This One Time I Should’ve Just Shut Up

Some of my posts here, if not just my most recent one, reveal that I care about doing the right thing. It’s also very important to me to speak up about injustices, those that are minor and those that affect us all. I don’t have to be impacted at all by the injustice—as a middle-aged white male, I’m unlikely to face much injustice in my life, especially in this country—but I will try to speak up for those who may face it in our country and abroad. I don’t really have a platform to make a difference on major issues. I certainly won’t help change minds by railing against those injustices in my elitist way on Facebook.

It’s better for me to engage these issues one-on-one and ask about what makes people think and feel a certain way. I know I’ve helped people individually open their eyes on certain issues. If I’m going to write about big, societal issues—and writing about them probably isn’t going to end up being my thing—I’m going to have to really give some consideration to whether my two-cents will actually make a difference. It probably won’t, especially with my relatively, um, low readership. (Start sharing these posts, folks!)

This leaves me with really only one serious option—especially for this space. That would be to stick to writing about what I know and love best, myself and my experiences. I could simply talk about my self all day. Should I start a podcast? Nah, as awesome as that would be—and as sweet as it would sound—I don’t think TedPod would have the reach that would make it worth my while. And I’m a much better writer than I am a raconteur, anyway. So, let me tell you about a time when I stood up and spoke my mind about hypocrisy in leadership.

 

We’ve all seen supervisors and manager who have exhibited some form of hypocrisy. (Ahem. . . as a former manager and supervisor, there, but for the grace of God, go I, and all that.) If you haven’t, well, I hope you enjoy your first job someday. It’s easy to dismiss someone as a hypocrite. There’s a lot of “do-as-I-say-not-as-do folks in positions of responsibility. It can really be a dilemma deciding whether you should approach one of these supervisors about what you may be perceiving as hypocritical.

Perhaps this person isn’t self-aware enough to realize that they’re demanding something from you that they aren’t, themselves, doing. Maybe they’ll thank you in front of everyone, shedding a tear as they realize how their inability to live up to the standard they’ve set has created an unhealthy tone for the organization. Maybe it’s created a hostile environment. Maybe there’s a lot of resentment out there, and people are just biding their time, waiting for an opportunity to move on.

But not anymore, because you’ve shown this leader that you’ve got moral courage. You’ve got gumption, kid. Moxie! And things are gonna be different from now on. We’re just going to give everyone the afternoon off, but that supervisor won’t take it off—well if only from active, direct supervision. That supervisor is going to stay in the office to reflect and maybe reread some books on leadership.

Or, possibly just as likely, that person is an asshole, and you done fucked up. You’re living under a microscope now, idiot!

One way to find out is the open-door policy. It’s a hallmark of American management. It may be a thing throughout Western Culture or even throughout the world, but I can only speak from my experience. This piece is, at best, unresearched. I have no idea if the Mercedes-Benz corporate offices in Stuttgart, Germany, have an open-door policy; or if the Cambodian sweatshop where the jeans I’m wearing were made has an open-door policy; or, I don’t know, if Osama Bin Laden had an open-door policy for Al Qaeda. I mean, sure, he was reportedly living in a cave for a while—so there was no “door” or whatever—but was he even approachable?

Anyway, open-door policies are an important leadership tool. Even if no one takes advantage of the policy, it shows—or at least gives the appearance—that the manager is open to feedback from the people on the front line, whether that “front line” is an assembly line in a factory, the sales department of an insurance office, or on the literal front lines in a combat unit.

I’ve taken advantage of open-door policies several times over the years. Usually, it’s been pretty casual—mostly in my civilian jobs. It’s generally just been constructive suggestions. But there was one time I used a first sergeant’s open-door policy when I was in the regular army. The situation seemed simple enough, if only because I was a foolish and young idealist.

The event that made me want to complain to, or rather, address an issue with the first sergeant happened during our battalion change of command in the summer of 1992—I think—in Crailsheim, Germany. The battalion, 5/2 ADA—the “Nickel-Deuce”—had a few days of practicing the pass in review bullshit, which was enough of a pain in the ass, on its own, without the added pressure of having to have things look perfect. Sure, it was a lieutenant colonel’s special day, but as a lower enlisted man at the time, I was not, how shall I put this, inspired to give a fuck.

Still, many of us, as professional soldiers, had no problem shining our boots and pressing our uniforms—those who’ve joined the army since 2006, enjoy your freedom from such drudgeries. Also, on such occasions, one had to blacken the eyelets on their LBE, their load-bearing equipment, the suspenders and pistol belt on which we carried canteens, ammo pouches, and other such tactical extrenea, for quick access.

The LBE had many brass eyelets, around drain holes in the ammo pouches and canteen covers, as well as every few inches around the pistol belt, for the hooks to connect the suspenders or other items. For a pass-in-review or a layout inspection, many people had a separate set of gear that they purchased new, for just such displays, so they would never have to worry about blackening all the brass parts with a Sharpie or, preferably, M’Nu—an old brand name for black out emblem refinisher that was perfect for such detail work.

Me, I didn’t feel like paying for all that shit, so I just used the gear that had been issued to me. I blackened the eyelets and clips and hooks and snaps and everything when the situation called for it, perhaps once every year or so. And then there, on the parade field in Crailsheim, as we prepared to line up for Lieutenant Colonel Parlier’s special day, we found one First Sergeant Arthur Kearney walking among us, looking over our uniforms and gear to make sure we were parade ready. He found one person in particular to call out, my friend, Private First Class—I’m pretty sure he was still PFC—Scott Garand.

Scott was a good guy—he still is. Now, he wouldn’t have been mistaken for a more aspirational soldier with a mind toward a longer career in uniform—like yours, truly—but he did his job. Lots of people enter the military to do their time and their jobs to get their education benefits, or whatever, and then get out. No big deal.

But why might I take issue with ol’ Top Kearney’s hounding of Scott? Surely, Scott knew what was expected of him on that day. Had he not made his own bed when his uniform wasn’t, as they say, squared away? Sure, but there was something that caught everyone else’s attention as Kearney berated Scott in front of all of us. It certainly wasn’t the unblackened brass on Scott’s gear. It was the nearly completely unblackened brass on Kearney’s.

I wasn’t surprised that a soldier would show-up after a week’s bitching about blackened eyelets without having put any effort into blackening a single goddamn eyelet. It was, however, rather surprising that the person who hadn’t squared his uniform away was the damn first sergeant who’d done literally all the bitching. Being squared away on shit like that is usually a foregone conclusion for most senior NCOs. That’s, like, their thing.

Seeing such a display of looking like a pile of shit (in a military sense), I took action. I had a Sharpie in my pocket, many of us did. It was common practice to touch-up the eyelets before such a parade; there was always someone who needed it. Usually though, it wasn’t the fucking first sergeant. So, I went right up by First Sergeant Kearney, held that Sharpie in the air, and started calling out, “Does anyone need a Sharpie? I’ve got a Sharpie, right here! Sharpie, anyone?”

Was that a little passive-aggressive? Yes, but it was also hilarious, and at that point, I had the sense not to call him out. Quite a few people noticed me announcing my willingness to share my Sharpie. Ol’ First Sergeant Kearney was not among them, apparently, for he went through the ceremony looking like that aforementioned pile of shit (in a military sense).

This, as you may have surmised, did not sit well with young Specialist Perrin, so I went to my section’s leaders, Sergeants Obluck, Barnhart, and Walker, and I explained to them that I felt Kearney’s display of do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do leadership went beyond mere hypocrisy. Such a display, especially at Garand’s expense, was, in fact, bullshit. Obluck, Barnhart, and Walker, they agreed with me, and they had a suggestion for me to deal with it.

“Teddy,” they said—not in unison, of course, I just don’t remember who actually gave voice to the suggestion. And yes, they called me “Teddy.” We were rather informal in the Nickel Deuce Headquarters Battery Commo Section. “Teddy,” they said, “You should go talk to him under his open-door policy.” They assured me that he had always been fair with them. He had been a fairly good first sergeant leading up to this one notably hypocritical incident. Maybe he was a good guy, too, and maybe he was open to honest feedback from the troops under his charge. I mean, he had seemed pretty cool, at times.

I went forth to discover how cool he actually was. I found him outside the orderly room.

“Excuse me, first sergeant, can I speak with you for a minute? Sergeant Walker suggested that I talk to you under your open-door policy.” I’m not sure which name I used. I certainly didn’t say that all three had made the suggestion. I think Walker had seniority over the others, so I’ll just use his name. It’s not important.

“What is it, Specialist Perrin,” he replied.

So, I told him what it was. It hadn’t sat right with me that he’d singled out Garand, who was probably doing his best, especially when, he, as the first sergeant, hadn’t taken care of his own gear.

He paused for a moment and gave me a look. And would you believe that he apologized? “You know, I’m sorry, Perrin. I just get caught-up in all the work of being a first sergeant, and I sometimes forget that I’m a soldier first. I let you down. I let all the men in the battery down.” Here he paused and took a deep breath. “And I let Garand down, too. I let him down most of all. I think I’ll go to his supervisor right now to make sure he’s put in for his promotion. Thank you, Specialist Perrin. We need more men like you in this army, men with moral courage. Thank you so much. You’ll be one hell of an NCO someday.”

Would you believe that? I mean, you’ll probably believe just about anything I write, but I don’t understand why you’d believe that. It’s just not a TedBlog type of story. I did not find out that First Sergeant Kearney was “cool” or that he was a “good guy.” I found out that he was an “asshole.” He did, however, pause for a moment and give me a look, though.

But after that look, he proceeded to tear me a new one or go up one side and down the other. Pick whatever metaphor you want. He gave me a dressing down. He put me in my place. Whatever. I was definitely failing to see the merits of approaching him under his open-door policy.

He explained to me that I did not know his job, nor did I see what he did with his time. Blah-blah-blah and on and on for a few minutes, closing with a warning that I’d better watch myself because he would be watching me. Whatever I did, I’d better be right, for when I ultimately messed up, I would surely regret it.

One, immediate regret was that I hadn’t asked Walker or one of the other NCOs to come with me. When I went back to the section, they all had a good laugh. “Dam, Teddy, that’s fucked up. I guess it wasn’t such a good idea to go see him under his open-door policy.” No, it was not. And no, I don’t think they set me up. I think they honestly thought he wasn’t that bad.

But here’s the thing, see. Although fucking Art Kearney claimed that I did not “see what he did with his time,” I had, in fact, seen what he did with his time. Everyone on the post saw what he did with his goddamn time. This motherfucker had an off-duty job delivering pizzas for the PX. That’s what he did with his time. Me, being a relatively quick learner, I did not explain to him that, yes, I had actually seen what he did with his time. I just had to fume for a while and bide my time.

A couple of weeks later some friends and I were drinking in the barracks, and we decided to order some pizza. This guy named Art delivered it. I was still stinging from the rebuke, and I bristled at his cheerful greeting. After he left, we realized that there was a mistake in our order. I don’t remember who called the PX about the error, but I clearly remember telling him to “Let ‘em know that Art guy fucked it up.”

You’d think having at least half a brain and having been warned, that I’d use that half-brain and not fuck up under Kearney’s watch. Nope. Six months or so later, I missed a Friday evening formation. That wasn’t the fuck-up. I think I’d been on some kind of “run” or whatever for work or something. I don’t remember. I do remember the staff duty runner waking me up early Saturday morning because I was late for my duty doing headcount at the mess hall. I guess the new duty roster had been announced during that Friday formation. Oops.

During Monday morning’s formation Kearney announced that I had to see him afterward—not that I could truly see him, for I was a specialist, and therefore, unqualified—he told me that I was his the next Saturday. Fine. I accepted my fate.

I’m not going to say I was disappointed, but he must have forgotten to be laser-focused on his vengeance for my impertinence during one of his tours of duty delivering pizza. The extra duty that weekend was just sitting outside his stupid office writing an essay about accountability or some bullshit like that. He just kept me there for a few hours and then barely glanced at my work. I was free after a quick, “You wanna be an NCO, Perrin, you gotta be responsible for knowing where you’re supposed to be and being there on time.”

“Roger that, first sergeant,” and I was done. Luckily, I was generally a decent soldier, so he had time to chill before I made a mistake, so even more luckily (luckilier?), his bark had been worse than his bite.

If I could tell Art one thing—and I’m sure he wouldn’t remember me now if he couldn’t even remember my faux pas long enough for me to really regret calling him out—I’d tell him that I didn’t mean anything I wrote in that essay. It was definitely not heartfelt, and I’ve been chronically late for just about everything since I left the regular army, probably as some kind of subconscious “fuck you” to that Art guy.

On the other hand, though, I sure as hell learned something about open-door policies. I mean, I didn’t completely forsake them. I’ve had supervisors and managers that I could genuinely communicate and be honest with. I’ve also had some that definitely would not have been pleased with honest feedback. For the most part, I’ve known who was who. That being said, I’ve generally avoided giving any supervisor or manager any feedback that they might take too personally before my final review has been signed. That just makes good sense.

So, yeah, be careful of those open-door policies. That door may open to an asshole. But be especially careful if the person opening that door has just finished publicly announcing—before all their charges—that they are an incredibly hypocritical asshole. Such an asshole does not want your feedback.

The Importance of Doing Things the Right Way

My last post left you hanging about one of the funniest things I ever did while serving this country. Hell, it’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever done, period. I almost left this story for another time as I had been thinking about writing on a deep and philosophical topic. Then I remembered that the story of my last urinalysis test in the army reserve isn’t merely some humorous anecdote. It’s a valuable lesson on, um, the value of doing things the right way, I guess.

Generally, I’m not especially particular about doing things “the right way.” To me, it’s more important that things are just done. And I don’t want to suggest that you should cut corners or do anything morally or legally questionable, just to get something done, especially something done in the service of our nation’s dearest taxpayers.

Indeed, once while training America’s next generation of bureaucrats for the Department of Veterans Affairs, I was teaching how to ensure that a rating decision was ready to process—ensuring that service had been verified, checking that there was a substantially complete claim, ensuring that the veteran had been properly notified of the VA’s “Duty to Assist” in gathering evidence, and so forth. (The details of that training are not that important for this story.) I went through all the “steps” in a few different sequences because I wanted to show them that the sequence didn’t matter. It was just important to get it all done.

However, a few of the students wanted to know “the right way” to do it. I told them that they should find a routine that worked for them. The important lesson was that they check everything that matters before processing that rating. They were not thrilled with me. I still moved on.

Like I said, generally, I don’t give a shit about how things are accomplished, as long as they’re done, and on the day of my final urinalysis in uniform, I generally didn’t quite give a fuck about anything. I was consumed with an anguish I hadn’t fully come to understand, so I was kind of an asshole. I’m sure that Sergeant Beaman, who was administering that urinalysis would have—and well, did—disagree about that “kind of,” but this isn’t his goddamn story.

Anyway, there was this one fun thing that I had done at urinalysis tests throughout my military career. I’d make a simple request of the person administering the test—who wore gloves because there may have been dribbled urine on one or more of the sample bottles that had to be sealed and sent to the lab. I’d sometimes ask if there were an extra pair of gloves I could use because I didn’t know “where this thing had been.”

Of course, that was a joke, a bit of japery for my good Piss Test NCO. And for the benefit of any future Ted Perrin lovebirds out there who may be reading this, I know full well where this thing has been, and I have no problem whatsoever with gloveless urinating. I do it daily.

If anyone had asked me what kind of buffoonery I might bring to the table during my last urinalysis in the service of this country, I would have guessed that I might demand a pair of gloves to wear. Of course, that guess wouldn’t have accounted for the unpleasantness that had overcome me of late, nor would I have had any idea how unambitious that so-called “gag” would have been. I seethed with a torment still unlabeled.

The situation started simply enough. Beaman, ever the dutiful Piss Test NCO, had filled in the line on the form with my name and all the pertinent information about the bottle’s label number and whatever bullshit had to be on the form. Then, he asked me to sign it.

Normally, I would have just signed the block he asked me to, even though the column was labeled “Remarks.” I may have even joked about not signing it in the past, and whoever the Piss Test NCO was at the time may have even chuckled a bit having, you know, heard the same lame-ass joke a dozen times already that morning. But I wasn’t in much of a joking mood. Well, that isn’t entirely true. I’m almost always in a joking mood—even at the most inappropriate of times—and I probably was that morning. Only, I was also being an incredible asshole due to my unchecked bitterness.

“No,” I said.

“Come on, Sergeant Perrin,” Beaman replied. (I only remember the general gist of the conversation, but it went down pretty much as I’ll describe it.)

“No.”

“Look, everyone else is signing it,” he told me, pointing to lo these many signatures filling that “Remarks” column.

“I don’t care what everyone else did,” I told him, and deep down, I did not care. I may even have thrown in a “Have you not heard that I do not give a fuck?” If I didn’t actually say it, that’s a missed opportunity. Shame on me.

“Just sign it, please!” Beaman said, echoed by those who had been assigned to observe the day’s pissing.

Now, I don’t know what was required in that box. Maybe it was the pisser’s signature. I did go to the Piss Test NCO training. (Actually, the position was called Unit Prevention Leader, as in prevention of substance abuse, but I like the name I’ve given it.) However, I don’t remember what was supposed to go in that box. The regulation may have, indeed, called for the pissing service member’s signature in the “Remarks” column.

“I’m not signing this,” I said, “I’ll happily enter some remarks, though, because that’s what it says. It says ‘remarks.’”

“Look, can you just sign it!?”

Beaman and the Piss Observers were more than a little frustrated. I’m pretty sure I suggested that I could come back a later. No, I don’t have a clear memory of what was said that made me ask about pissing later in the day, but I do know what followed.

“No, Sergeant Perrin, you can’t come back later. We have to be done with this by noon.”

The thing was, see, they didn’t have to be done by noon, and I felt that it was my duty to remind them.

“Actually, Sergeant Beaman, you do not have to be done with this by noon. The lawful order read by the detachment commander this morning said that each member of the unit had to provide a sample by close of business. That’s 1630 or 1700. I have five or more hours left before I have to provide a urine sample.”

This was me in a "good mood"
during a fall 2012 drill weekend

They were so pissed at me, pun definitely intended. It warms the cockles of my heart just thinking about this. I had been in such a bad place for months, but this interaction was starting to cheer me up. It’s such a cherished memory—for everyone involved, I’m sure.

“Oh, come on, sergeant!”

Having drawn this out, I decided to offer a compromise, a little olive branch for my brothers in—I don’t know—piss?

“Do you want me to sign this?” I asked.

“Yes!”

“Okay, just line through the word ‘remarks,’ initial it, and print ‘signature’ over it. I’ll sign it.”

“Everyone else signed it!”

“That says remarks,” I said. “Should I write in some remarks?”

“Fine!” said Beaman as he crossed out “remarks,” initialed it, and wrote “Signature” over it.

“Oh, so just sign here, where it says signature?” I asked, certainly unable to fully contain my laughter and absolutely pleased with myself.

That, in and of itself, would probably have been a fine story to tell you about the time I was miserable and completely turned my mood around by deciding to be an asshole—but in a fun, self-important, and of course, technically correct way. But I wasn’t finished. No, I was not.

Beaman gave me my sample bottle, and I verified the numbers on it and that it was clean or whatever. Not important. I took off my jacket, as a pissing service member must do while participating in the hallowed tradition of the army urinalysis test, for there are sneaky bastards who secret such things as Whizzinators and containers of someone else’s unfouled urine as a means to foil the efforts of the army’s Substance Abuse Program that keeps the common soldiery off the drugs. Such perfidy must be prevented, so in just my t-shirt and trousers, I carried my sample bottle high above my shoulder for my assigned Piss Observer, one Sergeant Kevin Haefele, to see it as we entered the designated Piss Test Latrine.

The briefing for Piss Test Observers—among the least favorite of short straws—calls for one to observe the following “chain of custody”: flesh, fluid, plastic. No one wanted to volunteer for this, for someone who aspired to observe the pissing of the troops might make said troops a bit uncomfortable. (Of course, there were probably those who cherished their assignments as Piss Observers, but only in secret. I’m certain Haefele isn’t among them, at least on this day.)

Almost no one cared about dutifully focusing on that aforementioned “chain of custody.” Some people would make you stand at an angle, so they could ensure there was no tampering with the sample, or whatever. Most people, though, would just want you to hurry up, piss, and get the hell out of there. Even when I went to the Piss Test NCO training, the trainer guy—who was, like, the Northeastern Senior Regional Piss Master or something like that—he didn’t, you know, fully observe my “chain of custody.”

You’re probably saying to yourself, I wonder if Kevin Haefele was a dutiful young Piss Observer. Honestly, I can’t tell you what he would have done had I not been in a, well, mood, nor what he may have done with all those other pissing soldiers he was duty bound to observe on that cold December morning. I only know what happened after he followed me into that little one-seat latrine.

He stayed by the door, and I dropped my pants around my ankles, like a kindergartener, and I shuffled around to the side of the commode to offer my dear observer a full view of my “chain of custody.” Then, I started screaming at him.

“Watch me! You’re supposed to watch me, Kevin!! Watch me!”

Haefele, for his part, did not present any outward indication that he found my, let’s call it, “supportive display” at all humorous or even helpful at all. I mean, I was trying to make sure that he adhered to the army’s Piss Regulations. Integrity is one of the army’s core values.

“Watch me, Kevin! Watch me! Watch me piss!”

I kept that up for the duration, and I, well, have a rather voluminous bladder. My service in the army reserve once put me in a situation where there was no latrine in the building where we were drinking, and it was problematic to urinate out of doors. I overfilled a 32-ounce Gatorade bottle. So, I was there for a while, screaming, “Watch me!” at Haefele and just laughing my ass off. It took so long, I almost got bored. Can you imagine anyone getting bored of screaming “Watch me piss!” at someone who’s dutybound to watch? I sure can’t.

Such a sweet, sweet memory.

“Watch me piss! You’re supposed to watch me piss, Kevin!!”

Goddamn, that was hilarious. I was laughing so hard, I’m shocked that there was no big mess. Well, I probably could have used a pair of those gloves that I used to joke about, but I didn’t know what I was going to do when I went in that little pissoir with my man Kevin.

So that is what led the Piss Test NCO to talk to the First Sergeant about me being “out of control.”

“What happened up there?” the First Sergeant asked me. Only one of the finest moments of my entire career in the army reserve. You’re welcome, America.

Oh, yeah, there was something about an important lesson or it’s good to do things the right way or something like that? Who cares? That was just some rhetorical bullshit to draw you in. Just enjoy the idea, if not the image, of me screaming “Watch me piss!” at Kevin Haefele.

 

Epilogue

I just did some Googling, this form dated November 2014 does call for the pissing service member’s signature. I retired from the army reserve just in time.

And from AR 600-85 The Army Piss Regulation, Appendix E, E-5.l (p 129) “The observer must see urine leaving the Soldier’s body and entering the specimen bottle (or collection cup).” I was just doing my part to make sure the regs were being followed.

A Unique Opportunity

For the past month or so, I’ve been working part-time at the Pro Services Desk at my local Lowe’s. I had been trying off-and-on over the previous five years to do freelance work as a copywriter and editor. I had a few regular jobs over that span, along with a few temp jobs. They didn’t all end well.

Hell, my last regular job before my writing and editing “career” didn’t end well. I worked for the VA for about eight years, and I was completely burned out by the end of it. I don’t want to take a trip down that rabbit hole quite yet, so let’s just say I wasn’t taking especially good care of myself.

So, I tried working as a freelancer. I was enrolled in a few platforms to bid on work, and I wrote about a pretty wild variety of topics, from coping skills for seasonal depression to upgrades for your AR-15. I had a couple of contract gigs doing product descriptions and long form content, but honestly, I hated writing that shit. It was drivel. I worked as a driveler. And although the quality of my output was fine, I struggled with it, and I struggled with some deadlines. I guess I could have worked on stuff to propose to editors, but I don’t think I would have known where to begin.

I do like editing much better. I don’t have to produce any drivel; I just have to look at it. I look at it and tell someone, in a nice way, how it could be improved. I like telling people things in a nice way. The problem has been that with limited formal editing experience, it is rather difficult to actually get editing work, especially when one goes through spells when one might not be particularly proactive about getting work.

Fortunately, I get some service-connected compensation from the VA for lingering issues associated with my active-duty service. Otherwise, I’d be living in my car or dead by suicide. (That link goes to my favorite article about suicide. . . You may not appreciate it.) Somehow, I got my head out of my ass—psychologically, of not literally—and before I reached the point of full financial despair, I got that job at Lowe’s. I had been telling people for a long time—for fucking years—that I could just get a part-time job at Lowe’s to help make ends meet, and there I was.

Working for the Pro Desk has been the perfect transition back to regular employment for me. I have a regular-ish five-day per week schedule with days off alternating every other week, and I worked from 10am to 3:30 each day. It’s been ideal for me to reorient myself to time. It’s helped me reestablish a sleep hygiene routine, so even though my sleep, itself, still sucks, I’m generally well enough rested to function.

Reorienting to time has also helped me establish a workout routine and a writing routine. My core is so goddamn strong right now, and I’ve been writing pretty much every day—not about arbitrary bullshit that I might struggle with and be paid for, though. This will be my fourth TedBlog post in the last month, a record-setting pace of productivity for me.

The biggest change is that I’m not stuck in the bullshit place in my head that has bedeviled me for decades, well, that I’ve let bedevil me for decades. I hate that place. I feel so stupid there. (I hate even linking to that post because I hate that part of me so much.)  But my head is clear right now. I’m present in reality, and I’m writing regulary. My core is so goddamn strong. . . I’m in a good place. I’ll keep writing for TedBlog, and when I’m ready, I’ll work on a bigger project.

For now, though, things are just swell. I could survive for a while working part-time at Lowe’s. I don’t think I could get full-time hours because I’d have to completely open my schedule to the whims of the store scheduler, and I don’t want to do that. I want specific times blocked out for regular happenings that are important to me.

So, while I really like working at Lowe’s—at least in my department—I know I can’t really afford to do it until I retire and be able to afford any luxuries at all. I might be able to afford a dinner out once per month or so, but I would struggle to pay for my cool woodworking projects, let alone repairs and upgrades for TedHouse. I would be really screwed if something happened to my car.

With reality doing what it does—slapping me in the face—I know that I have to do something about my income. I’ve already turned down one job offer for an admin assistant position. I would have been Assistant to the Regional Manager, which was a temptation that many fans of The Office wouldn’t be able to turn down. It was minimum wage, though, so meh.

Then a friend texted me about the reference she’d given me for a job that I’d forgotten about. It’s an office job, that might not be as fun as Lowe’s, but the pay is definitely better, and I’d surely be much more financially secure as I head toward retirement—and even after I retire. I’d be able to do things and pay down my debts more rapidly. And I will be able to have fun there; I can entertain myself wherever I go. I start on the 25^th.

For now, though, I’ll keep my new employer to myself and also off the Facebooks. I’m certain my new supervisor will appreciate that. I can see them saying something like, “Keep the name of this organization out of your goddamn whore mouth,” and slapping me in the face. And with a lot of the foolishness I tend to post, I’m sure they’ll appreciate me keeping it off social media. It’ll probably be okay to post about it on LinkedIn, but I’m kind of thinking about finding a way to make LinkedIn more fun for me. It may be wise to hold off on sharing my new employment situation there. (And no, I don’t know what “finding a way to make LinkedIn more fun for me” would even look like, yet.)

  

So, I’m starting a new job, and I’m not even telling you what the new job is. What’s the big deal? You see, here’s the thing. I don’t have as much of a history of leaving jobs on great terms as I’d like, but I’m not sure I even give a shit about that.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve left some places on great terms, and I’m sure some of them would hire me back. I don’ think many of the temp agencies I worked through would give me another chance. I didn’t take those jobs all that seriously because they were, well, temp jobs.

As for my career at the VA, itself, I did leave rather abruptly, and I did send an email to everyone about “blowing this clam bake.” I may have sometimes put “what everyone was thinking” into, you know, words. I mean, I didn’t even get an interview when I reapplied for a job that I had previously excelled at and ultimately mentored. Thank goodness for that, though. I wasn’t ready, psychologically, for full-time employment then.

My true masterpiece of leaving on poor terms was my last nine-or-so months in the army reserve. I really went off the rails for a while. It was kind of fun, in retrospect, for me, some of the time.

It started after I got my 20-year letter, the certification of my right to army retirement benefits at the age of 60. Seems innocent enough, right? Well, I’d also just broken up with someone whom I’d felt was the love of my life. It was an incredibly amicable situation. We didn’t fight. We were able to disagree in a reasonable and respectful way. There was just one thing that we couldn’t get past. But all that peaceful break-up stuff made it no less painful. I was heartbroken.

Adding my 20-year letter to that emotional situation was not ideal. I tend to be rather reflective when I hit benchmark moments like that, and as someone who’s incredibly self-critical, my reflections aren’t especially positive. Further exacerbating the situation, I haven’t always been self-aware when it comes to knowing why I might be feeling a certain way, especially when I might be feeling miserable. It tends to sneak up on me (for some reason), but I may suddenly realize something, like, oh, I’m going to be 50 this month. That’s why I feel so shitty.  However, getting that 20-year letter wasn’t such an obvious indicator of a transition for me. I know that makes me look kind of stupid, but I was already down because of the break-up.

When I put on my uniform for that first drill weekend after getting the letter, I felt nothing but anguish—a mood most foul. And I wasn’t going to retire for another eight months because the army would have recouped part of my reenlistment bonus if I didn’t complete the full, initial six-year term of my contract. Looking back, I probably should have just paid the goddamn $1,500.

That Saturday morning in early October 2012 was not a pleasant one for me. At first formation when we were asked if we had any questions or anything to offer for the good of the group, I raised my hand, and when called upon I said, “I just want you all to know that I do not give a fuck,” seething that bitterness at everyone.

“Okay,” that felt like the general, awkward response. Jackson, who had held the formation said it, but there was that unspoken, widened-eyed “okay” in the room. My declaration wasn’t a news flash. No one was shocked. I hadn’t made a habit of going about my drill weekends giving much of a fuck about anything. Indeed, there were a couple of drill weekends when I spent a great deal of time riding a pallet jack around like a scooter. That was a lot of fun, but I usually just did what I had to do and bitched about the bullshit like everyone else.

One thing that I had actually given a significant fuck about was the suicide prevention program. I had plumbed those depths, myself, and I could see how a few of the guys carried some of their deployment experiences with them. I wouldn’t let a session on suicide prevention go by if it had been half-assed. (Guys, that time we had suicide prevention two drills in a row is because I bitched about it being half-assed the first time.) I would often volunteer to lead the sessions if I felt the person chosen to do it couldn’t give it a serious enough treatment.

You know, it sometimes hurts my feelings that it took so long for someone to sit me down and see what was going on with me. I’d had at least a tenfold increase in assholesque behavior. That significant a change should be addressed. There was clearly something going on with me. I had been repeatedly announcing that I didn’t give a fuck over three drill weekends. The leaders in other platoons were talking to their people about the bad example in “another platoon.” Only one person suggest that it wasn’t such a great idea to let everyone know that I didn’t give a fuck all the time. My counterpoint was that I actually didn’t give a fuck all the time, and the issue wasn’t pressed until the December drill.

That month we had a holiday family day, which, I imagine, had some of the unit leadership concerned about my recent public announcements of not giving a fuck. The party was scheduled for Sunday, and one of the things we had to do on Saturday was a urinalysis. (I’ll save the story of what I did at the urinalysis for another post. It was one of the funniest things I’ve ever done.) After I provided my sample and left the area, the detachment First Sergeant, and a dear friend, Kelvin Mote, took me aside. He brought me into his office and asked me what the hell was going on with me because I was becoming a cancer for unit morale. Some people were afraid to even talk to me.

I broke down. I told him how miserable I’d felt lately, and I realized that my 20-year letter had triggered this. I told him that I felt deeply that my time in the army reserve had been wasted. I’d missed so much time with my family, so many weekends and birthdays, so may weeks during the summer, so much during the year that I’d mobilized. I’m motivated, at least vocationally, by being able to make a difference, and I felt like I hadn’t made a difference at all.

Mote helped me reframe my thoughts about my military career. He helped me remember the younger soldiers I helped get promoted along the way and about—among other things—how I’d taken ownership of the suicide prevention program, how I’d made sure it was done well. I was crying and thanking him, and I acknowledged that the recent break-up probably wasn’t helping my mood. After that weekend I went back to my most recent therapist for a few sessions. It helped. Now, I’m fine!

Before I left his office Mote asked me about what happened at the urinalysis. Apparently, the Piss Test NCO—or whatever he was called—had been complaining about my being “out of control” or some such nonsense. So, I told Mote about it, and we had a hell of a laugh over it. I had, technically, been correct in everything I said while at the urinalysis. Oh, such a damn good laugh. (You’ll really enjoy this story when I write it.)

On that Sunday afternoon, after our holiday party—which went off without a hitch and without any Ted-centered spectacles—we had one final formation, at the end of which, we were asked if we had anything to add, for the good of the cause. I raised my hand, making note of the immediate tension that filled the room. Jackson, who was holding the formation, called on me, “Perrin.”

For a moment, I just reveled in that tension before saying, “I just want you all to know that I do not—” and here I paused, soaking up the tension created by my call back to the frequent proclamations of my dearth of fucks to give. Jackson’s eyes widened, ever-so-slightly, and I could see his head slowly, almost imperceptibly shake, silently screaming a message of No! Not in front of the families. For there were many family members in the room, waiting for their significant others and parents to be released. I think I even heard a “no” or a “don’t do it” or two, or maybe that’s what I want to remember. So I continued, to the collective relief of my unit, “—recall when we’ve had such a pleasant time with all the families here.”

During the remaining few months I had in the army reserve, I mostly just did what I had to do, and I fucked off the rest of the time—not necessarily a huge difference from the time before I got my 20-year letter.

For my final PT test I did one pushup—one perfect pushup—and I got up. I couldn’t do sit-ups anymore because my back is so shitty. My back couldn’t deal with the two-mile run, either, so I had to do a two-and-a-half mile walk. I let both feet “leave the walking surface” to disqualify myself from the walk. I jumped off the ground a foot in front of the starting line, and then I cheered the rest of the group on. Then I told one, last lie when we did the weigh-in.

During my last drill weekend, I put a banana in my pocket for the last time in uniform, and I called it a career.

I haven’t always had such entertaining, to me, departures from jobs. I’ve been fired for not meeting the requirements of performance improvement plans, and I once quit a job because the anxiety the workplace created had me thinking about dying as a solution. That was a relief—the quitting, not the thinking about dying.

Now, having given my formal notice to Lowe’s—at least for the regular hours that I’ve been working. I have that titular unique opportunity. (Am I using “titular” correctly? I’ve never really seen it used like this. I don’t care. I'll just coin a new usage.) I can go out with a bang without having it affect my resume, which will only reflect having worked at Lowe’s for a couple of months. I left for a full-time job. I can do whatever I want at Lowe’s now.

When I was offered the new job, I told Lowe’s that I’d be available to work on weekends. I’d like to bring in a little extra cash to help pay down some debts a bit more aggressively, but I can really get by without the extra hours, especially since I’m about to get some more editing work.

I’m not sure what I’ll do. It won’t be something illegal. Probably. It will be very fun, for me. Maybe I’ll get a sharpie and cross out all the “Kobalts” and make them “Cobalts” because there’s no goddamn “K” in “cobalt.” (I don’t trust things that are spelled with “Ks” instead of “Cs” if they originated in the south—Krispy Kreme, Klan, etc.)

I’ll figure something out. Part of why I wanted to stay on is the employee discount, but I found out that I can’t combine the employee discount with my veteran discount. Somebody told me that I could, though—sure that person doesn’t know what they were talking about, but that doesn't matter. So maybe if I demand the additional ten percent off my purchases because I was quoted the combined discount by a store employee, could create a hilarious scene? I don't know. I’m sure I would hear about that from management, but I don’t know if that’ll be awesome enough for me to write about on TedBlog. I’d like to milk this situation for at least one post per attempt to do something stupid or outrageous enough to get fired. Maybe I could develop it into a book about stupid things to do while trying to get fired from Lowe’s?

I guess I’ll have to keep you posted.

Dear Friends Who Support Trump

I’ve spent the past week or so feeling deeply troubled by what’s happening in our country. Hell, I’ve spent the last four years feeling deeply troubled by what’s happening in our country. And I know I said that I wasn’t going to write about politics anymore, and believe me, I sure as all hell don’t want to. America’s political climate is far too nuts for me to deal with. At least it is now. Seriously, though, I don’t necessarily want this to be a political piece. I’m not sure what to call it. A judgmental screed? (Ahem, spoiler alert.) I don’t know yet. I’m sure it will flesh itself out as I go.

By the way, did you have a nice holiday? I know that seems off topic, but I’m deciding to keep up the epistolary tone. That means “like a letter.” I hate to come across as condescending, but I also love to come across as condescending. (I’m so full of contradictions!) Oh, and I said, “holiday” just to come across like an asshole. (A hobby of mine. One must find ways to entertain oneself nowadays.) I don’t want to say the c-word—not “cunt,” by the way—until after President-Elect Biden’s inauguration. I’ve tried to say “Happy Holidays” for the duration of the Trump Presidency. Passive-aggressive? Yes. Delightfully passive-aggressive? Indeed! I have let a few “Merry C-words” slip out over the past few years. (Again, not “cunt.” I don’t say “cunt” that often and certainly not as a way to commemorate our dear savior’s birth. (Goodness!))

Anyway, I was worried about this getting off topic, but I haven’t really established a topic to digress from, have I? Where was I going with this? . . . Oh, that’s right, the big hubbub in Washington, DC, on the 6^th. Yes, that was quite a mess, wasn’t it?

It sure was. I’ve given it a great deal of thought, and I’ve also actively tried to avoid any thought about it at all. (Again with the contradictions!) I’ve wanted to process my thoughts and feelings about it without being overly reactionary. That may be hard for you to believe, for I do not have a long history of reacting in a calm, measured way to the events of the Trump era, especially on the Facebooks.

No, indeed. I will try to keep my thoughts on the big hubbub off the Facebooks, but I’m also going to share this piece there. (Ha-ha! What a lark!)

Are you still reading this, dear Trump-supporting friend? To be perfectly honest with you, I don’t have full confidence that any of you will read this. And no, I don’t mean that in my delightfully passive-aggressive way to subtly question your literacy or intelligence. (If I feel the need, there will be time later.) You see, I don’t have what anyone would call a “vast readership,” and I doubt that many of those who sit home, quietly and patiently, waiting for me to share one of these lovingly crafted posts—for months and years at a stretch sometimes—I doubt many of them are addressed directly by this little love note, though I do love them dearly.

You know, I do try to be a good person, and yes, I say that in part just to generate traffic to another post of mine. Is it bad that I’m trying to give my two cents and possibly earn two cents by creating traffic to my other posts? Anyway, feel free to click on the ads while your there—or here!

Seriously, though, why am I even writing this? Because I want to address the issue of the big hubbub respectfully. Respect is an important core value. I want to be respectful to people. Every single human being deserves some measure of respect, even if that measure of respect is merely one’s right to a fair trial.

Let me clarify something about that. I’m not saying that one should be super nice and friendly with everyone. I’m certainly not super nice and cheerful with the local idiot with whom I’ve had beef—and there is only one. Well, there’s only one local idiot with whom I’ve had beef. There are plenty of local idiots for whom I care deeply. But when I’m out and about and see this particular local idiot, the one with whom I’ve had beef, I don’t call him a stupid fucking loser—though I do feel, in my heart of hearts, that he is a stupid fucking loser. I may just say, “Hey, [idiot’s name]. How’s it going?”

Our beef isn’t currently active. Right now, I just can’t stand this motherfucker, but I don’t want to be openly disrespectful to him—no matter how much I lack respect for him—because that would reflect poorly on me and ruin everyone’s good time at the bar. He’s so stupid that he just might want to start a fight over something silly like being called a fucking loser idiot. What a silly guy!

As I write this, I’m seeing that I should give a serious treatment to the concept of respect in a longer piece. I’ll just say for now that the measure of respect that everyone—well, most people—deserve is that they don’t deserve to be openly disrespected. Or do they? I’m not sure. I’m wavering as I pontificate. I definitely need to reflect on respect some more. I’ll just say, for now, that I don’t want to openly disrespect you. I care about you. We may have served in the army together, and I would have put it all on the line for you, no matter what cockamamie beliefs you had. We may be close personally, and I may feel like you’re part of my family. I may just value your friendship because you’ve shown me deep down that you’re a kind person.

I don’t know. I do know that I don’t want to disrespect you, as a person.  Your beliefs, though, as far as President Trump is concerned. That’s another story. As the comedian, Patton Oswalt noted, we don’t have to respect other people’s beliefs or opinions. We only have to acknowledge them. People have some pretty crazy beliefs out there. For example—and this was difficult to come up with because I don’t want to cross a line from condescending to asshole, yet—so for example, there are people who believe the earth is flat. I believe that we can agree that that is a stupid belief that makes no sense.

So, let’s say a flat-earther is reading this. I don’t have any respect for their belief that the earth is flat, yet I can choose to engage with them in a respectful manner. (That ship may have sailed, though.) But I might ask them, “Why do you think the earth is flat?” I may end up agreeing to disagree with that person on the issue, or—depending on a complex co-factoring of my frustration, amount of sleep, and alcohol consumption—I may end up saying something disrespectful. Hopefully, I only say something disrespectful about the belief and not the person—no matter how stupid I think that person is. And I do think that person is stupid. There are no guarantees. If I only insult this person’s beliefs, I will consider it an unprecedented success.

I have a low frustration tolerance for moronic beliefs. I recognize that about myself, and I hope to find a way to maintain respectful relations with friends who believe stupid shit.

Now, about our friendship, dear Trump-supporting friend, I do value our it, our history. When we meet again, I won’t want to talk about politics. “How’s [insert name of spouse/child/parent/pet/etc.] doing with [insert school/profession/illness/relationship/etc. situation].” And I’ll sincerely want to know. Have you been taking care of yourself? Read any good books lately? I do want to know how you’re doing. However, I won’t be interested in your Trumpist thoughts or conspiracies. I’ve never been able to wrap my mind around any support for Trump, and I can safely say that I never will. I don't want to forsake our friendship, but if you go full racist—as if supporting Trump isn’t enough evidence of questionable ideas about race—I’ll have to let the friendship go. I will have to because you’ll be gone, and I’ll never be able to respect a racist. (And race isn't the only issue that may separate us. It's just the most salient example.)

This is beyond the differences between a conservative and liberal point of view. I can engage with, respect, and disagree with many conservative points of view. I believe in fiscal responsibility. We can probably find some common ground there, even though I believe in it no matter who the current president is. I believe our country should be responsible with its debts, but, you know, we’ll have to pay those debts with tax money. Should we have tariffs? Maybe, but not if we have to subsidize our farmers with tax money because of the response to those tariffs.

There are intelligent ways to do things. Do you want to cut corporate taxes to increase job growth? Great, maybe those tax cuts should be tied to jobs and wage growth. Do you want a secure border? Me too! I just think a wall the full length of the US-Mexican border is a stupid idea because there are already tunnels under the fucking border, and most undocumented immigrants entered the country legally before letting their visas expire. A wall won’t stop that.

The thing is, I just don’t respect Donald Trump. I do respect the Office of President of the United States. I just think he’s a bad person. The measure of respect that he deserves are in the form of his rights to due process and maybe a “Mr. President” every now and then. (I probably wouldn’t say that, though.) And I’m not going to go on about him. I started to in my handwritten draft, but I don’t want to. I think all the “#notmypresident” stuff is kind of dumb, going back to when President Obama was in office.

And I don’t want to go on and on about the election. There was no evidence of widespread fraud. None of the cases the Trump campaign brought before the courts had any merit. There were Republican and Democratic observers everywhere. Just let it go. It’s insanity to keep going on like the president has since election day. And it would be insane for me to try to engage with you about it because you probably believe all the things he says. I believe none of it.

No, let’s not go there, but let me say this. If you support the assholes who stormed the capitol on January 6^th, we probably shouldn’t be friends. If you believe it was an Antifa mob, I don’t respect that belief. It’s a stupid belief for stupid people to believe. If you don’t have a problem with someone carrying the Confederate flag through the Halls of Congress while our elected officials were trapped in the gallery and the rabble was chanting about hanging them and Mike Pence, if you’re okay with that, then I’m not okay with you. Go and live your life without our friendship.

Yours,

Ted 

I Do Try to Be a Good Person

I really do. It’s always been important to me. Indeed, it may have been far too important to me for many years. As a younger person, I often had an overwhelming need for approval. I was kind of a perfectionist throughout my time as a student. I’d get an A on a test, but I’d focus on the two questions I’d missed. Not to ensure that I learned the material better, but to beat myself up for being such a fucking moron who’d missed such easy questions. No, I did not have a healthy self-image as a young Ted Perrin.

Hopefully, I’ve come a long way since then. I don’t focus on my shortcomings and mistakes like I used to unless, of course, I can learn and grow from them. I certainly no longer seek perfection, consciously or otherwise, but I do want to be a good person. It’s my goal in life.

How the good lord Jesus helped me find my way

When I was about 30 my ex-wife and the kids and I started looking for churches because the kids were asking questions about the afterlife and God—or god or whatever—and she didn’t want me telling them in my best demonic voice that there is no god. Much to my initial chagrin, we settled on the conservative United Baptist Church that was on our block.

United Baptist was, how do I say this, super “Jesusy,” but the kids liked the children’s programs. They each got a Bible (and after we got home with them, we had to explain to Adam that hitting his sisters with it was not what they meant by “Bible beating”). My ex soon felt the transformative power of Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins while I held out for a while. I had—and still have—this pesky understanding that the world is several billion years-old and not 6,000. I had a difficult time accepting that this God of theirs would pull some Loki-esque trickster bullshit and put a bunch of dinosaur and caveman bones in the earth’s crust as a way of testing faith.

Ultimately, well, penultimately, I built a personal faith based on a house of cards made of rationalizations, and I accepted Jesus into my heart, if not into this big ol’ brain of mine. I mostly tried to avoid conversations about things like evolution, gay people, abortions, and so forth. Ultimately—actually ultimately this time—that house of cards collapsed, and my faith in Jesus disintegrated. 

I was born anew as an atheist. (If only in the context of the hundreds and thousands of deities people have created over the millennia. Philosophically, I’m agnostic.)

However, I didn’t come to believe that the Bible is all bullshit. I mean, there is a significant amount of bullshit. I used to like to bait people into saying that every word of the Bible is true. Then I have them look at Jesus’ genealogies in Matthew and Luke, and I ask them which one is bullshit. (Someone once called me the Devil over this. It was hilarious.) Also, shellfish is delicious, and there probably wouldn’t be an Old Testament proscription against eating pork if pulled pork nachos had been around 5,000 years ago.

Oh, and gay and trans people were born that way. If you believe in God, then your God created them.

My most important takeaway from the Bible is that that Jesus guy was on to something. Love is important. I like loving my fellow humans and giving and sharing love with them may be the most important thing I do with my life. I want to get a copy of the so-called Jefferson Bible. He took all the magic and such bullshit out of the New Testament and pared it down to just show how Jesus loved people. (This may not be a great—or even accurate—description of the Jefferson Bible. I haven’t read it yet.) 

I know that the Jefferson Bible may be controversial. I don’t care if it’s controversial to Christians. What matters to me, as a modern woke gentleman, is that Mr. Jefferson has been cancelled. Seriously, though, he has a rather dubious legacy. I respect the Declaration of Independence and his role in the American Revolution, but he was a slaveowner. He’s complicated. But since I’m preternaturally lazy, there’s no way I’m going to edit the damn New Testament myself. So, Jefferson’s will do. I’ll try to find a used copy to ensure that he doesn’t get any of the royalties from my purchase.

Channeling my inner Socrates, my SocraTed, if you will

Along with some of Jesus’ teaching, I’ve been reading a little about another noteworthy ancient dirty hippie, Socrates. In the past couple of years, I started a personal survey of Western philosophy. (I’ll get to some Eastern thought, too.) It began when I started listening to the Philosophize This! podcast by Stephen West. I started at the beginning and enjoyed it during long drives and while doing yardwork. West has covered the ancient Greeks through several writers and thinkers from the last century, with a brief detour through ancient Eastern thought early in the series.

Philosophize This! was a great way for me to finally get to that copy of Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy that had been collecting dust on my shelf of yet to be read books for far too long. I like Russell, so far. He has some moments of hilariously dry commentary that are right in my wheelhouse. I’ll introduce myself to a philosopher with Russell and then read their work or about them. I’m in Xenophon’s writings on Socrates now, and I’ll get to Plato’s next and so forth until I get through Russell’s History and read from all those old dudes—and some women, like Mary Wollstonecraft—or until I die, which I currently don’t want to do for quite some decades.

Anyway, what I like about Socrates is his simplicity, his focus on living an ethical life. It’s become particularly important to me to learn from the lessons life has given me. I try to say “lessons” instead of “mistakes” because although I do fuck up on a relatively regular basis, I don’t need to be so judgmental with myself. Indeed, when I think about Socrates saying, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” I tend to focus on the importance of self-examination rather than how life may not be worth living without it.

I really don’t need suggestions that life is not worth living, for in my dark moments, when I despair at the ways that I may not have achieved some form of traditional success—or maybe when I just hate myself for minor failures of character—I may just decide that life isn’t worth living. So, I choose to live an examined life, and when I consider the times when I failed to look closely and honestly at myself—some many years of my life—I can say that life is not worth living like that. I learn from it.

So, yeah, I don’t need Socrates’ self-judging bullshit in my life. I learn from him the important lesson, and that is how I grow. Certainly, that’s an important lesson to learn, separating the important lessons in life from the bullshit. It can apply to any teaching, to any philosophy, to any self-help book, to any sacred text, to any experience, to any conversation. Learn what you must to grow as a person. Then grow. Some lessons will be challenged, and some will be challenging. You may learn the wrong lesson and need to reframe that learning down the road. But always learn. Set aside what you must and move forward. That’s how I’m trying to live my life. 

One thing that I must set aside from Socrates is that he was a fucking slob. Gross. I can’t live like that. I think of him running around Athens, barefoot, with the same old, filthy cloak all the time, and I shudder with disgust. He looked, I’m sure, as one of my basic training drill sergeants used to say, like Joe Shit The Rag Man. Dude, show some pride.

Deep down—and this is completely off topic, as well as off base—I don’t think they really cared about him corrupting the Athenian youth and introducing new gods. He was put on trial because they were tired of seeing him hanging out at the agora and dunking on sophists while looking like Pig Pen. It was just an excuse.

Now, I agree that they may have genuinely not appreciated him corrupting the youth. I, myself, wouldn’t go about corrupting the youth of Hallowell, maybe a younger adult here and there or a cat or two, but I haven’t knowingly or willingly corrupted any youth. There are limits to what I would do. 

This one time I ended up learning something about myself

Okay, so why am I waxing philosophic about trying to be a good person who loves my neighbor and learns from my life? Well, recently, I had a conversation with someone who waxed moronic, and I’m not 100 percent sure I passed the test. I’m not going to reveal names, and I’ll use gender neutral pronouns (they/them/their) as I describe the situation. I’ll be as vague as possible, not to protect anyone’s feelings—you will see that that ship has sailed—but to protect their privacy, well, actually a couple other people’s privacy. No one needs know their business. Me, I’m only tangentially involved.

The situation began, my part anyway, when I received a text message from Stupid L. I have this person’s contact information stored in my phone as “Stupid [full name beginning with ‘L’]”. I feel that this is both accurate and appropriate (as stored contact information) because Stupid L is, indeed, quite stupid. And when I say that the situation began with a text message, I should note that there were around 70 messages before I saw any of them. I usually have my phone on silent unless I’m expecting a phone call. I find that all the notifications for headlines, various messages, emails, and updates are rather annoying, even when my phone is on vibrate. They don’t exactly ease my anxiety, and I don’t want to check my phone that often. So, I put it on silent and pay close enough attention to it.

There were close to 60 unread messages when I looked at my phone, and another dozen or so came in before I sat down to see what this was all about. It didn’t take very long to get up to speed because very few of these texts made any sense. I later found out that this person needs glasses but they’re too stupid to get them, even a pair of readers. They just use the talk-to-text function on their smart phone and hit send, a lot.

Stupid L did not give me much to work with.

I’m not entirely sure why Stupid L was texting me about the situation. Neither of us are directly involved, and I certainly have no control over it. They just started bitching about it using nonsensical text messages as a means to who knows what end.

At first I was nice, of course. Incredulous, but also nice. I told them that the people who are actually involved in the situation—let’s call them Numbnuts and Person B—are the people who need to communicate about it. 

You know, I really hope that my purely random aliases aren’t, in some way, revealing any bias on my part. I’m hoping to remain above the fray.

But anyway, I told Stupid L several times in the first 150-odd text messages of our exchange—my seven or so to their approximately 145—that Numbnuts must communicate with Person B about the situation. I, quite literally, have no control over it. Still, Stupid L kept sending me texts that even the smartest of phones wouldn’t have been able to transcribe effectively, and I lost my patience.

I explained in the simplest of terms that Stupid L is, well, stupid. They and I don’t have a long history. In one of our longest conversations, when Stupid L found out my age, they said that they couldn’t believe that I’m younger than they are. I merely sat in unexpressed awe that they were only two years older than I. You see, I am a nice guy. I didn’t tell them how out of touch they were. I just said, “Yep,” and kept my harsh judgment to myself, like a gentleman. I saved that judgment until it could not be contained.

“I see where [redacted] gets [possessive pronoun’s] stupidity,” I said, finally. I don’t think Stupid L understood the insult the first few times I said it. With their stupid bad eyesight, they probably weren’t reading my messages, and I don’t think they send text messages as part of a give-and-take but as a form of verbal diarrhea.

Perhaps this wasn't my best effort.

For me, though, it was magic. Such a high! It was like having sex for the first time—emotionally, if not physically—such sweet release! I was hooked, and I repeated my insult several times.

When I joined the conversation, I had genuinely tried to be helpful to Stupid L and Numbnuts. The only way the situation could be resolved, barring a lawsuit that Numbnuts could not afford, was to communicate and coordinate with Person B, but Stupid L wasn’t comprehending this, at least as far as their incomprehensible text messages revealed. So, I kept saying that Stupid L was stupid. “You’re obviously too stupid to accept the only advice you need from the only person who’s giving it.”

Still, there was no expressed understanding of that only good advice that Stupid L and Numbnuts were going to get. (I believe that giving that advice was the right thing to do.) Although the messages were garbled because of their idiotic use of talk-to-text, there was one message that seemed to indicate that Stupid L did not like what I was stating about them. My reply was that the only thing I had been stating about them is that they’re very stupid, and that was based primarily on this conversation. 

They went on and on, sending me probably well over 200 texts that afternoon, a full 60 messages after I said that they were too stupid to have a conversation with. I ask them to stop texting me because I’d never respond again. I never have, not to those further 60 messages, nor to the 70-ish texts they sent a few days later. They sent me around 300 rambling text messages, and I sent a dozen-or-so replies, about half of them with insults.

My self-examination post convo with Stupid L

As I said, apprising Stupid L of their profound stupidity was a rush. It was probably better than any chemical intoxication I’ve experienced because my mind was clear. There was nothing to cloud the elation, nor was there anything to interfere with the memory. You know, there wasn’t any hangover, at all. There was just unadulterated bliss at having levied such an appropriate—well, accurate—insult at someone.

It felt pretty damn good, but it’s not something I should make a habit of. That would make me quite the asshole, and, indeed, it would be downright counterproductive in my progress toward the goal of being a good person. I mean, I think I’m smarter than most people, so the net I might cast over those I think worthy of being called stupid—hypothetically, of course—would be pretty wide. I would be, if I’m not already, fucking insufferable. That simply would not do.

And I don’t fully subscribe to the “I tell it like it is” approach to life. While it may be important to call a spade a spade, what am I getting out of it, and why do I feel that it’s my place to label that spade a spade? Telling it like it is can be fraught with interpersonal peril. I could write volumes, if not just a much longer piece, on the weighty personal responsibility of telling it like it is.  

This is a spade.

When I was an aspiring Christian, I heard the phrase "speak the truth in love” quite a bit. In this situation with Stupid L, I was definitely not speaking the truth in love—and you do not need to literally love the person you’re speaking the truth to. I, as a matter of fact, cannot stand Stupid L, but that doesn’t release me from my personal obligation to be a good person. (Ridiculously stupid people may be the greatest challenge to my progress, by the way.) After I told Stupid L that Numbnuts needed to communicate with Person B to resolve the issue, and when I continued to receive nonsensical text messages, by the dozen, that’s when I should have said that I wouldn’t respond to any further messages. My slew of insults did not help the situation at all. No objective observer would have confused me for someone trying to share love like Jesus that day.

But let’s not carry my desire to do some things like Jesus any further. I needed to say the one thing I could to help the situation and then move on with my nothing further to contribute. I just want to show love to my fellow human beings whenever and however I can. I don’t need to internalize the whole “What would Jesus do?” thing. I’d probably end up riding around Hallowell on a donkey—a donkey that I’m in no way prepared to care for, by the way—and overturning the tables at a church bake sale while shouting accusations of “Moneychangers!” I’d probably end up crucified, like Brian, though, not Jesus. 

Obviously, I know that repeatedly slinging an insult at Stupid L was the wrong thing to do—no matter how stupid they actually are. This is a situation for me to examine and learn from. I must channel my inner Socrates—not my outer Socrates, that goddamn slob. Maybe I can just as what Socrates would have done?

He would have asked questions until his rhetorical opposition expressed an understanding of the issue in a new way, in Socrates’ way. They don’t call it the Socratic method for nuthin’. In general this is a great way to teach or to engage people you don’t agree with. I’ve done this when I was an instructor for the army and for the VA and when I’ve volunteered to canvas people to talk about political issues. 

Indeed, asking questions is a great way to engage idiots without insulting them. Sometimes, merely asking questions about a stupid belief can help plant the seed of reason. Why do you believe that President George W. Bush and President Obama are lizard people? (I don’t mean to insult any of you who may believe that these men—or anyone else—are lizard people, but just ask yourself why you believe that.)

Asking such questions is perfect for bar conversations or, hell, any discussions with strangers. They help me learn whether a serious, intelligent conversation is worth it, or whether I should just lean-in to the absurdity and suggest that whatever conspiracy theory someone may be spouting is true. (I can’t let everything I do be influenced by my goal of good personhood. Every once in a while, I have to entertain myself.)

But one question that is actually pertinent remains. Could I have asked Stupid L questions to help them see that I could not help in the situation, that Numbnuts must communicate with Person B to resolve it? I certainly could have, but I don’t feel that any question I could have asked would have helped Stupid L see that I couldn’t do anything to help the situation. I don’t think asking questions about the gibberish they were sending me would have made a difference because not only could they not read the replies without the glasses they’re too stupid to get, but the messages they sent weren’t the messages they were speaking into their phone. I shouldn’t have engaged with the nonsense to begin with.

Sometimes, I don’t give a shit, a lot, you know, like a lot, a lot; a lot of not giving a shit

Along with my goal of being a good person, I’m often, ironically enough, consumed with apathy. I’m not trying to suggest that my apathy is necessarily related to the goal of good personhood, nor are they some sort of yin and yang of a bipolar personality. Actually, they are somewhat complimentary. I generally only really care about family, friends, being handsome, trying to make a positive difference in the world, being hilarious, emotionally abusing one of my cats, having a great ass, and a few social and political issues. That’s all really care about. I don’t have the emotional energy for much else.

In general, I try to mind my own business. Sometimes, I must let people learn their own lessons. I once gave a warning to a friend who had intended to immerse himself into an emotionally charged shitshow of interpersonal relationships in the unhealthiest interpersonal way. Vague? Yes. I told my friend, who was asking my thoughts on the situation, that the situation he was jumping into could only end badly for him. It did. It was going to end badly for the others involved, and the addition of one more person led to a shittier outcome for everyone. My friend learned his lesson and moved on. I didn’t take his disregard for my portentous advice personally. Everything is cool now. (It really wasn’t my shit to worry about, so I was pretty indifferent to the situation.)

Depending on the relationship, I may push harder with my advice to people in my life, but I often have to acknowledge that people are going to do what they’re going to do, regardless of how amazingly wise my input may be. I just have to love them and hope they aren’t hurt badly. I may have to steel myself because people—perhaps people I care deeply for—may be beyond reasoning due to illness or addiction or immaturity. I don’t want to come across incredibly coldly, but this is a cold, hard truth. (See, I’m trying to tell it like it is without being an asshole about it.)

Now, was I a bit too apathetic in my conversation with Stupid L? Without beating myself up, yes. I was far too “not-give-a-fucky” about the situation. I let my personal dislike for Stupid L override any wisdom that should have fueled my response. There my very well be some adverse personal consequences for me that I didn’t account for.

How I’m going to move forward

Still knowing the potential consequences of my own self-judgment (a possible downward spiral into suicidal ideation), I won’t—well, I can’t—be too hard on myself about this, but I will learn from it, even though a similar situation will likely never happen again. I can’t even begin to imagine having a conversation like this in person, and I have one heck of an imagination. I wouldn’t give someone the time to have a conversation like this. 

I may respond like Christopher Hitchens did to this person and say that I don’t have time for whatever bullshit they’re trying to share. More likely, though, I would say something cutting and then say that I have no time for their bullshit. (Hey, I know myself.) I certainly wouldn’t give someone the time for 20 text messages-worth of nonsense, let alone a couple hundred. I really can’t give idiots that sort of time, and I know I should leave out my cutting remarks.

That being said, if someone were to follow me around haranguing me with similar nonsense, I’m sure that my patience would give way for me to sling a “You’re a fucking moron” or two at them before I found a space to free myself from the situation. Indeed, I was once arguing with a local idiot about his recollection of a situation over which we had, as they say, “beef.” He claimed to have an eidetic memory. I told him that he, apparently, had no idea what an eidetic memory was. He was upset by this. Profanities were exchanged. I said I had no further time for him, and I bid him good day before going on living my life.

Sorry, I didn’t really bid him good day, but I thought that would be a funny way to tie that little anecdote up.

Anyway, I will own that my response to Stupid L was not a good thing for me to do. It doesn’t mesh well with my personal goal. I’m not proud of it. However, I’m also incredibly proud of it, for it was hilarious, objectively so, I believe. My redaction of Stupid L’s identity and any real details probably didn’t communicate the hilarity of the situation to you, dear reader, but trust me, I was laughing my ass off.

I do care, deeply, about being hilarious, and along with psychologically being my own worst enemy, I am emotionally the most important audience member for my schtick. If I don’t laugh on a very regular basis, my mood will be affected, gravely. Laughter is a great antidepressant for me. I reveled in the joy of having been able to tell a stupid person what for. I will laugh at—and learn from—this situation for a long time to come. 

I know I’d better learn from it.

Oh, Yeah, I Was Going to Write about Biden and Trump Leading up to the Election, Wasn’t I? 😬

 

(Trigger Warning: This piece contains a discussion of some suicidal ideations, as well as inappropriate but hilarious jokes about those very same suicidal ideations.)

 

Oops. Am I too late?

While Trumpists may feel that it’s not too late, that Trump may have actually won, I’m going to err on the side of reality, and acknowledge that Joe Biden won. He’s the President-Elect. It’s—I wish so goddamn bad—as simple as that.

My Trumpist friends—and I do have them—may be offended that I’m dismissing their beliefs about the election. I don’t care. This isn’t a subjective issue that’s open to interpretation, nor to any shades of gray. Joe Biden won the election. Republican and Democratic poll watchers observed the counting. There’s been no credible evidence of any widespread fraud. No valid claims of fraud were presented in any of the dozens of cases brought before the courts. Indeed, The Supreme Court stating that “Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections” is among the sickest of burns, and I just loved it.

On the other hand, though, yes, I am rather too late to convince my leftist friends that a Biden Administration won’t be indistinguishable from a second Trump term. That ship has sailed, and I failed to contribute to its cargo a fully established argument that Biden doesn’t suck as much as Trump.

However, as I review the campaign season, I have come to liken my contribution to pre-election dialogue to an experiment of sorts. I just haven’t figured out whether the few posts I put on TedPerrin.com were sort of a minimal control group where my dearth of input can be compared to those who may have actually been getting the message out or if the experiment was a test of how my existential-dread-filled inability to function was able to somehow sway the electorate toward Biden. I don’t know. As Charlie Kelly might say, I didn’t have a well-formed hypotenuse before the experiment began.

If I were to give it some thought, the Bernie stans who were talking about their concerns with Biden’s “corporate Dem” history were just expressing their frustration about not having a more

I do not hold in high regard the opinion
that the Biden Administration isn't an 
improvement over Trump's.

progressive candidate (which I absolutely wanted as well). But my primary concern was that Trump might have a second term, and I had been concerned about that for most of the last four years. My “concern” about a Trump reelection manifested itself as some sort of conniption fit. The tizzy that I’d been experiencing since 2016 turned itself into a full-blown existential crisis.

I didn’t know whether I’d be able to live under a second Trump term. Yes, that is a bit extreme. And yes, I had talked to my VA shrink last spring about a potential referral to a therapist before the election. No, I wasn’t as honest with him as I should have been about how dark the situation felt for me. I felt kind of dumb about feeling so dark, and that—feeling so dumb about it—fed the darkness.

That’s been a pattern my struggle with mental illness. Even though I was able to accept—sort of—that it was possible for Trump to win a second term, it was a precarious grasp at acceptance that my catastrophic thinking constantly tried to erode. I bedeviled myself with thoughts of how horrible things would be (mostly for me, psychologically) should Trump have won.

And although most people probably don’t see it, I do think catastrophically. I just keep it to myself pretty well. (I guess this is the upside of not learning to express myself emotionally as a young person.) I’m usually able to reason with myself and set those thoughts aside. I may often seem like a really positive person, encouraging others that they can get past whatever they’re struggling with. I’m usually earnest about my belief that others can get over the kind of humps that might make me feel like throwing myself off a bridge.

[By the way, I don’t think when I’m in that place emotionally that I’d really jump off a bridge. I’d be too afraid of surviving. (Sorry, I kind of love suicide humor. It kills me. (Again, sorry) I guess I feel that being able to joke about it reassures me that I’m not in a place where I’m willing to attempt to die that way. I know that these jokes won’t sit well with my family. We’ve lost someone to suicide, and we’ve had some who’ve made attempts that were far too close to tragic. I try not to joke like this around them, but otherwise, I cope how I cope. Also, I’d never want to do that to my family again.) Now that I think about it, having a method of suicide that I wouldn’t trust pop in my head when I think about suicide is a rather good self-sabotage.]

Anyway, I can be incredibly positive when I’m talking to others. If I can’t help them process through something or see the upside of a situation, I often recommend that they seek profession help. Therapy has helped me quite a bit. I definitely suggest someone talk to a professional when dealing with a traumatic event. I just don’t have the tools to help them.

 

So, does any of this relate to Trump versus Biden? Well, as tenuous a connection that I often have to reality, I, to put it mildly, had a difficult time considering a reality that included a potential second term for Trump. He is inherently unreasonable, and when I thought about him, I just couldn’t deal with it. I surely couldn’t write about him. So, I largely disconnected from everything. Much of my discourse on Trump leads to my expression of how I just don’t understand how so many people can embrace him wholeheartedly. I certainly can't wrap my mind around the fact that over 70-fucking-million people voted for him.

When I think of those people and converse with them, I can, on occasion, become rather condescending and even downright insulting. There are so many people I care about—family members and people I served with and people who feel like family to me—who are huge Trump supporters. I just don’t like insulting them, that much. It makes me feel like I’m failing in my life goal of being a good person.

I certainly do not need to fail in that goal or even feel like I’m failing at it. It’s the easiest goddamn life goal there is. I can sit around on my ass doing jack shit except being nice to people every once in a while, maybe help someone move or let someone cry on my shoulder, and (yay me!) I’m a good person. Life’s goal achieved.

But fail at the easiest friggin’ goal in life that might make the most minimal positive impact on the world, and well, there’s a possibility that such a failure may have an outsized adverse effect on my sometimes-delicate grip on a positive sense of well-being. I feel that a further discussion of where my negative thoughts sometimes take me would, at this point, be rather gratuitous.

Oh, and please, friends and family, don’t get all, like, “Oh, Ted, you’re such a valued member of your community” or “You’re too pretty to be so sad about so much shit” or “We all love you so much” or “God, you’re so handsome” or “You’re so loved and important and stuff” or “The world needs your glorious mustache” or whatever. I’m fine.

So, yes, Trump and Biden. In a nutshell, let’s just say that I think Trump is a fucking idiot, and I have significant reservations about whether anyone who blindly adores him and agrees with him should have access to sharp implements. And if you think things won’t be better under Biden than they were under Trump, I got nothing for ya.

Hell, I’m glad Biden won. He’s not as progressive as I’d like, but he’s not Trump. I’m also glad the election didn’t come down to, say, five or ten individual votes—you know, the number of people I might have been able to convince that the whole “a Biden Administration will be the same as a second Trump Term” thing was bullshit.

One more time that doing next to nothing has worked out fine for me. Good?

I will admit that these last few weeks of Trump’s healthcare plan being two weeks away is going to have me on the edge of my seat.

Now, what am I going to write about next? Not politics, that’s for damn sure. There are too many fucking imbeciles involved in politics for my tastes. I may be able to write about a specific issue, here and there, but I’ll keep it to a minimum.  I will, however, write about cool shit, like sending “low-angle selfies” to my catphishers and trying to negotiate with them to send me money instead or maybe I’ll write about entertaining myself by planning to have my cat put down over the last few years.

I’ll find something. I know it’ll probably be in this space, at least for now, because I haven’t figured out what I want to do with TedPerrin.com.

The Joy of Trolling

Most of us can’t stand trolls on the internet. Posting comments and replies just to provoke a fight or to demean someone isn’t cool. Most trolls are sexist, racist, homophobic assholes. As John Oliver pointed out for us on HBO’s Last Week Tonight, some even terrorize people. But sometimes, trolling can be hilarious. Oliver has trolled a number of institutions with hilarious hashtags. His protest against elitism at Yankee Stadium was perfect.

Yes, sometimes, it’s fun. I do try to go after ideas rather than attack people. Some of my Facebook friends may remember a post where I wasn’t such a gentleman. . .

But I really wanted to talk about substance. I just acted like an asshole for a moment. I can take ownership of my failings. It’s sad that the post lost me some Facebook friends, but, as the Bard would have said, I’m a grown-asséd man. I can lie in that bed.

Since the election, though, I’ve tried to limit my comments and replies to posts that I don’t agree with on social media to statements of fact. I don’t argue nearly as much as I feel the urge to. I’m a work in progress, but I know most arguing on social media doesn’t result in changed hearts or minds. People just get pissed off, and I’m sure I’ve pissed lots of people off.

I do have a little social justice warrior in my heart, and it often shows. I also have a sense of humor. So, I try to make my trolling funny. Funny to me, anyway. I know my jokes don’t always get the laughs I think they deserve. Then there are the jokes that absolutely deserve laughs but still get me blocked on the Twitters.

Let us go back to the beginning of 2016 when Esquire said the at Tila Tequila could be the best follow on the Twitters for the year. I started following her, and it was entertaining. For those of you who don’t know, Tila Tequila is a rather empty-headed former reality TV star who’s dabbled in the pornography and crowdfunding her lifestyle and who apparently has Nazi sympathies. She also thinks the earth is flat.

She’s rather disconnected from reality, at least on social media. . . well, very disconnected from reality on social media. I really started paying attention during the weekend of Martin Luther King Jr. day last year. I was under the weather and thankful for entertainment that required little more than holding my phone. She tweeted weird things about existing outside of space and time, and I decided to reply to every one of her tweets.

At first, I just started saying absurd things to her. I can’t see what she said anymore because she blocked me. I remember one person replied to both of us that we were going to hell. I tried not to take that personally, but it did hurt my feelings. Then, she started tweeting about going back in time to the 1960s. I’m not sure if she was tweeting from via mobile data or a wi-fi connection, but her tweets were still making it back to 2016. Her cell phone bill must have been outrageous.

In honor of MLK, I suggested that she go to 1968 and stop the assassination. Can we not agree that this would be a noble act for any time-traveler? I would gladly forsake a day off to save the life of such a great man. She had nothing to say about this, and then, well, I got greedy.

Call me crazy, but I figured that if she’s going back in time, maybe she could go kill baby Hitler. I didn’t know about her political leanings at the time. It just seemed like a good idea. Hell, killing baby Hitler may have even changed events to such a degree that she wouldn’t have had to go back to 1968 and stop MLK’s assassination. How could anyone not take advantage of that? Well, I guess I know why she didn’t kill baby Hitler now.

Feeling a sense of urgency, I kept replying to her tweets with encouragement to go back and kill baby Hitler. Indeed, the Twitters hashtag “babyhitlermustdie” is solely populated by my more than 50 tweets of encouragement at Tila Tequila to do just that. Perhaps it was her fondness of Hitler that made her block me, or perhaps it was a pro-life sentiment.

If she felt uncomfortable killing a baby, I suggested an alternative. . .

@AngelTilaLove If you don't want to kill a baby, push Hitler's mom down the stairs and kill fetus Hitler. #FetusHitlermustdie

— Ted Perrin (@Tedward_Perrin) January 18, 2016

I may have crossed the line there. I’m not sure. I do know this. If harassing a Nazi sympathizer by suggesting that she take advantage of her time travels to kill baby Hitler hurt her feelings, I think I’ll still be able to sleep at night.

Now, I need to find another idiot to troll.