Instructions to Everythingby Gabriel Kuris
1. Welcome!
2. Spell out your full name, surname first. Fill in the circles
completely with a No. 2 pencil. Make sure your marks are heavy and dark.
3. Enter your five-digit pin number.
If you do not own a touch-tone phone, hold for operator assistance. If
you do not hear an alarm within sixty seconds, force the door open. If
the door won’t open, try closing it first.
4. Insert tab A into slot 6. Color in any space marked “3” with
cornflower blue. Do not put all your eggs in one (1) basket. Do not
pound square pegs into round holes. Guide them in gently. Think outside
the box. Then fill in boxes 7a(a)-7a(c) with your age, address, and
conception of the afterlife.
5. Think, write, revise. Lather, rinse, repeat. Before you begin
assembly, locate the fissile isotope plutonium-239. Determine its
expiration date, then predetermine your own.
6. Check at least once a month, perhaps in the shower. Search
carefully for a hard, pea-size growth. Remove the hard drive with a
flathead screwdriver. Phillips-head screwdrivers are awkward tools and
untrustworthy lovers, like the Danish.
7. To avoid the appearance of sexist language in your writing, try
to pluralize, stylize, or just tell lies. Always replace “he” with “he
or she.” Also replace “she” with “he or she,” unless preceded by the
phrase “he or.”
8. If you are travelling with a child under the age of twelve, strap
your oxygen mask to your face first, then put your child’s oxygen mask
on your face. If your oxygen supply runs low, photosynthesize. If you
experience technical difficulties, weep softly, with prudence. When
finished, configure the plutonium-239 into a small “pit” packed with
explosives. This pit will compress symmetrically into a supercritical
mass when detonated. Be careful not to apply this product, or yourself,
in high humidity or at abnormal altitudes.
9. Just say “No!” If you speak Spanish, say “¡No!”
10. Take a deep breath. Think about slowly moving clouds that are
white, like wedding dresses and Deborah’s legs in the rain. Don’t worry
about shark attacks, terror attacks, or the inheritance tax.
11. Do not stare directly at the sun. Do not exceed the recommended
dosage of anything, except Vitamin C and meaningful emotional contact.
12. In the rare event that a mature adult of the human species
confronts you, stretch your arms above your head to make yourself as
tall as possible. Shout strong commands with a strong, commanding
shout. If you are assaulted, fall down and play dead. Do not play dead
for more than seventy-two hours, or you will die.
13. Pause. Pause again.
14. Insert your card into the machine and determine if you are happy
or sad. If you are unsure, ask a loved one, but the likely answer is a
combination of four to six numerals. Make sure to refrigerate after
opening. A sulfurous, or “rotten egg,” smell is a sign that something
is wrong. Notify transit authorities.
15. Take a moment to ease your mind, stretch your legs, and exercise
your Second Amendment rights. Review your work thus far. Is this the
best you can do? Why won’t you settle down and grow up? Why must you
constantly confuse ranch dressing and Russian dressing? Why did Deborah
wait through twelve years of marriage before leaving to pursue her
career as an office temp?
16. Seventeen syllables is a haiku. Eighteen syllables is an
unauthorized withdrawal of company resources and will be punished to
the fullest extent of the law.
17. Studies show that Monday afternoons are optimal. Engage the
employee in a room near his desk. Compliment his kinfolk and establish
a light, collegial atmosphere with an icebreaker—perhaps a
gender-sensitive joke about mulatto children. Use positive inflection
and never say the words “you’re fired.” Talk about company cutbacks.
Talk about hope, about faith, about weather cycles, about anything
other than testicular cancer and corporate liability. Call the employee
“a real trouper.” If he or she looks sad, talk about sports. Everybody
likes sports. Except, of course, golf.
18. If the one who is “it” touches you, you are now “it.”
19. The addition of tritium will boost fissile power. Now that the
plutonium is properly packed, the device is functional. Carefully
consider other dieting options before starting a thermonuclear war or
ending a thermonuclear peace. Remember, violence is not an alternative.
Violence is not an answer. Unless the question is “What is an
eight-letter word for something painful that is neither an alternative
nor an answer?”
20. Be mindful that bees smell fear but not toxic chemical
defoliants. Humans, like most life-forms (lobsters, lichen), can smell
neither. God can smell both fear and defoliants, because God is
all-smelling. If only Deborah’s orthodox Lutheran upbringing hadn’t
closed her mind to this revelation, widening the schism between us. If
only she could have diverted her energies from stapling and faxing to
refreshing the stagnant adolescence of our marriage. If only she
weren’t Danish.
21. No, no! Refrigerate after opening!
22. Put your left leg in.
23. Take your left leg out.
24. Put your left leg in—
a. Shake it all about. If you experience feelings of
“warmth,” “uncontrollable laughter,” or “death,” the process is
operating properly.
b. Bathe, floss, and move your bowels daily. Do not fall in love this often.
25. That’s what it’s all about! 
(From the January 19, 2004 issue of The New Yorker)
