·Have a poorly attended garage sale wherein you make about $20 total for about seven hours of work. Pack up what doesn’t sell and store it for two months. Then try again.
·Read a book. Or two.
·Drive to the beach on a rainy day; distract yourself from the hypothermia-inducing cold by dodging the dead fish floating in Lake Michigan.
·Play tennis with someone who’s just as bad at it as you are. Feel pride when you no longer have to run all the way out into the street to chase after balls.
·Give yourself a patriotic pedicure.
·Watch fireworks with a friend who ruins your enjoyment of the green ones by telling you they are made with a chemical used in rat poison.
·Read Berenstain Bear books to your niece and discover that your fireworks friend nearly ruined them for you by pointing out that Papa Bear is largely portrayed as foolish or absent.
·Think up ways to ruin something for fireworks friend.
·Catch up on all the magazines you put aside in order to keep up with your read-a-book-a-week resolution.
·Take the Cosmo quiz “Are You the Boring Friend?” Score “Hey, Wanna Be Friends?” because the ‘right’ answers are so obvious.
·Meet with your pastor and try not to say anything heretical that will get you put on the prayer list.
·Post something political on Facebook and see who unfriends you.
·On a hot day, run sprints at the local track. Vomit in front of the guys playing on the football field.
·Have lunch with friends at an authentic Mexican restaurant.
·Watch Mystery! on PBS. Renew your goal to marry someone British.
·Clean. Or at least organize by putting things in piles.
·Walk through your neighborhood, taking note of who owns angry dogs.
·Meditate on whether your weird dream was God’s way of suggesting a story for your next novel or whether it was His way of suggesting you lay off the garlic.
·Sit down to write the sketch you promised your comedy partner you’d work on and end up making a list of things to do when you’re on vacation and basically broke. Post to blog.