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I want to be an astronaut when I grow up,” said young Delilah.

“You live in a tiny village outside a small town next to a great big city,” said her mother. “You will stay here and work on our farm. You will never be an astronaut.”

Indeed, Delilah worked on the farm for many years and grew old. On her final day, in the care of local villagers, she turned and asked, “Was I an astronaut?” And they said, “Yes. You were a great astronaut.” And she said, “Really? I was?” And they said, “Shhhh. No more talking.”

Social Skills

There has never been a time when people could communicate and express themselves as instantly and as much as they can now. It’s hard to believe, but there was a time when communicating meant we had to WRITE LETTERS! (If you’re reading this book to your kids as a bedtime story, and I highly suggest you do, now might be a good time to teach them about handwritten letters, record players, VCRs, and the first season of The Hills.)

Nobody writes letters anymore, which means nobody has pen pals. I remember when I was probably about ten years old I had a pen pal, and writing letters back and forth with him was one of my favorite things to do. His name was Steve and he lived in one of those huge mansions that’s so big it has a name. It was called the Louisiana State Penitentiary, and he told me it was even bigger than the mayor’s mansion. We’d send letters back and forth and he’d ask me to send him my favorite books and small pieces of metal or wood that were lying around and all the money I could find in my house. And I’d gather them all up and put cute little stickers of cats on the packages and send them away. It was so fun. Eventually we stopped writing because I moved to another city and he moved out to live on his own. He called it “solitary confinement.” I was always so impressed by his vocabulary.

I’ve always liked writing. I like the feeling of having a nice pen in my hand. It feels like I’m creating something when I put pen to paper, even if it is just a doodle of a flower or a note that says, “If you ever park in my spot again I will have your ass towed.” It’s a nice feeling.

When you physically write something down you’re forced to take time to actually think about what you’re writing. We don’t really do that anymore. Now we just press buttons. We can delete things and change things at our leisure. We’re so spoiled. Think about what cavemen had to go through when they wanted to write something down. They had to chisel it into stone. It probably took hours just to write “Dear Krog. Going out for bread. Be back in twenty. Glok.” If they made a mistake they’d have to go out and find another flat stone and start all over. Who knows if they ever even made it out for bread. I do know they used to club each other over the head a lot, so I’m not saying we should do everything like the cavemen. I’m just saying nobody writes letters anymore.

Now everything is electronic and instantaneous. We e-mail, we text, we Facebook, we Twitter, Skype, instant message, iChat, blog, dance interpretively on YouTube. Every person who has a passing thought, opinion, question, or answer can express it immediately on his or her computer, phone, laptop, tablet, or other portable electronic device that will be invented and revolutionize communication in the short window of time between my writing this book and it being published.

Way, way back in the day, like in the 1990s, if you wanted to tell everyone you ate waffles for breakfast, you couldn’t just go on the Internet and tweet it out. There was only one way to do it. You had to go outside and scream at the top of your lungs, “I ate waffles for breakfast!” That’s why so many people ended up in institutions. They seemed crazy, but when you think about it, they were just ahead of their time.

Right this second, someone is probably reading this book and thinking, “I’m thirsty for tequila.” I’m guessing that’s what they’re thinking because that’s what I’m thinking as I write it. So that reader is going to take to their Twitter account