Eating Crow

Have you ever gone and communicated something and then realize that you have just shoved your own foot in your mouth?


Well, yesterday I got a whole heaping of it. It was April Fools' Day as most people know. I love this "holiday" for the pure simple fact that I can prank someone and its all good no matter what I do. It turns out I was wrong on that count as well.

I'm best at physical pranks, like the celophaning toilets, sinks, doorways. Or filling up a room or car with packing peanuts. Things of that nature. Cerebral jokes, or ones in which I must talk my way through them...not so much. And yesterday proved not only do I really suck at them, but I can do some serious damage with my sick mentality.

In all my glorious 'genius' (I'm using this term extremely lightly in these circumstances), I arrived home from work yesterday, logged onto facebook and posted a notice in which I credited to my wife about me dying in a car accident the night before, and funeral plans would be pending.

Now, I spend a lot of time blowing smoke up people's kiesters. Of all things for certain people to take seriously, apparently this was the one message. The first few people to respond took it as it was intended. Just a really dumb (albeit very sick) joke that went too far. However, a few people got at least a little offended, and some very seriously upset assuming the post was true.

I received a call from my sister almost immediately after I posted this message. She was pretty sure she would have received a call about this instead of reading it on facebook, but opted to call here just to be on the safe side. A friend of mine in the area also called, basically to call me an idiot. I was called a variety of names such as idiot, loser, asinine, f*$%er, stupid. Other mentions were made of disappointment in me, and how I suck, and how they are pissed at me. All valid criticisms, and ones I would have to accept regardless of validity in this case.

Most of it was pretty generic, but then I received a message from my best friend, Jed. I grew up with Jed and his brothers. They were like brothers to me, and their parents were my 2nd set of parents as well while growing up. It turns out his mother, my second mother, saw the post and lost it. She was unable to scroll down to where the joke was exposed, and called Jed. She was very upset with the idea of me dying first, then at me for doing that to her. He forwarded me her phone number to call her.

It rang quite a few times. Part of me wanted it to go to voicemail, as that would have been easier to deal with, however she did end up answering. I have not received an ass chewing of that quality in quite some time. I was physically hurting from the emotional burden of this phone call. Unlike the selfish bother it can be when you're a kid being bothered because of the very act of getting chewed out, I was actually genuinely bothered by her reaction. One of the rare times in my life where I found myself feeling bad for the other party and what I had done to them. I found myself pretty speechless to the point that she had to ask if I was still there to accept the well deserved ass chewing I was getting. Saying she was very heavily upset is an understatement. I do not possess the vocabulary to describe her emotional toil that I had subjected upon her. I know she loves me and all being one of her "extra kids", and has forgiven me (punishment pending of course).

Needless to say, whenever she comes out to Iowa, or I go back out to Wyoming, I have at least a few butt-kickings to endure from her. And her husband, well, since I made her cry, I have a feeling that I am going to find out LITERALLY just what being taken out behind the woodshed means.

At her suggestion I pre-emptively emailed my mother in case she got wind of it, to let her know it was all a very bad and stupid 'joke'.

I also managed to offend one friend here in Iowa. He has a family member currently not doing well, and with a bad prognosis for the future. So this "joke" was more than just a little bit ill-timed for him to be reading about.

It was quite apparent that I was doing very little in the way of thinking yesterday morning when I went ahead with my idiotic idea. I made a dumb assumption that people would just laugh at me for making a monstrously poor attempt at an April Fools joke. I've always been more like a jester, and the idea of people caring that much, at least expressed openly, has always made me a bit uncomfortable.

To those of you who didn't take it seriously, I'm not sure if I should be mad at you for not caring enough to believe it, like some of the others did.

Either way, to those whom I offended and upset, I truly am sorry, and hope you accept my most sincere of apologies.

Jesse Jackson and the (squirrel meal?)

OR, AN APOLOGY DECODED...
This is from a political forum I visit with my juvenile myspace habit. Contributed by my friend Smooter in Pittsburgh, PA:


[This is from my brother-in-laws blog, who is a political commentary, very much left leaning, but always hilarious. He and some local friends started a political satire site ’The Carbolic Smoke Ball’ which if you’re from my area and listen to WDVE you should know well. It’s essentially another version of ’The Onion’]


It’s almost too easy. But it’s so funny and so bizarre and so (more) perfect, that I can’t resist.

I thought I’d said everything I wanted to say about it over at the Carbolic Smoke Ball. And yet, the more I read the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s apology, the more it seemed to cry out, if not for a full-fledged TWM deconstruction, at least for a fairly thorough TWM decoding. There’s a lot going on there -- both in the lines and between them -- so I thought it might be fun to take a closer look and see what lies beneath its murky, slimy surface.

For any harm or hurt that this hot mic private conversation may have caused,...

But not, you know, for actually saying or thinking it...

...I apologize.

And wish, more than anything, that those bastards had cut off that mic, so no one would have heard what I really think, and so I wouldn’t have to be dealing with the indignities of all this scrutiny, my own son’s repudiation, and yet another profound, poetic reinforcement of the fact that I can be, despite my better instincts, a vindictive and self-obsessed asshole.

My support for Senator Obama’s campaign is wide, deep and unequivocal.

And I’d like to cut his nuts off.

I cherish this redemptive and historical moment.

But I’d cherish it even more if it were happening to me. Or if more people were listening to me. Or if I could just cut his nuts off.

My appeal was for the moral content of his message to not only deal with the personal and moral responsibility of black males,...

And not only to cut his nuts off...

but to deal with the collective moral responsibility of government and the public policy which would be a corrective action for the lack of good choices that often led to their irresponsibility.

...but to suggest, finally, in as vague and weaselly a sentence as possible, that government should, in some indeterminate way or ways, produce public policy that would correct, or resolve, or perhaps even absolve, the lack of good choices -- by which I mean the abundance of bad choices -- made by some young black males as a first step upon, as opposed to yet another step along, the long and terrible path of their own irresponsibility, which, rather than praising Senator Obama for speaking openly and honestly about, simply makes me want to cut his nuts off.

That was the context of my private conversation...

For which I have not actually apologized, and that, once again, I really, really wish you hadn’t heard. Because it was private. And by "private," I mean, "what I really think but don’t want you to know."

... and it does not reflect any disparagement on my part for the historic event in which we are involved...

Because, you know, in some parts of the black community, saying you want to cut someone’s nuts off is actually a wide, deep, unequivocal, non-disparaging show of respect and support.

...or my pride in Senator Barack Obama,...

Whose nuts I’d like to cut off.

...who is leading it,...

With those big, stupid nuts...

...whom I have supported...

...just a few hours ago I said I wanted to cut off. Because I did. And I still do.

...by crisscrossing this nation in every level of media and audience...

Talking to people who knew how and when to turn off my microphone.

...from the beginning in absolute terms.

Except in private conversations. When I say I want to cut his nuts off. But really don’t mean it.