The Top Five

"One and one don't make two.  One and one makes one."  

I once read somewhere that there is a belief amongst some people that when you die, before being judged, you meet with St. Peter (or maybe one of his assistants, I forget) and you sit through some sort of a review of your life.  If this were to be true, I really, really hope that I'd get some sort of report given to me outlining the things that I did.  A "stat sheet," if you will.  You would be able to see exactly how much and how many of whatever things you did during your lifetime.  It could also answer questions that had you stumped at one point in time or another. Maybe it would look something like this:

Number of hot dogs consumed:  1459
Hours spent doing absolutely nothing (not counting sleep):  47,245
Location of the cell phone that you lost on May 3, 2009:  Behind the box of old shoes in the basement
Hours spent on the phone:  105,987
Yes, your girlfriend in college was cheating on you with your roommate, Tom.
Number of times you said, "I'll get that done tomorrow" when the assigned task never got done:  7,254
Number of shoes purchased or owned:  1,254
Average score on all tests ever taken:  79%
Number of times you were wrong when you were insisted you were right:  8

Etc. 

A total report on your life.  It would be sectioned off into categories and broken down into sub-categories.  Maybe one section that just deals with food, one that is about money, another about lost items, etc.  And in the back, everyone would also get an entire section that gives the answers to questions that were never answered while you were alive.  Such as:

Oswald killed Kennedy
Lance Armstrong never took any PEDs
OJ did it
The moon landing was a hoax.  It was staged in a warehouse in Utah
The 18 minutes of missing Watergate tape was blank
Keith Richards is an alien
Stonehenge was never finished.  It was to be a fancy general store but the builders ran out of funding.  It had nothing to do with druids or the sun
Elvis died on May 2, 2009 from natural causes in Hartford, Connecticut
Jimmy Hoffa is buried in an unmarked grave outside of Philadelphia
Abe Lincoln was a liar
New Coke was a marketing ploy and was always planned to be discontinued 

And on and on. 

One of the things that I would be most interested in is exactly how many things I put in my various "top five" lists.  You see, I am always categorizing things into top five this and top five that.  I've done this for a very long time.  It is the basis for many hours and nights spent out with friends debating the best, or worst, of a given category.  Top five movies (which can be broken down into top five comedies, top five dramas, etc.), top five baseball players (which, again, can be broken down into positions, hitters, etc.), top five states to live in, etc.  I'm quite sure that in my "life report," the section regarding my top five lists would look something like this:

Number of movies put into the top five:  145
Number of baseball players put into the top five:  51
Number of bands put into the top five:  11
Number of songs put into the top five:  84
Number of TV shows put into the top five:  14

You see, we (my friends and I) have never officially put these arguments on paper and made an unequivocal top five list.  And for some reason I feel that this is important.  For the hours and nights and days spent debating these topics, there is nothing official that has ever come of it.  So we're left to adjust our top five lists at will.  I'm sure that I've put The Blues Brother, Caddyshack, Stripes, Slap Shot, Blazing Saddles, Meatballs, Back to School, Animal House, Old School, Monty Python's Holy Grail, Fletch and a multitude of others in the top five at various times.  And argued strongly about them.  Name a topic and I'm sure I've put well over five on the list.  And my friends call me on this frequently. 

So, what I've concocted is a plan to once and for all put these debates to rest.  My plan is to create a sort of "Top Five Conference."  I would invite anyone who wants to attend and we'd hole up in a remote cabin somewhere and finish this once and for all. We would spend months via email putting together the agenda for this conference.  We would start on Friday night and end on Sunday afternoon.  The weekend would consist of various sessions centered around debating and concluding the top five of a given category.  A sample conference schedule would look like this:

Friday
5pm-6pm  Baseball Players
6pm-7pm  Movies (general)
7pm-8pm  Dinner
8pm-9:30pm  Movies (comedy)
9:30pm-10:30pm  Songs
10:30pm-11:30pm TV shows
11:30pm-12:30am  Bands
12:30am-1:30am  Fast Food Restaurants

The attendees could pick and choose the sessions that they wanted to attend, just like an actual conference.  If you really don't care about the top five quarterbacks or the top five college football teams, you could skip those sessions.  And there would have to be a moderator.  In my mind, this person would have to be someone totally unconnected to any of us.  Someone neutral, like Switzerland.  In order for this to work, someone would absolutely have to try to maintain an a semblance of order.  Which would be no easy task.  In fact, leading up to this event, we could debate the "Top Five People Who Should Be Moderator."

I think I'm onto something here.  At the conclusion of the weekend, we would all be able to walk out of there knowing unequivocally the top five of any given category.  And then, when a future debate started about something, we could stop and say, "Nope, the actual top five breakfast cereals are:  Lucky Charms, Count Chocula, Wheaties, Captain Crunch and whatever the name of that chocolate Flintstone cereal was."  Debate over.  The people have spoken.  This isn't Russia, you know.

I know that my friends are tired of hearing me say things like, "Look, Won't Get Fooled Again is the number one song of all times.  Period."  And maybe it is (it is), but after our Top Five Conference, there will be no question about it.  And then, when I die and get my stat sheet, the section on my top fives will be neat and clean.  Or maybe it would be broken down into "Top Fives Before the Conference" and "Top Fives After the Conference." 

I have no idea what happens after we die.  In fact, that could be a session of the conference.  "Top Five Things That May Happen After We Die."  It might look like this:
1.  You are judged and go to heaven or hell
2.  Nothing.  You're dead and that is that
3.  You are reincarnated
4.  You become a ghost
5.  You are relegated to reading blogs from Chris Justice for all of eternity

One thing is for sure, I'd really like to know where Jimmy Hoffa went.  And how many hot dogs I ate.