I often wonder why my name couldn't be Jared Kintz, instead of Jarod Kintz. I mean, I was destined to be grammatically incorrect from birth.

Dear Natalie,

For me, birthdays are the one day of the year to ask oneself the important questions about life. Questions such as:

-Why am I here?

-Why was I born in this particular time and place?

-Is there a higher purpose for me, and if so, can I find a way to implement my genitalia in the successful completion of my destiny?

I have long since believed that the type of underwear one wears influences the philosophical stances one takes on life. People who wear boxers tend to have freer thoughts, and people who wear tightey-whiteys tend to possess more moral restriction. ALL immortality stems from the genitals, according to Dr. Robert Kravenkrotch.

But for me, genitals are God’s gift to man (and women). If birthdays are the most beautiful thing known to man, as they represent life and the celebration of it, then genitals are the tools man was given to pass on the gift of birthdays. Maybe that’s why we were put here on earth. To make babies, so mankind can continue to market and sell birthday cards, gifts, and wrapping paper.

I want to die in a ghost town. With a population of zero, it might just serve to highlight the reality that we can bring nothing and nobody with us to our grave.

I want to live in a ghost town. Taking up residency in a town with a population of zero will make me the tax collector, the wealthiest man in town, and the first black mayor to ever be white.

I want to put Florida on the map. Never mind that it’s already on the map. I want to put it there, because I always put things back where I find them. And I found Florida. I just wasn’t the first.

I want to take over a country and rename it Horse. Then I’ll put Horse on the map, because I want to remind people that sometimes you can put the cartographer before the horse.

I want to remind people that there is no free lunch, if three are no people offering to pick up the tab.

I don’t want a free lunch, and I don’t want to pay for lunch. I do, however, want you to pay me to eat lunch.

I want to know the hour of my death. My guess is somewhere between 1:00 and 12:00.

I want to find the men responsible for our current economic woes and say, “Now that we know who is responsible, it is clear that future economic decisions of epic proportions should be left in the hands of the irresponsible.”

I want a rooster clock. Not only do they make excellent alarm clocks, but you can also eat them for breakfast.

I want something that will not only wake me up in the morning, but can also feed me. A rooster would make for both an excellent alarm clock, and a delicious breakfast.

I want to believe that the grass is always greener on the other side, because that’s where all the manure is.

Well, the carpenter came that day. He was a jack of all trades, even if he was named James. Part carpenter, part sculptor, part Irish, part-y animal. I’ll never let myself forget that cloudless day. I had my umbrella, but not a pen. That’s why I’m writing it down now. Otherwise, I probably would forget. It was such a monumental event, the building of that monument to my grandfather. A statue erected to his memory. It was to be taller than him by a lot. I think the final plans called for that statue to reach the lofty height of 5’7”. By sheer stupidity, the sculptor/master carpenter made the final product look exactly like Tom Cruise. The most maddening part was my grandpa looked more like L Ron Hubbard.
I never saw my father swear until that day. He swore he’d never reveal the secrets I am about to reveal to you, as revealed to me by the alien friends L. Ron Hubbard brought with him (my grandpa was the ghostwriter and spiritual advisor to L. Ron).
Basically, the aliens, who weren’t green, but looked nearly identical to Tom Cruise, laid down four rules one must follow to enjoy a happy life. In the years that have passed I have forgotten what the first three were, but the fourth stood out like a man standing on stilts. The fourth secret, the only one that I remember, says, “Remember and follow the first three secrets, and thou shall enjoy a long and leisurely life.”
And what I still think about to this day, the question still pulls at my pants like an infant that has to pee is, “If I were that man who walked around on stilts all the time, would all my conversations be stilted?”

I want somebody to lie to me, and for me to have that lie turn into a mattress, because I’d really love to lie on a lie.

I want to unzip the truth, but I’m afraid the public isn’t ready yet to see it.

I want to write a book called “Energy.” It won’t take that much of the title to read it, but, fortunately, mental power is a renewable energy.

I want to make my “ecological footprint” smaller by having the feet and speed of a cheetah, and the night vision of a dog. In other words, I want to be able to travel 65 MPH and read in the dark without consuming any power source besides Gatorade.

I don't want to eat my words, I want to eat my comparisons. Mostly I spend time comparing apples to oranges, and occasionally comparing Cajun to Mexican. Those kind of comparisons make me want to compare healthy and delicious to scrumptious and nourishing.

I want to be so excited that I can’t contain myself in anything besides Tupperware. I never feel so emotionally fresh as I do after long periods of detainment in a Tupperware container.

I want to shoot to the top of the Bestsellers list, but first I need to buy a scope.

I want to start a religion called Marshmallowism, that teaches you to carry marshmallows on you at all times, in case you die suddenly and are destined to burn in hell.

I want to lower the bar a little bit. And I just have one question. Who the hell set the bar so high?

I like to think of myself as French Canadian, without the French. Or Canadian.

I want to meet the ubiquitous Nit, and see how witty he really is.

I want to couple Occam’s razor with Gillette Fusion HydraGel, and really shave off some time.

I want to be bald and wear a rug on my head. But, please, take off your shoes before you step on my face.

I want to witness a fit sperm whale riding a racing bicycle, because those contraptions are rumored to reduce sperm count. And I’d like to see how fertile a sperm whale would be after the Tour de France.

I want to woo a woman named Mrs. Woo, who is neither Asian nor easy to please.

I want to see Jell-O to walk, rather than custard’s last stand.

I want to turn my conventional oven into an unconventional oven through lots of electrical tweaking and brainwashing techniques developed by the Druids, the loyal followers of Rasputin, and the National Electrical Contractors Association.I want to have immortal arms, so I can hand things down through the centuries.I sat there zoning out yesterday for like six hours. Some call it sleep.I have a basketball player with 98 degree breath in my blood. I’m so excited I could have a slam dunk of a heart attack.I want to put the Declaration of Independence to music, and then have it put to death in England as the most treasonous piece of music ever written.I want to be an old, discarded left shoe that thinks it’s a Labrador and fancies itself the star of its own cartoon. It may not be a real dog, but it sure does have a soggy tongue that it can lick you with.I want to be a renegade slice of pizza that’s pissed off at the world, because this world suffers from “menunitus.” Dammit, it’s pasta too! If I were that slice, I’d gather people around me and say, “Men unite us in our war against menunitus. We will slice our way back into pasta society, one pizza at a time.”I want to not be worth my salt. I do, however, want to be worth my pepper.I want to get you wet with my warm bath personality.If you listen to me the first time, it’s the shortest amount of time you’ll have to listen to me. I’ll probably end up telling my wife that for years.I always tell cross dressers, “If you dress how you want the world to percieve you, then you’d better be prepared to roll up your sleeves and do the dishes.”

I want to gather up all the ink cartridges in the universe, because somewhere, mixed in with all that ink, is the next great American novel. And I’d love nothing more than to drink it.I want to wield a sword at a Yield sign and shout “Never!”I want to go to all the topless bars in America and try to sell every single one of them a roof.I want to be a creature that’s half bee, half the letter B. That way I can pollinate the world with my literacy.I want to tell every loser, “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch. But if you do, you can always make scrambled eggs out of your failures.”I want to never stop growing as a person. I’d love to be well over 8 feet tall.I want to make my own luck in this world with a recipe handed down from my great-great-great grandfather, who was Irish on his great-great-great grandfather‘s side. Here is his recipe of luck:I want to say something so embarrassing about September that even the leaves start blushing and turning red.I want to be a catfish, although being both predator and prey would probably eat at me. But with the right seasoning, I’d be OK with that.I want to change my unlisted phone number to the first seven digits in the Fibonacci sequence, or (904) 011.2358. You won’t be able to find me in the phone book, but I’ll be all throughout nature.I want to visit Mount Fallacy and go sledding on a slippery slope.I want to be a farmer and do farmer things like till the soil, grow food for my family, and be able to milk The Mythical Mr. Boo for all he’s worth (rumored to be half a dozen pots of gold stolen from various leprechaun pirates).I want to make believe out of Q-tips, duct tape, and faith.I want to inspire perspiration among a group of disenfranchised deodorant sticks.I want to have makeup sex, because I find cosmetics so erotic.It’s not enough to want it more than anybody else. You have to want it in such a way that makes your brain subconsciously say, “I want this like I need food, shelter, sex, self-actualization, or Maslow’s mustache.”I want to grow a flower for every time someone tells me “F*** you.” Then I’ll go back to that person and pin the flower on their lapel in a gesture of friendship.I want to start viewing the past, the present, and the future as one big hairy monster that consumes all of my time.I want to reshape history, much like a sculptor reshapes clay. The only difference is that I don’t want to get my hands dirty.I want to have nine lives, like a cat, without having all that chest and back hair.I want to hear the rain in my tears, which fall under the umbrella of “emo.”I want to long for something other than being longer or belonging or anything else that lies along that logical longitude.I want to give Orafoura an enigma for a birthday present, so he has a mystery to unwrapIn a brave and noble way, I want to sacrifice my life one day so that two of my clones can live.I want my next girlfriend to be able to speak a different body language. Specifically, I want her armpits so hairy they speak French.I want to keep our relationship fresh like lettuce, if you’ll just let us.I want what I want, and I want it now. And what I want more than anything is a present of the present. And I want that present now.I want to bulk up my resume by employing the use of weights and steroids.I want to start a literary movement called “Fragmentalented,”I want to start a literary movement called “Fragmentalented,” which combines the words “fragment,” “mental,” and “talented” to underscore the fact that I believe long prose can be displaced by a barrage of brief and seemingly random thoughts, which are the tools in the shed that shed light onto a character’s psyche.I want to develop body language for the blind. Instead of 26 letters, or thousands of subtle facial twitches and rapid body movements that normal people utilize to communicate, I want to instill a series of combination punches delivered to the torso of a blind person to help them better engage in effective conversational combat. Of course, boxing gloves with Braille embossed on the front will be used.I want to discourse while I diss Scorsese (Wait, not Scorsese-- scores of easy-to make-fun-of directors).I want to change the world one quarter at a timeI want to meet Waldo, steal his sweater, and then meet Weezer and say to them, "If you want to destroy my sweater, you'll have to find me first."I want to walk around wearing casserole pants, a cheese shirt, and an oven mitt on my right hand, especially when meeting people for the first time.I want to be better than the best possible me from the most perfect parallel universe. And the way I’ll be able to be better than the perfect me is to find that alternate Jarod Kintz, take the unsuspecting fool out to dinner, and then poison him.I want to have the desire to yearn.I want to feel the emptiness pour out of me like curdled milk cascading out of an out-caste cow.I want to be a clock, so that it would be easier to figure out what makes me tick.I want to slap you in the face for bragging about your threesome with two strange women you picked up in a bar. Now, if you had had a threesome with Helen Keller and Mother Theresa, I’d have given you a high five, and then urged you to seek counseling for your necrophilia.I want to rattle your cajun. If empty promises tasted like jambalaya, I’d promise you New Orleans and then have an empty box the size of Louisiana delivered to you. And I’d make you pay for shipping.I want to write 430 bizarre, surreal, or absurd "I Want" statementsSome things you need to know about me:The future always makes me laugh, because that’s where all the punch lines lie.I believe the future holds something different for all of us. Sometimes it holds our hands. Other times it holds our breath for eternity.I like using big words. Words like huge, gigantic, massive.Rather than waste a whole day, I would rather spend it counting to 86,400.The son of a chemist, I was the first test-tube baby to be born in a beaker.I entered this world, not as a blank canvas, but rather a walking Rorschach test. As I grew older and wiser, people began noticing that what they saw in me, they really saw in themselves. Not only do I hold up a mirror to people, but I also brush their hair.I was raised in a small fishing village. Mostly they caught minnows.Most people aren’t fortunate enough to be born on a national holiday, unless of course they go on to greatness and that day eventually gets named after them. But they usually miss out on the day of celebration, as they are most likely dead by the time their birthday is named a holiday. That’s why I am going at it a little bit differently. From here on out, I’m calling in sick to work every March 5th. And on that day, Jarod Kintz Day, I’m going to march in a one-man parade up and down Beach Boulevard in honor of a man who gave his life so that I might live. I’ve been great to myself. Be great to yourself this year and really enjoy your birthday. Remember: birthdays only happen once a year, twice at the most.