Author: BJ (Page 1 of 35)

5 Min Read

‘Tis a tragedy! ‘Tis a mystery! My cheese has gone missing in the middle of the night!

Show yourself, fiend–dare you step into the light…

---

“Where’s my ----- cheese?!?”

I stared at my desk drawer in disbelief. Everything was accounted for and in its place–everything, except for my frickin’ stringy queso.

It was another late night in the ol’ NMR lab running my experiments–not uncommon in grad school, but unusual for my lazy/ADHD ass–and I was so ----- excited to each the string cheese I had put in that drawer earlier in the afternoon. Dannnnngit. That was supposed to be my midnight snack, but now I was going to have to go hungry because…actually I had no legit theory as to who, why or how my cheese could have gone missing.

I mean, I had some theories, but like I said, I wouldn’t call any of them legit:

• Aliens
• Ghosts
• A rodent of unusual size. With opposable thumbs.
• Stalker
• I’m schizophrenic
• I’m an amnesiac
• I’m a schizophrenic amnesiac
• Cheese gained sentience
• Turbo-charged mold on cheese gained sentience

…as you can see, that list is as endless as my imagination. I think you get the point: my cheese had disappeared without a trace–nay an empty wrapper–and ’twas quite the mystery.

Oh, but before we go any further, I feel like I owe you an explanation as to why my cheese was just hanging out at length, unrefrigerated in my desk drawer. You see, when a man and a woman love each very much, they remove their clothes and lie very close to each–

Wait, wrong explanation for the wrong crowd. My apologies. Let’s try this again.

You see, kids, when two sulfur atoms love each very much, they lie very close together and form what’s called a “disulfide bridge”¹https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denaturation_(biochemistry)–and no, that is not a euphemism. But, if the temperature in their bedroom gets too warm, the female sulfur atom–who always runs hot anyways–will get too uncomfortable and also grossed out because the male sulfur atom is a profuse sweater and now they’re both hot slimy slippery mess, and no, not in any sensual manner either. So inevitably one of them either kicks the other one out of bed or voluntarily relocates to the couch or spare bedroom…and thus the so-called disulfide bridge is no more.

Now what is also important to know is that these sulfur atoms were part of a protein chain community, but from total different parts of town. But when they fell in love, their animal-like attraction to each other up-ended the entire structure, causing the protein to fold in on itself. These folded proteins, as part of the cheese in my string cheese, makes the cheese ‘tight’ and chewy and, frankly, somewhat brittle. In other words, not as stringy as I like. This, however, is nothing a little heat can’t solve, and even at room temperature, the disulfide bridge can be broken.

And that’s what we call ‘denaturation’. For some reason. I don’t know, I’m not a scientist. Or at least that kind of scientist. But I am smart enough to understand the basic correlation between cheese left in a drawer for 6+ hours and it being ----- delicious like G0d intended.

Anyways…I had a mystery to solve. And really, if we’re being realistic, we know that cheese didn’t just get up and walk off by itself, and most likely some human had to physically open the drawer and then steal my delicious not-so-dairy-free snack. But who had access to my lab? Who had a key?

Either it was the cleaning staff, or somebody in my lab. The former was an honorable lot, and it was pretty hard to fathom that they would stop so low as to get involved in petty fromage theivery.

The latter bunch, on the other hand, were a shifty bunch who couldn’t be trusted to be alone in a room with a savory treat. You know these elite academics–always just assuming they’re entitled to any cheese in their proximity…

---

“Who moved my cheese?”

Yes, that really was the subject line of my non-accusatory electronic missive to my colleagues.

I proceeded from there to explain to them, that despite what could be construed as a humorous reference to a book that everyone in 2008 had heard of but none of us had actually read, this was a grave matter. Friends, there is a cheese thief amongst us. And it could be any one of us.

But I didn’t want to come out and say it in such blunt terms. Mainly because, despite my accusation only a few paragraphs above, they really weren’t a shifty bunch–I was just being overly-dramatic–they were more a static bunch and I couldn’t actually imagine anyone of them intentionally stealing my goods. So I had to make it safe for the responsible party to come forward without fear of repercussions. I didn’t want to scare them away and then I might never know the truth. And I kid you not, not knowing what the hell actually had gone down was driving me a little crazy.

Fortunately, my email was well-received, and I even got many compliments for composing what some found to be the funniest sh*t they had ever read in a work-related email (not really the tone I was going for, but I’ll take those accolades any day of the work week). And crucially, he who was responsible came forward and admitted to his error in judgement.

“I was at your desk trying to track down some experimental data on your computer, and needed to jot something down,” related my fellow grad student, Jacob, at our next lab meeting. “So I was looking for was a pencil in your drawer and–oh my G0d, BJ forgot about string cheese and now it was rotting! (At least that is what I thought to myself.”

“I was concerned for your safety,” he continued, “and also about the real possibility that your work space was about to get funkier than George Clinton,²https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Clinton_(funk_musician) so my natural instinct told me that I better throw it away…and that’s the store of how your cheese got moved.”

“HAVEN’T YOU FOOLS EVER HEARD OF DENATURATION?!?” I said, exasperated by their ignorance.

I let out a heavy sigh (partly out of the relief that comes with a solved mystery).

“I was letting it denature because it’s so much tastier that way. You should try it some time…”

---

The point of the story is…try letting your string cheese sit out for a good bit before enjoying. Trust me, it’s so much better that way.

And to be honest, it wasn’t until I got to this point in the story before realizing that this whole time I had been thinking about the time that I had sent out an email to the whole lab group, lightly passive-aggressively accusing them of stealing my stash of AA batteries that I had been keeping in that same drawer, only to find out that I had taken them home at an earlier point in time.

In other words, I was expecting to actually have a moral of the story to close out this tale…

Ah, what the heck? Since we’re here anyways:

The point of that story was…before you go and get your panties in a kink and call your cohorts a bunch of little thieves, maybe do your homework first and ask yourself, “perhaps I might be a forgetful asshole?” You know, be humble and assume the best in others.

And if you are experiencing indignation at the tiniest of perceived slights (like someone you know violating the sanctity of your cheese or your batteries), maybe you should talk to your therapist about that.

…

…

What’s that, you say? Really? Huh. Interesting.

I figured that would be so much more common, but you’re telling me that you nor anyone else you know turns into such a Little Princess in those situations?

I guess it’s just me then, all alone in this sad, sad, bejeweled rowboat…

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Content created on: 27 September 2025 (Saturday)

13 Min Read

Six years and 340 posts in, and still no book deals-ies?

Sweet White Jesus, this is getting old pretty quick for reals-ies…

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“Nobody knew his secret ambition, nobody knew his claim to fame…”

You have no idea how long I’ve waited to semi-ironically quote one of the most prolific Contemporary Christian musicians ever–yes, I’m talking about the one and only Michael W. Smith.

And if you didn’t already figure it out, in his 1988 hit single Secret Ambition, thrift store George Michael was singing about the one and only White Jesus.

While I’m certainly no Caucasian Lord & Savior myself–at least that I know of–I gotta admit that kinda I identify with those lyrics. After all, they’ve been stuck in my head for the last 6 years.¹Oh that’s right, I forgot to mention that I’m publishing this on the 6th anniversary of The Point of the Story’s debut. I mean, I’m sure you already new it was this blog’s birthday without having to be reminded, but certainly those are some rare souls out there who have no clue what a momentous occasion they are witnessing.

Anyways, back to the Michael W. Smith quote. My ‘secret ambition’ when I started this little project over 6 years ago²You may recall that I released The Complete First Season on August 29, 2019, but I had been working on the website and that content since June of that year. was to become a modern-day Laura Ingalls Wilder, the renowned author of her autobiographical Little House on the Prairie series of books. I’m assuming you know who I’m talking about, and if you don’t you can ask ChatGPT to fill you in. The short version is that she was really famous for…being really famous–about a century before the Kardishians, et al. came along and made that a thing.

Nothing about her life was particular notable, and in general no one should really have any motivation to read her autobiography. She was just some woman who dealt with her mid-life crisis by writing mostly-true memoirs about her childhood and young adult life in the years shortly after the end of the Civil War. You know, living in log cabins and sod houses n’ shit.

But therein lies the genius of it all: it was a glimpse into the everyday life of just a regular ol’ Joann living in those times, something that has always fascinated me. In fact, it was that exact ethos that motivated me during my first stint as a blogger when I was studying abroad in Spain back in 2003. Sure, I had some mildly interesting shenanigans (like that time I accidentally dyed my hair blue) and misadventures (like the time I broke my glasses during a monkey attack), but really my overall hope was that, given enough time, those “Spain Journals” would be seen as a valuable snapshot of a specific time and place in history (I’m going to use the third parenthetical statement in this sentence to point out that George W. declared war on Iraq while I was stranded in Muslim-majority Africa).

Ah, I digress. I think you get the idea. The point of the story is that it was that spirit that I intentionally brought to The Point of the Story all those years ago: thanks to my above average memory, a penchant for telling overly-detailed narratives, and slightly questionable judgement to keep things interesting, my hope was to produce one of the most well-documented lives of our generation. Not the wildest tales you’ll ever hear–no, plenty of people have much crazier stories than I do, I readily admit that. But at least some of them are mildly bemusing…right? I mean, the tractor story was one for the ages at least, no? And my forever-favorite story about the divinely-inspired prom theme? I mean, that one really needs to be written into a sitcom.

Sure, most likely all the potential every one saw in me in my younger heydays–the potential that no doubt inspired hope in many a Morton County resident that I would one day do something big like win a Nobel Prize or some shit and really put Rolla on the map–that potential will probably never come even remotely close to being realized. But maybe–just maybe–I can put you ----- on the map through all of my dumb stories, many of which are set in our dusty-ass, tumbleweed-ridden hometown hidden in the SW corner of Kansas.

Honestly, though, my thoughts are starting to meander, and while very much on-brand for me, is not where I was particularly going with my ramblings. So before I move on to the next nugget of wisdom I was hoping to share, I wanted to be sure to point out that we can’t forget the second part of those Michael W. Smith lyrics, because they are very, very relevant: “…nobody knew his claim to fame…“. Like, seriously, nobody knows my claim to fame. One day, just you wait, when I finally somehow figure out a way to release all the work I’ve put into this blog in the form of a published autobiography, there will be one question on everybody’s mind: “Who the ----- is this guy???”

That..um…that was a double Hamilton reference if you didn’t catch it…

---

“Be your own boss!” she said. “I think that’s what’s been holding you back this whole time!”

Yup, you can thank Boss Lady Matosha (BLM for short, of course)–also known as My Beautiful Bride in later posts–for the genesis of this lovely work of prose and pop-culture references that you are currently beholding. If it wasn’t for that one comment in April 2019, The Point of the Story would have come to fruition for you to enjoy.

For those of you who don’t know the back story, my position as a post-doctoral researcher was coming to a close at the end of May of that year, and I was having little luck in my job hunt. Feeling the need to beef up my street cred as a data scientist, I was on the verge of enrolling in one of those data science boot camps for the low, low price of $10,000. And when I say I was on the verge, I was literally on the verge: I was sitting on the couch with my aforementioned wife when I was attempting to finalize my enrollment in the program, and I think that I had a typo in my credit card info or something similar, and my binding down payment of a few thousand buckaroos didn’t go through on the first try. And that was just enough of a pause for us to sober up and realize that maybe that this boot camp that pretended to be associated with the esteemed University of North Carolina (but wasn’t actually) might not be the best investment of ten grand.

So the core idea was that I would take a year or two or maybe just a half-year to explore the idea of being my own boss. Whether that was me starting my own business, or taking that time to develop some passive income streams, or whatever, the hope was that it would be a launching pad for me to become untethered from the ball and chain that is your typical white-collar career–and, crucially, that the love of my life would soon be able to follow suit.

The Point of the Story was originally conceived by BLM as one of these ventures, specifically as a blog about my misadventures and successes in trying out different passive income ideas. Some of that eventually came through when I had several posts about trying to become an internet kimchi tycoon, but for the large part–and to BLM’s dismay–this blog become more about all my ----- memories and (as the subtitle of the blog so clearly advertises/warns you) copious amounts of unsolicited life advice. Not that there is not value in all that, but…well, truth be told there is almost no value in that, as it turns out. Let’s just say that what set out to be a profitable endeavor eventually evolved into a situation where I clearly ‘wasn’t doing it for the money’–and let’s leave it at that.

Now, fortunately, at the same time that particular position was winding down, another colleague proposed I stick around and work for her part time. This was a great offer–I had the chance to keep bringing in traditional income, while still having plenty of time to pursue my own stuff. It also gave me the chance to keep one foot in the world of scientific/academic research, because if there was one life lesson that I ever learned, it would be: ‘don’t burn bridges.‘ Or to frame it more positively, ‘keep your options open, kid’.

So that has been my employment situation for the last 6 or so years: ~3 days a week as a scientist and ~2 days “doing my own thang”. There have been some pros and cons to this arrangement, and I don’t really want to dive into those right now…but at least it will answer the burning question you longer-time readers might have had: how the hell did this guy get so much home remodeling done? (I don’t think I ever collated them into a curated collection, but you can check out one of the related tales here). Yeah, no one is going to tear through home projects like that with a full-time job.

And sure, all that freedom sounds nice, but…

Well, if you haven’t already figured it out, I’m taking this very special episode of The Point of the Story to do a bit o’ reflection of this journey. But, honestly, I’m tired while typing this, and so it’s taken me slightly longer than I had hoped to get to the real philosophical insights I wanted to impart to you. So, pardon me going forward as I try to cut out extraneous details and try to get to the good stuff. I hope it still makes sense, even when I inevitably leave out a key detail I would otherwise include. Now, where was I? Oh, right…

Sure it all sounds nice to not have your soul ground down by a 9-5, five days a week job. But let me tell you what I have learned from this experiment that has gone on thrice as long as it should have.

Recently, I had made some headway in a renewed job hunt, and for a moment or two, it looked like I might be landing a job that had a few critical characteristics:

• It was in the field of renewable energy–i.e. it was something incredibly meaningful and something I cared about
• It was very likely that if I had gotten the job, I would have retired with them–i.e. probably forever avoiding the wreckless instability in academia brought on by our current administration
• The job was actually fairly limited in scope, i.e. I could really focus on the limited number of aspects relevant to this task instead of always trying to figure out what I should be learning about
• The position would have been a nice amalgam of my professional experience that would make it actually seem like I had been intentionally building my career towards something meaningful, when that is very much not the case, i.e. all the effort I have put into getting my Ph.D. and the subsequent laboring away for pennies as a postdoc, etc. would not have been a depressing waste of time and effort and foregone salary
• It would have paid handsomely, i.e. I wouldn’t have this perpetually nagging thought in the back of my mind that I needed to find a better paying job so I could properly take care of my family

I.e.–and this was the big gestalt moment for me–for the first time in my adult life, I wouldn’t have this existential churning of feeling like I should always be doing something else, something more, but never really knowing what that something else was.

In other words, for a moment there was the very real possibility of being truly happy for once.

I’ve never really considered myself depressed, but looking back I’m starting to wonder if I was a proverbial drowning man who didn’t realize he was drowning. Seriously, I’ve had a hard time truly enjoying any vacation I’ve ever taken or any hobby I’ve taken up. How the hell could I be farting around with my time when I felt deep down that I was supposed to be doing something else altogether with my life, right?

For the first time I clearly saw something about myself that hadn’t quite coalesced in my mind before: there is a substantial baseline amount of my bandwidth that has been continuously consumed by this existential churning–and I almost had a life free from that within my grasp.

I ultimately didn’t get that particular job, but I haven’t lost all hope yet–I’m still deep in the job hunt, and I’m more optimistic than ever that I fantastic opportunity that checks many of those same critical boxes will come my way. Good things can happen.

But all this overwhelming amount of personal insight has been one hell of an emotional roller coaster, to say the least.

However, I need to step back a thought and tie this into my main train of thought: the astute observer might notice that by publishing this missive, I will be ending what has been by far the longest drought of new content from me on this website. Even through the pandemic and when my remodeling projects were all-consuming, I had found a way to regularly and consistently put out content–for my pride if for nothing else. I think once or twice I had to space out my blog posts by 3 weeks rather than the current norm of every 2 weeks. Yet here we are, somewhere around 6 weeks of radio silence from me–and for the first time ever, dangerously on the cusp of having a calendar month with a big fat zero number of posts. Remember the early days when I had a couple months with 9 posts??? I have judiciously adjusted my expectations of myself over the course of the life of TPOTS, going from twice a week in the beginning, to once a week, to the more recent standard of every other week, to where we are now.

And while I have found immense joy in the process of reflecting, researching, and writing (see my latest work of art about running the good race, which ended up being a surprising treasure to produce), I have almost always had the feeling that by blogging, I was stealing time from other more important things I should be doing. Not quite a guilty feeling, but never really being able to truly relax and enjoy it.

Of course, a big part of that I can now see as–you guessed it–being due to that damned existential churning.

But really, there is one major, concrete lesson that I have learned from all this: I don’t want to be a content creator. At least not in any responsible way (i.e. rely on creating content to put food on the table).

No, my love, I don’t want to start a TikTok channel with you about relaxing videos of you painting. No, dear, I don’t want to start a YouTube channel about our ----- cats. No, honey buns, I don’t want to do any of that nonsense…though would you reconsider my idea of starting an OnlyFans for my sexy-ass calf muscles? Oh, right…we decided we wouldn’t do anything we wouldn’t want our daughters to find out about.

…but with these calves, the ‘content’ essentially creates itself–okay okay, I’ll drop the idea and never speak of it again. Sheesh.

*end of semi-fictional conversation that may or may not have occurred in my marriage*

You know what I do want though? A job that is satisfying and intellectually stimulating. A job that is demonstrably making the world a better place. A job that doesn’t strain my ADHD brain and lets me be semi-focused while other people worry about all the other details. A job with some ----- stability. A job that I can get a mortgage with (or refinance a current one) without any questions asked or hoops to jump through. A job with health insurance, so my long-suffering, bread-winning wife can have the freedom to got off the hamster wheel that has been slowly draining her soul pretty much since the first year we were married, and become the bohemian artist that she truly is. A job with, frankly speaking, a fat-ass paycheck.

I.e. I want a corporate job. There is nothing more in this world that my heart yearns for in this moment. Yeah, I know: pretty sick and twisted, right?

Now, admittedly this pretty ironic in light of one of the very first posts I wrote, Hello, World! But I’m kinda sick of this nonsense of feeling like “what the actual ----- am I doing with my life??” What I really want is to…

“Find my place in this world…MY PLACE IN THIS WORLD!”

…

…

Please laugh.

Oh, right, that reference may have [rightfully] gone over your head. You see, I started this whole blog-venture thinking Secret Ambition was my theme song, when, in a real plot twist, the true meaning is actually captured be a different Michael W. Smith hit Contemporary Christian song–his biggest one, in fact–Place In This World (which I admit that I did not realize had peaked at #6 on the MAINSTREAM Billboard Top 100, so even you ----- pagans might actually be familiar with that particular song).

Side note: thanks to my research, my YouTube algorithm is so absolutely ----- now. Or at least one would assume…wait, what’s that I hear playing now immediately after Place In This World? Is that…could it be? Surely it’s not…no, it would be impossible for it to be the most insane abuse of the linguistic concept of a portmanteau…well I will [almost assuredly] be [quite literally] damned. It is Puscifer serenading me with the sweet soothing lullaby that is Apocalyptical . And yes, that is a real band and that is their real name. Look it up.

Second side note: Despite my mockery, I’m now re-realizing that MWS was/is actually a pretty good musician. But you didn’t hear that from me.

Anyways, I want to close out this thought salad by addressing the elephant in the room for you faithful fans out there: Is this the end of the line for The Point of the Story?

That has been a question I have been very reluctantly asking myself for the last month or so. To be clear, I am definitely not out of stories to tell. I’ve got some real bangers that could very well be my best work yet. I mean, if I’m going to go out with a bang, the series finale will need to be something truly worthy…perhaps, say, the World’s Worst Wedding Gift? Even then I haven’t even touched on my summer at Snow Mountain Ranch, or My Favorite Murder, or all the other stories related to my side hustle of reselling tickets (beyond this one).

But for now, I really need to focus on making some serious cheese and gaining a previously unreached level of self-respect. Truly, if my dearly departed dad knew that I was devoting so much of my life to the art of being a blogger, he would be spinning in his grave (side note: Rest In Power, Papa Bob).

Honestly, I’m surprised that I got this epic tome out to the masses, given my current situation in which I direly need to find new employment in a timely manner.

So I can’t make any promises about the future frequency of my asinine internet scribblings. But one thing I can tell you is, as Michael W. Smith–yes, I am unabashedly achieving the trifecta of MWS references in one sitting–best put it in his 1992 hit single: “I will be here for you…”

*pats self on back*

One last quick side note before I sign off with something witty or tongue-in-cheek: it is imperative that any time you read quotes from MWS songs, you have to also mentally picture him doing that very dramatic thing which can be best described as a close-to-the-chest double fist pump. Otherwise all the irony might be lost forever.

Lastly, you may be asking how, exactly, can I promise that I will indeed be “here for you” and not just quietly stop putting out new content?

Oh, because I brought receipts to back that claim up.

Like, literal receipts:

I don’t know if you can quite make that out, but the key details are that I just paid a sh*t-ton of money to renew hosting for this black hole of a website for 3 years.

And if you know me, there’s no way in hell that I’m gonna let that money go to waste.

Now, if you excuse me, I gotta go take a shower and get the ick of all the Contemporary Christian music off of me…

*wanders off whistling Michael W. Smith’s 1990 hit single, “Go West Young Man”*

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Content created on: 28/29 August 2025 (Thurs./Fri)

6 Min Read

This is the story of two brothers, one a hero, one forgotten to time.

A tale telling that it really matters how you get to that finish line…

---

“…and the winners of the 1988 Rolla Park Day’s Cop Williams Memorial 10k Race and Two-Mile Fun Walk are–“

“Ah! Hold the rotary phone! Not so fast my friend!”

Our beloved RHS principal, “Toad” Bane¹This is not necessarily historically accurate. I don’t know who might have been in this role. Also, I wasn’t in the room where it happened. It might have been Mac Plummer or Mr. Casey or who knows. stopped short as another Who’s Who in our tiny Kansas community of 400 interrupted him and pulled him aside.

*psst-psst-psst-psst*

“What now?!?” mumbled Pop-Pop, my mild-mannered maternal grandfather who, despite having recently passed retirement age, had participated in the walk and finished comfortably ahead most of the pack.

Stepping back up to the microphone, Toad, with a solemn tone and a face that did, indeed, look like a stout, stoic amphibian, shared the breaking news with the modest crowd that had gathered at the Rolla City Park²I just have to get this out of my system–to this day, the main memory of that place is the bathrooms always reeked of piss, and I hated any time that I had to use them. End of Story. that fine August morning.

“I’m afraid that we’re going to have to delay the awards ceremony, folks…”

“You gotta be kidding me!” bemoaned Tadpole, Pop-Pop’s eldest grandchild and my oldest brother, who was 20 years old at the time. “It’s not like it’s a big surprise who got first–me!”

It’s true: Tadpole was indeed a proverbial “track star”–or more technically, “cross-country star”. This was a historically veritable fact, known widely at the time by the community at large. And at this point, he had finished his race a good hour an a half earlier.

“It seems that we have 2 walkers who are unaccounted for”, Toad continued, sharing more details of the truly grave situation at hand.

“What type of idiots get lost walking two miles? Jeez, what a bunch of morons!” interjected Jay, my slightly older brother who had just turned 10. “It may have taken me 1 hour, 35 minutes, and 24 seconds to run my 10k, and I may have finished last–it was a tie, to be clear–but at least I finished.”

Pop-Pop thought for a moment or two, doing the math in his head before speaking.

“It’s been 2 hours. They have had over an hour to cover each mile, and they’re still not back. That’s impressive for all the wrong reasons.”

He thought for another moment as he looked around the crowd.

“Say, I think we’re missing a couple of family members…”

---

“There you are! Jesus, what are you doing all the way over here?!? You’re almost a mile off course!” seethed K.B., the organizer of the race and walk, as he glared daggers at me and Mom from his car.

“Um…okay. But we’re almost done,” Mom replied. “We’re what, like 100 steps from the city limits? Can’t be more than a quarter-mile from the finish line.”

“NOPE. No time! You’re getting in the car with me–you’ve held up the entire awards ceremony for an hour already!” he said forcefully. “And we can’t give out a dang thing until every has crossed the finish line.”

“Very funny. We’re so close to finishing this four-mile walk, we’re not going to give up now. Besides, the little guy has worked so hard to make it this far,” she said, gesturing to me and my slightly stubby 7-year-old legs.

“IN. THE. CAR. NOW.”

“If there’s one thing that the fine educational institution that is USD 217, Rolla School Systems, has taught me is ‘never get in a car with a stranger’,” I stated matter-of-factly. “So, no thanks, I’ll walk.”

“Are you kidding me, you little sh*t-head?” K.B. asked incredulously. “I’m your ----- tee-ball coach.”

“STRANGER DANGER! STRANGER DANGER!” I yelled as I made a break for it.

…

…

Ok, so maybe I’m starting to take this dramatized “based on actual events” thing too far. I mean, you know I’m starting to stretch the truth a wee bit when I start claiming that I did any sort of running.

But, according to an anonmyous source that was actually there, my Mom did argue with those buttholes to just let us finish.

Alas, it was to no avail. We eventually got in the car and drove a whole 90 seconds to the park where the entire town was waiting impatiently for us.

You would have thought there would have been rejoicing in the streets that they had found and rescued the missing walkers, but nooooo, instead all we got were a bunch of dirty looks.

And after all that trouble–literally going the extra mile (or two), we didn’t even get a proverbial T-shirt…

---

“Wait, what?!?”

That’s me, present day, researching this story. I had been able to track down an archived article from the Hugoton, Hermes, which had regaled all of Morton and Stevens Counties with the glories that Rolla Park Day 1988 was. Yeah, that’s right, I brought receipts (and if you’re curious, here they are).

Here’s what I was looking at, and I couldn’t believe my eyes:

“Everyone else got ----- T-shirts?!? What the actual fuck, K.B.?”

Beside the humiliation of being bested by a 5-year-old who along, with my Uncle Randy snagged first place, you can throw in the fact that Hester Millemon–my 60-year-old-plus first grade teacher–handily finished the walk as well.

And I’m not sure if, er, you know what my last name is, son, but if you did, you would probably say, ‘Hey, I don’t see my dude and his loving mother on the list of participants.’

Yeah, that’s right, not an even an honorable mention, or ‘also participating but not finishing were…’ or ‘these dumb ----- got lost and had to get a ride back to the finish line…” No, man,they straight up is trying to erase from the history books!

And I’m not gonna lie: finding this out 37 years later on, yeah, it stings a little…

Anyways…

The point of the story is never give up, kid. At least until they forcefully remove your ass from the competition, that is. And even if your unnecessarily re-doubled efforts go forever unappreciated and are lost to the annals of time, at least you’ll have perhaps one of the pettiest grudges ever to take to your grave.

I can just see myself there on my deathbed, mumbling coherently about yet another one of my many grievances in life:

“Bah, humbug! They should have at least given me a t-shirt…Where’s my ----- t-shirt?!?”

---

Epilogue

Oh, you thought I was done with this nonsense? You should have known better…at least when I broke the fourth wall and left the dialogue-heavy narrative behind a few thoughts back.

I want to leave you with two last thoughts, just for sh*ts and giggles.

First, Dear Reader, take a second look at that newspaper clipping I shared:

I didn’t catch that last sentence there the first few times around. What I want to know is…what are the names of these people?!? Like, there were guides?!? Apparently these nameless ass-hats didn’t exactly do their job, wouldn’t you say? I mean, we were at least a mile off course, and all these years, I had been thinking that somehow we were to blame (which did always feel a little incongruent–even from my earliest years I had quite the sense of direction and always had a mental map in my head).

Now I’m starting to think perhaps it was these bumpkins falling down on the job that cost me a sweet, sweet T-shirt and a bit of local fame. And these unqualified volunteers? They almost got away with it, if not for that pesky Hugoton Hermes ratting them out…

On a much more positive note, Point #2–no pun intended–has always been and will always be my absolute favorite part of this whole story. But before I get to that, all me to share some context uncovered by my research.

So there were actually two similar races, 2 years apart, with the other one being in 1986. In the course of trying to figure out whether I was 5 or I was 7 when this story took place, I found the article for the other one here. In 1986, Tadpole won as well, with an impressive time of 35 minutes, 1 second–yet two years later, his winning time had bloated to 39 minutes, 16 second.

What happened in that lost 4 minutes and 15 seconds? A true mystery indeed.

One might chalk it up to the fact that in the summer of 1987 in between the two races, he was in a serious car accident. And given the fact that he had managed to recover and came back to kick some more ass barely a year later, one could forgive him for moving a little bit slowly.

Turns out, though, it was on account of something moving a little bit too quick. To quote the two-time Rolla Park Day’s Cop Williams Memorial 10k Race champion–something I heard with my own two little ears:

“Mom, it was a good thing I was so far ahead…because I had to make a pit stop at the Corner Stop³The sole convenience store in Rolla. and take a dump.”

Man, what an absolute ----- legend…

---

Content created on: 11 July 2025 (Friday)

6 Min Read

Ya know how they say ‘the squeaky wheel gets the grease’?

Um, let’s just say ya funk with Dunkin, won’t be no drinking yo’ coffee in peace…

---

“How the hell did you hear ‘two shots of oat milk’ and decide that what I really needed was…”

I had to double-check my Dunkin receipt, because none of this non-sense was making any sense.

“…and you decided I needed SIX shots of oat milk?!?”

The employee of our fairly-new local Dunkin Donut shop just stared at me for a second before explaining it to me again.

“It looks like you ordered six shots, that’s why,” she said calmly but a little bit dumbly, too.

“No, ma’am, those words never came out of my mouth. I said–and I quote–‘two shots of toasted almond [flavoring] and 2 shots of oat milk.’ I’m not sure how that got so grossly misinterpreted into 6 ----- shots!”

“But it says here, ‘6 oatmilk’ on your receipt.”

“Oh my fu–” I cut myself short upon remembering that I had brought my two daughters with me for a fun after-school snack, and as far as I knew, they had no clue that I didn’t mind throwing down an expletive or two when the occasion called for it.

“Look, I know what I ordered. How hard is this?”

For brevity’s sake, we’ll just pretend this part of the store didn’t go on for another good 3 minutes of madness and skip to the arrival of a new character in this stupid play.

“Excuse me, I’ll handle this…” a somewhat older–maybe 21? 22?–interrupted her co-worker. “I made that latte. What’s wrong with it again?”

“It’s got 6 shots of oat milk in it,” I said, slowly creeping towards exasperation.

“And you don’t like it that creamy?” this maybe-a-manager asked.

“Oh, no, I fu–” I side-eyed my progeny sitting a few feet away, happily snacking on their respective donuts, pretending not to listen to me. “I mean, I frickin’ love it, and I’ll take all the oat milk you wanna give me. It’s just that I ordered only two shots, but you gave me, and–importantly–charged me for 6. That’s $2 extra I didn’t want to spend! And now how is my thrifty ass supposed to drink an $8 latte and enjoy it? Riddle me that!”

“So…you want me to re-make it?” she asked, apparently confused by the financial issue.

“Well, not if you don’t have to.”

“So…you want a refund, then?”

“Yeah, that’s all I really wanted,” I said, just hoping to get my two dollars back.

“Okay, then. But I can’t let you keep it. I’ll have to remake it if you want a refund.”

“What? That makes no sense. Why remake it when I can perfectly enjoy this one?”

“That’s just the store policy.”

“Ok. Whatever. But that doesn’t make a lick of sense to waste the one you already made. Do you know how many oat cows they had to milk just to make those 6 shots?”

She gave me a bit of a ‘huh?!?’ look, not grasping my sense of humor.

“Just give me a refund and make a new one, please.”

She proceeded to punch a few buttons on the register, before it popped open and she counted my money.

“Here you go, here’s eight dollars and thirty-two cents,” she said handing over the cash.

“Oh, geez, I didn’t realize you meant refund for the whole drink–I just wanted the two extra dollars I paid…but oh, well. I’ll be patiently awaiting my remade drink over at that table. Ah, and let me put this drink in the trash for you.”

“Whatever,” she mumbled.

I quickly took the drink back to my table instead and poured most of it into some smaller cups the girls had from some sample they had been handing out–the one and only time I’ve ever known Dunkin to offer free samples, come to think of it…–but I digress.

“I’m have to throw this away so they can remake it,” I said as loudly as possibly while winking at the girls, before throwing the almost empty cup in the nearby garbage bin.

And, before you deem me some kind of monster, you should know that I had ordered a decaf latte because it was 4-funking o’ clock in the afternoon, and I don’t need the jitters. So don’t be thinking I’m the kind of dad that just loads their kids up on caffeine 3 hours before bedtime. Sheesh…

Next thing I knew, the lady who had made my original latte came out and personally delivered my new, slightly-less-creamy drink.

“Thanks so much, this will be perfect,” I said, as happy as any customer who had their problem resolved, with a little extra for their troubles.

I finally could officially enjoy coffee with my donuts…ahhhh…

*a few minutes later*

“Who ordered the large decaf latte with two shots of toasted almond and two shots of oat milk?” another random employee asked the few customers milling about.

“Oh, wait, you made one too?” my first barista asked him. “I already re-made that for him myself!”

“So…what do you want me to do with this then?” he asked.

“Go ahead and give it to him,” she said gesturing towards me. Then, turning to me, she said, “It looks you won the latte bingo today. You got 2 free lattes, how lucky can a guy get?”

“It was actually 3,” I whisper-bragged to my girls as she walked away.

“Huh, what was that?” she said, turning around since she thought I was talking to her.

“Uh, I said ‘you’ve made me so happy!'”

She just smiled what seemed like a pretty genuine smile at me, which was kinda surprising since I had been a bit of Karen earlier when I was raising a stink over the whole issue.

“Welp, girls, grab your ‘samples’ and let’s head on out.”

Waving at all the people I had inconvenienced for inconveniencing me, I quoted myself a little Kim’s Convenience, “Okay, see you…”

---

“Sir, if you could pull up a little bit so we can help the next customer, that would be appreciated.”

If this had been only the second time they had asked me to do that, I would think it a mere coincidence. But…seven times in a row?

“We’ll have to brew a fresh pot of decaf for you,” was always the explanation they gave for my delayed order.

Which, that kinda does make sense, since I was ordering coffee on my way home from work…but kinda doesn’t make sense because then that would mean the majority of customers they have after 5 p.m. are knowingly getting hopped up on full-caf, right?

But I didn’t care waiting an extra minute for little bonus coffee–after all, every single one of my decaf coffees were free.

Oh, no, not free because of the earlier incident, free because a few months earlier when they had their grand opening, I had got my ass up at 4:45 am to be sure to be one of the first 100 customers (I was ~30, I think?). And what did those customers get? ‘Free coffee for a year!’

Of course that didn’t mean free coffee every day for a year, which is a little misleading if you ask me. No, instead it meant a free medium hot coffee once a week (oat milk extra). But in fairness, they gave us 2 bonus months worth, for a total of 14 months, in the coupon booklets they were handing out.

Anyways, I never had time to stop at this particular Dunkin–the only one these coupons were good at–on my way to work because I was always rushing to get the girls dropped off at school on time. But like hell I was going to let free coffee go un-drank, so there I was, getting another ----- post-workday decaf out of principle.

*a few minutes later*

“Hey Love, I got another one of my free decaf Dunkin’s, if you want some,” I told My Beautiful Bride once I had got home and found her in the kitchen.

“Oh, sure, that’s sweet of you to share,” she said, picking up the cup and bringing it to her lips.

“Funny thing, though,” I said, letting my thoughts wander aimlessly. “Every time I’ve gotten decaf in the evening, I’ve had to wait a few extra minutes to make a fresh pot–all just for me! I feel like a VIP! Or like a ‘Dun-King’ as those advertisements say.”

She paused with the cup right at her lips.

“Uh, what’s that you say?”

“I said that it’s going to be super-fresh because they always make a new pot of decaf just for me.”

She sat the coffee down without having taken a sip.

“Oh, Honey, bless your heart.”

“Huh, what?” I was confused by the sudden onset of her patronizing tone.

“Do you recognize the employee running the drive-thru window each time?”

“Yeah, how did you know? It’s always been someone who was there that magical majestic day whence I got 3 free lattes. They’ve been so super-nice to me ever since.”

“That’s a cute thought, but I’m pretty sure they’re not brewing a new pot just for you.”

“Oh yeah? Then what else would they be doing?”

“I imagine the conversation inside the Dunkin’ is going a little something like this:

‘Hey, it’s Ol’ Six-Shooter again ordering another one of his free decafs!’

‘Ah-ha, what a devilishly delicious opportunity that the ----- Karen has been delivered right into our hands once again! Can you stall him for a few minutes?’

‘Sure can!’

‘Sweet. Bring out the secret stash of moldy, 3-day-old sludge!’

‘Bring out the sludge!’

‘Bring out the sludge!’

‘And, everybody, be sure to contribute your own spit as a bring it by you, mmmkay?’

‘Yeah, make the whiny little butthole pay for his crimes!’

‘Yeah, make him pay!’

‘Muah-ha-ha-hah! ‘Decaf’…pffft! The idiot has no clue what we’re really pouring down his gullet!’

My Beautiful Bride, gave an emphatic nod, so as to put an exclamation point on her overly-dramatic and speculative reenactment.

“Wait just a tick, you mean…” I said as it slowly dawned on me.

“Yup,” she said, somehow solemnly and a bit too gleefully at the same time.

“Dammit, they’ve been giving me the motor oil this whole time?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Welp, so much for thinking that everyday would be decaf day…”

---

Content created on: 28/29 June 2025 (Sat/Sun)

6 Min Read

I swear, you can’t leave your kid home alone for 20 minutes before things go to sh*t.

So tell me, Pro Parent, how you plan to deal with it…

---

“daddy are you home yet?’

“Awww, that’s precious! Checking in on me already…”

Not too long ago, after a late-night daddy-daughter date to see the Broadway play, Kimberly Akimbo[,ref]Parent’s tip: maybe wait until your kid is closer to 17 or 18 before letting them see this…it has a rather, um, ‘healthy’ dose of adult language. It even uses a word that I can’t bring myself to say or type (hint: it begins with ‘C’ and oddly does not rhyme with ‘aunt’).[/ref] a had to leave the aforementioned 12-year-old home alone so she could get ready for bed, while in the meantime I drove our younger daughter’s babysitter¹My mother, in case you were wondering. home for the evening.

Given that my journey was about 25 minutes round trip, I was surprised to see that she had already texted me from her smart watch about 10 minutes before I had pulled back into our driveway at 12:15 a.m. I mean, it was too early for her to be worrying that I had gotten into accident, right?

But then my eyes drifted down and saw that she had sent me a few more messages showing her concern.

“Hello?”

…

“Daddy?”

…

“Answer me?”

…

“Daddy?”

…

“Daddy!!!”

…

“Are you ok?”

…

“Hello!!!”

I kinda chuckled to myself, “Man, her concern for me really escalated quickly! Better text her even before I get out of the van and go in the house, just to put her mind at ease.”

“Hi”

“I was driving!”

“In the rain”

…

“Ok” was her succint reply.

I hopped out of the van and up the steps of our front porch, only to be about knocked on my ass I attempted to open out front door and bounced off it like a rubber ball when it didn’t open as I had clearly expected it to.

“Of course–she locked it behind me when I left! Well, I’m proud that she’s safety-minded enough to do that on her own…though, uh, I can’t believe I forget to tell to do it. Welp, Daughter #2 is already fast asleep, so I can’t ring the doorbell…better send her text…”

“Can u let me in,” I pounded on my key pad with my sausage fingers, being sure to use the lingo the youths are using these days.

We have glass panes either side of our front door, so I could see her silhouette as she approached the door to let me.

As the door swung open and I stepped in, I about immediately had to take two steps back.

“Why are you answering the door wielding a kitchen knife with a 4-inch blade?!? I about impaled myself on the second-largest knife in this house!”

“I thought I heard someone in the house,” she replied.

“Oh. I see. So that’s what was up with all those texts,” I noted.

I surveyed the house, wondering if she had just been hearing things or what. I was pretty confident that there was no one in the house, based on the principle of ‘chain of custody’. The babysitter had been at house pretty much all day, and I was quite sure that no one had been slipping into our house in the middle of the day and quietly hiding out for 5-12 hours. And if my dear daughter had indeed locked the doors right after I had left, then, I assure you, child, no one was in the house making noises…

---

“So can you tell me again what happened?”

It was late as it was, and I was happy to get the kiddo to bed and hit the hay myself. It was quite improbable that we had an intruder lurking about, nevertheless, there we were in the thick of some Sherlock Holme’s nonsense.

“I was in the bathroom, when I heard somebody in the kitchen,” she said, still clearly with an edge in her voice.

Both bathrooms did share a wall with the kitchen, so I wasn’t too surprised she could hear something in there. For example, both our regular fridge and our mini fridge for beverages had both been running pretty loud as of late.

“And then what happened? Was it perhaps a humming or vibrating noise?” I inquired.

“No it sounded like somebody moved something on the floor or the counter for a few seconds, then stopped, then moved it some more.”

“Interesting, interesting…”

Honestly, both of her grandmothers have quite the track record of hearing suspicious noises that may or not have had actually been made. Was she starting to take after them? But…this early in life??

“Well, okay, I’ll keep thinking about what it could have been,” I reassured her, as we walked through the kitchen and back towards the adults’ bedroom.

To my credit, I actually was trying to come up with a plausible theorem to serve as an alternative the whole intruder chef narrative. For example, I did consider the possibility that a mouse could have stowed away in a pizza delivery box that we had brought home earlier that day. It wasn’t that far-fetched, actually: earlier that day, somebody had posted on FaceBook that they found murine turds in their pizza box from that same joint.

As I opened the bedroom door and walked in, I immediately noticed something out of place: our closet door was wide open. Within nanoseconds, all the pieces of the puzzle came together.

Once I stopped laughing and came up for air, I explained my air-tight theory to my firstborn offspring, and reassured her that she had been safe this whole time.

“You can put the knife away, now, dear child,” I said, as I was just now realizing she had been still carrying it out with her this whole time.

Indeed, the sounds she was hearing, while startling when you’re barely 12 and left home alone at night for the first time, were, shall we say, perfectly natural…

---

“Wha–?!? What are you doing in here? I thought you were brushing your teeth?”

I’ll admit that I was taken by surprise when, as I was settling in and getting ready to brush my teeth myself, our bedroom door had silently opened to reveal the image of my daughter in the doorway, somehow holding an even bigger knife now.

“I need somebody to come to my room with me. I’m not going in there by myself,” she stated matter-of-factly.

It was in that moment that I realized that her experience of the whole matter was a world away from mine. Here I had been playing Dr. Watson, so focused on solving the mystery, that I had overlooked the clues that she had been giving me.

So I paused for a moment and finally gave her what she had been needing all along–and it wasn’t some humorous-in-hindsight explanation.

I then proceeded to escort her through the kitchen, into the foyer, and down the dark hall to her room.

“You go in first,” she said, pointing the knife first at me and then at her door.

“Dammit, kid, don’t be talking with your hands while you’re holding a knife–especially in the dark! Give me that thing! You about stabbed me!”

“No. I’m holding onto this until I know nobody is in my room.”

“Fine,” I said, too tired to argue about this sh*t.

I turned on her light and did a quick once around her room, including her closet, verifying that nothing was lurking about.

“All clear,” I said. “Now can we brush our teeth and get to bed before 1?”

“I suppose,” she said. “But can I sleep with the knife on my nightstand?”

“No, you cannot be sleeping with a butcher knife on your nightstand, my dear.”

“How about my pocket knife then?”

“Sure, go ahead,” I sighed. “Feel free to whittle away at any monsters that may visit you in the night…”

---

The point of the story is when your kid is freaked out, sometimes you gotta stop and just give them a big hug and let them know that you’ll keep them safe. They’ve just been mildly traumatized, for f***’s sake–even if they know what was making those spooky noises, it doesn’t mean their system has calmed down just yet.

And what exactly was making those spooky noises, you may ask? The answer to that is–hopefully–not blowing the wind, my friend.

The bathroom she had been chillaxing in not only shared a wall with the kitchen, but also a wall with our closet…where we kept the litter box for our two cats.

And, well, when Dumas Chesterfield, the male and notably large of the two, drops a Number Two, he sometimes has trouble covering up his business. And he can be rather loud in his attempts to claw litter onto his turds of unusual size.

And yes, I found it ----- hilarious that in the end, it was the cat sh*tting that had scared the sh*t out of her…

---

Content created on: 25 May 2025 (Sunday)

5 Min Read

I ain’t green like Kermit, and I ain’t orange like Ernie nor yellow like his rubber ducky.

Why, ain’t no reason why I’m so darn lucky…

---

“A big surprise?!? Really?!?” I eyed my dear mother with a bit of suspicion. “Really?”

I wanted to be excited, but she also had a history of anti-climactic ‘surprises’. Even worse, she threw in some that were downright anti-surprises! Have I mentioned the whole banana split fiasco(s) yet? If not, well, that’s another lovely tale of childhood trauma that needs to be told.

“Well…” she paused somewhat thoughtfully. “I’m not really sure how excited you might be about it. I think you’ll be excited.”

“Ok, where on the ‘Dudly-to-Studly Scale'¹For the life of me, I can distinctly remember making up a goofy-ass name for a goofy-ass scale, but can’t remember exactly what that name was. Dammit. I’m not getting sleep for the next month. would you say it lands?” I inquired cheekily.

“Uh, you’re going to have explain that scale to me. How would you calibrate it again?” she said, humoring because obviously she was excited about whatever secret she was sitting on.

“Well, I would say a ‘1’ on the Dudly-to-Studly scale would be something quite underwhelming,” I said, tapping my finger to my peach-fuzz-free 11-year-old chin, deep in thought. “Maybe, say, like buying a new grill for cookouts this summer. I mean, that would be like polishing a turd. This sh*thole of an apartment doesn’t have much of yard or porch to even use it!”

I gestured around at the duplex we had been living in for the duration of my fifth grade year. While calling it a ‘sh*thole’ might have been a bit overly dramatic (and also something of an artistic liberty taken by the autobiographer), we–Mom, me, and my slightly older bro, 1SkinnyJ–all agreed that our domicile at the corner of Kellett & Kearney in good ol’ Springfield, MO wasn’t exactly the proverbial lap of luxury (even by rather low economically-challenged standards). Especially with the ass-hat neighbor who was apparently fine with chain-smoking in their apartment. What a ----- jerkoff.

“Okay,” Mom replied, “No need to use that language. But, anyways, what would you consider a ’10’ on this so-called Dudly-to-Studly scale?”

“Oh, that’s much easier,” I said perkily. “How about a day or two at Six Flags Saint Louis? Hint, hint…”

“Um…well, unfortunately, the surprise isn’t going to quite hit a 10 on your scale,” Mom said, trying to let me down easy.

“Damn.” I muttered. “Welp, a boy can dream, can’t he?”

“Well, if you really need a number from me, I would say maybe this would land around a 5 or 6, so just temper your expectations a bit there, Young Dreamer.”

“Alright. Cool. Well, when do we get to find out what this modest 5.5 surprise is?”

“I can’t say anything until I know for sure it’s a done deal, but I can give you a hint,” Mom said coyly.

“Well, don’t keep me waiting! What’s your clever hint?”

“Okay, you ready for this? It might actually involve buying a new grill.”

“Dammit, Mom, not again with the ----- grill…”

---

“Welp, it’s official!”

Mom came waltzing just a few days later into our sh*thole apartment waving some papers around in the air.

I looked up from a very intense game of Dr. Mario on my Game Boy.

“What’s official?”

“You know those nice apartments for, uh, ‘underfunded’ people like us over on Delaware Avenue?” she said, almost squealing with excitement.

“Yeah, they’re pretty sweet. But wasn’t there a long-ass wait list?”

“NOPE! No more wait list! WE’RE IN, BABY!”

“WHAT?!?” I about dropped my precious Game Boy. This was big news–huge!

“Yes, it’s TRUE–and we’re moving at the end of the month!”

“Ooooooooh…” I could barely form words. “Whaaaa?”

“I’ll give you a moment,” Mom said, clearly very pumped by my reaction.

“Oh, ah, well,” I said grasping for words. They finally came to me.

“Five-point-five?!? You thought this was a 5.5 on the D2S scale??? Yeah, maybe if you multiplied it by 2! These go to eleven!”

I was about to pass out. Like, you don’t even understand, bro. While we never truly had lived in a complete dump–save for the roach motel we stayed out for the first week when we moved to Springfield from Kansas, but that’s almost another story for another time–we never had lived anywhere that had been built before 1965. Every time I would stay over at rich friends house (and by “rich”, I really mean “at least marginally richer than us”), I would always fantasize about living somewhere with proper air conditioning and carpet that wasn’t slightly suspect. This boy can–and did–dream.

But in less than 10 days, that was all about to change: ‘twould not be a dream no longer. My lucky ass had somehow just won the Po’ Boy lottery…

---

“Man, moving to those nice apartments back in ’92 really was life-changing, wasn’t it?”

Roughly 30 years later, something had reminded me of the 2 wonderful years we had lived there, and I found myself reminiscing with my dear mother about the whole experience.

“Yeah, that’s an understatement. What was really nice was that we finally had room for our piano again, and you could start taking lessons again,” Mom added.

“You know, that whole ordeal…it was just so…surprising. Like, finding out that we had got into those apartments totally blind-sided me–in the best possible way, of course–‘cuz even I knew that when you applied for them in what? March of that year? That there was a sh*t-ton of people in line front of us. So for some reason I had the number in my head of 8-12 months to get to the top of the wait list…”

“Mmm-hmm,” Mom murmured, not bothering to interrupt the unexpected 3-decade old rabbit hole I was tripping into.

“Yeah…I hadn’t really thought about that since…well, basically since you told me the big news right before we moved there…hmmph…”

Mom continued to say little to nothing.

“It’s just that alot of people must have died in the 2 months in between. Like, it’s a statistical understatement to say that we got freakin’ lucky!”

As I finally came out of my halcyon days daze, I realized that mom had been oddly silent this whole time.

“What? Why are you looking at me with that half-smirk on your face?”

“Um…yeah, I guess one could call it ‘luck’,” she said somewhat cryptically.

“Uhhh…what are you talking about?” I could tell that she knew more than she was letting on, but I was still clueless.

“Well, let’s just say it wasn’t a coincidence that we got into those apartments so freakishly quickly…”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, just out with it already!”

“Well, I don’t think you ever met her, but the woman who handled all the applications? Real nice lady. She, uh, ‘fast-tracked’ our application to the front of the line…past many other qualified and deserving applicants, who, shall we say, didn’t need nearly as much sunscreen as we do.”

“Wait, WHAT?!?”

“Yeah…I found out from our mutual friend that not too long after we got into the apartments on Delaware that she got fired for it. I’m not sure if we we’re the only white folk she hooked up, though I’m sure there had to have been plenty of other poor white families mysteriously appearing in all the nicer subsidized housing in statistically disproportionate numbers.”

“Holy sh*t, Mother…”

I was trying to wrap my head around that bomb of a pseudo-family secret that had just been dropped on my head.

“It all makes so much sense now…

---

The point of the story, kids, is that White Jesus really does answer your prayers.

Well, either that or systemically-ingrained socioeconomic-agnositic privilege for pale people all across the pale spectrum is, unlike White Jesus, actually real…

---

Content created on: 17/18 May 2025 (Sat/Sun…and yes, I missed my deadline by a week and just backdated this post instead.)

6 Min Read

So you think you’ve gotten away with pulling off the ultimate dad joke?

But it turns out that is too soon that you have spoke…

---

“We’re reaching out to let you know that your North Carolina DMV payment has been refunded.”

I sat and stared at my computer screen, squinting as I re-read the cryptic email from my local government.

“The hell is going on here?” I muttered to myself. “I didn’t request any refund.”

You know that feeling you get when your best-laid plans start to waver before heading completely south? That feeling started to creep through my body, first emanating from the pit of my stomach, slowly reaching out its tendrils in every direction until had permeated my bones through and through.

It didn’t help that this email was incredibly–nay, impressively–uninformative. That is literally all the direct communication that it contained, along with payment information and the obligatory ‘it may take up to 14 business days to see the refund in your account’ nonsense.

But even before I sifted through the few clues I did have, I knew ----- well what transaction was being cancelled without my consent–and of course, once I saw the amount of money coming back my way, my worst fears were confirmed.

Now, if there was ever a time that I actually very much so desperately wanted the Department of Motor Vehicles to keep my $33.56, this was it. After all, how often in life does one get the opportunity to buy a small piece of true happiness for less than the price of 5 trips to Dunkin’ Donuts?¹Well, four trips when I was able to be a little looser with my purse strings and I would get a large oat milk latte along with my order of hash browns. Nowadays I make my own coffee at home and get a humble order of 3 donut holes instead of the latte.

But was I going to take this injustice lying down? Heck no! I was going to fight for my underly-ambitious and totally reasonable version of the fabled American Dream.

Or at least gently request more details, in case this was just a wacky and easily mitigated mix-up.

So I cracked my knuckles, looked up the DMV’s online customer service options–I already learned my lesson that DMV phone support is a smaller version of hell–and composed a restrained and gracious inquiry:

Sent By: [redacted]

Date/Time: 9/25/2024 11:15:46 AM

Comment:

Hello,
I recently ordered a personalized plate, but have since received notice that my payment had been refunded. I was wondering what the situation was, if you could look into it for me.

Many thanks,
Me (Lloyd P. Fletcher)

Please see below relevant information:

[redacted]

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” I reassured myself, “We’ll have this sorted out in a satisfactory manner in no time. Probably. Maybe…”

---

“Oh, wow, they got back to me quick. That must be a good sign, right?” I internally noted when I got notification of a response from the DMV less than hour late.

Sent By: Contact Us Administrator

Date/Time: 9/25/2024 11:49:51 AM

Comment:

Good Morning,
Since YETI is a brand mark, your plate rejected but I deleted reservation and you can reapply again.
Thanks,
Special Plates

“Rejected?!?” I seethed through my teeth at my computer screen.

Oooh, my blood really got boiling upon reading the asinine–and, quite frankly, legally flimsy–reason for my personalized plate request being denied!

And they sign off with a curt, ‘thanks for playing; ----- you, please try again’?!? Oh, boy, had they poked the wrong daddy bear.²Um…okay…that sounds like something totally different when I go back and read that out loud. Surely you know that I mean it in the sense of Momma Bear’s male counterpart, and not something more depraved and indulgent from the part of society that regularly celebrates those who identify as a ‘daddy’ or a ‘bear’ or both.

So I stood up just so I could sit back down again with dramatic affect, crack my knuckles, and pound out a thorough response to this utter ----- nonsense.

I mean, ‘YETI is trademarked, so you can’t use any hint of it’? You gotta be ----- kidding me…

---

“Let’s see what those a-holes have to say in response this!” I said with justified indignation and righteous anger as I hit send on a response that would make any receipt-bringing Karen proud (nevermind how much of my precious workday it ate up–this was war):

Sent By: [redacted]

Date/Time: 9/25/2024 1:00:12 PM

Comment:

I request that you reconsider this decision:
Yeti is another name for bigfoot, which has been around long before the brand, and should not be grounds for precluding my request.

Further, there is nothing of the sort in the guidelines that this request conflicts with. To quote the document found at https://connect.ncdot.gov/business/dmv/dmv%20documents/nc%20title%20manual.pdf:

“Not Allowed:
Words or letter combinations which might carry connotations offensive to good taste and decency.
Any combination of letters or numerals that conflict with the numbering system adopted by the North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles.“

I chose “Not Yeti” because we have a big white van, with several BigFoot stickers on it. So the (1st) joke is that, despite the van being white, we’re referring to BigFoot instead of the Abominable Snowman (which, sadly, does not fit on a license plate).

The second reason for Not Yeti, is in reference to the age old question, “Are we there yet?” To which a dad driving his family to a National Forest would say, “Not Yeti!”

Also, in general its a reference to one of the main ways I encourage my wife to pursue her dreams of being an artist and writer, i.e. Her: “I’m not a writer”. Me (encouragingly): “Just Not Yet[i]!”

Of course my first dream was to change the plates on my regular silver sedan to simply and wittily “Yeti?” but that wasn’t available, leading me to believe somebody was allowed to have it.

Thank you for giving this matter the nuanced thought it’s worthy of.

–You know my name.

I mean, of course I was maybe just a little bit pissed off–I shouldn’t have to write a court-worthy legal document just to get them to stop sucking up to snowflake corporations like, uh, well whatever cabal of cowards owns the IP associated with those over-rated YETI coolers. It’s not like they’re special or anything–Pfft! It’s just an Igloo spray-painted white with a high-powered marketing department to convince the bourgeois class that they’re a must-have item for your stupid trip to the lake…

---

“Ah, another speedy reply, I see! Let’s see what these butt-clowns have to say for themselves now!” I did declare upon receiving another notification that there was a new response to my latest comment.

Sent By: Contact Us Administrator

Date/Time: 9/25/2024 1:51:41 PM

Comment:

Mr. [redacted],
If you see my previous email, you can reapply for requested text NOTYETI since you already received your refund.
Thanks,
Special Plates

A meek “oh.” was about all I could muster in response to this latest development.

Welp, folks, it looks we have a regular ‘good news/bad news’ situation on our hands here: the good news is that my dream of being able to drive around and regularly make random roadsters crack a wry grin and say, ‘Mmm…clever…’ had found new life.

The bad news is that I had just got done ripping this faceless underpaid civil servant a new bunghole over nothing.

“Well, sh*t.” I said to myself begrudgingly. “Guess it’s time for an apology comment…”

Sent By: [redacted]

Date/Time: 9/25/2024 1:55:26 PM

Comment:

Hi there,
I misunderstood what you meant when you said “your plate rejected but I deleted reservation and you can reapply again.”

I thought you meant that the NOTYETI request was removed so I could apply for a different personalized plate, but I think I see what you mean now.

So if I do re-apply for NOTYETI, you’re saying that it won’t get automatically rejected again?

I tried that, but currently the system is now showing that NOTYETI is not available…do I have to wait a certain amount of time for the system to release back into the available pool?

Thanks!

–LPF

*a few moments later..*

Sent By: Contact Us Administrator

Date/Time: 9/25/2024 2:28:41 PM Comment:

No Sir,
Can you please try it one more time? Thanks,

*a few more, pleasantly surprisingly successful moments later*

Sent By: [redacted]

Date/Time: 9/25/2024 2:58:23 PM

Comment:

Okay, it looks like it worked this time.

Thanks so much, and I hope you enjoyed my unnecessary debate points why I thought it should be allowed, lol.

—LPF

Despite all the completely avoidable drama, it was yet about one very long month later when I was finally able surprise my family with the honor of cruising around in the wittiest white mini-van in all of [redacted] County, [redacted] Carolina.

(Spoiler alert: they ----- loved it…)

---

“Holy ----- shiessehauffen!”

‘Twas but only a week or so ago when I about drove off the road upon seeing the vehicle that was in front of me before my very eyes:

In case you’re having a hard time making out what it says, it says exactly what you’re thinking: ‘YETI’.

“No waaaaaay, dude!” I yelled aloud. “I gotta get in the other lane next to my brethren and totally trip out some random road-goers when they see us side-by-side!”

I didn’t know how many miles long my window of opportunity would be, so I flipped on my turn-signal, hit the gas pedal, and suavely slid into the left lane like a man on a mission.

I was about to pull up even with YETI, when my wildest dreams came crashing down all around me: I was in our other car.

And while it, too, had specialized text that had broken the DMV’s system a few years ago, it was sadly, most definitely, not NOTYETI…

---

Content created on: 12 April 2025 (Saturday)