Month: January 2024

You think it would be cool being suspiciously similar to that one certain guy from The Matrix.

However, even Neo can’t dodge every bullet…

“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, youths of all ages (but mainly ages 11-14)” our principal, Mrs. Anderson¹No relation. paused for dramatic effect, “…as voted on by all the teachers at this fine learning institution, I am pleased to announce that Ocean View Junior High’s 1995 Female Student of the Year is…Melissa Yamaguchi!”²I’m too lazy to track down my yearbook to confirm her last name–but at least I didn’t call her Melissa Tamaguchi!

A moderate round of applause erupted amongst the roughly 800 teens, pre-teens, staff and teachers that filled our gym/auditorium. I for one was pretty happy for Melissa–I knew that it would have been either her or our mutual special ed classmate, Trisha P.–and they both equally deserved the honor. Or at the very least, they didn’t have science fair projects that sucked butt.

After the clapping subsided, I went back to doing what I usually did: gabbing with anybody within earshot of me as I chillaxed in the backmost row of bleachers, like the too-cool-for-school guy that I was. You know, the exact behavior that made me Enemy #1 of our Asian Mr. Clean lookalike science teacher, one Mr. Donald Sogiyoka. You remember that, right? Of course you do, because you read it right here.

I really wasn’t paying much attention to this little end-of-year awards assembly anyways. In fact, I didn’t give a flying rat’s caboose about any of it, since, in addition to having a few haters amongst the faculty, I had done gone and made a bone-headed mistake and ruined my perfect streak of Straight-As by getting a B in ----- P.E., of all classes. While these seemed like an unfortunate pair of facts on their face, I had made peace with them–nay, embraced them–once I had realized that, hah hah, jokes on ya’ll, now I couldn’t be Valedictorian, and ergo/vise vie/concordantly, I wouldn’t have to give no stupid speech at graduation. Y’all remember how that went the last time for me, all the way back in Kindergarten, right? Of course you do, because you read all about it right here.

So sure, I wasn’t going to be getting any particularly noble accolades that afternoon–but that was just the way I liked it…

“Wait, what?!?” I jerked my attention away from the random story I had dove into, back to the floor of the gym after having been so rudely interrupted by one of my friends in the row in front of me trying to high-five me.

I looked down to Mrs. Anderson with a confused look, because honestly I had no clue what was going on.

She looked directly at me with an excited smile on her face and gracefully repeated herself:

“Ocean View Junior High’s 1995 Male Student of the Year is…YOU! Come on down here and give me a hug!”

In addition to being our principal and sharing the same last name, Sharon Anderson–not to be confused with our Algebra teacher, Mary Anderson–was also my Home Room teacher that year, and we had grown quite fond of each other. So it made sense for her to be giddy to crown me with one of the highest honors a junior high could bestow, and it made sense that she would want to congratulate me with a hug (in case you were wondering).

Blushing every step of the way down, I soaked up every ounce of adulation I could get from my peers, hand shaking and high-fiving any appendage that was offered up to my ego’s alter. I know, I know–only moments earlier I was Mr. Indifferent, but hey, what can I say? It felt good to unexpectedly be anointed the Biggest Fish In A (Relatively) Big Pond.

By the time my feet hit the gym floor, there was a newfound pep in my step, and from there I basically glided across the rest of the way to give ol’ Sharon a big hug.

“Congratulations! I knew you could do it!” she whispered in my ear as we embraced.

I thanked her heartily, and in spite of my elation, I managed to withhold a cracking wise about “no relation!” lest any student thought I got where I had gotten because of faux nepotism.

I eventually found my way back up to my seat, where I now could eagerly await to hear what chumps and/or chumpettes had landed the gigs of Valedictorian and Salutatorian.

Ah, indeed, there I was, resting comfortably on my accolades, when Mrs. Anderson finally got to the real heart of the show.

“Well, gang, that wraps our awards ceremony for the ’94-’95 school year. And again, let’s give Melissa and BJ another hearty round of applause–I’m sure they’re going to give wonderful commencement speeches!”

After that I was in a bit of a daze, and I barely even remember wandering aimlessly out of the gym…except for one detail: as I passed my nemesis Mr. Sogiyoka, he clearly could tell that all the blood had drained from my face. In that moment, it became obvious that I had been outmaneuvered.

While most of the other teachers were only verbally congratulating Melissa and me on our achievements, ol’ Donny-Boy made it a point to shake my hand. With a sh*t-eating smirk on his face, he pulled me in close and whispered in my ear:

“Checkmate, mother ----- , checkmate…”

Content created on: 13/14 January 2024 (Sat/Sun)

For a young guy, what’s the worst that could possibly go wrong?

Well, I’ll tell you–but pay no mind if I unexpectedly go a little long…

“Of course you know what an ‘N.R.B.’ is right?” my college buddy Beecher spontaneously switched gears in the middle of our late-night conversation.

No, I didn’t know what this is so-called ‘N.R.B.’ was, and no, I had no idea where he was going with this random train of thought.

“Uhhh…isn’t that that rap group from the 80’s that had Christian moms all up in arms and boycotting Walmart for carrying their albums?” I fathomed a guess.

“Naw, dude, that’s N.W.A. you’re thinking of. What I’m talking about are NRBs–No-Reason Boners–ya’ know? Like, it’s a scientific fact that every young guy gets them. The real question is: what does a lad do when he is bequeathed with a pNRB–a Public No-Reason Boner?” he intimated with a completely straight face.

“Ok, I think we need to back this conversation up just a tad. First, you do realize that we are in a semi-public venue, right?”

I grandly gestured around the Baptist church where our Christian college ministry, The Navigators, was regularly meeting every Thursday that year. Though our meeting had officially ended about 15 minutes earlier, there were plenty of us college kids still milling about.

“Aren’t you concerned any of the young ladies here might overhear us?” I asked in almost a whisper.

“Naw, man, they probably need to hear this. I almost guarantee you that they are all completely oblivious to this common affliction that we are all stricken with from time to time,” Beecher attempted to assuage my concerns. “It’s much better that they’re educated ahead of time, so that when it does happen to one of us in their presence, our dear Sisters in Christ won’t think we’re a bunch of raging perverts.”

“You do make a good point. But if we’re gonna have this conversation now, can we at least be gentlemen about it? Let’s call this phenomenon by it’s medical-slash-scientific name, shall we?” I countered.

“Oh yeah? And what would that be?” he inquired.

“Why, Spontaneous Involuntary Erections, of course! Or S.I.E.s, for short,” I said, before fully considering my choice of words.

“Hey, who you calling ‘short’? There ain’t nothing short about my NRBs–sorry, my SIEs!” Beecher could have retorted, but didn’t because he was a grown-ass man in his second year of college, not a boy in junior high. But that didn’t stop that train of thought from leaving my mind-station.

Needless to say, Beecher was slightly confused when I continued with that unspoken line of thinking.

“Speaking of which,” I said out of nowhere, “it really would have been nice to have had a name for that monster that terrorized me when I myself was a junior high boy…”

“What we now know to be NRBs–or ‘NeRBs‘, if it makes it easier to say aloud–terrified this nerd,” I gestured to myself as I began regaling Beecher against his will with my ‘back-in-the-day’ tale.

“You see, in 8th grade I had just moved to California, and for the first time was at a big school with a bunch of kids I didn’t know. Ocean View Jr. High’s demographic was primarily kids of Mexican migrant workers and military brats from the nearby Navy base–not exactly the crowd I was used to. Not that it’s relevant to the story, but ironically, of all them, I was probably the most ‘illegal’ one, seeing as how I was very much illegally living on that particular Navy base with my sister…”

“Anyways, every day at 10:05 a.m. sharp, I would find myself in a locker room with a bunch of these guys. At first, I thought the pit in my stomach was just part of the nerve-wracking experience of moving to a different state and going to a new school as an extreme introvert.”

“Yes, believe it or not, I was quite the introvert then–I’ve always been one at heart…”

“Anyways, the point of the story is¹Yes, I was infamously misusing this turn of phrase back in my college days–and well before that, even. it wasn’t the New-School Nerves that almost had me throwing up every day at mid-morning. My NSNs subsided relatively quickly, and it wasn’t too long before I realized that I was just absolutely certain that I would have a case of the NeRBs befall me during the two windows of time at the beginning and end of gym class when we would be changing into and back out of our gym clothes.”

“I probably got an ulcer from all the anxiety the specter of a NeRB caused me for those 10 long months back in ’94 and ’95…”

“Speaking of ‘B’s: Jack Oliver, that old bastard…” I just barrelled right on into my next thought, as I was wont to do.

Beecher just gave me a ‘WTF’ look, but nevertheless made no attempt to stop me.

“Yeah, Mr. Oliver was our ironically-overweight gym teacher–one could even say he was ‘fat’. But what made him a fat bastard is that he had the audacity to make us jog laps for the entire gym period every Tuesday and Thursday, the whole ----- year long.”

“But that wasn’t the worst part–what made him diabolical was that our grade in his class was based on whether or not we met his arbitrarily-determined quota of laps for the day.”

“Not only was I nerd in junior high, I was a chubby nerd who absolutely hated running or jogging of any kind. So now in addition to my petrifying²This is an obtuse attempt at a pun–you see, petrified wood is wood that has become rock hard…and I was terrified that I would be sporting some rock-hard wood…um…it’s a pun, dammit. fear of getting a so-called chubby every day in gym class, I had the additional trauma of the bi-weekly anticipation of some state-sanctioned self-flagellation. And the real terror was that this masochistic ritual of mucking about in circles in a former California strawberry field could very easily result in the ruining of my pristine streak of always getting straight-A’s throughout my entire academic career!”

I paused for dramatic effect, but Beecher was already well aware of my penchant for #HumbleBragging–he’d already been wowed by every detail of all the scholarships and grants that was supporting my collegiate endeavors–and wisely chose not to further indulge me on that front.

“Dude, is there even really a point to your story? You made that promise upwards of 3 minutes and 12 thoughts ago, and you have yet to deliver the goods,” Beecher was starting to get a little impatient with me–no doubt he really wanted to keep talking about adolescent erections rather than how ----- smart I was.

“Okay, fine, I’ll get to the point: After all was said and done–and despite all my accumulated irrational fear–I never got a single NRB my entire 8th grade year–not one! I did, however, get a single ‘B’–as in the letter grade–on my third-quarter report card.”

“I almost never forgave that bastard for ruining my Lifetime Straight-A bragging rights…until I realized that that bastard–said this time with utmost affection–saved me from my ultimate fear: public speaking.”

“Oh yeah? How’s that?” Beecher inquired, slightly exasperated that my non-erectile story was managing to go long and strong all night long like a guy who had popped one-too-many Viagras on Valentine’s Day.

“Well, with my perfect 4.00 GPA no longer intact, I was guaranteed to be knocked out of the running for Valedictorian. Sure, the honor would have been nice, but who needs the stress of not only writing, but also delivering, a contrived speech to a bunch of peers and parents who simply don’t give a flying fudge?”

“Wait just a tick,” Beecher said, slightly surprised by this twist, “you mean to tell me that you don’t have a life-long grievance with Jack Oliver that will eventually get aired in a future Festivus?”

“Oh, I got grievances to air, alright. What? You thought I was done with my story? Hah! I’m only just getting started.”

“Dammit,” Beecher muttered as he looked wistfully at his watch. “You mean to tell me that this story is to be continued…“

Content created on: 6/7 January 2024 (Sat/Sun)