The Point of the Story

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Month: October 2020

Little Bo Peep Has Lost His…Respect For Mainstream Gender Norms?

29 October 2020 / / 0 Comments
2 Min Read

Let me ask you something: how old were you when you discovered the True Meaning of Halloween?

Hint: It was never really about the candy…

‘Twas Halloween 1985, and I clearly remember being a 4-year-old boy excited to partake in his first “Spook Parade”1Also known as a costume contest. and the other Fall festivities hosted annually in the hallowed halls of Rolla High School.

Yes, I crisply recall seeing my little-boy Batman underwear as my mother changed me into my special outfit in the women’s’ restroom next to the RHS band room.

Ahh, the fond memory of her pulling a long beruffled shirt over my golden curls and past those Batman underwear, and thinking “well, this shirt is…interesting.”

I remember her tying the bonnet around the same little chin that one day, thanks to natural testosterone, would be covered in blonde whiskers.

Oh, how the feel of that toy shepherd’s crook in my future Man-hands2Seinfeld reference! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuwLFkpk4Lw is forever encoded in the depths of my cranium…

The one thing I don’t remember, however, is the family friend asking my mom with a quizzical look on her face: “Oh, who does this cute little girl belong to?”

No, that particular detail I had to get second-hand from the same mother who, being inspired by my luscious loopy yellow locks, decided to take indecent liberties with a child child’s Halloween costume that year.

Yes, Mother, I remember.

I remember (almost) everything.

And I precisely recollect staring at that strange-yet-familiar little girl in that bathroom mirror, and thinking to myself:

“So this is what the holidays are all about…”

The point of the story is, if you’re not bending your gender at least a wee little bit with your costume this year,3Here but a few examples: Finding Yourself On The Fairy Farm & No Cookies For Kesha (technically the latter is an example of “Halloween in February,” but nevertheless…). then I would argue you aren’t Halloweening right.

And don’t just take my word for it: One out of one mothers whole-heartedly agree.

Right, Mom?

Bonus: In case you don’t know “what the holidays are all about”… This is from the hit 90’s NBC sitcom Seinfeld, “The Gum”4 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0697705/ episode, which somehow gets quoted way too much around our household:

Pro tip: It’s the perfect zinger for any underwhelming holiday moment–especially ones that involve chewing.

For example, this November 1st, when you get busted with your mouth full of Halloween candy you stole from your kid, you’ll be ready with the perfect reply that’s guaranteed to go right over their little head!

“Moooommy! Wha-wha-what are you doing?!?”

*Trying to talk and chew 3 Fun Size Snickers at the same time* “This is what the holidays are all about!”

Parents…you’re welcome.

Content created on: 28/29 October 2020 (Weds/Thurs)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Note To Self: Benzene On The Boys Is Never Bueno

25 October 2020 / / 0 Comments
5 Min Read

Actually, I’m rather surprised.

…surprised that my kids didn’t turn out to be freaking mutants, that is…

Back in my Sophomore year at ye ol’ Rolla High School, I had the pleasure of taking Chemistry from the most beloved teacher in all the school, Mr. Raff. Now, Mr. Raff was an affable older gentleman, who was seemingly constantly teetering on the edge of going full Nutty Professor.

In my humble opinion, the best part were his quips, constantly bestowing us with trademark phrases such as “…and then I say to myself, ‘Self, two plus two is four!’ And then I pat myself on the back…”

That was definitely my favorite. And he was definitely my favorite teacher from my long and storied academic career.

But…

But, he did have one little blemish on his record…

It was a lovely autumn afternoon back in ’96, and Mr. Raff had just challenged us Chemistry students to use our scientific skills to determine the chemical composition of a mystery liquid. I clearly remember that one of the specific tasks was to measure the density of said liquid.

Me and my lab partner, David–the only two underclassmen in the group–sat out to measure the volume of it straightaway, employing the services of a trusty graduated cylinder. If you don’t recall, a graduated cylinder is basically a tall glass measuring cup, with a base so it can stay upright on its own, and a c-shaped plastic ring that you can move up and down to get a more accurate measurement of what your liquid level is. For your convenience, here is a stock photo of one almost identical to the one in this story:1Image source: https://labcommerce.com/labequip_productdesc.php?catid=52&prodid=1329

Figure 1. A graduated cylinder featuring the infamous c-shaped ring.

There I was, sitting at the lab bench, waiting for David to jot down our scientific observations, when I had the brilliant idea to pop the ring off of the cylinder. Don’t know what I thought I would achieve by doing this, but apparently in that moment I felt compelled to fool around with the lab equipment. This was easily achieved by merely twisting the ends of the ‘C’ in opposite directions, and–boom! Pops right off!

However, I had made the fatal mistake of not taking a Physics class before I took Chemistry, as I then would have known that “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

As I popped the ring off away from me, the cylinder had to compensate by tipping over towards me.

With a loud “thunk” it landed on its side on the lab bench, draining all 21.4 ml of Mystery Liquid over the side…and directly into my chair and general crotch region.

And to top things off, my lab chair had an ergonomic butt-shaped seat,2I tried finding an image of this online, but I couldn’t, probably on account of the fact that shit like this happened to too many teenage scientists and they had to be discontinued. allowing the Liquid to conveniently pool in my Netherlands, completely soaking the underside of my blue jeans.

You can’t even imagine the sheer horror of a teenage boy realizing that he just spilled an unknown substance all over his untapped genetic reserves. “Oh, The Humanity!” indeed!

Worse yet, much to my consternation, I found myself “scientifically observing” that our Mystery Liquid “caused an unbearable burning sensation of the balls.”

As expected, David was doubled over in laughter at my predicament and was far too thoroughly incapacitated to be of any medical assistance. And by that time, the rest of the class had figured out what was going on as well, but not a ----- one of those bastards seemed very sympathetic to my plight. I was literally fighting for the lives my future children here, and all I was getting was breathless howls of laughter from the ----- peanut gallery.

Of course, the esteemed Mr. Raff would be there for me in my time of need, right? Right…?

I turned only to find him literally slapping his knees and guffawing so hard that he could barely get any words out.

I was beyond frantic at that point, and desperately needed him to get his shit together and help me out, as pre-enacted in this scene:3From the 1980 hit movie, Airplane! Gif source: https://thumbs.gfycat.com/BountifulUnconsciousDuckbillplatypus-size_restricted.gif; Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0GW0Vnr9Yc.

This is not one bit an exaggeration of what happened: I actually did have him by the shoulders trying to rattle some sense into him, accompanied by the only appropriate thing to say in such a moment:

“STOP LAUGHING AND TELL ME WHAT THE HELL I JUST SPILLED ON MY SCROTUM, Howard, you Heartless Fool! Oh! The BURNING!”

As much as I loved the old fart, I maintain that it was borderline child abuse on his part to continue laughing for another good 2 minutes before advising me “Not to worry, just go to the bathroom and rinse them off as best as you can.”

When I returned 15-20 minutes later–now with only moderate groin discomfort and a stack of paper towels stuffed in my underwear, (my clothing in that area was still soaked, after all)–I still had many unanswered questions.

Well, just the one question actually: “Will I ever be able to have children? You know, ones with exactly 10 fingers and exactly 10 toes?”

If I recall correctly, the Mystery Liquid turned out to be “just benzene,” and good ol’ Mr. Raff assured me that “[my] junk would be fine once the rash goes away in a few weeks and the hair grows back.”

Fortunately, he was only messing with me about the whole “few weeks” part. I, however, was not bemused.

And I must say, I am even less bemused now that I have access to Google and I can fact-check his lying ass:

Figure 2. Oh, NOW you tell me.

I can’t believe I trusted you, Howard. You and your balled-face lies…

Content created on: 21/22 October 2020 (Weds/Thurs)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Confessions Of A Man Who Lost His Struggle With Weed(s)

22 October 2020 / / 0 Comments
2 Min Read

Vacations: everybody could use one, and, in fact, many have earned one, too. But sometimes it’s hard to tell oneself “I earned this” and actually request one (much less actually enjoy it).

That’s definitely me. I typically earn more vacation hours than I feel compelled to use, and so on occasion I’m pretty much forced to take time off just so I don’t lose them hard-earned hours.

A couple of summers ago, I had been wrestling with trying to get a scientific paper submitted and published for what seemed like forever. So when I finally got an actual draft completed it seemed like a good time to cash in on a week’s worth of that much-needed vacay time.

We weren’t going anywhere as a family; instead, I had grand plans of getting sh*t done around the house that had long been neglected. You know, a lot of hands-on projects.

Come the Monday morning of my vacation week, the first thing I decided to tackle was very much so indeed ‘hands-on’: the strip of our lawn between the sidewalk and the street had been overgrown with a bunch of thick-stalked, deep-rooted weeds. And I was going to hand-pluck every last one of those m*therf**kers.

This turned out to be some rather intense manual labor, and by the end of the morning I wasn’t even halfway done–but my hands were full of blisters already, despite wearing garden gloves.

I figured I would give my hands a rest and would tackle the remaining weeds the following day. However, the next morning I discovered that my hands were so painfully blistered that they were useless for even the slightest hint of “manual labor” or “hands-on tasks.”

Welp, there went my vacation! I didn’t get jack-squat done with my precious time off. In fact, I was just miserable the whole time, thanks to my poor decision making. Great job, me.

The point of the story is choose your ----- battles, man. Simple as that. As you were, soldier, as you were…

On a very remotely related note…at my grandmother’s funeral a couple of years ago, my uncle was delivering the eulogy, and made some comment about “the grandkids coming in after playing in the woods all day.”

I remember turning to my brother and sharing this look that said “What in the ----- is he talking about? We’re in Southwest Kansas–there aren’t any ‘woods’ for at least 150 miles in any direction!”

Then, to great humorous effect, he corrected himself, noting that he meant to say “playing in the weeds all day.”

Everyone let out a chorus of chuckles: it was funny because it was true af.

Weeds–now that sounded a lot more like our collective childhood…

“Woods?” Pfffft! Get the ----- out of here, man.

Content created on: 22 October 2020 (Thursday)

Your Complete Guide To Betting On Interplanetary Birthdays

18 October 2020 / / 0 Comments
6 Min Read

Help!

I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole at 3.711 m/s² and I can’t get out…

A few weeks ago, I sang the praises of one of my favorite probabilistic puzzles, the Birthday Problem. As a refresher, this asks the question: “In a group of people, are there any Birthday Twins who happen to share the same birthday?”

An interesting alternative way to frame the problem is to gamble on whether or not there are any Birthday Twins at your party. In this case you would try to figure out how many people you need in order to have a 50-50 chance of finding some “B-Twins” amongst you. Then, if you have less Party People than that Magic Number, you bet against B-Twins, and bet on them if your number of Party People is the Magic Number or higher.

Now (as previously shown) the Magic Number is normally 23…

I say “normally” because this is based on the reasonable assumption that you’re on Earth, exclusively amongst native-born Earthlings.

But…but, what if…?

When I originally brought up the Birthday Problem, I thought it would be amusing to think beyond our little blue and green sphere and run the numbers for the rest of our planetary neighbors.

Interestingly, in the meantime there has been the explosive news that there very ----- well might be life on Venus1https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02785-5–so what was supposed to be a mere fanciful exercise in number crunching may not be so far-fetched after all. Indeed, my handy-dandy guide to gambling at all your extraterrestrial social gatherings couldn’t be more timely!

Let’s get started, then, shall we? First, let’s review the ever so important equation2Figure credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem that we use to calculate our probabilities, which we will subsequently plot and use to visually identify the 50-50 tipping point:

Equation 1: The probability that there are NOT a pair of B-Twins amongst a group of n people…on Earth.

Note that we will be looking at the probability that there IS a pair of B-Twins, which is just the number above subtracted from 1.

Alright, inspecting this equation, surely y’all will recognize a rather familiar number, 365. To generalize this to other planetary bodies, we only need to substitute 365 with the number of days in a year for our particular planet of interest.

No problem! Let’s just Google those numbers:

Figure 1. The length of a year on the planets of the solar system, according to Google.

For your viewing pleasure, allow me to plot those number of days:

Figure 2. The Approximate Length of Intrasolar Years, with log-y axis.

Plugging those numbers into our magic formula in MATLAB, we quickly get this octant of plots:

Figure 3. Birthday Problem Probability Plots for Select Planetary Bodies.

The x-axes of those plots range from 30 all the way up to 600, perhaps making it tough to digest that information. Let’s plot just the Magic Numbers (@ p = 50%):

Figure 4. The Only Numbers Your Gambling Ass Needs To Remember As You Wander The Cosmos.

Oh, shit. Forget everything you know!

Did you catch that? That was a pretty cocky human move that I just pulled there–I took the lazy geocentric approach. I was measuring the length of the years in Earth days!

That makes no ----- sense, right? Why would a civilization on Jupiter measure anything in the length of the rotation of some planet they may or may not know about? We would never create calendars based on Jovian days!

What foolishness! Throw your old guide away!

Okay, so this is about where I fell down the Martian rabbit hole. Little did I know what I would be getting into when I started this little ill-advised adventure.

Apart from Earth and Mars, the question “how many days are there in a year?” gets weird pretty quickly. It was almost as deeply philosophical as the question I posed only days ago: “Can hair have hair?“

It makes most sense to measure a planet’s complete trip around the Sun (a “year”) in units of the time it takes to complete a full rotation on its axis (a “day”). I found a pretty informative astronomical resource3https://www.universetoday.com/37507/years-of-the-planets/ that helped me recalculate my “days per year” numbers.

Here are those revised numbers:

  • Mercury: 0.5 dpy. Wait, whaaaat? A Hermian day is 2x longer than a Hermian year. Ok, so trying to work this into the framework of the Birthday Problem only made my head hurt. I tentatively promise that I will revisit the question of how they would theoretically construct a group of unique “Birthdays” at some later point in time.
  • Venus: 1.92 dpy. Ugh. Just like with Mercury, I’m not going to even try to conceptualize Cytherean “Birthdays.” That’s going to be a whole ‘nother post on that topic. Also, here “day” is defined as sunup-to-sunup, which is not the same thing as a full rotation on its axis. You can start to see why things get messy, no?
  • Earth: 365 dpy. Obviously there should be no change here. But we should note that we are ignoring Leap Days, etc.
  • Mars: 668 dpy. Notice that this is slightly less than the 687 days measured when counting with the slightly shorter Earth day.
  • Jupiter: 10,475 dpy. Shorter Jovian days result in over twice as many unique days per year!
  • Saturn: 24,491 dpy. Like Jupiter, shorter Cronian days result in 2.4x more days on which some native Cronan could be born.
  • Uranus: 42,718 dpy. A year on Uranus is like…no, wait, no time for juvenile puns.
  • Neptune: 89,666 dpy. Uranus and Neptune both have shorter days, but not to the degree of Jupiter and Saturn.

Here is an updated visual graphic reflecting these numbers:

Figure 5: The Proper “Days Per Year” To Use For Birthday Betting.

Alright, now we’re ready to crunch so numbers with some not-so-garbage input. Let me just lay out the 5 updated plots in larger detail for perusing at your leisure. If pressed for time, you can skip past them to the Summary Graphic.

Figure 6. For Mars, the Magic Number is 31 Party Peoples.
Figure 7. If you’re on Jupiter, the number so Super-Duper is 121 (Party Peoples).
Figure 8. All Hail Saturn’s Magic Number of 185 Party Peoples.
Figure 9. Don’t be the butt of the joke–you can bet Uranus that 244 Party People is all you need to make the moneys.
Figure 10. Neptune: 353. Need you know more?

I would like to just take a moment and point out something that I consider astounding. On Neptune, there are almost 90,000 unique days in a year–but you need only ~350 people before 2 of them share one as a birthday! That number is easily 10-20x lower than I would have ever intuitively guessed.

Figure 11. I probably should have led with this.

As you can see in our Summary Graphic (Figure 11), you’ll want to start attending larger parties if you really want to make some money off those poor souls born on planets past Mars.

Either way, you can consider yourself as prepared as ever to bum about about the solar system, hustlin’ your way into extraterrestrial infamy and fortune!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to this very interesting article confirming what we’ve all long suspected: Uranus is the best.

What? Did you actually think that I would be able to escape the gravitational pull of a juvenile butt-pun?

Content created on: 10 Sept. & 13/14 Oct. 2020 (Thurs/Tues/Wed)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Beware The Monumental Mistakes Of A Misguided Middle Man

15 October 2020 / / 2 Comments
3 Min Read

“And I would have gotten laid, too, if it wasn’t for you meddling florists!”

Haikus: Simple. Elegant. Minimalistic. Mathematical. And pretty much guaranteed to make a girl’s heart swoon…even when loaded with drug references.

Case in point: the single most important written work of mine, the Facebook message haiku that hook-lined-and-sinkered the hotty who would eventually become Mrs. Boss Lady.

Long story short, back when we were merely neighbors, I had jokingly referenced cocaine while Facebook flirting. Attempting to respond sarcastically, she instead inadvertently challenged me to somehow make the use of controlled substances…romantic.

Well, methoughts that to be not enough of a challenge, so I decided to make it harder by constraining my literary prowess to stanzas of 5, 7, & 5 syllables.

Yada, yada, ya, and 3 months later this ended up on a wedding program:

Fast-forward to a year and half after that. I’m still the sappy, hopeless romantic wordsmith that she fell in love with those many moons ago. I’m so lovestruck, in fact, that I get the idea to surprise her with an 18-month celebration. And what better way than to have flowers delivered to her workplace?

Now, it turns out that I can be unhealthily shy when it comes to talking on the phone, so instead of calling up a local florist, I found it much easier to use 1-800-FLOWERS.com. No human interaction required!

But wait! You can include a message…but there’s a limit of 175 characters. Hmm, sounds like a job for Haiku Man.

Challenge accepted!

I worked my ass off crafting the following masterpiece, proud of myself for clocking in exactly at 175 characters. I couldn’t wait for her to come home that evening, swooned off her feet and on to her back all over again:

Happy Anniversary Meet-heart1One of my pet names for her.

sweet rest comes softly
for my heart each night it lies
next to my beloved.

18 mths & we've
only just begun to see
our love blossoming.

happy 1.5
years of loving and learning--
dinner's on me t'night.

Love, Mee-Jay2One of her pet names for me.

However, the woman who came home that evening was…thoroughly confused.

“Uh, I’m not sure, but I think your brother sent me some flowers today.”

“What? No, that was–wait. What are you even talking about?”

“Yeah, it was real weird. I got some flowers delivered to me, and they came with this note:”

“DAMMIT. THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A HAIKU! Of course, you’re confused–the florist totally butchered it! All my hard work got turned into a babbling nonsensical stream-of-consciousness.”

“It was you? Then why is it signed ‘Jay’?”3Jay is my brother’s nickname…who happens to have the same first name as her clingy ex-boyfriend that immediately preceded me.

“F*cking florist. It was supposed to be ‘Mee-Jay’. I guess Mr. Know-It-All decided that ‘Mee-Jay’ couldn’t possibly be somebody’s name.”

*Thinks for moment.*

“At least he didn’t change it to ‘Love Me, Jay’…”

The point of the story is you can’t trust the internet and your local florist-who-minored-in-English-in-college to not team up to make your wife think she’s being stalked by a raging, emotionally-needy narcissist who may or may not be a brother-in-law or an ex-boyfriend.

Also, 18-months anniversaries apparently aren’t a thing, so you might as well lower your, um, “expectations” right now, bud.

Content created on: 14 October 2020 (Wednesday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Now Kids, This Is What A Clingy B*tch Looks Like

11 October 2020 / / 0 Comments
4 Min Read

I knew that doggy yoga position, alright. ‘Twas none other than “Canine Arching Back Skyward In Glorious Defecation”…

Probably the best thing to ever come from the wonderful technology that we know and love as ‘GPS’ would have to be Geocaching.1For more info on geocaching, check out www.geocaching.com.

“What is this ‘geocaching’ of which you speak?” you may be asking with unnaturally correct sentence syntax.

Well, as I like to sell it to my daughters: it’s basically “treasure hunting” with a smartphone (or any other GPS device). Someone will hide a ‘cache’–a stash of trinkets, pen, and a paper log–in some fun location, use their phone to note the precise latitude and longitude, and then post them online for others to go out and find.

If you’re looking for a hobby, I highly recommend it. In addition to feeding the urges of your inner pirate, you typically get to see new and interesting places along the way.

Recently I decided it was time to introduce our 2-year-old, aka The Younger, to this family pastime that the 7-year-old (The Elder) and I have partook in at least once or twice a year since she was 3. So on a beautiful-yet-fateful Saturday morning in early October, I loaded up the girls, some lunches, and a backpack full of unwanted toys, and we headed out on a great adventure.

In addition to a paper log found within cache, each one has a digital cache on the geocaching.com website. This is typically used for leaving a short note of with whom you found the cache, thanking the owner of the cache for hiding it in the first place, and any other random comments/hints for those who may follow in your footsteps.

Usually the contents found therein are pretty run-of-the-mill. For example, see Figure 1.

Figure 1: A Typical Geocache Log

Well…after an experience we had with a certain cache, I felt it necessary to leave a slightly wordier log entry. Indeed, I was divinely called upon to leave a cautionary tale for those who might come after us; prithee, that the same fate that befell us may not befall them…

From My Official Geocaching Log (*Lightly edited for your reading pleasure. Also re-gendered the possibly male, possibly female antagonist in order to squeeze more humor out of the situation.*):

[Didn't find it Didn’t find it] Saturday, 03 October 2020 by f***m******* (20 found)2Proof that I actually spent the time to write such a long-ass cautionary tale for future geocachers can be found here.

Well, this was an interesting one.

Cruising around with my 2 daughters, ages 7 & 2, introducing The Younger to “Treasure Hunting.” She had just fallen asleep, and for unrelated reasons, my phone had died at the previous Randolph-Boundary Hunter (the name of the series of geocaches we were hitting up) cache.

I actually didn’t know this one was here; I was just wandering southwardly, looking out for any county line signs.

Well, what do you know, I see this one and I’m thinking, “Hey, this might be another easy find. Let me try to find a place to pull over and check it out…”

Directly across from this cache, however, is a house. As I started to pull off the side of the road (and approximately in front of this house), I look over, and a kid of about 10 years is approaching our car…pointing a [toy] gun directly at us.

Okaaaaaaay…so maybe we won’t be checking this one out.

As I tried to pull back onto the road, I had to slam on my brakes as a big black lab bolted out in front of me–and I was shocked that I didn’t nail her.

So now my adrenaline level is jacked through the roof. I try to calm myself and scoot on down the road (remember, I still didn’t know where I was going–just knew I wanted to get away from 2A Boy).

Welp, that dog was a tenacious pup, she ’twas indeed. Friendly, but tenacious.

About a half mile down the road, she was still jollily jaunting beside us. Dang it.

I didn’t want to be responsible for this dog ending up in the next county over, so I slowly turned around and tried to “guide” the good little b*tch back towards her home. As I got to a fork in the road near where this whole debacle started, she raced a ways out in front of me so I slowed down and tried a stealthy U-turn.

I could see in the rear-view that she had figured out what was up, but I had a good enough lead on her that I figured I could gun the engine and leave her in the dust.

Nope. NOPE.

She was in front of me, in my blind spot, within 5 seconds flat. This canine had a death wish, but I wanted nothing to do with it.

This went on, back and forth–lead her home, roll down the window, tell her to “Go on, git!” sneak a U-turn, gun it, have her back IN FRONT OF ME in 10 seconds, yada yada ya…

There was a moment where I was like “have I somehow died and am now stuck in the weirdest f*cking form of purgatory?!?”

After about the 5th round trip, I was puttering along at about 10 mph with her beside me, when I noticed her pause and…shorten the length of her body?

Oh, wait.

I knew that doggy yoga position, alright. ‘Twas none other than “Canine Arching Back Skyward In Glorious Defecation.”

Could it be? Was this my serendipitous window of opportunity I had been longing for so desperately and deeply in my loins?

Yes. Yes, it was.

I turned to The Elder and imparted all the fatherly wisdom I had to offer: “A dog can’t chase you while she’s pinching off a turd!”

“Go for it, Daddy!” she hollered in encouragement from the back seat.

Reaching back, I grabbed her hand and slammed my foot on the gas pedal as hard as I could.

In beautiful unison, we did our best William Wallace impression, screaming “FREEEEEEDOM!” while tearing ass the ----- out of there.

via GIPHY

A few minutes down the road, she piped up, “You’re going to write about this in your blog, right?”

Yes, my child. Yes indeed, I shall3Original ending from geocache log, instead of those last two lines: “And The Younger slept through it all…”…

Content created on: 3/4 &10 October 2020 (Sat/Sun/Sat)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Great Hair Can’t Have Hair, You Damned Fool!

8 October 2020 / / 0 Comments
2 Min Read

One time in college, I went on a road trip with a random group of acquaintances to a conference in Iowa. To pass the time, we decided to play “20 Questions”–a real road trip classic, right?

This must have been the Fall of 2001, because that was the only period in my life when I was a white boy rocking some dreadlocks. Being my own self-inspiration, I thought that would be an interesting one to do when it came my turn.

Oh, and to be clear, I had chosen “dreadlocks,” not “white boy rocking some dreadlocks”…though in retrospect the latter might have been the more humorous choice.

Anyways, at one point I was asked “Does it have hair?”

*Record scratches*

I’m pretty sure I short-circuited in the face of this unanticipated, yet obvious, question. It was not patently obvious what the correct answer was, and I desperately begged them to choose a different question, as I could foresee both ‘yes’ and ‘no’ only causing more confusion and delay.

Nevertheless, they persisted, and forced me to answer that bedeviling question.

After much agonizing and gnashing of teeth, I went with “No”.

After all, it was hair, and those hairs did not have their own little hairs on them, right?

I wasn’t surprised, though, when the other team ended up running out of questions before guessing what it was.

The guy who had asked the ‘hair’ question was particularly livid when he found out the answer was “dreadlocks”, and was furious that I had answered “No”.

A heated philosophical debate ensued, attempting to answer the question “Can hair ‘have’ hair?”

The result? Let’s just say that someone almost ended up stranded in an Iowan cornfield without a ride home that autumn evening…

Oh, and the two of us never really spoke to each other ever again.

I guess the point of the story is that if you have a mediocre relationship with someone and are looking for a way to discreetly and justifiably cut them out of your life, just play 20 Questions and choose “dreadlocks” as your magic word.

You’re welcome.

Content created on: 24 April 2018 (originally via Twitter) & 8 October 2020 (Tues/Thurs)

No-Shit Sherlock’s Mystery Of The Disappearing Fingers, Act 4

4 October 2020 / / 0 Comments
4 Min Read

I just assumed that there would be at the very least a “turn-your-head-and-cough” moment.

You know, just like in my glory days of high school…

Previously on NSSMOTDF, Act 3: Following In His Footsteps…

“I can’t poop…and I think I’m ----- dying over here.”

Man Most Assuredly dying from Colon Cancer. Or A maybe from A grapefruit-sized Prostate. Or Most Definitely an over-active imagination

Act IV: We Both Know Why I’m Here

Admittedly, I got a little distracted in Act III trying to figure out how to convey to my Dear Readers that I was convinced that I might have a fatal flaw with my plumbing. And it was quite the emotional trip.

It wasn’t so much that my life was flashing before my eyes, as it was a serious conversation with myself. What if I really had prostate cancer or worse? What if I was destined to die before I turned 40? What will I be leaving behind? Will the world have been a better place at all because I was in it? What about my wife and kids?

You get the idea. It’s not a fun exercise, especially when you’re not sure it’s just drill or if it might be the real deal.

Finally I worked up the courage to face the music and scheduled an annual physical at the local urgent care clinic. Annual might be a slightly inaccurate term, though, as I was pretty sure my last physical was so I could be cleared to play football in high school. It would be fair to say that I was a bit overdue for one anyways.

I was a new patient at this place, so I had no rapport with the Doc, a guy on the younger side and close to my age. With things like these, it’s hard to be sure if this is the ideal scenario…or the most awkward one.

Anyways, we go through the routine, you know–blood pressure, blood work, height, weight, yadda yadda ya, and I’m starting to realize that I don’t actually know what all goes into one of these exams. Like, I just assumed that there would be at the very least a “turn-your-head-and-cough” moment, much like in the glory days of high school.

But as we wrapped up all the items on the Doc’s checklist, it occurred to me that maybe I still wasn’t old enough for a complimentary prostate exam. After all, that was the only way we were going to truly get any answers that day.

I resigned myself to the fact that I would have to take advantage of the “Do you have any other concerns?” part of the visit to explicitly discuss my butthole-related concerns.

And so it went. What a conversation to try to have with a straight face! Especially with another man about your age, when you know well and good that the whole time you’re both indubitably trying to repress you inner junior high school boy.

He managed to maintain an air of professionalism as he listened to me lay out my concerns with equal maturity, including the various hypotheses/self-diagnoses that I had come up with.

After I finished sharing my thoughts, he spoke to me with a gravitas that I had previously believed was strictly reserved for telling someone their love one had passed.

“I think we have no other choice. I’ll need to exam your prostate via your rectum.”

Fortunately, this wasn’t my first rodeo. With my pants already halfway down my ankles, I nodded in solemn agreement.

“I came today fully emotionally prepared to have a stranger’s finger probe my anus. I am ready.”1On occasion, I will take small poetic liberties in my story-telling. This is not one of them. Yes, I really did say this out loud to my doctor.

I could almost hear the pensive look on the Doc’s face as he carefully and gently checked me out. “Mmm-hmmm…good, good…yes…I see…well, that’s interesting…what do we have here…JUST KIDDING.”

As he wrapped it up and disposed of his glove, he shared his professional diagnosis: I had a clean butt of health: “Well, everything feels pretty much in shape down there. Perfectly-sized prostate, no colon cancer or other types of tumors, etc. You should be relieved.”

“Okay, then, what the heck do you think is going on? Something isn’t quite functioning right!”

Screw “relieved.” I came here for an explanation, and wasn’t leaving until I had one.

As any good doctor would, he started asking probing–no pun intended–follow-up questions. Particularly, “Has there been any major changes in your diet or daily routine recently?”

Well, as you may know, in fact, yes, I had been doing things differently lately. I had successfully been on my “Half-Ass Keto (TM)” diet for almost 6 months at this point, which was really just a low-carb diet.

Which really was just a high-cheese diet…lightly supplemented with meat, spinach, and kimchi.

You should have seen me try to argue that I ate “plenty of vegetables” and then when pressed for details, realize that a salad a day and 2 servings of Korean pickled cabbage a week really does make for one funked-up Food Pyramid.2What does the USDA know anyways? We all know now that the Food Pyramid is unintentionally(?) racist.

I could tell by the look on the Doc’s face, all the pieces of the puzzle were starting to come together.

“Dammit, son, you just need some fiber in your life.”

He continued, “Also: you’re body needs water. So drink that shiiiiiit.”3This has been a long running family meme between me and the Boss Lady, with some history behind it. For now, you can view the source here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBlsqQAHJyY.

So, no, I was not relieved. I was ----- disappointed.

Here I thought I was dying, but, as would be par for the course, I was just full of shit…

Good god…is my life really nothing more than an overly-complicated series of semi-related stories that culminate in an underwhelming middle school punchline?

The End

Content created on: 30 September & 1 October 2020 (Wed/Thurs)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Watch What Happens When Heavy Metal And Parents Collide

1 October 2020 / / 0 Comments
2 Min Read

“Eat your f*cking gummy vitamin, Kiddo!” I yelled.

Ok, so maybe the part about dropping the F-bomb on a child was a bit of an exaggeration…

A few nights ago The Elder had a sleepover at the grandparents’ house, so I only had to get our 2 y.o. daughter, “The Younger” through her pre-bedtime routine.

I always give the girls a gummy vitamin once they get in the bathtub, before I wash them up and then brush their teeth, and this night was no different.

It was still pretty early, so I was letting her play in the tub for a bit while I casually walked around the house messing around on my bass guitar.

I kept checking in on her, but instead of eating her gummy right away like she usually does, she was playing with it in the tub. So I started telling her sternly “Eat your vitamin, Kid.”

I did this about 4-5 times, each time growing more impatient. After about the 5th time, she had a retort ready and waiting for me.

“Eat your guitar, Daddy!” she shot back.

Thinking nothing of it, I ignored the little smartass and went back to laying down those funky basslines (think: Wild Cherry‘s Top-40 hit, “Play That Funky Music, White Boy”).

Two minutes later, same thing:

“Eat your vitamin, Kid!”

“Eat your guitar, Daddy!”

I was growing tired of going around in circles with her, so I decided to choose my battles.

“Okay, I will!”

So I put my guitar strap over only one shoulder so I could tilt it towards me and pretend to eat one of the big fat, flat metal tuning pegs.

…except as I brought it towards my mouth, the strap closest to the guitar’s neck popped loose, and I ended up slamming the metal peg right into to my front teeth.

Mother. Fuck.

I was pretty certain I had knocked one of them loose, as my head was still ringing from the violent collision.

I tentatively felt around…all teeth in place? Check. And straight? As much as they will ever be without adult braces. Blood? Minimal.

Whew! My dental records appeared to remain unchanged, but I had cut my upper lip on the inside where it had been smashed into my front tooth.

Thank ----- for my luscious-ass lips that normally get me mocked, amiright?

Anyways…what a stupid ----- way to end up at the dentist that would have been.

Content created on: 15 September & 1 October 2020 (Tues/Thurs)

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