50 WAYS TO RETAIN A HEALTHY LEVEL OF INSANITY

1. Wear socks that don't match (preferably brightly striped or neon colored ones).

2. Be daring for a day. Sit in a parked car with sunglasses on and point a hair dryer at passing cars just to see if they slow down.

3. Time to empty your piggy bank and pay your utility bill in pennies.

4. Empower yourself by signing all your email, "Xena Princess Warrior" or "King Kong" (c'mon, try it for at least one day.)

5. Celebrate "Hippy Hygiene Day" by singing a naughty song in the shower every other morning.

6. Anytime anyone requests that you to do something for them, ask if they want fries with it.

7. Humor everyone by wearing a pair of flippers to work on "Casual Fridays".

8. Point out the fact you lead a balanced lifestyle by placing one garbage can on your desk and label it "In Basket", and placing another one on your desk and label it "Out Basket".

9. Celebrate "Happy Hippocampus Day" by buying an ugly plant, giving it a name, and whispering sweet nothings to the leaves every day.

10. Create oodles of doodles or funky finger-painting pieces; then invite friends/foes to visit your "Museum of Bad Art" (in a throne room of your own choosing).

11. Speak Pig Latin to your clients, customers, or colleagues at least once a week (and tell them you're brushing up on a foreign language).

12. Be the last of the big spenders by writing in the memo field of all your checks: "For services rendered smuggling diamonds".

13. Wear a red-nose to work on Monday (and if anyone asks, tell them you had a run-in with Rudolph over the weekend).

14. Finish all your sentences with "In Accordance With The Prophecy", or "May the Force Be With You Evermore".

15. Offer a fitness course in your workplace on how to wiggle your ears and nose with flair and aplomb.

16. Avoid using any punctuation in an email, text message, or snail mail at least once in your life!

17. Blow soap bubbles as an icebreaker at your next corporate retreat.

18. As often as possible, skip rather than walk non-chalantly on the street.

19. When life gives you lemons, find the nearest sourpuss and pass them along!

20. Send a billet-doux to a special someone written in invisible ink.

21. Order a "Diet Water" or "Stone Soup" at a fine restaurant, and then act distraught when the server looks confused or dismayed at your reasonable request.

22. Organize a heffalump hunting expedition and send out invitations with a rubber dart enclosed.

23. Visit a sacred spot and inquire who is the God of Missing Socks and where you can find Hosiery Heaven.

24. Sing along at the opera or play your kazoo at the symphony.

25. Ask a kid where's the best place to catch a falling star and put it in one's pocket.

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Photo Insert Credit: Caricature by Walt Holcombe on flickr.com

If we consider the possibility that "earth is an insane asylum, to which other planets deport their lunatics" (Voltaire), or "maybe this world is another planet's Hell" (Aldous Huxley), then we certainly need at least 25 more ways to retain a healthy level of insanity just to keep all the aliens and natives happy!

1. Stroke your pet rock while talking to a client or customer, and if asked what you're doing, tell the person you're massaging a merry-challenged metaphoric mineral mass.

2. Go to a poetry recital and ask why the poems don't rhyme?

3. Wear a sandwich board for a day that says, "What color is your belly-button lint?"

4. Put mosquito netting around your work area and play tropical sounds all day at your workstation.

5. Place a classified ad on inside window of your car: "For Sale: One Doghouse plus Unspecified Occupant".

6. Five days in advance, tell your friends that you can't attend their party because your doctor informed you that you're suffering from a highly contagious disease, party-pooperitus.

7. When standing in line at the check-out counter, ask the person in front or behind you if they have a recipe for "Peter Piper's Pickled Peppers".

8. Have your colleagues address you by your mud-wrestling name, "Horvath the Horrible", or "Hespera Haven't You Done It Yet!"

9. Using a can of shaving crème, decorate the vehicle of a family member or friend on their birthday...maybe a smiley face or two?

10. When money comes out of the ATM machine, scream "I Won! I Won!"

11. Ask the pharmacist or retail clerk where you can find "Dr. Dracula's Toothpaste" on the shelf?

12. When leaving the petting zoo, start running towards the parking lot, yelling: "Run For Your Lives, They're Loose!!!"

13. Text message your boss and tell him that your "Aunt Hortence" from Monkey's Eyebrow, Kentucky or "Uncle Mortimer" from Slapneck, Michigan will be replacing you at work today.

14. Invent some imaginary friends to help you at work and, when the boss asks you to do some belt tightening, just turn to one of your imaginary friends and say, "Due to the economy, we are going to have to let one of you go."

15. Solicit signatures on a petition to ban the hunting of wockets out of season.

16. Write a short resume and cover letter for a professional mattress tester seeking employment as a casual or full-time Mattress-Tester with a bedding manufacturer or retailer.

17. Give your immune system a boost, eat dessert first or, at the very least, eat broccoli for breakfast!

18. Write a short email to a bus line or airline requesting the price of a seat for your imaginary friend named "Harvey" (who stands about 6 feet tall, weighing 350 lbs, with large floppy ears and a short white tail).

19. Eliminate energy drainers in your life, by vowing to avoid toxic teetotalers and boisterous bible thumpers at all costs.

20. Write a short note to a local university or educational institution proposing a rare gift-in-kind contribution to their collection of curiosities, a travelling gnome named "Spinoza Smith".

21. Reduce your commute to work by letting your fingers do the walking.

22. Avoid loneliness by befriending little lost souls like Enigmatic Eeyore, Wilma Worrywart, or William Wet-Blanket.

23. Enjoy a skinnydip in your birthday suit (just make sure it's a bubble bath to hide all those love-handles.)

24. Sign up for a toe-wrestling tournament, (what do you mean you have two left feet?)

25. Every time you see a broom yell, "Honey, your Mum's here!"

Here are a few pithy pieces to remind everyone the need for a fools, faux pas's and false realities.

I have my own little world but, it's okay - they know me here. -- Author unknown

Sanity is very rare: every man almost, and every woman, has a dash of madness. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is a thin line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line. -- Oscar Levant (1906-1972), an American pianist, composer, author, comedian, and actor.

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained. -- Mark Twain a.k.a. Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), an American humorist, satirist, and lecturer.

Everyone is more or less mad on one point. -- Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), an English author and poet.

I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it. -- Author unknown

Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietsche (1844-1900), German Philosopher.

Madness takes its toll. Please have the exact change. -- Anonymous.

I haven't lost my mind; I have a tape-back up somewhere. -- Author unknown.