Tag: Featured Articles (Page 4 of 10)

The Bulldog Wanted Baloney. You’ll Never Guess What Happened Next…

12 March 2023 / BJ / 0 Comments

6 Min Read

Look, don’t judge me for honoring a homeless guy’s request.

Oh, but you’ll never guess which of his weird-ass requests I’m talking about…

“But don’t worry–I never cook my baloney sandwiches in the tent, I only run my little camping stove outside the tent. And I make sure it’s completely off and cooled before I bring it back in. I’m all about ‘safety first’–don’t want no fumes messing up my brain cells, ya know?”

“Yup, yup, safety first. Good thinking…”

I stood there, still pumping gas, wondering if it was the gasoline fumes was messing with my head. One moment, I’m thinking about how I’m actually going to be home at the exact time I promised My Beautiful Bride I would be, after a sedatively long afternoon of shopping for the finest vinyl flooring with ‘Gladys’, and the next? The next moment, I’m having a semi-surreal–and frankly, quite sad–conversation with some random guy about the proper way to cook processed meats in the wild.

Well, let me back up the story a hair, and maybe things will make slightly more sense.

You see, it all started when I decided I would save a buck or two on a full tank of gas…

“Hey there! How’s it going? You live around here?”

On my way back from my aforementioned flooring expedition, I had a choice between two routes to get home. Noting that the slightly longer journey happened to take me through downtown of the hamlet in which I reside, I thought to myself, ‘A-ha! Ima be going by that one mini-mart with oddly low gasoline prices, I might just stop in and fill ‘er up!”

And right about the time I had done gone and filled ‘er up, seemingly out of nowhere, this older Black gentleman appeared and made a beeline right towards me.

Seeing as how I was the only person at the gas station, I was pretty much a sitting duck.

“Oh, jeez, here we go…” I thought to myself, as it became pretty clear pretty quick where this conversation was headed as soon as the guy started conversing with me while he was still halfway across the parking lot.

“Hey there, I was just passing through on my way to the grocery store, hoping to get a jumbo pack of baloney and a loaf of bread, you know…just trying to maybe put together some meals for the next few days…”

I had started carrying a handful of twenties in my wallet for just such occasions, and I knew it would feel good to help hook a brother up with his baloney.

“Sure! I’d love to hel–“

But before I could get my hand halfway in my pocket, my dude just kept on with his stream-of-consciousness ramblings.

“…yup, I got myself a nice little tent up the road behind Lowe’s–“

“You mean Lowe’s the hardware store?” It was my turn to interject.

“Nah, nah, Lowe’s the grocery store,¹In my neck of the woods, this is indeed a problem, in which “I’m headed to Lowe’s” is an ambiguous statement because there are two completely different typed of stores with the same ----- name. but as I was saying, I don’t want you thinking I’m doing anything dangerous with all that baloney…”

My mind wandered a bit as he dove headfirst into his schpiel from earlier about fume safety and not cooking in his tent and what-not…what had me slightly puzzled was the fact that it would have made more sense if he had been talking about the hardware store instead of the grocery store. I mean, this guy was clearly on foot, and the hardware store was only about 2 miles up the road, while the grocery store was eleven miles up the road.²It just occurred to me that perhaps he was talking about the Lowe’s grocery store that they are just now building, which is only 1/4 down the road from the Lowe’s hardware store… Why the heck would he be wandering so far from home?!?³Okay, maybe ‘home’ was a poor choice of words, given his circumstances.

Next thing I remember, I was mumbling in agreement about the whole ‘safety first’ thing.

“Dangit!” I thought to myself, “For once I was actually going to be home on time, but noooo, I just had to get accosted by homeless James Joyce here.”

Before he could get much further along in his run-on sentence (but after somehow triangulating where I lived within a quarter-mile radius, on account of my proximity to Lowe’s the hardware store), I finally found enough social willpower to get him to stop chattering for two frickin’ seconds.

“Well, I think I can help you out with all your baloney needs, my man,” I said I as whipped out my stack of Jacksons, but was immediately embarrassed by the fact that I had just rifled through 5 of them (while hiding the $100 bill still in my wallet)⁴#HumbleBrag? only to pull out 1 measly $20 bill for him.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I really need to get home to my–“

“God bless you, son! G0d bless you, indeed! Say, what’s your name?”

Welp, it looked like that throwing money at the situation had failed to get me out of the conversation, seeing as how my conversational partner was still bravely soldiering on in our dialogue. But hey, the least we could do would be to give each other the dignity of being called by their name, right?

“Who me? Sure. My name is B.J…”

…and it was at this point that the conversation took a turn for the…er, not even sure how to describe it, but it took a turn, that’s for sure.

“Guess what my name is!”

Gotta admit, I didn’t see that response coming. Was there something about him that would give me a clue as to his name?

“Umm…let’s go with ‘Terrance’!” I mean, the dude did just ask me to guess his name. And that just happened to be the first name that telepathically appeared to my mind’s eye.

“What? Huh? No, man, it’s A.P.!”

Get a load of this ----- guy. He just asked me to guess his name, and then he acts all shocked when I get it completely wrong? Seriously?

And on top of that, his name was A.P.?!? Not in a trillion alternate universes would have I–or anyone else, for that matter–even come remotely close to guessing ‘A.P.’

But he didn’t let any of that deter him from the conversation at hand.

“Yeah, it’s A.P., but people call me ‘Bulldog’. I’m always around here downtown, and all the people know me and when they see me on the street, they give me a fist-pump and say ‘What’s up, Bulldog?!?’ “

“Oh, yeah. That’s a cool nickname…”

“…and since you live around here, next time you see me on the street, just pump your fist and say ‘What’s up, Bulldog?!?’ And I’ll say, ‘What’s up, A.J.?!?’ “

This ----- guy…

“Uh, it’s ‘B.J.’, actually…”

“Huh? Oh, right, then I would say, ‘What’s up, B.J.?!?’ “

“Cool, cool. Welp, see you later! Enjoy your baloney…”

“Wait?!? You mean you actually guessed his name? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Hey, don’t you judge me! I bet you would do the same if some rando blindsided you with the same question after you had just freely shared your name.”

I had unexpectedly found myself defending my actions and words when attempting to regale My Beautiful Bride with the Tale of Why I Was Ten Minutes Late.

“And the best part is that you went full racist with your guess–‘Terrance’?!? Oh, lord, I’m crying! He was Black, wasn’t he?”

*sigh*

“Yes, Dear, he was Black. But I vehemently disagree that ‘Terrance’ was a racist response. Did I go with something like Ty’Queaf? No. No, I did not. Ergo, I’m not (as) racist.”

“Aaahh! I can’t breathe!”⁵Okay, this wasn’t meant to be a reference to Eric Garner…but here we are, retrospectively acknowledging how ----- up of joke that would be.

And yes, she was literally crying and out of breath from laughing so hard. Apparently she found it exponentially funnier than I had. Sure, I was bemused and perplexed by Terrance’s antics, but tears and shortness of breath? Maybe I was just too close to the situation?

“*Ahem* Anyways…I can’t help but wonder if that’s why the gas is so suspiciously cheap there–it’s a ----- honeypot!⁶Maybe this word doesn’t mean what I think it means… I wonder how often a hapless sap like me pulls up for some low-priced petrol, and then BOOM–they’re caught up in the seriously sad story of a dangerously under-balonied Terrance, and then next thing they know, they’re handing over large denominations of U.S. currency just to get out of the conversation…I bet the gas station gets a healthy kick-back from all his collections.”

“Interesting theorem. A tad racist, but interesting nonetheless…”

“Damn. Now that I think about it, that was the most expensive tank of gas I’ve probably ever purchased in my life…”

The point of the story is…well, this is kinda evil, but I just can’t help but recommend you try out Terrance’s–er, dammit, I mean A.P./Bulldog’s–socially screwed-up strategy. Give it a whirl–next time you meet someone new, and when the moment arrives in which you would normally exchange names, go ahead and ask them their name. And when they politely oblige, quickly demand that they “Guess what [your] name is!”

And whatever you do, do not relent until they actually try guessing it. Because you were dead serious, right? If you have to, look them square in their [potentially racist] eyes and let them know “That wasn’t a rhetorical question…”

Oh, and after you’re done waterboarding them into guessing a culturally-insensitive name for you, don’t forget the chef’s kiss: you calling them by the wrong name…

Content created on 10 March 2023 (Friday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Footnotes & References:
↵1	In my neck of the woods, this is indeed a problem, in which “I’m headed to Lowe’s” is an ambiguous statement because there are two completely different typed of stores with the same ----- name.
↵2	It just occurred to me that perhaps he was talking about the Lowe’s grocery store that they are just now building, which is only 1/4 down the road from the Lowe’s hardware store…
↵3	Okay, maybe ‘home’ was a poor choice of words, given his circumstances.
↵4	#HumbleBrag?
↵5	Okay, this wasn’t meant to be a reference to Eric Garner…but here we are, retrospectively acknowledging how ----- up of joke that would be.
↵6	Maybe this word doesn’t mean what I think it means…

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

26 February 2023 / BJ / 0 Comments

4 Min Read

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Of course…

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

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

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

And in the middle of such convivial exchange of customs…

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

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

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

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

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

Of course…

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

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

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

I batted my eyelashes at her coyly.

“Oh, do you really think–“

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

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

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

Of course…

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

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

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

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

Of course…

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

Of course…

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

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

Of course…

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

Footnotes & References:[+]

Footnotes & References:
↵1	Translation: ‘Thank you’ in Korean.

Watch How Colorful Plumage Attracts The Female Of The Species…

5 February 2023 / BJ / 3 Comments

7 Min Read

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hmm…

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

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

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

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

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

Yes. Witty. I know.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Is it really that bad?”

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

“Dude, you look like a ----- turkey…”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

…filled in with purple in the middle…

…with red on the outside on the left…

…and with blue on the outside on the right…

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

…blue on the left, red on the right!

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

Yeesh.

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

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

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

Content created on: 3 February 2023 (Friday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Footnotes & References:
↵1	Manhattan, Kansas–home of Kansas State University
↵2	In college I ran with the Christian crowd. This was our adaptation of the incredibly misogynistic phrase “bros-before-hoes”. In retrospect, we weren’t doing any better of a job on the not-being-a-sexist-shitheads front than the heathens.
↵3	If you didn’t follow that stretch of humor logic, it was an attempt to be a play on “Jesus effin’ Christ”, with a dash of attention-whore self-judgment thrown in for a nice little circular reference.

But Dad! I’ll Never Get Sick And Tired Of Being Unique!

29 January 2023 / BJ / 1 Comment

7 Min Read

You ever wonder why you fought with your dad so much when you were a teen?

Oh, if only we could ever get to the root of it…

“Dammit, son, not again…again! You’re an embarrassment to all the farmers of Morton County…dear lord, why me?!? Why am I stuck with the kid who can’t appreciate his G0d-given beautiful blonde hair?”

Honestly, I’m not sure how I was expecting Dad to react when I unveiled my latest hairstyle featuring half-red/half-black on top, with natural sun-bleached blonde on the bottom.

I mean, I was doing it for the proverbial sh*ts and giggles during an uncharacteristically boring stretch of my final summer on the farm before college. Yes, yes, you remember that summer right? The Crazy-Ass Summer of ’99? Yeah, that one. This was the product of the sole week that defied one of our mantras of that summer, “Never a dull moment!”

Ol’ Papa Bob, on the other hand, didn’t seem to appreciate neither the “sh*ts” nor the “giggles” aspects of the situation. In retrospect, I would venture to say he seemed a little tired of my version of teenage angst playing out as me running around the country side looking like a techni-color jackass.

“Tired?” you ask? Oh, yes, this wasn’t the first time him and I danced this little dance…

“Whoa! Who’s the new guy?!? Seems kinda odd, ya know? Like, who transfers high schools in the middle of November?”

“I can hear you–I’m standing right here!” I reminded my classmates as they murmured about me from a few lockers down.

“Wait…what?!? I mean, Who?!?” was the inevitable reply each time, as their eyes told them one thing, yet their ears told them something completely different.

“‘Tis I, the Noble and Beloved Junior Class President Runner-Up!” I would reply every time.

“The heck is going on here…wait…can it be? BJ, is that you? What in the tarnation did you do to yourself?!?”

Honestly, when I dyed my hair black on a lark, I didn’t anticipate the most enjoyable benefit of doing so: confusing the living ----- out of everyone I know, and getting to watch it play out in real time as they look me directly in the face and slowly but surely put the pieces together.

“Uh, yeah, so I thought I would try something new and dyed my hair black. What do you think?”

“I think you look like a totally different person…and also, damn, son, I never realized you had such thick, bushy caterpillars for eyebrows. But, hey, props to you for really committing to the part and dying them as well…”

“Yeah…I didn’t realize my eyebrows wear so bushy either, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have pulled this stunt…”

Speaking of ‘stunts’, you probably already guess that my Diddy was none too plussed to come home from a hard day out in the fields to find that his son had conned his stepmother into letting him make use of her leftover black hair dye.

“Oopsies! Well, I guess were stuck waiting for it to grow out now!” was logic that didn’t do me any favors, nor managed to make him any less irate.

Quick side note here: ‘Daisy’–the one who supplied me with the dye and applied it–wasn’t really upset with me, in part because she had as much a hand in it as I did. Well, she wasn’t upset until she had one of her rolls of film developed and found that I had taken the liberty of taking a black-headed selfie with her camera.

How did I discover this factoid? I totally bet you’re wondering that right now, right? Well, I’ll tell you how: once when I borrowed her sweet, sweet Eagle Vision, I discovered torn up bits of something in that part of the door you pull on to shut it. I soon realized it was that one selfie I had totally forgot I had taken. Not to let my effort to be in vain, I collected all 30-40 tiny pieces, and successfully reconstructed the picture, holding them all together with masking tape on the back. In fact, I probably still have that ~~trophy~~ picture to this very day…

But I digress…

Later that spring…

“Oh happy day! Our spring school portraits are in!” all of us students exclaimed, though we were all still unsure of why we had school pictures taken again despite knowing full well that the ones they took in the fall would be the ones used in the yearbook.

“Oooh, that’s unfortunate, buddy,” one of my random classmates commented as the looked at my pictures over my shoulder.

“Yeah, I suppose I didn’t put much forethought into what I would look like several months after dying my hair black…”

“Don’t worry,” they half-assedly tried to reassure me, “I’m sure you’re dad will still proudly distribute these regal pictures of you to all your family members. Even if you look like a ----- skunk…”

“Stone Temple Pilots are playing in Amarillo?!? Tonight?!? Phillip K. Ballz, you best not be yanking my chain, ya hear?”

“Nah, man, I swear I’m shootin’ straight and true–do you think your dad would take us?” Ol’ PKB wistfully inquired with his trademark half-assed Texas accent.

“I doubt it, but it’s worth a shot…I’ll get right on it!” I said with measured optimism.

Seeing as how it was the last day of my Sophomore year of high school, and was about to head off to live in sunny Southern California with my mom for the summer, I felt there was a tiny glimmer of hope that Dad would at least be open to taking us two dumbasses 2-1/2 hours due south to see a band he had never heard of play…right?

Okay, actually I wasn’t that optimistic at all, so you can bet your buns that I was quite surprised when he said he would take us–“If we can score some tickets, that is,” he said.

“Holy sh*t! He said ‘yes–contingent upon the logistics working out!’ Can you believe it?!?” Yup…I’m pretty sure that’s how I shared the good news with PKB.

“Well, hot dang! I better pack my bag–the concert starts in like, 4 hours, right?”

“Oh, right, yeah, I guess we better start heading that way whether we have tickets or not…”

Now, friends, I need to remind you that this tale is taking place in 1997, a good few years before Ticketmaster started ruining the experience of live music for concert-goers all across this fine nation. So if one wanted tickets to a concert, then most likely you would have to call up the box office and see if they had any available.

Also, cell phones weren’t ubiquitous back then, and even if you were lucky enough to have one of those bag-phones in your car, one surely couldn’t afford to waste their precious 45-minute monthly allotment on hold with the Amarillo Civic Center.¹I did my homework, and the internets verified my memory of this whole ordeal: https://www.setlist.fm/stats/concert-map/stone-temple-pilots-bd6b9ee.html?year=1997.

Somehow, these factors, combined with the fact that the only ride me and PKB had was Peppermint Paddy–my less-than-reliable red-and-white pickup whom you might remember from this story and it’s sequel–ended up with us following this convoluted plan as follows:

Step One: My adult sister, Denise, who lived in Amarillo, would try calling the venue to see if she could get us tickets. I’m not sure if somebody thought that her being physically closer might give us a better chance, or what the logic was here. I suppose it would be cheaper for her to be on hold, since it would be a local call…and I guess she would be stationary after all, unlike the rest of us, thus allowing her to make the call in the first place.

Step Two: Dad would get cleaned up after a half-day farming in the dusty-ass fields of Kansas, and would then hop in Daisy’s much more reliable–and very, very, sweet–Eagle Vision, and then proceed to our rendezvous locale: the metropolis of Goodwell, Oklahoma, about 45 minutes into the route to Amarillo.

Step Two: Meanwhile, PKB and I would pack up in Peppermint Paddy and putt down the road to Goodwell as well…and for the life of me, I don’t remember why we all didn’t all just drive together. But we didn’t.

Step Three: Once at Goodwell, Dad would call Denise from the payphone of the lone convenience store in town, to see if we had tickets or not.

Step Four: The three of us would then proceed to Amarillo in the Eagle Vision, arriving just in time to rock out to the sweet grungy vocals of a fuschia-headed Scott Weiland & Co…

Um…Step Four of course was the contingency, depending on Step Three to come through with tickets for us.

Well, as you probably have guessed by now, this is not the story of “that one time I saw STP live.” Nope, nope, nope. The one time the Universe shines kindly on me, in whence Dad actually agrees to one of our dubious schemes, it has to turn right around and deny us with a sold out show.

Or, as Hercules would say:

“Welp, what do we do now, Dad?” I inquired, kicking stray rocks in that Goodwellian parking lot.

“Well, boys, I need to go take care of some more farmy-type stuff while I have the daylight, I ‘spose…you got your truck, so go do whatever you want for the rest of the afternoon, and I’ll see you at dinner.”

“Whatever I want, you say? Hmmm…interesting…”

“Ok, see you later, Farmer Bob!” unlike me, PKB wasn’t one to mince words.

Well, I’ll spare you the details (I mean, haven’t you suffered enough already?), but let’s just say, yadda yadda ya, and that’s how I ended up in a McDonald’s bathroom in Guymon, Oklahoma, getting my hair dyed a not-as-bright-fuschia-as-a-grungy-sixteen-year-old-would-like by his best friend.

Later that evening…

“What in the funk?!? Dammit, son, why is your hair pink?” my old man demanded to know.

“It’s fuschia, Dad. Or at least it was supposed to be…”

“Oh, your ass is going to be fuschia once I get done bustin’ it! Dammit, boy, what’s wrong with you?”

“Look, I’ll be leaving for California in a few days, so you won’t have to worry about the corn or the wheat or some random cows seeing you with a pink-headed boy in your pickup, heaven forbid…”

Later that summer…

“Welp, here I am at the Amarillo airport to pick up my youngest child…I hope he has literally outgrown that pink hair of his…” Dad no doubt thought to himself as he waited at my gate–remember when you could still do that?–ever so patiently.

“‘Tis I, the Noble and Beloved Son!” I proclaimed when I finally stepped off the plane.

Dad just stood there for a moment, taking in the sight of my hair, which by now had grown out about an inch and a half of blonde roots. Oh, yeah, and that half inch of pink hair I had at the beginning of summer? That was now a half inch of orange tips, thanks to the SoCal sunshine.

Dad just buried his face in his hand.

“Cheeses H. Crikes,²Actually, he would have said something more like “Jesus H. Christ” but I’m trying to keep this story Mom-friendly somehow you look even dumber now, son…”

The point of the story is that another fantastic perk of being blonde–male or female–is that you have a blank canvas right there! Sitting on top of your ol’ noggin’! Just waiting for Teenage You to paint a picture for all the world to see! One that is an expression of your True Self, your Inner Soul!

Or, as in my case, you can vandalize it with a spray-painted message to your loving father that simply says “Suck it, Dad…”

Content created on: 27/28/29 January 2023 (Fri/Sat/Sun)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Footnotes & References:
↵1	I did my homework, and the internets verified my memory of this whole ordeal: https://www.setlist.fm/stats/concert-map/stone-temple-pilots-bd6b9ee.html?year=1997.
↵2	Actually, he would have said something more like “Jesus H. Christ” but I’m trying to keep this story Mom-friendly

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

22 January 2023 / BJ / 0 Comments

4 Min Read

Boy, you got yourself some pretty hair there.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*long pause*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“One…Two…Three…GLANCE!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Um…we’re in Central Amer–“

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

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

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

“Indubitably…”

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

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

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

Footnotes & References:[+]

Footnotes & References:
↵1	That, my friend, is a Napolean Dynamite reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IiIHzfXEiA
↵2	Yes, I am a real (non-medical) doctor, #HumbleBrag.
↵3	Watch any episode of History Channels Ancient Aliens for 3 minutes and you’ll get that joke.

Whoever Said Nicknames Were Supposed To Make You Feel Special?

21 August 2022 / BJ / 0 Comments

4 Min Read

What?!? A special name just for me???

Oh, wait…that kind of ‘special’…

“BEE-YAY! TELEFONO!”

In the beginning, those words were music to my ears. You see, in high school I lived on a farm a few miles outside of our local raging metropolis, Rolla–no, not the one in Missouri, but rather it’s lesser-known red-headed stepbrother in Kansas. And for quite some time I didn’t have my own transportation, so just walking or driving to a friend’s house wasn’t an option at my disposal.

So you could imagine that nothing could break my serial sense of boredom quite like those blessed words, “Bee-Yhey! Telefono!” That, my friend, was the sound of my bestie, Phillip K. Ballz (aka PKB) blowing up our home phone,¹This was circa 1996 after all, before I could ever dream of having my very own cellphone. perhaps offering to come pick me up in his mom’s forest-green Ford Explorer so we could go back and kick it at his place in town.

“But, why the, uh, ‘unique phrasing’?” you are indubitably asking the screen of your mobile device.

Well, I’m glad you asked! My dearest stepmother, “Daisy”, was Mexican, and despite living in the U.S. for at least 10 years and having mastered the English language, she never really got around to figuring out how to master the pronunciation of my commonly accepted moniker, “B.J.” As they say here in the South, “bless her soul.”

Anyways, every time ol’ PKB or anyone else called for me and she answered, the silence of our double-wide trailer would soon be broken by broken-sounding English reverberating off every wood-paneled wall in the place:

“BEE-YAY! TELEFONO!”

Somebody calling just for little ol’ me?!? I feel so special…

“BEE-HEY, TELEFONO!”

Well, as it turns out, that phrase, when heard muffled on the other end of the phone line, can be music to other people’s ears as well.

It didn’t take long before I found out that my dearest dipshit, PKB, found this to be comedic gold and soon was using it publicly in our high school, whether referencing me directly or indirectly. And high schoolers being the immature bunch of dumb-asses that high schoolers tend to be, it wasn’t long for this very much unwanted moniker spread like wildfire through the hallowed halls of Rolla High School.

Sometimes, I got the short version lobbed in my direction–“Bee-Yay!”, “Bee-Hay!”, “Bee-Yhey!”–no matter what ‘flavor’ of my newfound nick-nickname my fellow students preferred, they were always sure to include the very important “!” Well, technically, if this were a comic book, their speech bubbles would need to include the bonus upside Spanish exclamation mark–aka el signo de apertura de exclamación:²https://www.spanishdict.com/guide/what-is-the-upside-down-exclamation-point *ahem* “¡Bee-Yhey!“

Other times, when my cohort of jackasses were feeling particularly ornery, I might be lucky enough for them to include my nick-last name: “¡Bee-Yhey! ¡Telefono!“

Usually, referring to someone and including their last name would be a sign of respect. This was not one of those times.

In fact, The Legend of ¡Bee-Hey! got so out of hand that in our Sophomore English class, when tasked write and illustrate a children’s book, the Real ¡Bee-Hey! chose to write about a substance-abusing (but very sanguine ³I’m using definition #3 here: https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/sanguine.) extraterrestrial. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the classroom, my brother-from-another–my classmate with whom I not only shared a first name, but also a birthday–ol’ Roberto chose to immortalize ¡Bee-Hey! for generations to come.

Did he write of tales of a dashing and debonair young man, the kind that men want to be and women want to be with? Were we regaled with all the adventures and conquests of a man in a foreign land who, like Cher or Beyonce, had a last name but never needed it? Are millennials worldwide indoctrinated from childhood with strange-yet-true stories that someone only as special as my alter ego could generate?

Nope, not so much. But at least Roberto managed to nail that “special” part on the head. A little too hard actually: this version of ¡Bee-Hey! appeared to suffer from a brain injury or some other developmental issue. I.e. he was “special” in all the ways one wouldn’t want to be.

Por ejemplo, did this ¡Bee-Hey! have a modestly successfully career as a published physicist/neuroscientist? No, but his employment was almost as illustrious, with him tackling the challenging task no one else at the local restaurant would even dare think of attempting: sorting out the clean forks and knives after they were ran through the industrial dishwasher.

But fortunately, ¡Bee-Hey! was blissfully obliviously to his station in life, and never once did that smiling idiot caricature of me ever cynically wonder” ¿Cómo se dice en English ‘chinga mi vida’?”⁴Mother, if you’re reading this, please don’t bother running that through Google translate. This, in stark, stark contrast to the real-life ¡Bee-Hey!…

The irony of all this is that occasionally I find myself envious of ¡Bee-Hey!’s unburdened and uncomplicated life. It’s taken awhile, but I have slowly come to embrace my inner idiot–er, I mean ‘simpleton’–and I guess you could say the point of the story is: take ownership of whatever it is that makes you “special.”–even if some of things aren’t exactly the most flattering.

Oh, and there’s definitely an upside to this naive optimism: I get to enjoy a little chuckle to myself in those very special moments when I have the pleasure of making a new acquaintance with a native Spanish speaker.

You know…that moment when I get to explain to them that “my name is Robert, but I go by ‘B.J.’,” and without fail, they repeat back to me “¿Bee-Yhey?”

*snort*

And always, also without fail, I can’t help but mentally respond with “That would be Dr. ¡Bee-Hey! ¡Telefono!, PhD to you, buen señor or señorita…”

Content created on: 19 August 2022 (Friday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Footnotes & References:
↵1	This was circa 1996 after all, before I could ever dream of having my very own cellphone.
↵2	https://www.spanishdict.com/guide/what-is-the-upside-down-exclamation-point
↵3	I’m using definition #3 here: https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/sanguine.
↵4	Mother, if you’re reading this, please don’t bother running that through Google translate.

Hey, Who Recommended Drowning Your Moby D*ck In Love?

17 April 2022 / BJ / 0 Comments

7 Min Read

If you love her, you’ll give her whatever she needs.

Even if that “whatever” involves 8 gallons of the slippery stuff…

“Thar She blows!”

I quickly ran to the window of our humble trailer home and looked out towards the dusty-ass dirt road that connected our farm to Kansas Highway 51. Soon enough, I saw what the heck my bro, 1SkinnyJ, was going on about.

However, the image of a white whale of a car–an early-80s¹I’m embarrassed to say that I don’t remember the exact year, and may have been as old as a 1978 model. Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, to be exact–barrelling down our driveway amidst a whirlwind of dirt and sand just didn’t quite compute in my head.

“What in the heck? We don’t know anybody who drives that kind of car…right?”

I turned to 1SJ, hoping he knew who might be paying us a visit on such a fine spring evening, but he appeared to be lost in thought.

“Let’s see, it’s 1998–that car must be pushing 20 years–yet from what I can make out, it’s in mint condition…”

We both stood there, frozen in suspense, as moments later it pulled up to our driveway, and out popped…

“DAD?!?” we exclaimed in unison, still not understanding what was unfolding before our eyes.

” ‘Tis I, your Noble and Beloved Father, and I come bearing gifts!”

I had never seen a bigger sh*t-eating grin on my old man’s face before in my life.

He continued: “Well, not ‘gifts’ per se, just one gift…”

His two dumbfounded sons just continued to stare blankly back at him.

“Do I really have to go all Oprah on y’all? Okay, here goes…*ahem*:”

Technically, this is an anachronistic cultural reference…

“Well…to be clear, you two get a car to share…”

Seeing as how, at the ages of 17 and 19, respectively, we were basically grown-ass men who hadn’t had their own vehicle up until that point, you can only imagine that we were pretty ----- pleased as a pair of pickles with this turn of events.

I feel I need to pause here for a sec and provide some context regarding our transportation situation at the time. You see, during the entire 1997-98 school year, we would roll up to RHS for class in Kountry Kommodities, a sweet, sweet–but somewhat awkward–ride…that looked much like this:

An artist’s rendition of what Kountry Kommodities might look like today…

“Holy shizzle, it’s even got that velvet-like interior!” 1SJ exclaimed as he peered inside our new ride.

“This day just keeps getting better and better!”

I could not contain my joy, as this was indeed one of the best unexpected and very pleasant surprises of my entire life.

Dad went on to regale us with the tale of how he was at an auction a few towns over, and saw this car, which had been owned solely by an older couple for its entire existence, and since they had mostly kept in their garage, had only 30k miles on it(!!!). He proudly recounted how he decided ‘what the heck!’ and put in a few strategic bids on, driving away with it for only $1200.

Dang straight, he should have been proud of himself–you score for your sons classic wheels like that that’s in mint condition, and for only $1200? That’s Dad of the Year level sh*t right there.

Unlike us, though, “Daisy”, our stepmom was none too pleased that he had gone out and dropped that chunk of money on a lark, but for once he put her in her place, and let her know that dammit if he wanted to do something nice for his boys, he wasn’t going to hear any crap from anyone who might think otherwise.

That there? Now that was a Dad of the Decade performance…

“Oh, one last thing, boys…”

The two of us turned our gaze away from our newfound love, and back towards the Amazing Father of ours.

“…you can do whatever you like with your car, but I will need you to drive it to work.”

Not that the “other shoe dropping” could put that much of a damper on our day, but nonetheless, the realization that our beloved Moby D*ck²If you’re curious, my censorship software can’t tell when I use words such as D-I-C-K in a non-profane manner, and will indiscriminately censor it unless I trick it by spelling it “d*ck”. would have to double as a farm truck wasn’t a pleasant one. So much for keeping it in mint condition…

…anyways, that’s how the Summer of ’98–not to be confused with the Crazy-Ass Summer of ’99–got off to a hot start.

We drove the hell out of that thing–well, 1SJ, in true big brother form, did most of the driving, and if I got lucky, I got to ride in the front seat on the rare occasion that one of his pothead friends didn’t join us for one of our many, many late-night joyrides around the desolate 5-state area.

Of course, during the day, ol’ MD served us faithfully as our farm vehicle, and surprisingly didn’t get too trashed or greasy as one might have expected under such conditions.

At least that was the case when I left my love behind in late June, as I headed off to Southern California to spend the remainder of my summer with my mom. But 1SJ was a pretty responsible guy, and I knew he loved Moby as much I did, so I was confident that our beloved white whale would be in good hands…

“So…she developed a bit of a drinking problem while you were away…”

It was early August, and my first full day back from SoCal, so 1SJ was catching me up on all that I had missed while I was gone.

“If you’re going to be driving ye ol’ D*ck to sunrise football practices, it’s important that you understand the oil situation. She’s been burning through motor oil like crazy, and you’ll need to fill her up with 2-3 gallons³Or was it 2-3 quarts? Maybe my inability to tell the difference was what led to the following events… every morning.”

“Dang, she burns more oil than gas…that’s crazy!”

“Yeah, I know, but we don’t have to really worry about it since we’re on the farm, and have plenty of 55-gallon drums of oil just laying around…”

“That makes sense…”

“…so just make sure you always have at least one 5-gallon jug in the trunk, and be sure to top ‘er off every morning before you take her out, okay?”

“You got it, dude!”

Never in my life had I encountered instructions so simple and so clear…

“That’s odd…the oil line hasn’t changed, and I’ve already put a whole gallon in…”

I stared at Moby Dick’s dipstick, slightly confused. Normally, you could pretty easily tell where the oil level was as you topped her off, but not this day.

Dad and Daisy were headed away for the weekend⁴The historical veracity of this needs to be double-checked, as another shit-hits-the-fan-when-the-parents-are-away story also happened under similar circumstances. and 1SJ had already took off for the day. Although I had taken a different vehicle to football practice that morning, somebody had picked it up and so our grand plan involved my grandma bringing me back out to the farm to pick up MD, and then I would ultimately meet 1SJ at the field he was plowing that day.

Okay, look, I know it sounds convoluted, but it made sense to Dad at the time, and the upshot is that I was the first one to drive her that day, so the responsibility of oiling her up fell squarely on my shoulders–and thus denying me the luxury of a second opinion in my moment of discombobulation.

I poured another gallon in, yet it still appeared that I wasn’t making any difference. I was starting to get nervous–last thing I wanted was to burn up the only reliable vehicle we had for the next few days, simply because I didn’t put enough oil in it. It would be another classic Farm F*ck-Up on my part, and I desperately wanted to avoid that if I could.

“Well…” I mused to myself, “…it’s much better to have too much than too little I suppose. Guess, I’ll just dump this whole 5-gallon container in here, and hope that the leak is slow enough that it’ll at least get us through the day…”

“SCHLUB SCHLUB SCHLUUUUUUUB…”

“Well, shoot, so much for ‘getting us through the day’!” I muttered as I rolled to a dead stop.

Not even 4 miles down the road, and I was discovering firsthand what a dying (land) whale sounded like. But given that I had no clue if I had really put enough oil in MD, I wasn’t exactly surprised when I found myself stranded on the side of KS-51–aka, ‘The Road Less Traveled.’

“Dang it, cellphones aren’t going to be commonplace for folk like us for another 2-3 years, so…I guess I better start walkin’ then, hadn’t I?”

In reality, it took me much longer than that to assess the situation in which I found myself, and only after being pointlessly pissed off at the situation for a good 15 minutes, did I realize that my ass was walking those 4 miles back to the farm, where I could call Grandma for a ride and get on with my day.

Eventually, once Dad got back into town we towed Moby back to the farm, where he could try to bring her back to life. He was only on the ground underneath her for 2 or 3 minutes before he solved that mystery.

“Let me just inspect the oil pan here…wait! What the he–?!? *glug, glug, sputter, sputter.”

Dad rolled out from underneath the car, looking like he had just made the poor life choice of going to a Halloween party in black-face.

“Who the ----- put 8 gallons of oil in this thing?!?”

“Don’t look at me!” 1SJ was way too quick to rush to his own defense. “I only put 2 gallons in her before I left for the field that morning.”

“Well sh*t, now you tell me!” That information would have been good to have had.

“Dammit, son, so you’re telling that you put another 5 gallons in it after it was already full? Sheesh, sometimes, I swear, kid…”

“Hey, at least it didn’t burn up, right? Now that it’s drained (all over you, mfffph!) to a normal level, it should be good to go, right?” I was optimistic yet that Moby D*ck had many voyages left in her.

“I dunno, maybe. 1SJ, you want to test drive her over to Hugoton⁵A nearby town about 15 minutes away. and see what your pothead friends are up to?”

“Sure thang, Dad!”

Sadly, that was to be her final voyage, ultimately finding herself forever beached in the church parking lot across the street from Druggie Drew’s house, never to see the black waters of the highway-ocean again…

The point of the story is, believe it or not, there is actually such a thing as too much of a good thing–and specifically in this case, that good thing was “too much lube.”

Remember this, kids, when one day you might find yourself falling head-over-heels in love with a sweet Supreme Ass–er, I mean “a sweet Cutlass Supreme”–of your very own. If you treat her to just the right amount of lube, you might get to sail the seven seas in her for years to come…

And no, if you’re wondering, this is not some kind of sexual metaphor. Just a whale of a tragic tale of a boy and his first car…

Content created on: 15/16 April 2022 (Fri/Sat)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Footnotes & References:
↵1	I’m embarrassed to say that I don’t remember the exact year, and may have been as old as a 1978 model.
↵2	If you’re curious, my censorship software can’t tell when I use words such as D-I-C-K in a non-profane manner, and will indiscriminately censor it unless I trick it by spelling it “d*ck”.
↵3	Or was it 2-3 quarts? Maybe my inability to tell the difference was what led to the following events…
↵4	The historical veracity of this needs to be double-checked, as another shit-hits-the-fan-when-the-parents-are-away story also happened under similar circumstances.
↵5	A nearby town about 15 minutes away.

To Florida, Kids! The Land Of A Little Dirty Imagination…

20 March 2022 / BJ / 0 Comments

6 Min Read

The problem with not knowing the truth is that your imagination might run wild.

You know, like “Girls Gone Wild” wild…

It was like a moment straight from the Oprah Winfrey show: “You get a car! You get a car! And you get a car–everybody gets a car!!!”

You remember that, right? Here, let me refresh your memory:

Yeah, except, instead of “cars” everyone in Rolla High School’s Sophomore¹…or was it my Freshman year? Computer/Typing class was getting letters from their very own pen pal. But not from any old boring place like Kansas, though—we got hooked up with a sister class from Apopka High School–that’s in Apopka, Florida, my friends!

And, instead of “Oprah Winfrey”, it was good ol’ Mrs. Hansen handing them out. You remember Mrs. Hansen right? The teacher who once accused me of “murdering a baked potato“? Yeah. Her.

And, instead of “everybody” it was “everybody…except you.” As you might have guessed, that “you” here was spoken directly at me. Yeah. Me.

“Oh, boy!” I thought, “Maybe I’m so special that I get to have two pen pals!”

“So…I’m not getting a letter because I’m getting a couple of letters, right, Mrs. H.?” That was simply the only logical explanation.

“Uh…no. Well, I actually have a letter for you…”

I could tell she was searching for the right way to let me down gently.

“…I just can’t…um…give you the letter.”

I took a moment to try to figure out what in the tarnation²That’s Kansas for “the f*ck”. she was going on about.

Taking my blank stare and trembling lower lip as her cue, Mrs. H pressed forward.

“Your pen pal? Well, she wrote some inappropriate stuff…”

Hmmph. That was odd. What could this person that I didn’t even know have to say that was too much for a 15-year-old to handle?

“Surely you could give me a censored version, right? No need to leave me out in the cold here.”

“No…It was bad. Like, real bad.”

“Seriously, I don’t mind a redacted version. I’ve been so looking forward to having a pen pal–it’s been a childhood dream of mine.”

In the Five Stages of Grief, I was squarely in the Bargaining Stage. I couldn’t let this dream die so easily.

“That’s physically impossible…there would be nothing left after censorship…”

“Just a tiny hint? Please oh–“

“I SAID I CAN’T.”

Whoa. Mrs. H. wasn’t messing around.

“Please oh please?” I whispered meekly with a tear forming in my eye.

“Look, I hate to use foul language in the classroom, but I can’t seem to get my point across to you: she straight-up wrote some nasty sh*t.³Okay, I don’t think she actually said ‘sh*t’ in the classroom. But I very distinctly remember her using the term ‘nasty’. There. I said it. Now end of discussion…”

“The Great Nasty Sh*t Mystery of 1996.” To this very day it haunts me, taunting me even unto my deathbed, forever depriving me of true closure in this lifetime.

WHAT DID SHE WRITE?!? Mrs. H. was so steadfast in “protecting” me–or whatever favor she thought she was doing me–that I was I never able to get even the slightest of clues out of her.

But instead of protecting me, she only left me with an unsolvable puzzle that would go on to slowly eat away at my sanity well into adulthood and beyond. And this is all on top of adding to my long history of childhood trauma in which I was left out yet again (that’s a whole ‘nother can of worms entirely, and beyond the scope of this text, though).

Why would she do that to me? Now I’m left to forever wonder: “I may never know the exact details of that Nasty Sh*t, nay and alas, I’ll never even know the broad nature of those loathsome and despicable words sent slowly in my general direction through the old-fashioned snail mail.”

So my first assumption was that my pen pal was just foul-mouthed–you know, kinda like me, sprinkling an NC-17 word in here or there to liven things up a little and more fully express one’s self. Nothing like an occasional f-bomb to drive your point home, amiright?

I wouldn’t even minded it if she had called me a “melon-farmer“, as we all know that can also be used as a term of endearment.

But the main problem with this theory is it seems like there would have been at least some redeemable text that could have survived the censors and been passed on to me…pitiful ol’ little me…

Then there’s the idea that she was just being hateful and rude. You know, insulting my mom’s weight, farting in my general direction, calling me a cousin-loving hillbilly, telling me to kill myself. Stuff like that. Uncalled for, yes, but unimaginable? No, that is very well within the capabilities of a 15 or 16 year old girl (one with a whole litany issues, admittedly).

At the time, I had one other idea of what she might have written, and I’ll get to that in a second. First, though, I confess that only within the last year or two another possibility crossed my mind: absolute and unabashed racism.

I was (am) just a honky from Kansas after all. She? She was from the cosmopolitan metropolis of the Greater Central Florida area. If she was perhaps, say, a young woman of color, it is very possible that she had experienced enough racial trauma in her young life that she could have seen me as an anonymous outlet for her righteous anger at a very broken system that favors “people like me” at the expense of people like her.

“You cracker-ass mother ----- , putting ghosts to shame with your whiteness! Where’s my reparations, you patriarchal boot-licking he- ----- ?!?”

Ya know, your standard Caucasian-based racial slurs, combined with historic-grievance-based justified rage. Run-of-the-mill stuff, actaully.

The other hypothesis that I came up with back then was that, given that my pen pal was a she/her, perhaps…perhaps it was nasty in a, uh…”sensual context”. I mean, she was from Florida, the birthplace and world capital of erotic 1-900 phone numbers in the 90’s…it’s not that outlandish of an idea.

This is both one of my favorite and most feared scenarios I was able to fathom at the time. On one hand, can you imagine being the one to discover it?

Editor’s note: Mom, you might want to skip this next paragraph.

I chuckled very heartily at the thought of Mrs. H. getting blindsided when reading such classic lines as: “Then I’ll slide off my panties…the panties my mother laid out for me,“⁴ “Boy, Ima suck your ----- so ----- hard your brains gonna come out my nostrils,” and “Oooh, baby, just your fist? Honey, no. You ain’t stopping until you’re elbows-deep…”

You know, standard naughty-talk.

On the other hand…you can imagine how tortuous it would have been for a 15-year-old hormone-driven youth such as myself to know–or at least suspect–that such a letter existed, literally with my name on it, and to know that I would never be able to see it.

There’s only way to express my hypothetical suffering and woe:

Indeed, folks, the true tragedy here is not an exploding hydrogen-filled floating sea mammal, but that I–no, we–we will never know what was in that letter. We’ll never know what warranted a public school teacher to say, aloud, in class, to a student, “…that was some nasty-ass sh*t…”

“Oh, can you just imagine the look on our girls’ faces when we tell them ‘We’re going to Disney World!’???”

“Pffttt! No way, Jose! Disney is for suckers who like to be parted with their monies. The only reason we even went to Disney Land last time was because, on account of my cleverness and shear will to not accept the status quo, we were able to do it for 10% the price of what it would cost your everyday chump.”

“…plus, I hear the Disney World–you know, the one in Florida–is way better than California’s Disney Land…”

Something the Boss Lady just said snapped me back to full attention:

“Wait…Florida you say?”

*checks map*

*Double-checks map*

Sweet, sweet resolution might be only 27 minutes away…

“Wait, what are you doing in the middle of our conv–“

“LAY OFF ME, I’M BOOKING OUR PLANE TICKETS!”

The point of the story is, before you go and drop a sizable sum of money on a Disney World vacation because you’re using it as an excuse to hunt down⁴Auntie Amelia, this is how this post relates to the Spanish laptop post, otherwise you’ll be wondering where part 2 was until the day you die. a retired teacher of your long-lost foul-mouthed pen pal, you might want to step back and think this one through.

Young Grasshopper, the Knowledge You Seek isn’t to be found in some far-off exotic swampland called “Florida”. Nay the Knowledge may actually lie closer to home…

*Ahem*

Mrs. Hanson, if you’re reading this, I’m begging you PLEASE OH PLEASE OH PLEASE–tell me what my penpal wrote to me. I’m a grown-ass adult now. I swear I can handle the truth. No matter how nasty it may be…

Content created on: 17 March 2022 (Thursday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Footnotes & References:
↵1	…or was it my Freshman year?
↵2	That’s Kansas for “the f*ck”.
↵3	Okay, I don’t think she actually said ‘sh*t’ in the classroom. But I very distinctly remember her using the term ‘nasty’.
↵4	Auntie Amelia, this is how this post relates to the Spanish laptop post, otherwise you’ll be wondering where part 2 was until the day you die.

What’s So Rah-Rah-Wrong With Falling In Love With A Cheerleader?

13 February 2022 / BJ / 0 Comments

5 Min Read

“Rah-rah-Rolla hats off to thee!

Wait one sec, let me double-check my family tree…”

“I’ve never seen Titanic, and I promised myself that I never will…”

“I never drank alcohol until my 21st birthday…”

“Oh, and as a rule of thumb, I don’t date cheerleaders.”

Yes, these pompous phrases are ones that I have actually uttered…on multiple occasions each. Ugh. I can’t say I’m exactly proud that I was actually proud of these achievements.

Except that last one–yeah, yeah, the one about the cheerleaders–that wasn’t me being a pompous ass so much as, well, let me just regale you all about it and it’ll all make more sense…

In high school, I actually did have a literal rule of thumb about not dating cheerleaders. And before you go judging me, thinking I was some stuck-up academic ace who looked down up the perceived diminished intellect of your stereotypical cheerleader, to you I just say, “Slow your roll!” You have to understand that I wasn’t exactly dealing with your stereotypical cheerleaders.

I do have to wonder though, if my situation perhaps had stereotypical small town Kansas written all over it…

You see, it wasn’t so much that I was worried about eventually having average-IQ children if I were to date–and heavens forbid–marry a cheerleader. I was more concerned about having kids with the right number of fingers and toes, if you will.

As it were, during my time roaming the hallowed halls of Rolla High School, an ungodly percentage of the cheerleaders were…uh, how do I put this? Um…they were my cousins.

So, statistically speaking, if I were to blindly go out with a member of the RHS Spirit Squad,¹Or whatever the hell we called it back then. I would have been running the very real risk of stumbling into some good old-fashioned inbreeding. Yee-Haw, Milo-Farmers, Yee-Haw!

Not to brag or anything, I would say that I may have been in the running for “Most Kansas High School Experience” award. Like they say, “If you ain’t kissing yer kousin, then you ain’t Kansasing right…”

“Wait, she wasn’t technically off-limits!”

There, I went ahead and pre-emptively expressed mild outrage for you. I wouldn’t say that I was fibbin’ or anything, but…but, well, that whole “cousin” thing comes with a few asterisks. And I hope you’re not mad at me for being rather liberal with how I define my family tree.

Now without further ado, allow me to give you the run-down of ~55% of the RHS Cheerleaders between 1995 and 1999, and then you can cast judgement upon my soul (for the sake of privacy, we’ll only be using first names here):

Mendee: First cousin. Since we shared the same last name, yeah, it would have been pretty obvious that we were Kissin’ Kousins.

Marcee: Younger sister of Mendee; first cousin. Again, the whole problem of having the same last name.

Whitney: Second cousin. I think that’s the right term…our dads were first cousins. Our grandmas were sisters. We have the same great-grandparents–whatever that term is, we have enough common DNA that sophisticated city folk would have indubitably looked down their noses at such a cozy familial relationship.

Erica: First cousin…of Whitney; second cousin. *checks notes* Er, that should actually be Step-First Cousin/First Step-Cousin of Whitney. Her mom married my dad’s cousin. So…common DNA? Not that we knew of! Nonetheless, we might have been “cousin enough” in the eyes of the law, so it was better not to risk it.

Patti: First cousin…to my step-siblings. So we’re back to the whole “Are we “Step-First Cousins or “First Step-Cousins?” debate. In this case though, my dad married into their family instead of the other way around (i.e. I’m the proverbial red-headed stepchild in this scenario). Though I suspect that detail doesn’t really change the state of affairs much…

Lisa P.: First cousin…to Patti. My cousin’s cousin is still my cousin, right? What about my step-cousin’s cousin? Okay, at this point maybe I’m stretching the definition of ‘cousin’ pretty thin. I feel like if only she was my step-cousin’s step-cousin, then I would have been in the clear.

Though, now thinking back, there was actually a brief period my Sophomore year I thought about asking her out. So either I’m completely inconsistent when it comes to identifying who my actual cousins are, or I’m the type of guy who wouldn’t let a little 23andMe get in the way of a good time. Though I don’t know which interpretation would be less offensive…

Kate: Not a cousin. I didn’t date her, but at least I got one good kiss in! Though, the legitimacy of even that is questionable. But again, hey, at least our family trees weren’t intertwined, something that, as you can see, shouldn’t be taken for granted in this here part of the country.

“Ashont’a”:²Not her real name, dummy. Not a cousin; never went to RHS. I did date her, though, and yeah, you could say that I got a couple real good kisses in.³So good, in fact, that they both got her pregnant.

So, about “Ashont’a”…yeah, I guess I kinda forgot that my lovely wife⁴AKA “The Boss Lady” was a cheerleader when she was in Junior High,⁵…in a state far away from Kansas a fact that I can indubitably attribute my amnesia to how embarrassed she is by this secret from her past. Welp, either way, I guess this revelation blows a huge hole in my whole “I don’t date cheerleaders” excuse for a total lack of love live in high school.

Oh, and if it wasn’t clear from context, let me be absolutely clear here: I didn’t date her while she was a cheerleader. Good heavens, I don’t want Chris Hansen mysteriously showing up on a barstool in my kitchen with a camera crew or anything…

The point of the story is, Young Grasshopper, if you wait long enough, a smart, funny, beautiful—and kind!— cheerleader might just come your way one day. And if you’re real lucky, she won’t even be your second step-cousin’s step-first cousin…

I guess what I’m trying to say is…Happy Valentine’s Day to my very own and very wonderful former-cheerleader-not-my-cousin-wife. To you a say:

“Give me an ‘I’! Give me an ‘L’! Give me an ‘O’! Give me a ‘V’! Give me an ‘E’! Give me a ‘U’! What does that spell? ‘Rah! Rah! Rah! I LOVE U!'”

Oh, and also Happy V-Day to all you non-cousin-lovers and cousin-lovers⁶Who am I to judge your love? alike. After all, “Love is love is love,” amiright?⁷As an unrelated bonus trivia fact, I was really planning on getting in a zinger about “as a rule of let’s-try-not-to-have-kids-with-fused-thumbs”, because, ya know…incest-induced-birth-defects-based humor and all that.

UPDATE/CORRECTION: My sources confirm that there is at least one more name to add to the list…

Lisa O.: No relation to Lisa P; first cousin (to me). Seriously, even dating a cheerleader in another town wasn’t a safe strategy–while I was a Freshman, she was busy being a Junior High cheerleader in the neighboring metropolis of Hugoton. I just couldn’t catch a break.

Our mothers are sisters, so the “Same Last Name” issue never came into play, but obviously the whole “we share roughly the same amount of DNA as half-siblings” thingy is quite the deal-breaker…

Content created on: 11/12/13 February 2022 (Fri/Sat/Sun)

Updated on: 14 February 2022 (Mon)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Footnotes & References:
↵1	Or whatever the hell we called it back then.
↵2	Not her real name, dummy.
↵3	So good, in fact, that they both got her pregnant.
↵4	AKA “The Boss Lady”
↵5	…in a state far away from Kansas
↵6	Who am I to judge your love?
↵7	As an unrelated bonus trivia fact, I was really planning on getting in a zinger about “as a rule of let’s-try-not-to-have-kids-with-fused-thumbs”, because, ya know…incest-induced-birth-defects-based humor and all that.

ICYMI: The Long, Winding Reads Of The Year 2021

9 January 2022 / BJ / 0 Comments

< 1 Min Read

No, you didn’t come here to read long-winded novels.

But that never stopped me from writing a few anyways…

“But wait! There’s more!”

Harrumph. How many times have we heard that line while watching yet another late-night infomercial?

But fear not, I’m not segueing this site into some sort of capitalistic whore of Babylon, only trying to eek every ounce of value out of our Dear Readers by trying to secretly sell you something. No, I’m doing nothing of the sort–but, for the record, did you know I am actually trying to openly sell you stuff: merch from our merch store–go check it out here…though I really need to update the inventory.

But I digress. The real reason why I have gathered us here today is to champion the cause of something that emerged in 2021: The Long Read. Whether it was from a concerted effort to make each post more digestible, or whether it arose from a never-ending saga that started with leaky sink, many of the stories from 2021 were part of a bigger plot–something that might have been lost had you not read the companion posts.

So in hopes of allowing you the chance to fully savor the non-sense and deeply asinine nuances of those posts, allow me to present you with the Long Reads of 2021. Pull up a chair partner, and pour yourself a drink. You might be here awhile…

Enjoy!

Eden Cove 9: 5 Weeks in Purgatory

< 1 Min Read

The Year 2021: The Year of the Endless Home Renovation.

Pfft! More like “The Year We Almost Ended Up Homeless”…

The Crazy-Ass Summer Of ’99

< 1 Min Read

The Year: 1999, Summer Time. Location: Our Family Farm.

Excitement Level? “Never A Dull Moment”…

The Godfather Of The High Plains

< 1 Min Read

It’s kinda like a ‘Rags to Riches’ story.

Except by the end, I barely got to keep my polyester britches…

Content created on: 3 January 2022 (Monday)

Tag: Featured Articles (Page 4 of 10)

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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 :)