Angry Penguin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’m looking out for you guys.  I want you all to lead happy and fulfilling lives, and I want to spare you from the pain and trauma that exist around every corner in this world.  So here is today’s life lesson:

What with the election season heating up and all the controversy over transvaginal ultrasounds and Tim Tebow being traded and all the other drama going on in our complicated little lives, we’ve seen a number of very passionate monologues, dialogues, arguments, discussions, and flat-out rants lately.  They’re on TV, at home, at work, in church, waiting in line at the grocery store…you haven’t lived until you’ve had a gut-wrenching, no-holds-barred debate on Kim Kardashian’s marriage with the lady at the next table in the coffee shop, and then you realize at the end of it that not only have you never seen each other before that day, you haven’t even bothered to exchange names.

So because I want to help you on your path to spiritual enlightenment, here is my advice:  if you’re going to go on a rant, be it televised or otherwise, make sure you dress up.  I get a lot of free entertainment out of watching people go on television in bad suits and uncombed hair, giving longwinded diatribes on the proper method of vermin control or whatever hot button issue, but a rant inevitably ends up with the ranter sounding like a crazy person with his or her voice hitting that register that only other nutjobs can hear.  If your hair is all shiny and styled and your makeup is done, maybe you’ve got a particularly flattering shirt on, no matter how crazy you sound, you will still come off as reasonable.  This is because people don’t actually pay attention to the content of what other people say.  Politicians have been taking advantage of this fact for centuries.

This also holds true if you just happen to be in the lunchroom at work and someone wants to bring up the latest idiot comment that [Insert politician/celebrity of choice’s name here] said.  If you’re having a bad hair day, or your tie is loose or there’s a run in your pantyhose, you’re going to come across as disheveled and unstable.  If you’re all power-suited up and you’re wearing your diamond earrings and you actually bothered to curl your lashes that day, you can say whatever you want and someone’s going to nod along with you.  Ranting is all about image.  You don’t want to be the crazy-homeless-person-ranter.  You want to be the clever, witty, insightful ranter who could have your own television show if you weren’t too busy doing work that matters.

So there’s your life lesson for the day: rant with style and you, too, could end up with a special broadcast on Yahoo, filmed in front of a hand-selected audience who will laugh and clap sycophantically.  Or else you’ll just rule the lunch room.  If you haven’t managed to pull it quite together, bite your tongue and live to rant another day.  But always rant responsibly.  Here endeth the lesson.