If I Ever Become a Magical Girl...

I will not be astonished when I manifest magical powers. Of course I have magical powers. It's in the show's name.

I will watch plenty of anime and play lots of video games during my stay on Earth so that nothing I meet in the magical world fazes me.

I will not waste my magical powers on trivialities like passing tests. If I play my cards right, I'll never have to go back to Japan again.

I will not waste my magical powers on getting boys, either. If the series is worth its salt, I'm already rolling in bishonen; and who wants a blob-faced future salaryman when she can have Hotohori or Allen Schezar?

I will, however, conquer the world. It's been a long school year, and I really need a vacation.

I will not wear a fuku. If I have to wear a fuku because it contains my magical powers, I will take it to a good tailor and have it altered. Most sailor skirts convert into culottes nicely.

Odango are Right Out.

I will perform exercises to sharpen that rare and delicate faculty known as a "memory," so that I don't have to waste valuable time repeating everything that is said to me phrase-by-phrase.

I will not say my beloved's name obsessively when he is not in the room. I will use my beeper.

...And if I am on Kodomo no Omocha, I will remember to set my beeper's vibrator on "low."

If I am faced with the choice of being destroyed by something evil, or of letting loose something even more evil in the hopes that it will destroy the lesser evil and then not eat me, I will think carefully. The greater evil is likely to become my romantic interest.

If I cannot cook, I will not keep trying in the vain attempt to convince everyone of my femininity.

I will, however, bring huge amounts of preprocessed snacks.

I will not waste my malletspace account on mallets. An AK-47 is about the same size and much more handy.

I will be a dyke. It's the only thing that can save me from the magical girl's ultimate fate of falling in love with the most colorless yoik on the show.

If I don't have that option, I will be a sidekick instead. Sidekicks always get secondary characters as boyfriends, and they have a much better chance of having a personality.

I will not fall in love with the first boy I meet in the magical world. There's bound to be another six or seven along in a minute.

I will resist the urge to dropkick the obscenely cute and fuzzy whatsit which follows my party around. There's no telling what powers it has.

I will reaffirm my dedication to my quest and my friendship with my teammates less than once every three shows. The viewers get it, already!

If I get to choose a costume, I will choose one with a real disguise which leads to plausible confusion as to who I really am.

Dissenting Opinion: I won't bother to conceal my identity because the greatest amateur dectective at school hasn't got a hope of noticing who I am. I have script immunity.

I will bargain for a fighting costume that covers my head, legs and arms, preferably with some sort of tough armor-like material. If my higher-ups won't spring for that, I will go out and buy an inexpensive bicycle helmet and strap pan lids to my kneecaps.

I will carry a small, powerful, concealed firearm and a bottle of mace at all times, just in case my large, decorated, twangly-dangly attack doesn't work for some mysterious reason. I will encourage any other members of my party to do the same.

I will wear my hair in a short, manageable style, not involving pigtails down to my feet, loops the size of bowling balls, a long, untied cascade of locks down my back, or anything else that I can get caught by/tangled in/suspended by a pole from.

I will not allow the center of my powers, and thus the fate of whatever I am protecting, to depend on a gem, stone, or any object smaller than a grapefruit, which could be easily stolen, lost, or accidentally flushed down the toilet. My powers will revolve around a 40-foot stone monolith on an unsightly, dangerous planet, far, far away, cemented to the ground, guarded by giant, savage housecats, and possessing a ghastly smell. Sink your teeth into that, villains.

I will use the patented "anime eye-twitch syndrome" to look cute and sucker everyone around to feel sorry for me. At the very least, it should be useful for getting out of speeding tickets.

I will decide beforehand whether I want to stand with my feet apart for balance or with my knees together for modesty, and will not attempt to do both at once.

My transformation scene may look great as I twirl around gymnastically, but I will check to see if I have room to do this first.