Tag: Party

Guest Post: 7 Reasons You Should Get Married

If you’re a single, broke bachelor who spends his time hopping from bar to bar trying to get some action on a Saturday night, marriage might be the best thing that could happen to you. So what if the divorce rate is over 50 percent in the United States? You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

1. You Get To Have A Stag Weekend. When women get married, most of them want the wedding of their dreams, but what’s in it for you? If you have the right groomsmen, they will make sure you have the best stag weekend that you could ever imagine. Your stag weekend can last for as long as you want. You can have it all: scantily-dressed women, booze and music. Sky’s the limit. It’s like Mardi Gras meets your birthday. What’s there not to like?

2. Say Goodbye To Condoms. When you tie the knot, you are no longer under obligation to use condoms because you are both officially off the market. Even if you’re not trying to knock up your wife, she will be more willing to look into other birth control alternatives that don’t involve a slipping on a piece of rubber during moments of passion.

3. She’ll Do Your Laundry For Free. It’s probably been a while since a woman was more than happy to wash your dirty clothes. The last time that happened to you was probably when you used to drop off your laundry at your mother’s house during your weekends home from college. Take advantage of the opportunity.

4. Your Debt Becomes Her Debt Too. If you’re like most Americans, you’ve accumulated some debt. You probably have credit card and student loan debt, and you can have someone to share it with until death do you part. Marriage is about commitment, and your wife will be also held legally accountable for your debt.

5. She’s Under Contract To Love You. Even if you’re not a romantic, it’s nice to know that your wife has promised to love you no matter what you do. You don’t have to spend so much time impressing her because she must have been impressed with you to marry you in the first place. You can be yourself. Leave the dishes in the sink. Watch sports all night. Burp in bed. She loves you.

6. Marriage Makes You More Attractive. You may be a one woman man, but once you get married, single women will love you more than ever. Your attractiveness will quadruple as soon as you get back from your honeymoon. Even if you’re not one to cheat, it sure feels good to be wanted.

7. You’re Guaranteed More Sex. Once you put a ring on it, you’ve locked down your sex life too. The idea that married men get laid less than single men do is only based on 1 percent of the population, according to Kinsey Institute. While 23 percent of non-married men often go up to 12 months without sex, only 1 percent of married men experience dry spells that last an entire year.   Everyone around you may be running away from marriage, but these guys don’t know the real benefits of marrying a beautiful woman who can make your life ten times better. After you say “I do,” you will not only have a built in sex buddy, cleaning lady and financial advisor, but a lifelong friend who has your back.

Post contributed by Andrew Jones on behalf of Chillisauce.

March 17, 2012
7 Reasons That I’ve Been Baffled By A Doormat

Okay, I’ve been really confused. I’ve had a tricky problem that’s been plaguing me for the past two days that I think I’ve finally solved but it’s been quite a journey. It all started with a new arrival*. A doormat. I bought it to go inside the front door in the 3’ x 3’ space that, if I were grand, I’d refer to as my entrance hall or vestibule. As it is, I’ve really never referred to that space before, I just know it as the-area-behind-the-front-door or occasionally the-area-in-front-of-the-world. Anyway, I digress. Below these words and above some more is a picture of the doormat. Here are seven reasons that it’s been baffling me.

1. Perspective. Yesterday morning, I pulled the mat from its bag and strode to the front door. I had blithely supposed that I would be able to place the doormat inside the door and walk away to do something else. Something important. Something interesting. But as I went to place the mat on the floor I felt troubled. The problem was that the mat has a picture on it. That means that it’s no mere utilitarian home accessory. It’s also art. Not high-art, admittedly. It’s not Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa or Klimpt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, which is fortunate as they probably wouldn’t fare well hanging on the floor in my hallway, and I would probably soon tire of the tourists. But it’s still art. And art’s there to be contemplated and enjoyed, to enhance an environment and provide stimulation for those that inhabit the same space. Essentially, in this case, I realised that when I looked at the owls, I wanted them not to be upside down.

2. But That Would Be Unwelcoming. Surely the doormat should face outward. To welcome guests. To make a nice first impression. What would we be saying by having the mat face inward? That we’re selfish people that want the owls the right way up for ourselves and care not a whit for the feelings of others? That would make us appear distinctly unwelcoming. You can’t greet people with upside down owls. It’s a question of doormat etiquette. Doormatiquette.

3. But! Does an outward facing mat welcome guests though? Because when the guests come into the house – and they sometimes do, we’re sociable people that don’t bite – the owls would be upside down. So then everybody would be looking at the owls the wrong way up. Both guests and residents. No one would win.

4. Furthermore! Having an outward facing mat would send another message. An unwelcoming message. And that message is Stop! Come no further. Being in the house is an anti climax. Beyond this point, the owls are upside down. If you stay outside it’s better. These people have put this thing here to make sure you stand on their doorstep and come no further. I was beginning to realise that placing a doormat was more complicated than I thought it was going to be.

5. A Compromise? Okay, so there was no way I could have the doormat facing inward or outward. But could I compromise? Turning the doormat sideways would seem to be a fair thing to do, but wait?! A sideways doormat! That would be weird. If someone opened a front door to you and their doormat was sideways you’d think they were barmy. You’d assume that they were a gibbering harebrain that spent their nights pointing at the moon and their days pointing at the space the moon had been the previous night, pausing only to laugh hysterically at bicycles. Have you ever been in the house of anyone with a sideways doormat? No. Of course not. People that have been in the houses of people with sideways doormats are probably still there tied down in the cellar or imprisoned in the shed, being forced to eat balloons and comb a jelly or some equally bizarre and hideous fate. The sideways doormat compromise was out.

6. Brainstorming. By this point, I realised I needed help**. I decided to ask Twitter. Carrying the doormat over to the computer, I tweeted my dilemma. With help from @kittyQ, @davidofyork, @kateypotatey, @jonesyinc1 and @amazingzeesh (all lovely tweeters) I brainstormed the problem. It was difficult and there was no real consensus. The nearest we got to a solution was @kateypotatey’s idea of hanging the doormat on the wall and putting it down facing outward only when anyone knocked on the door. But that raised a further problem. What would we do when the guests came in? Wait for them to cross the threshold and then hang the doormat up on the wall? That would make us look odd. Not sideways-doormat-odd, but still a teensy bit weird. And if we didn’t hang it back on the wall we’d all be looking at upside down owls again. Unless I turned the mat to face inward after they came in but that would appear strange too. And what if more guests arrived while existing guests were there? What if we had a party? Should my wife be responsible for making drinks and handing out nibbles while I take charge of rotating the doormat and greeting people? That doesn’t sound like much of a party to me. Or a picnic. The capacity for it all to go horribly wrong would be endless. I felt dizzy just thinking about it. I decided to sleep on it.

7. And Sleep Helped. This morning, when I woke I had an idea. I walked downstairs and turned the doormat upside down. The doormat would be ostensibly plain and no one would get to see the owls, but I would be able to peek at them whenever I liked. We’d have secret owls. But that felt ungenerous and it bothered me for most of the day. This evening, however, I did solve the problem. What I need to do is position the mat picture side up, facing outwards, and to convince myself and everyone that comes into the house that it’s a picture of three owls standing on their heads. I also need to make them forget that I’ve convinced them of that when they leave. What I need is a live-in hypnotist. Anyone know one?

*Cue angry mob.

**And I sense that many people might agree with me.

October 4, 2011
7 Reasons We Should Congratulate Rupert Bear On Reaching Ninety

As I am sure all you bear aficionados are aware, today marks Rupert Bear’s 90th Birthday. Even if you don’t regularly read his adventures in the Daily Express – and let’s be honest, that’s all of us – you should raise a glass in his name. Or, at the very least, don’t go on about how much you love Paddington Bear. It’s called respect.

1. Loyalty. In case you are wondering why I mentioned the Daily Express above, it’s because Rupert was created for the paper in 1920. The aim? To increase sales. Did it work? Wikipedia doesn’t say. And I can’t be bothered to do that much research. What I did research though is that Rupert has outlasted nineteen Daily Express editors. Nineteen! That’s quite a lot. On any other day it I’d have rounded it up to 20. But that’s nineteen different people who have given up on the paper. Rupert hasn’t given up once. He’s there, everyday, trying to increase sales. And that has to be applauded. Even if it is the Daily Express.

2. Fashion. Sadly for the world, I wasn’t around in 1920, but I would be very surprised if Rupert’s choice of attire matched the fashion of the day. A red jumper, white shoes and matching yellow-checked trousers and scarf? It’s unlikely, isn’t it? But that’s just one reason why Rupert should be celebrated. He was a bit of a maverick. He was a trend-setter. Whether the trend comes to fruition in my lifetime, who knows, but one day, everyone will be dressing like Rupert.

3. Respect. Rupert has and continues to spend many-a-day in the presence of his friends. The trusty and originally named Bill Badger. The stodgy Podgy Pig. The delectable Edward Trunk*. And my personal favourites, Ming The Dragon and Pong-Ping The Pekingese. And yet, despite chewing the fat with them for the best part of century, not once has Rupert ever uttered the immortal line, ‘Have you ever heard of deed-poll?’

4. Role Model. While Rupert’s main rivals for our affections have tragic and cliched characteristics, Rupert was the real deal. Take Winnie The Pooh for instance. Ignoring the fact that he looks cuddly, what have you got? A honey-monster who has a habit of forgetting to wear trousers. Hardly inspiring. And then we have Paddington Bear. An immigrant from Peru whose idea of helping the economy is to create a marmalade deficit. Not the role models our children need. Rupert on the other hand is everything a bear should be. Clever, loyal, adventurous and trousered.

5. Paul McCartney. Rupert remains the only bear ever to have inspired a Beatle. Paul McCartney – Rupert And The Frog Song.**

6. He Defied Hitler. Not even a war could stop Rupert. And I am not talking about a silly, little war. I am talking about World War II. Despite the fact that there was a severe paper shortage – we needed it for planes – Rupert still got an annual out and onto the shelves every year throughout the conflict. Along with Churchill sticking two fingers up, Rupert getting his annual out epitomised Britain’s approach to the war. We were never going to be beaten. And we were going to read tales of a bear going on an underwater mission in the process.

7. Alternatives. Look, it’s only right that you should celebrate one 90th Anniversary in 2010 and if you’re not going to choose Rupert to congratulate then it’s going to have to be the Bangor Operatic Society. Make the right decision.

*Edward Trunk was an elephant. Clever.

**This might cause nightmares. Or daymares. Just don’t smash your computer. You’ll regret it tomorrow.

November 8, 2010
Election Special: 7 Reasons It’s Important To Vote Today

7Reasons.org is avowedly apolitical, but the 7 Reasons team are not. As individuals, the 7 Reasons team concur on some things politically – the colossal importance of Sussex in the world order and subsidies for internet humourists are two of them – and differ on other things. So when we go and vote today, we’ll probably vote differently: That’s a good thing, we live in a democracy. The important thing is that we’re voting: Here’s why.

1. Local Issues. Never mind the fatuous faux-presidential debates featuring Smug, Clunking and Irrelevant, you won’t be able to vote for – or against – any of them anyway (unless you live in Witney, Kircaldy and Cowdenbeath or Sheffield Hallam, that is). You’ll be voting for the person that you feel can best represent your interests, both locally and nationally; the person you think can pressure your local council into mending pot-holes or providing stocks for people that park in cycle lanes (I’m still waiting for a reply to that letter), because that’s pretty much what your only contact with your elected representatives will be. You don’t decide who’s going to be Prime Minister, the parliamentary representatives of the majority party do that, but you can decide who represents you and your interests there.

2. Expenses. The parliamentary expenses scandal showed us that there’s serious cross-party corruption in Parliament. If the incumbent of your local seat came out of the expenses scandal badly, this is your chance to remove them from office. Even if you don’t care about politics, you should surely care about integrity; and how many more duck houses and moats do you want to pay for? I’ve always wanted an orangery by the way, if anyone’s buying.

3. Complaint. If you don’t vote then you can’t complain about things afterwards. I haven’t met a British person that can go for five hours without complaining about something, let alone five years. If you have to go that long without complaining you’ll probably explode, or perhaps you’ll find an inner serenity and be elected the new Dalai Lama. Either way, not complaining is uncharted territory and it’s probably dangerous.

4. Other Countries. In the 2005 general election the turnout was 61.3%, which means that 38.7% of people that were eligible to vote didn’t do so. Okay, some of those abstainers probably had good reasons – illness, unforeseen events etc. – but that’s still quite a shameful figure, and if you don’t vote, you shame the nation. After all, if North Korea can get an electoral turnout of nearly 100% then so can we. Or perhaps that’s a bad example. But elections are infrequent in the U.K. and it really isn’t too much trouble to go out and vote. It’s not like we live in Switzerland where they have to vote (on average) seven times per year. Voting’s not difficult and you don’t have to do it often – it’s much like washing a duvet.*

5. See A School. When was the last time you were inside a school? If you’re old enough to vote then you’re too old to attend one. Election day is the only day when many grown-ups can turn up at schools without being asked to leave. Our local school has a hopscotch court painted onto the playground, which is a great place to play while you contemplate how to vote.

6. Change. All of the main parties have told us – many times during this campaign – that a vote for them is a vote for change. I love the idea of being paid for my vote and I’m going to put my change toward a tiramisu. Or a wok. No, a tiramisu. Definitely.

7. Sacrifice. Many, many brave and noble people laid down their lives and sacrificed a great deal so that they – and we – would be able to live in a democracy. We only finished paying off the Americans for the Second World War in December 2006, so most people eligible to vote today have made sacrifices too. We dishonour the efforts of many people by not voting. Also, if we don’t exercise our democratic right to vote, we leave others to dictate policy to us and by our apathy, we impose dictatorship on ourselves. Second World War propagandists would have probably put it like this.

*I’m wrong. It’s way easier to vote than it is to wash a duvet, or even to carry one of the blasted things: You need arms like Mr Tickle.

May 6, 2010
7 Reasons The Birthday Tea Could Have Gone Better

1. The Present. Make sure you give it to your girlfriend before she goes to work. Otherwise you will spend all day worrying about whether she will like it or not. In this state of anxiety you may forget the more important things. Like taking your wallet to Sainsburys with you.

2. Balloons. These should not be blown up near cacti. Not only will it give you heart palpitations, you will also feel a massive prick.

3. Banners. It really helps if you notice before you get to the till that you have picked up a ‘Congratulations Birthday Boy!’ banner instead of, for example, a ‘Happy Birthday Girlfriend’ one.

4. Birthday Cake. No matter how sturdy the box looks, the cake really, really should not be placed at the bottom of your shopping bag. At an angle. Unless you want to lose the walnut topping that is.

5. Cocktail Sticks. There really is no point in buying them if you forget to buy something to put on them. And no, mini Gingerbread Men are not an adequate substitute for mini sausages.

6. Sandwiches. Generally, cucumber and cream-cheese sandwiches taste like they should when they have cucumber in them. Otherwise they just taste like cream-cheese sandwiches. It seems pretty obvious, but you’ll be amazed at the number of people who forget.

7. The Gingerbread Men. Don’t open them and have a couple at lunchtime just because you are hungry. It makes it look like you have decided to buy party food because you want to eat it and not because you think it will make your girlfriend smile.

*None of these are from personal experience. Or at least not all of them.

April 27, 2010
7 Reasons To Wear A Cape

1. You’re A Fashionista. This is the fashion. I personally think the above looks a bit silly. And, if you are Louis Vuitton, you probably would too. But as he has been dead for 118 years, I very much doubt he cares that his once burgeoning luggage company has turned into this.

2. Fancy Dress Parties. You are probably wondering why I didn’t write this first? I mean, it is the most obvious reason. I didn’t write it first because it made much more sense to have the reason that worked with the image first. Common sense in my book. Anyway, if you are going to a fancy dress party as a superhero, you must wear a cape. If you don’t you’ll probably be mistaken for that girl from Flashdance.

3. Use As A Hood. It is a well known fact that 87% of all coats don’t have a hood. It’s a bizarre trend, but a fact none-the-less. It’s also a well known fact that 87% of the 100% of people who wear a hood-less coat, forget to carry an umbrella on their person. If 87% of those 87% wore a cape, only 22% of the entire population would ever get a wet head. And that has to be a good thing. Doesn’t it?*

4. Spare Material. A cape has a very practical use. It could be torn up to make an infinite number of tourniquets, Rambo style headbands, bracelets, Christmas tree decorations. You just never know what is around the next corner.

5. You’re A Man. Capes are particularly useful if you like hugging girls. As a general rule, girls don’t like to be cold. With a cape you can invite them into your chest and wrap your cape around them. Smooth. Oh, you can also use it to wipe your nose.

6. You’re A Woman. Now, as you can probably tell, I am not your average man. I pride myself on the fact that I can do at least two things at once. Unless it’s write a 7 Reasons post and spell everything correctly. Women though – so I have heard – can do up to 32 things at once. A cape can help them make that at least 35. They could carry things. Or drag things. Or polish things. The possibilities are endless.

7. You Have Short Hair. Short hair is good as it doesn’t take two and a half hours to dry. Long hair is good if you like whooshing it about from side to side á la L’Oreal adverts. I personally have short hair, but the idea of being able to toss my head from side to side seems somewhat appealing. If I wore a cape it could perform the function of long hair. And it would only take ten minutes in the tumble dryer.

*Calculations are not available for public consumption.

February 9, 2010
7 Reasons To Leave The Party

1. Your crocodile costume has made several people laugh and has got you a lot of attention, but it turns out that you’re not at a fancy dress party.

2. It turns out that the man you took an instant dislike to earlier because he was “an unctuous pillock…wandering about like he owns the place” is your host and does, in fact, own the place.

3. The attractive young lady that you’ve been eyeing up all night and are using your wittiest conversation on turns out to be a lesbian who is making eyes at a girl on the other side of the living room when she thinks that you’re not looking.

4. The strange and deeply dull man that has been leering at you all evening has trapped you in conversation in the living room (well, an unfunny and slightly bizarre monologue, anyway). You frantically throw “rescue me” glances to your best friend who is standing alone on the other side of the room, which she ignores.

5. You are alone on one side of the living room. Your best friend has abandoned you and is engaged in conversation with a cute guy on the other side of the room. She keeps glancing over to make sure that you’ve noticed. Bitch!

6. With about an hour to go until New Year you receive a phone call from a friend inquiring as to your whereabouts. You look around at your fellow guests and it slowly dawns on you that you don’t know any of them.

7. There is a magician.

Do you have additional reasons? Share them with us in the comments section, and if you enjoyed this post share it with a friend, or a spouse.

November 8, 2009