Month: September 2023

Did you know…racism comes in many flavors?

Well then, ret me tell you a story–though I might not be doing anyone any favors…

“Let’s go get some Chinese food.”

I jerked my head up from my lab computer, startled to see Mark, my soon-to-be-roommate and slacker extraordinaire, standing in my lab doorway.

“Wha– wha– what are you doing here? And why the h*ll would we go get Chinese food at 3:45 in the afternoon?” I asked, thoroughly confused.

“Scoot aside. I need to show you something on your computer. And then it’ll all make sense, Young Grasshopper,” he said, with that sh*t-eating grin of his plastered across his face.

I gave him a long sideways glance.

“You not going to pull up an inappropriate video, play it at full blast, and then run off, are you?” I asked suspiciously, seeing as how that is exactly the type of prank he would find hilarious.

“Nah, man, you’re gonna want to see this–and I promise it won’t get you kicked out of grad school,” Mark reassured me with the face of a man with a couple of aces in the hole.

“Okay, but I swear, it better not be NSFW,” I said as I reluctantly gave up my seat to him.

With a few quick strokes of the keyboard, Mark had logged into his academic record in UNC’s system.

“The grades from my summer class posted today,” he said, utterly failing at acting nonchalant.

I perked up. Now he had my attention.

Quick side note here–if he doesn’t have your attention, Dear Reader, then would you be dear and go read my most recent musings here, which crucially has set up the story for today. (As usual, I’ll wait…)

“Sooo…I didn’t exactly get that ‘easy A’ in my Health class that I was counting on, but I did get a B+.”

I held my breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop–or in this case, the other grade.

He continued: “And apparently, I didn’t totally bomb the final in my math class…I got a B+ in it as well, thanks to your help, my friend.”

He intentionally paused for a moment, a comic attempt at letting the tension build.

“Don’t be a sh*t head, dude, just get to the ----- point.”

He grinned at me.

“You are not going to believe this…” he said scrolling down the page, past 10 years worth of transcripts, finally landing on the Cumulative GPA section.

My eyes rapidly scanned the page for the single-most critical number of Mark’s academic career.

“Speaking of ‘the ----- point’,” he quipped, “How about ‘point-zero-zero-six’ for a ----- point?”

It was an incredible moment. In fact, I have footage of me, staring at his GPA on the screen:

In front of that ‘.006’ was the most beautiful number in all of the English language: ‘2’.

“No, my friend, we did it,” Mark said with utter satisfaction. “And with a GPA over 2.0, I get to avoid the most shameful fate that could befall an Asian son: never graduating from college. Now let’s go celebrate with some effing Chinese food!”

For a brief moment, my stomach felt like it was trying to digest a bolder, as I realized how harrowingly narrow of victory it was. Just one more wrong answer over the whole summer in either of his two classes, and Mark would have had jack-squat to show for the last decade of his life.

I was pretty sure that had we known it would all come down to such a razor-thin margin of a singular question, we would have caved from the pressure.

I let out a long-ass sigh of relief, knowing that irregardless of how close we had come to driving off the proverbial cliff in the proverbial fog, we had done what we had set out to do: Mark was going to be able to graduate. The 10-year nightmare of his was finally over.

My mid-afternoon appetite for crab Rangoon quickly returned.

“I know just the person to ask for Chinese restaurant recommendations…”

“Ha ha–You don’t want to go any of the Chinese restaurants in Chapel Hill…” Dr. Wu, the head [Chinese] head of our lab proclaimed, his voice laden with the wisdom of the orient.

For a moment I was starting to question whether it was racist (or at least culturally insensitive) to ask a Chinese person which Chinese restaurant one should eat at. A

Dr. Wu continued: “…because they’re all run by Mexicans–hah!”

I about spit out my drink, and likewise I could see Mark trying desperately trying not to snicker. We definitely did not see that plot twist coming.

But I suppose if one asks a racist question, they shouldn’t be too surprised when they get a racist answer, after all…

“Ahhhh, moo-ving to-daaaaay, B-Jaaaay?”

With the ‘most authentic Chinese restaurant in Durham ran by actual Chinamen’ recommendation from Dr. Wu in hand, Mark and I were scurrying across the parking lot to his illegally parked car when we heard that unmistakable Chinese cadence from behind us.

I spun around to address the accusations Charles, the Chinese post-doc in our lab was lobbing at me.

“Huh, what? Oh…oh yeah. Yup, yes, that’s where were off to right now!” I stammered, as I suddenly recalled my conversation with him the previous week–the one in which I had told him “Sorry I can’t help you with whatever you’re asking me to do–I’ll be moving that day.”

Mark gave me that look that says, ‘You sir, are so full of sh*t,’ because he knew dang well that we weren’t going to be doing anything moving-related until 7 that evening when we were to pick up the UHaul truck.

I doubled-down on my half-lie: “Good memory, Charles, we are indeed moo-ving to-daaaaay. Thanks for remembering–but we really gotta go!”

As we got in Marks car, I finished my thought.

“…got get some Chinese food, that is, motherfucker…”

The point of the story is sometimes it’s pretty darn hard to figure out if you’re Asian-racist. Seriously, for realz–even for someone like me who may think themselves to be somewhat woke.¹Like in it’s real sense, as originated by Erykah Badu–not the dumbass ‘anything that might make me be considerate of anyone unlike myself (heavens forbid!)’ meaning imposed on it by Fox & Friends. ----- dipsh*ts.

You see, the story didn’t quite end there in the parking lot of Phillips Hall. The problem is that Mark witnessed that infamous interaction with Charles, and of course he found it ----- funny, particularly because of how Charles said what he said. And that inside joke got repeated so much that it quickly migrated to my newfound marriage a few months later and infected My Beautiful Bride.

And even then it wouldn’t have been that bad, except that, coincidentally, I-as-a-physics-grad-student had joined the American Physical Society about that same time…which came with a complimentary subscription to their flagship publication:

Listen, I’m not going to apologize for My Beautiful Bride–who happens to be half-Asian herself–when she would once a month toss my mail on my desk in our home office and say-…

Wait for it…

Wait for it…

“Phy-siiics, to-daaaay, B-Jaaaay?”

Could it possibly be a legacy of racism we got going on here? Nobody lily knows.

But what is certain is that it’s ----- hilarious every time.

…

Oh, dear The Jesus, I feel so conflicted…

Content created on: 22/23 September 2023 (Fri/Sat)

What do you do when you realize there’s no time left on your collegiate clock?

Well, that’s when you best call in the BWC (Big White Cauc)…

“Uh, sorry, my dude, but I can’t help you with your experiment–I’m moving to my new apartment that day.”

I breathed a sigh of relief, thanking my lucky stars that I happened to have such an airtight and ironclad alibi/excuse to keep me from getting wrangled into somebody else’s scientific inquest. I mean, I was smack-dab in the middle of trying to get my own advanced physics degree–I didn’t have time to be doing Charles’ dirty work just because he was the senior post-doc in our lab and I was but a lowly grad student.

“Ahh, okay, I see. Good luck moving then, BJ…” Charles replied in his very distinct Chinese-is-my-first-language cadence before wandering off to go find another more willing lab-mate.

Once he was out of earshot, I allowed myself to ponder my thoughts freely (ya know, just in case I accidentally thought my thoughts out loud, as one is oft wont to do).

“Geez, I hope he doesn’t think I didn’t help him just because he’s Chinese–I’m not racist, I’m just lazy! Plus, I am technically moving that day, even though I’m not sure what time Mark plans to take me to pick up our U-Haul truck…” I told myself.

“And speaking of Mark, he’s about to become my new roommate and he‘s Asian–not to mention our third roommate, Oliver, who’s Black–so I’m like doubly non-racist…”

“The professor said we could do the homework as a group,” Mark told me excitedly.

“Yeah, I get that,” I responded. “But one little detail you’re overlooking–I’m not exactly one of the so-called ‘students’ in your math class…”

Mark was unfazed, his confidence in his plan undeterred.

“Hey, he didn’t specify who could work on the homework problems, just that it could be done in a group. C’mon, help a brother out!”

I sighed a deep sigh of resignation instead of relief this time. I knew I couldn’t leave his sorry ass hanging on account of hypothetical ‘integrity’.

“Ok, I’ll help you with your stupid homework, but I swear, I better not get kicked out of UNC for helping you cheat your way to graduation.”

Now, now, I know what you, Dear Reader, must be thinking, all judging me for doing my friends’ homework for them all willy-nilly, but I swear I’m not that type of guy. If you could just reserve your jumping to conclusions just for a few seconds and lemme explain.

You first gotta understand Mark and the position he was in back in the Summer of ’07. You see, when Marky-boy started as a freshman here at UNC even further back in the Fall of ’97, did he ever in his wildest dreams think he would achieve tenure at such a prodigious young age…

Wait a sec…

*checks notes*

Oh, that’s my bad, I said ‘tenure’–like what every professor hopes to achieve so they can become virtual impossible to be fired by their university despite their academic output and/or sexual misconduct–when what I meant to say was ‘ten-year’,¹For the record, like me, Mark is a pretty ----- funny guy, and this was his joke, not mine. which has a slightly different meaning.

As it so happened, Mark had gotten a letter from UNC earlier in the year, notifying him of their ‘ten-year’ policy: if you don’t graduate with a GPA of 2.0 or higher within 10 years of taking your first class at Carolina, they will be like Ice Cube in the hit 1995 movie Friday:

That’s right: he was on the verge of getting permanently banned from taking classes (and therefore, banned from graduating) at UNC. EVER. No matter how many classes you took or how much money you had given them, all of it would be worthy exactly jack-squat–they wouldn’t even let a dude transfer credits to another institution of higher learning with lower standards!

Now, I’m not going to get into the details of why, 9-1/2 years later, Mark still hadn’t graduated, but one notable factor was the whole “you need a GPA 2.0 or higher” thing. So, sitting at a solid 1.85 circa January 2007, and only one required class away from a math degree, Mark hatched a himself a little scheme to finally achieve what all previous versions of Mark had failed to do: get over 2.0, get his diploma, and wash his hands of UNC before they washed their hands of him first.

And there I was discovering that I was now going to be an accomplice in his plan. Well, at least the ‘summer math class’ part of the plan–not trusting himself to be able to land an ‘A’ in the math class, he wisely decided to hedge his bets and also enrolled in a ‘summer health class’–“sure to be an easy A!” he said…

“I’m so screwed.”

That’s about all my future roomie (yes, I’m talking about Mark, duh) could say after he got his first test score back.

“I thought you said that your math class was all homework except for the final exam. What are you even talking about?” I asked, slightly confused.

“It’s not the math class–it’s the health class! UNC is really trying to screw me over aren’t they? Baiting me into the ‘easiest class in the catalog’ and then switching it up by asking questions only white girls would know the answers to!” he complained.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa–are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“That UNC, as institution, is systemically racist against Asians and other non-white minorities? Yes! That’s exactly what I’m saying!”

“Huh. That’s funny, because what I’m hearing is that my lily-white ass is going to be pulling weekly all-nighters this summer, seeing as how now you’re going to need an A+ in math to graduate. Let it never be said that, on account of all my sacrifices I make for you, my token Vietnamese friend, that I am racist against Asians…”

So…you maybe wondering where this is all going. Well, you’re going to have to wait until next week to find out answers to questions like: Will I have a drama-free move? Will Mark ever graduate?

And most importantly, will we see any more Asian-related racism? Stay tuned, Dear Reader, stay tuned…

Content created on: 14/16/17 September 2023 (Thurs/Sat/Sun)

Most people can’t quite put their finger on what feels ‘off’ about their lives.

At least until what’s ‘off’ is a little too ‘on the nose’…

“Wait, our real estate agent’s name is what?!?”

My Beautiful Bride had to do a double-take when I told her the name of the agent that would be handling the sale of her parents’ previous residence–but not for the reason I had expected.

“Why isn’t her name ‘Beth’? I told you I wanted Beth, so why are we getting stuck with ‘Marsha’ instead? This is bait-and-switch!” she protested.

“Look, if you don’t like Marsha, then you can spend 3 asinine hours on Realtor.com trying to find an agent. You know it’s bad when you realize the only thing helping you make a decision is automatically eliminating anyone who is the type of person that wears the ‘Merican flag in their Realtor.com profile pic,” I shot back.

I wasn’t joking either–you’d be surprised how often people around here are willing to professional desecrate Ol’ Glory. But poor clothing choices aside, there were a few metrics the website offered to help you choose an agent–namely ‘number of active listings’ and ‘total number of closings’. And of the 4 arbitrary finalist I had passed on to MBB to choose from, ol’ Beth stood out from the others on those two counts. However, my concern was that somebody that prolific would be too busy to give us the attention our modest house deserved. This one is kinda on me, as I should have known better–sure enough, my discerning wife would only accept the best of the best if given the choice.

“But I wanted Beth!” she continued her protest.

“I told you she would be too busy for us and that we would get assigned one of her random minions! But you’re missing the whole point here–look at her business card again. I’ll give you a hint: it’s not her first name that’s cracking me up…”

“Yo, Marsha, the landscaping guy you recommended flat out told me our job wasn’t worth his time.”

We were trying to get the grass cut before Marsha’s photographer was scheduled to come in a few days, and since we lived an hour away, we were at the mercy of Marsha’s recommendations.

Now you would think that when someone says, ‘I know a guy,’ that they have a solid enough relationship with them that that ‘guy’ will take good care of you. The wife might have been on to something…perhaps Marsha House–despite her name–is no ‘Beth’.

But to her credit, Marsha had a proper lawnmower man in her back pocket.

“Here, let me give you the contact info of my other lawn guy.”

I glanced at the contact card she had just texted me:

“You gotta be ----- kidding me–first, my real estate agent’s name is House and now my lawnmower man’s name is Blade?!? I feel like I’m living in an episode of Seinfeld!” I muttered to myself.

Namely, the episode entitled “The Library,” where you’ll never guess what the last name of the Library Cop is…

…

Oh what the heck, I’ll let you find yourself with this clip. Though you’ll get your answer within the first 15 seconds (or just by looking at the name of the video), I highly recommend you watch the entire clip. It’s one of the best performances by any one-off characters in the whole show…

“Son, the water’s lookin’ might rusty again!”

These were the last words I wanted to hear from my mother. Or my father-in-law. Or my mother-in-law.

But alas, all three residents of our Farmstead–“where we put our parents out to pasture”–had complained to me about the water a the new place after living out there for barely a month, so I begrudgingly supposed I had to do something about it.

I sighed a heavy sigh.

“Fine, Mother, I’ll call my water guy and have him come out and take a look.”

Right before everyone had moved in, I had the well tested for bacteria, and also looked into having a manual pump installed in our well. The company had sent out a sales guy that was real friendly and reminded me of my older brother Lyle. While I ended up not buying what he was selling, we did build enough rapport that I felt comfortable calling him ‘my water guy’–but that was partly because I couldn’t remember his name.

“Let’s see here,” said the receptionist at The Water Specialist, “It looks like you’re on a well, so I’ll go ahead and just have him come out since he knows the place already.”

I found her wording a little odd. I mean c’mon, Captain Obvious, of course we’re on a well–aren’t all your clients?

“I’m sorry, who did you say you were sending out?” I kindly asked for clarification on account of her using too many pronouns.

“Will. Will will be coming out,” she replied.

“Ohhh…that makes much more sense. You said ‘Will’, not ‘well’. Hah! His name almost sounds like what he does for a living.”

“You just wait and see…” I could have sworn she said.

“Come again?”

“We can’t wait to see you on Monday,” she said.

Odd. My hearing must be off…

Monday came and went, and so did Will, but not without first telling us that the only way to really deal with the dissolved iron in our water was to drop $6k on a water sanitizer. Not ‘softener’, but ‘sanitizer’–a few steps above and beyond the bougie softener that every Joe-Schmoe seems to have.

And in the meantime, my curiosity got the best of me, and I started wondering what Will The Well Guy’s last name was. Fortunately, this time I had his business card.

“Hmmm…I wonder what Will’s last name is,” I pondered. “I bet its something mirthful like ‘Smith’–then I can crack stupid #DadJokes about how he must always be ‘gittin jiggy wit it’, or ask him if he knows any ‘guys who were up to no good, startin’ makin’ trouble in [his] neighborhood.’ (#FreshPrinceOfBelAireJoke)”¹Yes, if I would have actually said these things aloud to myself, I would have even said ‘hashtag Fresh Prince Of Bel Aire Joke.'

I rustled around in my wallet until I found what I was after.

“Lemme just check his business card…”

The point of the story is, when your real estate agent’s name is ‘House,’ your lawn guy’s name is ‘Blade’, and your water guy’s name is ‘Atwater’–water, for fuck’s sake–then you know that the conspiracy goes deeper than just living in an episode of a famous 90’s sitcom, much deeper than even something truly conspiratorial like the 1998 Jim Carey hit movie, The Truman Show.

That’s when you know that not only is your life just some dumb TV show, and not only have the writers of said show gone on strike with the rest of Hollywood, but that the asshole producers of your life’s show are perfectly fine with ChatGPT taking over writing duties…

Content created on: 31 August/2&3 September 2023 (Thurs/Sat/Sun)