Tag: Featured Articles (Page 7 of 10)

During my first year of grad school, I shared an office with an affable Chinese grad student named Gongpu. Given that he was a non-native English speaker, there were many moments in conversation when we would have to pause to explain some American pop-culture reference or another to him. Eventually, this morphed into “Gongpu’s vocab list” on the blackboard in our office, featuring such entries as “Richard Simmons,” “Zach Morris,” and “Festivus,” amongst many other interesting and/or amusing items that escape me at the moment.

However, the real joy of having him as an office mate were the chestnuts of wisdom and/or misunderstanding that he would bring to the conversation.

Without further ado–and at the risk of coming off as slightly racist–here are some of my favorite moments from my time shared with the ‘Pu…

Eating our lunches together in the office:

*Looks at the vinagrette covering my mixed greens in judgment*

“Ah, I prefer Franch dressing on my salads…”

“I honestly don’t know if you meant French or Ranch…”

Helping me plan my road trip, with a possible stop in western North Carolina:

*Pulls up Google Maps, begins typing*

“Asheville…uh…how do you spell that? A-S-S-V-I-…?”

*The rest of us, trying to catch our breathes from laughing so ----- hard*

“Gongpu, you seriously thought that town was called ‘Ass-ville’, didn’t you?”

Walking to a nearby Mexican restaurant for a celebratory lunch in honor of him getting his Ph.D.:

“I like Bandido’s food, but I don’t like their beans at all. They look like semen.”

*Me, unable to believe what I’m hearing.*

“Uh, did you say ‘semen’?”

*Pointing frantical to the ground.*

“Semen! Semen!”

At this point, even though we had a frank and open friendship, I was getting a little embarrassed by his very interesting choice of appetite-ruining analogy.

*Looking nervously around the street, whispering quietly*

“Um…you mean like…’jizz’?!?”

*Gongpu, clearly frustrated with me, is practically slapping the ground by now*

“CEMENT, you know, what they make sidewalks out of!”

*Awkward pause*

“Oh. ‘Cement.’ Yeah, I suppose their refried beans have an unusual gray tint to them…”

Okay, so maybe that one was on me. But, in my defense, may this last story provide a bit of exonerating context…

Randomly scrolling through some far-flung acquaintance’s FaceBook profile together:

*They have an abridged quote from the movie Bull Durham on their profile, which I begin to mindlessly read out loud*

“Well, I believe in the soul… the small of a woman’s back… the hangin’ curveball… high fiber… good scotch. I believe in the sweet spot, soft core pornography…”¹https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn5crhTusSA

*Gongpu cuts me off with a sense of urgency, and states judgmentally, yet matter-of-factly*

“Ah, I prefer hardcore pornography.”

…

“Well, that’s not what…oh, nevermind. Good for you, my man, good for you…”

That always tickled my funny bone, the way he had to make it clear that softcore erotica was well beneath him.

So humorous in fact, that I found myself retelling the tale to a captive audience a few years later:

“…and then he looks at me with disdain and says, ‘Ah, I prefer hardcore pornography.’ Can you believe that?!?”

*crickets*

“Nothing? I guess you had to be there…”

I walked away, without getting a single laugh out of them. I couldn’t help but wonder: was it because they were Chinese-American and found my portrayal of Gongpu racist? Or was it because they were married women and were uncomfortable with me talking about such sensual things as ‘the small of a woman’s back’?

Or maybe–just maybe–the Wisdom of Gongpu wasn’t welcome at our church?

I guess we’ll never know the answer to this one…

Content created on: 12 November 2020 (Thursday)

Actually, I’m rather surprised.

…surprised that my kids didn’t turn out to be freaking mutants, that is…

Back in my Sophomore year at ye ol’ Rolla High School, I had the pleasure of taking Chemistry from the most beloved teacher in all the school, Mr. Raff. Now, Mr. Raff was an affable older gentleman, who was seemingly constantly teetering on the edge of going full Nutty Professor.

In my humble opinion, the best part were his quips, constantly bestowing us with trademark phrases such as “…and then I say to myself, ‘Self, two plus two is four!’ And then I pat myself on the back…”

That was definitely my favorite. And he was definitely my favorite teacher from my long and storied academic career.

But…

But, he did have one little blemish on his record…

It was a lovely autumn afternoon back in ’96, and Mr. Raff had just challenged us Chemistry students to use our scientific skills to determine the chemical composition of a mystery liquid. I clearly remember that one of the specific tasks was to measure the density of said liquid.

Me and my lab partner, David–the only two underclassmen in the group–sat out to measure the volume of it straightaway, employing the services of a trusty graduated cylinder. If you don’t recall, a graduated cylinder is basically a tall glass measuring cup, with a base so it can stay upright on its own, and a c-shaped plastic ring that you can move up and down to get a more accurate measurement of what your liquid level is. For your convenience, here is a stock photo of one almost identical to the one in this story:¹Image source: https://labcommerce.com/labequip_productdesc.php?catid=52&prodid=1329

There I was, sitting at the lab bench, waiting for David to jot down our scientific observations, when I had the brilliant idea to pop the ring off of the cylinder. Don’t know what I thought I would achieve by doing this, but apparently in that moment I felt compelled to fool around with the lab equipment. This was easily achieved by merely twisting the ends of the ‘C’ in opposite directions, and–boom! Pops right off!

However, I had made the fatal mistake of not taking a Physics class before I took Chemistry, as I then would have known that “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

As I popped the ring off away from me, the cylinder had to compensate by tipping over towards me.

With a loud “thunk” it landed on its side on the lab bench, draining all 21.4 ml of Mystery Liquid over the side…and directly into my chair and general crotch region.

And to top things off, my lab chair had an ergonomic butt-shaped seat,²I tried finding an image of this online, but I couldn’t, probably on account of the fact that shit like this happened to too many teenage scientists and they had to be discontinued. allowing the Liquid to conveniently pool in my Netherlands, completely soaking the underside of my blue jeans.

You can’t even imagine the sheer horror of a teenage boy realizing that he just spilled an unknown substance all over his untapped genetic reserves. “Oh, The Humanity!” indeed!

Worse yet, much to my consternation, I found myself “scientifically observing” that our Mystery Liquid “caused an unbearable burning sensation of the balls.”

As expected, David was doubled over in laughter at my predicament and was far too thoroughly incapacitated to be of any medical assistance. And by that time, the rest of the class had figured out what was going on as well, but not a ----- one of those bastards seemed very sympathetic to my plight. I was literally fighting for the lives my future children here, and all I was getting was breathless howls of laughter from the ----- peanut gallery.

Of course, the esteemed Mr. Raff would be there for me in my time of need, right? Right…?

I turned only to find him literally slapping his knees and guffawing so hard that he could barely get any words out.

I was beyond frantic at that point, and desperately needed him to get his shit together and help me out, as pre-enacted in this scene:³From the 1980 hit movie, Airplane! Gif source: https://thumbs.gfycat.com/BountifulUnconsciousDuckbillplatypus-size_restricted.gif; Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0GW0Vnr9Yc.

This is not one bit an exaggeration of what happened: I actually did have him by the shoulders trying to rattle some sense into him, accompanied by the only appropriate thing to say in such a moment:

“STOP LAUGHING AND TELL ME WHAT THE HELL I JUST SPILLED ON MY SCROTUM, Howard, you Heartless Fool! Oh! The BURNING!”

As much as I loved the old fart, I maintain that it was borderline child abuse on his part to continue laughing for another good 2 minutes before advising me “Not to worry, just go to the bathroom and rinse them off as best as you can.”

When I returned 15-20 minutes later–now with only moderate groin discomfort and a stack of paper towels stuffed in my underwear, (my clothing in that area was still soaked, after all)–I still had many unanswered questions.

Well, just the one question actually: “Will I ever be able to have children? You know, ones with exactly 10 fingers and exactly 10 toes?”

If I recall correctly, the Mystery Liquid turned out to be “just benzene,” and good ol’ Mr. Raff assured me that “[my] junk would be fine once the rash goes away in a few weeks and the hair grows back.”

Fortunately, he was only messing with me about the whole “few weeks” part. I, however, was not bemused.

And I must say, I am even less bemused now that I have access to Google and I can fact-check his lying ass:

I can’t believe I trusted you, Howard. You and your balled-face lies…

Content created on: 21/22 October 2020 (Weds/Thurs)

I knew that doggy yoga position, alright. ‘Twas none other than “Canine Arching Back Skyward In Glorious Defecation”…

Probably the best thing to ever come from the wonderful technology that we know and love as ‘GPS’ would have to be Geocaching.¹For more info on geocaching, check out www.geocaching.com.

“What is this ‘geocaching’ of which you speak?” you may be asking with unnaturally correct sentence syntax.

Well, as I like to sell it to my daughters: it’s basically “treasure hunting” with a smartphone (or any other GPS device). Someone will hide a ‘cache’–a stash of trinkets, pen, and a paper log–in some fun location, use their phone to note the precise latitude and longitude, and then post them online for others to go out and find.

If you’re looking for a hobby, I highly recommend it. In addition to feeding the urges of your inner pirate, you typically get to see new and interesting places along the way.

Recently I decided it was time to introduce our 2-year-old, aka The Younger, to this family pastime that the 7-year-old (The Elder) and I have partook in at least once or twice a year since she was 3. So on a beautiful-yet-fateful Saturday morning in early October, I loaded up the girls, some lunches, and a backpack full of unwanted toys, and we headed out on a great adventure.

In addition to a paper log found within cache, each one has a digital cache on the geocaching.com website. This is typically used for leaving a short note of with whom you found the cache, thanking the owner of the cache for hiding it in the first place, and any other random comments/hints for those who may follow in your footsteps.

Usually the contents found therein are pretty run-of-the-mill. For example, see Figure 1.

Well…after an experience we had with a certain cache, I felt it necessary to leave a slightly wordier log entry. Indeed, I was divinely called upon to leave a cautionary tale for those who might come after us; prithee, that the same fate that befell us may not befall them…

From My Official Geocaching Log (*Lightly edited for your reading pleasure. Also re-gendered the possibly male, possibly female antagonist in order to squeeze more humor out of the situation.*):

[ Didn’t find it] Saturday, 03 October 2020 by f***m******* (20 found)²Proof that I actually spent the time to write such a long-ass cautionary tale for future geocachers can be found here.

Well, this was an interesting one.

Cruising around with my 2 daughters, ages 7 & 2, introducing The Younger to “Treasure Hunting.” She had just fallen asleep, and for unrelated reasons, my phone had died at the previous Randolph-Boundary Hunter (the name of the series of geocaches we were hitting up) cache.

I actually didn’t know this one was here; I was just wandering southwardly, looking out for any county line signs.

Well, what do you know, I see this one and I’m thinking, “Hey, this might be another easy find. Let me try to find a place to pull over and check it out…”

Directly across from this cache, however, is a house. As I started to pull off the side of the road (and approximately in front of this house), I look over, and a kid of about 10 years is approaching our car…pointing a [toy] gun directly at us.

Okaaaaaaay…so maybe we won’t be checking this one out.

As I tried to pull back onto the road, I had to slam on my brakes as a big black lab bolted out in front of me–and I was shocked that I didn’t nail her.

So now my adrenaline level is jacked through the roof. I try to calm myself and scoot on down the road (remember, I still didn’t know where I was going–just knew I wanted to get away from 2A Boy).

Welp, that dog was a tenacious pup, she ’twas indeed. Friendly, but tenacious.

About a half mile down the road, she was still jollily jaunting beside us. Dang it.

I didn’t want to be responsible for this dog ending up in the next county over, so I slowly turned around and tried to “guide” the good little b*tch back towards her home. As I got to a fork in the road near where this whole debacle started, she raced a ways out in front of me so I slowed down and tried a stealthy U-turn.

I could see in the rear-view that she had figured out what was up, but I had a good enough lead on her that I figured I could gun the engine and leave her in the dust.

Nope. NOPE.

She was in front of me, in my blind spot, within 5 seconds flat. This canine had a death wish, but I wanted nothing to do with it.

This went on, back and forth–lead her home, roll down the window, tell her to “Go on, git!” sneak a U-turn, gun it, have her back IN FRONT OF ME in 10 seconds, yada yada ya…

There was a moment where I was like “have I somehow died and am now stuck in the weirdest f*cking form of purgatory?!?”

After about the 5th round trip, I was puttering along at about 10 mph with her beside me, when I noticed her pause and…shorten the length of her body?

Oh, wait.

I knew that doggy yoga position, alright. ‘Twas none other than “Canine Arching Back Skyward In Glorious Defecation.”

Could it be? Was this my serendipitous window of opportunity I had been longing for so desperately and deeply in my loins?

Yes. Yes, it was.

I turned to The Elder and imparted all the fatherly wisdom I had to offer: “A dog can’t chase you while she’s pinching off a turd!”

“Go for it, Daddy!” she hollered in encouragement from the back seat.

Reaching back, I grabbed her hand and slammed my foot on the gas pedal as hard as I could.

In beautiful unison, we did our best William Wallace impression, screaming “FREEEEEEDOM!” while tearing ass the ----- out of there.

via GIPHY

A few minutes down the road, she piped up, “You’re going to write about this in your blog, right?”

Yes, my child. Yes indeed, I shall³Original ending from geocache log, instead of those last two lines: “And The Younger slept through it all…”…

Content created on: 3/4 &10 October 2020 (Sat/Sun/Sat)

“Son, you really gotta stop rubbing-your-dub.”

Welp. This was going to be awkward…

Is it wrong to feel a sense of satisfaction to see yet another beloved children’s nursery rhyme fall from grace?

Okay, maybe “fall from grace” isn’t the right term. Perhaps “really is not child-appropriate at all” or “was about a bunch of perverts” would be more accurate.

Take, for example, the 1798 hit rhyme, “Rub-A-Dub-Dub,” whose original lyrics went something like this:¹https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5038237

Hey! rub-a-dub, ho! rub-a-dub, three maids in a tub,
And who do you think were there?
The butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker,
And all of them gone to the fair.

According to that same source,²https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5038237 this is essentially the modern-day equivalent of a tabloid publishing photos of Tom Hanks, Dr. James Dobson,³Of Focus On The Family fame/infamy. & Barack Obama at a strip club. No matter who you are, you would probably be shocked by the moral failings of at least one of those three fellows, amiright?

But, to clear up a misconception⁴If you work hard enough, you can see how this “spilling your seed on the ground” type of pun. that is most assuredly forming in your mind right now, “rub-a-dub” is not a euphemism for any type of rubbing you might suspect at such a venue of ill-repute, but rather a form of disapproval like “tsk-tsk, you naughty boy”⁵https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rub-a-dub-dub…

When I was a Sophomore in high school, I was living with my dad and my stepmom “Daisy” out on our farm in rural SW Kansas. I didn’t have my own vehicle, so I often found myself stuck all alone on the farm with nothing to do.

Now, some people are completely content being bored all the time, but I’m not one of them. I’m one of those so-called “creative types.”

The problem with being a creative type who is constantly on the verge of mind-numbing boredom is that so-called “creative juices” tend to get pent up, and thus I was always looking for ways to find some so-called “creative release.”

Given the pre-existing condition of being stuck in the middle of nowhere, combined with a general lack of monetary resources, said release wasn’t always easy to come by. Fittingly, this is where being creative came in handy.

One dreary winter evening I got the notion in my head that nothing would be cooler than making a wax copy of my face. Yeah, I know, pretty awesome, right?

And it was simple enough: all I needed to do was take a couple layers of aluminum foil and press my face into them to make a mold, then burn my scented candle down while pouring the melted wax into that mold, and voila!

It was simple “in theory” at least. I sat there on my bed for a good hour or two trying to create my masterpiece, without seeing a single ounce of success. I don’t recall whether it was the aluminum mold or the recycled wax that was the fatal flaw; I just remember being rather disappointed that it was an utter failure.

Oh well. At least I had given it the ol’ high-school try⁶This is clearly a play on the phrase “the ol’ college try,” though I’m not sure what the hell that means either… …

A month or so later, my dad and I were having a random conversation when the topic of laundry somehow came up. It puzzled me, then, why all of a sudden he got an embarrassed look on his face.

“I didn’t want to say anything, but…Daisy was in your room last week and decided to do you a favor and wash your sheets and bedspread.”

“Aw, that was thoughtful of her…”

“But, um…she said, um…she said she discovered, er…crusty ‘stains’ all over your comforter…”

“Wait, what?”

“Now son, I’m not one to judge…”

“WAX! IT WAS WAX, DAMMIT!”

“…but it’s kinda rude to the woman who does your laundry when you–“

*Buries face in hands*

“Let me stop you there, Dad. I was making candles, okay? I was making candles on my bed and spilled some red wax. How could she have even mistook that for–“

“It’s okay, you don’t have to lie about what every boy your age does…”

*Under my breath* “Shit. They think that I like to rub-a-dub-dub with reckless abandon all over my room. I’ve forever soiled my reputation, haven’t I?”

“I’m sure you were just ‘making candles,’ wink wink. I suppose I should at least give you points for creativity…”

Content created on: 3 September 2020 (Thursday)

Say, do you remember those barnyard sounds toys from our childhood? The kind that had a giant plastic arrow that would spin around when you pulled the lever, and then for whatever it would land on, it would kindly inform you what sound that animal made. For example, “The cow says: ‘Mooo’!”

Well, I have a fun fact for you: did you know that the some concept works with certain inanimate objects?

Please, allow me to expound…

On this approximate day in history 9 years ago, the Boss Lady and I found ourselves embarking on the biggest adventure of our lives yet. I had just finished up grad school, and as a newly minted “doctor” I had leveraged my new credentials to land a sweet, sweet gig at a hospital in Hawai’i’.

Up until that point in time, both of us drove vehicles with a tax value of $3,000 or less. You know us, humble as ever, and all. Now when you consider that it would cost around $1,500 to ship a car from Los Angeles to Honolulu, and that we lived in North Carolina, it quickly became clear that our two beloved vehicles were not destined to make the journey with us.

My ’95 Toyota Camry had already had its share of misadventures, so we decided to sell it to some unsuspecting young girl who bought it to celebrate finally getting her GED.

Side note: you go, girl–don’t ever let the haters stand between you and your dreams!

As for the Boss Lady’s ’98 Honda Civic, it was in good enough shape that we felt comfortable gifting it to one of my family members back in Kansas, as they were in need of a more reliable ride.

Thus formed the basis for our big transition from NC to HI: once our lease ran out at the end of July and the bulk of our belongings already en route to the Islands, we would hang out with the in-laws a few days to catch our breath before leisurely road-tripping to Kansas. After delivering the vehicle and spending some time with my family out there, we would have the new owner of our car drive us up to Denver, where we would catch a flight to our final destination in the Tropics.

I had it planned such that when we arrived in Kansas after 3 days of cross-country travel (see FIgure 1), the very first thing we would do would be to spend a whole day at the Morton County Fair. Yes, I am indeed speaking of none other than the infamous site of the social PTSD I detailed in the hit blog post The Prize Pig Story, and a prominent staple of my childhood memories.

After 3 full days of (surprisingly) uneventful traveling under the sweltering heat, we made it to our last stop in Guymon, OK. We were pretty much home free at that point: our destination in the morning was Elkhart, KS–a mere 45 minutes and one state line away (see Figure 2).

I honestly couldn’t believe it. Everything was actually going according to plan…starting with rolling up to our hotel earlier than expected that evening. ‘Twas even early enough for a last minute respite of a little dinner-and-a-movie date before the impending ‘fun times’ with my family began. Oh happy day!

And speaking of ‘rolling up to the hotel,’ when we got out of the car upon our arrival there, the Boss Lady pointed out some water dripping underneath the car and wondered if we should be concerned. I told her, look, the car survived 1,509 miles of steamy midsummer day¹Technically, this should be ‘mid-day summer’, but doesn’t sound as poetic. driving, so clearly it was going to be perfectly fine to make the 45-mile early morning trip the next day.

Several rejuvenating hours and 44 miles later, we found ourselves at the finish line, cruising into Kansas around 9 in the morning.

Well…sorta-kinda. Or maybe not at all.

You ever heard of the proverbial “last mile”?²https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_mile_(transportation) To be honest, the difficulty of making it the last mile isn’t supposed to apply in this context. But yet there we were, the Universe seemingly wanting to make an example of us.

We had one last turn before officially arriving in Kansas, and only one more and we would be at the fair (see Figure 3). I was so close I could even almost taste the wafting scent of piggy poo.

I pulled up to the stop sign, looked both ways before turning, and…HOLY SH*T why is it so hard to turn the steering wheel?!?

It took me a second to realize that the car had died, and glancing down I just then noticed that oh, yeah, I suppose it was running a bit hot. With no other real option, I pulled over to the side of the road in hopes that the billows of steam would subside and we could be on our way after things cooled down.

As I got out of the car, I happened to glance across the highway and couldn’t help but exclaim under my breath: “You have got to be f*cking kidding me.”

There across the highway, literally a stone’s throw away, sat one very smug “Welcome to Elkhart!” sign, relentlessly taunting me.

But wait! There’s more! However, I regret to inform you that the conclusion to (and the moral of ) this saga will have to wait until next week. Before I take off and leave you hanging, I do want to provide you with at least a little bit of resolution…

And now, the moment you have all been waiting for: “What does the car say?”

Well, let’s pull that classic yellow lever on the side of our spinny-toy and find out, shall we?

[Pulls lever, arrow spins around, just happens to land on a 1998 Honda Civic.]

The car says: “F*** your plans, ninjas, I ain’t ever going to Kansas!”

Yes, that is most definitely what the car says.

To be continued…

Content created on: 6 & 7 August 2020 (Thurs/Fri)