Tag: Best Of 2024 (Page 1 of 2)

Zoinks, Kids! Look Out For Strange Scooby-Dudes A-Meddling With You

22 December 2024 / BJ / 0 Comments

8 Min Read

This is a warning to any kiddie-stalkers that look oddly like my friend, my dude:

You keep following those girls, and I swear I’ll end you…

“What’s up, dude?”

Little did I know just how close those three little words would come to unwittingly destroying several lives.

I had just come out of the local bookstore on the edge of our quaint little downtown, and stepped into a quagmire of foot traffic–people here, there, everywhere! It was our town’s annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony and other related festivities, and residents of all ages were enjoying holiday music courtesy of a various junior high bands, hot chocolate and other baked goods, visits to Santa, and all other assorted types of merriment.

Given the tidy crowd that had come out on this fine November afternoon, I wasn’t surprised when I saw three pre-teen girls from my kids’ school traipsing merrily past me.

And I was utterly delighted when just a few steps behind them was a blonde ponytail I’d recognize anywhere. ‘Twas none other than Adam, father of one of the girls–who we’ll call ‘L’–and one of my closer #DadFriends from the school!

He seemed to be intently watching the girls, and didn’t notice me coming out of the bookstore, so to get his attention, I uttered those three fateful words…

“What’s up, dude?”

As he turned towards me, I could tell Adam seemed a little surprised to hear someone whispering in his ear.

But by the time he had finally turned all the way around and determined that I was the one calling him ‘dude’, it was my turn to be even more surprised–it wasn’t Adam at all!

Admittedly, I was a little embarrassed, but c’mon! I swear the guy looked just like Adam from the side, plus I know for sure that had been his daughter passing by only moments earlier.

“Uh, oh, sorry man. I thought you were someone else,” I stammered.

Fortunately, Not-Adam was pretty cool about it.

“Oh, hah! It’s all good–no worries!” he said barely breaking pace to engage with me.

“Heh-heh…yeah, you totally looked like another guy I know. Again, my apologies,” I said, trying not to be too awkward about it.

I was headed in the same direction as Not-Adam, so I attempted to walk alongside him as we shared a little laugh over the case of mistaken identity.

“It’s funny, y’know?” he said as he barely took his eyes off something or someone just ahead of us. “I just thought you were talking on your Bluetooth or something.”

“Is that so?” I said, quickening my pace just to keep up with the guy.

“Yeah, you could have played the whole thing off like you were talking on the phone and I would have never been none the wiser,” he said, now very clearly distracted from our conversation.

He seemed to sense that I could tell his focus was elsewhere.

“Oh, sorry, I’m trying to keep an eye on those girls up there.”

What. The. ----- Dude? He’s just openly copping to being a creep?

“Come again?” I said, still taken aback by his brazen admission.

“Yeah, I can’t let them out of my sight. That’s my daughter and her two friends.”

I just kinda stared at him in disbelief. Was I taking crazy pills?!? This guy looked a lot like Adam, and now he’s claiming to be L’s dad–i.e. Adam? Had I slipped into a parallel timeline? What the hell was going on here???

“Oh. Is that so?” I said, trying to suss out what his deal was.

Either this guy was a grown up Changeling¹Check out this Wikipedia article if you don’t know what a changeling is. Adam, or I just happened to stumble upon his Doppelgänger²Check out this Wikipedia article if you don’t know what a Doppelgänger is.…who–fun fact–turned out to be a pedophile (or ‘kiddie-fiddler’ for you Brits in the audience).

“Sorry, gotta run! Later, ‘dude’!” he said before suspiciously skittering in the direction of this 3 underage targets…

“You’re not her real dad, you sicko!”

I knew that I any pedo worth his grit would have said something like “uh, yeah, that pre-pubescent girl I’m following is…uh…she’s…uh…she’s my daughter! Yeah, she’s my daughter!”

This wasn’t the first time that some creep had been following around young girls in our beloved small-town downtown, but I wasn’t going to let this Not-Adam get away with it a second time!

A quick phone call to the proper authorities, and it was only a few minutes later before I was leading the local cops through the crowd trying to locate that pervert before he could get to his victims. And now, here we were with him pinned to the ground with his arms behind his back, cops swarming all over him like ants on rice, and me, with my righteous anger calling him out on his lies and deception.

“Hey! What’s going on here?” the sex offender protested. “I am too her real dad!”

“Officers, this man was about to violently attack 3 young girls in a dark alleyway, had it not been for my quick thinking and your heroic actions.”

“What are you even talking about? You are ----- insane, man!”

I must say, this guy was putting on an Oscar-worthy performance.

“Gentlemen of the law, this man was claiming to be the father of one of these girls–“

“Which I AM!” Chester the Molester interjected.

“I know her father–our kids are in the same class together–and while he even went to the great lengths of putting on a prosthetic rubber mask and ponytail wig to even look like him–he almost had even me fooled–I assure you: this man is an imposter!”

I had since given up on my highly implausible and rather ridiculous theories of a supernatural origin of Not-Adam, and was now presenting to law enforcement an explanation that was much more within the realm of reason.

“I swear to g0d, if you don’t get off me and let me go right now, I’ll sue the PBO police department into oblivion, along with this ----- delusional nut case,” the Kiddie-Fiddler-on-the-Roof seethed, gesturing at me.

“Officers of the court, if it pleases you, I will now reveal the true identity of this child predator!” I said grandiosely, firmly grasping the perv’s fake hair.

“This man in no Adam! Watch as I pull off his mask and reveal his true identity!”

“Sir, I don’t recom–” one of officer said, lunging in vain to stop me.

“Wait, who’s Ad–OWWWWWW!” the criminal yelped in agony at my first failed attempt to remove the wig and mask.

“Oh, you cheeky bastard, you’re real good. You must be using the facial glue that the Hollywood pros do. But it won’t stand up to my second attempt!” I proclaimed to the gathering crowd that included Santa and at least one elf, as I placed both hands this time on those almost-convincingly-real locks of the perp.

“Sir! Please don’t–” another officer said as he unwisely tried to intervene.

“SWEET BABY JEEEEEEEEEEEZUS! That ----- hurt. Somebody, please! Stop this madman before he rips out all my beautiful hair!” he cried.

The mask hadn’t come off just yet, but undeterred, I knew I was closer than ever to exposing this degenerate like I was Chris Hansen.

“Don’t be fooled, folks! Third time’s a–“

“DAD?!?”

One of the girls bust through the crowd.

“Don’t fall for it kid! This isn’t your dad–this is a fake Adam!” I said, guiding her away from the deception that abounded.

“Wait…who’s Adam?” she said.

“Wait…you’re not L…” I said.

“He’s my dad!” L said, gasping as she stumbled through a gap in the crowd behind the other girl.

“That’s what he’d like you to believe! But despite the impressive prosthetics and other fakery, trust me, Young Grasshopper, this guy ain’t your real dad!”

“No sh*t, Sherlock,” the mystery girl said. “He’s MY dad!”

“FOR F*CK’S SAKE!” cursed the Fake Adam on the ground. “Somebody tell me who Adam is???”

“Definitely not you, chump!” I said.

“And…?” YouLookLikeAnAdam said, waiting me to say something else.

“Wait…what? You’ve finally given up on claiming to be Adam?” I said after a beat.

“Hey, I never once said I was this mythical Adam! And frankly, the guy sounds made up to me…”

“He’s my dad!” L repeated herself.

“No, poor confused child, this man is not your dad!”

Dang, he really did have her fooled.

“Because he’s my dad!”

Now the other girl was repeating herself!

“Sweet girl, don’t confuse your pretty little head over this. We all know that Adam is not your dad,” I slightly condescended.

“Would somebody please listen to my daughter?!?” the guy moaned.

“Look, Buster, we all know that L isn’t really your daughter, so stop calling her that! We see right through your charade!”

“Huh?” L said. “Please leave me out of this hot mess.”

“Huh?” I said.

“He was talking about me, you ass-hat,” the other girl sassed.

“What?” Now my pretty little head was getting confused. “Who’s the ‘he’ you’re referring to? Adam?”

“What? No. Adam is her dad,” she said gesturing to L. “Why is my dad pinned to the ground by a police officer.”

“But I told you he’s an impost–“

I stopped short.

“Wait. What?”

“Sir,” the most imposing of the officers–the one who had been pinning the guy to the ground–now got up and turned his attention towards…me?

“We’re going to have to take you down to the station,” he continued. “Make false accusations of molestation and assaulting another man’s hair are serious offenses that you’ll need to answer to.”

“What? No! I did nothing wrong!” I protested, even as it slowly dawned on my dumb ass that maybe–just maybe–I was the one who had been confused this whole time.

“Sir…” the officer looked at me over the top his glasses and down his nose at me, a look that said, “We both know you’re full of shit.”

“So…what you’re saying is that there is no mask? No wig? No Scooby-Doo heroics to be had?”

“You’re free to go, Sir,” the officer said–but not to me.

“Just call me Lloyd…Lloyd P. Fletcher. And like I told you I’m her dad,” he said, glaring at me while gesturing to the other girl.

“Um…” was all I could muster, as I slowly died of embarrassment.

“Nice to meet you, asshole…”

So…fun fact: this story was pretty accurate, at least up until the police allegedly got involved.

Except, ’twas I that got mistaken for Adam, and not the other way around.

Let me tell you that side of the story:

So I show up to this whole tree-lighting thing with my daughter, who we’ll call ‘A’. A bunch of her old classmates from last year who are in junior high this year were selling baked goods at a booth, so we had to immediately make a bee-line for them.

Now, enter the third girl, who we’ll call ‘L.L. Bean’ just for the hell of it. L.L. is my baby’s bestie, and we know each other pretty well since she be hanging out at our house a lot and vice versa.

L.L. and her family had just got back from a trip overseas just a day or two before, so her overprotective parents were too jet-lagged to join her at the event, but dropped her off on her own on the condition that she have a trusted adult around at all times. Originally, the trusted adults were the teachers and other parents running the booth.

Seeing an opportunity for a bit of freedom to roam, L.L. explained her situation to me, and asked if I would be willing to tail her and A while they bantered about downtown.

Being a good father and friend-father, I agreed, and off we went: L.L., A. and me–and L.

And it was about halfway through their little adventure was when I heard out of nowhere:

“What’s up, dude?”

Anyways, you already know approximately the conversation we had–though I didn’t explicitly say I was following my daughter and her friends…which might have been even creepier in that situation.

A little while later, we passed L’s mom, whom I had met once a few weeks earlier when she picked up L. from our house. And talking to L’s mom was…this complete stranger who had mistaken me for somebody he knew.

I waved hi as we passed, and then immediately caught up with L.

“Hey, um…who’s that guy talking to your mom?”

“Oh, that was James, Paddriac’s dad,” she replied.

Ahh, ‘Paddriac’–not his real name, because his real name is my fake middle name, one of the most tightly guarded secrets in America–a kid a year or two older than my daughter A., a year older than L.L., and the same age as L.

I thought it was humorous that we kinda almost knew each other after all.

Later on, once L.L.’s dad showed up and I was free of my babysitting responsibilities, I doubled back and introduced myself to him and reintroduced myself to L.’s mom.

“Yeah, he kinda looks a lot like Adam, right?” he commented to her (almost as if I wasn’t even there).

She thoughtfully looked at me from several different angles before concurring, “yeah, especially from this back angle, I could see how even I might think it was Adam.”

“Um…so who’s Adam?” I said, apparently the only one of the three of us not intimately familiar with my Doppelgänger.

“My husband–L.’s dad,” she said.

“Oh. Cool,” was about all I had to comment on this new information that could potentially lead to future awkward situations…like, she’s essentially seen me naked. And…uh…other naked-type things. You know…awkward.

I did later confirm with my wife, who had met Adam once, that I did indeed look a helluva lot like him. Now…come to think of it…by my logic, she’s essentially seen him naked as well…

But I digress.

It didn’t occur to me until later how this James fella was probably hella confused by the early situation…and thus, Part Two of this story was born, as I tried to imagine what it was like to be in his shoes during the encounter, which as we all know by now, got well out of hand.

At least it did in my head…

Content created on: 20/21 December 2024 (Fri/Sat)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Footnotes & References:
↵1	Check out this Wikipedia article if you don’t know what a changeling is.
↵2	Check out this Wikipedia article if you don’t know what a Doppelgänger is.

Actually, The Truth About Lloyd P. Fletcher Couldn’t Be Sketchier

8 December 2024 / BJ / 0 Comments

9 Min Read

They have origin stories! They have alter-egos! But if I got an origin story for my alter-ego?

That just might make me a super super-hero…

“For the last time, lady,” I fiercely typed, “tell your country club friends that, no, I’m not that Lloyd Fletcher; no, I’m not your husband; and no, I do not want play tennis with them!”

I had tried to kindly address the situation before, but alas, I still received regular emails imploring ‘Bud’–apparently this other Lloyd Fletcher’s nickname–to join them for a friendly round of doubles tennis.

The situation had become so comically ridiculous that, given my druthers, I would have shown up at ‘The Club’, racket in hand, and upon seeing them (not that I would have known what Bud’s buddies looked like), curtsied and declared, “‘Tis I, the noble and beloved Lloyd Fletcher!”

The only problem was that ‘The Club’ appeared to be somewhere in Anchorage, Alaska, while I was off yonder in North Carolina. ‘Twas a real bummer, too, because that would have been pretty ----- funny.

Actually, though, my life had been intertwined with Bud’s long before I moved to North Carolina. According to my records, I first became aware of doppel-namer¹That’s like a doppelganger, but with names. back in 2004 when I received an Alaskan Airlines/Horizon Air ticket confirmation for one Lloyd Fletcher. The fact that it was a round trip between Anchorage and Kotzebue (also in Alaska), was my first clue that email just may not have been intended for me.

Later on, I would be involved in a whole email thread about terraforming lagoons in Palembang…which I deduced from contextual clues in the email was located somewhere in Indonesia, and that Bud and his wife were going to be visiting soon (though he really wanted to be based in Singapore, if possible, on account of her desire for leisure and not malaria).

I ultimately figured out that the hilarious mix-up was the result of us both using variations of ‘Lloyd Fletcher’ in our email addresses: mine was lloydfletcher@hotmail.com,²I would to go ahead preemptively apologise if there actually is a Lloyd Fletcher somewhere out there using my fake real email address. You know…since I’m not even the real fake Lloyd Fletcher, and that is just an alias for our purposes here, in order to protect my fake identity. and his was lloyd_fletcher@hotmail.com. Did you catch that? Bud had an underscore between his first and last name in his email address–which I’m sure was a real pain in the ass whenever he had to give it out: “…now, it’s very important that you include the underscore–otherwise your emails will go to some yahoo in the Lower 48 with the same name…”

What I never had the heart to tell him was that–fun fact–we don’t actually have the same name…

“Have you heard about this new email service that’s totally free?!?” Phillip K. Ballz–my high school bestie–enthused. “We can be the first kids in town to have our very own Hotmail–what a cool name, right?!?–accounts. We’re going to be so cool!”

“Totes magotes, my dude, let’s do it! But what names should we pick? My name is way too common, and it looks like I would have to add ’69’ or something like that since almost every other variation is already somehow taken.”

Honestly, I didn’t expect ol’ PKB to be of any help in picking out a name. You should have seen how long it took us to settle on a name for our little garage grunge band that we had formed a year earlier in ’96 (that’s the year 1996, for you kids at home wondering what such a big number like that means). But, you know what, my favorite dipshit surprised me this time.

“How about you use your alter-ego? Now that would be cool!” he suggested.

“Oh, you mean ol’ ‘Lloyd P. Fletcher’? Hah! I had forgot about him!”

Back when I was a bored freshman–now that would have been in late ’95 or early ’96–I had got my hands on an ID holder, and decided that I needed to make myself a very crude fake ID. Of course, the best part of constructing a fake ID is getting to conjure up a fake name.

Taking inspiration from a well-known grunge band that I idolized, I borrowed the first name from one of their lesser-known songs, ‘Lloyd’. Of course that’s not my real fake first name–if I used my actual fake name, then everybody in the world would have my email address. And I take the privacy of somebody who I completely made up very seriously.

Anyways, another fun fact is that ‘Lloyd’ is actually reference to a secondary character from a very, very famous feel-good TV show from the 60’s. I’m not going to name any names–no real names anyways–but let’s just say it was so feel-good that the theme song may or may not include the most well-recognized whistling Americana has every produced.

Oh, and a not-so-fun-fact is that this song–the one that inspired me so much that I would name my alter-ego after it–was actually about some very, very dark subject matter. I believe it implied that this particular Lloyd belonged on a registry that may or may not be bridal in nature. (Spoiler alert: it’s not that kind of registry.) Further, this song implied that some of the most beloved characters from this show were complicit in such utterly ----- -up behavior.

So…yeah, that’s where my fake first name came from.

Now as for the mystique-laden ‘P.’, that intriguing middle initial. It actually does stand for something…unlike that prick Harry S. Truman–the S stands for nothing! Nothing at all! No, not my P. though–it’s a very funny-to-say-and-I-wonder-who-the-hell-would-ever-name-their-kid-that kind of name, which may or may not be found in a certain holy scripture. Fun fact, though, someone in our vicinity was ‘the hell’ that named their kid this, as a member of our rival small-town (which may or may not share the same name as a very well-known Russian city) football team had this name. And it made me snicker every time I heard it…

I think I may have digressed here a bit…where was I? Oh, yeah, I waxing poetic about the P.–which, again, I need to reiterate, is not my real fake middle initial. Anyways, the true fake identity of The P. was such a well-guarded secret that knowing it meant that you were in the inner-most innerds of my inner circle of trust. If I had told you the true meaning of The P., I was telling you a secret that I expected you to take to your grave. In fact, up until the point I was married, I believe that there were maybe 3 or 4 people who actually knew what The P. stood for…including my wife. Naturally, it was also my Hotmail password up until at least Y2K.

Lastly, I needed a fairly pretentious last name to go with ‘Lloyd P.’ The feel I was really going for–and why I insisted my fake self had a middle initial that lent itself to a certain nominal cadence–was inspired by the sheriff from The Dukes of Hazzard, Roscoe P. Coltrane.

Wait a second, that doesn’t sound quite pretentious enough…

*checks notes*

Ahh, right, I got my lawmen with prominent middle initials from 1970’s pop culture mixed up. Who I was actually thinking of all those decades ago when putting together my nom de plume was the sheriff from Smokey And The Bandit, Sheriff Buford T. Justice–that’s the guy. If I recall correctly, my dude was a huge pompous a**hole, always harruffing about, making sure that everyone included his middle initial when referring to him.

Say, if you’re in need of short break, why don’t you take a moment and enjoy this montage I found, the Best of Buford T. Justice:

Okay, so I was saying I needing a good fake last name to make me sound legit. For unknown reasons, I found what I was looking for in the Funnies Page of my beloved regional newspaper. I happened to remember a bit of trivia about the last name of well-known cartoon rascal of about 7 years in age, and thought ‘Fletcher’ would perfectly complete my alter-ego’s name. And again, Fletcher is not my real fake last name. It’s my fake name’s fake last name.

So there you have it: you were essentially in the room when Lloyd P. Fletcher was brought forth into this world. Of course, he wasn’t meant to live beyond the laminated walls of my Morton County Community College security badge.

But then I made the rookie mistake that every almost-17 -year-old makes: I thought it would be a fantastic idea to immortalize Lloyd by claiming the address lloydfletcher@hotmail.com.

And I can’t stop laughing every time I think about Bud, the real ‘Lloyd Fletcher’ (not his real name either–I have to protect the privacy of those who have the misfortune of sharing a name with ‘me’!). I bet when he went to sign up for his Hotmail account, he thought he was such a unique snowflake: “This will be easy, since I’m basically the only Lloyd Fletcher on this plan–whaaaah?!? How can this be? There’s another Lloyd Fletcher, and just my luck, he beat me to the Hotmail punch!”

“Fear not!” the real Lloyd Fletcher indubitably thought. “I’ll just throw an underscore in there–what could possibly go wrong???”

Well, I’ll tell you what could go wrong Lloyd: you have no idea how many tennis matches your wife Gaye shows up to but your clueless ass is nowhere to be seen! And you remember Palembang? Well, that trip almost didn’t happen because at one point I was pretty sure I was going to have to get on a plane and go build treatment lagoons in your stead. Why the hell do I know so much about lagoons in third-world countries anyways?!?

Now one might accuse me of proverbially acting like David in the Bible, and ‘Lloyd Fletcher’ my Bathsheba. Have I lustily and greedily taken yet another name for myself, leaving Uriah the Hittite (the real Lloyd Fletcher in this case) high and dry? No! You can’t complain that I came and ‘stole your name’–you weren’t even using it in the first place, Buddy Boy…

“Congratulations, Mr. & Mrs. Fletcher!”

Sure, it was nice to have a close associate celebrate me finding the love of my life and marrying her in short order. But you would think that ‘Oliver’–not his real name, but his real middle name–would at least know the difference between my true identity and my fake one. He’s seen my legal name on my mail, for fuck’s sake!

*sigh*

You know you’ve taken the Lloyd P. Fletcher joke too far when your own dang roommate thinks your real name is the made up one! I mean, I had been living with this guy for 4 months before I got married. Well, on the bright side, we can at least thank the Lordy Jesús I didn’t have him give the toast at our wedding. That would have been awkward…

“Dear Lloyd Fletcher,” the email read, “the results of your unemployment claims are ready for your viewing. Please log into the Ministry of Labour’s website for further instructions.”

“Oh, great!” I muttered to myself and the computer screen. “This is just what I needed–now I’m being mistaken for some British degenerate who apparently can’t keep a job.”

Yes, it’s true…thanks to yet another real ‘Lloyd Fletcher’ trying to claiming the lloydfletcher@hotmail.com email address, I have discovered my international doppel-namer…has bad credit (in addition to indubitably having bad teeth, #There AreNoRealDentistsInBritian). And I also constantly get notifications from his bank in the UK that his monthly statements are ready. I would be lying if I didn’t say that on at least one occasion, I may or may not have been tempted to try to reset the password so I could log in and a take a peek at this chump’s finances. I mean, I feel like I have a right to know if this guy is dragging my good fake name through the mud…

“Look, it was a mistake I made when I was 17, okay? I just can’t seem to get this guy out of my life!”

That is a phrase I’ve had to, with much embarrassment, share with a stranger way too many times, in hopes of convincing them that I’m not a CraigsList con artist trying to sell them some concert tickets that don’t actually exist.

At one point in my early 30s, I had resolved to change my email address to something that more accurately reflected my legal name. Turns out, that is almost impossible to do after only really having one email address your entire digital life. That ----- Lloyd P. Fletcher is just ingrained into my life…we’re so intertwined that it’s become difficult to tell us apart. The dude haunts me.

And the confusion is not limited to complete strangers–it has extended to people I need to have a personal or professional relationship with. For example, when I tried to get some important information from one of the guys in my neighborhood on the HOA board.

Here are actual excerpts from the email exchange we had:

“Hi Lloyd,
Thanks for sharing information with BJ³Yes, this is my real nickname, but not my real name, lol. about our management company transition. Here are my comments to BJ, FYI. My belief is the transition will be clear soon for all.
Kindest Regards,
Don”

This email was clearly a forward of an email that he had sent me through our neighborhood listserv, at which point it occurred to me: “Dear Lord, he thinks that we’re 2 separate people, like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, or Bruce Wayne and Batman!”

Poor guy, I had to set him straight before things got to the point of awkwardness that I would have to some Seinfeldian shenanigans where I would have to fake my own fake death. Thus, my reply:

“Hi Donald,

I really appreciate you reaching out with this information.

To clear up the BJ/Lloyd issue: I am both BJ and Lloyd…well, not either really. My legal name is [REDACTED] but I’ve gone by ‘BJ’ my whole life. “Lloyd Fletcher” was an alter-ego I made up in high school for the fun of it, and then I ended up using that when I set up my very first email account. Because that’s what short-sighed 16-year-olds did back in 1997, apparently.

…and the confusion has propagated ever since. I even had a roommate in grad school who, after living with me for 4 months, was SHOCKED to find out that my last name was Henderton [note: not my real last name], and NOT Fletcher [also note: not my real fake last name]. Oh, man, that makes me chuckle every time it comes back up!

Thanks so much,

–BJ/Lloyd…”

The point of the story is that maybe you should think twice before creating an alter-ego out of thin air. Maintaining such a lie for the rest of your life can be exhausting–and if you’re not careful, it just might end up on your tombstone instead of your real name!

And what just may be the worst part about engaging in such identity fraud is when you want to tell your story to the world, but you realize that exposing your fake identity is essentially exposing your real identity–after all, these days are we not much more than the sum total of our preferred email address and our phone number?–and so you’re forced to triple-down on your lie and create a fake name for your fake name. Not only is this a confusing lie that’s hard to keep straight, but now in addition to the other 2 real ‘Lloyd Fletchers’ in this world whose digital lives your lies have ruined, you’ve drawn a completely innocent cohort of real-for-real Lloyd Fletcher’s into your global web of deceit…

Content created on: 6/8 December 2024 (Fri/Sun)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Footnotes & References:
↵1	That’s like a doppelganger, but with names.
↵2	I would to go ahead preemptively apologise if there actually is a Lloyd Fletcher somewhere out there using my fake real email address. You know…since I’m not even the real fake Lloyd Fletcher, and that is just an alias for our purposes here, in order to protect my fake identity.
↵3	Yes, this is my real nickname, but not my real name, lol.

Nevermind For What Rascally Reasons–You’re Outstanding, Can’t You See, Son?

28 October 2024 / BJ / 2 Comments

5 Min Read

Has an unexpected interstate lawman come a-knockin’ at your door?

Demand they double-check–surely you ain’t the guy they’re looking for…

“Hey, bro, you got some mail from the Baca County Sheriff. Just thought you should know,” my college roommate–the one and only Beautiful Love Muscle (aka BLM)–said as he handed me a legal-sized envelope as I walked in the door.

“Ahh, it’s probably junk mail, asking me to Back The Blue¹For the record, I don’t think ‘Back the Blue’ was a thing back in 2004. or some other non-sense asking me for my hard-earned money,” I replied dismissively.

“Hah! Which local ordinance did you violate this time, you outlaw, you? Wait, you’re not the most wanted man in Kansas (again), are you?” BLM said chuckling.

“Har, har. You’re funny. It’s clearly old-school spam–I’m pretty sure there isn’t even a ‘Baca County’ in Kansas. Frankly, it all sounds made-up to me.”

“Let me see that envelope again,” he said.

After a moment of examining the return address, BLM heartily declared, “Yes, ’tis just as I suspected: this letter was sent from Springfield.”

“Well, I did live there for 5 years. So I guess that makes me the most wanted man in Missouri?”

“Bzzzt! Please try again!”

“Most wanted man in Illinois?”

“Nope.”

“Most wanted man in Massachusetts?”

“My dude, have you even ever been to Massachusetts?”

“So that’s a ‘no’? Dang. Seeing as how there’s 67 Springfields, we might be here a while. Can you just put me out of my misery?”

“Colorado, you dummy! Springfield, Colorado! Come to think of it, doesn’t Baca County border Morton County? Didn’t you once almost burn that whole place down?” BLM said, geo-shaming me.

“Colorado! Oh, that makes more sense. I mean, I guess I was there several months ago, yet I have no idea what the Sheriff there would want with me…maybe they want to give me an Outstanding Citizen award or something?”

“Maybe we should just stop hypothesizing and theorizing and just open the ----- letter, and find out what the hubbub is all about,” BLM suggested.

“FINE,” I said begrudgingly as I tore into the dang thing.

I had to scan the enclosed letter several times, trying to digest what exactly it was trying to communicate.

“Well, so is it junk mail or not? Don’t keep me in suspense!” he said excitedly.

“It’s…it’s…it’s a warrant for my arrest.”

“Huh?!?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s what it is. Says here I wrote a hot check for $200 to Tempel Grain of Lamar. What the hell? I’ve never wrote any checks in Lamar in my life!”

Just then something else fell out of the envelope. BLM picked it up and glanced over it.

“Sorry, bro, but they literally brought the proverbial receipts. This looks like one of your checks from your bank back in Rolla,” he observed.

“Let me see that!” I snatched the check out of from between his sausage fingers.

It didn’t take me more than a split-second of inspecting the signature on what was very much my check to figure out what shenanigans were afoot.

“DADnabbit! I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you with my checkbook,” I muttered.

“Trusted who?” BLM inquired.

I let out a heavy sigh.

“I’m not going to name any names, but let’s just say that there’s a certain family member who could technically claim to have the same name as me. Now, before you go making assumptions, let me remind you that there are an abnormally high number of such suspects in my family–remember: even I don’t get to use my own name.”

“Anyways,” I continued, “this person–who shall remain unnamed–had some very specific banking needs, and conveniently for them, my hometown banking account could meet those needs nicely…”

“Let me guess: it was your–” BLM interjected.

“BOBdammit!” I cut him off. “I think you should Just stop while you’re ahead–AND, no, I will not confirm whethER or not I’m their nephew, cousin, or SON, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.”

“Well, that was suspiciously odd way of phrasing that. But, my bad, my bad. Please, do go on…” he said.

“Well, anyways, their business happens to be in the middle of bankruptcy procedeedings, and so the arbitrator has his eagle-eye trained on all of their financial assets and accounts. Now, since this anonymous person and I basically have the same name, they got the grand idea of using my account–which the arbitrator has no idea even exists–for some, uh, ‘parallel bookkeeping’.”

“Interesting…way too many boring details, but overall interesting nonetheless…”

“Interesting indeed…well, I wasn’t using the account anyways, and they would be depositing their own funds in the account instead of using mine, so I said ‘What the hell? Why not help them out with some light money laundering?’ I should have known better, though…it would only be a matter of time before they started writing checks that I couldn’t cash.”

BLM sat there pensively for a few moments.

“Well, that does make sense…sure does explain a thing or two…”

“Wait, what? What makes sense?” I asked suspiciously. “Out with it! What secret are you keeping?!?”

“So…uh…I forgot to tell you that you got another piece of mail a few weeks ago…” he said sheepishly. “…it was from the Morton County Sheriff…”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, where is it?”

BLM disappeared into our shared bedroom and shuffled through some papers on our shared desk.

“Found it!” he said excitedly.

“Dammit, man, this isn’t a ----- Easter Egg hunt, you knucklehead!” I said, clearly much less excited than he was. “Let me see that!”

And so, for the second time that day I found myself tearing into a legal communique from an officer of the law.

I scanned this new letter, not nearly as surprised as I was last time, though.

“Well, at least it’s not actually a warrant for my arrest.”

“That’s good…” BLM commented, attempting to match my mood–though he was clearly enjoying the schadenfreude of the moment a bit too much.

“Yeah, I suppose so. But it looks like I owe Bultman’s Farm Supply $300 plus a $25 returned check fee.”

“Well, good thing you’re no longer unemploy–” BLM started before I cut him off with a piercing glance.

“Look on the bright side,” he said, this time trying to cheer me up. “It looks like you’re the most wanted man in Kansas after all…”

The point of the story is, believe it or not, this is my little weird-ass way of celebrating Dia de Los Muertos. I’m still trying to get over the unexpected passing of BLM less than a month ago, so I thought it would be nice to write him into one of my semi-historically accurate narratives about identity theft.

Fun fact, though: when researching this story, I came across the actual receipt of when I had sent the money to Baca County to cover the first hot check, and it turns out that at the time, I hadn’t lived with BLM for 4 months. So…I guess this is some form of reverse-identity theft? You know, where I’ve attributed entire conversations to him that clearly must have been with another friend or roommate of mine…anyways, I digress.

But let’s also not forget about my beloved family member who apparently had no problem with dragging my (our?) good name through the mud, as they too are no longer with us. Despite their deviltry, rascality, and roguery,²Yes, I did indeed just Google ‘shenanigans synonyms’. I still love them and miss them very much. And thanks to my 6-year-old daughter learning about Dia de Los Muertos at school and insisting on celebrating, this will be the first year that we properly celebrate the life of that beloved old fart-knocker.

Oh, and also, one practical point of the story: now you know why I absolutely detest the idea of naming one’s child so closely after another family member and/or one’s self. Turns out, these hot checks were just the tip of the ol’ same-name iceberg…you wouldn’t believe how long and hard I had to tussle with the credit score people to convince them that it wasn’t me who had gone and racked up a shit-ton of debt before my 22nd birthday.

Anyways, happy Dia de Los Muertos, y’all…

Content created on: 29/30 October 2024 (Tues/Weds)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Footnotes & References:
↵1	For the record, I don’t think ‘Back the Blue’ was a thing back in 2004.
↵2	Yes, I did indeed just Google ‘shenanigans synonyms’.

Mother’s Complete Guide How To Nail Writing One Unforgettable Email

29 September 2024 / BJ / 0 Comments

5 Min Read

Once, twice–even thrice–mom’s message has been read.

You rub your eyes, scratch your head–you can’t believe what she actually just said…

“To my four older children, what you have suspected for almost 20 years is true…”

If there ever was an ominous opening to an email from mother, this would have to be it. Fortunately, my position amongst the siblings born from my mamma’s loins was #5–the final one to be brought forth into this world before there would be no more. And thus, as the Lastborn Child, it was clear this maternal missive was not directed at me, so the suspense about what might come next was, well, lacking. So foot-loose and fancy free, I soldiered on through the text on my screen:

“Well, there’s no easy way to put this: your Baby Brother, even now that he’s a grown man, is still my favorite child.”

“Mom!” I thought to myself, “I’m in college–you can stop calling me ‘Baby’!” I couldn’t help but chuckling a little before continuing.

“Now, that doesn’t mean I love you four any less–nay, to the contrary, I probably love you even more than I would had I not had that Ray of Sunshine in my life. And because I love you so much, I am telling you–from a position of unconditional love–this fundamental Truth of this Universe: a parent will always have a favorite child, regardless what they may claim to the contrary. And I think it’s only fair to you that we stop pretending that we all don’t know that our little Boy Genius is my Golden Child, the Apple of my Eye, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.”

I couldn’t help blush a little bit at all the excessive titles and gratuitous superlatives being heaped upon my head.

“In fact, I bet you all feel the same way about him as I do. C’mon, don’t tell me you don’t just love that Little Rascal? He’s so funny and witty, and makes all of us laugh and feel better about ourselves in general¹Once finished with this story, come back and re-read this oh-so-ironic line.–excepts when he thumps us in Scrabble, of course. But, despite his intellectual dominance and superior vocabulary, I know that we all hope that one day, that little Brainiac of ours will be wealthy enough for all of us to spend Christmases together in a well-appointed log cabin somehwere in the snow-clad mountains!²This really was something Brother #2 had said on multiple occasions. In another ironic twist, it is he who is most likely to rent a cabin our entire family…despite having no college degree. Oh, doesn’t that just sound so wonderful??”

Well, I must say, at this point, this email was starting to sound a little over the top. Thankfully, I could see that we only had one more paragraph to go.

“As I bring this email to a close, I wanted to end it by encouraging you to show him how much he means to all of us. The kiddo is having a little harder time financial as a college sophomore, compared to his freshman year when he was basically drowning in an excess of one-year scholarships…so maybe send him some cash. His half-birthday is coming up and it would be a perfect time shower him with some monetary love. Signed, Your Loving Mother, Xo“

As I read over the entire email one more time, I couldn’t help but thinking, “What kind of mother would send this to her children?!?”

I leaned back in my dorm chair and took one last look at my computer screen.

“Yup,” I said under my breath, “Totally nailed it!”

Rather satisfied with the final draft, I hit the Send button…

“Dear Jeff, I understand that it was only yesterday that you emphasized Western Wireless’s³Which would eventually merge with AllTel, who would go on to merge with Verizon… policy in regards to locking our work computers whenever we leave our cubicles; I was fully present and attentive for that team meeting, I can assure you of that.”

For an email to our common supervisor, this opening statement seemed rather pedestrian. That wasn’t surprising though, coming from my middle-aged co-worker, Lara. True, she had a sense of humor, and we shared a good laugh together from time to time, but when it came to work matters at the our Customer Care Call Center, she was typically all business. So of course she would begin her emails so verbosely, yet so respectfully.

“However, I think you should know that I must ask for a religious exception to this overly-oppressive patriarchal policy. What a woman does with her keyboard is none of a man’s business. And you, of all people–a certified so-called bleeding heart liberal–should understand that it’s ‘My mouse, my choice’. Hands off!”

Whoa, that intra-office communique just took a turn.

“So, with all due respect, I will be refusing to lock my computer for the foreseeable future. Thank you for your understanding in this matter. Appreciatively, Lara.”

For such a short email, it sure packed a punch. And what a sh*t-show it was too. Just like passing and accident on the highway, I couldn’t look away.

I couldn’t resist re-reading it…

Moments later, I couldn’t help but shake my dang head, thinking to myself, “What kind of employee would send an email like this to her boss?!?”

I peeked over my shoulder and Lara heading back to her desk from the communal break.

Rather satisfied with the final draft, I hit the Send button and ducked back into my cubicle…

The point of the story is identify theft is no laughing matter.

Oh sure, I thought I was being absolutely hilarious with my clever little stunts. But were my siblings bemused by the utterly ridiculous email they received from “Mom”? You know, the one full of words and phrases that she would never use–never mind the fact that she actually does love all her children equally and unconditionally? Like, that email was so obviously written by their prankster little brother who was always on the lookout for a good laugh, surely they would get the joke after the first sentence, and be in stitches, rolling on the floor laughing. It was humorous! Unbelievably humorous, I say!

And did El Jefe Jeff and Co-worker Lara appreciate the cheeky way in which I tried to gently remind her that she did indeed need to lock her computer during her potty breaks?

Hmmm, let’s see:…let me answer those questions one person at a time: No, no, no, no, no–one for each sibling and one for Dear Mother–and no and no. Okay, maybe one of the brothers caught the joke and that it might have been mildly amusing at best.

But all other parties? Not so much.

Here I was, thought I was making outlandish claims that clearly weren’t true. Um…as it turns out, at least one unnamed sibling actually had pretty strong feelings about one or two of us other kids being Mom’s favorite. And, much to my dismay, I only discovered this when their shock and deep hurt was relayed to me by Mom. That wasn’t exactly my aim, but ----- if I didn’t bear fully responsibility for the fallout of the situation. And, on top of all that, Mom came thiiiiis close to changing her Hotmail password to one I didn’t know (for the record, I’m her de facto IT support, and had set up her email and occasionally needed to help her with combating spam, etc.).

As for Jeff, well, I’m just lucky he didn’t fire my sorry impersonating ass. Fortunately, that was the only blemish on my otherwise stellar record during my 16 months with Western Wireless.

Lara, on the other hand…well, it was even worse with her. She totally didn’t get the joke, and was absolutely pissed at me–so much so that, despite my profuse and multiple apologies, not only did she (a grown-ass 40-something woman) give me the silent treatment for 3 solid weeks, another co-worker that we were both friends/friendly with gave me the silent treatment as well.

There was no reasoning with them. It was insane: it was like, “What are we? In junior high? This is ridonkulous, I say!”

Welp, what can I say though, what you sow is what you reap, and again it all came down to my poor judgement as to what made for quality comedy.

*sigh*

If I could hop in a time machine and go back to have a little chat with my 20-something-year-old self,⁴…and my 30-year-old self…and my 40-year-old self…and my 42-year-old self… here’s what I’d would try so desperately to impress upon him:

In the end, it doesn’t matter if you made a person laugh if in the process you made them feel like crap…

Content created on: 25/27 September 2024 (Weds/Fri)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Footnotes & References:
↵1	Once finished with this story, come back and re-read this oh-so-ironic line.
↵2	This really was something Brother #2 had said on multiple occasions. In another ironic twist, it is he who is most likely to rent a cabin our entire family…despite having no college degree.
↵3	Which would eventually merge with AllTel, who would go on to merge with Verizon…
↵4	…and my 30-year-old self…and my 40-year-old self…and my 42-year-old self…

Son, Let Me Get This Straight: Sowing Your Seed Just Couldn’t Wait?

4 August 2024 / BJ / 0 Comments

5 Min Read

Amidst our many arguments, one thing was never up for debate.

Dad and I both knew that I could never drive that ----- tractor straight…

“Son, I oughtta whoop your ass!”

The outburst of anger kinda caught me off guard. I turned to see that Dad was getting that look in his eyes–the look that I knew would soon be followed by him yapping at me so fervently that I could count on getting hit with at least 2 or 3 shots of stray spittle.

“Wha–? Huh? What are you talking about? I’ve been doing exactly what you asked of me for the last seven hours!” I shot back as I hopped off the tractor, rather confident that no ass-whooping was in order.

“Turn around and take a look at your handiwork, boy,” Dad seethed through his teeth, as–bless his heart–he was trying not to get too pissed off too quickly.

I turned around and surveyed the fruits of my day’s labor: one full quarter of Kansan farmland, barren at the dawn of that very same day, was now beautifully criss-crossed with row after row of expertly sown corn seed.

“Well, shoot, that looks like I just finished planting 160 acres of our highest-grossing crop–and an hour ahead of schedule even!” I said, unable to see why he wasn’t as proud of me as I was of myself.

“Were you drunk the whole time? And are you high right now? Boy, you just shat out some of the crookedest rows I’ve ever seen in my 50-plus years of farming!”

I took a second look at the earthen work of art before me. Maybe–just maybe–it wasn’t the masterclass in geometric perfection that I had fancied it to be.

“Ah, there may have been just a little swerve thrown in there here and there,” I ceded. “But hey–I got the job done, and if I remember correctly, you haven’t paid me one red cent for my hard labor.”

Apparently, this wasn’t the response Dad was looking for, as for no sooner than those words had wafted of my lips could I see his fists go into ‘Ima bout to strangle yo’ ass’ mode.

“Why the ----- can you not drive the tractor in a straight line for half a mile?!? How ----- hard is it?” he spouted at me.

Personally, if you ask me, this one was kinda on him.

“This isn’t my first rodeo, and you dang well know it, Dad! You know that I can’t drive a tractor straight to save my life–this is like the 20th curve-carved field in my plowing portfolio. And you’ve yelled at me after every single one–but this is the first time that you’ve been absolutely pissed at me about it!”

Every word I said was true: try as I might, no matter how much focus I tried to muster, I would indubitably fail to consistently produce straight lines across any given field I was unleashed upon, whether with plow or with planter.

“Oh, I’ll tell you why I’m so ----- pissed: just take a look to the north and what do you see?” he steamed, gesturing to the vast expanse of open farmland that stretched on for miles at end to the north (and in all directions, for that matter).

“Um…well besides all the other fields? Maybe that’s a cow way off in the distance? Or it might just be a cluster of tumbleweeds. Can’t really be sure this far away…”

“THE HIGHWAY! The ----- ----- highway is right there!” he frothed.

“That’s true, this quarter does border the high–” I was cut short by a man who had lost all patience for my ongoing nonsense.

“All your ----- curvy rows are going to sprout up and it’s going to be obvious to everyone driving by–you’re going to make me look like a ----- moron who can’t drive straight!”

Apparently, my old man cared quite a bit about what others thought of his farming skills. Well, at least cared about that more about that than his own son.

“Well, what’s done is–” my nonsense was cut off yet again.

“They’re going to think that I get all liquored up before handling heavy machinery–what a ----- embarrassment!” he bemoaned.

“Nah, I’m sure they won’t think that. Everyone in Morton County knows you’re not a lush,” I tried to reassure him in an attempt to save my own hide.

He wasn’t buying it, though.

“I highly doubt that. What other good reason would a man have for ----- up his field so badly?”

“Well, for one, it could be because you’re such a hard-workin’ sumabitch that you’re on the job even well into the nighttime hours,” I proffered.

He looked at me, seemingly slightly calmer, like what I was saying was actually making sense to him.

“After all, you do look like a man who likes to plow in the dark…”¹In high school, I had come up with this phrase and loved it so much that I took a label maker and proudly plastered it on the side of one of my guitar pedals. I hate to have to break down why it’s so humorous/witty, but I just can’t risk someone not fully appreciating it. First, it’s a riff on ‘Glow in the dark’–I just substituted the G with a P, and BAM! Instant wit! Now let’s analyze this new phrase. In the more literal sense, it’s pretty funny considering my agricultural roots, and I can imagine any farmer would snicker at the thought of being so behind on farming that they have to resort to nocturnally tilling their fields. Figuratively speaking…well, this is just awash with sexual undertones. One might use the term ‘plow’ to mean ‘vigorously copulating, perhaps even involving some sodomy’. For everyone’s sake, I shall abstain from using it in a sentence. Anyways, sexual encounters often occur after sundown, many a times with the lights out completely (though I never understood what the fun in that was); ergo ‘plow in the dark’. This masterpiece of wordplay belongs on a ----- T-shirt. Or at least on a coffee mug…

The point of the story is that often one doesn’t see mental issues lurking beneath the surface only until reflecting on events years or decades later.

Only recently have I been exploring the very real possibility of having ADHD. And I gotta say, so many things fit that theorem. As I was writing this cheeky story in which I admit my inability to drive straight at low speeds, and how pissed/embarrassed Dad was over the whole ordeal, I realized…”holy sh*t, this inability probably stems from a lack of appropriate regulation of my focus.” Not that having an ADHD diagnosis back when I was in my late teens would have made a difference to Dad, but at least it would have helped me feel like less of a complete failure and familial disappointment.

Oh, and yeah, about Dad…years later, after I was out of college, he was officially diagnosed with bi-polar disorder. I only learned recently that he had been trying to self-manage it for decades on end before finally getting professional help towards the last few years of his life.

When I first learned about his diagnosis, it was like, “holy sh*t, all his mood swings and many of our unnecessary arguments make so much more sense now!” In other words, it helped me look back at my time with him with much more compassion, understanding and grace. I’m not sure how things would have been different had us kids had the luxury of growing up knowing his diagnosis (and had he been seeking therapy and medication during that time as well). Regardless, there is immense comfort in being able to reflect on my father’s life and realize that he was a much better man than I ever gave him credit for in the moment.

Sentimentality aside, it is also very useful from a practical point of view. Now both My Beautiful Bride and I know to be on the lookout for any signs of bi-polar disorder developing in me, seeing as how there is a very real chance he could have passed that down to me. After all, it wouldn’t be the only thing I inherited from him.

Like father, like son, guess who also turned out to be a man who likes to ‘plow in the dark’? Though for one of us it’s more literal, and the one more “figurative.”²Did you not read the earlier footnote?

I’ll leave it up to you, Dear Reader, to figure out which one is which…

Content created on: 30 July 2024 (Tuesday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Footnotes & References:
↵1	In high school, I had come up with this phrase and loved it so much that I took a label maker and proudly plastered it on the side of one of my guitar pedals. I hate to have to break down why it’s so humorous/witty, but I just can’t risk someone not fully appreciating it. First, it’s a riff on ‘Glow in the dark’–I just substituted the G with a P, and BAM! Instant wit! Now let’s analyze this new phrase. In the more literal sense, it’s pretty funny considering my agricultural roots, and I can imagine any farmer would snicker at the thought of being so behind on farming that they have to resort to nocturnally tilling their fields. Figuratively speaking…well, this is just awash with sexual undertones. One might use the term ‘plow’ to mean ‘vigorously copulating, perhaps even involving some sodomy’. For everyone’s sake, I shall abstain from using it in a sentence. Anyways, sexual encounters often occur after sundown, many a times with the lights out completely (though I never understood what the fun in that was); ergo ‘plow in the dark’. This masterpiece of wordplay belongs on a ----- T-shirt. Or at least on a coffee mug…
↵2	Did you not read the earlier footnote?

Boy Ain’t Gonna Lie: He Chasing That Rare Sugar High

7 July 2024 / BJ / 0 Comments

6 Min Read

Long story short, when Mom asked I said “screw it” and told her the truth.

“I fully intend to spend the evening abusing my sweet tooth…”

“Where you boys off to?” Mom asked us with a hint of suspicion–and to be fair, we probably did look like a pair of junior high boys with questionable evening plans.

“Uh, you cool if I spend the night over at Nick’s?” I asked her.

It was a Friday night, and Nick just lived down the street from us on Point Mugu Naval Base–a secure facility that we were somehow managing to live on illegally–so I didn’t think that it was too big of an ask. Even for Mom, who landed hard on the side of parenting that is the complete opposite of permissive.

“That depends,” Mom said slightly raising an eyebrow. “What do you plan on doing?”

Truth be told, we had just recently stumbled upon Nick’s step-dad’s secret candy stash, and we had been biding our time for a night when his parents and siblings would be gone most of the evening so we could dip our indulgent, grubby little paws into it. Included in that stash of high-end sweets were vintage Miami Spice Drops from 1986 (one of only two years they were ever made). Now, we had really never heard of such delicacies, but we could tell from the packaging that they weren’t your average gummy bears, so we were particularly excited to see what the presumed hub-bub was all about.

Just one problem though: all while I was growing up, Mom attempted to enforce a pretty hard no-sweets policy, and there was know way in hell that she would let me spend one more minute with Nick if she had even the slightest inkling what kind of sugary crack-cocaine was poorly hidden in his parents’ bedroom closet.

Oh, and just a second problem, too: my entire life I have been cursed with the utter and complete inability to tell a lie, especially when it come to my beloved mother. This curse bore down particularly hard on me during my 8th grade year–the year in which find ourselves now.

Nick glanced over at me kinda nervously in anticipation of our best laid plans blowing up spectacularly in our faces, on account of my stupid curse.

Thinking quick on my feet, I decided to lean hard into what I do best.

“We’re going to sit around and a sh*t-load of candy,” I said without a hint of sarcasm.

“Hah. Yeah right!” Mom replied with a half-snort. “You boys go enjoy your evening, and I’ll see you around lunchtime tomorrow, oh humorous son of mine.”

I just about had to drag Nick out the door by his ear, as he seemed to be paralyzed in disbelief that my little stunt of telling the whole, dirty truth had actually worked.

“C’mon, dude, let’s jet over to your place and get to snackin’ before you parents get home,” I said, reinvigorated by the success of my unconventional strategy.

“Bro,” Nick muttered on his way out the door, “I seriously gotta try telling the truth more often…”

“Hmmm…” Nick chewed thoughtfully on his Miami Spice Drop, investigating all the flavors and textures with his tongue and palate. “Very interesting…not what I was expecting.”

“Yeah, I agree,” I said, furrowing my brow and putting way too much thought into analyzing the flavor profile.

“First thing I really noticed was that they were unexpectedly fuzzy,” Nick said observantly.

“That’s true,” I said, holding one up to the kitchen light and inspecting it like a jeweler would inspect a diamond. “I would even dare say they look little bushes.”

“Yeah, this candy is very ‘bushy’–an interesting experience for the tongue, indeed…” Nick opined.

“Well, I guess that must of been a whole thing with fancy candies back in the 80’s?” I hypothesized.

“I suppose,” Nick said. “The 80’s in general seemed pretty obsessed with all things hair.”

“Hmmph,” I grunted, putting a period on that part of our conversation. “But how about the spectrum of flavors, eh?”

“Yeah, that was definitely way more nuanced than I was expecting,” Nick noted.

“Mmm-hmm. With most candies, it’s a single blast of sugar and a handful of flavors,” I commented. “But with these drops, I would dare say that the experience evolves in your mouth with time.”

“Oh, the unexpected depth and sophistication!” Nick raved. “That was definitely unanticipated, and was uniquely refreshing.”

“Not unlike getting squirted in the eye by one of those Old Faithful candies, I bet!” I quipped.

We both chuckled heartily at the memory of one of the other old exotic candies we had just sampled, a Gusher-like confection shaped much like a pearl featuring a juicy-filled center. The candy itself wasn’t particularly humorous; it was the bag that they came in, which featured a cartoon version of a man biting into one and accidentally squirting a nearby woman in the eye. Again, we just wrote it off as another weird-ass product of the 80’s.

“Oh, shenanigans!” he said as we went in for another round of belly-laughing at the thought of that utterly ridiculous packaging.

Right about that moment, though, we heard the garage door opening.

“Oh, shenanigans is right!” I said, perhaps dropping an expletive or two in there.

“Quick, you start making us some PB&J’s in the kitchen–we can eat them to cover the evidence on our breath, and it will also give you the chance to distract them while I run upstairs and put the goods back where I found them!” Nick ordered.

“That’s a Texas-sized 10-4, good buddy!” I said scurrying into the kitchen.

I could hear Nick’s footsteps on the upstairs landing just as the door leading from the garage to the kitchen opened and Nick’s family tromped in.

“Oh, hey B.J., I didn’t realize you were spending the night. What have you been boys up to?” Nick’s mom asked congenially.

“Oh, hi there, Nick’s Mom!” I said as casually as I could muster. “We’ve just been playing some computer games and I thought I would take a break to come down and make us a midnight snack.”

“Cool, cool” she said. “Well, you know that our pantries are always open to you.”

“I sure do, and I appreciate that so much, Mrs. Nick’s Mom. Anyways, I better get these PB&J’s up to Nick.”

I was having to spout falsehoods through my teeth, and I could tell that I was on the verge of having the wheels fall of this wagon of lies.

“But…are those just naked slices of bread?” Nick’s mom looked at my plate slightly confused.

Panic was setting in quickly, so I had to extricate myself from the situation, no matter the cost.

“Welp, gotta run! Nothing to see here! Or smell…”

“Any chance we could confer privately? ” Nick asked his step-dad.

Clearly exhausted with his fruitless interrogation of us, he acquiesced.

“Sure. You boys need to discuss whatever you need to. I’ll be waiting in here whenever you figure your shit out,” he said, though not in an angry way.

Turns out, Nick hadn’t stacked the candy back in their original location quite exactly as he had found them, and his mom had noticed this tiniest of discrepancies. It was upon further inspection that she had discovered several pieces conspicuously missing from some of the bags.

Now, I’ll never figure out why she cared so much about any of the candy being missing–I guess because it was vintage stuff they didn’t make any more, perhaps–but apparently she was accusing her husband of going and eating the candy behind her back. I didn’t get that either: it was his stash–or at least we assumed it was his–so why did she have panties all up in a wad over it.

Any how, he had quickly figured out that since he hadn’t been the guilty party, something else must be afoot under his roof.

“Okay, Nick, he’s offering to let us off the hook completely–we just have to come clean, alright?” I recapped the plea deal that was on the table.

Nick sighed deeply.

“Poor guy’s taking the fall for us, so I guess that’s the least we could do for him out of respect,” Nick conceded.

“Yeah, and seriously, my head is about to explode after denying our guilt for almost an hour straight,” I said rubbing my eyes with the palm of my hands. “I just wasn’t built to tell lies, yo.”

“Gotta, say, though,” he said, putting an affirming hand on my shoulder, “I’m proud of you for holding out as long as you did. You’re a good friend.”

“Thanks man. But maybe next time we just own up to our shit in the first place and face the music?”

I swore that living with a lie was worse punishment than anything Nick’s mom could have possibly dealt out, so it was a relief when we went back into the kitchen.

“Yeah, it was us,” Nick said with a sheepish look on his round face.

“Thanks, Mr. Nick’s Mom, for taking the blame for us,” I said gratefully, knowing that word of our little fiasco wouldn’t make it back to my own mother.

“Boys, I appreciate your honesty. Now, as you were soldiers, as you were…” he said, dismissing us, clearly glad that our hours-long standoff was finally over.

We turned to head back upstairs to where our computer game awaited us.

But right before we made it out of the kitchen, I turned with one last question for Nick’s step-dad.

“I just gotta ask, though…what was the deal with all that old candy anyways?” I inquired.

“Oh, I’m surprised it wasn’t right up your alley, boys,” he said with a wry grin on his face. “After all, don’t forget that you two little squirts are weird-ass products of the 80’s as well…”

Content created on: 6/7 July 2024 (Sat/Sun)

Behold: The Magic Jell-O Keeping You Out Of Jail, Bro!

9 June 2024 / BJ / 0 Comments

5 Min Read

When you hear ‘pudding’, you’re bound to ask “Yum! What flavor?”

This time, though, you best not ask (and you’re welcome for the favor…)

“The sign of a true friend is…’pudding on a condom for Phillip’?!? Um…I have so many questions that I’m not sure I want the answer to.”

My beautiful bride looked up from my phone, wide-eyed and side-eyeing me at the same time. She had been poking around my Notes app looking for my grocery list, and instead she apparently found my reminder where I keep a short list of potential stories to blog about in the coming weeks.

“That doesn’t sound quite right…lemme see that!”

I took a quick glance at it then got my eyes back on the road like the safe driver that I was.

“Ahh, I see, it’s just a typo,” I reassured her.

“Whew! No condoms were involved. That’s a relief,” she demurred.

“Oh, no, there was a condom alright.”

“So, it’s supposed to be ‘putting’? ‘Putting on a condom’ for your male friend is any better?!? Is there something you need to get off your chest, my dear hubby? You been keeping any skeletons in the ol’ proverbial closet?”

“What? No, no, no. I meant that the it was supposed to in, not on,” I clarified.

“Hold up, mister! ‘Pudding on a condom’ was a gross enough mental picture, and you mean to tell me what you wanted to describe was ‘pudding in a condom’?!? You’re one sick puppy” she deftly passed judgement on me.

“No, no–“

“Wait just one sec,” she interrupted my rebuttal and proceeded to open up the car door and wretch lightly.

“You’re lucky we’re at a stoplight,” I said in an attempt to implicitly reassure the Reader that I didn’t marry a woman who would have such poor executive function as to open the door while in a moving vehicle.

“Are you done ye–“

She held up her hand to stop me as she went for one last round:

*gaaaaaaag!*

“You’re such a drama queen,” I commented once she was done with her over-the-top expression of disgust. “And for the record, ‘pudding’ was a typo, too. I guess I got double autocorrected when I hastily made that note.”

“Oh great,” she said as she rolled her eyes. “Lemme guess: I’m going to have to wait in suspense to find out what you really meant while you regale whoever will listen with another one of your trademark ‘short-story-long’ tales…”

“Hey, man, can you come over? I’m kinda in a pickle and really was hoping you could do me a favor.”

A little over a year after my ol’ buddy, Phillip K. Ballz, tried to sabotage my post-college career, I got a somewhat desperate sounding phone call from him. We had hung out on occasion since that particular incident–we both still lived in Manhattan after graduating from Kansas State–so it wasn’t completely abnormal for him to blow up my phone. However, I could tell from his voice that he wasn’t his usual laid-back self.

“Yeah, sure thing, amigo. I’ll be right over,” I said, blindly agreeing to whatever.

On the drive over, I mused to myself about the possible nature of his request.

“I probably better stretch my back first thing–it’s still a little tweaked from that one reckless round of disc golf, and I bet he needs my help moving a piano or some other heavy object.”

“Or maybe he needs my help giving Da Vinci, his cat with 6 fingers on each paw, a bath?”

“Oh, the possibilities are endless–but the truth is probably something completely asinine,” I thought as I got out of the car, somehow switching gears from bright-eyed imaginative optimism to overly-honest cynicism in the same mental breath.

“Jeez, there you are! Did you get lost on the way over here? Took you long enough!” PKB greeted me, clearly in the early stages of panic mode.

“I mean, I got a little lost in thought, maybe, but I otherwise came straight over here. What’s up?” I quipped, then inquired.

“Dude, so you know how I’m on probation, right?”

“Yeah, I’m mildly aware that you got into trouble with the law over some stupid recreational drug-related incident. So what about it?” I asked.

“Well, I have to take a certain test every couple months, if you know what I mean.”

“Really? That’s a condition of your parole?”

“My probation, not parole, you jackass. And yes, if I don’t keep my nose clean, then I’ll actually have to serve some time in the county jail,” he said with all seriousness.

“Well, good thing you know they’re going to test you in advance, right?”

His lack of response was starting to unsettle me.

“Right?”

The look on his face said it all.

“You really are a proper dipshit, aren’t you? You mean to tell me that your dumb ass knew that you would get thrown in the can if you done and went and smoked a fat blunt…and then you done went and smoked a fat blunt? Un-effing-believable.”

“Look, it was several weeks ago, and it should have been out of my system by now, but when I took a home version of the test, it still showed up. You gotta help a brother out, man!” he begged of me.

“Uh, I don’t know what I could possibly do to help you out of this j–“

“You can pass the test for me, that’s what!” he said, interrupting me.

“Wait, what? Oh. I see…Well, you’re not going make me complicit in your illicit activities! I’m a man of honor and integrity! You can get one of your other heathen buddies to do it, and leave me out of this!”

PKB looked at me like I was dumb as a rock.

“All my other friends are potheads like me–you’re the only friend I have around these parts that hasn’t gotten high in the last two weeks!”

“Oh,” was all I could muster.

You can’t argue with airtight logic like that.

“So…what do you need me to do?” I asked resignedly. I couldn’t stand by and let one of my oldest friends go to jail for a crime he did commit.

“Here you go. And you know where the bathroom is,” he said.

I looked down at the box he had just handed me.

“You gotta be ----- kidding me,” I muttered.¹See the note at the end about the alternate ending that splits off at this point. “You could have at least got me some Magnums–I’m a ‘bigger’ guy, if you know what I mean.”

“Dammit, I got my test in less than 40 minutes, so forgive me if I don’t have time for your weird flex. Just go take care of business, will ya?” PKB said impatiently.

I didn’t bother shutting the bathroom door behind me to make sure he could hear everything.

“You know what they say really is true: size does matter…” I hollered across the house.

“Just shut your pie-hole and keep pissing in the condom!” PKB so rudely interrupted my punchline.

Nevertheless, I persisted: “…and you’re in luck cuz’ this big boy’s got a big ol’ bladder…”²As promised, here’s the original/alternate ending before I changed it at the last second.:

“Here you go. And you know where the bathroom is,” he said.

I looked down at the box he had just handed me.

“You gotta be ----- kidding me,” I muttered.

“Make it snappy though–I got my test in 45 minutes.”

“What the hell, Phillip? Cutting it kinda close, aren’t we?” I said somewhat incredulously, as I had no idea how close his head was to the chopping block. “Dammit, last thing I needed was pressure–you know I’m bladder-shy!” I said.

“Just go take care of business, will ya?” PKB said impatiently.

I skulked off to the bathroom, but intentionally left the door open so he could hear me when I loudly proclaimed, “I feel like this is a good time force some of The Jesus on you–and I quote: ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man ~~lay down his life~~ be pissing in a condom for his friends.’ This is literally What Jesus Would Do.”

“So, what’s your point, my dude?” he hollered back at me.

“Well,” I yelled, leaning back so my head was poking out the open bathroom door, “as The Jesus always says: ‘You’re welcome, you ----- dirty hippie…’ “

Content created on: 6/8/9 June 2024 (Thurs/Sat/Sun)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Footnotes & References:
↵1	See the note at the end about the alternate ending that splits off at this point.
↵2	As promised, here’s the original/alternate ending before I changed it at the last second.: “Here you go. And you know where the bathroom is,” he said. I looked down at the box he had just handed me. “You gotta be ----- kidding me,” I muttered. “Make it snappy though–I got my test in 45 minutes.” “What the hell, Phillip? Cutting it kinda close, aren’t we?” I said somewhat incredulously, as I had no idea how close his head was to the chopping block. “Dammit, last thing I needed was pressure–you know I’m bladder-shy!” I said. “Just go take care of business, will ya?” PKB said impatiently. I skulked off to the bathroom, but intentionally left the door open so he could hear me when I loudly proclaimed, “I feel like this is a good time force some of The Jesus on you–and I quote: ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man ~~lay down his life~~ be pissing in a condom for his friends.’ This is literally What Jesus Would Do.” “So, what’s your point, my dude?” he hollered back at me. “Well,” I yelled, leaning back so my head was poking out the open bathroom door, “as The Jesus always says: ‘You’re welcome, you ----- dirty hippie…’ “

Legendary Myths Of Kansas: The Most Wanted Man On Campus

12 May 2024 / BJ / 2 Comments

5 Min Read

I knew I was doing something right when a University big-wig asked to meet one-on-one.

Problem was, I had no idea what good deed I had done…

“The Dean of Engineering would like to personally meet with you.”

It was a voicemail from the Dean’s secretary, and I was pretty sure this message was a bearer of good news.

I couldn’t help but wonder what I had done already that would have made me stick out in the mind of the guy who basically ran Kansas State’s entire Engineering program. I was merely a sophomore in college–in the thick of my third semester to be exact–and I had only taken ~1-1/2 classes in the actual Engineering Department.

But, yeah, a glaring dearth of evidence aside, I would say that I was no stranger to being recognized for my bright mind and plucky personality. My proverbial belt was notched with countless scholarships and other such trappings of a high-achieving academic such as myself. A plethora of articles in the local SW Kansan newspapers had been written about me during my high school years. And once at college, I quickly made a name for myself based on, uh…my “drinking” ability. Oh, and of course there was what I was probably most well-known for: my hair.

Yeah, it most definitely had to be the hair. By that point in time I had been rocking bright blue on the left side, neon pink on the right, and purple up top with a classic ‘Jesus fish'¹Also know as the ‘Ichthus fish’, which is actually kinda redundant, since ‘ichthus’ just means ‘fish’ in ancient Greek. So it’s a fish-fish, I guess? in green running from front to back on the peak of my dome.

Ya know, the kind of hair that screams to upper administrators, “This kid is really going to go places in the field of mechanical engineering–you better ingratiate yourself to him and hitch your wagon to his star while you can!”

The more I thought about it, the clearer it become that of course the Dean of Engineering wants to see me–who wouldn’t want to rub shoulders with one of the coolest cats on campus?

I just hoped he didn’t get greedy and ask for my autograph or anything…

“On as scale of one to ten…” the Dean paused for dramatic effect, “how would you rate the job you did as an Engineering Mentor?”

The Dean had been so eager to meet me that he had actually stepped out of an important departmental meeting…to ask me that?

I had almost totally forgotten about that, though I had completed my duties as a Mentor only a few weeks earlier. Concordantly, I had to refresh myself on that experience, and I might as well bring you, Dear Reader, along for the ride.

The Engineering Mentorship program recruited rising-star Sophomores such as yours truly to meet with incoming Freshmen/women Engineering majors for a couple evenings early in their first semester on campus. These somewhat informal meetings gave us the chance to show the them the ropes and help prepare them for the 5-6 years ahead of them. At least that was the ‘official’ purpose of the program. But all us Mentors knew that it was really just a chance for us to show off to these youngsters how cool and hip we were, and to really let our flaming personalities shine (did I mention my awesome hair already?).

For example, on my résumé–my first chance to impress upon their malleable minds how absolutely ----- cool I was–I put something along the lines of ‘1998 Morton County Speling Be Champ-ye-uhn’. Now, I didn’t really win any local spelling bee two years earlier, but I looked super-cool claiming to have done so while simultaneously misspelling almost every word in the title. Pretty clever, huh?

And then there were other real accolades that I truly did earn…ya know, like Twinkie-But-Actually-Swiss-Cake-Rolls-Because-I-Shit-You-Not-There-Was-For-Realz-A-Twinkie-Shortage-That-Year Eating Champion.

Real classy stuff, I tell ya.

And let’s not forget the fact that I was desperately seeking their approval and validation–oh, sh*t, wait…did I just say that out loud?–and so really tried my best to be a ‘cool’ teacher. Like the ones in high school whose class every student so desperately hoped to land in: the ones that mingled with us little people, always began class with a short stand-up routine, graded super-easy, and would let just about anything slide. The kind that would never send a kid to the principal’s office, no matter the offense, and would instead high-five the offender for having the courage to ‘stick it to the Man’.

So, given all that, let me think…did I totally kick ass as an Engineering Mentor, the likes of which had never been seen before or since?

Indubitably. (Though being I’ve one to toot their own horn was never in my nature…)

“Hmm…good question. I would say maybe a solid five or a six, perhaps?”

Like I said, I was the type of guy/mentor/teacher that knew he was cool and never felt the need to brag about it.

“Ahhh! Ahhh! Ahh! Just let me stop you there, Arthur Fonzarelli. Try ‘one’ or ‘two’. In fact, I would probably give you a negative rating if I could, but I’m being nice and respecting the 1-to-10 range that I set forth to begin with.”

Needless to say, the Dean was sorely displeased with me, and in fact, was not meeting me to tell me how rad my hair was.

“Oh,” was about all I could quietly muster, as I realized that I had just walked into the trap he had so carefully set for me. Dammit, I should have known that whole ‘rate yourself’ was a trick question.

“So it turns out,” the Dean continued, “that one of your students came to my secretary trying to figure out where to turn in the work you had allegedly assigned him. Well, what we found mighty odd is that you had officially recorded this guy as having faithfully turned in every last one of his assignments. Yet, in a written affidavit, he swears that you never asked any of them to turn anything in.”

“Oh. We were serious when we gave them that work? Really?” I eeked out.

“YES WE WERE SERIOUS. Why, you realize that what you have done constitutes academic fraud, and the only reason why you haven’t been kicked out of the School of Engineering altogether is because my secretary talked me into giving you a second chance. We barely have any tolerance for slacker punks like you around here.”

Damn. ‘Punks’, eh? This mf’er was going after the hair? For realz?

“Ummm…thanks for taking mercy on my poor soul?”

“You’ve wasted enough of my precious time, and I need to get back to my meeting. Now get your ugly face out of my sight before I change my mind!”

“Yes, sir,” I said quietly and very, very humbly (this time I didn’t have to fake my humility), as a slinked away with my tail between my legs.

*a few weeks later*

Having quickly realized that my talents were going to be unsung and underappreciated in the engineering world, I changed my major to…education.

In retrospect, that was a bold move, given that I had just about got kicked out of my department for being a sh*t teacher. But of course the irony of situations like this aren’t apparent until 20 or so years later.

Anyways….The point of the story is, kids, it’s always cool to follow the rules. And if the rules you have to follow suck the life out of your soul, then go find yourself another piece of proverbial land in a far-off place where the rules are actually cool…

Content created on: 8 & 10 May 2024 (Weds/Fri)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Footnotes & References:
↵1	Also know as the ‘Ichthus fish’, which is actually kinda redundant, since ‘ichthus’ just means ‘fish’ in ancient Greek. So it’s a fish-fish, I guess?

How To Fool Your Mom Into Dropping Ye Old F-Bomb

31 March 2024 / BJ / 0 Comments

4 Min Read

Have you ever caught yourself daydreaming about your clean-cut mom or dad suddenly cussing like a sailor?

Then today’s your lucky day, sir…

“Are you sick and tired of waiting around for your prim and proper elderly parent to start cussing? Well, today’s your lucky day…”

Yes, I know it sounds like the beginning of your archetypical 90’s late-night infomercial, but unlike those scams, you’ll see soon enough that I’ll actually deliver on my promises.

You see, if you’re anything like me, you can relate to the adult children in this Onion news article, in which their mother seems to have taken up swearing in her elderly years. I remember reading this article back in the day and thinking to myself, “Hmmm…maybe it’s possible that one day my mother will drop a cuss word or two. That would be a decent consolation prize, seeing as how getting her intoxicated is pretty much out of the question.”

Now, this thought was all mirthful and cheeky until it was pointed out to me–by my mom, nonetheless–that this is actually quite common…in loved ones suffering from dementia.

*gulp!*

Umm…on second thought, maybe having a neophyte cussing mother wouldn’t be the unexpected delight that I had always dreamt it to be. And if you, Dear Reader, have any type of soul at all, you, too, will agree that we need a Plan B…

This April Fool’s Day, have I got just the prank for which you’ve been waiting most of your adult life!

Now, this prank is not for everybody, but that is because of logistics and not morality or taste in humor or any nonsense like that. This, my friend, is objectively funny, guaranteed. Let’s review the key ingredients needed to successfully pull this off:

A parent with an iPhone. This might work for other phones, but that exercise is left to the reader.
A parent who uses that phone to text. They need to text, and not just text you–that’s not nearly as fun.
Ideally, they end all their texts with a ‘sign-off’ phrase. In absence of this, other common phrases can be substituted.
Access to said phone. Sadly, this requires geographic proximity to your target–er, I mean ‘parent’. Also, if you don’t know their PIN, you better get on figuring out how to acquire that info. Alternatively, you might be able to unlock their phone with FaceID while they sleep.

Okay, so hopefully you’ve been able to go ‘check…check…check…CHECK!” right on down that list. Perhaps, though, you got a little stuck on the 3rd item, the ‘sign-off’ phrase. It could be something as basic as, ‘Love, your dad’ or (if you’re extremely lucky) ‘In Christ’. In my case…well, I’ll let you take a look at this recent sample conversation with my dear mum:

Did you perhaps notice anything overly consistent about that conversation? Ding ding ding! That is correct: every thought must be ended with ‘Xo’:

Fun fact: the ‘Xo’ also serves as a way to tell whether the other is in distress and/or a kidnapper or other bad actor has the phone and sending the texts: “If there’s no ‘Xo’, then we’re calling the po-po!”

Anyways, so now that you understand what kind of common and recurring phrase we’re after–ideally tacked onto the end of their texts–we can now proceed to fulfilling our profane April Fool’s fantasy.

Step One: After successfully stealing a few moments with the phone and getting into it, go to Settings.

Step Two: Tap on the General sub-menu.

Step Three: Tap on Keyboard.

Step Four: Go to Text Replacement.

Step Five: Tap on the ‘+’ icon to add a new entry.

Step Six: In the Shortcut field, type their beloved sign-off phrase, or any other bit of text you want to auto-magically turn in to potty words. In the Phrase field, type the profanity-laden phrase of your choice. Feel free to be as subtle or as offensive as you desire. In my case, I was inspired by the ‘o’ in ‘Xo’, and felt that it naturally lent itself to ‘Oh, holy fuck!’

Step Seven: Be sure to hit Save, exit out of the Settings app, and return the phone to its original location.

Step Eight: Sit back and enjoy the show! Here’s an example of what might transpire between your parent, and say, another one of your siblings (note: this is a dramatic recreation, as sadly, the original texts have long been deleted for obvious reasons):

You get the idea.

Anyways, the point of the story is:

Content created on: 29/30 March 2024 (Fri/Sat)

Your Homeboy’s Little Hack For Getting That Hi-Q Edge Back

10 March 2024 / BJ / 1 Comment

6 Min Read

You swear you weren’t meaning to get a leg up on the competition.

But now you gotta fix the situation without drawing too much attention…

“Hello, old man! Hi there, old woman!” I said in my head as I tipped my proverbial hat to the elderly couple sitting at the table at the front of the relatively small room. “Don’t mind me,” I said aloud. “I’m just killing time until my old teammates show up for their turn.”

Back in December of ’99 I was a freshman in college, so I was still tight with my younger homies from the Rolla High School Scholars’ Bowl team–especially Jerome¹Okay, so his real name is Jeremy–and yes, it’s true, I’m pretty much half-assing this whole ‘protecting the innocent’ schtick., the current senior and captain of the team. So when they traveled to Wichita right before Christmas break to try out for Hi-Q, you bet your sweet ass I hopped in ye’ olde Taurus SHO and drove the 2 hours from my college town to show them my full-throated support.

And maybe, just maybe, relive my glory days just a well bit. Have I ever mentioned that during my time at RHS I was a 3-time State Champion, was on the only Rolla team to take first place at every tournament in a season,²Unless the 2023 tea managed to accomplish this feat… and made the Sante Fe Trail All-League all 4 years of my career (sorta)? What? No, I haven’t? *stifles laugh*

Anyways…sorry, I forgot to explain what Hi-Q was…it was basically a Jeopardy-style tournament for 16 of the finest academic teams in Kansas. This was different than our regular quiz bowl business in two respects: first, it was televised. Sure, it may have came on at 7 am on Sunday mornings, but it was televised nonetheless. And secondly, they held open tryouts and invited any and all high schools to send a team, regardless of size.

Sure, Rolla could smack around other Division 1A schools all day long. When we would pick on someone our own size–specifically schools with an entire Freshman-to-Senior student body of 69 students or less–it was not uncommon for us to p*mp slap up ’em up side the cranium. Being a big fish in a little pond is nothing particularly special. But Hi-Q? That was our chance to take down some of the biggest dogs in the state. The year before I started high school, the Rolla team got runner-up, and ever since then the following iterations had been chasing that achievement…but sadly, the furthest any team I was on only made it to the second round. Even though I had never been able to take care of unfinished business, I would have been almost equally as content to vicariously bask in any victories Jerome, et al. might attain at this year’s Hi-Q. I may have not been officially on the team that year, but I definitely was full-fledged member in spirit.

And apparently I was a little over-eager, as I had showed up to the Community College that was hosting the tryouts for the morning session, unaware that Rolla wasn’t due to give it a whirl until the afternoon session.

“Ah, what the hell, I might as well see what kinds of questions they’re asking this year,” I muttered to myself as I sat down to watch some random school do their best to field the set of 50 or so morning-session questions this particular elderly couple was about to lob at ’em. Unlike regular competition, the tryouts only featured a single team at a time in a room with two moderators–and the top 16 scores throughout the day got the privilege of partaking in the real tournament held at a later date.

“Eh, not too many of us here in the audience,” I noted as I looked around to see what appeared to be a total of 6 or 7 other random-school supporters sitting with me. “Not that it matters…”

“Oh, I’ve been here since 9 am. Where the ----- have you slackers been?” I razzed Jerome when they finally showed up. “In fact, I sat in on one of the morning tryouts…y’know trying to get a feel for what kind of questions are on the docket this year.”

“No sh*t? So what was your take?” Jerome replied. “Was it all stuff we know like the back of our hands? Or was it obscure, fancy big-city type of stuff we can expect people from Wichita to come up with?”

It was pretty clear that he was carrying on the tradition of carrying a small-school chip on his shoulder.

“Mostly stuff that we practice regularly, and you better get those questions right lest I beat yo’ ass otherwise, I simultaneously assured and threatened him.

“That’s good to hear, good to hear…”

“Oh But there were at least 2 or 3 that I had never heard before today.”

“Oh, yeah?” Jerome looked at me inquisitively. “Such as?”

“Well, since you’ll get a totally different set of questions in the afternoon session, you might as well know that Margery Williams wrote The Velveteen Rabbit,” I intimated freely.

“Really? I never had a clue who had written that children’s classic. Heck, I barely recognize the name of that book, now that you mention it.”

“Yeah, I know right? What kind of snooty left-coast question is that? Anyways, um, lemme see. Here’s a few other bits of trivia I picked up today. Did you know that…?”

“Good afternoon, Ma’am. Good afternoon, Sir,” I greeted the elderly couple as nonchalantly as I could manage.

I turned to Jerome right before I took my not-so-randomly chosen seat.

“What the ----- are they doing here?” I half-joked through gritted teeth.

“Who?” he asked with a confused look on his face.

“This old couple, man…ha, ha…what a coincidence: this is the same room I was in earlier today. With the same elderly man and woman as moderators, too.”
“Hah. That’s mirthful,” Jeremy flirted with patronizing me. “Now if you excuse me, I gots me a Hi-Q to qualify for…

“Attaboy! Go get ’em, Tiger!” I straight-up patronized him back.

We all took our seats and let the proceedings get under way. I, for one, was eager to see what the set of afternoon session questions looked like.

About 3 questions in, an internal monologue started up in my head.

“Hmm…why am I getting a sense of deja vu? Ah! Maybe it’s because the answer to this question is…”

Right about then Jerome buzzed in. In unison, we said, “The movie Groundhog Day.”

Ah, yes, already it was the classic deja-vu-themed point of cultural reference.

“Wait a minute, now this next question seems oddly…familiar,” I thought to myself about Q #4. “That’s probably because the question asked what the term was for a vampire’s assistant. So that makes sense.”

Question Five was a different story altogether.

“What British author is best known for her work…” the elderly woman paused dramatically, “The Velveteen Rabbit?”

Jeremy looked back at me chuckling in mild disbelief with a look that clearly said “You gotta be ----- kidding me!”

I kinda shrugged back at him, with the expression on my face indubitably communicating, “How was I supposed to know they were going to ask the exact same set of questions during both sessions?!?”

To which he silently replied, “Well, I can’t unknow anything I may or may not have learned in the 30 minutes before I entered this room…”

“Wait!” I mentally reached out to him like Nic Cage trying to retrieve a loose ball of bio-toxins in the movie The Rock. “Don’t answer that! That contraband information can be traced directly back to me!”

But it was too late; he had already buzzed in.

“Margery Williams…I suppose,” he said, doing his best to pretend that this was foreknown factoid for him.

He looked back at me with something of a sheepish grin, implying “What’s a guy to do?”

I just planted my face in my palm, though I quickly looked back up at him with piercing eyes in order to send him a very clear message: “We’re in this together now, you cheating mother fucker.”

He kinda nodded. “We take this to our graves?” he said only with his eyes.

I nodded back. “To our graves.”

He then looked at the elderly couple then back to me. “And the eyewitnesses?” This time there was a certain sadness in his eyes.

We were long past the point of no return by now: we were no longer the two upstanding citizens that had walked into that room. I wiped a nascent tear from my eye–they were a precious and kind old couple, after all–and steeled my resolve.

With the slightest of nods and the gaze of a man who no longer had a soul, I telegraphed to Jerome those fateful words:

“To their graves as well…”

Which was a real shame, seeing as how, despite our bumbling cheating scheme and the ensuing cover-up, in the end Rolla didn’t even qualif for Hi-Q that year…

Content created on: 9/10 March 2024 (Sat/Sun)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Tag: Best Of 2024 (Page 1 of 2)

Zoinks, Kids! Look Out For Strange Scooby-Dudes A-Meddling With You

Like this:

Actually, The Truth About Lloyd P. Fletcher Couldn’t Be Sketchier

Like this:

Nevermind For What Rascally Reasons–You’re Outstanding, Can’t You See, Son?

Like this:

Mother’s Complete Guide How To Nail Writing One Unforgettable Email

Like this:

Son, Let Me Get This Straight: Sowing Your Seed Just Couldn’t Wait?

Like this:

Boy Ain’t Gonna Lie: He Chasing That Rare Sugar High

Like this:

Behold: The Magic Jell-O Keeping You Out Of Jail, Bro!

Like this:

Legendary Myths Of Kansas: The Most Wanted Man On Campus

Like this:

How To Fool Your Mom Into Dropping Ye Old F-Bomb

Like this:

Your Homeboy’s Little Hack For Getting That Hi-Q Edge Back

Like this:

Search this blog

Previously, on “The Point of the Story”…

The latest word on the street

Dig into the vault for lost treasure

Enjoy this blog? Please spread the word :)

↵1	Okay, so his real name is Jeremy–and yes, it’s true, I’m pretty much half-assing this whole ‘protecting the innocent’ schtick.
↵2	Unless the 2023 tea managed to accomplish this feat…

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Search this blog

Previously, on “The Point of the Story”…

The latest word on the street

Dig into the vault for lost treasure

Enjoy this blog? Please spread the word :)