Solo Do Overs

So you’re ready to go back and relive a great moment, or reopen a festering can of worms, are you? Avoid failure by following these guidelines from our panel of Do Over Veterans:

1. Be sure the do over area is well-ventilated.

2. Never attempt a do over while under the influence of marijuana (to avoid certain disappointment over your inability to recall having done it).

3. If your solo do over involves performance art, be sure to open all curtains so others may share the pleasures of this under-recognized form of expression.

4. If in an office or room at home, put a sign on your door, or advise co-workers, friends and family of a do over in progress, and that the best thing they can do is act normal until you’re done.

5. When engaging in a do over of an unpleasant, embarrassing or humiliating experience you are attempting to repair, be sure to remain open to it unfolding the same way again or worse. Do overs are not as easy as they often seem.

6. NEVER attempt a do over in combination with a time machine. This confuses the laws of nature and you could end up locked inside a bi-dimensional feedback loop.
   

Do Overs With Others

Partaking of a do over with someone else or a group can be a great event, provided the following procedures are adhered to:

1. When doing over an unpleasant event for the purposes of making things right, do not inform other involved parties that a do over is in progress. Simply begin it and allow them to gradually become aware that events are veering away from normality. Should they ask what is occurring, you have the option of telling the truth or maintaining feined ignorance of what they’re talking about. You must decide on the right course of action to facilitate the outcome you’re seeking.

2. When recommending do overs to others, always try to be diplomatic, especially when it involves plastic surgery failures, comments about rear ends, genital capabilities, breath content, gaseous expulsions and other sources of socio-neurotic anxiety.

3. Do over experiences regarding unrequited love should be handled delicately if they are to succeed. The object of your affections is best served when in a position of inescapability, such that you have their ear, and that their hands are well fastened (for your own protection), but not so much that they are unable to receive any gifts you may wish to bestow upon them.

I am a compulsive shoplifter. After many years of pilfering everything from jeans to stereos to kittens from hundreds of stores, I began to experience guilt twinges over my deeds. So in order to feel better about myself, I began to take only fair trade merchandise – coffee, chocolate, running shoes, etc. – on the idea that at least I can help the poor while stealing. My question is this: Now that I’ve transformed myself into a force for good, does that wipe out all previous sins, as well as the need for any do overs?

Larcenist Against Poverty

Dear LAP,

You’re fine. In fact, you should open a finishing school to teach the world about your ethics. LAP, we have a label for people like you: Don’t Overs. It applies to people whose grasp of the ways of civilization is so profoundly indefensible, unseemly and base that salvation shall forever elude them. You just keep at it till something, say a weasel you’ve stuffed down your pants in a pet store, stops you.

Dear Do Over Guru,

I asked my boyfriend if my bum looked fat and he asked me back, ‘Do you want the truth or a lie?’ I said I wanted a lie. But I think he told the truth. I freaked, he’s gone into hiding. Who needs a do over, him or me?

Buttful in Milton

Dear BIM,

Ahhh, the old ‘Do I look fat in this?’ ruse. It’s been used in every culture since the caveman era as a trick by women who feel unloved, unattractive, or just genuinely curious about how their bums look, to rob men of any conjugal bliss they might have been able to scratch out of the relationship. I’m afraid that since no man has ever been known to evade the dressing down that follows anything other than the expected flattering lie, that it is you, my dear, who must indulge your boyfriend in a massive do over consisting of the following:

1. 3 weeks of uninterrupted Grand Theft Auto IV and/or Call of Duty 3

2. 3 weeks of whatever he wants to eat delivered nightly

3. A new set of gorgeous rims with top-of-line Michelins

4. A pledge, signed in your arterial blood, that you will never ask him or any other male on earth that accursed question again
   

Dear Do Over Guru,

I’m scared I may have sabotaged my career and really need advice. Recently, I was asked by a superior (not mine) at work to do something that doesn’t fall under my area of responsibility. I tried to explain that I am neither qualified nor experienced enough to do what he’d asked, but he wasn’t hearing me and insisted. So I did the thing to the best of my ability and not only did I get it terribly wrong, but ended up costing the company tens of thousands of dollars. The superior who made me do this publicly blamed me, saying I took it upon myself to do this thing, and so I’m being blamed by my own boss and his, and so on up the line to the overseas CEO. So I thought I’d try to remedy the situation by sending out a mass email to all senior staff explaining everything truthfully, but emotion got the better of me... the instant I clicked SEND, well, I knew I shouldn’t have. Now they all want my head, but I didn’t do one wrong thing. Well maybe one. I did have a brief affair with the superior a year ago, and spurned him because he was basically impotent (I tried to be gentle). What’s the right course of action now?

Sucker-Punched Unionville Girl

Dear SPUG,

We in the Do Over trade have an expression for people in situations such as yours: ‘Virtually Undooverable.’ This is, unfortunately, one of those situations where nothing short of a Broad-Spectrum Do Over can help you. That means, do over your upbringing, schooling, career choices, what you had in your coffee every morning, where you’ve turned left, gone west, had a door held by a stranger and whoever you’ve smiled at, laughed with, etc. The works. Somewhere you made a wrong move, and so you must retrace your steps to find out where that was, and then commence what we call a ‘Universal Amelioration Initiative’ to set things right. I wish you extra luck, and am glad not to be in your shoes.