Month: April 2021

I just discovered a new safe word for you to use when stuck in a conversation:

“When I was five, I found out my grandpa had a twin…”

“When I was five, I found out my grandpa had a twin, when I saw him after my grandpa’s funeral. A ----- heads up would have been nice.”

Of all the stories I’ve ever told in these parts, that is probably one of the best ones ever. It has it all: brevity, wit, a plot twist, an “OMFG” moment, and, best of all, a well-justified and appropriately-used f-bomb.

But wait just a minute, Buster: if you’ve been paying attention at all, you will know that at least one of those story-time traits is not characteristic of a Point Of The Story story. At all.

Yes, the whole “brevity” part is definitely a snitch that deserves a stitch: this is not my story at all, but instead a fantastic tweet by @oksheesh that I happened to stumble across:

Ja, I admit that the reason I share it is part out of admiration, part out of envy. Man, I wish could tell my tales like this! I just know that had this happened to me, I sure as heck would have written up a small novel about, including every last bit of context such as where Real Grandpa’s coffin was situated, whether it was open-casket, and what Doppel-Grandpa was wearing.

And no doubt I would have thrown in some completely unnecessary trivia, like how I was eating corn at the after-party¹Wait, that can’t be the right term for that… when I quipped to my mom something to the effect of “You know what I love about funerals? The food!” Because that part did really happen, so why wouldn’t I include that?

Anyways, during a recent road trip to our beach house,²If you haven’t read my post about the Fun House at the beach, then that just means I haven’t written it yet, and you should read that when I do write it up! I was sharing this fantastically tidy tale with my mom–from whom I most definitely inherited my extraneous verbosity–as I was gushing about what a perfect tweet/story it was and how I wanted to be just like @oksheesh when I grew up as a writer.

We both laughed heartily at that fanciful thought, as we knew that my genetic disposition to the contrary was so strong that it was highly doubtful that I would ever master the art of being succinct…

Later, as I was listening to my mom give a detailed account of where everybody was sitting at a particular meal that was the setting for the non-story she was sharing, I briefly experienced what it must be like to be you, my Dear Reader.

“Okay, so she’s telling me all these intricate details, but I have no idea how they relate to the story…well I better pay attention to all the noise just in case there’s a critical detail somewhere in there that makes all this make sense, or at the very least, mildly humorous…”

And just like that, my entire bandwidth was wasted on context, context, context, and I found myself too exhausted to give enough of a flying ----- to find out why we were having this asinine conversation in the first place.

Encouraging her to get to the point, I deftly referenced our conversation from less than an hour earlier:

“When I was five, I found out my grandpa had a twin…”

And it worked! She immediately got the hint and wrapped up her story lickety-split!

And, no, the irony of me using that phrase on someone else is not lost on me at all.

In fact, my trademark style of uber-self-awareness/wry self-deprecation is what compelled me to share all this in the first place–using waaaaay too many words in the process, of course.

If you ever need me to dispense with all the eye-witness-to-a-felony-criminal-act level of details that I’m sharing with you, all you need to do is leave in the comments section: “When I was five, I found out my grandpa had a twin…”

You’re welcome!

(And so sorry for using up all your mental capacity in the process…)

Content created on: 29 April 2021 (Thursday)

You know what they say: “The early bird gets the worm!”

What they don’t tell you is: “The early tax-filer might just get screwed out of all the easy monies…”

Okay, so today isn’t exactly “Tax Day.” Usually it is though, so I thought I would spit a quick tax-related tip at you, because, hey is there ever a more fun and exciting topic?

So I like to be a good citizen when it comes to filing my taxes, and in fact, I usually have them in to the IRS within the first week that they can be submitted in early February. Sure, we usually get a tidy little refund, so that makes it much easier to get sh*t done in a timely manner.

This year I was a little behind on my game and didn’t get them in until early March. No biggie, though–well within the time frame that still would allow me to go publicly bragging about such an asinine thing.

It just so happened though, that the third economic stimulus package was announced a week or two after getting our ‘fund. This time around, though, those checks came with strings attached: namely, if you and/or your hard-working wife make too much money, then you might end up getting exactly jack-squat.

This information would have been extremely handy to have had before I filed my taxes so ----- early like the exceptionally good member of society that I aspire to be. Turns out, had I been a dead-beat family accountant–or a notorious procrastinator, which I seem to be in just about every other area of my life–then the IRS would have been forced to determine our eligibility based on our 2019 taxes.

*Sigh*

If only.

I can neither confirm or deny our current gross household income, but let’s just say that DAMMMMMMIT! I JUST SCREWED US OUT OF A FAT FIVE-K STIMMY FROM UNCLE SAMMY!

You get the point, right? The year 2020 was a shit-show in general, but financially we did just well enough to miss out on all the free-money fun.

And all because I had to–just had to–go showing off to the IRS how much dough we be rolling in the first chance I got.

Wait–I mean, “I was an exemplary citizen, and thoughtfully filed my taxes early enough to help relieve some of the burden on the poor, poor IRS workers.”

What does my goodwill and excellent altruistic behavior get me? Jack. Squat.

The point of the story is, try to not fall into the sinkhole of cynicism if you can, but dang it, it’s true what they say: “No good deed goes unpunished.”

Call me a bad boy, call me Mr. Dangerous. Call me what you will but I say “screw this!” I’m filing my taxes on the last day possible next year!

Content created on: 15 April 2021 (Thursday)

Fame and fortune isn’t always fun and games.

Especially when it’s not really yours…

Katie Crouch had a doppelganger. She even was the same age, had gone to the same college, was also an aspiring author, and no matter where she moved, this Katie Crouch clone seemed to move there as well.

The best part? Her name was Katie Crouch too.

I came across this Tale of Two Katie Crouches while listening to one of my favorite story-telling podcasts, Snap Judgement. If you want to hear the full story, you can listen to it here, but for today’s purposes, let me skip ahead a bit.

Katie #1 thought it was the coolest thing that not only did Katie #2 exist, but they were so alike in so many ways. However, Katie #2 could have cared less though, and just went on living her life as if she was literally the only Katie Crouch in town.

Now, where things take a bit of a turn was when Katie #2 wrote a book that kinda took off. It even made the New York Times’ Bestseller list. The problem, of course, was that since Katie #1 was also trying to make it as an author, everyone she knew just assumed that she was the one who had just made it big.

Congratulations poured in. Friends took selfies with “her” book in bookstores. Everyone was overjoyed and elated for her. Even the media came knocking on the wrong Katie’s door.

Yeah, it was super-awkward.

And she found she couldn’t escape it no matter how hard she tried. She was constantly reminded that Katie #2 had beat her to making their shared name famous, even further reminding her of how from her dreams of being a big name in the book world she was.

Verily, verily, it was damn-near a nightmare…

Somewhere in between overwhelming success and abject failure, toils most aspiring creators of content–and yours truly is no exception. Is this blog the widely-read, much-talked-about source of wit, mirth, and life philosophy I envisioned it to be? Um, let’s just say it’s a “work in progress.”

At the same time, I have the consolation that I’m not just screaming into the void, and the hope remains that if I keep putting in the time and effort that eventually it will pay off in the form a decent-sized readership. (Dare I even dream of making a profit?!?)

Over the past month or so, thanks to some involuntary home renovations, the previously consistent creative output found in these parts has fallen off a bit. And without new content, one can naturally expect to see their traffic dwindle to a trickle.

Therefore, it was a very much a pleasant surprise to see a sharp uptick in visitors to this humble blog:

Could it be? Was I actually on the verge of success, fame, and fortune as humorist/writer/memoirist?!?

Of course, this couldn’t just be a random event, so I felt compelled to investigate the source of all these new readers. So I scrolled down a bit further:

Oh no…

*groans loudly*

Not The Conspiracy Theory Of Everything! I finally get some exposure, and this is the article that these new readers are using to form their impression of the larger body of work to be found here?!?

While not the worst writing that I’ve had the poor judgement to publish, it’s pretty close. In my head, the thoughts were rather coherent, and so when I needed to spit something out in short order so I could enjoy a beach vacation with my family, I thought it would be the perfect article to write.

Well, it turned out that my thoughts weren’t so coherent when I tried to put pen to paper, and eventually I gave up on making a cogent argument, basically just saying “F*ck this sh*t, I’m going on vacation! Peace!”

And now, this is what the world thinks The Point of the Story has to offer.

Well, this is embarrassing.

Even worse, I eventually started wondering “Why this post? And why now?”

It wasn’t long before I regretted trying to answer that question. It turns out a 4-hour YouTube “documentary” came out recently:

Oh, that’s super-fucking-awesome. It is pretty much the anti-thesis to my anti-conspiracy thesis. So pretty much all these new people accidentally discovering my site? People actively looking for conspiracy theories.

Son of a biscuit.

The only word that I can think of to describe this? “Katie Crouch #1, I feel your pain.”

Content created on: 11 April 2021 (Sunday)