WRITING PROMPT

$100,000,000 Prize for Whomever Gets Rid of the Phrase 100%

Or do it out of the kindness of your heart

Bad news. The phrase 100% isn’t going anywhere. People love it. At weddings, couples are no longer saying “I do.”

Do you take this woman to be your wife?

100%.

Do you take this man to be your hubby?

100%.

Elders are fainting in the aisles, horrified by the mathematical nature of the nuptials. Who talks percentage points in matters of the heart? The world has gone math.

Brides or grooms who can’t stand the phrase 100% are rethinking their choice of partners.

Do you take this bride?

100%.

Aw hell naw.

Priests are crossing themselves backwards out of confusion, causing parishioners to think they’re devil worshippers and chasing them out of town.

But 100% won’t go away.

Teachers are so sick of it, they have stopped giving the 100% grade — even to the Mensa students.

If I hear a kid say 100% one more time when they have no idea what I’m talking about, I’ll lose it. The only power I have is to take away the 100% grade — minimizing the 100%’s power in the human language.

Some of my favorite people say 100% all the time. Everything I say to them, they 100% me. I don’t believe them. I don’t think anyone has ever agreed with me more than 67%. I don’t need their 33% pity.

My mom has started saying it. My dog, Ewok, took elocution classes so she could say it. Ewok is such a follower. Now, when I say, Who’s a good girl? or Who wants breakfast? Ewok says, 100%

What can I say? I love her. Of course I give her cookie. She can talk.

I hated 100% in 2021 and I still hate it in 2022. I thought people would get sick of it but they like it even more. In 2021, people said 100% half-assedly, with maybe 50% conviction. Now, in 2022, people say 100% like they get residuals every time they say it.

People, can’t we come up with something better than 100%? It’s had its day. Bless it and release it.

I get it. We’re not as smart as we used to be.

We don’t have word-of-the-day calendars. We have Kim Kardashian calendars.

We’re watching DIY rehab shows instead of reading the newspaper.

We post pictures of food. We click on pictures of food.

We Twitter instead of talk.

We’re not the sharpest generation on the timeline but can do better than 100%.

I know you’ll miss it. It works for so many answers. Cool car. 100%. The sky is blue. 100%. I have chlamydia. 100%.

It’s time to open the window and let 100% fly away.

I’ll make a deal. We‘ll’ call it back in twenty years. We’ll print a big “Welcome Back 100%” ad in the New York Times. I promise I’ll 100% everything, even when it doesn’t make sense.

But for now, let’s send 100%s raggedy-ass, dusty, overstayed dead fish smell into the past. It’s time.

Not ready? Not sure how you’ll to pretend to agree with people once it’s gone? I feel ya.

How about bringing back totally? Can we do that? I loved totally. You loved totally. It wore a neon pink mini-skirt.

Totally was accompanied with lovely phrases like “gag me with a spoon” (yuck), “gnarly” (awesome, amazing, or disgusting), “dude” (yes, I concur), and “rad” (lovely). It was Eighties America’s version of cockney slang.

But if you hate totally, which is fine — how about “AF” (as fuck — used for emphasis), “extra” (over the top, extreme), “groovy” (cool), or “mood” (signifies agreement)?

Don’t like those either? Gimme something else. I’m having a contest. I will give you $100,000,000 if you come up with something better than 100%.

No, I won’t, but only because I don’t have $100,000,000. Isn’t that sad? Do you pity me now? Please, out of the kindness of your heart, I need 100% of you to send in your suggestions. 100%!

That’s how you’re supposed to use 100% in a sentence. It means all of it. The way we use it now makes us look like we only know one word and we’re using our one word wrong. Totally.

Not judging, just saying. 100%.

Thanks to T. Kent Jones for his meticulous editing and for helping me find the funny.

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