Alas, I'm on Twitter

https://twitter.com/fmarciuliano

Oh, the sheer joy you must be feeling now.

Parental Standardized Aptitude Test

Parentage is a very important profession but no test is ever imposed in the interest of the children.” — George Bernard Shaw

What should you tell a child after the death of a pet?
a. “Didn’t I say something like this would happen?”
b. “Let us commemorate this sad occasion with a burial at sea in the bathroom. But first take off his collar.”
c. “I guess Snookers is in heaven now, peeing on God’s rug, scratching his leather sofa and just fucking asking to be put to sleep again.”

How do you put the best spin on the sad fact your child is just none-too-bright?
a. “He just responds to a more creative, less didactic take on the alphabet.”
b. “Perhaps if she had the right teacher she would have known what can and can’t fly.”
c. “When I see the way he makes a sandwich, I just know he’s going to have a steady career.”

The advantage of twins is…
a. Having a spare in case one blows out.
b. Having both a control and experimental group to test out your theories on nature versus nurturing, love versus neglect and human parents versus wolf pack.
c. Fooling your neighbors into thinking you’ve mastered the science of teleporting children across the room.

Your child just broke your vase while playing in the house. What do you do?
a. Point at them and yell, “Spazz!”
b. Attach an undue amount of emotional and historical significance to the vase until the child wishes he or she had shattered on the hallway floor instead.
c. Walk toward the child’s bedroom, baseball bat in hand, saying, “Two can play at that game.”

What’s the best advice you can give your teenage son?
a. “Liquor to beer, never fear.”
b. “You don’t really have the body for a sundress.”
c. “God gave you a tongue for a reason, son.”

After inadvertently opening up all your child’s drawers, unintentionally flipping over their mattress and cutting open their box spring you accidentally come across a Ziploc bag of Ecstasy tabs. What do you do?
a. Teach them a lesson by blowing through their entire stash during 18 consecutive viewings of “Liquid Sky.”
b. Empty the contents and replace it with a note reading, “Sorry, I ate the tabs—The Bag.”
c. Show them the lingering effects of E by replacing all their socks with animatronic versions.

How do you tell a child that they’re adopted?
a. In icing on a birthday cake.
b. After they bring home a bad report card.
c. The moment talk of college tuition comes up.

How should you introduce the topic of sex with your children?
a. Dub over their Wiggles tape.
b. Keep your bedroom door unlocked.
c. Let every occasion prompt a dirty joke.

Your child comes home emotionally devastated from an embarrassing incident at school. What do you do?
a. Toughen up your kid by saying, “Every time a child cries an angel drops dead.”
b. Politely ask your child why he must consistently bring shame to the family name.
c. Believing that things are never as bad as we fear, encourage your child to talk about the embarrassing incident at the dinner table, only for you to laugh so hard that broccoli comes out your nose.

How to Tell if You're a Superhero

Your nickname in high school was “That weird kid who jumped nine stories to put out an apartment fire with his ice breath.”

When a coworker asks where you went last night you accidentally blurt out “Jakarta.”

Surviving that nuclear blast has been a mixed blessing at best.

Your fascination with a particular animal has transcended from “hobby” to “motif.”

You tend to say, “Or my parents died in vain!”, even when deciding on a sconce.

For someone with several billion dollars who can sleep with anyone they desire you’re kind of a doleful son of a bitch.

Your closest companion is someone 20 years your junior who has a diminutive version of your exact same name (i.e., “Boy Lou”).

You tend to get into fights with the same three people.

Your military experience consists of two space wars and a tussle with the Lava Men.

What some may consider your “goody-two-shoe nature” you know as the very reason there’s a still a Kansas.

You have to remember to say “Ow” when shot.

For a supposed mid-tier executive at a biotech firm you seem to have spent an inordinate portion of your teens and twenties in a monastery learning budo ninjutsu.

You’ve Googled “cowls.”

You have a contentious relationship with the local authorities, the public, the press and that evil cabal of body-morphing mentalists.

Whenever you get a CNN Breaking News email your first thought is, “I better go ask Mr. Patrillo if I can have the afternoon off again.”

Most of your romantic relationships end in plummets.

You have a unitard and a rich back-story, but you’re not a wrestler.

Your career path has been dictated to a large degree by aliens.

You save people without thought of personal safety, remuneration or resumé-building.

You’ve pimped the hell out of your Leatherman.

You belong to a group that’s sort of like the Kiwanis Club, only your meeting hall orbits in space.

You recognize old friends in mythology books.

You have a predilection for tight spandex, masks, capes and kneepads, but no ball-gags.

Whenever someone says there’s no life on other planets you exclaim, “Oh, like your earth is one constant party!”

Your moral code is so strong that rabbis have told you to lighten up.

Your base of operations consists of more than just a laptop, cell phone number and favorite chair at Starbucks.

Sometimes you accidentally start your signature with “The Amazing.”

Today's Bizarro Strip...

...is a masterpiece. Read it here.

Because Deep Down We All Want a Monkey

Ad thoughtfully provided by Artie Langston.

Why do I love this ad? It's not simply the way the monkey is superimposed on a picture of a hand, as if they couldn't find a model actually willing to hold the creature for more than two seconds without fear of being mauled, peed upon or fornicating with what appears to be a pinky ring. Or how the monkey seems to be wearing the first-ever flannel belly shirt, like a cross between grunge and the Jersey Shore. Or that the ad takes special care to highlight the word "YOUNG," as if squirrel monkeys are well-known for their Dorian Gray-like imperviousness to the ravages of age. It's that the copy stresses that the monkeys like "lollipops." What kind of freak-ass Lolita fetish must they think the average primate consumer has that the idea of a "YOUNG" squirrel monkey sucking on a Charms Blow Pop while strutting around the perimeter of a kitchen island in a half-shirt will cause orders to flood into a business curiously named after a parable on the inherent evils of not only Stalinism but also permitting animals into your home?

All that said, I'm writing my check now.

Happy New Years!