The Point of the Story

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Category: General Cerebral Leakage (Page 6 of 25)

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!

You Gotta Fight For Your Right To Efficient, Affordable Lighting

2 July 2023 / / 0 Comments
7 Min Read

Gather around kids, dim the lights down low.

Let me tell you all about how a trip to the local hardware store nearly came to blows…

“Welp, I about got into a fist-fight with a couple of Lowe’s employees today…”

This, unfortunately, would not be the last time I would find myself uttering such words to My Beautiful Bride upon coming home from a long day of remodeling the new place we recently bought for our parents out in the countryside.

Sure, I knew that 5 unexpectedly long months of fixing up “The Farmstead”1A portmanteau of “The Farm” and “Homestead”, “The Farmstead” is what we’re currently calling the place out of the collective laziness that we have been unable to overcome in giving the new property a proper, cute/fun name. wouldn’t be straight-forward, but one could at least hope that the process would be as boring and peaceful as an episode of This Old House. Ah, only a naive youth could dream such dreams.

Meanwhile, here in the real world–or at least the shenanigan-filled sh*t-storm that seems to follow me around like a cloud that we around here simply refer to as ‘my life’–any random supply run to the local hardware store could turn into an episode of The Jerry Springer Show without even a moment’s notice.

“What in the world could make you wanna knock someone’s lights out?” you may be asking your phone or tablet screen right now, hoping somehow that I will hear your thoughts across the aether of the interwebs.

Well, I will tell you, Dear Reader, what could cause such chaos in my world: a six-pack–of LED wafer lights, that is…

“Here, here is your daily diverse assortment of home-improvement supplies,” the woman running the Lowe’s online pick-up desk said as she handed me a box of doo-dads and other what-nots.

I didn’t think much about it at the time, but a small part of my brain picked up on the fact that they had just thrown everything into a medium-sized random boxed, instead of the regular plastic bags. This fateful fact would come into play later.

“Thanks. But first, I don’t need a particular item, so I can just return it now?” I said, setting the box back down at the register.

“Sure, thang, Sweetheart,” my clerk said with pretty strong grandmother vibes.

After a moment of sifting through the box, she found the item and worked her magic to credit the $25 back to my card of payment.

“Okay, see you!” I said as I picked up my awkward-to-carry box of crap and headed off into the store to meet Popo,2That’s my daughters’ name for their grandfather. I normally wouldn’t go around calling another grown-ass man ‘Popo’ if not for such mitigating factors. my father-in-law and occasional remodeling accomplice. You see, I had a whole list of items I had forgot to include in my online order, and was definitely going to need him at check-out so we could get his sweet, sweeeet 10% military discount.

“You wanna put that box in the cart?” Popo said when he first saw me.

“Heck no!” I replied without missing a beat. “This is my box of precious goods! I don’t want them to think I haven’t already paid for these. I’ll keep cumbersomely carrying it around, thank you very much…”

“Hmmm…that’s odd, I don’t think I remember seeing the lighrts anywhere…better check my Mary Poppins Box…”

It was almost the end of another hard day of handy-manning it up when I realized that I needed to have the lights ready to go for when the electrician showed up the next morning. I had been so busy with plumbing and carpentry, that it had totally fallen off my radar.

Well, now the problem was that the lights I ordered were particular awesome because they were so thin–hence, the moniker ‘wafer lights’. This was great when it came to installing them just about anywhere in the ceiling, regardless of joists and whatever other items overhead that would otherwise interfere with your traditional ‘can lights’. The issue here was that since they were smaller than average, I had no idea how large or how small a 6-pack of those bad boys might be.

I carefully went through the items in The Box, and it became clear that there was no way that my lights could have ever been buried in there without me knowing. It looked like that my friendly Lowe’s clerk had accidentally forgotten to give me that one tiny item.

“No prob, Bob!” I thought to myself as I headed home with intentions to pop in at Lowe’s along the way, “I’m sure they have my lost package loafing about the front desk somewhere, and they will easily take care of a repeat customer such as myself!”

Famous last words if I ever heard them…

“No. No, I don’t understand. I paid for an item, and I never got it. Of course I want my ----- item!”

Usually proud of my ability to keep my cool with strangers, I was getting even more aggravated by how aggravating Lowe’s customer disservice was being in this moment.

I mean, I swear, the nerve of the clerk–a different one than from earlier–she actually had the gall to say to my face “We have no way to prove that you don’t actually have it. So there’s nothing we could do about it. I’m sure you understand.”

She had already checked the section where they keep online orders until they’re picked up, and to my surprise she had found no trace of it back there. But now she was saying there was nothing she could do since–and I repeat, this completely true–“I could just be claiming I didn’t get it when I really did.”

They had messed up, and instead of trying to make it right, they decide to go with an argument that is virtually impossible for me to disprove.

So I explained to her again that I had only received the one box from them, and clearly remember walking around with the singular box and that there was no way I could have actually had the LED lights and perhaps set them down somewhere in the store without realizing it. They. Were. Simply. Never. In. My. Possession.

In response, she busted out the checklist from order, that had been manually ticked off as the ‘puller’ (as they call them) pulled each item off the store floor/shelf and into the cart.

“See, it’s checked off right here. So that shows that you got the lights.”

“What?!? That doesn’t prove y’all actually handed them over to me.”

“Yes, you signed off on it, so…”

“I DIDN’T SIGN ANYWHERE. Jeez.” At this point I had never been so publicly agitated (at least since The Miracle Whip Incident). “You know dang well that not a single one of your customers goes through their order item-by-item before leaving. It’s a little thing called ‘I trust that your didn’t ----- up my order’. You’re welcome.”

“I’m not sure what you want me to do,” she said, a bit too smugly.

That was a pretty stupid question. But you know what was a much more valid question? This (with all apologies to my dear mother):

Instead of posing this question aloud, I sighed heavily and asked a much more polite question:

“Can I talk to your manager?”

“Okay, whatever. I don’t think he’s going to tell you anything different though…”

I was inching closer to answering the Wayne Brady Question, I tell you what.

“Just get him or her, please.”

“Sure.” She leaned back and hollered into a little room off to the side. “PAUL! Paaaaaul! This customer wants to talk to you.”

Paul? I don’t think I had interacted with him yet, which is a bit of a statistical surprise, given how many times I had frequented this particular Lowe’s. I had no doubt though that he would be able to take care of me, just like managers and assistant managers had in the past, no matter how convoluted of a problem I presented them.

“I’m the assistant manager here and, uh, yeah, we don’t have any way to help you, since as far as we can tell, you have the item.”

You have got to be ----- kidding me.

“Seriously? I don’t get an item I paid for, and I’m supposed just take this act of retail sodomy with a smile?”

“Well, let’s see here…what item was it again?” he asked as peered of the aforementioned checklist.

“It was the 6-pack of LED lights.”

“Hmmm…oh, wow, that’s a $150 item. There’s no way I can give you a new one. Surely you understand.”

I clenched my fist as tightly as I could, reminding myself that my daughters’ didn’t need the trauma of visiting their father in prison.

“NO. Surely you understand that I want my ----- item all the more since I paid $150 for it. How hard can this be? Do they not train you numb-skulls for situations like this? Surely this isn’t the first time this has happened.”

It was at that point that Paul and the clerk commenced a Mexican standoff with me for a good 3 minutes, where we just stared at each other blankly while a line began to form behind me. (After all, I had been dealing with their bullcrap for a good 10-15 minutes at this point.)

“FINE.” Paul finally said rolling his eyes. “Just go get him a new one,” he instructed the clerk.

“What? Really? I’m supposed to just give it to him after all that?”

“I guess the customer is always right,” Paul said, rolling his eyes even hard this time.

But of course, the way he said it…well, let’s just say he really knew how to put the ‘ass’ in ‘assistant manager’. Even in conceding the battle to me, he was still just askin’ for a whoopin’.

“Actually…” a third employee appeared out of nowhere and chimed in. “You can’t just pull an item out of stock. You’ll have to refund him, and he’ll have to go back and get it himself and purchase it again.”

“Jeez, you guys really are a bunch of a-holes, aren’t you? You’re going to make me do all the foot work after all that, eh?” I was shaking my dang head in disbelief over how absurd this all was. “But it all works out the same in the end, right? I’m getting what I paid for?”

“Yes, indeed,” confirmed the Know-It-All employee.

“Fine, whatevs,” I said as I headed off to the lighting section.

When I had finally hauled the big honkin’ box of lights back to the register, a completely new clerk greeted me.

“Oh, fudge…how am I going to get the military discount without my father-in-law? That’s $15 that I’m not going to let go without a stink, especially after being put on trial by your colleagues.”

“No problem! Do you know his phone number? That’s all I need and I’ll get you taken care of lickety-split…”

And just like that, she disproved the theory that only ass-hats were working the evening shift at Lowe’s that day.

She was actually…helpful? *Gasp* Friendly? *Whaaaat?!?* Solved the customer’s problem with a smile? *No way, Jose!*

Whew! Praise the Jesus. There would be no fist-fights in Lowe’s that day. At least none that would involve me…

The point of the story is “Jesus is always the answer.” Or sometimes violence. Jesus and/or violence. Both answers are generally acceptable.

…

…

…

*stifles laugh*

Just kidding. We all know that it’s the threat of Jesus and/or violence that usually gets the job done. After all, you read the last post before I went on vacation, right?

Right…

Content created on: 30 June / 1 July 2023 (Fri/Sat)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Really, What Would Jesus Do…With All That Insanely Affordable Lube?

4 June 2023 / / 1 Comment
4 Min Read

When religious ministry and wordplay collide, ya better butter up, BuckleCup.

Slipe ‘n slide and glide, it’s gonna be one heaven of a ride…

“Uh…wow…that’s a lot of Crisco. You boys plan on frying up enough fried chicken to feed an army?”

The cashier at the local Manhattan1Manhattan, KS–“The Little Apple”, that is. Food 4 Less gave me and my buddy Chong a suspicious sideways glance.

“Our campus group–the Kansas State Navigators–is having a barn party to celebrate the end of the school year, and somehow we got put in charge,” I replied.

Diversion: a classic tactic when you’d rather not answer somebody’s question.

“The Navigators, eh? What is that? Like a sailing club or something?” the clerk asked curiously.

“No. We a Christian group,” Chong2Hailing from Vietnam, Chong’s assumed the name ‘Justin’ when he emigrated to the U.S. as a child. Upon arriving at college, our half-Korean friend, James, decided to call him Chong instead. Asian on Asian hate crime is real, my friend. replied curtly in his lightly broken English. “Would you like to hear about The Jesus?”

The threat of proselytization: another classic tactic to get people to mind their own ----- business.

“Uh, no need for that, my good man,” the clerk stammered. “Your total for the 6 tubs of Crisco is $23.34.”

“Here’s $25 in Holy Christ Cash. You can keep the change, you Pagan sinner,” I said with a generous, yet passive-aggressive, tone.

Hurling insults and throwing money at the problem: two more tried-and-true methods for making snoopy strangers forget about your suspicious behavior.

“Okay, see you!” Chong shouted over his shoulder as we high-tailed it out the Food4Less door.

“You think that chump ever figured out we didn’t have any chicken in our carts?” I pondered aloud in Chong’s general direction.

“Nah, we good…”

“Come one, come all! If you just walked in, then welcome to the Navs’ First Annual Hawaiian County Fair! The surprise activity is about to start in a few minutes, but in the meantime why not try the Bobbing For Pineapples booth?” the M.C. shouted at random students as they wandered into the barn we had rented.

They seriously shouldn’t have put a certain somebody anywhere near the planning committee for this shindig. I’m not going to name any names, but take one guess which clever mf came up with ‘Hawaiian County Fair’ for a theme in the first place? I mean, bobbing for pineapples?!? What was this dude/dudette even thinking, amiright?

No doubt similar thoughts were going through the minds of many of these hapless Jesus-seeking students–especially when they were directed to the field across the way for the ‘surprise activity’ that the M.C. had been relentlessly teasing.

“Ladies and Gentlemen–er, I mean just ‘Gentlemen’, for religious reasons that will soon become clear–the moment you’ve been waiting for! The highlight of your entire academic career, the apex of every memory your will ever have, the zenith of–“

“Enough with the hyperbole–just get to the point!” a heckler shouted from the crowd at the overly verbose M.C.

“Gentlemen–and Lady observers–no county fair would be complete without a little competitive chasing and capturing of a well-lubed animal–“

“We’re Christians–we can’t even say the word ‘lube’ outside of marriage or an auto shop, much less use it!” shouted out yet another heckler.

The M.C. was about to lose his sh*t with this crowd.

“Okay, Chad,3GlutenFreeDad, this joke is for you. You know who I’m talking about. how about ‘well-oiled’? Would Jesus approve of that?”

“Sure.”

“Alright, now that we have that cleared up, may I present to you–*ahem* drumroll please–“

Chong and I peeked out from behind the adjacent out-building.

“Alright, it go time!” Chong stated with utmost determination.4Spoiler alert: This is a 100% verified memory: We gave each a big ol’ nasty hug before heading out the field. It was supposed to get us amped up for what was to come. But with double the dosage (see below), it was pretty darn inducing of the ickies.

The M.C. paused for another beat to let the tension build.

…

…

…

…

“…the Greased-Surfer Chase!!!“

Right on cue, the two of us ran out wearing nothing but board shorts and approximately 18 lbs. of Crisco each.

“Aloha, Gentlemen, come and catch yourselves a slippery surf-dude–if you can!” I taunted.

What ensued, Dear Reader, I assure you was as delightfully disgusting and surprisingly difficult as you might imagine. I’m proud to say, though, that it took about 4-5 of ’em to take me down for good.

Of course, I ain’t got nothing on Chong: at barely 5′ 3″, it took a full 8 grown-ass men to pin him down for good…

The point of the story is: cleverness is empty without commitment.5Hey, you know what? That really does sound like some of the pithy, stupid things we would say in Navs, doesn’t it? *eye-roll* Sure you may have some witty idea, some fantastic play on words–but it means nothing if you’re not willing to sacrifice your body (and to a lesser degree, your dignity) to make sure it actually happens. After all, isn’t that What Jesus Would Do?

Hmmm, now that I think about it…almost naked…all-male…well-lubed…we were basically engaging in some good ol’ Greek wrestling. I guess that’s pretty appropriate–it’s June, after all. To all my old Navigator friends (and everybody else): Happy Pride Month!

Now, hopefully this particular month will go a little smoother than last year…

Content created on: 2/3 June 2023 (Fri/Sat)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Hello, 911? It’s Urgent! An Unauthorized Intruder Is Terrorizing Mother!

28 May 2023 / / 0 Comments
6 Min Read

When an unknown pervert starts lurking about, you know it’s time to whip it out.

Uh, whip out your cell phone, just to be clear…

“Someone is here,” is all her ominous text message read.

My mother had only the day before moved out to our country plot o’ land, and was celebrating by having a picnic with our 5-year-old daughter, The Younger. I had honestly expected to see some cute picture of The Younger frolicking in the meadow or the pasture when my phone buzzed in the middle of the workday.

But instead of being overwhelmed with cuteness when I looked at my phone, I was slightly awash with dread instead. I had just spend my entire day the day before lauding the praises of secluded country living, including confidently reassuring mother dearest that it would be plain crazy for anyone to go through the effort of creeping around out there.

“Hold on for just one moment,” I turned to my co-worker who had been expecting me to help her run scientific experiments on live mice all day. “I have situation I need to attend to.”

“What do you mean ‘someone is here’?” I said the instant Mom picked up her phone–cause this was not time for fiddle-farting with texting. “Is it a delivery truck? Though I’m not expecting on more delivery trucks any time soon…”

“Well, the two of us were just sitting on the porch and enjoying lunch, when a car came down our driveway, and then disappeared down the road beside the garage,” Mother informed me.

“Wait, what?!?”

It’s hard to explain it without a picture or a diagram, but that was totally unexpected. It would be like seeing somebody walk past you in the hall and then go through a door that wasn’t there. To the untrained eye, our driveway ends after you pass the main house and then dead-ends into our detached garage. But if you look closely, there’s almost a secret path that you can veer off onto, and it’ll take you to down by The Holler.

“What’s down in The Holler?” you, Dear Reader, might be asking.

Well, I’ll tell you what’s down in The Holler: Nothing. Well, except maybe some Possum Juice–the jug of used cooking oil the former owner of this place used to leave out as food for the local possums. There also used to be a water-logged sailboat parked down there, but that’s neither here nor there, but less so ‘here’ because I gave it to our electrician the instant he offered to haul it off.

So a rando car just rolling onto our private property and on down there was quite bizarre–an incident we had a hard time coming up with a plausible explanation for. In fact, my first thought was, “Oh, yeah, that was definitely a ghost stuck in a timeloop.”

“So…it was a ghost car?” I asked Mom. “Just great. The place haunted.”

“No, it was real. At first I thought it had just been my imagination…except your daughter saw it, too. And I now I can see it parked back in the trees, camouflaged amongst the foliage.”

“What can you tell me about the car or the person?”

“Well, it was a green car, kinda like a Jeep. And when they got out of the vehicle, it was a white guy with brown hair, kinda pudgy, and wearing a blue shirt with orange sleeves.”

“Orange sleeves?!? The heck? So was it like a uniform?”

“No, not a uniform, short sleeves.”

“Well, that is weird.”

The picture she had just painted in my mind involved a Zach Galafankis-looking guy wearing a head band and a tube top for some reason. I definitely had to get to the bottom of why some weirdo perv was creeping all up ons my mom and baby girl.

Of course this all had to happen the one day I went into work, which put me a good 45 minutes away from the action, otherwise I would swoop in to the resolve the situation like any good lord of the manor would.

“I would just have you go find the guy and aski him what the hell he’s doing on our property, but you got the kiddo with you, and we can’t afford anything happening to you and leaving her to fend for herself.”

“Yeah, that’s not happening…”

“You’re right, it’s not. I think we have no choice but call the police. You wanna do it, or you do want me to?”

“I’m going to get your daughter in the car, and go stake out down the road. Meanwhile, you call the Sheriff and have them send someone out…”

“Nine-one-one, what’s the address of your emergency?” the dispatcher dutifully asked me.

“Uh, it’s [redacted for our privacy–jeez, we don’t want every Tom, Dick, & Harry on the internet knocking on our the door of our secluded Oasis of Peace (TM)]. It’s where my mother is, all alone with her elderly self; I’m at work.”

“Sir, that address is in [redacted]. We don’t have the number for that county.”

“Uh, so what are you saying?” I couldn’t believe that we were wasting precious seconds with this nonsense.

“You’ll have to dial 411 and they can transfer you over, good bye.”

And just like that 911 hung up on me.

I begrudgingly dialed 411, but not without cussing and mumbling under my breath about how they were dang lucky this wasn’t a super-emergency, one where 20 seconds could easily be the difference between life or death.

And good thing, too–apparently, just yelling ‘EMERGENCY’ at the automated operator doesn’t do much good, and it ended up taking me a couple tries to figure out that I needed to specifically ask for my county’s Sheriff’s department to get where I wanted to go.

*Approximately 3 minutes later…*

“[redacted] County Sheriff’s Department, what’s your emergency?”

“Help! My mom is alone out on secluded farm with our daughter, and there is an intruder on our property!”

“Okay, sir, just calm down. We can send someone out to check things out. I’ll need to call your mom and talk to her. What’s her number?”

“Oh good, she can give you a detailed description of the creep. Her number is [redacted].”

I hung up and anxiously awaited to receive any updates. It was a good 5 minutes before I checked back in, only to find out that Mom had been off the phone with the Po-po for a couple of minutes (which felt like eternity, given the situation).

“Yeah, they’re sending someone out straightaway. Meanwhile, I’m sitting here in my hiding spot, where I’ll be able to see the guy whenever he leaves–he has no other way out!”

“Good thinking, Ma! What a heckuva first day of living in your new place, eh?”

“Oh wait! I see him! But he’s turning the other way. He’s headed up to the neighbors’ place up on the hill. I have his license plate now, though!”

“What in the world is that turkey up to? Anyways, we better call the police back, since we have his license now.”

At that point, I 3-way called into cops, as I wasn’t about to get off the phone with my beloved maternal figure. As we were relaying the license plate number, the dispatcher assured us that a deputy was in the area and would be there soon.

“Jeez, ‘in the area’?!? We could have a potential rapist and molester on our hands, and you’re sending someone over only because it’s convenient. Maybe you are the real monsters here…” I of course said this only in my head.

“Oh wait!” Mom all of a sudden interjected. “He’s coming out–I repeat, he’s coming out now.”

“Follow that car!” I barked through the phone.

“Sir, I don’t think that’s a good–” the dispatcher didn’t get to finish her admonishly sentence before Mom piped up again.

“And I see the deputy coming from the other way. Oh, thank heavens, not a moment too soon!”

Even on the other end of the phone, we could hear a vehicle passing, followed by unexpected silence from Mom.

“Mom, you still there?”

“Yeah, it’s just…it’s just that I would make a terrible witness in a court of law.”

“Whatchyou talking about, Willis?” I asked.

“Well, the car was tan, not green, for one…”

“Okay, no big deal.”

“And you were right he was wearing a uniform: blue sleeves and an orange vest…”

“Okay, that’s encouraging. Unless that is a prison uniform.”

“And it’s a Black guy. Totally could have sworn he was white…”

“Yes, that’s right ma’am. He was a surveyor, not ‘Sir Voyeur’. He was legit, had a name tag and equipment in the back and everything.”

I could hear the deputy fill Mom in on the details of his conversation with the potential perp before he let him drive off into the day.

“Did you catch all that?” she asked me after she had wrapped up the conversation.

“I did indeed. Well, that’s a relief. I bet that was related to our [neighbor’s name redacted]’s efforts to make all these wooded acres out here part of a nature conservancy. I’ll let her know that if they’re going to poke around on private property, that they better notify the owner first. In these parts, that’s a good way to find oneself staring down a shotgun barrel!”

A day or so later, this particular neighbor informed me that they guy was probably not a land surveyor, and that there was a good chance he was surveying the land for any potential endangered wildlife living in the area.

…and it was in that moment I knew it was official.

I mean, think about it, dude:

I had called 911…

…on a Black guy…

…who was just bird-watching.

…

…

…

Don’t you get it? It’s me–little ol’ woke me–I’m the neighborhood Karen.

*Facepalm*.

But wait! Let the record show that I had thought I was calling 911 on a white guy.

Heck, I didn’t even technically call 911 on him–remember, I had to dial 411 just to get to the right person in order to tattle on his wandering ‘white’ ass.

Unlike my poor startled mother, you had better get these details right if the Woke Police come around asking about me…

Content created on: 28 May 2023 (Sunday)

Wanted: One Sweet Surfboard. Will Pay Top Dollar (Or Less).

21 May 2023 / / 0 Comments
8 Min Read

Trying to unload that unused surfboard? Why not try out Craigslist?

You’re sure to get an offer that’ll make you mutter ‘Good Lord’…

“Moving halfway across the Pacific Ocean is pretty expensive–especially when neither of us have jobs waiting for us…”

True, My Beautiful Bride’s logic was airtight–nevertheless I resisted.1#ElizabethWarrenHumor

“Yeah…but, I have so many memories with that board,” I said with the tiniest tear forming in my eye.

Sure, I was sad that we had to leave Hawai’i after living there for a way-too-short two years, but why was I inexplicably waxing sentimental about a surfboard?!? Especially this surfboard?

“Seriously? Did you even catch a single wave on that board?” was her cold response.

“No, I suppose not. But the one time I did take it was when I paddled up the shore so far I ended up in the private surf spot of the short dude from Hawaii 5-0. Um…you know, real big celebrity…what’s his name again? Oh! Scott Caan, son of legendary actor, James Caan. Yeah, it was just me and him and our trusty boards…”

“Didn’t you say that you were pretty sure you were giving him stalker vibes?”

“That’s true. Okay, so maybe it was just a memory with the ol’ NSP, and perhaps not the greatest one,” I conceded.

“And wasn’t the only other experience you had with that board was when you bought it off Craigslist, and you totally got duped into thinking it was much longer?”

“Oh, right. That. Well, at least I learned the very valuable lesson that I probably shouldn’t be blindly trusted with scientific endeavors…or anything else that requires accurate measurements.”

“Sooooo…”

After a brief awkward pause between me and my wife, I had to confess my confusion.

“So, what?”

“So basically this 7’10” board is emotional dead-weight, then?”

Oh, I wasn’t about to give up and let go of such a hard-earned possession just yet.

“No, no, no. I didn’t say that. You don’t understand: this board is so much more than just a useless piece of recreational equipment; nay, this board is an allegory. It’s a physical manifestation of my eternal optimism. I may be a big fella today, but one day…”

My words trailed off as I dramatically gazed off into the distance, lost in the view of the Pacific Ocean from our window.

“*Ahem*–one day I will be light and lithe enough to not need my 11-foot board to catch waves and I’ll be hanging ten on that little guy instead,” I finished my thought, as I continued to gaze out over the endless blue expanse…

“Hey…Hey. Hey! Snap out of it! We could use the extra cash to help cover our move back to the Mainland. Now I need you to put the ----- thing on Craigslist and try to get back as much of the $350 your dumbass spent on it in the first place.”

*Sigh*. “Okay, but first: just one last ride…”

“Dear, we don’t have the luxury of waiting around for you to figure out how to catch a wave on that thing.”

“Well, dangit, I’ve had this for almost 2 years, and I’m not letting it go to complete waste. One of us is going to ride this before it’s going on Craigslist!”

At that point, the conversation seemed to kind of fizzle out, so I headed out the door for work, not giving it much more thought for the rest of the day.

However, when I got home that evening, what’s the first thing I see when I logged on to FaceBook?

I see My Beautiful Bride’s post of the only one of us that is actually the right size for that board:

Well, that’s what I get for not being more specific. Welp, Craigslist, here I come…

“For Sale: One NSP surfboard. Size: definitely not 10 and half foot. Asking price: $450.”

I turned to My Beautiful Bride who had been listening to me compose the Craigslist ad aloud. “Sound good to you?”

“You’re seriously going to ask $450 for it?”

“Hey, baby proverbially needs new shoes, right? You gotta start high cuz you know the Peoples of Craigslist alway, always be low-ballin’ and trying to talk you way down. It’s just the way of this world.”

“Whatever you say.”

“Dang skippy ‘whatever I say.’ Now, let’s see what type of sweet deal I can rustle up…”

It didn’t take long for the texts to come in:

(A brief interrupting note from the Author: Before I continue, I just want to point out a couple of things. First, I’ve been holding onto this text thread for almost 10 years now, and is in fact the second oldest text thread surviving in my iMessages. There’s just something about it that keeps me from, deleting it like I should. Second, I’ve kept them for historically accuracy, but I just noticed that iMessages screwed me over by displaying the time/date for my current time zone, EDT. This particular message chain started at 5:24 pm, Hawaiian Standard Time. In case you were wondering…)

Okay, just a normal Craigslist interaction so far. Gotta let the prospective buyer see the goods–and what better place than a poorly lit parking lot near a gas station after dark? The conversation continued:

Just some basic exchanging of identifying info, in order to avoid either of us having to awkwardly ask everybody minding their own business, filling up their vehicles, “You the dude from Craigslist? With the surfboard?”

Well, I roll up in my Pathfinder at the prescribed time to find a truly local dude awaiting me. At first I thought he was cool, but then dude started negging my board. If you don’t know what ‘negging’ is, it’s a tactic sleazy, skeezy, below-average looking guys use to try to pick up chicas way out of their league, and involves making side-handed and back-handed ‘compliments’ that are actually insults and are meant to lower the woman’s self-esteem enough to want to sleep with a choad 5 rings below her on the social ladder.

And homeboy here, was trying that on my surfboard. Of course he was trying to make me think that my board wasn’t worth anything so he could buy it for practically nothing–but I was having none of his nonsense.

“Haha, you’re so funny, Tyler! Only offering $175 for my $450 board, now that’s a real joke. Nah, man, look: I got made a fool when I bought this thing, but I sure the heck ain’t gonna be made a fool selling it. So take you’re little piece of poo Mazda truck and go back from whence you came.”

Disappointed he wasn’t able to take the board off my hands for next to nada, my dude got back in his tiny pickup and whizzed off into the night, never to been seen or heard from again…

“Tyler??? Why the heck is that rando from Craigslist texting me? Unless, perhaps, he has come to his senses and will offer $350 for my board? Yes. Sure that must be it…”

*Checks text*2Again, the time stamp is incorrect. The text was actually sent at 8:19 pm local time…meaning he must have sent it within 5-10 minutes after he left me, lol.

Welp. That definitely was not an offer for $350. But…was it perhaps even more valuable? Not that I’m the type of guy that: A) Goes clubbing; nor B) Has friends that go clubbing; nor C) Has friend; nor D) Had 3 different nights free to go clubbing, what with a new baby and preparing to move 5000 miles in 3 weeks, but…

“Intriguing offer, My Dude…but I’ll have to check out this ‘Club 939’ you speak of tomorrow at work…”

*The next day at work:*

“Hey Boss-man Andy, you ever heard of Club 939? I’m trying to sell the ‘board that enters the wave at 10-1/2 feet’, and some dude is trying to ply me with a VIP booth at this place.” My boss was born and raised in Honolulu, so surely he would know all the hottest spots in town, right?

“Nah, I don’t think I’ve heard of that bar. Let’s scope it out online…maybe we could get together there with the fellas in the lab on one of your last nights here in Hawaii. Gotta give you a proper send-off, after all.”

“Good thinking. Now let me just Google it…”

*Moments later, on my computer screen. At work. With my boss eagerly looking over my shoulder. This:*

…

…

…

…

“Ohhhhhhh, riiiiiiight. That kind of club,” I realized aloud.

“Dude, you definitely got to take him up on that offer!”

“Andy, I know you’re a cool boss, and all–I mean, I must be the only guy in the world to get in trouble for going into work too early when the surf was up–but I think I’m going to hold off and sell it for $300 to a middle-aged father looking for the perfect-sized board to teach his 9 and 12 year old daughters to surf on.”

“Well, you’re no fun…and that’s a very specific demographic you’re expecting to respond to your Craigslist ad…”3That’s called using retrospective foreshadowing to sneak in a boring story resolution without needlessly boring, you, Dear Reader.

The point of the story is there are no real gentlemen at a Gentlemen’s Club. I mean–true story– I was a squeaky-clean family man long before I had a wife and kid, and even more so once they came along. And a true gentlemen like myself ain’t gonna pull no Perverted Jack and the Beanstalk move at a time when they need me most.

You know: just like Jack’s mom trusted him to sell their last cow so they could eat and that bunghole came back with a handful of beans, I ain’t gonna be that guy whose wife trusted him to go out and sell his surfboard so he could feed my family, but instead finally comes back at 2 am saying, “Hear me out…I didn’t get much cash. I got something WAAAAY better…”

…

…

Anyways…I suppose I’ll leave you with one of the many tid-bits I uncovered while researching this story (tid-bits that include, but are not limited to: reading Google reviews for a strip club for the first time in my life; noting that the most recent calendar they offer for sale in their online store is from 2013–though they are clearly still in business; and discovering what, exactly, is on the application form for employment at such an establishment–one of the few places where ‘Ass Manager’ isn’t just an unfortunate abbreviation):

Ladies and [true] gentlemen, may I present to you what I like to call, ‘Jacklynn’s Beanstalk’:

It’s…uh…it’s “the tallest pole in all of Hawaii”. In case you were wondering…

Content created on: 18/20/21 May 2023 (Thurs/Sat/Sun)

Footnotes & References:[+]

That’s A Massive Surfboard You Got There, Big Boy

14 May 2023 / / 0 Comments
5 Min Read

Don’t be fooled–no matter what she says, size does matter.

*Ahem* Get your mind outta the gutter, Brah–I’m talking about surfboards…

“A long board for only $350?!? Hawaii Craigslist is so rad, man!”

It was mid-October of the year we moved to Honolulu, and even though we had been living there for barely 2 months, I was way overdue for buying a proper surfboard of my own, Brah. Like, it was totes embarrassing having to always be asking to borrow your boss’s or colleague’s board every time you wanted to hit the waves. Or–even worse–have to rent one of those cheap boards that all the tourists get stuck with.

Now, this would have been a task easier on the wallet if I were but a fellow of a slimmer, more agile build. You know, like Scott Caan1I name drop him because I actually went surfing with him once on accident. It was just him and I at that surf spot. I wasn’t catching a ----- thing. It was awkward….true story. from CBS’s hit crime drama, Hawai 5-0, one of those skinny athletic dudes who could catch a wave just by wearing oversized slippahs (or what you Haoles call ‘flip-flops’). Okay, well maybe not with slippahs–pardon the hyperbole–but they do be catch waves on surfboards in the 5 to 8 foot range with the greatest of ease.

Not me and my chunky uncoordinated ass, though, nosiree Bob! I needed something that I could balance on, and that could hold my hefty weight of…

*checks notes, and by ‘notes’ I mean my WeightWatchers history*

…oh, jeez, I was at least 235 then, well on my way to 250 lbs by Christmas. Yeah, so the point being is that I needed me a nice long, hefty board. And guess what? Long, hefty boards don’t come cheap, even on Craigslist.

So after seeing ads for long board after long board with asking prices in the range of $750-$1k, you bet your sweet taro pie that I was thrilled to find one for only $350. And while Ol’Tubby here was hoping to score and 11 or 12 foot board, this one coming at a solid 10-1/2 feet would surely get the job done, right?

Right…

“Howzit! Is this Jeanine with the ten and a half foot NSP board?” I couldn’t resist showing off the local slang for “How is it going?” that I recently incorporated into my dialect–even when I was shouting into the buzzer box of a downtown Waikiki apartment building, about to meet some rando from Craigslist.

“Howzit!” crackled back the buzzer box. “You the Haole from Craigslist? Come on up!”

After Jeanine buzzed me in, I scurried up 3 flights of stairs in eager anticipation of meeting The Board I would indubitably learn to surf on and who/which would go on to be so endeared to my heart as much as any inanimate object could be.

“Ah, come on in, the board’s back here. You got the cash on you, ya?” Jeanine grunted as she let me into an apartment that was clearly in the middle of a move-out.

“Oh, you better believe I got the cashola on me!”

Of course one brings cash to a Craigslist transaction, but on that particular day being adequately prepared to purchase large surfing equipment had been a whole ordeal, so I wasn’t ashamed to brag that I had the cash.

Did I have the cash? Pffft! Am I going to take the day off from work, rent a mini-van, almost get towed double-parking in front of the ATM, and then triple-park the rented mini-van in the way-to-narrow street in front of your apartment, and not ‘bring the cash’? Wahine, please! You lolo from eating too much loco moco.

I proceeded to try not to pretend to be over-eager, and asked dumb questions like: “So…why you selling the board?”

“Moving.”

“Huh. No sh*t, eh.”

I continued inspecting the goods, standing the board up next to me and verifying that it was indeed taller than me.

“Yup, looks good to me. How much were you asking again? $350?” Frankly, I wasn’t in the mood to haggle. I had come too far to get here, I just wanted to get my long board and leave.

“Ya, $350…”

She counted it out the stack of $50s I had handed her.

“1…2…3…4…5…6…7–looks like we’re all pau here. I hope you enjoy the board.”

I grabbed the board–lighter than I expected–and headed back down the stairs to where the temporarily-mine mini-van awaited, throwing her the shaka like the true kama’aina that I had already become.

“I’ll tell you what, though, Brah,” I muttered to myself as I fired up my sweet family chariot, “she sure wasn’t one to talk story…”

“Hey Babe, do you know where we packed our tools?” I shouted through the jalousies into our house as inspected my new purchase on our lanai. “Ummm…asking for a friend.”

“I don’t know–you were the one who packed all that. What are you needing anyways?” My Beautiful Bride shouted right back through the jalousies.

“Er…I just need a tape measure to double-check my math here on this ten and a half foot board.”

Moments later she joined me on the lanai, tape measure in hand–though she didn’t seem to need it.

“You mean that 8 foot board you got there?” she said immediately when she spotted my new prized possession. “Cuz that board is definitely not ‘ten and half feet’, my dear.”

“Just help me measure it, okay?”

She held one end and I pulled out the tape, and soon enough my worst fears were confirmed: I had just bought a 7 foot, 10 inch surfboard.

“Told ya!” MBB unhelpfully commented.

“Dangit! I knew I felt suspiciously tall when I stood next to it…”

From the University of Hawaii email archives, dated 8:17 pm, 13 October 2011, sent to my boss Andy, an experienced surfer:

“Hey Andy,
Quick question: on the way back from dropping my car off at the shop, I picked up a board I had found on craigslist.  The posting said that it was an NSP, 10 1/2 foot.

I thought it looked shorter than I expected, but I thought 10 1/2 foot meant that it was 10 1/2 foot, right?  So I when I got home to drop it off before coming in to work, I measured it and it’s only 8 foot long.

I texted the girl I bought it from about this, and she said “Its called a 10 foot cause its a beginners board that’s where it catches the waves.”  So I’m confused…am I going to be able to surf on this thing (or will the wife be able to, for that matter)?  Is she full of sh*t?  Help this grom out!”

From the University of Hawaii email archives, dated 8:28 pm, 13 October 2011, from my boss Andy, an experienced surfer:

“No it’s not 10 1/2 feet it’s 7′ 10″. She’s full of it. You will never get up on that.”

From the University of Hawaii email archives, dated 8:29 pm, 13 October 2011, sent to my boss Andy, an experienced physicist:

“Thanks.  That’s what I thought.  She better give me money back.  Next time, I’m taking a tape measure with me.”

From the University of Hawaii email archives, dated 8:28 pm, 13 October 2011, from my boss Andy, an experienced physicist:

“Good luck with that…”

To this very day, I am still waiting to hear back from her (and never caught a single wave on that thing, either). Stupid Craigslist return policy really screwed me over on this one.

*sigh*

The point of the story is never trust a scientist who can’t tell the difference between 94 inches and 126 inches.

Like, for realz?!? Taking accurate measurements is what you do for a living, Brah, and you’re over here clueless when you’re off by 25%? My Dude, maybe you should consider a career change before you embarrass yourself any more.

Howzthat? You say you’ve taken up a side hustle of home renovations? Oh, that’s definitely going to end well.

But hey, things could be worse. At least you’re not designing stage props for a satirical 80’s glam rock band…

Content created on: 12/13 May 2023 (Fri/Sat)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Who Wants To Be As Reliable As Old Faithful Anyways?

7 May 2023 / / 0 Comments
4 Min Read

When traveling, being right on schedule is supposed to be a good thing.

Bodily functions, however, are a strong exception to that rule…

“Um…could you pass me my barf bag. I hate to you leave you alone with the baby, but I better try to see if my body wants to do anything before our next flight.”

Last I left you, I had somehow miraculously survived the first leg of my airline adventure from hell, making it from Wichita to Atlanta on my way back to North Carolina. And if you recall from before that, my body was on a pretty regular schedule expelling disgusting fluids from alternating ends of my body.

Now despite being surprised by which end of my digestive system was busy during the most recent mid-air incident–spoiler alert: I pooed when I should have spewed–I still had every reason to believe that something was going to happen after another 2-hour interval. But this time, I was determined to be proactive.

So, as a result, I found myself sitting in the men’s bathroom of the Atlanta airport, trying for at least a solid 25 minutes to make myself yak into my barf bag.

And wouldn’t you know it, despite feeling like I should be yakking, I simply could not make it happen! The worst part was that I knew that something would happen eventually, but for the time being, I had a flight to catch.

“One last time,” I begrudgingly told myself, as a part of me hoped that I was finally done with all this bullcrap. “Let’s see how far down my throat I can get this finger…”

“BWAAAAAAH! SPEEEEEEEW! SPLATTTTTTT!”

“Oh sweet success!” I thought to myself as I began to fill up the bag with nothing more than Sprite and stomach acid–at this point, that’s all I had ‘left in the tank.’

“SPLASH! SPLASH! SPLAAAASH!” the sound transitioned from liquid hitting waxed paper to liquid hitting liquid. Ohhh, the bag was filling up too fast!

“I’ve always fancied myself to be something of a Boy Scout,” I quipped to myself as I deftly opened my backup barf bag with my spare hand and swapped them out during one of the 4-second rest intervals between heaves.

So. Much. Liquid. Like, how had I not vomited earlier, especially with all my intentional efforts to do so???

Honestly, though I didn’t care. I was just thrilled to be yakkity-yakking there in the bathroom instead of out in the terminal or on the plane.

I wrapped up my business and skedaddled back to where I had left my bride and my baby. Later, MBB told me that she had never seen me so white and colorless than when I came back from that bathroom. The funny part about that is that Baby was oblivious to my situation, and just absolutely lit up in delight when she saw me. Touching, I know.

Whew, now only one more flight to survive…

“Ladies and Gentlemen, uh, welcome to Raleigh-Durham. The local time is 12:45 pm, and its wonderful 79 degrees out,” the pilot might as well have been whispering sweet nothings in my ear.

I had survived the flight to RDU–barely. Boy, what miserable mental fortitude I had to conjure up to endure that. Ugh. It wasn’t fun trying to do nothing more than exist for an hour and a half, but I had made it.

“Maaaake way, for Prince Ali!” I maintained a sense of humor as we sped past the security exit to the general area where Popo–my father-in-law–was eagerly awaiting us, totally oblivious to the hell I had just gone through to get there…a hell that I might not necessarily be quite all the way through just yet, in fact.

“You’ll have to excuse him–he hasn’t had the smoothest of flights,” My Beautiful Bride explained to her father as I (seemingly) rudely hobbled past him and into the nearest restroom.

Surprisingly, this trip to the bathroom was notably less dramatic than the last 5 visits, though I wasn’t feeling completely peachy afterwards.

“Just don’t talk to me until we get home,” I meekly requested to my car mates as we loaded up in Popo’s CRV. It looked like I would have another 45 minutes or so of just trying to hang on to existence ahead of me, and I was pretty sure trying to engage in any type of conversation or social interaction would not end well.

So, I just sat there and stared, the only thought I allowed myself to think was “We’re almost home. This is all almost over. We’re almost home…”

When we finally rolled up in to the driveway, I couldn’t get myself into the house soon enough.

Literally.

I took three steps out of the car before unloading what looked like neon-green anti-freeze all over Popo’s newly-planted azalea bush right next to the side-door into the garage. Ah, you gotta love that stomach acid.

Oh. So close. So very close to making it home–two feet, to be exact. A mere twenty-four more inches and I would have been in the garage, and roughly twenty paces and I would have made it to a proper bathroom. Oh, the irony.

Good news is that that turned out to be my, umm, ‘last hurrah’, with no more incidents after that. I just took a shower, drank a Sprite, and then passed out in bed for the next 18 hours.

Dear Lord, I pray that I–or any other member of the human race–ever have to endure anything like that again…

The point of the story is just become a ----- vegan already. Sure, it took me another 5+ years to get the message, but seriously, do you know how many times I’ve had food-related illness since turning the Big V 3-1/2 years ago? Zero. Nada. Nil.

Now, just go ask my Dear Mother or My Beautiful Bride about the consequences of eating suspect meat or dairy. Uh-huh. That’s right. Go ahead. Be prepared to hear about camping out on bathroom and/or ER floors, or perhaps you’ll be regaled with a tale about the worst way to end a Costa Rican vacation–or how about hearing the story of the $13k Emergency Room bills? Oh, you’re gonna get regaled, all right.

So put down that custom Chipotle burrito and set aside your chorizo and eggs, my friend, and come join me on the Green Side.

*ahem* You know, ‘Green’ as in green plants/plant-based diet, etc. etc. It’s funny. Or at least it’s a humorous statement.

I promise you, we vegans are still funny as meat-eaters, though we might be less ironic.

…

…

…

You know…because it’s harder to get the iron your body needs as a vegan…

*sigh*

It’s a humorous statement…

Content created on: 28/29 April & 4 May 2023 (Fri/Sat/Thurs)

What Went Down On The Daring Flight Of Delta 2250

30 April 2023 / / 0 Comments
5 Min Read

On that day, there was terror in the air.

And every single passenger on that plane knew that it was coming from back there…

“Would the owner of the unattended black Samsonite suitcase please immediately come to the Delta Airlines check-in?” the nervous voice came over the loud speaker.

I, for one, simply had no time for this non-sense at 6:35 am. Maybe I would have exhibited more patience with those brave souls trying to handle a potential terrorist threat if I was merely trying to catch a routine flight back to North Carolina. I possibly might even been cool with it, had I been also just tasked with making sure My Beautiful Bride and our 1-year-old daughter got back safely as well.

But no, not this not-so-fine day.

“Why is that, Beej?” you may be asking me, feeling familiar and comfortable enough with me to use my nickname’s nickname.

Well back in the narrative form of this story, I’ll feel that detail in:

“Fools!” I muttered to myself as I stood in line to check-in for our connecting flight to Atlanta, “I am the one who tocks!”

I paused for a beat before realizing that no one was within earshot to appreciate my rather witty Breaking Bad reference…you know, “I am the one who knocks” and what-not.

No? Nothing? Ok. Whatevs…I had to take a second-stab at being openly witty back then anyways.

“Simple morons, the lot of you!” I tried again, “My stomach is the ticking time bomb you should be worried about!”

And I, sh*t you not, I spoke the truth: if you didn’t read last week’s installment, pop back and catch up real quick why don’tchya? And once you do, you’ll fully understand the dire situation I was in, whence I had been expelling bodily fluids like clockwork since 12 am the night before this most wonderful glorious day of traveling.

Yup, it was misery indeed: almost down to the minute, every 2 hours I could count on either projectile vomiting (12, 4, &–I’m extrapolating here–8 am & 12 pm), or suffering violent diarrhea (2, 6, &–once again, extrapolating–10 am & 2 pm). I knew shouldn’t have had Chipotle for dinner the night before–or was it the chorizo that my dearest step-mother had gifted me earlier in the week and I didn’t eat until the previous morning? Either way, I was pretty sure it was ethnically seasoned meat to blame.

Anyways, as I waited in line to check-in, I was seriously debating sending my beloveds on without me, and seeing if I could catch a later flight when I was less volatile. On one hand, I wanted to be there for My Beautiful Bride, as I knew that traveling alone with a baby can be a real challenge. On the other hand, I was running a real risk of being a public health hazard–can you imagine the devastating consequences if I were to have an ‘episode’ when I didn’t have a way to contain things in a sanitary manner? A perfect example would be desperately needing a toilet during take-off or landing. Or while taxiing. Or while boarding and/or deplaning. Or anywhere not within sight-line of an airport bathroom or airplane lavatory.

You get the drift. There were plenty of ways things could get ugly real quick.

But, being the Noble and Beloved Father that I am, I wasn’t about to give up on my family just yet. Let’s consider the schedule of my body and see how it would line up with our flight schedules.

As I mentioned above, it appeared that my body wanted to get rid of fluids on the even hour, so I could anticipate an incident occurring at 8 am, 10 am, 12 pm, 2 pm, etc. (Central Daylight Time, that is.)

Now our flight from Wichita to Atlanta was set to take off at 7:02 am and land at 10:15 am. After a brief layover, our flight to RDU was scheduled to take off at 11:26 am and land at 12:49 pm.

Adjusting for crossing into Eastern Daylight Time en route to Atlanta, I should set my watch to count down to 9 am: something–probably vomit–was coming out of my body right in the middle of Flight 1, I could almost guarantee it.

But wait! That would be the best-case scenario, barring any unforeseen turbulence that would keep me strapped into my seat. I surmised that I wouldn’t be in any compromising shituations during take-off or landing, and that was about all I could ask for.

Okay, onto the next timepoint, 11 am. That would be roughly in the middle of our layover. While I would have preferred it to be 15 minutes into the layover, if I needed to handle things 25 minutes before departure, I figured I would take what I could get.

Now, where would I be at 1 pm? Hoping for not a moment’s delay in our departure from ATL and praying for some serious tailwind, that’s where I would be up until that time, that’s for sure! If we landed at 12:49 pm or slightly earlier, I probably wouldn’t be feeling too well, but I would at least have a fighting chance to make it to the airport potty before my “1 o’clock appointment”.

Given that it would be a 45 minutes or so drive back to my in-laws’ house (whom we were living with at the time), I should be in comfortably quarters if I still somehow had any gas left in the tank at 3 pm.

“Just check us in and get me through security.” I politely demanded from the Delta check-in agent. “Oh, and by the way, go ahead and just give me any barf bags you have available here and now. Asking for a friend…”

“Okay, I guess I’ll see you when we land…” I tucked my unused barf bag back into the seat in front of me and scurried to the lavatory located at the rear of Delta Flight 2250.

After clutching said barf bag in anticipation of throwing up for the first 20 minutes of the flight, I realized that a plot twist was afoot: I needed a toilet ASAP!

Now normally I find sitting down in an airline lavatory to be grody and icky experience that I will go to great lengths to avoid. And I would also normally find it extremely embarrassing to spend nearly an entire flight camped out in such a location.

Further, under normal circumstances I would rather die than make really, REALLY loud bodily noises for an hour straight for the entire rear half of the plane to hear, only to emerge with all eyes on me.

I would say that that particular day, I didn’t give a single sh*t, but, *ahem* the truth is that it was literally quite the opposite.

I mean, I didn’t care about any of that–I figuratively didn’t give a crap–but as you don’t need or want to be told, that poor lavatory toilet saw a traumatic amount of butt-action during those next, very intense, 60 minutes. (PS: My sincerest apologies to residents in northern Arkansas, NE Mississippi, and northern Alabama.1https://www.flightstats.com/v2/flight-tracker/DL/2073?year=2023&month=4&date=29&flightId=1179267412)

Right about the time the pilot made the announcement that we were beginning our descent into Atlanta, my misery subsided and I came out of hiding just in time to get buckled in before landing.

“What in the world was happening in there?!?” My Beautiful Bride asked as I sat back down.

“Whatever do you mean my dear?”

“You were making, um, alot of noises in there. I think even First Class could hear you.”

“That, my dear, was the sound of an airline disaster being averted…”

“Um…could you pass me my barf bag?”

…and that, in the Atlanta airport, is where I leave you hanging until next time. I know you can only handle so much graphic details of my bodily fluids, so I figured I would give you a seven-day break.

And, uh, spoiler alert: as you may have guessed, I wasn’t quite home-free yet. But would I get stuck in Atlanta? Would I embarrass myself in an epic (or minor) way? Would I make it home that day? Would I be branded a terrorist?!?

Tune in next time to find out questions to these answers and more…

Content created on: 28/29 April 2023 (Fri/Sat)

Footnotes & References:[+]

How To Be The Whitest Fly Guy In Wichita

23 April 2023 / / 0 Comments
6 Min Read

It’s the night before you flight, and something just ain’t right.

Look out, ICT, you is about to see all the wrong kinds of white…

“Oh, crap! I just knew eating Chipotle the night before my flight was a bad idea! Maybe once I get it out of my system, all will be well…”

I sat in the bathroom of our hotel room just down the road from the Islamic Center of the Triad ICT–aka Wichita International Airport–trying not to panic. My Beautiful Bride and our Elder daughter, who was barely a year old at the time, slept peacefully in the other room, and no matter what unfolded over the next few minutes, I swore to myself I wouldn’t wake them. No need for them to get all worked up over Daddy having a little upset tummy, right?

“Okay, just breathe,” I told myself, “surely this will pass in no time.”

My little pep-talk seemed to work for about 3 minutes before–

“Dammit, this is happening isn’t it?!?” I thought to myself as I projectile vomited my partially-digested custom-made burrito, et. al, into the grossly undersized bathroom trash can.

Y’all have been there before no doubt: you somehow manage to go through all 5 stages of grief in a matter of milliseconds when you throw up. Long past the bargaining stage, settled into the acceptance stage by the second or third heave, calmly assuring myself that this would be the end of the drama

I threw up at 12 am the night before my 7 am flight–so what? No big deal. Nothing a quick medianoche shower couldn’t take care of. I would be back in the comfy hotel bed and getting well-rested in no time!

“…in no time at all…” I told myself…

“You gotta be ----- kidding me!” I muttered to the Cosmos as I groggily rolled out of bed and shuffled back to the bathroom.

I couldn’t have gotten more than 45 minutes to an hour of sleep before my tummy started rumbling again–a fact easily confirmed by the bright red LCD ‘2:00’ staring at me from the unnaturally bright hotel alarm clock.

“I guess there’s still a little Chipotle in my system…might as well get it out and be done with it sooner than later–I got a flight to catch in just a few hours!”

In a situation like this, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to be an optimist about things. Besides, who has the emotional energy to go through the 5 stage of grief all over again. We all knew what was about to happen, so might as well just skip to acceptance from the get-go.

I dutifully parked myself on the potty and placed the trash can in front of me, patiently waiting for Round 2 to begin…

“What a twist!” I found myself almost exclaiming aloud an excruciatingly long 3-5 minutes later. “I did not see that coming!”

At least I had a sense of humor about the latest plot development: I wasn’t vomiting this time around; ye ol’ Chipotle decided to take the back exit this time around. And it was a gentle ordeal either–there were no orderly single-file lines here…more like a stampede toward the exit after someone yelled ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater (if you know what I mean).

After briefly debating whether this incident warranted another shower, I quickly shifted my mental focus to the disturbing trend that could possibly be emerging. Would this be a ‘rinse and repeat’ ordeal? But surely I would be feeling all hunky-dory before we had to head out the door. Surely…

“Welp, at least I can time things out now…” I once again tried to look on the bright side of things.

The hotel clock blazed like a thousand suns as it burned ‘4:02’ into my weary retinas. So, 12…2…4…it was looking like I was on a pretty regular 2-hour cycle. Not that this was a theorem I was particular eager to test out, but, if true, gave me a shot at not getting caught with my pants up when I really needed them down. Or nowhere near a trash can if–

“Wait! This just in! We are getting news reports confirming that–“

BLAAAARRRRRF!

“–that Cycle 3 is indeed vomiting. Ladies and gentlemen, it would appear that odd cycles are spewing from the oral orifice. Pundits are predicting that even cycles–including the upcoming 6 o’clock session–will be spewing from the anal orifice, as was Cycle 2 at 2 o’clock. Stay tuned, folks, stay tuned…”

“Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!” my cell phone’s alarm clock gently whispered in my ear. “It’s 5:55 am. Time to pee from your butt in approximately 5 minutes…”

I was evolving. I was learning. I was recognizing patterns. And this time, I was pre-empting the literal sh*t-show that was about to go down.

Call me Poop-stradamus if you like, ‘cuz my prediction was dead-on: promptly at 6:00 am, the fireworks began, and promptly at 6:03 they ended. Now if only airlines could be reliably on such a timely and regular scheduled, because we had a 7:30 am flight to Atlanta to catch, and even a 20-minute delay could lead to disaster…

“Hey Babe, aren’t you going to fill up the rental car with gas before we drop it off? They’re going to charge us like $50 if we don’t.”

I just blankly stared at My Beautiful Bride with hollow, soul-less eyes. She paused and noted the colorless shell of a man that was already parking the car without any emotion.

“Oh…right.” She said quietly.

“That’s a price I’m willing to pay.” I said like I were a proverbial ‘man of few words’.

She didn’t say anything further while she collected the baby from the backseat and I quietly collected our luggage from the trunk.

My scheduled 30 minutes of armistice with my digestive system was about up, and we still had check-in and security ahead. If only we could make it past security, then I might be okay…

“Attention all travellers…mumble mumble mumble garble garble garble…”

They were announcing something over the PA system in the airport, but I could care less. It took every ounce of the man that I was to focus on doing nothing but patiently stand in the check-in line. If I didn’t acknowledge my dire situation, then my body couldn’t do anything untoward, right? If I stayed calm and didn’t panic, I would be alright…right?

At first I thought it was just me when it seemed like time stood still. After all, I had a hard choice in front of me: get on the plane with my wife and baby daughter and commit to two 2-hour flights and a 1-hour layover of pure misery and hoping for fortunate timing, or go back to the hotel and ride it out by myself for another day and catch a flight to North Carolina the next day? Neither option seemed particularly enticing, and while I was on the precipice of Option 1, the very high probability of either violently sh*tting my pants in public and/or barfing on the bald head of the middle-aged man unfortunate enough to be sitting in front of me wasn’t getting me very excited about stepping foot on that plane.

I snapped out of it briefly though when My Beautiful Bride started muttering about the line not moving, coupled with a bit of hub-hub at the check-in desk.

That’s when I realized what all those PA announcements had been about.

“Aw, hell naw! Not today, melon-farmers, not today…”

“But wait! What happened? What very dramatic and exciting series of events transpired at the Wichita Airport on that fateful day in April 2014? We are inquiring minds and we want to know!” you are no doubt screaming at your computer screen or mobile device right now.

“Are you alive today because you didn’t get on that plane? How did you finally make it home to NC? Did you spew on the back of the bald head of a middle-aged man? No–let me guess: it was worse: you forcefully pooped your pants in public? That was it, wasn’t it?” you continue to rage in oratory anticipation at the inanimate object in front of you.

Well, Bro, first take a chill pill, and–about that latter accusation–if I did theoretically defecate in an unfortunate social situation, I would just like to point out that it wouldn’t have been my first rodeo.1Yes, this is shameless plug in hopes of getting you to go back and read one of my classic posts from the first year of this esteemed blog.

The point of the story is have a little patience, my friend! In due time–i.e. next week–you will get to hear all about my not-so-happy poo times. And look, if I had the mental fortitude to stand in that forsake check-in/security line with no bathroom within quenched-sphincter hobbling distance, then you, too, can bear with me a mere 7 days.

All in poo–er, I mean, doo-doo–dangit, I mean ‘due’–all in due time, Amigo, all in due time…

Content created on: 20/21 April 2023 (Thurs/Sat)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Ah, Kansas! The Truth About You Finally Comes Out

16 April 2023 / / 1 Comment
4 Min Read

Just when I thought my MotherLand couldn’t bring me any more shame…

It goes and completely redeems itself! (Uh, that’s from Dumb & Dumber…)

Since last week was Easter, I had the grand idea of celebrating it with a few ‘Easter Eggs’ related to my little Easter story–you know, the one read and thoroughly chuckled over last week…the one that can be found right here in case you need to refresh your memory *ahem*. Trust me, it will be worth it to know what that was all about before proceeding.

Anyways, I’ll confess that maybe ‘Easter Eggs’ isn’t the exact term I should be using, so I’ll just call this ‘Bonus Content’ and ‘Behind The Scenes’. Whatever we call it, I feel it’s definitely worth including–and best of all, it’ll only take two more minutes to enjoy the following juicy tidbits…

The next day after we had recovered from our daughter’s semi-traumatic introduction to the Sunflower State, we decided to go play in the park. Maybe fly a kite, y’know, seeing as how it’s windy af around here in the Spring and what-not.

Well, the poor kid, gets out of the car and this is how my homeland greets her? By blasting her in the face?!?

All I have to say is, “Welcome to Kansas, Kid. Welcome to Kansas…”1Okay, so technically this a recycled joke, seeing as how I posted the same photo and comment on FaceBook a day or 2 after this happened. But it bears repeating.

Okay, so I spent waaaaay too much time on researching that particular episode, ensuring that the story was 95%+ historically and geographically accurate. But when I attempted to plug in my Wichita Airport-to-Dodge City route into Google Maps, and added a stop in between by simply searching for ‘coffee’ (in hopes of recreating the results I got back in 2014), I instead got this:

Needless to say, when I was actually in Kansas, Google Maps had enough sense to not suggest I take a 39 hour detour back to North Carolina just for some warm milk.

*moments earlier*

Oh, and fun fact: Google is usually pretty good at interpreting 3-letter strings as airports codes. For example, the code for the airport in Wichita is ICT. Work your contextual magic Google Maps, work that magic…

…or–and I’m just whiteboarding and brainstorming here, Google Maps–you could totally think I meant ‘Islamic Center of the Triad’ instead…

“Hmmm…when I Google Search ‘Kwik Shop’ to see if it could be the sh*tty gas station on the south side of the highway I clearly remember buying and heating the milk at, I get…this?!?”

(This:)

“Maybe I’m mistaken, and it wasn’t Kwik Shop,” I said as I diligently continued my research, not wanting to accidentally besmirch the good name of a chain of quality convenience stores.

“Perhaps it’s just the one in Pratt…hmmm, I wonder if Yelp has any insight…”

*searches ‘Yelp Pratt Kwik Shop’…*

“Ah, a local review from someone just passin’ thru! Let’s see what we have here…”

*spits out drink*

You gotta be effing kiddin’ me–this is too perfect. As M. Night Shyamalan would say, “What a twist!”

First, yes, this is indubitably the same store I patronized. And second…I’ve been vindicated! It wasn’t my poor milk-microwaving skills that got my Baby sick–it was ----- Kwik Shop! And now I can bring the proverbial receipts!

Me right now:

Oh boy, I can’t wait to show this evidence to My Beautiful Bride. I’m sure she’ll totally stop blaming for the whole fiasco now…

“Wait, what’s this? A second review for Pratt Kwik Shop on Yelp? But this time it’s be a local chap, a true native Kansan. Well, I can’t help wonder if it, too, is about spoiled milk…”

Wow. That was definitely not about spoiled milk. Welp, the only thing I can say is, “Welcome to Kansas…”

Lastly, I’d like to leave you with a little bonus Bonus material: the “Ah…Kansas!” reference in the title. It’s from a commercial from my childhood, circa 1988, that was made by the Kansas Travel & Tourism, encouraging people from the boring parts of Kansas to come and visit other, equally boring parts of Kansas. Seriously, I’m not sure if this was ever ran on a TV station outside of the state. But if it did, I’m totally sure that anybody who saw it dropped what they were doing and immediately flocked to out great state *rolls eyes as hard as possible without engaging in hyperbole*.

And I believe that you, too, will flock to 1980’s Kansas once you click play below and behold for yourself this cinematic masterpiece.

I’m so embarrassed right now…

Content created on: 7/8/13 April 2023 (Fri/Sat/Thurs)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Now THIS Is An Authentic Easter In Kansas, Baby!

9 April 2023 / / 0 Comments
6 Min Read

You hope to give your baby daughter an Easter surprise, but…

(Spoiler alert) Jesus isn’t the only white thing that’s about to arise…

“Baby needs some warm milk! Can we stop at the nearest Starbuck’s?”

I gave My Beautiful Bride a long sideways glance, shaking my dang head.

“I don’t know if I can I make that happen. You do realize where we are, right? We aren’t in the Atlanta Airport any more, Toto.”

“Just find the nearest StarBuck’s okay?”

Oh, she was so naive, it was almost precious.

Almost.

But you know what was full-blown precious? Our first-born daughter, barely a year old, enjoying her first trip back to Kansas to celebrate Easter with her grandmas. We had flown into Wichita and rented a car to get us to our first destination, my mom’s place in historic Dodge City. So, if you, Dear Reader, want to realize where we were, here’s a Google map of our route. You have joined us about 30-40% of the way to our destination (approximately near Cunningham):

I, being a native son of Kansas, pretty much knew how this was going to play out, but I went through the motions anyways.

“Okay, I’m typing in ‘StarBuck’s into Google Maps…”

“Quickly! She’s getting cranky!”

When the results popped up for ‘StarBuck’s along our route,’ it turns out it was even worse than I had expected.

“Um…yeah, I don’t think we’re doing StarBuck’s today. The nearest one is in Great Bend.”

“Why not???” she inquired a bit forcefully.

“Because this!”

I showed her the map on my phone:

“I’m not taking a ----- detour to Great Bend!”

Okay, time for some fun facts.

  • Travel time from our current location near Cunningham to Dodge City: 1 hour, 34 minutes.
  • Travel time with a ‘slight detour’ to the nearest Starbuck’s: 2 hours, 38 minutes.
  • That ‘Slight detour’? 1 hour, 4 minutes.
  • Travel time completely backtracking to the nearest Starbuck’s in Wichita, then on to Dodge: 3 hours, 28 minutes–the most ridiculous option, yet only 50 minutes longer than our ‘best’ option.
  • Time just to get to any StarBuck’s (in Great Bend): 1 hour, 11 minutes.
  • Ergo:

“So, as you can see, my dear wife, we could be arriving at our destination at approximately the same time we would be rolling up to StarBuck’s, all for only the low, low price of 23 minutes. We ain’t going to StarBuck’s. It’s not like I can magically conjure one up here in the middle of nowhere, so don’t be hatin’.”

“FINE THEN. Just find the nearest coffee shop–doesn’t have to be a Starbuck’s. Most of ’em will gladly sell you steamed milk.”

“Again, I repeat: you do realize where we are, no?”

“JUST MAKE IT HAPPEN. BABY IS HUNGRY.”

“Sheesh! Alrighty then. Since we’re by now rolling through the Kansas metropolis of Pratt, I’ll search Google Maps for ‘Coffee in Pratt, KS’…”

“Hurry, hurry…”

“Ok, let’s see…Scooter’s Coffee? Uh, they’re not exactly open right now.”

“You mean they’re not open at 6:30 pm on a Friday evening?”

“No, I mean that they’re not going to be open for almost another 7 years!”1This story takes place in April 2014. Scooter’s Coffee didn’t open in Pratt until 2021. Source: https://www.scooterscoffee.com/blog/post/scooters-coffee-opens-first-location-in-pratt-kansas

“So what about the next coffee shop on the list?”

“Well, there’s N’Cahoots Coffee and Shoppe…”

“And…?”

“…and they closed 4 hours ago at 2:30 pm.”

“Dangit. Next?”

“Well besides McDonalds–and you know darn well they ain’t got milk-steaming capabilities–there’s Donut Palace…and looks like they closed even earlier, at 1 pm.”

“BABY NEEDS WARM MILK NOW!”

“Okay, if you insist. But you’re not going to like your only realistic option–“

“I don’t care! Baby’s hungry!”

“–gas station milk!” I said as I whipped a left turn across Highway 54 into the Kwik Shop parking lot–not my first choice, but it was the last gas station for then next 30 minutes.

“Wait, what?”

“They got milk. They most likely got a microwave. That’s all you really need to make warm milk!” I laid out my air-tight logic as I Tokyo-drifted into an open parking spot.

“I’m not so sure about th–“

“Welcome to Kansas, Babe!” I yelled over my shoulder as sprinted into the store…

“You’ve gotta be crappin’ me! How old is this thing?”

I stood there in front of the Kwik Shop microwave, holding my freshly purchased pint-in-a-plastic-bottle of whole milk. And I could not believe what I was looking at, then, in 2014 in the Year Of Some Of Our’s Lord.

It was the same type of gas station microwave I remember from when I was a toddler…in 1984. Raise your hand if you remember using one of these guys:

Well, not exactly this guy. I’m talkin’ about the ones that only had the letters. If you recall, these microwaves were apparently only supposed to be used with the various pre-made sandwiches, wraps, and sub-par burgers that the gas station sold, which came with a letter on the packaging indicating ‘how long’ to microwave it. I really really wanted to show an actual picture of one of these, but they’re so old that apparently Google Images/the collective hive-mind of the Interwebs doesn’t know what I’m talking about.

Anyways, you get the idea. It was an old-ass microwave, with a totally useless timing mechanism when it came to heating milk.

But what did this Noble and Beloved Father do? He did his dang best and heated that milk for…ummm…’F’ seconds? Yeah, I think F seconds was about right…warm, but not scalding.

I mused to myself: “Baby’s going to love this F-in’ milk…”

“Hey, Babe, is there a place you could pull over? Baby seems fussier than usual.”

About 40 minutes down the road near Mullinville and 1 mostly empty bottle of F-in’ Gas Station Milk later, and My Beautiful Bride was already requesting a potentially unnecessary pit stop.

“Are you sure, we need to pull over? There’s nothing but empty fields around here as far as the eye can see. Plus we’ve only got about half an hour before we get to Grandma’s. Who’s excited to see Grandma?” I baby-spoke to the baby in the back seat via the rear-view mirror.

“You are! Yes you are! You’re excited to see Grand–“

“Bwwwwaaaarf!”

I about ran off the road as I watched in horror in the mirror a massive load of curdled white projectile vomit launch out of my daughter’s mouth upward with approximately an 85-degree trajectory, thanks to her reclined position in her car seat…

…only to watch, in even slower motion, that mass of vomit succumb to the laws of physics, in which it reached its apex about 3 inches above her reclined face, achieved a velocity of 0 cm/s (as any projectile with a strictly vertical trajectory is wont to do), and then promptly reverse course and splatter all over her face with the same muzzle velocity it experienced upon it’s initial exit from her mouth.

“Ahhhhhh! Pull over! Pull over!” My Beautiful Bride rightfully requested.

“I’m on this!” I said as I took a hard right off the highway onto the next random dirt road.

“I totally got this!” I continued with the positive self-affirmations as I Tokyo-drifted over the railroad tracks and on to the other side until I came to a stop facing the opposite direction.2Okay, so I’m embellishing. I gently pulled over as much as the dirt road would allow me, without changing direction.

I hopped out and helped My Beautiful Bride clean the milk spatter off of her (on account of her being in the back seat with Baby at the time), and of course helped clean up Baby. But lemme tell you, she was inconsolable.

I mean, she was asking if we could get a hotel in the nearest town and then finish the drive in the morning–oh, what’s that?

The Baby? Oh, she was perfectly fine, now that the F-in’ Gas Station Milk was out of her system.

The Wife, though? Did you hear her request? Yeah, the one for a hotel room. Well, I did my best to politely explain the reality of the situation to her.

“That makes no F-in’ Gas-Station-Milk sense! The ‘next town with a hotel’? That is Dodge City! Our destination! I’m not going to book a hotel 2 blocks from our destination, and then drive those 2 blocks the next morning. Sheesh.”

“But…but…”

“But Baby is fine (enough) for now. First StarBuck’s and now hotels, thinking they’re magically sprinkled over this diety-forsaken desolate state of mine. No Dear, that’s not how Kansas works…”

The point of the story is that, frankly, there’s no better way to spend your Easter Sunday than reading about the resurrection…of a child’s poorly prepared bottle of milk. ‘It hath risen!’ Amiright?

Of course there’s other morals of the story, too. For example, maybe it’s not the best idea to resurrect memories of that one time I lightly condescended to my East Coast wife. J.K. Kidding–it’s highly unlikely she’s going to read this.

But the most truest of true lessons to be learned here is: don’t trust the F-in’ Gas Station Milk. Give your kid apple juice or ice cream or something–anything but the FGSM…

Content created on: 7/8 April 2023 (Fri/Sat)

Footnotes & References:[+]

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