I recently used Perplexity Computer to link my investment accounts together and build a portfolio tracker. Not a landing page. Not a toy. An actual working application that authenticated into multiple brokerages, pulled live holdings, and displayed it in a clean interface. I wrote a prompt, walked away, and came back 10 minutes later to something that worked.

What hit me wasn’t that the application existed. It was that I didn’t write a single line of code. The gap between “I wish this existed” and “this exists” collapsed into an afternoon. I’ve been in software long enough to know what it takes to build a tool like that, and watching it materialize from a prompt was the first time the pace of change stopped feeling theoretical and started feeling immediate. This piece is what I’ve been thinking about since.

Code without a tether is a commodity

The clearest way to think about which software survives the AI wave is to ask what the software is actually selling. If the answer is “the code itself,” it’s in trouble. If the answer is “the network, the data, or the physical operation the code sits on top of,” it’s most likely safe.

Jira and Figma are pure software. There’s nothing inside them a sufficiently capable model can’t reproduce on request, and nothing stopping an enterprising user from typing “build me Jira, but less annoying.” Their moats are switching costs and habit, not anything intrinsic to the product. The code is just the part everyone sees.

X (Twitter) is the opposite. You can clone the UI in a weekend and it’s worthless, because the product was never the interface, it was the hundreds of millions of people already posting there and the real-time conversation that only exists because everyone agreed this is where it happens. That doesn’t come out of a prompt. MrBeast is not going to migrate to your clone no matter how cleanly you rebuilt the timeline. The same pattern holds wherever the software is a delivery mechanism for something real:

• Uber: drivers, riders, and regulatory relationships in every city
• Bloomberg: proprietary data feeds and decades of terminal lock-in
• Plaid: bank integrations nobody, and I mean nobody, wants to redo

Anything with a two-sided market, a proprietary dataset, a hardware component, or a messy real-world integration layer has a real moat. Anything that’s just code pretending to have one does not. The software industry is about to get re-sorted along that line, and a lot of companies that currently look like category leaders are going to discover their moats don’t work when bridges are free.

I’ve been thinking about how this test applies to the two products I manage. Savvy Trader is a platform where investors share and subscribe to investment portfolios. Its moat is the creators themselves: people with verified track records who’ve been publishing trades against live market data, providing unique and thoughtful commentary alongside every move they make. “Recreate Savvy Trader” gets you the UI, it doesn’t get you the people. Earnings Hub is a tool that tracks earnings estimates, EPS and revenue data, and corporate guidance. It’s the best earnings calendar on the market and it’s not particularly close. But at the end of the day, it’s a clean and intuitive interface on top of public earnings data. Majority of the underlying information isn’t proprietary. If I’m being honest with myself about my own thesis, Savvy Trader is on the right side of this line and Earnings Hub is offsides. Being the best doesn’t make you safe when someone can prompt a good-enough version into existence. That’s useful clarity to have, even when the answer isn’t the one I’d prefer.

Capability doesn’t mean everyone builds their own

If anyone can prompt their way to a Jira clone, won’t everyone just do that, and doesn’t that kill the industry? Probably not. Everyone can cook dinner at home and restaurants still exist, because convenience, expertise, consistency, and the experience are worth paying for even when the alternative is available. Nobody’s shutting down the Olive Garden because you own a pan.

The fact that a small business could prompt its own CRM into existence doesn’t mean it will. Most people and most organizations still want something pre-built, supported, and warrantied by someone whose job it is to keep it running at 2am. What collapses isn’t the existence of software companies, it’s the pricing power of generic software. The “$40 per seat per month for reasonable tooling” business has the floor drop out from under it. Companies that survive offer something beyond the code: support, integrations, trust, brand, or the peace of mind of knowing someone else is on the hook when things break.

B2B takes the bigger hit than B2C

The replacement pressure is heavier on the B2B side, and the reason is purely about incentives.

A company evaluating build-versus-buy has a real financial motive to build. Every SaaS subscription is a recurring cost, a vendor relationship, a security review, and a dependency. If the cost of building a functional internal version drops from “impossible without a team and a year” to “one builder and a weekend,” the math flips for a huge percentage of B2B purchases.

An average consumer has almost none of that motivation. A big chunk of consumer software is ad-supported and free at the point of use, which means building your own version doesn’t save money, it actively costs more. You’d be paying in time and hosting fees, plus an AI subscription to build the thing in the first place, for something you currently get for free. That’s a rough pitch. Even for the paid stuff, the effort usually exceeds the ten dollars a month you’d save. Most consumers won’t bother building their own, but some will absolutely prompt a replacement to save a few bucks.

The overall pattern looks like this: the more a product’s value comes from the code itself, the more exposed it is. The more it comes from data, network, physical operations, or sheer user base, the safer it is. B2B tooling for known workflows is the most exposed because the buyer is economically motivated and increasingly technically capable. Large consumer platforms with real moats are safe. Where any given product falls on that spectrum depends on one question: if someone prompted a working clone into existence tomorrow, would anyone switch? If the answer is yes, the moat was never the code. The code was just the part that used to be hard.

The current state is the image-generation moment

There’s a useful parallel to AI image generation, after all a picture is worth 1,000 words. The first time you saw a model produce a photorealistic image, it felt like magic. Then you looked closer and noticed the hands had six fingers, the text was gibberish, and the eyes were subtly crossed. The “this changes everything” reaction was right about the trajectory and wrong about the immediate reality.

Software generation is at exactly that stage, which means there’s no reason to panic just yet. You can prompt a full application into existence and the first impression is stunning. Then you use it for two minutes and the cracks show up. State management is subtly broken, edge cases aren’t handled, integrations are fragile, and there’s always one button that does nothing. It’s the six-finger problem in software form.

The other thing the image-generation analogy gets right is that it happened unevenly. Image generation didn’t come for every visual market at once. It hit stock photography first, then logo design and spec illustration work, then certain kinds of concept art, and still hasn’t fully hit high-end commercial illustration or fine art, though I’d be lying if I said there aren’t a few AI-generated pieces my wife made hanging in our house right now.

The economic consequences don’t hit on the day AI can almost build software. They hit on the day AI can build software that holds up under real use, and that day is later than the demos suggest but sooner than the skeptics think. Image generation took a few years to go from “amazing but cursed” to “good enough that entire industries reorganized around it.” Software is harder because the failure modes are functional rather than visual, which means there’s further to go and the cliff is higher when you fall off it.

Three structural shifts for software creators

By software creators I mean everyone whose job is to make software happen: developers, product managers, designers, and anyone else in that loop. The employment picture for all of them changes in three ways at once. The first is obvious. The other two are less so, and they’re the ones worth paying attention to.

Shift 1: Software companies need fewer creators. If one person with good AI tools can do what five used to do, headcount at pure software companies comes down. The people who remain will operate at a higher level of abstraction, closer to architecture and decision-making than implementation. This isn’t hypothetical. Atlassian cut 10% of its workforce, with its CEO citing changes needed for the “AI era.” Block cut nearly half its workforce, with Jack Dorsey explicitly pointing to AI. Whether every one of these cuts is genuinely AI-driven or partly cover for restructuring that would have happened anyway, the direction is clear, and the trend is moving faster than most of the industry expected.

Shift 2: Non-software companies start hiring software creators they never had before. Every company subscribing to a stack of SaaS tools is a potential builder of its own internal software, but building and maintaining it still requires somebody who knows what they’re doing. Mid-sized businesses paying six or seven figures a year across dozens of tools will hire their first in-house builder to replace those subscriptions with owned software. This isn’t happening at scale yet, because the current state is still the image-generation moment. Most companies would get burned trying to replace their stack today. The smart ones are keeping a close eye on tools like Perplexity and Claude so they know when those products are truly ready for primetime.

Shift 3: A lot of creators won’t have employers at all. This is the quiet version of the story and probably the most important. The historical reason software creators worked at companies was that building anything serious required a team, infrastructure, capital, and distribution an individual couldn’t assemble alone. All of those barriers are dropping at once.

Why give your company the profit from work you could do, own, and monetize yourself? It’s a question that’s going to get asked a lot more often over the next few years, and the people asking it will usually be the ones worth keeping.

Think of all three shifts together as a Thanos-style rebalancing of the industry. Jobs at pure software companies get destroyed. Jobs at every other kind of company get created. Solo creators build entire applications that used to require teams. The snap isn’t clean and a lot of people land awkwardly in the middle of it, but the universe finds a way to stay roughly in balance.

The cosmic irony of remote work

Speaking of balance, there’s a strange symmetry to all of this that I can’t stop thinking about. The software industry spent 2020 and 2021 achieving what many considered to be the dream: widespread remote work. Get paid six figures, live wherever you want, work in your sweats, never commute again. Too good to be true, and maybe it was. And let’s be honest, a lot of people took advantage. The same flexibility that let great engineers do their best work from a cabin in Colorado also let a lot of people collect a paycheck while doing the bare minimum from their couch, and everyone in the industry knows it even if nobody wants to say it out loud. It’s almost like the universe looked at an entire class of workers who’d managed to decouple their income from showing up anywhere, decided the pendulum had swung too far, and found the most ironic possible way to reset it. Not by dragging people back to the office, but by making the work itself something that doesn’t require a person at all.

The part that matters to me

There is still a lot of work to be done before AI starts truly replacing software jobs at scale. Even Perplexity Computer, the tool that kicked off this whole train of thought, has plenty of kinks. But it was the first time I used something and felt like the future is a bit closer than I maybe realized. Not here yet. But close enough that pretending otherwise feels irresponsible.

Savvy Trader is on the right side of the line I’ve been drawing, and my job there is to deepen the moat: more creators, better product features, tighter relationships with the people whose real performance is the actual product. Earnings Hub is on the wrong side, and my job there is harder. Figure out what I can build on top of the public data that isn’t just code, or accept that growth will slow down as consumers start building similar products in-house, literally from their house, at their kitchen table, in their pajamas. Sitting with that discomfort is better than pretending the wave isn’t coming when I can already see the water rising.

The people who navigate this well aren’t going to be the ones who guessed the future right. They’re going to be the ones who were honest with themselves about where they stood, so they don’t find themselves offsides.

1. Sit at the front of the class. That way, when you fall asleep from the boring lecture, your teacher can easily wake you up.

2. Take notes. Don’t just take notes about what your teacher is saying and what is on the board. Take notes of literally everything around you because who the hell knows what’s going to be on that test. One time, I had a psychology test that asked me, “What chemical is found in batteries?” (True story.)

3. Study. Don’t just study your ridiculously detailed notes from tip #2. Study the textbook, study your friend’s notes, heck, study what your teacher eats for breakfast because (again) who the hell knows what’s going to be on that test.

4. Don’t cheat. Actually, do cheat, just don’t get caught.

5. Always carry a #2 pencil. A Scantron test is like a Jack-in-the-box. You know it’s coming, but you’re still unprepared.

6. Be prepared. A #2 pencil is not enough. The rules are constantly changing. You must have a #1 and a #3 pencil (in addition to your #2 pencil) at all times.

7. Never text and learn. You also shouldn’t text and drive. Actually, stop texting all together and call people for once in your life. What happened to having a nice verbal conversation? I’m talking to you, mom. Can you answer my phone calls? I want to tell you how much I love you — and I need money.

8. Work hard. Play harder.

9. Do your homework. But if it’s winter, then don’t do your homework and bank on a snow day. Personally, I bank on a snow day every day.

10. Don’t make excuses. If you didn’t do your homework, then just tell your teacher the truth — you were banking on a snow day.

11. Raise your hand. It’s good to stretch after sitting for a long amount of time.

12. Buy your teacher a gift. Teachers like apples, right? Sorry, that’s stereotyping. My aunt used to be a teacher and she’s allergic to apples. (True story.) Personally, I would buy my teacher a fancy steak dinner to remind them that I like my tests how I like my steaks — grade A.

2. Your content should fill one page. However, if you cannot fill the page, then note to your reader that you purposefully have a giant white space on your resume to reserve a spot for them.

3. Do not put your full address on your resume. It is a security risk. Also, it’s not the Dark Ages — no one is going to physically mail you anything. If your resume is great (because you followed these tips), then someone will email you.

4. Each bullet point should be no longer than one line. The reader wants an overview of your experience, not your life story.

5. Please do not have an “Objective” section. We all know what your objective is — to get the flippin’ job.

6. Begin every bullet point with a verb. Otherwise each sentence will start with “I” and that would make the reader go, “Aye yai yai.” That was a terrible joke, but great advice.

7. Try not to sound too professional. Keep in mind that humans are reading your resume, so don’t sound like a robot. I have to admit, I’m terrible at this. I like sounding super professional on my resume. For example, instead of saying, “I write funny blog posts about random stuff.” I’ll say something like, “I write satirical blog posts about arbitrary topics.” I sound like C-3PO.

8. Use a font that fits your personality. If you are fancy like Drake or Iggy, then use a serif font. If you’re a basic bitch like me, then use a sans serif font. For those of you who don’t know the difference between the fonts, I can’t help you with that. But for those of you who don’t know what a basic bitch is, let me give you an example. A basic bitch is someone who spends their afternoon in Starbucks, sipping their venti Pumpkin Spice Latte while writing a blog post about how they’re sipping a venti Pumpkin Spice Latte.

9. Unless you’re a social media strategist, you should not list any social networks in your “Skills” section. I know I’m supposed to be writing the jokes, but you’re doing it for me when you list Facebook as a skill.

10. Add color. I don’t care if you add one color or the whole flippin’ rainbow, just don’t let your resume be black and white. You know what they say, “A black and white resume is a basic bitch resume.”

11. Once you are finally done working on your resume, save it as a PDF file. That way it will look the same no matter what device it’s on. Also, no one wants to see your DOC.

1. Why can’t you think of a more creative title for the show other than your name or the time of day?

2. Why do you always sit to the left of your guests?

3. Why do daytime talk shows not have desks?

4. Why do guests only come to promote themselves and never come just to say hi?

5. What do you whisper to your guest right before you go to commercial break?

If I were a musician, my musical instrument would be the triangle. Not only is the triangle highly prestigious, but it’s also a great way to pick up chicks. Mastering the triangle lets the ladies know you can hit all the right spots — if you know what I mean. You’re probably wondering, “What smoking hot babes go to kids concerts?” The MILFs, of course. No, they are not a band.

If I were a musician, I would go on tour around the world — or at least tour the places where my music is popular. I can think of two places off the top of my head: the local preschool and Japan. Yeah that’s right, I’m big in Japan.

If I were a musician, I would drop out of school. No more tests, papers, or gum from under my desk sticking to my jeans. I would finally be able to focus on my passion — making kids music with a triangle to attract MILFs in Japan.

2. Be courageous — when you’re alone. Fun fact about me, I dance and rap when I’m by myself in the elevator. I like to freestyle to the beat of elevator music. There is no one to give me weird looks, so I might as well do what I want.

3. Hold the door — or at least pretend to. Whenever I see someone running to catch the elevator, I rapidly press the “Door Close” button. As the door begins to close I scream out, “The “Door Open” button isn’t working! Sorry!” That way it appears I was trying to do the right thing. More importantly, the elevator needs to stay empty if I want to spit rhymes.

4. Have fun. The elevator is technically a ride, so enjoy it.

5. Be like a leaf in the wind. If you are in the back of a full elevator and need to get out, weave your way through people. Navigating around an elevator is all about spiritual movements. When you meet resistance, you must be able to switch direction at a moment’s notice. Be the leaf.

6. Avoid eye contact. Two popular techniques: stare at the changing floor number or pretend to do something on your phone. Maybe you can pretend I’m funny while you’re at it.

7. Have common sense. Don’t be that guy who is waiting right in front of the door to get on the elevator. Believe it or not, some people need to get off the elevator before you can get on.

8. Lose some weight. It’s embarrassing when you get on the elevator and it begins beeping because it’s carrying too much weight. In that moment, I bet you start thinking, “If only I were a pound or two less, then maybe the elevator would shut up.” Too bad you aren’t starting your diet until tomorrow. Unfortunately for your health, you are always “starting your diet tomorrow.”

9. Hold your breath. It’s the worst when I am trapped in a tiny box with someone who smells. Then again, if I’m stuck in the elevator with that cute girl from my Zumba class, then I guess it doesn’t hurt to sniff that succulent scent.

10. Be stubborn. If you accidentally get on an elevator that is going up, don’t get off, your fate has already been decided. It’s like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and you submitted your final answer. Let’s be honest, it’s less awkward to ride the elevator up (even if you have to go down) than getting on the elevator and immediately walking off. But either way, people are going to give you weird looks.

If I were a cartoon, especially one that goes on adventures, then I must have an archenemy. Now I’m just spitballing here, but I feel like my nemesis would be a supercomputer named Clarence. He wants to rid the world of sarcasm because that is the one thing he does not understand. Or, maybe my archenemy could be a flash drive named Myrtle? She is upset because I lost her five years ago in the library’s computer lab. If those ideas don’t pan out, then I can have my current nemesis, my mother, be my archenemy in the show.

If I were a cartoon, I would have a catchphrase. Maybe I can just scream out random math terms like, “Algebraic!” or, “Rhombus!” No, that’s too silly. I need something more serious to go with the serious tone of my adventures. Maybe whenever I solve a problem I can say, “Joyful jubilation!” No, that’s just stupid. My catchphrase should be something I say frequently in the real world. Something like, “Can you stop talking?” My girlfriend tells me I say that often.

If I were a cartoon, I would be very paranoid. No, not because I can’t think of a good catchphrase, but because people would constantly watch me. Technically I wouldn’t know that there is an audience tuning in to admire my amazing adventures, but let’s not forget I am a columnist. Columnists have great intuition — or maybe they have great digestion? I always confuse the two.

If I were a cartoon, I would never die. The closest thing I can get to death would be the cancellation of my show. My life would consist of reruns. I would be reliving my problems over and over again — at that point maybe death isn’t so bad. Looking on the bright side, I would finally be able to start my “If I Become Immortal” to-do list. The first item on my list is sewing. I am completely serious. Sewing is more dangerous than most people realize. If that needle pricks me in the wrong place, then we could have a sticky situation. The last thing I need is to puncture my penis. Oh wait, if I were a cartoon, I wouldn’t have a penis — at least the cartoons I watch don’t have them.

However, if I did puncture something, it wouldn’t be that bad because if I were a cartoon, every day would end the same way. All of my problems would be solved, and a pig that has a terrible stutter would come out of nowhere and squeal, “That’s all folks.”

2. Buy her love. You can get her flowers. Or better yet, buy her chocolate. Chocolate is the key to a woman’s heart.

3. Wink at her. If she winks back, then that means she likes you. If she gives you a weird look, then say there was dirt in your eye.

4. Stay away from love triangles. You know the situation is going to be bad when geometry is involved.

5. Be the best you. If that’s not good enough, then be more like me. I attract girls like how a moldy sandwich attracts flies.

6. Make time to spend with her. If your schedule is too busy, then just bring her along to wherever you need to go. I’m sure she would love to be stuck in a basement full of sweaty nerds playing Super Smash Bros.

7. Talk about her interests. Hopefully you fall in that category.

8. Don’t be afraid of rejection. What do you have to lose? I have two answers: your dignity and that girl ever talking to you again. But don’t worry; there are plenty of fish in the sea. Sure, that doesn’t have anything to do with you, but at least the aquatic life is doing well.

9. Embrace feminism. Girls love guys who treat all genders equally. So if you manage to get a first date, then you should split the check.

10. Write her a poem. “Roses are red, violets are blue, there are plenty of fish in the sea, and I like to state facts.”

11. Think before you speak. Don’t say something you’ll regret, like a stupid poem that doesn’t even rhyme.

12. Make her laugh. There are two good methods to accomplish this. Either tell her a joke or tickle her armpits. I’m not a funny person so I tend to go with the second option.

13. Don’t worry about what your friends think. It is better off that they don’t like her — less competition is better.

14. Get off your phone. Your phone isn’t going to kiss you. And if it does, can you tell me how to get that feature?

15. Take your time. There is no reason to rush the development of a relationship. Of course, you don’t want to take too long because you’re eventually going to die.

16. Compliment her. Let her know she smells nice. Actually, that might be creepy.

17. Lower your expectations. Most girls are not perfect like the Pretty Little Liars.

18. Reach out to her on special occasions. For example, wish her a happy birthday, Thanksgiving, and Leif Erikson Day — hinga dinga durgen.

19. Don’t play guessing games. Just like Barney the Dinosaur, clearly state the situation. Tell her how you feel, how you think she feels, and what your status as a couple is. Here’s an example, “I have a crush on you, you don’t know me, but I think we’re meant to be.” If this method can get millions of children to fall in love with a purple dinosaur, then it can get one girl to fall in love with you. The worst-case scenario is she thinks you’re crazy — but at least she knows who you are now.

20. Play Twister. It’s a good way to get close to her, but more importantly you can find out if she’s colorblind.

21. Honesty is the best policy. Let her know when she has food stuck in her teeth. There is a 2% chance she will ask you to help get the food out with your tongue.

22. Be confident. Look her in the eyes when you talk. That will prevent you from accidentally staring at her boobs.

23. Find out her current relationship status. If she is already taken, then a threesome may be your best option.

24. Wear a glove if you’re going to make love. You should probably wear a condom as well.

25. Don’t judge a book by its cover. It doesn’t matter if a girl has straight brown hair or curly blonde hair. Get to know the girl before you make any harsh judgments. Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, girls with curly blonde hair are nasty.

26. Dedicate something to her. It will make her smile.

I would like to dedicate this column to my curly blonde hair girlfriend. Brenna, it’s a good thing these tips didn’t exist 4 years ago — I could have used them to date someone better than you…

…That is clearly a joke. No one is better than Brenna — except maybe the Pretty Little Liars.

Here is how the scale of applause or live feedback works: good performance — clap, great performance — standing ovation, bad performance — “boo”, and terrible performance — throw tomatoes. You don’t normally bring tomatoes? That’s like not coming to school with a #2 pencil. You have to be prepared and bring tomatoes to any live event. My mom taught me that at a young age. Let’s just say my performance as Humpty Dumpty in my preschool play did not meet her standards.

Besides for by my mom chucking tomatoes at me, the live feedback system is great — when it’s accurate. The system tends to fall apart during standing ovations. For example, if a few people start standing, then I’ll stand just so I don’t end up being the only person sitting. It’s like the opposite of the domino effect — objects are standing after one another instead of falling.

It’s definitely nice to let the performer know that he or she is doing well, but sometimes it gets excessive. Have you ever watched the State of the Union? The answer should be “yes” — but I have a feeling it’s “no”. The State of the Union is an annual speech that the President makes about — you guessed it — the state of the union. After each sentence, the audience bursts into applause as if the President just executed a flawless cartwheel. The amount of applause is so unnecessary that it sometimes interrupts the President. I guess if you really dislike the President, then you should clap after every word he says just to interrupt him in a socially acceptable manner.

Personally, I am not too enthusiastic as an audience member. I tend to treat my hands as if they are two floppy fish and smack them together. Live entertainment just doesn’t amuse me. The only time I can remember clapping my hands off was to save Tinkerbell. There was no way that little ball of light was dying on my watch.

Speaking about things dying, I have no idea how to end this column — except for the lazy way…

Clap on. Clap off.

For some people, it’s difficult to decline flyers. Solicitors radiate gamma rays of peer pressure onto their victims. But I have the lead suit of armor to stop solicitors in their tracks. Just tell them “no thanks” in a cool Johnny Bravo manner — and then proceed to do the monkey. It works every time.

I want to say more than “no thanks” but I’m afraid of confrontation. If I was fearless like Pajama Sam I would tell solicitors, “Most people take your annoying flyers and immediately throw them in the garbage. Do you realize that? Or do you think they put your handout in the trash because it’s a good place to save it?” Outside of my interactions with solicitors, I am able to speak my mind without any confrontation. Actually, I’m so honest with my friends that they call me “Honest Abe”. I don’t know where the “Abe” came from but I guess I like it. Yesterday, there was an example of Honest Abe in action. My girlfriend asked me, “Do the horizontal stripes on my shirt make me look fat?” I told her, “It’s not the horizontal stripes.”

At my college, we have way too many solicitors. As soon as I walk outside, I can hear the hollering of “Go to our event!”, “Donate to this charity!”, and “There is a blood drive today!” It’s like a bad song stuck on repeat. Even if I wanted to help out, I only have so much time, money, and blood. Why are solicitors targeting college students to donate money in the first place? We are as broke as a time traveling DeLorean without a flux capacitor. Maybe a better analogy is college students are as broke as the ideology that handing strangers flyers is an effective form of persuasion.

Before you set the table or get in the car, you have to figure out what you want to eat. This process takes my family at least an hour. I want pizza — dad is not in the mood for pizza. Okay, how about Chinese? Nope, dad had Chinese food yesterday for lunch. Are you kidding me? Centuries ago, our ancestors would kill a mammoth and be stuck eating mammoth for the rest of the week. They weren’t like, “There is a giant dead mammoth here full of fresh mammoth meat — but we had that yesterday. I’m in the mood for duck.” No! They ate the mammoth until it was just bones and eyeballs. They didn’t eat the eyeballs because that’s gross.

Problem No. 2: The Wait

A horrible phenomenon is sweeping the nation; restaurants think adults don’t like to color and are depriving them of crayons. In my opinion, every restaurant should give out free crayons without question. By assuming that I don’t want crayons, makes an ass out of them and not me when I give the waitress a bad tip. Besides, they secretly have a whole stash of crayons in the back that they are saving for the children. But since when are the children important? I don’t care that they are the future — I’ll be dead in the future. To sum up my thoughts about the prohibition of crayons, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said it best, “I have a dream where every color, no matter their age, can color.”

If I don’t have any crayons I play with the next best thing — the packets of butter and jelly. I use them to build towers and pyramids. The problem is restaurants never have enough packets to amuse me for a long time. I end up having to steal packets from other tables. But once I’ve gathered enough packets, I’m able to build anything. I can build New York City, then destroy it like King Kong. I can build Tokyo, then destroy it like Godzilla. I can build my hopes and dreams, then destroy them like my mother.

Problem No. 3: The Etiquette

I don’t understand why I need proper dining etiquette. Why does it matter if I use the wrong type of fork to eat my salad or if I start eating before everyone else’s food has arrived? They need to mind their own business, it’s not like I’m affecting them. For example, I know I’m supposed to finish whatever is on my plate, but I refuse to eat the Brussels sprouts. They taste like mammoth eyeballs. My mom used to say, “Dustin! There are little kids starving in Africa who would love to eat your Brussels sprouts!” And I would respond, “Great, give me an address and I’ll ship them.” Why should my mom care whether or not I eat my Brussels sprouts? It’s not like it’s her job to take care of me.

My mom would also yell at me for playing with my food. I prefer the term “experimenting”. I would mix different foods to find the ultimate mashup. Do you want to know my greatest creation? Put a little hot sauce on vanilla ice cream and mix it around. I call it “hot cream”. It’s the Hannah Montana of foods, the best of both worlds. Katy Perry described it in one of her songs, “You’re hot then you’re cold.” I think that captures the sensation pretty well. But some people don’t seem to understand my experiments. They tell me that ice cream and hot sauce mixed together is gross. I guess they’ve never tried mammoth eyeballs.

Although hot cream is delicious, there is one delicacy that is tastier. Which is… Hungarian goulash. I was just going to say “goulash” but my mom makes Hungarian goulash. Actually, I don’t know if it’s Hungarian — and I’m not quite sure if it’s goulash either. My mom tends to put together all sorts of mystery stews. You might have heard of her famous “Cabbage Patch Squid” recipe. It’s like Russian roulette with every bite. Sometimes you’ll make it through the meal — barely — and other times you can’t tell the difference between the stew and what just came out of you.

The one piece of dining etiquette that I actually enjoy is holding my pinky up when I take a sip from my drink. Patrick Star says it’s fancy. I really do feel fancier, but the problem is water spills all over me when I do it. Without having my precious pinky for support, I have less grip on the glass. I guess that’s why you’re supposed to put a napkin on your lap when you eat. My mom takes that concept to another level. If you see a woman at McDonalds with a napkin on her lap, there is a good chance it’s my mom.

If people weren’t clumsy and didn’t spill their drinks so often, then they wouldn’t have to worry whether or not to put a napkin on their lap. I think everyone should start using sippy cups. They prevent spilling and they have fun characters on the bottle. What’s better than that? (Besides for hot cream of course.) Honestly, compare a sippy cup to a typical glass. A sippy cup is 102 times better. No spills, no mess, it is more durable and fun. I should be the next Billy Mays.

Problem No. 4: The Depart

You know what really bothers me? After I’m done eating and building my mini replica of New York City, I’m ready to leave. Just give me the check and I’m out of here. But no, it’s not that easy. My brother has to order the double fudge chocolate brownie deluxe with a cherry on top and we all have to wait and watch him slowly savor every bite. I’m pretty sure there is a law stating that if only one person wants dessert, that person isn’t allowed to order it.

Even if my brother didn’t order the chocolate mousse volcano supreme, I’d still be waiting for my dad and poppy to figure out who has the privilege of paying the check. It’s like The Butter Battle between the two of them. Personally, I would let the other person pay the bill if they insist. But even if they didn’t offer, maybe I’d pretend I lost my wallet.

During my sophomore year of high school, I discovered that the Boogeyman doesn’t exist. I know what you’re thinking, “Wow Dustin. You learned something in high school.” Yes, it’s a Christmas miracle – in February. Every night before sophomore year, terror would leak from my pores, knowing that the Boogeyman was in my room: watching me with his bloodshot eyes, ooze perspiring out of his soggy green skin, his long sharp nails carving my name into whatever surface he can find. Come to think of it, he reminds me a lot of my mother.

I used to clench my stuffed animal hoping it would protect me from the Boogeyman. I love my stuffed animal. He’s a dog I call Peppermint, named after the flavor of toothpaste – true story. Peppermint is my best friend. I know a lot of people think having a stuffed animal as a friend is stupid. In my defense, it’s at least better than having an imaginary friend. Ignoring the fact that they aren’t real, the main problem with an imaginary friend is if you have one for long enough, you’re going to be ridiculed like Manti Te’o.

I really hate the Boogeyman, but at the same time I have to admire him. He’s amazing at what he does. His GPA at Monsters University must have been as high as current gas prices. To be more specific, premium gas and you’re paying with a credit card. The Boogeyman is also great at living in small spaces – he’s probably agoraphobic. And he’s not scared of anything because nothing is scarier than the Boogeyman. All of that makes him horrifying.

So why would our parents tell us these scary stories? The stories about the Boogeyman living in our closets; waiting for the perfect time to grab us in the middle of the night and the only way to defend ourselves is to stay under the covers. I have an answer. It doesn’t matter if you agree or disagree, you know it’s the truth. Our parents made up the Boogeyman so we wouldn’t get out of bed and find them having sex.

I’m also focused on the idea of having a middle name. What’s the reason behind it? People don’t go by their middle name – it’s just extra baggage. Kind of like that book your teacher tells you to bring to class and then you don’t use it. Your teacher doesn’t make sense, just like a middle name.

What also doesn’t make sense is the phrasing of the first, middle, and last name. You can come in first place and last place, but no one calls the “in-between” middle place. I think it would be better to call the first name a “front name” and the last name a “back name”. So then you would have a front, middle, and back name, which makes sense. I’m glad we figured that out, but we still have the problem of parents giving their kids embarrassing middle names like Beatrice (sorry Beatrice).

I guess having an embarrassing name is a reason to have a nickname. Most people who actually know my name call me Dustin. However, I’ve given myself several nicknames over the years just for fun: Dust, Dusty, Duster, Dust Buster, Dust Bunny, Durst, Dalps, D-Man, D-Money (that’s my bowling name), D-Unit, and my girlfriend calls me Master.

I don’t understand how signatures work. Like when you sign a check, a contract, or your soul away to the devil, how do people know you actually signed it? My signatures are never consistent. Sometimes my u’s look like i’s and by the end it’s completely illegible. On the signature spectrum, one end being a work of art and the other end being scribbles, my signature is somewhere in the middle – on a good day.

Please don’t call me Mr. Alper, that’s my father. Call me Master Alper. “Mr.” is used for a married man, while “Master” is used for an unmarried man. For more reasons than one I am most definitely not a married man. And yes, a Pokémon Master is an unmarried male who plays Pokémon – otherwise known as a geek.

If you think guy titles are confusing, girl titles are even worse. “Mrs.” means you’re married, that’s easy. But then there’s “Ms.” and “Miss”, they sound the same but mean different things. The title “Miss” is used if you’re not married, and “Ms.” is used if your marital status is unknown. To make life a little simpler, let’s compromise and combine the two titles to create “Mis”.

Unfortunately, most website account options don’t let you choose “Master” or “Mis” as a title preference. They only provide the standard titles: Mr, Mrs, Ms, and Dr. Even though I haven’t received any proper certification, I always put down “Dr.” So when I get a package and the label says “To Dr. Dustin Alper”, it makes me smile that I didn’t waste any money on an education in order to earn that title.

Adding up the title, front, middle, back, up, down, sideways, and diagonal name can be very confusing. That’s why today I’m unveiling my 9-9-9 Plan. It’s a plan to help people figure out what their name should be. You take the first 9 letters of your front name, add the first 9 letters of the alphabet, then subtract the first 9 letters of the alphabet, and whatever you’re left with would be your new name. So in this case, my name would be “Dustin”. And while we are talking about the alphabet, I personally think it needs an upgrade so we can start calling it the betabet. Sorry for the geeky joke. Actually no, I’m not. I’m a Pokémon Master.

Speaking about driving insane, I think it’s insane to text while driving. I have nothing funny to say about this, I just thought I should bring it up if I’m talking about phones. It’s just stupid. Don’t do it. And don’t text while you’re walking either. If you’re not paying attention to where you’re going, I will walk into you and blame you for it.

Since I’m on the topic of things not to do with a phone, don’t put a case on it. I know what you’re thinking, “Dustin, I always drop my phone; it needs to have a case!” Well I never drop my phone. If I can do it, you can do it. My phone sticks to my hand so well, it’s like I’m Spider-Man. Or maybe my hands are sticky because I eat honey with my bare hands (get it, bears like honey) and don’t clean them afterwards. Come on people! Our thumbs are opposable – not disposable – so use them. And if you are using your thumbs, then how are you still dropping your phone? Your hands must be as slippery as a banana peel.

My inner geek is about to come out and you won’t like me when I’m geeky, haha (geeky laugh). Having a case on a phone destroys the phone’s sleekness and beauty. What’s the point of Apple making a thin, gorgeous, aluminum, elegant, luscious, so fetch, semi-attractive, out of this world iPhone if the user is going to hide it in a thick plastic box?

If you are going to put a case on a phone, you might as well do that with anything else that is valuable and portable – like a car or Grandma. Do you think I am crazy for saying that? I just bought a car, which happens to cost more than a cell phone, and you think I’m going to drive the car without putting a case on it first? That’s how crazy I think you sound if you put a case on your phone. If you drop your phone often, buy a more durable phone – like a flip phone. Besides, it’s not like you need all of the fancy features that a smartphone has. I think any phone is good enough to own as long as you can make a phone call with it. More specifically, to call Grandma every morning to make sure she puts on her case before she leaves the house. I don’t want anything bad to happen to my precious cookie-making machine.

It all started when I was an infant. Everyone would speak to me as if I were a baby. Can you believe that? All I wanted to do was talk about the molecular structure of an imbalanced molecule – but no – people would come up to my face and annoyingly say “goo-goo ga-ga” while I was trying to speak to them. As Stephanie Tanner would say, “How rude!”

A year or two later, people became less rude and started speaking to me with real words, but they would repeatedly ask me the same three questions: “What color is this?” “What sound does this make?” and “Who is that?” Yes, I know that an apple is red, a cow says moo, and that is Grandma Harriet; but when are you going to start asking me the tough questions like “How much should I charge to wash all the windows in Seattle?”

Speaking about far away places, once in a while I get the pleasure of seeing my very distant relatives. For some reason all of my distant relatives have the need to tell me, “Dustin, I remember when you were a little baby and now you are so tall!” I honestly don’t care if you remember me as a baby because I have no idea who you are. Also, thanks for pointing out that I have grown during my 20 years of living. I guess that’s why my old clothes don’t fit me. You’re like Cam Jansen solving that mystery.

By the end of 8th grade, I couldn’t have a conversation without someone asking, “Are you excited for high school?” or saying, “Don’t forget to watch out for the bullies.” Why would I be excited for school? That’s ridiculous. And why should I care about bullies? No one would mess with me – I do P90X.

Speaking about bad jokes, this one annoys me the most because I used to hear it so often. “Everybody get off the road, Dustin’s driving!” Yes, I might have been a new driver but that doesn’t mean I was terrible. Now I’m not saying I was the best driver, but I was definitely better than you. And I will admit, the joke was funny the first time. But after hearing it more than once, it was just another bad joke. So, as Joey Gladstone would say, “Cut-it-out.”

One of the last milestones you go through during high school is the wonderful college application process. Everybody wants to know where you applied, if you got accepted, etc. Why should they care where you applied? It just matters where you get in. But what are you suppose to say if you didn’t get accepted? I would probably say, “I was rejected, I’m a reject, and I’ll be in the dumpster sobbing to myself if you need me.”

Milestone commentary is an acceptable conversation starter in today’s society. But in my world, I rather you just say something random to start a conversation. So if I’m seeing you for Thanksgiving or any other time, please don’t bring up any milestone commentary. Either talk about something else – like how I would charge $10 per window to wash every window in Seattle – or stay away from me and shut up.

It’s important to take the perfect first step when approaching the stairs. If something goes wrong, there is a greater chance of tripping. I either have to shuffle my feet or stretch my legs like Mr. Fantastic in order to take that flawless first step. Sure it might look awkward, but it would be more awkward to trip down the stairs, pushing everyone else down with me, including that cute girl from my Zumba class. And of course, my glasses would fly off and I would be like Velma trying to find them. But what’s even more awkward than all of that, is being the only guy in my Zumba class.

If the situation is the other way around and you witness someone else trip there are three things you can do: help, ignore, or laugh. I normally go with a mash-up of laughing to myself while pretending to ignore it. But if one of my professors tripped, I’ll step up and be the first person to help because I could really use some extra credit.

On the sides of the stairs are these things called railings. The railings are to help people get up and down the stairs. Most people don’t use them though because of the germs they attract. But I think germs are a myth; the government made them up so we would buy vast amounts of cleaning products. I don’t know how that would benefit the government, but my theory is bulletproof – I’m always one step ahead of you George Washington. So because germs are a myth, I love touching the railing. Not only that, I receive tremendous satisfaction from gliding my fingers leisurely up and down the rail. No, I am not implying anything further than that.

I personally like to take my time walking up and down the stairs. There is no reason to rush; I’m not Rocky Balboa. The people behind me usually don’t appreciate my laidback attitude. They tell me things like “step it up and walk faster,” “take a step back and let me pass you” – along with a bunch of other step puns.

This is one of the reasons why I started to “step skip”. I also started step skipping for fun with my friends – I call them my step brothers. We usually skip one step at a time, but the crazy step skippers skip two. And sometimes several step skippers skip steps just to make an awesome tongue twister. My mom doesn’t like my step skipping ways; she thinks I should take it “step by step”. And I agree, it’s a lot safer – but sometimes I need to risk it. I started step skipping when I got to college. I have to take at least two flights of stairs to get to each of my classes. I feel like I’m always walking up the stairs; I guess that’s why colleges are called “higher education”.

The most famous group of steps is the Stairway to Heaven. I haven’t seen it for myself but it sounds awesome. Unfortunately the only way to get there is to die. So if you’re planning on passing away anytime soon, you should definitely take a detour and check it out on your way to hell.

The biggest issue I have with taking the stairs – there are always butts in my face. Or should I say my face is in their butt. Well at least that’s how it feels – and sometimes smells. We all need to take a step in the right direction, and stop crowding the stairway, because I am sick of looking at everyone’s butt. Of course, if the butt in front of me belongs to that cute girl in my Zumba class, then I guess it doesn’t hurt to look.

As I grew older, my dream became more of a reality. I traveled to the Roman Colosseum to study their world-famous columns. Some people call that studying architecture, but I call it being a columnist.

I visited New York City to practice writing columns. Columns in buildings, columns in alleyways; I wrote on any column I could find. Some people consider that graffiti, but I consider it real-world experience.

For more real-world experience, I would go to my local newsstand and pick up the New York Times. I rapidly flipped through the pages to my favorite part of the newspaper – the columnist section. I crossed out the existing columns in red cherry-scented marker and wrote my own columns next to them. Then, I placed the newspaper back on the stand. Publicity is key for an amateur columnist to become a renowned, but still amateur, columnist.

I knew it was my destiny to become a columnist but not everyone agreed. My mom thought I lacked the charisma. Every night after she read me a bedtime story, she would whisper in my ear, “Dustin, you’re never going to be a columnist.” Well guess what mom; I’m doing it right now.

But that’s not enough. I want – no – I need to be famous. I will be the first columnist with a Justin Bieber caliber of fame. I have it all planned out. The first part of my plan is to write a column about babies and have Ludacris as a guest writer. The second is to start dating Selena Gomez. Well I don’t know if Justin and Selena are still dating. They have been on and off for the past couple of months. Of course I prefer to be on Selena Gomez rather than off her. And the third part is to uh… I haven’t planned that far ahead yet. But you know what they say: today is the tomorrow we worried about yesterday. Basically, I should start worrying about what’s happening right now.

Like what do columnists wear, a plaid button-down shirt with jeans? Do columnists even wear clothes? What will my friends think when they find out I’m a columnist? Do girls find columnists attractive or is that just me? If no one reads my column, then did I ever write one? And what is dustinalper.com? (cue in smooth transition explaining dustinalper.com)

For those of you who don’t know, during my senior year I was the columnist for my high school newspaper. After I graduated, I had a dark void in my soul. Something was missing. It was me being a columnist. So I decided to start dustinalper.com, where I’m going to first share my original (but remastered) columns and then I’ll start sharing new columns once a month. What do you mean by remastered? Good question. I’m going to re-edit and add new jokes/ideas to my old columns. I am also going to add hidden links, like this one, to help you better understand references that I make in my columns.

If there are any new readers, I want to let you guys know off the bat that my writing style tends to be very sarcastic – no that wan’t sarcasm. If you enjoyed this column you can subscribe via email in the “Subscribe via Email” section down below. Lastly, I have to talk about this so there are no copyright issues. I don’t know if you could tell, but my website is based off Perez Hilton’s. We both have our name in the URL. We both write about pointless topics. The only difference is that my website has a little less pink. No but seriously, the real difference between Perez Hilton and myself is that he is a blogger and I am the columnist.