“No! Only I get to stuff the ballot box!” he hissed at me as he grabbed my wrists and wrestled the stack of raffle entries from my hand…

It was Santa Day–well, actually Santa Night–in our sleepy little Kansas town of Richfield, and the holiday magic was in the air! There were carols to be sung, brown paper bags of Christmas candy to be procured, and wishlists to be whispered into the ear of the shady-ass Santa who we later discovered drove a beat-up Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme instead of a sleigh.

Of course there were also various door prizes to be won by the members of our tiny rural community.¹Population: 81 (per 1980 census) True, it was mostly boring ol’ frozen critters like turkeys or hams, because that’s how we country folk liked to roll. But there was one glaring exception to this rule: a small stuffed teddy bear that played Christmas tunes when you pressed its paw.

And 1SkinnyJ (my slightly older brother) wasn’t the only one who desperately wanted to win it.

Now, even though I was only 6 or 7 at the time, I already had a lucky streak going in my nascent life. Movie tickets…Easter egg hunts…definitely not greased pig chases…I wasn’t exactly winning the lottery (yet), but I was still doing nicely for myself when it came to profiting from random events.

“This ends tonight,” he stated firmly, glaring at me with pen in hand. “You always win everything, you lucky little bastard. Now, I’m going to win something for once!”

Unfortunately, I didn’t really hear all he had said because in my mind I had already figured out what that rascal was up to, and was like, “Okay, so we’re doing this. Funk yeah. Let me get my own stack of 25+ raffle entries to fill out…”

Once I got done with mine, I patiently watched him stuff the little shoe box to the brim with pieces of paper with his name chicken-scratched all over them, waiting for my turn to tip the scales of chance in my favor.

That’s when I discovered Step 2 of his evil plan: voter suppression.²Okay, so I wasn’t technically a ‘voter’ per se, but it’s an apt enough analogy when writing this in November 2020 (ahem). He let me put my name in once, but wasn’t about to let me put it in 24 more times. Because we both knew exactly what would happen if I did…which was the whole ----- reason I wanted to do it too.

So there we were, in the middle of the Richfield School gym³Actually, I’m pretty sure the table was on the north wall, at the east edge where the gym meets the hallway to the classrooms… scuffling over a stack of fraudulent ballots that I almost got into the drawing. But of course, being the big brother, 1SJ ultimately stopped me from doing exactly what he had just done.

Did his commitment to committing raffle tampering end there? Oh no, not at all. Later that night I tried to sneak back and finish the job, but he came sprinting in at the last second and darn near tackled me. That boy truly believed in his cause, that was for sure.

At that point I said “F*ck it” and gave up. You know why though? Because, it was true: I was a lucky little bastard, and I figured that all I needed was my singular entry to have my name drawn out of the sea of that cheater’s names. Joke’s gonna be on you, bro!

I wasn’t really that surprised when, lo and ----- behold, someone came and found us outside later to tell 1SJ that he had somehow overcome all odds and won himself a musical teddy bear.

Funnily enough, later in its ill-gotten life, that teddy bear’s battery cavity would go on to serve 1SJ very well as a hiding spot for various forms of illicit contraband . So I guess the joke ultimately was on the teddy bear, what with getting drugs stuffed up its butt like it were a Paul Frampton wannabe⁴Ah, yes, UNC Dept. of Physics & Astronomy’s most famous drug mule: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Frampton#Drug_smuggling_conviction…

Anyways, the point of the story is, if you’re desperately in need of a holiday miracle, sometimes all you need is sheer grit and a little physical restraint to make it happen. And before you know it, you just might have yourself a merry little Christmas bear hitting them high notes for all the wrong reasons⁵Because, the drugs . All them drugs up its ass. Just so we’re clear.…

Content created on: 18 November 2020 (Wednesday)

No, not that kind of degeneracy.

I’m talking about a much more refined and pretension degeneracy.

Now, in quantum physics–and just bear with me for a few seconds–there’s this whole thing about being able to say what quantum state a group of particles¹Or, more formally: a system. are in based on the result of some measurement, say, energy, for example.

But what if two different arrangements produced the same measurable energy?

Well, then, if you did your experiment and recorded this particular energy, you would be stuck not knowing which of those two states you were actually looking at.

This is called a degenerate energy level.

If you wanted to distinguish between the two possible states, you would break the degeneracy by doing something that can be thought of as measuring a different property of the system, like the total weight of all the particles.

Apart from breaking the degeneracy, you’re stuck never knowing exactly what arrangement your system is in.

At this point, it’s forgivable if all you’re hearing is “Laht, laht, lah! Physics, physics, physics! #HumbleBrag.”

Fortunately for you, the story of why in the name of ----- I ended up going through life using a synonym for fellatio as my name just so happens to be a pretty darn good analogy for degeneracy.

Now, if you will, take a step back in time with me, and all shall be made clear…

Christmas Day 1980, some undisclosed location in Kansas: during an otherwise routine family holiday gathering, an emergency meeting is called.

Unto them a child was born, and unto them they knew not what the hell to call him.

You see, this days-old youngster certainly had a name. It was just that this particular name was sorta…already taken.

And of course I was the hapless lad in this story, so I might as well stop referring to myself in the third person before we go any farther.

So, there I was, just chillin’ like a villain, as depicted in Figure 1, oblivious to the fact that a major determinant of the arc of my life yet to come was hanging in the balance.

When I was born, “somebody”²Most definitely, unequivocally my dad. got the big idea to name me after his grandfathers, so the story about how I ended up with “Robert James” on my birth certificate is actually pretty run-of-the-mill. Big whoop.

But as I had alluded to, “Robert” was already spoken for–by my great grandfather, obviously–and so if from a physicist’s perspective in which one’s name is perhaps one of the most basic “measurements” of a human, I was clearly born into degeneracy.

If someone in the family starts talking about Robert, well, to whom exactly would they be referring?

One could break the degeneracy by a “secondary measurement,” such as age or size. Clarifying that they were talking about “Grandpa” would make it immediately clear that they were referring to the elder of us. Another option would be to call me “L’il Robert” and their point would be just as easily made.

Alternatively, the use of nicknames can be a reliable degeneracy-breaker, and the good news here is that “Robert” has many variants.

The bad news? My family tree (Fig. 2) is littered with one ----- Robert after another.

First, there’s my namesake, my great grandfather Robert on my dad’s side, who everyone just called “Bob.”

Then there’s my maternal grandfather, Albert Robert, who–by the way–for some reason went by “Pat.” Go figure.

Moving down to the next generation: there’s my dad whose legal name actually is Bobby Jim, I shit thee not. Turns out that he got stuck/blessed with the nicknames of his two grandfathers.

Switching back to my mom’s side is her brother, the One True Robert. That’s just a fancy way of saying that of all the Roberts in the family, Uncle Robert was the only one who didn’t use a nickname as an adult.

And, for good measure, my mom & Uncle Robert had a cousin who was beaugarding the title of “Robby” all to himself.

Now, my dad was aware of all this when he haphazardly slapped a name on my back, and so honestly I don’t know what the hell he was thinking bringing yet another Robert into the mess.

Reviewing the situation: we now have six-fold degeneracy at the Robert name level, and the members of my family in the emergency Christmas meeting were hoping to break that degeneracy with a nickname.

Perhaps it went down something a little like this…

Individual 1: “So, what about Bob?”

Individual 2: “Nope, Grandpa Bob took that one.”

Individual 1: “Dammit. Of course he did.”

Individual 3: “Well, we can’t call him Pat…”

Everyone else: “Why the hell would we call him that?”

Individual 3: “Good question…why do we call Pop-Pop ‘Pat’? That makes no ----- sense.”

Albert Robert “Pat” “Pop-Pop”: “Yeah, why do you call me Pat?”

Everyone else: “NOT NOW, POP-POP!”

Individual 1: “Okay, okay…and I guess it’s obvious that Bobby is off the table as well. Yes, I’m looking at you, Bobby. YOU did this, we’re in this ----- mess because of you. We’re wasting our Christmas because of your utter lack of creativity and imagination. Good lord, we can only hope he doesn’t take after you in that department.”

Individual 4: “Remind me again what was wrong with plain ol’ Robert?”

Individual 3: “Uh, because you kinda took that one, Uncle Robert. Anyways, we can’t do Bobby, but how about this…[with a dramatic flourish] Robby?”

Individual 5: “Sorry, but there’s Cousin Robby…”

Individual 3: “Well, shit…”

Individual 1: “Okay, we got to start thinking outside the box here, folks. How about Bert?”

Bobby Jim “Bobby Jim”: “Sure, let’s name him after my ex-wife’s dad. That won’t be awkward at all.”³I had a rough idea of all the details up until this one. This one I discovered for the first time while researching this story.

Individual 1: “For you and me both. Though I still think he looks like he would make a fine Bert.”

Individual 5: “I’ve got it! So, I think we’ve been going about this all wrong. We’ve been trying to come up with nickname that is supported by some basic logic and would be patently obvious to any new acquaintance why he was called thus.”

Individual 4: “Go on…”

Individual 5: “Instead, we should eschew all logic and give him a name that will wear out anybody who is unfortunate enough to ask him about its backstory. How about Bobby’s initials?”

Individual 3: “Ummm, you mean B.J.?”

Individual 5: “Exactly.”

Individual 1: “No, I really don’t–“

Bobby Jim “Bobby Jim”: “It’s perfect!”

Individual 1: “Hey, I don’t think I like tha–“

Individual 5: “We don’t really care about your opinion, even if it was your womb. Let’s vote on it.”

[The Council–save a vigorously protesting Individual 1–all murmur in agreement or nod in approval.]

Individual 6 [whispering to Individual 3]: “You think maybe we should tell Grandma what a Blow Job is exactly before the poor kid gets screwed over?”

Individual 3: “Nah, I wanna see where this goes…”

[Seemingly out of nowhere, the meeting is interrupted by a frantically screaming Time Bandit…]

Future Bandit: ” ----- -sucker! ----- -SUCKER! Don’t you all know that’s what a ----- -sucker does?!?”

Individual 2: “The hell you say?”

Future Bandit: “Please, don’t doom me to a lifetime supply of ----- -sucking references! Especially with these lips! Nooooooo! It’s too late! I’m fading already…don’t…let…me…be…a…B.J………..”

[And just like that the Time Bandit is ironically sucked back into the vortex from which he came…]

Individual 4: “Was it just me, or did anybody else get the feeling that they were looking at a weird clone of Bobby’s when gazing upon that strange fellow?”

Bobby Jim “Bobby Jim”: “Yeah, it was like looking in a mirror…it must be a sign!”

All except Individual 1: “Hear, hear! Then B.J. he shall be! Merry First Christmas, Kid!”

Individual 5 [underneath her breath as she passes Individuals 3 & 6]: “…and a little ----- -sucker he shall be…”

[Individuals 3 & 6 stare at each other in stunned silence…]

The point of the story is I guess we now all know what I would do if I ever built myself a time machine… ----- stopping Hitler–that’s too bougie anyways.

Given the chance, I would go back and stop the degenerates in my family from screwing me over for degenerations to come…so suck on that, Grandma Individual 5.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, Y’all!

In some cultures, a boy’s twelfth birthday is a very important rite of passage in his life. In Judaism this is marked with a Bar Mitzvah, in which, in the eyes of his society, he has officially become a man.

Although I wasn’t brought up in the Hebrew tradition, I was still pretty excited for my big one-two.

For reasons well beyond the scope of this story, Autumn 1992 was the very first time in my life that I didn’t have my slightly older brother J around. Up until that point in time I had been overly-dependent on him to guide me through pretty much all social settings. Thus, being rather shy by nature, transitioning to not living with him was scary AF for me.

Amazingly, only months in, and I was finding that I was actually capable of holding my own when flying solo. Yup, I was ----- proud of myself for adjusting–I wasn’t the helpless little kid I feared I would become. And turning 12 was going to help me mark this important milestone in my life.

Now all of this was in the midst of the 5 years that my mom and us boys spent living in Springfield MO while she attended Baptist Bible College.

About a month before my birthday, she had gone on a blind date with an older guy about her age who was also a student at BBC, whom we’ll simply refer to as Chaz.¹Kind of his real name. I don’t know why I should even bother with protecting this fucker’s identity in the least, though. Little did we know he had his sights set on marrying her ASAP.

Even littler did we know what a complete ----- psychopath he would turn out to be…but that’s a story for another time. The key point here is that when I use the term psychopath, I’m not bandying it about lightly. This asshole was cunning and deceptive.

A critical component of his matrimonial plan was wooing the kiddo–which he was already doing a surprisingly good job of²She had dated another gentlemen a few years earlier. In summary, I did not take it well.–and he decided to swing for the fences by really treating me for my birthday.

He actually had put together a nice little itinerary for the three of us, and I was pretty pumped about it.

We would kick off the night with a professional magic show. I had never been to one, so for this wannabe David Copperfield, this was going to be a real treat. Spoiler alert–apart from the requisite anxiousness that the magician was going to ----- up–it was a real treat.

After that we would do some fine dining at my favorite restaurant, Ryan’s Buffet, and then cap the night off with a Living Christmas Tree Cantata at a rival church, High Street Baptist.

For those of you not familiar with Ryan’s let me expound a bit.

We never had much petty cash during those times, so one of the few times we would get to eat out was when our grandma would visit from Kansas. Almost every time she came out we would indulge in a trip to Ryan’s.

Ryan’s truly was a chubby kid’s paradise.

First, it was “all-you-can-eat.” However, one thing the execs running Ryan’s didn’t account for in their business model was under-privileged gluttonous underage geniuses³I.e. yours truly. hacking the system. You see, I never let the “can” part of all-you-can-eat stop me. I had a pretty solid strategy in which, once having eaten to my nominal capacity, I would take a “half-time break” trip to the restroom and make room for Round Two. I only had one shot at this a year, so I was going to get the money’s worth of whoever was paying, dammit.

Second, back then, it was one of the rare massive buffets that have become more ubiquitous in this day and age. It had all the bars a ravenous kid could want: Salad bar. Soup bar. Meats & Pastas bar. Bread bar.

And most importantly, a stacked-to-the-rafters Dessert bar.

GOD, I was obsessed with the Dessert bar. NOM NOM NOM! I salivate just thinking about my old friend.

So there I was, it’s my twelfth birthday, and I was there to party. I had my plate loaded up with all sorts of sweets and goodies. The only thing lacking was the pièce de résistance disguised as an accoutrement: the whipped cream.

Now the whipped cream posed an interesting dilemma for me. My gut instinct was to pass on it that day. And I literally mean my “gut” here: while I had a limited number of data points, I had noticed a clear trend in which consumption of Ryan’s whipped cream would almost inevitably lead to gastric discomfort later on, and on occasion, a moderate⁴…to severe case of the squirts.

On the other hand…it was my ----- birthday.

Unfortunately, the latter of the two won out.

I clearly and distinctly remember thinking, “Fuck it⁵Sorry, Mom, I don’t know why my censorship plug-in doesn’t catch this.–it’s my birthday!” and scooping approximately a snow-shovel’s worth onto my plate.

The point of this story is live life without regrets; indulge in the little things in life that bring you joy and happiness, especially if it’s a special occasion, such as your Bar Mitzvah, or the Gentile equivalent thereof…

J.K. Kidding. Oh, how I wish that were the point of the story.

But where would the fun be in that, right? No, the birthday celebration must go on…

So, after indulging in a healthy dollop of whipped cream with the rest of my desserts, we wrapped it up at Ryan’s and headed off to ol’ High Street for some light holiday revelry.

When we got there, we found comfy seats in the middle of the left third section, about halfway back. In front of us sat a mixed race couple and their three kids–a darker Asian⁶Perhaps Indian or Filipino? I’m not really much of racist that sees people in terms of color, so I’m not/was not very good at making such distinctions. man and a gorgeous blonde trophy wife.

Now admittedly, this last detail has exactly jack-shit to do with today’s story, but 1) it’s just another example of how, uh, “memorable” that evening was, and 2) I recall observing that family and formulating the following theorem: classy interracial relationship = exotic dark-skinned male + beautiful blonde female. The importance/irony of this is that 15 years and 2 weeks later I would prove the inverse of this theorem to be true when I became the gorgeous blonde trophy husband in an interracial marriage…

ANYWAYS,⁷I feel unnecessarily compelled to tell you at this point that I’m trying a new strategy at writing my blog posts more efficiently by concurrently imbibing fine licorice-flavored French liquor. In theory alcohol would make me more focused, but in this case it seems that it just helps me access deeper parts of an already overly-vivid memory. about what seemed like halfway through the performance, my tummy started to feel a little rumbly. I didn’t think much of it, other than, yeah, of course, because I had eaten Ryan’s whipped cream.

After about ten minutes of my stomach gurgling, I realized that a quick trip to the restroom was in order.

The reason I described in way-too-much-detail the location of our seats was because it determined my path to the nearest restroom. I needed to move to the left-central aisle and head to the back doors. After that I had to circle back around to where the restrooms that were, relatively speaking, nearest the front-left of the…nave?⁸This is what happens when drinking while blogging: (see Figure XXX).

As I scurried along that path, I gradually started to realize the seriousness of the situation. In response, I clenched my anal sphincter muscle as tightly as possible and power-walked even faster.

I was halfway down the corridor that had an almost direct path to the nearest men’s restroom, when I passed a fella I knew from High Street via Awanas.⁹Awanas has been previously referenced in: Kandy Karma, Part 1. I highly recommend reading that one if you haven’t already. As I passed him, he nodded a greeting, and I feigned my best “How do you do, good Sir that I know to the most modest of degrees? But please FOR THE LOVE OF ----- do not stop and chat me up. I beg of thee.”

I didn’t mean to be impertinent, but I had much more pressing matters.

And those matters? Approximately 3 seconds later they pressed a little too hard on my 144-month-old sphincter muscle.

Whoosh!

My previously trustworthy sphincter gave up the ghost and a fount of fecal matter flowed down my right pant leg.

It was official: my Bar Shitzvah was in full swing.

Mind you, I wasn’t even to the restroom at this point. I still had a good 15-30 seconds to get to the relative safety of a stall, all the while thinking, “Mother ----- It’s my 12th birthday and I’m straight-up shitting my pants? ----- my life. ----- it in the ass. You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

Once I made it to the restroom, I holed myself up in the singular stall in the men’s bathroom, hoping to mitigate the situation.

I sat there for a good 10 minutes in shock from what had just transpired, unsure of how the hell I was going to get out of this one.

At this point you may be saying “Give it to me straight Doc. How bad was it?”

Well, I will give it to you straight, Bub. It was bad…real bad.

The good news first, though: my left pant leg was largely unscathed and still quite dry.

Now the bad news: my right pant leg was completely soaked through all the way down to the ankle.

Ever the optimist, I thought maybe, with enough toilet paper, I could dab the juices until it was dry enough to go back out in public without it being completely obvious that I had just shat my britches.

I went through about 2/3 of the toilet paper supply before giving up on that strategy and moving to Plan B: let it air dry.

Not that it was a great idea in the first place, but at that point what else was I going to do? But then, a fly appeared in the ointment.

After about 5 minutes of sitting in the stall, alone with some very emasculating thoughts and still dripping wet pants, somebody wandered into the bathroom.

It appeared that they needed to use the stall, as they just started loitering and not doing much else.

In my head I was like “Welp, buddy, sorry but I ain’t going anywhere for awhile. I highly recommend not trying to out-wait me, because that’s a losing proposition for ya.”

It’s not like there was anyway in hell I could actually explain the situation to him, so I just sat there quietly, hoping he would get tired of waiting and go find another, more available–and non-desecrated–restroom.

But, oh my god, this guy. Five minutes of awkward silence–still there. Ten minutes, fifteen minutes–that fuck-face was still there. I mean, couldn’t he smell that things weren’t quite right with me?

Admittedly, time was kinda at a standstill for me, so I don’t know how long the World’s Most Awkward Standoff lasted, but it was at least 30 minutes before he left.

You know, it’s bad enough being on the verge of your teenage years and defecating yourself in public, but can you imagine being trapped in a stall, with someone standing for over half an hour on the other side of the door, the whole time knowing that they have to know that you’ve done crapped your pants?

If there ever was a moment in my life in which I wished I could die, this would have definitely been it.

And where was this guy’s sense of humanity? His actions definitely went against the very spirit of Christmas.

Anyways, even with that poop-sniffing fool finally gone, I still didn’t have an exit strategy.

Eventually, the best I could come up with was mummifying my right leg with as much toilet paper as I could in hopes of at least not having my skin in constant contact with my liquified excrement between then and whenever I finally got home.

So I wrapped up my leg as best as I could with what remained of the t.p., pulled up my pants, tried not to throw up, and strolled out of the stall. I tossed my D.O.A. underwear in the trash and proceeded to wash my hands 5-10 times.

Now, I would have hung out in the warmth of the bathroom longer, but by my best estimate, the Cantata would be ending any minute, and I wanted to be ready to skedaddle the ----- out of there as soon as possible.

However, this was complicated by the fact that I absolutely did not want to interact with any other humans in my current state, so staying inside the church seemed too risky.

…so that left me with no real alternative but to wander out into the freezing cold parking lot without my coat¹⁰Like Kirk Cameron, obviously it had been Left Behind in the nave, since this Nostradamus didn’t exactly foresee where the night was going to head. and park my moist butt next to Chaz’s Blazer. And wait.

Again, alone with my thoughts.

God, I was miserable. Cold. Wet. Stinking to high heaven. Depressed.

And on top of that, it turned out my estimation of how much time remained was slightly inaccurate.

Although my mind and soul seemed to freeze while I waited, I was cognizant enough to note the passage of time. It was at least another 45 minutes to an hour of my personal hell before people started to trickle out of the church and into the parking lot.

Of course the nightmare wasn’t quite over, as I feared I would have to explain my little adventure to Mom and Chaz. I knew Mom would be gracious and understanding, so no problem there.

On the other hand, this was like the 2nd or 3rd impression that Chaz would have of me, and even if he was kind about it, BJ the Pants-Pooper would be ingrained in his mind FOREVER.

Fortunately, Mom covered for me, and just told him I had an upset stomach, so we loaded up and headed straight back to our apartment.

I almost cared whether or not I might be leaving watery shit-stains on his seats, but, nah, I was so done with life at that point. It ’twas what it ’twas.

Finally home and after a nice long hot shower, I had more than enough of my fill of the day, so I just went straight to bed and hoped I didn’t further degrade myself by crying myself to sleep.

I had woke up that morning a young man, and now here I was, going to bed a little boy. At last, my Bar Shitzvah was complete.

Happy birthday, me?

The point of the story is, you can say “fuck it–it’s my birthday!” all you want. But make no mistake, boy, you still gonna have to live with the shitty consequences of your poor life decisions.

Appendix A

Content created on: 11/13/14 December 2019 (Wed/Fri/Sat)

Everybody needs at least one constant truth in their life to keep them sane.

For me, that one truth was that I could always count on olives to be intolerably nasty.

I knew from an early age that olives and I weren’t going to get along.

For example, when I was 9 I had gone out to eat at our local Pizza Hut with my Little League baseball team after a game. Though I thought I had taken adequate precautions and picked all the chunks of olive off of my piece of Supreme pizza, apparently my youthful gluttony kicked in a second too soon as I recklessly jammed it into my eagerly awaiting proverbial pie-hole.

As soon as it touched the tip of my tongue, however, alarm bells were going off in my mouth. Like putting one’s hand on a hot stove, in an effort to protect itself, my body swiftly rejected the bite back into my hand and onto my plate. Sure as shit, there was the tiniest speck of olive hidden deep in the cheese. I vaguely remember muttering some comment to myself about the “damn nasty olive.”

I probably would have never remembered that last detail, except that the next day, my dad ripped me a proverbial new one, going off on me about how rude I had been. I guess somehow word about the non-event had gotten back to him, and for reasons that will forever be beyond me, he thought the appropriate reaction was to chew my ass out over it.

I was not pleased with him at all–I was like “Hey, I’m the victim here! Would it hurt to show a little sympathy for your wounded offspring?”

That may sound a little dramatic, but you have to understand, I had been thoroughly traumatized just from having that sharp, unpleasant sensation in my mouth for a mere 300 milliseconds. And then, to add insult to injury, I was being made out to be the village asshole over the whole ordeal. The olive had managed to screw me over twice in one shot.

So yeah, as far as I was concerned, olives could go pit themselves where the sun don’t shine.

For many a decade this animosity held true.

My dispassion for slimy mushrooms, once thought also to be a constant, gave way to a modest respect for their savory meatiness. Presidents came and went. The length and color(s) of my hair ebbed and flowed.

I even finally figured out how to convince a beautiful, competent, and kind female to hitch her star to my wagon.

Yet amidst this inevitable sea of change, like a solid rock I could plant my feet on, was the fact that olives were an agricultural atrocity–nay, a culinary catastrophe, I dare say.

It was shortly after I got married at the age of 27 that the first crack appeared in this rock.

I got to attend a physics conference in New Orleans, and since it coincided with the Boss Lady’s Spring Break,¹No, I wasn’t robbing the cradle–she was getting her second degree in nursing when we met and got married. I got to bring her along for what was approximately a mini second honeymoon. I mean, I did have to give a short talk at the conference, so that was hanging over my head pretty much the whole week that we were there. But hey–we were in New Orleans, there was much to see and–more importantly–much to eat.

First day I was there, I went to a mini-conference related to my particular sub-field, and in all of the complimentary box lunches were muffulettas,²If you’re not familiar with these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muffuletta. the quintessential New Orleans sandwich. The important detail here is that muffulettas must have a thick layer of olive salad, and of course my sandwich was no exception.

I was like, “hell no, mofo!” and promptly scraped all them revolting olives off. I didn’t care if I was being culturally insensitive–this one was on them because I know for a fact that olives are not even close to being universally loved.³Definite proof that I’m not alone in this: https://www.mic.com/articles/107536/if-you-absolutely-despise-olives-there-could-be-a-good-reason-why. What kind of presumptive pricks force feed everyone olives without offering any alternatives?

Anyways, later that same trip, whilst caught up in a romantic/adventurous moment with my lady friend, I…I…I, uh…I tried a muffuletta without taking the olives off.

It must have been the romance of it all, but…I kinda like it. Just a little bit though–just barely beyond “tolerable.”

Interestingly, once back home, I found myself with an occasional hankering for muffulettas. That casual hankering slowly morphed into a craving, to the point where I even looked into having one shipped in from that particular deli for the Boss Lady’s birthday.

Like a mealtime MacGyver, I found that if I was really desperate I could improvise…with olives. It turns out that *gasp* olives and muffulettas taste awfully alot like each other. Go figure.

I was still in denial for a few more years though. I would reticently admit that, solely in the context of muffulettas, I could enjoy olives as part of the larger experience, but was adamant that I was still a hardcore oleaphobe.

Fittingly, it was on another physics-related business trip when I found myself stuck with two of my much elder professors/collaborators in the Philadelphia airport with an hour to kill before our flight home. Being distinguished and refined fellows, they gravitated towards the airports wine + olive bar, and dragged me along for the ride.

I think deep down, I wasn’t that resistant to the idea, but I had to at least pretend to put up a fight out of principle. You know, “Well, you can make me eat these fancy olives, but I don’t have to like it!”

I liked it.

I casually brought up my history with those “balls from hell”⁴I just recently picked up that term from here: https://www.mic.com/articles/107536/if-you-absolutely-despise-olives-there-could-be-a-good-reason-why (same as previous reference). with my associates, and I was somewhat surprised when our collaborator, J⁵Not my brother “J”–it’s actually spelled Jie in this case, but since it’s a Chinese name, we just use “J” since it perfectly conveys the pronunciation. (who I didn’t know as well), was like, “Oh yeah, that pretty accurately describes the trajectory of my relationship with them as well…” He went on to explain in depth about how he, too, once hated the ‘live, but had gradually come to appreciate the intricate nuances that awaited those intrepid enough to explore them.

It was in that moment that I finally found the courage to come to terms with man I had become.

It was official: I genuinely appreciated and enjoyed olives.

And you know what else I genuinely appreciated and enjoyed? The small gesture that J had made to share that sliver of life wisdom with me. While it may seem asinine on the surface, his act of incidental mentorship impacted me far greater than anything we ever did together academically. He opened my eyes to the possibility of a path that leads to discovering refined experiences in something I swore I would hate to my death.

No matter how old you are, it’s never too late to develop a new appreciation for an old nemesis. If I could come to openly love olives, then what else might I find myself enjoying when I revisit other things that I may have written off in the past, or not given a second thought to at all?

Ultimately, what he was showing me was a blueprint for personal growth, with the real gift being a much fuller and richer life ahead of me.

So J, if you ever read this, thank you. To everyone else, I hope that by trying to rub my little mini-spiritual journey off on you, your future life may be just wee bit more of a life fully lived.⁶I accidentally mistyped this as “foully lived”…and I was really tempted to not correct myself, because admit it, that version is waaaay better.

And the real point of the story is, if I could go back to the moment when I was slightly intoxicated on wine, olive brine, and life itself, I would turn to J and drunkly proclaim in my most obnoxious bro-voice…

“No, olive you, man.”

Now that you know how the story ends, I figure you might be interested in an origin story. They seem to be all the rage these days, no?

Earlier I chose to share an olive-related anecdote from when I was 9, but really my hate-hate relationship with olives goes back much further.

The first Thanksgiving⁷“Aha! So this is supposed to be a Thanksgiving-themed post, then?” you may be correctly asking yourself. that I can remember clearly, I remember for all the wrong reasons.

Although I was only 3 at the time, my dislike for olives had already been well-established in my mind. Like I said, it was a life-truth, something you just seemingly have known forever.

As with almost every Kansas Thanksgiving in my life, I was at my aunt’s house with pretty much every family member on my mom’s side. Specifically, this included my many siblings and cousins.

Since I was the next to youngest cousin at the time, it goes without saying that I was hanging out with a small gang of ones older than me. Oh, and speaking of constants, a constant at all of these late November family feasts would be a relish tray that would prominently feature black olives.

So, us kids being kids, the other members of my party started putting olives on each of their fingers, and would pretend to be some weird food version of Freddy Kruger. It looked like a blast, so naturally, I joined right in.

I was having fun playing with the food along with everyone else, when gradually they started eating the olives off their fingers. Of course, there was no way in hell that I was going to eat the ones on mine, so I went to go throw them away and be on my merry way.

However, before I could dispose of them, I was intercepted by either my grandma…or maybe it was an aunt? Surprisingly, I can’t remember exactly who to blame for scarring me for life.

Whoever it was, though, they were a real Food Fascist about it, insisting that I eat every single one of them, knowing full well how much I hated them.

I cried, I begged, I pled for mercy.

No dice. They stood firm in their position, and would not let me leave until I ate them all.

This Mediterranean Standoff went on for a good 15-20 minutes, which is, like, forever, in 3-year-old time.

Now, I’m not one given to using potty words, but this seriously ----- with my head.

I mean, they were being pure evil dickheads about it. For god’s sake, I was three.

I didn’t realize that by sticking my finger in their pit-holes, I was effectively committing myself to consummating my relationship with the olives via consumption. I was just having a little fun with my cousins. Why was this adult all up in my shit, yo?

As for my clean-fingered cousins, they all bailed on me, so I was left with no one to defend me, nary a soul to champion my cause. They had lured me into the situation, and then were like, “Well, it sounds like you got a real you problem, now don’t you? See ya!”

In the end all the crying in the world didn’t get me anywhere. I vaguely remember gagging them down one by one, and even though I have a much evolved appreciation for them now, as I recollect this experience in writing this, it still makes me vomit a wee bit in my mouth. And though I describe the memory as “vague” I think that is only because I’ve seriously tried to block out this core traumatic even from my childhood.

If you can’t tell by the way I write about it, this has stuck with me my whole life, and not in a positive way. Let’s just say I’m not a big fan of arbitrary enforcement of arbitrary rules. Fairness is important to me, and this is one of the experiences that helped shape that into a more severe version than what might be considered healthy.

Case in point: one of the couple of the Thanksgivings I was in grad school but before I got married, I was spending it at my brother’s house with his family. My nephew, who was 3 or 4 at the time, tried pulling the same shit with the olives on the fingers just as I had at that age.

Now, it is a natural part of the human psyche for the abused to often become the abuser, and I there I found myself, attempting to perpetuate the vicious cycle of olive-eating enforcement. If I had to suffer that dumbass rule, then why should he get out of it, huh? Where’s the fairness in that?

It may surprise you, but when my sister came along, she did not back me up at all on that point–nor did my brother who eventually joined us. We had a good 5-minute argument about it, but in the end, those olives went to waste.

Truth be told, I was actually relieved that I was unsuccessful. I really don’t wish my early olive experience on anyone, and I would hate to have been the one to scar my nephew for NO ----- REASON.

So…this Thanksgiving, give thanks that you’re not a grown man who probably really should see a therapist concerning what, in this doctor’s humble opinion, appears to be…some sort of weird Stockholm Syndrome?

To quote a favorite band of mine:

Boy, you just don’t know how lucky you are.

Electric Six, Infected girls

Content created on: 23/24 November 2019 (Sat/Sun).