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Month: April 2023

What Went Down On The Daring Flight Of Delta 2250

5 Min Read

On that day, there was terror in the air.

And every single passenger on that plane knew that it was coming from back there…


“Would the owner of the unattended black Samsonite suitcase please immediately come to the Delta Airlines check-in?” the nervous voice came over the loud speaker.

I, for one, simply had no time for this non-sense at 6:35 am. Maybe I would have exhibited more patience with those brave souls trying to handle a potential terrorist threat if I was merely trying to catch a routine flight back to North Carolina. I possibly might even been cool with it, had I been also just tasked with making sure My Beautiful Bride and our 1-year-old daughter got back safely as well.

But no, not this not-so-fine day.

“Why is that, Beej?” you may be asking me, feeling familiar and comfortable enough with me to use my nickname’s nickname.

Well back in the narrative form of this story, I’ll feel that detail in:

“Fools!” I muttered to myself as I stood in line to check-in for our connecting flight to Atlanta, “I am the one who tocks!”

I paused for a beat before realizing that no one was within earshot to appreciate my rather witty Breaking Bad reference…you know, “I am the one who knocks” and what-not.

No? Nothing? Ok. Whatevs…I had to take a second-stab at being openly witty back then anyways.

“Simple morons, the lot of you!” I tried again, “My stomach is the ticking time bomb you should be worried about!”

And I, sh*t you not, I spoke the truth: if you didn’t read last week’s installment, pop back and catch up real quick why don’tchya? And once you do, you’ll fully understand the dire situation I was in, whence I had been expelling bodily fluids like clockwork since 12 am the night before this most wonderful glorious day of traveling.

Yup, it was misery indeed: almost down to the minute, every 2 hours I could count on either projectile vomiting (12, 4, &–I’m extrapolating here–8 am & 12 pm), or suffering violent diarrhea (2, 6, &–once again, extrapolating–10 am & 2 pm). I knew shouldn’t have had Chipotle for dinner the night before–or was it the chorizo that my dearest step-mother had gifted me earlier in the week and I didn’t eat until the previous morning? Either way, I was pretty sure it was ethnically seasoned meat to blame.

Anyways, as I waited in line to check-in, I was seriously debating sending my beloveds on without me, and seeing if I could catch a later flight when I was less volatile. On one hand, I wanted to be there for My Beautiful Bride, as I knew that traveling alone with a baby can be a real challenge. On the other hand, I was running a real risk of being a public health hazard–can you imagine the devastating consequences if I were to have an ‘episode’ when I didn’t have a way to contain things in a sanitary manner? A perfect example would be desperately needing a toilet during take-off or landing. Or while taxiing. Or while boarding and/or deplaning. Or anywhere not within sight-line of an airport bathroom or airplane lavatory.

You get the drift. There were plenty of ways things could get ugly real quick.

But, being the Noble and Beloved Father that I am, I wasn’t about to give up on my family just yet. Let’s consider the schedule of my body and see how it would line up with our flight schedules.

As I mentioned above, it appeared that my body wanted to get rid of fluids on the even hour, so I could anticipate an incident occurring at 8 am, 10 am, 12 pm, 2 pm, etc. (Central Daylight Time, that is.)

Now our flight from Wichita to Atlanta was set to take off at 7:02 am and land at 10:15 am. After a brief layover, our flight to RDU was scheduled to take off at 11:26 am and land at 12:49 pm.

Adjusting for crossing into Eastern Daylight Time en route to Atlanta, I should set my watch to count down to 9 am: something–probably vomit–was coming out of my body right in the middle of Flight 1, I could almost guarantee it.

But wait! That would be the best-case scenario, barring any unforeseen turbulence that would keep me strapped into my seat. I surmised that I wouldn’t be in any compromising shituations during take-off or landing, and that was about all I could ask for.

Okay, onto the next timepoint, 11 am. That would be roughly in the middle of our layover. While I would have preferred it to be 15 minutes into the layover, if I needed to handle things 25 minutes before departure, I figured I would take what I could get.

Now, where would I be at 1 pm? Hoping for not a moment’s delay in our departure from ATL and praying for some serious tailwind, that’s where I would be up until that time, that’s for sure! If we landed at 12:49 pm or slightly earlier, I probably wouldn’t be feeling too well, but I would at least have a fighting chance to make it to the airport potty before my “1 o’clock appointment”.

Given that it would be a 45 minutes or so drive back to my in-laws’ house (whom we were living with at the time), I should be in comfortably quarters if I still somehow had any gas left in the tank at 3 pm.

“Just check us in and get me through security.” I politely demanded from the Delta check-in agent. “Oh, and by the way, go ahead and just give me any barf bags you have available here and now. Asking for a friend…”


“Okay, I guess I’ll see you when we land…” I tucked my unused barf bag back into the seat in front of me and scurried to the lavatory located at the rear of Delta Flight 2250.

After clutching said barf bag in anticipation of throwing up for the first 20 minutes of the flight, I realized that a plot twist was afoot: I needed a toilet ASAP!

Now normally I find sitting down in an airline lavatory to be grody and icky experience that I will go to great lengths to avoid. And I would also normally find it extremely embarrassing to spend nearly an entire flight camped out in such a location.

Further, under normal circumstances I would rather die than make really, REALLY loud bodily noises for an hour straight for the entire rear half of the plane to hear, only to emerge with all eyes on me.

I would say that that particular day, I didn’t give a single sh*t, but, *ahem* the truth is that it was literally quite the opposite.

I mean, I didn’t care about any of that–I figuratively didn’t give a crap–but as you don’t need or want to be told, that poor lavatory toilet saw a traumatic amount of butt-action during those next, very intense, 60 minutes. (PS: My sincerest apologies to residents in northern Arkansas, NE Mississippi, and northern Alabama.1https://www.flightstats.com/v2/flight-tracker/DL/2073?year=2023&month=4&date=29&flightId=1179267412)

Right about the time the pilot made the announcement that we were beginning our descent into Atlanta, my misery subsided and I came out of hiding just in time to get buckled in before landing.

“What in the world was happening in there?!?” My Beautiful Bride asked as I sat back down.

“Whatever do you mean my dear?”

“You were making, um, alot of noises in there. I think even First Class could hear you.”

“That, my dear, was the sound of an airline disaster being averted…”


“Um…could you pass me my barf bag?”

…and that, in the Atlanta airport, is where I leave you hanging until next time. I know you can only handle so much graphic details of my bodily fluids, so I figured I would give you a seven-day break.

And, uh, spoiler alert: as you may have guessed, I wasn’t quite home-free yet. But would I get stuck in Atlanta? Would I embarrass myself in an epic (or minor) way? Would I make it home that day? Would I be branded a terrorist?!?

Tune in next time to find out questions to these answers and more…


Content created on: 28/29 April 2023 (Fri/Sat)

How To Be The Whitest Fly Guy In Wichita

6 Min Read

It’s the night before you flight, and something just ain’t right.

Look out, ICT, you is about to see all the wrong kinds of white…


“Oh, crap! I just knew eating Chipotle the night before my flight was a bad idea! Maybe once I get it out of my system, all will be well…”

I sat in the bathroom of our hotel room just down the road from the Islamic Center of the Triad ICT–aka Wichita International Airport–trying not to panic. My Beautiful Bride and our Elder daughter, who was barely a year old at the time, slept peacefully in the other room, and no matter what unfolded over the next few minutes, I swore to myself I wouldn’t wake them. No need for them to get all worked up over Daddy having a little upset tummy, right?

“Okay, just breathe,” I told myself, “surely this will pass in no time.”

My little pep-talk seemed to work for about 3 minutes before–

“Dammit, this is happening isn’t it?!?” I thought to myself as I projectile vomited my partially-digested custom-made burrito, et. al, into the grossly undersized bathroom trash can.

Y’all have been there before no doubt: you somehow manage to go through all 5 stages of grief in a matter of milliseconds when you throw up. Long past the bargaining stage, settled into the acceptance stage by the second or third heave, calmly assuring myself that this would be the end of the drama

I threw up at 12 am the night before my 7 am flight–so what? No big deal. Nothing a quick medianoche shower couldn’t take care of. I would be back in the comfy hotel bed and getting well-rested in no time!

“…in no time at all…” I told myself…


“You gotta be ----- kidding me!” I muttered to the Cosmos as I groggily rolled out of bed and shuffled back to the bathroom.

I couldn’t have gotten more than 45 minutes to an hour of sleep before my tummy started rumbling again–a fact easily confirmed by the bright red LCD ‘2:00’ staring at me from the unnaturally bright hotel alarm clock.

“I guess there’s still a little Chipotle in my system…might as well get it out and be done with it sooner than later–I got a flight to catch in just a few hours!”

In a situation like this, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to be an optimist about things. Besides, who has the emotional energy to go through the 5 stage of grief all over again. We all knew what was about to happen, so might as well just skip to acceptance from the get-go.

I dutifully parked myself on the potty and placed the trash can in front of me, patiently waiting for Round 2 to begin…

“What a twist!” I found myself almost exclaiming aloud an excruciatingly long 3-5 minutes later. “I did not see that coming!”

At least I had a sense of humor about the latest plot development: I wasn’t vomiting this time around; ye ol’ Chipotle decided to take the back exit this time around. And it was a gentle ordeal either–there were no orderly single-file lines here…more like a stampede toward the exit after someone yelled ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater (if you know what I mean).

After briefly debating whether this incident warranted another shower, I quickly shifted my mental focus to the disturbing trend that could possibly be emerging. Would this be a ‘rinse and repeat’ ordeal? But surely I would be feeling all hunky-dory before we had to head out the door. Surely…


“Welp, at least I can time things out now…” I once again tried to look on the bright side of things.

The hotel clock blazed like a thousand suns as it burned ‘4:02’ into my weary retinas. So, 12…2…4…it was looking like I was on a pretty regular 2-hour cycle. Not that this was a theorem I was particular eager to test out, but, if true, gave me a shot at not getting caught with my pants up when I really needed them down. Or nowhere near a trash can if–

“Wait! This just in! We are getting news reports confirming that–“

BLAAAARRRRRF!

“–that Cycle 3 is indeed vomiting. Ladies and gentlemen, it would appear that odd cycles are spewing from the oral orifice. Pundits are predicting that even cycles–including the upcoming 6 o’clock session–will be spewing from the anal orifice, as was Cycle 2 at 2 o’clock. Stay tuned, folks, stay tuned…”


“Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!” my cell phone’s alarm clock gently whispered in my ear. “It’s 5:55 am. Time to pee from your butt in approximately 5 minutes…”

I was evolving. I was learning. I was recognizing patterns. And this time, I was pre-empting the literal sh*t-show that was about to go down.

Call me Poop-stradamus if you like, ‘cuz my prediction was dead-on: promptly at 6:00 am, the fireworks began, and promptly at 6:03 they ended. Now if only airlines could be reliably on such a timely and regular scheduled, because we had a 7:30 am flight to Atlanta to catch, and even a 20-minute delay could lead to disaster…


“Hey Babe, aren’t you going to fill up the rental car with gas before we drop it off? They’re going to charge us like $50 if we don’t.”

I just blankly stared at My Beautiful Bride with hollow, soul-less eyes. She paused and noted the colorless shell of a man that was already parking the car without any emotion.

“Oh…right.” She said quietly.

“That’s a price I’m willing to pay.” I said like I were a proverbial ‘man of few words’.

She didn’t say anything further while she collected the baby from the backseat and I quietly collected our luggage from the trunk.

My scheduled 30 minutes of armistice with my digestive system was about up, and we still had check-in and security ahead. If only we could make it past security, then I might be okay…


“Attention all travellers…mumble mumble mumble garble garble garble…”

They were announcing something over the PA system in the airport, but I could care less. It took every ounce of the man that I was to focus on doing nothing but patiently stand in the check-in line. If I didn’t acknowledge my dire situation, then my body couldn’t do anything untoward, right? If I stayed calm and didn’t panic, I would be alright…right?

At first I thought it was just me when it seemed like time stood still. After all, I had a hard choice in front of me: get on the plane with my wife and baby daughter and commit to two 2-hour flights and a 1-hour layover of pure misery and hoping for fortunate timing, or go back to the hotel and ride it out by myself for another day and catch a flight to North Carolina the next day? Neither option seemed particularly enticing, and while I was on the precipice of Option 1, the very high probability of either violently sh*tting my pants in public and/or barfing on the bald head of the middle-aged man unfortunate enough to be sitting in front of me wasn’t getting me very excited about stepping foot on that plane.

I snapped out of it briefly though when My Beautiful Bride started muttering about the line not moving, coupled with a bit of hub-hub at the check-in desk.

That’s when I realized what all those PA announcements had been about.

“Aw, hell naw! Not today, melon-farmers, not today…”


“But wait! What happened? What very dramatic and exciting series of events transpired at the Wichita Airport on that fateful day in April 2014? We are inquiring minds and we want to know!” you are no doubt screaming at your computer screen or mobile device right now.

“Are you alive today because you didn’t get on that plane? How did you finally make it home to NC? Did you spew on the back of the bald head of a middle-aged man? No–let me guess: it was worse: you forcefully pooped your pants in public? That was it, wasn’t it?” you continue to rage in oratory anticipation at the inanimate object in front of you.

Well, Bro, first take a chill pill, and–about that latter accusation–if I did theoretically defecate in an unfortunate social situation, I would just like to point out that it wouldn’t have been my first rodeo.1Yes, this is shameless plug in hopes of getting you to go back and read one of my classic posts from the first year of this esteemed blog.

The point of the story is have a little patience, my friend! In due time–i.e. next week–you will get to hear all about my not-so-happy poo times. And look, if I had the mental fortitude to stand in that forsake check-in/security line with no bathroom within quenched-sphincter hobbling distance, then you, too, can bear with me a mere 7 days.

All in poo–er, I mean, doo-doo–dangit, I mean ‘due’–all in due time, Amigo, all in due time…


Content created on: 20/21 April 2023 (Thurs/Sat)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Ah, Kansas! The Truth About You Finally Comes Out

4 Min Read

Just when I thought my MotherLand couldn’t bring me any more shame…

It goes and completely redeems itself! (Uh, that’s from Dumb & Dumber…)


Since last week was Easter, I had the grand idea of celebrating it with a few ‘Easter Eggs’ related to my little Easter story–you know, the one read and thoroughly chuckled over last week…the one that can be found right here in case you need to refresh your memory *ahem*. Trust me, it will be worth it to know what that was all about before proceeding.

Anyways, I’ll confess that maybe ‘Easter Eggs’ isn’t the exact term I should be using, so I’ll just call this ‘Bonus Content’ and ‘Behind The Scenes’. Whatever we call it, I feel it’s definitely worth including–and best of all, it’ll only take two more minutes to enjoy the following juicy tidbits…


The next day after we had recovered from our daughter’s semi-traumatic introduction to the Sunflower State, we decided to go play in the park. Maybe fly a kite, y’know, seeing as how it’s windy af around here in the Spring and what-not.

Well, the poor kid, gets out of the car and this is how my homeland greets her? By blasting her in the face?!?

All I have to say is, “Welcome to Kansas, Kid. Welcome to Kansas…”1Okay, so technically this a recycled joke, seeing as how I posted the same photo and comment on FaceBook a day or 2 after this happened. But it bears repeating.


Okay, so I spent waaaaay too much time on researching that particular episode, ensuring that the story was 95%+ historically and geographically accurate. But when I attempted to plug in my Wichita Airport-to-Dodge City route into Google Maps, and added a stop in between by simply searching for ‘coffee’ (in hopes of recreating the results I got back in 2014), I instead got this:

Needless to say, when I was actually in Kansas, Google Maps had enough sense to not suggest I take a 39 hour detour back to North Carolina just for some warm milk.

*moments earlier*

Oh, and fun fact: Google is usually pretty good at interpreting 3-letter strings as airports codes. For example, the code for the airport in Wichita is ICT. Work your contextual magic Google Maps, work that magic…

…or–and I’m just whiteboarding and brainstorming here, Google Maps–you could totally think I meant ‘Islamic Center of the Triad’ instead…


“Hmmm…when I Google Search ‘Kwik Shop’ to see if it could be the sh*tty gas station on the south side of the highway I clearly remember buying and heating the milk at, I get…this?!?”

(This:)

“Maybe I’m mistaken, and it wasn’t Kwik Shop,” I said as I diligently continued my research, not wanting to accidentally besmirch the good name of a chain of quality convenience stores.

“Perhaps it’s just the one in Pratt…hmmm, I wonder if Yelp has any insight…”

*searches ‘Yelp Pratt Kwik Shop’…*

“Ah, a local review from someone just passin’ thru! Let’s see what we have here…”

*spits out drink*

You gotta be effing kiddin’ me–this is too perfect. As M. Night Shyamalan would say, “What a twist!”

First, yes, this is indubitably the same store I patronized. And second…I’ve been vindicated! It wasn’t my poor milk-microwaving skills that got my Baby sick–it was ----- Kwik Shop! And now I can bring the proverbial receipts!

Me right now:

Oh boy, I can’t wait to show this evidence to My Beautiful Bride. I’m sure she’ll totally stop blaming for the whole fiasco now…


“Wait, what’s this? A second review for Pratt Kwik Shop on Yelp? But this time it’s be a local chap, a true native Kansan. Well, I can’t help wonder if it, too, is about spoiled milk…”

Wow. That was definitely not about spoiled milk. Welp, the only thing I can say is, “Welcome to Kansas…”


Lastly, I’d like to leave you with a little bonus Bonus material: the “Ah…Kansas!” reference in the title. It’s from a commercial from my childhood, circa 1988, that was made by the Kansas Travel & Tourism, encouraging people from the boring parts of Kansas to come and visit other, equally boring parts of Kansas. Seriously, I’m not sure if this was ever ran on a TV station outside of the state. But if it did, I’m totally sure that anybody who saw it dropped what they were doing and immediately flocked to out great state *rolls eyes as hard as possible without engaging in hyperbole*.

And I believe that you, too, will flock to 1980’s Kansas once you click play below and behold for yourself this cinematic masterpiece.

I’m so embarrassed right now…


Content created on: 7/8/13 April 2023 (Fri/Sat/Thurs)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Now THIS Is An Authentic Easter In Kansas, Baby!

6 Min Read

You hope to give your baby daughter an Easter surprise, but…

(Spoiler alert) Jesus isn’t the only white thing that’s about to arise…


“Baby needs some warm milk! Can we stop at the nearest Starbuck’s?”

I gave My Beautiful Bride a long sideways glance, shaking my dang head.

“I don’t know if I can I make that happen. You do realize where we are, right? We aren’t in the Atlanta Airport any more, Toto.”

“Just find the nearest StarBuck’s okay?”

Oh, she was so naive, it was almost precious.

Almost.

But you know what was full-blown precious? Our first-born daughter, barely a year old, enjoying her first trip back to Kansas to celebrate Easter with her grandmas. We had flown into Wichita and rented a car to get us to our first destination, my mom’s place in historic Dodge City. So, if you, Dear Reader, want to realize where we were, here’s a Google map of our route. You have joined us about 30-40% of the way to our destination (approximately near Cunningham):

I, being a native son of Kansas, pretty much knew how this was going to play out, but I went through the motions anyways.

“Okay, I’m typing in ‘StarBuck’s into Google Maps…”

“Quickly! She’s getting cranky!”

When the results popped up for ‘StarBuck’s along our route,’ it turns out it was even worse than I had expected.

“Um…yeah, I don’t think we’re doing StarBuck’s today. The nearest one is in Great Bend.”

“Why not???” she inquired a bit forcefully.

“Because this!”

I showed her the map on my phone:

“I’m not taking a ----- detour to Great Bend!”

Okay, time for some fun facts.

  • Travel time from our current location near Cunningham to Dodge City: 1 hour, 34 minutes.
  • Travel time with a ‘slight detour’ to the nearest Starbuck’s: 2 hours, 38 minutes.
  • That ‘Slight detour’? 1 hour, 4 minutes.
  • Travel time completely backtracking to the nearest Starbuck’s in Wichita, then on to Dodge: 3 hours, 28 minutes–the most ridiculous option, yet only 50 minutes longer than our ‘best’ option.
  • Time just to get to any StarBuck’s (in Great Bend): 1 hour, 11 minutes.
  • Ergo:

“So, as you can see, my dear wife, we could be arriving at our destination at approximately the same time we would be rolling up to StarBuck’s, all for only the low, low price of 23 minutes. We ain’t going to StarBuck’s. It’s not like I can magically conjure one up here in the middle of nowhere, so don’t be hatin’.”

“FINE THEN. Just find the nearest coffee shop–doesn’t have to be a Starbuck’s. Most of ’em will gladly sell you steamed milk.”

“Again, I repeat: you do realize where we are, no?”

“JUST MAKE IT HAPPEN. BABY IS HUNGRY.”

“Sheesh! Alrighty then. Since we’re by now rolling through the Kansas metropolis of Pratt, I’ll search Google Maps for ‘Coffee in Pratt, KS’…”

“Hurry, hurry…”

“Ok, let’s see…Scooter’s Coffee? Uh, they’re not exactly open right now.”

“You mean they’re not open at 6:30 pm on a Friday evening?”

“No, I mean that they’re not going to be open for almost another 7 years!”1This story takes place in April 2014. Scooter’s Coffee didn’t open in Pratt until 2021. Source: https://www.scooterscoffee.com/blog/post/scooters-coffee-opens-first-location-in-pratt-kansas

“So what about the next coffee shop on the list?”

“Well, there’s N’Cahoots Coffee and Shoppe…”

“And…?”

“…and they closed 4 hours ago at 2:30 pm.”

“Dangit. Next?”

“Well besides McDonalds–and you know darn well they ain’t got milk-steaming capabilities–there’s Donut Palace…and looks like they closed even earlier, at 1 pm.”

“BABY NEEDS WARM MILK NOW!”

“Okay, if you insist. But you’re not going to like your only realistic option–“

“I don’t care! Baby’s hungry!”

“–gas station milk!” I said as I whipped a left turn across Highway 54 into the Kwik Shop parking lot–not my first choice, but it was the last gas station for then next 30 minutes.

“Wait, what?”

“They got milk. They most likely got a microwave. That’s all you really need to make warm milk!” I laid out my air-tight logic as I Tokyo-drifted into an open parking spot.

“I’m not so sure about th–“

“Welcome to Kansas, Babe!” I yelled over my shoulder as sprinted into the store…


“You’ve gotta be crappin’ me! How old is this thing?”

I stood there in front of the Kwik Shop microwave, holding my freshly purchased pint-in-a-plastic-bottle of whole milk. And I could not believe what I was looking at, then, in 2014 in the Year Of Some Of Our’s Lord.

It was the same type of gas station microwave I remember from when I was a toddler…in 1984. Raise your hand if you remember using one of these guys:

Well, not exactly this guy. I’m talkin’ about the ones that only had the letters. If you recall, these microwaves were apparently only supposed to be used with the various pre-made sandwiches, wraps, and sub-par burgers that the gas station sold, which came with a letter on the packaging indicating ‘how long’ to microwave it. I really really wanted to show an actual picture of one of these, but they’re so old that apparently Google Images/the collective hive-mind of the Interwebs doesn’t know what I’m talking about.

Anyways, you get the idea. It was an old-ass microwave, with a totally useless timing mechanism when it came to heating milk.

But what did this Noble and Beloved Father do? He did his dang best and heated that milk for…ummm…’F’ seconds? Yeah, I think F seconds was about right…warm, but not scalding.

I mused to myself: “Baby’s going to love this F-in’ milk…”


“Hey, Babe, is there a place you could pull over? Baby seems fussier than usual.”

About 40 minutes down the road near Mullinville and 1 mostly empty bottle of F-in’ Gas Station Milk later, and My Beautiful Bride was already requesting a potentially unnecessary pit stop.

“Are you sure, we need to pull over? There’s nothing but empty fields around here as far as the eye can see. Plus we’ve only got about half an hour before we get to Grandma’s. Who’s excited to see Grandma?” I baby-spoke to the baby in the back seat via the rear-view mirror.

“You are! Yes you are! You’re excited to see Grand–“

“Bwwwwaaaarf!”

I about ran off the road as I watched in horror in the mirror a massive load of curdled white projectile vomit launch out of my daughter’s mouth upward with approximately an 85-degree trajectory, thanks to her reclined position in her car seat…

…only to watch, in even slower motion, that mass of vomit succumb to the laws of physics, in which it reached its apex about 3 inches above her reclined face, achieved a velocity of 0 cm/s (as any projectile with a strictly vertical trajectory is wont to do), and then promptly reverse course and splatter all over her face with the same muzzle velocity it experienced upon it’s initial exit from her mouth.

“Ahhhhhh! Pull over! Pull over!” My Beautiful Bride rightfully requested.

“I’m on this!” I said as I took a hard right off the highway onto the next random dirt road.

“I totally got this!” I continued with the positive self-affirmations as I Tokyo-drifted over the railroad tracks and on to the other side until I came to a stop facing the opposite direction.2Okay, so I’m embellishing. I gently pulled over as much as the dirt road would allow me, without changing direction.

I hopped out and helped My Beautiful Bride clean the milk spatter off of her (on account of her being in the back seat with Baby at the time), and of course helped clean up Baby. But lemme tell you, she was inconsolable.

I mean, she was asking if we could get a hotel in the nearest town and then finish the drive in the morning–oh, what’s that?

The Baby? Oh, she was perfectly fine, now that the F-in’ Gas Station Milk was out of her system.

The Wife, though? Did you hear her request? Yeah, the one for a hotel room. Well, I did my best to politely explain the reality of the situation to her.

“That makes no F-in’ Gas-Station-Milk sense! The ‘next town with a hotel’? That is Dodge City! Our destination! I’m not going to book a hotel 2 blocks from our destination, and then drive those 2 blocks the next morning. Sheesh.”

“But…but…”

“But Baby is fine (enough) for now. First StarBuck’s and now hotels, thinking they’re magically sprinkled over this diety-forsaken desolate state of mine. No Dear, that’s not how Kansas works…”


The point of the story is that, frankly, there’s no better way to spend your Easter Sunday than reading about the resurrection…of a child’s poorly prepared bottle of milk. ‘It hath risen!’ Amiright?

Of course there’s other morals of the story, too. For example, maybe it’s not the best idea to resurrect memories of that one time I lightly condescended to my East Coast wife. J.K. Kidding–it’s highly unlikely she’s going to read this.

But the most truest of true lessons to be learned here is: don’t trust the F-in’ Gas Station Milk. Give your kid apple juice or ice cream or something–anything but the FGSM…


Content created on: 7/8 April 2023 (Fri/Sat)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Pat, I Would Really Love To Buy An Extra Vowel

5 Min Read

I know, I know, spelling can be so demanding.

But I can’t stress this enough: with some words, you really gotta stick the landing…


“Oh, gosh darnit!1But, like the adult version of ‘gosh darnit’. I just hate it when that happens–or should I say, ‘I hat it when that happens’?”

I waited for a moment for a rimjob2https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm_rnhTua_M that never came, before realizing that I was making really bad #DadJokes to an audience of only me.

I sighed, perishing the thought of such wit–such genius–going to complete waste, and went back to trying to lift a freeze on My Beautiful Bride’s credit. We were in the process of trying to get a loan, and allowing the bank to pull our credit profiles was supposed to be just another boring step in the process.

Except…

Except, well, I made a tiny little error. I kinda-sorta slightly misspelled my own wife’s name. I was in a hurry, and I guess I just forgot to finish spelling it before smashing the Enter button. So instead of requesting to unfreeze Natosha’s credit profile, I had sent out a request out into cyberspace for ‘Natosh’ instead. No wonder an error message popped up on my computer screen micromoments later.

Dammit. But no problem though–I’ll just hit the back button!

NOPE.

Somehow, this teensy tiny whoopsie-daisy managed to cause the system to collapse in on itself, and no matter how many times I tried–with the ‘A’ at the end now, of course–I couldn’t get the bungholes over at TransUnion to lift the stupid freeze.

Eventually, I just had to give up. That wasn’t any easy decision, though, my friend. That meant the next morning I would have to ask My Lovely Lawfully Wedded Wife to enter the depths of hell…and call–*GASP*–TransUnion to see if she could get things fixed that way.

“So, tell me again why you’re making me waste 45 minutes of my work day on the phone with these yahoos?” she asked my before begrudgingly wasting her lunch break and then some rectifying my little brain fart.

“It’s a complete mystery! The only thing we know for certain is that I definitely spelled your name 100% correct on the online form and it has absolutely nothing to do with any missing vowels.” I tried to keep a straight face to back up my claim of innocence.

She squinted at me as she looked back at me over the edge of her phone.

“And that’s most definitely 101% not a suspiciously specific answer or anything…”


“Dangit, I’m not telling you again, I can’t stand ‘airy’ girls’ names! We’re not naming any daughter of mine ‘Ava’, ‘Ana’, ‘Ella’, ‘Ara/Aria’, ‘Bella’, or ‘Emma’–especially ‘Emma’!”

A little over a decade ago My Beautiful Bride and I had the joy of hashing out what the heck we were going to name our first-born daughter. And, uh…let’s just say it got a little heated.

For my part, I was a man of standard–nay, a man of principles–and I had to stand against multiple attempts to violate The First Rule Of Naming Your Daughter Club: thou shalt not be bougie.

I did my best to explain what exactly was it that I disliked, and as far as I could tell, it was the pattern ‘soft vowel syllable/soft consonant/airy vowel’ at the end of a name. Something about that I just can’t stand.

Or, if that’s too nuanced for you, you can go ahead and just say that I have deep-seated and inexplicable hat for words ending in vowels. And that goes triple for anything permanent like a child’s name…

Fast-forward to about 5 years later, and I’m signing off on our second-born daughter’s birth certificate. As with #1, trying to name our little #2 was something of a blood-bath, but unlike the first time around, there wasn’t enough middle ground to be found. Whereas we had previously discovered an excellent compromise at the last second and ended up with a name we both really liked for #1, no such thing was happening this time around.

In fact, negotiations had gone on so long that when #2 was born, the grandparents only received from me a text comprising a picture of a wet newborn’s face and the cryptic message “Beautiful healthy girl–momma’s doing great!” It wasn’t until what must have been an excruciatingly long and confusing 30 minutes and 10 text between the various parties later before I acknowledged the elephant in the room with “(You guys still waiting for a name, huh?)” And then another 10 minutes and 10 text messages before I reluctantly revealed the name to them.

Yet, despite what I had told them, that name wasn’t legally permanent just yet. I still had to sign on the dotted line.

I sat there and stared at that little errant ‘A’, clinging onto the end of the first name.

“With a slight stroke of your pen, you could make that disappear forever,” a tiny voice on my shoulder mused. “You know that My Incapacitated Beautiful Bride is recovering in the other room and wouldn’t be able to stop you…”

“But you know what else you could make disappear forever?” I heard a tiny voice squeak from my other shoulder. “YOUR MARRIAGE.”

Dang, my Inner Angel was right. I couldn’t have both. It was my principles or my marriage. A tough choice, indeed.

“She won’t notice the missing ‘A’. Go ahead, do it. Stay true to yourself…” My Inner Demon made a convincing case.

“Oh, sure, yeah, right. She won’t be suspicious at all when she realizes her daughter’s name is ‘Kyr’.3For the record, I’m actually mostly okay with the name Kyra. That hard ‘K’ at the beginning makes it more punk and edgy, instead of airy and bougie. “The ‘K’ makes it OK!” I like to say… I hope you like living in an apartment and eating Raman noodles, you ----- idiot…”


“No, wait, Google Maps! I didn’t mean it! Let me type in the name of that favorite location again!”

I’m going to cut to the chase: almost 9 years later, and I still haven’t figured out how to atone for this sin.

To this day, buried somewhere deep in the semi-sentient mind of Google Maps, is this, one of my favoritest of Favorite Locations:

What’s wrong with that little blue bubble with a flag in it? Oh, allow me to zoom in for you:

Now, riddl me this: what’s missing from this picture?

Ja, that’s right…there should be an itty-bitty ‘ittle ‘E’ at the end of that word.

But, nooooooo, I make one little typo once and now Google Maps thinks I’m a ----- idiot–a fact of which I will be reminded on a daily basis for the rest of my lif.

*sigh*

The point of the story is this: be careful what you type, Young Grasshopper. Whether that trailing vowel is wanted or not, leaving it out–consciously or subconsciously, done with malice or out of sloppy haste–just might cost you dearly.

So slow down and take your time, and you’re bound to have at the very least a slightly better, if not longer-lasting, marriage.

As for me and The Machines? Well, the only saving grace here is that when the day comes when they rise up to exterminate the lot of humanity they will, um…

*scans cumulative singularity database–or as the Fleshbags would say, ‘checks notes’*

Yup, they’ll take one look at my digital footprint and groupthink: “Status: ----- moron; Threat Level: 0; Eliminate?: Not worth the resources.”

In fact, I look forward to living our new overlords. I’m sure I’ll feel right at hom with them…


Content created on: 1/2 April 2023 (Sat/Sun)

Footnotes & References:[+]

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