The Reasoning Behind the 18 Reasons

Welcome to my blog “18 Jaded Reasons”. We’re going to kick this off with an introduction about why I chose the title and what I’m gonna do here. Why would I choose such a title, and, really, such an arbitrary number for the title you ask? Don’t lists usually come in 5s? The top 5 songs, top 10 plays, top 15 well, I can’t really think of anything for 15, top 20 grossing movies of all-time, top 25 teams in college football and basketball, top 50 NBA players of all-time? Radio stations will sometimes do kooky things like the Top 8 at 8:00, but really, almost everything else comes in 5s. The #18 doesn’t even hint at relevance as far as ranking and prioritizing things goes.

There are a few common reasons people might assume I’m using 18, let me dismiss them right here in one paragraph. It’s not because 18 was a significant age/birthday for me. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed turning 18, registering to vote and buying my first legal pack of smokes, graduating high school, and the majority of my freshman year of college. However, none of that matters because it’s not why I picked 18. Another typical reason would be if 18 was my favorite number for some other reason. Maybe it was my number in high school sports? Nope, 20 was my basketball number, but my jersey didn’t see enough court time to merit a blog title. 18 was the number of my favorite baseball player turned crack head, Darryl Strawberry, but that wasn’t the reason either. Was I born on the 18th? Nope. Seriously, the number has never held any import with me, it just randomly came to me one night several years ago and has been a mainstay of my vernacular ever since.

This is the story of how 18 became a relevant number in my life. The number has been the subject of a running joke for so long that it has eclipsed the standard time-frame for abusing a joke. My friends and I actually use the number 18 regularly in making a point. It has certainly become a part of our lexicon, and it’s entirely my fault, sort of. This tale is the result of a late night drunkfest at my buddy’s house. To make the story short, we shall say we played drinking games for about 6 hours, and then decided to have a few more beers and watch something that was on TV. Well, myself and Mark were having a typical booze-infused, early-morning debate. We were arguing the merits of Kevin Smith as a director, the best Led Zeppelin album, and the pros/cons of me potentially moving to Australia to try and become either a rock star or a successful business person, etc. . .

In any case, my side of the debate kept starting with the phrase “I’ll give you 18 reasons . . .”, or some version of it. Well, at some point after 2 A.M., Randy, who’s house we were at, and who was apparently pay more attention to our ramblings than we had thought, pointed out my arguing strategy of saying I have 18 reasons, listing 5 or 6, and then stumbling into a different area of discussion so I could begin another soon-to-be-doomed list of 18 reasons. Well, over the course of the next month or so, every discussion began with “I’ve got 18 reasons” or a variation of the statement. Every choice was dissected by the “18 reason” strategy, with every laugh coming at my expense. Deciding where to eat, where to drink, what to drink, what movie to watch, whether or not to take a hit at the blackjack tables, or to fold during poker. At some point, it shifted away from the joke, and moved to the regular way we started the group decision making process. That was about 2 years ago.

Now that you have the backstory, here is what this blog is going to be about: arbitrary/stupid arguments with reasons numbering 18. Seriously, that’s it. It’s going to be about my opinions and reactions to different topics, ranging from music, movies, and books, to politics, sports, and current events. The kicker, of course, is that I won’t usually make it to 18 reasons. For those not getting it yet, it’s called irony. If I do get to 18, you can just assume that I’m pretty fired up and have been having the discussion for a while and decided some research was due. In any case, enjoy the upcoming entries, and thank you for reading.