Life Lessons by Lana Lang

1. Visiting your dead parents’ graves and talking to them in the middle of the night is not strange.

2. It’s not at all strange to find boxes in your bedroom filled with butterflies. In fact, it’s quite charming, kind of like when Cinderella gets dressed with birds and mice helping her.

3. You should break up when your boyfriend stays friends with his cheating friends. You should feel sad and then forgive him right away when your boyfriend and two of his friends string up a helpless freshman in a field for a whole night.

4. You should also forgive him for losing your favorite piece of jewelry.

5. Get mad at your legal guardian for leaving out miniscule pieces of your parents’ lives, especially if it’s your dead parents’ feelings when they were 17years old. I mean, how dare they keep that information from you?

6. Accepting a date that isn’t a date from a guy who likes you but isn’t your boyfriend shouldn’t make your boyfriend mad. Just smile and sprain your ankle. He’ll forgive you.

7. Lose an old person once, it’s cute. Lose an old person twice, you qualify for sainthood and It Girl of the Year. Scoot over, Joey Potter.

8. The way to get over a traumatic experience in your life is to keep bringing it up over and over. Especially when no one is asking or thinking about it.

9. When your legal guardian throws you a huge, expensive party, the way to act is to hang out on the balcony alone and pout because a guy who isn’t your boyfriend didn’t show up.

10. The best way to gain friends is to tell them you’ll help them out, and then steal their positions on the school paper. Oh, and don’t forget to steal her potential boyfriend, too. A backup boyfriend is always a good idea.

11. If your boyfriend can’t help you on a project that you volunteered to take on yourself, recruit potential backup boyfriend. Then try to kiss him.

12. And the following week, if backup boyfriend is all huffy and disagrees with actual boyfriend, get mad and throw a tantrum.

13. Then forgive him when you find out he kissed some other girl.

14. Hold on to every memento ever owned, touched and breathed on by your dead parents. Even if it comes to making partners with mysterious young billionaire heirs.

15. If a decapitated hand arrives at your place of business, whine about how your grand opening is tarnished. Don’t worry about the hand or who the hand belongs to, or the person to whom the hand was sent.

16. When you lose all your inhibitions, your deepest desire will be to climb a short tower. And to go “skinny-dipping” (with your underwear on, of course) and throw yourself at every guy you know.

17. Even though the only guy you like is the one you stripped in front of. And pushed into a pool.

18. Preteen boys who read minds will fall in love with you. It’s because it’s nice and quiet sitting next to you.

19. The best place to flirt with backup boyfriend is over the grave of actual boyfriend’s father’s open grave.

20. The only time to act jealous of anyone is when they’re trying to get with your backup boyfriend. I mean, how dare they?

21. When you’re getting visions, you look like you’re have an Herbal Essences Organic experience. Except for the part when you look constipated.

22. When you can see visions of yourself through someone’s homicidal eyes, just stand there. You’ll be safe.

23. The best thing to do when three twisters are coming toward you is to get back in the truck. Yeah, really. No, REALLY. That’s the best thing to do.