The Point of the Story

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Author: BJ (Page 1 of 32)

Never Again Shall We Worry About The Great Text-Replacement Theory

21 April 2024 / / 0 Comments
5 Min Read

It was the greatest prank–hah! I summed it up in less than 2 sentences!

But I bragged about it, and now? Oh the never-ending consequences…

“Oh, crap. Not again!”

Just a few weeks ago, I had regaled y’all with one of the best pranks I’ve ever come up with, The Great Text Replacement Theory. That was pretty good, right?

And of course I followed that up with how Karma gave me a proper swift kick in the ass a few years later when my own progeny weaponized my greatest creation against me.

If you haven’t read all about those shenanigans, go ahead and take a quick minute or two to follow the links above and catch up. As always, I’ll patiently wait for you to absorb the proper context for what comes next…

…

…

…

Alright, ya back and well informed? Great! Let’s get on with the show then.

So, the problem is, you see, that in order to visually demonstrate how I pulled the stunt off, I had to go back and change the settings on my phone in the same manner I had done to my dear mother’s phone.

“So…what’s the problem with that?” you may be asking no one in particular.

Well–fun fact–the time that I typically find myself composing these masterpieces (such as the one you’re reading now) is around 1 am on a Saturday night/Sunday morning, and once I’ve put the finishing touches on it–witty and optimized title with my trademark cadence, stupid little graphic with googly eyes and my caricaturized luscious lips, opening blurb comprised of two rhyming lines and ending with an ellipsis, and similarly structured FaceBook promo ending with aforementioned title1This is a dead-on accurate description of my workflow once I’ve finished writing the main text–and takes up at least half of my time invested in each post.–I’m dead-ass tired and just want to pass out in bed.

Therefore, you can imagine how I might forget to, um…”undo” any changes that I might have made in the process of researching and producing the latest post.

And it’s always fun to discover such minor oversights well after it’s too late.

For example, the day after dropping the f-bomb post, I had to go pick up my dear ol’ mom from my sister’s, where she had been enjoying Spring Break. Naturally, with it being Spring Break and what-not, she went buck-wild…and somehow ended up with 75 pounds of salt that she needed to transport home. Seriously…it’s best not to ask any follow-up questions about that situation.

Anyways, I get this text from Mama that morning:

As you can see, I was well-justified in exclaiming aloud to myself, “Oh, crap! Not again!” It seems it’s always at the most inconvenient times, like going to pickup my online grocery order, when I realize that I’ve once again forgotten to dispose of the deceased sex workers in my trunk.

…

Just kidding. The ‘again’ is of course referring to having my ‘Xo’ involuntarily replaced a split microsecond before sending an otherwise clean and sincere text to my momma.

So what else could I do? I had to go into Cleaneup Mode:

Hopefully, she would naturally understand my predicament and automatically censor out my potty-words as she read the errant text. Or maybe not…

Welp, there’s not really much more profuse apologizing one can do–I mean, I’ve included the pinnacle of digital apologies: the Double Embarassed Emoji Face. What else could be expected of a son?

Oh, yeah, I guess I better reassure her that there wouldn’t be any hookers taking up her precious salt cargo space:

Having put that to bed, I promptly went and reverted my settings so that I would never accidentally cuss at my mother in my texts again…

“Oh, crap. Not again!”

Sunday morning was not the time to be making such an unpleasant discover.

A few good weeks after the previously described (and corrected) snafu, Dear Mother had absconded off to church with our younger daughter when this message from her pops up on my laptop’s Message app:

Honestly, I prefer when I get messages from other Apple users when I’m on my laptop; it’s just so much easier to type out a reply on a keyboard rather than my tiny little phone screen, amiright? Lemme just tap out a reply lickity-split and hit send!

EGADS! Unfortunately, I was little too lickity on that split and didn’t catch that tiny text at the end before I hit “send”. That’s right: on my laptop, the whole “There’s-no-better-way-to-say-Xo-than-oh-holy-f**k!” setting somehow persisted, though I had clearly turned that off on my phone (which is where I had turned it on in the first place!). And yes, I of course hit send before realizing what was happening.

Welp…time to go into full-on recover mode. Fortunately (maybe), I discovered that I could right-click and choose to “unsend” the message:

I could only pray to the Southern Baptist gods that that foul message got properly aborted before she had the chance to read it while sitting in the house of the Lord…

“Oh, crap. Not again!”

Yes, again. And the worst part is that this just happened. That’s right, in the middle of composing this very missive, I get this message–on my laptop, of course–from my maternal figure in regards to dropping off my elder daughter off at a friend’s house:

Good lord, will I ever learn my lesson? (For the record, I still can’t find any settings on my laptop where this little booger might be lurking about).

Well, at least I’ve learned that if I’m quick enough, I can unsend the message! As you can see, I corrected my mistake:

Wait–again?!? Jeez, I guess there’s only one phrase that’s appropriate for this situation: “Xo”.

(And by ‘Xo’, I mean…well, you know what I mean, wink wink…)

Content created on: 19 April 2024 (Friday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Remember, Kids, The Best Practical Jokes Aren’t Just For Old Folks

7 April 2024 / / 0 Comments
5 Min Read

One might argue that all the best pranks indubitably involve, well, poo.

But it’s not nearly as funny when that sh*t is pulled on you…

“Hey, it’s getting close to dinner time, why don’t you text your mom and let her know what to fix for our babies?” My Beautiful Bride asked me, just as she had done a million other times when we had gone out and about later in the day while leaving our daughters at home with Grandma.

“Man oh man, this half-assed search for a new mini-van has drained the life out of me–I ain’t got no energy left for such decisions. How about corn dogs? Simple enough, right?” I lazily suggested.

“Good enough for me,” she replied. “You better send off that text before you forget though.”

I was so exhausted that I barely had enough in me to tap out the most basic of messages.

“You…can…fix…the..girls…corndogs…for…dinner….Thanks,” I mumbled along with the tapping of my fingers.

“Oh wait! I better sign off so she knows it’s really me and not someone who has kidnapped us and is just trying to lull her into thinking everything is alright on our end: ‘Xo’…and done!” I declared as I put the finishing touches on my masterpiece of a matriarchal missive.

Meanwhile, my life partner just stared straight ahead as she diligently drove us to the last car lot on our list before it closed for the day.

I sat there for a full 5 seconds trying to figure out why my subconscious was screaming at me that something was amiss.

“Wait, what?!? What did I just text my mom?!?”

I looked up from my phone to see My Beautiful Bride still looking straight ahead but desperately trying not to laugh.

l pulled my phone back out of my pocket and quickly flipped to my messages to find this:

“Fartypants?!? Why would I say such a horrible thing to my dear mother?? Especially since this beloved woman, as far as I know, never broke wind once before she was 50. (And those are laurels that no one is ever guaranteed to be able to rest upon in their golden years.)” I demurred in horror.

I turned to the person I was supposedly supposed to trust more than anyone else in the world.

“What do you know about this?? Hmm?? First, all my socks go missing out of my sock drawer this morning, then somehow the Saran Wrap I put on the toilet in the girls’ bathroom mysteriously goes AWOL before anyone used it, and now this?” I didn’t explicitly make any allegations, but I sure implied the hell out of them.

“Huh? Is something wrong? What are you going on about over there?” my personal Brutus did a poor job of feigning ignorance.

“My April Fool’s prank war with our older child has been abnormally tilted in her favor all day–methinks there’s a traitor–a spy! A mole!–in our midst!” I said as I glared at the Benedict Arnold in the car with me. “And let’s see…’Fartypants’? Oh, that’s definitely the work of a 10-year-old–but only you knew the fully story of the ultimate Oh Holy ----- prank I pulled on Mom a few years ago!”

My future first-wife howled in laughter and had to pull the car over because she couldn’t safely drive with all the tears of delight streaming down her face.

“Dammit, now I have to fix this!” I said as I tapped out an explanation to my poor mother.

“Oh, sh*t…literally! You just couldn’t stop at replacing ‘Xo’ with ‘Fartypants’? You had to go and let the kid have it automatically replace ‘and’ with ‘poopoo’? I caught it in time in the first text to Mom, but damned if it didn’t bite my ass on the second one!”

“What the crap are you talking about, Willis?” she quipped, obviously unable to resist the siren call of an excrement-based pun. “Welp! Looks like we’re here at the Toyota place–we better go look at vans we can’t afford before they shut their doors!”

I just shook my dang head in disgust as I got out of the car.

“I’ll deal with all y’all’s foolishness later…”

“We probably should get some food to-go for your mom–especially after you called her Fartypants,” snickered the butthead I was stuck with for the evening.

I sighed.

“Yes, we should show her some thanks for spending her Saturday afternoon with our little rascals. I’ll text her the menu and see what she wants.”

I face-palmed myself.

“Agggggh! Dammit I did it again!”

And Mom wasn’t slow to point that out.

To be fair to her though, this one was kinda on me for either not changing or omitting it.

But it was time to move on from all this non-sense. I was temporarily pausing my vegan moral code for some spit-roasted South American bird, and I by golly, I was going to focus on enjoying it!

I was so intent on savoring the moment, in fact, that I pulled the dagger out of my back, sat down at a restaurant table with the woman who had put it there, and acted like it had never happened. With that temporarily suspended disbelief, I truly felt like I was living in one of those “good food, good drink, good company” moments (also known as an “Olive Garden commercial”).

Unfortunately, we got so caught up in the moment that we lost track of time, necessitating me to send a quick text to our child care to let them know we would be late:

The point of the story is…you know, you should really be careful how you treat your parents. You’re just a ----- fool if you don’t think Laws of Karma won’t apply to you: everyone and their brother knows that your kids are bound to treat you in all the ways you exasperated your own parents.

No matter how clever you think you are, Fartypants…

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

How To Fool Your Mom Into Dropping Ye Old F-Bomb

31 March 2024 / / 0 Comments
4 Min Read

Have you ever caught yourself daydreaming about your clean-cut mom or dad suddenly cussing like a sailor?

Then today’s your lucky day, sir…

“Are you sick and tired of waiting around for your prim and proper elderly parent to start cussing? Well, today’s your lucky day…”

Yes, I know it sounds like the beginning of your archetypical 90’s late-night infomercial, but unlike those scams, you’ll see soon enough that I’ll actually deliver on my promises.

You see, if you’re anything like me, you can relate to the adult children in this Onion news article, in which their mother seems to have taken up swearing in her elderly years. I remember reading this article back in the day and thinking to myself, “Hmmm…maybe it’s possible that one day my mother will drop a cuss word or two. That would be a decent consolation prize, seeing as how getting her intoxicated is pretty much out of the question.”

Now, this thought was all mirthful and cheeky until it was pointed out to me–by my mom, nonetheless–that this is actually quite common…in loved ones suffering from dementia.

*gulp!*

Umm…on second thought, maybe having a neophyte cussing mother wouldn’t be the unexpected delight that I had always dreamt it to be. And if you, Dear Reader, have any type of soul at all, you, too, will agree that we need a Plan B…

This April Fool’s Day, have I got just the prank for which you’ve been waiting most of your adult life!

Now, this prank is not for everybody, but that is because of logistics and not morality or taste in humor or any nonsense like that. This, my friend, is objectively funny, guaranteed. Let’s review the key ingredients needed to successfully pull this off:

  • A parent with an iPhone. This might work for other phones, but that exercise is left to the reader.
  • A parent who uses that phone to text. They need to text, and not just text you–that’s not nearly as fun.
  • Ideally, they end all their texts with a ‘sign-off’ phrase. In absence of this, other common phrases can be substituted.
  • Access to said phone. Sadly, this requires geographic proximity to your target–er, I mean ‘parent’. Also, if you don’t know their PIN, you better get on figuring out how to acquire that info. Alternatively, you might be able to unlock their phone with FaceID while they sleep.

Okay, so hopefully you’ve been able to go ‘check…check…check…CHECK!” right on down that list. Perhaps, though, you got a little stuck on the 3rd item, the ‘sign-off’ phrase. It could be something as basic as, ‘Love, your dad’ or (if you’re extremely lucky) ‘In Christ’. In my case…well, I’ll let you take a look at this recent sample conversation with my dear mum:

Did you perhaps notice anything overly consistent about that conversation? Ding ding ding! That is correct: every thought must be ended with ‘Xo’:

Fun fact: the ‘Xo’ also serves as a way to tell whether the other is in distress and/or a kidnapper or other bad actor has the phone and sending the texts: “If there’s no ‘Xo’, then we’re calling the po-po!”

Anyways, so now that you understand what kind of common and recurring phrase we’re after–ideally tacked onto the end of their texts–we can now proceed to fulfilling our profane April Fool’s fantasy.

Step One: After successfully stealing a few moments with the phone and getting into it, go to Settings.

Step Two: Tap on the General sub-menu.

Step Three: Tap on Keyboard.

Step Four: Go to Text Replacement.

Step Five: Tap on the ‘+’ icon to add a new entry.

Step Six: In the Shortcut field, type their beloved sign-off phrase, or any other bit of text you want to auto-magically turn in to potty words. In the Phrase field, type the profanity-laden phrase of your choice. Feel free to be as subtle or as offensive as you desire. In my case, I was inspired by the ‘o’ in ‘Xo’, and felt that it naturally lent itself to ‘Oh, holy fuck!’

Step Seven: Be sure to hit Save, exit out of the Settings app, and return the phone to its original location.

Step Eight: Sit back and enjoy the show! Here’s an example of what might transpire between your parent, and say, another one of your siblings (note: this is a dramatic recreation, as sadly, the original texts have long been deleted for obvious reasons):

You get the idea.

Anyways, the point of the story is:

Content created on: 29/30 March 2024 (Fri/Sat)

Never Trust An Innovative Tool Made By A Damned Fool

24 March 2024 / / 0 Comments
3 Min Read

Thinking of helping ol’ Dim-Witted Daryl fudge on his geography test? Don’t be such a dumbass!

Don’t forget: he’s also really bad at math…..

“Dude, my dude! Let me sit next to you during the geography test, and, uh, ‘borrow’ some of your answers.”

I looked at my eighth grade classmate Daryl with wary eyes.

“Hey man,” I said, “I know you would love to get out of taking freshman geography next year, but if I let you cheat off of me during this opt-out test, they’re bound to get suspicious when we turn in identical answers. And then I could end up having to waste my precious freshman time on stuff I already know because of your dumb ass.”

In fairness, Daryl wasn’t a complete and utter dumbass, but he probably would actually benefit from taking freshman geography. And, besides, he was stretching the truth a little bit when he called me “my dude”–we were solid acquaintances, but actually hang-out-level friends? I think not. And I don’t put my academic career on the line for somebody I’ve never spent a moment with outside of the walls of Ocean View Junior High (or the school the buses that serviced such a fine academic institution).

“Nah, amigo, I wouldn’t dare think of asking you to take such risks on my behalf. But that’s okay, I got a fool-proof plan: I’ll change enough of them so as to not raise any red flags,” he assured me.

I sighed a heavy sigh.

“What the hell, I’ll throw a bone. Maybe at least that’ll be one less class that you’ll inevitably flunk out of…”

“What’s that?” Daryl hadn’t quite caught my snarky under-my-breath comment.

“Ummm…nothing. Anyways, at least give me plausible deniability. You can sit next to me during the test, but what you do with your beady little eyes is up to you. I know nothing of this stupid little scheme of yours, and this conversation never happened.”

“Aww, bro, you’re the best! I promise I won’t funk this up…”

“Well, if I don’t end up moving back to Kansas for high school, it looks like I at least won’t have to take the geography class mandated by the State of California for all you other mortals–er, I mean ‘freshman’, hehe,” said somebody that most definitely wasn’t Daryl.

“Daryl,” continued this same non-Daryl person, “how did your plan work out?”

Daryl peeked at the his results from the test for the first time, then looked up at me with eyes that were waaaay sadder than the occasion could ever possibly call for.

“They’re putting me in Remedial Geography. I won’t even be taking regular freshman geography.”

I about choked on the gum I was illicitly chewing in class.

“Damn, dude, exactly how many of my answers did you end up changing?”

“I don’t know, maybe 10 or 15?”

“What the actual funk, man? There were only 25 questions on the test! You mean to tell me your big plan to get out of freshman geography was to take 40% to 60% of the answers that were almost for sure right–I mean, we’re talking about me here–and then change them to be almost for sure wrong?”

I planted my face firmly in my hand.

“Yeah, well it worked didn’t it? No one ever suspected us of cheating, did they?” he somehow thought he was defending his plan.

“Dude it worked too well, and in all the wrong ways. Though technically, you did get out of freshman geography, so I dunno, maybe I’m unknowingly standing in the presence of a genius…”

I stared at Daryl for good half a minute as he stared back at me blankly.

“Nope, that’s definitely not the case. Welp, I think I’ll go have a talk with Principal Anderson. She desperately needs to pass on the message to the high school to put you in remedial math as well. No offense, man, but you might be as dumb as a rock.”

“So? What’s your point?”

“The point of my story is that normally most people cheat to gain an advantage, but yet somehow you defied all odds and found a way to cheat such that you’re almost guaranteed to lose. I’m honestly amazed by your ability to elevate the art of dumbassery.”

“Still not following…”

Oh, poor Daryl, bless his soul.

“Dude, if you would have just taken the test all on your own, you probably would at least be placed in regular freshman geography–heck, you would have had a non-zero chance of actually getting it out of it all together!”

“Whatever you say, man.”

“Well, at I hope you at least learned a couple of important life lessons: first, who the hell cheats on geography?!? If you ever thinking to yourself ‘maybe I should cheat on my geography test…’ then you probably should seek immediate mental help. And, second, of course is the obvious: if you’re going to cheat, Daryl, cheat to win, man, cheat to win…”

Content created on: 23/24 March 2024 (Sat/Sun)

Your Homeboy’s Little Hack For Getting That Hi-Q Edge Back

10 March 2024 / / 1 Comment
6 Min Read

You swear you weren’t meaning to get a leg up on the competition.

But now you gotta fix the situation without drawing too much attention…

“Hello, old man! Hi there, old woman!” I said in my head as I tipped my proverbial hat to the elderly couple sitting at the table at the front of the relatively small room. “Don’t mind me,” I said aloud. “I’m just killing time until my old teammates show up for their turn.”

Back in December of ’99 I was a freshman in college, so I was still tight with my younger homies from the Rolla High School Scholars’ Bowl team–especially Jerome1Okay, so his real name is Jeremy–and yes, it’s true, I’m pretty much half-assing this whole ‘protecting the innocent’ schtick., the current senior and captain of the team. So when they traveled to Wichita right before Christmas break to try out for Hi-Q, you bet your sweet ass I hopped in ye’ olde Taurus SHO and drove the 2 hours from my college town to show them my full-throated support.

And maybe, just maybe, relive my glory days just a well bit. Have I ever mentioned that during my time at RHS I was a 3-time State Champion, was on the only Rolla team to take first place at every tournament in a season,2Unless the 2023 tea managed to accomplish this feat… and made the Sante Fe Trail All-League all 4 years of my career (sorta)? What? No, I haven’t? *stifles laugh*

Anyways…sorry, I forgot to explain what Hi-Q was…it was basically a Jeopardy-style tournament for 16 of the finest academic teams in Kansas. This was different than our regular quiz bowl business in two respects: first, it was televised. Sure, it may have came on at 7 am on Sunday mornings, but it was televised nonetheless. And secondly, they held open tryouts and invited any and all high schools to send a team, regardless of size.

Sure, Rolla could smack around other Division 1A schools all day long. When we would pick on someone our own size–specifically schools with an entire Freshman-to-Senior student body of 69 students or less–it was not uncommon for us to p*mp slap up ’em up side the cranium. Being a big fish in a little pond is nothing particularly special. But Hi-Q? That was our chance to take down some of the biggest dogs in the state. The year before I started high school, the Rolla team got runner-up, and ever since then the following iterations had been chasing that achievement…but sadly, the furthest any team I was on only made it to the second round. Even though I had never been able to take care of unfinished business, I would have been almost equally as content to vicariously bask in any victories Jerome, et al. might attain at this year’s Hi-Q. I may have not been officially on the team that year, but I definitely was full-fledged member in spirit.

And apparently I was a little over-eager, as I had showed up to the Community College that was hosting the tryouts for the morning session, unaware that Rolla wasn’t due to give it a whirl until the afternoon session.

“Ah, what the hell, I might as well see what kinds of questions they’re asking this year,” I muttered to myself as I sat down to watch some random school do their best to field the set of 50 or so morning-session questions this particular elderly couple was about to lob at ’em. Unlike regular competition, the tryouts only featured a single team at a time in a room with two moderators–and the top 16 scores throughout the day got the privilege of partaking in the real tournament held at a later date.

“Eh, not too many of us here in the audience,” I noted as I looked around to see what appeared to be a total of 6 or 7 other random-school supporters sitting with me. “Not that it matters…”

“Oh, I’ve been here since 9 am. Where the ----- have you slackers been?” I razzed Jerome when they finally showed up. “In fact, I sat in on one of the morning tryouts…y’know trying to get a feel for what kind of questions are on the docket this year.”

“No sh*t? So what was your take?” Jerome replied. “Was it all stuff we know like the back of our hands? Or was it obscure, fancy big-city type of stuff we can expect people from Wichita to come up with?”

It was pretty clear that he was carrying on the tradition of carrying a small-school chip on his shoulder.

“Mostly stuff that we practice regularly, and you better get those questions right lest I beat yo’ ass otherwise, I simultaneously assured and threatened him.

“That’s good to hear, good to hear…”

“Oh But there were at least 2 or 3 that I had never heard before today.”

“Oh, yeah?” Jerome looked at me inquisitively. “Such as?”

“Well, since you’ll get a totally different set of questions in the afternoon session, you might as well know that Margery Williams wrote The Velveteen Rabbit,” I intimated freely.

“Really? I never had a clue who had written that children’s classic. Heck, I barely recognize the name of that book, now that you mention it.”

“Yeah, I know right? What kind of snooty left-coast question is that? Anyways, um, lemme see. Here’s a few other bits of trivia I picked up today. Did you know that…?”

“Good afternoon, Ma’am. Good afternoon, Sir,” I greeted the elderly couple as nonchalantly as I could manage.

I turned to Jerome right before I took my not-so-randomly chosen seat.

“What the ----- are they doing here?” I half-joked through gritted teeth.

“Who?” he asked with a confused look on his face.

“This old couple, man…ha, ha…what a coincidence: this is the same room I was in earlier today. With the same elderly man and woman as moderators, too.”
“Hah. That’s mirthful,” Jeremy flirted with patronizing me. “Now if you excuse me, I gots me a Hi-Q to qualify for…

“Attaboy! Go get ’em, Tiger!” I straight-up patronized him back.

We all took our seats and let the proceedings get under way. I, for one, was eager to see what the set of afternoon session questions looked like.

About 3 questions in, an internal monologue started up in my head.

“Hmm…why am I getting a sense of deja vu? Ah! Maybe it’s because the answer to this question is…”

Right about then Jerome buzzed in. In unison, we said, “The movie Groundhog Day.”

Ah, yes, already it was the classic deja-vu-themed point of cultural reference.

“Wait a minute, now this next question seems oddly…familiar,” I thought to myself about Q #4. “That’s probably because the question asked what the term was for a vampire’s assistant. So that makes sense.”

Question Five was a different story altogether.

“What British author is best known for her work…” the elderly woman paused dramatically, “The Velveteen Rabbit?”

Jeremy looked back at me chuckling in mild disbelief with a look that clearly said “You gotta be ----- kidding me!”

I kinda shrugged back at him, with the expression on my face indubitably communicating, “How was I supposed to know they were going to ask the exact same set of questions during both sessions?!?”

To which he silently replied, “Well, I can’t unknow anything I may or may not have learned in the 30 minutes before I entered this room…”

“Wait!” I mentally reached out to him like Nic Cage trying to retrieve a loose ball of bio-toxins in the movie The Rock. “Don’t answer that! That contraband information can be traced directly back to me!”

But it was too late; he had already buzzed in.

“Margery Williams…I suppose,” he said, doing his best to pretend that this was foreknown factoid for him.

He looked back at me with something of a sheepish grin, implying “What’s a guy to do?”

I just planted my face in my palm, though I quickly looked back up at him with piercing eyes in order to send him a very clear message: “We’re in this together now, you cheating mother fucker.”

He kinda nodded. “We take this to our graves?” he said only with his eyes.

I nodded back. “To our graves.”

He then looked at the elderly couple then back to me. “And the eyewitnesses?” This time there was a certain sadness in his eyes.

We were long past the point of no return by now: we were no longer the two upstanding citizens that had walked into that room. I wiped a nascent tear from my eye–they were a precious and kind old couple, after all–and steeled my resolve.

With the slightest of nods and the gaze of a man who no longer had a soul, I telegraphed to Jerome those fateful words:

“To their graves as well…”

Which was a real shame, seeing as how, despite our bumbling cheating scheme and the ensuing cover-up, in the end Rolla didn’t even qualif for Hi-Q that year…

Content created on: 9/10 March 2024 (Sat/Sun)

Footnotes & References:[+]

The Confidential Tale Of The Know It All Going To Hell

25 February 2024 / / 0 Comments
6 Min Read

Just cuz somebody is a real smarty-pants doesn’t mean they don’t make dumb decisions on occasion.

And, no, I’m not returning my medal, man…

“And in fourth place…”

I held my breath. There were only five spots on the All-League team, and three out of my four teammates already had had their names called. I was but a lowly freshman, and I could merely hope to land a spot behind Ryan, the junior on our team, who was still aspiring to make the cut himself.

“…well, it looks like we have a three-way tie! All earning the honors as co-fourth-seats on the team are Ryan H. and BJ A. from Rolla High School (no surprise there), and Hanston High School’s very own, Local Kid! Come on up and get your medals–you earned them!”

I was slightly in shock. As a freshman, not only had I pulled it off, but I tied with the big-headed junior on our team!

The three of us walked to the front of the lunch room where the awards ceremony was being held. It didn’t take much more than that short walk for us whiz kids to quickly realize that the math didn’t add up here.

“Uh…I’m sorry, Local Kid, but we’ll have to send you your fourth place medal later in the mail,” the Hanston principal, who was emceeing the show, looked as compassionately at his student as he could, hoping not to kill the buzz of the dude’s modest victory…

Back in the day when I was attending Rolla High School, I had the great pleasure of partaking in the one activity in which our humble little school from Kansas was consistently a powerhouse: Scholars’ Bowl (aka Quiz Bowl, aka Jeopardy Light, etc). ‘Twas my freshman year, and at the time I was the runt of the proverbial litter, usually just relegated to watching the four upperclassfolk on my team kick intellectual ass. If I was lucky, I would get to sub in a late round once the tournament was already well in hand and I couldn’t possibly screw us over.

But at long last, here at the Santa Fe Trail League tournament–hosted by perennial football rival and now-defunct Hanston High School–I finally had the chance to prove myself and give the world a glimpse of the 100% Grade-A Quiz Bowl stud that would soon rise to state-wide domination over the next 3 years. Making the All-League Quiz Bowl team was an honor that any scholar could attain strictly on their own merits, even if they had 4 other mental dead-weights dragging them down.

Conversely, even if your other 4 teammates were frickin’ brainiacs–as was my case–you had to punch your own dang ticket onto the team.

And unlike most other Scholar Bowl activities which were oral-based and relied on one having speedy reaction times, admission into the exclusive All-League team featured a written test as it’s bouncer. Halfway through the tournament, the academic administrators running the show would herd all 35 or so of us youths into the Hanston lunch room and let us sit wherever we wanted. It should go without saying that they would precede to hand out pencils and sheets with roughly 20-30 questions,1The typical quiz bowl round consisted of 16 questions, so maybe that’s how many questions were on the test…but it seems like they should have given us more in that situation. Hell, I don’t remember. It’s been almost 30 years! set a timer for 15 minutes or so, and let us go to town.

Apparently, it was just the right conditions for my species to thrive…

“Ah, crap, a trigonometry question!” I muttered under my breath. “I won’t take trig until next year…I have no chance of getting this one right.”

Up until that point on the written test, I had been doing fairly well, but for some reason, not being able to throw out a wild guess and thus having a non-zero chance of getting this one right seemed to stick in my craw. It was only one of many questions, so I should have just counted my losses and moved on, right?

Wrong.

I simply could not bear the horror of that lone blank spot on my paper staring back at me.

I looked up from my test and locked eyes with David, the sophomore on our team and young man of noble character, who was sitting two feet away from me on the adjacent side of the lunch table. Yes, you heard me right–the dumbasses running the show haphazardly let us all sit together as a team. With my eyes, I drew his attention to the sad little empty spot on my sheet.

“I got you covered, my man,” he replied only with his eyes, as he slightly angled his answers just enough so I could see his chicken scratch scrawled at the bottom of the page.

“Tangent!” I proclaimed in my head as if I had just had an epiphany. “Hah! I knew it was something I would have never guessed on account of my complete lack of acquaintance with the topic of trigonometry. But now I will always and forever know that the tangent is ‘the ratio of the vertical leg of a right triangle to its horizontal counterpart.’ Done and done!”

I gave David a nod of appreciation and proceeded to jot it down, finally feeling at peace about turning in my test–all of which I had otherwise answered all on my own with my little freshman mind…

“Sorry, Local Kid, but we’ll have to send you your fourth place medal later…”

Those words hit a little differently now, don’t they? Now that you, Dear Reader, know that it should have been a two-way tie for fourth place and, ergo, enough medals to go around. Poor Local Kid.

“Sh*t. Had I known that one question would end up being so significant, I wouldn’t have even cheated on that singular occasion,” I thought to myself, acknowledging that I hadn’t really thought about how my error in judgement might possibly play out–it was only one question for crying out loud! I hadn’t done it to win, I had done it to avoid the wounded pride and shame that comes along with leaving one question blank. But whether premeditated or not, I was in this predicament either way.

“Welp, looks like I’m in too deep now,” I thought as I accepted my medal, still stunned not only by making the team as a freshman, but under the circumspect circumstances which it had happened.

“Guess I’m taking this one to the grave with me…”

“Why come clean now?” you may be indubitably asking.

Well, Dear Reader, that is a fantastic question. After all, I’m not dead…yet.2I do have some unresolved health issues indubitably related to officially becoming middle-aged over the last year, so my longevity actually can’t be taken for granted. Well, if nothing else I’m honest, and honestly it was never that big of a secret. I’m sure I’ve told some people over the years, including past girlfriends and current wives.

Heck, I figured I would just toss it out there for sh*ts ‘n giggles…and, in the spirit of Primary Season during an election year, I thought that just in case I ever want to run for President, I might as well get out in front of this scandal. Control the narrative and what-not. And I do want to point out that at least on the bright side, I hadn’t robbed anyone of a rightful spot on the All-League Team–had I let the tangent question go, Ryan and Local Kid would have filled the last two spots on the team, and I would have been left with the bragging rights of “making All-League 3 out of my 4 years of high school…”

So basically the point of the story is that if you’re going to cheat, you better be prepared to win–and all the emotional baggage that comes with carrying that unwelcome weight around until the statutes of limitations expires or you die, whichever comes first.

Anyways…I almost forgot the coda to the story: the following year when it came time to head to the host lunch room and take the All-League written test?
“This year we’re making a slight change,” they announced. “We’re randomly assigning you to a table, children, as no two of you from the same team are allowed to sit together…”

Okay, now I can’t confirm that the little stunt that David and I pulled was the cause for this much-needed ----- common-sense rule to be put in place–as far as I know that secret stayed between the two of us well into our college years–but a part of me can’t help be just a wee bit proud for perhaps making the world a tiny bit better place.

Of course, leaving an ass-backwards legacy was already kinda my thing by then.

What’s that? You don’t what I’m talking about?

Oh, my friend, just listen: the answer is Blowin’ In The Wind…

Content created on: 23/24 February 2024 (Fri/Sat)

Footnotes & References:[+]

I’m Not Lost, Man! I’m Just, Uh, Pioneering

18 February 2024 / / 0 Comments
6 Min Read

Not all those who wander are lost and then there are those who, deep down, wonder why we wander aimlessly.

Me? I blame the deep blue sea…

“Good lord, it’s…it’s…it’s THE END OF THE WORLD!” I was totally freaking out, man.

“The hell you talking about, dude?” my junior high buddy, Nick, asked, obviously much less concerned.

“The sun…the sun–don’t you see it–it’s setting in the north!” I gestured emphatically in the general direction of our nearest global pole.

We had just come out of the bowling alley on the Navy base we both lived on, and I kept rubbing my eyes in disbelief as they adjusted to the surprisingly bright dusk, and my mind tried to handle the overwhelming amount of cognitive dissonance.

“Uh…that’s west, dumbass, where it usually sets,” Nick calmly stated.

“Dude, no it’s not. Here let me draw a map for you.”

I grabbed a stick and etched out an approximation of this map:

“We’re on the West Coast, see?” I explained. “The water is that way–west. You turn 90 degrees to your right, and you’re facing north–and staring at a setting sun. And you don’t see anything wrong with this picture?!?”

“Oh, you silly Kansas kids. It’s cute that you think ‘water equals west’ here in California,” Nick condescended to me. “Here, let me fix that map of yours…”

He then preceded to sketch out approximately the following in the dirt:

“You got your map turned 90 degrees, jackass,” he pointed out. “As you can see, in these parts of the West Coast, about half the time the ocean is to the south. Such is the case for our current locale, Point Mugu.”

I stared hard at his hand-carved map.

“You sure about this? This doesn’t seem right. I’m pretty sure the West Coast runs straight north and south,” I double-downed on my dumbassery.

Nick just rolled his eyes hard.

“I’ll show you an actual map made by real cartographers and printed on real paper when we get back to my place. Will you believe me then?”

“I don’t know…maybe. Are these the same cartographers trying to trick us all into thinking the world is round and not flat?”

“Wait, what?”

“Just kidding, Nicholas, jeez. Yes, if you present me with solid evidence, then yes, I would be able to override my opinions and gut feelings.”

*moments later, at Nick’s place*

“Well, I’ll be jiggly-darned,” I said as I let out a low whistle. “The water isn’t always to the west.”

“Thank you,” said Nick, still in disbelief that it had taken this much to convince me.

“Dude, I’ve lived here for almost 7 months now,” I said, turning to face Nick. “And now you tell me? What kind of friend lets his best buddy run around for that long with his mental map rotated a full 90 degrees like a complete jerk?”

“Me??? This is somehow my fault?” Nick was incredulous.

“No…I suppose not,” I conceded. “But, dang…this is just plain embarrassing.”

I paused for a moment to digest this earth-shattering revelation.

“Well, at least that would explain why I’ve felt this inexplicable feeling of ick every time I’ve stepped foot outside since I’ve been here…”

“Oh, sh*t. Not again,” I muttered to myself.

Nearly 20 years later I had landed a dream job in a land that was all coast–Hawai’i. And as I expectantly awaited My Beautiful Bride to pick me up on a side street near the hospital where I worked, I just couldn’t figure out why the sun was setting in the south.

I gotta briefly point out, though, while it is somewhat discomforting to see the sun on the southern horizon, it’s somehow not as unsettling as it was before when it appeared to be in the north.

Nevertheless, I had somehow incorrectly set me internal compass.

“Let’s see…I’ve already accounted for the water being pretty much straight south here in Honolulu. And the H11One of the main ‘interstates’ on Oahu. runs pretty much east-west, and that’s to my right hand side–making that north…and to my left the sun is setting. Dammit.”

I was baffled.

“What’s even worse is that I’m facing the same direction as my work desk…which I could swear faces south. Yet, based on past experience, when I see the sun setting, I should know better to believe it when it’s telling me I’m looking west…and since I have to look to my left, that would mean that…I’m facing north. WTF, mate???”

At this point I was full-on having a conversation with myself out loud.

“Alright, I’m just going to look this up on Google Maps when I get home.”

Wisdom of the ages had taught me not to fight this insanity without facts.

*moments later, in front of my home computer*

“Ah, Google Maps, you have explained so much to me,” I said as I looked at this properly oriented map:

I even annotated it for you, with the big arrow in the middle representing the direction I’d be facing when I exited the building where I worked at Queen’s Medical Center. As you can see, my main orientation point was the H1 running parallel to what would be my right. And of course, this point would have to be the exception to the general east-west directionality of the H1, and that a-hole would have to be running north-south right when I was counting on it to be consistent.

“Well, at least the world isn’t ending,” I said, relieved. “But that doesn’t answer why my desk feels like it’s facing south…”

The only upside to this secondary mystery was that it only to plague me locally. Nonetheless, for the next two years I had to sit there in my windowless workspace, nearly in tears knowing that everything I knew about which way I was facing was dead wrong…

“I’m not going to miss sitting in this disorienting af room, I’ll tell you that much!” I quipped to Eric, the guy who had sat next to me my entire time there.

It my last day of work, and while I really did not want to leave Hawai’i, I was ready to bid good riddance to my chronic compass-related discombobulation.

“Ah, so you feel it too then?” Eric asked somewhat cryptically.

“Uh..feel what?”

“That that way feels like north,” he said pointing directly behind us, though we both knew dang well by this point that it was south.

“YES. So I’m not the only one?” I was relieved to know that I wasn’t suffering alone at least. (After all, why should I be the only one in complete misery?)

“Oh, yeah, pretty much any male that works in this space has thought that was north,” Eric informed me.

“What? That is weird!”

“Not really,” Eric said. “We’re pretty sure it’s the 3-Tesla magnetic field of the MRI machine.”

“Aaaaahhh…” I said as I gazed fondly at the MRI room that had been there this whole time, a mere 25 feet behind me. “Well, sh*t, that explains that.”

But this new insight brought up new questions.

“Dude, I’ve worked here for almost 24 months now,” I said, turning to face Eric. “And now you tell me? What kind of co-worker lets his trusty colleage run around for that long with his mental map rotated a full 180 degrees like a complete jerk?”

“Me??? This is somehow my fault?” Eric was incredulous.

“No…I suppose not,” I conceded. “But, dang…this is just plain embarrassing.”

I paused for a moment to digest this earth-spinning revelation.

“Huhn. We really do have reliable compasses in our noses after all. Neat…”

“Honolulu…Long Beach…Málaga…New Orleans. Honolulu…Long Beach…Málaga…New Orleans. Honolulu…Long Beach…Málaga…New Orleans.”

No matter how much I told myself that my temporary home for the next 5 weeks was just like all the other places where I had successfully tuned my intuition to tell me that the water was to the south, I could already sense that I was screwed. As you may recall from a few years ago, the family and I had to take refuge at the beach while our house was being repaired and remodeled. And that particular fun house was located on Oak Island, NC.

I’m sure you, Dear Reader, are aware that North Carolina is on the East Coast…yeah, you can already see where this is going.

Anyways, yada, yada, ya and next thing I know I’m watching a beautiful sun rising in the north.

Okay, okay, I admit that I knew going into it that the entire beach on Oak Island ran almost perfectly east-west, thus putting the Atlantic Ocean due south. But alas, the point of the story is that you can lead a Kansas boy to water, but you can’t teach that old dog that that water he’s looking at isn’t necessarily due east just because it’s the Atlantic Ocean.

…

…

Hmm…I think I mixed one too many metaphors there. What I’m really trying to say is that for some of us out there, directional discombobulation can be a very real, very debilitating affliction. If there is someone in your life like this that finds them in improperly-oriented situation, show them some mercy.

But whatever you do, keep them far, far away from misaligned coastal maps and strong medical-grade magnets…

Content created on: 16/17 February 2024 (Fri/Sat)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Wedding? Gift? Baby? Wait–There’s Another Kind Of Special Registry?

11 February 2024 / / 0 Comments
6 Min Read

There’s this special type of list that our great state makes–but it’s on you to check it twice.

Not knowing anyone naughty? That’d be nice…

“Did you see on NextDoor that there have been a pair of registered sex offenders lurking around downtown?”

In typical Mom Fashion, my dearest mother just had to ruin my peaceful lunch by bringing up yet another “likely benign” thing for me to worry about in this world.

I gently rolled my eyes, and then turned to acknowledge her apparent concern.

“No, Mother, you know that I stay far away from that website. NextDoor is essentially tantamount to a Karen Convention.”

“Well, you should be on there so you aware of what’s going on in your neighborhood. Especially things like this where there’s a pair of perverts on the prowl in these parts,” Mom replied.

“Cool, cool. I really would like to enjoy the rest of my meal with a bit of Zen, so, ya know…” I attempted to subtly change the topic.

“You know you do have two young girls you should be worried about,” she said, obviously not getting the hint.

I realized that she wasn’t going to drop the matter, so I figured the only way to get her to let it go for now was to acquiesce.

“Well, I’m not on NextDoor, so I guess you’ll have to fill in me in on the details as best as you can.”

“I thought you’d never ask!” she said a bit too excitedly as she whipped out her iPad.

“So, let’s see here…” she skimmed over the NextDoor post. “Ah, yes, so there’s a taller skinny guy. Looks like he was following a couple of 12-year-old girls all over downtown PBO, and they had to seek refuge in the ice cream shop.”

“Oh, good, so it had a happy ending at least?” I couldn’t wait for this story to be over, obviously.

“Nope, he followed them in there, and the owner had to call the cops.”

“Great, so the authorities handled the situation, and at least got his shady ass off the streets for a few days?”

“Not exactly. Cops came but said that he wasn’t technically doing anything wrong, so they didn’t do anything about it. I guess they just contacted the girls’ parents to come pick them up.”

“But surely the police officers at least shared a Type-2-Diabetes-Special Banana Split with the girls, since they were all there anyways, right? You know something like this would at least help take a slight edge off of the traumatic experience.”

I reminded Mom of what I was talking about by pulling up this classic pic on my phone:

She really does take after her old man. Got his eyes and lips, at least…

“What? No! Please take this seriously. I need you to do what you can to protect my grand-babies!”

“Fine, fine. So I won’t be taking them to the ice cream shop any time in the near future. Apparently it is too ‘child-predator-friendly’. I get the message.”

“Thank you,” Mom said.

After a brief awkward pause where I was waiting for her to fill me in more, I decided what the hell and prompted her for the rest of the story that she had started.

“Okay, so that was Pedo #1. Didn’t you say there was a second guy?”

“Oh yeah, but the post didn’t say much about him…they just shared his entry from NC Sex Offender Registry.”

“Super. Just text that to me so I can be on the lookout for the guy…”

“Wow, check out the jawline on this guy!”

Later that afternoon I had finally gotten around to looking at the official NCSOR page for the second guy. Take a peep at this dude and you’ll see exactly what I mean:

Amiright? Or amiright?

“Hah, hah!” I thought to myself out loud. “That dude almost looks like a bulldog.”

I continued chuckling softly to myself, while in the meantime some gears started spinning in the back of my head.

“Why is the word ‘bulldog’ jarring something in my memory?” I wondered.

I continued working on my project, trying to put it out of my mind, but a piece of me seemed fixated on the idea.

“Have I met this guy before? Nah, it couldn’t be the dude who hit me up for sliced-meat money at the gas station downtown…”

My inner dialogue unfolded slowly over the next ten minutes or so.

“His name was what? Terrance? I bet I can prove that it wasn’t the same dude. Let’s see…this guy’s name is…”

*zooms in*

“Ah hah! See there? Couldn’t be him–this guy’s name is Anthony,” I told myself, content that I had shut the book on the matter.

*moments later*

“Wait, that wasn’t his name, though that’s what My Beautiful Bride would call him. I think he went by his initials…what were they again?”

I flipped to an older post of mine to confirm the facts of that particular encounter.

“A.P.! He said people would him see him on the streets of PBO and call out, ‘What’s up, A.P.!’ Yeah, lemme prove that this isn’t him…let’s see what his initials are…”

*scrolls down*

“See, I told you so! His initials are ‘A.M.’ I don’t know this ‘A.M.’ character.”

I could feel that I was on the verge of resolution, when it occurred to me that there was more than one way to skin the proverbial bulldog, and likewise there was more than one way to construct an initial-based nickname (think M.J.–aka Michael Jackson/Jordan).

*zooms back out and scrolls back up*

“Oh…well I guess if uses his last name, this guy–in theory–could technically go by ‘A.P.’ But still, it is highly unlikely this is my du–“

*eye gets caught by something embarrassingly obvious*

“Oh, right…A.P. also said people would see him on the streets of PBO and say, ‘What’s happening, Bulldog?’ Oh, jeez.”

Yes. Yes, I do know this guy. I tried to prove the anti-null hypothesis,1This is the opposite of the regular null hypothesis, in which the assumption is that two things being compared are the same until proven otherwise. and put the full burden of proof that they were one and the same on my shoulders.

Despite all my skepticism, I am forced to admit that I have, in the past, financially supported this guy.

I think at this point, you probably should hop in my time machine to an event that happened right about this time last year, and either refresh your faithful memory, or get up to speed, you lackadaisical infidel.

Just click this link to read about how The Bulldog Wanted Baloney. You’ll Never Guess What Happened Next. Don’t worry–I’ll be waiting right here when you get back.

…

…

…

Oh, hello! There you are! Welcome back to the present day.2Technically this occurred back in October 2023, roughly 4 months ago.

While you were gone, something else caught my eye about our old friend, Bulldog.

*scrolls to the bottom of the screenshot*

What was his first (and, seriously speaking, only one that might be humorous) offense? Oh, just a little Felonious Indecent Exposure.

Let’s just say that I had no idea how lucky I was last year. Thank the good lord I never caught a glimpse of the Bulldog’s…uh…um…er…”baloney”…

Content created on: 10/11 February 2024 (Sat/Sun)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Candy-Man’s Secrets Of The Summer That Got Out Of Hand

4 February 2024 / / 0 Comments
5 Min Read

Who can make a boy’s wildest dream come true? The Candy Man can!

And who can trash that dream? The Anti-Candy Ma’am can! Or so she thinks…

“My wife says I’m getting too fat…”

As a youngster, this was probably the first time I heard this phrase come out of the mouth of a grown-ass man. Of course, it wouldn’t be long before I wizened to the ways of the world, and realized that, actually, this was sort of a theme in many marriages.

The grown-ass man that first uttered those words to me was Matt, a military co-worker of my brother-in-law, Joe. The previous year we had lived with Joe and my sister on the local Navy base–right around the corner from Matt–and while I had moved back to Kansas to live with my old man for the school year, Mom had got her own apartment in the nearby town. Though I had come back for the summer, Mom had her day job, so most days I would try to convince somebody to sneak me onto base. Otherwise, I would have been stuck by myself in Mom’s apartment with nothing to do but play videogames, watch reruns of Mr. Belvedere and Dinosaurs, and eat the stupid health food with which Mom stocked her pantry.

Anyways, so there we were, the three of us dudes, plus my slightly older brother 1SkinnyJ, chillin’ in Matt’s garage (for a youngster like me, it was a real treat to get to hang out with ‘the big boys’).

“…so, lads, today’s your lucky day,” Matt continued. “Gentlemen and, well, uh, boys, behold: my candy stash!”

I looked at 1SkinnyJ, mouth agape, to see him giving me that same look. We could not believe our eyes. We had never seen so much candy in our lives outside of Mr. Bulky’s infamous sweets shop.

“Sadly for me–but great for you–the wife is making me get rid of every last bit of this sweet, sweet junk food,” Matt lamented. “Please. Take it all out of my sight before I change my mind.

“You’re just messing with us, right?” 1SJ asked Matt. “There’s no way any man with half a sweet tooth would let this go freely.”

While 1SJ probed the veracity of our apparent windfall, I eyeballed the stash up and down. Kit-Kat. Snickers. Pay Day. Twix–both caramel and the highly sought-after peanut butter version. And that was just a mere sampling of the American varieties. I mean, this dude had it all. Even several boxes of exotic Asian candies. I’m guessing they were mostly of Japanese origin, though I had yet to learn Kanji, so I couldn’t be 100% sure what the strange writing on the packaging said. However, I suspect they were from Japan mainly based on the fact that they were weird af, which just screamed ‘I’m Japanese!.’

“Nope, I sh*t thee not,” Matt confirmed the good news. “But I told the wife I was throwing it away, so you best skedaddle out of here with it all before she finds out what we’re up to. She’ll lose her mind if she finds out I’m contributing to the cavities of minors.”

“I have no place to keep this on base,” 1SJ turned to me with a solemn look on his face. “We’ll have to smuggle it into my room in Mom’s apartment. I’m entrusting you to protect it when I’m not around. Can I count on you, bro?”

“You got it, dude!” I said, despite not actually being a bona fide fan of the 80s sitcom, Full House.

I turned to Matt, placing my hand of my heart, “You can rest at ease: I promise you that we’ll provide a safe and loving home for your candy. Don’t you worry, it’ll be thoroughly enjoyed.”

“In your chubby little hands, I have no doubt it will be,” he replied. “Just don’t let your mom find it, or else…well, ya know…”

“Hot dog, hot dog, hot diggity-dog!” I sang to myself as I woke up mid-morning the next day.

Mom had already long headed off to work and I finally had the apartment to myself. What kid wouldn’t be incredibly enthusiastic to greet the day, knowing what sugary delights that lied in wait for him? Especially an adipose-advantaged adolescent1I.e., “fat kid”. like me?

Knowing I would need my energy if I intended to spend my day indulging in all sorts of confectionery delights, I amazingly had the patience and discipline to start off with something that actually had some nutritional value: a big ol’ bowl of soggy Grape Nuts. I dutifully chowed down, one mushy mouthful at a time, all whilst fantasizing about which treats I wanted to eat first (there is something to be said for letting some anticipation build up, know what I mean?).

At long last, it was time to engage in some pure, unadulterated hedonism. I couldn’t help myself from skipping across the apartment and back to 1SJ‘s bedroom, where I carefully peeled back the layers of bean bags that I had employed to abscond our precious cache to reveal…absolutely nothing.

How could this possibly be??? I shook my fists to the heavens, fell on my knees, and rent in half the Nirvana smiley-face t-shirt I had been wearing.

My heart caught in my throat, while simultaneously the pit in my stomach dropped like a brick, as the realization overwhelmed me: Mom had found us out.

And not only had she found us out, but she had completely wiped us out. Not a wrapper, nor a crumb, nor any trace of the glorious treasure that had sat hidden in our room only mere hours earlier.

“How could I have been so sloppy, so stupid?” I chided myself. “I knew I should have hidden it so much better! Dammmmmmit.”

And just like that, all my hopes and dreams for what should have been the most glorious summer ever, down the drain…

“Down the drain…down the drain…down the drain…” I kept muttering to myself.

I pounded the video game controller in frustration as I processed the cold hard fact that I had blown the opportunity of a lifetime. Needless to say, I wasn’t getting over the heartbreak quickly.

“Down the drain…down the drain…down the–wait just a tic!” I was starting to realize something.

“W.W.M.D.–What Would Mom Do?” I pondered.

“If it had been 1SJ’s weed stash she had found, sure, I could see her flushing it down the toilet. But…but…but, there’s no way in hell that’s what she did with all that candy. What did she do with it?”

I mean, something like that doesn’t just vanish into thin air, right?

“Hmmm…I wonder…no, surely she would have been more careful–surely!”

I about completely put the thought out of my mind. Almost.

“Oh, what the heck do I have to lose at this point?” I continued my monologue with myself. “Buckle up, Buttercup, it looks we’re going dumpster diving…”

Not that I thought that anything would really come of it–as evidenced by my lack of footwear–I nonetheless wandered casually out to the nearest dumpster, which happened to be right next to where Mom tended to park her Pickle Wagon.

Needless to say, I was completely unprepared to find sitting completely unblemished and easily within arms reach, there on top of the rest of the rubbish, basking in an angelic beam of light shining on it from upon high…every last piece of candy that had been prematurely ripped from their loving candy-daddy’s arms.

I sh*t thee not, I swear I heard this playing in that moment:

As much as I had been in shock when I discovered my goodies had gone missing, I was twice as much so when the Good Lord smiled upon me and gave me a totally undeserved second chance at achieving diabetic Nirvana. There really is no greater feeling in the world than that of a dead dream being brought back to life with a vengeance like ol’ Lazarus…aaaaahhhhhh!

Eventually, though, I gathered my wits and collected the goods before Mom could come home for her lunch break and spoil the party permanently. You better believe I hid My Precious much better this time–so good in fact, that I can’t find the slightest of slivers in my memory where I had squirreled it all away for the rest of the summer.

The interesting part is that Mom never said a word to me about what she had discovered amongst those bean bags, presuming that such a gut-wrenching loss would be punishment enough.

Oh, ho ho ho! Little did she know that Child Protective Services would have come and taken me away had they known all the abuse my teeth suffered that one glorious, glorious summer…

Content created on: 31 January/2/3 February 2024 (Weds/Fri/Sat)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Don’t Punish Me, You Old Fart–Punish The Technology!

28 January 2024 / / 1 Comment
4 Min Read

That sweet tooth of yours already got you in trouble once, kid.

But just you wait until Dad discovers the second half of the damage you did…

“Dammit, son! I thought we were done with this whole candy-peepin’ business!”

I looked up from my comic book1Well, if we’re going to be completely accurate, it was probably my Game Boy. to see one very pissed off father figure holding some papers in a tightly-clinched fist.

“What are you talking about? I haven’t gone near any of that since last month–and that was a one time thing! Believe you me, I’ve learned my lesson…” I stated, figuring that since it was a matter of fact(s), then the facts would exonerate me.

“You went and put $200 worth of your childlike foolishness on my credit card behind my back, and now this?!? Boy, I oughta beat your ass into oblivion right here and now!” he seethed through increasingly gritted teeth.

“Yes, I know–you made such a big to-do about the AOL charges last time,” I said, and I would have sighed in exasperation, but even then with my only partially-developed limbic regions of my brain–and specifically my visual cortex2https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolkinseygoman/2013/02/26/this-is-your-brain-on-body-language/?sh=322534296632,3https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbic_system–I could read ol’ Papa Bob’s body language and tell he was about to lose his sh*t.

(You remember the whole AOL Incident, don’t you, Dear Reader? Of course you do! You just read all about that last time…right?)

Anyways…I retroactively blame what happened next on account of my prepubescent amygdala kicking into high gear. In a truly meta moment, what little executive function I may have had at that age was not enough to stop from blurting out:

“I’m a frickin’ kid, Dad–you don’t actually expect me to have any executive function, do you?”

Ah, yes, if I had a time machine, I would go back and advise my younger self just to plead the Fifth and keep my mouth shut (not that that was a particularly self-incriminating statement, or anything).

“Don’t you try to get out of this by using your big brainiac words with me, boy!”

Did I mention that Dad’s intelligence got insulted easily?

“Oh, sh*t!”

Did I also mention that besides a love of sweets, another of my father’s legacy passed down to me was cussing like a sailor–even though I was waaaaay too young to be so proficient in potty words.

I skedaddled out of the kitchen where we had been having our discussion, through the office and into the living room, as I attempted to evade an encroaching ass-whooping.

“Get back here!” he demanded, further pursuing me on through our weird dining-room-like area and back into the kitchen.

“But I didn’t do anything!” I protested. “Whatever you’re pissed about, it wasn’t me racking up charges on your credit card this time!”

“Wait…credit card?” Dad wheezed as he stopped to catch his breathe. “Who said anything about a credit card?”

“Well, then what’s that in your hand?” I asked suspiciously, safely on the other side of the window-like opening between the dining room where Dad was now, and the living room, where I had scurried around to.

“This?!?” He held up the papers, shaking his fist at me. “This is the phone bill!”

“Oh, schnappes!” I muttered under my breath realizing what had happened.

“You can’t be angry at me about this–please!”I attempted to mount my defense. “I can explain everything…”

“I’m pretty sure I would know if candy factories or stores had 1-900 numbers that you could call and listen to them describe the experience of eating exotic sweet treats that you’ll never get to enjoy in your lifetime–” I didn’t let Dad finish his sentence.

“Wait, what? That’s a thing? Good to know, good to know…”

“NO, that is NOT a thing. Weren’t you listening to what I just said?”

I should also note that I had sort of a talent for frustrating Dad when it came to the Communications Department (and a talent for aggravating him when it came to the Actions Department).

“This clearly isn’t a 1-900 number,” he continued, “so who the hell are you calling in Amarillo in the middle of the night for hours on end? Is it the local Mrs. Bulky’s candy store down there?”

“Dad, Dad, I wasn’t talking to anyone. That’s the AOL Internet Service Provider access number…” this time Dad didn’t let me finish my sentence.

“WHAT THE HECK?!? You said you were done with AOL, you lyin’ little bastard!”

“I AM DONE WITH THEM!” I shouted back. “You already grounded me for this, don’t you remember, you old fart?”

“That was for the credit card bill. This is the phone bill, you dummy!” he retorted.

“IT WAS THE SAME CRIME! You can’t punish me twice for the same offense! That’s double jeopardy!”

“Well, your step-mother isn’t going to see it that way, and frankly, neither do I, so you can expect to be grounded another 3 weeks.”

“DOUBLE JEOPARDY! DOUBLE JEOPARDY! You can’t do this to me! Help! I’m being oppressed!” I said, making a big scene for an unseen audience.

“Son, it was $350,” he said, literally bringing the receipts up to my eye-line so I could inspect the evidence.

“Oh, damn, Dad, you need to call the phone company–those per-minute long-distance rates are tantamount to highway robbery! We can’t let such skullduggery stand!”

“Again, with the big, fancy words,” he warned me.

“Oh, right. In words you can understand: yeah, I kinda deserve another 3 weeks…”

The point of the story is–much like a progressive (or German) parent might do with their teenager when it comes to alcohol or recreational drugs–perhaps you should let your kids have sweets in moderation, where they will at least be under your supervision.

Or you could, ya’ know, just leave them to their own devices–devices like 1400 baud modems–and learn about their midnight shenanigans after the fact. Oh no, I’m sure you won’t be cleaning up after their short-sighted sh*t-show for months or years to come.

Oh, and maybe even more importantly, parents please, please, please understand its never to early to have the dreaded “technology talk” with your kids. Sure, it may be even more difficult and awkward for you than infamous “candy talk”, but I cannot stress how crucial it is.

I mean, how else are we budding Boomers going to learn how to run the latest new-fangled devices and navigate the dangers and pitfalls of the hottest social media platforms? We sure the hell ain’t going to figure it out on our own…

Content created on: 21/27/28 January 2024 (Mon/Sat/Sun)

Footnotes & References:[+]

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