The Point of the Story

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Month: May 2022

A Fantastic Voyage On The Everything You Never Wanted To Know Bus

29 May 2022 / / 0 Comments
6 Min Read

So, I got on a bus headed in the wrong direction.

I just never thought it would be a metaphor for my life…

On a sunny Thursday in mid-June of 2018, I took off early from work to prepare for a family reunion I would be hosting the next day. Meanwhile, Our Dearest Mother was busy praying for the safe travels of her four other children and their families who would be traveling many miles over the next 24 hours to join us.

Let’s just say she forgot to pray for me.

What you are about to read is a real-time documentation of the events that followed…

June 14th, 2018, 11:51 A.M.: A Logistical Miscalculation

In addition to preparing for the family reunion, immediately after that I was going to leave for a work conference in Paris. This, too, weighed heavily on my mind. Apparently, it did for many of my co-workers as well, which became painfully obvious when I had an uncomfortable realization about my plans for the day…

So, in summary: my commute to work usually consists of driving to a shopping center parking lot, and catching a public bus from there. On this fateful day, though, I didn’t realize that I couldn’t catch my usual bus back to my car because it stops service during the middle of the day.

Despite my very unhelpful work friend, disaster was averted when I found an alternative bus route that would get me to where I was going.

Eventually…

12:22 P.M.: Better Notify The Wife In Case I Go Missing…

12:25 P.M.: A Harbinger1Did I mention how recently The Boss Lady kept talking about trying to find a ‘harbinger’…only to eventually realize she meant carabiner clip? LOL. Appears On The Horizon

Meanwhile, I receive the following text from Mom, which she sent to all of us kids (at the time, Our Dearest Mother worked at an assisted living facility, taking care of an elderly woman in her private apartment):

You know it’s not a good sign when your mom’s work shenanigans ends up with “…and so there I was locked in a burning building with a bunch of older people, my bladder about to explode…”

12:29 P.M.: Better Be Safe And Begin Two Live-Texting Feeds…

You know, to help out with the inevitable future police investigation*…

*Please ignore the extremely classist remarks my younger, much-richer-than-my-even-younger-self, self makes*

I better keep the family informed too:

Wait…what???

At this point–and, again, not to be too classist–I am rightfully starting to wonder if I should be concerned for my safety:

12:34 P.M.: Out Of The Frying Pan And Into The Fire…

Immediately upon disembarking the What-In-The-Actual-F**k-Bus:

12:35 P.M.: Oh, This Family Conversation Is Far From Over…

Yes, you were saying mother?

What was that comment about me and ‘tips’ again?

You have no idea how long I have waited for the following two words to come out of my mother’s proverbial lips:

Thanks for clarifying, Mother. Fun fact, though:

12:30 P.M. Some Of Us Are Actually Trying To Have A Serious Conversation Here…

3:10 P.M.: Seriously, Though…

Of course, it wouldn’t be a true family-style text buffet without a typo-ridden run-on text from the elderly matriarch thrown in just for fun:

Confused? You’re not alone. It was so bad that our normally silent Sister “A” felt she had to say something:

My dude just outed himself as someone who does not read my blog. If he did, he would have known what a Venn diagram was from one of my very first posts.

So…maybe it was Bro #2 that would have felt more at home on that bus ride than me?

3:53 P.M.: No, We Will Not Let It Go, Mother, Thank You Very Much…

LOL, Mother, “lost” is a pretty appropriate typo to describe my entire day and the collective time of everybody unfortunate enough to be involved in this group text…

4:07 P.M.: First Trapped In A Burning Building, And Now Lost In A Viciously Confusing Grocery Store? Sheesh, Mother…

For the uninformed, those popular sweet fizzy drinks that are causing a nationwide obesity pandemic? In the Flyover States from whence my family comes, we don’t call that ‘soda’ like they do here on the East Coast and other more highly educated parts of this fine country.

Sometimes, you just have to speak in Elderly Kansas Woman’s native tongue, amiright?

Oh, good effin’ lord, Mother…

Anyways, once again, if you’re exhausted by this entire conversation at this point, rest assured, you’re not alone. Just ask Sister A:

Jeez…her very own little brother could have very well been inadvertently swept up in a bootlegging/panhandling/child pornography sting operation, entrapping all occupants of Durham Area Transit Route 10, Bus 2122, and she couldn’t have given a rat’s ass!

Harrumph!

The point of the story is always make sure there’s an elitist bus route to take you to wherever you may have parked your car.

Otherwise–and whether or not you want to–you might just learn exactly how long it takes to bum $7 off complete strangers, exactly how much booze that will buy you, and exactly what, pray-tell, do they do to kiddie smut-mongers in prison.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go scrape this gum and/or dog sh*t of a life experience off my soul…

Content created on 14 June 2018 & 27 May 2022 (Fri/Fri)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Who Double Dares To Don A Big Old Sh*t-Eating Grin?

21 May 2022 / / 0 Comments
5 Min Read

What do you do when someone wants to pay you to eat poo?

Oh, what to do, what to do, what to doo-doo…

“Ring! Ring!“

Great. Just great. The one night in my entire college career that I decide to go to bed before 10, and some jack-hole has to go and be blowing up the phone in my dorm room.

“Uh, hello?”

“Dude, dude, ’tis I, the Beautiful Love Muscle!1No, his initials aren’t actually BLM. Howdy!”

“Howdy yourself, BLM. Why the hell you calling me when I’m trying to get a healthy night’s worth of rest?”

“Yeah, uh, so there’s a bunch of guys here hanging out at my apartment, and…”

“…and what, you huge oaf?”

I didn’t give a crap if my impatience came through loud and clear over my landline or not.

“Well, we have a dare that we all thought for which you would be the perfect candidate.”

“Um, okay. What is it?”

I gotta admit that my ego was slightly flattered that little ol’ me was who they thought could handle this mystery challenge like no one else.

“We’ll tell you when you get here.”

“Nah, ----- that, amigo. I’m hanging up now…”

“No, wait! There’s could be a sizable amount of cash in it for you.”

The man sure did know the way to this poor college student’s heart.

“You don’t say? How much? I ain’t getting out of bed for any less than fif–“

“Two hundred fifty in cold hard cash. So are you in?”

Silence…

“Dude are you still there?”

*Ding-dong!*

BLM opens door…

“Nah man, I’m here…”

“So, it’s pretty simple: you eat some poo, and we pay you $250. Any questions?”

I couldn’t believe that BLM actually was able to keep a straight face while he suggested that I eat a steaming pile of crap, all for the mere purpose of the juvenile amusement of the gaggle of dumbasses–many of which I called ‘friends’–that had congregated at his place.

“The ----- is wrong with you man? And me??? When someone suggested, ‘Hey, let’s see if we can dare somebody to consume human fecal matter!’ All y’all biscuits unanimously came up with my name? Noooo, that’s no disturbing at all…”

“Aw, c’mon man! We’re offering you a quarter of a cool grand. And don’t be too offended we thought of you–after all you yourself brag about how you’re a ‘human garbage disposal’, amiright?”

“Yeah, ‘human garbage disposal’–not ‘walking septic tank’. There’s a bit of a difference there, Broseph.”

Amidst all this banter, a plot to part these fools of their money started to incubate and then hatch in mind. At that point, I thought that I had bought myself enough time. I just need to build a little more suspense…

A “Please, oh please!” spontaneously came forth from some nugget-head in the crowd.

“Yeah, you already got out of bed and traipsed over here–you might as well make it worth your trip.”

“Do it! Do it! Do it!”

All of sudden there was a chorus of jackasses all chanting their encouragement.

“Okay, okay! I’ll think about it–and on one condition: only if it’s the dung of my beloved roomie, B-Nye, Not The Science Guy–wait. What are you doing here? You’re in on this scheme, too???”

B-Nye just gave me his trademark sheepish chipmunk grin.

“Ok, whatever. Let’s just go somewhere private and discuss it. If all y’all need us we’ll be at Jen & Em’s2Female friends of ours who just happened to live in the apartment across the hall from BLM. place across the breezeway. See you suckers in a few minutes…”

“Brownies! Brownies! You ladies got any brownies?!?”

I didn’t have time to mince any words on useless pleasantries.

“Oh, hey, it’s you two. What’s up?” Despite my brusqueness, Jen was as pleasant as ever.

“No time to talk. I need whatever brownies you might have in this apartment, stat! And whole corn–you got any whole corn?”

I could see out of the corner of my eye that B-Nye was starting to put the pieces together.

“Ahhh, I see now…so you weren’t really planning on eating one of my fresh turds? Well, that’s a relief–pun intended!–cuz I don’t think I quite have a proverbial ‘bullet in the chamber’, so to speak.”

Jen, on the other hand, had no ----- clue what we were going on about.

“Ummm…are you guys talking about eating poop? ‘Cuz one time I heard about some frat guy that ate poop, and then after that all the sororities put him on a do-not-date list. They even had Wanted-style posters printed with his picture on it stating ‘Do Not Kiss This Man!’ It was cray-cray, I say…”

“So…he got brown-listed, eh?”

“Yeah, I suppose you could say that.”

“Well, fear not, my dear Jen, I don’t plan eating poop for realz.“

“Then why are you here?”

“Those fools across the hall have pooled their money together and will pay me $250 to eat crap. Fifty of that is yours if you can help me make a fake turd out of brownies and corn, and fifty of that will be B-Nye’s to pretend it was a fresh loaf he just pinched off. What say you?”

“Shouldn’t we split it evenly 3 ways?” B-Nye piped up.

“Oh ----- off. I’m the one risking my reputation here for a measly $150. No need to get greedy.”

“Okay, well you’re welcome to any brownies you can find, but I’m pretty sure we don’t have any.”

After a solid 10 minutes of turning their apartment upside down to no avail–and twice rebuffing BLM and the dumbass mob’s knocking on the door with ‘Go away, or you’re going to scare off B-Nye’s shy chocolate prairie dog!’–we sadly came up completely empty-handed.

In the end I totes be like:

Seinfeld George GIF - Seinfeld George Scream - Discover & Share GIFs
“Noooooo!”

“Sorry to disappoint fellas, but I’m out. B-Nye couldn’t produce the goods.”

I wasn’t ready to reveal to this crew that my plan to take their money and run had only been foiled by Jen & Em’s tragic lack of baked goods in their household.

“But, you thought about it. Oh, man, I can’t wait to tell every girl we know that you seriously considered eating crap!” Cody, one of the many jackasses present, was all too quick to point this unflattering technicality.

Okay. So, I guess I was ready to reveal my plan to fleece them after all.

“You big dummy, I didn’t consider eating poo for a single second! I was going to eat a fake one made out of brownies and make off with your money. I was going to literally walk away with a pocket full of cash and a shit-eating grin.”

“But you still thought about it!”

“No, you see it was actually quite a diabolical genius plan–“

“Hey guys! He almost ate sh*t! He almost ate sh*t! Tell everyone you know!”

“No–wait–oh, fudge,3While that could be considered a pun, what I’m really trying to say is ‘FUCK’. nevermind. You’re all a bunch of ----- idiots…”

The point of the story is that the world is full of turds who don’t give a crap about nuance. Appearances matter. Simple interpretations and salacious stories–those are what are usually remembered.

If something you’re thinking about doing–like, say, pretending to eat sh*t to make a few bucks–that, on the surface, may reflect poorly on your judgment and/or character, well, you better think twice before you even think once about doing it.

Later on you can lay out in great detail all you want about how brilliant you really were, but take it from me: no one will still be listening by then. No one cares about the asterisk. No one gives two toots about parenthetical statements. No one has time for your lengthy over-explanations.

It will already be too late, your good name will be forever smeared4Fecal-based pun intended…

Content created on: 21 May 2022 (Saturday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Good Godzilla! Why’s Japan Suddenly All Up In A Frenzy?

15 May 2022 / / 0 Comments
6 Min Read

Is this real or just my imagination?

I’m basically a God(zilla) in this strange nation…

“Hello, Tokyo…HELLO, TOKYO!”

I tell you what, finally getting to visit the Land of the Rising Sun was just so ----- exciting. While I wasn’t technically a fake 80’s rock star, I couldn’t help but thinking that this is what it must have felt like to have been Spinal Tap visiting Cleveland for the first time…

Yes, as I pre-call it, ’twas the Spring of 2025, and the proverbial Japanese cherry blossoms were in full bloom. And thanks to an invitation of dubious sincerity from old friend who had resettled across the Other Pond, I had loaded up the family and hauled them across the Pacific Ocean to enjoy these world famous blossoms and all the other cultural experiences this strange and foreign land had to offer.

Soon enough we were finding our way through the airport, and that was when I noticed that we seemed to be attracting quite a few stares. I found that surprising, ‘cuz surely they had seen their share of super-Caucasian middle-aged men in a cosmopolitan metropolis like this, right?

We had almost made it to the respite of our taxi when we were stopped by a random Japanese couple.

“Shashin! Shashin!” I heard somebody excitedly chatter from behind us.

“The heck they talking about!?!” I muttered to myself as I whipped out my handy pocket Japanese-English dictionary.

“Shashin! Shashin!” They were pretty intent on getting whatever it was that they wanted.

Soon enough, I found “Shashin” in my dictionary–though, had I looked up sooner, it would have been obvious from them frantically pointing at their phone that it was a “photograph” that they wanted.

“Well, if it’s a selfie with the White Devil himself that you want, than it’s a selfie with the White Devil you’ll get!”

I mean, I had no better guess as to why they insisted on getting a picture with me, but hey, what harm could it hurt in humoring them? I tried flashing the ubiquitous Asian peace/victory hand sign for the pic, but they stopped me with their broken Engrish:

“No, no, rike this.” Both of them pressed their palms together and stood on one leg while placing the foot of their free leg against their knee.

“Is that…is that Tree Pose from Yoga???” This situation just continued to get more and more bizarre.

But, as it turns out, I’m a huge fan of the Tree Pose, so it was no problem for me to handle their, uh, “interesting” request.

So, there we stood in the middle of the airport, the three of us in Tree Pose, as The Elder took a picture of us on their phone.

“Domo arigato!”

They profusely thanked me before heading on their way. But as they walked away, I could clearly see they were already posting our picture to social media.

What in the world were they up to?

I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself as I proceeded to hail a taxi.

“Oh, those clazy Asians…”

“ようこそ ハワイのサーフィンヨギ !”

My entire family stood there in shock in the middle of Shibuya Crossing–“the Times Square of Tokyo”–trying to comprehend what we were looking at.

There above us, plastered across the giant LCD screens on the side of one of the buildings was…a really tan version of me?

“Okay, this is getting creepy…first off, we’ve had to stop and take pictures with what I guess are your fans 8 times in the 2 hours we’ve been in this country. And now…this? Is there some secret life of yours that I should know about?”

Honestly, “overly suspicious of a possible double life” was the last response to the situation from the Boss Lady that I had expected.

“You kidding me right now? I have no ----- idea where that picture of me came from. And when would have I had the time to sneak off on a Trans-Pacific flight to build an international fan base? I’m just as confused as you are, Babe!”

“Well, I for one think it’s impressive that my very own Daddy is a world-wide superstar. Even if he has no clue why, it’s still pretty danged cool!”

At least The Younger, our 7-year-old daughter, ever the optimist and drinker-of-life-to-the-fullest, was enjoying the weird-as-hell moment we found ourselves in.

The Elder, the pre-teen problem-solver that she was, then pointed out something that seems patently obvious in retrospect:

“Well, from all the Ryan’s World that I watched when I was younger, can tell you that ‘ようこそ’ means ‘Welcome!’ in English.”

“Now only if we could figure out what ‘ハワイのサーフィンヨギ’ means, then maybe we could get to the bottom of this mystery…”

“Ahhh, it’s nice to finally get away from the crowds, isn’t it, fam?”

After being relentlessly hounded for fan-pic after fan-pic–all of them demanding we assume Tree Pose, nonetheless–I finally decided to give everyone a break with a relaxing visit to Chidorigafuchi Park.

It was only natural that we would end up in C-Park, as this was one of the premiere spots to enjoy the cherry blossoms–and wasn’t that half the reason we were there in the first place? Plus, as an added bonus, there were all sorts of sculpture art to enjoy at the same time (The Boss Lady is infamous for her pastime of “watching art”).

“Holy. Sh*t.”

I was kinda shocked at the words coming out of my wife’s mouth. Normally I’m the one to drop a cuss word or two in the family.

“Hey Babe, I don’t think the girls are quite old enough to hear potty-words like that coming out of your pie-hole…”

No response. She seemed to be frozen in shock and/or awe at something over my shoulder.

“What in the world are you starin–“

My mouth stopped dead in its tracks as I turned and saw what it was that she was staring at.

There, in front of us, in the middle of beautiful park halfway around the world from our everyday lives, was a bronze statue of…me?!?

“Uh, Dad, why is there a sculpture of you doing the Tree Pose next to a palm tree?” The Elder had an inquiring mind that wanted to know.

“Hey check it out–here on the plaque is that strange inscription again, ‘ハワイのサーフィンヨギ’–maybe it’s time we ask the Googles what that means?”

Leave it to The Younger to point out the obvious fact that we could have done a bit of internet sleuthing this whole time (but personally, I kinda enjoyed revelling in the mystery of it all–shhh! Don’t let the kids know!).

The Older snapped a pic of the plaque on her smart phone and plugged it into Reverse Image Search.

“Let’s see…ah, yes, here it is right here! ‘ハワイのサーフィンヨギ’–it looks like you’re known in these here parts as the ‘Hawaiian Surfing Yogi’. Says here they erected this statue in honor of an unknown Haole in Honolule who was a popular tourist attraction at Waikiki Beach from 2011 to 2013 before he mysteriously disappeared. According to his Wikipedia page, ‘The Hawaiian Surfing Yogi’ was known for his elaborate public post-surfing stretching routine. In fact, for a couple of years there was actually a Japanese social media challenge where tourists would mimic his poses and try to take pictures with him without his knowledge. Most famous of these poses…”

“…was the Tree Pose. Yes, kids, I suppose it’s true: I am indeed the infamous Hawaiian Surfing Yogi–though this is the first I’m hearing about it!”

“Those crazy Japanese tourists must have been pretty good at taking pictures of you without you knowing it, eh, Dad?”

“Yeah, I guess so. But now that I think about it…I do vaguely recall during one of my stretching sessions noticing an elderly Japanese tourist off yonder making a horrible attempt to copy my moves. I tried my best to ignore him, but I couldn’t help notice that he was killing it with his tour group. Indeed, his fellow travellers all seemed to be getting a good chuckle out of that joker’s antics at my expense…”

At that point, the Boss Lady piped up with a pity summary of all the events that had transpired.

“The point of the story is, girls, that you gotta be somewhat careful when ‘doing your own thang’ in public. You never know who is watching, and you could unwittingly become an international celebrity like your father here, for better or for worse.”

She then turned her attention to me:

“And as for you, don’t go getting any ideas about lightening striking twice. You may have fell ass-backwards into fame this time, but I promise you, there aren’t going to be any alien archeologists in the future stumbling across your obscure blog and thinking to themselves, ‘Hmmm, so this is what the typical Earthling’s life looked like…’

“Ignore her, girls: I’m telling you, one day far in the future, in a galaxy far away,there’s going to be a sitcom based on my writings. I’ll be the intergalactic Laura Ingalls Wilder of the Zeta Reticuli solar system, all because I was never ashamed to ‘do my own thang’…”

This episode was brought to you by Google Translate and one very over-active imagination.

Content created on: 13/14 May 2022 (Fri/Sat)

My Lifetime Legacy? Oh, It’s In The Bag, Baby!

8 May 2022 / / 0 Comments
3 Min Read

We all hope to be remembered fondly for our charitable deeds.

But which one actually gets memorialized? Well, that depends…

“Hey Babe, I have to show you something you’re not going to believe!”

The Boss Lady and I were out for a stroll in a local park one fine evening in the summer of 2027, and she had apparently stumbled upon something that she thought would blow my mind.

“Okay, I’m going to cover your eyes and lead you to the surprise…no peeking, okay?”

I literally had no ----- clue what she was about to show me. Even when we finally stopped near the park bathrooms and she uncovered my eyes, I was no less confused.

“What the–?!? What am I looking at here?”

“Well, maybe you should read the inscription…”

I leaned over to examine the back of a beautiful park bench, and what appeared to be a limerick engraved on a immaculately-polished plaque.

My eyes skimmed over it several times, but each time only deepened my confusion. Was this some type of riddle?

“Yeah, I still have no idea what’s going on here. ‘R. Hendersen’?1I slightly modified my name to protect my privacy. Is that supposed to be me? If so, how did the heck did they get my name? And ‘depends’? Depends on what?”

“Well, first off, it’s clearly a park bench dedicated in your honor, silly!

She spoke as if it were patently obvious. It wasn’t.

“But…why?!?”

“Well, I was puzzled at first too, but I think I finally figured it out…”

“Please, enlighten me then.”

“So, do you remember back in 2020 when we were in the middle of the pandemic, and we started ordering all of our groceries online?”

“Uh-huh.” I still didn’t see what this had to do with the price of rice in China.

“And do you recall that after a few months we had upwards of 100 paper grocery bags cluttering our garage?”

“Yeah, that did get out of hand, didn’t it?”

“And since you ordered online, every single one of them had a sticker with ‘R. Hendersen’ on them so they would know it was yours when you picked them up.”

“Of course. Yet…”

“Patience, it will all make sense soon, Young Grasshopper. Anyways, between the paper bags and the pandemic, you got so overwhelmed with it all that you asked me to take care of the bags.”

“Ja, those bags took a surprising toll on my sanity…”

“Well, did you ever wonder what I did with them?”

“Uh, I always just assumed you threw them in the recycling…”

“Err, not exactly. I never told you this, but around that time, I happened to be dooms-scrolling on that site we used to call Facebook, and I randomly came across a post by a local charity requesting paper bag donations.”

“Okay…”

“Well, when I showed up with a trunk full of bags, I was surprised to learn that they needed them for delivering adult undergarments to senior citizens in our area. I was even more taken aback by how profusely the guy thanked me.”

” No sh*t? That’s crazy.”

“Yeah, apparently they were super-desperate for bags, and to him, I might as well have been an angel sent directly from heaven. I could swear he almost cried.”

“But…the park bench?”

“Oh yeah, thath. Our donation must have meant quite a bit to the local loose-sphinctered elderly folk, I guess. So much so that they must have showed their appreciation by erecting this bench in honor of their generous-yet-mysterious benefactor…”

“…’Mr. R. Hendersen’!”

“Exactly: ‘Mr. R. Hendersen’.”

“Well, apart from the fact that it should be ‘Dr. R. Hendersen’, I gotta say I’m quite flattered. Now that I know the backstory, let me re-read that plaque…”

With toilets afar from whence we sit,
Shall we worry when our bowels move a bit?
Nay, a million thanks to one Mr. R. Hendersen
And his ample supply of much-needed Depends,
Allowing us now in our pants to peacefully sh*t!

Forever Grateful, ChathaM County Council On Aging

“Hey, wait a minute! Does that mean what I think it means? And after all I did for them?!?”

The Boss Lady couldn’t help snickering a bit, taking a wee bit too much delight in confirming my fears:

“Yup. It sure sounds like to me that those old farts are literally taking a huge dump all over your good name…”

Content created on: 6/7 May 2022 (Fri/Sat)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Don’t Worry, I’m A Professional! What’s Bugging You, My Man?

1 May 2022 / / 0 Comments
5 Min Read

Sometimes simply being a listening ear can mean the world to someone.

Mainly because then you’re not a running mouth…

“Just hanging in there the best I can…”

I gave a slight smirk upon hearing the exterminator’s response to my question, “How ya doing today?”–my attempt at basic pleasantries one might be expected to proffer when interacting with a stranger.

He had come by for his bi-monthly visit to spray for bugs around our house, and, as usual, he was at our front door letting us know he was there and what he planned to do that day–you know, to preempt us from calling the cops upon seeing a random dude wandering around outside our house.

Now, I’m not really big on the whole “basic pleasantries” thing, on account of the overly-honest gene in my DNA that gives me a near-unhealthy penchant for authenticity in all of my inter-personal interactions. So it’s always a treacherous gamble to engage in such activities with me, as you might just get more than the usual lie of “I’m doing just fine” that typically serves as the lubricant that keeps society running smoothly.

Anyways, the bug guy had caught me in a particularly hectic moment, so let’s just say that he had no idea what he was in for…

“That was about to be my exact response!”

I didn’t want to leave the guy wondering why I had a half-grin on my face, so I was letting him know that I could relate to how he was feeling. But before I burdened him with my current woes, I decided to let him share first what was weighing him down.

“Yeah, I hear ya…what’s ailing you these days?” I continued.

Who says that two complete strangers can’t share a sincere human connection, amiright?

“Well…” he said before pausing for a brief moment.

“Don’t worry, Buddy, you got a listening ear in me.” I gently encouraged him.

“So, I just recovered from COVID after being knocked on my ass for couple of weeks…”

“Oof. That’s rough.”

“…but what was really tough was losing 3 family members to COVID in just the last 2 months…”

“Oh man, I am so sorry to hear that.” I asked for ‘realness’, and whether I liked it or not, he was sure delivering.

“And then…”

“Wait! There’s more?” I thought to myself. Hadn’t he suffered enough already?

“…I get off work two nights ago, and come home to find all my possessions on the front porch.”

Sh*t. That could mean only one thing.

“Turns out, out of nowhere, my wife leaves me for another guy. I had no clue; I was completely blindsided.”

“Oh, man, that is so terrible–on top of everything else, too…”

Honestly, this was new territory. The closest I had previously come to having to figure out how to respond to a random person sharing some incredibly personal trauma with me was that one time I tried to give $20 to a guy loitering outside the local Korean fried chicken joint, and, well, I don’t have to tell you how that went.

“She said she’s taking the house. So I’ve been sleeping in my work truck the last few nights since I have nowhere to go…”

“Dang…” I was pretty much speechless by this point. I just couldn’t believe The Universe would kick a guy so squarely in the cajones when he was already down.

“…and I’ve got exactly negative $124 in my bank account, so yeah…I’m just hanging in there best I can.”

I was officially speechless at this point, doing all I could not to cry in front of another grown-ass man who just poured his heart out to me.

“Welp, today I’ll be spraying around the perimeter of your home as usual–gotta keep the creepy-crawlies from getting in the first place. Oh, and have you noticed any issues with bugs inside the house lately?”

“Here you go, I want you to have this. It’s not much, but hopefully it’ll help take the sting off a little.”

I had been an unexpected emotional wreck for the past 20 minutes while he had sprayed around the house–and I was just as worried that he would leave without checking back in with me. After rummaging through a couple dressers, I found what I had hoped to pass on to him: a Ziploc baggy with a modest amount of cash in it–serendipitously within a couple of dollars of his negative bank account balance.1Not to #HumbleBrag, but I had discovered that they were $20 bills when I thought they were $50s or $100s, so it wasn’t as much as I had hoped to pass on to my hurting amigo. So I was rather relieved (and nervous!) when I heard the doorbell ring again.

He graciously accepted the gift, and just stood there for a moment.

“I’m doing all I can not to cry–this means so much to me.”

I, too, was doing all I could not to cry.

“I know hugs aren’t a good idea right now, but how about a fist-bump?” he offered.

I took him up on that, and in that moment, the much-maligned fist-bump became the vessel for one of the deepest connection I have experienced with another human being…

“You ever pondered over that part of the Bible where Jesus talks about ‘what you’ve done unto the least of these, you’ve done unto me'2https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Matthew-25-40 and what-not?”

“Yeah, I suppose I’ve given it some thought…”

Over a month later, and the Boss Lady and I were road-tripping to the beach for her birthday get-a-way, and I had just opened up to her for the first time about my encounter with the bug guy–it had been so emotionally heavy that I hadn’t been able to share it with another soul for weeks on end.

And she was indubitably wondering where I was going with it by bringing in theology.

“Well, I can’t help but wonder if I’ve just punched my ticket to Black Heaven3It wasn’t explicitly stated, but the bug guy is Black. So on top of everything else he has to deal with a baseline of systemic racism and racial inequity.…”

After a pause, my mouth rambled on to finish that train of thought.

“…and of course, by blasting my good deeds to the whole world, I’m no doubt voiding that ticket and going straight back to Caucasian hell…”

Empathy, generosity, and now humor?

Though I hadn’t meant to, my little tale had assaulted my dear wife with the Trifecta of Character Every Woman Wants Her Man, and thereby winning her heart back over after a little run-of-the-mill, very incredibly stupid 24-hour marital spat.

Again, yes I know that telling the whole world about my kind heart and valiant deeds kinda nullifies everything, but there really is a point in sharing all this.

I mean, it was her fault for trying to be infectiously gracious in the first place after I had mumbled a few choice expletives at an inept teen driver with whom we were stuck in traffic.

“Dear, don’t be so harsh–you never know what kind of day she’s been having…”

“Sigh. That’s true. Speaking of which, boy, do I have a story for you…”

“I’m crying! I’m crying!”

Fortunately, the Boss Lady was crying tears of laughter at this point, despite the gravity of The Bug Guy Story I had just intimated to her.

“Whew! Oh boy, I can’t get over the thought of you sharing your woes first instead of him–what was it you were about to say again?”

“Well, first, in my defense, things had been pretty stressful for me then. At least relatively speaking.”

“Just tell me the exact phrase you were about to tell him, explaining why you had the need to ‘hang in there’ the best you could.”

“Fine. I was about to say, and I quote:

‘Yeah man, life’s been rough on me lately. I’ve been trying to upgrade our front and back porches with this really expensive composite decking, and it’s just been taking forever. And on top of that, me and the family are leaving for a 6-day Disney World vacation tomorrow, and I feel completely unprepared. I’m totally stressing out here, man!’

There. Are you happy with how incredible close to being utterly embarrassed while simultaneously making him feel even more horrible?”

*gasp! gasp*

“One moment while I catch my breath…”

I couldn’t help but roll me eyes.

“Are you finished with your schadenfreude yet?”

“Oh, Dear…again, it all comes back to you, Disney, and your First-World Problems…”

Content created on: 29 April 2022 (Friday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

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