OK, I wasn’t really kidnapped by intergalactic cheerleaders. I was in my apartment the whole time. I did fantasize about being kidnapped by intergalactic cheerleaders quite a bit though, but I was also, completely 100 percent, all by my lonesome and crying.

If you don’t have the slightest idea what I’m talking about with the space cheerleader thing, you, along with my mom, can count yourself among the staggering number of lucky people who didn’t read my column last semester.

If you’d like to continue being one of the lucky ones, I advise you to stop reading this immediately. I’m warning you though, if you do so you’ll miss out hard-core on me talking about manatees.

All right, now that you’ve decided to stay with me, saddle up, I wanted you to hear this. These are my pledges to myself and you, the reader, for this semester. I’m making the following sacred promises to make myself a better person, a more effective Stater columnist and a cracker-jack puppeteer.

n I WILL WRITE AN ENTIRE COLUMN USING ONLY WINGDINGS: For those of you who don’t know, “wingdings” is a type of font you can find under the text styles on your computer. Well, it’s less of a font, really, than a bunch of random symbols that have no relationship to one another. If you were to write the word Doyle in “wingdings,” it would come out as two hearts, a picture of a sun with a smiley face and an asterisk.

n I WILL FACT CHECK ALL MY COLUMNS: Especially the one I’m planning on doing about the microscopic sasquatches that live inside of Bill Cosby.

n I WILL STOP TELLING PEOPLE THAT I AM HAVING SEXUAL INTERCOURSE WITH LINDSAY LOHAN: She hates it when I brag about it.

n I WILL USE PROTECTION WHILE HAVING SEXUAL INTERCOURSE WITH LINDSAY LOHAN: I think all of you folks at home should do the same.

n I WILL NEVER AGAIN HOIST A FULL-GROWN MANATEE UP OVER MY HEAD AND HURL IT AT A SMALL CHILD: Unless of course it becomes absolutely necessary for me to do so.

n I WILL TRANSFORM MY HAND INTO A LASER CANNON POWERFUL ENOUGH TO EXPLODE A FULL-GROWN MANATEE: I won’t use it for that purpose though.

n I WILL MENTION THE FORGOTTEN 1960s CEREAL MASCOT “FRUIT BRUTE” IN A COLUMN: Done!

n I WILL START WEARING PANTS, AT LEAST AROUND THE STATER OFFICE: Sorry, ladies!

And last but not least …

n I WILL INVENT A MACHINE THAT MAKES THE DINOSAURS COME BACK TO LIFE, BUT MAKES THEM CHOCOLATE DINOSAURS THAT ENJOY BEING EATEN. THIS WILL INSTANTANEOUSLY SOLVE THE WORLD’S HUNGER PROBLEM, AND THEN I’LL STAND ON TOP OF THE MACHINE AND KISS LINDSAY LOHAN WHILE EVERYONE IS WATCHING: The machine will also make chocolate manatees.

So there you go. At this point, some of you might be wondering what a manatee is. It’s a sea cow. It’s indigenous to the great barrier reef. I saw one at the zoo when I was a child and had a nightmare about it.

Nick Moose is a senior ummm college major and humor columnist for the Daily Kent Stater. Contact him at [email protected].