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My friend Ashby and I are in on a listmaking challenge. It may go beyond lists because, who the fuck cares anyway. Here's the way Ashby describes this list: "Top five situations from which I try my damndest to escape, in spite of the fact that there is no actual *need* for escaping."

5) Talking to relatives. Sweet holy fuck, no I do not care about the Stuart Woods novels you've been reading, and I don't really think you're interested in whatever book I've been reading lately. And don't you laugh at me for reading a "mere" comic book like Watchmen. But they're family, you can fall back on family tropes, things you've had to do for work, humorous anecdotes from television shows you mutually respect. Oh, it gets so old. And you know what? I graduated from high school eight years ago. Time for a new line of questioning.

4) Talking to friendly old people. They can even be interesting, I just get so uncomfortable knowing that every thread of conversation we take gets us one step closer to me unwittingly revealing what a self-absorbed, narcissistic prick I am that I always end these conversations early. Sometimes I'm not the transgressor, actually, as my counterpart only takes so long before revealing that black people and Mexicans piss them off.

3) Concerts. You'd think that as a music lover, I'd love going to see live music. You'd also think I love three hours of shitty opening bands, drunk lead singers, standing still or swaying arrhythmically until my back feels screwed down the wrong way, and five dollar domestics in tiny cups. Sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised, like by the Fiery Furnaces at Wash U with their spastic, never-ending circus of a medley type concert, or Wilco with their plum awesomeness, but too often it's a disinterested Doves playing to a disinterested crowd, Ryan Adams rambling and acting like an asshole, and Colin Meloy playing his solo shit. And for whatever reason, I never, ever get any sleep after these things. It's the worst case of insomnia - my mind's spinning, I have a headache, and when I dose off at six in the morning, I have head-splitting, room-spinning nightmares that replay the concert ad nauseam. On the other hand, you're out there, risking getting the clap from standing downwind of some frat boy's date, surrounded by people. It's a communal experience, so it's worth staying just to see what happens. Maybe I just miss out on the communal aspects of a concert, but almost all the time I wind up looking at my watch and counting the songs in the set before the night's halfway gone. And my god, the back pain.

2) New Year's Party. It starts off all exciting, generally because there's a lot of booze. Or it starts off terribly because you've gotten lost on the way to the party and you show up after everyone else has already gotten drunk. And you don't know whether you should drink very much because your drunk friends are annoying the fuck out of sober you and you think you might want to slink home to smoke cigarettes and watch a marathon of movies like "Terror Train." (Side note: Who will you hate more after the media blitz for Adam Sandler's new movie and Mike Myers' new movie? Alright, it's Myers in a wash, just look at the fucking poster) But still, it's a party, so why escape?

1) Life-saving surgery. This means I have wound up in a regrettable situation that was probably at one point avoidable. I'll become so certain that the life-saving procedure will probably wind up killing me with a staph infection, I'll beggar off it until my arms and legs are about to fall off so that when I actually undergo the procedure, I'll be the least thankful subject of a miracle surgery ever. I'll probably make it my life's mission to kill the doctors for saving me. How I'll do this with naught but a torso and and an expressionless head, I don't quite know.

Okay, Ashby: The 5 best jobs you can get in a nationalist socialist dictatorship besides dictator