As everybody knows, The Simpsons Movie opens this week. In celebration of that I decided to take a look back at my 18 years of watching The Simpsons on TV in order to ponder the several important lessons that the show has taught me over the years. Here are the top 10 I came up with.

10. Marriages can apparently withstand a lot of stupidity from one of the spouses

More specifically, if your spouse really loves you, the following will apparently not make she/he divorce you:

- Buying them a bowling ball when only you play bowling
- Dancing on top of a table with a sexy belly dancer, and getting photographed while doing it
- Going fishing during a weekend retreat of marriage counseling
- Deciding to skip church and forming your own religion
- Telling the students in your adult education class personal secrets from your spouse in order to keep them interested
- Losing a bunch of money betting on football. Money that was borrowed form the Mob. And to repay them you allow a porno film to be taped on your house.

9. When it comes to your work, lazy and careless often beats hard working and careful

Sure, if you are really lazy you might never make it past Nuclear Safety Inspector in your local nuclear power plant. And you might only get to go to space as a NASA astronaut once. But that is good enough to support your family and you will still have some money at the end of the month to blow in some ridiculously extravagant thing.

On the other hand, do you know who was was a hard working and careful employee? Frank Grimes. He was going to be Executive Vice President, but they ended up giving that job to a dog. And now he is dead. I’m just saying…

Of course there limits to how lazy you should be. For example, making yourself morbidly obese in order to be put on the disability plan so you can work from home seems like a great idea, but it will end up resulting in more problems than it’s worth.

8. Smart girls can’t get a decent date. At least not before college

Poor Lisa. She is tough, smart and opinionated. And as far as I can tell she is no more ugly than all of the other yellow kids. And yet her main suitors are Ralph Wiggum and Millhouse. The highlight of her early love life? A brief affair with Nelson. *Sigh*

The fact the she may finds much better prospects in college and that she may become president of the U.S.A. does take some of the sting off. Still, some tough years there.

7. Being a TV clown is very depressing. But not as depressing as being the owner of a bar.

Seriously, being the super famous TV star of your own kids show might seem like a great job. But that is only before you realize that you will have to deal with the disdain of your father, rebellions on your summer camp and with your sidekick trying to frame you for a crime you didn’t commit. Tough job!

Another job that is not all that it’s cracked up to be is owning of a bar. Sure, when you were young you dreamed about it. Spending all night partying and drinking with a bunch of young attractive people who would do anything to please you because you are “the owner of the bar”.

But the reality is that your bar will probably be frequented by a bunch of middle aged, out of shape guys who will do nothing but whine to you about the various problems in their lives. And you will be broke. And you will get many prank calls. And you will be one lonely dude.

Also, just in case you were wondering, turning the bar into a family restaurant will not solve your problems. It will just create a bunch of new ones.

6. The human body can take enormous amounts of abuse

You know what happens when you stick a bunch of crayons into your nose? They go to your brain and make you stupid. But don’t worry, all you have to do is take them out and you are smart again! And if you ever decide you were happier when you were dumb just stick them back in.

And if you feel like jumping a gorge in a skateboard, go for it! If you fail to make the jump it will hurt. A lot. Specially if the ambulance that comes to rescue you ends up letting you fall into the gorge again. But, you will survive to do something stupid another day.

5. If your are a really really good Christian, God might stop a fire from spreading to your house. However, he will not stop your wife from dying in a freak accident or your neighbors from pestering and stealing stuff from you

So, you know, don’t expect much from the big guy in this life. As for the afterlife…

4. The whole afterlife and eternal soul thing follows some strange rules

For example, getting into heaven seems to be quite easy. Even if you are a not very good Christian who tries to strangle your kid every once in a while and who causes a nuclear explosion, wiping out most of your town, just so you don’t have to clean the garage you still might be able to get in.

Also, if you pledge you soul to someone in the back of a photo that is a binding contract. And if write “[Your Name] Soul” in a piece of paper you can then sell that piece of paper (and your soul) to anyone.

But remember, you only have one soul. So make sure you get a good price.

3. People really like to see themselves as cartoons

The following celebrities have made appearances in The Simpsons: James Earl Jones, Tony Bennett, Larry King,Jon Lovitz, Danny DeVito, Ringo Starr, Magic Johnson, Aerosmith, Sting, Bob Hope, Paul McCartney, Neil Armstrong, Tom Jones, Adam West, Leonard Nimoy, Brooke Shields, Johnny Carson, Bette Midler, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Barry White, Elizabeth Taylor, Conan O’Brien, James Woods, Kathleen Turner, Buzz Aldrin, James Taylor, Winona Ryder, Michelle Pfeiffer, Ted Danson, Woody Harrelson, Rhea Perlman, Jon Ratzenberger, George Wendt, Ann Bancroft, Patrick Stewart, Glenn Close, Donald Sutherland, Suzanne Somers, Kirk Douglas, Smashing Pumpkins, Christina Ricci, Martin Sheen, Lucy Lawless, Tom Arnold, Alec Baldwin, Dennis Rodman, William H. Macy, Susan Sarandon, Metallica, The White Stripes, and many, many others.

Sure, it’s a popular show. But there are other popular shows out there and none of them can boast such an impressive guest list. So I have to think that this has a lot to do withe the “Hey, it’s me, and I’m yellow!” effect.

2. Beer. Is. Awesome

I’ll let Homer take this one:

Son, a woman is like a beer. They smell good, they look good, you’d step over your own mother just to get one! But you can’t stop at one. You wanna drink another woman!

Homer no function beer well without.

Here’s to alcohol, the cause of—and solution to—all life’s problems.

So true…

And the number 1 thing I learned by watching The Simpsons: No matter what crazy things you do, after about 30 minutes everything will go back to the way it was before

So go out there and raise some hell!

Well, this is my list. What’s yours?