(a parody of "Wear Sunscreen")
Don't drink white zinfandel.
Even if you like it. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, this would be it. The fact that drinking white zin causes individuals to earn irreversible reputations for bad taste has been proven by sociologists the world over.
The rest of my advice, on the other hand, has no basis more reliable than chain e-mail sent to me when I really should have been working.
I will dispense this advice to you now...
Enjoy the power and beauty of your virility. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your virility until you're choking on Viagra like a frigging multi-vitamin. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at your sexual prowess and it'll hit you in a way that you can't grasp now how it's not so bad to cum too early - and how fabulous it is to cum at all.
Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is about as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation while reading Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses" backwards while balancing a plate on your head. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind -- the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday, when you decide to surprise your wife and come home from work early, and your best friend's Corvette is parked in the driveway.
Do one thing every day that scares the shit out of you. Like walking into South Central L.A. with a hood on your head.
Fart.
Don't be reckless with other people's cars, especially if they're more expensive than your own. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours, unless they have lots of insurance.
Get drunk.
Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, you can always get plastic surgery and trade up anyway.
Remember compliments you receive. Return insults a thousandfold. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how. I love a good laugh.
Keep your old love letters. The love letters will remind you of how your wife wasn't always a nagging bitch.
Throw away old bank statements. Especially the ones from the secret account your wife knows nothing about.
Don't feel guilty if you don't know what to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't. They tell me about it all the time as they wrap themselves up in a blanket and roll their shopping carts down Broadway in Santa Monica, mumbling "skittles, skittles, skittles."
Get plenty of calcium. Maybe you'll be featured in a "Got Milk" ad and make lots of money, like Steve Young, and Jennifer Love-Hewitt. Be kind to your knees. Be kind to your breasts. You'll miss them when your breasts are at your knees.
Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. And maybe you're going to be the one that saves me, and after all, you're my wonderwall.
Remember that you can't congratulate yourself too much, or berate other people enough. Life is half chance, so if you come out ahead, God must love you more than other people.
Dance, even if you're white.
Don't read directions. They're just a ploy engineered by paper manufacturers to sell unnecessary paper to the world.
Do not read beauty magazines. Porn is much more fun.
Get to know your parents. They're always good for a couple of bucks when you're in between jobs.
Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past, and might make more money than you in the future.
Understand that friends come and go, but Star Trek on UPN is forever. So are a few good friends. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who remember you when you had hair.
Live in New York City once, but leave before someone ties you up in your apartment and chops your head off.
Live in Northern California once, but leave before you start wearing leather and hanging out with people named "Bruce."
Burp.
Accept certain inalienable truths: You will always work too hard, for too little money. Your wife's boobs will sag. So will yours. Prices will soar, and no matter how much money you make, you won't be able to afford to buy the house you really, really want. You, too, will get old, and when you do, you will fantasize that when you were young, your wife's boobs didn't sag, prices were reasonable, and you didn't care how much money you had, because living in a filthy apartment with four other guys off-campus with a cabinet full of Top Ramen and Lucky Lager was all you needed.
Don't expect anyone else to support you. Unless they're really, really rich.
Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one will be dipped into by someone else. Be careful whose advice you buy, but be liberal with supplying it. People love that.
Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it so that somebody else, younger than you, can get screwed over just like you did, and you can point and laugh.
But trust me on the white zinfandel...