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Category: General Cerebral Leakage (Page 2 of 25)

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Son, Let Me Get This Straight: Sowing Your Seed Just Couldn’t Wait?

4 August 2024 / / 0 Comments
5 Min Read

Amidst our many arguments, one thing was never up for debate.

Dad and I both knew that I could never drive that ----- tractor straight…

“Son, I oughtta whoop your ass!”

The outburst of anger kinda caught me off guard. I turned to see that Dad was getting that look in his eyes–the look that I knew would soon be followed by him yapping at me so fervently that I could count on getting hit with at least 2 or 3 shots of stray spittle.

“Wha–? Huh? What are you talking about? I’ve been doing exactly what you asked of me for the last seven hours!” I shot back as I hopped off the tractor, rather confident that no ass-whooping was in order.

“Turn around and take a look at your handiwork, boy,” Dad seethed through his teeth, as–bless his heart–he was trying not to get too pissed off too quickly.

I turned around and surveyed the fruits of my day’s labor: one full quarter of Kansan farmland, barren at the dawn of that very same day, was now beautifully criss-crossed with row after row of expertly sown corn seed.

“Well, shoot, that looks like I just finished planting 160 acres of our highest-grossing crop–and an hour ahead of schedule even!” I said, unable to see why he wasn’t as proud of me as I was of myself.

“Were you drunk the whole time? And are you high right now? Boy, you just shat out some of the crookedest rows I’ve ever seen in my 50-plus years of farming!”

I took a second look at the earthen work of art before me. Maybe–just maybe–it wasn’t the masterclass in geometric perfection that I had fancied it to be.

“Ah, there may have been just a little swerve thrown in there here and there,” I ceded. “But hey–I got the job done, and if I remember correctly, you haven’t paid me one red cent for my hard labor.”

Apparently, this wasn’t the response Dad was looking for, as for no sooner than those words had wafted of my lips could I see his fists go into ‘Ima bout to strangle yo’ ass’ mode.

“Why the ----- can you not drive the tractor in a straight line for half a mile?!? How ----- hard is it?” he spouted at me.

Personally, if you ask me, this one was kinda on him.

“This isn’t my first rodeo, and you dang well know it, Dad! You know that I can’t drive a tractor straight to save my life–this is like the 20th curve-carved field in my plowing portfolio. And you’ve yelled at me after every single one–but this is the first time that you’ve been absolutely pissed at me about it!”

Every word I said was true: try as I might, no matter how much focus I tried to muster, I would indubitably fail to consistently produce straight lines across any given field I was unleashed upon, whether with plow or with planter.

“Oh, I’ll tell you why I’m so ----- pissed: just take a look to the north and what do you see?” he steamed, gesturing to the vast expanse of open farmland that stretched on for miles at end to the north (and in all directions, for that matter).

“Um…well besides all the other fields? Maybe that’s a cow way off in the distance? Or it might just be a cluster of tumbleweeds. Can’t really be sure this far away…”

“THE HIGHWAY! The ----- ----- highway is right there!” he frothed.

“That’s true, this quarter does border the high–” I was cut short by a man who had lost all patience for my ongoing nonsense.

“All your ----- curvy rows are going to sprout up and it’s going to be obvious to everyone driving by–you’re going to make me look like a ----- moron who can’t drive straight!”

Apparently, my old man cared quite a bit about what others thought of his farming skills. Well, at least cared about that more about that than his own son.

“Well, what’s done is–” my nonsense was cut off yet again.

“They’re going to think that I get all liquored up before handling heavy machinery–what a ----- embarrassment!” he bemoaned.

“Nah, I’m sure they won’t think that. Everyone in Morton County knows you’re not a lush,” I tried to reassure him in an attempt to save my own hide.

He wasn’t buying it, though.

“I highly doubt that. What other good reason would a man have for ----- up his field so badly?”

“Well, for one, it could be because you’re such a hard-workin’ sumabitch that you’re on the job even well into the nighttime hours,” I proffered.

He looked at me, seemingly slightly calmer, like what I was saying was actually making sense to him.

“After all, you do look like a man who likes to plow in the dark…”1In high school, I had come up with this phrase and loved it so much that I took a label maker and proudly plastered it on the side of one of my guitar pedals. I hate to have to break down why it’s so humorous/witty, but I just can’t risk someone not fully appreciating it. First, it’s a riff on ‘Glow in the dark’–I just substituted the G with a P, and BAM! Instant wit! Now let’s analyze this new phrase. In the more literal sense, it’s pretty funny considering my agricultural roots, and I can imagine any farmer would snicker at the thought of being so behind on farming that they have to resort to nocturnally tilling their fields. Figuratively speaking…well, this is just awash with sexual undertones. One might use the term ‘plow’ to mean ‘vigorously copulating, perhaps even involving some sodomy’. For everyone’s sake, I shall abstain from using it in a sentence. Anyways, sexual encounters often occur after sundown, many a times with the lights out completely (though I never understood what the fun in that was); ergo ‘plow in the dark’. This masterpiece of wordplay belongs on a ----- T-shirt. Or at least on a coffee mug…

The point of the story is that often one doesn’t see mental issues lurking beneath the surface only until reflecting on events years or decades later.

Only recently have I been exploring the very real possibility of having ADHD. And I gotta say, so many things fit that theorem. As I was writing this cheeky story in which I admit my inability to drive straight at low speeds, and how pissed/embarrassed Dad was over the whole ordeal, I realized…”holy sh*t, this inability probably stems from a lack of appropriate regulation of my focus.” Not that having an ADHD diagnosis back when I was in my late teens would have made a difference to Dad, but at least it would have helped me feel like less of a complete failure and familial disappointment.

Oh, and yeah, about Dad…years later, after I was out of college, he was officially diagnosed with bi-polar disorder. I only learned recently that he had been trying to self-manage it for decades on end before finally getting professional help towards the last few years of his life.

When I first learned about his diagnosis, it was like, “holy sh*t, all his mood swings and many of our unnecessary arguments make so much more sense now!” In other words, it helped me look back at my time with him with much more compassion, understanding and grace. I’m not sure how things would have been different had us kids had the luxury of growing up knowing his diagnosis (and had he been seeking therapy and medication during that time as well). Regardless, there is immense comfort in being able to reflect on my father’s life and realize that he was a much better man than I ever gave him credit for in the moment.

Sentimentality aside, it is also very useful from a practical point of view. Now both My Beautiful Bride and I know to be on the lookout for any signs of bi-polar disorder developing in me, seeing as how there is a very real chance he could have passed that down to me. After all, it wouldn’t be the only thing I inherited from him.

Like father, like son, guess who also turned out to be a man who likes to ‘plow in the dark’? Though for one of us it’s more literal, and the one more “figurative.”2Did you not read the earlier footnote?

I’ll leave it up to you, Dear Reader, to figure out which one is which…

Content created on: 30 July 2024 (Tuesday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Having Such An Awesome Ninja Skill Ain’t Illegal, For Real?

21 July 2024 / / 0 Comments
7 Min Read

Maybe, just maybe, you and your buddy have watched a little too much TMNT.

And you know play time is definitely over when up rolls the MP…

“MUAH-HA-HA-HAH! Screw you fence!” I over-enthusiastically taunted the inanimate object in front of me, as my expertly-thrown knife hit its target it once again.

“You’re getting pretty good at this, amigo,” my junior-high bestie, Nick, said.

“And I, too, would like to affirm your bad-ass knife-throwing skills, my ninja!” I reciprocated. “Why don’t you take a turn or two?” I said as I gave the knife a good tug to dislodge it.

“It would be my pleasure,” Nick said, deftly taking the knife from my hand and gracefully flinging it toward the fence in one fell swoop.

*spliiiinter*

That particular flick of his wrist must have had some extra sauce on it, because the knife dang near went all the way through the fence.

“Sweet shot, bro-ski!” I said.

Nick just stood there with his arms folded in triumph, as he knew he done did get a good shot in.

We paused for a moment to bask in our own glory. For a couple of youngsters like us–me ringing in at 14 years and Nick at 13–mastering such a cool skill as knife-throwing was a real thrill. Like, if we had to, we could fling a knife into the torso of a bad guy or the plank of a neutral-looking-but-secretly-threatening fence. It could potentially save our lives and/or the lives of those we love.

But had we not trained on the little fence surrounding the power transformer between my sister’s house and her neighbor’s? That knife would probably have just hit its target while oriented parallel to it, doing no damage before pathetically thunking to the ground. We would have looked like complete assholes in that scenario.

Our moment of ninja-like glory was short-lived though.

“Hey did you just see a pair of beady eyes peeping over that-there fence?” Nick asked, gesturing towards the neighbor’s backyard.

“Ah, don’t mind her. She’s just probably being a Nosy Nancy,” I demurred.

“You sure it’s cool?” Nick asked, for the first time considering that what we were doing might be considered mildly delinquent.

“It’ll be fine, man. She’s probably just jealous of our sweet, sweet, knife moves…”

“Young man, can we have a word with you?”

Those are words a young man never wants to hear. Especially when they’re coming out of the mouth of the MP–that’s Military Police, for you civilians out there–officer at your front door.

“Uh…yeah, I guess so,” I stammered. Normally, my nose was as clean as a whistle, and it would be my brother, 1SkinnyJay, who would have to worry about what the po-po might want with him. Incidentally, it was 1SJ that introduced me to the joys of knife-throwing…though surely that was irrelevant to this pleasant officer’s visit.

“Your neighbor here said she saw someone flinging sharp objects just outside her backyard, and that she fears for the safety of her children” the officer said.

I rolled my eyes at the thought of how little danger her kids might have ever been in.

“Nosy Nancy, you ----- ----- snitch,” I muttered under my breath.

“So, are you the one that’s been throwing knives at the fence around the corner?” he asked menacingly, gesturing in the general direction of our make-shift target.

“No, no, you’re mistaken…” I started.

“Oh, really?” the MP asked suspiciously.

“…there wasn’t just one of us throwing knives.”

Remember the incident Nick and I had with the rare candy? I sucked ass when it came to lying, but I was a ----- ace when it came to telling the truth. And I could tell this wasn’t going to end well for my accomplices.

“Do tell…” I definitely had the MP’s interest now.

“Yeah, of course I was one of the ones getting really, really ----- good at throwing knives. But you’ll also want to talk to my good friend Nick B. He’s almost better than I am. I can take you to his house, even, if you like,” I said, realizing that I was oversharing and not even making him work for the intel.

“Oh, that would be just lovely. So, you say it was you two fellas doing all that damage to the fence? Which, I might add, is federal property, seeing as how it is part of this fine Naval Base we like to call Point Mugu,” this officer said, clearly with the intent of intimidating me.

I think I peed myself just a little in that moment.

“Pfft! Do you think we would just come up with the idea by ourselves? Who do you think gave us the big idea to desecrate that fence in the first place?” I said flippantly.

“Heck, man, I don’t know. But twenty bucks says you’re going to tell me without me even having to ask,” the officer said, starting to get the hang of my game.

“It was my brother, Jason,” I stated matter-of-factly.

“…and there it is. You owe me twenty bucks?” the officer said.

“How about double or nothing?” I said, not really paying attention to what he was saying.

“Okay, so let me see if I got this straight?” he said, looking down at his note pad. “We got three minors that need to be held accountable for destruction of federal property? Is that right?”

“No! You forget about Josephina!” I blurted out, desperate to make sure that there was an accurate and factual accounting of events.

“Who, now?” he asked.

“My brother-in-law, who we’re living with here. Who do you think showed Jason how to throw knives. Jeez, get with it, yo!” I said condescendingly for some reason.

“It looks like we better round up the four of you degenerates and take you down to the station…”

“Mom, are we going to be homeless?” I asked without a hint of sarcasm or irony.

“I don’t really know, Honey,” she said, clearly wishing she could reassure me. “I told you that you needed to keep a low profile, seeing as how we’re living illegally here on Base with your sister.”

“Oh, yeah. Right.” I said quietly, deeply concerned that my loose wrist and even looser lips had ruined our housing situation (and maybe even have put Joe’s status in the military in limbo, to boot).

Long story short, during the preceding summer while I was staying with my dad, my now-presumably-ex-stepfather had moved my mom and brother from our home of 5 years in Springfield, MO, to Odessa, TX for some unknown reason. Then the dickhead just took the only vehicle they had and jetted out of there back to his mommy in Houston.

Well, this nut-sack had put my fam in quite the pickle, now hadn’t he? And, not realizing that the lease on her apartment back in Springfield wouldn’t technically run out for another week, my mom turned to my sister in California in her time of need.

“Sure, you can come live with us on this here fine Naval Base we call Point Mugu!” Sis had told her. “But, uh, technically, parents and siblings don’t qualify as dependents, so you’ll just have to be our ‘long term guests’, per se.”

And thus, my entire eighth grade year I lived as an illegal alien, never freely able to come and go off the base as I pleased. I either had to be in a vehicle with my sis or Joe driving–or on occasion, with Nick and his parents. But never could Mom just roll out with us to live normal lives in the surrounding cities.

Oh, I almost forgot that I was also able to smuggle myself on and off base on the the school bus–which, if you ask me, is actually kinda of a weak point in their security. Anyways, I digress…

“I really shouldn’t have drawn attention to us, should have I?” I said meekly.

“No you shouldn’t have,” Joe glared at me from across the table down at the MP headquarters. “Just let me do the talking, okay? We don’t need you unnecessarily volunteering any more facts…”

“You ----- ----- snitch” Jason muttered under his breath, as he ripped the board–the one we had thoroughly destroyed–off the fence.

“You little snitch,” Nick muttered under his breath as he hoisted the new replacement board into place.

“You little ----- , just had to go and snitch,” Joe muttered under his breath, as he handed me the screws and the drill.

“Fellas, fellas, no need to point fingers and say who-did-what and what-not,” I deflected, as I secured the new board in place.

I stepped back to admire our work.

But instead of looking at the newly-refinished fence, my three comrades were glaring at me.

“No, there is need to point fingers,” Jason seethed.

“Yeah, you were the one to get busted. Why did you have to drag us into your mess? My step-dad whooped my ass the second the MP left our house,” Nick said through gritted teeth.

“You couldn’t have fallen on a grenade for your brothers in arms, could have you?” Joe was clearly peeved.

“Fellas, fellas, come now,” I implored them. “Don’t be making the moral of this story ‘maybe it’s worth learning to lie every now and then for the sake of your brethren, you little snitch.’ Nay, the point of the story here is supposed to be: don’t judge an illegal alien until you’ve walked a kilometer in their shoes (on account of anyone coming into the U.S. from anywhere else in the world will indubitably be more accustomed to metric units rather than imperial units). Also keep in mind that on average they’re less criminally mind, lest their deviant behavior draws the attention of the authorities and gets them deported. So show them a little love, yeah?”

“Really? That’s what you’re going with here?” Jay said.

“I like the ‘don’t be a little snitch’ line better,” Nick chimed in.

“Me too,” said Joe. “Anyways, how do you explain to your imaginary audience you not getting kicked off base, when a true illegal alien would have got their ass deported for pulling the same stunt you did?”

“Yeah, man, we got off waaay easy just having to pay for the supplies and put in the time to repair this fence,” Jay noted.

“Fellas, fellas,” Nick said, half-mocking me. “Isn’t it patently obvious?” he said as he presented me as if I was a prize on the Price is Right and he were one of their models.

I sighed, reluctant to acknowledge my inherent privilege.

“It’s because I’m as Caucasian as a White Russian, my ninjas.”

Nick pensively stroked the peach fuzz on his chin for a moment.

“Somehow,” he finally said, “I think you’ve managed to culturally appropriate two different cultures here, all in one fell swoop…”

Content created on: 20/21 July 2024 (Sat/Sun)

Boy Ain’t Gonna Lie: He Chasing That Rare Sugar High

7 July 2024 / / 0 Comments
6 Min Read

Long story short, when Mom asked I said “screw it” and told her the truth.

“I fully intend to spend the evening abusing my sweet tooth…”

“Where you boys off to?” Mom asked us with a hint of suspicion–and to be fair, we probably did look like a pair of junior high boys with questionable evening plans.

“Uh, you cool if I spend the night over at Nick’s?” I asked her.

It was a Friday night, and Nick just lived down the street from us on Point Mugu Naval Base–a secure facility that we were somehow managing to live on illegally–so I didn’t think that it was too big of an ask. Even for Mom, who landed hard on the side of parenting that is the complete opposite of permissive.

“That depends,” Mom said slightly raising an eyebrow. “What do you plan on doing?”

Truth be told, we had just recently stumbled upon Nick’s step-dad’s secret candy stash, and we had been biding our time for a night when his parents and siblings would be gone most of the evening so we could dip our indulgent, grubby little paws into it. Included in that stash of high-end sweets were vintage Miami Spice Drops from 1986 (one of only two years they were ever made). Now, we had really never heard of such delicacies, but we could tell from the packaging that they weren’t your average gummy bears, so we were particularly excited to see what the presumed hub-bub was all about.

Just one problem though: all while I was growing up, Mom attempted to enforce a pretty hard no-sweets policy, and there was know way in hell that she would let me spend one more minute with Nick if she had even the slightest inkling what kind of sugary crack-cocaine was poorly hidden in his parents’ bedroom closet.

Oh, and just a second problem, too: my entire life I have been cursed with the utter and complete inability to tell a lie, especially when it come to my beloved mother. This curse bore down particularly hard on me during my 8th grade year–the year in which find ourselves now.

Nick glanced over at me kinda nervously in anticipation of our best laid plans blowing up spectacularly in our faces, on account of my stupid curse.

Thinking quick on my feet, I decided to lean hard into what I do best.

“We’re going to sit around and a sh*t-load of candy,” I said without a hint of sarcasm.

“Hah. Yeah right!” Mom replied with a half-snort. “You boys go enjoy your evening, and I’ll see you around lunchtime tomorrow, oh humorous son of mine.”

I just about had to drag Nick out the door by his ear, as he seemed to be paralyzed in disbelief that my little stunt of telling the whole, dirty truth had actually worked.

“C’mon, dude, let’s jet over to your place and get to snackin’ before you parents get home,” I said, reinvigorated by the success of my unconventional strategy.

“Bro,” Nick muttered on his way out the door, “I seriously gotta try telling the truth more often…”

“Hmmm…” Nick chewed thoughtfully on his Miami Spice Drop, investigating all the flavors and textures with his tongue and palate. “Very interesting…not what I was expecting.”

“Yeah, I agree,” I said, furrowing my brow and putting way too much thought into analyzing the flavor profile.

“First thing I really noticed was that they were unexpectedly fuzzy,” Nick said observantly.

“That’s true,” I said, holding one up to the kitchen light and inspecting it like a jeweler would inspect a diamond. “I would even dare say they look little bushes.”

“Yeah, this candy is very ‘bushy’–an interesting experience for the tongue, indeed…” Nick opined.

“Well, I guess that must of been a whole thing with fancy candies back in the 80’s?” I hypothesized.

“I suppose,” Nick said. “The 80’s in general seemed pretty obsessed with all things hair.”

“Hmmph,” I grunted, putting a period on that part of our conversation. “But how about the spectrum of flavors, eh?”

“Yeah, that was definitely way more nuanced than I was expecting,” Nick noted.

“Mmm-hmm. With most candies, it’s a single blast of sugar and a handful of flavors,” I commented. “But with these drops, I would dare say that the experience evolves in your mouth with time.”

“Oh, the unexpected depth and sophistication!” Nick raved. “That was definitely unanticipated, and was uniquely refreshing.”

“Not unlike getting squirted in the eye by one of those Old Faithful candies, I bet!” I quipped.

We both chuckled heartily at the memory of one of the other old exotic candies we had just sampled, a Gusher-like confection shaped much like a pearl featuring a juicy-filled center. The candy itself wasn’t particularly humorous; it was the bag that they came in, which featured a cartoon version of a man biting into one and accidentally squirting a nearby woman in the eye. Again, we just wrote it off as another weird-ass product of the 80’s.

“Oh, shenanigans!” he said as we went in for another round of belly-laughing at the thought of that utterly ridiculous packaging.

Right about that moment, though, we heard the garage door opening.

“Oh, shenanigans is right!” I said, perhaps dropping an expletive or two in there.

“Quick, you start making us some PB&J’s in the kitchen–we can eat them to cover the evidence on our breath, and it will also give you the chance to distract them while I run upstairs and put the goods back where I found them!” Nick ordered.

“That’s a Texas-sized 10-4, good buddy!” I said scurrying into the kitchen.

I could hear Nick’s footsteps on the upstairs landing just as the door leading from the garage to the kitchen opened and Nick’s family tromped in.

“Oh, hey B.J., I didn’t realize you were spending the night. What have you been boys up to?” Nick’s mom asked congenially.

“Oh, hi there, Nick’s Mom!” I said as casually as I could muster. “We’ve just been playing some computer games and I thought I would take a break to come down and make us a midnight snack.”

“Cool, cool” she said. “Well, you know that our pantries are always open to you.”

“I sure do, and I appreciate that so much, Mrs. Nick’s Mom. Anyways, I better get these PB&J’s up to Nick.”

I was having to spout falsehoods through my teeth, and I could tell that I was on the verge of having the wheels fall of this wagon of lies.

“But…are those just naked slices of bread?” Nick’s mom looked at my plate slightly confused.

Panic was setting in quickly, so I had to extricate myself from the situation, no matter the cost.

“Welp, gotta run! Nothing to see here! Or smell…”

“Any chance we could confer privately? ” Nick asked his step-dad.

Clearly exhausted with his fruitless interrogation of us, he acquiesced.

“Sure. You boys need to discuss whatever you need to. I’ll be waiting in here whenever you figure your shit out,” he said, though not in an angry way.

Turns out, Nick hadn’t stacked the candy back in their original location quite exactly as he had found them, and his mom had noticed this tiniest of discrepancies. It was upon further inspection that she had discovered several pieces conspicuously missing from some of the bags.

Now, I’ll never figure out why she cared so much about any of the candy being missing–I guess because it was vintage stuff they didn’t make any more, perhaps–but apparently she was accusing her husband of going and eating the candy behind her back. I didn’t get that either: it was his stash–or at least we assumed it was his–so why did she have panties all up in a wad over it.

Any how, he had quickly figured out that since he hadn’t been the guilty party, something else must be afoot under his roof.

“Okay, Nick, he’s offering to let us off the hook completely–we just have to come clean, alright?” I recapped the plea deal that was on the table.

Nick sighed deeply.

“Poor guy’s taking the fall for us, so I guess that’s the least we could do for him out of respect,” Nick conceded.

“Yeah, and seriously, my head is about to explode after denying our guilt for almost an hour straight,” I said rubbing my eyes with the palm of my hands. “I just wasn’t built to tell lies, yo.”

“Gotta, say, though,” he said, putting an affirming hand on my shoulder, “I’m proud of you for holding out as long as you did. You’re a good friend.”

“Thanks man. But maybe next time we just own up to our shit in the first place and face the music?”

I swore that living with a lie was worse punishment than anything Nick’s mom could have possibly dealt out, so it was a relief when we went back into the kitchen.

“Yeah, it was us,” Nick said with a sheepish look on his round face.

“Thanks, Mr. Nick’s Mom, for taking the blame for us,” I said gratefully, knowing that word of our little fiasco wouldn’t make it back to my own mother.

“Boys, I appreciate your honesty. Now, as you were soldiers, as you were…” he said, dismissing us, clearly glad that our hours-long standoff was finally over.

We turned to head back upstairs to where our computer game awaited us.

But right before we made it out of the kitchen, I turned with one last question for Nick’s step-dad.

“I just gotta ask, though…what was the deal with all that old candy anyways?” I inquired.

“Oh, I’m surprised it wasn’t right up your alley, boys,” he said with a wry grin on his face. “After all, don’t forget that you two little squirts are weird-ass products of the 80’s as well…”

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

C’mon, People, There’s No Need To Be Sniffing Out That Mysterious Toxic Energy

23 June 2024 / / 0 Comments
4 Min Read

Some rooms just have a bad vibe in them, and it’s just a fact.

You need to accept there’s nothing we can do about it, and that’s that…

“Mr. Eiland! Do we have to keep practicing?” my fellow percussionist, Carrie, stuck her head out the door and desperately hollered at our band teacher.

Mr. E. had been contentedly working with the rest of the student-musicians in the main part of the Rolla High School band room, while those of us in the drum section had been sequestered in his office to work out our sh*t on our own.

“No, you can’t come out and join the rest of us just yet,” he hollered back. “Something is, uh, how do I put this? Something is ‘off’ in the rhythm department, and I can’t have it throwing the rest of the band off.”

“Okay, fine, but do we have to do it in your office? Whatever is off is even worse in that confined space,” Carrie protested.

“Yeah!” I said, popping my head out the office door behind Carrie. “The acoustics are terrible in here!”

Carrie looked back at me with one of those looks that say, “What in the ----- are you talking about?”

“What?” I shot back at her. “You accidentally hit an extra beat and it seems to bounce around forever in there.”

“Things do tend to linger uncomfortably long in there…” she said as she shook her dang head.

“What are you two jabbering on about?” Mr. E. chided us, still from across the other side of the band room. “Get back in there and get back to work–and don’t forget to shut the door behind you!”

Carrie and I groaned in unison, knowing that we had failed our other drummers in our quest to get our practice session relocated to a different, preferably more spacious, locale.

“I was really hoping he was going to let us jam out outside,” Carrie sighed nasally as we both trotted back into Mr. E’s office.

“I take it were still stuck in here?” asked Iris–percussionist 3 of 4–as she waltzed1Damn straight was time-signature based pun…ya konw, 3/4…waltz…you get it right? back in after a suspiciously long trip to the water fountain just outside in the hall.

“Dammit, one of us is —-ed up, and it’s not me!” said beater #4, good ol’ Double-B of 21-Trap infamy. He could be a prick sometimes, so his feisty attitude didn’t particular surprise me.

“Don’t you mean ‘is —-ing up’, Double-B?” I interjected.

“I know what I said.” Double-B glared at me.

“Yeah,” I said, wiping some sweat from my brow. “Ah, ’tis a real mystery. It could be any one of us,” my eyes darted around the room furtively. “But we may never know who…”

“Thwack! Thump…thump…thump.” The familiar crack of a pool stick hitting a cue ball was followed by the sound of billiard balls bouncing off the felt sides of the pool table…but conspicuously absent was the satisfying sound of any of them balls actually dropping into the table’s pockets.

My cousin, Rene,2I’m actually fuzzy as to which female cousin this was…it might have been Lisa, or perhaps Jennifer–either way I almost never hung out with them otherwise. sighed in mild exasperation after yet another fruitless turn on my part.

“This game is taking forever,” she muttered.

But it wasn’t like it was all my fault that it was dragging on endlessly; she wasn’t exactly droppin’ balls in pockets either.

“Yeah, I know what you mean. I can’t put my finger on it, but for some reason I’m just not on my game today,” I noted.

“Me, too,” Rene agreed. “I’m usually a regular pool shark, but something is amiss around here, and it’s really messing with me.”

“It must be this musty old school building,” I said gesturing around to the repurposed Richfield Grade School classroom which, up until the building had recently been turned into a modest community center, hadn’t been regular used since our mothers were 8th grade students there in the 60’s.

She looked around the otherwise empty room. On this particularly lazy Sunday, we appeared to be the only ones not just in the billiards room, but in the entire building.

“Yeah, something sure is off in here,” she concurred. “What say we just call this game a draw and jam outta here?”

“It is indeed a beautiful spring day outside, and the casual stroll back to Grandma’s house does sound rather pleasant,” I responded.

As we (rather loudly) racked the balls and put away the pool sticks, Rene all of a sudden paused and made a scrunched up face.

“There’s that smell again…” she noted.

“Yeah, let’s go on and get outta this confined space,” I said reinforcing our newly-laid plan.

“I need fresh air–NOW!” she said as she suddenly made a break for the exit.

Once outside, we both drew in two huge lungfuls of the crisp Kansas spring breeze.

With our heads cleared, I couldn’t help but muse aloud.

“That was really odd. I wonder if they have a mold problem that needs remediation…”

Rene just gave me a sideway glance.

“Mold? Here in Southwest Kansas? You know that we are technically in a desert climate, right?”

“Ah, ’tis a real mystery. It could be any one of many endless possibilities, then,” my eyes darted furtively back to the building we had just escaped. “But we may never know what…”

“Hold my beer…” is most definitely what Frito-Lay told Nabisco back in the mid-90’s when they saw the massively successful nonsense the latter had found in their well-intentioned-but-tragically-misguided non-fat Snackwell’s cookies.

With Proctor & Gamble’s recent food-science breakthrough, Olestra, in hand, those wily bastards took nutritionally dubious “healthy” snacking to a whole ‘nother level with the release of their Olean sub-brand of completely fat-free chips. I mean, this was revolutionary. Fat-free, yet they did not compromise the taste or texture of all of Frito-Lay’s greatest hits in the least–they were virtually indistinguishable for all intents and purposes. You see, the miracle lied within the fact that these Olestra oil-substitute would pass completely through one’s GI system without ever being absorbed…

Would this result in explosive diarrhea and unbearably horrific farts in large quantities that were nearly impossible to control?

Would anybody you know be so intent on living an extreme ‘healthy’ low-fat lifestyle that they would continue to regularly consume such a product having experienced such dire consequences after the first go-round?

Is it possible that any human could be so inconsiderate of their fellow man and woman that they would knowingly subject them to such inhumanities, just for their own personal benefit?

Can you conceive of such a self-focused psychopath that would inflict such suffering on others, then proceed to give a whole new meaning to the term ‘gaslighting’ by pretending that if anything was ‘off’ about the experience, that it must be the environment and surely not their own stank ass?

Ah, ’tis a real mystery.

*eyes dart furtively around the room*

But we may never know the answers to such questions…

Content created on: 22/23 June 2024 (Sat/Sun)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Behold: The Magic Jell-O Keeping You Out Of Jail, Bro!

9 June 2024 / / 0 Comments
5 Min Read

When you hear ‘pudding’, you’re bound to ask “Yum! What flavor?”

This time, though, you best not ask (and you’re welcome for the favor…)

“The sign of a true friend is…’pudding on a condom for Phillip’?!? Um…I have so many questions that I’m not sure I want the answer to.”

My beautiful bride looked up from my phone, wide-eyed and side-eyeing me at the same time. She had been poking around my Notes app looking for my grocery list, and instead she apparently found my reminder where I keep a short list of potential stories to blog about in the coming weeks.

“That doesn’t sound quite right…lemme see that!”

I took a quick glance at it then got my eyes back on the road like the safe driver that I was.

“Ahh, I see, it’s just a typo,” I reassured her.

“Whew! No condoms were involved. That’s a relief,” she demurred.

“Oh, no, there was a condom alright.”

“So, it’s supposed to be ‘putting’? ‘Putting on a condom’ for your male friend is any better?!? Is there something you need to get off your chest, my dear hubby? You been keeping any skeletons in the ol’ proverbial closet?”

“What? No, no, no. I meant that the it was supposed to in, not on,” I clarified.

“Hold up, mister! ‘Pudding on a condom’ was a gross enough mental picture, and you mean to tell me what you wanted to describe was ‘pudding in a condom’?!? You’re one sick puppy” she deftly passed judgement on me.

“No, no–“

“Wait just one sec,” she interrupted my rebuttal and proceeded to open up the car door and wretch lightly.

“You’re lucky we’re at a stoplight,” I said in an attempt to implicitly reassure the Reader that I didn’t marry a woman who would have such poor executive function as to open the door while in a moving vehicle.

“Are you done ye–“

She held up her hand to stop me as she went for one last round:

*gaaaaaaag!*

“You’re such a drama queen,” I commented once she was done with her over-the-top expression of disgust. “And for the record, ‘pudding’ was a typo, too. I guess I got double autocorrected when I hastily made that note.”

“Oh great,” she said as she rolled her eyes. “Lemme guess: I’m going to have to wait in suspense to find out what you really meant while you regale whoever will listen with another one of your trademark ‘short-story-long’ tales…”

“Hey, man, can you come over? I’m kinda in a pickle and really was hoping you could do me a favor.”

A little over a year after my ol’ buddy, Phillip K. Ballz, tried to sabotage my post-college career, I got a somewhat desperate sounding phone call from him. We had hung out on occasion since that particular incident–we both still lived in Manhattan after graduating from Kansas State–so it wasn’t completely abnormal for him to blow up my phone. However, I could tell from his voice that he wasn’t his usual laid-back self.

“Yeah, sure thing, amigo. I’ll be right over,” I said, blindly agreeing to whatever.

On the drive over, I mused to myself about the possible nature of his request.

“I probably better stretch my back first thing–it’s still a little tweaked from that one reckless round of disc golf, and I bet he needs my help moving a piano or some other heavy object.”

“Or maybe he needs my help giving Da Vinci, his cat with 6 fingers on each paw, a bath?”

“Oh, the possibilities are endless–but the truth is probably something completely asinine,” I thought as I got out of the car, somehow switching gears from bright-eyed imaginative optimism to overly-honest cynicism in the same mental breath.

“Jeez, there you are! Did you get lost on the way over here? Took you long enough!” PKB greeted me, clearly in the early stages of panic mode.

“I mean, I got a little lost in thought, maybe, but I otherwise came straight over here. What’s up?” I quipped, then inquired.

“Dude, so you know how I’m on probation, right?”

“Yeah, I’m mildly aware that you got into trouble with the law over some stupid recreational drug-related incident. So what about it?” I asked.

“Well, I have to take a certain test every couple months, if you know what I mean.”

“Really? That’s a condition of your parole?”

“My probation, not parole, you jackass. And yes, if I don’t keep my nose clean, then I’ll actually have to serve some time in the county jail,” he said with all seriousness.

“Well, good thing you know they’re going to test you in advance, right?”

His lack of response was starting to unsettle me.

“Right?”

The look on his face said it all.

“You really are a proper dipshit, aren’t you? You mean to tell me that your dumb ass knew that you would get thrown in the can if you done and went and smoked a fat blunt…and then you done went and smoked a fat blunt? Un-effing-believable.”

“Look, it was several weeks ago, and it should have been out of my system by now, but when I took a home version of the test, it still showed up. You gotta help a brother out, man!” he begged of me.

“Uh, I don’t know what I could possibly do to help you out of this j–“

“You can pass the test for me, that’s what!” he said, interrupting me.

“Wait, what? Oh. I see…Well, you’re not going make me complicit in your illicit activities! I’m a man of honor and integrity! You can get one of your other heathen buddies to do it, and leave me out of this!”

PKB looked at me like I was dumb as a rock.

“All my other friends are potheads like me–you’re the only friend I have around these parts that hasn’t gotten high in the last two weeks!”

“Oh,” was all I could muster.

You can’t argue with airtight logic like that.

“So…what do you need me to do?” I asked resignedly. I couldn’t stand by and let one of my oldest friends go to jail for a crime he did commit.

“Here you go. And you know where the bathroom is,” he said.

I looked down at the box he had just handed me.

“You gotta be ----- kidding me,” I muttered.1See the note at the end about the alternate ending that splits off at this point. “You could have at least got me some Magnums–I’m a ‘bigger’ guy, if you know what I mean.”

“Dammit, I got my test in less than 40 minutes, so forgive me if I don’t have time for your weird flex. Just go take care of business, will ya?” PKB said impatiently.

I didn’t bother shutting the bathroom door behind me to make sure he could hear everything.

“You know what they say really is true: size does matter…” I hollered across the house.

“Just shut your pie-hole and keep pissing in the condom!” PKB so rudely interrupted my punchline.

Nevertheless, I persisted: “…and you’re in luck cuz’ this big boy’s got a big ol’ bladder…”2As promised, here’s the original/alternate ending before I changed it at the last second.:

“Here you go. And you know where the bathroom is,” he said.

I looked down at the box he had just handed me.

“You gotta be ----- kidding me,” I muttered.

“Make it snappy though–I got my test in 45 minutes.”

“What the hell, Phillip? Cutting it kinda close, aren’t we?” I said somewhat incredulously, as I had no idea how close his head was to the chopping block. “Dammit, last thing I needed was pressure–you know I’m bladder-shy!” I said.

“Just go take care of business, will ya?” PKB said impatiently.

I skulked off to the bathroom, but intentionally left the door open so he could hear me when I loudly proclaimed, “I feel like this is a good time force some of The Jesus on you–and I quote: ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life be pissing in a condom for his friends.’ This is literally What Jesus Would Do.”

“So, what’s your point, my dude?” he hollered back at me.

“Well,” I yelled, leaning back so my head was poking out the open bathroom door, “as The Jesus always says: ‘You’re welcome, you ----- dirty hippie…’ “

Content created on: 6/8/9 June 2024 (Thurs/Sat/Sun)

Footnotes & References:[+]

How To Be An Unhelpful Friend To An Unemployed Man

26 May 2024 / / 0 Comments
4 Min Read

When you’re down on your luck, a helping hand should sound great.

But when your pal’s a dipshit, you have to worry about what you just ate…

“Would you like a cookie or two before you go, my hard-working amigo?”

Phil–not his real name, but not not his real name–proffered me a pair of mealy-looking cookies.

“Sure, why not? I did break a bit of a cold sweat this afternoon, and I sure do love me an…um…oatmeal, maybe?…cookie or two on occasion,” I said, graciously accepting.

Ol’ Phillip K. Ballz (or PKB, as I like to call him in these parts) and I had been good buddies back in high school, but for the most part had lived our own separate college lives–despite going to the same prestigious land-grant university. At this particular point in time, I had just graduated a month or so earlier (sorta), and was in the middle of “finding my way as an adult”. And by “finding my way as an adult,” I mean that I had no idea what kind of career I wanted to pursue, and was in the middle of job hunting just so I could pay my rent and put food in my mouth.

So when we randomly ran into each other and he discovered that I was hard-up for cash, he mentioned that his roommate and landlord, John–a guy I remembered from my freshman year as that one slightly strange hippie dude in the dorm that always wore a train engineer’s hat–was doing some landscaping in their backyard, and would be more than happy to pay me $70 for an afternoon of labor.

Of course I jumped on that meal wagon gravy train in an instant. I mean, what a deal: I would be getting exercise, some late-January sunshine, a wad of cash worth at least 5 weeks of groceries, and–best of all–get to hang out and reconnect with one of my oldest, most trustworthy pals. It was a win-win-win-win situation all around!

And now, after our hard day’s work, he was throwing in some bonus cookies?!? Heck, yes, this day couldn’t get much better!

As I started to chow down, it dawned on me that the baked goods weren’t oatmeal as I had previously surmised.

“Mmmm, say, Phil, what kind of cookies are these?” I said in between bites. “They’re not bad, per se, they just have an interesting texture I just can’t quite place. Somewhere on the spectrum between coconut and papier-mâché, if I had to guess…”

“Oh, those are John’s creation–and they’re full of exactly what you would expect a groovy dude like him to put in there.”

“So…dirt? Leaves? Is this nature-lovin’ mother ----- just collecting random items on the forest floor and throwing it in the oven or what?” I fancied a guess, knowing that it was slightly ridiculous–but that theory couldn’t quite be automatically ruled out, either.

“Nah, man, nothing like that, though he likes to sticky with ingredients on the more ‘natural’ side. You know, honey…seeds…nuts…plant fibers. Granola shit like that.”

“Oh. Ok. Yeah, I guess that tracks. And that is good enough for me. ‘Don’t look a gift house in the mouth’ and what-not, right?”

“Yup,” PKB agreed and then sat and watched intently as I polished off the second cookie along with two more that seemed to magically appear on my plate. “Now, where we? Let’s get back to regaling John and the others with the tales of our shenanigans from our youth…”

“You notice anything different?” PKB asked after getting lost in nostalgia for at least a good 45 minutes.

The question kind of came out of nowhere and caught me by surprise a little bit.

“Ummm…can’t say I really do. Anything different about what, exactly?” I replied, lightly confused.

A slight squeal came out of his lips–which I found rather quite odd–before clarifying.

“Like, do you feel any different, man?”

“Well, I am kinda full for once. You didn’t really have to offer me those 3 extra cookies–though I do immensely appreciate the generosity of you and John,” I said, taking care to express gratitude to my hosts for the 7 cookies had consumed in my state of hunger.

“No, not your stomach–does your head feel any different?” he queried with a cryptic grin.

“Alright, dude, what is up? You’re acting a little suspicious,” I said, cocking an eyebrow.

“They…*snort*…were,” he blurted out in between school-girl-like giggles, “POT COOKIES!”

He then bust out in a full-on fit of laughter after making his big reveal.

“WHAT?!?” I was slightly shocked. “So that’s why they felt like muddy straw in my mouth and had that odd after taste.”

“Ha, hah! I got you high-igh! I got you high-igh!” PKB reveled in having pulled a fast one on me.

“NO. Not funny. Bad friend. Bad friend!” I chastised my favorite dipshit.

“C’mon, you needed to relax and take your mind off of being broke. I’m doing you a favor.”
“Yeah, except that I’m in the middle of job-hunting. And now, if I finally land a job, what am I going to do if they make me take a drug test, huh? DAMMIT, you idiot. I can’t tell them ‘so sorry, but my so-called friend loaded me up on marijuana cookies and was too ----- naive to catch on in time. Please let me have this job anyways.’ Jeez, you’ve really screwed me over on this one, you fricking moron!”

Saying that I was displeased with his little stunt would be a gross understatement.

“Nah, man, you’ll be fine. Plus, there’s nothing you can do about it now anyways, so you might as well sit back and enjoy it.”

I sighed a sigh of resignation. He was right–at least about the fact that I couldn’t ‘un-high’ myself at this point–so I should soak in the time we had together.

“Ok, fine, whatever. But I can only stick around for another 15 minutes or so, and then I’m off to–oh for fuck’s sake, that’s where I have to go tonight?”

“What? What’s tonight?”

“You jackass, you better hope that I don’t say any incredibly stupid shit at Bible study…”

Content created on: 23/25 May 2024 (Thurs/Sat)

Legendary Myths Of Kansas: The Most Wanted Man On Campus

12 May 2024 / / 2 Comments
5 Min Read

I knew I was doing something right when a University big-wig asked to meet one-on-one.

Problem was, I had no idea what good deed I had done…

“The Dean of Engineering would like to personally meet with you.”

It was a voicemail from the Dean’s secretary, and I was pretty sure this message was a bearer of good news.

I couldn’t help but wonder what I had done already that would have made me stick out in the mind of the guy who basically ran Kansas State’s entire Engineering program. I was merely a sophomore in college–in the thick of my third semester to be exact–and I had only taken ~1-1/2 classes in the actual Engineering Department.

But, yeah, a glaring dearth of evidence aside, I would say that I was no stranger to being recognized for my bright mind and plucky personality. My proverbial belt was notched with countless scholarships and other such trappings of a high-achieving academic such as myself. A plethora of articles in the local SW Kansan newspapers had been written about me during my high school years. And once at college, I quickly made a name for myself based on, uh…my “drinking” ability. Oh, and of course there was what I was probably most well-known for: my hair.

Yeah, it most definitely had to be the hair. By that point in time I had been rocking bright blue on the left side, neon pink on the right, and purple up top with a classic ‘Jesus fish'1Also know as the ‘Ichthus fish’, which is actually kinda redundant, since ‘ichthus’ just means ‘fish’ in ancient Greek. So it’s a fish-fish, I guess? in green running from front to back on the peak of my dome.

Ya know, the kind of hair that screams to upper administrators, “This kid is really going to go places in the field of mechanical engineering–you better ingratiate yourself to him and hitch your wagon to his star while you can!”

The more I thought about it, the clearer it become that of course the Dean of Engineering wants to see me–who wouldn’t want to rub shoulders with one of the coolest cats on campus?

I just hoped he didn’t get greedy and ask for my autograph or anything…

“On as scale of one to ten…” the Dean paused for dramatic effect, “how would you rate the job you did as an Engineering Mentor?”

The Dean had been so eager to meet me that he had actually stepped out of an important departmental meeting…to ask me that?

I had almost totally forgotten about that, though I had completed my duties as a Mentor only a few weeks earlier. Concordantly, I had to refresh myself on that experience, and I might as well bring you, Dear Reader, along for the ride.

The Engineering Mentorship program recruited rising-star Sophomores such as yours truly to meet with incoming Freshmen/women Engineering majors for a couple evenings early in their first semester on campus. These somewhat informal meetings gave us the chance to show the them the ropes and help prepare them for the 5-6 years ahead of them. At least that was the ‘official’ purpose of the program. But all us Mentors knew that it was really just a chance for us to show off to these youngsters how cool and hip we were, and to really let our flaming personalities shine (did I mention my awesome hair already?).

For example, on my résumé–my first chance to impress upon their malleable minds how absolutely ----- cool I was–I put something along the lines of ‘1998 Morton County Speling Be Champ-ye-uhn’. Now, I didn’t really win any local spelling bee two years earlier, but I looked super-cool claiming to have done so while simultaneously misspelling almost every word in the title. Pretty clever, huh?

And then there were other real accolades that I truly did earn…ya know, like Twinkie-But-Actually-Swiss-Cake-Rolls-Because-I-Shit-You-Not-There-Was-For-Realz-A-Twinkie-Shortage-That-Year Eating Champion.

Real classy stuff, I tell ya.

And let’s not forget the fact that I was desperately seeking their approval and validation–oh, sh*t, wait…did I just say that out loud?–and so really tried my best to be a ‘cool’ teacher. Like the ones in high school whose class every student so desperately hoped to land in: the ones that mingled with us little people, always began class with a short stand-up routine, graded super-easy, and would let just about anything slide. The kind that would never send a kid to the principal’s office, no matter the offense, and would instead high-five the offender for having the courage to ‘stick it to the Man’.

So, given all that, let me think…did I totally kick ass as an Engineering Mentor, the likes of which had never been seen before or since?

Indubitably. (Though being I’ve one to toot their own horn was never in my nature…)

“Hmm…good question. I would say maybe a solid five or a six, perhaps?”

Like I said, I was the type of guy/mentor/teacher that knew he was cool and never felt the need to brag about it.

“Ahhh! Ahhh! Ahh! Just let me stop you there, Arthur Fonzarelli. Try ‘one’ or ‘two’. In fact, I would probably give you a negative rating if I could, but I’m being nice and respecting the 1-to-10 range that I set forth to begin with.”

Needless to say, the Dean was sorely displeased with me, and in fact, was not meeting me to tell me how rad my hair was.

“Oh,” was about all I could quietly muster, as I realized that I had just walked into the trap he had so carefully set for me. Dammit, I should have known that whole ‘rate yourself’ was a trick question.

“So it turns out,” the Dean continued, “that one of your students came to my secretary trying to figure out where to turn in the work you had allegedly assigned him. Well, what we found mighty odd is that you had officially recorded this guy as having faithfully turned in every last one of his assignments. Yet, in a written affidavit, he swears that you never asked any of them to turn anything in.”

“Oh. We were serious when we gave them that work? Really?” I eeked out.

“YES WE WERE SERIOUS. Why, you realize that what you have done constitutes academic fraud, and the only reason why you haven’t been kicked out of the School of Engineering altogether is because my secretary talked me into giving you a second chance. We barely have any tolerance for slacker punks like you around here.”

Damn. ‘Punks’, eh? This mf’er was going after the hair? For realz?

“Ummm…thanks for taking mercy on my poor soul?”

“You’ve wasted enough of my precious time, and I need to get back to my meeting. Now get your ugly face out of my sight before I change my mind!”

“Yes, sir,” I said quietly and very, very humbly (this time I didn’t have to fake my humility), as a slinked away with my tail between my legs.

*a few weeks later*

Having quickly realized that my talents were going to be unsung and underappreciated in the engineering world, I changed my major to…education.

In retrospect, that was a bold move, given that I had just about got kicked out of my department for being a sh*t teacher. But of course the irony of situations like this aren’t apparent until 20 or so years later.

Anyways….The point of the story is, kids, it’s always cool to follow the rules. And if the rules you have to follow suck the life out of your soul, then go find yourself another piece of proverbial land in a far-off place where the rules are actually cool…

Content created on: 8 & 10 May 2024 (Weds/Fri)

Footnotes & References:[+]

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

21 April 2024 / / 0 Comments
5 Min Read

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

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

“Oh, crap. Not again!”

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

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

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

…

…

…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anyways, I get this text from Mama that morning:

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

…

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Oh, crap. Not again!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Oh, crap. Not again!”

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

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

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

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

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

Content created on: 19 April 2024 (Friday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

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

7 April 2024 / / 0 Comments
5 Min Read

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I sighed.

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

I face-palmed myself.

“Agggggh! Dammit I did it again!”

And Mom wasn’t slow to point that out.

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

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

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

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

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

No matter how clever you think you are, Fartypants…

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

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

31 March 2024 / / 0 Comments
4 Min Read

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

Then today’s your lucky day, sir…

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

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

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

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

*gulp!*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Step Two: Tap on the General sub-menu.

Step Three: Tap on Keyboard.

Step Four: Go to Text Replacement.

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

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

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

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

You get the idea.

Anyways, the point of the story is:

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

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