Fighting artism

Modern life and stresses have created a host of mental ailments such as text addiction and blogsessive compulsive disorder.

One of the more sinister modern ailments is artism, a brain discombobulation that inhibits sufferers’ ability to interact socially because of their inability to talk about anything other than their limited interests. Artism sufferers, especially ones that live in small cities, often complain about a lack of dining, artistic and cultural events, even in locales that have perfectly fine Applebees, yearly high school productions of “Grease” and street graffiti.

Warning signs of artism:

- An unwillingness to wear clothing that hasn’t been worn by at least 12 other people first.

- An unseemly excess of give-a-damn about trifles such as music, beer, home decor, etc.

- A compulsion to save crummy old buildings instead of knocking them down and replacing them with parking lots and office complexes as God intended.

- When asked what type of cheese they’d like, artism sufferers will always say something other than Kraft or Velveeta.

- Frequent attendance of wine tastings. (This seems to also indicate some defect of the taste buds, because you’d think people would be able to figure out what wine tasted like after just one event).

- An irritating level of pretentiousness that often manifests itself in the form of judging others based on their knowledge of obscure musical performers.

Luckily, artism can be headed off by stern intervention during a child’s developmental years. The following phrases, repeated repeatedly, can help a vigilant parent nip artism at the Play Doh level.

“Just because you don’t like girls doesn’t mean you can act.”

“Dog, that’s not a dog. It looks like a sausage with legs is what it looks like. What are these kindergarten teachers doing?”

“You didn’t win the pageant because you can sing. You won because your dad’s the biggest sponsor. And the other girls were morbidly obese.”

Helping adult artism sufferers overcome their affliction is a more daunting task. Some proven strategies include slipping non-organic food into their diet, forcing them to watch reality television or a night at Cowboys. Expect some violence from recovering artism sufferers, especially when they begin to go through patchouli withdrawal.

Jim Cook can be reached at or the nearest chicken wing and ranch dressing tasting.