The Guy List

1. My workout schedule. Nonnegotiable. A deal breaker. Make sure everyone knows it.

2. The theory that two people must have sex before the can ever be in love. Because you can't love someone until you know that person fully -- and sex brings many revelations.

3. My favorite band/movie/team/political party/religion -- which I've just been told sucks. It may indeed suck. So what? Someone just ground my passions under his heel. Let him have some.

4. Fifteen percent off. You'll get 10.

5. My rung on the ladder. The salary's still there, I still have my office, but something's off. They're making plans without me. My turf has eroded. Time to shine again.

6. My right to leave the bar as early as you want. I will be called many names. I am none of these things.

7. My equally valuable right to hand my keys to a buddy and have another round. Morning will hit hard and fast, but sometimes I have to risk short-term-memory loss in the name of long-term-memory gain.

8. A free phone. They get a check every month for two years? Yeah, free phone.

9. That brief stretch of time that is my own. I may not get it until 10 p.m., but make sure I get it, because after my commute time, company time, dinnertime, and quality time, my time is the last defense against total annihilation of the self.

10. My habits. She's dying to change me, but she should know up front that men don't change. We can evolve, however, and that takes time.

11. A perfect combination of retained youth and acquired wisdom.

12. The true source of her silence, her headaches, her thickening layer of frost. It may be me, or it may not. But whatever it is, get it out there because this crap cannot go on.

13. The remote. A guy I know broke his leg fighting for the remote. And he'd do it again.

14. The sanctity of the line. Whether the dirtball tries it with a car or his own cloven feet, his butting in line is a grievous insult -- he's saying his time is more valuable than mine. We're all on the same death clock, pal. Deny him. Hard. The mob will back me.

15. Making money from that one thing I'm best at. There has to be a way to cash in.

16. The real answer. Sales reps, bureaucrats, and bosses of every stripe are where they are because people settle for their pat, evasive answers. Pound their bullshit position with a fusillade of toddler logic: But why?

17. The mail-in rebate I still haven't received. Companies count on lazy consumers. Be their nightmare.

18. Happiness. Can't swing that? Strive for absence of misery. Then keep going.