For a young guy, what’s the worst that could possibly go wrong?
Well, I’ll tell you–but pay no mind if I unexpectedly go a little long…
“Of course you know what an ‘N.R.B.’ is right?” my college buddy Beecher spontaneously switched gears in the middle of our late-night conversation.
No, I didn’t know what this is so-called ‘N.R.B.’ was, and no, I had no idea where he was going with this random train of thought.
“Uhhh…isn’t that that rap group from the 80’s that had Christian moms all up in arms and boycotting Walmart for carrying their albums?” I fathomed a guess.
“Naw, dude, that’s N.W.A. you’re thinking of. What I’m talking about are NRBs–No-Reason Boners–ya’ know? Like, it’s a scientific fact that every young guy gets them. The real question is: what does a lad do when he is bequeathed with a pNRB–a Public No-Reason Boner?” he intimated with a completely straight face.
“Ok, I think we need to back this conversation up just a tad. First, you do realize that we are in a semi-public venue, right?”
I grandly gestured around the Baptist church where our Christian college ministry, The Navigators, was regularly meeting every Thursday that year. Though our meeting had officially ended about 15 minutes earlier, there were plenty of us college kids still milling about.
“Aren’t you concerned any of the young ladies here might overhear us?” I asked in almost a whisper.
“Naw, man, they probably need to hear this. I almost guarantee you that they are all completely oblivious to this common affliction that we are all stricken with from time to time,” Beecher attempted to assuage my concerns. “It’s much better that they’re educated ahead of time, so that when it does happen to one of us in their presence, our dear Sisters in Christ won’t think we’re a bunch of raging perverts.”
“You do make a good point. But if we’re gonna have this conversation now, can we at least be gentlemen about it? Let’s call this phenomenon by it’s medical-slash-scientific name, shall we?” I countered.
“Oh yeah? And what would that be?” he inquired.
“Why, Spontaneous Involuntary Erections, of course! Or S.I.E.s, for short,” I said, before fully considering my choice of words.
“Hey, who you calling ‘short’? There ain’t nothing short about my NRBs–sorry, my SIEs!” Beecher could have retorted, but didn’t because he was a grown-ass man in his second year of college, not a boy in junior high. But that didn’t stop that train of thought from leaving my mind-station.
Needless to say, Beecher was slightly confused when I continued with that unspoken line of thinking.
“Speaking of which,” I said out of nowhere, “it really would have been nice to have had a name for that monster that terrorized me when I myself was a junior high boy…”
“What we now know to be NRBs–or ‘NeRBs‘, if it makes it easier to say aloud–terrified this nerd,” I gestured to myself as I began regaling Beecher against his will with my ‘back-in-the-day’ tale.
“You see, in 8th grade I had just moved to California, and for the first time was at a big school with a bunch of kids I didn’t know. Ocean View Jr. High’s demographic was primarily kids of Mexican migrant workers and military brats from the nearby Navy base–not exactly the crowd I was used to. Not that it’s relevant to the story, but ironically, of all them, I was probably the most ‘illegal’ one, seeing as how I was very much illegally living on that particular Navy base with my sister…”
“Anyways, every day at 10:05 a.m. sharp, I would find myself in a locker room with a bunch of these guys. At first, I thought the pit in my stomach was just part of the nerve-wracking experience of moving to a different state and going to a new school as an extreme introvert.”
“Yes, believe it or not, I was quite the introvert then–I’ve always been one at heart…”
“Anyways, the point of the story is1Yes, I was infamously misusing this turn of phrase back in my college days–and well before that, even. it wasn’t the New-School Nerves that almost had me throwing up every day at mid-morning. My NSNs subsided relatively quickly, and it wasn’t too long before I realized that I was just absolutely certain that I would have a case of the NeRBs befall me during the two windows of time at the beginning and end of gym class when we would be changing into and back out of our gym clothes.”
“I probably got an ulcer from all the anxiety the specter of a NeRB caused me for those 10 long months back in ’94 and ’95…”
“Speaking of ‘B’s: Jack Oliver, that old bastard…” I just barrelled right on into my next thought, as I was wont to do.
Beecher just gave me a ‘WTF’ look, but nevertheless made no attempt to stop me.
“Yeah, Mr. Oliver was our ironically-overweight gym teacher–one could even say he was ‘fat’. But what made him a fat bastard is that he had the audacity to make us jog laps for the entire gym period every Tuesday and Thursday, the whole ----- year long.”
“But that wasn’t the worst part–what made him diabolical was that our grade in his class was based on whether or not we met his arbitrarily-determined quota of laps for the day.”
“Not only was I nerd in junior high, I was a chubby nerd who absolutely hated running or jogging of any kind. So now in addition to my petrifying2This is an obtuse attempt at a pun–you see, petrified wood is wood that has become rock hard…and I was terrified that I would be sporting some rock-hard wood…um…it’s a pun, dammit. fear of getting a so-called chubby every day in gym class, I had the additional trauma of the bi-weekly anticipation of some state-sanctioned self-flagellation. And the real terror was that this masochistic ritual of mucking about in circles in a former California strawberry field could very easily result in the ruining of my pristine streak of always getting straight-A’s throughout my entire academic career!”
I paused for dramatic effect, but Beecher was already well aware of my penchant for #HumbleBragging–he’d already been wowed by every detail of all the scholarships and grants that was supporting my collegiate endeavors–and wisely chose not to further indulge me on that front.
“Dude, is there even really a point to your story? You made that promise upwards of 3 minutes and 12 thoughts ago, and you have yet to deliver the goods,” Beecher was starting to get a little impatient with me–no doubt he really wanted to keep talking about adolescent erections rather than how ----- smart I was.
“Okay, fine, I’ll get to the point: After all was said and done–and despite all my accumulated irrational fear–I never got a single NRB my entire 8th grade year–not one! I did, however, get a single ‘B’–as in the letter grade–on my third-quarter report card.”
“I almost never forgave that bastard for ruining my Lifetime Straight-A bragging rights…until I realized that that bastard–said this time with utmost affection–saved me from my ultimate fear: public speaking.”
“Oh yeah? How’s that?” Beecher inquired, slightly exasperated that my non-erectile story was managing to go long and strong all night long like a guy who had popped one-too-many Viagras on Valentine’s Day.
“Well, with my perfect 4.00 GPA no longer intact, I was guaranteed to be knocked out of the running for Valedictorian. Sure, the honor would have been nice, but who needs the stress of not only writing, but also delivering, a contrived speech to a bunch of peers and parents who simply don’t give a flying fudge?”
“Wait just a tick,” Beecher said, slightly surprised by this twist, “you mean to tell me that you don’t have a life-long grievance with Jack Oliver that will eventually get aired in a future Festivus?”
“Oh, I got grievances to air, alright. What? You thought I was done with my story? Hah! I’m only just getting started.”
“Dammit,” Beecher muttered as he looked wistfully at his watch. “You mean to tell me that this story is to be continued…“
Content created on: 6/7 January 2024 (Sat/Sun)
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