I mostly avoid excessive swearing these days, but I just realized how funny of an insult “dickweed” is. I don’t think I’ve called anyone a dickweed since high school (or maybe middle school), but just thinking about how odd the insult is makes me realize how funny it is. I bring this up because I literally heard one of the robots on Mystery Science Theatre 3000 say it.
I’ll never forget when I started watching that show. That’s a story for a whole other time, but the short story is that I started watching it after my parents got satellite TV. It was a whole new world for me. Come to think of it, I think that’s one of the earliest “new worlds” I ever remember immersing myself in as a little kid. Before that, of course, there was a Disneyland trip that also consisted of visits to SeaWorld and Universal Studios. But as far as total media immersion goes, that first day of getting satellite TV is definitely high up on the list.
Speaking of lists, I need to do something about the lists I have in my paper racks. They’re organized, but there’s so many that I feel like I need to condense them. There are so many lists, some of the more unusual ones have random pop culture subjects that come to my mind at unpredictable moments. Another list has people who look like Doug Benson, and yet another one has people I look up to.
Unfortunately, some lists are accidentally thrown out whenever I’m cleaning out my desk. No, I wasn’t fired. Why is cleaning out a desk always associated with being fired? I mean, I get why the two are connected, but when someone asks how you’re doing while you’re tidying up, and you respond with, “Doing good, I cleaned out my desk,” you just know the person’s gonna ask, “Uh oh… how’d you get sacked?” And then you make a face similar to that one Ron Swanson gif where he’s giving the funny unamused expression.
Then again, what are the odds of that interaction actually happening? It only just came to my mind and yet now I’m questioning the likelihood of it ever taking place. It’s probably happened, but how often? Maybe a couple dozen times per year for 1 out of every 10 people? Or one out of a million? Heh, there I go guessing and creating a really odd statistic for some unusual event that probably never actually happens.
I never did entertain the idea of learning statistics in high school. Obviously, various statistics are going to come up during biology, civics, or any other sort of science & social studies courses, but as for the idea of diving into a complete class on statistics? Yeeeeaah, no thanks. It’s never been something I’d want to learn. It’s not likely something you want to do in high school unless you’re a total math addict who wants to do all things including probability.
Math used to be one of my favourite subjects, but when I reached trigonometry & junior year algebra, something happened to me. I started to feel how audiences might have felt when they first watched 2001: A Space Odyssey. I felt like I couldn’t wrap my head around its existence and started to experience a rebirth just like Bowman did when he became the Starchild. But instead of becoming a newly evolved stage of the human species that takes form of a somewhat creepy baby that supposedly has the power to end war but doesn’t due to Kubrick’s decision to include a confusing level of ambiguity that raises questions and becomes a high-concept finale with a great lasting effect, I, instead, became an appalling melted kumquat with no intelligence whatsoever that was to be discarded alongside other spoiled human fruits and vegetables.
I sucked at it, is basically what I’m getting at.
Anyway, the trigonometry drove me crazy at a certain point. I did fine at the beginning, but then the higher-level stuff drove me a little bonkers. I still made an effort to go into the classroom during lunch and ask any questions about stuff I was having problems with. I remember it blew my teacher’s mind when I actually showed up, probably ‘cause it was unexpected. During one of the visits, she said that because I and a couple other particular students showed up, she would probably faint.
Yeah no, don’t do that Miss Teacher Lady Ma’am. The last thing you should be doing is fainting and then having the kind of existential crisis that turns you into an incapable piece of matter with little to no function. See the above-mentioned “human kumquat” concept for more details.
But anyway, if the teacher actually fainted, we all would’ve left and been like, “…she’ll be fine, she’s only doing this so she can spring up and go ‘BWAH!’ in an attempt to scare us.” Knowing her, she definitely would have pulled that trick. But leaving would make her realize there’s no one to BWAH and, thus, lead to her coming to the conclusion never to faint just to scare us. Yeah, good one Ms. Cluck. It’s never going to work.
No, her name wasn’t really Ms. Cluck. I only refer to her as that because she actually reminded me of Lady Kluck from Disney’s animated Robin Hood movie. I’m serious, she totally looked like her! If I had a picture of her, I’d totally do a side-by-side comparison.
Then again, word of that comparison would probably get to her somehow and then she’d track me down in an attempt to do the Mr. Hand thing from Fast Times at Ridgemont High in which she’d make me retake a test during my own time in an attempt to embarrass me and then ridicule my laughable answers for any and all probability-related questions. That or she’d have a laugh and then tell me to shut my facehole.
Until next time… Be careful with math. It’s dangerous and can cause serious shit. See ya next week!
Kasey Lewis - Actor, Writer, Creator 