How to Become LEVIMILLS
*I’m about to turn this in. The prompt was simple - “How to Become…”, and the style choice was our own. Never missing an opportunity to write casually or sound like an asshole, I chose to write about myself.
How to Become Levi Mills
(A comprehensive guide for the aspiring infant)
First and foremost, you should probably just completely erase that birth thing from your memory. Seriously. The chubby, track suit wearing lady you’ll call your “Health teacher” will explain my reasoning with a haunting video when you get to the 8th grade. Question her concern with your health.
Welcome to the world. The next two years will be the best years of your life. Start crying, eating, and pooping immediately. All at once. Your servant lady will comfort you, feed you, and clean you. It’s wonderful. Don’t use this time for anything productive, you’ll spend plenty of time pretending to do that later. I can’t stress the eating enough. Everybody loves a chubby baby.
Don’t fight the servant when she forces you into a little navy tuxedo to have a strange man flash light in your face. The photos will stay four car-ride-naps away, at the house that perpetually smells like pumpkin pie, until you’re in college – when you’ll have the chance to post it as your ‘profile picture’ on a website called Facebook. On the Internet. From a computer. All things you don’t know exist.
Toddler. Stop crying and start using the room with the bath for processed cookie deposits. You’re a man now. Don’t complain about the hundreds of viewings of We Sing in Sillyville you’ll be subjected to. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger – A reward for the future flashbacks of creepy, singing children with a not-so-subtle message against racism towards rainbow colored people.
Skip most of your Pre-School days under the guise of missing the servant. Don’t miss ‘ants on a log’ days.
Enter the public elementary school ready to use every bit the wisdom of your first five years. You’ve entered social hierarchy in its most refined form. You’re shorter than most of the other heathens, but you’re fast, deathly afraid of authority, and know your numbers. You have the opportunity to establish yourself as the quiet, well behaved, athletic kid. Take it.
Most importantly – and I can’t stress this enough – get a bowl cut. Rock that bowl cut.
Gain the respect of your peers through such heroic acts as doing an above average amount of pull-ups and being the first to complete your multiplication tables. Wonder why you’ll ever actually need multiplication tables. Discover Math 24.
At this point, you may think you’re ready to take on the next challenge. You’ll hear terrible things about this “Middle School” – the worst of all being the absence of a milk break – but you’ll think you’re ready. After all, you’ve been doing long division for two years now. You’re wrong. It’s not your fault, though. There’s no way anybody could ever prepare themselves for that vulgar, awkward, torturous, hell cocoon of a three years. I can’t give you advice here. I’m sorry, but struggling through this time on your own is a necessary evil.
OK, one thing. For the love of god, lose the bowl cut.
High School. Be completely shocked that you didn’t instantly transform into Zack Morris. Be even more shocked that there’s no Kelly Kapowski. In fact, nobody here looks older than 16 in TV years. You are a slightly pudgy Sam Weir.
Sign up for football and wrestling. The former will be coached by your sophomore year English teacher. He’ll have the nerve to regularly give you congratulatory slaps on the rear and expect you to look him in the eye the next day in class. The latter will make you tear up every time you see a starving dog in a Sarah McLachlan animal cruelty commercial. Physical activity will help relieve any kind of stress that comes your way. Remember that when your Chemistry Honors teacher makes you angry enough to club a baby seal. In regards to the working out: listen to the chiropractor your senior year. Believe it or not, beating a neighboring city of 7,000’s football team won’t seem so important when you’re older. Like, three months older.
Your grades will be fine. Teachers will continue to mistake your unnecessarily wordy research paper writing for genuine effort, and your rushed, procrastinated essay techniques for creative humor. Take full advantage of this and use words you’d never use in conversation, like “perpetually”. They like that.
Apply for college because nobody else in your family did. Choose Milwaukee because it’s bigger and farther away from home than most of the alternatives. Both factors giving you the oh-so-essential ability to play Whitesnake’s, “Here I Go Again on My Own” in your head as you walk onto campus for the first time. Enjoy yourself. The academics aren’t too difficult and the extracurriculars are aplenty.
Transfer to The University of Wisconsin. You’ll want a better education and a chance to live in the same building as your best friends. Yellow didn’t really vibe with your skin tone, anyway. Apparently, you’ll also want more homework, residence at a library, and to rarely see said friends. But you’re happy being busy and busy being happy. You’re Levi Mills.
Reconsider the bowl cut.
