The Rightness of Wrongness Housecoat Diaries People often ask me, “So, what’s with the whole bathrobe thing?” I’m a helpful guy, so I usually respond by subtly reminding them that they’re wrong in their terminology. I just say, “I’m sorry, did you say smoking jacket? It’s called a housecoat, actually,” and leave it at that. The thing is that there’s really no point in worrying about whether or not people are right or wrong about you or your attire or anything for that matter. Wrongness is actually a kind of remarkable achievement. If you’ve ever had a story written about you in the newspaper, you’ll know what I’m talking about, since there’s always something a bit wrong in those articles. Scary as it may seem, this pervasive problem suggests that every explanation about everything is in some way inaccurate. Sort of a disturbing thought, isn’t it? Although, it need not be, as I shall endeavour to explain. Since I have the time to consider these things (the actual point and purpose of the “whole bathrobe thing”), it occurs to me that it’s essential to the economy for something to always be in need of being made right. And this need for help isn’t limited to just the economy. The more I think about it, wrongness is almost as important for humanity as air, shelter, food and water. What you need to at least try to understand in this quest for the rightness of wrongness is that the world is full of very helpful people, all armed with the best of intentions and a bulging and ever-growing list of rules and regulations and philosophies of all kinds. Naturally, these kind souls would be wasting their potential if everything was right in the world. So they have to make things wrong. And not just some things. No. Everything has to be in an ever-evolving wheel of wrongness in order for there to be constant new demands for help. It’s a challenging business, this constant wrong-making, but without it, you’ve got no point in government, without which the world would collapse into anarchic insanity (as opposed to bureau-crazy, I suppose). Without wrongness, you’d also have no need for organized religion, which would confuse the hell out of a whole host of eager little devils out there. And God forbid that everything we consume could be alright. If we start going down that road, we may as well give up on science altogether. Let’s just face it: one thing that will always be right is that everything will always be wrong. It’s a mess, I know, and we need help. We can all do so much better if we challenge ourselves to find more completely stupid rules to follow, and we listen more attentively to people desperate to keep their petty little jobs. Today is the future. It is the first day of the rest of our lives. It is our moment to rise from our bathrobes and to seize the wrongness and to truly take it to a level never before achieved by humanity. All we have to do is just give up on that last shred of rightness. Give in, people! Do something wrong today. Your local authorities are depending on it.