The Point of the Story

Your #1 Source of Unsolicited Life Advice

Category: Life Tips (Page 1 of 5)

A smorgasboard of suggestions for an improved quality of life. I wouldn’t be so bold as to call them “Life Hacks”, but they trend in that general direction of the spectrum.

Never Trust An Innovative Tool Made By A Damned Fool

24 March 2024 / / 0 Comments
3 Min Read

Thinking of helping ol’ Dim-Witted Daryl fudge on his geography test? Don’t be such a dumbass!

Don’t forget: he’s also really bad at math…..

“Dude, my dude! Let me sit next to you during the geography test, and, uh, ‘borrow’ some of your answers.”

I looked at my eighth grade classmate Daryl with wary eyes.

“Hey man,” I said, “I know you would love to get out of taking freshman geography next year, but if I let you cheat off of me during this opt-out test, they’re bound to get suspicious when we turn in identical answers. And then I could end up having to waste my precious freshman time on stuff I already know because of your dumb ass.”

In fairness, Daryl wasn’t a complete and utter dumbass, but he probably would actually benefit from taking freshman geography. And, besides, he was stretching the truth a little bit when he called me “my dude”–we were solid acquaintances, but actually hang-out-level friends? I think not. And I don’t put my academic career on the line for somebody I’ve never spent a moment with outside of the walls of Ocean View Junior High (or the school the buses that serviced such a fine academic institution).

“Nah, amigo, I wouldn’t dare think of asking you to take such risks on my behalf. But that’s okay, I got a fool-proof plan: I’ll change enough of them so as to not raise any red flags,” he assured me.

I sighed a heavy sigh.

“What the hell, I’ll throw a bone. Maybe at least that’ll be one less class that you’ll inevitably flunk out of…”

“What’s that?” Daryl hadn’t quite caught my snarky under-my-breath comment.

“Ummm…nothing. Anyways, at least give me plausible deniability. You can sit next to me during the test, but what you do with your beady little eyes is up to you. I know nothing of this stupid little scheme of yours, and this conversation never happened.”

“Aww, bro, you’re the best! I promise I won’t funk this up…”

“Well, if I don’t end up moving back to Kansas for high school, it looks like I at least won’t have to take the geography class mandated by the State of California for all you other mortals–er, I mean ‘freshman’, hehe,” said somebody that most definitely wasn’t Daryl.

“Daryl,” continued this same non-Daryl person, “how did your plan work out?”

Daryl peeked at the his results from the test for the first time, then looked up at me with eyes that were waaaay sadder than the occasion could ever possibly call for.

“They’re putting me in Remedial Geography. I won’t even be taking regular freshman geography.”

I about choked on the gum I was illicitly chewing in class.

“Damn, dude, exactly how many of my answers did you end up changing?”

“I don’t know, maybe 10 or 15?”

“What the actual funk, man? There were only 25 questions on the test! You mean to tell me your big plan to get out of freshman geography was to take 40% to 60% of the answers that were almost for sure right–I mean, we’re talking about me here–and then change them to be almost for sure wrong?”

I planted my face firmly in my hand.

“Yeah, well it worked didn’t it? No one ever suspected us of cheating, did they?” he somehow thought he was defending his plan.

“Dude it worked too well, and in all the wrong ways. Though technically, you did get out of freshman geography, so I dunno, maybe I’m unknowingly standing in the presence of a genius…”

I stared at Daryl for good half a minute as he stared back at me blankly.

“Nope, that’s definitely not the case. Welp, I think I’ll go have a talk with Principal Anderson. She desperately needs to pass on the message to the high school to put you in remedial math as well. No offense, man, but you might be as dumb as a rock.”

“So? What’s your point?”

“The point of my story is that normally most people cheat to gain an advantage, but yet somehow you defied all odds and found a way to cheat such that you’re almost guaranteed to lose. I’m honestly amazed by your ability to elevate the art of dumbassery.”

“Still not following…”

Oh, poor Daryl, bless his soul.

“Dude, if you would have just taken the test all on your own, you probably would at least be placed in regular freshman geography–heck, you would have had a non-zero chance of actually getting it out of it all together!”

“Whatever you say, man.”

“Well, at I hope you at least learned a couple of important life lessons: first, who the hell cheats on geography?!? If you ever thinking to yourself ‘maybe I should cheat on my geography test…’ then you probably should seek immediate mental help. And, second, of course is the obvious: if you’re going to cheat, Daryl, cheat to win, man, cheat to win…”

Content created on: 23/24 March 2024 (Sat/Sun)

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:[+]

That Tempting Siren’s Call? It’s No Match For My Willpower!

26 February 2023 / / 0 Comments
4 Min Read

What’s that? You can’t resist picking up the phone every time it rings?

Of course I’d be happy to show you how to not do it. Of course…

“B-R-R-RIIING-BRIIING! B-R-R-RIIING-BRIIING!”

Okay, so even old-timey cell phones didn’t quite sound like that, but since what you’re hearing is a cell phone ringing back in 2001–and the yungens out there don’t know any better–we’ll pretend like that’s the sound they used to make. You know, “before ringtone scientists invented ringtones,” LOL.

So where was I? “B-R-R-RIIING-BRIIING! B-R-R-RIIING-BRIIING!” you say?

No, I know that’s where I was in the story, but I meant literally, “Where was I?”

Well, I’ll tell you where I literally was: as a freshly-dreadlocked Junior at K-State, I was beginning the school year by training for my part-time job as a physics teaching assistant. This was where some of the physics professors corralled the 20 or so of us aspiring physics maestro extraordinaires into a lab, and attempted to impress upon us how to properly impart physics facts unto apathetic undergrads.

In other words, I was busy, in a semi-public setting, getting paid to pay diligent attention to someone else.

So, of course I discreetly silenced my phone–never mind the facts that I had had it only for a mere week, and that I was too cheap to pay $4.99 + taxes and fees per month for Voice Mail–before it could it disrupt the classroom proceedings.

Of course…

“Kamsahamnida!1Translation: ‘Thank you’ in Korean.–Oh, sorry, I meant : ‘감 사 합 니 다!’ “

Many years before I knew I would marry into a Korean family, I found myself trying kimchi at the apartment of a couple of Korean K-State grad students. Later in his college career, my wise buddy Gfeller took on a side job as a resident assistant for the international student housing on campus, so he was friends with many a fella from a wide spectrum of nations. And ’twas he who had brought me as his guest to this intimate multi-cultural feast.

Let me tell you, I took my role as a curious colonizer seriously, learning about and partaking in such Korean customs as not wearing your shoes in the house, picking every last bit of meat off the kalbi bones, and of course, you gotta try the kimchi.

And in the middle of such convivial exchange of customs…

“B-R-R-RIIING-BRIIING! B-R-R-RIIING-BRIIING!” trumpeted the beast in the depths of my back pocket.

“Hark! Who is that calling my cellular telephonic device?” I thought to myself in a completely unnecessary Victorian-era accent.

In case it was urgent–another 9/11, perhaps?–I decided it was best to take a peek at the Caller ID. Ah, yes, Caller ID–a feature that I had finally caved in and dropped the outrageous amount of $2.99 + taxes and fees per month to have added to my plan a mere two months earlier.

Turns out it, it was my other wise and faithful–and coincidentally, half-Korean– buddy, ol’ Beechnuts, with whom I hadn’t chatted in a while.

But, of course, though new to Korean culture, I acknowledged and respected their deep-seated norm of never being so rude as to answer one’s phone while in the midst of socializing.

Of course…

“Yeah, so even though I know I was the one responsible for them, I gotta say I, um, kinda prefer your dreadlock-free look…”

A couple of years after that particularly dreadful affair, I found myself hanging out with that particular female friend who had waxed up my locks real good–and yes, I had semi-romantic intentions on my mind.

As I walked her across the cold campus to her dorm, I couldn’t help but thinking that she was hinting at something more. Was she calling me…handsome?

I batted my eyelashes at her coyly.

“Oh, do you really think–“

But before I could finish my thought, a blaring “B-R-R-RIIING-BRIIING! B-R-R-RIIING-BRIIING!” interrupted the moment.

Glancing at the Caller ID, I noted that it was my noble and beloved mother calling upon me.

Of course, though I loved my momma very much and enjoyed conversing with her, I silenced my phone and refocused my attention on the woman who would indubitably be my future wife…

Of course…

“Well, it looks like you have everything in order to refinance your new property. Any questions for me, your trusted local banker?”

Many, many moons later (and not so many moons ago), I was at the financial institution just down the road, assisting an older unnamed family member with some very important adult stuff, and we had almost wrapped everything up when…

“B-R-R-RIIING-BRIIING! B-R-R-RIIING-BRIIING!”

And of course you already know that that phone call was immediately silenced, and most definitely no one in that bank had to hear “Hello, Mother, what are you doing?” belch forth from anyone’s speaker phone and echo embarrassingly throughout the building.

Of course…

The point of the story is that I come from a long lineage of folk who know when not to answer their cell phones. And of course I wouldn’t be telling you these relatively boring-ass stories if they weren’t 100% completely true.

Of course…

And of course I gotta leave you with a quite-apt-but-semi-obscure cultural reference that speaks for us all when we hear that “B-R-R-RIIING-BRIIING! B-R-R-RIIING-BRIIING!”:

And, of course you already knew that was Electric Six‘s hit, “(Who The Hell Just) Call My Phone,” and you most certainly didn’t have to go listen to it over on YouTube.

Of course…

Content created on: 23/24/25 February 2023 (Thurs/Fri/Sat)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Watch How Colorful Plumage Attracts The Female Of The Species…

5 February 2023 / / 3 Comments
7 Min Read

Yeah, sure, David Attenborough nature documentaries can be fascinating and informative.

But as a source of relationship advice? Not so much…

“Oh, you got a full-ride scholarship? Wow, you’re not only handsome and funny, but smart too–that’s a lady-killer combination you got going on there. Tee-hee!”

As my new-found hair stylist busied herself dying my hair half electric-blue and half neon-pink, we had started chatting to pass the time as one does. And it wasn’t long before she landed such a devastating blow to my ego, catching me completely off guard.

Wait, let me clarify: I don’t mean ‘blow’ as in the ‘it hurt so bad and now I have zero self-esteem and want to shuffle off this mortal coil’ type of blow. No, I mean ‘blow’ as in the ‘one hit of that white powdery goodness and now I’m high as a kite’ kind.

Cocaine. Blow is slang for cocaine, if I have to spell it out for you. It’s a frickin’ controlled substance joke.

Anyways…What I mean to say is, even though she was a much older woman at 31 years of age–it’s hilarious what a college freshman considers ‘old’, lol–as I sat there basking in the afterglow of such an ego-stroking comment, I couldn’t help to wonder if I had accidentally engaged in some type of secret college town mating ritual. Was it possible that she, upon seeing my beautiful plumage, couldn’t help but to call out with a series of irresistible vocal chirps and squeaks in an attempt to lure such a lucrative life-mate into her little love nest?

The thought bemused me, particularly because not only was I a poor college student, but a cheap one at that–and the whole reason I was sitting in her chair was because her hair-transmogrifying prices were the cheapest in all of Manhattan.1Manhattan, Kansas–home of Kansas State University So if she was looking for a bread-winner to provide financial security for our future children together, then the joke was on her.

When our time together finally came to a close, and I had to pay my bill, she had me feeling so good about life that I did something very much out of character: I left an embarrassingly large tip–somewhere around 50%! Yup, that’s right: thanks to her little compliment, I ended up blowing all the money I was supposedly saving on her tip.

And it wasn’t until days or weeks later that it occurred to me that was the whole point: she didn’t see me as a potential suitor and/or genetic donor–no! She saw me as a paying customer who–on account of his requested hair colorings–apparently was crying out for validation and/or attention, and he might just pay a little extra were she to lavish either or both of those upon him.

Alas, she was right. But again, if there’s a life lesson that I wish I would have learned long before then, it’s that a little flattery never hurts no one. Heck, if you’re good enough at making people feel good about themselves, they might even pay you handsomely.

Hmm…

The more I describe the situation…well, the more it starts to sound more akin to a trip to the local brothel. You know…a whorehouse, or whatever y’all Boomers used to call it back in your day. Hooker hotel, maybe? Does that ring a bell? Or is that too Cival War Era-y for you? Not that old, eh…

Ah! I got it! ‘Prostitute’–there’s a term I think that everyone will understand. In retrospect, it was kinda like going to a Prostitute Place–dangit! That doesn’t sound right either, does it?–anyways, you get the analogy here, ya? You go somewhere and you pay some rando to make you feel real good. Like, what am I actually paying for here, anyways?

On the other hand…wouldn’t that line of thinking call into question the moral fidelity of any one who frequents a masseuse?

Wait…NO. I’m not taking all y’all’s suffering souls down this philosophical rabbit hole. I came here to talk about how I had really cool hair when I was in college, and somehow here we are talking about crack cocaine and escort services. Needless to say, “I digress…”

So…um, yeah. Fun fact: a mildly interesting side effect of my choice of hair colors was that they looked suspiciously close to the colors of our sworn enemy and intrastate rivals, Kansas University (blue and red), rather than that of the hometown team, Kansas State (my favorite color, purple). Ultimately, I tried to navigate that situation with some snappy-yet-incredibly-stupid comeback like “red and blue make purple, you ass–I’m surprised a cross-eyed inbred idiot like yourself didn’t see that already!”

Yes. Witty. I know.

I really had to bust this out when KU rolled into town to play us in football. It got pretty old pretty quick, being mistaken by my own comrades in the student section for a heinous traitor. Can you believe it? They thought that I identified with the goofiest-ass of all the birds in the imaginary animal kingdom: the JayHawk. Oh, the indignity…

“Man, I appreciate where your heart is, taking a seasonal approach to your choice of hair color, but…”

A few months later, it was time to move on with my life and say goodbye to my now-fading red and blue ‘do. And one of the first people to see my new look was my good friend, Gfeller, who, like any true friend should do, was excellent at shooting straight with me. So…kinda the complete opposite of ol’ Compliments-For-Cash Candi, or whatever my hairstylist’s name was. Yup, he was definitely never one to feed my ego.

And as his voice trailed off, I knew exactly where he was going with his silence: I had made a gross error in judgment.

“…but maybe celebrating Thanksgiving by going half-brown, half-orange wasn’t the best idea?” I finished his sentence.

“Yeah, let’s just say you’re not going to be picking up any chicks anytime before Christmas.”

“Is it really that bad?”

Gfeller paused a moment before speaking some hard truth into my life.

“Dude, you look like a ----- turkey…”

“Welp, at least it’s better than last year’s orange-and-brown fiasco…”

Gfeller. Again. This time around he was seeing me for the first time since the beginning of our sophomore year. After a relatively vanilla (i.e. naturally blonde) spring and summer, my first order of business upon returning to campus was to revert to my old ways and chemically assaulting my follicles.

“Yeah, I’ve never really tried going with complimentary colors before, so…y’know…ta-da?” It seemed like any time I was in Gfeller’s presence, I would eventually end up questioning my life choices.

“Mmm-hmmm. I see. You know, if you really wanted to go that route, you probably would have been better off waiting until Christmas.”

“Pfft! Red and green is too bougie for me! Why would I want to be just another lemming running off a cliff with the rest of the crowd?”

Gfeller lost himself for a moment amidst yet another bout of wise and sage-like reflection.

“Nonetheless, orange and blue is a pretty, erm, ‘bold’ move, even for a bold guy like you. I can’t help wonder if there’s more to your color selection…”

“What exactly are you getting at, my dude?” I felt slightly attacked.

“This wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with a certain female in our friend-group that you’ve been writing letters to all summer, would it?”

“Hey man, the fact that orange and blue happen to be her alma mater’s school colors is a complete and utter coincidence! Not that I would know what the colors of the Olathe East–I mean, ‘whatever high school she happened to attend’–would be. C’mon, what kind of guy do you think I am?”

“If you say so…” G-man clearly wasn’t convinced by my protestations.

It wasn’t but a day or two later when Gfeller and I ran into this particular female–whom shall remain un-nicknamed–and I swear the first words out of her mouth were: “Hey, orange and blue! Just like my high school! Go Ha–“

“Go Hawks!” I replied just a few microseconds before I should have.

Gfeller gave me a long sideways glance laced with a smirk.

“My, aren’t you rather knowledgeable when it comes Kansas high school mascots?” he said in a not very brothers-before-those-who-might-become-mothers2In college I ran with the Christian crowd. This was our adaptation of the incredibly misogynistic phrase “bros-before-hoes”. In retrospect, we weren’t doing any better of a job on the not-being-a-sexist-shitheads front than the heathens. tone.

“Or…um…whatever random animal your mascot might be…’Hawks’ you say? I guess I’m just good at guessing…so yeah, ‘Go Hawks!’…or whatever…does it feel hot in here to you two? He he….um…so, yeah…”

“Uh…you sure you want an Ichthus on your head? Umm, whatever you want, dude. It’s your hair, your dye…your funeral…”

It wasn’t but a month or so before it became clear that orange/blue wasn’t moving me any closer to marriage with…um…nobody in particular–I was just getting bored with that ugly color combination, okay? So, just like in the world of tattoos, the best way to fix a semi-permanant mistake is to cover it up with an even bigger, more permanent, mistake.

And for this task, I had eschewed the insincere services of ‘Candi’ and instead enlisted my #1 frenemy, ol’ Spanky Spankowich–who, curiously enough, was later revealed to have been interested in the same nobody-in-particular at the same time as me. I didn’t know about his pursuits, but he sure knew about mine because we took a road trip to KC at one point, and guess what happens if you get stuck alone with me for more than 3 hours? I don’t stop talking until you know every last detail about what is currently consuming my thoughts at that particular point in time.

Now that I think about…perhaps the fact that we were unspoken romantic rivals explains why he was more than happy to let me self-sabotage myself into oblivion…

Oh, Spank, you rascal! I entrusted you with my hair, and you return the favor by obliging my request for a green Jesus-fish running from front-to-back of my scalp…

…filled in with purple in the middle…

…with red on the outside on the left…

…and with blue on the outside on the right…

…and so thoughtful!–You even remembered the eyebrows…

…blue on the left, red on the right!

Jesus-fishin’ cries for help,3If you didn’t follow that stretch of humor logic, it was an attempt to be a play on “Jesus effin’ Christ”, with a dash of attention-whore self-judgment thrown in for a nice little circular reference. dude, true friends don’t let friends self-destruct like that! What were you thinking, letting me lean into my own poor af fashion judgment like that? Spank, you dirty bastard, you!

Yeesh.

One look at me, and you would have to ask yourself: “Is this guy trying to attract college girls or pea hens, amiright? You know…cuz he looks like a mother- ----- peacock…”

The point of the story is that if you want to randomly #HumbleBrag to whoever will listen about all the edgy sh*t you did with your hair when you were but a youth, may I suggest weaving them together with a common theme like, say, ‘birds’? Never mind the emergent theme of how your hairstyle choices played pretty directly into your repeated failed mating rituals. Don’t pay that no mind at all, My Little Pretty…

Oh! But speaking of ‘weaves’–we haven’t even got to the dreadlocks yet. That’s a whole ‘nother tale or two of poor-yet-humorous life decisions that’ll have to wait until next time…

Content created on: 3 February 2023 (Friday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Hey Man, Don’t Hate Me Just Because I’m Beautiful

22 January 2023 / / 0 Comments
4 Min Read

Boy, you got yourself some pretty hair there.

But with great beauty comes great responsibility, son, so you better beware…

“Honey! It happened again!” I hollered in the general direction of My Beautiful Bride as a stumbled in the door after a morning jog.

“Who was it this time? A car full of unruly teenagers? An entitled rich white guy driving a sports car?” she asked, doing her best to play the part of the concerned wife.

“Well, you see, there I was, just pounding the pavement, minding my own business, when I hear a truck come speeding up behind me and–“

“Oooh, a truck you say? That’s a new one…” she interrupted, clearly more bemused than concerned.

“Yeah, you know that distinct sound a pickup truck makes? Anyways, right before it got to me, it suspiciously slowed down. I didn’t think too much about until I heard someone start to whistle. And just as soon as I turned to see who be whistling at me–and also to make sure I wasn’t about to be man-napped–the whistler abruptly stopped and the truck sped off.”

“Did you see who it was? Did you know them? Should we call the cops???” she was doing her best to stifle a guffaw at this point.

“According to the side of the truck, it was ‘Garcia’s Landscaping’, and, no, I don’t know them, and –hey! Are you making fun of me? Look, you simply couldn’t understand the blow to the ego when you only get half-cat-called?”

“Oh, my Love, I imagine it must be horrible! Unfathomably unbearable! Oh the humani–“

“Of course you couldn’t! You always get the full cat-call! ‘Oh, look at me! Look at me! I’m a woman from behind and from the front!’ Ugh. You make me sick.”

“Yeah, poor you. You’ll never get the full experience of wondering if that car slowing down or that cat-call is a harbinger for your impending sexual assault and possibly even death. You live such a deprived life.”

*long pause*

“Ok, so you make a good point. I’ll stop whining about it for now.”

“Thank the good lord! Oh, and if you refuse to get a haircut, then maybe I should get you one of those bright yellow jogging safety vests…”

“Umm…I mean, that might stop me from getting hit by cars, but it’s not gonna do much to keep me from getting inadvertently hit on.“

“Aht! Aht! Ah! I wasn’t finished! And on that back of the vest, I’ll have them custom print ‘Keep movin’–I’m a DUDE.’–in both English and Spanish. Oh, I just can’t stand to think of the heartache my husband might be causing with that luscious blonde ponytail of his…”

“Wait, wait! Don’t look just yet! Wait until they’re right next to us, then on the count of three we both glance at them. Got it? Okay!” I instructed My Beautiful Bride under my breath.

Years later, one evening when the two of us had got all gussied up for a date night and headed out to the local theatre, we unfortunately embroiled in a little “incident” en route.

Recognizing that signature abrupt-yet-casual slowing down of the vehicle behind us in the left lane, I had enough foresight to make the moment really count.

“One…Two…Three…GLANCE!”

We both look over just as the car pulled even with us, and, boy, let me tell you, their face was a stage and the three-act play that unfolded was more dramatic–and more entertaining–than anything else we would experience that evening.

Act 1: The eyes of the two guys in the car land on my wife first. She is very pleasing to look at it, and this is reflected in the young men’s expressions. Oh, the passion! The pleasure!

Act 2: In eager anticipation to see what beauty may be awaiting them in the passenger seat, their eyes flit past Eye Candy #1, only to be met by handsome-but-very-much-not-female lightly bearded visage. I bat my eyes at them seductively. The plot thickens. How can we tell? By the confusion and delay on their faces as they try to process the cognitive dissonance they just experienced. Also, they almost drive off the road.

Act 3: A split micro-second later, reality hits them like a ton of bricks. For a fleeting moment, the anger of being made out to be a ----- fool skitters across their faces, before settling into a look of dejection–as if they phrase “aww, nuts!” was a facial expression.

We gave them a little wave–the wife wearing a light smirk, and me with a pretty big sh*t-eating grin–before they quickly looked away in embarrassment and sped off.

“Oh, toodle-loo, boys! Enjoy your evening!” I couldn’t resist mouthing.

“What? That’s it?!?” you, Dear Reader, are no doubt asking of your tablet or mobile device, “When you said ‘incident’ we were expecting, I dunno…something more…violent, maybe? Like an accident. Or at least some road rage!”

Well, sorry to…um…let you down. My luscious blonde ponytail is a pacifist and eschews all forms of violence. No, no road rage here…only a little dose of drive-by disappointment…

“¡Muchas Gracias!” I yelled in appreciation to the Costa Rican roofers busy at work on a roof on the route between our honeymoon accommodations and the Pacific Ocean.

My Beautiful Bride of only 4 days gave me a sideways glance.

“I think that cat-call was meant for me, my dear,” she gently suggested.

“Yeah right. Like how could anyone possibly even know that?1That, my friend, is a Napolean Dynamite reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IiIHzfXEiA And besides, no one would actually cat-call a woman right in front of their husband!”

“Um…we’re in Central Amer–“

“Nah, I’m pretty sure that was directed at me,” I asserted.

She paused for a moment or two before turning to me.

“So…is this going to be a whole ‘thing’ for the rest of our marriage?”

“Indubitably…”

The point of the story is beware the unintended consequences and pitfalls before donning a ponytail, young man! You coif your majestic mane in such a manner, and you might find yourself apologetically uttering “Sorry to disappoint!” more often than you might like.

On the other hand…if you’re the kind of chap that takes a sort of perverse pleasure in disappointing overly-lusty lads, then if you ask this doctor2Yes, I am a real (non-medical) doctor, #HumbleBrag. if a ponytail is right for you, that joker might just reply, “Ancient Astronaut Theorists say ‘yes’…”3Watch any episode of History Channels Ancient Aliens for 3 minutes and you’ll get that joke.

Content created on: 18/20 January 2023 (Weds/Fri)

Footnotes & References:[+]

How To Make This The Last First Date Of Your Lifetime

14 August 2022 / / 1 Comment
7 Min Read

You know what I really, REALLY hate?

The inevitable no-good, horrible experience of The First Date…

“So it was you all along!”

When I last left y’all, I had fell ass-backwards into what was maybe a date with my cute’n’kind af ,neighbor/church friend, “The Dimpler”. Pretty sweet, right? Well, as they say, “the night is young”, and when they say it they usual mean “don’t worry, you still have plenty of time to screw this up.” Let’s just see how this all pans out. But first…

Now, one who is already up to speed–aka, have already this post and this post–might point out that writing drug-themed-yet-romantic poetry and sending it your crush via FaceBook messages, attributing it to a mystery author that you “personally know”, subsequently spamming her with a random trivia questions (also via a FaceBook message), then “awarding” her a dinner with this made-up mystery author when she gets the question right–you might point out that this may more fall under the purview of “deception and deceit.”

You know what though? I didn’t really care, because practically speaking I was going to get an evening with her all to myself, and I wasn’t about to ask too many questions such as “who tricked who?” or “am I straight up lying to this chica?” or “wait, what if she is expecting some illicit drug use as part of this dinner date?” to kill my vibe. And also, isn’t there is a universal rule, “if the Universe drops a beautiful potential life partner in your lap, just shut up and roll with it” or something like that?

Anyways, after work on that fateful Tuesday evening in August 2007–the one in whence I accidentally discovered Nerd Plutonium–I donned my finest blue jeans and t-shirt and hopped in my sweet ’95 Camry…and drove just around the corner to The Dimpler’s apartment. I then subsequently strolled up to her door and with a surprising sense of calm, knocked on her door…

Speaking of “surprising,” I was somewhat surprised that she was somewhat surprised that I was indeed the Mystery Author. But then again, just the day before I had cleverly added to her uncertainty and confusion by stealthily delivering to her apartment a real book about poetry and physics.

Oh, right, I had totally forgotten about that. You see, I had gone over to her apartment at I time when I was pretty sure her and her roommate weren’t home, and so thought it best to just slip the book into the mail slot in their door.

When the book got slightly jammed in the slot, I knelt down to get it unjammed and to then make sure it made it safely inside. Well, wouldn’t you know it, once the book suddenly popped past whatever it was catching on, I was slightly shocked to see two pairs of very wide eyes staring back at me from across the room.

THEY WERE BOTH HOME AFTER ALL!

Sh*t. And now I’m a certified Peeping Tom. Well, this has backfired spectacularly.

“Just give us a minute!” I could hear one of them shout through the now-shut mail slot flap.

Moments later the door opened and they both greeted me with smirks on their faces.

“What’s up–“

“I DIDN’T SEE ANYTHING I SWEAR!”

“Protest too much, my lady?” quipped her roomie, henceforth to be known as A Hot Piece of Ash (or using her more convenient anagram-acronym hybrid, “the Hapa”).

“I DIDN’T KNOW YOU WERE HOME!”

The Hapa turned to The Dimpler, “Oh, yeah, he’s definitely protesting too much. What do you think? Should we report this perv to the church elders?”

“Oh, definitely. I’m pretty sure he caught a glimpse of my **censored** without my consent.”

My jaw about dropped to hear those words coming out of her mouth.1Okay, time for a disclaimer. Those words didn’t actually come out of her mouth. She said something more PG like “You might have seen Muffin naked.” Note that she did not use the word “my”.

“You mean our **censored**?” The Hapa corrected her.

At this point I was scrambling to extricate my jaw, which was now buried in 3 feet of their concrete porch.

“Yes, our Muffin likes to lounge about in nothing but fur…”

Now I was just confused.

“Ok, now you’re just messing with my head. Who–or what–is ‘your Muffin’? Like, we know each other from church…right? Or have I slipped into some perverse parallel universe? (Not that I’m complaining, *ahem*)”

“Muffin’s our cat, you big doof. And next time, just knock first. At least give Muffin a chance to put a bra on…”

“Ok, confession time: up until I saw you show up at my door step alone, I was about 50% sure that the Mystery Author was real and wasn’t just your alter-ego.”

We were about halfway through our dinner, and by some miracle things were going pretty smoothly. Funny story: it turned out that the Peeping Tom incident only endeared me to her. Oh, and also it probably helped that I considered the whole evening with her a freebie–the proverbial icing on the cake–a date that I had never expected to even happen. The end result being I was able to continue my “George-Costanza-philosophy-of-doing-the-opposite-of-my-instinct” and, instead of nervously and anxiously saying stupid sh*t trying to impress her, just relax and enjoy the ride.

Even though she was confiding to me that she had been confused by my “gonna-trick-you-into-a-date” strategy, I wisely decided that it was too early in the game to confess to her that I had genuinely thought she was insulting me when she told me High-ku was “good”. Too soon to release the inner cynic into the wild, know what I mean?

Anyways, yada-yada-yada, and, after a failed attempt to hang out with an Indian guy from my lab and a bunch of his friends that we randomly met on the street after dinner, and another failed attempt at finding dessert, we decided to just wind down our surprisingly pleasant-in-spite-of-me-wearing-jeans-in-August evening by wandering around our shared neighborhood and chatting.

“Welp, seeing as how it’s almost 2 in the morning, why don’t I escort you to your door and call it a night?” I suggested like a true, confident, gentleman would.

…

What I had thought was a natural pause in the conversation (finally!), I soon realized that she had something on her mind, but was having trouble finding the right words for.

“Oh…ok. So I see you have something to say?”

If she was about to give me the axe, her intentions were sure hid pretty well behind that huge genuine, single-dimpled smile on her face.

“Yeah…um…well, first I want to say that I have really, really enjoyed this evening. Thanks so much for dinner and great conversation.”

“Sure–it was my pleasure indeed! But clearly you weren’t trying to figure out how to that. Just tell me what’s on your mind.”

“Okay…so, as you know, I just recently broke up with a long-time boyfriend, and well, I just thought I would need to take a break from dating for awhile.”

“Cool…cool…”

“Also, I feel that the Universe2At the time, the exact term she used was “the Jesus”. is steering me towards being a missionary overseas, and well…you’re a physicist.”

“Oh. Okay, well th–“

“…but…this night went differently than I had expected, and now I’m not sure of anything.”

Well, that was a plot twist.

At this point I noted to myself that, historically speaking, now would be the time I would normally argue with her and perhaps convince her that those were hair-brained notions and she should most definitely become my girlfriend (or at least go on a second date with me).

Or, as Seinfeld would say to his arch-nemesis, “Hello, Instinct”:

Obviously, my a-hole Instinct hadn’t exactly served me well in the past–time for a new tack.

“Well, sorry I won’t be able to help you out with that. I mean, c’mon, I’m not exactly unbiased here, and I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t trust any ‘advice’ I could offer you.”

“Huh?!?” Clearly this was not the response she expected.

“Yeah, the best I can suggest is you find some older, wiser woman from church that you trust, and see what advice they might have for rebound-dating a domestic heathen scientist like myself. Oh, and take all the time you need…”

“Oh. Okie-dokie. That sounds like a pretty solid plan…thanks?”

“Sure thing, Kiddo. Now how about I walk you home? It’s not safe for a sweet young thang like yourself to be walking around by yourself at 4 in the morning.”

As we got to her door (where I could have sworn I saw The Hapa peeping out through their mail slot), she paused and subtly leaned in towards me–a move that was promptly met with a side hug from me.

“Yeah…so, I would love to give you a kiss goodnight, but I feel the Universe3Again, a more philosophically flexible euphemism for “the Jesus”. wants me to wait until my wedding day for that very special ‘first kiss’…”

“Well?!? How did those unorthodox methods work out for you!?! First, you welcome her back to town in your way-too-flattering bike tights, then you lean quite hard into illegal substances when looking for inspiration for poems you send her but won’t even claim as your own, after which you completely fabricate another persona to whom you give writing credits, followed up by a trivia contest that she didn’t even consent to participate in, meanwhile you decided engaging in a bit of light voyeurism would be a sure way to seduce her, and of course you had to follow up your “contest”4No, this is not a reference to “The Contest” episode of Seinfeld. by awarding her a trick prize that entrapped her with you for an evening. If that wasn’t bad enough, you go tell her ‘don’t even think about dating me unless you get a clear non-me sign from the Universe’, and–the icing on the cake–refuse to kiss her until she likes it enough she puts a ring on it.”

Let me just respond with: and yadda-yadda-yadda…now every Sunday morning I get to enjoy The Dimpler’s freshly-baked muffins, if you know what I mean…

…

…

…and by that I mean that The Dimpler is now the be-ringed Boss Lady with whom I have a standing weekend, um, “arrangement.”

…

…

…and in this “arrangement,” I get up with the kids on Saturday mornings and make breakfast so The Dimpler/Boss Lady gets to relax for a few sacred hours, and then she returns the favor Sunday mornings. Though, instead of muffins, I typically make pancakes or waffles.

It’s pretty much the sweetest arrangement known to mankind5Wait…what did you think I meant? You ----- pervert.…

The point of the story, Young Nerdlings, is that if you follow the exact opposite of your instincts, along with listening to the Universe for the occasional bit of divine inspiration, one day you, too, could find yourself in a mutually beneficial baked-breakfast-goods-on-the-weekend relationship with a fine lad or lass waaaaaaay out of your league.

Or who knows? Maybe it’s just my instinct that is faulty and you should go with what your gut tells you instead. What do I care? It’s your funeral…that this person will be planning if all goes well and you die before them at a ripe and mature old age.

P.S. The Dimpler, if you’re reading this (LOL): Happy 15th First Date-versary!

P.S.S. Kinda Fun Fact: I found out later that from the outset of our ‘date’ her one and only goal was to preemptively give me the axe. Had I known that I had one shot at changing her mind, I would have most definitely utterly and completely bungled everything. Sometimes that well-known PSA from the childhood of every 80s baby should instead say: “The Less You Know…”

Content created on 14 August 2022 (Sunday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

How To Land The Most Exotic Hottie In The Hood

7 August 2022 / / 0 Comments
6 Min Read

The Good Lord hath blessed you with a real angel next door.

But alas, barring some miracle, she shall never be yours…

“James Earl Ray.

Adobe.

The Man of La Mancha.

Al Green.

Red Skeleton.

James Earl Ray. Adobe. The Man of La Mancha.

Al Green. Red Skeleton.

James Earl Ray. Adobe. The Man of La Mancha. Al Green. Red Skeleton…”

What do you do when you hear the begrizzled man loitering at the bus stop muttering these words under his breathe like some bizarre version of the Lord’s Prayer? You should pay no him mind, but…

But then again, once you hear those words, the mystery of it all is bound to haunt the darkest recesses of your mind until the day you die.

Well, as that begrizzled man, I’m here to say: you wouldn’t be alone in your insanity.

You see, I myself am doomed to be frequented by this very same specter for all eternity; this random list of trivia(l) facts fluttering through my mind at unexpected moments, causing an inexorable shudder, an indubitable pang of regret.

But what are These?

These? They are The Ones That Got Away…

Believe it or not, I wasn’t a jock in high school, but *ahem* that doesn’t mean I wasn’t a stud in my own right. Back in those glory days, I was a member of a juggernaut Quiz Bowl1AKA Scholar’s Bowl, Knowledge Bowl, Trivia Bowl–basically competitive Jeopardy at the high school level. team, the one that the mere mention of struck fear in the hearts of opposing team of schools all across Kansas, both large schools and tiny schools alike: Rolla High School.

Look at this picture. Just look at this picture:

Figure 1: The 1996 Kansas State Quiz Bowl Champs. Am I the blonde on the left or on the right? You’ll never know…

I mean, wouldn’t you poo your pants if you walked into an academic showdown and you saw these intellectual beasts at the opposing table?!?

I would like to try to #HumbleBrag here, but I can’t: the fact is, we were good. Real good. And me? I wasn’t just some B-Team backup, clinging onto the coattails of more successful and competent members of my team. Even from my Freshman year, I was carrying my share of the load, and from my Sophomore year on, my name was a name to be reckoned with for those who dared face…Rolla High School *dun-dun-duhhhhhhn!*

Out of my four years of high school, we were State Champions three of those, I made the Santa Fe Trail All-League Team all four years, and my Junior year we pulled off a feat that no RHS Quiz Bowl team has been able to pull off before or since: we went 10-0 in all our tournaments. We were the 1972 Miami Dolphins.

But for all that personal and collective success, there were still failures. In fact, when you’re that good, those rare incorrect (or inexplicably forgotten) responses that end up costing you have a way of really sticking in your craw.

It’s like regret on steroids. I mean, James Earl Ray? C’mon, how do you ever forget the name of an asshole like that?

Yes. It’s true. Even studs can have their down days…

“Surely you didn’t write that beautiful and strangely romantic haiku about drugs yourself…did you? I mean, it’s just…really good.”

Oh, right. I forget that I previously left everyone on a cliffhanger last time, wondering if my newfound George-From-Seinfeld-Do-The-Opposite-Of-What-My-Instinct-Tells-Me strategy was actually going to profoundly impact my life in any way, if it was going to finally get me somewhere with the ladies, if you will.

In case you need a refresher, you can pop on over here for a sec to get caught up. And as always, I’ll wait…

…

…

Yeah, so to catch you up, I had started FaceBook flirting (kinda) with The Dimpler, the hottest and most exotic young lady at my church–and my new neighbor.

She had accidentally thrown down the gauntlet and challenged my poetry and prose skills unknowingly, and got surprised when a professional-grade haiku ended up in her inbox. So good, that she didn’t believe I had written it.

And when she shared how good she thought it was, I couldn’t believe that she was being sincere, and got pissed that this pretty girl was turning out to be just another mean girl. Like, geez, did she have to mock my attempt at the written verse.

Last I left you, though, I had remembered that my natural instinct hadn’t exactly served me well in the past, so instead of firing back and telling her to f**k off, I just ghosted her for a few days. You know, let us both digest the situation.

Well…around that same time, one of my roommates–also neighbors/church friends with The Dimpler–came back from a visit to her place with a sh*t-eating grin on his face.

Turns out, he had inadvertently learned that this seemingly off-limits beauty had recently broken up with her long-time boyfriend (side note: do you know how flipping hard it is to flirt/”not flirt” with your hot af neighbor when you have to assume they have a boyfriend? Didn’t think so). One might even say she “\finally “kicked his ass to the curb.”

An interesting development indeed…

Flying monkeys. Would I ever be able to redeem those ----- stupid flying monkeys? That was yet another question that perpetually haunted me.

The year was 1998, and it was my Senior year of high school. Recall that the previous year our Quiz Bowl team had went undefeated in all 10 of our tournaments. And now it was supposed to be my turn–Quiz Bowl Stud Extraordinaire–to lead our fabled team to another undefeated year.

But it was not exactly going well. It was early in the season and we had suffered two Second Places in a row–no one wants second place–and in the current tournament we had made it to the championship match and were looking to break that streak of bad beats.

Late in the tight match, all tied up even with our challengers, the moderator began their question: “In the book, The Wizard of Oz…”

*BUZZZZZ*

I realized that I had instinctively reacted to the trigger phrase “Wizard of Oz” and ol’ Quick Draw McGraw here had buzzed in prematurely.

Normally, I would know the answer and leave the audience in awe at my ability to conjure the correct response with such little information and with such great confidence.

But…fuuuuuugggg. It was the Don Quixote/Man of La Mancha fiasco all over again (for the record, that was another premature answer on my part that effectively cost RHS the chance to achieve another unthinkable: winning the State Championship 4 years in a row).

The best, exasperated, I-am-fully-aware-of-how-ridiculous-this-situation-is, “educated” guess I could proffer with a chuckle was…flying monkeys.

I mean, it had as good as a chance of being the right answer as any other character/item/scenario from that beloved American book/movie.

But of course it wasn’t. And instead of being awarded 10 points and securing the win going into the final question of the match, we were dinged 5 points because I buzzed in early and got it wrong.

We went on to lose that championship match moments later. By 5 points…

“In the book, The Wizard of Oz, what color were Dorothy’s slippers?”

Not knowing what else to do with The Dimpler, I broke the 3 days of FaceBook radio silence with–you guessed it–the full version of the question that screwed me over roughly 10 years earlier.

Honestly, I didn’t have a plan of any sort. I just wanted to get back to chatting with her online, because when she wasn’t ambiguously insulting/complimenting me, it felt good. Real good. It was a bit of a high, and I feared I might be getting willingly addicted.

A day later, her response came back:

“Silver.”

I later found out that she Googled it, but obviously I didn’t give a rat’s ass whether she cheated to win or not. And yes, in the movie, they’re ruby-red, but in the book they are indeed silver. And the only reason I know this…well I just regaled you with all that.

Was I surprised that she got it right? No.

Did I have a well-calculated move waiting in the wings when she did? Also no.

And then…and then the Universe shined kindly on my dumb face with another inspired moment.

It felt as if I was watching somebody else control my hands as they typed out my response: “That is correct! And for your correct answer, you have won an evening with…the Mystery Author of the High-ku!”

…

“Awesome. When?”

…

“Does tonight work? He happens to be in town from Virginia.”

I had been playing along with her doubt about my authorship, going so far as to claim not only was the High-ku from an anthology of poetry written by current and former drug addicts, but to actually write another addiction-themed piece of work called The Light. Yeah, I was having a bit too much fun with the power that came with keeping things a mystery.

…

“Sure. I’ll be available around 6.”

…

“Sounds great. I’ll bring him by around then…”

The point of the story is that what you ultimately do with some of your deepest regrets is up to you. You can sit around and forever kick yourself for your Flying Monkeys Moments and all the stupid silver medals they won you.

Or you can turn around and find the Silver-Slippered lining in your hilarious, face-palming mistake and use it to trick and/or fall ass-backwards into a date with the hottest girl in the ‘hood.

In the end it’s up to you…

“But wait! Does the whole trickery about the Mystery Author blow up miserably in your face? How long can you last before your luck runs out and/or you return to your natural instincts and blow it all? Can you stick the landing, or will you add The Dimpler to your long list of The Ones That Got Away???”

…you are indubitably asking.

Well, stick around a bit longer and you just might funk around and find out…

(*Ahem* That’s how I say “To be continued…“)

Content created on: 5 August 2022 (Friday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Look Here, You Stupid Students, I Was A Great Teacher!

24 July 2022 / / 0 Comments
6 Min Read

If you’re aspiring to be an educator, why not take it for a spin first?

You never know what you just might learn…

“Yeesh! These physics students can be a real tough crowd…they seem to really enjoy busting the chops of us teaching assistants!”

Back in the day, before Yelp! and Google Ratings were a thing, reviews were handled the old-fashioned way: all accolades and raking-over-the-coals alike were in writing, on good ol’ paper.

In my case, it was August 2002, and as an aspiring high school physics teacher, my college side-gig was teaching labs in the physics department at Kansas State. I had taught the previous semester, and to kick off the TA1Short for Teaching Assistant. training session for the new semester, our lab directory was handing out our performance reviews–the ones our former students had written.

And boy, was I excited for the feedback! A little constructive criticism and a few compliments would surely only help my future career in education.

Welp, a mere two reviews in, and things are already getting…um, “interesting”.2I am sad to report that while I kept the best-of-the-best comments as mementos, I couldn’t locate them when I went to look for them. I really wanted y’all to see with your own eyes that I was not exaggerating.

He never seemed prepared to teach lab, and quite honestly, appeared to have no idea what he was talking about.

Anonymous Student #1

Ok, that’s not what I want to hear, but they do make a fair point: I would rarely review the material before class, pretty much just improvising as I went. It may be criticism, but hey, at least it’s constructive, right? Let’s see what else we got in here:

Worst TA I have ever had. What else do you want me to say?

Anonymous student #2

Ouch. I mean, c’mon…the worst? Like, how could you possibly know that? Ok, I’ll just file that one away as “Not a fan of my teaching style. And probably a poor student at that.” Next!

He was super-helpful, and happily provided his undivided attention any time our table had any questions.

Your favorite student *wink wink*

Ok, FINALLY, someone who speaks the truth. I was helpful. I was an attentive teacher. Those other haters are just jealous. I’m sure the rest of these are just like—

The absolute worst TA I have ever had…

Anonymous Student #3

BORING! I’ve already heard this one, buddy. Maybe try out some original material next time?

Wait, what’s that? There’s more?

…this guy was a total clown. I sincerely pity any future student of this bumbling buffoon. I somehow actually know less about physics after being his student.

Anonymous A-Hole #3

Ok, I gotta give this clearly disgruntled, low-achieving student points for creativity. They may not have science down, but at least the got a grasp on the English language. But I’m not going to let a few squeaky wheels get me down…

He sucked pretty hard at his job. The end.

Anonymous Butt-plug #4

Hmmm…am I crazy, or I’m starting to see a trend here? Let me flip through the rest of these…I’m confident that whoever went through these must have stuck all the glowing reviews singing my praises in the back…

He seems like a great guy…

A truth-seeing student

Yes…do go on…

…but sorry, he’s not a very good teacher at all.

I take that back, you, you sitter-on-a-throne-of-lies!

Okay, let’s just skip to the back, where the really good ones are surely awaiting me…

Unbelievable. He couldn’t be bothered to help us out at all. He would literally trip over himself like a damned fool to help the more attractive students, completely ignoring us regular folk.

Sounds like somebody has some self-esteem issues

Now, see, I gotta take issue with a comment like this. I enjoyed helping everybody. You know how some people claim “they don’t see race”? Well, as a teacher at least, I don’t see beauty or lack thereof, I merely see hungry minds, yearning to learn..

He only talks to pretty girls.

Someone who clearly doesn’t identify as a pretty girl

Ok, that’s it! Who wrote this? WHO WROTE THIS?!? This is nothing but a lie! I’ll admit that some groups of students connected with me better than other anti-social ones. And yes, therefore I spent more time engaging with those who bothered to engage back. And no, there was ZERO correlation between the perceived beauty or attractiveness of these students–heck, there were plenty of dudes amongst them–and how much time I spent with them. Sure, there might be some relationship between a student’s pleasing appearance and their social confidence–and thus more likely to respond to my attempts to connect with my students on a human level. But were there…um, “teacher’s pets” that one might argue were objectively less-than-attractive? Yes! Plenty of them! Don’t I get credit for talking to the not-pretty girls? Doesn’t it count for anything that I spent plenty of time talking to dude-students?

Oh geez. Doth I protest too much?

Do I really come off as a guy who “only talks to pretty girls?”

This is so embarrassing…

“Whew! These students are just really dragging our asses, aren’t they? How bad were your reviews?”

I knew I wasn’t a bad teacher. I didn’t have a bias towards students who were more physically blessed than the other students. Heck–I better not!

So to prove that, while I may be a mediocre educator, I’m overall an alright guy and these students are just sadists, I turned to my fellow TA, the K-Man,3I think his name was Kevin, but I can’t remember for sure. who surely got roasted by his students as viciously as I had.

“Huh? Well, actually, no…all my students loved me.”

“You’re kidding me! Why don’t you read some of yours out loud?”

“My pleasure…”

Absolutely loved being his student! Best TA ever!

YOu’re not helping my cause, other TA’s Student

“Oh. I bet it feels good to hear that. But surely they’re not all like this?”

“Let’s see…”

The K-Man knows physics, and knows how to teach it to us students. Wish every teacher was awesome as him. I love you, K-Man!

A little too glowing of a review is you ask me

“Okay, I believe you. You can stop now…”

“Ah! Here’s another gem:”

K-Man is the best. Women want him and men want to be with him…

A Student in the arts of hyperbole

“I SAID THAT’S ENOUGH, DUDE.”

“Just one more…”4I shit you not, this was really written in this guy’s TA review.

If there was one thing that the K-Man taught me in his class, it would be that I want to bear his children…

Definitely not my student

“Oh, you and your students can go ----- yo’ selves, K-Man!”

The beginning of the end. That’s what I like to call that particular moment.

It was indeed the beginning of the end of my budding career as a teacher. It made me really step back and wonder to myself, “Is it possible…could it be…maybe–just maybe–I’m not cut out to be a teacher?”

Incredibly, it would take another whole year before I fully accepted this cold hard truth and changed my major from “physics teacher” to just “physics”–but that’s a story for another time.

Eventually, though, the trauma induced by my mean, mean college-level physics students caught up with me. A couple of years later, when I was trying to decide if I should pursue my PhD in physics, I was thiiiiis close to walking away and saying “nope, not today mother fuckers!” And all because I knew that for the first year of my studies, the way I was going to put food on my table was being personally indentured to the UNC Department of Physics and Astronomy…teaching physics labs.

But, Young Grasshoppers, I am here today to tell you that shouldn’t let being a sh*tty teacher deter you from pursuing your dreams. And–fun fact–you can actually get better if you put some serious elbow grease into it.

Not only did I face down my fear of snarky students by diving headlong into the entire grad-school experience, but I actually did a pretty decent job teaching my labs. And you know why? Because, I took those less-than-fun feedback forms from years earlier to heart…

…and stopped talking to the pretty girls.

…

J.K. Kidding. It turns out that 30 minutes of prep work before class goes a long ways. That’s the real trick to not sucking butt as a teacher.

Oh, and if you need proof of what a slightly-above-average job I did my second time around as physics lab TA, you’re in luck; I brought receipts.

Not to brag…but…

Since you probably didn’t read every single one, I’ll paraphrase them for you: the students enjoyed my enthusiasm for physics, but felt that maybe the lab was not the proper venue for me to workshop my stand-up routine.

So that’s the good news. The bad news? None of my students wanted to bear my children. ----- you, K-Man, for setting the bar so high…

The point of the story is if you’re the type of guy (or gal) who only talks to pretty girls, you probably should give some thought to your choice of career.

Perhaps, for example, you might want to reconsider the notion of being a high school teacher–a scientifically proven formula for horrible, horrible, you-just-might-end-up-on-a-national-registry disaster…

Content created on: 22/23 July 2022 (Fri/Sat)

Footnotes & References:[+]

The Unexpected Value Of Rump-Shaking With An Average-Ass White Girl

17 July 2022 / / 1 Comment
6 Min Read

You asked the Universe for a modest amount of booty.

Butt you got a whole lot more than you bargained for…

“Oh, man, I couldn’t believe my good luck! Ladies fighting…over me?!? And not only that, the hot af, out-of-my-league one was winning??? Was this really happening, or was I just really, really drunk?”

Yes, this is exactly where I left you last time, with yet another cliff-hanger mystery…

…and this is the point in the story where I tell you to go back and do last week’s homework (aka take 3 minutes to read 3:45–The Perfect Time To Full On Panic At The Disco) if you haven’t already.

As usual, I’ll wait…

…

…

As it turned out, the correct answer was “both”.

At the end of the night, as I perambulated with the rest of the gang I had originally came with1If you were wondering how I ended up in a strange city dancing with strangers, the backstory is that I had joined my roommate, her boyfriend, my roomie’s female friend and her boyfriend, and my roomie’s female friend’s roomie for a Saturday night on the town in Greensboro, where one of them had recently moved. Since there were already two natural couples in the party, me and my roomie’s friend’s roomie was left to keep each other company for the night. Even though it shouldn’t have mattered, it seems that the fact that she was a lesbian contributed to her being as cold as ice towards me, despite my low expectations of having some platonic companionship for the night. Thus, I essentially found myself alone in the club. back to my roommate’s friend’s nearby apartment, I couldn’t help but feel like I was walking on clouds the whole way.

That really had happened! Both incidences had indeed actually had come to pass.

But, alas, when one is so drunk on wine and high on newly-found female affirmation, they are presented with a dilemma: do I drive the hour home under such influences? Or do I pass out in my clothes in my acquaintance’s abode, get 3 hours and 45 minutes2That’s a 3:45 Ass reference, folks. of sleep, and then drive directly to church at 7 am so I can fulfill my duties of setting up chairs for the worship services slightly hungover?

Pro-tip here, my friends: driving drunk is never the answer, and I had enough God-given sense to come to that conclusion as well.

As I drove to church the next morning, the hour ride gave me time to contemplate and ruminate over the previous evening’s events.

Was I filled with regret and remorse? Ah, hell no! Why would I want to take back such a euphoric life-changing experience? Nope, no regrets here, folks!

However, one thing gnawed at the back of my mind that I couldn’t ignore: why was I dancing with the average girl in the first place? Clearly there was a prime specimen next to her, shaking her tush in my general direction.

Yet…yet I distinctly remember thinking, “my best bet is to go for the average girl, a wager optimally balanced between having a modestly high chance of her accepting my advances, while the reward of being able to enjoy her modest level of beauty makes it worth the risk.”

In other words, going for the “personality friend” may have been close to a sure thing, but it wasn’t exactly a desirable outcome. On the other hand, the highest reward could be achieved by pursuing the attention of the “hot girl”, but my chances of success seemed too low to be worth the risk.

If you’re wondering why I would frame the problem in such terms, especially for someone who had had a few drinks, it should be noted that I had just finished a pair of PhD-level courses in quantum mechanics and thermodynamics about a month earlier, and so I couldn’t help but think of such choices in terms of “expectation values”.

Now, I won’t bore you with the granular details–you can read up on them here–but I will tell you the results of my off-the-cuff-and-inebriated dance floor calculations from that night. Using a superficial 1-to-10 attractiveness scale, I wanted to know where upon the scale I could expect to find the booty that would be grinding all up ons me, based on which of the three lasses I “chose” to pay attention to.

This value was found by multiplying the candidate’s perceived attractiveness by the estimated fractional chance3Note that this does not need to be normalized, i.e. the probabilities do not need to add up to 100% (or 1, actually), as my success with each of them was independent of the other, and there was no guarantee I would be successful with any of them. of success with that particular one. Ergo:

Hot girl (20% chance of success): 10 x 0.2 -> expected outcome: 2.

Friend with personality (90% chance of success): 3 x 0.9 -> expected outcome: 2.7.

Average girl (70% chance of success): 7 x 0.7 -> expected outcome: 4.9.

No choice (i.e. just wonder about the potential of the situation, but don’t take a ‘measurement’): (2 + 2.7 + 4.9)/3 -> expectation value: 3.2.

As you can see, making a move on the average girl was a well-calculated risk and a sound decision. But surprisingly, despite aiming not too high nor too low, I ended up with an outcome of 17!

Okay, so I shouldn’t have just added 7 + 10. Instead, it’s more appropriate to calculate the time-spent-with-each-girl-grinding-all-up-ons-me-weighted average, which, assuming 15 seconds and 135 seconds of booty-against-my-boys, respectively, comes out (7*15 + 10*135)/(15+135) = 1455/150 -> observed value: 9.7!

As you can tell, 9.7 is clearly much higher than 2, 2.7, 3.2 or even 4.9…so how were my calculations so far off???

It didn’t take long for me to realize where my error was hidden: in my estimated odds of success with each.

Not only did I not account for two very important factors–beer goggles and the lack of male competition–but I notably underestimated my chances of success with the hot girl.

Come to think of it, why did I assume that I didn’t have much of a chance with her? First off, I may be no Adonis, but I was the hottest guy in [that corner of] the room. In retrospect, it makes complete sense that she thought, as the hottest girl in [that corner of] the room, she would be entitled to the hottest guy, and hence the Hussy hostilities towards her average friend that I mentioned last time.

Secondly…well, there is no secondly. My physical appearance was pretty much all that she had to go on to make a judgment ass to whether or not I was bump-and-grind-worthy. So…if she clearly thought that I was so bump-and-grind-worthy that she would physically assault her supposed friend to get to me, that must mean…

Ok, so this definitively confirmed something I had suspected for quite some time. Do I have an inferiority complex? No, as I would have gone after the friend-with-personality. Do I have a superiority complex? That can’t be the case, otherwise I would have had made a bee-line towards the hot girl.

I went straight for the average one. Sh*t…I have a mediocrity complex (TM).

…

You have no idea how long I’ve waited to use that punchline, LOL. But I digress…

No, that’s not the worst of it, though. I could feel an even worse realization looming just over the horizon. True, it was a lack of sobriety that had led me to this eye-opening experience, but now, staring at the rising sun on my way to church and in the thrall of sobriety, a new level of enlightenment–some form of twisted nirvana, if you will–was coming over me.

What was really gnawing at me was: Why did I have such incredible unexpected luck last night? In theory, she should have taken one look at me and scoffed haughtily and ran off in indignation. I’ve felt that, much like the friend-with-presumed-personality, I’ve had to ride my own personality pretty much my whole life, attributing my lack of luck with the ladies to my average, non-Adonis physical appearance. And, alas, that is something that I can’t change too much.

But…wait just a tick. If my looks weren’t ruining romance for me–a new-found fact which was just unequivocally confirmed by my little dance-a-thon the night before–what else could possibly be sabotaging my love life (apart from dirty old bastards)…?

Oh. Oh, no.

No…no…no.

A twist in the plot unfolded just then as if my life had been written by M. Night Shyamalan himself: it wasn’t my physique that was the culprit here. It was something even more me: my big fat mouth and my “personality” had been screwing me over all along!

That was such a complete and utter shock to my sense of self that I almost drove off the road. It was pretty horrifying, actually. Here, what I thought were my best assets (no pun intended, seeing as how “ass” has been the theme lately), have turned out to be my own worst enemy all along–and I’m only finding out about this now at age 26!

On the flip side of this uncomfortable and worldview-shattering revelation though, was an incredibly shiny silver lining. It is true that one can only do so much with the looks ----- gave them–and so the good news is that this is not my problem!

Social skills, speech filters, being an intentional listen, working to be a kinder and more thoughtful soul…these things I could do something about. I had the power to actually change my love life luck, instead of just being a whiny shmoe who only pouts about what I crappy hand life has dealt him.

Indeed, what had been a night of mild hedonism for an innocent li’l church boy had somehow turned out to be perhaps the most life-changing moment of my life (yet whether or not that is the case, is a tale yet to be told here).

Or, in terms of my original title for this post (read like a newspaper headline):

Local Man’s Drunken Ass Gyrations Lead To Unexpected Self-Realizations

The headline from that night, if my life were captured in an Onion article

Content created on: 8/15 July 2022 (Fri/Fri)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Two Toe-tally Terrific Ways To Use Your Stupid Time Machine

26 June 2022 / / 0 Comments
4 Min Read

It’s a war–a war on bugs, that is.

But I think I have may chosen the wrong side…

“Man…it’s just the darnedest thing. Blue-green skin…I’ve never seen anything like it…”

“Wait…what?!? What skin?? Where??”

In retrospect, I don’t know why I thought casually mentioning to my grad school roommates that “I got blue-green skin” would be met with “Ooh! How interesting!”

Yeah, on second thought “what in the actually f***?!?” seems like the proper response. But, alas, hindsight is 20/20 and this cat was already out of its bag.

“Huh? What? Oh yeah, it’s just that my athlete’s foot has taken on a blue-green hue. In my 25 or so years of having athlete’s foot, this is—“

“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Back this train up a sec! First, off: you have athlete’s foot and didn’t tell us?!?” Sue1Almost her real name. was apparently unhappy with this revelation.

“We share the same shower, you prick!” Patty2Again, almost her real name. quickly clarified exactly why they were so pissed at me.

“And 25 years?!? Dude, you just turned 26! What the heck?!?” Also apparent: Sue’s grasp of basic math.

“Well, it’s not that big of a deal, really. I’ve had chronic athlete’s foot pretty much my entire life. You see, my toes unnaturally curve onto each oth—“

“No big deal?!? You don’t get to decide whether or not it’s ‘a big deal’—we do.”

“No, no, you don’t understand, it’s pretty much just a ‘me’ problem.”

“No, you understand. Man, we don’t want none of yo’ nasty foot fungus. So here’s the deal: you’re wearing sandals in the shower until it clears up.”

“And that’s non-negotiable.”

“Dammit.” I muttered under my breath. I knew that I had no choice but to acquiesce.

“Ok, fine. I’ll go get it checked out and in the meantime I suppose I’ll wear flip-flops in the shower. I really regret saying anything though—all this drama is completely unnecessary, in my humble opinion…”

I just had to throw that last comment in there, didn’t I? Patty for one sure wasn’t bemused by it.

“Well, in my humble opinion, I can’t believe you even considered not telling us! Bad roommate. Bad roommate!”

Ok, ok, so they had a point–and if I could travel back in time and provide some spiritual counsel to my younger self, I’d tell that jackass to be more thoughtful and considerate of those with whom he shares personal spaces.

Even though the both of me know ----- well that “what they didn’t probably would never have hurt them”…

“So there I was at the gym locker room, and I realized ‘oh crap, I forgot my shower sandals!’ True story…”

‘Twas a few years later, and I found myself regaling my sole3Pun intended. roommate—aka my wife, aka The Boss Lady—with the perhaps the world’s most boring gym-related story.

“And then what happened?!? What did you do? Shower in your sneakers? Skip the shower altogether? Tap into your inner MacGuyver and make some sandals solely out of paper towels?”

“Huh? What do you mean ‘what did I do?’ I just took a shower barefoot. Duh.”

“Oh my god! Who knows what disease or calamity you could have picked up from the shower floor! How could you put your feet in such grave and imminent danger?!?”

“Listen Toots…um…how do I say this? Oh! I know! Even though this is the year 2009, I figure I could best illustrate my point with a clip from the August 21, 2011 episode of the hit AMC TV show, Breaking Bad.”

*hops into time machine, buzzes back almost instantaneously with the DVD boxset of the complete series of Breaking Bad*

*Ahem* “In this scene, the role of my toes will be played by Walter White…”

Now hop in your dumbass time machine one last time with me and fast forward to the present, whence a pandemic ravishes the globe. Mask-wearing seems to cyclically fall in and out of vogue.

Free-facers are shunned like pariahs. Faithful maskers are mocked. And thus the pendulum swings back and forth.

Which camp do I fall into, you ask? Well, let me tell you a little story. A little story about a little mask…

Once upon a last week, a very close friend of mine went to an indoor concert at a venue where masking was optional. What did my friend do? Well, he and his date were 2 out of about 8 total people at that show who actually opted to wear a masks. Because…seriously, what the ----- are those 2,7044https://dukeperformances.duke.edu/venues/dpac-durham-performing-arts-center/ other people thinking?!?

Funny thing, though: it’s hard to prove how hardcore of a fan you are when no one can see you accurately lip-syncing with a mask plastered over your face. But, for one brief moment, in an attempt to prove to his date that he indeed knew the words to some of the songs at this show he had dragged her to, he removed his mask, belted out 3 lines of The Remedy directly in his date’s face, and promptly replaced the mask back on his face.

Now, unbeknownst to this very close friend of mine–in spite of over two years of diligently masking no matter how uncool it became (and zero infections)–ye ol’ COVID had finally come for him, a cold hard fact that was confirmed approximately 5 hours after this particular concert.

(“You gotta be ----- kidding me!” he thought, no doubt.)

But, one to always find the silver lining in any situation, he later told me, “You know, I sometimes wonder if I infected anybody at that concert–besides my date–when I took my mask off for those 10 seconds. But then I realized, hey, if those unmasked ----- picked up anything from me, then that one’s kinda on them.”

He continued, “Yeah, I could feel at least half of them staring at me and my multi-colored mask, mocking me in their heads. But the joke’s on them, cuz as it turns it out…”

*dramatically whips head to the side to look Camera 2 dead in the eye*

“…I am the one who knocks!”

…

…

…

Me. It’s me. I am the one who knocks…*cough cough*

Content created on: 25/26 June 2022 (Sat/Sun)

Footnotes & References:[+]

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