I never paid attention much in school when it came to Greek Gods and myths and legends. Turns out I probably should have paid less attention to math and science and more attention the Legends. Because the kind of math that I use nowadays can either be solved by calculators, Excel or YouTube. But the knowledge of the legends, I’ll never be able to get back, unless I read a book or something. But like when do I have time for books?

Actually, it isn’t true that I have to learn about the legends from books. I found a much better storyteller than books or my imagination. I learn from the real legends, video game makers. Why read when you can steal your imagination from video game creators? For instance, I learned about the Legend of Icarus from an ancient video game called Kid Icarus on the NES. The most important thing I learned about him was how hard his life was. I spent so much time trying to figure out how to beat just one level on that game, that I could have actually read a book in that time. But I persevered through the game instead of doing homework, math or reading, because getting to the ending was important.

The ending of the game was so important because it taught me everything I needed to know about Icarus. He gets some wings, learns how to fly, and he destroys Medusa with some awesome laser beams. Who needs a book to learn about legends? In fact, can somebody tell me where in the Odyssey or in Greek Mythology where they talk about the Legend of Zelda, or the Ocarina of Time, or the Master Sword? I looked on Wikipedia and it says nothing about Zelda anywhere the Odyssey or Greek Mythology. Which just goes to prove that playing video games is always more important than reading books.

If you are one of those people that actually believe the book more than the video game version of Icarus, then you believe that he gets some wax wings and flies too close to the sun. If that is the case, I’m Icarus, because I fly way too close to the sun all the time. Like early in June when I went to Scotland, I flew in an airplane and that airplane was at least 31,000 feet above the air, which was way too close to the sun. If I recall correctly, it was way too hot in the plane, and I had to twist that knob above my seat that let slightly more air blow on my face. If it wasn’t for that little bit of air, I believe the sun would have melted the wax airplane wings the flight attendants gave me. I probably would have fallen down 3 feet to the back of the plane and would’ve had to end that Karen that had snakes in her hair and she was complaining to the flight attendant that she didn’t get her drink with the 4 cubes of ice like she said. Luckily, I destroyed her my withering laser beamed side-eye before she could talk to the manager.

Actually, I’m more of a metaphorical flying too close to the sun kind of guy. Like for instance, I sometimes fly too close to the sun by asking my wife if she will make me a sandwich. She (The Sun that I rotate around) usually burns me by throwing bread, some meat and mayonnaise at my head and says, “Make your own.” Sometimes, I follow the sun’s example at work. 10 years ago, my boss asked me to fill out a spreadsheet. I threw the spreadsheet at their head, and told them, “Make your own.” and finally something good happened to me. They let me go home early that day! They even told me I didn’t have to come back for the rest of the day! And every other day! I was really surprised how liberal their vacation policy was. That was 10 years ago, and I haven’t seen any money in my direct deposit for all the vacation time I’ve been taking, but I figure that is just a glitch. At least I got to keep the red Swingline stapler I brought in the brown box they let me bring home for my vacation.

I used to fly really close to the sun with girls too. In my senior year of high school, I had this psychology class and I sat next to this cute girl. One time she mentioned to me that the teacher said we should write down what he said. I was like, “Girl, stop flirting with me so much!”, but I was nice enough to allow her to like me. I would walk by her locker every day to allow her the chance to ask me out. I would stare at her in class to give her the chance to stare back. I even went to her work all the time, just so she could be in my presence. I figured the reason why she never talked to me after that was that I was the sun, and if she got too close, she would have melted. After that realization, I kept a safe distance from her because that is what a responsible guy I was. (It had nothing to do with me asking her out and getting rejected, because she wanted to ask me out.) Lesson learned.

The real lesson is how we should use shiny objects *over here* (see these funny giftures over here) before revealing too much about yourself. Bitter Friday Giftures right here….

Hey guys look over here…

There’s stuff over here…

Okay, you can look back now…

If you are a human named Zach…

Like this other Zach…

In addition to human Zach angelic legends like…

Pit as…

And Link…

But warning to all flyers…

Don’t wear wax wings…

Or fly too close to the sun…

But worst of all, you’ll get stern lecture from Gabe…

So what have we learned today? Don’t read books, because you don’t learn anything from them. Play video games if you want to learn about legends. If you want your kid to be able to fly, name them Zach. Don’t fly too close to the sun, either in real life or in metaphor life, and if you need to distract someone, use shiny objects, like Giftures…or the sun.

ARRRGGGHHHHHHH

Bitter Kid Icarus Complex Ben