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Tag: Ocean View Junior High

Having Such An Awesome Ninja Skill Ain’t Illegal, For Real?

7 Min Read

Maybe, just maybe, you and your buddy have watched a little too much TMNT.

And you know play time is definitely over when up rolls the MP…


“MUAH-HA-HA-HAH! Screw you fence!” I over-enthusiastically taunted the inanimate object in front of me, as my expertly-thrown knife hit its target it once again.

“You’re getting pretty good at this, amigo,” my junior-high bestie, Nick, said.

“And I, too, would like to affirm your bad-ass knife-throwing skills, my ninja!” I reciprocated. “Why don’t you take a turn or two?” I said as I gave the knife a good tug to dislodge it.

“It would be my pleasure,” Nick said, deftly taking the knife from my hand and gracefully flinging it toward the fence in one fell swoop.

*spliiiinter*

That particular flick of his wrist must have had some extra sauce on it, because the knife dang near went all the way through the fence.

“Sweet shot, bro-ski!” I said.

Nick just stood there with his arms folded in triumph, as he knew he done did get a good shot in.

We paused for a moment to bask in our own glory. For a couple of youngsters like us–me ringing in at 14 years and Nick at 13–mastering such a cool skill as knife-throwing was a real thrill. Like, if we had to, we could fling a knife into the torso of a bad guy or the plank of a neutral-looking-but-secretly-threatening fence. It could potentially save our lives and/or the lives of those we love.

But had we not trained on the little fence surrounding the power transformer between my sister’s house and her neighbor’s? That knife would probably have just hit its target while oriented parallel to it, doing no damage before pathetically thunking to the ground. We would have looked like complete assholes in that scenario.

Our moment of ninja-like glory was short-lived though.

“Hey did you just see a pair of beady eyes peeping over that-there fence?” Nick asked, gesturing towards the neighbor’s backyard.

“Ah, don’t mind her. She’s just probably being a Nosy Nancy,” I demurred.

“You sure it’s cool?” Nick asked, for the first time considering that what we were doing might be considered mildly delinquent.

“It’ll be fine, man. She’s probably just jealous of our sweet, sweet, knife moves…”


“Young man, can we have a word with you?”

Those are words a young man never wants to hear. Especially when they’re coming out of the mouth of the MP–that’s Military Police, for you civilians out there–officer at your front door.

“Uh…yeah, I guess so,” I stammered. Normally, my nose was as clean as a whistle, and it would be my brother, 1SkinnyJay, who would have to worry about what the po-po might want with him. Incidentally, it was 1SJ that introduced me to the joys of knife-throwing…though surely that was irrelevant to this pleasant officer’s visit.

“Your neighbor here said she saw someone flinging sharp objects just outside her backyard, and that she fears for the safety of her children” the officer said.

I rolled my eyes at the thought of how little danger her kids might have ever been in.

“Nosy Nancy, you ----- ----- snitch,” I muttered under my breath.

“So, are you the one that’s been throwing knives at the fence around the corner?” he asked menacingly, gesturing in the general direction of our make-shift target.

“No, no, you’re mistaken…” I started.

“Oh, really?” the MP asked suspiciously.

“…there wasn’t just one of us throwing knives.”

Remember the incident Nick and I had with the rare candy? I sucked ass when it came to lying, but I was a ----- ace when it came to telling the truth. And I could tell this wasn’t going to end well for my accomplices.

“Do tell…” I definitely had the MP’s interest now.

“Yeah, of course I was one of the ones getting really, really ----- good at throwing knives. But you’ll also want to talk to my good friend Nick B. He’s almost better than I am. I can take you to his house, even, if you like,” I said, realizing that I was oversharing and not even making him work for the intel.

“Oh, that would be just lovely. So, you say it was you two fellas doing all that damage to the fence? Which, I might add, is federal property, seeing as how it is part of this fine Naval Base we like to call Point Mugu,” this officer said, clearly with the intent of intimidating me.

I think I peed myself just a little in that moment.

“Pfft! Do you think we would just come up with the idea by ourselves? Who do you think gave us the big idea to desecrate that fence in the first place?” I said flippantly.

“Heck, man, I don’t know. But twenty bucks says you’re going to tell me without me even having to ask,” the officer said, starting to get the hang of my game.

“It was my brother, Jason,” I stated matter-of-factly.

“…and there it is. You owe me twenty bucks?” the officer said.

“How about double or nothing?” I said, not really paying attention to what he was saying.

“Okay, so let me see if I got this straight?” he said, looking down at his note pad. “We got three minors that need to be held accountable for destruction of federal property? Is that right?”

“No! You forget about Josephina!” I blurted out, desperate to make sure that there was an accurate and factual accounting of events.

“Who, now?” he asked.

“My brother-in-law, who we’re living with here. Who do you think showed Jason how to throw knives. Jeez, get with it, yo!” I said condescendingly for some reason.

“It looks like we better round up the four of you degenerates and take you down to the station…”


“Mom, are we going to be homeless?” I asked without a hint of sarcasm or irony.

“I don’t really know, Honey,” she said, clearly wishing she could reassure me. “I told you that you needed to keep a low profile, seeing as how we’re living illegally here on Base with your sister.”

“Oh, yeah. Right.” I said quietly, deeply concerned that my loose wrist and even looser lips had ruined our housing situation (and maybe even have put Joe’s status in the military in limbo, to boot).

Long story short, during the preceding summer while I was staying with my dad, my now-presumably-ex-stepfather had moved my mom and brother from our home of 5 years in Springfield, MO, to Odessa, TX for some unknown reason. Then the dickhead just took the only vehicle they had and jetted out of there back to his mommy in Houston.

Well, this nut-sack had put my fam in quite the pickle, now hadn’t he? And, not realizing that the lease on her apartment back in Springfield wouldn’t technically run out for another week, my mom turned to my sister in California in her time of need.

“Sure, you can come live with us on this here fine Naval Base we call Point Mugu!” Sis had told her. “But, uh, technically, parents and siblings don’t qualify as dependents, so you’ll just have to be our ‘long term guests’, per se.”

And thus, my entire eighth grade year I lived as an illegal alien, never freely able to come and go off the base as I pleased. I either had to be in a vehicle with my sis or Joe driving–or on occasion, with Nick and his parents. But never could Mom just roll out with us to live normal lives in the surrounding cities.

Oh, I almost forgot that I was also able to smuggle myself on and off base on the the school bus–which, if you ask me, is actually kinda of a weak point in their security. Anyways, I digress…

“I really shouldn’t have drawn attention to us, should have I?” I said meekly.

“No you shouldn’t have,” Joe glared at me from across the table down at the MP headquarters. “Just let me do the talking, okay? We don’t need you unnecessarily volunteering any more facts…”


“You ----- ----- snitch” Jason muttered under his breath, as he ripped the board–the one we had thoroughly destroyed–off the fence.

“You little snitch,” Nick muttered under his breath as he hoisted the new replacement board into place.

“You little ----- , just had to go and snitch,” Joe muttered under his breath, as he handed me the screws and the drill.

“Fellas, fellas, no need to point fingers and say who-did-what and what-not,” I deflected, as I secured the new board in place.

I stepped back to admire our work.

But instead of looking at the newly-refinished fence, my three comrades were glaring at me.

“No, there is need to point fingers,” Jason seethed.

“Yeah, you were the one to get busted. Why did you have to drag us into your mess? My step-dad whooped my ass the second the MP left our house,” Nick said through gritted teeth.

“You couldn’t have fallen on a grenade for your brothers in arms, could have you?” Joe was clearly peeved.

“Fellas, fellas, come now,” I implored them. “Don’t be making the moral of this story ‘maybe it’s worth learning to lie every now and then for the sake of your brethren, you little snitch.’ Nay, the point of the story here is supposed to be: don’t judge an illegal alien until you’ve walked a kilometer in their shoes (on account of anyone coming into the U.S. from anywhere else in the world will indubitably be more accustomed to metric units rather than imperial units). Also keep in mind that on average they’re less criminally mind, lest their deviant behavior draws the attention of the authorities and gets them deported. So show them a little love, yeah?”

“Really? That’s what you’re going with here?” Jay said.

“I like the ‘don’t be a little snitch’ line better,” Nick chimed in.

“Me too,” said Joe. “Anyways, how do you explain to your imaginary audience you not getting kicked off base, when a true illegal alien would have got their ass deported for pulling the same stunt you did?”

“Yeah, man, we got off waaay easy just having to pay for the supplies and put in the time to repair this fence,” Jay noted.

“Fellas, fellas,” Nick said, half-mocking me. “Isn’t it patently obvious?” he said as he presented me as if I was a prize on the Price is Right and he were one of their models.

I sighed, reluctant to acknowledge my inherent privilege.

“It’s because I’m as Caucasian as a White Russian, my ninjas.”

Nick pensively stroked the peach fuzz on his chin for a moment.

“Somehow,” he finally said, “I think you’ve managed to culturally appropriate two different cultures here, all in one fell swoop…”


Content created on: 20/21 July 2024 (Sat/Sun)

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

6 Min Read

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nick sighed deeply.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

Never Trust An Innovative Tool Made By A Damned Fool

3 Min Read

Thinking of helping ol’ Dim-Witted Daryl fudge on his geography test? Don’t be such a dumbass!

Don’t forget: he’s also really bad at math…..


“Dude, my dude! Let me sit next to you during the geography test, and, uh, ‘borrow’ some of your answers.”

I looked at my eighth grade classmate Daryl with wary eyes.

“Hey man,” I said, “I know you would love to get out of taking freshman geography next year, but if I let you cheat off of me during this opt-out test, they’re bound to get suspicious when we turn in identical answers. And then I could end up having to waste my precious freshman time on stuff I already know because of your dumb ass.”

In fairness, Daryl wasn’t a complete and utter dumbass, but he probably would actually benefit from taking freshman geography. And, besides, he was stretching the truth a little bit when he called me “my dude”–we were solid acquaintances, but actually hang-out-level friends? I think not. And I don’t put my academic career on the line for somebody I’ve never spent a moment with outside of the walls of Ocean View Junior High (or the school the buses that serviced such a fine academic institution).

“Nah, amigo, I wouldn’t dare think of asking you to take such risks on my behalf. But that’s okay, I got a fool-proof plan: I’ll change enough of them so as to not raise any red flags,” he assured me.

I sighed a heavy sigh.

“What the hell, I’ll throw a bone. Maybe at least that’ll be one less class that you’ll inevitably flunk out of…”

“What’s that?” Daryl hadn’t quite caught my snarky under-my-breath comment.

“Ummm…nothing. Anyways, at least give me plausible deniability. You can sit next to me during the test, but what you do with your beady little eyes is up to you. I know nothing of this stupid little scheme of yours, and this conversation never happened.”

“Aww, bro, you’re the best! I promise I won’t funk this up…”


“Well, if I don’t end up moving back to Kansas for high school, it looks like I at least won’t have to take the geography class mandated by the State of California for all you other mortals–er, I mean ‘freshman’, hehe,” said somebody that most definitely wasn’t Daryl.

“Daryl,” continued this same non-Daryl person, “how did your plan work out?”

Daryl peeked at the his results from the test for the first time, then looked up at me with eyes that were waaaay sadder than the occasion could ever possibly call for.

“They’re putting me in Remedial Geography. I won’t even be taking regular freshman geography.”

I about choked on the gum I was illicitly chewing in class.

“Damn, dude, exactly how many of my answers did you end up changing?”

“I don’t know, maybe 10 or 15?”

“What the actual funk, man? There were only 25 questions on the test! You mean to tell me your big plan to get out of freshman geography was to take 40% to 60% of the answers that were almost for sure right–I mean, we’re talking about me here–and then change them to be almost for sure wrong?”

I planted my face firmly in my hand.

“Yeah, well it worked didn’t it? No one ever suspected us of cheating, did they?” he somehow thought he was defending his plan.

“Dude it worked too well, and in all the wrong ways. Though technically, you did get out of freshman geography, so I dunno, maybe I’m unknowingly standing in the presence of a genius…”

I stared at Daryl for good half a minute as he stared back at me blankly.

“Nope, that’s definitely not the case. Welp, I think I’ll go have a talk with Principal Anderson. She desperately needs to pass on the message to the high school to put you in remedial math as well. No offense, man, but you might be as dumb as a rock.”

“So? What’s your point?”

“The point of my story is that normally most people cheat to gain an advantage, but yet somehow you defied all odds and found a way to cheat such that you’re almost guaranteed to lose. I’m honestly amazed by your ability to elevate the art of dumbassery.”

“Still not following…”

Oh, poor Daryl, bless his soul.

“Dude, if you would have just taken the test all on your own, you probably would at least be placed in regular freshman geography–heck, you would have had a non-zero chance of actually getting it out of it all together!”

“Whatever you say, man.”

“Well, at I hope you at least learned a couple of important life lessons: first, who the hell cheats on geography?!? If you ever thinking to yourself ‘maybe I should cheat on my geography test…’ then you probably should seek immediate mental help. And, second, of course is the obvious: if you’re going to cheat, Daryl, cheat to win, man, cheat to win…”


Content created on: 23/24 March 2024 (Sat/Sun)

All Is Fair In Love And War And Scientific Research

6 Min Read

Face it: your science project sucked, but it can’t be that bad, right?

On the bright side, at least that nightmare is finally over…


“Um…how about I use ‘laser beams’ to measure the speed of light?” the 14-year-old me hesitantly suggested.

I looked expectantly at my mustachioed science teacher, hoping that this would be a solid enough idea for my mandatory science fair project.

“We already know what the speed of light is. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to come up with something original,” Mr. Susman calmly replied.

And thus began my career as a half-assed scientist…


Actually, now that I think about it, the half-assery began a year earlier, when I was in 7th grade at Christian Schools of Springfield (Missouri). That year, the science project I really wanted to do was to put various metals in the microwave and see how long it took before the sparks started to fly. I honestly don’t know why that got shot down without any reasonable discussion; nevertheless, I was forced to come up with a different project altogether. Finally, the night before it was due, I threw together a project that measured how long it took various small objects, such as string, a button, belly button lint, etc. to fall/float to the ground when dropped from about 6 feet up. I know, I know: half-assery, at it’s finest, but I figured since my Christian school didn’t take science seriously, then why should I?

When I showed up the next day with my hand-drawn charts and graphs exploring the aforementioned topic, I was directed to setup next to my dyslexic best friend, Josh. What was my C-Average amigo’s science project about? Surface tension of water. Even if you accounted for the gross disparity in access to resources (his dad was a doctor; mine wasn’t–if you get my drift), the contrast in our core intellectual content was stark. Needless to say, for being the token smart kid in our class, having my kindergarten-level experiment on display directly next to real science was incredibly embarrassing.

Fast-forward roughly 12 months to my 8th grade year, where I found myself at Ocean View Junior High, a public school in California, in the extremely science-focused ‘Research & Development’ class for so-called ‘gifted students’.

If I didn’t want to be laughed out of the classroom by my high-IQ peers, then I had to seriously up my science game from the sloppy shenanigans I had pulled in 7th grade.

But in the end, the most original idea I had come up with wasn’t much more evolved–sorry, I mean, ‘intelligently designed’– beyond the stereotypical model ‘erupting volcano’: at the heart of both was the well-known chemical reaction of mixing vinegar and baking soda to make bubbles. In my case, though, I posited that dosing young tomato plants with a little carbon dioxide on a daily basis would result in a measurable growth spurt.

In retrospect, it wasn’t a completely horrible idea, but it wasn’t the most imaginative either. But when you combine that with limited financial resources, then the execution really starts to suffer.

To begin with, mixing a cup of vinegar with the appropriate amount of baking soda for each plant in the ‘treatment’ group probably only provided a barely perceptible boost in the CO2 available to that plant–and even though those two ingredients are cheap, they still aren’t free, Bub (I did at least have the plants isolated from the surrounding atmosphere by having them covered in plastic bags, though).

Of course there was the cost of the tomato plants themselves, and thanks to my budget, I was able to buy a whopping FOUR plants–2 ‘control’ plants (no dosing) and 2 ‘treatment’ plants (dosed). Honestly, if I would have been able to, say, triple the dosage, and, ya know, have 50 plants in each group, then it might have passed for a decent scientific endeavor. Alas, this ’twasn’t the reality I was living in.

But, wait! There was even more poor-kid shenanigans afoot…


“Thanks for printing these graphs for m–hey, what is up with the colors? That’s not how it looked on the computer I borrowed to make them!”

I peered over the several sheets that Michael, one of my richer, computer-with-a-color-printer-owning friends had printed off for me the night before our science projects were due. My sole graph, which charted the growth of the four plants over several weeks, was supposed to feature four lines of four different colors, yet what I was staring at was 2 red lines and 2 blue lines.

“What can I tell you? My printer ran out of yellow ink,” he replied, communicating the helplessness that he, too, felt about the situation.

I let out a heavy sigh.

“I guess beggars can’t be choosers, right?” I said, honestly acknowledging my current lot in life.

“Hey, it still looks pretty good. I’m sure it will be fine…well, mostly fine.” said the guy who would go on to become the Chief Scientist at Numerai (and, coincidentally, uses the exact same WordPress theme for his neuroscience/machine learning blog that I use here).

“Yeah, I guess no one will notice and and it’ll still get the message across,” I figured aloud.

*Later that day, in R&D…*

“So you’ll see here in Figure A1The joke being is that there was no Figure B, so calling it Figure A was a bit misleading… a plot of the plants’ growth from Week 0 to Week 6.”

I didn’t have the strongest project, but I was trying to at least pretend that I did.

A kid halfway back in the classroom raised his hand–oh dear lord, it was that Jackass Jacob.

“So…which line is which plant?” he queried with a smirk on his face.

“Well the blue line is…oh, sh*t, uh, I’m not sure which blue line is Control 1 and which one is Treatment 2. Uh…um…dammit, Oliver,2Michael’s last name you and your printer have screwed me over!”

I eventually fumbled my way through the rest of my presentation, buoyed only by the promise that, no matter what, 10 minutes from now this nightmare of a scientific endeavor would be over forever, never to haunt me again…


“Listen up, youths, we got the Ventura County Science Fair coming up in a few weeks, and unfortunately, we can only send a select few of you,” announced Mr. Sogioka, our other R&D teacher (there were so many smarty-pants 6th, 7th, and 8th graders at our school, they needed two classrooms to contain us all and two teachers to wrangle us rascals).

Half the class groaned in disappointment, already knowing full well they weren’t going to make the cut. For my part, I could have cared less. My project had sucked chestnuts and I knew it. I was at peace with that hard truth.

“Let’s see here…first on the list: David Chandler,” Mr. Susman announced.

“Good for David,” I thought to myself. “If your project is ‘The Impact Of Computer Monitor Radiation On The Development Of the Fruit Fly’, you sure the hell deserve to go show that sh*t off to the world. You sir, are a true scientist. A bit of a pompous ass, yes, but a ----- good scientist nonetheless.”

“Next: Michael Oliver…” Mr. Sogioka proclaimed.

“…for his study, ‘The Impact of Not Knowing How The F*** To Change A Depleted Printer Cartridge On Your Lower-Income Resource-Strapped Classmate’, no doubt,” I quipped as I elbowed Michael sprightly.

“Har, har, you’re hilarious,” he responded.

“Seriously, though,” I whispered to him, “I’m kinda glad you suck at printing things off in color. It got me out of the County Science Fair, at least!”

“…B.J.!”

I jerked my head back to the front of the class at the sound of my name.

“I’m listening! I’m listening, I swear, Mr. Sogioka! I promise,” I lied. I had been chatting Michael’s ear off the whole time and hadn’t been listening as our two most esteemed educators had read off the rest of the List of the Damned, the poor souls who had to go to the county science fair.

“Huh, what? I was just announcing the students moving on to the next level of science.” Mr. Sogioka seemed confused.

“Congratulations, B.J., you were the last one to make the cut–you’re going to County! Wait…what?” Mr. Susman said, seeming just as surprised as I was at this turn of events.

“Nooooooo! Why me?” I rended my shirt in two and shook my fist to the heavens.

“Oh, you know exactly why,” Mr. Sogioka looked at me with…no, it wasn’t quite a sh*t-eating grin on his face..it was more of sh*t-eating smirk.

“Dammit, Sogi-yoki, you’ve screwed me again!” I muttered.

“What was that you said, hmmm?” he inquired, clearly full of the power he be trippin’ on.

“Nothing, Donald, I didn’t say anything at all.”

“Hey, look on the bright side,” Michael interjected, “At least I can reprint your graphs in full color this time around.”

I stared daggers at him.

“Yes,” I replied with all the sarcasm I could muster, “CYK graphs will prevent it from a being a complete and utter fustercluck this time around…”


The point of the story is never make fun of your bald Japanese American teachers by racistly butchering their name and calling them Sogi-Yoki. Yeah, you read about that last week right? Of course you did. And of course you would have also known that it was just an honest, oh-fudge-I-wasn’t-really-paying-attention mistake on my part. But not in ol’ Donnie-Boy’s eyes, no sirree, Bob!

And now, finally, Karma had smiled upon his shiny dome of a head and had given him the chance to rain down retribution on me, the proverbial thorn in his side: he was sending my sorry ass to the county state fair–not based on merit in any way, shape, or form–only for the sole purpose of seeing me scientifically embarrass myself on an even bigger stage.

So, in the spirit of the holiday (Festivus, of course), I am officially airing this grievance in the general direction of one Mr. Donald Sogioka. Sogi-Yoki, sir, what you did to me was just plain ----- -up. If I were a lesser man, I would blame my lack-luster scientific career on you, but I won’t. The mere presence of three tiny letters after my name gives me the last laugh in this matter, and that is enough for this chatty slacker:

P.

h.

D…


Content created on: 7/9 December 2023 (Thurs/Sat)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Who Wouldn’t Love To Take Down That Obnoxious Class Clown?

5 Min Read

Bane of every teacher’s existence, he casually be chillin’ in the back and talks and talks.

He’s the species we call the ‘Chatterbox’…


“Uh…I think you’re in the wrong class.”

His name was Jacob, and all these years later I don’t need my 8th grade yearbook to remind me of that. Nope, I’ll never forget the name of the jack-ass1I desperately wanted to phrase this as “that jack-ass’ name”, but I couldn’t find a definitive answer on what the possessive form of ‘jackass’ is…so please, if you know the answer, share it in the comments below. who oh-so-condescendingly told me, the new kid, that I didn’t belong in the ‘gifted’ students’ science class (which for some reason, Oceanview Jr. High called ‘Research & Development‘).

Of course, I didn’t know his name was Jacob at the time, so this made it harder to throw some condescension back at that buffoon. Instead of replying with something like, “Well, Jacob, I actually do belong in this class, you cocky little ----- face…”, the humbler side of my personality responded with:

*checks class schedule*

“Uh, this is R&D, right? Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m in the right classroom…”

“Pfft! Yeah right–this is the smart kids’ class, Dummy. You better check that schedule again,” Jacob tut-tutted, standing his ground.

“Dude, I’m in the right place, so just buzz off,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“Whatever, Dummy,” Jacob muttered as he turned back around in his seat to face forward.

I mused to myself that Jacob must be pretty ----- smart to have the Chutzpah2P.S. Happy Hanukah to all my Hebrew friends! to tell a random stranger that he looks to stupid to be in his hallowed classroom. I was definitely curious to see if he actually had the brains to back up those words…


“Hold my root beer”…is essentially what I told Jackass Jacob, as it would turn out.

When it comes to asses, I can hold my own, at least in the sub-category of Smartasses. And it didn’t take too long to claim my rightful spot on that throne.

So, as I’ve implied above, I started 8th grade a week or so after classes had already begun. One consequence of this was that I didn’t get a proper introduction to the teachers in my various classes. You know, like when they got “Mrs. McDougal” (for example) written in big letters on the chalk board and that, being the very first thing you see, is indelibly burned into your memory and seared into your retinas.

And had I been there on first day of R&D, I would have none, without a shadow of a doubt, that my two esteemed science teachers were Mr. Brent Susman (may that mustache R.I.P.) & Mr. Don Sogioka.

I mean, I kinda knew their names. But apparently I didn’t really know their names. Case in point: a scene from my second or third week of school.

“Hey, would you stop talking in the back there?” Mr. Sogioka seemed slightly perturbed by my incessant chatting with my fellow classmates throughout his lessons.

“Oh, ok, sure. My bad…” I responded in a manner befit of any 13 year old.

Ol’ Donnie Boy was non-plussed by my attitude.

“Seriously, though, all you’ve ever done since you’ve joined our class is sit in the back and distract all the other students. I bet you don’t even know what my name is.”

“What? Of course, I know your name, it’s Mr. Sokiyoki!” I indignantly declared.

It was in this moment that I learned that I did not, in fact, know what his name was.

The rest of the class, thinking I was clowning him by pronouncing his name “Soki-Yoki”–perhaps the Japanese equivalent of calling your teacher of Chinese descent “Mr. Ching-Chong-Chang”–all burst out into an uncontrollable fit of laughter.

“IT’S SOGIOKA!” he asserted, clearly flush with anger at what he perceived was being made of fun of to his face.

“Dammmn, my bad…”


“Oh my God, you never shut up, do you?”

Mr Sokioga. Again.

By now we were a good 3 months or so into the school year, and 3 things had become clear:

  1. I was, much to Mr. Sokioga’s chagrin, one of the brighter minds amongst all of the 40-50 students in R&D (#HumbleBrag).
  2. Jacob, on the other hand, was all talk and no walk. That guy was a complete idiot.
  3. I was a non-stop chatter box.

Now, to be truthful, I had never meant to be a supreme smartass back when I accidentally called my esteemed co-teacher ‘Mr. Soki-yoki’, but this had apparently set the tone for our relationship for the entire year. And, as you can imagine, Science Facts #1 and #3 annoyed the living hell out of Ol’ Sokioga.

Science Fact #2 is irrelevant to the rest of the story; I figured I’d give you, Dear Reader, a little closure since I had brought Jacob in the first place.

Anyways…Mr. Sokioga wasn’t done chewing me out for incessant talking in his class.

“You know what?” he said with a defiant look in his eyes. “I bet you can’t go an entire class without talking. You are simply incapable of keeping that pi3#STEMNerdReference hole of yours shut.”

Aww, snap.

Gauntlet: thrown down.

“You’re on, Don!” I just couldn’t help myself. Sometimes my wit beats my brain to my mouth, and sh*t like that just slips on out.

“Please, don’t ever call me Don…”

Fast-forward to a day or so later, and I was determined af to prove the haters wrong: I can be quiet. I swear I can.

Now, it wasn’t easy by any means, but I actually pulled it off. I apologize for adding a narrative pizzazz to this part via some imaginative dialogue, but what can I say? There was nothing to be said for me saying nothing for a solid 50 minutes.

Except for the last 2 minutes of class…

“I did it. I didn’t say a single word all class long,” I stated with the confidence of a true champion.

Mr. Sokioga was not impressed.

“Congratulations, kid” dripping with sarcasm was all I got in return.

Honestly, I don’t know what I was expecting to happen. In retrospect, we were at a stalemate, and I should have just left it at that. Where exactly did I think, “ha ha I proved you wrong and didn’t annoy you for one whole class” was going to get me?

A very good question indeed…


The point of the story is that sometimes ya gotta respect the power imbalance between teacher and student. At the end of the proverbial day, the teacher has, um, let’s call them ‘tools’, at his or her disposal to deal with particularly pesky proteges. “Whatever is he talking about?” you may be wondering right now. Well, I’ll tell you what I’m talking about…next week, and maybe the week after that. Sorry, but you’ll have to stay tuned to hear about the various forms of Donald’s Revenge hath taken.

And while ultimately those tales will be keeping in line with the spirit of The Holiday (Festivus, that is), and fall squarely in my ‘Airing of the Grievances’ category, I can’t help but wonder if maybe, just maybe,Mr. Sokioga might have one or two grievances to air with me…


Content created on: 1/2 December 2023 (Fri/Sat)

Footnotes & References:[+]

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