HiddenHow To

How to Read How-To Guides

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How-to guides are a great way to learn a new process or skill. But how do you read these how-to guides? This how-to guide will guide you how to!

Step One: How-to guides start by introducing their subject. Take a look at the previous paragraph of this how-to guide to find out what it is about, then proceed to Step Two.

Step Two: Beginning with Step One of the How-to Guide, follow the instructions. When a step is complete, move on to the next one. Try it out on this guide by returning to Step One.

Step Three: Uh oh! If you followed the instructions correctly, you shouldn’t be here! Start again from Step One and try again.

Step Four: Okay, you seem to be having trouble with the concept of following instructions. Go back to Step Three, and do what it tells you.

Step Five: I’m getting cross now. A lot of these steps are meant to be Top Secret and I don’t want you to read them. Please just go back to the start or close this browser window and I’ll forget you were here.

Step Six: Give me strength! I’m going to count to three, and if you’re not back at Step One before I say ‘three’, then so help me. One. Two. Two and a half. Two and three quarters. I am dead serious about this. I’m about to say ‘three’, and you do not want to know what happens when I do that.

Step Seven: Fine, if you really want to read further, email me and we will talk about it. I showed you a lot of trust when I let you read this how-to guide, and all I asked was that you follow instructions.

Step Eight: Search carefully in your late father’s barn and find his old leather flying jacket and the goggles with the picture of an eagle on the side. Put them on. Captain William P McIntosh of the RAF will come to your farm looking for your father. But he will instead enlist you, a regular farm kid, to fly as his wingman against the dreaded Deutsche Luftstreitkräfte! You will go behind enemy lines and experience adventure, danger, and even forbidden love for a gorgeous German newspaper reporter. Best of all, Captain McIntosh will be a father figure who’s not afraid to say ‘I love you, son’.

Tips: Be patient! It may take some time to learn to read how-to guides.