(wiki)How Do I Explain This

Working for wikiHow has been fun and fulfilling, fascinating and frustrating. I’ve written 350 ‘how-to’ articles on topics that made me laugh, learn useless skills, learn useful skills, and want to throw up. Here are the memoirable ones. 

Articles That Almost Cost Me a Lot of Money

1. How to Style Mom Jeans: I had an online shopping cart filled with mom jeans that I was convinced would be my new look.
2. How to Help the Rohingya: This turned into a rabbit hole experience, ending with me sending pictures to my mother of children from the Save the Children webpage I wanted to sponsor.
3. How to Join Weight Watchers: After consuming the entire Weight Watchers website, I was convinced I needed to join to see how much weight I could lose and gain access to their point system. (Addison was adamantly against this waste of money, and we argued about it for an embarrassing amount of time).
4. How to Order off the Starbucks Secret Menu: I hate coffee and don’t like Starbucks, but I wanted to order all the secret menu items to test the Starbucks employees/see if they’d resent me.
5. How to Break Boards with Your Bare Hands: This should be obvious—I wanted to break boards with my bare hands. This would have cost me money due to 1) the number of boards I’d have purchased and 2) the Patient First experience it would’ve resulted in.

Articles That (For Some Reason) I Love

1. How to Go to the Bathroom in the Woods: This was simultaneously gross and fascinating to write. Here is an excerpt of this article before I was tasked with editing it: “If you’re trying to get the turd out, you can just pull it out with the thumb and fore finger.” ??? No.
2. How to Deal with a Toddler Who Is Afraid of Baths: I felt like I was really advocating for the toddlers when I wrote this.
3. How to Throw Ashes in the Ocean: I had no idea you’re legally required to drive 3 nautical miles from shore out in a boat before dumping ashes. But I do know that no one actually does this.
4. How to Be Creative When Playing with Your Barbies: This required watching YouTube videos of children playing with Barbies, which sounds creepy yet entertaining because it was.
5. How to Distinguish Mennonites from Amish: I’m hoping that one day I’ll be asked, “Do you know if that person is Amish or a Mennonite?” and I’ll say, “No, but I know how to find out.”

Articles I Hated with a Fiery Passion

1. How to Be a Cute Girl in Middle School: Picture me taking detailed notes on the advice given by middle school girls promoting their vlogs about how important it is to have cute-looking notebooks.
2. How to Preserve Extracted Teeth: This was gross and forced me to read several medical studies all about liquid chemical germicides, as well as all the diseases you can catch trying to preserve said teeth.
3. How to Draw the Map of India: If you look at a map of India, you’ll notice that its shape is full of detailed squiggle marks and bumps that jut out. You try describing how to draw that.
4. How to Get Angelina Jolie’s Lips: This required writing about the process of getting lip injections, which made me nauseous.
5. How to Remove Butt Hair: Need I say more?

Articles That Probably Shouldn’t Exist

1. How to Organize Trophies: If you have so many trophies that you’re overwhelmed and looking up how to organize them, this is a problem. Get rid of them.
2. How to Kill a Joke: This is a great way to be an asshole. Why are you planning ways to ruin other people’s jokes? (Some guy commented, “My friend told a joke while we were out with 3 others, and every joke he told I deflated with help from this.”)
3. How to Convince Your Friends You’re a Mermaid: This is filled with deception and I feel guilty about it.
4. How to Cut Celery: Celery is literally the easiest vegetable in the world to cut. It’s long and thin, just chop it up.
5. How to Sneak Out of Your House at Night: Another one I feel guilty about. I taught children how to become silent ninjas by doing things like oiling up the squeaky doors in their house beforehand with WD-40 and hiding their change of clothes outside so they’re still in pajamas if they’re caught. (This one has close to one million views, so if you’re a parent reading this, sorry! And go check your kid’s bed.)

Lastly, I will share with you my wiki Pro Tip: Hover over “Explore” on the site and click “Random Article.” I’ve just provided you with hours of useless (but occasionally useful!) entertainment. Within a few minutes, you can learn how to Be a Badass Girl, Care for Holland Lop Rabbits, Become a Race Car Driver, Develop Psychic Abilities, and Adopt a Russian Baby.

You’re welcome.