Author: BJ (Page 12 of 34)

Who Double Dares To Don A Big Old Sh*t-Eating Grin?

21 May 2022 / BJ / 0 Comments

5 Min Read

What do you do when someone wants to pay you to eat poo?

Oh, what to do, what to do, what to doo-doo…

“Ring! Ring!“

Great. Just great. The one night in my entire college career that I decide to go to bed before 10, and some jack-hole has to go and be blowing up the phone in my dorm room.

“Uh, hello?”

“Dude, dude, ’tis I, the Beautiful Love Muscle!¹No, his initials aren’t actually BLM. Howdy!”

“Howdy yourself, BLM. Why the hell you calling me when I’m trying to get a healthy night’s worth of rest?”

“Yeah, uh, so there’s a bunch of guys here hanging out at my apartment, and…”

“…and what, you huge oaf?”

I didn’t give a crap if my impatience came through loud and clear over my landline or not.

“Well, we have a dare that we all thought for which you would be the perfect candidate.”

“Um, okay. What is it?”

I gotta admit that my ego was slightly flattered that little ol’ me was who they thought could handle this mystery challenge like no one else.

“We’ll tell you when you get here.”

“Nah, ----- that, amigo. I’m hanging up now…”

“No, wait! There’s could be a sizable amount of cash in it for you.”

The man sure did know the way to this poor college student’s heart.

“You don’t say? How much? I ain’t getting out of bed for any less than fif–“

“Two hundred fifty in cold hard cash. So are you in?”

Silence…

“Dude are you still there?”

*Ding-dong!*

BLM opens door…

“Nah man, I’m here…”

“So, it’s pretty simple: you eat some poo, and we pay you $250. Any questions?”

I couldn’t believe that BLM actually was able to keep a straight face while he suggested that I eat a steaming pile of crap, all for the mere purpose of the juvenile amusement of the gaggle of dumbasses–many of which I called ‘friends’–that had congregated at his place.

“The ----- is wrong with you man? And me??? When someone suggested, ‘Hey, let’s see if we can dare somebody to consume human fecal matter!’ All y’all biscuits unanimously came up with my name? Noooo, that’s no disturbing at all…”

“Aw, c’mon man! We’re offering you a quarter of a cool grand. And don’t be too offended we thought of you–after all you yourself brag about how you’re a ‘human garbage disposal’, amiright?”

“Yeah, ‘human garbage disposal’–not ‘walking septic tank’. There’s a bit of a difference there, Broseph.”

Amidst all this banter, a plot to part these fools of their money started to incubate and then hatch in mind. At that point, I thought that I had bought myself enough time. I just need to build a little more suspense…

A “Please, oh please!” spontaneously came forth from some nugget-head in the crowd.

“Yeah, you already got out of bed and traipsed over here–you might as well make it worth your trip.”

“Do it! Do it! Do it!”

All of sudden there was a chorus of jackasses all chanting their encouragement.

“Okay, okay! I’ll think about it–and on one condition: only if it’s the dung of my beloved roomie, B-Nye, Not The Science Guy–wait. What are you doing here? You’re in on this scheme, too???”

B-Nye just gave me his trademark sheepish chipmunk grin.

“Ok, whatever. Let’s just go somewhere private and discuss it. If all y’all need us we’ll be at Jen & Em’s²Female friends of ours who just happened to live in the apartment across the hall from BLM. place across the breezeway. See you suckers in a few minutes…”

“Brownies! Brownies! You ladies got any brownies?!?”

I didn’t have time to mince any words on useless pleasantries.

“Oh, hey, it’s you two. What’s up?” Despite my brusqueness, Jen was as pleasant as ever.

“No time to talk. I need whatever brownies you might have in this apartment, stat! And whole corn–you got any whole corn?”

I could see out of the corner of my eye that B-Nye was starting to put the pieces together.

“Ahhh, I see now…so you weren’t really planning on eating one of my fresh turds? Well, that’s a relief–pun intended!–cuz I don’t think I quite have a proverbial ‘bullet in the chamber’, so to speak.”

Jen, on the other hand, had no ----- clue what we were going on about.

“Ummm…are you guys talking about eating poop? ‘Cuz one time I heard about some frat guy that ate poop, and then after that all the sororities put him on a do-not-date list. They even had Wanted-style posters printed with his picture on it stating ‘Do Not Kiss This Man!’ It was cray-cray, I say…”

“So…he got brown-listed, eh?”

“Yeah, I suppose you could say that.”

“Well, fear not, my dear Jen, I don’t plan eating poop for realz.“

“Then why are you here?”

“Those fools across the hall have pooled their money together and will pay me $250 to eat crap. Fifty of that is yours if you can help me make a fake turd out of brownies and corn, and fifty of that will be B-Nye’s to pretend it was a fresh loaf he just pinched off. What say you?”

“Shouldn’t we split it evenly 3 ways?” B-Nye piped up.

“Oh ----- off. I’m the one risking my reputation here for a measly $150. No need to get greedy.”

“Okay, well you’re welcome to any brownies you can find, but I’m pretty sure we don’t have any.”

After a solid 10 minutes of turning their apartment upside down to no avail–and twice rebuffing BLM and the dumbass mob’s knocking on the door with ‘Go away, or you’re going to scare off B-Nye’s shy chocolate prairie dog!’–we sadly came up completely empty-handed.

In the end I totes be like:

Seinfeld George GIF - Seinfeld George Scream - Discover & Share GIFs — “Noooooo!”

“Sorry to disappoint fellas, but I’m out. B-Nye couldn’t produce the goods.”

I wasn’t ready to reveal to this crew that my plan to take their money and run had only been foiled by Jen & Em’s tragic lack of baked goods in their household.

“But, you thought about it. Oh, man, I can’t wait to tell every girl we know that you seriously considered eating crap!” Cody, one of the many jackasses present, was all too quick to point this unflattering technicality.

Okay. So, I guess I was ready to reveal my plan to fleece them after all.

“You big dummy, I didn’t consider eating poo for a single second! I was going to eat a fake one made out of brownies and make off with your money. I was going to literally walk away with a pocket full of cash and a shit-eating grin.”

“But you still thought about it!”

“No, you see it was actually quite a diabolical genius plan–“

“Hey guys! He almost ate sh*t! He almost ate sh*t! Tell everyone you know!”

“No–wait–oh, fudge,³While that could be considered a pun, what I’m really trying to say is ‘FUCK’. nevermind. You’re all a bunch of ----- idiots…”

The point of the story is that the world is full of turds who don’t give a crap about nuance. Appearances matter. Simple interpretations and salacious stories–those are what are usually remembered.

If something you’re thinking about doing–like, say, pretending to eat sh*t to make a few bucks–that, on the surface, may reflect poorly on your judgment and/or character, well, you better think twice before you even think once about doing it.

Later on you can lay out in great detail all you want about how brilliant you really were, but take it from me: no one will still be listening by then. No one cares about the asterisk. No one gives two toots about parenthetical statements. No one has time for your lengthy over-explanations.

It will already be too late, your good name will be forever smeared⁴Fecal-based pun intended…

Content created on: 21 May 2022 (Saturday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Footnotes & References:
↵1	No, his initials aren’t actually BLM.
↵2	Female friends of ours who just happened to live in the apartment across the hall from BLM.
↵3	While that could be considered a pun, what I’m really trying to say is ‘FUCK’.
↵4	Fecal-based pun intended

Good Godzilla! Why’s Japan Suddenly All Up In A Frenzy?

15 May 2022 / BJ / 0 Comments

6 Min Read

Is this real or just my imagination?

I’m basically a God(zilla) in this strange nation…

“Hello, Tokyo…HELLO, TOKYO!”

I tell you what, finally getting to visit the Land of the Rising Sun was just so ----- exciting. While I wasn’t technically a fake 80’s rock star, I couldn’t help but thinking that this is what it must have felt like to have been Spinal Tap visiting Cleveland for the first time…

Yes, as I pre-call it, ’twas the Spring of 2025, and the proverbial Japanese cherry blossoms were in full bloom. And thanks to an invitation of dubious sincerity from old friend who had resettled across the Other Pond, I had loaded up the family and hauled them across the Pacific Ocean to enjoy these world famous blossoms and all the other cultural experiences this strange and foreign land had to offer.

Soon enough we were finding our way through the airport, and that was when I noticed that we seemed to be attracting quite a few stares. I found that surprising, ‘cuz surely they had seen their share of super-Caucasian middle-aged men in a cosmopolitan metropolis like this, right?

We had almost made it to the respite of our taxi when we were stopped by a random Japanese couple.

“Shashin! Shashin!” I heard somebody excitedly chatter from behind us.

“The heck they talking about!?!” I muttered to myself as I whipped out my handy pocket Japanese-English dictionary.

“Shashin! Shashin!” They were pretty intent on getting whatever it was that they wanted.

Soon enough, I found “Shashin” in my dictionary–though, had I looked up sooner, it would have been obvious from them frantically pointing at their phone that it was a “photograph” that they wanted.

“Well, if it’s a selfie with the White Devil himself that you want, than it’s a selfie with the White Devil you’ll get!”

I mean, I had no better guess as to why they insisted on getting a picture with me, but hey, what harm could it hurt in humoring them? I tried flashing the ubiquitous Asian peace/victory hand sign for the pic, but they stopped me with their broken Engrish:

“No, no, rike this.” Both of them pressed their palms together and stood on one leg while placing the foot of their free leg against their knee.

“Is that…is that Tree Pose from Yoga???” This situation just continued to get more and more bizarre.

But, as it turns out, I’m a huge fan of the Tree Pose, so it was no problem for me to handle their, uh, “interesting” request.

So, there we stood in the middle of the airport, the three of us in Tree Pose, as The Elder took a picture of us on their phone.

“Domo arigato!”

They profusely thanked me before heading on their way. But as they walked away, I could clearly see they were already posting our picture to social media.

What in the world were they up to?

I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself as I proceeded to hail a taxi.

“Oh, those clazy Asians…”

“ようこそハワイのサーフィンヨギ !”

My entire family stood there in shock in the middle of Shibuya Crossing–“the Times Square of Tokyo”–trying to comprehend what we were looking at.

There above us, plastered across the giant LCD screens on the side of one of the buildings was…a really tan version of me?

“Okay, this is getting creepy…first off, we’ve had to stop and take pictures with what I guess are your fans 8 times in the 2 hours we’ve been in this country. And now…this? Is there some secret life of yours that I should know about?”

Honestly, “overly suspicious of a possible double life” was the last response to the situation from the Boss Lady that I had expected.

“You kidding me right now? I have no ----- idea where that picture of me came from. And when would have I had the time to sneak off on a Trans-Pacific flight to build an international fan base? I’m just as confused as you are, Babe!”

“Well, I for one think it’s impressive that my very own Daddy is a world-wide superstar. Even if he has no clue why, it’s still pretty danged cool!”

At least The Younger, our 7-year-old daughter, ever the optimist and drinker-of-life-to-the-fullest, was enjoying the weird-as-hell moment we found ourselves in.

The Elder, the pre-teen problem-solver that she was, then pointed out something that seems patently obvious in retrospect:

“Well, from all the Ryan’s World that I watched when I was younger, can tell you that ‘ようこそ’ means ‘Welcome!’ in English.”

“Now only if we could figure out what ‘ハワイのサーフィンヨギ’ means, then maybe we could get to the bottom of this mystery…”

“Ahhh, it’s nice to finally get away from the crowds, isn’t it, fam?”

After being relentlessly hounded for fan-pic after fan-pic–all of them demanding we assume Tree Pose, nonetheless–I finally decided to give everyone a break with a relaxing visit to Chidorigafuchi Park.

It was only natural that we would end up in C-Park, as this was one of the premiere spots to enjoy the cherry blossoms–and wasn’t that half the reason we were there in the first place? Plus, as an added bonus, there were all sorts of sculpture art to enjoy at the same time (The Boss Lady is infamous for her pastime of “watching art”).

“Holy. Sh*t.”

I was kinda shocked at the words coming out of my wife’s mouth. Normally I’m the one to drop a cuss word or two in the family.

“Hey Babe, I don’t think the girls are quite old enough to hear potty-words like that coming out of your pie-hole…”

No response. She seemed to be frozen in shock and/or awe at something over my shoulder.

“What in the world are you starin–“

My mouth stopped dead in its tracks as I turned and saw what it was that she was staring at.

There, in front of us, in the middle of beautiful park halfway around the world from our everyday lives, was a bronze statue of…me?!?

“Uh, Dad, why is there a sculpture of you doing the Tree Pose next to a palm tree?” The Elder had an inquiring mind that wanted to know.

“Hey check it out–here on the plaque is that strange inscription again, ‘ハワイのサーフィンヨギ’–maybe it’s time we ask the Googles what that means?”

Leave it to The Younger to point out the obvious fact that we could have done a bit of internet sleuthing this whole time (but personally, I kinda enjoyed revelling in the mystery of it all–shhh! Don’t let the kids know!).

The Older snapped a pic of the plaque on her smart phone and plugged it into Reverse Image Search.

“Let’s see…ah, yes, here it is right here! ‘ハワイのサーフィンヨギ’–it looks like you’re known in these here parts as the ‘Hawaiian Surfing Yogi’. Says here they erected this statue in honor of an unknown Haole in Honolule who was a popular tourist attraction at Waikiki Beach from 2011 to 2013 before he mysteriously disappeared. According to his Wikipedia page, ‘The Hawaiian Surfing Yogi’ was known for his elaborate public post-surfing stretching routine. In fact, for a couple of years there was actually a Japanese social media challenge where tourists would mimic his poses and try to take pictures with him without his knowledge. Most famous of these poses…”

“…was the Tree Pose. Yes, kids, I suppose it’s true: I am indeed the infamous Hawaiian Surfing Yogi–though this is the first I’m hearing about it!”

“Those crazy Japanese tourists must have been pretty good at taking pictures of you without you knowing it, eh, Dad?”

“Yeah, I guess so. But now that I think about it…I do vaguely recall during one of my stretching sessions noticing an elderly Japanese tourist off yonder making a horrible attempt to copy my moves. I tried my best to ignore him, but I couldn’t help notice that he was killing it with his tour group. Indeed, his fellow travellers all seemed to be getting a good chuckle out of that joker’s antics at my expense…”

At that point, the Boss Lady piped up with a pity summary of all the events that had transpired.

“The point of the story is, girls, that you gotta be somewhat careful when ‘doing your own thang’ in public. You never know who is watching, and you could unwittingly become an international celebrity like your father here, for better or for worse.”

She then turned her attention to me:

“And as for you, don’t go getting any ideas about lightening striking twice. You may have fell ass-backwards into fame this time, but I promise you, there aren’t going to be any alien archeologists in the future stumbling across your obscure blog and thinking to themselves, ‘Hmmm, so this is what the typical Earthling’s life looked like…’

“Ignore her, girls: I’m telling you, one day far in the future, in a galaxy far away,there’s going to be a sitcom based on my writings. I’ll be the intergalactic Laura Ingalls Wilder of the Zeta Reticuli solar system, all because I was never ashamed to ‘do my own thang’…”

This episode was brought to you by Google Translate and one very over-active imagination.

Content created on: 13/14 May 2022 (Fri/Sat)

My Lifetime Legacy? Oh, It’s In The Bag, Baby!

8 May 2022 / BJ / 0 Comments

3 Min Read

We all hope to be remembered fondly for our charitable deeds.

But which one actually gets memorialized? Well, that depends…

“Hey Babe, I have to show you something you’re not going to believe!”

The Boss Lady and I were out for a stroll in a local park one fine evening in the summer of 2027, and she had apparently stumbled upon something that she thought would blow my mind.

“Okay, I’m going to cover your eyes and lead you to the surprise…no peeking, okay?”

I literally had no ----- clue what she was about to show me. Even when we finally stopped near the park bathrooms and she uncovered my eyes, I was no less confused.

“What the–?!? What am I looking at here?”

“Well, maybe you should read the inscription…”

I leaned over to examine the back of a beautiful park bench, and what appeared to be a limerick engraved on a immaculately-polished plaque.

My eyes skimmed over it several times, but each time only deepened my confusion. Was this some type of riddle?

“Yeah, I still have no idea what’s going on here. ‘R. Hendersen’?¹I slightly modified my name to protect my privacy. Is that supposed to be me? If so, how did the heck did they get my name? And ‘depends’? Depends on what?”

“Well, first off, it’s clearly a park bench dedicated in your honor, silly!

She spoke as if it were patently obvious. It wasn’t.

“But…why?!?”

“Well, I was puzzled at first too, but I think I finally figured it out…”

“Please, enlighten me then.”

“So, do you remember back in 2020 when we were in the middle of the pandemic, and we started ordering all of our groceries online?”

“Uh-huh.” I still didn’t see what this had to do with the price of rice in China.

“And do you recall that after a few months we had upwards of 100 paper grocery bags cluttering our garage?”

“Yeah, that did get out of hand, didn’t it?”

“And since you ordered online, every single one of them had a sticker with ‘R. Hendersen’ on them so they would know it was yours when you picked them up.”

“Of course. Yet…”

“Patience, it will all make sense soon, Young Grasshopper. Anyways, between the paper bags and the pandemic, you got so overwhelmed with it all that you asked me to take care of the bags.”

“Ja, those bags took a surprising toll on my sanity…”

“Well, did you ever wonder what I did with them?”

“Uh, I always just assumed you threw them in the recycling…”

“Err, not exactly. I never told you this, but around that time, I happened to be dooms-scrolling on that site we used to call Facebook, and I randomly came across a post by a local charity requesting paper bag donations.”

“Okay…”

“Well, when I showed up with a trunk full of bags, I was surprised to learn that they needed them for delivering adult undergarments to senior citizens in our area. I was even more taken aback by how profusely the guy thanked me.”

” No sh*t? That’s crazy.”

“Yeah, apparently they were super-desperate for bags, and to him, I might as well have been an angel sent directly from heaven. I could swear he almost cried.”

“But…the park bench?”

“Oh yeah, thath. Our donation must have meant quite a bit to the local loose-sphinctered elderly folk, I guess. So much so that they must have showed their appreciation by erecting this bench in honor of their generous-yet-mysterious benefactor…”

“…’Mr. R. Hendersen’!”

“Exactly: ‘Mr. R. Hendersen’.”

“Well, apart from the fact that it should be ‘Dr. R. Hendersen’, I gotta say I’m quite flattered. Now that I know the backstory, let me re-read that plaque…”

With toilets afar from whence we sit,
Shall we worry when our bowels move a bit?
Nay, a million thanks to one Mr. R. Hendersen
And his ample supply of much-needed Depends,
Allowing us now in our pants to peacefully sh*t!
Forever Grateful, ChathaM County Council On Aging

“Hey, wait a minute! Does that mean what I think it means? And after all I did for them?!?”

The Boss Lady couldn’t help snickering a bit, taking a wee bit too much delight in confirming my fears:

“Yup. It sure sounds like to me that those old farts are literally taking a huge dump all over your good name…”

Content created on: 6/7 May 2022 (Fri/Sat)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Footnotes & References:
↵1	I slightly modified my name to protect my privacy.

Don’t Worry, I’m A Professional! What’s Bugging You, My Man?

1 May 2022 / BJ / 0 Comments

5 Min Read

Sometimes simply being a listening ear can mean the world to someone.

Mainly because then you’re not a running mouth…

“Just hanging in there the best I can…”

I gave a slight smirk upon hearing the exterminator’s response to my question, “How ya doing today?”–my attempt at basic pleasantries one might be expected to proffer when interacting with a stranger.

He had come by for his bi-monthly visit to spray for bugs around our house, and, as usual, he was at our front door letting us know he was there and what he planned to do that day–you know, to preempt us from calling the cops upon seeing a random dude wandering around outside our house.

Now, I’m not really big on the whole “basic pleasantries” thing, on account of the overly-honest gene in my DNA that gives me a near-unhealthy penchant for authenticity in all of my inter-personal interactions. So it’s always a treacherous gamble to engage in such activities with me, as you might just get more than the usual lie of “I’m doing just fine” that typically serves as the lubricant that keeps society running smoothly.

Anyways, the bug guy had caught me in a particularly hectic moment, so let’s just say that he had no idea what he was in for…

“That was about to be my exact response!”

I didn’t want to leave the guy wondering why I had a half-grin on my face, so I was letting him know that I could relate to how he was feeling. But before I burdened him with my current woes, I decided to let him share first what was weighing him down.

“Yeah, I hear ya…what’s ailing you these days?” I continued.

Who says that two complete strangers can’t share a sincere human connection, amiright?

“Well…” he said before pausing for a brief moment.

“Don’t worry, Buddy, you got a listening ear in me.” I gently encouraged him.

“So, I just recovered from COVID after being knocked on my ass for couple of weeks…”

“Oof. That’s rough.”

“…but what was really tough was losing 3 family members to COVID in just the last 2 months…”

“Oh man, I am so sorry to hear that.” I asked for ‘realness’, and whether I liked it or not, he was sure delivering.

“And then…”

“Wait! There’s more?” I thought to myself. Hadn’t he suffered enough already?

“…I get off work two nights ago, and come home to find all my possessions on the front porch.”

Sh*t. That could mean only one thing.

“Turns out, out of nowhere, my wife leaves me for another guy. I had no clue; I was completely blindsided.”

“Oh, man, that is so terrible–on top of everything else, too…”

Honestly, this was new territory. The closest I had previously come to having to figure out how to respond to a random person sharing some incredibly personal trauma with me was that one time I tried to give $20 to a guy loitering outside the local Korean fried chicken joint, and, well, I don’t have to tell you how that went.

“She said she’s taking the house. So I’ve been sleeping in my work truck the last few nights since I have nowhere to go…”

“Dang…” I was pretty much speechless by this point. I just couldn’t believe The Universe would kick a guy so squarely in the cajones when he was already down.

“…and I’ve got exactly negative $124 in my bank account, so yeah…I’m just hanging in there best I can.”

I was officially speechless at this point, doing all I could not to cry in front of another grown-ass man who just poured his heart out to me.

“Welp, today I’ll be spraying around the perimeter of your home as usual–gotta keep the creepy-crawlies from getting in the first place. Oh, and have you noticed any issues with bugs inside the house lately?”

“Here you go, I want you to have this. It’s not much, but hopefully it’ll help take the sting off a little.”

I had been an unexpected emotional wreck for the past 20 minutes while he had sprayed around the house–and I was just as worried that he would leave without checking back in with me. After rummaging through a couple dressers, I found what I had hoped to pass on to him: a Ziploc baggy with a modest amount of cash in it–serendipitously within a couple of dollars of his negative bank account balance.¹Not to #HumbleBrag, but I had discovered that they were $20 bills when I thought they were $50s or $100s, so it wasn’t as much as I had hoped to pass on to my hurting amigo. So I was rather relieved (and nervous!) when I heard the doorbell ring again.

He graciously accepted the gift, and just stood there for a moment.

“I’m doing all I can not to cry–this means so much to me.”

I, too, was doing all I could not to cry.

“I know hugs aren’t a good idea right now, but how about a fist-bump?” he offered.

I took him up on that, and in that moment, the much-maligned fist-bump became the vessel for one of the deepest connection I have experienced with another human being…

“You ever pondered over that part of the Bible where Jesus talks about ‘what you’ve done unto the least of these, you’ve done unto me'²https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Matthew-25-40 and what-not?”

“Yeah, I suppose I’ve given it some thought…”

Over a month later, and the Boss Lady and I were road-tripping to the beach for her birthday get-a-way, and I had just opened up to her for the first time about my encounter with the bug guy–it had been so emotionally heavy that I hadn’t been able to share it with another soul for weeks on end.

And she was indubitably wondering where I was going with it by bringing in theology.

“Well, I can’t help but wonder if I’ve just punched my ticket to Black Heaven³It wasn’t explicitly stated, but the bug guy is Black. So on top of everything else he has to deal with a baseline of systemic racism and racial inequity.…”

After a pause, my mouth rambled on to finish that train of thought.

“…and of course, by blasting my good deeds to the whole world, I’m no doubt voiding that ticket and going straight back to Caucasian hell…”

Empathy, generosity, and now humor?

Though I hadn’t meant to, my little tale had assaulted my dear wife with the Trifecta of Character Every Woman Wants Her Man, and thereby winning her heart back over after a little run-of-the-mill, very incredibly stupid 24-hour marital spat.

Again, yes I know that telling the whole world about my kind heart and valiant deeds kinda nullifies everything, but there really is a point in sharing all this.

I mean, it was her fault for trying to be infectiously gracious in the first place after I had mumbled a few choice expletives at an inept teen driver with whom we were stuck in traffic.

“Dear, don’t be so harsh–you never know what kind of day she’s been having…”

“Sigh. That’s true. Speaking of which, boy, do I have a story for you…”

“I’m crying! I’m crying!”

Fortunately, the Boss Lady was crying tears of laughter at this point, despite the gravity of The Bug Guy Story I had just intimated to her.

“Whew! Oh boy, I can’t get over the thought of you sharing your woes first instead of him–what was it you were about to say again?”

“Well, first, in my defense, things had been pretty stressful for me then. At least relatively speaking.”

“Just tell me the exact phrase you were about to tell him, explaining why you had the need to ‘hang in there’ the best you could.”

“Fine. I was about to say, and I quote:

‘Yeah man, life’s been rough on me lately. I’ve been trying to upgrade our front and back porches with this really expensive composite decking, and it’s just been taking forever. And on top of that, me and the family are leaving for a 6-day Disney World vacation tomorrow, and I feel completely unprepared. I’m totally stressing out here, man!’

There. Are you happy with how incredible close to being utterly embarrassed while simultaneously making him feel even more horrible?”

*gasp! gasp*

“One moment while I catch my breath…”

I couldn’t help but roll me eyes.

“Are you finished with your schadenfreude yet?”

“Oh, Dear…again, it all comes back to you, Disney, and your First-World Problems…”

Content created on: 29 April 2022 (Friday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Footnotes & References:
↵1	Not to #HumbleBrag, but I had discovered that they were $20 bills when I thought they were $50s or $100s, so it wasn’t as much as I had hoped to pass on to my hurting amigo.
↵2	https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Matthew-25-40
↵3	It wasn’t explicitly stated, but the bug guy is Black. So on top of everything else he has to deal with a baseline of systemic racism and racial inequity.

Gotta Hand It To You, Girl, You Sure Were Special…

24 April 2022 / BJ / 0 Comments

7 Min Read

Always celebrate those things that make your child unique.

And the more embarrassing, the better…

“Lay off of her! Our child is completely normal!”

Okay, so maybe my response to the innocent-enough questions, “Have you noticed that The Younger likes to religiously wipe everything with the back of her fingernails? Do you think there’s something wrong with her?” was a bit too impassioned.

Sure, one could argue our 4-year-old daughter’s habit was borderline O.C.D., but what good would it do it slap such a negatively-connotated label on the kid? When I asked why she would run the back of her fingertips over everything–couches, iPads, the perimeter of the kitchen countertops, various body parts of her family members, and even the occasional toilet seat–every chance she got, she simply replied, “Because it feels good on my fingers.” So why give her guff for her doing what just felt right to her, when it really wasn’t hurting anybody else? In fact, I was the opinion of that it gave her “character.”

“I can relate, kid, I can relate…”–that was my special Daddy way of helping her affirm her identity when other family members were less-supportive of her life choices.

And I could indeed relate, because–as it would seem–her unusual Savior Complex was not the only outlying behavior she inherited from her paternal genetic lineage. I tried to tell the other adults around her that, I too, took particular pleasure in running my fingernails along things when I was young.

So, yeah, I was actually a bit proud that she was taking after her Papa. Though, unlike her, I usually limited to my activity to my own pant legs…

“Stop. Making. Fun of me!”

So what? I was involved in one case of mistaken identity when I was about 4. Big deal. I was just a child for Heaven’s sake!

Yet, there I was, 6 years old, and Mom and 1SkinnyJ–my slightly older brother–would just not let me forget one teeny-tiny social faux pas I made well over 2 years earlier. It was almost a ritual for them, every month or so, drudging it back up and getting a good laugh out of my misfortune.

“Whoo-wee! You should have seen the look on your face! You were red as a beet, you were so embarrassed!”

“Shut up!”

I mean, really, who makes fun of kid for something that, frankly, scarred them for life? What kind of sick, twisted people am I stuck with calling “my family”?

Do you even know how emotionally impossible it is for a toddler to process such a psychologically damaging life event? Not to mention having to be repeatedly reminded of it by so-called “loved ones”?

What are these horrors that I wouldn’t even wish upon on the child of my sworn enemy, you ask?

Look, if you really want to know what happened, then fine, I’ll tell you. But you’ll be just as guilty as them for perpetuating childhood trauma.

It shouldn’t have been that big of a deal anyways. Where at a graduation at our local high school back in the mid-80s, and I recall standing in line with Mom to congratulate the new graduates…

“Hey there, kiddo, it’s good to see you!”

From across the way, I heard one of my aunts¹If you really care about historical accuracy, I must state for the record that I don’t know if it was an aunt for sure. But it was either a family member or a friend of the family. holler my name. And in spite of being an incredibly shy child who was permanently attached to his Mommy’s hand, I bravely ventured out and scurried over to say “hi” to the trusted, friendly face of said family member.

A good 90 seconds was about all I could bear out in the dangerous world, so after offering Auntie my greetings and salutations, I made a bee-line straight back to the safety and security of Mom’s hand.

“Oh…well hello there, little fella.”

Wait, what was wrong with Mom’s voice?!?

In a panic, my eyes followed the path from the hand that I was gripping ever-so-tightly, up the arm, and lastly to…

“Aww, sh*t…YOU’RE NOT MY REAL MOM!!!”

That face.

That face was not my mother’s! Hell, I didn’t know who’s it was. Like a complete ass, I hadn’t bothered looking up and confirming that it was Mom I was sidling up to before making physical contact!

I was so stunned, I couldn’t do anything but just stand there petrified, forgetting that I was still latched onto the hand of a complete ----- stranger.

From a few feet up ahead in the line, I saw my real mom turn and around, and, a little beet red herself, scurry back to detach me from the mystery woman’s appendage.

“So sorry about that…he’s, uh…a little special…”

“Another Easter egg hunt? Yayyyyy!!!”

The Elder’s Taekwondo dojo²Is it racist that I knowingly use this incorrect term? was hosting yet another Easter egg hunt this past holiday weekend, and I was just too busy with around-the-house projects to go. So I convinced the Boss Lady³As a friendly reminder, The Boss Lady is my wife. to take our two girls by herself.

I would later deeply regret this decision, as it turned out that by not going, I missed out on perhaps one of the most formative childhood events in the life of The Younger.

When the Boss Lady came back, she had this weird grin on her face.

“So, I gotta tell you what happened at the Easter egg hunt, but you gotta be standing up for this story.”

“Uh, okay…” I humored her by standing up, though I couldn’t see what in the world that had to do with the proverbial price of rice in China.

“After the hunt they handed out prizes–The Younger won the award for least number of eggs found, LOL–and so most of the kids were standing by the prizes as the parents watched.

As they wrapped it up and everyone started to leave, I headed over to claim our two children. But instead of running to me, The Younger started walking behind this Hispanic woman in dark pants.⁴Although The Boss Lady is half-Asian, half-Caucasian, and 0% Hispanic, she can easily be mistaken for a Herspanic, especially from behind. I was about halfway over to get her when she did this:”

The Boss Lady proceeded to demonstrate The Younger’s aforementioned tic by firmly swiping the fingernails across my hind-quarters.

“She just straight-up ran her fingers across that woman’s butt!”

After a fit of tearful chuckling, I managed to quip, “Man…she really is my daughter isn’t she?”

“Indeed, she is your child. Of course, the woman was startled by the fact that someone in the crowd had just grabbed her ass. And I could only watch and try not to laugh as she turned around, and upon seeing who her assailant was, respond like any other woman would respond in that situation…”

After I caught my breathe from guffawing so hard, I eked out the natural follow-up question:

“What…whew…what did…wait, I need another second…so what did the lady say?”

“What do you think she said? ‘Oh…why, thank you.'”

I wiped the remaining tears from eyes.

“Well, it just wouldn’t be the holidays without a little bit of generational trauma…”

The Boss Lady gave me a slightly quizzical look.

“You keep using that phrase. I do not think it means what you think it means…”⁵https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTRKCXC0JFg

The point of the story is, no matter how humorous it may seem to you, when your child’s personality traits–ones that they inherited from you, no less–collide and form one magical and hilariously embarrassing moment, show pity on the child, and never ever remind them or tease them about the event. It only becomes generational trauma if you choose to reinforce it…

…

Aww, f*ck it–this is waaaaay too funny to ever let go of. So you can be danged sure that if and when the day comes that The Younger gets married, her slightly inebriated father will be up there slurring out an unforgettable toast to the bride: “Hey, hey, remember that one time you wiped a strange woman’s ass at an Easter egg hunt…?”

[expand title=”Bonus material: Title notes”]

I would hope that you, my Dear Reader, would pick up on the many puns and other nuances that I try to pack into the titles of my posts. Of course, this is not always easy because sometimes I make either obscure references and/or significant stretches of logic in the process. Or sometimes I’m lazy and settle for a less-than-optimal title in exchange for pleasing the search engine gods at Google.

But with this title, I can’t stand the thought of some the puns embedded in the title to go completely unnoticed, so I thought I would share some inside notes with you about it.

The seedling that I built the title around was “I gotta hand it to you, kid…” Of course, you can see that the final version is slightly modified from this, but nevertheless, much of the punnery remained intact.

The two main jokes here are, first: “I gotta hand it to you”, as in, “I’m genetically passing on to you, my child, some of the same tics and traumas that I experienced myself.”

Secondly, I just had to have “hand” in the title, because both the tic and the embarrassing incident(s) were very much hand-related. Yeah? See what I did there?

“I gotta hand it to you, kid…” Yes, prime dad-jokery abounding here.

Further, I wanted to actually entitle it “I gotta hand it to you, kid–generational trauma, that is!” But I didn’t want to ruin the sub-punchline of “generational trauma.”

On a side note–do you realize how ----- hard it is to find literary-friendly synonyms for “trauma”?!? But I digress…

Ultimately, the title ended up referencing the punchline–always a dangerous strategy in my book–i.e. toasting/roasting your daughter at her wedding.

Another variant riffing on that idea was: “I gotta hand it to you, you were one ----- weird kid…” Well, maybe not with the expletive, but really railing on the idea of lovingly making fun of your kid for all of their idiosyncrasies and particularly embarrassing moments.

It’s like, “Hey, I got made fun of these exact same things and was scarred for life in the process. So of course I gotta continue the cycle…”

LOL…right?

Lastly, one of the final touches was including the term “special”, in part a reference to the end of the second section of the story where I claim that my mom apologized for me being special. Honestly, I can’t remember if she used those exact words, but nonetheless is a humorous tip-o-the-hat to my self-depracating habit of pointing out that much of my life I walked a fine line between “genius” and “complete ----- moron with no common sense.”

Ultimately, though, I’m as much a narcissist as the next guy, and take special loving delight when my daughters take after me in ways that are outside the norm, and, in my humble opinion, what really gives a person character.

Hey, after all, perfection is waaaaay over-rated. I mean, who wants to be that boring? But again, I digress…

The point of the story is I waste an incredibly disproportionate amount of my post-creating time on just coming up with a satisfactory title. (Note that it really helps when the title easily lends itself to my featured cut-and-paste picture creating process, which further complicates things.)

[/expand]

Content created on: 20/21/23 April 2022 (Wed/Thurs/Sat)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Footnotes & References:
↵1	If you really care about historical accuracy, I must state for the record that I don’t know if it was an aunt for sure. But it was either a family member or a friend of the family.
↵2	Is it racist that I knowingly use this incorrect term?
↵3	As a friendly reminder, The Boss Lady is my wife.
↵4	Although The Boss Lady is half-Asian, half-Caucasian, and 0% Hispanic, she can easily be mistaken for a Herspanic, especially from behind.
↵5	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTRKCXC0JFg

Hey, Who Recommended Drowning Your Moby D*ck In Love?

17 April 2022 / BJ / 0 Comments

7 Min Read

If you love her, you’ll give her whatever she needs.

Even if that “whatever” involves 8 gallons of the slippery stuff…

“Thar She blows!”

I quickly ran to the window of our humble trailer home and looked out towards the dusty-ass dirt road that connected our farm to Kansas Highway 51. Soon enough, I saw what the heck my bro, 1SkinnyJ, was going on about.

However, the image of a white whale of a car–an early-80s¹I’m embarrassed to say that I don’t remember the exact year, and may have been as old as a 1978 model. Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, to be exact–barrelling down our driveway amidst a whirlwind of dirt and sand just didn’t quite compute in my head.

“What in the heck? We don’t know anybody who drives that kind of car…right?”

I turned to 1SJ, hoping he knew who might be paying us a visit on such a fine spring evening, but he appeared to be lost in thought.

“Let’s see, it’s 1998–that car must be pushing 20 years–yet from what I can make out, it’s in mint condition…”

We both stood there, frozen in suspense, as moments later it pulled up to our driveway, and out popped…

“DAD?!?” we exclaimed in unison, still not understanding what was unfolding before our eyes.

” ‘Tis I, your Noble and Beloved Father, and I come bearing gifts!”

I had never seen a bigger sh*t-eating grin on my old man’s face before in my life.

He continued: “Well, not ‘gifts’ per se, just one gift…”

His two dumbfounded sons just continued to stare blankly back at him.

“Do I really have to go all Oprah on y’all? Okay, here goes…*ahem*:”

Technically, this is an anachronistic cultural reference…

“Well…to be clear, you two get a car to share…”

Seeing as how, at the ages of 17 and 19, respectively, we were basically grown-ass men who hadn’t had their own vehicle up until that point, you can only imagine that we were pretty ----- pleased as a pair of pickles with this turn of events.

I feel I need to pause here for a sec and provide some context regarding our transportation situation at the time. You see, during the entire 1997-98 school year, we would roll up to RHS for class in Kountry Kommodities, a sweet, sweet–but somewhat awkward–ride…that looked much like this:

An artist’s rendition of what Kountry Kommodities might look like today…

“Holy shizzle, it’s even got that velvet-like interior!” 1SJ exclaimed as he peered inside our new ride.

“This day just keeps getting better and better!”

I could not contain my joy, as this was indeed one of the best unexpected and very pleasant surprises of my entire life.

Dad went on to regale us with the tale of how he was at an auction a few towns over, and saw this car, which had been owned solely by an older couple for its entire existence, and since they had mostly kept in their garage, had only 30k miles on it(!!!). He proudly recounted how he decided ‘what the heck!’ and put in a few strategic bids on, driving away with it for only $1200.

Dang straight, he should have been proud of himself–you score for your sons classic wheels like that that’s in mint condition, and for only $1200? That’s Dad of the Year level sh*t right there.

Unlike us, though, “Daisy”, our stepmom was none too pleased that he had gone out and dropped that chunk of money on a lark, but for once he put her in her place, and let her know that dammit if he wanted to do something nice for his boys, he wasn’t going to hear any crap from anyone who might think otherwise.

That there? Now that was a Dad of the Decade performance…

“Oh, one last thing, boys…”

The two of us turned our gaze away from our newfound love, and back towards the Amazing Father of ours.

“…you can do whatever you like with your car, but I will need you to drive it to work.”

Not that the “other shoe dropping” could put that much of a damper on our day, but nonetheless, the realization that our beloved Moby D*ck²If you’re curious, my censorship software can’t tell when I use words such as D-I-C-K in a non-profane manner, and will indiscriminately censor it unless I trick it by spelling it “d*ck”. would have to double as a farm truck wasn’t a pleasant one. So much for keeping it in mint condition…

…anyways, that’s how the Summer of ’98–not to be confused with the Crazy-Ass Summer of ’99–got off to a hot start.

We drove the hell out of that thing–well, 1SJ, in true big brother form, did most of the driving, and if I got lucky, I got to ride in the front seat on the rare occasion that one of his pothead friends didn’t join us for one of our many, many late-night joyrides around the desolate 5-state area.

Of course, during the day, ol’ MD served us faithfully as our farm vehicle, and surprisingly didn’t get too trashed or greasy as one might have expected under such conditions.

At least that was the case when I left my love behind in late June, as I headed off to Southern California to spend the remainder of my summer with my mom. But 1SJ was a pretty responsible guy, and I knew he loved Moby as much I did, so I was confident that our beloved white whale would be in good hands…

“So…she developed a bit of a drinking problem while you were away…”

It was early August, and my first full day back from SoCal, so 1SJ was catching me up on all that I had missed while I was gone.

“If you’re going to be driving ye ol’ D*ck to sunrise football practices, it’s important that you understand the oil situation. She’s been burning through motor oil like crazy, and you’ll need to fill her up with 2-3 gallons³Or was it 2-3 quarts? Maybe my inability to tell the difference was what led to the following events… every morning.”

“Dang, she burns more oil than gas…that’s crazy!”

“Yeah, I know, but we don’t have to really worry about it since we’re on the farm, and have plenty of 55-gallon drums of oil just laying around…”

“That makes sense…”

“…so just make sure you always have at least one 5-gallon jug in the trunk, and be sure to top ‘er off every morning before you take her out, okay?”

“You got it, dude!”

Never in my life had I encountered instructions so simple and so clear…

“That’s odd…the oil line hasn’t changed, and I’ve already put a whole gallon in…”

I stared at Moby Dick’s dipstick, slightly confused. Normally, you could pretty easily tell where the oil level was as you topped her off, but not this day.

Dad and Daisy were headed away for the weekend⁴The historical veracity of this needs to be double-checked, as another shit-hits-the-fan-when-the-parents-are-away story also happened under similar circumstances. and 1SJ had already took off for the day. Although I had taken a different vehicle to football practice that morning, somebody had picked it up and so our grand plan involved my grandma bringing me back out to the farm to pick up MD, and then I would ultimately meet 1SJ at the field he was plowing that day.

Okay, look, I know it sounds convoluted, but it made sense to Dad at the time, and the upshot is that I was the first one to drive her that day, so the responsibility of oiling her up fell squarely on my shoulders–and thus denying me the luxury of a second opinion in my moment of discombobulation.

I poured another gallon in, yet it still appeared that I wasn’t making any difference. I was starting to get nervous–last thing I wanted was to burn up the only reliable vehicle we had for the next few days, simply because I didn’t put enough oil in it. It would be another classic Farm F*ck-Up on my part, and I desperately wanted to avoid that if I could.

“Well…” I mused to myself, “…it’s much better to have too much than too little I suppose. Guess, I’ll just dump this whole 5-gallon container in here, and hope that the leak is slow enough that it’ll at least get us through the day…”

“SCHLUB SCHLUB SCHLUUUUUUUB…”

“Well, shoot, so much for ‘getting us through the day’!” I muttered as I rolled to a dead stop.

Not even 4 miles down the road, and I was discovering firsthand what a dying (land) whale sounded like. But given that I had no clue if I had really put enough oil in MD, I wasn’t exactly surprised when I found myself stranded on the side of KS-51–aka, ‘The Road Less Traveled.’

“Dang it, cellphones aren’t going to be commonplace for folk like us for another 2-3 years, so…I guess I better start walkin’ then, hadn’t I?”

In reality, it took me much longer than that to assess the situation in which I found myself, and only after being pointlessly pissed off at the situation for a good 15 minutes, did I realize that my ass was walking those 4 miles back to the farm, where I could call Grandma for a ride and get on with my day.

Eventually, once Dad got back into town we towed Moby back to the farm, where he could try to bring her back to life. He was only on the ground underneath her for 2 or 3 minutes before he solved that mystery.

“Let me just inspect the oil pan here…wait! What the he–?!? *glug, glug, sputter, sputter.”

Dad rolled out from underneath the car, looking like he had just made the poor life choice of going to a Halloween party in black-face.

“Who the ----- put 8 gallons of oil in this thing?!?”

“Don’t look at me!” 1SJ was way too quick to rush to his own defense. “I only put 2 gallons in her before I left for the field that morning.”

“Well sh*t, now you tell me!” That information would have been good to have had.

“Dammit, son, so you’re telling that you put another 5 gallons in it after it was already full? Sheesh, sometimes, I swear, kid…”

“Hey, at least it didn’t burn up, right? Now that it’s drained (all over you, mfffph!) to a normal level, it should be good to go, right?” I was optimistic yet that Moby D*ck had many voyages left in her.

“I dunno, maybe. 1SJ, you want to test drive her over to Hugoton⁵A nearby town about 15 minutes away. and see what your pothead friends are up to?”

“Sure thang, Dad!”

Sadly, that was to be her final voyage, ultimately finding herself forever beached in the church parking lot across the street from Druggie Drew’s house, never to see the black waters of the highway-ocean again…

The point of the story is, believe it or not, there is actually such a thing as too much of a good thing–and specifically in this case, that good thing was “too much lube.”

Remember this, kids, when one day you might find yourself falling head-over-heels in love with a sweet Supreme Ass–er, I mean “a sweet Cutlass Supreme”–of your very own. If you treat her to just the right amount of lube, you might get to sail the seven seas in her for years to come…

And no, if you’re wondering, this is not some kind of sexual metaphor. Just a whale of a tragic tale of a boy and his first car…

Content created on: 15/16 April 2022 (Fri/Sat)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Footnotes & References:
↵1	I’m embarrassed to say that I don’t remember the exact year, and may have been as old as a 1978 model.
↵2	If you’re curious, my censorship software can’t tell when I use words such as D-I-C-K in a non-profane manner, and will indiscriminately censor it unless I trick it by spelling it “d*ck”.
↵3	Or was it 2-3 quarts? Maybe my inability to tell the difference was what led to the following events…
↵4	The historical veracity of this needs to be double-checked, as another shit-hits-the-fan-when-the-parents-are-away story also happened under similar circumstances.
↵5	A nearby town about 15 minutes away.

How To Find Out What Happens When A Scientist Doesn’t Have A Social Life

10 April 2022 / BJ / 0 Comments

4 Min Read

What happens when the brightest minds are banished to the back of the room?

Indubitably, sparks will fly and things will go boom…

“Hey, Howard, this boredom is killing me back here!”

Alas, my cries of ennui fell upon deaf ears–well, actually they were “ears solely focused on the academic struggles of my plebeian cohort”–of our (mostly) beloved Mr. Raff.

You see, that’s the problem when science comes easy to you: your smart ass gets stuck sitting in the back of your Freshman science class, at the lab tables…with minimal supervision…with nothing to do.

And the teachers at Rolla High School, much like the teachers at any other ‘Merican school–always justified such involuntary isolation with, “Well, we don’t want you distracting the other students, blah blah blah…”

Now riddle me this, Oh Wise Sages: how the heck do you expect us nerdlings to develop proper social skills if you’re always separating our ilk from the regular salt-of-the-earth kids?

Dear Teachers, hear me now: this barbaric anti-social practice of yours? I darn-sure guarantee you it’s just begging for some anti-social behavior in response.

Now, is that what you really want? To create the next generation of evil-geniuses? Do you really want to be responsible for the next Ted Kaczynski?

I didn’t think so…

“ZIP! ZAP! ZIP! ZTTTTTTTTT!”

You know, I gotta be honest: I expected a few sparks to fly, but, man, whew! Let’s just say that my scientific inquisitivity was promptly rewarded with quite the little Fourth of July fireworks display.

And I gotta say, I was a little disappointed that none of my fellow students got to enjoy the fruits of the labor of my lightly burnt fingertips. You know, on account of me being stuck in the back of the classroom and all…

Now, before you go judging me for recklessly endangering my classmates for my own amusement, I just wanna say in my defense: that was probably the most truly scientific event to happen in that classroom all year.

Think about it: what is the true spirit of experimental endeavors? What is the motto of the scientific community? I can’t remember exactly, but I believe it’s something like:

“F*ck Around And Find Out”
the battle cry of curious minds around the world

Yeah,yeah, I’ve heard that somewhere before, and I’m pretty sure that’s what means…right?

So naturally, when a little voice in my awkward little future-physicist head whispered into my awkward little future-physicist ear, “Hey, don’t you ever wonder what really happens when you stick a paper clip into an electric socket?” what do you think I did?

Dang straight:

I f*cked around and found out…

“Whoever the mastermind is, they overlooked one key detail: Mr. Raff is not a smoker.”

I averted my eyes as un-suspiciously as possible, trying not draw the attention of the Mr. P & Mr. B, RHS’s principal and vice principle, respectively.

“Youths, if any of you know who is responsible for this attempted act of terrorism, please tell us now.”

“That’s right, this is no laughing matter: had there been the slightest spark, the entire science classroom–and probably the library, too–would have been blown to high-heaven.”

I continued to act as nonchalant as possible.

“Children, we know that an entire classroom doesn’t magically fill with natural gas by itself overnight. Whoever the culprit is, we can can guarantee you this: we will sniff you out.”

“Heh, heh, nice pun.”

“Thanks! Glad you appreciated it…” Despite the gravity of the matter, Mr. P. had no problem accepting Mr. B.’s complement of his incredible egregious Dad-joke. But, fear not, he quickly regained his serious demeanor:

“Hey! Who’s that trying to whistle all innocently at the back of the room?”

“Yeah, you–sitting at the lab table…”

“…next to the gas valve for the Bunsen burners…”

Misters P. & B. looked at each other in shock as an uncomfortable realization washed over them, before turning to glare at Mr. Raff.

“Dammit, Howard, you’ve gone and done it–you’ve turned RHS’s star student into the next Unabomber!”¹Bonus fun fact: Ted Kaczynski was arrested almost at the exact same time as the events in this story happened (+/- 1.5 months), on April 3, 1996.

“Son, a word, please?”

I knew finding myself in a huge pile of deep doo-doo was inevitable from the moment I arrived early that morning at my first-period math class–also held in the science room–only to find the door oddly propped open by a trash can.

But I loved Mr. Raff–he was “beloved’ after all, was he not?–and I had never meant to almost blow him to the Great Beyond. Aww, man, if I wanted to avoid being sent off to Juvenile Detention, I only had once choice: to come clean–no matter how embarrassing the truth may be.

I nervously cleared my throat, not sure if they would find believable what I was about to tell them.

“So, you see what happened was…well, I had finished all my homework as usual, and was sitting by my lonesome there in the back, when heard a little voice in my head. It said, ‘Hey, what do you suppose would happen if you, oh, I don’t know, say, jammed a chunk of paper in the Bunsen burner gas valve²As opposed to “in your ears“… and then turned it on real quick-like?’…”

“Okaaaaay…and…?”

“Of course, I had to test out that theorem…it worked pretty well, I might add–launched them spitwads about a quarter of the way across the room…”

“Sure, but that doesn’t explain why you left the gas on all ----- night.”

“Oh, right. Well, that Voice wasn’t satisfied with just 1/4 of the classroom, hissing into my innocent little hearing-orifice: “You know, you really need to let the pressure build. Why not jam a SUPER-BIG wad in there so it takes a few minutes of the gas being on before it blasts out at a high velocity? Inquiring minds want to know: is it possible to blast it all the way across the room?’ And you can’t ignore sound logic like that, right?”

“Hmmm…go on…”

“So, like any scientist worth their salt, I, um…”

“You what?”

“…well, I kinda ‘f*cked around’…”

*beat*

“…but I forgot to stick around and, uh, you know, ‘find out’…”

Mr. P. let out a sigh that was somewhere in between exasperation and relief.

“Well, today’s your lucky day, son. Fortunately for you, ‘unadulterated dumbassery’ is not a crime…”

“…and as for you…”

The two principals turned their attention to Mr. Raff.

“Dammit, Howard, you may have not created an evil genius, per se–just what appears to be a ‘stupid genius.’ And that’s probably even more dangerous…”

Content created on: 8/9 April 2022 (Fri/Sat)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Footnotes & References:
↵1	Bonus fun fact: Ted Kaczynski was arrested almost at the exact same time as the events in this story happened (+/- 1.5 months), on April 3, 1996.
↵2	As opposed to “in your ears“…

When Secrets Of The Night Come Out Into The Light

3 April 2022 / BJ / 0 Comments

3 Min Read

Secrets lurk in the dark, waiting to ambush you.

And they’re coming for your precious little family, too…

“WHAT THE–?!? Hey, let go of me!”

‘Lyle'¹Yes, that’s his real middle name., one of my older brothers, startled awake in the dark²For the historical record, it was actually the middle of the day. to find a mysterious arm clutching him tightly.

“ZZZZZZ…zzzz…” The only response that broke the silence was some serious snoring.

“Ugghn!” Lyle let out a deep grunt as he pried himself free from the arm.

“That was weird…” he muttered to himself before rolling over and falling back asleep…

“ZZZZ…I gotchya! Zzzz….”

The stillness of the night was shattered by some light snoring with a few cryptic words mumbled in between, followed by a loud “THWAP!” as a disembodied arm smacked 1SkinnyJ–yet another of my many brothers–in the abdomen.

“Get. Off. Me!”

A bleary-eyed 1SJ was a confused by the arm as he was annoyed. After all, none of us had been getting much sleep that week, as we had been spending almost every moment–waking or otherwise–beside our dad as he lay on his deathbed.

After 4 days of virtually no sleep, the three of us finally had the chance to get a few hours of hardcore napping at a family friend’s³Okay, so it was actually Lyle’s uncle–is it really worth wasting the words to explain that? house. But keeping watch as you wait for a loved one to pass can take a deep toll on a person.

Apparently, it causes you to hallucinate that mystery appendages are giving you really intense hugs as you sleep…

“Dude, I had the weirdest dream…”

Refreshed and back at the hospital, Lyle and 1SJ were just shooting the breeze to pass the time.

“…that an arm came out of nowhere and saved you from falling off the bed, amiright? I’m right, aren’t I?”

1SJ‘s jaw dropped open, wondering how the heck Lyle knew exactly what had gone down in his dream.

“Wha–how did you know?”

“Yeah, it happened to me too. Though…”

“Though what?”

They both turned and looked at me, who had been aloof to their entire conversation up until that point.

“That was no dream–it was you!”

I found myself staring down Lyle’s accusatory finger.

“What did I do? I’m innocent I swear!”

“You were sleeping in between us, so it must have been your arm that kept grabbing us in our sleep!”

“You’re full of sh*t, man. I was sound asleep the whole time.”

“No, it’s true,” 1SJ chimed in, “you were definitely trying to keep us from falling off the bed. Though, come to think of it, we were never ever even close to the edge…”

“Really?!? I swear that’s never happened before, my bros…”

“AAAAHHHH! What the hell, Hubby? You scared the crap out of me!”

“These dogs…these dogs keep mooching off my back…mumble mumble mumble…”

“Oh…you jackass. You’re doing weird sh*t in your sleep again…”

Less than 4 months after Dad passed, I found myself newly wed to the Boss Lady, and it didn’t take too long for her to learn that, indeed, I do do weird sh*t in my sleep. Stuff that I had no clue I was ever capable of.

Performing dream-soliloquys complaining about dogs trying to hitch a ride on my back as I swam across a river? Check.

Making her wake up to an earthquake rocking our bed, only for her to discover it’s just me, rocking out and playing the air drums while still fast asleep? Been there, done that.

And of course: saving her from falling off the bed? You can bet her sweet ass that she’s the safest snoozing spouse you’ve ever met. Just ask her: there’s nothing like unwittingly being wrapped up securely in a strong, sexy arm….Night, after night, after night…

These are just a few of the many tales she would regale me when I woke up. Stories so fantastic and/or ridiculous that I would have never believed her, were it not for the independent accounts of my nocturnal heroics from my beloved brothers.

The point of the story is: you never know who you truly are until you start sleeping with other people…

“Don’t worry, Daddy! I’ll keep you safe from falling!”

“THWAP!”

A tiny little 4-year-old arm grabbed a hold of me tightly, just right when I was starting to settle into my nap with The Younger.⁴As in, “the Younger of my two daughters.”

“Yawn…hmm, that’s nice…”

…

“Wait, what?!?” I startled awake as I recognized what she what was really doing–and that there was no way she could have learned that behavior from me.

“Dang it,” I muttered to myself. “It looks like it’s genetic…I guess I’m passing my ~~White~~ While-You-Were-Sleeping Savior Complex onto my daughters…”

Content created on: 1/2 April 2022 (Fri/Sat)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Footnotes & References:
↵1	Yes, that’s his real middle name.
↵2	For the historical record, it was actually the middle of the day.
↵3	Okay, so it was actually Lyle’s uncle–is it really worth wasting the words to explain that?
↵4	As in, “the Younger of my two daughters.”

It’s Not All Magic When You’re A Less Famous Mouse

27 March 2022 / BJ / 0 Comments

6 Min Read

If you’re lucky, a cat or mouse will only scratch you.

If you’re unlucky, they might just scar you for life…

“Mommy, Mommy! Where is the other half of Whiskers¹Not the cat’s real name, but not because I’m trying to protect that dumb-asses’ privacy, but because I just can’t remember it.?!?”

I can still vividly remember a time when shutting the car door all by myself was an achievement worth celebrating. Especially because back then our family vehicle was this ugly green, late 1970’s certifiable land yacht. I don’t recall the exact make and model–probably an Oldsmobile or Buick, no doubt–but the body of this mechanical beast had to have been made out of pure, solid iron.

For all practical purposes, there was very little that separated the front passenger door from it’s close cousin, the bank vault door. So, yeah, getting my little body to muster up the muscular strength of a 10-year-old (or two 5-year-olds, or ten 1-year-olds), and getting that door shut was something that was very much pat-myself-on-the-back-worthy.

However, when that big day finally arrived when my wildest dreams came to fruition, things didn’t play out exactly as I had imagined they would. Did I get a ticker-tape parade for being such a Big Boy? Was there confetti streaming down from the car’s rafters to enhance this magical moment? Was there any patting-on-the-back, whether by my own hand or that of another?

Let’s see…”no,” “nope,” and “negatory.” Does that answer my²I really wanted to type “your questions” here, but let’s be honest: you weren’t the one asking them. questions? Yes, it does.

Yet, I remember that milestone so clearly.

For all the wrong reasons, of course.

After a couple of really good tugs, I had finally overcome the friction on the door hinges, and to my sheer delight, the door quickly gained momentum and swung solidly shut. Well, almost solidly shut…

To my horror, in that split second between getting over the frictional energy barrier and the door latching in place, our idiot cat Whiskers–or whatever his name was–decided he wanted to come on our trip with us and, like a half-drunk motorist trying to race a train across a railroad crossing, he gambled when the odds were not “ever in his favor.”³I almost instantly regreted including a reference from The Hunger Games here… That little dipshit actually thought he could make it into the car before the door shut all the way.

To his credit though, it turns out he was half right.

The door started swinging shut, Whiskers appeared out of nowhere and prepared to launch, and all I could do was be awash in a feeling of helplessness as I had just enough time to not only realize what was about to happen, but to also realize that there was no way I could stop that door once I got it moving.

“NOOOOOOOOoooooooooo…!”

KER-CHUNK!

Next thing I knew, with my little eyes I was spying exactly one half of a cat inside the car–the front half, rib cage to nose, to be exact. And thus leaving only one logical conclusion as to where the other half of Whiskers was–outside the car.

Holy. Sh*t. Batman.

Had I just guillotined our precious feline friend right in two⁴TOOL reference!?!? Hello, instant childhood PTSD!

While I sat there, dazed and traumatized, Mom acted quick on her feet, leaning over and opening the door back up lickety-split (fun fact: it’s much easier to get those doors to budge when you’re a grown-ass woman).

…And just like a classic magic trick, voilà! The hind quarters and tail of ol’ Whiskers reappeared!

By some miracle, I had not, in fact, severed his spine. And apparently all his other internal organs got safely smushed to either inside or outside the car upon impact, and had slid right back into place once the door was re-opened. So, in the end, that lucky little bastard turned out just fine and no worse for the wear.

I, on the other hand, not so much. Verily, with a mere 4 years of worldly experience under my belt, I could put my hand over my little heart and swear to you, “I was in no way emotionally prepared for this…”

“Professor A., I think you are ready to learn how to run one of our scientific studies end-to-end. First things first, though: specimen preparation.”

It was halfway through my first year of working in a small-animal MRI lab, and my boss, Four-Quart Willie,⁵Not his real name, but if you can figure out what this real (professional) name is, and why I use this moniker for him, I think you would chuckle lightly to yourself as much as I do every time I type it. loved to feed the ego of those of us freshly off the PhD assembly line by referring to us “Professors.”

Indeed, it was a very effective way to convince me to move away from my expertise in image and data processing and/or wrangling, and to start getting my hands dirty directly dealing with the rodents his lab loved to study so much: mice.

Now, I had exactly zero interest in the whole proposal, but how could I resist someone who esteemed me at the level of professor? Amiright?

At this point, it is critical to understand that the bread-and-butter of our scientific endeavors is what is called ex vivo MRI scans. Instead of gently sedating a mouse or rat and scanning them while they are alive and breathing (that would be in vivo), we yada yada ya…and scan only their extracted skull and brain.

To get an idea of why this is preferred, here are comparative examples of in vivo (left) and ex vivo (right) MRI images of a mouse brain:

Figure 1: An axial MRI slice of a mouse brain, *in vivo*, aka “alive” (Left); and ex vivo aka “not so alive” (Right).

Take a gander at those two pics, and you tell me whether a scientist such as myself would prefer those little rascals dead or alive? Yeah, the choice is pretty clear: those mice are better off dead to us.

Anyways, the very next week I had the privilege of being trained in the ways of “specimen preparation”: the aforementioned yada yada ya that encompasses whatever happens in between “mouse starts day like every other day with a snack and a good poo” and “mouse’s skull and brain end up floating in a tiny sealed tube, ready to be scanned.”

I should also mention another very important thing to know about this business, and that is that animal comfort and safety is taken very seriously. There are like, a million-thousand rules and regulations about handling animals involved in experiments, especially when it comes to what we in the biz call “sacrificing” them–aka killing them until they are dead. We have to follow strict procedures to minimize any suffering they might endure in the process.

With such humane guardrails in place, I hadn’t given much thought to that whole part of the process when I walked into our surgery room for training that particular morning. I had no doubt in my mind that Step One would involve something similar to, say, putting them in a small box and, oh, I don’t know, maybe pumping it full of carbon dioxide, followed up with a barely noticeable shot in the tail that would dreamily send them off to never-never land.

Or, as I like to call it, “gently leading them into the dark.” Sounds almost…romantic, doesn’t it?⁶Probably because it hearkens memories of that Death Cab For Cutie song, “I Will Follow You Into The Dark.”

Well…at least I got the first sub-step half right. You know, the part about the mild sedation to initially knock them out.

After that? Oh boy…how do I put this?

Yada yada ya…and the next thing I know, I’m staring at a very much still-living mouse laying on its back, all 4 paws pinned back in what appeared to be some sort of sacrilegious attempt to accurately recreate a murine version of the whole Jesus-on-the-cross scene.

And how did I know it was still alive, you might be wondering? Did I feel for its pulse? Did I hold a mirror up to its tiny nose and look for it to fog up?

Nope. Nothing that subtle.

No, all I had to do was look at its heart, and…yup, still pounding away. Oh, did I mention that its chest cavity was split wide ----- open? Yeah, rib cages pinned to the side and everything.

I was in complete shock at the sight of its little lungs still rapidly expanding and contracting, its heart furiously pumping, and the rest of all its innards, just hanging out doing their thang, on display for the whole ----- world to see.

I kinda blacked out most of what happened after that, but I’m pretty sure once it was all said and done, I went and found a secluded spot outside and sobbed gently for a good 5 minutes.

I mean, what the ----- did I just witness???

It was, as we say in the business, a real mind- ----- .

Of course, when I went home that evening to The Boss Lady and she asked me how my day went, I had to relive the horror all over again.

Verily, with a mere 34 years of worldly experience under my belt, I had to put my blood-stained hand over my little heart and swear to her, “Oh Sweet Baby Jesus, I was in no way emotionally prepared for this…”

Content created on: 25/26/27 March 2022 (Fri/Sat/Sun)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Footnotes & References:
↵1	Not the cat’s real name, but not because I’m trying to protect that dumb-asses’ privacy, but because I just can’t remember it.
↵2	I really wanted to type “your questions” here, but let’s be honest: you weren’t the one asking them.
↵3	I almost instantly regreted including a reference from The Hunger Games here…
↵4	TOOL reference!
↵5	Not his real name, but if you can figure out what this real (professional) name is, and why I use this moniker for him, I think you would chuckle lightly to yourself as much as I do every time I type it.
↵6	Probably because it hearkens memories of that Death Cab For Cutie song, “I Will Follow You Into The Dark.”

To Florida, Kids! The Land Of A Little Dirty Imagination…

20 March 2022 / BJ / 0 Comments

6 Min Read

The problem with not knowing the truth is that your imagination might run wild.

You know, like “Girls Gone Wild” wild…

It was like a moment straight from the Oprah Winfrey show: “You get a car! You get a car! And you get a car–everybody gets a car!!!”

You remember that, right? Here, let me refresh your memory:

Yeah, except, instead of “cars” everyone in Rolla High School’s Sophomore¹…or was it my Freshman year? Computer/Typing class was getting letters from their very own pen pal. But not from any old boring place like Kansas, though—we got hooked up with a sister class from Apopka High School–that’s in Apopka, Florida, my friends!

And, instead of “Oprah Winfrey”, it was good ol’ Mrs. Hansen handing them out. You remember Mrs. Hansen right? The teacher who once accused me of “murdering a baked potato“? Yeah. Her.

And, instead of “everybody” it was “everybody…except you.” As you might have guessed, that “you” here was spoken directly at me. Yeah. Me.

“Oh, boy!” I thought, “Maybe I’m so special that I get to have two pen pals!”

“So…I’m not getting a letter because I’m getting a couple of letters, right, Mrs. H.?” That was simply the only logical explanation.

“Uh…no. Well, I actually have a letter for you…”

I could tell she was searching for the right way to let me down gently.

“…I just can’t…um…give you the letter.”

I took a moment to try to figure out what in the tarnation²That’s Kansas for “the f*ck”. she was going on about.

Taking my blank stare and trembling lower lip as her cue, Mrs. H pressed forward.

“Your pen pal? Well, she wrote some inappropriate stuff…”

Hmmph. That was odd. What could this person that I didn’t even know have to say that was too much for a 15-year-old to handle?

“Surely you could give me a censored version, right? No need to leave me out in the cold here.”

“No…It was bad. Like, real bad.”

“Seriously, I don’t mind a redacted version. I’ve been so looking forward to having a pen pal–it’s been a childhood dream of mine.”

In the Five Stages of Grief, I was squarely in the Bargaining Stage. I couldn’t let this dream die so easily.

“That’s physically impossible…there would be nothing left after censorship…”

“Just a tiny hint? Please oh–“

“I SAID I CAN’T.”

Whoa. Mrs. H. wasn’t messing around.

“Please oh please?” I whispered meekly with a tear forming in my eye.

“Look, I hate to use foul language in the classroom, but I can’t seem to get my point across to you: she straight-up wrote some nasty sh*t.³Okay, I don’t think she actually said ‘sh*t’ in the classroom. But I very distinctly remember her using the term ‘nasty’. There. I said it. Now end of discussion…”

“The Great Nasty Sh*t Mystery of 1996.” To this very day it haunts me, taunting me even unto my deathbed, forever depriving me of true closure in this lifetime.

WHAT DID SHE WRITE?!? Mrs. H. was so steadfast in “protecting” me–or whatever favor she thought she was doing me–that I was I never able to get even the slightest of clues out of her.

But instead of protecting me, she only left me with an unsolvable puzzle that would go on to slowly eat away at my sanity well into adulthood and beyond. And this is all on top of adding to my long history of childhood trauma in which I was left out yet again (that’s a whole ‘nother can of worms entirely, and beyond the scope of this text, though).

Why would she do that to me? Now I’m left to forever wonder: “I may never know the exact details of that Nasty Sh*t, nay and alas, I’ll never even know the broad nature of those loathsome and despicable words sent slowly in my general direction through the old-fashioned snail mail.”

So my first assumption was that my pen pal was just foul-mouthed–you know, kinda like me, sprinkling an NC-17 word in here or there to liven things up a little and more fully express one’s self. Nothing like an occasional f-bomb to drive your point home, amiright?

I wouldn’t even minded it if she had called me a “melon-farmer“, as we all know that can also be used as a term of endearment.

But the main problem with this theory is it seems like there would have been at least some redeemable text that could have survived the censors and been passed on to me…pitiful ol’ little me…

Then there’s the idea that she was just being hateful and rude. You know, insulting my mom’s weight, farting in my general direction, calling me a cousin-loving hillbilly, telling me to kill myself. Stuff like that. Uncalled for, yes, but unimaginable? No, that is very well within the capabilities of a 15 or 16 year old girl (one with a whole litany issues, admittedly).

At the time, I had one other idea of what she might have written, and I’ll get to that in a second. First, though, I confess that only within the last year or two another possibility crossed my mind: absolute and unabashed racism.

I was (am) just a honky from Kansas after all. She? She was from the cosmopolitan metropolis of the Greater Central Florida area. If she was perhaps, say, a young woman of color, it is very possible that she had experienced enough racial trauma in her young life that she could have seen me as an anonymous outlet for her righteous anger at a very broken system that favors “people like me” at the expense of people like her.

“You cracker-ass mother ----- , putting ghosts to shame with your whiteness! Where’s my reparations, you patriarchal boot-licking he- ----- ?!?”

Ya know, your standard Caucasian-based racial slurs, combined with historic-grievance-based justified rage. Run-of-the-mill stuff, actaully.

The other hypothesis that I came up with back then was that, given that my pen pal was a she/her, perhaps…perhaps it was nasty in a, uh…”sensual context”. I mean, she was from Florida, the birthplace and world capital of erotic 1-900 phone numbers in the 90’s…it’s not that outlandish of an idea.

This is both one of my favorite and most feared scenarios I was able to fathom at the time. On one hand, can you imagine being the one to discover it?

Editor’s note: Mom, you might want to skip this next paragraph.

I chuckled very heartily at the thought of Mrs. H. getting blindsided when reading such classic lines as: “Then I’ll slide off my panties…the panties my mother laid out for me,“⁴ “Boy, Ima suck your ----- so ----- hard your brains gonna come out my nostrils,” and “Oooh, baby, just your fist? Honey, no. You ain’t stopping until you’re elbows-deep…”

You know, standard naughty-talk.

On the other hand…you can imagine how tortuous it would have been for a 15-year-old hormone-driven youth such as myself to know–or at least suspect–that such a letter existed, literally with my name on it, and to know that I would never be able to see it.

There’s only way to express my hypothetical suffering and woe:

Indeed, folks, the true tragedy here is not an exploding hydrogen-filled floating sea mammal, but that I–no, we–we will never know what was in that letter. We’ll never know what warranted a public school teacher to say, aloud, in class, to a student, “…that was some nasty-ass sh*t…”

“Oh, can you just imagine the look on our girls’ faces when we tell them ‘We’re going to Disney World!’???”

“Pffttt! No way, Jose! Disney is for suckers who like to be parted with their monies. The only reason we even went to Disney Land last time was because, on account of my cleverness and shear will to not accept the status quo, we were able to do it for 10% the price of what it would cost your everyday chump.”

“…plus, I hear the Disney World–you know, the one in Florida–is way better than California’s Disney Land…”

Something the Boss Lady just said snapped me back to full attention:

“Wait…Florida you say?”

*checks map*

*Double-checks map*

Sweet, sweet resolution might be only 27 minutes away…

“Wait, what are you doing in the middle of our conv–“

“LAY OFF ME, I’M BOOKING OUR PLANE TICKETS!”

The point of the story is, before you go and drop a sizable sum of money on a Disney World vacation because you’re using it as an excuse to hunt down⁴Auntie Amelia, this is how this post relates to the Spanish laptop post, otherwise you’ll be wondering where part 2 was until the day you die. a retired teacher of your long-lost foul-mouthed pen pal, you might want to step back and think this one through.

Young Grasshopper, the Knowledge You Seek isn’t to be found in some far-off exotic swampland called “Florida”. Nay the Knowledge may actually lie closer to home…

*Ahem*

Mrs. Hanson, if you’re reading this, I’m begging you PLEASE OH PLEASE OH PLEASE–tell me what my penpal wrote to me. I’m a grown-ass adult now. I swear I can handle the truth. No matter how nasty it may be…

Content created on: 17 March 2022 (Thursday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Author: BJ (Page 12 of 34)

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↵1	…or was it my Freshman year?
↵2	That’s Kansas for “the f*ck”.
↵3	Okay, I don’t think she actually said ‘sh*t’ in the classroom. But I very distinctly remember her using the term ‘nasty’.
↵4	Auntie Amelia, this is how this post relates to the Spanish laptop post, otherwise you’ll be wondering where part 2 was until the day you die.

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Previously, on “The Point of the Story”…

The latest word on the street

Dig into the vault for lost treasure

Enjoy this blog? Please spread the word :)