That guy.

I’m sure everyone reading this has at least one of them in their life. That person that is just too good to be true. And I’m not saying this in a “honey, you’re too good to be true” kind of way. I mean it quite literally. I’m talking about your Personal Ned Flanders.

The fella that sends his little Todd over to shovel the side-walk you’ve been neglecting ever since that foot-and-a-half snowstorm.

The saint that leaves a pair of loppers by your front step with a little note that reads “Just in case you need these ;) – Flanders.”

The cocky bastard that cleans up the piece of shit your dog left behind in the park, and has the nerve to smile and silently nod at you while doing it, like you share some sort of shitty secret about the coiled crap you left behind like a fallen soldier because you forgot your 25 cent, scented baggies back at the house. Don’t worry! — Flanders would never leave a man behind.

We all know these people. They’re at work, in our university classrooms, in our shopping malls and, god-forbid, next door. And what these Flanders’s don’t understand is that their little helpful tips, their howdy-doo’s and smile n’ waves, and their laundry list of moral lessons usually end up doing one thing and one thing only: making 99% of us feel shitty about ourselves for regularly neglecting our duties as responsible citizens.

But by far the worst thing about your Personal Ned Flanders is that he’s more boring than that kid at school that spoke in movie quotes no one ever understood because he was watching fucking Fight Club with his ginned out parents in Grade 4.

Okay, looking back maybe that kid was kind of cool, but the point is still there to be taken.

Flanders is one of those boring guys that talks about the weather, like you can’t just look up and see that you’re being pelted in the face and scrotum by quarter-sized hail. Flanders talks about his neighbour’s aspen sapling, tells you that he shouldn’t have planted it that close to the side of his house because GOD FORBID the roots ruin the structural integrity of his basement. Flanders talks about the preserves his housewife just jarred, asks if you want half a dozen of them to stock up the ol’ cold-cellar. Who the hell has a cold cellar these days anyway? And who does he think you are? A jelly roll missing its fucking filling?

A person like your Personal Flanders has to be hiding something, you always think. A guy that seems to have that much of his shit together always does, you assume. So what is he hiding?

Erectile dysfunction?

He has two angels for children, sent by way of golden carriage with God holding the reins himself, and those little bastards are just as perfect as he is.

Drug problem?

Nope, nope and nope. Your Personal Ned Flanders once managed to utter the sentence: “I’m scared Trudy’s kid has been doing the weed.”

Broken marriage?

Big NOPE. You’ve literally seen Ned’s wife lean out of their front doorway with his bagged lunch in hand, giving him a wet kiss with one leg up in the air like they’re airing some black and white movie from the 50’s that somehow doesn’t involve a love triangle. Now if that ain’t love, than this baby ain’t evil:

Obviously evil…

So we have to conclude that your Personal Ned Flanders is flawless, his only sin making you feel like the slummy cockroach that you probably are.

Or maybe… it isn’t a sin?

Maybe Flanders is doing you a favour, trying to make this world a better place by living as an example to the rest of us? Maybe we should aspire to have or be inspired by his perfect life, with his 50’s wife and angel children. Maybe the bastard has a point and we should buck up, clean after ourselves and smile n’ wave back once in a bloody while?

Nah.

Stupid Flanders.