The "I Don't Know" List

Yesterday I set out to make a list of all the things I don't know.

As my friends can attest to, there's a lot I don't know. So I was prepared for a long list.

But still, I figured that list would be just short of infinite. Because clearly I do know some things.

Here are some things I know:

• I know to use the inside-my-head voice when comparing my daughter's application of makeup to a popular 70s rock band.

• I know that counting each stair every time I'm on a set of them is slightly OCD. And I'm currently at 4,576,342 stairs in my lifetime.

• I know that in the special case of escalators, it counts as one step, for obvious reasons.

• I know that when I enter a men's public washroom and there is only one guy at the urinals, I choose the urinal furthest away from him. No, I don't enter ladies washrooms.

• I know that the fleshlight is not a product of my imagination, but a real product and it will not be under my tree this year.

• I know that thickly-cut maple bacon is the best replacement for regular sex you'll ever find.

• I know that if a man eats maple bacon on a tablecloth with candlelight and soft music, his tongue will become erect.

But there's a problem.

I don't even know what know means. Is knowing myself the same as knowing that the $1,000 brass tap system we have in our bathroom has no available parts on this planet?

I am, you see, far more complicated than a plumbing part. Paul seems depressed – get the drano.

From this observation we can surmise that know doesn't always mean know.

During my single life, know always meant no. As in, I know the girl's answer would be no.

So I never refer to girls that have known me, but girls that have no'd me. This even applies to girls that don't know me, but know a girl that has said no to me in the past. God knows there's plenty of those.

Does know ever mean yes? I thought it did. Whenever I looked at a girl and she was playing with her hair, I would know that yes, she wants me.

What I didn't know is that earlier in the day she got some bubble gum stuck in her hair from groping her boyfriend and she didn't know I was looking at her.

Does no ever mean know? I learned that it did. After a while, as girls kept saying no, I began to know what was going on. I know – time to get married, get a fleshlight or die early from eating way too much maple bacon.

Suddenly there was something else I know. The list of things I don't know must be blank.

Obvious, because it's a list of things I don't know. How can I put them on a list?

Unless we get into the things I know I don't know and the things I don't know that I don't know.

I'd rather not do that at this time because I know that I (and probably you too) have a fucking headache.