I used to follow expiry dates like gospel, figuring the sour cream would sweeten, the ice cream would melt, and the rice would crumble into dust the morning after after the the block-stamped date on the bottom of the package had passed. If the expiry date was closing in, I’d just cut my...

I’m the world’s worst Scrabble player. Every time it’s my turn I see other players lose interest as they get ready for a long wait. I feel bad, so I stare intensely at my pieces trying desperately to conjure up a word longer than three letters or else suffer their...

Found in dusty kitchen cupboards and dishwasher top-shelves across this wide, great land, really, really old Tupperware is as handy today as it was twenty, thirty, forty years ago. That famous Tupperware “burping seal” still holds strong, and you can bet your boombox that banana...

Weddings can go one of two ways. Either you’re tight like twins with the bride or groom — a sibling maybe, college roommate, or grandmother. You’re on The Inside, recommending photographers, hosting showers, renting tuxes, giving toasts. For you, the wedding is a great day, a...

If you ever find yourself playing professional sports and someone from the stands yells out “Come on, Big Bopper!,” you’re probably a fat baseball player. Fat baseball player, thank you for giving us that simplest thing of all. Hope. See, because usually when we see those...

On the whole, we’re pretty nasty to waiters and waitresses. We complain they’re wasting our time if the food takes too long to come, we complain they’re trying to rush us out if the food comes too early. We warn about allergies, make special requests, ask for more bread, and...

An old roommate of mine was sifting through and tossing out some old birthday cards once when a crisply entombed twenty dollar bill slid out of a faded card from Grandma. Her eyebrows perked up, her mouth formed a perfect O, and she raised her hand up top for a high five, which I promptly...

Not too many things that aren’t soda sound like soda when they’re opened. But tennis balls do, and that’s part of their beauty. You just snap back that tab, hear that pshhhhh sound, and then catch a whiff of those vacuum sealed, Korean-factory packed, hot rubbery plastic...

There are so many different levels to this classic gag. There’s Version 1.0 which involves a car full of people, a gas station bathroom break, the locked door, and the slow rolling drive away while the victim knocks on the window and pretends not to care. This version is Locking People...

First of all, getting a grass stain means that you were running around at high speeds without proper equipment. Maybe you slid last-minute to avoid a frozen tag or made an awkward, somersault dive at a line-drive wiffleball. Either way, the grass stain symbolizes your large, devil-may-care...

Kick-starting a bag of potato chips is pretty much standard — you open with the double-pincer, squeeze-and-pop technique, start fishing out the prime, full-bodied chips at the top of the heap, and then start working your way down to the half-broken chips in the middle of the bag. A few...

About two years ago I noticed something funny as I flipped through a grocery store flyer. On the produce page was an ugly, green-looking cauliflower, with the caption “$2.99! Broccoflower!” It was hilarious. A green cauliflower labelled as a Broccoflower. The bizarre misfit child...

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AWESOME! — Hey everyone! This is Neil Pasricha. I originally wrote these 1000 awesome things for 1000 straight weekdays from 2008 to 2012. I’ve had so many requests to repost them so I’ve now done so two more times. The third series is ending .....

Over dinner one night my dad started telling me about his first day in Canada. It was 1968 and he was twenty-three, arriving on a plane with eight dollars in his pocket to start a new life by himself in a country he had never visited. “A community group had a welcome dinner for new...

It’s where the wild things are. See, we’ll never really know how far the universe flies but maybe we should be wondering how far our minds go inside. Because when you let your thoughts run free … they bounce all over the place. When your brain slips into the basement …...

Today’s the greatest day you’ve ever lived. Today’s the only day you’ve ever lived. The past is gone, the future is far, nothing else matters, except where you are. AWESOME! Thank you to the talented Misty Harris for a great tribute to 1000 Awesome Things. Photo from:...

Burn, baby, burn. Life’s not long and we only got so many moments we’re wide awake. So take, take, take — grab that run at sunrise, laugh with baby before the door, clock into work with energy, and clock out looking for more. Run to that soccer practice, grab ice cream when...

My friend Jason had a tradition. Every year on the last day of school he’d stop on the bridge over the creek on his walk home, pop open all his three-hole binders, and dump and shake all his pen-scrawled notes and sticker-covered tests into the bubbling rapids below. Somehow the sight of...

We’re all just twisted messes. Sure, you might look fine in your pleated pants and your frilly dresses, but beneath all that we’re just twisted messes. Brown slippery organs, brittle bones, and bubbling blood cramp every tight little space in your body’s homeplace,...

This is the end, beautiful friend. Late next week 1000 Awesome Things will hit #1 and we’ll have finished four years counting down one awesome thing every weekday. So… like Luke Skywalker’s triumphant final battle against the Fish Monsters, the Jamaican bobsled team’s...

Because you finally satisfy your toughest critic. Yourself. AWESOME! Photo from: here The post #9 Crossing off the last item on your list appeared first on 1000 Awesome...

Do you remember bank calendars? When I was little my sister and I always waited between velvet ropes with my dad to see the bank teller — while lines rounded, stamps pounded, and thumbs counted, bills. Sometimes we grabbed faded pink and green deposit slips — the ones printed on...

When my friends Chris, Ty, and I went on our cross-country road trip a few years back, we managed to stop in the small, hardscrabble dirt town of Paris, Texas. In addition to visiting the Kimberly-Clark diaper factory, miniature Eiffel Tower, and famous Jesus in Cowboy Boots statue, Ty...

My sister’s name is Nina. She was born sixteen months after me and we were tight from the beginning. When my parents brought her home from the hospital I couldn’t stop marveling at her thick chock of black hair, tiny smudge of a nose, and tightly closed eyes. We traveled together a...

Welcome to the inner circle. AWESOME! Photo from: here The post #13 The first time a new friend uses your nickname appeared first on 1000 Awesome...

Everybody gets born. One day you popped into the world a tiny ball of crying wet nakedness and every year since then we’ve all stopped to celebrate your big day. Birthdays freeze time as you stare back at last year and get ready to celebrate what’s coming around the bend… When you’re...