserved for employees. The rest are either visitor spaces or handicapped. A few weeks ago, one of our building’s conference rooms was rented out to a realtor’s association. This meant that for several days we had thirty real estate agents competing over seventeen visitor spaces in the basement parking garage. Those realtors unable to get a coveted visitor spot began parking in the employee’s reserved spaces, and when confronted claimed they hadn’t noticed the reflective metal signs or block lettering (both of which say “Reserved”) adorning each space.

I found this somewhat ironic considering that as realtors, the majority of their income is contingent upon the general population’s ability to recognize and comprehend the information on signs. Many of those realtors who were unable to procure a visitor spot but could read the reserved signs, produced handicapped hanging tags and used the pair of spaces reserved for disabled citizens. Judging by the number and variety of vehicles that occupied our handicapped spots over the span of the conference it appeared that nearly a third of those in attendance were unable to walk under their own power. I began to think that one of two things was happening:

• The conference we were hosting was for the National Association of Unobservant Paraplegic Realtors.
• Some of the attendants had slightly compromised their integrity to ensure that they did not have to walk to the elevators.

My disdain over their parking spaces reminded me that in a society of personal mobility, the parking space is a powerful status symbol. We will cruise up and down the aisles of a lot searching for the closest space, often wasting more time than we save; and nothing can match the frustration of seeing the mirage of an empty curbside spot on a rainy night only to discover it is really a child’s scooter nestled between a pair of GMC Yukons. Our fervor for parking has caused many people to lose their tempers, and in some cases, their very lives.

In order to prevent such tragedies, I have penned a simple set of rules that can help today’s motorist avoid such confrontations:

A. If I have my turn signal on and I am patiently waiting on the car in front of me to back out, this is not a signal for you swoop in and take the spot they vacated. Contrary to what you may believe, my blinker is not intended to function as a “jerk beacon.”

B. If you are traveling the wrong way down an aisle and you encounter me as I progress up the aisle correctly, you have waived your right to give me the “what’s up!?” arms or any reasonable facsimile thereof.  

C. The finger should be used sparingly. Someone fairly beating you a spot before you can get around to it does not necessitate use of “the bird.” However, an exception can be made if the vehicle in question is a Hummer that is adorned with sticker-silhouettes of nude women or has a bumper sticker that says “Follow Me to Your Mom’s House.”

D. Unless you are transporting a trauma victim or find yourself taking small-arms fire from another customer, there is no reason to top 45 miles per hour in a parking lot. You would have a difficult time selling the “BBQ Emergency” defense to a jury during your vehicular homicide trial. 

E. If you have a cart of groceries and are making your way back to your parked car, do not walk down the center of the aisle while you argue with your girlfriend over where you left your Subaru Outback. When combined with a violation of rule D, it might become your last trip to Kroger.

F. It you do not possess the skill necessary to park a Ford F-750 Hindenburg Crew Cab without necessitating three spaces, perhaps you should select a smaller automobile to take your kids to Wendys.

The Suicide Note

On a cool September weekend, thirty-five year old Mitchell Heisman walked onto the storied campus of Harvard University and made his way to the Memorial Church. After taking in the view for a few brief moments, he spotted a group of about twenty tourists who were snapping pictures and discussing the aesthetic beauty of one of America’s most prestigious institutions. Perhaps he desired an audience, or maybe the timing was coincidental; but for whatever reason, Mitchell chose that moment to calmly produce the silver revolver he kept in his pocket. As the horrified tourists looked on, he placed the weapon to his temple and abruptly ended his own life.

Author of "The Suicide Note" Mitchell Heisman

Shortly thereafter, four hundred of Mitchell’s friends and family members received a cryptic email message from him that contained a hyperlink to a website. When the recipients followed the link, they were presented with a 1,905 page document succinctly titled “Suicide Note.” The document, which donned 1,433 footnotes, a table of contents, and lengthy bibliography, covers a variety of meandering topics. In the same email, he instructed his family to allow the manifesto to remain on the Internet so that it would be accessible to the general populace after his death.

So what drives a person to prepare a suicide document so massive it eclipses even modern pieces of legislation? After downloading and skimming through the note, it would appear that Mr. Heisman’s self-destructive condition is not the result of acute, short-term depression but rather a focused lifetime quest to disprove the validity of having a focused lifetime quest. An infrequent part-time employee at several bookstores, Mitchell was able to fund his master-work with a substantial inheritance from his deceased father. His family was under the impression he was researching a book.

While it is certainly not your typical suicide note, I must say that what Heisman’s essay lacks in emotional impact, it compensates for with sheer annotation. And at the risk of sounding irreverent, would it have been too much to ask for some engaging chapter titles? Just scanning through the table of contents is a chore:

·          

• "The Anglo-Saxon Genius for Genetically Maladaptive Behavior”
• “The Norman Destruction of the Anglo-Saxon Aristocracy and Other Genetically Adaptive Behaviors.
• “God is Technology: How the Singularity of Monotheism Transcended Biology and Primed the Technological Genesis of God.”
• “From Incorporation to Symbolization: The Ancient Rupture off Biological Nature’s Path.”
• “Class Discrimination and the Refinement of English Tribalism.”

It should also be noted that he spends an alarming portion of the note referencing “the penis of Jesus” in salaciously titled subsections like, “How Rome was Raped by Jesus’s Penis of the Spirit, Contracting a Deadly Virus.” Under these headings he equates the spread of Christianity through Rome to modern venereal diseases like HIV. 

While I support all forms of academic inquiry, I am not sure that there is much merit in comparing the proliferation of a major world religion to a sexually transmitted disease.

Once the metaphorical genitals of the risen Lord have been sufficiently discussed, Heisman turns his formidable vocabulary to the modern American political system with a section entitled: “Barack Obama: Supernigger.” While the title might conjure images of an unfathomably offensive superhero, Heisman uses the paragraph to dissect the significance of ethnicity in politics (and it is every bit as engaging as it sounds.)

Having thoroughly angered Christians, African-Americans, and anyone with a beginner’s thesaurus, he waxes poetically on the intrinsic bias of…..Zzzzzzzz.......

“Tracing the biases that hinder objectivity, and

attempting to uproot those biases, leads towards the notion

that self-preservation itself is a bias. If life has no inherent

meaning, then self-preservation cannot be judged

fundamentally superior to self-destruction, or vice versa.

Self-preservation is exerts bias, for example, in a bias against

this very observation that self-preservation is not

fundamentally superior to self-destruction.”

My problem with Mr. Heisman is twofold:

• Like all true nihilists, he believes that our existence is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value. This conclusion is normally reached by spending the formidable years of one’s life attempting to discredit conflicting philosophies and then penning mind-numbingly bland essays that are only read by people who believe that the massive effort you expended was as misguided and useless as their own fleeting existence. Their apathy toward your work then reinforces your original belief that your existence (mostly spent researching nihilism) is pointless. Pure. Genius.

• You have to be pretty selfish to write something this boring and call it a “suicide note” just to make your surviving relatives read it. A more appropriate title would have been “At Length.”

If you are looking for the perfect gift for the nihilist on your Christmas list, or just wish to devour a piece of literature every bit as lengthy as Stephen King’s The Stand (minus the engaging plot, characters, or ability to successfully fight drowsiness)  you can snag a copy at www.suicidenote.info

While many of you may feel that I have been rather crass concerning the recently departed Mr. Heisman, let us not forget that he squandered away a significant inheritance to research and compose an inflammatory manifesto he purposefully rendered himself unavailable to defend at the time of its publishing. Besides, if he is correct, none of this matters anyway…….