Tag: Featured Articles (Page 3 of 10)

What do you do when you realize there’s no time left on your collegiate clock?

Well, that’s when you best call in the BWC (Big White Cauc)…

“Uh, sorry, my dude, but I can’t help you with your experiment–I’m moving to my new apartment that day.”

I breathed a sigh of relief, thanking my lucky stars that I happened to have such an airtight and ironclad alibi/excuse to keep me from getting wrangled into somebody else’s scientific inquest. I mean, I was smack-dab in the middle of trying to get my own advanced physics degree–I didn’t have time to be doing Charles’ dirty work just because he was the senior post-doc in our lab and I was but a lowly grad student.

“Ahh, okay, I see. Good luck moving then, BJ…” Charles replied in his very distinct Chinese-is-my-first-language cadence before wandering off to go find another more willing lab-mate.

Once he was out of earshot, I allowed myself to ponder my thoughts freely (ya know, just in case I accidentally thought my thoughts out loud, as one is oft wont to do).

“Geez, I hope he doesn’t think I didn’t help him just because he’s Chinese–I’m not racist, I’m just lazy! Plus, I am technically moving that day, even though I’m not sure what time Mark plans to take me to pick up our U-Haul truck…” I told myself.

“And speaking of Mark, he’s about to become my new roommate and he‘s Asian–not to mention our third roommate, Oliver, who’s Black–so I’m like doubly non-racist…”

“The professor said we could do the homework as a group,” Mark told me excitedly.

“Yeah, I get that,” I responded. “But one little detail you’re overlooking–I’m not exactly one of the so-called ‘students’ in your math class…”

Mark was unfazed, his confidence in his plan undeterred.

“Hey, he didn’t specify who could work on the homework problems, just that it could be done in a group. C’mon, help a brother out!”

I sighed a deep sigh of resignation instead of relief this time. I knew I couldn’t leave his sorry ass hanging on account of hypothetical ‘integrity’.

“Ok, I’ll help you with your stupid homework, but I swear, I better not get kicked out of UNC for helping you cheat your way to graduation.”

Now, now, I know what you, Dear Reader, must be thinking, all judging me for doing my friends’ homework for them all willy-nilly, but I swear I’m not that type of guy. If you could just reserve your jumping to conclusions just for a few seconds and lemme explain.

You first gotta understand Mark and the position he was in back in the Summer of ’07. You see, when Marky-boy started as a freshman here at UNC even further back in the Fall of ’97, did he ever in his wildest dreams think he would achieve tenure at such a prodigious young age…

Wait a sec…

*checks notes*

Oh, that’s my bad, I said ‘tenure’–like what every professor hopes to achieve so they can become virtual impossible to be fired by their university despite their academic output and/or sexual misconduct–when what I meant to say was ‘ten-year’,¹For the record, like me, Mark is a pretty ----- funny guy, and this was his joke, not mine. which has a slightly different meaning.

As it so happened, Mark had gotten a letter from UNC earlier in the year, notifying him of their ‘ten-year’ policy: if you don’t graduate with a GPA of 2.0 or higher within 10 years of taking your first class at Carolina, they will be like Ice Cube in the hit 1995 movie Friday:

That’s right: he was on the verge of getting permanently banned from taking classes (and therefore, banned from graduating) at UNC. EVER. No matter how many classes you took or how much money you had given them, all of it would be worthy exactly jack-squat–they wouldn’t even let a dude transfer credits to another institution of higher learning with lower standards!

Now, I’m not going to get into the details of why, 9-1/2 years later, Mark still hadn’t graduated, but one notable factor was the whole “you need a GPA 2.0 or higher” thing. So, sitting at a solid 1.85 circa January 2007, and only one required class away from a math degree, Mark hatched a himself a little scheme to finally achieve what all previous versions of Mark had failed to do: get over 2.0, get his diploma, and wash his hands of UNC before they washed their hands of him first.

And there I was discovering that I was now going to be an accomplice in his plan. Well, at least the ‘summer math class’ part of the plan–not trusting himself to be able to land an ‘A’ in the math class, he wisely decided to hedge his bets and also enrolled in a ‘summer health class’–“sure to be an easy A!” he said…

“I’m so screwed.”

That’s about all my future roomie (yes, I’m talking about Mark, duh) could say after he got his first test score back.

“I thought you said that your math class was all homework except for the final exam. What are you even talking about?” I asked, slightly confused.

“It’s not the math class–it’s the health class! UNC is really trying to screw me over aren’t they? Baiting me into the ‘easiest class in the catalog’ and then switching it up by asking questions only white girls would know the answers to!” he complained.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa–are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“That UNC, as institution, is systemically racist against Asians and other non-white minorities? Yes! That’s exactly what I’m saying!”

“Huh. That’s funny, because what I’m hearing is that my lily-white ass is going to be pulling weekly all-nighters this summer, seeing as how now you’re going to need an A+ in math to graduate. Let it never be said that, on account of all my sacrifices I make for you, my token Vietnamese friend, that I am racist against Asians…”

So…you maybe wondering where this is all going. Well, you’re going to have to wait until next week to find out answers to questions like: Will I have a drama-free move? Will Mark ever graduate?

And most importantly, will we see any more Asian-related racism? Stay tuned, Dear Reader, stay tuned…

Content created on: 14/16/17 September 2023 (Thurs/Sat/Sun)

Most people can’t quite put their finger on what feels ‘off’ about their lives.

At least until what’s ‘off’ is a little too ‘on the nose’…

“Wait, our real estate agent’s name is what?!?”

My Beautiful Bride had to do a double-take when I told her the name of the agent that would be handling the sale of her parents’ previous residence–but not for the reason I had expected.

“Why isn’t her name ‘Beth’? I told you I wanted Beth, so why are we getting stuck with ‘Marsha’ instead? This is bait-and-switch!” she protested.

“Look, if you don’t like Marsha, then you can spend 3 asinine hours on Realtor.com trying to find an agent. You know it’s bad when you realize the only thing helping you make a decision is automatically eliminating anyone who is the type of person that wears the ‘Merican flag in their Realtor.com profile pic,” I shot back.

I wasn’t joking either–you’d be surprised how often people around here are willing to professional desecrate Ol’ Glory. But poor clothing choices aside, there were a few metrics the website offered to help you choose an agent–namely ‘number of active listings’ and ‘total number of closings’. And of the 4 arbitrary finalist I had passed on to MBB to choose from, ol’ Beth stood out from the others on those two counts. However, my concern was that somebody that prolific would be too busy to give us the attention our modest house deserved. This one is kinda on me, as I should have known better–sure enough, my discerning wife would only accept the best of the best if given the choice.

“But I wanted Beth!” she continued her protest.

“I told you she would be too busy for us and that we would get assigned one of her random minions! But you’re missing the whole point here–look at her business card again. I’ll give you a hint: it’s not her first name that’s cracking me up…”

“Yo, Marsha, the landscaping guy you recommended flat out told me our job wasn’t worth his time.”

We were trying to get the grass cut before Marsha’s photographer was scheduled to come in a few days, and since we lived an hour away, we were at the mercy of Marsha’s recommendations.

Now you would think that when someone says, ‘I know a guy,’ that they have a solid enough relationship with them that that ‘guy’ will take good care of you. The wife might have been on to something…perhaps Marsha House–despite her name–is no ‘Beth’.

But to her credit, Marsha had a proper lawnmower man in her back pocket.

“Here, let me give you the contact info of my other lawn guy.”

I glanced at the contact card she had just texted me:

“You gotta be ----- kidding me–first, my real estate agent’s name is House and now my lawnmower man’s name is Blade?!? I feel like I’m living in an episode of Seinfeld!” I muttered to myself.

Namely, the episode entitled “The Library,” where you’ll never guess what the last name of the Library Cop is…

…

Oh what the heck, I’ll let you find yourself with this clip. Though you’ll get your answer within the first 15 seconds (or just by looking at the name of the video), I highly recommend you watch the entire clip. It’s one of the best performances by any one-off characters in the whole show…

“Son, the water’s lookin’ might rusty again!”

These were the last words I wanted to hear from my mother. Or my father-in-law. Or my mother-in-law.

But alas, all three residents of our Farmstead–“where we put our parents out to pasture”–had complained to me about the water a the new place after living out there for barely a month, so I begrudgingly supposed I had to do something about it.

I sighed a heavy sigh.

“Fine, Mother, I’ll call my water guy and have him come out and take a look.”

Right before everyone had moved in, I had the well tested for bacteria, and also looked into having a manual pump installed in our well. The company had sent out a sales guy that was real friendly and reminded me of my older brother Lyle. While I ended up not buying what he was selling, we did build enough rapport that I felt comfortable calling him ‘my water guy’–but that was partly because I couldn’t remember his name.

“Let’s see here,” said the receptionist at The Water Specialist, “It looks like you’re on a well, so I’ll go ahead and just have him come out since he knows the place already.”

I found her wording a little odd. I mean c’mon, Captain Obvious, of course we’re on a well–aren’t all your clients?

“I’m sorry, who did you say you were sending out?” I kindly asked for clarification on account of her using too many pronouns.

“Will. Will will be coming out,” she replied.

“Ohhh…that makes much more sense. You said ‘Will’, not ‘well’. Hah! His name almost sounds like what he does for a living.”

“You just wait and see…” I could have sworn she said.

“Come again?”

“We can’t wait to see you on Monday,” she said.

Odd. My hearing must be off…

Monday came and went, and so did Will, but not without first telling us that the only way to really deal with the dissolved iron in our water was to drop $6k on a water sanitizer. Not ‘softener’, but ‘sanitizer’–a few steps above and beyond the bougie softener that every Joe-Schmoe seems to have.

And in the meantime, my curiosity got the best of me, and I started wondering what Will The Well Guy’s last name was. Fortunately, this time I had his business card.

“Hmmm…I wonder what Will’s last name is,” I pondered. “I bet its something mirthful like ‘Smith’–then I can crack stupid #DadJokes about how he must always be ‘gittin jiggy wit it’, or ask him if he knows any ‘guys who were up to no good, startin’ makin’ trouble in [his] neighborhood.’ (#FreshPrinceOfBelAireJoke)”¹Yes, if I would have actually said these things aloud to myself, I would have even said ‘hashtag Fresh Prince Of Bel Aire Joke.'

I rustled around in my wallet until I found what I was after.

“Lemme just check his business card…”

The point of the story is, when your real estate agent’s name is ‘House,’ your lawn guy’s name is ‘Blade’, and your water guy’s name is ‘Atwater’–water, for fuck’s sake–then you know that the conspiracy goes deeper than just living in an episode of a famous 90’s sitcom, much deeper than even something truly conspiratorial like the 1998 Jim Carey hit movie, The Truman Show.

That’s when you know that not only is your life just some dumb TV show, and not only have the writers of said show gone on strike with the rest of Hollywood, but that the asshole producers of your life’s show are perfectly fine with ChatGPT taking over writing duties…

Content created on: 31 August/2&3 September 2023 (Thurs/Sat/Sun)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Nah, we good…”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Sure.”

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

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

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

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

…

…

…

…

“…the Greased-Surfer Chase!!!“

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Wait, what?!?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No, not a uniform, short sleeves.”

“Well, that is weird.”

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

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

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

“Yeah, that’s not happening…”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And just like that 911 hung up on me.

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

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

*Approximately 3 minutes later…*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Mom, you still there?”

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

“Whatchyou talking about, Willis?” I asked.

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

“Okay, no big deal.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I mean, think about it, dude:

I had called 911…

…on a Black guy…

…who was just bird-watching.

…

…

…

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

*Facepalm*.

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

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

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

Content created on: 28 May 2023 (Sunday)