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!
Unlike the wholly unauthorized Boss Lady’s Edition of the Best of 2019, this time around I have actually commissioned a Top 3 list from a dedicated reader. These picks come to us courtesy of my pensive friend and former colleague, The Doctor.1As a bonus for the dedicated few who actually read these footnotes: “also the guy who couldn’t find Connecticut on a map”. You may have seen his comments floating around here on occasion. So many thanks to him for taking the time and effort to put this together.
The Doctor says:
…I think your best stories are those that make us think about how our presuppositions about the world are plain wrong. As humans, we tend to want to make things as simple as possible, because complicated is hard. You’ve had more than a few stories that illustrate the nuance and complexity of all the other people we share the planet with.
Here are [a few of] my picks along with some of my accompanying thoughts.
More and more, context matters. Not just when you do something a bit goofy in the shower, but when you’re making judgments about other people choices, culture, religion, etc.
Just like context is important, so is the realization that we experience the world differently. Two people can have completely different reactions to something or someone because of different backgrounds and experiences.
Even more than that, how we experience and react to the world is based in our biology.We can all look at the same picture of a dress and come way of radically different ideas about what color it is3https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dress...
So, we like to think that we are master’s of our own destiny, and that if we do everything “just right”, stuff will work out. The world is not so simple. Small events, circumstances, and comments can have far reaching effects. We just can’t anticipate everything. (Although, I guess it’s important to realize that general principals still can tell you something…)
Editor’s note: If you really want to nerd out a la The Doctor, watch this video about The Butterfly Effect:
As a bonus for the dedicated few who actually read these footnotes: “also the guy who couldn’t find Connecticut on a map”. You may have seen his comments floating around here on occasion.
As the year–and the decade–draws to a close, it’s only appropriate to partake in the time-honored tradition of substituting new and original content with Top 3/10/100/etc lists and other asinine countdowns.
This first Top 3 list comes to you courtesy of The Boss Lady, aka my wife (if you haven’t picked up on this by now). This is an unauthorized list, put together without directly consulting her; nonetheless, I’m pretty sure that she rather enjoyed the following ramblings of her husband.
If you are reading this and are NOT The Boss Lady, feel free to share which posts you have particularly enjoyed thus far in the comments below. Perhaps I will compile a new list of fan-favorites–sort of a guide for newcomers to the community.
Without further ado, I present to you Posts Which Have Caused The Boss Lady to Expel Liquid from Her Body:1Usually we’re talking tears here, due to laughing so hard she cried, but I like to hold out hope that on at least one occasion she has peed herself a little bit.
Usually we’re talking tears here, due to laughing so hard she cried, but I like to hold out hope that on at least one occasion she has peed herself a little bit.
I’m talking about a much more refined and pretension degeneracy.
Now, in quantum physics–and just bear with me for a few seconds–there’s this whole thing about being able to say what quantum state a group of particles1Or, more formally: a system. are in based on the result of some measurement, say, energy, for example.
But what if two different arrangements produced the same measurable energy?
Well, then, if you did your experiment and recorded this particular energy, you would be stuck not knowing which of those two states you were actually looking at.
This is called a degenerate energy level.
If you wanted to distinguish between the two possible states, you would break the degeneracy by doing something that can be thought of as measuring a different property of the system, like the total weight of all the particles.
Apart from breaking the degeneracy, you’re stuck never knowing exactly what arrangement your system is in.
At this point, it’s forgivable if all you’re hearing is “Laht, laht, lah! Physics, physics, physics! #HumbleBrag.”
Fortunately for you, the story of why in the name of ----- I ended up going through life using a synonym for fellatio as my name just so happens to be a pretty darn good analogy for degeneracy.
Now, if you will, take a step back in time with me, and all shall be made clear…
Christmas Day 1980, some undisclosed location in Kansas: during an otherwise routine family holiday gathering, an emergency meeting is called.
Unto them a child was born, and unto them they knew not what the hell to call him.
You see, this days-old youngster certainly had a name. It was just that this particular name was sorta…already taken.
And of course I was the hapless lad in this story, so I might as well stop referring to myself in the third person before we go any farther.
Figure 1. I await the decision of the Almighty Council of Nicknames…
So, there I was, just chillin’ like a villain, as depicted in Figure 1, oblivious to the fact that a major determinant of the arc of my life yet to come was hanging in the balance.
When I was born, “somebody”2Most definitely, unequivocally my dad. got the big idea to name me after his grandfathers, so the story about how I ended up with “Robert James” on my birth certificate is actually pretty run-of-the-mill. Big whoop.
But as I had alluded to, “Robert” was already spoken for–by my great grandfather, obviously–and so if from a physicist’s perspective in which one’s name is perhaps one of the most basic “measurements” of a human, I was clearly born into degeneracy.
If someone in the family starts talking about Robert, well, to whom exactly would they be referring?
One could break the degeneracy by a “secondary measurement,” such as age or size. Clarifying that they were talking about “Grandpa” would make it immediately clear that they were referring to the elder of us. Another option would be to call me “L’il Robert” and their point would be just as easily made.
Alternatively, the use of nicknames can be a reliable degeneracy-breaker, and the good news here is that “Robert” has many variants.
The bad news? My family tree (Fig. 2) is littered with one ----- Robert after another.
Figure 2. My abbreviated family tree.
First, there’s my namesake, my great grandfather Robert on my dad’s side, who everyone just called “Bob.”
Then there’s my maternal grandfather, Albert Robert, who–by the way–for some reason went by “Pat.” Go figure.
Moving down to the next generation: there’s my dad whose legal name actually is Bobby Jim, I shit thee not. Turns out that he got stuck/blessed with the nicknames of his two grandfathers.
Switching back to my mom’s side is her brother, the One True Robert. That’s just a fancy way of saying that of all the Roberts in the family, Uncle Robert was the only one who didn’t use a nickname as an adult.
And, for good measure, my mom & Uncle Robert had a cousin who was beaugarding the title of “Robby” all to himself.
Now, my dad was aware of all this when he haphazardly slapped a name on my back, and so honestly I don’t know what the hell he was thinking bringing yet another Robert into the mess.
Reviewing the situation: we now have six-fold degeneracy at the Robert name level, and the members of my family in the emergency Christmas meeting were hoping to break that degeneracy with a nickname.
Perhaps it went down something a little like this…
Individual 1: “So, what about Bob?”
Individual 2: “Nope, Grandpa Bob took that one.”
Individual 1: “Dammit. Of course he did.”
Individual 3: “Well, we can’t call him Pat…”
Everyone else: “Why the hell would we call him that?”
Individual 3: “Good question…why do we call Pop-Pop ‘Pat’? That makes no ----- sense.”
Albert Robert “Pat” “Pop-Pop”: “Yeah, why do you call me Pat?”
Everyone else: “NOT NOW, POP-POP!”
Individual 1: “Okay, okay…and I guess it’s obvious that Bobby is off the table as well. Yes, I’m looking at you, Bobby. YOU did this, we’re in this ----- mess because of you. We’re wasting our Christmas because of your utter lack of creativity and imagination. Good lord, we can only hope he doesn’t take after you in that department.”
Individual 4: “Remind me again what was wrong with plain ol’ Robert?”
Individual 3: “Uh, because you kinda took that one, Uncle Robert. Anyways, we can’t do Bobby, but how about this…[with a dramatic flourish] Robby?”
Individual 5: “Sorry, but there’s Cousin Robby…”
Individual 3: “Well, shit…”
Individual 1: “Okay, we got to start thinking outside the box here, folks. How about Bert?”
Bobby Jim “Bobby Jim”: “Sure, let’s name him after my ex-wife’s dad. That won’t be awkward at all.”3I had a rough idea of all the details up until this one. This one I discovered for the first time while researching this story.
Individual 1: “For you and me both. Though I still think he looks like he would make a fine Bert.”
Individual 5: “I’ve got it! So, I think we’ve been going about this all wrong. We’ve been trying to come up with nickname that is supported by some basic logic and would be patently obvious to any new acquaintance why he was called thus.”
Individual 4: “Go on…”
Individual 5: “Instead, we should eschew all logic and give him a name that will wear out anybody who is unfortunate enough to ask him about its backstory. How about Bobby’s initials?”
Individual 3: “Ummm, you mean B.J.?”
Individual 5: “Exactly.”
Individual 1: “No, I really don’t–“
Bobby Jim “Bobby Jim”: “It’s perfect!”
Individual 1: “Hey, I don’t think I like tha–“
Individual 5: “We don’t really care about your opinion, even if it was your womb. Let’s vote on it.”
[The Council–save a vigorously protesting Individual 1–all murmur in agreement or nod in approval.]
Individual 6 [whispering to Individual 3]: “You think maybe we should tell Grandma what a Blow Job is exactly before the poor kid gets screwed over?”
Individual 3: “Nah, I wanna see where this goes…”
[Seemingly out of nowhere, the meeting is interrupted by a frantically screaming Time Bandit…]
Future Bandit: ” ----- -sucker! ----- -SUCKER! Don’t you all know that’s what a ----- -sucker does?!?”
Individual 2: “The hell you say?”
Future Bandit: “Please, don’t doom me to a lifetime supply of ----- -sucking references! Especially with these lips! Nooooooo! It’s too late! I’m fading already…don’t…let…me…be…a…B.J………..”
[And just like that the Time Bandit is ironically sucked back into the vortex from which he came…]
Individual 4: “Was it just me, or did anybody else get the feeling that they were looking at a weird clone of Bobby’s when gazing upon that strange fellow?”
Bobby Jim “Bobby Jim”: “Yeah, it was like looking in a mirror…it must be a sign!”
All except Individual 1: “Hear, hear! Then B.J. he shall be! Merry First Christmas, Kid!”
Individual 5 [underneath her breath as she passes Individuals 3 & 6]: “…and a little ----- -sucker he shall be…”
[Individuals 3 & 6 stare at each other in stunned silence…]
The point of the story is I guess we now all know what I would do if I ever built myself a time machine… ----- stopping Hitler–that’s too bougie anyways.
Given the chance, I would go back and stop the degenerates in my family from screwing me over for degenerations to come…so suck on that, Grandma Individual 5.
Editor’s Note: This is a continuation of the loose theme introduced in In Soviet Russia (spoonerisms/transpositional humor…and basically just more abuse of the English language). While not essential, go ahead and read it anyways.Also, for your sanity, the title simply refers to the fact that we’re getting back to that original post that started this trainwreck of thought.
One time in high school, I entrusted my best friend, Phillip K. Ballz, to give me a very simple haircut that only required a single snip of the scissors. He proceeded to “accidentally” cut it at a sharp angle, resulting in the very front of my hair being notably shorter than the rest of my mini-puff.
Although I had enough historical data to know that I don’t look good at all as a human cue ball, he left me with no choice but to completely shave my head1Actually, we didn’t go straight to a complete buzzcut, but that story merits its own post. Patience, Young Grasshopper……which he proceeded to do with a little too much gusto.
Later on in front of some other friends, he made a frankly unimaginative attempt at mocking me for the follicular predicament that he had put me in:
PKB: “Hah hah! You’re like a Head and Shoulders commercial: Great hair can’t have flakes!“
Me: “Bitch, please. I think it’s much more accurate to say Great flakes can’t have hair…”
Duly Quoted
Legend has it that, when asked by an editor why she had missed a deadline, writer and mistress of wit Dorothy Parker replied:
Tell him I was too f*cking busy–or vice versa.
Notable Badass Dorothy Parker
I mean, we’ve all been there, right? But now, now you finally have the words to properly express yourself…
As I previously stated in In Soviet Russia, spoonerisms can be a real fount of wit and humor, even if it’s not premeditated. Out of habit I will often find myself taking whatever phrase is in the moment and uttering a spoonerized version of it, just to see what pops out.
It blesses my heart that I have been able to lead by example and have successfully imparted this habit to the Elder.2My eldest daughter, to those unfamiliar with this nomenclature. On a regular basis I will overhear her applying the spooneristic algorithm to whatever phrase is currently on her mind.
However, if you are thinking about trying this out for yourself, I should caution against mindlessly spoonerizing aloud.
Please, it behooves you to workshop them in your head first.
I just know one day, when we’re at the theatre to watch the latest Disney/Pixar money-suck, the Elder is going to call loudly across the lobby to me:
“Dad, don’t forget the c0ck porn!”3If you’r curious, I had to spell ‘c0ck’ with a zero instead of the letter O on account of the fact that my Censorship plugin will censor it. It’s not as funny reading —– porn, especially if it’s not immediately clear that we’re spoonerizing “popcorn”. Here let me show you: ----- ----- cock-a-doodle-doo!
Or, maybe if I’m lucky, she’ll merely ask for “cop porn” instead…
That is the better option of the two…right?
Speaking of the Elder, I am usually responsible for getting her to bed.
I will routinely lay down with her and chat a bit before chilling next to her while she says her nighttime prayers.
She will sit there silently, [presumably] praying, and then when she’s done she will loudly proclaim “Amen!”
At one point I got the notion to introduce her to another favorite mental pastime of mine, taking ideas waaaaay past their logical conclusions.
Since she was at that age where she was all about ABCs and patterns, I asked her what she thought should come after “Amen”, et cetera.
Several nights later, it was the Boss Lady’s turn to lay down with her.
They chatted for a bit and the Elder said her silent prayers as per usual.
I about choked on my laughter when from the living room I could hear her excitedly bark in the Boss Lady’s ear:
“A-men! B-men! C-men! D-men!”
A 4-year-old
Needless to say, I got in trouble with the Boss Lady for corrupting our daughter’s soul.
But damn, was that spanking every bit worth it, though…
Content created on: 12/17/18 December 2019 (Thurs/Tues/Wed)
If you’r curious, I had to spell ‘c0ck’ with a zero instead of the letter O on account of the fact that my Censorship plugin will censor it. It’s not as funny reading —– porn, especially if it’s not immediately clear that we’re spoonerizing “popcorn”. Here let me show you: ----- ----- cock-a-doodle-doo!
In some cultures, a boy’s twelfth birthday is a very important rite of passage in his life. In Judaism this is marked with a Bar Mitzvah, in which, in the eyes of his society, he has officially become a man.
Although I wasn’t brought up in the Hebrew tradition, I was still pretty excited for my big one-two.
For reasons well beyond the scope of this story, Autumn 1992 was the very first time in my life that I didn’t have my slightly older brother J around. Up until that point in time I had been overly-dependent on him to guide me through pretty much all social settings. Thus, being rather shy by nature, transitioning to not living with him was scary AF for me.
Amazingly, only months in, and I was finding that I was actually capable of holding my own when flying solo. Yup, I was ----- proud of myself for adjusting–I wasn’t the helpless little kid I feared I would become. And turning 12 was going to help me mark this important milestone in my life.
Now all of this was in the midst of the 5 years that my mom and us boys spent living in Springfield MO while she attended Baptist Bible College.
About a month before my birthday, she had gone on a blind date with an older guy about her age who was also a student at BBC, whom we’ll simply refer to as Chaz.1Kind of his real name. I don’t know why I should even bother with protecting this fucker’s identity in the least, though. Little did we know he had his sights set on marrying her ASAP.
Even littler did we know what a complete ----- psychopath he would turn out to be…but that’s a story for another time. The key point here is that when I use the term psychopath, I’m not bandying it about lightly. This asshole was cunning and deceptive.
A critical component of his matrimonial plan was wooing the kiddo–which he was already doing a surprisingly good job of2She had dated another gentlemen a few years earlier. In summary, I did not take it well.–and he decided to swing for the fences by really treating me for my birthday.
He actually had put together a nice little itinerary for the three of us, and I was pretty pumped about it.
We would kick off the night with a professional magic show. I had never been to one, so for this wannabe David Copperfield, this was going to be a real treat. Spoiler alert–apart from the requisite anxiousness that the magician was going to ----- up–it was a real treat.
After that we would do some fine dining at my favorite restaurant, Ryan’s Buffet, and then cap the night off with a Living Christmas Tree Cantata at a rival church, High Street Baptist.
For those of you not familiar with Ryan’s let me expound a bit.
We never had much petty cash during those times, so one of the few times we would get to eat out was when our grandma would visit from Kansas. Almost every time she came out we would indulge in a trip to Ryan’s.
Ryan’s truly was a chubby kid’s paradise.
First, it was “all-you-can-eat.” However, one thing the execs running Ryan’s didn’t account for in their business model was under-privileged gluttonous underage geniuses3I.e. yours truly. hacking the system. You see, I never let the “can” part of all-you-can-eat stop me. I had a pretty solid strategy in which, once having eaten to my nominal capacity, I would take a “half-time break” trip to the restroom and make room for Round Two. I only had one shot at this a year, so I was going to get the money’s worth of whoever was paying, dammit.
Second, back then, it was one of the rare massive buffets that have become more ubiquitous in this day and age. It had all the bars a ravenous kid could want: Salad bar. Soup bar. Meats & Pastas bar. Bread bar.
And most importantly, a stacked-to-the-rafters Dessert bar.
GOD, I was obsessed with the Dessert bar. NOM NOM NOM! I salivate just thinking about my old friend.
So there I was, it’s my twelfth birthday, and I was there to party. I had my plate loaded up with all sorts of sweets and goodies. The only thing lacking was the pièce de résistance disguised as an accoutrement: the whipped cream.
Now the whipped cream posed an interesting dilemma for me. My gut instinct was to pass on it that day. And I literally mean my “gut” here: while I had a limited number of data points, I had noticed a clear trend in which consumption of Ryan’s whipped cream would almost inevitably lead to gastric discomfort later on, and on occasion, a moderate4…to severe case of the squirts.
On the other hand…it was my ----- birthday.
Unfortunately, the latter of the two won out.
I clearly and distinctly remember thinking, “Fuck it5Sorry, Mom, I don’t know why my censorship plug-in doesn’t catch this.–it’s my birthday!” and scooping approximately a snow-shovel’s worth onto my plate.
The point of this story is live life without regrets; indulge in the little things in life that bring you joy and happiness, especially if it’s a special occasion, such as your Bar Mitzvah, or the Gentile equivalent thereof…
J.K. Kidding. Oh, how I wish that were the point of the story.
But where would the fun be in that, right? No, the birthday celebration must go on…
So, after indulging in a healthy dollop of whipped cream with the rest of my desserts, we wrapped it up at Ryan’s and headed off to ol’ High Street for some light holiday revelry.
When we got there, we found comfy seats in the middle of the left third section, about halfway back. In front of us sat a mixed race couple and their three kids–a darker Asian6Perhaps Indian or Filipino? I’m not really much of racist that sees people in terms of color, so I’m not/was not very good at making such distinctions. man and a gorgeous blonde trophy wife.
Now admittedly, this last detail has exactly jack-shit to do with today’s story, but 1) it’s just another example of how, uh, “memorable” that evening was, and 2) I recall observing that family and formulating the following theorem: classy interracial relationship = exotic dark-skinned male + beautiful blonde female. The importance/irony of this is that 15 years and 2 weeks later I would prove the inverse of this theorem to be true when I became the gorgeous blonde trophy husband in an interracial marriage…
ANYWAYS,7I feel unnecessarily compelled to tell you at this point that I’m trying a new strategy at writing my blog posts more efficiently by concurrently imbibing fine licorice-flavored French liquor. In theory alcohol would make me more focused, but in this case it seems that it just helps me access deeper parts of an already overly-vivid memory. about what seemed like halfway through the performance, my tummy started to feel a little rumbly. I didn’t think much of it, other than, yeah, of course, because I had eaten Ryan’s whipped cream.
After about ten minutes of my stomach gurgling, I realized that a quick trip to the restroom was in order.
The reason I described in way-too-much-detail the location of our seats was because it determined my path to the nearest restroom. I needed to move to the left-central aisle and head to the back doors. After that I had to circle back around to where the restrooms that were, relatively speaking, nearest the front-left of the…nave?8This is what happens when drinking while blogging: (see Figure XXX).
As I scurried along that path, I gradually started to realize the seriousness of the situation. In response, I clenched my anal sphincter muscle as tightly as possible and power-walked even faster.
I was halfway down the corridor that had an almost direct path to the nearest men’s restroom, when I passed a fella I knew from High Street via Awanas.9Awanas has been previously referenced in: Kandy Karma, Part 1. I highly recommend reading that one if you haven’t already. As I passed him, he nodded a greeting, and I feigned my best “How do you do, good Sir that I know to the most modest of degrees? But please FOR THE LOVE OF ----- do not stop and chat me up. I beg of thee.”
I didn’t mean to be impertinent, but I had much more pressing matters.
And those matters? Approximately 3 seconds later they pressed a little too hard on my 144-month-old sphincter muscle.
Whoosh!
My previously trustworthy sphincter gave up the ghost and a fount of fecal matter flowed down my right pant leg.
It was official: my Bar Shitzvah was in full swing.
Mind you, I wasn’t even to the restroom at this point. I still had a good 15-30 seconds to get to the relative safety of a stall, all the while thinking, “Mother ----- It’s my 12th birthday and I’m straight-up shitting my pants? ----- my life. ----- it in the ass. You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
Once I made it to the restroom, I holed myself up in the singular stall in the men’s bathroom, hoping to mitigate the situation.
I sat there for a good 10 minutes in shock from what had just transpired, unsure of how the hell I was going to get out of this one.
At this point you may be saying “Give it to me straight Doc. How bad was it?”
Well, I will give it to you straight, Bub. It was bad…real bad.
The good news first, though: my left pant leg was largely unscathed and still quite dry.
Now the bad news: my right pant leg was completely soaked through all the way down to the ankle.
Ever the optimist, I thought maybe, with enough toilet paper, I could dab the juices until it was dry enough to go back out in public without it being completely obvious that I had just shat my britches.
I went through about 2/3 of the toilet paper supply before giving up on that strategy and moving to Plan B: let it air dry.
Not that it was a great idea in the first place, but at that point what else was I going to do? But then, a fly appeared in the ointment.
After about 5 minutes of sitting in the stall, alone with some very emasculating thoughts and still dripping wet pants, somebody wandered into the bathroom.
It appeared that they needed to use the stall, as they just started loitering and not doing much else.
In my head I was like “Welp, buddy, sorry but I ain’t going anywhere for awhile. I highly recommend not trying to out-wait me, because that’s a losing proposition for ya.”
It’s not like there was anyway in hell I could actually explain the situation to him, so I just sat there quietly, hoping he would get tired of waiting and go find another, more available–and non-desecrated–restroom.
But, oh my god, this guy. Five minutes of awkward silence–still there. Ten minutes, fifteen minutes–that fuck-face was still there. I mean, couldn’t he smell that things weren’t quite right with me?
Admittedly, time was kinda at a standstill for me, so I don’t know how long the World’s Most Awkward Standoff lasted, but it was at least 30 minutes before he left.
You know, it’s bad enough being on the verge of your teenage years and defecating yourself in public, but can you imagine being trapped in a stall, with someone standing for over half an hour on the other side of the door, the whole time knowing that they have to know that you’ve done crapped your pants?
If there ever was a moment in my life in which I wished I could die, this would have definitely been it.
And where was this guy’s sense of humanity? His actions definitely went against the very spirit of Christmas.
Anyways, even with that poop-sniffing fool finally gone, I still didn’t have an exit strategy.
Eventually, the best I could come up with was mummifying my right leg with as much toilet paper as I could in hopes of at least not having my skin in constant contact with my liquified excrement between then and whenever I finally got home.
So I wrapped up my leg as best as I could with what remained of the t.p., pulled up my pants, tried not to throw up, and strolled out of the stall. I tossed my D.O.A. underwear in the trash and proceeded to wash my hands 5-10 times.
Now, I would have hung out in the warmth of the bathroom longer, but by my best estimate, the Cantata would be ending any minute, and I wanted to be ready to skedaddle the ----- out of there as soon as possible.
However, this was complicated by the fact that I absolutely did not want to interact with any other humans in my current state, so staying inside the church seemed too risky.
…so that left me with no real alternative but to wander out into the freezing cold parking lot without my coat10Like Kirk Cameron, obviously it had been Left Behind in the nave, since this Nostradamus didn’t exactly foresee where the night was going to head. and park my moist butt next to Chaz’s Blazer. And wait.
Again, alone with my thoughts.
God, I was miserable. Cold. Wet. Stinking to high heaven. Depressed.
And on top of that, it turned out my estimation of how much time remained was slightly inaccurate.
Although my mind and soul seemed to freeze while I waited, I was cognizant enough to note the passage of time. It was at least another 45 minutes to an hour of my personal hell before people started to trickle out of the church and into the parking lot.
Of course the nightmare wasn’t quite over, as I feared I would have to explain my little adventure to Mom and Chaz. I knew Mom would be gracious and understanding, so no problem there.
On the other hand, this was like the 2nd or 3rd impression that Chaz would have of me, and even if he was kind about it, BJ the Pants-Pooper would be ingrained in his mind FOREVER.
Fortunately, Mom covered for me, and just told him I had an upset stomach, so we loaded up and headed straight back to our apartment.
I almost cared whether or not I might be leaving watery shit-stains on his seats, but, nah, I was so done with life at that point. It ’twas what it ’twas.
Finally home and after a nice long hot shower, I had more than enough of my fill of the day, so I just went straight to bed and hoped I didn’t further degrade myself by crying myself to sleep.
I had woke up that morning a young man, and now here I was, going to bed a little boy. At last, my Bar Shitzvah was complete.
Happy birthday, me?
The point of the story is, you can say “fuck it–it’s my birthday!” all you want. But make no mistake, boy, you still gonna have to live with the shitty consequences of your poor life decisions.
Appendix A
Figure Triple-X: When you drink and blog, you can’t remember a key component of your childhood, the main area of a church, so you have to Google it.
Content created on: 11/13/14 December 2019 (Wed/Fri/Sat)
Perhaps Indian or Filipino? I’m not really much of racist that sees people in terms of color, so I’m not/was not very good at making such distinctions.
I feel unnecessarily compelled to tell you at this point that I’m trying a new strategy at writing my blog posts more efficiently by concurrently imbibing fine licorice-flavored French liquor. In theory alcohol would make me more focused, but in this case it seems that it just helps me access deeper parts of an already overly-vivid memory.
As one whose thoughts often outpace his mouth, I have experienced my fair share of unintentional spoonerisms.
At some point, though, I realized that spoonerisms weren’t something to be ashamed of, but rather embraced. There is much bemusement to be found therein, and sometimes by intentionally spoonerin’ it up one can result in getting easy credit as a humorous person.
Hell, Yakov Smirnoff made a whole career out of it. If you’re old enough, you may remember his whole line of In Soviet Russia… jokes, featuring such classics as:
In Soviet Russia…cars drive you!
Maybe Yakov smirnoff
or:
In Soviet Russia…TV watches you!
Also Maybe yakov smirnoff
A few interesting side notes here. First, this specific type of literary construct is officially known as a Russian Reversal.1https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_reversal Yes, a bit racist. I know.
Second, technically a spoonerism refers to transposition of the initial sounds of a multi-word phrase, whereas this falls under the broader informal category of transpositional humor–NOT to be confused with the more narrow trope of transpositional puns.2https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transpositional_pun Got it? Super.
And lastly, according to an uncited source on Wikipedia, while Comrade Smirnoff is most commonly associated with Russian Reversals, they long pre-dated him, and in fact, he rarely employed them.3https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_reversal
The point of the story is that if you’re going to blog about a poorly or misconceived notion of yours, maybe you should at least do a Wikipedia/Google-level of research before you manage to live-blog proving yourself to be an ignoramus,4I’ve noticed the phrase ignorant slut used on several occasions recently. Like, is that a thing? And is that a phrase that is certified cancel-culture proof? Asking for a friend… yeah?
Also…the joys of going down the rabbit hole of a Wiki-venture, amiright?
Well, my half-ass mental associations notwithstanding, I’m determined to forge ahead with my praise of transpositional humor in general. I present to you, in no particular order, a handful of spooneristic/In Soviet Russia musings.
One of the best ways we can contribute to society is by passing on our values to our children.5This point is actually quite debatable, given the subjective nature and wide spectrum of “values”, which pretty much statistically ensures that for an given value held, there is a non-zero portion of society who is diametrically opposed to it. My misguided adulation of Yakov is one of the many values that I’ve attempted to pass on to my offspring.
This transference of ideology began at my Elder daughter’s bedtime, for which I am typically responsible. At first it was a bit confusing to a 4-year-old why, whenever she told her Daddy she needed to “say her prayers,” she would be met with the retort:
In Soviet Russia…prayers say you!
A Very responsible and thoughtful father
In fairness to me, this was a step up from “Your mom says her prayers!” Side story: after enduring more than enough of my overplaying the your mom trope, she finally had enough: “You keep saying that. What does that even mean?” Oh, the wisdom of a child…
Anyways, she eventually grasped the general concept…except she didn’t quite nail the execution. For example, she graced me with this little nugget:
In North Carolina…you sleep in your bed!
The elder
I quickly figured out that she was actually doing a double-spoonerism in her head, somehow skipping to the spoonerified version of the phrase as her starting point, and ending up with a phrase in which the two spoonerisms just cancelled each other out.
She was thinking herself funny when, for all practical purposes, she was just stating very obvious things. Bonus points for switching “Soviet Russia” with “North Carolina”, though…
While not an exact analogy, and not quite transpositional in nature, I can relate to the Elder’s error, having done something similar with a familiar pun. An actual transcript from a conversation I had with myself this past year:
Some random external source: “Blah blah blah…Ships, Ahoy! Blah blah blah…”
Me: ” ‘Ships, Ahoy!’ Ha ha. That’s very punny, saying ‘Ships, Ahoy!’ You know, like ‘Chips, Ahoy!’ the well-known name-brand cookie…”
Also me: “It does seem odd though that the maritime/pirating industries would go out of their way to make a baked-good based pun…”
Me, again: “Oh…right. ‘Chips, Ahoy!’ is the pun. Yeah. That makes waaaay more sense.”
Overly objective me: “Good lord, I’m a ----- idiot…”
Normally, I’m a law-abiding citizen, always using crosswalks at the appropriate time and never jay-walking.
However, a few years ago, I really needed to catch my bus that was sitting at a red light, with the bus stop only a 50 yards or so past the intersection. Both of which were on the opposite side of the street from me.
With the bus’s light about to turn green, I knew that it would be impossible for me to catch it if I waited to properly cross in the crosswalk.
So, carefully dodging oncoming traffic in the lanes closest to me, I angled across the street from the corner of the intersection directly towards the bus stop, hoping to cross right behind the bus as it came to a stop, and then hopping on just in time.
As I made my way across the last two lanes of traffic and with the bus almost directly in front of me by now, I took one last look to the right to ensure that no more traffic was coming from that direction.
Seeing that it was all clear I continued along my path-of-least-distance, but as I turned my head back straight ahead–HOLY SHIT, THE BUS IS STILL IN MY PATH AND MOVING FASTER THAN EXPECTED!
Apparently, I had anticipated it to have been out of my path and stopped by time I needed to cross the far lane. Instead, I came within about 4 inches of losing part of my face to the back corner of a moving bus.
I’ve noticed the phrase ignorant slut used on several occasions recently. Like, is that a thing? And is that a phrase that is certified cancel-culture proof? Asking for a friend…
This point is actually quite debatable, given the subjective nature and wide spectrum of “values”, which pretty much statistically ensures that for an given value held, there is a non-zero portion of society who is diametrically opposed to it.
Having been part of a Scholar’s Bowl1Also known as Quiz Bowl, Trivia Bowl, Knowledge Bowl, Clash of the Nerds, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera… dynasty in high school, I have ingested many a nugget of cultural knowledge. However, this knowledge tends to be rather shallow, and while I have plenty of trivial trivia tid-bits permanently half-baked into my consciousness, very few of them are accompanied by enough context to keep me out of trouble.
Case in point: I really wanted to incorporate a literary reference into the title of this article. You know, everyone has their own burdens to bear in this life, and I wanted a title that signaled that I was willing to open up about one of my own in particular.
The first thing that came to mind was a hard-to-find German title called Mein Kampf, which roughly translates to English as My Struggle–ah! Perfect for the occasion!
But then I realized, “What just a tick! I’m starting to remember something else about that book. Oh yeah…that’s right. That’s Hitler’s autobiography.2https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mein_Kampf It was probably just about his childhood, so I think I can use it and still be kosher…”
Fortunately, it didn’t take more than about 20 seconds of Wikipedia research to thoroughly dissuade me of that idea. I mean HOLY SHIT, I’m not sure what I was expecting, but yeah, no…Hitler’s “origin story” is about the furthest one could get from being kosher, and I don’t care to be basing any titular puns on His Dark Materials.3Wait, that’s referring to something entirely different, you say?
I figured that this article had enough concerns of it’s own already going on that it didn’t need any unwanted anti-Semitism thrown into the mix, amiright? And in it’s place you instead get a reference to an obscure Czech novel4https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unbearable_Lightness_of_Being by Milan Kundera, which, by the way, I’m pretty sure I’ve confused with The Importance of Being Ernest…
Most folks cruise through life without really ever having to really give fellatio much of a second thought.
But when your name is Blow Job? Well, you aren’t exactly afforded the luxury of living a life blissfully ignorant of the true meaning of such hedonistic acts.
In fact, I wasn’t even afforded a childhood of innocence.
You see, thanks to having an ample supply of older cousins and siblings, I was about 5 years old the first time when one of them smirkingly referred to me as Blow Job.
However, none of those jackasses decided to tell me what, exactly, a quote-unquote “blow job” was. I mean, I could at least infer that it was something less than flattering, but c’mon, we all know that no amount of standard logic would have ever led me to its true meaning.
So I spent a good two years of my childhood trying to figure out what the hell a blow job was before someone kindly filled me in.
Actually, I’m not sure that it was even a person who enlightened me. My memory wants to say I looked it up on Wikipedia, but we all know that no such thing existed in 1988, and I can’t imagine that I would have found that information in an encyclopedia. Yet, I strongly feel that I had to do my own ----- research to finally get some resolution in the matter. Maybe it was Webster’s Dictionary…?
Well, regardless of how it was that I found out, I remembering being one pissed off 7-year-old when I finally did.
No, it wasn’t because of the lewd and vulgar implications of those seven letters that had me up in arms.
I was incensed that the term made no ----- sense.
“Blow job”–who came up with that grossly inept euphemism anyways? Seriously, how is that even a remotely accurate description?
I mean, maybe the “job” part is dead-on, from what I understand now. Work is work, right? Otherwise, this choice of words really only serves to obfuscate the phrase’s true meaning…
Okay, I’ll get off my anti-blowjob6For the record, I’m very much a pro-fellatio fella–I’m just against that particular term. If that wasn’t patently obvious at this point. soapbox for the time being. You get the idea.
Now I’m pretty sure that it was no later than second grade before I had my eyes opened to this particular side of human nature. How can I be so certain of this timeline?
That’s because second grade was my last year going to school in Rolla before moving to Missouri, and I distinctly remember having a debate with a classmate in the lunch line there. By the time of this age-inappropriate conversation, I recall being well enough aware of oral sex and blow jobs, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
…except the problem was that I was confidently kidsplaining to my friend that, no, no, no, they were not the same thing. Oral sex, you see, is when your uncle calls a 1-900 number and talks dirty to the woman on the other end of the line…100% for sure that’s exactly what oral sex is.
Obviously, I had fallen prey to a common7Well, actually it’s probably uncommon.misconception;8Reproductive Pun #1. the truth is that neither of these acts of intimacy can lead to pregnancy, so it was more than appropriate that oral sex, to me, was inconceivable9Boom! Reproductive Pun #2.…
Exhibit A. “Oral sex.” I kept using that word…
Now all of this begs the question: what kind of cruel and/or perverse parents name their child “B.J.” in the first place? Who is responsible for inflicting such a trauma-filled life on their own youngins?
But one point of telling that story is that it’s not just a matter of who gets the blame for this whole fiasco–equally important is who doesn’t.
And in this case it behooves me to preemptively declare my dearest mother not guilty on all charges; I can’t afford to lose such a large chunk of my readership at this point…
You see, when I was an undergraduate at Kansas State, there was a solid 3 semesters in which I was a Secondary Education major. Yes, I had actually convinced myself that I was destined to be a high school physics teacher. It seems that the only person I’m actually capable of lying to is myself…or maybe I’m the only person gullible enough to believe me when I do lie? Hmmph. Never thought of that second option…
But I digress.
At some point during this self-delusional period of my college career, I decided to try to make a little money on the side by tutoring students in the freshman-level physics classes.
Being the master marketing wizard that I am, I slightly overcompensated for my mediocre understanding of the fundamentals of the topic, and chose a very subtle and nuanced email address to put on the flyers which were to advertise my services.
“Need a physics tutor? I can help! Email B.J. at physicismymiddlename@*******.com!”
Of course I was making an attempt at being mildly witty–I wasn’t taking myself super-seriously in selecting that name.
And apparently no one else was, either. It only took half a session for my first (and last) physics protege to realize $12 an hour was somehow simultaneously way too low, yet way too high of a price tag for my tutelage.
The point here is that when it comes to setting a price for your time or expertise, try to come up with as fair of a number in your mind as you can.
Then triple it.
Don’t feel bad about lying to yourself about how much you’re worth–the dirty truth is that clients want to be lied to.
I would have probably had much more success advertising a rate of $35/hour–an amount that says “I’m in high demand,” which, in the minds of potential tutees, is eagerly conflated with “he must provide a quality service if he’s in such high demand!”
So what I would really have been selling is my confidence. False or not, that is a lie most people are willing to buy.
But, noooo, I chose to sell the patently absurd lie that my parents legally burdened me with Physics as a middle name. Even I’m not that gullible.
A few autumns later, after I cured myself of the notion that I should be a teacher in any professional capacity, I made the move from Kansas to North Carolina to pursue an advanced degree in physics. #HumbleBrag
My bedroom at the new place had the walls painted the awfullest yellow with trim covered in the least complimentary blue possible,1It is possible for blue and yellow to be beautiful together; an excellent example of this is the flag of my ancestral Viking homeland, Sweden. so upon arrival in the new land, the very first order of business was to repaint that atrocious eye sore.
Fortunately, a couple of my Kansas friends had come along to help me move all my large furniture out, so there was three of us to tackle the paint job.
Now, when anyone helps you move or paint, it is customary to provide pizza as a token of gratitude. So once I got my friends up and running with the paint, I ducked out to find a local pizza place to procure some ‘preciation pie.
It being a college town, this was no problem at all, and I soon found myself ordering from a little joint called Amante’s…
Amante’s cashier: “…and can I get a name for that order?”
Me: “Sure! B.J.”
Amante’s cashier: “Uh…major?”
Me: “Physics.”
Amante’s cashier [quizzically]: “Physics?”
Me: “Yup! Physics!”
Amante’s cashier [with confused look on her face]: “Okaaaaaay.”
As I sat down and waited for my order to be ready, I ran the interaction through my mind, trying to figure out why something had seemed a little bit off about it.
I didn’t think it would be too unbelievable that I would be a Physics major, yet the cashier seemed oddly skeptical. Certainly I couldn’t have been the first person to take their back-to-school survey to have claimed that as their area of study.
Was it that I was blonde? Was I being stereotyped?
Was it my Viking-esque lion’s mane? Did my wild hair make me look too brutish to be a member of the intellectual elite?
These were interesting theorems in their own right, but still seemed to inadequately explain what had happened.
A few minutes later an employee came out from the back of the shop carrying a take-out box.
Employee: “Uh…’Physics’? I have a pizza for…Physics…I guess?”
Me: “Why do I have sneaky suspicion that must be mine?”
I opened the box and sure enough it was the pizza I had ordered, yet it had a sticker on it that said “Name: Physics.”
Driving back to my new place, I finally pieced together what the hell had happened.
She wasn’t asking for my major–she was asking if my name was ‘Major’.
My ----- big-ass lips had foiled me yet again: I said “B.J.”, yet she had heard “Major,” and was trying to figure out if she had heard me right. True, Major is not a common name, but at least it is a first name some people actually have.2For example…https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_(given_name)
As if her cognitive dissonance wasn’t great enough, I then reply with a completely different and even less believable name of “Physics.”
That look on her face that I couldn’t quite put my finger on? She was trying to figure out why in the world I was clearly lying to her about my name…and why the ----- I would choose such a ridiculous fake name.
The situation is exponentially absurd when you consider that, according to the throne of lies I sat upon at that point, I was claiming that both my first and middle names were Physics.
Any parent who would name their kid Physics Physics is somehow simultaneously way too creative, yet way too uncreative…
Anyways, when I get back to the house, my friend Andrew took one hard long look at the pizza box.
Andrew: “Who the ----- is Physics?”
Me: “It’s a long story… Maybe we should just go ahead and load all my stuff back up. I think I may have grossly over-estimated my own intelligence…”
The point of the story is Physics may not actually be that bad of a name, considering that my current moniker 1) just seems to generate confusion and delay when combined with the power of my big, juicy, mumbling lips, and 2) is a synonym for fellatio.
Oh, wait, that last one is the point of the next story…
Everybody needs at least one constant truth in their life to keep them sane.
For me, that one truth was that I could always count on olives to be intolerably nasty.
I knew from an early age that olives and I weren’t going to get along.
For example, when I was 9 I had gone out to eat at our local Pizza Hut with my Little League baseball team after a game. Though I thought I had taken adequate precautions and picked all the chunks of olive off of my piece of Supreme pizza, apparently my youthful gluttony kicked in a second too soon as I recklessly jammed it into my eagerly awaiting proverbial pie-hole.
As soon as it touched the tip of my tongue, however, alarm bells were going off in my mouth. Like putting one’s hand on a hot stove, in an effort to protect itself, my body swiftly rejected the bite back into my hand and onto my plate. Sure as shit, there was the tiniest speck of olive hidden deep in the cheese. I vaguely remember muttering some comment to myself about the “damn nasty olive.”
I probably would have never remembered that last detail, except that the next day, my dad ripped me a proverbial new one, going off on me about how rude I had been. I guess somehow word about the non-event had gotten back to him, and for reasons that will forever be beyond me, he thought the appropriate reaction was to chew my ass out over it.
I was not pleased with him at all–I was like “Hey, I’m the victim here! Would it hurt to show a little sympathy for your wounded offspring?”
That may sound a little dramatic, but you have to understand, I had been thoroughly traumatized just from having that sharp, unpleasant sensation in my mouth for a mere 300 milliseconds. And then, to add insult to injury, I was being made out to be the village asshole over the whole ordeal. The olive had managed to screw me over twice in one shot.
So yeah, as far as I was concerned, olives could go pit themselves where the sun don’t shine.
For many a decade this animosity held true.
My dispassion for slimy mushrooms, once thought also to be a constant, gave way to a modest respect for their savory meatiness. Presidents came and went. The length and color(s) of my hair ebbed and flowed.
I even finally figured out how to convince a beautiful, competent, and kind female to hitch her star to my wagon.
Yet amidst this inevitable sea of change, like a solid rock I could plant my feet on, was the fact that olives were an agricultural atrocity–nay, a culinary catastrophe, I dare say.
It was shortly after I got married at the age of 27 that the first crack appeared in this rock.
I got to attend a physics conference in New Orleans, and since it coincided with the Boss Lady’s Spring Break,1No, I wasn’t robbing the cradle–she was getting her second degree in nursing when we met and got married. I got to bring her along for what was approximately a mini second honeymoon. I mean, I did have to give a short talk at the conference, so that was hanging over my head pretty much the whole week that we were there. But hey–we were in New Orleans, there was much to see and–more importantly–much to eat.
First day I was there, I went to a mini-conference related to my particular sub-field, and in all of the complimentary box lunches were muffulettas,2If you’re not familiar with these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muffuletta. the quintessential New Orleans sandwich. The important detail here is that muffulettas must have a thick layer of olive salad, and of course my sandwich was no exception.
I was like, “hell no, mofo!” and promptly scraped all them revolting olives off. I didn’t care if I was being culturally insensitive–this one was on them because I know for a fact that olives are not even close to being universally loved.3Definite proof that I’m not alone in this: https://www.mic.com/articles/107536/if-you-absolutely-despise-olives-there-could-be-a-good-reason-why. What kind of presumptive pricks force feed everyone olives without offering any alternatives?
Anyways, later that same trip, whilst caught up in a romantic/adventurous moment with my lady friend, I…I…I, uh…I tried a muffuletta without taking the olives off.
It must have been the romance of it all, but…I kinda like it. Just a little bit though–just barely beyond “tolerable.”
Figure 1. An approximation of our magical moment with the muffuletta.
Interestingly, once back home, I found myself with an occasional hankering for muffulettas. That casual hankering slowly morphed into a craving, to the point where I even looked into having one shipped in from that particular deli for the Boss Lady’s birthday.
Like a mealtime MacGyver, I found that if I was really desperate I could improvise…with olives. It turns out that *gasp* olives and muffulettas taste awfully alot like each other. Go figure.
I was still in denial for a few more years though. I would reticently admit that, solely in the context of muffulettas, I could enjoy olives as part of the larger experience, but was adamant that I was still a hardcore oleaphobe.
Fittingly, it was on another physics-related business trip when I found myself stuck with two of my much elder professors/collaborators in the Philadelphia airport with an hour to kill before our flight home. Being distinguished and refined fellows, they gravitated towards the airports wine + olive bar, and dragged me along for the ride.
I think deep down, I wasn’t that resistant to the idea, but I had to at least pretend to put up a fight out of principle. You know, “Well, you can make me eat these fancy olives, but I don’t have to like it!”
I liked it.
I casually brought up my history with those “balls from hell”4I just recently picked up that term from here: https://www.mic.com/articles/107536/if-you-absolutely-despise-olives-there-could-be-a-good-reason-why (same as previous reference). with my associates, and I was somewhat surprised when our collaborator, J5Not my brother “J”–it’s actually spelled Jie in this case, but since it’s a Chinese name, we just use “J” since it perfectly conveys the pronunciation. (who I didn’t know as well), was like, “Oh yeah, that pretty accurately describes the trajectory of my relationship with them as well…” He went on to explain in depth about how he, too, once hated the ‘live, but had gradually come to appreciate the intricate nuances that awaited those intrepid enough to explore them.
It was in that moment that I finally found the courage to come to terms with man I had become.
It was official: I genuinely appreciated and enjoyed olives.
And you know what else I genuinely appreciated and enjoyed? The small gesture that J had made to share that sliver of life wisdom with me. While it may seem asinine on the surface, his act of incidental mentorship impacted me far greater than anything we ever did together academically. He opened my eyes to the possibility of a path that leads to discovering refined experiences in something I swore I would hate to my death.
No matter how old you are, it’s never too late to develop a new appreciation for an old nemesis. If I could come to openly love olives, then what else might I find myself enjoying when I revisit other things that I may have written off in the past, or not given a second thought to at all?
Ultimately, what he was showing me was a blueprint for personal growth, with the real gift being a much fuller and richer life ahead of me.
So J, if you ever read this, thank you. To everyone else, I hope that by trying to rub my little mini-spiritual journey off on you, your future life may be just wee bit more of a life fully lived.6I accidentally mistyped this as “foully lived”…and I was really tempted to not correct myself, because admit it, that version is waaaay better.
And the real point of the story is, if I could go back to the moment when I was slightly intoxicated on wine, olive brine, and life itself, I would turn to J and drunkly proclaim in my most obnoxious bro-voice…
“No, olive you, man.”
Now that you know how the story ends, I figure you might be interested in an origin story. They seem to be all the rage these days, no?
Earlier I chose to share an olive-related anecdote from when I was 9, but really my hate-hate relationship with olives goes back much further.
The first Thanksgiving7“Aha! So this is supposed to be a Thanksgiving-themed post, then?” you may be correctly asking yourself. that I can remember clearly, I remember for all the wrong reasons.
Although I was only 3 at the time, my dislike for olives had already been well-established in my mind. Like I said, it was a life-truth, something you just seemingly have known forever.
As with almost every Kansas Thanksgiving in my life, I was at my aunt’s house with pretty much every family member on my mom’s side. Specifically, this included my many siblings and cousins.
Since I was the next to youngest cousin at the time, it goes without saying that I was hanging out with a small gang of ones older than me. Oh, and speaking of constants, a constant at all of these late November family feasts would be a relish tray that would prominently feature black olives.
So, us kids being kids, the other members of my party started putting olives on each of their fingers, and would pretend to be some weird food version of Freddy Kruger. It looked like a blast, so naturally, I joined right in.
I was having fun playing with the food along with everyone else, when gradually they started eating the olives off their fingers. Of course, there was no way in hell that I was going to eat the ones on mine, so I went to go throw them away and be on my merry way.
However, before I could dispose of them, I was intercepted by either my grandma…or maybe it was an aunt? Surprisingly, I can’t remember exactly who to blame for scarring me for life.
Whoever it was, though, they were a real Food Fascist about it, insisting that I eat every single one of them, knowing full well how much I hated them.
I cried, I begged, I pled for mercy.
No dice. They stood firm in their position, and would not let me leave until I ate them all.
This Mediterranean Standoff went on for a good 15-20 minutes, which is, like, forever, in 3-year-old time.
Now, I’m not one given to using potty words, but this seriously ----- with my head.
I mean, they were being pure evil dickheads about it. For god’s sake, I was three.
I didn’t realize that by sticking my finger in their pit-holes, I was effectively committing myself to consummating my relationship with the olives via consumption. I was just having a little fun with my cousins. Why was this adult all up in my shit, yo?
As for my clean-fingered cousins, they all bailed on me, so I was left with no one to defend me, nary a soul to champion my cause. They had lured me into the situation, and then were like, “Well, it sounds like you got a real you problem, now don’t you? See ya!”
In the end all the crying in the world didn’t get me anywhere. I vaguely remember gagging them down one by one, and even though I have a much evolved appreciation for them now, as I recollect this experience in writing this, it still makes me vomit a wee bit in my mouth. And though I describe the memory as “vague” I think that is only because I’ve seriously tried to block out this core traumatic even from my childhood.
If you can’t tell by the way I write about it, this has stuck with me my whole life, and not in a positive way. Let’s just say I’m not a big fan of arbitrary enforcement of arbitrary rules. Fairness is important to me, and this is one of the experiences that helped shape that into a more severe version than what might be considered healthy.
Figure 2: How I felt about olives for the first ~29 years of my life.
Case in point: one of the couple of the Thanksgivings I was in grad school but before I got married, I was spending it at my brother’s house with his family. My nephew, who was 3 or 4 at the time, tried pulling the same shit with the olives on the fingers just as I had at that age.
Now, it is a natural part of the human psyche for the abused to often become the abuser, and I there I found myself, attempting to perpetuate the vicious cycle of olive-eating enforcement. If I had to suffer that dumbass rule, then why should he get out of it, huh? Where’s the fairness in that?
It may surprise you, but when my sister came along, she did not back me up at all on that point–nor did my brother who eventually joined us. We had a good 5-minute argument about it, but in the end, those olives went to waste.
Truth be told, I was actually relieved that I was unsuccessful. I really don’t wish my early olive experience on anyone, and I would hate to have been the one to scar my nephew for NO ----- REASON.
So…this Thanksgiving, give thanks that you’re not a grown man who probably really should see a therapist concerning what, in this doctor’s humble opinion, appears to be…some sort of weird Stockholm Syndrome?
To quote a favorite band of mine:
Boy, you just don’t know how lucky you are.
Electric Six, Infected girls
Content created on: 23/24 November 2019 (Sat/Sun).
Not my brother “J”–it’s actually spelled Jie in this case, but since it’s a Chinese name, we just use “J” since it perfectly conveys the pronunciation.
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).
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