Tag Archives: team

Buzzer

j-r-practix-with-border-2

Buzzer: (n) an electrical device used for signaling.

Technology makes me giggle.

Day by day, we become convinced that the present innovation surpasses any previous revelation. That’s why we have to number our I-phones. If we don’t have the latest, we are completely in the dark–the Stone Age, if you will.

When I was a boy, I attended a church and we had an activity known as Bible League. It was similar to Jeopardy! or the old-fashioned “College Bowl,” where questions are fired at individual members of a team, and if answered correctly, the whole gang is offered a collective clue. Points were scored, egos were inflated, games were won and talent was touted.

Our sponsors brought us a surprise. It was a box with two buttons and two light bulbs, which they had constructed to enable us to “ring in” and light up, so everyone knew who was to answer the question. It even made a little sound, like a broken door bell with a whiny buzz.

I loved that contraption. I was convinced it was the best thing ever invented. I became so adept at using it that I knew exactly when to hit the button in order to interrupt the flow in such a way as to beat my opponent–and also to trap the inquisitor into accidentally saying a few extra words which would give me a sense of the meaning, enabling me to guess how to answer.

I did fine until the buzzer box broke. Turned out the grown-ups knew how to wire the thing but not how to fix it.

So then I was stuck raising my hand to beat out my competitor. This was more easily eyeballed, causing the questioner to stop more quickly.

I got thrashed. I lifted my hand too soon and was left with no idea what the question was, trying to rattle off information from Adam to Zachariah.

But I will never forget my buzzer box. It was my friend.

And like friends occasionally do, it gave out on me in my hour of greatest need.

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Aerosol

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter AAerosol: (n) a substance enclosed under pressure and able to be released as a fine spray, typically by means of a propellant gas.

It was called Right Guard. It was a man’s deodorant.

So many of my buddies who played football with me sprayed the stuff in the locker room that I felt I could just walk through, flap my arms and meet my deodorant need–because even though you aimed it directly at your pit area, it sprayed in a three-foot circumference, creating a great “cloud of witness” and confirmation of your sweet odor.

Another nice thing is that because it was in a spray can–aerosol–you could aim it at nooks and crannies on your body which shall remain nameless for the sake of propriety.

At the tail end of my showering experience with members of my own gender, it was suddenly discovered that these aerosol cans were polluting the environment, and were perhaps even dangerous for us to inhale repeatedly, threatening lethal conclusions.

So another great pleasure of Americana was ripped away by researchers who think a white coat is stylish.

We started using roll-ons. Speed stick.

It may have been at that point that some of the backbone that is supposed to be fused into the male of our species was removed–because once you start putting on girly deodorant instead of walking around in a purple haze of Right Guard, you begin to deteriorate in your confidence to be a stud.

Of course, this is just a theory.

  • Maybe Richard Nixon wouldn’t have wimped out and lied about Watergate if he was still spraying his underarms.
  • Or maybe our football team would have actually had a winning season if we weren’t putting creamy stuff in our pit hair.
  • Maybe men would be able to communicate better with women if they felt that all their hidden parts  were being “Right Guard-ed.”
  • Maybe women wouldn’t be so dissatisfied with their lives with men if the bathroom had TWO deodorants instead of the couple sharing an “ice-blue Secret.”

I know it’s ridiculous–but it’s also absolutely frivolous and stupid to think that everything on earth does not have SOME mission to kill us, if misused.

For instance, give me a bathroom spray that explodes with a gas of beautiful odor instead of trickling out after I get done using the pot. I want the whole room to smell like flowers, so no one will exactly know what I did in there.

(I also like Right Guard because it’s the position I played on the team.)