Way Out in Butt Curse-Wording Egypt

Yeah, you read the title right. That’s what Google Maps is calling my current location. 

For full effect turn your radio to an unclaimed AM audio signal and listen to static noise at maximum volume throughout the duration of this post.

Kidding. Instead turn your Pandora station to “Country Hits of the 90’s” and listen to high-class artists such as Brooks & Dunn, John Michael Montgomery, or George Strait ramble on about ranches or manure or something like that for 19 1/2 straight hours because apparently those tunes are the only thing my radio antennae can pick up way out here in the boonies.

Honest to Morgan Freeman I don't know how my eyes are still open at this point in my life. I have driven 1641 miles over the course of five days.  My car sounds like it has asthma. I have taken more five-hour energy shots than a college freshman with A.D.D. during finals week. Seriously people, I'm running on fumes.

And here I sit at what appears to be a gas station in the middle of nowhere, wondering how these crazy people survive in places that can’t even afford stop signs.

Over the course of this overbearingly long road trip I have been to a slew of small towns that dot Utah’s landscape like cheap chocolate chip ice cream. I’m talking about places where the entire City Council goes to the same family reunion. Places where “totes” is just coming into season as a hip slang word to use among teenagers. Places that the chorus to the Cheers theme song fits perfectly, "Where everybody knows your name…"

For the life of me I cannot figure out how people survive in towns where the population has not broken triple digits. They are living in worlds within themselves. Places like these remind me of a 15-year-old German Shepherd taking a nap on your front porch on a hot summer day with the cliché mindset of, "Don't bother me, I'm in my own world right now. I’ll get to you when I’m good and ready to, so leave me alone.”

That’s how this part of the world feels like to me.

You small-town folks are crazy. Just walking into the gas station with a credit card I looked like I was going to be in some horror film where the cashier was going to rip off my arms off in a panic for freaking her out as a foreigner or something.  You should have seen the look she gave me when I pulled out my iPhone and tried to navigate home on Google Maps. “We don't get many cityfolk around here”, she jokingly said with a wry smile on her Children of the Corn face. Where am I, a Stephen King novel for crying out loud? Part of me feels like you're going to find my dead body in the middle of a field somewhere and my disappearance will be turned into a Lifetime Movie Network special.

On a side note, these people know waaaaay too much about each other. As Tracy Byrd said, “Everybody knows everybody. Everybody calls you friend." Great Odin’s Raven, I just quoted a country song on my blog as a natural instinct! I’ve been out here in the middle of nowhere way too long. At the rate I'm going you might as well buy me a new set of Wranglers, a cowboy hat, and tickets for the next rodeo that's how much this small town culture is taking over my life.

But seriously, these people know way too much about each other. Far worse than anyone could ever learn after Facebook stalking their secret crush for seven weekends straight. They have Facebook out here don’t they? I think they do. No, maybe not. I’m betting they’re just getting into the trendiness of Myspace at this point. After all, those girls did keep saying the word “Totes” to be cool.

Me: "Yeah, so this guy I was talking to a few towns back was talking about this guy named Gary... "

Crazy Cashier: “Oh yeah I know Gary. Short fella with a scruffy beard, drives a red F-150, used to date Shirley over on Maplewood, worked at McGrath’s for a few years changing tires, shot a 4-pointer last year, got a tattoo on his right pec of the state of Texas, watches Vampire Diaries reruns to kill time on the weekends, claimed 6 dependents instead of 4 on his 2010 taxes, has a mole on his left buttcheek…”

Me: “Uh… yeah… that Gary.”

I really don’t know how I’ve survived this road trip. And I say that in complete and total honesty. At the rate I’m going I’ll be dead before I get to the nearest highway. Seriously, why is this cashier staring at me like a possessed China doll? This post may be my last will and testament for all I know, and if it is, can someone please drive out to the middle of nowhere and find my decaying body in a beat up Nissan Rogue?

Here’s a hint, I’ll be close to Butt Curse-Wording Egypt.

#FirstWorldProblems

For full effect, download “Tired Magician” by Lady Danville, and play at maximum volume throughout the duration of this post.

Muttonhead sitting next to me on the ski lift this morning: “Why can’t they make it so text messages just show up on your ski goggles while you’re wearing them? Seriously, I am so sick of having to take off my gloves, unzip my coat, pull out my phone, just to write the letter “K” back to my girlfriend. It is soooo annoying.”

You’re complaining that the device in your hand, the device that has access to more information than the government of Somalia does, a device that allows you to send a 140-character message to your cousin in India within a matter of seconds, a device that still has the game Flappy Bird on it, basically holds the same value in your eyes as a dead fish because it has not been engineered to be linked to the goggles that are pasted on to your fat folded face? 

First world problems muttonhead, first world problems…

Dipstick Uncle Dick: “I would have got home sooner but there was a 35-minute delay with my flight because of confusion with departures or something like that. I was getting so pissed just sitting there on the runway. Why couldn’t they just sort all their crap out and take off already? Why do you have to make me suffer?”

You’re right. Airlines should always cater to impatient pricks such as yourself. Never mind the fact that it’s taking you four hours to travel the same distance the pioneers covered in six months. Never mind the airline handed out complimentary martinis around the cabin for the half hour delay. Never mind you are literally FLYING IN THE FREAKING SKY! A modern day miracle! Life is just too hard when your schedule gets thrown off by a whopping thirty minutes.

First world problems Uncle Dick, first world problems…

Snooty Sara: “I wish they would give us a bigger fridge in the break room. It’s ridiculous that we have to pretty much pack all of our Gogurts and water bottles and tuna sandwiches in that tiny compartment. What, do they think all 11 of us are going to be able to fit all of our food in that 15-cubic foot fridge? I think not! AUGH!”

The fridge isn’t big enough? Are you curse-wording kidding me? You’re bringing in six figures at one of the laziest jobs on the planet. You sign documents for a living and will be banking on a retirement plan that could feed a Hungarian orphanage for three decades. You can afford 12-packs of Gogurts for crying out loud. Gogurts! And the most agonizing part of your life is that your work fridge isn’t big enough? Lady, there are people on this planet that don’t even know what a refrigerator is.  

First world problems Snooty Sara, first world problems…

Buddy returning from the bathroom at work: “I hate the way this building is designed, because every time I go to the john, I always lose service. It is SOOOO annoying. It just shuts off my service, I can’t even check my Facebook while taking a poo. This is so unfair.”

I hate it when architects and engineers design flawed structures that don’t take into consideration the Internet binge session that fat fellows such as you go on when emptying their bowels. That crime ranks up there with the Clinton sex scandal if you ask me. Why in the name of everything holy are you not able to update your Facebook status, Tweet a witty line to all eight of your followers, and swipe right on 17 potential make out sessions while you unload yourself on a porcelain potty? It’s crap I tell ya, pun intended!

First world problems you lazy dumper, first world problems…

This is the civilized world we all live in. A place where we catch up on our entire DVR and have nothing else to watch for a few hours. A place where not as many people as we thought commented on the link we posted to Facebook. A place where we have to put on pants so the pizza delivery guy won’t think we’re perverted. This is the world we have created, the world we embrace, and the world we complain about every single freaking day.

First world problems you lazy pieces of crap, first world problems… 

My Greatest Sexual Slip-Up

This week it will be ten years since I joked about female genitalia in front of 1,500 people in church.

Time sure does go by fast, doesn’t it?

For full effect, download “The Show Must Go On” by Three Dog Night, and play at maximum volume throughout the duration of this post.

When I say the word boob, I think based on the title of this post I'm falsely getting your hopes up that this will be yet another tale of when I accidentally felt up a woman in public, thus humiliating my self-esteem to an all-time low. However, when I say boobs, I don't mean lumps of fat that are used as sexual enticements in strip clubs worldwide, I means boobs as in “for the sake of everything that is holy why are you crying at this Nike commercial?”

That was my Dad. He was a boob.

I am not exaggerating when I say the man cried at Nike commercials, because he literally did. Cue Magic Johnson narration of playing hoops outside whether it was raining, or snowing, or windy, or whatever form of gut-wrenching weather God decided to throw his way, followed by an inspirational string music ensemble combined with a slow motion black and white clip of a young kid shooting a jump shot in the dark.

Cue my Dad bawling his eyes out over the outrageously silly attempt by Nike to create motivation to buy their product, and offering me condolences in a voice that raised in pitch per word followed by an undamming of the reservoirs his tear ducts were holding back.

Dad: sniff... “Whenever I see something like this…sniff, it makes me think of how you just love…sniff, this game…” sniff, sniff.

And you wonder why I haven’t fully shed a tear since 2007.

Yes, my Dad was a boob. A big one at that. A 34 Double-D, can-someone-please-get-this-man-some-testosterone-for-crying-out-loud boob. #bawlbaby #growapair #iminaglasscaseofemotion. My Dad cried more than I did when it came to Littlefoot’s mother dying in The Land Before Time. We’re talking about one of the most traumatic moments of my 6-year childhood. I was officially scarred at that point in my young life, not because a gentle brontosaurus was finally laid to rest, more so because I could not figure out why a 40-year old man was hogging the box of Kleenexes.

Flashback to boobs, which is the real reason why I’m sure many of you perverts clicked on this link in the first place.

Ten years ago I stood before an audience, an 18-year old idiot getting ready to travel to the faraway land of Virginia, with my entire family seated before me. A family comprised of crazy aunts, weird uncles, and a slew of sisters that honestly I can’t tally up an exact headcount. I stopped counting when the number of girls in my household broke double digits, true story.

As I stood there in front of the same size crowd that the Titanic took down, I poured my soul into the microphone and exposed my inner self like a freshly sheared sheep. Amidst my emotional rush I suddenly began to turn into the man that raised me, a man that I loved and a man that I hated, a man who wept more than a broken faucet, and in that moment I began to cry into the microphone.

This is usually the part where my brain began wondering what was this salty discharge coming from my eyelids. After all, big girls don’t cry, right? But at that point I stood behind a pulpit as a 6’5” giant bawling my eyes out, and turning to the audience I apologized for my behavior, for my girlish, wimpy sobs.

Me: “Sorry, I’m not trying to cry and be a big boob or anything, we already know that there are way too many big boobs in my family.”

Cue 2.5 seconds of awkward silence that seemed like an eternity as the audience braced themselves for an outlandish case of the shnigglefits. My mind went into a mental collapse. ‘Did I just talk about boobs in a church? I am so screwed. I was referencing the domination of estrogen that caused every one of my family members to break down in tears for roughly 3-5 days every single month, my Dad included. I was not poking fun at those lumps of fat that are at the precipice of sexuality. What will the people I’m talking to think about this miscommunication?’

They lost it. Every single one of them. An audience dressed in black roared like a throng of hyenas on happy gas. They laughed, they cried, they wept in each other’s armpits trying to get a hold of themselves. They bawled their eyes out in hysterics over a young man’s sexual slip up at one of the most solemn occasions they would ever witness in their entire life.

And all I could do was stand at the pulpit in a Rush Limbaugh tie and a face as red as a sunburnt ginger, embarrassed at the way I blundered up my reference to female genitalia.

Humor sure does go a long way, doesn’t it? I say that because you remember funny moments like those. You hold on to them because they can be your crutch. Humor like that can be the one thing that keeps you from claiming madness. It can be your only defense when a Father puts a loaded shotgun in his mouth and pulls the trigger. Humor is what gets you through the tough times of life. In this case, making fun of my sisters’ boobs was the only way I could stand at that pulpit and make it through the eulogy of the man who raised me.

The man lying in the casket below.

Ten years. Ten years since that joke. Ten years since those laughs. Ten years since I made a fool of myself at a pulpit using sexual innuendo.

Ten years since a great man was lost.

Damn. Time sure does go by fast. 

28 Ways Not To Suck

I woke up from a dead sleep at 3 am this morning and had a rather deep epiphany about lessons I wish I knew about life.

For full effect, download “Going Missing” by Maximo Park and play at maximum volume throughout the duration of this post.

Every so often I think we all wonder about our past, where we came from, the choices we made, why we said and did certain things. We all get those pair of hindsight goggles put over our eyes that make us wonder about who we are.

And who we were.

This morning at 3 am I got to thinking about past Brock. That goofy, uncoordinated, socially awkward pimple-pusher who used to get wasted on Mt. Dew and Lucky Charms. A kid who said far more ridiculously stupid things than present Brock, and for a brief time in his life thought Hawaiian shirts were a thing. Yeah, that guy. Laying in my bed I wondered about some of the advice I would give him, what life lessons I would want to teach him, pointers here and there I wish he would have known, and I will say there were a few “regrets” that I have.

And so I wrote them down. At 3 am with my eyes half shut, and my brain half functioning, I wrote the life lessons I wish I could teach past self about. And seeing as how there are a ludicrous number of posts flying around the Web that are entitled, “X-number of things that would save my marriage, or relationship, or yada yada yada”, I thought I would join in on the trendy crowd and make my own list of things that you can all count as freaking doctrine for all I care.

With that being said, these are the 28 things I wish past Brock would have known when he was 18. 

1. Nothing good happens after 2 am.

2. Attempting to beat Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is not the wisest way to spend 29 hours of your life.

3. Do a few extra crossword puzzles with Grandpa, Sportscenter can wait.

4. Don’t laugh at Ken Hendrickson when he tries to sell you life insurance.

5. Creating a Myspace account will not get you further ahead in life.

6. Double the amount of high-fives you give to people.

7. Get a Costco membership immediately.

8. Punching a hole in your wall after the 2006 National Championship is not the best idea.

9. Start writing your blog right now. Your kids will appreciate it.

10. New Year’s Eve is a highly overrated holiday.

11. Becoming incredibly skilled at NCAA Football 2004 is not worth your time. You should spend more time playing the piano. Trust me, the ladies will L-word that.

12. Talk to your Dad. Tell him who you are. He is proud to call you his son.

13. Waiting until 2013 to start watching Modern Family is a foolish decision.  

14. Listen much more than you talk. Seriously, people care more about themselves, than they care about you.

15. Make sure you don’t send a text message to break up with a girl.

16. Math 1050 may be hard, but don’t wait until your fourth time around to pass that stinking class.

17. Try and become at least halfway decent at Ping Pong. This may sound a bit odd I know, but you will play many more matches of this sport than you expect, and you’ll want to be able to hold your own on that table.

18. Start doing yoga. I promise you, it will be worth it in the long run. And no, people will not think that you’re gay. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

19. Don’t quote Zoolander to a girl who actually has an eating disorder.

20. Suspenders are very underrated.

21. Whenever someone asks you to sing Karaoke, make sure and do your drunk Brock version of “Bohemian Rhapsody” every single time, it will always be amazing.

22. This may make me sound like an old man, but start working on your chip shot right this second. Golf will soon become your closet obsession.

23. Don’t waste your time on Chelsee Hausauer.

24. Newer is not always better.

25. Dashboard Confessional should not be your inaugural concert.

26. Three movies you should not buy tickets for: The Benchwarmers, Bridesmaids, and R.I.P.D.

27. Start snowboarding now. Seriously, right now. Stop what you’re doing, go buy a snowboard, buy a helmet, buy a pass, and start shredding gnar right freaking now.

28. And last but not least, there are some people in your life that are going to take a lot of work on both sides to keep around. But trust me, they are so worth it. 

I Am The Bear

You can’t tell me that looking at the above picture doesn’t put a smile on your face.

For full effect, download “Take A Bow” by Muse and play at maximum volume throughout the duration of this post.

I know what you’re thinking, this dipstick is going to try and stretch talking about a bear for 700 words, and there is no way in frozen Phoenix you’ll be able to stay focused on a blog about nicknames, but hear me out for a few more lines. Don’t jump ship just yet, because based on my mildly amusing blogging history I more than likely will make you leave with a smile on your face.

The reason I selected this sexy pic of the King of the wildlife culture is because for some strange, unknown, WTF reason that is known to only God and some foreign kid in Somalia, the nickname I’ve been going by for the past three years is “The Bear”. Again, don’t ask me where this came from, who came up with it, or what affiliation it has with me, all I know is that I have been “The Bear” since I took the job as a college recruiter.

Historically speaking I have not had the best luck with nicknames. There have been plenty of them out there that were degrading, humiliating, and would normally make a child with a slightly higher than average self-esteem want to cry himself to sleep while laying naked in a bathtub, gorging himself on a pint of Rocky Road. Fortunately the big man upstairs decided to give me a ridiculously awesome self-esteem, therefore I never had those naked bawling binge sessions with Ben & Jerry.

Usually, nicknames have something to do with a characteristic that you portray in your life, or something that personifies only you as a whole. For example, as a child the nickname “Broccoli” was something that was very common, due to my first name being Brock, and the fact that my parents cruelly gave me the middle name of a vegetable. But it was something I accepted, and handled like a boss.

In high school I was crowned with the nickname of “Swamp Thing” by best friend Clinton Merrill, who thought that my overactive sweat glands were a prime target for how my teammates should recognize me. Of course I had no influence whatsoever in the freakishly different genetics that my parents handed down to me, but either way I was known as a walking ball of perspiration for the majority of my career at Roy High School.

One of the best nicknames that I will L-word taking down to my grave is the title handed out to me in college that was coined based off of my unconscious actions of removing my pants, running into plate glass windows, and drooling like a brain-dead two year old in front of Utah State Congressmen. “Seizure Boy” will forever be marked on my identity until the day I’m donated to science. And hopefully one day I can graduate to the title of "Seizure Man".

One day…

But the nickname I still have not been able to figure out is “The Bear”. I like it, don’t get me wrong. It sounds sexy, intimidating, something you want to get tattooed to your pec in Copperplate font with a claw underneath to intimidate little people when you take your shirt off on the beach. And yes, by little people I do in fact mean midgets. There, I said it.

Now you may be asking why the curse word has this guy been writing about nicknames for a page and half? And why the curse word have I been reading about his nickname history for the past four minutes? And is there a curse-wording point to this entire blog at all?

And honestly, I can’t tell you the answer to any of those questions. But need I remind you that this blog is not for you. It’s for my kids. How many times do I need to tell you that? And maybe on a Wednesday evening I got bored and wanted to explain to my posterity the background, history, and confusion behind their Uncle Keith Tronic and Uncle Rhinestone Cowboy coming up with the holy title of "The Bear". 

Go ahead, you can laugh at the midget joke now. 

The Single Life

Keith: “You have plans this weekend?”

Seizure Man: “Nothing really. Gonna go home, take a nap, go for a long bike ride. Sleep in. Golf 18 holes with some friends. Watch some college basketball, swim some laps, eat Café Rio with some friends, maybe see a movie, and cap the night off with a long run. You?”

Keith: “I freaking hate you man. You and your single life. I would switch places with you in a heartbeat if I could.”

Says every married person I know.

For full effect, download “Winner At A Losing Game” by Rascal Flatts, and play at maximum volume throughout the duration of this post.

I am surrounded by married men who secretly tell me behind closed doors that they are living their life vicariously through me. Perhaps it’s that we are at different stages of our lives, and they go into reminiscing about the days when their spouse didn’t give them a bedtime, the days when Dew Pong at 3 am sounded like a good idea, the days when responsibility and obligation for their wife and kids had not been formulated in their subconscious. Oh, those were the good ol’ days weren’t they?

Or so they think.

We talk and we laugh about the life I am living. They drool over stories I share about shutting down pickup lines from a former Miss Utah. They ask for juicy details about the times I swiped right on a random stranger. I can see them turn an envious shade of green when I tell them about playing volleyball for three straight hours with a handful of other single friends, and then capping the night off with a marathon of The Following. I tell them my single stories day after day after day.

And for a few split seconds of their life, I think they truly wish they were me.

In my 28 bumpy years on this planet I have come to the understanding that there are a certain number of rules and regulations that make up how our lives function. These rules range from putting 1% milk in any bowl of ice cream you eat, all the way to always finishing The Shawshank Redemption if you pass it by while channel surfing. One of the most important rules however, one of the most fundamental regulations that governs our very lives is what I refer to as “the longing law”. Simply put, we always want what we cannot have.

This doctrine rings true when I share my single life stories with my married friends. And I think part of their passion for the way I live my life stems from the fact that they literally can’t ever have again what myself, and Chris, and Logan, and thousands of other single folks out there are experiencing right this very second. They can’t have it because they have soccer practice, and dance recitals, and dinners with in-laws, and Sesame Street marathons, and all that other boring big kid stuff that will be blocking off their calendars for the next 30 years like a domesticated prison sentence.

That’s what married life is like, right?

But then I get small glimpses into some of the finer details about the lives they really live and the roles are immediately switched. You see, as abysmally chore-like as it may seem, even they have things in their life that us single people get a little envious of ourselves. Things like Christmas cards in rustic settings with their family dressed in matching plaid. And Tupperware containers of the ridiculously delicious chicken enchilada casserole that their wife made for dinner the night before. And pictures of their three-year old daughter looking confused at the small piece of poop she conveniently dropped next to her Fisher-Price potty trainer.

Those are the things that every once in a while, I get a little bit jealous over.

It’s an amusing battle between the single and married clans, with both sides condemning the others on blogs and Facebook statuses left and right. You married folks say you would trade me places, that you wish you had the freedom that I had, that these free-spirited, no holds barred, no accountability years are times you would trade anything for. Times you only wish you could enjoy for a few small moments now that things have so emphatically changed.  

But as the clock ticks on after 2 am and I stare at the ceiling of an empty bedroom with no one to talk with, no baby monitor to listen to, no smiling face to wake up to in the morning, no random mess of spilled Cheerios and Dr. Seuss books on the floor, I can’t help but bounce three words around in my head when it comes to questioning whether these single years are some of the best times of my life:

Are they really?