The Point of the Story

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Month: February 2020

That Is Not What She Said

27 February 2020 / / 0 Comments
2 Min Read

For today’s story, and also one coming up shortly, I want to talk about something very important: coils.

Ok, so I admit they’re probably not “very important” to you. But, since that won’t stop me from talking about them, I figure it would probably be helpful for the Dear Reader to know a little background information about my “other job.” Don’t worry, I’ll keep the irrelevant info to a minimum and try not to nerd out on you too much…

As some of you may know, I have had a career in science, namely in the field of MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging). I have had the pleasure of imaging both humans and rodents, and in both cases, a critical part of the experiment is the coil.

The coil is essentially a small radio antenna shaped to fit around whatever you want to image, be it an arm, a body, or in my experience, a brain-containing head. Then the coil and your body part together go in the hole (ake “bore”) of the giant magnet. It is the coil that then detects all the fun science-y stuff happening inside our object of interest, and sends that information to a computer to be magically mathemat-ized into an actual image.

Really, though the main thing you need to know is that it is a very important part of my job, and that it fits inside the Really Big Magnet.

Tale 1: That’s Not What She Said

Recently I was working with Boss Lady #21Not to be confused with The Boss Lady, with whom I have conjugal relations–this is my current supervisor when I do decide to show up for my other job. learning how to image live mice. Previously, I had only worked with mice that were no longer with us in spirit.

We had thought that we had all the knobs and dials set just right, and were about 30 minutes into our 40 minute experiment when she had noticed the mouse, though safely and humanely sedated, had moved some in the coil.

There was a pretty good chance that the change in position would make our data up to that point worthless, so we needed to decide whether or not to go the full 40 minutes.

She turned to me and asked, “Should we pull it out before it’s finished?”

To which any fan of Michael Scott from NBC’s hit sitcom, The Office, would have indubitably automatically replied:

That’s what she said!

The office Fan with little to no self-control

And 9 times out of 10, that’s what this Office aficionado and lazy humorist would have blurted out.

But, being the professional that I am, I instead leaned into my vast knowledge of the Latin language. With a smirk on my face, I commented under my breath:2Actually, according to my text messages with the real Boss Lady documenting this event, I quipped, “The Latin term for that is ‘Coilus interruptus, I believe.”

Ah, a classic case of Coilus Interruptus…

A Junior High boy stuck in a PhD’s Body, Somehow simultaneously making the most high-brow and the most low-brow MRI Joke ever told.

(In case you need a little help3This might help explain the joke: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coitus_interruptus…)

Content created on: 26 February 2020 (Wednesday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

My Time To Go

23 February 2020 / / 0 Comments
5 Min Read

This is Part 2 of my Pee-No-Evil adventure. It will probably make much more sense to first read Part 1, Touched By An Angel, if you haven’t already.

That’s okay. I’ll just wait here…

When I last left you, I had just experienced for the very first time not only an ultrasound, but also the wondrous joys of a catheter as well.

As such, this seems like the appropriate time to reflect and philosophize on the nature of catheters in general, before moving along with this enrapturing narrative.

You see, it was in that exact moment of sweet relief when I realized that catheters were much like root canals.1Although I wasn’t about to experience my first one until a month and half later, but that’s a story for another time. The common perception is that these are horrible things, when in fact the public view is completely wrong.

What is horrible is if you need a root canal or a catheter. And in turn, if you receive a root canal or a catheter in that moment of desperate need, you will realize that they are the best ----- inventions of the last 5 centuries.

So think twice before you go talking smack on either of these wonderful, wonderful pieces of medical technology. *Dismounts soapbox.*

Getting back to the story: the medical staff actually ended up having to ultrasound and cath me again about 30 minutes later after the initial “life-altering event.”

As it turned out, I was unbelievably full of piss.

Naturally, I wanted some answers as to what had happened to me. But as to what was causing my unusual medical condition, the doctor’s best guess was that I had an allergic reaction to the anesthesia. Most likely it had interfered with the nerves that control the bladder,2Maybe this reference holds some clues? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1502389/ he said.

So now every time a dentist or other medical professional asks me the age-old question “Do you have any allergies?” I get to give one of my classic responses that start out, “Well….it’s a funny story, doc…” Unsurprisingly, I have yet to figure out how to get it down to under 2 sentences…

However, my favorite part of the whole episode was when it came time to discharge me in the early afternoon, and the doctor had to discuss the options at hand with me and my mother.

“So, originally we were planning on discharging you around noon. But of course that was before your…complications.”

“Now, we don’t know if you’re in the clear, or if you still may be susceptible to complications later today. This is a pretty serious issue, so we recommend that you stay overnight. But, if you really want to, we will go ahead and let you go home now…”

His voice trailed off as he appeared to be searching for the right phrase.

“Well, if you go home now, we’ll need to send a catheter with you. And if anything happens, we will need your mother to cath you. Are you okay wi–“

Without skipping a beat, Mom pipes up: “Oh, he’ll be staying the night here…”

It’s good to know that we were on the same page at least, and I wouldn’t run the risk of hurting her feelings by saying that no way in hell was I, a grown-ass 24-year-old man, going to let my poor dear mother stick a catheter in…well, where catheters get stuck.

Ironically, I had thought that getting cathed by that cute nurse was awkward and embarrassing…and that’s when the Almighty Cosmic Force said, “Here, thou shalt hold my beer.”

Anyways, it turned out to be the right call. Even though I didn’t have any issues nearly as serious as I had had in the morning, my bladder’s self-functionality that evening was still enough of an issue that Mom and I would had to have had a serious debate whether she should cath me, or–and hear me out–I should just let my bladder explode and save myself the humiliation.

E-“pee”-logue

While this actually is a fan-favorite bedtime story of The Elder’s, and having told it to her at least 10-15 times, there are still several things that never really occurred to me until recently.

A few days ago, when peeing happened to come up in conversation with a colleague, I regaled them with the aforetold tale. Apparently, I was anticipating writing this blog post and so it was a completely natural connection in my mind.

When I mentioned that the ultrasound had revealed over a liter of pee in my bladder, they asked perhaps what I should have asked the doctor many years earlier: “How much does a bladder typically hold?”

I realized I had no idea, so we googled it together, and I about shit myself when I found that an adult human bladder typically only holds 400-600 ml. I had no idea how far past the limits of all that was reasonable my bladder had been stretched.

Shortly after they had left, my newest colleague–fresh from France–came by to get my help on some stuff.

I told him that he had just missed an enthralling pee-pee conversation, and of course had to regale him as well with this tale of epic bladder proportions.

He had a good laugh about it, and then proceeded to tell me about what I suspect might actually be a French urban legend.

Apparently, the French are renowned for their love of trash-talking each other, even more so back in the days shortly after the French Revolution. In that era, there were a rather large number of town and civic meetings, and they were notorious for running ungodly lengths of time–often 6-8 hours, even.

And because every Frenchman was by default a prolific shit-talker, any time that someone left the meeting to go use the bathroom everyone else in the room would just spend the entire length of their absence talking smack on the poor shit-taker.3See what I did there? The fun with words never ends around here.

Eventually one bright fellow realized that if he never used the restroom during the meeting, then no one would get the chance to openly trash his reputation. This young man turned out to be rather dedicated to his own cause, and had successfully endured 5 hours of a meeting despite desperately needing to “take the piss.”

Unfortunately, his bladder wasn’t as much of a steel trap as his mind was, and right about 5 1/2 hours in, it ended up rupturing. And killing him in the process.

True story. Allegedly, at least.

It took me a moment to internalize the story I had just heard.

And when combined with the conversation I had only moments earlier, I came to a very sobering realization. While it seems like a humorous predicament, what had happened to me was actually a veritable close-call with death.4I wanted to say “near-death experience,” but I don’t think that means what I think it means.

Anyways, the point of the story is, first and foremost, for god’s sake use the restroom before you go into surgery.

And secondly, think twice before letting a doctor med-splain to you that your urge to pee is all in your head. Truth is, sometimes the health system will fail you and you’ll find that you’re your only advocate.

So here’s what you do: you grab them by the stethoscope and you tell him or her to “shut the ----- up and get me a ----- catheter right now. I’m having a life-threatening allergic reaction to the anesthesia, and if you don’t believe that this is a real medical condition, I know a guy how wrote not one but two whole blog posts about it!”

After all, unlike that dead French guy, I am verifiably not an urban legend.

Though I was just a wee bit too close to going down in history as a urine legend…

I mean, we all gotta go somehow, though, am I right?

Content created on: 27/28 January & 17 February 2020 (Monday/Tuesday/Monday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Crazy At The Bat

20 February 2020 / / 1 Comment
3 Min Read

While I grew up with a hard-to-explain-but-generally-greater-than-ten number of siblings, “J”, the brother closest to me in age by a long shot, was by far the most influential.

Of course, it was a whole mixed bag of “influential,” and a Dear Reader might be inclined to think it might be heavy on the side of the “bad influence” variety of influential. But to be fair to J, those make the most interesting stories, and I don’t talk as much about the good influence he was on me.

Now it’s ironic that I go through all that trouble to make that distinction, when today’s lesson isn’t really concerned with the more typical good/bad influence trope.

I’m thinking more of how certain experiences involving him have shaped and molded me in ways that persist to this day. It’s a peek inside my core programming, and a reflection on the skinny little fingers that punched that code into my system.

I remember when J & I were growing up in the sleepy little hamlet of Richfield, we would often go two doors down to the neighbor’s house to play baseball.

Well, that statement’s a little misleading. There was no neighbor because there was no house. But where the house used to be was the rectangular outline where the foundation had been, and for our purposes, was a more-than-adequate baseball diamond.

J, being the older brother, always insisted on being at-bat first. Me, being the younger brother, had no vote in the matter, so I always found myself pitching.

We would play for as long as it took to meet the three-outs threshold for an inning, but seeing as how there was only one player on each time, we had an array of arbitrary modifications to the official baseball rules. And one thing I remember for sure was that the net effect of all our custom rules did not favor the pitching team.

What I’m trying to say is that I had to work my ass off just to get 3 outs and earn my turn at-bat.

So you can imagine the heartbreak I endured when, almost without fail, when it came my turn to have fun and step up to the plate, J somehow came down with a case of the boredoms and decided he was done playing ball for the day.

Without. Fail.

Every. ----- Time.

At this point you may be wondering whether he was a bad older brother,1Also referred to as a typical older brother. or I was a ----- fool for repeatedly trusting him when I had more than enough historical data to accurately predict that I wasn’t going to get my turn.

Honestly, I’m not sure which is the more accurate description of the situation.

But I do know this: after all those ----- half-inning baseball games, I’ve grown up to really value the combination of justice and equality.

Ha. Justice and equality.

That’s the euphemistic way of saying, “I swear to god, if I hold up my end of the bargain but you don’t hold up yours, I’m going to find a bat and make up for all those lost innings all over your sorry ass.”

J.K. Kidding. I don’t advocate violence. But situations like that will get me fired up in an instant.

The point of the story is that even in the little things in life, be true to your word–your transactional promises, explicit or implied, carry weight. Sometimes they may not seem like much to you, but you can never tell when you might be scarring your little brother for life.

Womp. Womp. Womp!

Content created on: 19 February 2020 (Wednesday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Touched By An Angel

16 February 2020 / / 0 Comments
7 Min Read

Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone.
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot.

Joni mitchell, “Big Yellow Taxi” (1968)

In the year and a half that I took off between undergrad and grad school, I worked my first real job at a cellphone company. The great thing about a real job is that, if it is indeed a real job, you get health insurance.

About two months before I was set to head off to North Carolina to become a graduate student for the next 5-6 years of my life, it dawned on me that being a graduate student wasn’t going to be a “real job.” In other words, I was about to lose any semblance of meaningful health insurance.

Realizing what I was about to lose, I went off on a manic medical appointment making spree, tearing through my bucket list of check-ups and procedures that had been on my mind.

By some miracle I pulled off a trifecta, and after less than 15 minutes on the phone, I had somehow scheduled 3 doctor’s appointments for three consecutive days the following week. I was–and am still–way too proud of having achieved that feat in my lifetime.

Two of these were really run-of-the-mill: an eye check-up and a trip to the dentist’s office. The third one was a little more interesting: a consultation with an ENT (ear/nose/throat) specialist.

Well, it shouldn’t have been that interesting, and it didn’t really seem to be at the time. The pretense of the appointment was related to my lifelong bad habit of picking tonsil stones out of my tonsils in my spare [alone] time.

It wasn’t anything crazy like the tonsil stone videos you might find on YouTube–they were just little fellas. Quick tip, though: if you haven’t seen a video of someone harvesting1That can’t be the right term, yet somehow feels the most right… their tonsil stones…you might want to pass on that offer. It’s about as bad as the cockroach-nest-in-the-kid’s-ear videos…

Anyways, I decided to be proactive and seize the opportunity to do something about my tonsils while I had the coverage, so my trip to the ENT was to see if I could get a tonsillectomy scheduled before the end of the summer. While the doctor said my condition was only a low-grade infection that I had probably had for quite some time, he agreed that I could get them taken out if that’s what my heart so desired.

Fast-forward a few weeks to the night before my first-thing-in-the-morning surgery. I was trying to be a good patient, so I had dutifully followed the no-food-or-drink bit, and didn’t consume anything after 10 pm. Of course I didn’t want to get dehydrated between then and after my surgery, so, thinking ahead, I drank a bit more water than I normally would have otherwise.

My mom was the one that would be accompanying me to the surgery and taking me home afterwards, and right on schedule, she picked me up and whisked me off to my date with destiny.

The surgery itself was pretty much run-of-the-mill: they knocked my ass out, and when I came to, I was slightly less of a man than I used to be. I was little ticked to learn that they had immediately disposed of the trophies with the rest of the medical waste, as I was hoping to keep them (or at least see them) like I got to with my wisdom teeth.

After I came out of surgery, they let me have a quick bathroom break before wheeling me off to the recovery room for a planned hour or two of rest and recuperation.

Well, it was supposed to be a quick bathroom break. I ended up setting up camp for a good 10 minutes, as I was pretty sure I had to pee, but instead just sat there having not a single drop of luck.

I thought that was odd, especially since it occurred to me that while I had drank plenty of water the night before, I had forgotten to use the restroom before going into surgery. So surely it couldn’t be that I didn’t actually have to pee, could it?

I tried sitting in there as long as I could, but the orderly kept nagging me and said I had had more than enough time to do my business and that I needed to get to the recovery room. They basically had to drag me out of that bathroom. A boy knows when he hasn’t peed enough. I can’t explain how, he just knows.

After about 10 minutes in the recovery room, the need to pee hadn’t subsided at all, so I made them take me back to the bathroom. But, it was just pretty much déjà vu all over again, with the exact same script as before playing out.

They told me I just needed to chillax, and I tried to explain to them that it was kind of hard to do that when I seriously needed to take a leak.

But, again, I found myself trying to relax in the recovery room against my will. The doctor had ordered me to just lay there and try to maybe nap some, and then in 40 minutes I could try again–if I really thought I needed to do my biz and take a whiz, that is.

They kept telling me that it probably just felt like I needed to pee, so I should be able to safely ignore the urge. I thought, hey, what do I know? and tried to take them at their word.

So I just laid there in the dimly lit room, so ----- miserable, trying to convince myself that my body was lying to me and that I should just get a little shut eye. I had the mental fortitude–I could do this. Only 40 minutes until I had another shot at sweet relief, right?

After about 30 minutes had passed, I started to be confident I could make it the full 40. Of course I needed some objective verification of the situation:

Me: “Hey Mom, how long has it been?”

Mom: “Since when?”

Me: “Since, you know…”

Mom: “Since you last asked how long it had been?”

Me: “Yeah, I guess. I thought it was patently obvious what I was asking.”

Mom: “Oh, about 5 or 6 minutes.”

Me: …

Me: “Fuck this shit. Call the doctor in here NOW.“

It was at this point when I realized that I had entered into the bowels–no, bladder–of hell.

After much pleading with the doctor, he finally ordered an ultrasound for me. I gotta say, given that I was a virgin,2You expected this footnote to completely contradict that statement or have some Mormom-type qualifier saying that butt-sex is excluded, didn’t you? Well, guess what? It’s actually as true of a statement as it seems. I hadn’t even gotten to second base at this point in my life, save for one time in 5th grade that was completely by accident. I hadn’t envisioned myself getting an ultrasound any time soon.

Or ever. Because, you know…I’M A ----- DUDE.3Okay, so we know that I don’t mean this literally. I just established that this was one dude who actually had never ----- , so ” ----- ” in the usage as “one who ----- ” is not what is intended here. In case that wasn’t clear. Which it’s probably not, thanks to every other word getting censored.

Well, anyways, it took waaaaay too long (~20 minutes) for the ultrasound tech to show up. The tech did her thing, and, as she came to terms with what she was seeing, she actually let out a soft audible gasp . “Oh my” was all she said at first.

That is not the response you ever want to hear from a medical professional.

She went and grabbed the doctor and he came back to double check her calculations.

The doctor:4Not to be confused with my friend The Doctor… “So…I guess you were right when you said you needed to pee. According to the ultrasound, you have over a liter of liquid in your bladder. That’s well over the capacity of a normal human bladder.”

Me: “No shit, Sherlock–or should I say, ‘no piss, Paddington’?5I’m indulging here. I didn’t say either of those. Though it would have been completely appropriate in that moment. What’s our move here? I’m dying, Doc!”

Doctor: “Well…we’re going to need to insert a catheter up your urethra. Are you okay with–“

Me: “Yes, I know how caths work. Shut the ----- up and stick it in my ----- for God’s sake!”

Anyways, as you can imagine, it’s not within the doctor’s pay grade to be shoving catheters in every Tom, Dick, and Harry that comes along…or should I say…nevermind. You know where that joke was going. Implied humor should suffice here.

About 5 minutes later, a nurse walks in with the godsend/catheter in hand. A young nurse. About my age. And kinda cute.

Sooo…yeah, that was an awkward moment for me. About to get my tally-whacker touched for the first time by a comely lass, and I can’t think of a more romantic setting.

The truth is, though, I did not give a flying ----- in that moment. You know, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and all that. Not having an exploding bladder kind of trumps everything else except for breathing, I would argue.

She gracefully and deftly got the tube where it needed to go, and then…oh, the sweetest relief a man could ever taste in this lifetime.

I CANNOT overstate the flood of emotions–and urine–in that moment. On the surface, this all may sound trivial and laughable even, but I’m here to say that not being able to pee is an incredibly ----- up situation that I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemas.6Yes, that’s a pun. Ha ha.

On top of everything else, the collection bag couldn’t handle all that I had to offer, and they had to pinch off the flow while they changed the bags out. I can’t be certain, but I want to say that the bags were 750 ml, and I filled up 500 ml of the second one, so about 1.2 liters in total (!!!).

About 20 seconds after the nurse completed her duties, I was struck by a sharp pang…of regret.

Throughout this, I was in something of a loopy state, a combination of exhaustion and coming down off the anesthesia. Add to that the weird high I was getting from the overwhelming relief the catheter offered, and my sense of humor was as mirthful as ever.

What I regretted was missing the opportunity for a couple of zingers I had come up with in the middle of the cathing process, but didn’t have the wherewithal or presence of mind to say aloud to the nurse.

I really, really wish I could go back in time and at least say to her “I could kiss you right now.” And the truth about that comment is that I could have. Not in a romantic or sexual way, mind you, but in the sense that you would want to kiss the angel who is delivering you from the pits of Hades.

But if I really had been with it, here’s how I should have answered the age-old question first posed by early-90s heartthrob Jamie Walters,7https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Do_You_Talk_to_an_Angel “How Do You Talk To An Angel?”:

Geez…Let me at least buy you dinner first.

A young man being touched by an Angel for the very first time

To be continued…

Content created on: 27/28 January & 15 February 2020 (Monday/Tuesday/Saturday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

No Cookies for Kesha

13 February 2020 / / 0 Comments
5 Min Read

Ah, guilty pleasures. Everybody has them. Or at least should have them–it’s only healthy, ya know?

“But wait, what’s a guilty pleasure?” you (and the Elder both) ask.

Well, as I explained to my favorite first-grader last night:

You see, a guilty pleasure is something you really enjoy, but are too embarrassed to admit you enjoy it. For example, if I watched Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood on our local PBS station with you girls, then that’s cool. But if I secretly watched it by myself after you went to bed, well, I sure wouldn’t tell any of my friends I did that!

Grown-ass man who is merely making an analogy1Just kidding. I know that this is an example, or a hypothetical situation, but definitely not an anAlogy. and does not, in fact, watch daniel tiger’s neighborhood when he’s alone

And often times guilty pleasures come with a side serving of regret.

You see, back in the day after the Boss Lady and I were married, but before we had wee ones, a couple of her close friends decided that for there joint birthday celebration, they wanted a themed party.

The theme? You guessed it: guilty pleasures.

Around that time I had discovered that she would listen to owner-of-an-obnoxiously-sultry-voice and nationally syndicated radio D.J., Delilah. In turn, I did what any loving husband would do and teased her about it endlessly. So, it was a no-brainer who she would be going as:

Figure 1. Now taking your calls: them bangs.

For my part, my secret vice was also directly related to the public’s contemporaneous poor taste in music. Though I almost hated myself for it, any time I was alone in the car, I would rock out to party-girl and pop-rock sensation, Ke$ha:2Image source: By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25297496

Yeah. Her. Known for such hits as “Tik Tok,” “Blah Blah Blah,” “Your Love Is My Drug,” and “Take It Off”3https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_(Kesha_album)–most of which are not only party-centric, but controlled substance-themed as well. A rocking good time for the ears, to say the least.

So there. I admit that I loved her music. Ke$ha’s love was my drug and her music my guilty pleasure.

But I couldn’t go to this party dressed up as her music…no problem, though, because, apart from an arbitrary marking on our birth certificates, her and I were practically twins, dare I say…doppelgängers?

I’m pretty sure you could see where this was headed even before you started reading this. Yes, you are correct: you better believe that I’m not going to pass up a socially-sanctioned opportunity to cross-dress. For me, Halloween in January will beat out Christmas in July any day!

That evening as we were getting ready, the Boss Lady got me half prepared for my role before realizing that she needed to hop in the shower if we didn’t want to be too fashionably late. So there I was just chillin’, waiting for her in nothing but pantyhose, a balloon-filled bra, a sexy af mini-skirt, and most of my make-up. However, I still had yet to don a properly-torn top, boots, and the blonde wig.4Not that I needed the wig. I had plenty of luscious long blonde locks as it were.

…and that’s when the knock on the door came.

I peeped out the window and saw a young girl from our neighborhood, probably about 9 years old, patiently waiting outside our door. My mind frantically raced…should I pull Natosha out of the shower? Should I just answer the door?

As the tiny-fisted knocks reverberated through our door and throughout the house a second time, the situation became even more urgent, as I realized why she was calling upon us at such an hour.

She was slanging that mid-winter’s crack that every American knows and loves and is chemically dependent upon: Girl Scout cookies.

Me: “Babe, I know you’re in the shower, but what do I do? WHAT DO I DO?!?”

TBL: “Just answer the door! I don’t want to miss my main shot at a freezer loaded with Thin Mints!”5(TM)

“I know, I know! I desperately need my Peanut Butter Patties6ibid and Samoans,7Almost ibid… too, but I haven’t finished getting dressed–not that being fully-dressed would help the matter any.”

“How many times do I have to tell you, they’re cookies, not a South Pacific people group? Samoas, not Samoans! A didn’t marry no ----- cannibal!”

“Don’t change the subject!”

“And you don’t make me answer the door naked!”

“Too bad! There’s no way I’m answering it–it’s just too ----- risky!”

…and that brings me back to regret.

Regret can be combined with Girl Scout cookies in many different ways:

  • regret not ordering any
  • regret not ordering enough
  • regret eating the whole ----- box of Thin Mints8(TM) in one sitting
  • regret not holding up the cookie delivery truck and robbing them blind
  • etc. etc. etc

However, in this case I thought I would change it up and illustrate-by-counter-example.

You see, during my first year of grad school, I was the only one of my roommates home when the local Girl Scout9Technically, not the same one from earlier. came by in the middle of one cold-ass winter afternoon. Not thinking much about it, my Midwestern hospitality kicked in, and I instinctively invited her inside to get out of the cold while I fetched my checkbook.

When she automatically declined with all politeness, I had a brief moment of clarity, realizing that I probably seemed much more creepy than courteous No biggie, though.

Well, sure enough when she came around again the next year, there I was, home all alone with no one to answer the door. And once again, I realized too late that I was inviting her in…

The point of the story is, I strongly recommend not answering the door when a Girl Scout comes a-knocking and you’re halfway dressed in drag. I guarantee you will experience nothing but the opposite of regret. Especially when you’ve got two strikes against you and you’re on the verge of becoming a registered sex-offender–in the eyes of the local Girl Scouts, at least.

And we all know that there is no higher authority under the heavens than She Who Controls the Cocaine Cookies…

Figure 2. This girl’s ready to party.

Content created on: 12 February 2020 (Wednesday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Breaking Ephen Like A Stephen

9 February 2020 / / 0 Comments
7 Min Read

Here’s a fun fact: not all Valentine’s Day stories are hot steamy messes of eroticism and romantic escapades. Now that I think about it…do any of them ever really turn out that way?

Well, reality check aside, you can bet your sweet heart-shaped ass that I’ve got a Valentine’s Day tale for you. Even better, I promise it will be safe for all ages to enjoy.

Back in the spring of 2004 I had just mostly graduated1At some point I will tell the tale of how I accidentally graduated without realizing it. from Kansas State University, and was in search of any way possible to not use my physics degree while simultaneously eeking out an existence.

So I found myself in the hunt for some gainful employment, but didn’t have too much clear direction as to what type of jobs to seek out and apply for. One day as I was perusing the online want ads of the local newspaper, I saw a posting by a florist looking for delivery drivers for the three days leading up to and including Valentine’s Day, which happened to fall on a Saturday that year.

Seeing as how I hadn’t landed anything permanent yet, I thought it would be the perfect way to inject a little much-needed cash into my pocket–heck, I hadn’t made a proper grocery store run since mid-December!2I’m not sure if this is a story in it’s own right, but that streak actually lasted until mid May–a solid 5 months of a grown-ass man not buying groceries. It’s one of my more boastable accomplishments, and a strong contender for making it onto my headstone.

It’s not like I had anything else of note to do that V-day. Most of my guy friends were single at that time as well, so the only plans I had were to meet up later the evening of Valentine’s at a random Jamaican-cuisine-serving bar out in the boonies. We were calling it Bro-entine’s Day or Bachelor’s Day or something else obnoxious that I can’t remember off the top of my head.

Also, being the ever-over-thinking life philosopher that y’all know and love, I realized that this would be an interesting opportunity of sorts.

Let me reference the ultimate asinine life philosopher and personal idol of mine, Jerry Seinfeld. Those of you familiar with his eponymous TV show may recall the episode The Big Salad,3For a plot summary, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Salad. in which George buys a big salad for Elaine. His flavor-of-the-month girlfriend, Julie, is accompanying him, and when they show up to Jerry’s to deliver it, she is the one who is carrying it and ends up being the one who hands it to Elaine.

Elaine then proceeds to thank Julie–not George, who actually paid for it. Of course, petty hilarity ensues.

The wisdom to be gleaned here is that people often subconsciously attribute credit to the person who delivers something–not the person actually responsible for it. This principle in theory should apply whether it be a big salad, good news, bad news…or, say, flowers and balloons.

So imagine all the warm, positive, and often “romantic” feelings a woman4Or a man, I suppose. might experience upon receiving a lovely bouquet of flowers and a box of chocolates. Now imagine all those great feelings being subconsciously–and undereservedly–associated with my modestly handsome and youthful face, and perhaps even the sound of my voice.

In the short term, well…you know how they say “don’t shoot the messenger”? I liked to joke that in this case maybe I should be proclaiming to the recipient “Don’t kiss the messenger! J.K. Kidding…you can kiss me if you insist.”

But even better than maybe getting a kiss on the spot, was the Long Game that I was playing.

I need to invoke yet another episode of Seinfeld here, The Junk Mail,5For a plot summary, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Junk_Mail. in which Elaine inexplicably falls for a very ordinary looking guy, only to eventually find out that she’s so voraciously drawn to him because she recognizes him from a series of T.V. commercials where he plays “The Wiz,” a mascot for an electronics store of the same name.

The idea is that later down the road, if I happened to run into one of the ladies I had previously delivered flowers to while running around town, that they would be overcome by attraction and desire for me.

Now multiply that by the some-odd 50 delivers I would eventually make…yeah, that’s the closest to straight-up Evil Genius that I’ve came in my life. In theory, I could potentially have the legitimate need to “beat them off with a stick.” Too bad–spoiler alert–that investment never paid off…

Okay, philosophical digression aside, I responded to the ad, and as you all already know, after 5 rounds of interviews and 3 background checks, I scored the gig. Well, maybe it was more like half a round of interviews and zero background checks, but that doesn’t have the same zing to it, does it?

The first morning of the gig was a Thursday, and I showed up bright and early at 6:30. In fact, I was the first one there, even beating the shop owner.

He sheepishly greeted me, and explained that the demand for flower delivery before the regular work day started tended to be on the low side, so I might just be hanging out for an hour or so before things would start to pick up.

To my surprise, within about 30 minutes he told me to warm up the Camry, cuz I had my first delivery of the day! I was so pumped and ready to harvest all the undue adoration that I was sure was coming my way.

Except…well, I had better hope that the principles I laid out above wouldn’t hold for that first delivery. Because the last thing I needed was for a random group of friends and family to forever associate me with grief and loss and embalmed loved ones.

Yes, that’s right, my first Valentine’s Day delivery was to a mother ----- funeral home. And they weren’t even open yet, so I had wait around for 10 minutes, and then I had the joy and honor of being in a dimly light funeral parlor at 7:30 in the morning, where the dead definitely outnumbered the living. This was off to a swell start, indeed.

After that, though, the fun business picked up and, honestly, the next 3 days were kind of a blur, with me rushing about, making deliveries all over a 15-mile radius. The only one I really remember is the one I delivered to a girl that I had taken Public Speaking with 4 years earlier. The main reason I remembered her was because she was on K-State’s waterskiing team, and I recall being shocked to learn that we–Kansas State–had a waterskiing team. Anyways, at least we recognized each other enough that it wasn’t too awkward of an encounter.

The funny part about all of this is that I unwisely hadn’t clarified the terms of compensation beforehand, and it wasn’t until I was getting ready to head out for my final delivery run that I learned how much I would be getting paid. The deal was that I would get $5 for every successful delivery–which was actually a bit more than I had expected. I must have made ~45 runs because I calculated that I would pull in about $225 for my three days’ worth of work. It was definitely a pleasant surprise!

Though I was running a little late, I just needed to make 5 or 6 more deliveries, and then I would be able to go celebrate Celibacy Day with a cold beer, some jerked chicken, and the company of my homies.

I had gotten to the next to last delivery, which was actually a double delivery. Some thoughtful husband and father had ordered flowers for both his wife and his wrong daughter. I found it to be a very sweet gesture.

Now there are three important details here. First, I had parked across the street from their house. Second, since I had to deliver two vases, I had decided to carry them in the now almost-empty cardboard box that I had been using to safely and securely shuttle around my deliveries. Lastly, it had snowed a few days earlier, and so there was some hard-packed snow (now ice) against the curb, though the street itself was clear.

After making the delivery, I was walking back to my car with the empty box in my hands, and I needed to gingerly step over the strip of snow that was against the curb.

It was just wide enough that I couldn’t step over it, so I daintily hopped over it…

The next thing I remember is the box going flying in the air and my body shifting into a horizontal position about 3 feet in the air before gravity took back over and violently pulled me back to Earth face-down.

Apparently when I had hopped into the street I came down on some black ice, causing my legs to slip out from underneath me in very extreme fashion.

It really was a blur, but the main thing I recall is my right hand landing first, basically karate-chopping the street. It was lightly sore, but then again, so was the rest of my body.

Not being seriously injured, I picked myself up in embarrassment–though I’m pretty sure no one saw me–and picked up my box and hopped in my car. The final delivery was thankfully more uneventful, and I headed back for one last check-in with the florist to give them my total delivery tally.

I met up with my buddies and enjoyed a good meal with them, and I related to them how my little flower delivery adventure had gone, including the surprise twist at the end there.

That night when I got ready to hop in the shower, I discovered that, in addition to scraping my cheek and landing on my hand, I somehow had a long scratch down my chest. Nothing major…just odd. My theory was that I had slid forward as I landed, and that there must have been a little jagged bit of ice sticking up, slicing me gently as I slid across it.

As they say, fun times were had by all…

Of course it would have been wonderful if this here story ended with me incurring the most minimal of injuries and walking away from the experience with a cool wad of $225 in my pocket. That would have been great.

However, after a week, I noticed my hand was still a little achey, so since I was still enrolled in a photography class at the college, I took advantage of my access to the student health clinic.

The key point here is that “access” does NOT equal “coverage” or “insurance” or anything like that. Having my hand x-rayed on the first visit was reasonable, but had I known that I would be paying out of my empty-ass pockets for every ----- thing, I would have told the doc he could shove the follow-up x-ray somewhere only his licensed and trained proctologist could find it.

It turns that I had actually fractured the pinky-bone in my hand, and was prescribed a custom-formed plastic half-cast for a few weeks. So it was probably overall better for my health that I did have my injury checked out.

But after all was said and done, I got a bill in the mail for…$205.

Son. Of. A. Bitch.

After taking into account the gas I burned making those deliveries, I was exactly $0 the richer for the whole episode.

In the end I had broken both my hand and dead even.

Unfortunately, I was too ----- hungry to appreciate the irony–and the beautiful symmetry–of the situation.

But really, the point of the story is you couldn’t fault me if I were militantly pro-“Medicare For All.” Of course the version I would be promoting would be retroactive at least 16 years…

I really, really want my hard-earned $225 back–adjusted for inflation, and with interest, of course.

Hmmph. That’s interesting…maybe–just maybe–I am but a bougie capitalist after all…

Happy Valentine’s Day, all you money-lovers!

Content created on: 7 February 2020 (Friday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Just Another Kimchi Chronicle

6 February 2020 / / 0 Comments
8 Min Read

Editor’s note: This is yet another entry in the saga of my Kimchi Baron of the Interwebs aspirations, aka The Prissy Pet Project. Perhaps you need to read the most recent journal entry, Work-From-Throne Job Opportunity Available, to get slightly more up to speed.

The short version of where we’re at in the process is that I’m in the middle of building up a following for my Tumblr blog, kimchi-and-keto. In the meantime, I need to set up an internet storefront that acts as a portal in which customers can buy all sorts of kimchi, etc. via Amazon.

Click here if you want a few more details...

Currently I have been following a random online guide to making money via Tumblr.1Tumblr, a rather popular micro-blogging site

As a reminder here is the basic checklist of such schemes:2All screen shots should be assumed to be from https://www.onlinedimes.com/how-make-money-on-tumblr/

The short version of this strategy is this:

  1. Find some niche you like, and start a Tumblr blog related to that topic.
  2. Using some automated tools to post ad infinitum, build up a critical amount of Tumblr followers (50+). Don’t bother with original content–just repost from other like-minded blogs.
  3. Set up a basic Amazon store selling products related to your blog’s theme/brand.
  4. Use your automated posting tools to advertise your store on all your posts as they spread through Tumblr like a virus.
  5. Profit.3To be clear, the profit is via a small commission of 2-7% for everything you sell via Amazon–it’s not actually your products in the store.
  6. Repeat Step 5 without lifting a finger.

Last I left you, I was reveling in the fact that my main task at hand–trying to get people to follow me–could be done from the comfort and convenience of my own crapper…

Journal Date: 27 January 2020 (Monday)

After a little over a week of relatively active pursuit of Tumblr followers, I noticed that some of my new followers were ones that I had not solicited at all.

In other words, I was starting to see some “organic” growth in my fan base. I have no idea how they were coming across my blog, but I do offer a lot of pretty pictures of food, so I’m not totally surprised that people are finding themselves attracted to kimchi-and-keto.

I tallied up the new users I didn’t recognize, and concluded that of the 14 new users I had since the last update, I was pretty sure that 7 of them were ones that I hadn’t put direct effort into obtaining. It’s BOGO on new users I guess!

More specifically, it was 7 new users over the course of 7 days, so I’m thinking that if I’m getting 1 new user every day on average without putting in extra work, then maybe I can start shifting my focus elsewhere…

And there are definitely “elsewheres” where I need to start putting some serious effort into. Also, money. I need to start putting money into other efforts.

There were two expenses that Franklin, our online guide, had included in his Tumblr domination plan, but I had originally balked at just dropping money before having an idea of whether or not it was worth it.

However, I think in the back of my mind I’ve finally resolved to just jump right in and go ahead and invest $20 in Queue+ and $70 on a good theme. Glancing at one of the themes previously, I realized that it definitely offered a lot of valuable features that there was no way in hell I would be able to create myself, even I had the skillz already. It’s all about added value, yo.

First, let’s get that theme so we can start building a real website with real products, and at least have a non-zero chance of someone visiting it and patronizing us. Here is the link as prescribed by the aforementioned guide: https://codecanyon.net/item/woozone-amazon-associates-bundle-pack/11240475. Clicking on it now, and…

…that’s definitely not that same site that came up last time I followed that link.

Oh, just great. When I finally get the gumption to pull the trigger on buying a theme, the hosting site decided to experience some downtime.4Note that it was back online when I checked the following day. So good news there… Goddammit.

Okay, so maybe that’s I sign that I shouldn’t focus on that just yet. My motivation for paying for the premium version of Queue+, is that with the free version I’m limited to queueing up 600 posts at any given time. Now that may seem like a lot, but when posting one every 15 minutes, that comes out to roughly 6 days of auto-pilot before having to load it up again.

But I’m most decidedly at the point where reloading it is more of a distraction, and also I’m starting to run low, so now seems like a good time to drop $20 and then load the mother ----- up so I don’t have to touch it again for months.

Upgrading now, and…

For the record, it’s $27 a year now (instead of $20 whenever the Guide was put together)…oh well. Okay, time to load this ----- up as much as possible!

OMFG, trying to add from this archive: https://keto.tumblr.com/archive/2016/2/filter-by/photo but it won’t let me select any posts.

Argghh! It won’t even let me select a single one. Dammit. Why me? Why now?

*Does a quick Google search; only glances at results*

Oh GOOD ----- LORD. The second I drop money on Queue+, they get shut down for having an illicit cryptocurrency script running in the background.

I don’t know if they’re shut down for good or what, but sounds like that I could have loaded up my Queue a few hours earlier than when I tried, and at least had that going strong (it seems the extension is the offender).

This is what happens when you hesitate, folks. I’m getting screwed over as punishment for my hemming and hawing, I guess.

To buy me some time, I’ve throttled back how often I post, changing it to every 30 minutes instead of every 15, thereby getting double mileage out of my remaining stock.

Journal Date: 28 January 2020 (Tuesday)

When I search google for news of Archive Poster being taken down from the Chrome Store, I only find articles dating from around December 2017/January 2018, so I’m wondering if that’s a red herring?

But I’m trying it on [a much more up to date computer I have access to] and it’s not working there either…I also try logging out of kimchi-and-keto and logging in as kimchiandketo, but still no dice.  Seriously What The Fuck?

So, good news: the current Archive Poster is not the previous naughty version that got kicked off the Chrome Store. Bad news: it stopped working for no apparent reason.

I’m seriously freaking out here, because having a copious amount of automated posts are the critical marketing avenue for my forthcoming kimchi store. And if I can’t add posts to my Q+ en masse, then the whole project becomes too tedious and time consuming for me to continue…

Journal Date: 31 Friday 2020 (Friday)

I’m down to less than 10 posts in my Q+ and things are looking pretty bleak. Fortunately, I found an instance where the Archive Poster works, although it just lets me add from my current feed…and I’m following so many random-ass blogs, that only about half (or less) of what shows up in my feed is on-brand enough for me to reblog.

It will do in a pinch, and I’ve added enough to last me over the weekend…but only because I’ve throttled all the way back to posting every 90 minutes now. Oof.

I’m actually thiiiiiiis close to figuring out how to reverse-engineer these cursed Chrome extensions, and figure out how to fix the stupid thing, given that I’ve found one similar example where the code actually worked. I’m telling you, knowledge is power, and once I get my web-dev coding chops in order, I’m going to be a ----- god.

But that’ll have to wait, because, yeah, I tried it and I’m definitely in over my head.

Journal Date: 3 February 2020 (Monday)

On an unrelated note, the Chiefs just won the Super Bowl in heart-stopping fashion last night, so hellz yeah that was pretty awesome.

But back to the crisis at hand. Here is my Queue+ dashboard:

The Prissy Pet Project is at Death’s doorstep here, people.

However, it turns out that the Chiefs’ world championship in football Americano wasn’t the only awesome thing that happened. After checking regularly over the past week, it appears the Archive Poster extension is back to working!!! Have no idea what was wrong…but what I found humorous was that the fiasco was chronicled in the Review section for Archive Poster on the Chrome Store (be sure to read them bottom-to-top, and also at the time of this screen capture, “5 days ago” was actually around the 1st or 2nd of February):

Anyways, to quote Mr. Pacanelili above, “thank you, thank you, THANK YOU.” Time to make hay while the sun still shines!

*Goes to ----- town adding posts to Q+*

Later that night:

I’ve turned back up my posting rate to every 30 minutes, so that comes out to a burn-down rate of 48 per day. So I should be good for another ~137 days. Heck, yes.

Given that I’ve been on autopilot for about a week in regards to working towards my first goal of attaining 50 followers, I figure I would give you an update-update.

But first, I’ve posted my Tumblr dashboard below, tracking the number of Notes,5Number of times that people have either liked, commented, or reblogged one of my posts. which is pretty much directly proportional to the number of Posts. You can very clearly see where my posting volume/frequency just fell off a cliff thanks to Archive Poster’s busted ass:

Although I just realized that the picture above kind of spoils the drama of revealing how many followers I now have, I’ll share the New Follower (over the last month) dashboard with you anyways:

I’m up to 446Actually 47 at the writing of this post on 6 Feb. overall, and holding pretty steady at a do-nothing rate of ~1 a day!

Now, FINALLY I can get back around to try putting my kimchi-themed website together.

Wish me luck! I just hope that my next update doesn’t end with the following:

The point of the story is, maybe you should listen to the Universe when it tells you pretty clearly to stop whatever the ----- that is that you’re up to.

If you finally are motivated enough to take long put-off action, only to find yourself thoroughly cock-blocked by God-with-a-capital-D-so-my-Censorship-plugin-doesn’t-bleep-him-or-is-it-really-her-out and/or technology, well, maybe that’s a sign you should have quit while you were ahead…

definitely how I hope to never end one of these blog posts

Content created on: 6 February 2020 (Thursday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Killing Them Hardly

2 February 2020 / / 0 Comments
7 Min Read

If it isn’t obvious by now, I’m particularly fascinated by dreams. I find that they provide an interesting–and sometimes terrifyingly honest–peek into our psyches. It’s like saying to your Innermost Self, “No, tell me how you really feel about me.”

The downside to recounting dreams to the rest of the world is that so, so much of them make sense only while you’re experiencing them; the narrative within the dream is consistent enough in the moment, but the second you wake up and and say that first detail aloud (even if just to yourself), you realize, “Hey that makes no ----- sense at all!” At which point it becomes much more of a fustercluck describing to someone else what that experience was like.

I think for this very reason I don’t share here nearly as many dreams I would really like to. I do it for the sake of you, Dear Readers. After all, haven’t you suffered enough trying to make sense of my stories that really happened?

Well, I suppose that’s enough foreplay–let me get to the dream that I’m eager to regale you with today. I was going to share this one with last week’s dream-themed post, but I ran over my self-imposed time-limit. Let’s see if I can keep it short and sweet this time around, ya?

It wasn’t but a week or two ago when I found myself in a classroom setting that seemed to be on the border between a university and a medical center. So far, this makes sense, as I have worked in such a setting for the better part of the last 15 years.

Of course I hadn’t picked up on the detail that I was the only adult in the classroom besides the teacher, though I was clearly one of the students. Actually I’m not 100% certain I was going all Billy Madison with a bunch of 8-year-olds, because I also got the distinct vibe that I wasn’t able to communicate fluently, so there’s a pretty good chance that I was in, of all things, a Spanish-speaking elementary classroom located on a medical campus. Making sense so far…

We were reading from a classic novel as a class, and as a character appeared in the story, the next student with the same gender as that character would be assigned their part for the rest of the story. I was sitting in the front row of the classroom, on the far left side save for two young Mexican school girls further to my left.

All that to say, as soon as the first male character–a young boy–had a speaking part, the orating duties fell on my shoulders. I remember having a real hard time getting through the line or two in front of me. ‘Twas but a real trip on ye ol’ Struggle Bus, indeed.

We read some more, and it wasn’t but a minute or two before my character had another line. However, this time I simply for the life of me could not read the words on the page.

So I improvised.

While my goal was to get me out of the situation with some light humor, my definitely-not-in-the-text zinger turned out to be something of an over-achiever.

I was expecting maybe just a chuckle or two from the crowd, but instead I ----- killed it.

I mean, I had everyone in tears from laughing so hard. The teacher was on the ground unable to breathe. It was ----- near a literal riot–one that lasted for a good 2-3 minutes. Mind you, that’s an eternity in comedy-land.

So though I wasn’t in it for the compliments, I gotta say, the response I got felt good. Real good. I sat there, with my eyes closed, literally basking in my own glory, letting my ego soak up every last drop.

I remember thinking to myself, “This must be what it feels like to be a comic1Or comedien/comedienne to those not in the industry. when they tell a joke that just absolutely slays the audience…I think I could get used to this.”

My thought immediately after that, though, was “I gotta tell somebody about this!”

Since the Boss Lady–bless her soul–was the first person to come to mind, it reminded me that I was married, thus confirming that indeed I was a grown-ass man, in a classroom full of kids, in a foreign land. No, nothing odd about that…

At that point, the scene segued into later that night in the same classroom, where it was just me and few other random students doing our own unrelated things.

For my part, I was obsessed with writing down my unicorn of a one-liner before it escaped me. I found myself wandering around the room in search of a pen or pencil, when I came across the desk where I had been sitting.

To my delight, I found the scrap paper that I had been doodling on when I had uttered my epic phrase. Hilariously, the first thought that crossed my mind was, “I better save this–the historians are going to want to preserve this piece of comedic history.” Yeah, I know, a bit presumptuous, but it made complete sense in that moment.

On it I found a bunch of trigonometric diagrams and sketches, and scrawled at the top, the phrase “Uncle-Uncle B.J.” I have no idea why, but I found that phrase to be utterly hilarious as well. What can I say? I was on fire that day.

But at that point, I still hadn’t written the phrase down, and I just knew I was going to hate myself forever if I somehow forgot it. While my insurance policy was to just keep repeating it over and over quietly to myself, I just couldn’t take any chances.

Right about that time I had found a pencil, and just as I was about to jot it on my collector’s edition piece of scratch paper…the power went out campus-wide. Of course it would. How timely.

I remember having the sense that I, along with the other few students, really needed to make our way to another, safer, location on campus where everybody else was. That detail doesn’t matter too much, but my guess was that they were all at a football non-Americano2I.e. “soccer”.game.

We found our way out a side door and could see some stadium-like lights off in the distance, and determined that’s where we needed to head. Unfortunately, we were completely surrounded by a maze of tennis courts.

While the other students headed off to get lost, I stayed behind, desperately trying to write down My Precious words. However, given that I was using a pencil, laying on a not-so-smooth tennis court, and had virtually no light of which to speak, I wasn’t able to get more than about a word and a half down, so I had to resort back to muttering it to myself while I tried to find my way to somewhere–anywhere–else that had light and a smooth surface.

I eventually found another building, and so I let myself in via a nondescript side door, hoping that I wouldn’t be more lost inside than I had been outside.

But as soon as the door shut behind me, the loudest, most piercing alarm I had ever heard blew out my right ear drum, as I was still slightly turned with that side towards the door.

Simultaneously, as the power came back on, a blinding light/shock wave combination utterly blasted my right side.

The only thing I could think in that moment was “nuclear explosion?” and “welp, I guess this is my death.”

However, I remained conscious as it felt like the right side of my face was being melted off, so I shielded that side with my arms as best as I could, and kind of leaned into the curiously continuous wall of energy.3Ultimately, the best waking theory I have for what happened was that I had wandered into a particle accelerator lab, and I happened to be right in the path of the particle beam as it unexpectedly turned back on with the power. But it was never revealed in my dream what had happened, so I’m just guessing here.

This went on for about a minute, the whole while I kept thinking “Am I dead yet? No? How am I still alive? Okay…now am I dead? What? Not yet? Dear lord put me out of my misery already.”

Next thing I remember is opening my eyes to find that, no, I was not in heaven nor hell, but rather in (what I presumed to be) a burn victims’ ward of a hospital.

Two nurse-type ladies were with me and saw that I had came to, but continued to discuss me in the third person. I soon realized that one of them didn’t have any legs, so I wonder if they were not nurses, but rather victims of the unidentified blast as well.

One of them said, “Well, no, he sure isn’t dead, but we’ll see yet if he can handle being like this the rest of this life.”

Though I didn’t have a mirror, it become clear to me real quickly that I had suffered third-degree burns to my body, but especially to my head and face.

As I went to make a comment to one of them, much to my horror I discovered that my lips had been melted off, and I would never be able to speak again.

Noooooooo! The world must know of my turn as the Wittiest Man-child in the World!

I tried desperately speaking, whispering, grunting–anything–but I had been rendered a completely ineffective communicator. I’m not clear on this point, but I’m thinking the fingers on each of my hands must have been melded together, because you would think I would at least be able to write it down, right?

The remainder of the dream was mostly a Rocky-style montage of me going through vocal physical therapy, trying to regain my ability to speak. I was on a mission: nothing was going to stop me from telling me somebody how funny I had been that one time.

I don’t ever remember fully gaining the ability to speak. However, right before I awoke, the last scene involved me walking to some sort of rally with a group of prep-school teen-aged boys. The last thing I remember is approaching them, hell-bent on telling them the Wittiest Quip in the World. I just knew they were going to appreciate it.

As I neared them, I opened what used to be where my lips were, but before I could moan my line, I saw fear flash across their faces.

Oh, right. I forgot. I look like my face has bent by the flames of hell…

And that’s where the dream ended. It’s perhaps the most unfulfilled I have ever felt after awakening from a dream.

However, thanks to repeating it to myself over and over, I could remember what the line was, and could tell people in the real world!

Before I could forget, I turned to my phone and opened up my Notes app, where I furiously tapped out those words which would change the course of comedy forever:

In a young Dickens accent: "I'm sorry I don't have a very big Johnson, sir. I've never had much of a Willy on me."

Behold World, I have created the first-ever Dick(ens) joke.4Seriously, though, Dream B.J.?

Yeah, anyways, still not seeing how this could fail, I tried that out on the Boss Lady as soon as I got the chance…

Turns out, it wasn’t quite as funny in real life. Go figure.

It was definitely a bummer to realize that I may not have come up with the One Joke to Kill Them All after all…

But, hey, look on the bright side: at least I still got my big, beautiful lips, right?

Content created on: 29 January & 1 February 2020 (Wednesday/Saturday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

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