Month: June 2022

It’s a war–a war on bugs, that is.

But I think I have may chosen the wrong side…

“Man…it’s just the darnedest thing. Blue-green skin…I’ve never seen anything like it…”

“Wait…what?!? What skin?? Where??”

In retrospect, I don’t know why I thought casually mentioning to my grad school roommates that “I got blue-green skin” would be met with “Ooh! How interesting!”

Yeah, on second thought “what in the actually f***?!?” seems like the proper response. But, alas, hindsight is 20/20 and this cat was already out of its bag.

“Huh? What? Oh yeah, it’s just that my athlete’s foot has taken on a blue-green hue. In my 25 or so years of having athlete’s foot, this is—“

“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Back this train up a sec! First, off: you have athlete’s foot and didn’t tell us?!?” Sue¹Almost her real name. was apparently unhappy with this revelation.

“We share the same shower, you prick!” Patty²Again, almost her real name. quickly clarified exactly why they were so pissed at me.

“And 25 years?!? Dude, you just turned 26! What the heck?!?” Also apparent: Sue’s grasp of basic math.

“Well, it’s not that big of a deal, really. I’ve had chronic athlete’s foot pretty much my entire life. You see, my toes unnaturally curve onto each oth—“

“No big deal?!? You don’t get to decide whether or not it’s ‘a big deal’—we do.”

“No, no, you don’t understand, it’s pretty much just a ‘me’ problem.”

“No, you understand. Man, we don’t want none of yo’ nasty foot fungus. So here’s the deal: you’re wearing sandals in the shower until it clears up.”

“And that’s non-negotiable.”

“Dammit.” I muttered under my breath. I knew that I had no choice but to acquiesce.

“Ok, fine. I’ll go get it checked out and in the meantime I suppose I’ll wear flip-flops in the shower. I really regret saying anything though—all this drama is completely unnecessary, in my humble opinion…”

I just had to throw that last comment in there, didn’t I? Patty for one sure wasn’t bemused by it.

“Well, in my humble opinion, I can’t believe you even considered not telling us! Bad roommate. Bad roommate!”

Ok, ok, so they had a point–and if I could travel back in time and provide some spiritual counsel to my younger self, I’d tell that jackass to be more thoughtful and considerate of those with whom he shares personal spaces.

Even though the both of me know ----- well that “what they didn’t probably would never have hurt them”…

“So there I was at the gym locker room, and I realized ‘oh crap, I forgot my shower sandals!’ True story…”

‘Twas a few years later, and I found myself regaling my sole³Pun intended. roommate—aka my wife, aka The Boss Lady—with the perhaps the world’s most boring gym-related story.

“And then what happened?!? What did you do? Shower in your sneakers? Skip the shower altogether? Tap into your inner MacGuyver and make some sandals solely out of paper towels?”

“Huh? What do you mean ‘what did I do?’ I just took a shower barefoot. Duh.”

“Oh my god! Who knows what disease or calamity you could have picked up from the shower floor! How could you put your feet in such grave and imminent danger?!?”

“Listen Toots…um…how do I say this? Oh! I know! Even though this is the year 2009, I figure I could best illustrate my point with a clip from the August 21, 2011 episode of the hit AMC TV show, Breaking Bad.”

*hops into time machine, buzzes back almost instantaneously with the DVD boxset of the complete series of Breaking Bad*

*Ahem* “In this scene, the role of my toes will be played by Walter White…”

Now hop in your dumbass time machine one last time with me and fast forward to the present, whence a pandemic ravishes the globe. Mask-wearing seems to cyclically fall in and out of vogue.

Free-facers are shunned like pariahs. Faithful maskers are mocked. And thus the pendulum swings back and forth.

Which camp do I fall into, you ask? Well, let me tell you a little story. A little story about a little mask…

Once upon a last week, a very close friend of mine went to an indoor concert at a venue where masking was optional. What did my friend do? Well, he and his date were 2 out of about 8 total people at that show who actually opted to wear a masks. Because…seriously, what the ----- are those 2,704⁴https://dukeperformances.duke.edu/venues/dpac-durham-performing-arts-center/ other people thinking?!?

Funny thing, though: it’s hard to prove how hardcore of a fan you are when no one can see you accurately lip-syncing with a mask plastered over your face. But, for one brief moment, in an attempt to prove to his date that he indeed knew the words to some of the songs at this show he had dragged her to, he removed his mask, belted out 3 lines of The Remedy directly in his date’s face, and promptly replaced the mask back on his face.

Now, unbeknownst to this very close friend of mine–in spite of over two years of diligently masking no matter how uncool it became (and zero infections)–ye ol’ COVID had finally come for him, a cold hard fact that was confirmed approximately 5 hours after this particular concert.

(“You gotta be ----- kidding me!” he thought, no doubt.)

But, one to always find the silver lining in any situation, he later told me, “You know, I sometimes wonder if I infected anybody at that concert–besides my date–when I took my mask off for those 10 seconds. But then I realized, hey, if those unmasked ----- picked up anything from me, then that one’s kinda on them.”

He continued, “Yeah, I could feel at least half of them staring at me and my multi-colored mask, mocking me in their heads. But the joke’s on them, cuz as it turns it out…”

*dramatically whips head to the side to look Camera 2 dead in the eye*

“…I am the one who knocks!”

…

…

…

Me. It’s me. I am the one who knocks…*cough cough*

Content created on: 25/26 June 2022 (Sat/Sun)

Sure, the feel of melon in your mouth feels great.

But sometimes, son, it’s better you just wait…

“Oh crap, I forgot the watermelon!”

Sheer terror and panic overtook my system as my world seemingly came crashing down around me right there in the grocery store.

“Well, we can’t have that!” the clerk empathized. “After all, that’s what the holidays are all about…”

“Aw, man! First I have to deal with spending the Fourth of July all by myself, and now this unspeakable tragedy? Woe is me!”

Throughout all this drama, the clerk somehow managed to keep his cool.

“Uh…so why don’t you just grab some from the produce section before I finish you checking out?”

That man is gosh-darn hero, I tell you. What would I have done without his sage advice? Celebrate my solo Independence Day without any refreshing sandia to salve the wounds of my abandoned ego? We can’t have that!

“Be right back!” I shouted over my shoulder as I took off in my cheap-ass flip-flops towards my soon-to-be prized possession.

About halfway there, though…

“FWIP!”

The front edge of my left sandal caught on the polished tile floor and bent in half.

“FWOP!”

My entire body flung forward culminating in my cheekbone colliding with the floor.

Fortunately, at 8:30 pm on a national holiday, everyone else has a real social life and are spending time with friends and family instead of trying to gather the supplies for a sad little BBQ-for-one at the grocery store. In other words, there were no eye-witnesses to my little spill, and so my ego wasn’t nearly as bruised as it could have been.

My body, on the other hand, was a little bit more banged up. As I got up and dusted myself off, a cursory systems check of my corporeal being noted that, while I hadn’t lost a tooth or broken my frickin’ cheek, I had done gone and busted up one of my big toes pretty bad. Yup…was gonna lose that nail.

Ugh…what a stupid, stupid, embarrassing way to injure ones’ self. But, if I was going to sacrifice well-being for some ----- watermelon, I was sure as schnitzel going to get my watermelon. I nonchalantly as possible scooped up a quarter of a watermelon–because, hey, I don’t need to eat a whole melon all by myself–and casually sauntered back to the clerk, who by now had to be wondering if I had been kidnapped or something.

“Wha–?!? What the hell happened to you?” He was clearly shocked by the tattered state I was in.

“Look man, have you ever hunted down a wild watermelon and killed it with your bare hands? You’re just not the same afterwards. It changes you, man, it changes you…”

“Whoa, bus!”

I had been power-walking to the bus stop in hopes of beating the bus I desperately needed to catch, but was still about a hot minute from our rendezvous point when I saw the speedy little ----- whizz past me.

It was a few weeks after my 4th of July pity-party¹One that ended with me sitting on the roof of our house and watching fireworks off in the distance…which doesn’t actually sound that bad, so I guess you could say it had a happy-ish ending. You know, apart from the toe and cheekbone and what-not. and I was trying to catch a ride home after a long day in the lab–I had a super-hot date with Just Chillaxin’–but of course I was running slightly late, so I had to accept the fact that if I wasn’t on that bus when it pulled off, then it was all on me.

“Hold that bus!” I shouted…in my head, because, you know, I would probably look like an idiot shouting that on a mildly crowded college campus.

I could see off yonder the bus roll up and start to let the more timely passengers board.

“Well, sh*t, if I start awkwardly hustling/sprinting now, I just might make it…”

I had to make a judgement call, and I had to make it fast.

“On the other hand…”

I looked down at my blackened toe, which at this point featured a toenail so much on the verge of falling off that it was basically just flapping in the wind.

“…maybe I’ll just keep strolling at a casual pace. No need to hurt myself again, especially when I can just catch the next bus in 10 minutes.”

Proud of myself for actually having a grip on myself this time–unlike during the Very Unfortunate Watermelon Incident–I carried on my way like I didn’t have a care in the world.

As I got closer, I noticed that the bus hadn’t pulled away yet.

“Easy, Big Fella,” I told myself as I was once again tempted to make a dash for it.

Fifteen paces away, still the bus stood inexplicably stationary. Still I strolled.

Ten paces: “Ah, poo, I just know it’s going to pull away when I get tantalizing close–but…must…resist…urge to scurry.”

Five paces: “Okay, Universe, I get it–this is some kind of cruel prank you’re pulling on me. Just break my heart and get it over with!”

Four…

Three…

“No, not even skipping is an option–don’t you dare!”

Two…

One…

Zero…

Still lolly-gagging casually af, I walked up to the still-open doors of the bus and, just as I step on, the doors closed behind me…

The other passengers were in awe.

“It’s as if he knew all along that the bus was going to wait for him!” I overheard one particular comely female passenger whisper under her breath.

“Ooh, now, a man with confidence like that? That really gets my bus’ engine revving, if you know what I mean, wink, wink,” her equally buxom seatmate intimated, thinking I was out of earshot.

“Yeah,” quietly piped up yet another member of the hot-girl party, “and with bruises like that, he’s no doubt brimming with non-toxic masculinity. He looks like a man who would be the living sh*t out of someone to defend my honor…”

I couldn’t stop a sly grin from creeping across my face.

“You may have one the earlier battle, Watermelon, but it looks like I won the war. And now, speaking of ‘melons’, this melon-farming victor needs to enjoy his spoils.”

I wrapped up my conversation with my imaginary fruit foe, and turned my attention elsewhere.

“Hello, ladies…”

Content created on: 3 June 2022 (Friday)