The Point of the Story

Your #1 Source of Unsolicited Life Advice

Category: General Cerebral Leakage (Page 25 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!

Wrestling the Machine

17 November 2019 / / 0 Comments
6 Min Read

Fun fact:

Everybody knows that Automated Teller Machines can dispense cash, but did you know that you can make deposits at these so-called “ATMs” as well?

Amazing.

Simply, simply amazing what technology can do these days…*shakes head, low-whistles*

More amazing is that any adult would not already know this fact.

Now, if you didn’t know this tidbit of adulting trivia already, and feel a bit insulted by me pointing out your astounding ignorance, don’t let your feathers get too kerfluffled. You wouldn’t be the first beautiful mind to get tripped up on this.

In fact, I would say that you’re in good company.

Today, as I deposited a couple of checks at a conveniently located ATM–without an envelope, mind you–I marveled at how buttery-smooth of a transaction it was.

Especially compared to the very first time I made an ATM deposit of my own…

It was the Summer of 2002, and sure, like any other 21-year-old I had had my share of casual encounters with ATMs, but nothing, you know, like anything serious.

Usually these encounters would consist of me quickly entering my PIN, and then pulling out a small wad of cash in a well-timed manner. One might say that my withdrawal method1Ladies and gentlemen, the best latin phrase in the world:https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/withdrawal-method/about/pac-20395283. was impeccable.

But when it came to any truly meaningful banking transactions devoid of a human intermediary, let’s face the cold hard facts: I was basically an ATM virgin.

And little did I know, but I was about to get deflowered.

Ah, yes, the Summer of ’02: I was working as a counselor at a summer camp about 15 minutes outside of the Greater Kansas City metro area.

Usually on the weekends, me and a handful of the other counselors would stay at the camp and just laze about eating all the leftover cafeteria-style pizza, honing our skills on the Blob, or just generally chillaxing pool-side. You know, living the high life.

On occasion, though, we would venture into KC for a lazy Saturday afternoon adventure. One Saturday in particular, no one else was around, so I decided to set out on my own.

But this day, I was on a mission.

You see, I wasn’t making very much money in this gig, but the paychecks were large enough that they belonged in the safety of my bank account. But, alas, during the work week, we were with the kids literally 24/7,2Legally required to be so, in fact. so it was virtually impossible to get to a bank during their regular business hours.

I’m sure I ran other errands that day, but the one I really needed to take care of was depositing those paychecks.

I don’t precisely recollect, but it is entirely possible that I wasn’t planning on getting screwed by an ATM that day. There is a decent chance I rolled up to the local branch of my bank fully expecting it to be open on a Saturday. Like I said, I was young and naive. Don’t judge me…yet.

So anyways, there I was, alone with the ATM. I was nervous and not sure of myself at all. It was awkward.

It being my first time, I wasn’t quite sure what to do. Like…where I do even put it in, right?

My dad never sat me down and showed me around the delicate parts of an ATM, you know? He just never had that talk with me. I guess he figured I would pick up on the whole personal finance thing from movies and TV shows.

Despite the lack of parental guidance, I found the slot where I was supposed to enter the checks easily enough. But it was totally unclear to me how to get that slot to bloom like a lotus and allow me to make my deposit.

Ah! Envelopes! I found the deposit envelopes nearby, and, like any financially responsible adult, gently wrapped my signed checks inside the safety of the sturdy white walls of one of them.

At this point, I had one thought that kept nagging in the back of my mind. Say that I figured out how to get my envelope full of checks in that slot…then what? I seriously was concerned that, devoid of any explicit contextual information, come Monday the bank was going to get a bunch of signed checks and have no way of knowing that the funds belonged in my account.

Thinking it odd that the only thing they asked for on the envelope was the deposit amount, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I dug up a pen in my car, and wrote my full name on the envelope.

But I didn’t stop there. I needed that money to post to my account on time and I was leaving nothing to chance. So I wrote my full account number on there, too. Probably my address and phone number as well.

Hell, I think I may have even gone as far as putting my Social Security number on there.

By time I was done, I had that envelope covered front and back with inky, inky unsolicited information. I mean, I feel like only Ken Burns could put together something more well-documented than the work of art that I held in my hands.

But, I was confident that there would be no mistake about into whose account that money should go. And that’s what really mattered.

Certain that I had that dragon slain, I turned my attention back to the obvious problem of getting the envelope inside the ATM.

I tried everything I could think of, even going as far as forcing the slot open and trying to jam the envelope in. I was truly at a loss for why it wouldn’t just slide in. In fact, the envelope was getting a bit ragged and torn from the attempted forced entry. It wasn’t pretty.

I knew in my heart of hearts that there had to be a way to make the ----- deposit, but my mind couldn’t make sense of anything.

At this point, I had probably spent at least half an hour wrestling with this mother ----- Automated Teller Machine. And it was a hot mid-summer day. And I was covered in stress-sweat on top of that, as I was really freaking out about getting my checks deposited. I was dripping wet and feeling a little nasty, but in the most of uncomfortable of ways.

Let’s see if I can put this politely:

I was the one who had tried forcing themselves upon a poor defenseless machine, so it was ironic3Or an alternate theory: poetic. that in the end I was the one who felt sodomized.

Truly, technology had found me in the Alps.4This makes complete sense once you read The Alpine Stranger.

My spirit crushed, I finally gave up. I sat on the curb next to the ATM in defeat and tried my best to not sob gently to myself.

I was a lost soul adrift at sea, with no one to guide me to shore.

I never imagined in my wildest dreams that a piece of technology could cut me so deeply to the core. Yet there I was, with ink-stained hands and lightly covered in paper dust, a completely broken man.

I finally gathered myself and formed a new game plan. I just might be able to make it to Monday without overdrafting, and then maybe my boss would have mercy on my poor soul and let me run to town early in the morning when the bank was actually open.

I whipped out my debit card and stuck it into the ATM to double-check the balance on my account.

And that’s when I saw it: on the ATM’s touch screen flickered the option to Deposit Checks.

Profound is the only word I can really come up with to describe that moment of realization.

Yes, “profound”, as in, “Never have I felt so profoundly dumb in my life…”

Even to this day I am embarrassed by the sheer stupidity I exhibited for a good sustained 30+ minutes. I don’t even know how it was humanly possible to go through all those mental exercises and miss the TOTALLY OBVIOUS solution of using my debit card and PIN. Like, how would this not be the very first thing any human being would do at the beginning of any ATM interaction?

*Slaps forehead*

Of course in retrospect it all made waaaaay too much sense. Of course my debit card would be intrinsically tied to my bank account. Of course a touch-button would appear that I could press to tell the ATM I wanted to it to open its slot and take my check-laden envelope inside itself. Of course they could easily correlate said envelope with the ATM transaction that was initiated with my card. Of course this multi-billion dollar industry had already figured all this shit out. Of ----- course.

All that aside, I was so relieved to have finally solved the mystery that I didn’t really care how much of a dummy I may have looked like. I mean, there was no witnesses to this fiasco, after all.

Well, almost no witnesses. I can only imagine the unsuspecting teller who was processing the weekend’s deposits as they came across my busted-ass, half-shredded, vandalized-looking envelope:

The point of the story is, if you ever find yourself in the slim minority of people who has had to seriously question whether they actually have the basic intelligence needed to survive adulthood, just remember there is hope.

Despite getting my ass handed to me by an ATM in my youth, I survived to go on to earn an advanced degree in physics.

#HumbleBrag

Oh, and amazingly, I still love technology. Always and forever…

Content created on: 13-15 November, 2019 (Wed/Thur/Fri).

Footnotes & References:[+]

Socrate’s Secret

14 November 2019 / / 0 Comments
5 Min Read

Lately, I’ve been kicking around the idea of getting myself some nice business cards. However, there’s just one problem: I have no idea how to describe myself in a professional context.

Yes, the dream is to have underneath my name the description My Own ----- Boss, but ironically I couldn’t be further from that at the moment, on account of me currently serving not one but two mistresses.1Mistress, as in the feminine form of Master. Please do not mistake that phrase as an admission of multiple romantic partners. I’m not that cool. So I need to come up with something more accurate in the meantime.

Currently, I would say my best guess is Half-Ass Life Philosopher. Yes, it may be a little pompous to try to claim the moniker of Philosopher–that’s why I want to stress the Half-Ass qualifier here. But, I gotta confess: I really do enjoy just sitting around and thinking about life.

Now, I wish I were a more noble breed of a thinker, pondering the depths of the universe, questioning the basis of our knowledge of reality, and what-not, but let’s face it, I’m no Plato.

I’m more like one of those modern “found art” artists who don’t make the art themselves, rather they just “find” it, and then somehow claim that they deserve accolades for just pointing at something random and saying “Hey look at that thing. I, as an inherently interesting person, do bequeath and impart my interestingness-hood to that thingy. Behold! When you look at it, think of how awesome I am!”

Or something like that.

The point of the story is, there are interesting bits of wisdom floating all around us; all you have to do is reach out and grab one of the little nuggets, and you, too, can call yourself a “philosopher.”

But if you hope to find yourself some life philosophy, it really helps to know where to look.

Me? I personally recommend you start by looking underneath the mattress of your brother’s bed…

You see, me and my older brother J. came of age in the mid-nineties. We didn’t have any of the awesome technology that offers an unlimited supply of entertainment and content that the kids these days have. On top of that, we rarely had much spending money, so we had to use our imaginations and be resourceful on a regular basis just to survive.

To meet our candy needs, we did things like, say, dressing up as twins for Halloween.

Instead of going out and buying the latest back-beat laden musical album on tape or CD, we spent many a hour listening intently to those radio stations we weren’t supposed to, waiting for our favorites jams to come on, and then in turn excitedly jamming the Record button to capture those sweet, sweet forbidden tunes on our trusty recordable cassette tapes.

And to placate the urges of our youthful curiosity, we had to resort to the classic tactic of intercepting Victoria’s Secret catalogs in the mail. Or, if one was really lucky, Frederick’s of Hollywood.

When I was in eighth grade and he a sophomore in high school, due to a series of asshole-induced life events, J. and I found ourselves living as illegal residents on a California military base with the family of one of our older siblings. Due to the lack of space, we were forced to share a room.

But, on the bright side, at least we had our own beds.

That came in handy when one day I fortuitously came across a Victoria’s/Frederick’s piece of high-brow literature in the family mailbox, and needed a secure location in which to store it.

If I had been more forward thinking, I would have stashed it under J.’s mattress. However, that was not the case, and instead kept the incriminating goods close to me under my own mattress.

Eventually the inevitable happened, and our dear mother came across the contraband reading material.

Now, one would think that it would have been an open-and-shut case against me, right? After all, the catalog was literally found on my personal property.

It just so happened, though, that I knew of a little ol’ philosopher named Occam, and his infamous Razor, which roughly states, “the simplest solution is most likely the right one.”2https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam’s_razor

And in this case, I knew that Mom would find it much simpler to believe the theory that J.–a perpetual rebel and thorn in her side–would be keeping his naughty magazines under the mattress of his Mama’s Boy little brother.

So you better ----- well believe I told her that J. was trying to frame me, instead of the other way around.

Even when she gathered both of us in the room and demanded we get to the bottom of The Mystery of Which of My Teen Boys Has Been Looking at Lingerie Catalogs, I managed to stick to my guns and maintain the lie.3For the record, this was waaaay out of character for me; I’m horribly bad at lying.

Ohhhhh, was J. ever pissed. Despite his protestations that it wasn’t his, and his “why are you doing this to me?!?” hurled in my general direction, Mom found my character to be much more impeccable than his, and in the end he got his ass grounded for a week, while I got off scot-free.

I really don’t feel too bad for making him my patsy, though. Growing up, he had a real bad habit of dragging my innocent-if-not-under-the-influence-of-others butt into all sorts of trouble.

I may have been a rascal, but he was a ----- troublemaker. It was nice to turn the tables on him for once…

The immoral of the story is this:

Kids, take the time to build that sacred trust with your parents. One day you just might need to cash in a bit of that currency to frame your brother for your embarrassing misdeeds…

Figure 1. Sorry, Bro, but the glove doth fit…

Oh, speaking of Victoria’s Secret, one time when I was in high school I saw one of the “Angels” in a totally different context–on E! or some entertainment channel like that–and turned to my stepmother and made some comment like “Hey, I know her from someone! Cool! I just can’t remember from where though…”

It wasn’t until later that I realized where exactly I had seen her before, and that in theory, her face should have been completely unfamiliar to me.

The only thing I could do then was just hope and pray Daisy4My stepmother’s alias. would never put two and two together and realize that maybe just perhaps perchance I was pilfering her postal publications on occasion.

Fortunately she never did, but I did learn a valuable lesson from it at least:

There’s nothing like getting ratted out by your own sub-conscious reaction when you recognize something you totally shouldn’t. Kids, keep your nose clean and hopefully you’ll never have to worry about becoming Your Own ----- Judas.

Like I said, there’s wisdom to be discovered everywhere.

Footnotes & References:[+]

Hot Dot Dot Dot Part 1

3 November 2019 / / 0 Comments
10 Min Read

Note: this is the first of two parts in the Hot Dot Dot Dot series: Hot Air Balloons. While it can be consumed individually, it is best paired with its sister article, Hot A– W–. See below for details about accessing part two. Enjoy!

Do you like surprises?

Over and over in life, I have found the world to be a frustratingly nuanced place.

So when I ask “do you like surprises,” I’m resigned to the fact that the most accurate answer for the majority of people would be “well…it depends.”

So much for there being anything certain in this world.

Okay, let me be more specific: do you like pleasant surprises?

Of course you do! Who doesn’t?

Wait…what’s that?

Oh. That’s not a universal truth, either? Nuts.

Though far from perfect, I like to think that I can be a rather thoughtful guy on occasion. However, a keen sense of logic and a knack for overthinking things can at times lead one astray.

It’s true: it’s possible to be too thoughtful.

This seems to come into play most when it comes to deciding whether or not to attempt to “pleasantly surprise” the Boss Lady.

On one hand, there is often no greater joy than surprising a loved one so pleasantly that it moves them to happy tears. On the other hand…well, what could possibly go wrong?

Let me take you back to Valentine’s Day 2011. The Boss Lady and I were entering into our fourth year of being in a “business relationship,” and thanks to my zeal and romanticism, I was losing a war of attrition to myself when it came to celebratory occasions.

Have you ever had one of those frenemies1In case you aren’t familiar: friend + enemy = frenemy. It’s a portmanteau. that constantly has to one-up you, and, because of circumstances beyond your control, you’re forced to play their game so you don’t end up looking like the asshole? Yeah. It’s exhausting.

And in this case, I was my own worst frenemy.

While I loved tapping into my creative juices to make each romantic experience more memorable than the last, I would be inadvertently screwing over Future B.J. by setting the bar even more unrealistically high. It was not a tenable situation.

I should interject here that it was not that the Boss Lady was particularly demanding in this regard, mind you. It was more the case of my archetypical male overly-competitive nature getting out of hand.

The upshot of all this is that by time this particular Valentine’s Day rolled around, I was on the hunt for something extra special to prove to her (myself?) that I still had my mojo.

Now, I can’t remember if I saw a Groupon, or what it was in particular that had inspired me, but somehow I got the idea in my head that a hot-air balloon ride would be the perfect V-Day gift for My Beloved.

An even more perfect idea: make it a complete surprise.

Well, an almost complete surprise, as in I had to tell her I had a surprise for her, but it would be so surprising that she would be completely surprised once she found out what it was.

Like a “I’m so surprised that’s what the surprise was” kind of surprise, right?

Anyways, as my life per usual, setting up a ride for Valentine’s Day was more complicated than it should have been.

The first issue was that Jerry Seinfeld was coming to our town smack-dab in the middle of Valentine’s Day weekend. Since both my father-in-law and I are huge Seinfeld fans, the Boss Lady and I decided to treat the in-laws to a laugh-filled semi-romantic double date, and had purchased tickets as soon as they went on sale many moons earlier. The show was on a Saturday night, so if I was wanting to do the deed as close to V-Day as possible, that quickly narrowed it down to Friday evening or earlier in the day Saturday.

I was not deterred.

I soon found a guy named Jack a couple hours from us who had some availability in mid-February–perfect! However, I learned a fun fact about ballooning: as with rowing,2I was on the Kansas State men’s rowing team in college, if you were wondering why I was randomly bringing that analogy up. Just one of the many perks of having the calves of a lumberjack… you want to do it either first thing in the morning or at dusk because that is when the wind is the calmest. Jack wasn’t available to do it Friday evening, so Saturday at the butt-crack of dawn it was.

I convinced the Boss Lady to take that Friday off so we could enjoy a one-night romantic getaway at a cute little tobacco-barn-turned-vacation-cottage that I had found about 15 minute from Jack’s (see Figure 1). And of course I had to tell her I had surprise for her in the morning, otherwise she would have emphatically insisted on sleeping in.

Figure 1. Free advertising for Aquilla Creek Cottage. It’s even cuter on the inside. Image source: ibid.

Friday evening all went well, as much as one could hope an evening of fancy pasta, fondue, and wine might go. Then around 9 Jack started clandestinely texting me about the plans for the morning. They were mainly just about directions, etc., but he did caution that it was looking like it might be windier than expected, so we would have to play it by ear in the morning.

Ugh. I could barely sleep. Would my well-laid plans3I refuse to make any inappropriate puns here. Stop asking, because I simply won’t do it. This is a family blog after all. all come unravelling in the end?

Figure 2. Pro Valentine’s tip: a bath in a claw-foot tub with a relaxing view is an excellent way to get your date to let down their guard before you spring a high-anxiety adventure on their ass in the morning. (Image source:4https://www.elkintribune.com/features/on-the-vine/9550/cottage-on-aquilla-creek-a-modernized-step-back-in-time#/)

At 6 a.m. he texts me and says we’re still on, and so I wrangle us up and out the door, only telling my lady friend to “dress warm.” She thinks we’re just doing something simple like hiking. How cute.

Around 6:45 we roll up to Jack’s place out in the country, and are greeted by a small gaggle of older men with grizzled beards and clad in cover-alls. I suspect that the dualing banjoes from Deliverance was playing in the Boss Lady’s head in that moment, as she clearly had a so-called WTF?!? look on her face as she tried to figure out exactly what type of surprise was in store for her.

Boss Lady: “Uh…Babe, are you sure we’re in the right place?”

Me: “Totally. Aren’t you excited?!?”

Boss Lady: “I’m kinda having a hard time deciding if I should be excited or nervous or sprinting into the woods in this moment…”

Me: “Ta-dah! …it’s a hot-air balloon ride!”

Boss Lady: …

Me: “Awesome, right?!?”

Boss Lady: “I’m don’t think I’m emotionally prepared for this…”

She related that while she would love to go for a hot-air balloon ride, this was just too much, too soon, and that she was feeling a little sick to the stomach.

Jack greeted us and introduced us to his crew, which turned out to be the roving gang of farmers he would always have coffee with down at the local cafe every morning. They were a friendly bunch, and that helped calm the Boss Lady’s nerves at least a wee little bit.

And then we waited, as Jack wasn’t fully convinced yet we should be going up.

What a poor thing, she was. The whole time the anticipation ate at her more and more.

Boss Lady: “Aaack! Why would you do this to me?!? I think I’m going to vomit.”

Me: “Dammit. Uh, Happy Valentine’s Day…?”

Fortunately for her, Jack finally delivered the news: we wouldn’t be able to go up that day. She was sooooooo relieved.

Of course, I was devastated. My plans that I worked so hard to make happen crumbled before my eyes. Now I was the one feeling sick.

The point of the story is:5Spoiler alert: this isn’t really the main point of this story. when it comes to romantic surprises, fellas, keep it simple. The more moving parts to your plan, the more likely something’s gonna get jammed in one of the cogs and blow it to smithereens.

You may think yourself clever, but, pssst! Come here, let me tell you a secret. No, come even closer.

[Whispering] “Clever” is most likely not the reason she’s with you. “Sensitive gentleman,” though, is a pretty good candidate.

Relationship tips aside, the story had a decent ending. Jack kindly promised that we would reschedule for another date, and he made good on that promise.

This actually worked out for the better, because, according to my Facebook research, it ended up happening on a late April evening as opposed to a ----- frigid February morning.

However, it wasn’t all fun and games. Another fun fact about ballooning: you really have no way to steer the ----- thing.

We learned this the “hand’s on” way: the instant we lifted off the ground, a rogue burst of air sent us in the opposite direction we had expected to go, and right towards the fairly large evergreen tree in Jack’s yard.

We pretty much had the exact same train of thought play out in our heads: “Surely Jack will navigate us around the–oh, shit, this is really happening!”

*Rustle, rustle, rustle! Snap, rustle.*

Well, at least now we can say we know what it’s like to ride a hot-air balloon through a tree. That skill is sure to come in handy at some point later in life…indubitably.

Also, two other observations from that experience:

1) There’s a reason why they won’t let pregnant women go up: the landing can be, uh, a bit rough. We thought we were going to break our legs. But we didn’t!

2) I’m sure not all balloon rides were like this, but we cruised at a much lower altitude than we had expected. As we passed over, we were actually low enough to have yelling conversations with the random guys that were just hanging out in the middle of a field. We’re pretty sure that they had been hitting the bottle, as one of them cried out to us in his best Lucky6A character in Fox’s King of the Hill, voiced by none other than Tom Petty, RIP. impression, “Take me with you!” ¡Qué romántico!

Figure 3. The Boss Lady (left) and me (right)7Or is it the other way around? take a much anticipated hot-air balloon ride selfie.

I have to confess that, as with many of my writings, I didn’t exactly end up with this where I planned8In case you missed it, Kandy Karma Part 1 is an excellent example of this.–also a perfect metaphor for a hot-air balloon ride. So meta.

Anyways, I think my intended moral of the story was, as with Bob Ross,9See: Fuck Bob Ross. you can’t always count on your logic holding for others as well as it holds for you. So, kids, always play it safe: if you going to involuntarily commit a loved one to some order of shenanigans, at least give them a few days before the event to mentally and emotionally prepare.

I shudder to think where me and the Boss Lady would be today had I successfully forced her onto that first hot-air balloon. I suppose I would be comically referring to myself as a “relationship freelancer”, to carry on the whole marriage-as-a-business analogy that I’ve chose to use for some reason.

But hey, it could have been worse. My favoritest colleague from my time in Hawai’i, “Andreas”, had his wife surprise him with sky-diving for his birthday once. Yeah, you’re right. Fun times, indeed. I’ll never figure out how those two have stayed married…

Truly, my thoughts on this topic aren’t really complete without the complimentary post, my inaugural NSFM article, Hot Dot Dot Dot Part 2, and I know you totes magotes want to check out where that is going to go.

But before you rush over to the Point’s Patreon page or sign up as a beta tester10For instructions, check out Not Safe For Mom. for free lifetime access to such content, I wanted to muse about an idea I have had for a while.

You know what I think would be a real miracle worker for couples faced with the whole “should I surprise him or should I risk a divorce” dilemma? That would be some sort of controlled use of what I believe the kids these days refer to as “roofies.”

Yes, I am proposing an “Amnesia Drug for Couples,” if you will. I mean, it would be great if there were some other way to achieve what I’m thinking without a drug with such a horrible, horrible reputation, but right now, that’s the only practical option that I can think of. I’m definitely open to suggestions on this one.

Of course, I should actually explain the concept before rambling further.

But before I do, I need to interject here and make it clear that I’m just brainstorming/whiteboarding/spitballing here. I hereby make the explicit disclaimer that the whole ethical issue of consent, respect of personhood, etc. needs to be worked out still. I’m not condoning anything non-consensual.

Anyways, it’s fairly simple: there needs to be some method where one partner, instead of guessing how the other might feel about a given potential surprise and hoping for the best, could get a truly thoughtful and accurate opinion from the other.

So going with the roofie method, say you want to know, oh, I don’t know…let’s go big or go home here, yeah? Let’s say you are thinking of actually proposing the two of you get hitched. Tie the ol’ knot. Become each other’s ball and chain. Etc. etc. etc. You float the idea, it goes how it may, and you drink in either celebration or in despair. Except their drink has a little something special in it–ethical mind you–and either you get to keep your exciting plans under wraps, or you don’t have to endure the shared of awkwardness of not getting your “I love you” returned in kind.

Seriously, though, imagine if you could have a thorough discussion about the possibility of getting married, and still completely maintain the element of surprise. You have the conversation, you get the intel you need to make a wise decision, and then–poof! The whole memory of that interaction disappears via whatever morally-sanctioned means.

Time and time again, I would have loved to have such a method available to me.11You think I’m pulling hypothetical situations out of my ass? Then see also: The Ballad of Tiffany Chestnut (donde cuando disponible). I can think of many a situation where I really could have used the Boss Lady’s opinion, but would have been better off if she didn’t know that I knew her opinion on the matter: Christmas gifts…birthday gifts…Valentine’s Day…kids getting lightly injured under my watchful eye…potential bedroom adventures…posting embarrassing stories on a public forum…the applications are endless!

And who knows? After some thoughtful reflection, maybe you too will surprise yourself and be of the opinion that Roofies Responsibly used in Relationships isn’t such a hair-brained idea after all.

However, I can’t make any promises that it will be a pleasant one, though…

For reals, though, I recommend you check out Hot Dot Dot Dot Part 2. Who knows what kind of surprises you’ll find there?

Content created on: 1-3 Nov 2019 (Fri/Sat/Sun)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Kandy Karma Parts 2 and 3

31 October 2019 / / 0 Comments
4 Min Read

Note: this is the 2nd and final installment of the Kandy Karma saga. If you haven’t already, please read Part 1 first.

Previously, on the Point of the Story: the sun seemed to be shining on the dog’s ass, so to speak…

Part II

And the sun did indeed shine that fateful brisk day in 1990. It was November 2nd–a Friday–and my class had a field trip planned for that day. After a few frames at the local bowling alley, we headed to the nearby park for playing and lunch.

This being only 2 days after scoring a massive amount of kiddy blow, I still had ample supply in my grocery bag. And I did what any 9-year-old successful criminal would have done.

I got cocky.

I’m not sure if it was out of generosity, bragging, or an attempt to buy friends, but I brought my whole cache of treats along for the ride.

Once we got to the park, we left all of our lunches at a covered picnic table and went off and played for an hour or so.

When I came back, I couldn’t locate the grocery bag. I had just misplaced it…right?

It quickly turned into one of those scenes from America’s Most Wanted or Unsolved Mysteries where they recreate the moment that a careless parent becomes increasingly frantic trying to find the kid they lost in the park.1Spoiler alert: they were abducted and murdered. Every last one of them. It was the 80s.

I turned that place upside down looking for it.

I interrogated all my classmates, trying to find the smallest clue as to the bag’s fate.

I begged for my teachers to do anything they could.

But it was all in vain. The body–er, I mean “bag”– was never recovered.

Exhibit A. A satellite’s rendering of the scene of the crime, Doling Park, Springfield, MO. Also visible from lower orbit: our church and school.
Exhibit B. Eyewitnesses say the missing bag of candy was hanging out under a picnic table some time before being tragically abducted by a stranger in the park.

Even to this day, it feels like a pair of knives stabbing me in the heart and the gut simultaneously when I recall that moment. I was heart broken–and apparently scarred for life.

I will never regret flouting all authority that my mother and the church held over me in order to get all the candies.

But I sure as ----- regret taking all those candies with me on that ----- field trip…

WHY, GOD? WHY!?

Oh. Right…

Touché, Lord & Savior. Touché.

Part III

For the last several years, I have had the great joy of living only a few blocks from my mom. I would argue the best part of this arrangement is going for lovely evening walks with her and my elder daughter, especially in the Fall.

A year or so ago during one of these walks, the Elder had asked me to tell her tales from my childhood. As it was nearing Halloween, I decided to tell her the tragic tale of how a pair of ingenious young lads overcame all odds just to have a normal Halloween, but in the end to only have their hopes dashed against the rocks just like they did to babies back in the Bible times. I.e. I told her this story.

As I was telling it in the presence of Mom, all the pieces of the puzzle came together in my head, albeit 25 years expo facto.

Me: “YOU! It was you, wasn’t it!”

Mom: “Huh?”

Me: “You found the candy in my nightstand and decided to teach me a lesson, didn’t you?”

Mom: “Uh…”

Me: “Where were you around 11:30 a.m. on Friday, November 2nd, 1990?!? You were in college, so it would have been easy to sneak over to the park in between classes and slip off with my candy.”

Figure 1. Artist’s rendering of the how I imagined myself in the moment.2Partial Credit: http://digitalevidencegroup.com/trial-presentation/, Google Maps
Exhibit C. Most abducted children are taken by someone they know. Google Maps shows that we cannot rule out the possibility that my candy was abducted by someone I knew all too well.

Mom: “No…”

Me: “It’s Vanilla Ice and M.C. Hammer all over again! You had a habit of slyly taking the things that brought us boys joy and then pretend like they never existed. It matches your M.O. perfectly!”

Mom: “Well, actually…”

Me: “CASE CLOSED!!!”

Mom: “This is the first I’m hearing about any of this.”

Me: …

Me: “GOD DAMMIT. After all I’ve been through, can’t a boy at least have some closure?”

Karma is ----- real, I tell you. And that ----- never forgets.

Content created on: 23 October 2019 (Wednesday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Kandy Karma Part 1

27 October 2019 / / 0 Comments
6 Min Read

Note: this is the 1st installment of the Kandy Karma saga. If you have already read this, please feel free to skip to Parts 2 & 3.

Free candy?

Socially-sanctioned dress-up playtime?

No age restrictions?

On it’s face, Halloween seems like a deal too good to be true.

And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from attempting to be my own ----- boss is that everything costs something. Everything. Let’s not be naive here. Halloween surely isn’t somehow a miraculous exception to this.

So…what is the true price of Halloween? And, ninja, please, don’t answer with “your soul.”

The Good E’en before All Hallows Day seems to always find a way to bite those who partake firmly in the ass. Perhaps that should be expected, given that it is essentially an exercise in sacreligion?1It’s a weak pun. Get it? Sack, as in the sack of candy in which you collect your treasure. Nevertheless, we persist.

Typically the Revenge of H is in the form of sugar-induced bellyaches and premature trips to the dentist for the kiddos, while later in life, it is often run-of-the-mill hangovers and the realization that there is almost assuredly photographic evidence of your cross-dressing2See: Exhibit A (if only it were the only one…). escapades–you just don’t know who has said evidence.

You know, regrettable-but-mostly-forgettable type stuff.

Every now and then, though, like a razor-blade stuck in a free apple, the pain cuts a little deeper and gets stuck in your throat…

The Fall of 1990 found my mom, my brother 1SkinnyJ, aka 1SJ, and myself in our second year of a grand adventure living in Springfield, Missouri.3See also: A Most Excellent Life Lesson. The previous year, we had moved there from dusty-ass Kansas so Mom could work towards a degree at Baptist Bible College.

Figure 1: I’m just going to just preempt all y’all haters…
(Original source:4Napoloean Dynamite (2004), GIF source:5https://giphy.com/gifs/KWfhruKxPtQPK)

I would posit that the hallmark of this “adventure” was that our lives were All Things Jesus throughout our time there.

Church. School. College. Sunday mornings. Sunday evenings. For some ----- reason, Saturday mornings.

And, Wednesday evenings.

Not only did we have a mandatory church service on Wednesday evenings, we usually had to go to Awanas Club6For the curious: https://www.awana.org/us-curriculum/elementary/tt/ beforehand. If you’re not familiar with Awanas, it’s basically just Boy/Girl Scouts having a love-child with a Sunday School teacher.

That year I was in 4th grade and 1SJ was in 6th, so, unfortunately, we both were involuntarily committed to Awanas. Inconvenient in general, but nothing more burdensome than all the other time-sucks from that period in our lives.

Now, the previous year, in 1989, our church, ye ol’ Baptist Temple, though eschewing all things of the devil, was kind enough to host a Fall Festival to give us sanctified children an alternative to the pagan rituals being performed in the Outside World. Despite it being indoors, it had all the other trappings of Trick-or-Treating. Namely, a shit-ton of candy.

In 1990, however, the stars misaligned and ----- us all over.

Figure 2. October 1990. Might as well be the end of the Mayan calendar.

Just take a good look at Figure 2 and tell me why this particular October is more terrifying than any other October.

You are indeed correct: the winning answer is, “But if Awanas and church already have Wednesdays booked, then how–? But what about–? But, candy…BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CANDY!?!”

For some reason the pricks at Baptist Temple just decided to have Awanas and church as normal, and pretend like nothing fun was happening outside. And we wonder from whence arises religion’s reputation of being a bunch of sadists. Better call Robert Stack, cuz it’s a real Unsolved Mystery.

Anyways, this calendaric catastrophe was further compounded by the fact that Mom was a bit of an expert in health-nuttery, so us boys were sugar-deprived the whole time we lived with her. So it wasn’t like we had any other decent sources of sweetness–just whatever we could acquire on holidays.

Halloween was to us what Valentine’s Day is to a florist: all the action only really happens one day out of the year.7I’ll refrain from deriving any humor out of this phrase in the context of marriage…

Now I don’t remember who’s idea it was–1SJ‘s on account of him being the Lead Instigator, as per usual, or mine as I’m a born problem-solver–but it being 1990, we could not let that aggression stand…man.8https://youtu.be/KjdKAYBbeZk

Our plan was fairly simple: ditch Awanas for a quick round of Trick-or-Treating, then make it back to church for the regular service. No problem, right?

Well, it wasn’t that simple. First, we had no transportation. Fortunately, that was no problem, since we lived a couple of blocks from church so we would be just fine being on foot.

The real quandary was procuring costumes. We had zero resources for acquiring anything, yet we had too much pride to go as a couple of poor-ass kids.

Though a few years my elder, 1SJ and I pretty much looked the same age most of our shared childhood. Even more importantly, we looked like a pair of kids straight outta Children of the Corn.9In retrospect, that’s probably what we should have said we were, but I’m not sure we were aware of that cultural reference at that age.

Wait a second–my fact-checker is trying to get my attention.

[Please hold…]

J.K. Kidding–it turns out I’ve been citing the wrong movie most of my life. Village of the Damned is the right movie.

Regardless of which movie we looked like we were out of, the best we could come up with was to go as “twins,” though in the moment we thought it was only slightly less lame than the default, going as Children of the Thrift Store.

So, while we didn’t have any proper equipment at all, what we did have was the sheer will to get our share of the sugars. Channelling our inner MacGyvers, we rustled up a couple of dark turtlenecks and a few paper grocery bags. It was game time, baby.

Figure 3. 1SJ (Left) and me (Right), as depicted in a 1995 recreation of our clandestine Halloween mission.
(Source: 10https://youtu.be/puwr-E-q1bk?t=119, from Village of the Damned (1995).)

As dusk fell, we pretended to head off to Awanas, and after screwing around for 15 minutes or so, back-tracked to the house to get our gear.

It was time to hit the neighborhood.

And hit it we did.

While we feared that we might even be denied goodies for not having good enough costumes, it turns our that going as twins worked 20x better than we could have imagined. In the 10 or so instances when we were asked what we were, almost every time our answer “twins” was met with incredulity–no one could believe that we weren’t twins for real!

We raced from house to house, trying to squeeze every ounce of the precious minutes before we had to get back in time for the regular church service. Despite having a very narrow window of opportunity, we sure the hell got our lack-of-money’s worth.

We rushed back to the house to drop off our illicit goods before scurrying back over to the church, without Mom being any the wiser–we had pulled off the Great Confectionary Heist of 1990 without getting our butts busted!

Later that night, we took inventory and realized that we had made bank on the night. Sweet, sweet bank.

Each grocery bag was well over half full. Now remember, these were paper grocery bags, so it was quite the haul. We would be set until almost Thanksgiving.

On our thieving honor, we promised the other to discretely stash the goods in our nightstands and only dig into them when Mom was out of the house. She must never find out, lest she rob of us our spoils and administer a pair o’ whoopins.

In the end, religion and socio-economic status weren’t enough to hold these bad boyz down. We had planned and executed the perfect crime and got away with it. So yeah…life was good.

I mean, hell, the Universe was literally making it rain candy down on us.

I guess it’s as they say, “the sun’s gotta shine on the dog’s ass every now and then!”

Oh, and remember how I mentioned “All Things Jesus“? I came across this bit o’ internet gold11Source:https://www.pinterest.com/pin/187040190747083190/ when I was verifying that I had my “dog’s ass” idioms straight:

Figure 4. He’s always watching you…

Who says there isn’t a Cosmic Force with a sense of humor?

To be continued…

Content created on: 23 October 2019 (Wednesday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Not Safe For Mom

20 October 2019 / / 0 Comments
5 Min Read

Editor’s note: The original title of this article was “Here is the Introduce of NSFM”, a direct reference to a 4-year-old’s attempt at saying “Introducing…” But, for the sake of sucking suckers in to read this story–present company excluded–it was reverted to the explicit version. As an apology for having to use an editor’s note to tell you about how humorous I was,1I wasn’t. I was just coat-tailing off the kid, if we’re being honest about it. please, enjoy the referenced video if you haven’t already:

Do you ever wonder if George Carlin’s mom was proud of him?

If you’re too young to know who George Carlin was, let me pose that question in the form of a mad lib: Do you ever wonder if [your favorite producer of vulgar content]’s mom is proud of them?

I’ve never understood how these people could say and do such naughty things when they have to know that their mothers will inevitably want to hear/read/watch what their beloved children are doing with their talents. Of course it is entirely possible that they either don’t have a good relationship with their parents or their parents are dearly departed…or both (I’m looking at you, Maynard2“Judith”, A Perfect Circle (2000) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTgKRCXybSM,3https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_(song)).

Maybe I just have a poor sample size of nmoms = 3. None of my mother figures give less ----- than me (i.e. they are all more prudent with their words), but I’m sure such speci-women exist.

Or maybe that’s where they got their potty mouths from in the first place. “I learned it by watching you, mom. I learned it by watching you!”4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUXb7do9C-w

Pop cultural references to futile anti-drug propaganda from the 80’s aside, I’m dead serious about the gravity of this question. There are countless instances in my life when I’ve been paralyzed by the thought “Oh shit. What’s Mom going to think when she sees this?” It’s a real damper on creative thought and boundless thinking.

By no means am I faulting my mother for holding me back because I fear her judgment. On the contrary, when it comes to people with whom she has personal relationships, she is the least judgmental person I know. How to genuinely love and accept people? With all sincerity: “I learned it by watching you, mom. I learned it by watching you!”

So, no, it is not fear that has put these boundaries on my life. It is out of love for the woman who taught me how to love.

Well, actually, there is a bit of fear wrapped up in there. There is legit fear that things I do, say, or think would break her heart. Or embarass the ----- out of her…though I think it was from her that I inherited the CLOS gene.5The Complete Lack of Shame gene. Which, incidentally, is Completely Lacking in Scientific basis, as far as I know.

Anyways, you get the point, right? It’s all basically the old adage: “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?!?”

It’s been a bit of a quandary for me lately. You see, the more I put my various reflections into written form, the clearer it is that this Viking body6Don’t believe me? Here’s a little-known video clip of me from when I studied abroad in 2003. has the soul of pirate. It’s already been established7See: The Alpine Stranger. that this whole blogging project (or whatever the hell it is I’m doing here) only becomes a possibility once I embrace my inner pirate vocabulary.

Further, I’m starting to realize that my subconscience spends a notable time pondering All Things Ass–both figurative and literal. Perhaps you’ve picked up on that, too.

To clarify, though, it’s not so much “ass” in a sexual/pornographic context, rather more along the lines of accepting our butts as a natural and wonderful and functional part of who we are. Too much of our lives is spent being unjustifiably anal8Yes. It is a ----- pun. Very much so indeed. about too many things. I could only hope to be an agent of change in this world in that regards.9As a reward for reading the footnotes: when I die, I hope my headstone reads: “He truly put the ‘ass’ in ‘ambassador’…“

But to do so, I’ll need to be able to have frank conversations. If there were only some way I could spare my mother from hearing all my thoughts about dat ass…

And that brings me to my second, seemingly unrelated point. In the not-too-distant future, I intend to provide further context for the origins of this blog, aka The Story of the Point. Or maybe by the time you’re reading this, I’ve already written about that. The short version is that it is my goal that this becomes my full time job. I.e. I put in effort, and at some point in time I am rewarded with one or more income streams for my family. Daddy needs to get paid, yo.

For me it’s actually been an energizing exercise to try to come up with as many possible ways to make this a profitable endeavor. It really taps into my inner creative problem-solver, which in turn activates key reward circuits in my brain. So basically…its just my way of getting stoned? Hmmm, that’s not really where I expected that stream of consciousness to flow. Pardon the diversion.

The point of the story is–wait, let me provide some truth in advertising here–a point of the story is, I’ve noticed that several podcasts I listen to offer premium content for either a one-time season purchase or in exchange for a reasonably priced monthly subscription. Essentially they’re variations of the “freemium” model.

That got me to thinking: what the hell do I have to offer that could even remotely be considered “premium”? After much thought, I still hadn’t come up with any promising leads.

But then one fateful morning, as I was dutifully washing dat ass in the shower, it hit me: “Eureka, melon farmers! A paywall is the perfect solution to both generating revenue AND shielding Mom from those things she’s better off never having to hear in this lifetime. Having access to all those things I would never dare tell my mom? That, in theory, could fetch a premium.”

So, as Prince might say,10”P Control”, Prince (1995) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoFuwt12ouE “Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and ----- Girls”, introducing a very special, members-only section of this website, NSFM: Not Safe For Mom!

For those of you who don’t immediately appreciate the humor, I suggest cautiously Googling “NSFW”.

Anyways, I think I have explained the concept well enough for now.

The caveat is that there is a very real possibility that not one ----- person would pay for access to NSFM content. So, I’m going to need some brave volunteers–say, the first 5 to respond–to be beta users.

Beta users will get first-look access to NSFM material that I’m planning to release, as I write it. In exchange, I would like some basic feedback, mainly on the content itself, as well as how much would you actually pay for said content ($0 is an acceptable answer).

If interested, email me at bj@thepointofthestory.com with the subject line “NSFM Betas.”

The current plan is to release NSFM content via our budding young Patreon page. Even if you don’t want to hear me riff on taboo/TMI topics, feel free to become a Patron of the Point of the Story. Eventually I will be adding more PG-rated content to reward your ilk.

Business talk aside, I just wanted to wrap this up with a little note to my mom, along with the other parental figures that I will never ever let into NSFM:

Out of love, you fought hard to protect my innocence as I was growing up; I can only hope to do the same for you as you grow older mature with grace and dignity. Heart emoji, heart emoji, winking smiley-face blowing a heart emoji.

Content created on: 23 October 2019 (Wednesday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Paging Dr. Mix-A-Lot

18 October 2019 / / 0 Comments
6 Min Read

Wanna hear a fantastic–but true–story?

On a dreary Seattle day in May 1992, a brave dark knight hoisted himself upon a giant papier-mâché derrière and spoke truth into a flat and listless world:

I like big butts and I cannot lie
You other brothers can’t deny
That when a girl walks in with an itty bitty waist
And a round thing in your face
You get sprung, want to pull up tough
‘Cause you notice that butt was stuffed
Deep in the jeans she’s wearing…

“Baby Got Back”, Sir Mix-a-lot,MACK DADDY (1992)

“I like big butts and I cannot lie”–the 8 words that inspired an entire generation. Well, maybe not the whole generation, but at least every boy between the ages of 10 and 14 in 1992.

But what happens when that sub-generation of boys become men decades on? Well, as part of that cohort, I can answer that question for you.

For the most part, nothing out of the ordinary.

Deep down, however, we all have a longing–nay, a yearning–to one day be like our hero Mix-A-Lot, and be able to proclaim to the whole world our appreciation of bubblicious backsides.1Mix-A-Lot implies that his love is directed towards female rumps in particular, but that’s not a hard and fast rule. Like some junior high version of Treadstone, we’re just sleeper agents waiting to be activated.

Now, I have a friend who was also part of this particular segment of the population. Like the rest of us, he had every ----- line of that song committed to memory. And also like the rest of us, he grew older2While “he grew up” sounds much more fluid, I think implying that there was an increase in maturity level would be inaccurate and misleading in this case. as time passed. But instead of following our collective dream, he caved under the pressure of reality and became a doctor.

Wait, wait, not that kind of doctor. He’s not like Dr. Dana Scully from Fox’s The X-Files, who makes ----- sure to let you know that “it’s okay because [she’s] a medical doctor.”3https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvAYnFh0Zdo I’m sure he wouldn’t want anyone getting the wrong idea now.

True, any flight he takes automatically has a doctor on board, but not the kind the flight attendant really meant to ask for when that one guy had a heart attack. They really do need to train them to be more specific. Save us all a very awkward situation.4Okay, this part is NOT a true story. But I’m sure its a scenario that’s ran through the minds of plenty of non-medical doctors.

No, he’s more of the philosophical variety. You know, the kind that actually use their brains in the course of earning their credentials.

He is–or at least was–a scientist.

Our paths crossed when we both were working in the same MRI lab in Honolulu (Hawai’i, of course), developing custom pulse sequences together. Now, it’s important to understand that the MRI crowd has a sense of acronymic humor, at least when it comes to naming new techniques, etc.

For example, two of the key methods we used in our research were called “Generalized Autocalibrating Partially Parallel Acquisitions (GRAPPA),” and “Controlled Aliasing In Parallel Imaging Results In Higher Acceleration (CAIPIRINHA)”. If you were more of an alcoholic, it wouldn’t require me pointing out to you that these are, in fact, the names of two adult mixed beverages.

Clever.

And who doesn’t appreciate a good bit o’ wit every now and then. Certainly that guy did.

Sadly, though, my friend didn’t quite thrive as an MRI scientist. After almost a year of inefficient toiling in the lab, he had finally accomplished enough where he was able to start thinking about making his first contribution to the field (like me, he had previously worked in MRI’s scientific granddaddy, NMR, not MRI itself).

When he started to write his paper, it was pretty evident that he was excited that it was at last his turn to join in on the phonetic fun. If this was his only shot at flexing his creative muscles, he told me, then he was “sure as shit going to make it count.”

Impressively, after engaging in what could only be described as a mashup of scientific Scrabble and a Ouija board stuck in middle school, he was able to come up with a completely accurate description of the work at hand, while taking one step closer to his destiny.

Yes, future scientists, engineers, and medical professionals were forever going to remember him as the creator of “Accelerated Spectral-Spatial Multiplexing And SuscepTibility Artifact Reduction.”

He’s no proctologist, but that didn’t stop him from him becoming…”the ASS-MASTAR.”

Or, more accurately, from almost becoming the ASS-MASTAR.

Enter our boss, Vandy,5More or less kind of his real name. who is probably more worthy of the nickname The Dude than any other alias. Both in appearance and attitude, Vandy was straight out of the Big Lebowski. While professional, having been born and raised in Hawai’i, he definitely had the laid back island vibe, and a pretty decent sense of humor to match.

When approached with a draft of this ground-breaking manuscript–which at this point was basically just the magnificent title and the list of authors–Vandy did indeed get a good laugh out of it. Apparently, it reminded him of one of the monster trucks from the Mike Judge/Luke Wilson classic, Idiocracy.6Watch the scene for yourself here. And of course, naming anything in the scientific realm “ASS-MASTAR” was just inherently humorous.

After getting his giggles mostly out, he delivered the solemn news, albeit while still chuckling: “Man, you can’t name your paper that. But maybe it would work for a conference poster…”

The heartbreak hung heavy in the air.

However, it was evident that that last part of what Vandy said left a glimmer of hope where it probably shouldn’t have.

Eventually the paper was renamed something more appropriate.7Anderson, Robert J., Benedikt A. Poser, and V. Andrew Stenger. “Simultaneous multislice spectral‐spatial excitations for reduced signal loss susceptibility artifact in BOLD functional MRI.” Magnetic resonance in medicine 72.5 (2014): 1342-1352. Mind-numbingly boring, informative, inoffensive–I suppose some people consider those good things, right?

Anyways, in the middle of the process of fully fleshing out his experiment and forming it into a full-fledged journal article, we had our big annual “ISMRM”8International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, www.ismrm.org conference–the conference in the field of MRI.

A condensed version of ASS-MASTAR–with the new, very unsexy title–was submitted and was accepted to be presented in the form of an electronic poster, or “e-poster.”

Now of all the formats available–traditional poster, e-poster, and a 12-minute talk–the e-poster probably had the lowest visibility of the three, as it was pretty much just a Powerpoint presentation that the interested party could click through at their own leisure during a specific 1-hour window.

Even by the most optimistic estimates, that meant that probably a maximum of 5 people would ever see such a presentation. So what better time to throw in a little Easter egg at the end to reward those few souls taking an interest in his work, right (see Figure 1 below)?

Figure 1. The reward for clicking through 29 slides of “SMS SPSP Excitation for Reduced Signal Loss Artifact in BOLD fMRI.”

Wrong.

The night before my friend’s 1-hour slot to present the undercover ASS-MASTAR, Vandy wanted to meet up and briefly go through the presentation together just to make sure everything looked good.

In a textbook example of an “unforced error”, they continued past Slide 29, and Vandy seemed genuinely surprised by what he found on Slide 30.

“Dude! You can’t include that in the presentation! Most people would find it humorous, but there are a lot of Brits with sticks up their asses in this business. I can only imagine them harrumphing indignantly if they saw this. What were you thinking?!?”

And in response:

“YOU!!! It was your idea to save it for the conference. How the hell was I supposed to know I couldn’t take you for your word?!? Goddammit, Vandy, don’t blame me for bad judgement when I was just following your suggestion!”

But it didn’t matter. In the end, Slide 30 was censored.

The ASS-MASTAR would never see the light of day. And just like that–whoosh!–the dream of an entire generation of early-90s 12 year old boys was snuffed out by responsibility and reason.

The point of the story is, it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission.

And now, if you’ll forgive me if I seem a bit obsessed with the matter, but as ASS-MASTAR of this domain, don’t count on me every asking permission to speak freely on all things rear-related…

By now, you’re probably wondering who this genius-before-his-time friend of mine was.

His name? Dr. Keyser Söze.9OF COURSE it’s me I’m talking about in the story. Who else is in this ----- world is formerly-ish a scientist, witty AF, and is pre-occupied with dat ass? P.S. #ThirdPersonHumbleBrag.

True story.

Now, like me–er, I mean “Dr. Söze”–you can be the MASTAR of your own ASS with these sweet, sweet yoga pants! Perfect for doing side-bends and sit-ups. Just please don’t lose that butt.

Figure 2: BONUS! I had a cameo appearance in the music video for Baby Got Back, right at the 2:32 mark.

Footnotes & References:[+]

Solamente Selena

10 October 2019 / / 0 Comments
4 Min Read

March 1997: I was a Sophomore in high school and the Jim Carrey classic Liar Liar was about to hit movie theaters.

My best friend, Phillip K. Ballz,1Almost but not quite his real name. Also, it’s a Phillip K. ----- pun. For the various reasons “Ballz” was choice #2, yet will be used in place of choice #1, “Phillip K. Dickhead.” Sorry to disappoint. and I were so excited to go see it, given that its humor matched our early high school maturity level pretty well. For reference, when reminiscing over this particular story, Phillip K. had to correct me when I asserted that the movie we went to see was Beavis and Butthead Do America. Consumers of real high-class content, we were.

Figure 1: Must-See 90’s High-Brow Comedy.2Image source: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119528/mediaviewer/rm1405355520

There was one fly in the ointment with our plans to partake in SW Kansas High Society, though: transportation. The nearest theater was in Liberal, a good 45 minutes away, which was too far to drive without a proper license, and if I recall correctly, this lined up almost exactly with me failing my first attempt at acquiring one.3This is a short story for another time. It was an act of great injustice, I say! P.K. was a year younger than me, and maybe had his learner’s permit, but regardless, we sure weren’t able to make the trek of our own accord.

However, destiny intervened on our behalf that early spring weekend: premiering in theaters nationwide on the same day as Liar Liar was the Jennifer Lopez classic Selena.

For the young folk, this was the biopic based on the life of the original Selena. Not that cheap knock-off Selena Gomez–just “Selena.” Like Cher, Bono, or Oprah, she was so huge in el Mundo Hispanico4I.e. The Hispanic World that she didn’t need a last name. In fact, I don’t even know what it is without googling it.

Figure 2: The movie that was going to get us to Liar Liar.5Image source: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120094/mediaviewer/rm3165979904

Anyways, her promising life and musical career were cut way short when she was shot by the president of her fan club. It was a very tragic story–one that was just begging to be made into a movie.

Now, by a stroke of pure luck, my Caucasian-as-can-be father, Bob J., just so happened to be married to a Hispanic woman, “Daisy.”6Kind of her real name, but not exactly. In other words, I had7And still have. the good fortune of being blessed with a Mexican step-mother. Who was also–and this is a critical plot point–a HUGE Selena fanático.

So you know that sure as shit they were going to see Selena the very day it came out. And they were kind enough to bring along Señor Ballz and me so we could see the movie of our choice. Which definitely wasn’t going to be Selena. But you already knew that.

According to my research on IMDB.com, the runtime for Liar Liar is 1h 26min, while Selena, being of a bit more substance, runs 2h 7min. This jives pretty well with my recollection of the events that were to follow.

Since the movies started about the same time, that meant that our juvenile laugh-fest ended ~41 minutes before our ride home was available. We messed around for a bit, thinking we would only be waiting 20 minutes or so for my parents’ movie to get out, but eventually grew impatient and set up camp right outside the theater that was showing Selena.

We had been waiting there for a good 15 minutes before the dam finally broke. We watched in solemn amusement as one sobbing Latina after another came pouring out, each trying in vain to turn back the waterworks streaming down their faces. It had clearly been an emotional powerhouse of a movie.

And then, in the middle of all that, sticking out like a sore thumb, out waltzes Bob J., with an oblivious grin on his face, like the only thing going through his head was “doot-dee-doot-dee-doo!”

By our estimate, he was the only white person, only one of two males, and had the only two dry eyes out of the entire crowd.

We lost our shit over that image, and it took us a good 5 minutes to recover from laughter.

Of course, Daisy didn’t appreciate the humor quite as much, as she thought we were laughing at all the brown broken hearts (we weren’t).

Now, I’m pretty sure that this memory has been ingrained deeply in my hippocampus primarily because of the humorous cultural, ethnic, and emotional juxtaposition my dad exemplified in that moment.

But the great part of The Point of the Story project is that recollection is often followed by reflection, sometimes with surprising results.8As was the case in A Most Excellent Life Lesson — the twist at the end of that one caught me by surprise as well![/ref] Writing this tale got me to thinking about what we had really witnessed that fateful evening in 1997.

We didn’t see a man comically out of his element.

No, what we saw was a man who didn’t give a flying ----- how ridiculous he might appear in the course of loving his wife. He was literally a walking example of true love in the analog age.9In contrast to what it looks like in the digital age.

Well, ok, so he was comically out of his element. But in the sweetest, most endearing way. I still get to laugh at this memory, right? Right?

Papa Bob–may you rest in peace–thanks for showing me that love can take on many forms; namely, that of a tearless, grinning white man. Which is good because I think I should be able to pull that one off pretty well…

“Doot-dee-doot-dee-doo!”

Content created on: well…it sure wasn’t “23 October” like I claim below…stupid technology.

Content created on: 23 October 2019 (Wednesday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Two Lukes

26 September 2019 / / 0 Comments
4 Min Read

Sometimes, you just need to be regaled with tales of the asinine and the absurd. After all, what are the building blocks of the human experience but for these two things?

Today is one of those days, and now is one of those times.

Act I

Last year, when my elder daughter had just started kindergarten at her new, small school, I was asking her if she knew the names of her classmates. In a daily update email sent earlier by her teacher, I had noted that there was at the very least a “Luke” in her class, so I mentioned that.

She confirmed this intel, and then continued to inform me that there were actually 2 “Lukes”. I found that pretty cool because there were only like 6 kids in her class. What are the odds, right?

A few days later, I’m at parent orientation for the kindergarten class when we’re asked to go around the room, introduce ourselves, and share something about our kid that we find special.

Well, one of the mom’s found that question to be particular interesting, because her boys were identical twins. She kept talking, and when she mentioned their names, I realized that this was one of the Luke’s mom.

And then it dawned on me…holy shit , there are literally “2 Lukes”. Only one is called Ethan.1Not his real name. Consider yourself Shyamalan’d.2Or, as I have called it elsewhere, “M. Night’d”

The Observer: “There is more than one of everything.”3Fringe, S1,E20: “There Is More Than One of Everything.” Fox Network (2008-2013)
Me: *brain short circuits*

I had found this so profound, yet so absurd, I couldn’t help to tweet about it to an audience-of-none on my secret Twitter account. In fact, what I wrote above was merely a light adaptation/expansion of those two tweets.

In my mind, I was all patronizing,4This almost also functions as a pun. You know, because I’m her father and all. Speaking of patron, you can always patronize me! thinking, “Oh, that rascal! Isn’t that cute? She thinks identical twins have the same name as well. Ahh, youths…”

Act II:

Well, one thing that I should have learned well before then was to always bet on the kid. Any time when she would say something that would warrant the typical parental response “Well, I don’t think that’s really the case” etc., us adults would always end up eating our words. Always. She was pretty much never wrong, with the exception of ghost/monsters in her closet. And honestly, I’m not even sure she was wrong about that (I listen to too many paranormal podcasts).5You can check some of them out on the Brain Ticklers page.

Shortly after the original incident, I was telling this story to B.S. Slappy, who’s son is in the same class (our kids are basically best friends). He was like, “Uh, actually…there ARE 2 Lukes. Luke B. & Luke W. And yes, one of them has a twin.”

Well, whatd’yaknow? The kid wasn’t full of it after all.

At this point I’m just basking in the copious amounts of the absurd flowing from this situation. I’m loving it.

The best part was that there was a twist after all–I had M. Night’d myself. A Self-Shyamalan, if you will.

Me: *double short circuit*

Act III:

The school the Elder went to last year only went up to kindergarten, so this year we found a different school that we could afford even less–“but [this one] go[es] to 6.”6https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOO5S4vxi0o In this particular educational model–which will remain unnamed for now–grades are integrated together 3 at a time. But this school was so small, that all grades 1-6 are in the same classroom, with a grand total of 13 students.

After the first week of school, I naturally found myself asking her the same questions as the year before. She rattled off a few of the girls’ names, so I followed that up by asking if she knew any of the boys’ names.

The Elder: “Oh, yeah. There’s Dylan, he has a twin…and, let’s see…who else? Oh, there’s another Dylan. There’s 2 Dylans!”

Me [under my breath]: “I’m not falling for this one again. Fool me once…”

…

Me: “So…there are three boys involved in this scenario, correct?”

The Elder: “Yes.”

Me: “1) The first Dylan. 2) His twin who is NOT named Dylan. And 3) the second Dylan–and you promise he looks nothing like the other two?”

The Elder: “Yes, Daddy.”

Me: “Cool, cool…I just had to double-check. So, it’s like last year with the 2 Lukes, huh?”

The Elder: “Actually, Daddy…there’s 3 Dylans! [Teacher from previous school]’s son is Dylan, too.”

Me: “Don’t you bring him into this…“

[End Scene]

Content created on: 27 September 2019 (Friday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Blog Like Nobody’s Reading

22 September 2019 / / 0 Comments
8 Min Read

I would like to apologize up front for yet another meta-blog post about blogging and how that’s my true calling in life. I get it: you get it.

But, you see, what happened was…it was a clear and calm Wednesday night (as recounted on a Thursday)…

With my regular, self-imposed weekly Sunday deadline looming, I needed to pick out one of the several articles I have in the oven to touch up and get ready for primetime. That was my main goal yesterday. Well, of course other less important things got in the way.

Come 10 pm or so, I’m taking my routine, er, “pitstop”, and decide to check in with the gigs section on Craigslist. Now, I haven’t directly addressed Craigslist gigs yet, apart from listing it in the Dubious Endeavors page. I guess I haven’t fully explained my nuanced employment situation yet, either, so here’s the abbreviated context so we can proceed.

The short version is that I work multiple part time jobs, one real one with a real paycheck, and then several projects that fall under the header of My Own ----- Boss (yet another series of posts promised, but still not delivered as of this writing). Anyways, Craigslist gigs falls in the latter category, of course. Now, I haven’t actually fully ventured down any path I have found via this avenue, but I hope to some day.

Of course I would love to bring in some extra cash for the family’s sake, but another motivation for me is that I see it as not only as a fount of humorous entertainment, but also a potential source for unexpected and atypical misadventures. I mean, I need some material for posts covering ongoing and active shenanigans and keep all y’all entertained. I can’t just endlessly regale you with tales from my past…oh, wait, I totally could do that. But, being the kind soul that I am, I would like to have a variety of material for you to enjoy, Dear Readers.

Okay, now we can turn our attention to what I discovered last night:

Figure 1: A Craigslist Gig full of potential.

YES, PLEASE. Now this is what I hope to find when I go sifting through the muck that Gigs often can be. YES YES YES. I could get paid to go on a treasure hunt, AND write about it. Oh, shit yes, I’m so there. I gotta say, this really speaks to my inner pirate. Speaking of which, I just so happen to be writing this on Speak Like A Pirate Day, which I celebrated with a tweet.1Spoiler Alert: You’re bound to roll your eyes in response. Or “roll your eye” if you’re a true pirate.

So, anyways, there I am, upon my throne, and I have come across this grand opportunity. I really should be working on my weekly post, but…oh, the temptation! Ultimately I gave in, and decided to tap out a reply to this post then and there.

Let’s just say that I got a little side-tracked in trying to convince him that I would be a pair of well-invested Andrew Jacksons. But ultimately, I ended up telling him I story I had wanted to share on here eventually, and at this point I already wrote it…why do a job twice, right? So I’ll let me, telling the story to some rando treasure hunt creator, tell you the tale of my first experience “blogging”. Please note that, unlike my usual M.O., a main of the point of the story was included in this post title. Sorry to disappoint.

Anyways, without further ado, enjoy!2[Voiceover, in a serious tone:] The following has been modified for broadcasting via blog; it has been resized to fit your screen (but not edited due to time constraints). And I quote…

From: bj@thepointofthestory.com
To: ——–@——.com
Subject: Chapel Hill

Hi —–,
It seems like I might be a good fit to test things out for you. I geocache3For the uninformed curious: basically treasure hunting with GPS. on occasion; once or twice was on UNC’s campus (I was a grad student there for 6 years).

As for attention to detail/proofreading, etc. it seems a little more difficult to convey my skills in those areas.

To give you an idea of my baseline, I once was an education major many moons ago, and had to take a class with about 300 other students, in which we would go to local high schools twice a week just to observe. We had to keep an online journal of our experiences. It was pretty much busy work. Mind-boggling boring type stuff, right?

I didn’t expect anyone to read these journals, and in fact thought that, at best, the professor would maybe read a handful throughout the semester, given the size of the class and what-not.

Despite this—or maybe because of this—I provided overly-detailed accounts of the asinine day-to-day happenings in the science classroom to which I was assigned, taking care to construct at least something of a narrative with each entry. Really, I was doing it to entertain myself, and keep me from wanting to shoot myself on account of the overwhelming stupidity of the whole situation.

Well, come the last day of the semester, and everyone in the class was forced to attend one last gathering. If I recall correctly, I don’t even think there was an exam. It was just our professor—who dressed like a mafia don, by the way, which was a bizarre wardrobe motif for middle of nowhere Kansas—is up there yammering on, waxing way too philosophical for any of us 21-year-olds to give a flying ----- I mean, he was really in the weeds about the true meaning of education. At least I think he was…I was kinda zoned out, too busy succumbing to my narcolepsy.

Towards the end, he was recognizing several students for outstanding achievements. Like, actual contribute-to-society stuff. I was about to doze off again, when he was like “and lastly, before we wrap this up, would Robert ———— come up to the front? Robert, are you here?”

Now, I’m starting to panic because, 1) he was using my real name instead of “B.J.”, and 2) last time I got unexpected attention from a collegiate authority, I about got expelled from the College of Engineering—personally by the Dean himself—for being a half-ass Engineering Mentor who didn’t make the protégés turn in their busy work. Anyways, I could not come up with any good motivation for what was happening…but of course you can, because I’ve spent so much time providing the necessary context.

To my surprise and delight, he presented me with a box of chocolate pecan turtles, in recognition of producing “Educational Journal Entries Actually Worth Reading”. I guess he actually read my journals, and in a hilarious twist of fate, mistook me for someone who gave a fuck.

It was definitely a huge ego boost.

Even better, afterwards, 10 or so other students, most of whom I didn’t know at all, came up to me and told me how they loved reading my work, and in a few cases, that it was their only source of hope and sanity that got them through the semester. One of them even had a favorite, “The Day the Sub Yelled”. Yes, I even gave them titles. And, yes, I’m chuckling right now as I recall that episode. That poor substitute teacher. He was clearly too old to be dealing with the students’ shit that fateful November day in 2001, and just like our beloved Rodney Dangerfield, couldn’t get no respect, no respect. I witnessed a grown man’s spirit broken that day. But I digress…

The point of the story is: blog like nobody’s reading.  Bonus turtles and unexpected celebrity status? That’s just the icing on the cake of self-amusement.

Oh, and the other point of the story is: no task is too asinine that I can’t turn it into an adventure—on paper at least. Just be careful what you ask for, though. You might get more feedback than you bargained for—er, I mean, “for which you bargained”. After all, why the hell am I regaling you with an unnecessarily detailed and long (by tapping-it-out-on-a-smartphone-while-on-the-crapper standards) tale that borders on the edge of #HumbleBragging? Let’s be real, that’s way too much effort towards just having the chance of earning $40–It’s not even the real work!

I’ll leave you to ponder that philosophical quandary…in the meantime, just know that I probably would be free enough Friday or Monday to run through the hunt.

Thanks for listening!

BJ

Editor’s note: there actually was a P.S. to the email in which I engaged in some shameless self-promotion, imploring the recipient to check out www.thepointofthestory.com. Ironically, it turns out that the company who hosts this website had site-wide server issues most of that particular day, and if anyone tried visiting this site, they would be led to believe that nothing of the sort existed. So that probably explains why he never responded to me…

Okay, so while that guy is busy pondering what the hell I was getting at–other than “I always do way more work than I’m getting paid to do. Clearly I don’t value my own time, and/or I have a perfectionist’s personality defect; either way: take advantage of me!”–it might be helpful if we philosophize a bit more about blog like nobody’s reading.

But first! A side note that was too long to jam into Footnotes & References: It may be obvious to you that this is a derivative of “dance like nobody’s watching”, and I have to admit I see no real distinction between the two philosophies. Except that even I am not amused when I dance, whether or not anyone is around to mock me. Also, I’m going with the blogging version because it is a superior investment of time. Sorry, dancers. For your own sake you need to know that when society breaks down, you’ll be the first ones to be eaten. It’s best you heard it from a friend.

Either way, this is just most likely a repackaged “to thy own self be true.”4Hamlet, Act 1, Scene III; Shakespeare, W., 1603 Or at least the modern misinterpretation of it.5https://literarydevices.net/to-thine-own-self-be-true/ Not that you shouldn’t be considerate of others,6As exemplified in Privacy Policy, for example. but ultimately, you really should just have “an audience of one”–you!7Some people might call this a sacrilegious cultural [mis]appropriation, but I would counter that laying exclusive claim to the True Meaning of the Rainbow is scientific cultural appropriation.,8Footnotes & References BINGO! If you’ve been able to bring happiness into your own life, then you’ve done your part in making the world just a little bit more of happy place; call it a day. Don’t waste too much time trying to please everyone because, statistically speaking, you’re guaranteed to displease a decent chunk of the peoples. Never forget: you are not responsible for their happiness, and in fact, many people simply don’t want it–for you or for themselves.9I.e. Don’t let the Haters win. No better way to tell them to go ----- themselves is to be happy despite their best efforts.

Bet on yourself, kid; you’ll always be worth the risk.

BONUS! The Craigslist gig in this story probably would have resulted in mild shenanigans, at best. So I wanted to share with you a better example of a Craigslist gig that might be a bit more likely cause moderate to severe shenanigans.

Over the course of the last 2-3 months since I’ve started regular visiting the Gigs section, I have seen this same post regularly recurring about every 2-3 weeks:

Figure 2: A sampling of what kind of opportunities that await the Brave in the Craigslist Gigs section.

After about the 3rd time I saw it, I started to feel really bad for this guy. Somebody, please get this man an erotic photographer! Or…get me a camera. At this point I feel like I might be unfairly judged just a wee bit if I were honest with you about how seriously I contemplated borrowing a friend’s camera and stepping up to the plate. Just know this: I was motivated out of nothing but pity for this poor guy. And I would have brought my wife along for safety’s sake. I have a feeling that the situation would have been a little less “erotic” than advertised, so believe me that wasn’t my motivation, lol. Anyway, somebody does really need to put the poor guy out of his misery (sorry big fella, it won’t be me this time).

And…you know what? Despite having seen this ad about 7-10 times at this point, just now am I realizing that the pictures would be of him. Oh, shenanigans, indeed.10On top of every thing else, this is the town where my in-laws live, and I bet with my luck…yeah. That would be real awkward. This realization is happening in real time, mind you. Oh boy…11https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxzYszntWuE

Well that turned out to be even more of a different and interesting example than I had expected. I think we may have just discovered meta-shenanigans…

Content created on: 18/19 September 2019 (Wednesday/Thursday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2025 The Point of the Story

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑

error

Enjoy this blog? Please spread the word :)

RSS
Facebook
Twitter
Follow by Email
YouTube
YouTube
Instagram