I am not contrarian by nature. I don't contort myself to assume anti-mainstream poses, or disqualify personalities, programs or anything else just because they're popular ("Oh, so you enjoy writing on vintage typewriters, do you, Mr. Hanks? Can I get you a side of French socialism to go with your pretentious fart sandwich?"). I like what I like. If I have to invent a reason to justify enjoying something - for instance, that the new Kings of Leon album might be listenable because its lead single shares a name with an implement of watery annihilation - it's a sign that …

Unlike many animate beings who do not menstruate, I've always been fascinated with the way marketers of feminine products have danced around the true utility of their wares. Has any other product category so consistently buried the lead ("tampons are wads of absorbent material, such as cotton, which are introduced into body cavities or canals to absorb secretions from menstruation, which is a perfectly normal body function") in a haze of soft-focus metaphor? Has any depicted as many heinous acts of slo-mo beach recreation (horseback riding, hand-holding, shoreline-toeing)? Has any outfitted as many of its ad actors in white linen …

Is authenticity as fleeting a personal quality as chastity? Are we limited in our self-expression opportunities? Do we have an overarching desire to live in the past, rather than exercise our Constitutional right to pursue present-day felicity and now-ness?

Like many other self-deluded old people, I like to think that I remain very much on the cutting edge of youth culture. I hashtag my handwritten personal correspondence. I describe sneakers and stair lifts alike as "swaggy." I know with 82.5 percent certainty that Macklemore is a person who has a song. If something is cool or #awesome, there's a good chance I'll get hip to it four days sooner than my parents will.

Owing to a pair of unfortunate incidents, I've been without a phone for the better part of the last two weeks. The first one, my own fault, confirmed the vulnerability of circuit-reliant devices to immersion in pooled water. The second, attributable to the spatial-reasoning-impaired woman I love, affirmed the rep of paving stones as the AC/DC of patio surfaces. It's the timing that gets me: No sooner did the first replacement arrive than it met a brutal and smashy demise. If you'd like to replicate my reaction to this turn of events, shake up a can of paint thinner and …

What I love most about the 4th of July is that, 235 or so years after our freedom-loving predecessors told Jiminy Redcoat what he could do with his left-driving and Robbie Williams CDs, we still celebrate it in a way that's consistent with our nation's ideals. We attempt to inflict third-degree burns on our buddies' calves with strategically targeted bottle rockets. We slather an extra layer of honey-mustard glaze on the pork loins that we bought at Costco. We star-spangle everything: our banners, our muscle cars, our remaining slivers of non-inked flesh. In short, we live, man. We live.

Hi, I'm Larry. I'm the jerkhead who's about to write a few hundred words about why I don't like a brand video whose benefactors will donate a free meal to a needy family for every viewing. My parents only acknowledge my existence under oath. It's nice to make your cyber-acquaintance.

There are instances when my brain tells me that I am supposed to be emotionally stirred by something, and yet the tear ducts don't play along. It happens during graduations and eulogies. It happens during renditions of the national anthem, yogurt commercials and Titanic. I am neither a standard-bearer for old-school machismo nor immune to emotional manipulation; it's just that sometimes I can see the flashing IT IS TIME TO FEEL ALL MOVED AND SORROWFUL AND WHATNOT sign and am tripped by the obviousness and/or shamelessness of the appeal.

Only 19 months into my tenure as a dad, it has become clear that I deserve more than a single day in my honor. Not to honk my own honker, but my son can often be found wearing clothes and shoes. He has only been exposed to "Blazing Saddles" on four separate occasions. Whenever he eats crayons, I provide nutritional counterbalance in the form of Apple Jacks. See? Fruit. I am the Genghis Khan of parental equanimity.

This column is a plea. This column is a prayer. This column is an appeal to our collective senses of decency and mercy, an entreaty to a select group of individuals to act in the best interest of our shared humanity, even though to do so would frustrate its own commercial aims. This column is a plea to Capital One to cut its annual media budget by like $400 million.