4 Tips on Avoiding Responsibility

The Art of Shirking Responsibility: practiced by most, mastered by few. Those who fail to make it past the stage of successfully lying about flatulence in an elevator with their crush ("Something must've died in the elevator shaft") are constantly reminded of their failures with withering glances, death threats, and a dearth of invitations to Aunt Ella's Bi-annual BBQ Bash. So let's face it. Over the course of a year, thousands of occasions pop up where the investment of our time, presence, or money (even worse, combinations of those) is required. And really, who wants to invest time in anything but eating fruit salads on tropical beaches?... other than albinos with fruit allergies? Anyway, sometimes an event will simply be inconvenient or that girl whose butt you grabbed "on accident"- totally not kosher, bro- will be there. Even worse, there might be that gang of wild possums that follows you like a caravan of gypsies and bites everyones' ankles for some arcane, mystic reason only the possum shamans will ever understand.

Pictured: Possum shaman during [Spring] break.

Whatever the case is, you'll be facing a situation like this (sans the possums, probably) sooner or later, and with college around the corner, replete with awkward elevator rides, you need to get on top of mastering laziness and conniving. This helpful guide will introduce, nay, refine the skills you should have honed insofar by avoiding possum posses and pretending to have amnesia in school..

1. The Art of Preemptive Avoidance

Certain positions and people in life cry out to responsibility to come and carry them away in a dreadful carriage of obligation and duty, much like you and your first shotgun wedding. If you can't take the heat, just lower it. Better yet, turn the sucker off. Natural gas costs money, and if you're just busy burning yourself with it, you need help, aaaaand lots of it. In the case you're not a masochistic schizophrenic, don't seek help, ignore that little voice telling you to eat a human rib just to see how it tastes and read on. This stuff is important.

But just in case you were wondering, delicious.

What needs to happen is nipping the proverbial bud in the context of putting oneself in a position of liability. Ever. In college, these opportunities stalk the accursed shadows as well as prowl open squares in hopes of finding naive prey who want to change the world... it starts with signing a petition; it ends with ax murdering a Commie general in Laos. Well, most of the time.
Lesson to be learned: develop tunnel vision like a miner whose male coworkers wear tight blouses. This will aid you in ignoring and/or subconsciously suppressing those around you, especially those trying to get you to join or sign something. At worst, you'll be able to cry at will after recalling your memories as a miner. So avoid those traps 'normal' people call "opportunities." They're traps, and quite devious ones at that- like a treadmill without mileage markers, you keep running and perpetually stay in the same place, kind of like your brother before he realized running underwater is really confusing and breathing water isn't an acquired skill.

Pictured: Fun. Not pictured: Drowning horrifically.

2. The Art of Invention

They say if you never lie, you don't need to keep your stories straight. Well, whoever said that is right, which remains the sole reason why everyone who loves themself should carry around a notebook filled with the different stories. Think of it as writing a book where all the stories are fiction and act as a get-out-of-responsibility-free card. The only problem is forgetting your notebook somewhere... once I got into a sticky situation at school involving a bearded koala and an angry custodian, so I had to think of an excuse to get my notebook, which twelve miles and three freeway bypasses away.  I'm not an awfully good runner. When I was 12, I thought about joining the track team because of how skinny and funny all the other runners looked, except for that one fat kid that's always on sports teams so everyone feels better about how skinny they are, and the kid always has a funny nickname like "Chunky" or "Beefstew," or maybe those were both the same person and he was so fat I mistook him for twins or something. Anyways, the tryouts didn't go well because the other sports teams were crowding the same field, so we had to dodge soccer balls and football pucks and hockey balls, all of which are not conducive to running speed and focus. The kid to my left was hit in the left calf with a throwing javelin and the kid to my right, who smelled funny and had green socks, fell after a rogue shoe flew through the air and knocked him right in the gut. I fell over laughing and threw up because of how funny it was. The coach didn't think it was funny and I didn't make the team. That's why I'm not a good runner. Anyway, after running there and back and writing down the excuse I used to get it, I realized the sweat from my convulsing, exhausted body had turned the contents of the notebook into literal alphabet soup. No, really, I use alphabet noodles to write and they were soupy. With sweat water. It was disgusting; gave 'em all to my friend Len. He deserves it for having such a stupid name anyway...

Not this hungry...

3. Keep their Expectations Low

Never perform to your fullest potential. That way, whoever's watching never quite knows when you're giving 110%. Above all, never finish any task, chore, favor, or article so well that they always