The Point of the Story

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Month: August 2020

The New Adventures Of The Old Kimchi Hunter

30 August 2020 / / 0 Comments
6 Min Read

The wild, bloated kimchi casually sauntered through the driveway. They had no choice but to stab it mercilessly…

Hey, do y’all remember in the Before Times when I was keeping you informed of my scheme to profit handsomely as an internet kimchi ambassador/ salesman/ cartel leader? Aka, The Prissy Pet Project–you recall those dry-ass shenanigans, right?

If you don’t, you can relive all the glory and get caught up to speed here.

So my last official update was waaaay back on February 6th–almost 7 months ago! It feels like we’re probably due for another one…

The latter half of this blog post is dedicated to an abridged version of my project journal, for those who might somehow be stricken with urge to drudge through those details.

For the sake of the narrative, let me give everybody else as brief as a summary of which I am capable.

My business model is 2-fold. First, using automated posting software, I build a following on my obviously-named Tumblr blog, kimchi-and-keto. This is my entire marketing strategy.

Second, I use my Tumblr posts to link to kimchiandketo.com, my website that, in theory, will be a curated kimchi store featuring homemade review videos and extended diet/lifestyle information (keto, vegan, kosher, etc.). The store actually links to products on Amazon, and for every time someone goes through my website to buy some kimchi, I’ll earn a commission of around 5%. Further I will earn commission on anything that person buys on Amazon for the next 30 days.

Now, what has happened since February? Well, I had started to build a basic version of kimchiandketo.com, but hadn’t figured out how to easily (and properly) link to the products on Amazon.

Right when I was on the verge of solving that technical issue…COVID took over the world. ----- COVID. At that point I started directing my energy on more important concerns. You know, like surviving the collapse of society. Or how to actually be productive when I suddenly found myself an overly-chatty office mate (aka the Boss Lady).

Around July, I was finally re-energized enough to pick it back up again, even getting the website into a basic, but functional, state. I even made my first sale! Even if it was to an acquaintance, it still counts.

And that is when I discovered that back in April, Amazon decided to really stick it to the Amazon Associates, the entrepreneurs like me that would drive business to Amazon and receive a commission in return. You can think of Associates as the little guys & gals that had helped build their empire.

And they/we got screwed over real good by Amazon when they slashed the commission rates to insultingly-low levels. Remember how I just said my business model included a 5% commission? Well, for my category of products, Groceries, that got cut to 1%. One gosh darn percent!

For my first sale, the product price was $20 before shipping. Now, instead of earning $1 off that sale, it was a paltry 20 cents! On top of that, they cut the window for earning extra commissions from 30 days to 24 hours.

In short, they blew up my whole business model.

Now I have a couple of thoughts in light of this unpleasant development…but I’ll save those for next week.

For now, I will reward your loyalty with these videos of the Boss Lady’s parents spear-fishing some wild kimchi that wandered into their driveway.

<em>Click here for the actual context of this video</em>.
Ok, for realz, what happened was her dad ordered a big ol’ bag of kimchi a week before we all went on vacation, but the shipping was slow af. He recruited his neighbor to pick it up when it was delivered and keep it refrigerated until we returned. No problem, right?

Well, the post office decided to hold it instead…for lord knows what reason. Anyways, letting a bag of fermenting cabbage sit in the heat for ~11 days can end in disaster if you’re not careful…hence trying to stab it with an 8-foot pole.

Oh, shenanigans.

Optional Reading

<em>Click here for The Official Prissy Pet Project Journal: The Missing Pages</em>.

Journal Date: 7 February 2020 (Friday):
Signed up as Amazon Associate, you need to have a pre-existing website for them to check out, so I put thepointofthestory.com on the application. Key detail: I have 180 days to get 3 sales, or else they shut my account down and I would need to set up a new one.

Journal Date: 10 February 2020 (Monday):
Took the plunge and bought & installed the REHub theme1https://themeforest.net/ for WordPress for $61.

Journal Date: 19 February 2020 (Wednesday):
Tried to “easily” set up a store linking to products on Amazon. This was a huge fail, Amazon and/or REHub had changed some policies back in October 2019, making it much more difficult to get access to the key features that made things easy. Key detail: Either I drop $50 for the Pro version of something-in-rather2Content Egg plugin, if you care about that detail. or figure out how to get 3 sales (see Figure 1) the hard way so I can have access to the API.3Code that does the hard work of interfacing with Amazon. Even in the case of the latter, I will have to hope my programming skills are sufficient to pick up the slack.

Figure 1: I need 3 of those darn “qualifying sales”…or pay for whatever SiteStripe is.

Journal Date: 24 February 2020 (Monday):
Was teased with a solution in the form of Content Egg’s “Offer Module”. However, wasn’t able to get it to work before giving up for the day.

Journal Date: 2 March 2020 (Monday):
I found out that the website that “Franklin” had set up in the guide I’ve been following was defunct…Womp womp womp! That is not reassuring, LOL. BUT, I finally figured out how to manually add product (see Figure 2), so I searched for “vegan kimchi” on Amazon and added ol’ Madge’s Vegan Kimchi as my test product. Key detail: I think I can build my store the slow way, but it should allow me to earn those elusive first 3 qualifying sales.

Figure 2: In case you were wondering what my solution looked like. It was indeed the Offer Module, whatever that means…

Journal Date: 11 March 2020 (Wednesday):
Welp, it’s official: COVID-19 is about to clean America’s clock.

Journal Date: 15 March 2020 (Sunday):
Here comes COVID quarantine…not so sure that this might be the beginning of the end of functioning society. Key detail: Going to put this project indefinitely on hold and focus on more pressing matters, such as putting a bug-out plan together and learning how to actually start a campfire.

Journal Date: 11 July 2020 (Saturday):
Finally found the motivation to get back to this project. Great news is that my Tumblr following has grown to over 1,100 in the meantime! That might be enough to actually start driving business to my website.

I have about a month to get those first 3 sales! First step is getting a basic website in place that acquaintances can access and formally place a kimchi order that I will get credit for. Then I can think about spiffing up the website and opening it to the public (via my Tumblr followers).

Key detail: I have a live, bare-bones website up with 5 or 6 products that people can order from, and now I need to call in some favors from 3 friends to get my qualifying orders in before August 7th.

Journal Date: 16 July 2020 (Thursday):
Got my first sale from an accomplice who is already kimchi connoisseur! They paid $30 total–$20 for the kimchi and $10 for shipping. So will only earn commission on the $20. Key detail: now to call in those other 2 favors!

Journal Date: 18 July 2020 (Saturday):
While waiting for my first sale to shop in my Amazon Associate account, I decided to refresh my memory as to how much I could expect to make from this historic first sale. I found the following table of current commision rates (see Figure 3):4https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/help/node/topic/GRXPHT8U84RAYDXZ

Figure 3: Grocery: 1.00% Wait…WHAT T.F.?!?

And now, to convey the raw emotion of the moment, I will let my raw & unedited notes describe what happened next:

“FUUUUUUUCK.5Sorry about the potty words, Mom. It used to be 5%!

Apparently around mid-April Amazon decided to really ----- their associates over.6https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/14/amazon-slashes-commission-rates-for-affiliate-program.html

Also saw elsewhere that what used to be a 60-day cookie was switched to a 30-day cookie and is now a meager 24-hour cookie. Meaning I would only get commission on sales within 24 hours of them following my link.

In other words, my whole business model just got driven over the side of a cliff.

Well, this is ----- depressing. Will need to look into other associate options, but right now it’s hard to see a profitable path forward…”

Key detail: Welp, I’m glad I hadn’t built an entire empire already, only to have it de-valued by 80% overnight. Suppose I dodged a bullet on this one….

Journal Date: 28 August 2020 (Friday):
My Tumblr follower count is officially at 1,495–not, too bad! Also, I recycled all my Tumblr posts back into Queue+; currently sitting at 10,500 posts and posting every half hour, I should be golden until mid-March 2021. Key detail: Let’s be optimistic: I might be able to salvage this project yet…

Content created on: 28 August 2020 (Friday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

I Am White And Here To Be Incredibly Awkward

27 August 2020 / / 0 Comments
3 Min Read

“Excuse me, sir. Can I ask what your ethnicity is?”

I’m not gonna lie to y’all…I never saw that one coming.

I probably should just go ahead and say this upfront: I’m white, and I’m here to be awkward. Incredibly awkward, even, if all goes well.

The excellent news is that this happens to pair nicely with yet another Back-To-School vignette from my vast repertoire of life experiences. Everybody rejoice!

As long-time readers probably know by now, I’m a perennial front-runner in just about everybody’s Whitest Kid You Know contest. Or as, the beloved country music singer and philanthropist Dolly Parton would put it, I have a “lilly-white1Errata: so I just checked my source, and it turns out she said “little- white ass”. Color me disappointed:…https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/country/9434624/artists-applaud-dolly-parton-dixie-comment-black-lives-matter ass.”

I’m talking Village-of-the-Damned, kicked-on-a-plane white. For better or worse, it is what it is.2Dammit, Donald, why do you have to ruin every turn-of-phrase.

Not exactly a prime candidate for an identity crisis, is what I’m trying to say. Yet, Life has a way of surprising us.

My moment of cognitive dissonance came the day before I started classes my Freshman year at Kansas State University. It was Back-To-School season, and as on most college campuses, every ----- campus organization and credit card company had booths set up outside of the Student Union, in search of easy prey.

Now, I was there on official business, picking up a textbook or some other classroom supply, and wasn’t in the market for anything they were selling. So I was in my own little world as I rolled up on my bike and was locking it to the bike rack.

Out of nowhere, I hear this voice…

“Excuse me. Excuse me, sir.”

Slightly bewildered, I scanned my surroundings.

“Excuse me, sir, can I ask what your ethnicity is?”

I realized that the voice belonged to the middle-aged Black woman sitting at the Black Student Union3https://ksusankofa.wordpress.com/ table.

And she was talking to…my lilly-white ass?

My brain slightly short-circuited…like, I understood the words she was saying, I just didn’t understand them when strung together like that. I didn’t think that particular topic could ever ever come up for debate.

Nevertheless, she was clearly talking to me, so I answered as best as I could.

“Uh…Caucasian? I guess…”

Not gonna lie, though, she had me doubting myself at that point.

“Oh, I see. I just wanted to say that I really love your skin tone. I’ve never seen anything like that before. It’s beautiful.”

I don’t know if it was because it was unexpected, or if it was because of from whom it was coming, but HOLY SHIT, I can’t even put into words how ----- fantastic that compliment made me ego4You can thank my Inner Pirate for that Freudian slip of a typo, Mateys! feel. I swear to you, it made me tingle in parts of my brain that I never knew existed.

I thanked her for her kind words and went on my way, puzzling over what had just happened and trying to figure out what my optimal response could have been.

Then I looked down at my arms and that’s when it hit me.

Oh. Right.

Context matters. And the context here was that I had just spent the whole summer working on the farm with my dad. Much of which was with an “I’m young and I’m never gonna die so bring on the melanoma” attitude towards sun exposure.

In other words, I had a so-called “Farmer’s Tan”…on steroids. Yet, somehow, answering “Tropical Viking” instead of “Caucasian” still didn’t feel quite right.

Oh, yeah. The hair…

You know what happens when already blonde hair gets too much sunshine? At that point, “white” isn’t even an accurate description anymore. “Clear,” “transparent,” or “fiber optics” would be better terms, but still don’t quite nail it.

Basically, I was a walking, talking, breathing film negative of a normal white person.

I know it’s a bit late of a repsonse, but, Ma’am, the correct answer to your question should have been:

“I’m a proud ethnic Bizarro Oompa-Loompa.”5This is not a joke. If I ever find my Driver’s License from that summer, I’ll post here as proof.

Indeed, ’tis a point of pride for me that I can say something that most of y’all crackers out there can’t:

” ‘Genuinely confuse a woman of color about my ethnicity?’ Oh, I checked that off my bucket list a looooong time ago.”

*Sigh.*

Despite my rather uncommon neo-ethnic bona fides, I’m admittedly still not very good at discussing racial topics. But I say the only way to getting better at it is practice, practice, practice! And that starts with whole-heartedly owning it…

Or, as I essentially told my woman-of-color admirer, “I’m white, and I’m here to be incredibly awkward.”

Content created on: 27 August 2020 (Thursday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

The Unfortunate Allegory Of The Gift Of A Lifetime

23 August 2020 / / 0 Comments
7 Min Read

The way I was laughing at the thought of the Universe getting in one last Cosmic punch to the gonads was clearly making him real nervous. The wild look in my eyes probably didn’t help much either…

Believe it or not, we’re still talking about that one time we tried to permanently relocate our car to Kansas before we moved to Hawai’i. All we ever wanted was to give a beloved family member the Gift of a Lifetime: a vehicle that is both functioning and reliable.

Okay, okay, so maybe “Gift of a Lifetime” is a little hyperbolic. But it’s still a pretty decent gift to give someone. We could have always just sold it and put a cool $2-3k in our pockets, you know.

As you may recall, we came really, really close–like, “1/10th of a mile” close–to getting the car to Kansas under its own power–and if you know not of which I speak, take a quick break and read up on it here.

Then, to add to the absurdity, I found myself staring into the mouth of madness when I attempted to get AAA come rescue us. You can relive the dramatic reenactment of that moment here.

Those AAA-Holes (TM) had pushed me so far into insanity that I had actually gone all the way through it and found myself in Hyper-Sane Land. It was in this altered state of mind that it became clear what I had to do: AAA Oklahoma wasn’t going to come save us any time soon, so I was going to have physically push the ----- car over the state line and into Kansas with my own two hands.

After all, we had a hot, hot date with the Morton County Fair that fateful day in August, and I sure wasn’t about to let no mechanical failure keep me from forcing the Boss Lady into watching me dramatical reenact The Prize Pig Story where it actually happened…

Well, as it turned out, after hanging up on AAA I took a moment to collect my thoughts before acting on my plan to push the car to it’s semi-semi-final destination.

At that point, it had been probably been a good hour since we had broken down, and I had replenished the radiator, so…yup. I could actually start it up!

It didn’t sound completely okay, but we were able to drive the few hundred yards into Kansas (!!!) and then the half mile or so on to the fairgrounds. Being the eternal optimist that I am, I was hoping that maybe the engine just needed to “rest” for the day, and then that evening we would be able to drive the last 33 miles to the car’s final destination, Hugoton, KS (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Was 1,587 miles too much to ask of a car?

We ended up enjoying our day at the fair as best as one could, trying to ignore that nagging feeling in the back of our minds that we done screwed up real good this time.

Now, I had originally wanted to stick around for the rodeo that night, but at about 6 pm we decided that we should probably get going, just in the very unlikely, off-chance, remote possibility that the car might, just might not make the last leg of the trip on its own.

And confident as a cowpatty,1It’s a play on “sure as shit” in case you were wondering. we made it a whole 2 miles out of town (see Figure 2) before it was clear the car was on the verge of giving up the ghost.

Figure 2: Closer, but no banana-er…

Ah, but fear not! Recall that, being the certified genius that I am, I had upgraded our AAA membership to the fancy Gold status, entitling us to up to 75 miles of towing.

And guess what is less than 75? Thirty-one. The remaining 31 miles was most definitely less than 75, so…it was officially time to hail a glorified taxi for our vehicular.

Dialing up Kansas AAA, I pulled us slightly off the road and a little bit into a scenic cow pasture. At a certain point, you just have to embrace your shitty situation whole-heartedly, and we were bound determined to enjoy the relaxing prairie view while we awaited our ride.

It was actually kind of nice to be able to share that unexpected peaceful moment, not having other places to be, not having other things to do. The sun was setting, the August day was finally cooling down…and our sanity really needed the opportunity to sit and laugh at the ridiculous pickle in which we had found ourselves.

Of course, the day couldn’t end without at least a few more light shenanigans, though…

First, AAA wanted to send us a tow truck from Amarillo…Texas. Yup, since it was after-hours, that was the closest on-duty guy they could get ahold of…almost 2 1/2 hours away. After a bit of pleading on my part, they tried calling their guy in Elkhart again, and–praise be to the wide open Kansan heavens–he answered this time! Even then, though, the AAA operator had to coax him out of his house and into his truck, but in the end he agreed to come haul us off to Hugoton.

And then there was the issue of him locating us. He somehow managed to not find us alongside the highway, because you know, there’s no better hiding place than the ----- wide-open high-plains of Kansas. The tow truck passed 3 times before finally calling us up, and we had to explain to him yes, that domelight he spotted 30 feet out in the pasture was indeed his damsels in distress.

So FINALLY, at almost 10 pm, he and his teenage assistant got our immobilized car securely loaded up and on the road. And for everyone’s troubles, we were all richly rewarded with…the World’s Most Awkward Uber Ride, with all 4 of our sweaty bodies jammed in the cab of the truck, replete with 30 minutes of mentally exhausting small talk. It was unavoidable, though, because the only thing more awkward would have been to insist on staying in the car. But apparently AAA’s lawyers frown upon that…

At long last, at 10:30, we rolled up to–let’s call her ‘Daisy’–to Daisy’s doorstep. I’m sure that was a pleasant surprise for her…

“Tah-dah! Here are the keys to your NEW CAR!”

“Gee…thanks?”

Tow truck driver: “So, lady, where do you want me to put ‘er down?”

I felt like I needed to interject some context before she answered. “Um, you might want to choose wisely, because it might be in that spot for a little while.”

“Okaaaaay. Maybe take it to my friend’s place out in the country. He might be able to fix it. Better than pissing off my neighbors by leaving it planted in front of their house for the next 6 months.”

Tow truck guy: “Cool, cool. How far out in the country is his place?”2HOLY CRAP. I had forgotten about this last little plot twist.

Daisy thought for a second. “Let’s see…about 3 miles.”

*Tow truck guy pulls out his phone and studies his Google Maps app intently.*

“Just one tiny issue…I don’t think that’ll be covered. It’s about a 70-mile round trip from my shop to here and back, and then if you tack on another 3 miles each way…that puts me at 76 miles and AAA will only reimburse me if it’s under 75.”

*Crickets*

Technically, he was right (see Figure 3).

Figure 3: Fact Check: TRUE. 75.3 miles is indeed a longer distance than 75 miles.
Figure 4: Meanwhile, without the slight detour to Daisy’s…OH YOU GOT TO BE ----- KIDDING ME!

And technically, he was about to get a boot so far up his ass he would have shoelaces coming out his nose. Or at least that’s probably what he thought.

The way I was laughing at the thought of the Universe getting in one last Cosmic punch to the gonads was clearly making him real nervous. The wild look in my eyes probably didn’t help much either.

“…or maybe I can find a way to make it just under 75…heh, heh…GULP…right?”

“Whatever, man. Just please put us all out of our ----- misery already.”

Now, allow me, for those of you who have endured all 3 parts of this epic-ish journey, to put us out of our collective ----- misery already.

You see, it’s an allegory. Now, by definition, it’s supposed to be up to the Dear Reader to interpret the allegory to reveal the hidden meaning within.3https://lmgtfy.com/?q=allegory But haven’t you suffered enough already? I’ll do you a solid and just spell it out for ya.

Me and the Boss Lady? Baby Boomers.

Daisy, the beloved family member? The Boomers’ kids, Generation What-Have-Ya.

That gently-used-but-trusty car? America. Planet Earth. Hell, let’s just say both.

Sure, you wanted to leave something behind nice for your kids after you were long gone to “Hawai’i.” But you didn’t take seriously the warning signs that the engine was getting too hot. And then when things started to really break down, you got impatient and opted for the quick-fix instead of real solutions.

That’s okay, though. That “fix” was good enough to get you to your beloved fair and get the problems out of sight, out of mind, even if just for a little while.

Hope you enjoyed your time at the fair!

And at the end of the day, you show up at your kid’s door with an irreparably damaged Gift of a Lifetime on the back of a proverbial tow truck.

*Tosses keys to new owner*

“Welp! She’s all yours…you’re welcome!”

And, lastly, there’s the tow truck guy, aka The Year 2020 A.D.,4More like “in the Year of Our OVERLord” because silicon, alien, or regular ol’ fleshbag dictator, I know we’re all secretly thinking we’ll be subjugated in some form or another come December 31st… there to deliver the final blow to our sanity.

Please, just put us out of our ----- misery already…

Content created on: 21 August 2020 (Friday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Back-To-School Not-So-Special

20 August 2020 / / 0 Comments
3 Min Read

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

“A new truck?!? How ----- sweet is that?!?”

I could feel it in my little growing bones. This was going to be one special year…

I had been looking forward to my very first Back-To-School experience for weeks by that point in time. I had even made it the first order of business on my first day of First Grade to check out the fresh crop of incoming Kindergarten ladies and select the cream of said crop to be my future girlfriend.

In fact, I had a classic 80’s rainbow-shaped eraser that I was going to bequeath to whichever lucky little lady I ended up choosing. And that eraser wasn’t just any eraser, either. For some odd reason it smelled a lot like candy and I remember always wanting to lick it like it was made of crack-cocaine.

Just a completely normal ol’ rising First Grader, I was indeed.

Well, ignoring for now how creepy I just made Six-Year-Old Me sound, the point is that it was a new school year, and I was more than ready to move on from the trauma of being a Kindergartner. So naturally I was a little bummed out when I found out that I was going to have put my hopes and dreams on hold for one more day.

You see, back in 1987 the first day of classes at Unified School District 217 just so happened to fall on the day after one of my older brothers was supposed to get on a bus in Colorado Springs and have his ass shipped off to Navy Boot Camp.

This must have been a particularly joyous occasion for our mom, as she insisted my bro 1 Skinny Jay1My sibling closest to me in age, a rising 3rd grader himself at the time. and I join her and our aunt–the Shenanigan Sisters, we’ll call them–on the 4-1/2 hour journey so we could bid him adieu and/or good riddance in person.

Well as it tends to go when you’re rollin’ with the Shenanigan Sisters, shenanigans inevitably ensued, and we didn’t quite make it all the way back home that night. Subsequently, us boys done missed out on all the basic grade school orientation activities the next day.

No problem, though, right? Surely, there couldn’t be that much of a difference between the first and second days of school.

Now, if I’m being completely honest (and probably a little sexist,2I suppose you could consider that a pun… as far as that goes), when I did finally make it to school, I discovered that the new bunch of Kindergartenresses3I’m pretty sure that’s the feminine form of Kindergartner, much like Master/Mistress. was, shall we say, a little disappointing.

Nope. Not a single rainbow-eraser-worthy chica amongst the whole lot of them…

But the Universe more than made up for dashing my rather shallow romantic plans that day. It wasn’t long before I found myself marching with my class past the playground on the way to the cafeteria for our early morning milk break…

Newly renovated playground, that is.

I just about creamed the crop of my pants when, behold, there before my eyes was all sorts of never-before-seen equipment for our enjoyment and recreation: Swings. Merry-go-rounds. Slides. Monkey bars and jungle gyms.

And The Truck.

Sure, it didn’t actually go anywhere. But you could sit in it and it had a steering wheel and it had enough room for at least two more friends in the cab and…

And I just couldn’t contain my excitement any longer. I turned to my classmates to see if they were seeing what I was seeing.

“Can you believe this?!? Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod! A ----- pickup truck.”

I paused a moment when I was unexpectedly met with nothing but dumb looks and blank stares.

“Yeah, whatever,” one of them replied dismissively, “we all saw it, like, YESTERDAY. Jeez. Get a life.”

As if joy-shaming me and making me feel like a complete ass wasn’t enough, he decided to go in for the kill, taking direct aim at my social jugular vein.

Turning to the others, he loudly proclaimed “Hey everybody! Get a load of this dork.”

Goodbye, Special Feeling.

Believe it or not, the point of the story actually is that you shouldn’t think twice when it comes to showing your fam some love.

Sure, seeing my brother off to the military almost cost me my nascent social life.4In addition to gifting me with a lifetime supply of FOMOOTFOA–Fear Of Missing Out On The First Day Of Anything…which was somehow supposed to be the whole point of this story.

But Karma richly rewarded me in the end, for it ’twas that very year the school counselor officially labelled me “special”5It is left to the reader’s imagination as to which kind of “special” I was.…which I think was a good thing.

Oh, and did I mention that was the only year that I had two girlfriends…at the same time?

Yeah, true story.

Who’s the dork now, y’all Brotherhaters?6[Ad voice-over:]’Brotherhaters’: for those times when you really want to say ‘Motherfuckers’ instead. ‘Brotherhaters’: now available in blogs nationwide –get yours today!

Content created on: 19/20 August 2020 (Wed/Thurs)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Push Me Cuz I Am Close To The Edge

16 August 2020 / / 0 Comments
6 Min Read

“I’m sorry sir, but I can’t find your location anywhere on my map.”

At that point I was all but certain that I was stuck in the Twilight Zone. Probably the episode entitled “The Middle of Nowhere ” at that…

Last week, I left you with a real cliffhanger at the end of The Little Engine That Could Not GIve A ----- , and out of respect for those who have not read that just yet, ima pause right here while you go read it and get up to speed. That’s okay–the rest of us don’t mind waiting.

Okay! And…we’re back.

To refresh everyone’s memories, when we last left off, the Boss Lady and I were transporting her car halfway across the country on a 1500+ mile road trip in order to gift it to a family member before we moved to Hawai’i (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: With all apologies to The Proclaimers: “I would drive 500 miles! And I would drive 500 more! …and then 500 more! Just to be the man who delivers a car to your front door.”

We were confident that Kansas would be the place where our beloved ’98 Honda Civic was destined to live out the rest of its years, in faithful service to a hand-selected loved one. But as you know, within a mile of our semi-final destination (a day at the Morton County Fair) and with the Kansas state line a stone’s throw away (see Figure 2), our car decided to give us the middle finger and die alongside the road after overheating.

Figure 2: A reminder of how absurd our situation was, breaking down less than 0.1 mile from Kansas.

So there we sat, hoping that our breakdown would be but a temporary setback and that we would not miss out on too much of our special day at the Fair. Eventually a passerby stopped and lent us some jugs of water, which I promptly turned around and used to quicken the engine-cooling process.

“Keeeeer-RACK!” said The Little Engine.

“Oh, EXPLETIVE,” I gently gasped under my breath.

I feared that, in addition to not listening to the Boss Lady the day before when she expressed concern about the water level in the radiator, I had made Unforced Error #2: introducing water into the engine’s system before it was cool1Obligatory hipster reference goes here. enough, and had perhaps cracked a head. I gotta admit there was a lot of regret and self-hate encapsulated in that moment.

But all was not lost just yet.

One thing I had left out in my recounting of The Little Engine was that, in anticipation of our early August trip across half of the North American continent, I had shrewdly decided to upgrade our AAA membership.

It seemed like it would be worth the extra $80 or so once I realized that the Basic Membership only covered towing for a meager 3 miles–because 3 miles ain’t jack shit when you’re stuck in the middle of nowhere! However, with the Gold Membership came the peace of mind that we would at least be towed to a repair station if anything happened, assuming that we weren’t more than 75 miles from civilization at that point.

And in this moment it was feeling just a bit ironic that, after investing that $80, we ended up needing it when we were well within 3 miles of several Elkhart-based auto shops.

But since we had that fancy Gold Membership, I figured we might as well use it, right? Nothing that a quick call to the toll-free number on the back of my beautiful golden-colored AAA card couldn’t fix, right…right?

“Good morning! Thank you for calling Triple-A Roadside Assistance! Could I have your location please?”

“Uh, hi. Yes, I was needing a tow truck…I’m just outside Elkhart, Kansas.”

“Ok, sir, this is North Carolina AAA. I’ll need to transfer you to Kansas AAA. Please hold for one moment, mmmkay?”

“Sure. I ain’t going anywhere.”

“Good morning! Thank you for calling Kansas Triple-A Roadside Assistance! Can I have your location please?”

“Hi there. Yes I’m just on the outskirts of Elkhart.”

“Excellent, yes, I can help you with that! Could you be more specific?”

[Runs back to double check the small state highway we had just turned off of.]

*Lightly panting* “We’re right at the intersection of Highways 56 and, uh…looks like 95?”

*Tapping on a keyboard, followed by a good 2 minutes of silence.*

“I’m sorry sir, but I can’t find that anywhere on my map.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry about that. That’s Oklahoma Highway 95.”

*More silence.*

“Sir, I see that you are actually in Oklahoma then. I’ll need to transfer you to Oklahoma AAA.”

“Really? But I’m essentially in Kansas. I’m staring at the “Welcome to Elkhart” sign right now. In fact, if you’ll just hold for 15 seconds while I cross the highway, and…there! I’m physically touching the sign. How about now?”

“I’m sorry, sir–“

“Seriously? You can’t send a tow truck from Elkhart? They would be here in like 3 minutes.”

“I won’t be able to help you at all as long as the car is located in Oklahoma, and it sounds like it is. Do you mind holding while I transfer you?”

“Do I have a choice at this point? Sure, why not? Transfer me yet again.”

At that point I hoped they could hear me rolling my eyes over the phone, cuz I was rolling them hard.

“Good morning! Thank you for calling Oklahoma Triple-A Roadside Assistance! Can I have your location please?”

“Okay, so I know I’m technically in Oklahoma, but I’m just a few feet from Elkhart, Kansas, and I was wondering if you could send out a tow truck from there.”

“Sure! I can help you with that! I need to know where in Oklahoma you are though, sir.”

“Good lord, man! How hard can this be?!? Isn’t like, ‘making maps’ half of what y’all do? “

*Hard sigh*

I’m not really sure how I was expecting them to respond to my clearly growing frustration. Nevertheless I paused for a second to collect myself before continuing.

“Ok, whatever dude…I’m at the intersection of Highways 56 and 95…just right outside Elkhart, KS.”

*Tapping on a keyboard, followed by a good 2 minutes of silence.*

“Ok! Good news, sir: I have found your location on my map, and it looks like we got a truck in Keyes that can be in there in about 45 minutes.”

“Now why on God’s green earth would you send me a truck all the ----- way from Keyes? I ----- near literally have one foot in Kansas. Just send me a truck from Elkhart already!”

For context, here’s a little geographical graphical reminder borrowed from The Little Engine (Figure 3):

Figure 3: I really shouldn’t have had to point out where ----- Keyes, OK–population 324–is on any of the maps related to this story. But alas, here we are…

“Oh, hold on one second…”

“This better be good news…”

“Yes, I see. My system was just refreshed and it looks like it might be an hour before the truck gets there now.”

“I FEEL LIKE I’M TAKING CRAZY PILLS!”

“I’m sorry you feel that way, sir. Do you want me to send the truck or not?”

“This is insane. You know what? NO. You know why? Because you people have not one ----- ounce of common sense amongst the lot of you.”

“Uh…so that’s a ‘no’ then?”

“Look, because of your collective dumbassery, here’s what I’m going to do: I’m just gonna have to go all Grand Master Flash2Ahh, so that’s what the title is all about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLs2hv6f3Kw up in here and PUSH THE ----- THING ACROSS THE STATE LINE MYSELF. You happy now? Then it will be Kansas AAA’s problem then! Sorry to inconvenience you so.”

“Umm…”

*click*

And for the official record, it was me who hung up on those Triple-A-Holes.

Oh, no friends, this journey ain’t over yet. I mean, we still haven’t even made it to Kansas yet, now have we?

Please, won’t you join us next week, when I’m pretty sure I can delivery on the double promise of resolution and a moral of the story.

I think I can…I think I can…I think I can…wrap it up and finally get to the proverbial point of the story.

*Long silence*

It’s, uh…it’s a reference to the classic book from our childhoods, The Little Engine That Could.3In case you didn’t catch onto the fact that is where the title of the last post came from. You know, The Little Engine That Could…Not Give A ----- You get it now, right? Perfect. Humor conveyed; mission accomplished. Please laugh.4Be sure to watch with the captions on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdCYMvaUcrA

Content created on: 14 August 2020 (Friday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

How To Protect Your Kids From Questionable Life Experiences

13 August 2020 / / 0 Comments
2 Min Read

Recently I was chatting with our 7 y.o. daughter “The Elder,” when I found myself lamenting how, while I can usually orally regale1Oh. Jeez. No, no, no, no. That is not a sexual ephemism. I just mean telling a story via the spoken word. You ----- pervert. someone with one of my many pointless stories in under 5 minutes start-to-finish, the same tale will always take a much larger chunk of my time to compose as a blog post.

This is actually a pretty big issue for me, as the time burden of producing written content can often really take the joy out of the whole process. It makes my Gift of Gab feel more like my Unbearable and Inescapable Curse of Gab most of the time.

And, you, Dear Readers, are the ones who end up suffering when you have to wade through my thoughts, only to be ‘rewarded’ with a punchline that was written in a state of exhaustion. Verily, you deserve only the finest puns and turns of phrase, and sadly I don’t always deliver.

Anyways, being a little problem-solver after my own heart, The Elder began brainstorming various ways that could help me churn out my milquetoast blog posts more efficiently.

She rattled off a few suggestions, with her ideas landing all over a spectrum that ran from moderately practical to implausibly fantastical. (She is only 7, after all, so you always gotta be emotionally prepared for at least one solution involving “rainbow-farting unicorns” to be thrown out.)

But then she got on a train of thought about how I could video myself telling my random stories, then go back and transcribe them.

“Wow,” I thought, “now she’s really on to something that might be worth trying out.”

“Not too bad, Kiddo. Not too bad…please, go on.”

“Oh, I know! You can even have some of my stuffed animals interview you…”

“That’s cute: ‘The Teddy Bear Tapes.’ It does have a nice ring to it…”

“…that way you can tell all those stories that I probably shouldn’t hear!”

I had to pause while my mind was being blown.

“Holy shit, that is genius!”

“Just one problem, though, Daddy.”

“Yeah?”

“You probably shouldn’t say ‘shit’ around me either. Save it for the stuffies.”

There. There you go. There’s your punchline. Hope it was worth your 2 minutes!2Ok, Judgy McJudgikins, for the official record, I didn’t actually say ‘shit’…out loud, at least.

Content created on: 12/13 August 2020 (Wed/Thurs)

Footnotes & References:[+]

The Little Engine That Could Not Give A -----

9 August 2020 / / 0 Comments
5 Min Read

Say, do you remember those barnyard sounds toys from our childhood? The kind that had a giant plastic arrow that would spin around when you pulled the lever, and then for whatever it would land on, it would kindly inform you what sound that animal made. For example, “The cow says: ‘Mooo’!”

Well, I have a fun fact for you: did you know that the some concept works with certain inanimate objects?

Please, allow me to expound…

On this approximate day in history 9 years ago, the Boss Lady and I found ourselves embarking on the biggest adventure of our lives yet. I had just finished up grad school, and as a newly minted “doctor” I had leveraged my new credentials to land a sweet, sweet gig at a hospital in Hawai’i’.

Up until that point in time, both of us drove vehicles with a tax value of $3,000 or less. You know us, humble as ever, and all. Now when you consider that it would cost around $1,500 to ship a car from Los Angeles to Honolulu, and that we lived in North Carolina, it quickly became clear that our two beloved vehicles were not destined to make the journey with us.

My ’95 Toyota Camry had already had its share of misadventures, so we decided to sell it to some unsuspecting young girl who bought it to celebrate finally getting her GED.

Side note: you go, girl–don’t ever let the haters stand between you and your dreams!

As for the Boss Lady’s ’98 Honda Civic, it was in good enough shape that we felt comfortable gifting it to one of my family members back in Kansas, as they were in need of a more reliable ride.

Thus formed the basis for our big transition from NC to HI: once our lease ran out at the end of July and the bulk of our belongings already en route to the Islands, we would hang out with the in-laws a few days to catch our breath before leisurely road-tripping to Kansas. After delivering the vehicle and spending some time with my family out there, we would have the new owner of our car drive us up to Denver, where we would catch a flight to our final destination in the Tropics.

I had it planned such that when we arrived in Kansas after 3 days of cross-country travel (see FIgure 1), the very first thing we would do would be to spend a whole day at the Morton County Fair. Yes, I am indeed speaking of none other than the infamous site of the social PTSD I detailed in the hit blog post The Prize Pig Story, and a prominent staple of my childhood memories.

Figure 1: Could Our Car Make The 1,587-Mile Journey?

After 3 full days of (surprisingly) uneventful traveling under the sweltering heat, we made it to our last stop in Guymon, OK. We were pretty much home free at that point: our destination in the morning was Elkhart, KS–a mere 45 minutes and one state line away (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: Forty-Five Minutes To Freedom

I honestly couldn’t believe it. Everything was actually going according to plan…starting with rolling up to our hotel earlier than expected that evening. ‘Twas even early enough for a last minute respite of a little dinner-and-a-movie date before the impending ‘fun times’ with my family began. Oh happy day!

And speaking of ‘rolling up to the hotel,’ when we got out of the car upon our arrival there, the Boss Lady pointed out some water dripping underneath the car and wondered if we should be concerned. I told her, look, the car survived 1,509 miles of steamy midsummer day1Technically, this should be ‘mid-day summer’, but doesn’t sound as poetic. driving, so clearly it was going to be perfectly fine to make the 45-mile early morning trip the next day.

Several rejuvenating hours and 44 miles later, we found ourselves at the finish line, cruising into Kansas around 9 in the morning.

Well…sorta-kinda. Or maybe not at all.

You ever heard of the proverbial “last mile”?2https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_mile_(transportation) To be honest, the difficulty of making it the last mile isn’t supposed to apply in this context. But yet there we were, the Universe seemingly wanting to make an example of us.

We had one last turn before officially arriving in Kansas, and only one more and we would be at the fair (see Figure 3). I was so close I could even almost taste the wafting scent of piggy poo.

Figure 3: I cannot understate how f*cking close we were.

I pulled up to the stop sign, looked both ways before turning, and…HOLY SH*T why is it so hard to turn the steering wheel?!?

It took me a second to realize that the car had died, and glancing down I just then noticed that oh, yeah, I suppose it was running a bit hot. With no other real option, I pulled over to the side of the road in hopes that the billows of steam would subside and we could be on our way after things cooled down.

As I got out of the car, I happened to glance across the highway and couldn’t help but exclaim under my breath: “You have got to be f*cking kidding me.”

There across the highway, literally a stone’s throw away, sat one very smug “Welcome to Elkhart!” sign, relentlessly taunting me.

Figure 4: An artist’s rendering of ‘irony’.

But wait! There’s more! However, I regret to inform you that the conclusion to (and the moral of ) this saga will have to wait until next week. Before I take off and leave you hanging, I do want to provide you with at least a little bit of resolution…

And now, the moment you have all been waiting for: “What does the car say?”

Well, let’s pull that classic yellow lever on the side of our spinny-toy and find out, shall we?

[Pulls lever, arrow spins around, just happens to land on a 1998 Honda Civic.]

The car says: “F*** your plans, ninjas, I ain’t ever going to Kansas!”

Yes, that is most definitely what the car says.

To be continued…

Content created on: 6 & 7 August 2020 (Thurs/Fri)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Proudly Red In A Sea Of Blue

6 August 2020 / / 0 Comments
3 Min Read

“You’re going to wear that to the game?”

I looked down at my bright red shirt before delivering my retort.

“What? You expected me to wear blue like every other ----- person at the game? Pffft! Please!”

Despite being a bona fide grad school at the University of North Carolina–and despite getting free tickets to watch our renowned basketball team play some podunk school over Christmas break–something irked me about wearing “Carolina Blue” and being just another drop of water in the ocean of UNC fans.

And this pompous roommate of mine who found it necessary to razz me about it? Well, this asshat was really irking me.

Further, him being a prick about it only served to reinforce my resolve to not be yet another bougie blue sheep in the herd. Screw him–I was wearing my plain Communist-red tee1It’s a reference to the band Plain White Tees, best known for their hit single “Hey there, Delilah.” One of our roommates at the time played it non-stop. True story… for sure now.

So off I went to the game with another of my roommates, Esteban, proud of myself for being such a rebel, but otherwise not giving it much thought.

It wasn’t the first time I had to deal with sticking out like a sore thumb, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. And I didn’t mind the occasional odd look–a small price to pay to march to the beat of my own drummer, I like to say.

In fact, it was kinda fun confusing people, seeing as how the visiting team’s color was orange, so it wasn’t really clear at all by the way I dressed for whom exactly it was I was rooting.

It was good times, indeed.

Later, coming back from the game, I was regaling Esteban with the tale about how P.F. Chaz (the roommate from earlier) was riding my ass about the red shirt.

Now usually Esteban lent a sympathetic ear to my various asinine causes–completely unlike ol’ PFC–so it took me slightly by surprise when he thought for a moment before simply stating, “Yeah, many people take a lot of pride in their team and its colors. I could see how they might find it a little rude…and it just seems a bit unnecessary on your part.”

Oh, it was a classic M. Night2You know, the writer/director of such twist-centric movies as The Sixth Sense, The Village, and Signs. moment, indeed: ’twas I who had been the asshat all along–what a tweeest!

The first point of the story is that there is something to be said about using your criticism sparingly. If you’re a full-time dickhead, your friends and family aren’t going to be able to hear you when that moment arises when they need to be told lovingly that they’re being a bit of an a-hole.

The second point is for all of those ‘Mericans out there who can identify all too well with me in this story. Yup, I speak of those of us who put a disproportionate premium on their personal rights. To all of us in this category, consider the following.

Sure, I could exercise my rights to be different and do my own thang. But at the same time, maybe–just maybe–I could think of it as an opportunity for me to willingly set those rights aside as an act of service and respect to those around me.3WWJD–amiright?!?

You know, and to not be a complete turd for no good reason. So, wear a ----- mask already. Rhonda.

Oh, what’s that? Did you really expect this story to end any differently? Pfft!

Content created on: 5 August 2020 (Wednesday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Mister Brown Ya Just Another Clown

2 August 2020 / / 0 Comments
4 Min Read

“Michael Brown? Pfft! That dude was a clown!”

Me, circa 2015

I recently had a social media interaction discussing the recent protests with someone that I knew to be much more likely to disagree with me than to agree with me. Despite this, I had reason to be optimistic that it would be an earnest conversation, even if we walked away not having changed the other’s point of view.

Sadly, that’s not how things went (to put it mildly).

Their response when I even indirectly referred to Black Lives Matter was most certainly negative and rather, uh, “impassioned”–and much more so than I had ever anticipated.

The whole ordeal left me a little bummed out and with a lot to process.

One thing I found myself pondering was, “why so angry, my friend?” Well, I’m guessing ‘angry’ is the right term…I think it would be hard to interpret it any other way if you saw their comment directed at me.

But once I got the chance to really think about it, I realized that not too long ago I think I felt pretty much the same way.

Yeah, that’s right, Buster: I too, was once just like you (maybe)…

This is where Michael Brown comes into the picture. Yes, that Michael Brown.

If y’all don’t recall, he was the young man who was shot by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri back in 2014. There was a pretty strong community response to this event, and the ensuing protests were often intertwined with the Black Lives Matter movement.

And damn, if all that didn’t ever make me feel uncomfortable. In fact, a part of it still does, to a certain degree.

I could only imagine how shitty it must have been to be Darren, trying to do his dangerous job in an at-times hostile environment, and then to be at the center of a tragic event like this. I could almost feel his pain of automatically and unfairly being judged as a “racist cop,” with an angry mob calling for his head without having all the facts.

In a way, it almost felt like it was a personal attack on me, and that it wouldn’t be long before I would find myself unjustly painted as a racist–potentially ruining my life. I think being so grossly misunderstood is one of the greater fears that I have.

I can’t help but wonder how many other white fellas had a similar emotional response to this as I did. Certainly I couldn’t have been alone, right?

Thinking back on this reminds me that we all deserve the right to have our own fears, emotions, and values. And whether or not its a surprise to you, my baseline response to BLM wasn’t exactly ‘sympathetic’.

And then along came Sara.

A friend of the Boss Lady, she was visiting from out of town around the time Ferguson was still regularly in the news and on the minds of the American people.

God knows how it came up, but much to my chagrin I found myself a captive member of a very uncomfortable conversation.

The worst part was that, as a white woman, she was speaking of the protests almost…positively.

I’m not gonna lie, even if it wasn’t her intention, I kinda felt like I was under attack. I felt like my perspective was being told it wasn’t valid.

It felt grossly unfair.

And it’s hard to hear anything when you feel like you’re being bulldozed over.

Keep in mind, though, that she was as gracious and kind as you could ever be in the moment. She never told me I was wrong. She never spoke down to me. She never for once assumed that I was an asshole.

I felt under assault, yet she gave me the space to feel however I felt, without judgment.

I eventually spoke up in defense of white guys like me, though I can’t remember what I said.

She nodded and acknowledged my contribution to the conversation. It wasn’t a completely unreasonable view, after all.

I’ll never forget, though, what came next.

Trying to hold back tears, she simply said “I can’t even imagine being in their shoes, to live every day with a basic fear for their lives that I’ve never had to experience myself.”

Something about the rawness of the moment, the selflessness, was just enough to knock me off my guard. It was just enough for me to catch a glimpse of the world outside my own perspective.

Indeed, I could only imagine what it was like to be the cop. That’s the person I could most easily see myself being in that situation.

It wasn’t overnight, but in time I came to understand that Mr. Michael Brown wasn’t “just another clown.”

I had never even began to think about it through the other lenses in the moment: Michael’s, his mother’s, his community’s, those who might say “that could have been me.”

Eventually, though, I was able to at least begin to entertain those very uncomfortable thoughts. Once I allowed for that, I gotta say that I felt like my worries and fears paled in comparison to the existential threats others were facing.

And guess what? Even in acknowledging these realities so far outside my own, I found my own was still just as real (and vice versa).

I realized I was going to be okay. I wasn’t going to have to lose any part of myself in order to love others better.

In retrospect, it seems so basic: consider others’ feelings and experiences. Such an easy way to make the world a better place, right? How hard can that possibly be?

Well, for what it’s worth, I still royally suck at it. But I like to hold out hope that, on occasion, I might be getting it right.

And maybe one day, I will have the privilege of being someone else’s Sara.

Content created on: 24 July & 2 August 2020 (Friday/Sunday)

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