Sometimes, you just need to be regaled with tales of the asinine and the absurd. After all, what are the building blocks of the human experience but for these two things?
Today is one of those days, and now is one of those times.
Act I
Last year, when my elder daughter had just started kindergarten at her new, small school, I was asking her if she knew the names of her classmates. In a daily update email sent earlier by her teacher, I had noted that there was at the very least a “Luke” in her class, so I mentioned that.
She confirmed this intel, and then continued to inform me that there were actually 2 “Lukes”. I found that pretty cool because there were only like 6 kids in her class. What are the odds, right?
A few days later, I’m at parent orientation for the kindergarten class when we’re asked to go around the room, introduce ourselves, and share something about our kid that we find special.
Well, one of the mom’s found that question to be particular interesting, because her boys were identical twins. She kept talking, and when she mentioned their names, I realized that this was one of the Luke’s mom.
And then it dawned on me…holy shit , there are literally “2 Lukes”. Only one is called Ethan.1Not his real name. Consider yourself Shyamalan’d.2Or, as I have called it elsewhere, “M. Night’d”
The Observer: “There is more than one of everything.”3Fringe, S1,E20: “There Is More Than One of Everything.” Fox Network (2008-2013)Me: *brain short circuits*
I had found this so profound, yet so absurd, I couldn’t help to tweet about it to an audience-of-none on my secret Twitter account. In fact, what I wrote above was merely a light adaptation/expansion of those two tweets.
In my mind, I was all patronizing,4This almost also functions as a pun. You know, because I’m her father and all. Speaking of patron, you can always patronize me! thinking, “Oh, that rascal! Isn’t that cute? She thinks identical twins have the same name as well. Ahh, youths…”
Act II:
Well, one thing that I should have learned well before then was to always bet on the kid. Any time when she would say something that would warrant the typical parental response “Well, I don’t think that’s really the case” etc., us adults would always end up eating our words. Always. She was pretty much never wrong, with the exception of ghost/monsters in her closet. And honestly, I’m not even sure she was wrong about that (I listen to too many paranormal podcasts).5You can check some of them out on the Brain Ticklers page.
Shortly after the original incident, I was telling this story to B.S. Slappy, who’s son is in the same class (our kids are basically best friends). He was like, “Uh, actually…there ARE 2 Lukes. Luke B. & Luke W. And yes, one of them has a twin.”
Well, whatd’yaknow? The kid wasn’t full of it after all.
At this point I’m just basking in the copious amounts of the absurd flowing from this situation. I’m loving it.
The best part was that there was a twist after all–I had M. Night’d myself. A Self-Shyamalan, if you will.
Me: *double short circuit*
Act III:
The school the Elder went to last year only went up to kindergarten, so this year we found a different school that we could afford even less–“but [this one] go[es] to 6.”6https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOO5S4vxi0o In this particular educational model–which will remain unnamed for now–grades are integrated together 3 at a time. But this school was so small, that all grades 1-6 are in the same classroom, with a grand total of 13 students.
After the first week of school, I naturally found myself asking her the same questions as the year before. She rattled off a few of the girls’ names, so I followed that up by asking if she knew any of the boys’ names.
The Elder: “Oh, yeah. There’s Dylan, he has a twin…and, let’s see…who else? Oh, there’s another Dylan. There’s 2 Dylans!”
Me [under my breath]: “I’m not falling for this one again. Fool me once…”
…
Me: “So…there are three boys involved in this scenario, correct?”
The Elder: “Yes.”
Me: “1) The first Dylan. 2) His twin who is NOT named Dylan. And 3) the second Dylan–and you promise he looks nothing like the other two?”
The Elder: “Yes, Daddy.”
Me: “Cool, cool…I just had to double-check. So, it’s like last year with the 2 Lukes, huh?”
The Elder: “Actually, Daddy…there’s 3 Dylans! [Teacher from previous school]’s son is Dylan, too.”
I would like to apologize up front for yet another meta-blog post about blogging and how that’s my true calling in life. I get it: you get it.
But, you see, what happened was…it was a clear and calm Wednesday night (as recounted on a Thursday)…
With my regular, self-imposed weekly Sunday deadline looming, I needed to pick out one of the several articles I have in the oven to touch up and get ready for primetime. That was my main goal yesterday. Well, of course other less important things got in the way.
Come 10 pm or so, I’m taking my routine, er, “pitstop”, and decide to check in with the gigs section on Craigslist. Now, I haven’t directly addressed Craigslist gigs yet, apart from listing it in the Dubious Endeavors page. I guess I haven’t fully explained my nuanced employment situation yet, either, so here’s the abbreviated context so we can proceed.
The short version is that I work multiple part time jobs, one real one with a real paycheck, and then several projects that fall under the header of My Own ----- Boss (yet another series of posts promised, but still not delivered as of this writing). Anyways, Craigslist gigs falls in the latter category, of course. Now, I haven’t actually fully ventured down any path I have found via this avenue, but I hope to some day.
Of course I would love to bring in some extra cash for the family’s sake, but another motivation for me is that I see it as not only as a fount of humorous entertainment, but also a potential source for unexpected and atypical misadventures. I mean, I need some material for posts covering ongoing and active shenanigans and keep all y’all entertained. I can’t just endlessly regale you with tales from my past…oh, wait, I totally could do that. But, being the kind soul that I am, I would like to have a variety of material for you to enjoy, Dear Readers.
Okay, now we can turn our attention to what I discovered last night:
Figure 1: A Craigslist Gig full of potential.
YES, PLEASE. Now this is what I hope to find when I go sifting through the muck that Gigs often can be. YES YES YES. I could get paid to go on a treasure hunt, AND write about it. Oh, shit yes, I’m so there. I gotta say, this really speaks to my inner pirate. Speaking of which, I just so happen to be writing this on Speak Like A Pirate Day, which I celebrated with a tweet.1Spoiler Alert: You’re bound to roll your eyes in response. Or “roll your eye” if you’re a true pirate.
So, anyways, there I am, upon my throne, and I have come across this grand opportunity. I really should be working on my weekly post, but…oh, the temptation! Ultimately I gave in, and decided to tap out a reply to this post then and there.
Let’s just say that I got a little side-tracked in trying to convince him that I would be a pair of well-invested Andrew Jacksons. But ultimately, I ended up telling him I story I had wanted to share on here eventually, and at this point I already wrote it…why do a job twice, right? So I’ll let me, telling the story to some rando treasure hunt creator, tell you the tale of my first experience “blogging”. Please note that, unlike my usual M.O., a main of the point of the story was included in this post title. Sorry to disappoint.
Anyways, without further ado, enjoy!2[Voiceover, in a serious tone:] The following has been modified for broadcasting via blog; it has been resized to fit your screen (but not edited due to time constraints). And I quote…
From: bj@thepointofthestory.com To: ——–@——.com Subject: Chapel Hill
Hi —–, It seems like I might be a good fit to test things out for you. I geocache3For the uninformed curious: basically treasure hunting with GPS. on occasion; once or twice was on UNC’s campus (I was a grad student there for 6 years).
As for attention to detail/proofreading, etc. it seems a little more difficult to convey my skills in those areas.
To give you an idea of my baseline, I once was an education major many moons ago, and had to take a class with about 300 other students, in which we would go to local high schools twice a week just to observe. We had to keep an online journal of our experiences. It was pretty much busy work. Mind-boggling boring type stuff, right?
I didn’t expect anyone to read these journals, and in fact thought that, at best, the professor would maybe read a handful throughout the semester, given the size of the class and what-not.
Despite this—or maybe because of this—I provided overly-detailed accounts of the asinine day-to-day happenings in the science classroom to which I was assigned, taking care to construct at least something of a narrative with each entry. Really, I was doing it to entertain myself, and keep me from wanting to shoot myself on account of the overwhelming stupidity of the whole situation.
Well, come the last day of the semester, and everyone in the class was forced to attend one last gathering. If I recall correctly, I don’t even think there was an exam. It was just our professor—who dressed like a mafia don, by the way, which was a bizarre wardrobe motif for middle of nowhere Kansas—is up there yammering on, waxing way too philosophical for any of us 21-year-olds to give a flying ----- I mean, he was really in the weeds about the true meaning of education. At least I think he was…I was kinda zoned out, too busy succumbing to my narcolepsy.
Towards the end, he was recognizing several students for outstanding achievements. Like, actual contribute-to-society stuff. I was about to doze off again, when he was like “and lastly, before we wrap this up, would Robert ———— come up to the front? Robert, are you here?”
Now, I’m starting to panic because, 1) he was using my real name instead of “B.J.”, and 2) last time I got unexpected attention from a collegiate authority, I about got expelled from the College of Engineering—personally by the Dean himself—for being a half-ass Engineering Mentor who didn’t make the protégés turn in their busy work. Anyways, I could not come up with any good motivation for what was happening…but of course you can, because I’ve spent so much time providing the necessary context.
To my surprise and delight, he presented me with a box of chocolate pecan turtles, in recognition of producing “Educational Journal Entries Actually Worth Reading”. I guess he actually read my journals, and in a hilarious twist of fate, mistook me for someone who gave a fuck.
It was definitely a huge ego boost.
Even better, afterwards, 10 or so other students, most of whom I didn’t know at all, came up to me and told me how they loved reading my work, and in a few cases, that it was their only source of hope and sanity that got them through the semester. One of them even had a favorite, “The Day the Sub Yelled”. Yes, I even gave them titles. And, yes, I’m chuckling right now as I recall that episode. That poor substitute teacher. He was clearly too old to be dealing with the students’ shit that fateful November day in 2001, and just like our beloved Rodney Dangerfield, couldn’t get no respect, no respect. I witnessed a grown man’s spirit broken that day. But I digress…
The point of the story is: blog like nobody’s reading. Bonus turtles and unexpected celebrity status? That’s just the icing on the cake of self-amusement.
Oh, and the other point of the story is: no task is too asinine that I can’t turn it into an adventure—on paper at least. Just be careful what you ask for, though. You might get more feedback than you bargained for—er, I mean, “for which you bargained”. After all, why the hell am I regaling you with an unnecessarily detailed and long (by tapping-it-out-on-a-smartphone-while-on-the-crapper standards) tale that borders on the edge of #HumbleBragging? Let’s be real, that’s way too much effort towards just having the chance of earning $40–It’s not even the real work!
I’ll leave you to ponder that philosophical quandary…in the meantime, just know that I probably would be free enough Friday or Monday to run through the hunt.
Thanks for listening!
BJ
Editor’s note: there actually was a P.S. to the email in which I engaged in some shameless self-promotion, imploring the recipient to check out www.thepointofthestory.com. Ironically, it turns out that the company who hosts this website had site-wide server issues most of that particular day, and if anyone tried visiting this site, they would be led to believe that nothing of the sort existed. So that probably explains why he never responded to me…
Okay, so while that guy is busy pondering what the hell I was getting at–other than “I always do way more work than I’m getting paid to do. Clearly I don’t value my own time, and/or I have a perfectionist’s personality defect; either way: take advantage of me!”–it might be helpful if we philosophize a bit more about blog like nobody’s reading.
But first! A side note that was too long to jam into Footnotes & References: It may be obvious to you that this is a derivative of “dance like nobody’s watching”, and I have to admit I see no real distinction between the two philosophies. Except that even I am not amused when I dance, whether or not anyone is around to mock me. Also, I’m going with the blogging version because it is a superior investment of time. Sorry, dancers. For your own sake you need to know that when society breaks down, you’ll be the first ones to be eaten. It’s best you heard it from a friend.
Either way, this is just most likely a repackaged “to thy own self be true.”4Hamlet, Act 1, Scene III; Shakespeare, W., 1603 Or at least the modern misinterpretation of it.5https://literarydevices.net/to-thine-own-self-be-true/ Not that you shouldn’t be considerate of others,6As exemplified in Privacy Policy, for example. but ultimately, you really should just have “an audience of one”–you!7Some people might call this a sacrilegious cultural [mis]appropriation, but I would counter that laying exclusive claim to the True Meaning of the Rainbow is scientific cultural appropriation.,8Footnotes & References BINGO! If you’ve been able to bring happiness into your own life, then you’ve done your part in making the world just a little bit more of happy place; call it a day. Don’t waste too much time trying to please everyone because, statistically speaking, you’re guaranteed to displease a decent chunk of the peoples. Never forget: you are not responsible for their happiness, and in fact, many people simply don’t want it–for you or for themselves.9I.e. Don’t let the Haters win. No better way to tell them to go ----- themselves is to be happy despite their best efforts.
Bet on yourself, kid; you’ll always be worth the risk.
BONUS! The Craigslist gig in this story probably would have resulted in mild shenanigans, at best. So I wanted to share with you a better example of a Craigslist gig that might be a bit more likely cause moderate to severe shenanigans.
Over the course of the last 2-3 months since I’ve started regular visiting the Gigs section, I have seen this same post regularly recurring about every 2-3 weeks:
Figure 2: A sampling of what kind of opportunities that await the Brave in the Craigslist Gigs section.
After about the 3rd time I saw it, I started to feel really bad for this guy. Somebody, please get this man an erotic photographer! Or…get me a camera. At this point I feel like I might be unfairly judged just a wee bit if I were honest with you about how seriously I contemplated borrowing a friend’s camera and stepping up to the plate. Just know this: I was motivated out of nothing but pity for this poor guy. And I would have brought my wife along for safety’s sake. I have a feeling that the situation would have been a little less “erotic” than advertised, so believe me that wasn’t my motivation, lol. Anyway, somebody does really need to put the poor guy out of his misery (sorry big fella, it won’t be me this time).
And…you know what? Despite having seen this ad about 7-10 times at this point, just now am I realizing that the pictures would be of him. Oh, shenanigans, indeed.10On top of every thing else, this is the town where my in-laws live, and I bet with my luck…yeah. That would be real awkward. This realization is happening in real time, mind you. Oh boy…11https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxzYszntWuE
Well that turned out to be even more of a different and interesting example than I had expected. I think we may have just discovered meta-shenanigans…
Content created on: 18/19 September 2019 (Wednesday/Thursday)
[Voiceover, in a serious tone:] The following has been modified for broadcasting via blog; it has been resized to fit your screen (but not edited due to time constraints).
Some people might call this a sacrilegious cultural [mis]appropriation, but I would counter that laying exclusive claim to the True Meaning of the Rainbow is scientific cultural appropriation.
I love dreams. For most of my life I’ve been able to remember at least some portion of my dreams on any given night. I consider myself fortunate in that regard, and I shower unrequested pity on those out there that never can remember their mid-night shenanigans and escapades.
Ah, dreams. I find them intriguing and fascinating. And at times, disturbing.
Which brings up I philosophical quandary: how responsible is one for the content of their dreams?
Here’s a fun case study: I have a neighborhood friend–for now we’ll call him B.S. Slappy1I could have gone with a play on his initials, but I’m already calling someone else Jesus Christ. Perhaps we could just call it his Second Coming?–who was a professional musician in a past life. One time when he was over with his family for one of our kids’ birthday parties, he saw my sweet SG Gibson hanging on my wall of guitars, and somehow inferred that I could play it with some degree of confidence. That was when he first started strongly advocating on behalf of the two of us getting together for some jam sessions.
Shortly after that thought first entered the ether of my mind, I had a dream that I had gone over to his house for a playdate for the kids. While there, I stumbled into his makeshift studio where he was noodling away on one of his many six-strings. Delighted to see me, B.S. said “check out what I wrote for us!” and started shredding out a very rocking and very unorthodox riff.
It was like nothing I had ever heard before. But I loved how it took me to a new place I never could have imagined. Such ideas and experiences are my favoritest of all things.
When I woke up I had the chance to reflect on my awesome dream…and it occurred to me “Wait just a tick…he didn’t write that song–it sprung forth from the loins of my mind! I’ve never even heard him play guitar before, so that wasn’t him, it was ME!”
So, if I were somehow musically talented enough to figure out how to play the song from my dream, riddle me this: who should get songwriting credits? Me? It was my brain doing the dreaming, after all. Or my subconscious’ projection of my rock star friend? Maybe, in the process of trying to piece together what I knew of him, along with any poorly-informed perceptions of what type of creative limits he might be capable of stretching, I actually synthesized something completely new and surprising to me. Maybe it is something that I would have never imagined had I never met him…
But guess what? You can chew on that mental cud for awhile, and in the meantime I can get to the dream I really wanted to talk about. Good news for me, I’ve already related the tale digitally, so I don’t have to re-invent the wheel from scratch.
For context, this exchange happened earlier this summer when I was in my “workshopping” phase.2See also: The Olde Timey Wheelchair,3See also: A Pound Casual Asshat A friend from back in high school was sharing the beautiful gift of “comedic amnesia” with me, and the fact that she knew a major player in this dream–combined with an unintentional trigger phrase–prompted me to tangentially relate to her my vintage 2002 dream. I didn’t even ask for consent…
I’ll let the screenshots do the talking. Sonny Bono,4Of course, it’s not her real name. To avoid confusion, though, it’s not her porn star name either… take it away, will ya?
For some reason, it seems a little less bragadocious when a past, forgotten version of yourself makes you laugh. This, my friend, is the gift of comedic amnesia.
Oh ----- She just uttered a trigger phrase…it’s also a spoiler, so I blurred it out. Once you know what it is (see below), come back and fill in the blank. It was a humorous statement in it’s own right.
To help fill in the blanks, I was pretty sure that, in addition to objectively not wanting to marry the Alumna, I very much wanted to marry Tiffany Chestnut instead. Anyways…”and then what happened?”
Honestly, I’ve never been more proud of the wit embedded in this dream. Again, though, do I really get to take credit for it?
Well-said, Sonny-B. Well-said…
I still am searching for an answer to this question–so please, if you know what the right term is, please “leave it in the comments below”. I implore you.
Also, I bet you didn’t think that it would be someone other than me to deliver the money shot. What a twist! Thanks S.B. for really bringing it home.
I’ll leave you with a bonus bit o’ the asinine:
I think I was claiming that she couldn’t find/stalk me on FaceBook…but clearly in the end no one knew what the ----- was going on here.
Lastly, in regards to the title.5Okay, okay, for you “2A” people out there: yes, I realize that the title is a misnomer, as it was most definitely a rifle that was used in the ceremony.
Content created on: 6 June & 14 August 2019 (Thursday/Wednesday)
Okay, okay, for you “2A” people out there: yes, I realize that the title is a misnomer, as it was most definitely a rifle that was used in the ceremony.
Going public with this blog makes me nervous. Or at best, very anxious. I would describe it as being at the top of the first drop on a roller coaster, and your car is toward the back. The first car is already succumbing to gravity, and though you’re not falling yet, you’re already feeling the tug of inevitability.
I went live with thepointofthestory.com in late August, a promise I dumbly made in late July. In early August, I went with my family to the beach for a 3-night vacation. We couldn’t get the wi-fi for shit in our cottage, so despite bringing the laptop in hopes of making progress, I was unable to do jack squat. Due to the events and circumstances beyond my control, I suffered the unimaginable. I was forced to relax.
Of course, in the back of my mind, I knew that once vacation was over, I would really need to get on the ball and get my shit together if I wanted to have a decent and functioning website ready before September. The inevitable was coming. But was it fame or infamy that awaited me?
Right before I woke up the last morning we were there, my subconscious decided that it would try to deal with that which I had been avoiding dealing with consciously.
Yes, I had a dream.
In this dream, apparently stories from my childhood featured on thepointofthestory.com had been adapted into a Netflix show. And it was EXTREMELY popular. In fact, I’m pretty sure that that show was Stranger Things. Or at least a slightly modified version of it.1Rolla didn’t have any (non-hispanic) residents of color my age until the 90s, so at least that detail was modified.
I was extremely pumped about the situation, but also a bit on edge, as I had no idea how I was going to handle the fame that surely would accompany the success of the show–the show that was based on my life and the humorous and poignant recollections thereof.
I had found out about the success from one of my childhood friends who was a character in these stories–Kingofthe, as I will call him for now. Kingofthe calls me up and is like “Hey did you see our article in People2Or maybe it was US Weekly, or In Touch, or one of those guilty pleasure ‘bloid you pretend not to read the covers when waiting to check out at the grocery store. magazine? You got to check it out!”
A short interjection here: this wasn’t just the first I was learning about the success of the show. It was the first I was learning there was a show. Not to mention I had no idea that People Magazine was doing a piece on it. But I digress…
From this dream, I learned that, despite being shy-ish, I really did want the recognition and glory. I rushed to the grocery store (I presume), and flipped to the piece on the show. The show that was based on my life and the humorous and poignant recollections thereof. Did I mention that already? Oops. My bad.
There was a dramatic FAQ-type section, in which the fans’ most burning questions were pre-emptively answered, two of which I distinctly remember:
Will there be a second season? Yes! It has already been renewed through Season 4.
Will BJ continue writing the jokes for the show? Yes! You can also see his current project over at www.lid.com.
Okay. So, cool. People cared if I specifically will be the one writing. It was implied in my head that this meant that they loved my particular brand of humor. Though, I mean, c’mon, it’s my life, so I hope they care that I write more than just the jokes. Anyways, the best part was the national exposure my website was going to get. I was going to get all the clicks.
And…wait, go back. There was something odd about that last bit. Oh, yes. “www.lid.com”?!? Son of a ----- !
Who the ----- told them that was my website? And why didn’t they think to actually interview me? I mean after all it was [everybody together now] “the show that was based on my life and the humorous and poignant recollections thereof.” Even if I got them to issue a correction, the damage was already done, and I was never getting that rare opportunity for massive free publicity back.
Poop.
I was seriously hung up on that fact for the rest of the dream. But, as dreams often do, this dream continued in a somewhat disjointed yet still relevant fashion, so let me cover that as well.
Another odd detail about this version of reality was that the majority of the cast of the show were one of my particular aunt’s grandchildren. That was probably due to the fact that she and the oldest of them (who is in high school) had just visited one of my brothers in California, and I had been on the phone with him the night before hearing all about their visit. For what it’s worth, this kid was the one who was the main character in the show. This in itself is odd, since the real Stranger Things has many main characters, as it is an ensemble cast, but whatever. It was pretty cool that my kin were able to enjoy success and fame because of opportunities that clearly were made possible by being related to me. It always feels good to be the hook-up.3Hollah if ya hear me!
The final chapter of this dream found me at an airport, getting ready to check in for my flight. These other family members who were involved in the show were also traveling at the same time, albeit independently. All of a sudden a bunch of media type people show up and start setting up a press conference for the show, right there in the middle of the check-in area at the airport. The realism of this dream is insane, right?
Anyways, I’m getting giddy at this point, thinking to myself “Oh no! What if they recognize me? Please don’t recognize me–I’m too humble to accept your praise and gift of recognition. I couldn’t really. Wait…you’re seriously not recognizing me? ‘Tis I, BJ, the creative fount from which the entire show flows. The one who writes all the jokes. Please. Recognize me.”
I overhear them going through a checklist of which of the various cast/family members that are expected to show up and participate in the press conference. “So-and-so are both going to be here.” “But what about this other so-and-so?” “No, they probably won’t make it.” I patiently wait to hear them mention my name, then turn in surprise to find that I had been beside them all along.4See also: the very first tweet from @apointofastory.
But nope. They never mention me, so I decide to be proactive and help them out: “*Ahem.* I’m here for the press conference–which seat is mine?”
“Uh, and who are you?”
Goddammit.
“This whole ----- show is based on my life and the humorous and poignant recollections thereof. How the ----- do you not know who I am?”
The point of the story is: you never really know how you’re going to handle fame until you have a hilariously unrealistic dream in which you learn that you’re nowhere as famous as you had secretly thought and hoped you were.
And also: clearly my subconscious has big dreams for this blog. Don’t let it down.
Content created on: 13/14 September 2019 (Fri/Sat)
Or maybe it was US Weekly, or In Touch, or one of those guilty pleasure ‘bloid you pretend not to read the covers when waiting to check out at the grocery store.
I definitely have lots of regrets–don’t you? If you’re somehow living out the motto “No Regrets”, I somehow suspect that you ain’t lifing right. Or you’re a psychopath. But who am I to judge?
One’s relationship with regrets can be a tricky thing. You have to hold them loosely and tightly at the same time. On one hand, you really need to take Elsa’s advice1https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeHJHjkwDuM and let. That. Shit . Go. It may be cliche, but don’t get hung up on things that you can’t change. You done ----- up son. Give it up already.
On the other hand, I think it’s worth reflecting on your regrets,2Misappropriation of #NeverForget if for nothing else to avoid repeating unnecessary mistakes. If you want to take it to the next level, you can even examine what it reveals about yourself, at which point you can ask whether or not you want to be that person that made such a regrettable life choice. Then use that knowledge to move towards being that [presumably] better person.
On occasion, I suspect you will find me waxing short about various regrets I’ve had thus far in my life. If it isn’t clear by now, I am pretty capable of being quite a poopy person acting in a rather poopy-head fashion.3www.thepointofthestory.com/the-olde-timey-wheelchair,4www.thepointofthestory.com/shower-tips-part-1,5www.thepointofthestory.com/a-pound-casual-asshat I like to cling to the self-protecting hope that that is not who I am to the core. A key part of that hope is the notion that “what is important” is the willingness to own thy shit–and use it as all-natural organic fertilizer and in turn grow as a person/citizen of society. Also, in cases where I regret how I made other people feel, I think a part of me verbalizing my regret is trying to apologize in the sincerest way I know how.
Now, all that being said, I have to confirm your worst fears: no, I’m not really going to talk much about the specific nuances of the concept of regret, as I may have led some to believe by the last few paragraphs. I will at some point share more relevant stories, but for now I thought I would lightly ramble since I was on the topic, and eventually those other stories are going to need some broader context anyway. And also, I’m attempting to write past my bedtime, which is when I run the risk of becoming so incoherent that I actually become more coherent than my natural state.
Honestly, my motivation for today’s story was to set the Dear Reader’s expectations that I will on occasion serve up shorter, less interesting stories, in hopes of tempering the inevitable disappointment. Even more honestly, I’m really trying to lower the bar for what I can pass off as a blog post and save myself from the temptation to nervously talk on end just to fill the air. Clearly, I’m not doing the best job of exhibiting the virtues of brevity. I really just wanted to type a few quick paragraphs and get to bed at a decent time, but nooooooo.
But, I digress. In spite of my best efforts (really, though?!?).
After all that meandering prefacing, I actually do have a regret that I wanted to share with you. One evening when I was a single young buck in grad school, I was waiting to go home at the bus stop in downtown Chapel Hill. Nearby sat a modestly attractive young lady, probably about my age, eating a sandwich. And directly in between us sat a down-on-his-luck middle-aged man of lower socio-economic status.
By and large, I was minding my own ----- business, paying no real mind to my two companions, when I noticed the guy had started talking to the girl. Or at least talking at the girl. Either that, or he was talking to her sandwich. Honestly, it wasn’t really clear. He was asking her how her sandwich was, but it was almost…sexual. I could sense the smarm coming off of him, but I wasn’t sure if the object of his lust was the girl or the food.
She could definitely sense the smarm, too, because she was clearly very uncomfortable with the situation. So here’s what I regret: I regret I sat there and watched, and continued to mind my own ----- business. Maybe I was entranced by the situation, as my mind was stuck trying to figure out what was really going on. Or maybe a part of me was relieved that he was bothering someone else rather than me about whatever it was that he wanted.
Fortunately, she just ignored him and he hopped on the next bus. After the immediate tension broke, the realization of my missed opportunity smacked me upside the head. As soon as I sensed her unease, I totally could have and should have jumped on that grenade for her sake, so to speak. In action that would have been as simple as striking up a conversation with him and diverting his leering stare away from her. Had I really been on my game I would have offered to buy him a sandwich.
But alas, I didn’t, and I have to live with the consequences of my inaction. Which are surprisingly pretty much non-existent, save for my self-assigned sense of cowardice.
There is a real underlying moral to be mulled over here, though: at what point does one decide to go from being a simple by-stander to a reluctant, yet responsible, hero? Recently, on two separate occasions, I had to decide whether to call 911 on behalf of neighbors I barely knew, and get myself thrown into the middle of their situations. Ultimately, I did step in on their behalf both times, but not without what seemed like an eternity of uncertainty as to what my role and responsibility really was.
I don’t know if I can speak for anyone else, but for me these experiences were…surreal. At least surreal in the sense that the back of my mind kept trying to figure out “Is this really happening?” It took a surprisingly long time before I snapped out of it and was even aware of the question of what I could do to help. The real takeaway for me from all of this is that it really is worth running such thought experiments in my head, and essentially train myself to respond with the assumption that I’m being called into action. One day that assumption just might save someone’s life. Or at least the enjoyment of their sandwich…
Now, the story doesn’t quite end there, though that last line would have made for a pretty decent zinger to end on.
For whatever reason, I was recently recounting this story to my wife, when something occurred to me, all these years later. Although I had zero romantic motivations for intervening with the young lady and her sandwich, such champion-like action could have possibly had resulted in eternal, er, “gratefulness” on her part. Following my thoughts wherever they wandered, I continued to muse aloud.
“Who knows? Maybe I would have inadvertently found myself with a lifetime supply of on-demand booty calls…”
At that point I noticed my wife was giving me one of those looks.
[Ruefully under my breath:] “I regret sharing that last detail…”
Content created on: 19/20 August 2019 (Monday/Tuesday)
BREAKING NEWS: In conversations with my expected #1 Fan (Hello, Mother1), I have learned that she is hesitant to visit my freshly launched site on account of not being able to unsee certain 4-letter words. This hearkens back to a conversation we had a few weeks before the launch date.
[Scene: the freezer section of a coastal NC Harris Teeter, ~9pm on an early August evening. A son and his beloved mother are getting supplies for their beach vacation, trying to decide which popsicles best qualify as “organic”, though none are explicitly labeled so. Frustration eventually sets in, and one of the two drop the F-bomb…]
Me: “Soooo…Mom, how exactly does your brain handle it when I swear?”
Mom: “What do you mean?”
Me: “Like, are you so numb to it now that you don’t even notice? Do you hear BLEEPS instead? Or…?”
Mom: ” Well, since you asked…”
Me: “Okay…am I going to regret asking?”
Mom: “Each time I think, ‘I can’t believe I raised this boy!'”
Me: …
Me: “Well, shit .”
Me: “You might want to stay away from my blog…”
For long-time readers of the blog (Hello, all 15 of you!), you will know that this is something I have already considered and hope to mitigate, a la The Alpine Stranger. Alas, I haven’t had time yet to reverse engineer any WordPress plugins for such purposes, so I figured I would try to implement a stop-gap2https://wordpress.org/plugins/censorship/ that would at least make it largely Safe For Mother to peruse my writings.
Unfortunately, it is not 100% perfect…apparently it has difficulty with adjacent punctuation (hence the egregious use of spaces in the title and elsewhere), and it is not well-suited for my penchant to use expletives when forming new and exciting compound words. Also, I have excluded “ass” from the list, because, apparently, that is my favorite word.
The least favorite part of this temporary solution is that it is universal–i.e. the Dear Reader cannot selectively turn this on and off, so until I know it’s safe, all of y’all mother ----- are going to have to endure the M’FCC being five feet up my ass. Oops! I already forgot that my asses aren’t being censored. Sorry, Mom!
P.S. You’re welcome, Mom.
Bonus tale: Later that same trip we found ourselves outside in a lightning storm. At some point I cussed, but, realizing that it would be a prime opportunity for the Good Lord to strike me down for my errant ways, I had to think quick. I grabbed Mom’s arm and directly addressed the heavens. Looking ----- square in the [place where I presumed His] eyes [would be], I dared Him: “You take me out, I’m taking the pious old lady out with me!”
By default, WordPress pre-populates a new blog with a singular post entitled “Hello world!” It is meant to be deleted or appropriately edited, but I felt so inspired by these words that I decided to instead subvert this post for my own purposes. Joke’s on them, I suppose.
My experience with “Hello world!” is in the context of trying to pick up a new programming language. If you’re not familiar with it, “Hello world!” is the archetypical first coding project for most any language. It’s the most basic of tasks: getting your computing device to display the simple message “Hello, world!” Also, I’m pretty sure there should be a comma in there, so I added it just for all the English teachers reading at home. But I digress…
Now, some people have told me I have a modestly entertaining sense of humor. Well, right off the bat I’m going to ruin that idealized image of me by telling you a bit about how the sausage is made.
Between you and me, Dear Reader, an insane proportion of my humorous thoughts come from an embarrassingly simple line of code in my core system:
Figure 1. Yes, I realize my core code is written in Perl. What can I say? I’m a legacy [machine].
Well, technically that “one simple line” is wrapped up in 47 other lines of code, but hidden in there is Line 22, which is generating potential humorous phrases by simply substituting one or more words with their antonyms. Essentially, I make my living by being a contrarian. That’s it. That’s the secret.
So many things are absurdly funny if you merely pause long enough to consider their opposite. Nearly-free humor, just hanging there, ripe for harvesting. Honestly, I feel like a magician, explaining away all the best magic tricks of the trade, inviting shunning from fellow magicians. I’m just asking to get kicked out of…the Guild of Mildly Humorous Bloggers…? Not really sure who my cohort are here. I wouldn’t be so bold as to claim to be a “Comic”–you know, how comedians refer to themselves when no outsiders are around? But that’s beside the point.
Anyways, apparently such tactics find its way into my own coding work. Recently I came across some old code of mine in which I was clearly supposed to be doing the ol’ “Hello, world!” routine. But of course my stubborn ass refused to be so bougie and write the same overly-cheerful message.
Run my program and what do you get?
Goodbye, cruel world.
Damn that’s dark. Funny, but dark nonetheless.
Now, of course that’s not the end of the story. It’s just merely a waypoint on a longer destination. So, a point of the story, I guess?
At some point, I promise you I’ll put together a few posts explaining how this blog hath sprung forth from the loins of the universe, aka The Story of the Point.1That’s a Spoonerism right there. Better get used to seeing them in these here parts of the Wild Wild Web. Like any good hero tale, it involves me leaving a job with a regular pay check and risking it all to follow my heart.
Yup, my dream job is being a blogger. Because–and listen up, gentlemen–I know that nothing will get the wife more hot and bothered than a man who knows how to bring home the Bacon Bits.
Anyways, marital intimacy tips aside, the key detail buried in those last two paragraphs is that I’ve had the immense pleasure of leaving my 9-5 job behind, something many dream of doing but only a select few ever get to experience.
The point of the story is, I feel another slight modification to Hello World, and we’ll have the perfect way to kickstart this party:
Goodbye, Corporate World.
Your sorry ass won’t be missed.2Well, this is not 100% true. It’s more like this:https://i0.wp.com/thepointofthestory.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/F_This_Shit.jpg?resize=218%2C300&ssl=1 218w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> “Fuck this shit.” … “Just kidding. Its still Thursday and I need these.”
Content created on 27, 28, & 30 July 2019 (Sat, Sun, & Tues)
Well, this is not 100% true. It’s more like this:https://i0.wp.com/thepointofthestory.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/F_This_Shit.jpg?resize=218%2C300&ssl=1 218w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> “Fuck this shit.” … “Just kidding. Its still Thursday and I need these.”
As a toddler, I had my mother rather worried. I was coming up on turning 2 years old, and still really hadn’t talked much. Although I was her fifth rodeo, so to speak, like any good first-world parent she was concerned that I had developmental issues.
Oh, were those fears ever unfounded. I imagine at one point she started wishing that I would begin my verbal journey and put her doubts to rest. And I imagine it wasn’t long after that when she learned the valuable life lesson of “careful what you wish for.”
I started talking all right. And I haven’t stopped since. Once I’m comfortable around someone, I’m like a word fountain with no shut-the-fuck-up faucet handle in sight.
But we all know my verbosity is not on trial here. That’s not the point of the story at all.
The key detail, as recounted by my mother, is that when I actually began speaking, it wasn’t just a broken word here or there; it was full-on complete sentences replete with mostly proper syntax. Apparently, I had been sitting, watching, waiting; learning all the rules before giving the whole verbal communication thing a whirl. I was posing as a harmless observer, all the while plotting my takeover of the English language.
For most of my life, this was a point of pride, often busted out when I felt the need to #HumbleBrag. However, as I grow older and reflect on life more, I realize that there are some definite downsides to this personality trait.
I think the underlying theme is fear of failure (“What if I get this wrong?”), desire for absolute certainty (“I want to get this exactly right”), or a combination of the two. In a sense, it comes down to aversion to risk, and the lack of skill in regards to being able to accurately assess risk well enough and put it in proper perspective. I mean, what’s the worst that could have happened if I didn’t pronounce “ball” exactly right? I’m sure my toddler mind came up with plenty of doomsday scenarios.
Now, I’m sure that this innate reticence has been beneficial at times in my life. But more often than not, leaning into this instinct has held me back more than anything else.
I probably would have picked up Spanish much more quickly had I been like “Ben del Mundo”, happily not giving a single ----- about his butchering of the native tongue of his host country. I would have started wisely investing my money years ago. I would be an accomplished author by now, with 20+ years of experience and multiple published books to my name. I sure the hell would be a better and much more efficient coder. The list goes on.
I’m not here to wallow in my regrets, though I have plenty of plans for that in future musings. No, this is really about identifying obstacles that hold you back from being a better version of one’s self, owning them, and then managing and mitigating them with mindful intention.
I had to wrassle with several mental and emotional barriers before I could even begin to realistic consider the prospect of exposing myself publicly on a regular basis (aka “blogging”, you ----- perv). In due time, I intend to regale you with my in-depth analysis of all of them. But for now I promise to stay on point and only unpack one of them here.
Critical to making this blog a reality, I had to make peace with the fact that Mistakes Will Be Made. If I don’t dive right into something due to worries about figuring every little detail out beforehand, I will never get started in the first place. Sure, I won’t have bonehead mistakes hanging around my neck, but I won’t have any of the awesome benefits of the endeavor to enjoy either.
This personal life lesson has been several years in the making, but it really has been roughly the last two years that I’ve been able to take advantage of this self-realization. I pussy-footed around with travel hacking for a year or so before finally jumping in head-first. Sure, mistakes were indeed made, maybe missing out on $1k of potential benefits. But I wouldn’t say they even came close to rising to the level of regret. And it has definitely paid off to the tune of upwards of $10k, so yeah, it was definitely worth it.
Another example is 3D printing. I’ve had some passive interest in the field for at least 6 years. Yet, despite having access to 50+ printers free of charge for 4 1/2 years in my recent full-time employment, it wasn’t until I realized I might be losing the opportunity that I started taking advantage of it. It helped to focus on just printing anything instead of getting caught up in the details. Not having a perfect product in mind allowed me to avoid obsessing over how imperfect my creations were.
Ultimately, the important thing in both cases is that something was being done. After all, we can’t learn from mistakes we never make.
And really, there is a point to this story here. In fact, it might just be the point of The Point of The Story.
I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life. I have many regrets, and many, many, more embarassing moments. And I’m wise enough to know that I have many more to come…hopefully with a minimal number of regrets.
And I have a penchant to talk in overly-detailed prose. Or so I’ve been told.
So how is this the point? I’m getting to it, I’m getting to it. I swear. Sheesh, leave me alone. You seriously didn’t come here expecting to find case studies in conciseness and brevity, did you? Cuz you in the wrong place if you did. You are free to leave at any time; my feelings won’t be hurt.
…but I digress.
All that to say, I’ve struggled much of my life with being self-conscious of the thought that I just might be a mistake-prone Chatty Cathy. A friend once described a mutual friend as “the strong, silent type.” But when he continued musing, considering the opposite personality, i.e. “the weak, gabby type,” I had a moment where I was like “wait a minute…is he referring to me?!?” For the record he wasn’t, but it was a thought that was traumatizing to my self-image nonetheless.
You know what, though? It’s never too late to own thy shit. I’m leaning into what assets I have in abundance, bougie self-respect be damned.
I’m done waiting around forever for my idealized self to materialize. These chains hanging heavy round my neck, weighing me down? Aw, shiiiiit. They made of gold. It’s time to cash in on these god-given gifts.
Sometimes the best opportunities arise from simple reframing of a situation. And I’m so happy I’ve recalibrated my perspective, and I hope at some point it can make you a happier person, too.
Fucking up and shamelessly talking about it at great lengths? That’s not a bug, that’s a feature.
Oh, yes, mistakes have been made, and will continue to be made. They might even be sought out on occassion. But I promise you this, Dear Reader: I will tell you aaaaaaaall about them.
It is up to you what you do with this information.
Be amused. Be inspired. Be like me. Don’t be like me. Be entertained. Be slightly shocked out of your sensibilities. Be introspective, armed with a new perspective.
And above all else, consider yourself be-welcomed to The Point of The Story. Enjoy.
An ode to the original host of America’s Funniest Home Videos and director of acclaimed cinematagrphic masterpiece Dirty Work, “America’s Dad”, Mr. Bob Saget:
Once there was a dad on Full House, thought to be squeaky clean as a mouse. Indeed, 'twas a reputation hard-earned, but from his later career we have learned: You shouldn't trust him alone with your spouse.
I’ll keep my thoughts short and sweet for once. Not out of any sense of respect for anyone who chooses to read this. It’s because I’m really ----- hungry, but I promised myself I would get this post written first. What a foolish unforced error in retrospect…
The point of the limerick is: sometimes you’re better off with your naive picture of who someone is, rather than really getting to know them and recoiling in horror once you do.
For those of you who personally know me, consider this your fair warning. Read on, and you will almost assuredly see things you can’t unsee. You will hear things that really wish you hadn’t. Chances are, you will never think of me the same. Do you really want to put your high opinion of me at risk?
Of course you do.
Because you’re really here in hopes that I will write something about you.
It’s okay, we’re all vain beasts at heart. You are accepted here.
But enough about you. I got a reputation to tarnish.
The following is a lightly modified excerpt from an email with a close acquaintance. In full disclosure, it was written with the possibility in mind that it would eventually be shared here. In other words, I was workshopping it.
The context: my friend had some personal writing that he asked me to review, and I was giving him some initial feedback on his work.
And I quote…
Speaking of tangential stories…when I was in college, it was the first semester that I was friends with my perpetual romantic pursuit and eventual former girlfriend, Tiffany Chestnut,1Not her real name. It is, however, her real “porn star” name. along with her best friend (like, I was friends with her best friend, too, but none of the other descriptors apply. I’m not THAT suave). For some reason, one night I found myself pulling an all-nighter with the bff, whom we’ll refer to as ‘K’, alongside my friend Ben who would become my roommate the following year.
K was working on a book for her elementary education class, while I can’t remember what the hell me and Ben were doing. I think we were just being good friends and helping her get the book completed, which was due the next morning at 8 am. A week or so later, she gets the graded book back, and she got a pretty high mark, 97-99 range but not quite 100.
Well, in what I rationalized as an attempt at humor, my dumb ass made some critical comment about getting a point or two taken off. At the time, my comment seemed to be a non-event, and I probably would have never given it a second thought in my life.
Fast-forward to the end of the semester. Tiffany is getting ready to study abroad in Mexico for the summer and fall semesters, and I had stopped at her hometown on the way to mine for the summer to say hi to her family and bye to her for 7 months. This was long before we briefly dated, so naturally, a component of our conversation involved me trying to cajole her into going out with me.
I pressed her on the issue, and she reticently admitted that she knew she could never date/marry me. So I pressed her some more. I should interject here that I was bawling throughout most of the conversation, though I don’t remember the exact point when the water works started. Anyways, even more reticently, she shares with me two anecdotes that shaped her conviction on the matter.
You guessed it: I got dinged for being unduly critical of K in regards to said project. It turns out that my comment really hurt K and deflated what had been very high spirits, as she had worked very hard on the book and deserved every bit of glory that it earned. But no, I thought I had to be the witty one in the moment, or whatever god-forsaken unresolved inferiority complex I had going on when I made that comment.
For what it’s worth, the other anecdote involved a poorly drawn wheelchair by Ms. Chestnut, and my ensuing humorous observation that wheelchairs like that hadn’t been produced for about a century now. In my defense, she was an art major…and living in the year 2001. So she had no ----- excuse for the engineering atrocity that she had created on paper. None. The REAL crime would have been the ABSENCE of ridicule and mockery…
Figure 1: The assholes over at Turbosquid want $79 for the uncensored version of this picture of a “vintage wheelchair”. So it looks like you’ll just have to use your imagination as to what Ms. Chestnut’s drawing looked like. Tip: imagine Picasso tried to paint what you see above.
You may be asking yourself at this point “the point of the story is…?” Well, I’m glad you asked! As you can see, I had the rare experience of knowing the exact moments when my chances with a girl in which I was very interested were mercilessly slaughtered–and in true M. Night fashion, I was the murderer. “What a tweest!”
Well, let me tell you, failing like that is shit that sticks with you. One is a bit more sensitive to the otherwise subconscious impulse to provide unsolicited criticism after something like that. Know what I mean? Of course you don’t. You’re too kind-spirited through and through. (Stated without the slightest sense of sarcasm)
All that being said…there was one typo in your work that I found particularly amusing. Just search the document for “plum” and you will immediately see the [humorous] error of your typing ways.
Figure 2: “Somebody” made a Freudian Slip…
Content created: 5/6 June 2019 (Sunday/Monday) / 22 July 2019 (Monday)
![SB: I'm glad you were also entertained. Smiley emoticon. I hope the rest of this particular anniversary is lovely.
BJ: I would say it's bittersweet...I mean, for my wall, it's just a reminder that 13 years later and still no ring from you. Crying emoticon.
SB: Oh, I thought it was a reminder of [SPOILER REDACTED]!](https://i0.wp.com/www.thepointofthestory.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Shotgun_wedding_Figure3.png?resize=664%2C884)
![BJ: LOL
BJ: Speaking of which...did I ever tell you about a dream I had back in college about marrying [a mutual high school alumna]?
BJ: I was back in Rolla driving around with the girl who would eventually be my college girlfriend, THE legendary Tiffany Chestnut...
BJ: But I knew it was my wedding day, and I was going to marry [redacted] at the Methodist church there in Rolla...](https://i0.wp.com/www.thepointofthestory.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Shotgun_wedding_Figure4.png?resize=667%2C854)
![BJ: Well, I'm looking for the term capturing how the situation was a literal manifestation of the figurative situation. You know, kinds like double entendres, but I still don't think that's quite it. [This was the point of my story].
BJ: And no, I've never bothered questioning if I'm at my core a dark twisted individual for having such ----- up dreams, lol.
BJ: Anyway, that's the story.](https://i0.wp.com/www.thepointofthestory.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Shotgun_wedding_Figure12.jpeg?resize=640%2C769)
![S.B.: It's a fascinating story! And I wish I were more engaging this morning, but I have to [CLASSIFIED] so off I go for now.
S.B.: We are probably all dark twisted individuals [Her point of the story...]](https://i0.wp.com/www.thepointofthestory.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Shotgun_wedding_Figure13.jpeg?resize=676%2C605)
![S.B.: See? Totally searchable...
BJ: jackass. If you're referring to what I think you're referring to, I was referring to finding my "F M" profile by searching for BJ [redacted]. Now that all may change since I am in the process of combining the account.](https://i0.wp.com/www.thepointofthestory.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Shotgun_wedding_Figure14.jpeg?resize=640%2C813)
https://i0.wp.com/thepointofthestory.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/F_This_Shit.jpg?resize=218%2C300&ssl=1
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