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Category: General Cerebral Leakage (Page 12 of 26)

When all other categories fail (or absentmindedly forget to be assigned), General Cerebral Leakage, fresh off his third tour of duty in the war against wise insurance providers, steps in to save the day!

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

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:[+]

Juice Love, Pizza Lust, And A Great Melon-Farming Job

7 Min Read

Like they say: “Food before beer–never fear!

Beer before food, though? You’re screwed, dude…”


“Hey, don’t lie to me–I really like all you melon farmers so don’t ruin it by lying to me about who’s married to who around here!”

Uggh…as soon as I said it, I almost immediately regretted it. I mean, who goes around calling people–people they’ve barely known for 24 hours, nonetheless– ‘melon farmers’? And of course you know that by ‘melon farmers‘ I mean that I was dropping the mother of all nuclear bombs on them, the F-Bomb to ruin them all: mother f***ers.

But, hey, it’s not like I’d ever see these people again…right?


Earlier that morning, I had just nailed my presentation during what was perhaps the most important business trip of my life, and now it was time to chillax like…well, like a melon farmer, with my hosts. A gang of youthful co-workers about my age were getting together at a local bar that evening, and they had kindly invited me to tag along. Heck yes, I’m accepting that invitation!

Seeing as how I didn’t have my own transportation, one of the older, more mature guys in the bunch–whom we’ll call “Jackie” for reasons that wouldn’t be racist even in the slightest–volunteered to pick me up from my hotel around 7. Sure enough, right on time, the ever-responsible and reliable Jackie rolled up to take me off to an evening of adult drinks and light socializing. As far as I was concerned, everything was going perfectly as planned.

“A varied sampling of high-gravity beverages?!? Can this night get any better?!?”

If you know me at all, then you will no doubt understand the utter delight I experienced when we showed up at the bar and discovered that not only was Jackie covering my drinks that evening, but the featured potent potables of the evening would be beers featuring higher-than-average alcohol content.

“And free pizza?!?”

I wouldn’t even have to buy dinner. At that point my head was essentially exploding on account of the streak of good fortune I was experiencing.

“Slap that wrist band on me, and let’s get this party started…”


“EXCUSE ME! OVER HERE! Dang it, it’s like she can’t even see us, even when she’s looking right at us!”

If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought some Sixth Sense shenanigans was going on, and that I was pretty much a ghost to the person doling out the pizza. Or was it, yunno…more intentional…more nefarious? Like this:

It was funny, though, you know? For some reason I didn’t have any problem at all getting my tiny servings of boozy goodness–one could say that it was literally flowing my way–but when it came to getting any sustenance to moderate and mitigate my intoxicating intake? My pizza-obtaining efforts were almost down-right comical.

Admittedly, in the beginning it was sort of my fault, focusing more on the ‘drink’ aspect than the whole ‘food’ part. But 45 minutes and 4 micro-doses of beer in, I started getting pretty dang hungry.

But any time I tried to get my hands on a slice of the ‘za only ended in heartache and disappointment. The first couple of attempts, wouldn’t you know it, the pizza person–despite heading right towards us–was intercepted by another group of hungry patrons and gave them the last few slices instead.

For convenience, we can just call those “Milton Moments:”1A reference to the 1999 Mike Judge cult-comedy, Office Space.

Then there was the time when I tried to intercept somebody else’s pizza. But as you can imagine as it might go in a dark, crowded bar, that quickly devolved into a Kramer-esque fiasco:

Taking the matter into my own hands, and actually talking to someone about getting some pizza to us didn’t help either:

“Oh, so sorry about that, um…yeah, it seems that we’re out of pizza right now, and we’ll have to wait another 25 minutes for the kitchen to get a fresh batch out,” was the very unhelpful reply I got.

“You got to be ----- kidding me…oh well, might as well sample some more brew in the meantime…”

Three “samples” later, I finally spotted the fresh pizza coming out–and right towards me! Here’s a traumatic–er, I mean “dramatic”–reenactment of what should have been a glorious and triumphant moment:

You could say that I got “Elained” real good, i.e. the pizza person swerved slightly at the last second and walked within inches of me…but didn’t even bother to stop when I very obviously reached out my expectant fingers to grab a slice.

*Sigh*

Eventually, after serving pretty much every other ----- person in the pub, ye ol’ pizza prick finally circled back around to where I was, and–miracle of all miracles!–two slices remained! And they were all mine!

Yup, all of 1/32 of a pizza, to offset at least 32/1 oz of 10% ABV (or higher) liquid that was sloshing around my system by that point. Even after all the comedy-drama I had to endure just to get to this point, the Universe thought it would be hilarious that when I finally got my much sought-after prize, that it would be a great punchline if the slices were tiny af, similar to the one seen here:

Enlarged to show texture.

Though small, here’s yet another reenactment of how it felt to eat them, on account of my inebriation, and all…


“Who wants some Chinese food?!?”

I didn’t know who suggested it, nor did I care; I was unintentionally drunk af and even hungrier. Plus, I needed to get some food in me, because I had big plans to go snorkeling in the morning, and I sure as heck didn’t want to do that hungover.

“This melon farmer does!” I pointed at myself with two thumbs, completely forgetting the rest of the joke about “Who’s got two thumbs and…” and what-not (And of course, I might note here, it’s not so bad to call yourself a melon farmer. Just gonna throw that out there.)

We gathered up the gang and all staggered off together in a gaggle towards some acclaimed Chinese restaurant a few blocks away.

And dang, they all must have experienced the same cruddy pizza-luck that I had, because we were ordering up a glorious spread like there was no tomorrow, hearkening to mind yet another Seinfeldian moment:

It was somewhere in the midst of feasting on all that food, that I, feeling real good and perhaps about to comfortable with these people I hardly knew, that–as you know already–I expressed my burgeoning affection for them by calling them all melon farmers.

Great job, me!

Alas, though, that wasn’t the moment that I rue the most from that evening. No, the nadir of my night showed up with the check–you, know, that piece of paper that lists all the things your party ordered, and how much you owe for said items. Yeah, that thing.

Well, there were two things about which I lacked foresight: 1) even though I was their guest, I shouldn’t have assumed that they were going to cover all my expenses; & 2) despite being on a business trip, it didn’t occur to me to have any cash on me.

So, there we were, everyone pulling cash out of their wallets and such, throwing it into the communal pot in the middle of table. Except for me, sitting there like a besotted asshat, with that panicked look in my eyes that said “Wait…I’m going to have to pay for my own food?” Followed by:

…except you need to replace “Hope you don’t mind I pay you in change,” with a good 20 seconds of awkward silence. Fortunately, Jackie–ever reliable Jackie–finally offered to cover my share, because why not? He had already paid for my beer and pizza and was my personal chauffeur for the evening. Sure! Just throw another $25 worth of Chinese food my tab!

Ugh. I couldn’t wait to finally get back to my hotel room, where I could die of embarrassment and regret peacefully in my sleep…


The points of the story are, first: if you ain’t yet ate the pizza-pie, don’t slam that whiskey & rye.

Second: if you’re the type of wino that uses ‘melon farmer’ as a term of endearment, maybe not bust it out the first time you go a-drinking with someone.

Third: always carry at least $40 in cash on you at all times (bonus tip: always offer to pay for at least yourself, dummy).

Follow these 3 handy tips, and perhaps you can avoid suffering the same fate as yours truly. You see, unlike Twinkies, the farcical free pizza fiasco wasn’t enough to disqualify me from landing my dream job as an MRI researcher in Hawai’i2#HumbleBrag…meaning that for 5 days a week for the next two years, this Freeloader In Paradise had to show his face to those melon farmers…


Content created on: 4/5 March 2022 (Fri/Sat)

Footnotes & References:[+]

A Few True Lies: The Best Way To Get Résumé Results, Guaranteed!

4 Min Read

Aim high, son, you go get that job of your dreams!

But don’t forget to mention those treats filled with cream…


“I appreciate you coming in today, son. Why don’t you take a seat. By the way, I must say, you’ve got yourself quite the impressive résumé…”

“Why, thanks for noticing.” I blushed lightly at the high praise coming from the man I hoped would be my future boss.

“A degree in physics…tuition fully covered–merit-based, of course–…exceptional collegiate GPA…I even see that you won a $5k scholarship to spend a semester in Spain. Nice.”

“Not to humble-brag1This was before the age of hashtags, otherwise I would say ‘Not to #HumbleBrag…' or anything, but yeah, I’ve done alright for myself…”

“I am, though,” he continued, “a little bit confused about when you graduated…”

Just great. He had to ask about that.

“Oh, that? I’ll be graduating last month in a few weeks–wait, nevermind, don’t worry about that. It’s an unnecessarily long story…and one I will be more than happy to regale you with around that-there water cooler over there.”

I nonchalantly pointed to the office watering hole, trying to subliminal induce him into giving me the job.

“Hmmm…perhaps. Let’s see what else we’ve got here…”

As a more-than-qualified candidate with a veritable rap-sheet of accolades, I was feeling pretty good about my employment prospects in the fine establishment I found myself in.

“Interesting…it says here that you were–and I quote directly from your C.V.–‘Haymaker Hall Twinkie-Eating Champion (2000)*.‘ You must have been pretty proud of that achievement, I suppose?”

I was too engrossed envisioning the steady stream of mostly stable income that was no doubt in my near-future to bother with any subtleties that might have been present in his tone of voice.

“Yeah, I mean who wouldn’t? The guy who got second was only halfway through his box by the time I polished mine off–such a resounding defeat that even before I had got to my last package, he just gave up and started leisurely enjoying his cache. No one was even close to my level of competitive eating that day–all the would-be challengers? They had no choice but to humbly bow themselves before my mad noshing skills.”

“Uh…okay.”

“Yup. True story…”

“Sure, whatever. One last question…you don’t have too much direct experience in our field–which is okay, since you just graduated college (I think?)–so, please, share with me why you would like to work for our company?”

“Hey man, a job is a job and a paycheck is a paycheck, amiright? After all, one can’t defend their title of Twinkie-Eating Champion if they’re training with empty cupboards…”

Oh, yeah. I totally had this thing in the bag…


“There was a shortage! There was a Twinkie shortage, I swear!”

I felt like George Costanza from the hit 90s show, Seinfeld, making a rather futile effort to defend his, uh, “body image” after swimming in a cold pool:2For full context, please enjoy this clip: https://youtu.be/85MZ4c1EWkM

“You gotta believe me!”

As much as I pleaded with him, Mr. Not-My-Future-Boss-Man, wasn’t having any of it. I desperately tried to explain to him that there truly was The Great Twinkie Shortage of 2000,3”Twinkie Strike Afflicts Fans With Snack Famine”. New York Times, published 23 March 2000, accessed 24 February 2022–see hyperlink and it wasn’t just another lie to go along with the other lies–no, alleged lies–on my résumé.

On my knees by this point, I humbly petitioned him to truly listen and hear me out as I attempted to explain the extenuating circumstances swirling about my perceived fabrication: yes, there was a Twinkie-Eating Competition, and yes, I won said competition by a mile. But thanks to TGTS20004The abbreviated form of the aforementioned The Great Twinkie Shortage of 2000–again, an absolutely real event in American history–the organizers had to substitute Little Debbie brand Swiss Cake Rolls (TM) at the last second, in lieu of the advertised Twinkies.

And, hey let’s be honest, “Swiss Cake Roll-Eating Champion” doesn’t quite, well, roll off the tongue like “Twinkie-Eating Champion*.” So, sure, putting that down on my résumé may have been venturing into a moral gray area–however, I took the extra effort to include the “*”! How more honest could a guy get?

*Sigh*

But alas, ’twas all too little, too late. I was a bona fide liar in his mind–and you know that in this business, a man’s integrity is everything. He, in good conscious, could no way even consider hiring a documented liar such as myself.

All those grand plans and high hopes I had for my future? All foiled on account of the nuances of a ridiculous-sounding-but-actually-happened ----- Twinkie Shortage.

I mean, if not for those meddling bakery truck drivers, this could have been me (audio on):


…and that–and indubitably only that—my friends, is most assuredly why my promising life-long career of uttering phrases such as “She’s got a few miles on her, but she sure is a beauty, isn’t she?” and “What is it going to take for me to get you in this gently-used car today?” never got the chance to even see the light of day.

“Why are you even telling me this story?” you are probably wondering aloud right now, as if somehow I could hear you.

Well, I’ll tell you why–in the immortalized words of the late, great Bill Paxton:


Content created on: 23/24 February 2022 (Weds/Thurs)

Footnotes & References:[+]

What’s So Rah-Rah-Wrong With Falling In Love With A Cheerleader?

5 Min Read

“Rah-rah-Rolla hats off to thee!

Wait one sec, let me double-check my family tree…”


“I’ve never seen Titanic, and I promised myself that I never will…”

“I never drank alcohol until my 21st birthday…”

“Oh, and as a rule of thumb, I don’t date cheerleaders.”

Yes, these pompous phrases are ones that I have actually uttered…on multiple occasions each. Ugh. I can’t say I’m exactly proud that I was actually proud of these achievements.

Except that last one–yeah, yeah, the one about the cheerleaders–that wasn’t me being a pompous ass so much as, well, let me just regale you all about it and it’ll all make more sense…


In high school, I actually did have a literal rule of thumb about not dating cheerleaders. And before you go judging me, thinking I was some stuck-up academic ace who looked down up the perceived diminished intellect of your stereotypical cheerleader, to you I just say, “Slow your roll!” You have to understand that I wasn’t exactly dealing with your stereotypical cheerleaders.

I do have to wonder though, if my situation perhaps had stereotypical small town Kansas written all over it…

You see, it wasn’t so much that I was worried about eventually having average-IQ children if I were to date–and heavens forbid–marry a cheerleader. I was more concerned about having kids with the right number of fingers and toes, if you will.

As it were, during my time roaming the hallowed halls of Rolla High School, an ungodly percentage of the cheerleaders were…uh, how do I put this? Um…they were my cousins.

So, statistically speaking, if I were to blindly go out with a member of the RHS Spirit Squad,1Or whatever the hell we called it back then. I would have been running the very real risk of stumbling into some good old-fashioned inbreeding. Yee-Haw, Milo-Farmers, Yee-Haw!

Not to brag or anything, I would say that I may have been in the running for “Most Kansas High School Experience” award. Like they say, “If you ain’t kissing yer kousin, then you ain’t Kansasing right…”


“Wait, she wasn’t technically off-limits!”

There, I went ahead and pre-emptively expressed mild outrage for you. I wouldn’t say that I was fibbin’ or anything, but…but, well, that whole “cousin” thing comes with a few asterisks. And I hope you’re not mad at me for being rather liberal with how I define my family tree.

Now without further ado, allow me to give you the run-down of ~55% of the RHS Cheerleaders between 1995 and 1999, and then you can cast judgement upon my soul (for the sake of privacy, we’ll only be using first names here):


Mendee: First cousin. Since we shared the same last name, yeah, it would have been pretty obvious that we were Kissin’ Kousins.


Marcee: Younger sister of Mendee; first cousin. Again, the whole problem of having the same last name.


Whitney: Second cousin. I think that’s the right term…our dads were first cousins. Our grandmas were sisters. We have the same great-grandparents–whatever that term is, we have enough common DNA that sophisticated city folk would have indubitably looked down their noses at such a cozy familial relationship.


Erica: First cousin…of Whitney; second cousin. *checks notes* Er, that should actually be Step-First Cousin/First Step-Cousin of Whitney. Her mom married my dad’s cousin. So…common DNA? Not that we knew of! Nonetheless, we might have been “cousin enough” in the eyes of the law, so it was better not to risk it.


Patti: First cousin…to my step-siblings. So we’re back to the whole “Are we “Step-First Cousins or “First Step-Cousins?” debate. In this case though, my dad married into their family instead of the other way around (i.e. I’m the proverbial red-headed stepchild in this scenario). Though I suspect that detail doesn’t really change the state of affairs much…


Lisa P.: First cousin…to Patti. My cousin’s cousin is still my cousin, right? What about my step-cousin’s cousin? Okay, at this point maybe I’m stretching the definition of ‘cousin’ pretty thin. I feel like if only she was my step-cousin’s step-cousin, then I would have been in the clear.

Though, now thinking back, there was actually a brief period my Sophomore year I thought about asking her out. So either I’m completely inconsistent when it comes to identifying who my actual cousins are, or I’m the type of guy who wouldn’t let a little 23andMe get in the way of a good time. Though I don’t know which interpretation would be less offensive…


Kate: Not a cousin. I didn’t date her, but at least I got one good kiss in! Though, the legitimacy of even that is questionable. But again, hey, at least our family trees weren’t intertwined, something that, as you can see, shouldn’t be taken for granted in this here part of the country.


Ashont’a”:2Not her real name, dummy. Not a cousin; never went to RHS. I did date her, though, and yeah, you could say that I got a couple real good kisses in.3So good, in fact, that they both got her pregnant.

So, about “Ashont’a”…yeah, I guess I kinda forgot that my lovely wife4AKA “The Boss Lady” was a cheerleader when she was in Junior High,5…in a state far away from Kansas a fact that I can indubitably attribute my amnesia to how embarrassed she is by this secret from her past. Welp, either way, I guess this revelation blows a huge hole in my whole “I don’t date cheerleaders” excuse for a total lack of love live in high school.

Oh, and if it wasn’t clear from context, let me be absolutely clear here: I didn’t date her while she was a cheerleader. Good heavens, I don’t want Chris Hansen mysteriously showing up on a barstool in my kitchen with a camera crew or anything…


The point of the story is, Young Grasshopper, if you wait long enough, a smart, funny, beautiful—and kind!— cheerleader might just come your way one day. And if you’re real lucky, she won’t even be your second step-cousin’s step-first cousin…

I guess what I’m trying to say is…Happy Valentine’s Day to my very own and very wonderful former-cheerleader-not-my-cousin-wife. To you a say:

“Give me an ‘I’! Give me an ‘L’! Give me an ‘O’! Give me a ‘V’! Give me an ‘E’! Give me a ‘U’! What does that spell? ‘Rah! Rah! Rah! I LOVE U!'”

Oh, and also Happy V-Day to all you non-cousin-lovers and cousin-lovers6Who am I to judge your love? alike. After all, “Love is love is love,” amiright?7As an unrelated bonus trivia fact, I was really planning on getting in a zinger about “as a rule of let’s-try-not-to-have-kids-with-fused-thumbs”, because, ya know…incest-induced-birth-defects-based humor and all that.


UPDATE/CORRECTION: My sources confirm that there is at least one more name to add to the list…

Lisa O.: No relation to Lisa P; first cousin (to me). Seriously, even dating a cheerleader in another town wasn’t a safe strategy–while I was a Freshman, she was busy being a Junior High cheerleader in the neighboring metropolis of Hugoton. I just couldn’t catch a break.

Our mothers are sisters, so the “Same Last Name” issue never came into play, but obviously the whole “we share roughly the same amount of DNA as half-siblings” thingy is quite the deal-breaker…


Content created on: 11/12/13 February 2022 (Fri/Sat/Sun)

Updated on: 14 February 2022 (Mon)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Some Even Called It ‘The Breakthrough Performance Of The Year’…

5 Min Read

There’s regular actors, and there’s voice-actors.

And then, regrettably, there are tongue-actors…


“Schlop! Schlop! Schlop!”

Oh, what a Prologue…

Act I: a soft gasp of unpleasant surprise, shortly followed by Act II, a gagged “harumph” of indignation.

And for her Third and final Act, a crisp whipping of the neck away from the encroaching tongue, lightly showering the audience and judges with an unholy admixture of our respective salivas.

Epilogue: she never spoke to me again…


Flashback to only moments before the award-winning performance described above, as we cast members donned our costumes backstage.

“Hey man, I dare you to slip Kat1Let’s pretend like this isn’t her real name, poor soul. But the puns that would follow this incident only make sense if you have an idea of what her name might have been. the tongue during your kissing scene! It’s what any true Benedick would do for his love, Beatrice.”

This particular “Benedick” had gently (yet convincingly) kissed “Beatrice” about 5-10 times at this point, but, seeing as how we were in the middle of competing in the 1999 KSHSAA2https://www.kshsaa.org/public/speechdrama/Tournaments.cfm State Speech & Drama Festival, this would indubitably be the Last Kiss my co-star Kat and I would share during the climactic scene of our Rolla High School’s production of the 1598 Shakespeare classic, Much Ado About Nothing.

‘Twas going to be our last Hurrah–we definitely needed to go out with a “Bang!” (Or at least 2 or 3 good “Schlops”.)

And who could say “no” when dared by their local science teacher, good ol’ Mr. Bryan, husband to their English teacher and director of the play, Mrs. Bryan?

Well, maybe I could have said “no” to such a juvenile proposition proffered by this allegedly grown-ass man/supposedly responsible adult…had it not been for the overwhelming support vocally offered by the entirety of the other male cast members.

I mean, what better excuse for some light tomfoolery and mischievous misogynistic shenanigans than peer pressure? You got to give the be-testicled people what they want right?

“Heh-heh, she’s in for such a surprise…” I chortled as I agreed to Mr. B.’s ----- harebrained idea…


“What the ----- where you thinking?!?”

You gotta give Kat some professional actress credit: apart from her neck-whip in reaction to my last-second lingual assualt, she waited until we were backstage afterwards to give me the tongue-lashing3Pun intended. I so rightfully deserved.

“Just because the script calls for us to kiss, that don’t give you permission to slide yo nasty-ass slimy tongue halfway down my throat!”

*Snort* But…Mr. Bryan dared me to do it.” I gestured in his general direction, fully expecting his show of moral support.

“Whoa, whoa, dude, I didn’t think you would actually do it. Like, what in the actual ----- were you thinking?”

“The heck, man? You asshat, this whole thing was your idea and now you’re throwing me under the bus?!?”

“Totally uncool, bro. You can’t kiss a lady like that without her permission,” chimed in one of the many male actors who had only an hour early been championing the cause of The Tonguing.

“I may be Benedick, but you’re a damned Benedict Arnold!” I couldn’t believe these two guys.

“Yeah, man. I would never do such a horrible thing.”

Yet another mother ----- was jumping ship on me.

What the hell was going on here?!? Sixty minutes early they were essentially chanting “Grab her by the p***y! Grab her by the p***y!” and now they decide to be the woke mob,4In case you’re wondering, I am very much mocking any ----- idiot who uses the term “woke mob” with a straight face. going all “#MeToo” and “My body, my choice” on me?

And as you can imagine, not a single one of the females in the room where it happened5”The room where it happened”–another Broadway reference, brought to you courtesy of Hamilton. were showing me any love…


“But wait just a tick, Mister!” you are indubitably shouting at the screen right now. “There weren’t any so-called ‘woke mobs’ back in 1999–especially not in Kansas!”

And, Dear Reader, you would be absolutely right about that.

Sure, I got hung out to dry by the drama nerds for what, in almost immediate retrospect, was a very egregious lapse in judgment on my part. Indeed, I wished, in my role as Benedick, that I wouldn’t have been, well, such a dick.

But did I truly suffer for my misdeeds? Even remotely close to as much as I should have?

No! In fact, for the last few weeks of school, I was more or less celebrated by my colleagues as a sort of anti-hero. You wouldn’t believe how many times I heard comments like “I heard she gave you a real tongue-lashing afterwards!” or “What’s the matter, the Kat got your tongue?”, all followed by a round of heavy and irreverent guffawing.

Poor Kat–I mean, talk about being re-victimized every time. And my beleaguered apologies were probably undermined by the sh*t-eating grin I had plastered across my stupid face half the time. I did feel bad for her for the suffering she endure at my hand–er, tongue. But it was obvious that irregardless of what the original perpetrator thought of the matter, as a whole, the larger society didn’t give a flying ----- about her pain.

For my part, I at least had moderate-to-severe remorse over the ordeal, and I can’t say I was exactly proud of my achievement. And once the initial hub-bub around the incident eventually died down, I generally avoided bringing up the incident.

But then, during the final week of classes came the annual school-wide Awards Ceremony. I don’t remember what the awards were exactly–probably stuff like Honor’s Roll and Perfect Attendence, et cetera, et cetera. Being a senior and the intellectual star of our cozy school, I garnered my share of awards and accolades…and one extra one that that caught me a bit by surprise.

As the awards were wrapping up, Ms. C., the EmCee and one of the Jr. High teachers, cleared her throat in preparation of making a solemn proclamation:

“I have one last award to give out tonight. For the first time ever, I’m proud to announce this year’s winners of ‘Best Tongue Action In A School Play’. When I call your names, please come forward to receive your trophies, these top-of-the-line gummy tongue-and-lips…”

“*Ahem* And this year’s winners are…”

Of course she called my name. But did she have to call Kat’s name as well? Poor girl was mortified.

I sheepishly stumbled forward, and graciously accepted my gummy tongue-and-lips. “Uh, thanks for acknowledging my efforts, Ms. C.”

Right behind me was one very red-faced Kat, clearly quite unhappy with the display of public humiliation.

As she snatched her gummy tongue-and-lips from Ms. C’s hands, I could barely hear her hiss at Ms. C. under her breath:

“Ughh, I so hate you for this, Mom…”


What was the point of the story again? I had it on the tip of my tongue…oh yeah, the point of the story is not to rely others for a moral compass. In the end you’re going to be responsible for your own actions, and “uh, everybody said it was a good idea at the time” isn’t going to hold up in Cosmic Court. Own your own actions boy!

Yeah…and, uh, maybe–just maybe–any suggestion that you violate someone else, even if for “comedic effect,” is one bad ----- idea.

#PSKateSorryForTheTrauma #PSKateSorryAboutYourMomma


Content created on: 4 February 2022 (Friday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

42 Reasons Why Liberal Elitist Driving Tests Should Be Outlawed

7 Min Read

Hey all you bureaucratic fat-cats down at the DMV!

Yeah, that’s right, I got a bone to pick with you…


It had fiasco written all over it from the start. Then again, it wouldn’t be a trip to the DMV if there isn’t at least some level of extraneous drama, now would it?

You see, normally for a Kansas teenager, the mere act of turning 16 would be enough to earn one’s driver’s license. Heck, we had all been unofficially driving for 5+ years at that point–or at least those of us had the privilege of being born into a state of child lab–er, I mean to say “the privilege of growing up on a farm.”

So in that sense, yes, I was a “normal” Kansas teenager. Double heck–I had been driving1My definition of “driving” here is rather broad, up to and including sitting on a parent’s lap and being allowed to steer while they ran the pedals. for 10 years by the time my Sweet Sixteen rolled around.

Yet, lo and behold, there I was almost 3 months after my birthday, and I was still undocumented as the day I was born. “Why?” you may ask?

Because just like the rest of my life, the simple task of passing a major life milestone necessitated an overly complicated plot line for a back story. Noooo, it just couldn’t be straightforward, now could it?

I should have taken Driver’s Ed the summer after 8th grade alongside my other Kansan colleagues. I should have been handed my Learner’s Permit long before that summer was over. And I should have been able to watch that Learner’s Permit magically transform into a bona fide Driver’s License right before my very eyes on my 16th birthday.

The problem? Though I was living in Kansas that particular summer, I was technically a citizen of California, at least in the eyes of the law. That was the Summer of the Custody Battle of ’94, and it wasn’t until that Battle ended in early August when I would officially be a tax-paying Kansan. But by that time, well, I had already missed the boat. And by “boat,” I mean that land-yacht Chevy Suburban that U.S.D. 217 used for their Driver’s Ed classes.

Well, you can see that my teen life was already complicated enough between the custody battle and being denied the full trappings of a Learner’s Permit. And, in the words that make absolutely no sense to anybody who has ever lived in Kansas, “it all just went downhill from there…”


Where to start, where to start? Oh, how about scheduling? The whole reason that I was 16.25 years old and still license-less was because of the “2-4pm, every-other-Thursday” hours that the nearest DMV offered for driving tests. So the first appointment I could make was directly correlated to the first day I wouldn’t be stuck in school at that oddly specific time frame: i.e. Spring Break.

It’s not like I would have been in Cancun otherwise. But still, I had fields to plow–and no, that is not a sexual euphemism–and a trip to Hugoton to take my DL test was going to annoyingly eat into my plowing productivity.

Putting our farming grievances aside, Dad dutifuly pulled my ass off the tractor that fateful day and chauffeured me to my appointment in my step-mom’s hyper-futuristic Eagle Vision.2Because y’all know that the Eagle Vision was the bomb-diggity of cars back in that day! But when we showed up to the Steven’s County Department of Transportation–ok, I confess that in B.F. Egypt-Middle-of-Nowhere Kansas we weren’t even sophisticated enough to have a proper DMV–we ran into an even more serious issue: identity fraud.

Well, maybe not so much as “fraud” as “parental negligence:” no one seemed to really know what my Social Security Number was. I have no idea where the ----- Dad got that number from, but it sure wasn’t mine. Unless…unless they gave out the same number to all Roberts born in Kansas in 1980? Well, at least me and this other guy had that much in common, which may have just been a coincidence. But, no, I was not that Robert, the rightful owner of what I had thereforeto thought to be my SSN.

Somehow, some way, between Dad and the DOT, they eventually figured out my correct number, but in the interim there was a moment there where I truly wondered if I had been swapped at birth…or maybe I had got lost in the system and was, as they say “undocumented”…or was I perhaps a clone, only being grown so the Original Me could harvest me for my body organs as needed…oh, how my mind digressed.

Eventually, after acing the written and eye exam portions of the whole charade, I got my opportunity to go on the World’s Most Awkward Date with a certified driving instructor (famously trained in all things automobile). Yes, I speak of none other than The Road Test.

Of course I was nervous, but for the most part I felt like I was actually kinda nailing it. Until…

Okay, so first you need to understand that Hugoton was literally a “One Stoplight” town. And I was doing just fine until we got to The Stoplight, and I had to make a left turn onto Main.

Light turned green. I paused. I looked. I waited. Oncoming traffic came on, and then finally, it was all clear.

But as I turned left, I took it a little too wide. And I realized halfway through the turn: “Aw fudge, I’m turning into the far lane. I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to be turning into the near lane.” [In audio slow-mo:] “Nooooooooooo!”

A millisecond later my inner monologue continued: “Well shit, if I correct it now, I would have to swerve hard to make it to the proper lane, and it would be, as the youths say, ‘totes obvs’ to Mr. Instructor that I had done ----- up.”

“Best to just play it cool and hope he didn’t notice,” I mumbled to myself, as I pretended like I was supposed to do what I had just done…


“Okay, nice job parallel parking. Now just release the parking brake, and we’ll head back to the headquarters. and wrap up the paperwork!”

Oh my god, I couldn’t believe it. Despite my turn-lane screw-up, it looked like I was home-free and bound to be licensed within the hour.

The “Can You Parallel Park/Do You Know Where The Parking Brake Is?” tests were the last items on that clipboard-carrying melonfarmer‘s checklist, and I had aced both of those with flying colors. Nothing was going to stop me now.

With the bravado and hubris of someone who had just kicked some ass and taken some names, I reached down to pull the parking brake release…only to come up empty-handed.

“The fu—?!? What? How? Where? Why is the brake release not here???”

“Son, if we can get going? We need to get back to HQ before they close up shop.”

“Um, yeah, about that…”

It was dawning on me that I had never actually used the parking brake release handle on that car before, and had just assumed it would be in the same spot as in every other vehicle that I had ever been in.

But this fancy-ass, hyper-futuristic Eagle Vision? I guess they forgot that basic part when they were designing their sweet ride. Because it simply did not exist.

And thus, with the parking brake firmly stuck in place, I found myself firmly stuck in a very embarrassing situation. So embarrassing, in fact, that I did the most embarrassing thing a man could do in that moment: ask another, more knowledgeable, man for help.

“Um…so I kinda can’t find the release. Would you be able to help me out here?” I humbly petitioned Mr. Instructor.

SIGH. Okay, swap seats with me and I’ll help you out of this pickle.”

Well, it turned out Mr. Expert couldn’t figure out the riddle any better than I could:

“Oh, uh, yeah. That is odd. The release handle should be right here. Yet it isn’t…”

“Wait, how do you not know this??? Aw man, now we’re really screwed!”

We then proceeded to turn that sweet, sweet ’94 Eagle Vision inside out and upside down searching for some release mechanism of any kind, sadly all to no avail.

We were growing ever more desperate by the minute…

So desperate, in fact, that we then collectively did the most embarrassing thing a grown-ass man and a half-ass teenage boy could do: we consulted the Owner’s Manual.

I mean, have we no pride?!?

After a good 10-15 minutes of toiling in absurd futility, our sacrificial act seemed to pay handsome divedends when we came across this nugget of wisdom: “To release the emergency break, slightly angle your toe forward as you depress it further a second time.”

We looked quizzically at each other.

“What the heck does that even mean?”

“Aw, hell if I know.”

It was totes obvs that neither of us gave a shit at that point in time and just wanted to get on with our lives.

Surprisingly, it only took us about another 5 minutes of collective effort to decipher the true meaning of that cryptic message and to get the ----- thing finally released.

Needless to say, we had both been so utterly emasculated by that animate object that neither of us said not a word the rest of the way back to HQ…


“You are allowed to get penalized up to 40 points and still pass. That little stunt you pulled turning left at The Stoplight–yes, I saw you ----- that up from a mile away–that only cost you 36 points…”

Finally safe and sound back at HQ, Mr. Expert Instructor was going over the results of the road test with me.

“Whew! That was close! Well, all that matters is that I passed on my first try and won’t have to wait until summer to come back and take the test again…” I didn’t see the need to wait any longer for my hard-earned victory lap.

“…and I had to knock off 5 points for not knowing how to release the parking brake.”

“But you didn’t either!”

“Erm, I wasn’t the one being tested…”

“Wait, then that means–38, 39, 40, 41,42…awww ----- …”

“Sorry son, you failed…”


The point of the story is that I hereby call for the immediate drafting of and subsequent passing of by the Kansas State Legislature, SB42–also known as Robert’s Law–a bill “outlawing any testing relating to and/or pertaining to knowledge of the application of and/or the mechanisms of release of vehicular parking brakes, in the course of issuing driving identifications and permits by the great state of Kansas.”

Let me reiterate that last part: this is Kansas, for fuck’s sake. We FlatLanders have no need for your fancy elitist contraptions, and it’s a violation of our children’s dignity to be tested such offensive and anti-anti-gradientist concepts!

So next time some pompous elevated-living ass-hat tries to use the phrase “It’s all downhill from here,” do just like my stepmom’s Eagle Vision did that fateful March day in 1997, and don’t you dare budge an inch from where you’ve been firmly-yet-involuntarily planted.

Nothing is “downhill from here” around here, you bunghole…

#HiPlainsPride #FunkYoMountains #ICantBelieveIFailedMyDriversTestOverSuchAUselessPieceOfKnowledge #TheWholePremiseOfThisPieceIsABitIronicGivenThatManyEastCoastLiberalFolkLiveInACoastalPlain


Content created on 28/29/30 January 2022 (Fri/Sat/Sun)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Now Me College Graduate, Me Use The Most Big Words

5 Min Read

My vocabulary didn’t expand just because I graduated college.

It was because of the WAY I graduated college…


“Well…congratulations, me?”

I hung up the phone with the Kansas State University Registrar’s Office, and was trying to process the emotional turmoil that had just blindsided me. Maybe it was because those feelings were completely unexpected–after all, my academic advisor did give in and grant my special request.

Yet, for being an education-oriented young lad my entire life, I was feeling pretty empty inside for having just graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Physics.

Correction–I meant to say “for having just found out that I had graduated”…


“Anti-Climactic Denouement”–that’s the Word of the Day.

And no, I know what you’re (probably) thinking, but that phrase does not refer to the act of some jackass getting up on their soapbox and declaring global warming to be nothing but a hoax.

Nor does it refer to the Puritan movement back in the 1800’s that declared the female orgasm to be “the work of the Devil himself, that horny bastard.” Hell, I don’t even know if that was a real thing, but knowing those Puritans, I wouldn’t put it past those prudes to come up with some load of horse crap like that. But I digress…

Instead–as you may have gathered from context–“Anti-Climactic Denouement” is the perfect descriptor for my, shall we say, “nontraditional” graduation journey.

Officially earning my college degree–and doing so with dang-near perfect grades at that (#HumbleBrag)–should have been the pinnacle of my academic career. But nooooo, I just had to be “special” and couldn’t let things play out in a much more typical–i.e. linearly synchronous–fashion.

And I blame the Love of (Free) Money for all the resulting emotional trauma I endured. Well, that, along with a healthy dose of Not Knowing What (the ----- ) I Wanted to Do With My Life.

You see, most youngsters my age were set to graduate in May 2003. However, I needed a bit more time to wrap things up, and so had concordantly applied to graduate the following December. This wasn’t too uncommon, though: December graduations happen all the time.

But as that time neared, it occurred to me that I had no idea what I was to do after that. True story–I never had any intentions of using my degree in Physics, believe it or not.1If you’re not aware, I have my PhD in Physics, a fact that would have shocked my Past Self to hear. My future career was a blank canvas. Trust me, though, that’s not nearly as fun as it sounds.

Anyways, I had a few ideas I was kicking around, one of which was becoming a photographer. One of my friends suggested that I could explore that more by taking K-State’s Digital Photography class. You know…the one that was being offered in Spring 2004.

You know…after I was no longer a quote-unquote “student.”

And if you’re not actually a student, guess what? You ain’t getting none of that sweet, sweet free FAFSA monies from Uncle Sam–and you know how much I love me some of them FAFSA monies, right?

I didn’t have a job lined out post-graduation, so the last thing I wanted was to have to pay $453.802Based on this and this, accounting for the Campus Privilege Fee for Residents, the cost of a credit hour in the Spring 2004 would have been $118.60. Three credit hours would be $355.80, and when you add back in the Campus Privilege Fee of $64 for the first credit hour and $17 for each hour thereafter, you get $355.80 + $64 + $17 + $17 = $453.80. Ta-da! in tuition and so-called “Campus Privilege Fees,” especially since my Spidey-sense was telling me that ultimately photography would not be how I earned a living.

So I got creative. Shortly after that Thanksgiving, I called up ye ole’ Registrar’s Office, and was like, “Hey, what-say we put my December graduation on hold and how about I graduate in May like a normal person a year younger than me? Oh, and how about some of that free money?”

And they were like, “Looky here, young whipper-snapper…well, uh…yeah, I guess we can do that. Sure. A May graduation it is for you. Enjoy your free money…”


“You want a decent-paying job? Then I suggest you get your danged college degree, son!”

Those words–or something very close to those words–were uttered by my slightly-older-but-much-wiser roommate, the Beautiful Love Muscle. BLM was commiserating with me, as I wasn’t having any luck landing a job after spending most of that January job hunting.

“Just think of how many more job opportunities would be open to you with your degree in hand!”

“But…but…but I would have to pay back all my free monies!” I blubbered in response.

“Nah, man, just think–you’ll probably have a much better paying job than without your degree, so you’ll make up that $500 within your first couple of paycheck!”

“Dude…your logic is…airtight. Alright! I’ll do it!”

“So…I just call them and ask them to go back in time and give me my diploma in December?” It was dawning on me that I was blazing a path that probably had never been blazed before.

“Huhn,” BLM stroked the stubble on his chin, “I hadn’t really thought that far out.”

Welp, I had nothing to lose by simply asking, so that next day I gave ol’ K-State yet another friendly phone call:

“Uh, yeah, hello there Registrar’s Office. You see, I was wondering…um, how do I say this? Could you have me in your system as having officially graduated in December? I already had an application approved and everything…”

“Sir, we haven’t even started processing graduation applications for December 2004 yet…”

“No, not this coming December. I mean this past December–December 2003. I’m needing you to back-date my graduation. Please. Pretty please?”

I conspicuously omitted any questions about whether I would have to pay back the free money they had given me, hoping that they would overlook it amidst the confusion.

“Oh. Okay…I guess I’ll have to talk to my boss about that…”

It wasn’t but a few days later that I received the so-called good news that it was official: I was a Bachelor of Arts,3You would think that I would have been a Bachelor of Science, but due to my scheme that enabled me to avoid taking Quantum Physics and Electronics Lab, I was able to skate by with “Arts” instead. Physically speaking!

The realization that immediately followed hearing that news, though, turned my mood sour pretty quick: “Dammit, I missed the pomp & circumstance of my own graduation! How did I manage to miss such a major life milestone?!?”

And before you go judging me for throwing myself a little pity party over the matter, consider this: the feeling with which I was beset? That was indubitably the same feeling that a bride would have if she, say, missed her own wedding. Or a father, unintentionally missing the birth of his first child.

Like I said–using the big college graduate words that I’m now entitled to use willy-nilly–it was a true “Anti-Climactic Denouement”. What should have been a high point in my life ended up being nothing more than a pathetic let-down…


“Welp, this must be what it feels like to be a criminal running from the law,” I thought to myself–over and over, for the next 4 months. You know, always looking over their shoulder, wondering not if but when The Man was going to come knocking on their door, demanding the justice that was due.

But, in the end, no one ever said anything about me paying back that $453.80 I was so worried about. So…hooray me?

Oh, and I also ended up getting a job a couple months later…that didn’t require a college degree.

So after all that, I could have just graduated in May like every one else, minus all the drama. Go figure.

But on the bright side, when anybody asks me “So, when did you graduate?” I get to flex my hard-earned scholarly vocabulary, humbly replying:

“Well, you see, a kind of a funny thing happened…I’ll spare you the details, though, and just get straight to the point of the story…

“The point of the story is that in January 2004, I retroactively graduated summa cumm laude4For the record, I know that it is “c-u-m” with one “m” and not “cumm.” But my Censorship software will blank it our (“—-“) if I spell it like the synonym for jism (male ejaculate). in December 2003, ergo necessitating the caveat explicationibus that it had been conferred expo facto–but, fortunately, not posthumously.”

You know…just your average graduation story.

Every time I tell it though, I can’t help think of this classic scene from The Matrix 2 (also pay attention to around the 8:06 mark of the clip) :


Content created on: 21 January 2022 (Friday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

ICYMI: The Long, Winding Reads Of The Year 2021

< 1 Min Read

No, you didn’t come here to read long-winded novels.

But that never stopped me from writing a few anyways…


“But wait! There’s more!”

Harrumph. How many times have we heard that line while watching yet another late-night infomercial?

But fear not, I’m not segueing this site into some sort of capitalistic whore of Babylon, only trying to eek every ounce of value out of our Dear Readers by trying to secretly sell you something. No, I’m doing nothing of the sort–but, for the record, did you know I am actually trying to openly sell you stuff: merch from our merch store–go check it out here…though I really need to update the inventory.

But I digress. The real reason why I have gathered us here today is to champion the cause of something that emerged in 2021: The Long Read. Whether it was from a concerted effort to make each post more digestible, or whether it arose from a never-ending saga that started with leaky sink, many of the stories from 2021 were part of a bigger plot–something that might have been lost had you not read the companion posts.

So in hopes of allowing you the chance to fully savor the non-sense and deeply asinine nuances of those posts, allow me to present you with the Long Reads of 2021. Pull up a chair partner, and pour yourself a drink. You might be here awhile…

Enjoy!


Eden Cove 9: 5 Weeks in Purgatory
Eden Cove 9: 5 Weeks in Purgatory

< 1 Min Read

The Year 2021: The Year of the Endless Home Renovation.

Pfft! More like “The Year We Almost Ended Up Homeless”…

The Crazy-Ass Summer Of ’99
The Crazy-Ass Summer Of ’99

< 1 Min Read

The Year: 1999, Summer Time. Location: Our Family Farm.

Excitement Level? “Never A Dull Moment”…

The Godfather Of The High Plains
The Godfather Of The High Plains

< 1 Min Read

It’s kinda like a ‘Rags to Riches’ story.

Except by the end, I barely got to keep my polyester britches…

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Content created on: 3 January 2022 (Monday)

The Year In Review: Your Guide To The Best Of 2021

< 1 Min Read

It’s that most wonderful time of the year.

Time for a heaping serving of our creme de la creme…


Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! Welcome to the end of another year that, for many of us, we summed up by saying “Welp, I guess we should be grateful we survived the last 12 months…”

I don’t know about you, but I really really hope that 2022 is not another one of those years. But what can you do? Hope for the best my friends, just hope for the best…

Speaking of “Best,” I thought I would help you celebrate ringing in 2022 by looking back at the Best posts the Point of the Story had to offer in 2021. Okay, so it’s hard to objectively say these were “the best,” but they were some of my favorites from the past year. It was hard to decide which stories to put in slots 7 through 3, as they were many other worthy candidates, and they probably could have ranked in any arbitrary order.

But #2 and #1? Yeah, those are undoubtedly the Top 2 Posts of 2021.

So, whether you missed them the first time around, or just back for a second helping, here are the Editor’s Top Seven Pointless Posts of 2021.

Enjoy! (And Happy New Year!)


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#7
Stop Sabotaging My Love Life, You Dirty Bastard!
Stop Sabotaging My Love Life, You Dirty Bastard!

4 Min Read

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, and it’s time to get your funk on, baby! But first, you’re gonna have to get that funk the funk off you…

Slide
#6
When Your Love Of The Sauce Takes You Sideways
When Your Love Of The Sauce Takes You Sideways

5 Min Read

It all started just like any other regrettable college moment:

“Chug! Chug! Chug…”

Slide
#5
Getting The Best Seats In The House For His Buttercup? This Farmboy Will Never Compromise!
Getting The Best Seats In The House For His Buttercup? This Farmboy Will Never Compromise!

6 Min Read

When she said “Farmboy, fetch me the finest seats in the house,” you know what he said?

“As you wish…”

Slide
#4
Life Lesson #2: Quickly Kick Cookie Cravings To The Curb
Life Lesson #2: Quickly Kick Cookie Cravings To The Curb

4 Min Read

“Oh sh*t…” you say, as you do your best Fred-Savage-from-the-Princess-Bride impression. “Is this a pooping story?”

“This is a pooping story, isn’t it…”

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#3
When Casper’s In The Car, Scary Good Times Are Never Afar
When Casper’s In The Car, Scary Good Times Are Never Afar

6 Min Read

What would Jesus do?”

Surely not be giving out rides when it’s not his car…

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#2
An Unsurpassed Tractor Tale That Will Never Get Tired
An Unsurpassed Tractor Tale That Will Never Get Tired

6 Min Read

Attention, all you agriculturally ignorant city-slickers out there!

This one’s for you…

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#1
Honestly, It’s Unholy: The Prom Theme Delivered From Upon High
Honestly, It’s Unholy: The Prom Theme Delivered From Upon High

4 Min Read

Are you sick and tired of prom themes that over-promise and under-deliver?

Well, have I got just the theme for you…

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Content created on: 2 January 2022 (Sunday)

The Godfather Of The High Plains

< 1 Min Read

It’s kinda like a ‘Rags to Riches’ story.

Except by the end, I barely got to keep my polyester britches…


Ironically, this story, which took place during my freshman year of college, probably could have been shortened to “One time, I saw a lot of money.”

But where’s the fun in that? Why say it in 8 words when ~3600 will get the job done just as well?


You Can’t Spell ‘Prison’ Without ‘Son’, Now Can You, Dad?
You Can’t Spell ‘Prison’ Without ‘Son’, Now Can You, Dad?

4 Min Read

It’s like they always say: You really put the “son” in “prison”…

This Is My Reward For Handling Your Dirty Money, Old Man?!?
This Is My Reward For Handling Your Dirty Money, Old Man?!?

4 Min Read

Me: “OMG, we’re rich now!”

Dad: “What’s this ‘we’ stuff, Kemosabe…?”

Great News, You Get To Be The Family Fall Guy!
Great News, You Get To Be The Family Fall Guy!

4 Min Read

Well, this is a crap deal. You get the loot while I get looted…

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Content created on: During the colder parts of 1999-2000.

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