By Patrick J. Sauer
A few years back, I wrote three editions of the prestigious The Complete Idiot’s Guide series. My topics were the American Presidents, Surviving Anything and the sadly out-of-print Starting A Reading Group. Damn you, Oprah.
Anyhow, I figure it is high-time to add another feather to my reference book cap. Unfortunately, I’ve learned the publishers now want their authors to be “experts,” not regular people who can look stuff up.
So, under the new guidelines, I am offering myself as an expert in the following categories:
1) The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Tap Water
2) The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Metal Sculpture Artistry of Lyndon Pomeroy (Not to future editor: Consider Pomeroy the “Christo of Billings, Montana.”)
3) The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Greco-Roman Showering
4) The Complete Idiot’s Guide to My Three Idiot Kid Brothers
5) The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Precise Amount of Mustard and Mayonnaise Needed for an Even-Keeled Ham & Cheese Sandwich
6) The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Setting Up a Completely Separate and Surreptitious Web Browser for the Enjoyment of Internet Pornography
7) The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Hoover, Bunny, Moosie, Grover, Sharkie and Walter P. McSquiggles (Note to future editor: I refuse to acknowledge Flipper-arms Snoopy.)
8) The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Horrific Decisions Made by the Philadelphia 76ers Upper Management
9) The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Early Work of Don Cheadle
10) The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Cultural History of Hip-Hop Lyrics that Sample Nursery Rhymes (Note to future editor: Chapter One, Case Study. “Pop goes the weasel, ‘cuz the weasel goes Pop.”)
