Necessary Consequences

Question: What do backsweat, doorknobs, and disappearing ribs all have in common?

Answer: They are all necessary consequences of other actions.

Let me explain.

Doing something you enjoy often requires you to deal with things that are a bit more tiresome. For example, I love playing tennis. I don't love picking up the balls in between rallies. The part that no one loves - like picking up tennis balls when not hitting them - is what I'm calling a necessary consequence. Here, we'll examine three of the worst ones.

Necessary Consequence #1: Backsweat

If you haven't heard of the term backsweat before, it's not hard to figure out - it's just the sweat on your back. If you can't grasp that concept, I have included a photo. In the photo, former president George W. Bush's back is unfortunately sweating like a pig (a pig's back?). Pay no mind to the woman on his right, or to where his right hand is inevitably headed.

I said pay no mind!

Backsweat is, unfortunately, a necessary consequence of driving on a hot day. Summer in Southern California + typical L.A. traffic = semi-serious consideration to apply deodorant to your back (maybe a stick of deodorant strapped to a back-scratcher could be my next million-dollar idea). Leather seats in your car make the situation even worse. But the absolute worst part is that there is nothing you can do about it. No matter how cold or strong your air conditioner is, it doesn't help. Maybe that's where they got that famous saying, "A freezing face prevents not a sweaty back."

Necessary Consequence #2: Doorknobs

You know how you always wash your hands after you go to the bathroom? No? Okay, well, you know how you're supposed to always wash your hands after you go to the bathroom? Isn't it annoying that after you get your hands all clean, you have to touch a freaking doorknob - probably one of the most bacteria-infested things in the world - to get out of the bathroom?

The problem is especially bad in public restrooms that have doorknobs that look like this:



or this:



You have no choice but to really grab the thing and twist, making sure you get all the dirtiness smothered around in the newly-washed hand of yours. And many times, with doorknobs like these, the door is just old enough that you don't totally know which way to turn the knob, and/or the door is kinda stuck so you have to give it a couple of shakes. It would be a lot easier if all bathrooms had automatic sliding doors (another million-dollar idea? I'm on a roll here).

Necessary Consequence #3: Diminishing Ribs

This point doesn't apply strictly to ribs, but I think ribs make the best illustration. Here is an illustration, to help illustrate my point:

Mmm...ribs.

The best part about eating ribs is eating the first one. Why? Because at that point, not only are you enjoying your long-awaited meal, you still have the entire rack of ribs in front of you, waiting to be eaten. About halfway through, you realize that the more you eat, the less you have left. This is a terrible consequence of eating - maybe the worst of all.

You may think that all of this is just conjecture on my part. You would be wrong. Here's photographic proof:

This is a picture of a group of friends and me when we were seniors in college. We stopped by a barbeque place for dinner one night during spring break, and as you can see, we were quite happy as THIS arrived:

So good. Ribsy ribs ribs, I love youuu. All the way down my belly.

And then...this:



This is us after we got back from break. We might be a little unhappy because 1) we had to leave sunny Florida for dreary Pennsylvania; 2) we had to start school again; and 3) we're all wearing the same shirt like we're a massive boy band; but I think this is mostly due to the fact that we had no more ribs left after we ate them all.

Now if only I could figure out how to make ribs stay on your plate as you ate them - a truly never-ending stack of ribs - that would be my true million-dollar idea.