Boots. I bought a pair of good leather boots after trying multiple cheaper brands- 4 years and they’re still going strong.

1. Commit to the bit. If you’re deadpan, see if you can keep elaborating on a joke without cracking a smile until it’s so damn silly you’ve got to laugh. People like it, and it’s an easy transition to make for people who have a serious-seeming sense of humor.

2. Consciously remind yourself that everyone tends to assume that mistakes are caused by inherent properties of people, but sometimes there are fuzzy but real reasons why people say and do dumb stuff- bad day, distracted, etc. Try to give people the slack you’d like them to give you when you get wound up on some dumbass opinion.

I hallucinated a werewolf and slammed on the brakes of an 8 ton military vehicle in rural Afghanistan, causing a patrol to go on alert for an attack.