Don’t you ever feel like human beings are inherently boring? We fill our lives with rhetoric, work and ideals. We live through words or pictures displayed before us, and we stare in awe at men with the ability to throw an orange ball through a netted hole. And I’m guilty, too. I mean, I’m a writer. My life revolves around changing nothing. At best, I might one day write a famous movie that would inevitably be brought to life by some actors (referred to as the “talent” for subordination purposes) and, should the film be a success, I’ll be nothing more than a half-second name on the credits. A handshake for the actors. At the very most, a behind-the-scenes interview on the DVD special features which will forever go unwatched, because who really cares about the non-talent?

We’re boring. Even these celebrities that we immortalize and make into demi-gods. In real life, they’re just uncomfortably normal. Beyond normal, they’re human. For instance, occasionally, Angelina Jolie has uncontrollable bowel movements. I know that we’d like to think she doesn’t use the bathroom, and if she were for some inexplicable reason to use the bathroom, that she’d not only have a better control over her colon, but that she’d actually just poop out little Malaysian children and adopt them. But it’s not true. She also farts.

And this obscene fact about Angelina is exactly what makes her boring. She’s the same inherently boring person that you see every morning in the mirror; she just happened to pull a better number at the deli of jobs. So if you’re still reading this (bravo), then you’re asking yourself: what could you possibly want from us, Chris? If you don’t want to be a human, what would you be?

What would I be? What wouldn’t I be!

The idea of being something non-human is so compelling that I have to separate the question into different topics. To begin, if I were a vegetable, I’d be broccoli. When you first hear of broccoli, it’s entirely horrible rumors. But as time goes by and the sauce from your figurative orange chicken dips into the vegetable, you grow to love it (me).

If I were an age, I’d be sixteen, because you’re just old enough to indulge in every vice of life, but you’re young enough to assume invincibility, irresponsibility and complete ignorance of the repercussions. The decisions I make in life are completely unstable; I do what I logically think will benefit me best at that immediate moment. I can’t even fathom myself at the age of twenty five. I still do school work, but mostly because I find literature more interesting than “Iron Chef.” Speaking of which, if I were a reality television show, I’d be “Flavor of Love,” not because of its blacksploitation or because Flava Flav has acquired some obscure mental deficiency from carrying eighteen pound clocks around his neck for seventy five years, but because the show is a satirical simulacrum of the reality show “The Bachelor.” It’s reality television mocking reality television. It actually ridicules the hyper-reality of its own existence while still embracing it. Somebody give VH1 an Emmy.

If I were a natural disaster, I’d be a tornado. I’m not fat enough to be the obvious earthquake, not ethnic enough to be the dreaded tsunami and not nearly powerful enough to be a hurricane. I’m quick but destructive, and the pain I cause people, whether it be physical or emotional, is sharp, acute and devastating. I would be the perfect humanado.

If I were a month of the year, I’d be April. I was literally born cynical. In fifth grade, we had to write a couplet poem on a topic of our choice and mine was on death. If that wasn’t funny, it’s because it wasn’t a joke. But, after I get the rain out of me, tap the water out of my ears, I can shine a smile. Like the progress of the month of April, I warm up and bring the sun (and with too much sun, or alcohol, comes the hangover of pollen).

If I were a movie, I’d be “Gummo,” because it’s provocative, offensive and uniquely powerful. I’m not saying that I’m any of these things, but the movie in me is. If I were a topic that none of you could associate with, I’d be the one I’ve just mentioned, because, let’s face it, you probably haven’t seen “Gummo.”

If I were an appetizer, I’d be jalapeno poppers, because I’m unhealthy and cheesy, but enjoyably spicy (that was just to prove the cheesy). If I were a sport, I’d be jai-alai, solely because it’s the coolest name for a sport ever invented, and it scares me. If I were a drink, I’d be orange soda, more specifically Fanta, just because. If I were an emotion, I’d be anxiety, because the only thing I worry about more than my sense of self is the ongoing strife in the Middle East, and neither will ever be tamed.

If I were a fictional character, I’d be Tyler Durden, because even my fictional character would need a fictional character to exploit. Plus, Tyler’s a badass. If I were a decade, I’d be the twenties, because it was liberating, abundant with brilliant writers, defying and it snuck in right before the most horrifying decade and a half of American history.

The list goes on forever. Ex-president: Bill Clinton. Ice cream: mint chocolate chip. Idiom: “Paint the town red.” War: The Great War. I return to the question: What wouldn’t I be? If I weren’t person, I would be a variety of things, all more interesting than the existence of human beings.

I admit, being a person does have its perks. As a human being, I’m allowed to be an angst-ridden sixteen-year-old listening to the April showers pound onto the roof of my house, inhaling jalapeno poppers and washing them down with an ice cold can of Fanta while flipping from “Gummo” to “Flavor of Love.” I’m allowed to desire these innately beautiful, entertaining or mind-shattering things, because I have the capacity to do so.

I won’t take back my original claim; I still think human beings are boring creatures, but I suppose we’re just lucky that everything else is so inherently interesting. So I guess, in the end, we got a pretty good deal.

But I’d still rather be a humanado.