Are you a thrill seeker? I’m not. Well, at least I don’t find thrilling what stereotypical “thrill seekers” might. You may find my ideas are just a little less extreme than yours.

Some of you are thrilled to water ski. That’s wonderful. My thrill comes after I’m invited to water ski but get a reprieve when the boat motor dies.

Others are thrilled to watch a horror movie. I’m thrilled to watch a documentary in which I learn something new about seeds.

Oh, bungee jumping is thrilling, right? Nothing like jumping freely off a bridge into a canyon below. Unless you’re me, and simply driving over said bridge arouses an array of goose pimples. Thrilling!

Few things produce the thrill of driving a fast car. Woo! That’s okay though, I’m thrilled to watch those clowns get pulled over for speeding. Thank you, Mr. Officer!

Many love the thrill of placing a big bet. Carson, can you imagine the payout with those odds? I can imagine a dragon swooping down and incinerating my wallet, no less crazy then you winning and the effectively the same result as you losing.

Let’s go whitewater rafting! What a thrill! No, that’s all right. You go. I’ll splash a little water over my face, take some real deep breaths and experience the joys of not drowning.

Hey Carson, how about base jumping? Hey, how about belly flopping straight into hell? Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee damnation.

Perhaps the ultimate thrill is sky diving. But isn’t a huge part of that thrill not dying? If the thrill is attached to not dying, I gotta say it’s not a big thrill for me. I am thrilled to have the prospect of being alive for the next five minutes. I am thrilled to drink a glass of lemonade and jump off a hammock. I am thrilled to sit on a soft chair and watch beetles mate. I am thrilled to wade around in a baby pool and maintain complete consciousness.

I am thrilled to not seek thrills.

The other day I looked at my desk at work and couldn’t believe how many items I have that I never use. The digital age has squelched my need for standard office supplies. Let me introduce you to some of my lonely friends.

First, here is my stapler family. At one time perhaps, having multiple staplers was a good idea. You’d never know when your exhausted stapler would give out and you’d need a reinforcement in a jiffy. But now my staplers are so seldom used it’s hard to find them behind the more-oft-used paperweight and peanut can.

Basically, if the need for stapling ever arises, I am beyond ready. Similar to a doomsday prepper, I’m just waiting for the day where all hell breaks loose and I have to put together 7,000 presentation packets in 30 minutes. And just in case the stapling goes awry, I have staple removers. That’s right, plural. That way if I’ve been removing so many staples that my first staple remover gives out, I can use the other one to remove my jugular. Truly, as far as staples go, I might use 20 a year. But just to be safe, I have millions at the ready. You know that box that is so stuffed full of staple bunches that you can hardly close it? Well I have three of those. So if I ever have to go to war in my office, I have a Rambo-worthy cache of ammunition.

Next, here are my two-inch binder clips. I suppose I could use them if I had hundreds of sheets of paper that needed conjoining, but these clips are more likely to serve as clamps to hold my aortic valve in place after the stapling fiasco.

Here’s my Scotch tape and dispenser, collecting dust. I’m concerned a decade of neglect might have an effect on its adhesion. Taping something in the office is so absolutely random. About the only use I can think of is posting a flyer no one reads. So, useless.

Oh look, this is my bottle of WhiteOut. I’ll have to remember to use that today to stay stealthy when I don’t want someone to see that I messed up my own signature. Let’s just hope this once vibrant liquid has not morphed into the worthless goop I’m expecting.

And let’s not forget the tub of tacks I could use for my cube wall. Who am I kidding though? Only a lady with 700 cats could find enough pictures to pin up and empty that tub.

Finally, here is my rubber band tray. Every few years, I actually pick them up ensure they have not become brittle. Honestly, I can’t even remember what we used these things for so I can make a joke about them.

Well, there are my office friends. If I forgot any of them, well, that’d be no surprise.

History has proved some tried-and-true methods of protecting one’s stuff. You can put something in safe so no one can steal it. You can encrypt your digital information so that no one can read it. And apparently, now businesses can protect customers’ stuff by way of a life-size cardboard cutout security guard. Oh really.

Paper rent-a-cops (or as I like to call them, rent-a-props) are showing up in storage facilities, jewelry stores and many other businesses that can’t afford break-ins (much less the hiring of a real cop) so they shell out $14 for a fake cop who trembles at the site of a recycling bin. Truly, nothing says security like a lifeless but very serious and large photo of a man who may or may not also have a paper gun.

Are these things really deterring crime? What do bad guys think when they see them? I suppose that if you’re scoping out a joint from, like, a mile away, the cutout could fool you. But surely even stupid bad guys would notice the security man hasn’t moved for 15 minutes and has either died standing up or is piece of cardboard. Either way, this is an encouraging opportunity to break in.

But some bad guys don’t scope out a joint first. They just go in without even considering there could be a security guard waiting for them. And then with two arms full of jewelry they run into—uh-oh—the stiff, biodegradable board man—and probably knock him over.

It’s just comical these things are growing in popularity. What business owner sees their neighbor doing it and actually covets their newfound crime prevention tactic?  “Whoa! Ed’s got one of those prop-up security guy thingys! Nobody’s gonna mess with his stuff anymore. I just have to get my own big, paper policeman. In fact, I’ll do Ed one better and upgrade to the officer with a menacing scowl!”

The bottom line is that unless our perpetrator has an inordinate fear of paper cuts, I’m pretty sure he is going breach this line of defense with little more than a chuckle. But what do I know? I am as law-abiding as they come and have little clue what I would find troubling if I was primed to do some bad guy stuff. Even so, I’d like my chances against an adversary I could crumple up in four seconds and stuff into a dumpster.

I am living in a world of instant information, finding it increasingly impossible to try to tune out once in awhile and not know what’s going on. This becomes ever-apparent every four years when the World Cup rolls around.

You see, I love watching the World Cup. If I had no job, no family, no responsibilities, nobody needing me for anything, I would watch all 64 games without question. I am that stupid interested. The problem is, as a 32-year-old dad with a job and a slew of social expectations from many angles, I can’t simply park in front of a couch and crunch Cheetos in my underwear for four straight hours, as amazing as a dream scenario that would be.

Additionally, in the last several years matters have become more complicated, with the addition of a great blessing and equally (well maybe not equally) great curse to us busy men: the DVR. To my joy, Cheetos-and-underwear time once more becomes a possibility. Yet to my frustration, I can’t watch stuff live, and a person, article or app tells me the result of a game before I ever make it to the recording.

Of all the sports, soccer is likely the worst one to miss live. Sports like basketball and football have tons of points and action and someone can tell you something about the game and you’ll still have no clue what happened. In soccer, there is a total of about 45 seconds in the 90 minutes played that is really incredible. The slightest bit of a tip-off might as well give you the entire result without ever having to watch. Friends and family believe they are being discreet when offering a hint about the game of which they saw and know the result, but they might as well just tell you the final score and when the goals happened. After years of watching soccer, I can predict the result with the slightest of tips. Don’t believe me? Here are things all of you tell me that you think are subtle but in reality have ruined the surprise:

“It’s a good game.” Thanks, but I didn’t want to know that. I was content to sit through a crapper. As a soccer fan, I’m prepared for miserable games and willing to watch anyway, because the the upside risk of a great game is glorious. But now I know it’s a good game. So I know there are goals. Plural. Certainly not zero or one. Which means that now I’ll already be on the edge of my seat. But I didn’t want to be on the edge of my seat. I wanted to be sunken into my couch and drifting off into Nod Land and suddenly jarred awake by a cracking wonder strike. And I know there are more goals than one, because otherwise you wouldn’t have said anything about the game. You’d be talking about your hangnail problem or disgust for licorice or what you’re doing about the mosquitoes, all things—while still boring—are more thrilling than that soccer snoozer not worth mentioning.

“It’s an amazing game!” Words that have never been uttered after a draw. The score could be 5-5 but if it ended in a sister kisser using the world “amazing” is impossible. Someone triumphs with amazing. And when the game is 2-0, I’ll see that amazing comeback coming 10 miles away. I’ll be fighting off yawns until the game draws even and I’m halfway prepared to be amazed again.

“You should watch it.” I was going to. Now I won’t. Sounds like a little action but not enough to write home about.

“The second half is fantastic.” OK, I’ll fast-forward to that. Who really wants to watch a first half anyway? It’s only half of the game.

“I’m not going to tell you anything.” Stop smiling. Each notch of your growing smirk signifies goals. I don’t want to know if there are goals! Don’t you understand?!

“Don’t watch the game man.” Are you serious? This is the freaking World Cup. It comes once every four years. I’ll be lucky to watch and remember 15 in my life. Even the ugliest, most wearisome and brutal-to-watch-match played in a World Cup is 100 times better than anything else that can grace my television screen. I will tape it and I will watch it and I will love every second of it because I’m that addicted to the highest level of the beautiful game.

And I’ll pass myself the Cheetos, thank me very much.