I’ve had some dark days over the years, very real moments in my life when I’ve had to ask the universe, “WHY?” But I had a revelation today in which I had the great fortune to find something that not many people ever discover, especially at a relatively young age like I did. I have discovered my purpose in life.

I am here on Earth to serve as a warning to others. I am a proverbial head-on-a-London-bridge-pike. Listen to my tales of woe and learn from my misfortune.

When I was three, I ate some kind of weird insanity-pepper because my brothers told me it was a cherry popsicle. I think it actually scarred the inside of my mouth. I learned that my brothers are assholes and I’m not really all that smart. And that my parents are psychos who grow insanity peppers in their garden.

At eight years old, I learned never to listen to my dad because he gave me a plastic garbage sack and told me to amuse myself by picking up litter. I reached out and grabbed a dull metal cannister that happened to be an Army-issue smoke grenade and burned the snot out of my hand. Who the heck leaves those things lying around?

The summer before sixth grade my feet had a growth spurt while the rest of my body did not, and I seem to recall that just one foot grew a lot bigger at first and the other one had to catch up to it. Who knew that could happen? I spent pretty much the entire school year face down in various places and my mom had to send a note asking the office to call her if I fell down any more so she could have me evaluated for epilepsy.

Oddly enough, middle school wasn’t too bad but by high school I learned that giving your kids weird names like Lorca means all the teachers are going to call the child “Orca” on the first day of school because the idiot in the office left off the first letter of her name by mistake. Trust me on this, name your kid Sam. Boy or girl, doesn’t matter.

By high school graduation, I ate what was possibly Mad Cow Disease-ly tainted beef and therefore cannot give blood anymore because I was contaminated. Congratulations, I can no longer donate a vital organ, either, even after I’m dead.

Ladies and gentlemen, that was just my formative years. Random weird crap has been happening to me ever since then, crazy things that make people think, “Seriously? What exactly were you doing when a piece of the Space Shuttle landed on your head?” This stuff keeps happening to me because I am alive just to be a professional cautionary tale. My entire life is meant for others to sit back and watch what happens to me. It’s like being a whipping boy, only my suffering comes from being strip searched in three different airports for traveling to the Middle East without any luggage but coming home with luggage. It’s a long story.